Zero Hedge

Jane Street & The Regulatory "Risk" In Risk-Reversals

Jane Street & The Regulatory "Risk" In Risk-Reversals

Via SpotGamma Substack,

Days ago India barred Jane Street (JSG) from its security market, citing manipulation of markets.

TLDR: We think JSG knew options skews could be heavily distorted, and traded large options positions trying to take advantage of the distortion.

Additionally - a disclaimer: We have no idea what really happened, and we did our best to accurately quote from the SEBI & other documents. We have no idea if anyone is guilty of anything, nor are we alleging that. If anything in here is incorrect, we will do our best to update the post.

The Indian regulatory body, SEBI, launched the investigation “Based on media reports titled ‘Jane Street-Millennium Suit: ‘Secret’ Strategy Concerns India, Hearing Reveals’ and ‘Ex-Jane Street trader pillories claims he stole trade secrets’, published during April 2024 wherein it was inter-alia mentioned that Jane Street and its associated entities alleged unauthorised use of their proprietary trading strategies in Indian options markets…”

This recent banning was related to a 2024 regulatory investigation (and warning to JSG) into short-dated index options trading. After that ‘24 investigation, SEBI, India’s market regulator, accused Jane Street of manipulating the BANKNIFTY index on expiry day using aggressive futures flow and deeply skewed 0DTE option structures — a strategy that mirrors the same tactics Jane Street would later allege were stolen in its U.S. lawsuit against Millennium (more on this later)

Critical to this, understand that Jane Street is/was not a registered market-maker in India’s options market. But according to SEBI’s 2024 interim order, they behaved like the most aggressive one in the room.

SEBI found that the Jane Street Group ("JSG") ran the single largest risk-adjusted book on BANKNIFTY index expiry days. One day stood out above the rest: January 17, 2024.

On element left from the report was that the day before, January 16, BANKNIFTY fell more than 4% following disappointing earnings from HDFC Bank. The January 17 session opened lower again — creating a setup where options prices were likely skewed to the extremes.

On Jan 17 SEBI estimates JSG made ₹662 crore (~$79M USD) that day using what they call an "Intraday Index Manipulation" strategy. The allegation? That Jane Street pushed BANKNIFTY higher in the morning by aggressively buying stocks and futures, built massive short-delta positions in 0DTE options while the index was artificially elevated, and then sold their equities to drive the index lower and monetize the short-delta.

This is also the depiction you hear on social media. But, as with most things, there is way more nuance.

Both the equities market and the options market opened at 9:15 AM IST. Jane Street began executing its strategy immediately. From 9:15 to 11:45 AM, JSG bought ₹4,370 crore ($525M) of BANKNIFTY futures and stocks. This alone accounted for 15–25% of total traded value in those names. Simultaneously, they shorted delta* to the tune of ₹32,115 crore ($3.9B) via 0DTE options — selling calls and buying puts.

In plain terms, Jane Street put on a massive intraday risk reversal by selling same day expiration (a.k.a. 0DTE) at-the-money (ATM) calls vs ATM puts.

*As we noted before, the BANKNIFTY was down 4% the prior day, and was opening ~1% lower on the morning of the 17th. This is critical to understand, because they SEBI report goes to great lengths to detail the alleged delta exposure that JSG carried. With great respect to the regulator, we think that depicting accurate deltas into wild vols/skews is rather difficult.

I suspect that Jane Street likely anticipated that volatility skew would be heavily mispriced at the open, potentially due to the prior day's steep index decline. When the market opened, they bought futures and stock simultaneously against extremely skewed options — selling richly priced calls and buying heavily discounted puts. This structure effectively established risk reversals vs long futures to exploit the skew differential.

Initially, the position may have been close to delta-neutral — designed not for directionality, but to mine the skew. This is likely why they were buying stock (positive delta trades) and futures as they were entering into risk reversals (negative delta trades). Further, as the day progressed and the skew normalized, Jane Street ceased additional accumulation (per charts below).

