18,000 Unionized Costco Workers Prepare To Strike After Vote Passes

In the past, the name Costco has been synonymous with high employee morale and quality of life. The company has been revered as a place to work due to its good pay, stock options and high focus on employee retention. 

But leave it to unions to take that and flip it on its head. 

Now, "eighteen thousand Costco Teamsters are preparing to strike if a 'fair contract offer' is not presented by the end of the month," according to a new report from Fox Business News. 

Eighty-five percent of Costco Teamsters nationwide voted to authorize a strike, according to a Sunday press release. As final negotiations began on January 20, tensions rose with practice pickets held in California, Washington, and Long Island. Hundreds in San Diego are set to join a large practice picket by Thursday, the union said.

Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien commented: "From day one, we’ve told Costco that our members won’t work a day past January 31 without a historic, industry-leading agreement."

"Costco’s greedy executives have less than two weeks to do the right thing. If they refuse, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves when our members go on strike," he continued. 

Bryan Fields, a Costco worker in Baltimore, added: "We are the backbone of Costco. We drive its success and generate its profits. We hope the company will step up and do right by us, but if they don’t, that’s on them. The company will be striking itself."

Costco's website says it "is often noted for being much more employee-focused than other Fortune 500 companies. By offering fair wages and top-notch benefits, the company has created a workplace culture that attracts positive, high-energy, talented employees."

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 13:45

Exclusive: ZeroHedge To Host Top Wall Street Strategists In 1H Outlook Debate

How are you positioned for 2025?

Entering a new year and new era of ZeroHedge Debates, we’re hosting top strategists (institutional guys typically only accessible to accredited investors) for long-form discussions wherein market calls will be scrutinized and opposing view voiced so you can deploy capital armed with more than a 2-minute cnbc soundbite.

Piper Sandler’s Michael “Kantro” Kantrowitz was ranked 2024’s number 1 portfolio strategist by the widely followed Extel survey. Matt King was head of global strategy for Citibank for two decades and now runs Satori Insights.

Kantro and King will come face-to-face this Thursday evening at 6pm ET, only accessible on the ZeroHedge homepage and only visible to premium and professional subscribers so sign up now and save the date. The event will be moderated by Real Vision’s Ash Bennington.

Overview of their positions below.

Kantro: Cautiously Optimistic

• Expects housing to stay stagnant with elevated rates. Though rates may come down with Fed’s easing.

• Should see modest economic growth. Manufacturing appears to be picking up — either because of the Trump win or Fed easing cycle. PMI to increase. 

• Profit bifurcation: “If you look at S&P 500 profits, they look like the line has been going straight up. Everything’s great. But if you dig under the surface, there’s been another big bifurcation between the MAG-7 [Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google, Nvidia, Tesla]  and the rest of the market where you’ve had really good growth in the MAG-7, pretty tepid growth in everything else, and then when you go down in capitalization down to small caps, they’ve seen three consecutive years where earnings have declined.”

In the debut episode of Kantro’s new podcast “What’s Next For Markets”, he calls for a reversal of the small/large cap bifurcation: “What the PMI suggests for profits is that we should begin to see the breadth of profits start to improve.”

Another key underpinning of his bullish outlook was counterintuitively kicked off by poor jobs data: “Ironically, that rise in the unemployment rate has actually been a good thing for stocks because it helped to get inflation down. It started to get the Fed pivoting.”

And jobs may be turning…

Hot jobs, cold market. #macro #hopE https://t.co/pP2c3okT0T pic.twitter.com/6TT6f1CilC

— Kantro (@MichaelKantro) January 10, 2025

Kantro caveats his optimism with the concession that “if the 10 year goes above 4.5%, then markets are going to struggle.”

King: Optimism Priced In

Too much “U.S. exceptionalism” is priced into valuations, says King, taking a more bearish view. King prefers charts to words and sees U.S. equities as ahead of their skis compared to the rest of the globe, an increasingly widening divide in recent years (pictured bottom left). And as King concedes, this is not unjustified as American firms are the “biggest and the best” (bottom right):

Yet money is beginning to flow out:

Lastly, foreign-born jobs have grown while native positions stagnate (bottom right). Meanwhile S&P has become unhinged from its previously tight correlation to job openings (bottom left). As King says, “Trump’s policies carry two-way risks” as eliminating foreign jobs will add more downward pressure to S&P”:

Both strategists agree: what Trump does on tariffs and immigration will be key to watch.

To see how they are both positioned in 1H ‘25, tune into the live debate: Thursday, Jan 23 at 6pm ET right at the top of the ZeroHedge homepage but only if you are logged in as a professional or premium user so sign up now. Professional users may email debates@zerohedge.com to submit questions for the debaters.

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 12:25

Four Lawsuits Targeting DOGE Already Filed While Musk Watched Inauguration

Authored by Shawn Musgrave via TheIntercept.com,

In less than 30 minutes on Monday, Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency were hit with four different lawsuits over the legal status of the effort to find federal regulations to eliminate and federal employees to fire.

The lawsuits landed as Musk rubbed elbows with fellow billionaires at President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

As Trump crowed during his speech about DOGE and sending astronauts to Mars, government watchdogs and civil society organizations filed litigation claiming DOGE violates federal law because of its structure and secrecy.

“Currently, DOGE is operating unchecked, without authorization or funding from Congress and is led by unelected billionaires who are not representative of ordinary Americans,” said Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, in a statement announcing one of the lawsuits, which it filed alongside the American Federation of Teachers and other groups.

Another lawsuit was filed by National Security Counselors, a nonprofit law firm.

The third lawsuit came courtesy of Public Citizen, a consumer protection group, and the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union for federal workers.

Unions have spent the months since the election steeling themselves for a fight over DOGE.

The fourth suit, from the Center for Biological Diversity, per Politico “…seeks all records from the Office of Management and Budget relating to DOGE. ”

Although DOGE is styled as a “department,” Trump lacks the legal authority to create official departments without legislation from Congress.

(During his speech, Trump also said he would establish an “External Revenue Service” to collect his promised tariffs, which would also require a statute.)

The four lawsuits, filed in federal court in Washington, all allege that DOGE flouts the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The law requires certain committees that advise the federal government to follow particular procedures, including drafting a formal charter and holding public meetings, which DOGE has not done.  

“The advice and guidance that Mr. Trump has charged DOGE with producing is sweeping and consequential,” said Public Citizen in an emailed statement.

“DOGE — the members of which currently do not represent the interests of everyday Americans — will be considering cuts to government agencies and programs that protect health, benefits, consumer finance, and product safety.”

In its statement, CREW said:

“DOGE representatives have reportedly already been speaking with agency officials throughout the federal government, and communication is allegedly taking place on Signal, a messaging app known for its auto-delete features.”

The initial fight will be over whether DOGE fits the criteria of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The litigants argue it does since it is “an advisory committee charged by Mr. Trump with providing advice or recommendations to the President and to one or more federal agencies regarding regulatory and fiscal matters,” as Public Citizen asserts in its filing.

Since Trump’s victory in November, Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who Trump also tapped to lead DOGE, have been busy staffing up the effort with Silicon Valley types and finding office space, including potentially inside the federal Office of Management and Budget.

(Ramaswamy is expected to step away later this month to run for governor in Ohio.)

DOGE’s “intended goal is clear,” according to the National Security Counselors’ suit, which named both Musk and Ramaswamy personally as defendants, along with Trump and other officials. The suit says “recommendations made by unaccountable outsiders without transparent deliberations which will reduce the size of the federal workforce by whatever means necessary.”

CREW’s lawsuit names DOGE, the federal Office of Management and Budget, and the acting head of OMB as defendants, while Public Citizen’s names just Trump and OMB.

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 12:05

Trump Suspends Foreign Assistance For 90 Days

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order on Monday suspending all US foreign assistance programs for 90 days while his staff reviews whether they are aligned with his policy goals.

US President Donald Trump signs executive orders during the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena, in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025. [Angela Weiss/AFP]

According to the EO, the "foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values," and "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."

Trump also declared that "no further United States foreign assistance shall be disbursed in a manner that is not fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States."

It's unclear how much assistance will initially be affected by the Monday order, as funding for many programs has already been appropriated by congress and is obligated to be spent, AP reports.

Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "very dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?"

Monday's EO leaves those decisions up to Rubio, or a Rubio designee, in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget - with the State Department and the US Agency for International Development being the primary agencies which oversee such foreign assistance.

Trump has long railed against foreign aid despite the fact that such assistance typically amounts to roughly 1% of the federal budget, except under unusual circumstances such as the billions in weaponry provided to Ukraine. Trump has been critical of the amount shipped to Ukraine to help bolster its defenses against Russia’s invasion.

The last official accounting of foreign aid in the Biden administration dates from mid-December and budget year 2023. It shows that $68 billion had been obligated for programs abroad that range from disaster relief to health and pro-democracy initiatives in 204 countries and regions. -AP

Of course, Egypt ($1.5 billion / year + 1 US Congressman), Israel ($3.3 billion / year and most of Congress), and Jordan ($1.7 billion / year) are unlikely to see much of a reduction, as those amounts have been included in long-term packages, and are in some cases governed by treaty obligations.

During Trump's first term, he moved to reduce foreign aid spending - suspending payments to certain UN agencies, including the UN Population Fund, as well as funding to the Palestinian Authority. Trump also pulled out of the UN Human Rights Council, along with its financial obligations, while the Biden administration pulled funding from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 11:45

"YOU'RE FIRED!": Trump Boots 4 High-Profile Biden Appointees Including Mark Milley

President Trump fired four high-profile presidential appointees just after midnight Tuesday, including Gen. Mark Milley, and Biden's top envoy to Iran, Brian Hook (who also served in the role during Trump's first term).

"Our first day in the White House is not over yet! My Presidential Personnel Office is actively in the process of identifying and removing over a thousand Presidential Appointees from the previous Administration, who are not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again," Trump wrote on Truth social just after midnight Tuesday.

"Let this serve as Official Notice of Dismissal for these 4 individuals, with many more, coming soon,” Trump said before listing off the four officials in the post that ended with “YOU’RE FIRED!"

Hook was fired from the Wilson Center, Milley from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, while celebrity chef José Andrés was chopped from the President's Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, and former Atlanta mayor Keisha Bottoms was axed from the President's Export Council, after she dropped out of the Atlanta mayor's race to work as a senior advisor on Biden's reelection campaign. 

Andrés, the founder of World Central Kitchen, has questioned whether Trump can carry out his ambitious deportation plans, and seems to be considering a future in politics himself.

The celebrity chef said he submitted his resignation from the post last week and that his term was already up. He elaborated that he was “honored” to work as the co-chair and asked Trump to allow the council to continue its work. -The Hill

"I’m proud of what we accomplished on behalf of the American people…like a historic partnership between the White House and every major sports league to increase access to sports and health programs for kids," Andres posted Tuesday morning on X.

Coast Guard Commandant Fired

Meanwhile, the acting secretary of Homeland Security removed the Coast Guard commandant from her position, according to USNI News.

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan salutes the national ensign while embarking U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Calhoun (WMSL-759), April 20, 2024. US Coast Guard Photo

Adm. Linda Fagan, the first female commandant of the Coast Guard who assumed duties on June 1, 2022, was terminated over issues with recruitment, operational concerns, and a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.

"Under my statutory authority as the Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security I have relieved Admiral Linda L. Fagan of her duties as Commandant of the United States Coast Guard. She served a long and illustrious career, and I thank her for her service to our nation," reads an ALCOAST message.

Bye Felicias...

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 11:05

No White Men Allowed In Bally's Chicago Casino Share Offering Promoted By City Officials

By Mark Glennon of Wirepoints

Bally’s, the big casino operator, is selling shares only to women and minorities in its new gambling resort mecca being built in Chicago’s River West neighborhood. A minority preference of some kind was a condition to city approval of the project, and this is what the city and Bally’s agreed to.

Rendering of Bally’s casino and hotel project under construction

Yes, that appears blatantly illegal, but wait to understand the deal before deciding whether it’s truly doing any favor for women and minorities. Opinions may vary on that. The offering is being promoted by the City of Chicago Treasurer and some city aldermen.

Let’s start with city officials hyping the sale, as reported by The Triibe. Last Thursday, “City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin and members of the Chicago Aldermanic Black Caucus hosted an information session in the 21st Ward, the city’s largest Black ward, to inform residents about an opportunity for minorities and women to “create generational wealth” by buying shares in Bally’s Chicago, Inc.