What made the setup unique was the sheer distortion in option pricing. At 9:15 AM, spot BANKNIFTY was trading at 46,814. The 46,800 ATM call was priced at ₹653.45 (blue); the ATM put, just ₹123.55 (red). While we have not studied Indian options prices before, one would expect ATM calls and puts to have much more similar prices.

This inverted skew suggests calls were extremely rich vs puts, a perfect setup for the trade JSG implemented. By day’s end, that call expired nearly worthless (₹0.65), while put values exploded.

This is a clear breakdown of put-call parity, one that SEBI argues was engineered by Jane Street itself. Their aggressive equity buying misled other participants and skewed IV pricing, particularly in the ATM strikes, allowing JSG to put on the risk reversal at an extreme edge.

SEBI writes: “Participants in index options markets [were] misled by the support for BANKNIFTY.” The strategy was not just delta directional — it was vol- and skew-sensitive. Jane Street created short-term realized vol and harvested convexity on both sides.

Notably, option volumes themselves appeared to collapse once the skew normalized. The SEBI states that JSG’s flow was the primary driver of the distorted vol surface that they were mining. We think this is the critical piece which the argument rotates around - did they knowing create this skew or was it the result of market volatility?

By 11:47 AM, Jane Street began unwinding their long equity exposure as you can see above (bottom 2 bar plots). At this same time, the options volume dies out (center plot). SEBI notes that their selling was again aggressive and concentrated in BANKNIFTY components, disproportionately moving the index lower and inflating the value of their long puts.

They reportedly closed some positions, letting others expire ITM. Though they booked losses on equities, the options PnL overwhelmed it. SEBI estimates a ₹662 crore net profit.

This apparently wasn't a one-off. SEBI identified 15 other days using this same blueprint, plus 3 additional instances where Jane Street employed a variant: the "Extended Marking the Close" strategy. This involved building large delta positions in options during the day, followed by an aggressive equity ramp or selloff into the expiry window to influence the settlement print.

How Does the Jane Street Millennium Lawsuit Tie In?

In April 2024, Jane Street sued Millennium and two former traders, alleging misappropriation of a confidential strategy. The complaint describes an SPX-based strategy developed over six years, involving:

  • Identification of latent market inefficiencies

  • Use of intra-day models and machine-learning-driven heuristics

  • "Expensive investigative trades" to test signal robustness

  • A framework to predict directional bias based on a fusion of signal inputs and execution behavior

Jane Street claims this strategy was unique and counterintuitive, and that its IP centered on exploiting subtle, repeatable intraday price dynamics. Internal chat logs cited in the complaint show the strategy was so profitable they considered hiding it from internal PnL tallies to avoid attracting attention.

Jane Street alleges that immediately after the traders joined Millennium, a new competitor began mirroring their trades via the same broker infrastructure, including specific order types and risk throttles. The broker even paused execution due to the similarity in patterns. Jane Street's own profits reportedly collapsed concurrently.

The Millennium lawsuit makes the BANKNIFTY trades even more revealing. According to Jane Street’s own complaint, their core strategy was explicitly designed to detect and trade on skewed volatility surfaces. It wasn’t just about forecasting direction — it was about identifying mispriced convexity and exploiting it through engineered flow. The “expensive investigative trades” described in the lawsuit align almost perfectly with the behavior SEBI observed in India: buying up underlying stocks to shift implied vols, then harvesting the reversion through options.

In both cases, infrastructure mattered — Jane Street touted proprietary execution pipelines, broker logic, and near-automated rebalancing. The precision seen on January 17 — with flow ramping at open, peaking by 11:45, and reversing in size — fits the exact framework Jane Street claimed was stolen.

If Jane Street had a strategy designed to weaponize short-term volatility dislocations using index-linked options and coordinated flows in the underlying, SEBI’s findings suggest it was indeed deployed.

Subscribe to SpotGamma's high frequency expert options analysis here...

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 18:25

Jane Street & The Regulatory "Risk" In Risk-Reversals

Jane Street & The Regulatory "Risk" In Risk-Reversals

Via SpotGamma Substack,

Days ago India barred Jane Street (JSG) from its security market, citing manipulation of markets.