“The most captivating part,” The Triibe wrote, “was when residents learned that they could put up as little as $250 of their own funds to partake in the investment that presenters expressed as the biggest benefit to the Black community.”

“Generational wealth”? “Captivating”? “Benefit to black community”?

Here’s the deal that’s offered, which is detailed in the company’s S-1 filing with the Securities Exchange Commission and other company materials: Instead of just buying one share for $25,000, a buyer can put up as little as $250 and Bally’s will loan you the remainder of the purchase price. You thus buy an “Interest,” as it’s called in the offering documents.

A buyer will never see any dividends until the loan is repaid plus interest at 11% annually, compounded quarterly, and that could be a long, long time, if ever. The company says in its S-1 that it currently expects not to have cash available for distribution until approximately three to five years after the Chicago facility opens, which they are targeting for September 2026. “However, this may fluctuate depending on ”the ability to generate cash from operations and its cash flow needs and payments on senior debt.” At 11% compounded quarterly, the loan balance would double in less than six and a half years.

The good news is that the loans are nonrecourse, meaning a buyer is not personally liable for repayment; only the shares that would be bought with the loan is at risk. A buyer therefore could put down the small amount of $250 in exchange for a hope and a prayer that everything will go well and the investment eventually pays off.

That’s not necessarily irrational, being akin to buying a cheap, out-of-the-money option on a stock. Kind of like playing a slot machine though hopefully with fair odds. I can’t assess whether it’s a fair bet of that type. But it’s hardly a ticket to “generational wealth.” The Interests are indeed highly risky and speculative, just as the offering documents say.

The Interests are subject to extensive transfer restrictions and won’t, at least initially, be traded on any public exchange, so “you may find it difficult to sell your Class A Interests,” as the S-1 mildly puts it.

If that’s not enough, read the Risk Factors section of the S-1 – all 40 pages of it. It’s daunting, to put it mildly. Also daunting is the corporate structure behind the process through which earnings would flow to pay off the loans.

All this comes as concerns mount that the gambling business in Illinois is cannibalizing itself through the proliferation of betting sites and methods. That was reflected in the most recent report last year by Illinois Commission on Governmental Forecasting and Accountability. There “are concerns of oversaturation,” as the report put it, and Illinois casino revenue was essentially flat from 2023 to 2024.

Aside from all women, the minorities for whom the offering is open is broad and vague. It includes pretty much any group that the City of Chicago decides is disadvantaged, which you can see in the relevant section from the S-1, reproduced below.

Loop Capital Markets LLC is the lead placement agent on the offering, meaning they quarterback the deal for Bally’s. Loop is a prominent, politically connected, minority-owned financial firm in Chicago.

City of Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin is perhaps among the politicians least qualified to be promoting the deal. She was fined last year for violating the government ethics ordinance by firing whistleblowers and improperly using city resources. We’ve criticized her here for failing to provide even the most basic information that should be expected from a treasurer and for a misguided divestiture from fossil fuel makers.

Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin

Ald. Ronnie Mosley (21st Ward) was also there Thursday night boosting the deal. “Tonight is about a new opportunity on how to participate, about not just being a consumer but to be an owner,” he told the crowd of a couple hundred people, according to The Tribe.  

They apparently sold many in the room at Thursday’s event, according to The Triibe, whose article also reads like a puff piece. They quoted one attendee from Chicago’s Chatham neighborhood who said, “It’s so many ways you can invest. I mean, to go from $250 all the way to $25,000, I mean, if you don’t have any money and all you have is 250 and they let you in,” she said. “That’s, like, a no-brainer for me, and then it’s a no recourse loan, so therefore you’re not liable for it if it [the project] doesn’t go through.”

Could the deal be challenged as illegal discrimination? Yes, absolutely. I can think of no plausible defense to such a challenge and I have found no precedent for a similarly exclusionary securities offering.

Is it the type of deal that should be sold for minorities to build “generational wealth”? Absolutely not.

*  *  *

Groups eligible to buy interests, from S-1:

This offering is only being made to individuals and entities that satisfy the Class A Qualification Criteria (as defined herein). Our Host Community Agreement with the City of Chicago requires that 25% of Bally’s Chicago OpCo’s equity must be owned by persons that have satisfied the Class A Qualification Criteria. The Class A Qualification Criteria include, among other criteria, that the person:

• if an individual, must be a woman; ​
• if an individual, must be a Minority, as defined by MCC 2-92-670(n) (see below); or
• if an entity, must be controlled by women or Minorities.

​MCC 2-92-670(n), in turn, defines Minority as:

• any individual in the following racial or ethnic groups:
• African-Americans or Blacks (including persons having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa);
• American Indians (including persons having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintain tribal affiliation or community attachment);
• Asian-Americans (including persons whose origins are in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, the islands of the Pacific or the Northern Marianas or the Indian Subcontinent);
• Hispanics (including persons of Spanish culture with origins in Mexico, South or Central America or the Caribbean Islands, regardless of race); and
• individual members of other groups, including but not limited to Arab-Americans, found by the City of Chicago to be socially disadvantaged by having suffered racial or ethnic prejudice or cultural bias within American society, without regard to individual qualities, resulting in decreased opportunities to compete in Chicago area markets or to do business with the City of Chicago. Qualification under this clause is determined on a case-by-case basis and there is no exhaustive or definitive list of groups or individuals that the City of Chicago has determined to qualify as Minority under this clause. However, in the event the City of Chicago identifies any additional groups or individuals as falling under this clause in the future, members of such groups would satisfy the Class A Qualification Criteria.

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 10:45

Druckenmiller Declares: U.S. Going From 'The Most Anti-Business Administration In History To The Opposite'

Duquesne Family Office Chairman Stanley Druckenmiller stated Monday that "animal spirits" have returned to the market, fueled by "giddy" CEOs anticipating Trump's return to the White House. Speaking to CNBC, the billionaire investor argued that the U.S. economy is shifting from "the most anti-business administration" in history to the most business-friendly administration. 

REBECCA QUICK: A lot of people have been wondering how you're feeling about things, just from a market's perspective, from an economy perspective. What do you have to say today?

STANLEY DRUCKENMILLER: The economy is very interesting. We're at a very low unemployment rate, essentially 4%, with 3% GDP growth. I've been doing this for 49 years, and we're probably moving from the most anti-business administration to the opposite. We do a lot of talking to CEOs and companies on the ground, and I'd say CEOs are somewhere between relieved and giddy. We're believers in animal spirits. Paul Ryan was on your show last week talking about a 32% increase in business confidence over the last 12 months, which is probably a record in terms of change.

So the economy looks very strong, at least for the next six months, which is about as far out as one can see with any degree of confidence.

In terms of the markets, I would say it's complicated. Despite what I just said about all the wonderful things about the economy, we have an earnings yield to bond yield ratio that's probably the most unattractive level in 30 years.

So you'll have this push of a strong economy versus rising bond yields in response to that strong economy, and that makes it hard to have a strong opinion one way or the other on the market.

I will say this: in my business, every change creates change in security prices, and having this kind of radical shift from one administration to another, in addition to what's going on in the private sector with innovation, then you've got deregulation from the government, disruption. I think there’s going to be plenty of chance, plenty for your viewers to do. I wouldn’t worry about the market, I would focus on individual stocks. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 10:25

An Overview Of Trump's Day One Executive Actions

Authored by Nathan Worcester, Jacob Burg, John Haughey, Darlene McCormick Sanchez, Ryan Morgan, Savannah Hulsey Pointer, and Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump set a breakneck pace on the first day of his second term, taking numerous executive actions and rescinding 78 executive orders from his predecessor, while also pardoning roughly 1,500 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, breach at the U.S. Capitol.

The commander-in-chief moved fast on the border, inflation, energy, government censorship, federal bureaucracy, and much more. He also officially renamed parts of the map, changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and reverting Denali back to Mount McKinley. Here’s a rundown of Trump’s first moves upon his return to the White House.

Border and Immigration

Trump issued 10 executive actions on border security, including a national emergency declaration to pave the way for military deployment to the border and the completion of a border wall.

Trump’s executive orders set the stage for deportation operations while cracking down on illegal immigration and crime.

Trump’s orders reinstate Remain in Mexico, end catch-and-release of illegal immigrants, designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, pause refugee resettlement, end birthright citizenship, and bring back the death penalty for certain crimes against federal agents.

By stopping catch-and-release and re-implementing policies such as Remain in Mexico, those seeking asylum will no longer be able to live and work in the United States while awaiting adjudication of their claim.

Those policies under President Joe Biden were a significant factor in attracting some 11 million illegal immigrants into the country in four years, experts have said.

Another executive order directs the attorney general to seek capital punishment for the murder of law enforcement officers and capital crimes committed by illegal immigrants.

Ending birthright citizenship will likely spark legal challenges.

Birthright citizenship is addressed under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, saying “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

Trump’s order hinges on the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” part of the amendment, meaning the federal government will not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children born to illegal immigrant parents.

The idea of birthright citizenship was decided in the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark. The high court ruled that children born in the United States to immigrant parents are citizens, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.

Trump also rescinded multiple Biden executive orders related to the border and immigration.

A chart depicting illegal immigration data is displayed on a screen as former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nev., on Oct. 11, 2024. Alejandra Rubio/AFP via Getty Images

Reducing Inflation

Trump also signed an inflation memorandum, titled “Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis,” that will assemble a whole-of-government approach to tackle high prices.

In his executive action, Trump referenced the “unprecedented regulatory oppression” from the previous administration that he estimates “have imposed almost $50,000 in costs on the average American household.”

He ordered heads of all executive departments and agencies to provide “emergency price relief.” The measures will include expanding the housing supply, eliminating administrative expenses and rent-seeking practices that add to health care costs, and removing requirements that raise the costs of home appliances.

Trump, according to the memorandum, will abolish “harmful, coercive ‘climate’ policies that increase the costs of food and fuel.”

Trump, in his inaugural address, diagnosed 40-year high inflation as caused by overspending and ballooning energy prices.

Cumulative inflation has surged about 21 percent over the last four years. Trump will begin his second term with an annual inflation rate of 2.9 percent, compared to the 1.4 percent when he left office.

A chorus of economists has said Trump’s economic agenda, especially tariffs, could rekindle the inflation flame by making products more expensive to produce and raising consumer prices.

U.S. Treasury nominee Scott Bessent dismissed these concerns during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee last week. Bessent stated that a layered-in approach could offset a spike in prices. Additionally, he noted that U.S. dollar appreciation, cheaper foreign exports, and changes to consumer preferences could counteract potential adverse effects.

Treasury secretary nominee, Scott Bessent, testifies before the Senate Committee on Finance at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 16, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Trade and Tariffs

A portion of Trump’s raft of executive orders focused on his trade agenda.

The 47th president presented a broad trade memorandum that directs federal agencies, including the Treasury, Commerce, and Homeland Security, to examine unfair trade relationships and currency policies with other countries, particularly Canada, Mexico, and China.

Trump will not impose new levies on other nations.

This does not mean he will abandon his pursuit of tariffs. Speaking to reporters from the White House, Trump said he will consider imposing 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico on Feb. 1 because of their trade policies. The president noted he will think about putting levies on China if it does not approve a TikTok deal.

He also pledged to overhaul the trade system in his inauguration speech.

“I will immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families. Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” he said.

“You put a universal tariff on anybody doing business in the United States, because they’re coming in and they’re stealing our wealth, they’re stealing our jobs, they’re stealing our companies. They’re hurting our companies,” Trump told reporters.

Trump reiterated his plan to establish an External Revenue Service to collect all tariffs, duties, and revenues from foreign businesses and countries.

Tariffs were a chief tenet of his election campaign. He vowed to impose 10 to 20 percent universal levies on all U.S. importers and 60 to 100 percent tariffs on Chinese products arriving in the United States. Shortly after the November election, Trump threatened 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico if they didn’t curb illegal immigration and fentanyl trafficking.

Containers including some from China Shipping, a conglomerate under the direct administration of China's State Council, are stacked at the Port of Long Beach in Long Beach, Calif., on July 6, 2018. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

WHO Withdrawal

Trump also signed an executive order to remove the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), a United Nations agency.

The order also ends any negotiations on the organization’s global pandemic treaty.

It instructs the secretary of state to inform the top ranks of the WHO and the United Nations. The Senate overwhelmingly confirmed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to that position earlier on Jan. 20.

Trump previously withdrew the United States from the WHO in 2020, against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden rejoined the organization soon after taking office. The order revokes the Biden administration communication to rejoin.

Climate Pact Exit

Trump has again withdrawn the United States from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, essentially reissuing his 2017 executive order leaving the global accord.

It will take a year to formally disenroll from the pact but it signals the nation’s energy policy will no longer adhere to global carbon emission goals.

“The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity,” Trump said at the Capital One Arena.

“You know, China, they use a lot of ‘dirty’ energy, but they produce a lot of energy and when that stuff goes up in the air, you know, [it] doesn’t stay there … it floats into the United States of America,” he said.

It is difficult to “fight for cleaner air” when “dirty air is dropping all over us,” Trump said. “Unless everybody does it, it just doesn’t work.”

Withdrawing from the climate pact will save taxpayers $1 trillion, the White House said.

A television broadcasts President Donald Trump's announcement that he is withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Accord, at the New York Stock Exchange on June 1, 2017. Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images

National Energy Emergency

Trump declared a national energy emergency, and opened millions of acres in Alaska to fossil fuel development in the first of many energy-related executive actions expected.

“We will drill baby drill,” Trump vowed to rousing applause during his inauguration address, noting the nation has “the largest amount of energy, of oil and gas, than any country on Earth and we are going to use it.”

Under his ‘Unleash American Energy’ executive order’s emergency declaration, the president can streamline permitting, loosen regulations, and “use all necessary resources to build critical infrastructure.” such as pipelines and electric grid expansion.

“We are going to export energy all over the world. We will be a rich nation again and it will be that liquid gold below our feet” that makes it happen, he said.

Trump directed the Department of Interior (DOI) to restore oil and gas leasing on 13 million acres in Alaska’s 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve, reversing Biden’s order reversing his first-term order.

At least two orders unplugged Biden executive orders that placed restrictions on offshore drilling across 625 million acres off the east and west coasts only weeks ago.

A part of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System runs through boreal forest past Alaska Range mountains near Delta Junction, Alaska, on May 5, 2023. The 800-mile-long pipeline carries oil from the North Slope in Prudhoe Bay to the port of Valdez. Mario Tama/Getty Images

Inflation Reduction Act

Three other orders reverse energy-related Biden orders that provided regulatory authority for implementing many aspects of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Trump and Republican congressional leaders vow to dismember the massive IRA which, along with the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the 2022 CHIPS & Science Act, are the signature bills of Biden’s “New Green Deal.”

The IRA alone authorizes 10 years of sustained tax credits, low-interest loans, and grant programs that by some estimates could top $1 trillion.

Untangling the IRA will require legislation and some of its provisions are popular, including in Republican congressional districts.

By repealing Biden’s three executive orders, the White House and Congress can administratively tighten tax credits, claw back some loans and grants, and revise unfinalized rules under the Congressional Review Act to chip away at the IRA.

End of EV Agenda

In line with his vision for U.S. energy, Trump rescinded an executive order signed by Biden in August 2021 that set a target of 50 percent zero-emission new vehicle sales by the end of the decade. Electric vehicle sales in the United States reached 8.1 percent of sales in 2024, according to Cox Automotive.

The 47th president also overturned a December 2021 executive order requiring that, by 2035, all vehicles the government procures are emission-free. Light-body vehicles would have had to meet that mark by 2027.

Another new executive order establishes as U.S. policy an intention to eliminate electric vehicle subsidies and to eliminate state fuel emissions waivers. California introduced its Clean Air Act waiver as a regulatory driver of electric vehicle adoption.

The president said his orders make good on his promises to America’s autoworkers.

“You’ll be able to buy the car of your choice,” he added. “We will build automobiles in America again at a rate that nobody could have dreamt possible just a few years ago.”

Biden’s August 2021 executive order directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to work on new emissions standards.

President Joe Biden walks near Chevy vehicles as he arrives to deliver remarks during a visit to the General Motors Factory ZERO electric vehicle assembly plant in Detroit on Nov. 17, 2021. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Consequently, an EPA rule, finalized earlier this year, required automakers to tighten tailpipe emissions standards in a gradual fashion through 2032.

The regulation, which was less severe than one proposed by the same agency in 2023, set a target of 56 percent electric for all new vehicle sales by 2032.

Federal Bureaucracy, DOGE

Trump also promised to reform and streamline government bureaucracy so that it will “work for the American people,” including by freezing “bureaucrat hiring except in essential areas.”

He announced the rescission of a slate of executive orders with the goal to improve government workers’ accountability. Another EO requires that all federal workers return to in-person work, noting that “only 6 percent of employees currently work in person.”

Another executive order formalizes the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). It repurposes the U.S. Digital Service to serve as a White House-based U.S. DOGE Service. Additionally, it creates a time-limited service organization to administer DOGE.

It also mandates DOGE teams of at least four people across all federal agencies. Software modernization is a key focus of the DOGE executive order, in line with the tech-forward outlook of DOGE’s leader to date, Elon Musk.

Elon Musk speaks following the inauguration of President Donald Trump during an event at Capital One Arena in Washington on Jan. 20, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

No Government Censorship

Trump issued an executive order against government censorship, which he vowed would “bring back free speech to America.”

“Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents, something I know something about,” Trump said in his inaugural address.

The executive order establishes as policy that federal employees cannot restrain American citizens’ free speech or use money from taxpayers to that end.

It also directs the attorney general to prepare a report to address abuses against Americans’ free speech under the Biden administration.

While on the campaign trail, the president outlined his plans for a day one executive order targeting restrictions on speech, often carried out by Big Tech firms under pressure from the federal government.

Trump added that he would swiftly purge the federal government of those who facilitated domestic censorship and keep federal funds from going to initiatives that would empower certain groups to determine what is “mis-” or “disinformation.”

While advocates of such programs say they combat falsehoods online, especially those spread by unfriendly state actors, opponents say that recent campaigns against “mis-” and “disinformation” have targeted many Americans on political grounds.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who attended Trump’s inauguration alongside Jeff Bezos and other tech titans, previously divulged that the Biden administration pressured Facebook to carry out ideological censorship.

(L–R) Priscilla Chan, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk attend President Trump's inauguration ceremony in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Jan. 20, 2025. Chip Somodevilla/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

The executive order calls government censorship “intolerable in a free society.”

“Under the guise of combating ’misinformation,‘ ’disinformation,‘ and ’malinformation,’ the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate,” the order states.

Exposing Abuse

Trump also moved to prevent the destruction of records as his administration takes the helm, part of a broader executive order aimed at addressing what he has characterized as a partisan takeover of government institutions that should remain neutral.

“To stop the weaponization of law enforcement and our government, I will also sign an order directing every federal agency to preserve all records pertaining to political persecutions under the last administration, of which there were many, and beginning the process of exposing any and all abuses of power, even though he’s pardoned many of these people,” Trump said shortly before signing that and other executive orders, and referring to Biden’s preemptive pardons.

Trump’s executive order on the weaponization of government directs the attorney general to investigate cases over the past several years that appear to fit a pattern of weaponization in the Department of Justice, regulatory agencies, and other agencies, and to prepare a report outlining the alleged abuses.

It similarly directs the director of national intelligence to probe possible abuses by U.S. intelligence agencies.

The executive order instructs the federal bureaucracy “to comply with applicable document-retention policies and legal obligations.”

Cases where employees defy the order “will be referred to the attorney general,” it states.

President Donald Trump speaks after taking the oath of office in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Jan. 20, 2025. Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images

Security Clearances Stripped

Trump’s executive actions also include an order targeting election interference. It cites the 2020 letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials who dismissed accounts of Hunter Biden’s laptop as “part of a Russian disinformation campaign.”

The executive order also criticizes a 2019 memoir from Trump’s former national security advisor, John Bolton, describing it as “rife with sensitive information drawn from his time in government.”

The order revokes the security clearances of Bolton as well as 49 intelligence officials involved in the 2020 Hunter Biden laptop analysis, including former director of national intelligence James Clapper, former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan, and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

It also instructs the director of national intelligence to produce a report on steps to take to prevent election interference in the future.

Pardons for Jan. 6

The new president also followed through on a promise to pardon participants in the U.S. Capitol breach on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 who were charged in connection with that event while commuting the sentences of 14 others. Those who have been pardoned include former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.

“You’re gonna see a lot of action on the J6 hostages,” Trump promised earlier in the day at the Capitol.

Trump’s pardons for Jan. 6 defendants were issued hours after Biden issued a slew of his own preemptive pardons.

Biden’s Jan. 20 pardons encompassed Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, and the Jan. 6 congressional committee, including former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).

“Why are we trying to help a guy like Milley?” Trump asked on Monday. “Why are we helping Liz Cheney?”

In the final minutes before Trump and Vance were sworn in, Biden ended his presidency by preemptively pardoning his siblings and their spouses. In December, Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, as the younger Biden faced sentencing and a lengthy prison sentence for firearm and tax convictions.

The D.C. Central Detention Facility in Washington on Jan. 20, 2025. President Donald Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants after taking office for his second term. Bryan Woolston/Getty Images

TikTok Reprieve

Trump signed an executive order to give social media platform TikTok 75 days to secure a U.S. buyer. Without separating from its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, TikTok faces a ban in the United States.

After a 14-hour shutdown over the weekend as the original deadline of Jan. 19 approached, TikTok resumed its service after Trump signaled that he would grant the company an extension.

Last week, the Supreme Court upheld the divest-or-ban law, citing valid national security concerns due to TikTok’s “scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control” and the “vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects.”

ByteDance, TikTok, and TikTok content creators challenged the law soon after it was enacted in April last year. They brought their case to the nation’s highest court after a federal appeals court denied their claims on First Amendment grounds.

At the core of the transaction is the algorithm owned by China-based ByteDance, without which TikTok wouldn’t be the same. China on Jan. 20 indicated for the first time it would be open to a transaction to allow TikTok to operate in the United States after consistently rejecting any deal for divestiture, citing technology transfer concerns.

Previous attempts by Oracle and Walmart to acquire ByteDance’s U.S. operations fell apart in 2021.

Monday’s executive order is Trump’s second one addressing TikTok. In August 2020, during his first term, he issued an EO to ban the video app over national security risks. TikTok sued and overturned that EO with a court order in December 2020.

A news ticker shows information about TikTok outside the Fox News building in New York City on Jan.19, 2025. Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images

DEI Targeted

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies were the focus of another executive order.

“This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private light,” Trump said in his inauguration speech. “We will forge a society that is color-blind and merit-based.”

The new order ends all federal programs and preferences that are based on race, sex, gender, or any other immutable characteristics. It also instructs the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the attorney general to terminate all “discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear.”

A White House statement said Trump will “freeze bureaucrat hiring except in essential areas to end the onslaught of useless and overpaid DEI activists buried into the federal workforce.”

The Biden administration prioritized DEI efforts, which often encourages hiring practices that give advantages based on metrics including gender and race.

Another executive order seeks to ensure that merit guides hiring in the federal government rather than race, sex or other factors.

Two Sexes Policy

Trump also signed an order to create a new U.S. policy on gender.

“As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders—male and female,” Trump said in his inauguration speech.

Gender neutral signs are posted in the 21C Museum Hotel public restrooms in Durham, N.C., on May 10, 2016. Sara D. Davis/Getty Images

Trump’s executive order defines a female as “a person belonging at conception to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell,” which refers to eggs or ovum.

The definition does not distinguish gender and sex based on chromosomes, bypassing the issue of those who may have an irregular combination of chromosomes.

The federal government will no longer “promote” gender ideology and will revoke the Biden administration’s efforts to expand Title IX to include gender identity.

The EO also protects women’s privacy in intimate spaces such as bathrooms and changing rooms, while also safeguarding against enforcing pronoun policies that encroach on free speech.

Name Changes

Another EO directs the Interior department to rename the nation’s tallest mountain and a massive Atlantic Ocean basin in the southeast.

“We will restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs,” Trump said in his inauguration speech.

Mount McKinley received its original name in 1896 by prospector William Dickey, who named it after then-presidential candidate William McKinley. President Barack Obama renamed it to Denali in 2015, a name long used by Native American tribes in the area.

Trump also said the Gulf of Mexico will be renamed to the Gulf of America.

Richard Mount and Thomas Page's 1700 map of the Gulf of Mexico. Public Domain

The Department of Interior will oversee the change to any reference in laws, maps, regulations, documents, papers, or other U.S. records to refer to the basin as the Gulf of America.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 10:05

Apple Slides After Jefferies Cuts Rating, China iPhones Sales Plunge In Holiday Quarter

Apple shares traded lower in premarket trading in New York after Jefferies downgraded the world's most valuable company from "Hold" to "Underperform." Adding to the pressure, independent research firm Counterpoint revealed disappointing iPhone sales data in China.