TLDR: We think JSG knew options skews could be heavily distorted, and traded large options positions trying to take advantage of the distortion.

Additionally - a disclaimer: We have no idea what really happened, and we did our best to accurately quote from the SEBI & other documents. We have no idea if anyone is guilty of anything, nor are we alleging that. If anything in here is incorrect, we will do our best to update the post.

The Indian regulatory body, SEBI, launched the investigation “Based on media reports titled ‘Jane Street-Millennium Suit: ‘Secret’ Strategy Concerns India, Hearing Reveals’ and ‘Ex-Jane Street trader pillories claims he stole trade secrets’, published during April 2024 wherein it was inter-alia mentioned that Jane Street and its associated entities alleged unauthorised use of their proprietary trading strategies in Indian options markets…”

This recent banning was related to a 2024 regulatory investigation (and warning to JSG) into short-dated index options trading. After that ‘24 investigation, SEBI, India’s market regulator, accused Jane Street of manipulating the BANKNIFTY index on expiry day using aggressive futures flow and deeply skewed 0DTE option structures — a strategy that mirrors the same tactics Jane Street would later allege were stolen in its U.S. lawsuit against Millennium (more on this later)

Critical to this, understand that Jane Street is/was not a registered market-maker in India’s options market. But according to SEBI’s 2024 interim order, they behaved like the most aggressive one in the room.

SEBI found that the Jane Street Group ("JSG") ran the single largest risk-adjusted book on BANKNIFTY index expiry days. One day stood out above the rest: January 17, 2024.

On element left from the report was that the day before, January 16, BANKNIFTY fell more than 4% following disappointing earnings from HDFC Bank. The January 17 session opened lower again — creating a setup where options prices were likely skewed to the extremes.

On Jan 17 SEBI estimates JSG made ₹662 crore (~$79M USD) that day using what they call an "Intraday Index Manipulation" strategy. The allegation? That Jane Street pushed BANKNIFTY higher in the morning by aggressively buying stocks and futures, built massive short-delta positions in 0DTE options while the index was artificially elevated, and then sold their equities to drive the index lower and monetize the short-delta.

This is also the depiction you hear on social media. But, as with most things, there is way more nuance.

Both the equities market and the options market opened at 9:15 AM IST. Jane Street began executing its strategy immediately. From 9:15 to 11:45 AM, JSG bought ₹4,370 crore ($525M) of BANKNIFTY futures and stocks. This alone accounted for 15–25% of total traded value in those names. Simultaneously, they shorted delta* to the tune of ₹32,115 crore ($3.9B) via 0DTE options — selling calls and buying puts.

In plain terms, Jane Street put on a massive intraday risk reversal by selling same day expiration (a.k.a. 0DTE) at-the-money (ATM) calls vs ATM puts.

*As we noted before, the BANKNIFTY was down 4% the prior day, and was opening ~1% lower on the morning of the 17th. This is critical to understand, because they SEBI report goes to great lengths to detail the alleged delta exposure that JSG carried. With great respect to the regulator, we think that depicting accurate deltas into wild vols/skews is rather difficult.

I suspect that Jane Street likely anticipated that volatility skew would be heavily mispriced at the open, potentially due to the prior day's steep index decline. When the market opened, they bought futures and stock simultaneously against extremely skewed options — selling richly priced calls and buying heavily discounted puts. This structure effectively established risk reversals vs long futures to exploit the skew differential.

Initially, the position may have been close to delta-neutral — designed not for directionality, but to mine the skew. This is likely why they were buying stock (positive delta trades) and futures as they were entering into risk reversals (negative delta trades). Further, as the day progressed and the skew normalized, Jane Street ceased additional accumulation (per charts below).

What made the setup unique was the sheer distortion in option pricing. At 9:15 AM, spot BANKNIFTY was trading at 46,814. The 46,800 ATM call was priced at ₹653.45 (blue); the ATM put, just ₹123.55 (red). While we have not studied Indian options prices before, one would expect ATM calls and puts to have much more similar prices.