Jefferies analysts led by Edison Lee downgraded Apple to Underperform from Hold, slashing their price target of $211.84 to $200.75. They cited underwhelming iPhone sales in the world's largest handset market that weren't being boosted by AI hype, adding that Q1 2025 revenue will unlikely be met. 

Lee also reduced the outlook for the iPhone 17/18 due to slower AI uptake and commercialization, adding that Apple's AI outlook appears "subdued." 

The analysts noted that iPhone and consumer electronics sales were weaker than expected. 

Adding to the gloom, Counterpoint's Market Pulse Service showed China's smartphones declined 3.2% YoY in Q4 2024, marking the only quarter in 2024 to log a YoY drop.

Counterpoint Associate Director Ethan Qi commented on the report, "The country's smartphone market saw a rebound in the first three quarters of the year, with positive YoY growth each quarter. However, momentum began to slow in Q4 as consumers adopted cautious spending behavior."

The report showed that the iPhone lost the top position as China's best-selling smartphone, falling from first to third in the fourth quarter of 2024: "During the quarter, Huawei took the top spot, followed by Xiaomi and Apple." 

iPhone sales tumbled 18.2% YoY in the quarter.

Counterpoint Senior Research Analyst Mengmeng Zhang said, "In Q4 2024, Huawei climbed to the top spot with an 18.1% share. This is the first time since the US ban that Huawei regained the leading position. Huawei's sales increased 15.5% YoY driven by the launch of the mid-end Nova 13 series and high-end Mate 70 series."

Apple faces intensifying market competition from Huawei and other Chinese brands expanding into the premium market. Apple had about 17.1% market share last quarter. 

Counterpoint's data is nothing new for readers who have known for months about the muted launch of Apple Intelligence:

• Apple Slides After Guiding Below Consensus, Missing On Wearables, China And Service Revenues

• Foxconn Sales Growth Slows Amid Underwhelming AI-Enabled iPhone Upgrade Supercycle

• AI Fails To Spark Upgrade Supercycle For Apple

• Global Smartphone Sales Rebound, But Apple AI Falls Short Of Sparking Upgrade Boom

Goldman's Allen Chang and Verena Jeng recently provided clients with insights into Apple's big dilemma in China: How it plans to compete with Chinese brands offering low-cost, AI-equipped smartphones priced as low as $168.

In a separate report from another independent research firm, Canalys, last week, iPhone sales in China plunged by 25% YoY for the final quarter of 2024. 

The takeaway is that AI-equipped iPhones failed to excite Chinese consumers, who are increasingly gravitating toward cheaper domestic-made AI smartphones. How can Apple compete?

Come on, Tim Cook. Think... Moar stock buybacks?

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 09:45

Ross Ulbricht Pardon Odds Soar On Polymarket After Musk's Comments

"Ross will be freed too."

Those five words, posted by Elon Musk to his X account, sent the odds of a pardon for Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht soaring to near certainty.

According to a contract on Polymarket, the odds of a Ulbricht pardon are now above 90%...

A petition calling for clemency for Ulbricht on freeross.org has gathered over 600,000 signatures since his incarceration.

The petition has garnered support from those who argue his life sentence is excessive and unjust, and from some bitcoiners that uphold Silk Road’s libertarian ideals.

As CoinDesk's Sam Reynolds reports, Trump first promised to pardon Ulbricht during a campaign stop at the Libertarian National Convention last May.

“If you vote for me, on Day 1, I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served,” Trump said during a speech last year.

“He’s already served 11 years, we’re gonna get him home.”

“On day one, I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht.”

— Trump pic.twitter.com/k9WV5i7lf5

— Alan ₿ Watts ⚡️ (@alanbwt) January 21, 2025

Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2015 for his role in the operation of the Silk Road marketplace, which pioneered the use of the dark web.

Supporters of Ulbricht say that his sentence was disproportionately long for the crime.

Elsewhere on the Polymarket pardon list is Roger Ver, an early bitcoin investor and bitcoin cash (BCH) advocate, who was indicted for tax fraud last April, and the market is giving a 32% chance of a pardon taking place in the first 100 days.

Despite crypto playing a prominent part of Trump's campaign, Polymarket bettors are only giving a 43% of a crypto executive order, regarding the use, trading, or legal status of digital assets, happening in the first week.

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 09:05

"A Fork In The Road Of Human Civilization" - Trump Caps Political Comeback, Fulfills Day One Promises

President Donald Trump wrapped up the greatest political comeback in modern American history on Jan. 20 by taking the oath of office at the Capitol in front of some of his most prominent supporters and opponents.

In the inaugural address, the president envisioned a bold agenda and announced a spree of executive actions to set it in motion the same day. He declared national emergencies regarding energy and the southern border, designated Mexican drug cartels as global terrorist groups, and declared that it is the policy of the United States that there are two genders.

The president recalled the unprecedented challenges he overcame during the campaign, including prosecutions by state and federal authorities, the raid of his home in Mar-a-Lago in Florida, and two attempts on his life.

“I was saved by God to make America great again,” he said.

President Donald Trump delivers his inaugural address after being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States inside the Rotunda of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Jan. 20, 2025. SHAWN THEW/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Long before the assassination attempts and the prosecutions, Trump was banned from Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms when he announced his run for office in November 2022. As an illustration of the acuteness of the reversal of his fortunes, the CEOs of the same companies that barred him from their social media sat alongside Trump’s family and Cabinet members as the president delivered his address.

In contrast to his first inauguration, Ivan Pentchoukov writes below for The Epoch Times, Trump takes power having reshaped the Republican Party in the image of his America-first worldview. The comeback isn’t limited to politics. With Trump at the front line of the culture war in and out of office, conservatives appear to have turned the tide long-dominated by progressive values. Corporations and governments are increasingly shedding departments and policies under the ideological umbrella of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles. The two abbreviations have come to be associated with the encroachment of progressive politics into business and government.

“Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback. But as you see today, here I am,” Trump said. “The American people have spoken.”

In his address, Trump previewed some of the executive actions that he would roll out the same day.

Border policies topped the list, with the president announcing he’ll declare an emergency on the southern border, reinstate his remain-in-Mexico policy, end catch-and-release, deploy the military and National Guard to the border, designate drug cartels as terrorist organizations, and invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove cartel members from the United States. Incoming White House officials confirmed earlier in the day that Trump will be signing executive actions the same day to address each of the items.

The president also declared a national emergency on energy, describing it as a necessary countermeasure to what he called an intentional policy by the previous administration. The orders include a measure freeing up drilling in Alaska, ending the Biden administration’s so-called electric vehicle mandate, and filling up the strategic oil reserve. The president will end federal leasing to wind farms, withdraw again from the Paris Agreement on climate change, and end some of the Biden-era regulations on washing machines, lightbulbs, and dishwashers.

President Donald Trump delivers his inaugural address after being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States inside the Rotunda of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Jan. 20, 2025. SHAWN THEW/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Trump signed the first nine executive actions immediately after delivering a speech at the Capital One Arena on the night of the inauguration. The orders included the rescission of 78 Biden-administration executive actions, requiring federal employees to show up to work in person, a freeze on hiring and regulations, and the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. Trump also signed all-of-government directives to address inflation, prohibiting government from restricting speech, and prohibiting the weaponization of federal agencies against political opponents.

The president said he would act on some foreign policy positions that he unveiled during the transition period, including his intention to reclaim the Panama Canal, rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, and establish the External Revenue Service to oversee the collection of tariffs from other nations.

Although Trump threatened to levy tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China, those actions will come after the first day. Instead, he will sign a memorandum directing federal agencies to investigate unfair trade practices by foreign countries and recommend associated trade policies.

Speaker Mike Johnson listens as President-elect Donald J. Trump speaks after being sworn in during the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States takes place inside the Capitol Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 20, 2025. Kenny Holston / AFP

Describing the state of the nation in broader strokes, Trump returned to themes from the campaign trail, saying that the United States was in decline due to the policies of the preceding administration. The president positioned his speech as a turning point, opening and closing the address by saying that the “golden age” of America has begun.

“From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer,” Trump said. “During every single day of the Trump administration, I will, very simply, put America first.”

One of Trump’s signature plans was challenged not long after he took the oath of office. Four groups filed lawsuits on Jan. 20 against the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk. Earlier in the day, an administration official confirmed that Vivek Ramaswamy, who co-headed the DOGE effort, has resigned from that role.

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump embrace after he was sworn in inside the Rotunda of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Jan. 20, 2025. KEVIN LAMARQUE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Some of the president’s directives were put into action even as he attended the ceremonies. U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced the termination of the CBP One app, which the Biden administration used to help 1,450 immigrants per day enter the country under humanitarian parole. At the Department of Defense, the portrait of former U.S. Army General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley was removed from view.

Milley was among several people who received preemptive pardons from President Joe Biden in the final hours of his term. Biden also preemptively pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the members and witnesses of the Jan. 6 committee, and several members of the Biden family.

After the ceremonies at the Capitol, Trump and First Lady Melania Trump bid farewell to Biden and former First Lady Jill Biden. In his 2021 inaugural address, Biden set a course to root out the cultural and political forces championed by Trump. Four years later, Biden boarded a helicopter to depart the capital, with Trump’s approval ratings higher than when he left office on Jan. 20, 2021.

President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office on Jan. 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

In a second speech, which did not appear on some of the inaugural schedules distributed to the press, Trump spoke to a different group of supporters who had watched the formal address on a screen at the Capitol. The president broached some of the more controversial topics he did not bring up in the formal address. The speech, which ran for some time, took place at the same time as Biden’s farewell address. As a result, the major TV networks didn’t air Biden’s final remarks.

The former president, speaking before an audience gathered at Joint Base Andrews, thanked his Cabinet and staff, calling them “the best damn team ever.”

“If you heard from the inaugural address today, we got more to do,” Biden said, crossing himself to laughter from the audience. “I know from many years of experience, there are ups and downs, but we have to stay with it.”

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris listen during the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States takes place inside the Capitol Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025. Kenny Holston / AFP

Trump’s second speech appeared to be impromptu, sprinkled with jokes, and more akin to the speeches at his campaign rallies. The president said the first lady persuaded him not to mention the pardoning of Jan. 6 prisoners during the inaugural address but added that an order on the matter is forthcoming and that people would be happy about it.

At a signing ceremony at the White House on Monday night, Trump granted full and unconditional pardons to all Jan. 6 prisoners with the exception of 14 people, who received commutations.

The inauguration ceremony was moved indoors days before the event because of the bitter cold, with Trump delivering his speech inside the Capitol and the inaugural parade moving to the Capital One Arena. Several speakers—including Musk, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, and FBI Director nominee Kash Patel—addressed the crowd at the arena before Trump arrived.

(L-R) CEO of Meta Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, US businessman Jeff Bezos, CEO of Alphabet Inc and Google Sundar Pichai and Teska and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attend the inauguration ceremony where Donald Trump will sworn in as the 47th US President in the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC, on Jan. 20, 2025. Julia Demaree Nikhinson / POOL / AFP

In his speech, Patel said the number of murders, rapes, and drug overdoses was unacceptable. Patel referred to fentanyl—the synthetic opioid responsible for the biggest portion of drug overdose deaths—as “CCP fentanyl,” using the acronym for the Chinese Communist Party. The bulk of the chemical precursors for fentanyl manufacturing originate in China.

“We are not prioritized to go after the threats that face this country and most of all that face our future generations,” Patel said. “But, thank God, we will be, starting right now.”

Musk spoke briefly about his excitement for what’s to come.

“This was no ordinary victory,” Musk said. “This was a fork in the road of human civilization.”

Congratulations poured in from world leaders, including those of Russia, Ukraine, Canada, the UK, and the European Union. Chinese communist regime leader Xi Jinping—who was invited to the inauguration but sent an envoy in his place—did not send a greeting.

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 08:45

Hamas Emerges From Tunnels Still Intact, Starts 'Policing' Gaza Again

Since the Gaza ceasefire deal took effect Sunday morning, there's been clear evidence that Hamas is still intact and operating in various parts of the Gaza Strip even after some 470 days of war.

Among Prime Minister Netanyahu's goals was the complete eradication of Hamas in the wake of the Oct.7 terror attack and taking of hostages. But Hamas commanders have been emerging from the tunnels and parading openly on streets as the ceasefire holds.

Over the past year-plus of fighting both the political leader of Hamas Ismail Haniyeh, and its Gaza commander, Yahya Sinwar, have been killed - so certainly Hamas has taken serious blows, but it still has many thousands of fighters ready to carry on.

Associated Press: A bus carrying released Palestinian prisoners arrives to the West Bank city of Beitunia on Monday.

"Hamas appears to be emerging from tunnels and rubble in Gaza to show that it never lost control of most of the area despite fifteen months of war," The Jerusalem Post acknowledges in a fresh report. "While Hamas suffered many blows from the IDF, it was able to recruit new members, and it even kept trucks and vans ready to return to the streets and show its presence."

"Videos purported to be from Gaza show the group in white pickup trucks driving around," the report continues. "The videos show large groups of armed men waving to crowds or standing and sitting on vehicles that are parading them through the streets.

Additionally, "Hamas police, an arm of the terrorist group, are also reappearing. They have been around throughout the war, but their presence has not been as clearly felt in some areas."

An Al Jazeera regional correspondent has also witnessed evidence of Hamas being organizationally intact:

What happened earlier in Gaza City’s Saraya Square is that the military wing of Hamas handed over three female Israeli captives in a scene that felt beyond imagination.

The military wing of Hamas – which has been engaging in battles with the Israeli occupation forces across many areas in the Gaza Strip – appeared today, organising the implementation of the deal and the exchange of the Israeli captives.

We saw crowds of Palestinians gathering in the area around the fighters of the military wing of Hamas, chanting for liberation and freedom.

So, apparently, despite the significant blows that the military wing of Hamas has endured, they appeared today as an organized force on the ground.

This could indicate that in the foreseeable future, they will still exist as a military force despite the Israeli claims that they managed to degrade their military capabilities and eradicate their military governance of the territory.

Gaza emerges from ceasefire with HAMAS still in control https://t.co/CyDEL512Yd The futility of this War is evident for both sides. The Oslo accords are buried within the decimated landscapes of Gaza. The peace makers are silent or dead, while Israel drifts into the wilderness

— Derek (Del) Pickard (@DelPickard) January 20, 2025

Israeli society is witnessing this too, and it is likely creating some dissonance. After all, if the Israeli military has been engaged in a lengthy, full and systematic air and ground campaign in Gaza - and Netanyahu government leaders have faced skepticism in claiming they can finally destroy Hamas.

But the US experience in Iraq and Afghanistan has already demonstrated that an Islamist insurgency is extremely hard to fully root out. This trend is also now on display in Gaza as Hamas militants appear in public.

Via X

Below are some further updates on the last 24 hours via Al Jazeera:

• A Red Cross delegation is in Ofer Prison, verifying the identity of the 90 Palestinian prisoners set to be released tonight.
• Hamas handed three Israeli captives to the Red Cross, which transferred them to Israeli forces who took them out of the Gaza Strip.
• Hamas’s military spokesperson, Abu Obeida, has given a televised speech, saying that Hamas is committed to the ceasefire deal, which he said could have been reached over a year ago if it had not been for Netanyahu’s “malicious ambitions”.
• Gaza’s Interior Ministry says in a statement that local security forces were reintroduced to the main streets of Gaza following the start of the ceasefire agreement today.

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 05:45

Trump Returns To A Europe That Has Shifted To The Right

Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

When Trump returns to office on Jan. 20, he will face a much-changed political landscape in Europe, where countries including France, Germany, Austria, and Sweden have shifted toward right-wing parties and policies.

Thuringia's new State Premier Mario Voigt (L) shakes hands with Bjoern Hoecke, regional leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Thuringia, after Voigt was sworn in at the Thuringian state parliament in Erfurt, eastern Germany on Dec. 12, 2024. Jens Schlueter/AFP via Getty Images

With polling in many nations suggesting an accompanying shift in younger generations, many political analysts and pollsters believe this trend is set to continue well into the second Trump presidency.

Progressives, Centrists

When Trump first entered the White House in January 2017 Europe’s political landscape was dominated by centrist and progressive leaders.

France was led by President François Hollande, a member of the Socialist Party; Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), was serving her third term in Germany; and Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, head of the Social Democrats, had been in power since 2014.

Italy was governed by a center-left coalition led by Paolo Gentiloni, a member of the social democratic political party Democratic Party (Partito Democratico).

Spain was ran by Mariano Rajoy, the leader of the People’s Party (Partido Popular, PP), a center-right political party, however, Rajoy was ousted by Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party in 2018 after he lost a no-confidence vote.

Attitudes

Although attitudes towards immigration were generally liberal, they had begun to shift.

In a 2016 European Union report, the EU said that immigration of people from non-EU countries evoked a “negative feeling” for a clear majority of Europeans in 24 member states.

A year earlier, the 2015 European migrant crisis took place, a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and migrants into Europe, namely from the Middle East.

Merkel in 2015 accepted more than a million Syrian refugees into Germany.

Bucking the trend at the time, the UK with its conservative and liberal democrat coalition government under Tory PM David Cameron, refused in 2015 to accept any further refugees from the Middle East. Cameron also called a referendum in 2016 which resulted in the UK leaving the European Union, known as Brexit, though as a key part of the Remain camp, he subsequently resigned in 2016.

2025: Populists and Change

Eight years on, the Overton window has shifted Trump’s way. In Europe, Trump will find few of the familiar centrists and socialists he battled with in his first presidency.

Last year, The European Council on Foreign Relations predicted that 2024 European Parliament elections would see saw a major shift to the right in many countries, with populist right-wing parties gaining votes and seats across the EU, and center-left and green parties losing votes and seats.

The trend in Western Europe also suggested that the taboo of voting for populist, anti-immigration parties is fading.

Under the leader of the right-wing Brothers of Italy party and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Italy has prevented the flow of migrants crossing the Mediterranean by implementing a program that diverts  migrants to Albania while asylum claims are processed. The program is the first of its kind operated by a European Union nation.

Meloni has also banned the production and use of lab-manufactured food to preserve Italian food heritage and has criminalized Italians from seeking a surrogate mother abroad.

The Italian navy ship Libra approaches the port of Shengjin, Albania, on Nov. 8, 2024 Vlasov Sulaj/AP Photo

The populist Elon Musk-backed Alternative for Germany (AfD), which made an unprecedented breakthrough in state elections last November, is now hoping, as second place in the polls, to make gains in national elections next month.

The right-wing anti-immigration and euroskeptic Freedom Party, led by Herbert Kickl, won the country’s parliamentary election last September, taking 28.8 percent of the vote, knocking Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s conservative Austrian People’s Party into second place. Kickl is currently being tasked with forming a new government.

France’s National Rally performed beyond expectations in the European election last June, garnering 31.5 percent of the votes cast, prompting centrist President Emmanuel Macron to call a snap election, a decision he has expressed regret over.

The veteran Dutch politician Geert Wilders and his Freedom party doubled its seats in the Netherlands parliament in 2023 and is currently part of a coalition. Wilders, a right-wing populist widely known for his anti-Islam views, has pledged to curb “the asylum tsunami” and immigration to the Netherlands.

Due to the influence of The Sweden Democrats, the largest member of Sweden’s right-wing bloc and now the second-largest party in the Riksdag, Sweden has radically tightened its once-liberal migration policies. The country has taken in vast numbers of immigrants over the past two decades, which the government says has led to parallel societies and gang violence.

According to the Spanish polling company 40dB, in Spain, right-wing parties Partido Popular, Vox, and SALF are snapping at the heels of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s ruling socialist PSOE.

There have also been right-wing triumphs in Romania, albeit short-lived. Romania’s top court annulled the first round of the country’s presidential election, which was won by a populist, Calin Georgescu, who campaigned largely on TikTok.

EU officials issued a “retention order” under the Digital Services Act after declassified documents showed Georgescu had been promoted on TikTok through a series of coordinated accounts, recommendation algorithms, and paid promotion.

Reform UK leader and MP Nigel Farage arrives for a campaign meeting in London, on June 3, 2024. Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images

The UK, with a democratic socialist government under Labour, is again bucking the current trend. However, Brexit campaigner and Trump ally Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK is riding high in the polls. YouGov polling from Jan. 14 showed that if a general election were held tomorrow, 26 percent of British voters would choose Labour and 25 percent would vote Reform UK.

In a November speech, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer accused conservative governments before him of conducting an experiment with open borders and allowing record-high migration.

“This happened by design, not accident. Policies were reformed, deliberately, to liberalize immigration. Brexit was used for that purpose to turn Britain into a one-nation experiment in open borders,” said Starmer.

‘Antithetical to Our Way of Life’

Frank Furedi, the executive director of MCC Brussels and a sociologist, told The Epoch Times that voters are turning their backs on the established order, putting mainstream conservative and centrist left-wing parties on the defensive.

“And this has created a space for parties to basically say that, look, ’the problem is not only that these parties have not represented us, they’ve agreed and promoted policies that are antithetical to our way of life,'” he said.

Furedi noted that populism is on the rise across Europe, even in Portugal, which has been one of the few countries to resist a significant right-wing shift. He added that many people now believe it’s time to embrace new political alternatives.

He also pointed out a shift among younger generations, who once leaned left, are increasingly now aligning with right-wing movements.

According to an exit poll by the polling company Infratest dimap in June, support for Germany’s AfD was up 11 percentage points to 16 percent among under-25-year-olds, more than double the 5-point rise among the broader population.

In France, National Rally took a 25 percent share of the vote among 18–24-year-olds, according to pollster Ipsos in June.

Furedi said that what unites all of these different parties is the sense that “somebody or something has pulled a carpet under their feet and their way of life has sort of been called into question.”

Furedi added that many people feel alienated by the language and policies promoted by the political elites, policies that often make them feel disrespected. He cited mass migration as a key issue, which challenges national cultural identities.

“For very long time, that you couldn’t be a patriot or feel a strong sense of identity with your nation, the flag, because it was suggested that that’s somehow wrong and it’s xenophobic, whereas other people want to feel that their identity, as Spaniards or as Germans or anybody else, is worthwhile,” he said.

A man holds a Black Lives Matter sign as a police car burns in front of him during a protest over the death of George Floyd, outside CNN Center in Atlanta on May 29, 2020. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images Anti-Woke

Professor of Politics at The University of Buckingham and Director of the Centre for Heterodox Social Science, Eric Kaufmann told The Epoch Times that attitudes to “woke” policies are key drivers to populist movement.

Kaufmann recently wrote the book “Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution” and has previously called “cultural socialism” a religious form of wokeness and an ideology has taken precedence over free speech, due process, equal treatment, and other Enlightenment values.

“My view is that populism on the right comes from the same underlying drivers as the populist moment of 2014–16, namely immigration and ethnic change,” said Kaufmann.

“But anti-woke is a compounding factor,” he added.

He said that he didn’t believe that the data show that net-zero climate goals are much of a significant factor for most populist voters, though it is important for populist elites.

“In reaction to the populist surge of 2014–16 we got the cultural left deplorables/‘racist’ pushback narrative, which contributed to the cultural madness of the Great Awokening of 2013/14–2022,” he said.

He said that this produced the “moral panic” of Black Lives Matter in 2020 and the excesses of the MeToo movement, along with cancel culture and a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

He said that “the cultural left is on the ropes in the U.S., a bit less so in Europe.”

“But the direction of travel in both places (don’t forget Canada) is anti-woke and anti-immigration,” said Kaufmann, adding that Trump will find allies in Europe who agree with some of his agenda, especially on immigration.

“They won’t buy his ’might makes right' agenda, however, of tariffs and threats of annexation, so much depends on whether Trump’s America First is focused on internal cultural threats and China, or whether it broadens out to Europe and Canada as well. If the latter he will antagonize and lose global support,” Kaufmann said.

“So much depends on which ideas are prioritized: the good cultural ones or the often bad foreign policy ones,” he added.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 05:00

Undersea Cable Damage In Baltic Sea The Result Of Accidents, Not Russian Sabotage; WaPo

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Recent damage to undersea cables in the Baltic Sea was likely caused by maritime accidents, not by Russian sabotage as many Western officials have alleged, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

NATO has used recent incidents to justify an increase in its military presence in the Baltic Sea and launched a new mission called "Baltic Sentry" just last week, a move that ratchets up tensions with Russia. The Guardian reported on Sunday that a NATO naval flotilla has assembled off the coast of Estonia to "protect" undersea infrastructure.