This inverted skew suggests calls were extremely rich vs puts, a perfect setup for the trade JSG implemented. By day’s end, that call expired nearly worthless (₹0.65), while put values exploded.

This is a clear breakdown of put-call parity, one that SEBI argues was engineered by Jane Street itself. Their aggressive equity buying misled other participants and skewed IV pricing, particularly in the ATM strikes, allowing JSG to put on the risk reversal at an extreme edge.

SEBI writes: “Participants in index options markets [were] misled by the support for BANKNIFTY.” The strategy was not just delta directional — it was vol- and skew-sensitive. Jane Street created short-term realized vol and harvested convexity on both sides.

Notably, option volumes themselves appeared to collapse once the skew normalized. The SEBI states that JSG’s flow was the primary driver of the distorted vol surface that they were mining. We think this is the critical piece which the argument rotates around - did they knowing create this skew or was it the result of market volatility?

By 11:47 AM, Jane Street began unwinding their long equity exposure as you can see above (bottom 2 bar plots). At this same time, the options volume dies out (center plot). SEBI notes that their selling was again aggressive and concentrated in BANKNIFTY components, disproportionately moving the index lower and inflating the value of their long puts.

They reportedly closed some positions, letting others expire ITM. Though they booked losses on equities, the options PnL overwhelmed it. SEBI estimates a ₹662 crore net profit.

This apparently wasn't a one-off. SEBI identified 15 other days using this same blueprint, plus 3 additional instances where Jane Street employed a variant: the "Extended Marking the Close" strategy. This involved building large delta positions in options during the day, followed by an aggressive equity ramp or selloff into the expiry window to influence the settlement print.

How Does the Jane Street Millennium Lawsuit Tie In?

In April 2024, Jane Street sued Millennium and two former traders, alleging misappropriation of a confidential strategy. The complaint describes an SPX-based strategy developed over six years, involving:

  • Identification of latent market inefficiencies

  • Use of intra-day models and machine-learning-driven heuristics

  • "Expensive investigative trades" to test signal robustness

  • A framework to predict directional bias based on a fusion of signal inputs and execution behavior

Jane Street claims this strategy was unique and counterintuitive, and that its IP centered on exploiting subtle, repeatable intraday price dynamics. Internal chat logs cited in the complaint show the strategy was so profitable they considered hiding it from internal PnL tallies to avoid attracting attention.

Jane Street alleges that immediately after the traders joined Millennium, a new competitor began mirroring their trades via the same broker infrastructure, including specific order types and risk throttles. The broker even paused execution due to the similarity in patterns. Jane Street's own profits reportedly collapsed concurrently.

The Millennium lawsuit makes the BANKNIFTY trades even more revealing. According to Jane Street’s own complaint, their core strategy was explicitly designed to detect and trade on skewed volatility surfaces. It wasn’t just about forecasting direction — it was about identifying mispriced convexity and exploiting it through engineered flow. The “expensive investigative trades” described in the lawsuit align almost perfectly with the behavior SEBI observed in India: buying up underlying stocks to shift implied vols, then harvesting the reversion through options.

In both cases, infrastructure mattered — Jane Street touted proprietary execution pipelines, broker logic, and near-automated rebalancing. The precision seen on January 17 — with flow ramping at open, peaking by 11:45, and reversing in size — fits the exact framework Jane Street claimed was stolen.

If Jane Street had a strategy designed to weaponize short-term volatility dislocations using index-linked options and coordinated flows in the underlying, SEBI’s findings suggest it was indeed deployed.

Subscribe to SpotGamma's high frequency expert options analysis here...

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 18:25

Syria Wants Lebanon's Tripoli In Swap For Israel-Held Golan Heights

Syria Wants Lebanon's Tripoli In Swap For Israel-Held Golan Heights

Amid ongoing talks with Israel, Syria's new Islamist-led government is considering a scenario in which it would relinquish claims to most of the Golan Heights to Israel, in exchange for carving the city of Tripoli and surrounding territory out of Lebanon and making it part of Syria. The development was first reported by Israel's i24News, which didn't address the question of how Israel would have any authority to trade another country's territory.  

Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967's Six-Day War and annexed it in 1981. In 2019, the Trump administration became the first country to recognize Israel's sovereignty over the 700 square miles of strategically-important land. Six years later, the United States still stands alone in doing so, as Israel's annexation is widely seen as a violation of international law and the United Nations charter. Following Assad's collapse, the Israeli army raced into Syria and seized what had been a demilitarized, UN-monitored "buffer zone" under a 1974 ceasefire agreement, and also ventured beyond it. Israel did so despite assurances from the new Syrian government's assurance that it would honor the 1974 agreement. Other violations of Syrian territory has been part of the Israeli routine for years, with periodic bombings that have continued after the fall of Assad.

Now, the two governments are engaged in what an Israeli official characterizes as "advanced talks" on a bilateral security agreement. According to a source close to President Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria is demanding that Israel part with at least a portion of the Golan Heights, and has thrown two scenarios on the table: 

Scenario 1: Israel would retain strategic areas in the Golan Heights equivalent to one-third of its territory, hand over a third to Syria, and lease another third from Syria for a period of 25 years.

Scenario 2: Israel keeps two-thirds of the Golan Heights, and hands over the remaining third to Syria, with the possibility of its lease. Under this scenario, the Lebanese city of Tripoli, close to the Lebanese-Syrian border, and possibly other Lebanese territories in the north of the country and the Beqaa Valley, would be handed over to Syria.  -i24News.

In May, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hosted President Trump and new Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa (White House photo)

"There is no such thing as peace for free," said the Syrian government source, adding some concession by Israel on the Golan Heights is essential to al-Sharaa from the perspective of domestic politics: "Al-Sharaa would likely face significant internal resistance should he fail to [secure the return of some territory]." 

In addition to the port city of Tripoli, Syria is angling to take over surrounding Sunni-dominated Lebanese territory. According to one analysis, here's how Lebanon's population breaks down along religious lines: 32% Shia Muslim, 31% Sunni Muslim, 31% Christian and 6% Druze Muslim. However, Tripoli is something on the order of 81% Sunni Muslim. The city and surrounding territory were removed from Syria when the state of Lebanon was formed by France in 1920, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Tripoli is Lebanon's second-largest city with a population of about 229,000, and is home to an important seaport.  

Tripoli is Lebanon's second-largest city, and began as a Phoenician colony in the 8th or 9th century BC 

The idea of a swath of Lebanon being carved off and handed over to an extremist government dominated by members of an al-Qaeda offshoot is certain to raise eyebrows -- most of all, because Lebanon is not a party to the discussions. While the Lebanese government has yet to issue a statement about the report, Ashraf Rifi, a member of the Lebanese parliament who represents Tripoli, dismissed the idea, telling the state-run National News Agency: 

"Syria is not giving up the Golan, and it is not engaging in any barter. Al-Fayhaa [a union of municipalities that includes Tripoli, Mina and Baddawi] is Lebanese, Lebanese, Lebanese — Tripoli is Lebanese and proud of its identity. The 10,452 square kilometers [of Lebanon] constitute a final homeland for us and all its people. Period.”

We'll have to see if the State of Israel somehow manages to have the last word on Tripoli's future.  

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 18:00

Syria Wants Lebanon's Tripoli In Swap For Israel-Held Golan Heights

Syria Wants Lebanon's Tripoli In Swap For Israel-Held Golan Heights

Amid ongoing talks with Israel, Syria's new Islamist-led government is considering a scenario in which it would relinquish claims to most of the Golan Heights to Israel, in exchange for carving the city of Tripoli and surrounding territory out of Lebanon and making it part of Syria. The development was first reported by Israel's i24News, which didn't address the question of how Israel would have any authority to trade another country's territory.  

Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967's Six-Day War and annexed it in 1981. In 2019, the Trump administration became the first country to recognize Israel's sovereignty over the 700 square miles of strategically-important land. Six years later, the United States still stands alone in doing so, as Israel's annexation is widely seen as a violation of international law and the United Nations charter. Following Assad's collapse, the Israeli army raced into Syria and seized what had been a demilitarized, UN-monitored "buffer zone" under a 1974 ceasefire agreement, and also ventured beyond it. Israel did so despite assurances from the new Syrian government's assurance that it would honor the 1974 agreement. Other violations of Syrian territory has been part of the Israeli routine for years, with periodic bombings that have continued after the fall of Assad.