The Post report, which cited US and European intelligence officials, said that "investigations involving the United States and a half-dozen European security services have turned up no indication that commercial ships suspected of dragging anchors across seabed systems did so intentionally or at the direction of Moscow."

US officials said "clear explanations" in each case indicated the incidents were likely accidents, and no evidence suggested that Russia was involved. In some cases, ships dragging their anchors damaged cables underwater.

The Washington Post report cites American and European intelligence officials who have ultimately rejected the official Western media narrative:

Ruptures of undersea cables that have rattled European security officials in recent months were likely the result of maritime accidents rather than Russian sabotage, according to several U.S. and European intelligence officials.

The determination reflects an emerging consensus among U.S. and European security services, according to senior officials from three countries involved in ongoing investigations of a string of incidents in which critical seabed energy and communications lines have been severed.

The Eagle S, a tanker suspected of damaging a power cable connecting Finland and Estonia, was recently boarded by the Finnish Coast Guard, and its crew has been detained indefinitely while the ship is being investigated. Finnish officials have accused the Eagle S of being part of a "ghost fleet" that carries Russian oil and avoids Western sanctions.

Yet here's more from the bombshell WaPo report:

Instead, U.S. and European officials said that the evidence gathered to date — including intercepted communications and other classified intelligence — points to accidents caused by inexperienced crews serving aboard poorly maintained vessels.

A lawyer representing the ship’s owner acknowledged that it was carrying Russian oil but said it was not a violation of international law and denied the tanker purposely damaged the undersea cable.

Via Blog of the European Journal of International Law which purports to show Christmas Day undersea cable cuts

Western officials have said the incidents in the Baltic were part of a broader Russian sabotage campaign in Europe, and some officials quoted in the Post report said they were not convinced the damage was caused by accident, but they have produced no evidence for their claims.

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 03:30

Europe's Concern Over Trump Isn't A Global Opinion

Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president of the United States took place this morning.

While his forthcoming presidency is viewed anxiously among a majority in Europe and South Korea, Statista's Anna Fleck reports that a new survey by the European Council on Foreign Relations found that this is not the case in many other countries around the world.

As the following chart shows, populations of the founding BRICS nations were more positive about Trump’s second term in office than not.

In India, more than eight in ten respondents said they thought the re-election of Trump is good for their country.

You will find more infographics at Statista

By contrast, respondents in South Korea, the United Kingdom and the EU11 were the most likely to feel negatively about the next Trump era.

According to the ECFR, many respondents think Trump will bring peace or reduce tensions in Ukraine, the Middle East and in terms of U.S.-China relations.

Meanwhile, the writers of the report add that the pessimism of U.S. allies in Europe and South Korea indicates a “further weakening of the geopolitical “West”.”

The survey also found that many around the world expect China to become the world’s strongest power rather than America and consider Europe as a superpower equal to that of the U.S. and China.

The data shown in this chart is based on a survey of 28,549 people, conducted across 24 countries in November 2024 - just after the U.S. presidential election.

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 02:45

The Russian-Iranian Partnership Might Be A Game-Changer, But Only For Gas, Not Geopolitics

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

The Russian and Iranian presidents met in Moscow last Friday to sign an updated strategic partnership pact that can be read in full here and was reviewed here. The run-up to this development was marked by predictable hype about it being a game-changer, which hasn’t subsided in the days since, but this is an inaccurate description of what they agreed to. The only way in which this might ring true is with regards to gas, not geopolitics, for the reasons that’ll now be explained.

To begin with, Russia and Iran already had close military-technical cooperation before they updated their strategic partnership last week as proven by the rumors of Russia relying on Iranian drones in Ukraine. They also agreed to revive the previously stillborn North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) shortly after the special operation began and the West imposed unprecedented sanctions against Moscow. Therefore, these parts of their updated strategic partnership aren’t anything new, they just aim to strengthen them.

About that, this agreement is fundamentally different from last summer’s Russian-North Korean one in that there aren’t any mutual defense obligations as clarified in Article 3. They only committed to not aid any aggression against the other, including assistance to the aggressor, and to help settle the subsequent conflict at the UN. That was already the case in their relations so explicitly clarifying it is redundant. Under no circumstances will Russia go to war against Israel and/or the US in support of Iran.

After all, “Russia Dodged A Bullet By Wisely Choosing Not To Ally With The Now-Defeated Resistance Axis” over the past 15 months as Israel single-handedly destroyed that Iranian-led regional network, so it naturally follows that it won’t risk World War III in defense of an even weaker Iran. Moreover, Russia didn’t risk war with either of them amidst last December’s American- and Turkish-backed regime change in Syria, not to mention the ongoing special operation where it has direct national security interests.

Putin is therefore very unlikely to break from this precedent, which observers can confidently conclude by dint of him declining to include any North Korean-like mutual defense obligations in Russia’s updated strategic partnership pact with Iran, which should hopefully put to rest some folks’ wishful thinking. It should also be said that the timing of this document’s signing is important too since it took place after Israel defeated the Resistance Axis and as the region correspondingly enters a new geopolitical era.

The parties had been negotiating their updated pact for several years already, and while work had finally ended last fall, Putin specifically requested during the Kazan Summit that Pezeshkian “pay a separate visit to our country to sign this document and other important documents in a ceremonial atmosphere.” Some at the time casually dismissed this as some form of protocol, but in retrospect, it’s arguably the case that Russia didn’t want to sign such a partnership pact until regional hostilities finally abated.

That’s understandable too since he foresaw that the West and some in Israel would interpret that development as supposedly being aimed against them, with the resultant spin complicating any potential peace talks over Ukraine and risking a crisis in relations with Israel. Putin remains committed to resolving the NATO-Russian security dilemma over Ukraine through diplomatic means and spent the past quarter-century expanding ties with Israel so he wasn’t going to jeopardize either in this way.

From the Iran side, Pezeshkian represents the “reformist”/“moderate” faction of the Iranian policymaking elite, and they too might have been concerned that this development would be interpreted by the West and some in Israel as being aimed against them. Such perceptions could spoil any chance of reviving nuclear talks with the US, and it was still uncertain who the next American President would be, so he and his ilk might have also calculated that it’s better to wait until regional hostilities finally abated.

Observers will note that Pezeshkian gave his first interview to foreign media since the US presidential election just days before traveling to Moscow, during which time he reaffirmed his intent to resume talks with the US. The timing strongly suggests that he wanted to preemptively counteract whatever spin hawkish elements in the new administration might try to put on his country’s updated strategic partnership pact with Russia. This might have even been coordinated with Russia to a degree too.

Moving along to the NSTC component of their updated strategic partnership pact, it’s much more substantive since the aim is to increase their measly $4 billion mutual trade, which will help Russia more easily reach other Global South markets while providing relief for Iran’s sanctions-beleaguered economy. If successful, and it’ll take some time to see either way, then the NSTC can serve as a new geo-economic axis connecting the Eurasian Heartland to West Asia, South Asia, and eventually ASEAN and East Africa.

Once again, these plans were already underway for almost three years before they finally signed their long-negotiated updated strategic partnership pact so none of this is exactly new, it just bears mentioning in the larger context considering that part of this newly signed document concerns the NSTC. Much more important than the military and connectivity parts by far is their ambitious gas plans since Russia and Iran have some of the world’s largest reserves, with the latter’s largely remaining untapped.

It was explained in late August why “Russia Might Soon Redirect Its Gas Pipeline Plans From China To Iran & India”, namely due to the continued pricing dispute with the People’s Republic over Power of Siberia 2 and the latest gas MoUs at the time with Iran and then Azerbaijan. These combined to create the credible possibility of Russia replacing its hitherto eastward export focus with a southward one instead. Their updated strategic partnership pact confirms that the southern direction is now Russia’s priority.

Putin said during his press conference with Pezeshkian that he envisages beginning exports at just 2 billion cubic meters (bcm) a year, presumably due to the lack of infrastructure in northern Iran, before eventually scaling it to 55 bcm. That’s the same capacity as the now-defunct Nord Stream 1 to the EU. His Energy Minister later told reporters that the route will run through Azerbaijan and that negotiations are in their final stages over pricing. Their successful conclusion would revolutionize the industry.

Russian investment and technology could unlock Iran’s enormous gas reserves, thus leading to those two creating a “gas OPEC” for managing global prices amidst the Islamic Republic’s entrance to the market. While they have a self-interested incentive to keep them high, plunging the price could deal a powerful blow to America’s fracking industry and its associated LNG exports, thus imperiling its newfound European market dominance brought about by sanctions, the Nord Stream terrorist attack, and Ukraine.

Additionally, Russian gas projects on Iran’s side of the Gulf could supply nearby India, and/or a swap arrangement could be agreed to whereby Iran provides gas to it on Russia’s behalf even sooner. For that to happen, however, India would have to defy existing US sanctions on Iran or secure a waiver. Trump 2.0 might be convinced to respectively turn a blind eye or extend such in order for India to purchase this gas instead of China, the latter of which is already defying such sanctions on the import of Iranian oil.

Part of Trump 2.0’s expected “Pivot (back) to Asia” is to obtain predominant influence over China’s energy imports, which includes cutting off its supply through a carrot-and-stick approach of incentivizing exporters to sell to other clients instead and creating obstacles for those that don’t. Some possibilities for how this could look with regards to Russia were explained here in early January, while the Iranian dimension could work as described above, albeit in exchange for US-Iranian talks making progress.

Even if India decides not to risk the US’ wrath by unilaterally importing Russian-produced Iranian gas in the event that Trump 2.0 isn’t convinced about the merits of having it replace China as Iran’s top energy client and thus threatens harsh sanctions, then China can just buy it all instead. Either way, Russia’s help in unlocking Iran’s largely untapped and enormous reserves will have a seismic effect on this industry, with the only questions being what prices they agree to and who’ll purchase most of it.

The answer to both is of immense importance for American interests since constantly low prices could kill its fracking industry and inevitably lead to the loss of its newly captured European market while China’s large-scale import of this resource (let alone on the cheap) could further fuel its superpower rise. It’s therefore in the US’ interests to boldly consider coordinating with the potentially forthcoming Russian-Iranian “gas OPEC” as well as allowing India to replace China as Iran’s top energy client.

Circling back to the headline, it’s indeed the case that the updated Russian-Iranian strategic partnership pact is poised to be much more of a game-changer in the global gas industry than for geopolitics, though its revolutionary impact on the aforesaid could have some geopolitical consequences in time. Even so, the point is that the pact isn’t geopolitically driven like some enthusiasts imagined before its signing and others still counterfactually insist afterwards since Russia won’t defend Iran from Israel or the US.

Russia and Iran “reject unipolarity and hegemony in world affairs” as agreed upon in their newly signed pact, but they’re not going to directly oppose it via joint military means, only indirectly via energy-related ones and by strengthening their economies’ resilience. The future of their strategic partnership is bright, but in order to fully appreciate its prospects, observers must acknowledge its non-military nature instead of continuing to fantasize about a joint war against Israel and/or the US like some are doing.

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/21/2025 - 02:00

Putting An End To Trump Derangement Syndrome

Authored by J.Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics.com,

My name is Peder and I suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

My case is not full-blown – I don’t contend that the incoming president is a fascist bent on suspending elections, jailing his enemies, and otherwise erasing our constitutional republic. I find claims that he is a sexual predator as risible as the argument that he launched a coup on Jan. 6, 2021. I gleefully whack-a-mole all the whack-doodle fantasies that pass as conventional wisdom among progressives and conservative Never Trumpers.

And yet, because it is more mild and subtle, my TDS may be more dangerous. Even though I generally support Donald Trump’s policies, I accepted the idea that he is beyond the pale. I agreed that his aggressive tweets, coarse language, and addiction to hyperbole were windows into a damaged soul. He just can’t help himself. I wished that the Republicans had somebody, anybody else to stand up against the Democrats because Trump seemed to lack the temperament and, yes, the character, to be president.

These critiques are not pulled from thin air. Trump is Trump. My mistake was transforming these complaints into condemnation, defining the man by his off-putting traits instead of his manifest gifts. More disturbingly, I probably took this line to prove to his unhinged haters that I had not drunk the orange Kool-Aid.

Not my finest hour.

I offer this confession both to clear my conscience and to offer this message to other Trump supporters who might have a whiff of TDS: Stop! Our embrace of false narratives about Trump’s character gives them credence. It is a major reason why he didn’t defeat the ineffable unqualified Kamala Harris by an even larger margin and why his job approval ratings aren’t higher. They serve as springboard for more extreme attacks against him. Look, even his supporters think he’s off.