Now, the two governments are engaged in what an Israeli official characterizes as "advanced talks" on a bilateral security agreement. According to a source close to President Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria is demanding that Israel part with at least a portion of the Golan Heights, and has thrown two scenarios on the table: 

Scenario 1: Israel would retain strategic areas in the Golan Heights equivalent to one-third of its territory, hand over a third to Syria, and lease another third from Syria for a period of 25 years.

Scenario 2: Israel keeps two-thirds of the Golan Heights, and hands over the remaining third to Syria, with the possibility of its lease. Under this scenario, the Lebanese city of Tripoli, close to the Lebanese-Syrian border, and possibly other Lebanese territories in the north of the country and the Beqaa Valley, would be handed over to Syria.  -i24News.

In May, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hosted President Trump and new Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa (White House photo)

"There is no such thing as peace for free," said the Syrian government source, adding some concession by Israel on the Golan Heights is essential to al-Sharaa from the perspective of domestic politics: "Al-Sharaa would likely face significant internal resistance should he fail to [secure the return of some territory]." 

In addition to the port city of Tripoli, Syria is angling to take over surrounding Sunni-dominated Lebanese territory. According to one analysis, here's how Lebanon's population breaks down along religious lines: 32% Shia Muslim, 31% Sunni Muslim, 31% Christian and 6% Druze Muslim. However, Tripoli is something on the order of 81% Sunni Muslim. The city and surrounding territory were removed from Syria when the state of Lebanon was formed by France in 1920, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Tripoli is Lebanon's second-largest city with a population of about 229,000, and is home to an important seaport.  

Tripoli is Lebanon's second-largest city, and began as a Phoenician colony in the 8th or 9th century BC 

The idea of a swath of Lebanon being carved off and handed over to an extremist government dominated by members of an al-Qaeda offshoot is certain to raise eyebrows -- most of all, because Lebanon is not a party to the discussions. While the Lebanese government has yet to issue a statement about the report, Ashraf Rifi, a member of the Lebanese parliament who represents Tripoli, dismissed the idea, telling the state-run National News Agency: 

"Syria is not giving up the Golan, and it is not engaging in any barter. Al-Fayhaa [a union of municipalities that includes Tripoli, Mina and Baddawi] is Lebanese, Lebanese, Lebanese — Tripoli is Lebanese and proud of its identity. The 10,452 square kilometers [of Lebanon] constitute a final homeland for us and all its people. Period.”

We'll have to see if the State of Israel somehow manages to have the last word on Tripoli's future.  

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 18:00

Doctor Faces 35 Years In Prison For Issuing COVID-19 Cards To No-Vax Patients

Doctor Faces 35 Years In Prison For Issuing COVID-19 Cards To No-Vax Patients

Via Died Suddenly on X,

Vero Beach, Fla. - Utah plastic surgeon Dr. Kirk Moore is facing thirty five years in federal prison for destroying thousands of vials of COVID-19 vaccine, giving his patients vaccine cards without taking the shots, and injecting saline into children whose parents wanted them to believe they got vaccinated without risking the deadly side effects.

Dr. Michael Kirk Moore Jr., 58, who operates his practice Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah, Inc. in Salt Lake County, Utah, begins his trial on Monday, July 7, 2025, at the Orrin G. Hatch U.S. Courthouse, located at 351 S. West Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah.

As of this writing, a 'GiveSendGo' donation campaign for him is at just under $140,000

A rally that day at the steps of the courthouse at 350 South Maine Street, Salt Lake City, UT, is being organized by

We Are The People Utah

and will include veterans of the health freedom movement, such as vaccine safety activist Robert Scott Bell, as well as the team that produced the film Died Suddenly, Dr. Moore’s son Michael, Jason Preston, host of the organizing group, and Mike Schultz, the speaker Utah’s House of Representatives

Countless other prominent figures in the MAHA sphere, such as Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, will be joining online to stand with Dr. Moore.

Follow @DiedSuddenly_ on X for updates over the next three weeks as the trial progresses.

The charges against Dr. Moore were filled in 2023 by the Department of Justice under Joe Biden, and have not been dropped yet by President Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has not formally intervened, despite his agency’s Inspector General’s involvement, but did publicly expressed his support in April of this year, saying on his government verified X account, “Dr. Moore deserves a medal for his courage and commitment to healing.”

Officially, Dr. Moore and his co-defendant, are being charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to convert, sell, convey, and dispose of government property; and conversion, sale, conveyance, and disposal of government property and aiding and abetting.

The “government property” being referred to is $28,028.50 worth of “government-provided COVID-19 vaccines”, also referred to by Pfizer as “government prototypes” due to their experimental, untested, and dangerous nature.

Dr. Moore is also accused of specifically distributing at least 1,937 “fraudulently completed vaccination record cards” to his patients, none of which are testifying for or against him in this case, and also administering saline shots to some of their kids, admitted by the DOJ to have been carried out with the full knowledge and consent of their parents, so their children would actually believe and act as if they were vaccinated, and not have to lie to live a normal life with their friends amidst the pandemic mandates and madness.

Dr. Moore was even arrested initially when the charges were made official in 2023.

“In a blatant act of intimidation and punitive cruelty, Dr. Moore was arrested and incarcerated for 22 days—isolated for 22 hours each day—merely for attempting to communicate essential court information to co-defendants,” Dr. Margaret Aranda, who has followed the case closely, said on Substack.

“Kirk Moore offered his patients a choice when others wouldn’t,” Dr. Bowden said of the doctors couregaous stand. “He received no compensation for his care and has paid a tremendous price for honoring his patients’ fundamental right to bodily autonomy.”

Despite the aggressive and nastily toned characterization of Dr. Moore by the DOJ, he has no criminal record, is a devoted father raising two children alone after tragically losing his ex-wife to suicide in 2019, and is a decorated U.S. Navy Flight Surgeon who has tirelessly cared for patients throughout his career.

“Amid the COVID-19 crisis, he courageously provided free medical care to those in need, making house calls and offering essential treatments without compensation,” Dr. Margaret Aranda said on Substack. “The individuals who turned to Dr. Moore did not do so lightly, nor did they seek refuge merely for convenience or leisure. These were men and women whose fundamental constitutional rights to medical autonomy were being compromised. They faced profound and life-altering threats: military personnel urgently seeking help as they faced imminent deployment—being unjustly threatened with court martial unless vaccinated; brave individuals who, within hours of seeing Dr. Moore, would leave to defend our nation’s freedom. Others were desperately awaiting life-saving organ transplants, yet cruelly denied these procedures due solely to their vaccination status, forced into a devastating choice between their beliefs and their very lives.”

“Dr. Moore provided these individuals with a chance to uphold their deeply held personal convictions while safeguarding their futures,” Dr. Aranda pointedly concluded.

The U.S. government team, previously headed by Biden-appointed prosecutor U.S. Attorney Trina A. Higgins, is now being overseen by Felice John Viti, Acting-U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah, who previously served on the Counterterrorism Section of the National Security Division and has investigated terrorists in war zones for most of his career.

And prepare for war is exactly what the U.S. did in this case, involving everything short of the DOD, such as the Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS-OIG), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division and the FBI.

This war footing has also had a chilling effect on the courtroom and the overseeing justice, Judge Howard C. Nielson, Jr., a Trump appointee in 2017 and former member of the Federalist Society, who has instructed the jury and opposing councils to not mention vaccines, covid-19, alleged “medical misinformation” and other details about Dr. Moore’s intentions and safety concerns, because it may “poison the jury pool.”