Going forward, such wobbly support may undercut his ability to govern. We must continue to criticize him robustly when it is warranted, and those occasions will surely arise. And if there are people out there who think Trump’s perfect, I haven’t met them. But we must stop casting his all-too-human foibles as signs of something sinister.

Instead of trying to brush off the character argument, we should transform it. Donald Trump possesses a quality that has been in short supply in American politics and culture: courage.

This great strength is one source of the enmity against him.

Recall that Trump was an accepted member of elite circles for much of his life – Bill and Hillary Clinton attended his wedding to Melania in 2005. Then, suddenly, he became a pariah in 2015 when he threw his hat into the ring and dared to challenge the assumptions of the ruling class. Trump called out business leaders and politicians from both parties for policies and practices that seemed to line their pockets at the expense of average Americans: dubious trade deals with the repressive Chinese government; a lax approach to immigration that undercut working class jobs and wages; security arrangements that allowed NATO allies to free-ride on American taxpayers for their military defense.

He was an outlier, eager to challenge decades of beltline wisdom. He was a disruptor, determined to shake up a system in which consensus had smothered accountability. He was a powerful voice of dissent against a government where people got ahead by ignoring the hard questions. In a final insult, he became a symbol of our still vibrant democracy by winning not one, but two elections despite the visceral, intense, and highly organized opposition of the powers that be.

These were the real sins his enemies could not and will not forgive. In the face of relentless and unfair attacks, most people would have buckled. It would have been so much easier to play ball. Trump, instead, stuck by his guns. The courage he displayed after an assassin came within in a whisker of taking his life last summer was a true reflection of his abiding character.

The opposition to Trump will not fade during the next four years.

Those who cheered the Biden administration as it opened the borders, defied the courts, and censored critics will continue to claim that Trump poses a singular threat to our Republic. Their fraudulence may be clear for all to see, but their case of Trump Derangement Syndrome seems too far gone to repair.

As we turn a new page in our nation’s history, I am filled with hope because I see that we once again have a president with the character to provide the leadership we need.

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/20/2025 - 23:45

Houthis Halt Attacks On Red Sea Vessels As Gaza Truce Holds

The Gaza ceasefire which went into effect Sunday morning, ending a 470-day conflict which has reportedly killed over 47,000 - has continued to hold. Palestinians are returning to northern Gaza in droves, picking through the rubble and seeking to identify their homes and belongings.

Yemen's Houthis starting last week signaled they would stop their missile and drone attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea. As of Monday, the Houthis have announced a halt to these attacks, but with an important exception.

Via Bloomberg

International ships will no longer come under attack, the Houthis said, but attacks on Israeli-linked commercial and military vessels will continue.

"We affirm that, in the event of any aggression against the Republic of Yemen by the United States of America, the United Kingdom, or the usurping Israeli entity, the sanctions will be reinstated against the aggressor," the Houthis said in a written statement reported by Reuters.

"You will be promptly informed of such measures should they be implemented," it continued. The Houthis further said that even Israeli-linked ships will stop being targeted "upon the full implementation of all phases of the agreement."

The first of three phases is set for 42-days, during which time the terms of the subsequent phases will be negotiated and set. Hamas has already released three Israeli hostages, and dozens of Palestinians who were imprisoned in Israel have been exchanged.

On Friday, just before the ceasefire was implemented, Houthi leader Abdulmalik Al-Houthi had warned that if the ceasefire didn't hold, the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping would continue. "Any Israeli breach, massacre, or siege — we will be immediately ready to provide military support to Palestinians," he had stressed.

He said his movement, formally known as Ansar Allah, will "confront any aggression, whether by the Israelis, the Americans, or their allies, or any attempts to divert our country from its liberated jihadist path."

Bloomberg meanwhile reviewed that "Most Western-linked container ships have over the past year chosen to take the much longer route around southern Africa when sailing between Asia and Europe, and kept clear of the Red Sea. That’s squeezed global shipping capacity, lifting freight rates and boosted the earnings of carriers like Mitsui OSK."

"Container-shipping giants A.P. Moller Maersk A/S and Hapag-Lloyd AG last year announced a vessel-sharing partnership for the alternative route," the report continues.

"Crude Oil Dips As Yemen's Houthi Militia Plans To Halt Red Sea Ship Attacks." - https://t.co/jdS9M0UO55

— Navroop Singh (@TheNavroopSingh) January 20, 2025

Egypt has said its taken a $7 billion hit in revenue decline from the Suez Canal for 2024, which marks about a 60% drop from prior years.

If the Yemeni operations directly against Israel do persist in face of the truce, it would complicate or damage efforts to keep the peace in the Gaza Strip, as it's already sure to be an extremely delicate and fragile truce. The Houthis have up to this point in the war launched several ballistic missiles on Israel, causing limited damage and casualties.

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/20/2025 - 23:10

Despite Biden Pardon, Fauci Still Faces Legal Perils. Here They Are...

Authored by Paul D. Thacker via RealClearInvestigations,

President Biden’s pardon of Dr. Anthony Fauci may protect the former National Institutes of Health official from immediate criminal prosecution, but some critics say he is not completely out of legal jeopardy and that public sentiment might still condemn the man who became known during the COVID-19 pandemic as “Mr. Science.”

In the days before Biden offered the pardon to Fauci, along with other critics of Donald Trump, some experts who have followed Fauci’s career and handling of the pandemic, as well as members of the Trump transition team, reiterated their assertion that Fauci perjured himself on several occasions during the pandemic – especially regarding his agency’s links to the lab in Wuhan, China, that might have created the virus that causes COVID-19.

The pardon addresses any COVID-related offenses, and is backdated to 2014—the year a U.S. ban on so-called "gain of function" virus research took effect -- research Fauci is accused of outsourcing to China.

Despite reporting that Trump is bent on revenge, the appetite among MAGA appointees for holding Fauci accountable hasn’t been particularly vocal. But former Senate investigator Jason Foster, who now runs the whistleblower nonprofit Empower Oversight, says that Biden’s pardon creates new legal jeopardy for Fauci. Sen. Rand Paul has vowed to continue investigating the COVID origins question, and sources tell RealClearInvestigations that Sen. Ron Johnson and House Republican investigators plan to do so as well. When testifying in those inquiries or answering written depositions, Fauci will be unable to dodge questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination. “They can ask him if he lied before, replough old ground,” Foster said. “And if he lies about any prior lie, he can be prosecuted for that or held in contempt.”

Andrew Noymer, associate professor of population health and disease prevention at the University of California, Irvine, said such hearings are necessary for scientific and historical reasons. “I’m hopeful that he will now come clean about everything he knows about the origins of the virus,” Noymer said. “For the sake of public trust in science – explaining what killed 20 million people – that a complete account is much more important than speculation about what criminal penalties he may have avoided.”

“These pardons will not stop Department of Justice investigations,” said one adviser to the Trump transition team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We expected this and look at it as a predicate to get truth from people who can no longer use the Fifth Amendment. Now we can bring every one of them in front of a grand jury.”

Legacy media outlets promoted Fauci throughout the pandemic.

There is no consensus on Fauci’s handling of the pandemic. Legacy media outlets have promoted Fauci throughout the pandemic as “America’s doctor” who “sticks to the facts” and applauded him as “the nation’s top infectious disease expert.” When he retired from the NIH after five decades in 2022, the New York Times granted him space on its opinion page to advise the next generation of scientists, citing his own accomplishments.

Numerous social media outlets have provided a polar opposite perspective. Several X accounts have uploaded videos that show Fauci’s inconsistencies. For example, Fauci claimed in early 2022 interviews that he never recommended lockdowns, but later said he recommended shutting the country down. Independent journalist Matt Orfalea circulated another set of clips that show Fauci claiming he kept an “open mind” about how the pandemic started while alleging in others that the evidence points against a lab accident and “strongly” in favor of a natural spillover.

As Fauci’s flip-flops generated attention in Republican circles and on social media, he charged that such criticism was “totally preposterous,” adding, “Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science.”

Fauci’s many contradictory statements even caught the attention of a New York Times contributing opinion writer, Megan K. Stack, who chastised Fauci for “the largely one-sided nature of his public remarks” about the possibility the pandemic started from an accident at a lab his agency had helped fund – the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Initially, Fauci dismissed as a “conspiracy theory” the possibility of a Wuhan lab accident on a Feb. 9, 2020, podcast hosted by Newt Gingrich. Afterward, Fauci reversed himself, stating in several interviews that he had always kept an open mind.

Later reports zeroed in on Fauci’s secret involvement in prominent March 2020 research, called the “proximal origin” paper, that turned public and scientific sentiment against the possibility of a lab accident. “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,” the paper concluded, adding, “We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.” Published in the prestigious Nature Medicine journal, “proximal origin” is the most-cited scientific paper of 2020.

Subsequent emails showed that Fauci helped guide the “proximal origin” paper to publication, as congressional probers found, “without revealing that he had been involved with its creation and had even, according to the emails, given it his approval.”

Distancing himself from his own emails, Fauci later told the Times that he wasn’t sure he even got around to reading the paper. But the House later released a multi-day deposition of Fauci where he was asked about his involvement in the “proximal origin” paper. Under oath, Fauci admitted to having received and read several drafts of the paper.

But while dissembling to the media is not a crime, lying to Congress is illegal. And the Department of Justice has two referrals from Congress already requesting that Fauci be prosecuted for lying under oath.

Lies as Legal Jeopardy Fauci and Sen. Rand Paul, facing off in the public arena. “He definitely misled the senator,” said the ex-head of the CDC.

Fauci’s habit of bending the truth, as some see it, was notably on display at a July 2021 Senate hearing when Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican, bore into the funding Fauci approved for gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. While Fauci attempted to downplay his financial involvement with the Chinese government lab, reports were already percolating.

In April 2020, Newsweek reported that Fauci had approved a grant for risky “gain of function” virus research at the Wuhan lab. The Washington Post editorial board in March 2021 then called for an independent investigation into EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit funded by the Fauci-run National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. With this grant, EcoHealth subcontracted research to the Chinese, the Post noted, to do experiments involving “modifying viral genomes to give them new properties, including the ability to infect lung cells of laboratory mice that had been genetically modified to respond as human respiratory cells would.”

Fox News reported Sunday that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has barred EcoHealth Alliance Inc. and its former president, Dr. Peter Daszak, from receiving federal funds for five years. EcoHealth allegedly failed to report dangerous gain-of-function experiments to the government, which eventually led to the five-year ban. 

A month prior to Fauci’s hearing with Paul, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs confirmed that U.S.-funded research at the WIV consisted of gain-of-function virus research that could have started the pandemic. “[I]t is clear that the NIH co-funded research at the WIV that deserves scrutiny under the hypothesis of a laboratory-related release of the virus.” At that time, Dr. Sachs led a commission formed by a British medical journal, The Lancet, to investigate how the pandemic began.

But when Paul began grilling Fauci about these details and called him out for what he characterized as evasive answers, Fauci pointed the finger back at Paul. “If anybody is lying here, senator, it is you,” Fauci said. Paul then sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice requesting they investigate whether Fauci had committed perjury.

“He definitely misled the senator,” said former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield. When Redfield looked at all the evidence, including still-classified information, he said the weight falls in the direction of a lab accident. “Fauci manipulated the public to believe there was only one possible cause for the pandemic, a natural spillover.”

Months after Paul’s referral to the Justice Department, liberal news nonprofit ProPublica released new documents confirming the Wuhan lab had conducted such studies. “Grant money for the controversial experiment came from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is headed by Anthony Fauci,” ProPublica reported on September 9, 2021.

“NIH admits funding risky virus research in Wuhan,” Vanity Fair reported a week after ProPublica, referencing a letter NIH sent to Congress.

Paul sent a second referral to the Department of Justice in July 2023, reiterating his demand that Fauci be investigated. At that time, House investigators released emails showing that, in early 2020, Fauci admitted that scientists were concerned the COVID virus had been engineered and researchers in Wuhan were engaged in gain-of-function research.  

“Everything he has been telling us from the very beginning has been a lie,” Sen. Paul told Fox News. “We have documented it’s a lie and it’s a felony to lie to Congress.”

Biden’s pardon negates the two Senate referrals for criminal activity. But future hearings could still require Fauci to respond to evidence that he might have perjured himself, and open him up to future prosecution if he stands by statements that can be proven to be false.

Hiding Use of Private Email Fauci is said to have communicated over a back channel about controversial beagle research.

Another area of potential inquiry is Fauci’s congressional testimony last summer denying his use of private email to conduct official business,  “Let me state for the record that to the best of my knowledge I have never conducted official business via my personal email,” Fauci wrote in his sworn statement to Congress.

This testimony seemed to contradict evidence in a 35-page memo compiled by Republican investigative staff. One email showed Fauci’s second-in-command, Dr. David Morens, suggesting someone speak with Fauci through an unofficial, private channel. In another email, Morens wrote that he would contact Fauci on Gmail.

After Fauci’s testimony, the writer of this article reported in the DisInformation Chronicle that Morens had connected KFF Health News reporter Arthur Allen with Fauci on Fauci’s private email back in May 2021. The NIH did not respond to comment about Fauci’s use of private email to conduct government business with reporters. 

In a second example, the New York Post reported that the watchdog group White Coat Waste Project accused Fauci of lying to Congress about his private email use after they released documents showing Fauci was backchanneling with a Washington Post reporter on his private email.

“I will send you an e-mail via my gmail account,” Fauci wrote in an email dated Oct. 29, 2021, to Washington Post reporter Yasmeen Abutaleb.

Fauci’s lawyer told the Post that Fauci was discussing a personal matter with the Washington Post reporter, although he did not explain what this personal matter was. 

Justin Goodman, senior vice president at White Coat Waste Project, said the evidence is clear that Fauci contacted the Washington Post about issues regarding his NIH work and then denied it to Congress. “He should be prosecuted, not pardoned.”

Follow the Money This misleading article helped to absolve Fauci of funding research that led to the pandemic, for a time. See center paragraph from its abstract on "strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation."

Congressional hearings might also delve into Fauci’s involvement in research misconduct with the “proximal origin” paper and a grant he approved for the paper’s lead author, Scripps Research Institute’s Kristian Andersen.

“There needs to be a criminal investigation of this grant and paper,” said a former law enforcement official who has worked with congressional staff investigating Fauci and his grants. “Nobody inside the executive branch has taken ownership of this.”

Shortly after the COVID virus outbreak, Fauci began discussing with several virologists, including Andersen, how the pandemic started. In a Feb. 1, 2020 email, Andersen wrote to Fauci that he had analyzed the COVID virus genetic sequence and “some of the features (potentially) look engineered.” Andersen added that, while opinions could change, he and other virologists felt the virus was not natural or consistent with “expectations with evolutionary theory.”

Later that same day, Fauci held a phone call with Andersen and other virologists and then emailed that the scientists were suspicious that a “mutation was intentionally inserted” into the virus. Other emails show that Fauci was concerned that his funding for research in China may have led to the COVID virus.

Despite their initial suspicions, Andersen and other virologists reversed course six weeks later and published the “proximal origin” paper on March 16, 2020, that absolved Fauci of funding research that led to the pandemic. Fauci then promoted the Andersen “proximal origin” paper to reporters at a White House briefing on April 17 without disclosing that he had helped marshal the study into publication.

A month later, Fauci signed off on an $8.9 million grant to Kristian Andersen. Both Andersen and Fauci have denied the grant was quid pro quo for Andersen publishing the “proximal origin” paper that absolved Fauci, but the group Biosafety Now has called twice for the paper to be retracted. 

“It is imperative that this clearly fraudulent and clearly damaging paper be removed from the scientific literature,” reads an online petition signed by over 5,000 scientists.

Richard Ebright, a professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University and co-founder of Biosafety Now, said that Fauci should have been prosecuted for “criminal conspiracy” for his secret involvement in the “proximal origin” paper. Ebright added that the grant Fauci gave to Andersen after he published the paper likely also involved criminal behavior.

With Republicans running both the Senate and House, investigations of Fauci will likely continue as members resume digging into any NIH culpability in funding research that started the pandemic. Trump’s CIA nominee, John Ratcliffe, told House members during a 2023 hearing that classified intelligence points toward a lab accident. Ratcliffe is likely to be confirmed, and a Trump transition team source said he would likely then declassify that information, further undermining Fauci’s claims that the pandemic started from a natural spillover.

Ongoing investigations of Fauci, RCI has been told, will only further erode his credibility, even if criminal charges can no longer be filed. “This pardon means he can no longer be brought to justice,” said an adviser to the Trump transition team. “But it guarantees he will be further exposed.”

“I trusted everything Fauci said during the pandemic, and I did everything he told me,” said Bri Dressen, a former preschool teacher in Saratoga Springs, Utah. “I masked, wiped down my groceries with alcohol, kept my kids away from other kids so they wouldn’t catch the virus, and then I got vaccinated.” Dressen ended up injured by AstraZeneca’s vaccine as a volunteer in the company’s clinical trial, and founded React19.org, whose 36,000 members advocate for victims of COVID vaccine harm.

“It was the steepest learning curve in my entire life. The people in authority like Fauci are the ones I shouldn’t have trusted,” Dressen said. “It’s been a huge paradigm shift to see a hero actually turn into a villain.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/20/2025 - 22:35

The Lousiest President Of All Time

Authored by Jeremy Egerer via American Thinker,

Anybody who wants to explain how bad the Biden administration is has to start with COVID. 

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

As such, we knew a few things early on in the pandemic, and they were as follows:

1. The average age of death from the virus was in the 80s.
2. It had almost zero effect on young people and children.
3. Most people who died from it had three or more co-morbidities — that is, they were old as hell, fat as a hog, and really liked smoking, or drinking, or cancer.
4. It was in the same class of virus as the common cold.

Once we knew these things, especially the last one, the obvious thing to do was to give up.  There was no point crippling the strong for the sake of the weak when the weak depend upon the strong and most of the weak aren’t affected by COVID anyway.  We should have put the elderly on welfare and expanded Medicaid a bit and let the rest of us run loose.  No — we should have subsidized tickets to bath houses and any place kids eat that has a ball pit.

We like to say “hindsight is 20/20,” but this isn’t hindsight at all.  Hell, it was 2020.  The stuff I mentioned above was the conclusion every person with regular sight came to the second our government called most workers “non-essential.”  Yet this society was immediately cleaved in two.  All the healthy and thoughtful people were pitted against the sanctimonious do-gooders, the goose-steppers, and the hysterical weaklings.  And they beat us into submission, big time.

And Joe Biden was their champion.

Almost overnight, millions were thrown out of work, and a vaccine was made up that nobody had properly tested, which no company was liable for and, in its experimental form, until the pandemic hit, had never been approved by the FDA.  Joe Biden tried to force every American in a company of more than 100 people to take it or lose his job — around two thirds of the whole country, it turned out.  Heart attacks in teenagers went through the roof.  People had to choose between gambling their health and losing their homes.  Pfizer was completely unaccountable and made a windfall.  Mom-and-Pop stores across the nation went bankrupt, and gyms and churches were forced shut, and Walmart and Amazon made a killing.

To make up for the mass unemployment Democrats caused and encouraged, Joe decided to print more money than anyone ever did in American history — a bill worth $1.9 trillion, which singlehandedly made the dollar implode.  This made everybody in the country take a giant pay cut, effectively, and now most Americans can’t afford the groceries they were buying in 2019.  Or used cars.  Or (many times) the rent.

Some people escaped this crushing poverty: the ultra-rich, the people who broke the country, and people who broke into the country.  The border was left wide open for nearly Biden’s whole term, and depending on where they went, illegal aliens were given not only free housing and medical care, but also smartphones and thousands of dollars.

Haitians and Chinese and Middle Eastern gate-crashers were seen marching in by the thousands.  Venezuela went so far as to unload its prisons on us.  Independent journalists began spotting obvious gang members and people on the terrorist watchlist.  The Texans put up blockades, and the Border Patrol, under Biden’s orders, tore them right down.  In some places, gates were broken open to ensure that nobody was denied access.  In total, the BBC estimates (and I would say lowly) that over eight million people invaded.

Americans were disturbed by footage of hordes pouring over the border, so Biden closed the airspace so we couldn’t see it.  This was in fact his modus operandi whenever we started asking questions.  When doctors from places like Harvard and Stanford questioned the vaccine, he sent the FBI to bully Facebook into banning them and anyone who supported them — a clearly illegal move for which nobody, to my knowledge, has been prosecuted.  When Ashley Biden’s diary was going to be published, with all kinds of weird information about his behavior, the FBI raided the homes of journalists.  When his son’s laptop was found to contain incriminating information, he had the FBI bully social media again during an election season.  When his son was finally going to pay for taking quid-pro-quo bribes from the Ukrainians, or for doing crack and hookers on camera and buying guns illegally, Joe Biden pardoned him for everything he ever did over a ten-year period.  This was right after he went on TV to say “nobody is above the law” — an attack on, you guessed it, his own political rivals.

Whether or not anyone could measure up to the law, it’s clear that during Biden’s presidency, nobody could measure up to the government.  That’s because he was the DIE hirer-in-chief and made sure almost nobody, from top to bottom, was fit for command.  He sent a fat and mentally ill man, “Rachel” Levine, to run the United States Public Health Service.  He put Ketanji Brown on the Supreme Court — a woman so stupid that she couldn’t define “woman,” thinks being a street junkie is a constitutional right, and doesn’t have (quote) “a judicial philosophy per se.”  Despite her not having anything good to say, she speaks more, ex cathedra, according to the Washington Times, than all the other Supreme Court justices.

Because of Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, a gay man with zero experience in public transportation, is now the secretary of transportation.  Biden wanted his Cabinet to “look like America,” so he stuffed it with Jews and zero Evangelicals.  He promised us a black woman as a vice president, and the only person available was the most shrill, obnoxious, embarrassing person in the whole party.  When it became clear he had dementia, she was nominated as his successor without the public’s consent.

We could go on for hours.  When he abandoned Afghanistan — something that had to be done sooner or later — he did it so badly that not only did we lose billions of dollars of equipment, which immediately fell into the hands of the enemy, but he forgot to evacuate all our civilians, and allies, and green card–holders.  Whoopsie-daisy!

Where was Biden when our cities were getting burned down by Black Lives Matter?  Why did Antifa rioters get their charges dismissed after attacking federal buildings and officers — half of all charges, according to The Wall Street Journal?  And why were the Proud Boys locked up for trying to stop Antifa?  Why did he commute almost all the sentences on federal death row but not pardon Daniel Penny for protecting women on a subway train?  Joe Biden pardoned former Pennsylvania judge Michael Conahan, who sent falsely convicted children to for-profit prisons in exchange for kickbacks.  He left Enrique Tarrio in prison for trying to defend people from rioters.

His whole career has been helping everyone but the talented, the upright, or the American majority.  Biden canceled our Keystone Pipeline while approving the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia to Germany.  Newsweek said that at the same time he restricted domestic oil and gas production, causing prices to soar, he asked OPEC and Russia to make more oil so we could reduce our prices.  The New York Post says FEMA couldn’t find funding for victims of Hurricane Helene — our second deadliest hurricane in the last 50 years, which closed 400 roads and destroyed entire towns — because they’d already spent $1.4 billion on illegal aliens.  Israel, from October 2023 to October 2024, got a record $17.9 billion in military aid.  According to the Government Accountability Office, since 2022, Ukraine has gotten $174 billion.  According to U.S. News, we send foreign aid to more than 180 countries, and FEMA said nobody could find the money for our hurricane victims.

An important question might be asked here.  How much of this is really Joe Biden’s fault?  This is the guy we caught, on camera, in his first days after the election, mumbling I don’t know what I’m signing here when he was green-lighting executive orders willy-nilly.  Biden garbles more sentences than Lil’ Pump.  If he’s not directed off the stage, he could get stuck on it.

Like the line between the sovereignty of God and our own free will, we’ll probably never know, until the Final Judgment, who was really responsible.  But Biden is the guy we elected to take the blame for it.  He chose to be there.  The whole Democrat party said for years that he was in great shape.  So I say hang him out to dry.  He’s a coward, a sleazeball, a crook and a pardoner of crooks, an embarrassment to the already embarrassing Pope Francis, a horrible public speaker, both a profligate liar and a constant dupe, a prosecutor of truth-tellers and truth-publishers, the enemy of unborn children, a defender of everyone’s border but his own, a burden to the hardworking and the virtuous, a friend to the untalented and the envious, a sniffer of women and children, an incapable father, a consistent and regrettable clown, and a stain on the great legacy of this nation.

Jeremy Egerer is the author of Prejudices — a collection of questionable essays on Substack.

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/20/2025 - 21:25