“Shockingly, the prosecution has moved to deny Dr. Moore and his co-defendants their fundamental right to present a necessity defense—an essential opportunity to demonstrate that their actions were taken in good faith to prevent greater harm,” Dr. Aranda said. “Furthermore, the prosecution seeks to exclude testimony from patients harmed by COVID-19 vaccines, silencing crucial voices and denying the jury critical context. Such actions suggest not justice, but an orchestrated attempt to suppress evidence that might validate Dr. Moore’s ethically driven decisions.”

Dr. Moore is also under surveillance by the Trump DOJ.

“When they threw me in jail for contacting my co-defendant one of the further restrictions that I had for pre-trial release was only to communicate via text message and email,” Dr. Moore told this reporter. “I had sent them a message on Signal. They thought I was trying to hide communications. They put monitoring on my phones.”

If you’d like to hear directly from Dr. Moore about his case and defense, watch his interview here on X with the Died Suddenly team, one of his last before the beginning of the trial. (or Rumble here)

Due to the case being held in Federal court and not State, no livestream or recordings will be available throughout the trial, and unless you are physically in the courtroom, or part of the defense or prosecution teams, the public will not have timely access to developments or transcripts. Because of this, the Died Suddenly team is closely considering attending the trial in person as court reporters, to provide crucial updates for the American people, whose liberties are truly on trial in this case.

“Before Fauci, before any pharmaceutical company, the U.S. government chose to prosecute a doctor that honored his oath, to do no harm to his patients,” Matthew Skow, the award winning film maker of Died Suddenly and partner of Gateway Studios, said after learning the details of Dr. Moore’s case.

The line team of prosecutors are led by Todd Bouton, a former federal judge, who joined the DOJ at the height of the pandemic to pursue COVID-related and healthcare fraud, and his assistants are Jacob Strain, and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Sachiko Jepson.

Constitutional Attorney Jonathan W. Emord says the case is a prime opportunity for dismissal, and if convicted, President Trump should at the minimum consider pardoning Dr. Moore, especially based on his past statements, criticizing COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccination mandates, often framing them as overreaches of government authority or threats to personal freedom.

“The left wing lunatics are trying very hard to bring back COVID lockdowns and mandates with all of their sudden fearmongering about the new variants that are coming,” President Trump said in a campaign video before the 2024 election, condemning the same tyrannical henchmen now gathering against Dr. Moore. “They want to restart the COVID hysteria so they can justify more lockdowns, more censorship, more illegal dropboxes, more mail-in ballots and trillions of dollars in payoffs to their political allies.”

“Every COVID tyrant who wants to take away our freedom,” President Trump said, addressing those who sought to mandate the same Covid-19 vaccines that Dr. Moore refused to administer to patients. “Hear these words: We will not comply. So don't even think about it. We will not shut down our schools. We will not accept your lockdowns. We will not abide by your mask mandates and we will not tolerate your vaccine mandates.”

You can watch President Trump’s statement here for yourself.

President Trump’s words and Dr. Moore’s actions are only further justified by the FDA’s decision to add a new safety warning label to all mRNA COVID vaccines, stating the extremely high risk of Myocarditis and long term Heart Effects in young men who take the shots and boosters.

The Hippocratic Oath that all doctors ascribe to, and Dr. Moore was following, says to prescribe only beneficial treatments, according to his abilities and judgment; to refrain from causing harm or hurt; and to live an exemplary personal and professional life.

If the shots now officially cause myocarditis, wouldn’t refraining from administering them according to one’s judgment, be refraining from causing harm or hurt, and be the best example of living an exemplary personal and professional life?

You can submit public comment by calling DOJ Public Affairs Specialist Felicia Martinez at (801) 325-3237 or email at Felicia.martinez@usdoj.gov

Please share this article with your doctor, your friends, and your family. This case is proof the pandemic madness is not over, and if this trial is allowed to continue and result in the unjust conviction of Dr. Moore, no doctor, patient, or parent is safe to live their conscience and by common sense in the United States of America.

Join us with the battle cry: “No Moore Tyranny”

Support Dr. Moore’s legal fight by donating here.

This report was produced by investigative journalist Edward Szall, a producer with the Died Suddenly team. If you have any tips, information, or comment please post below, or email me at Edward.r.szall@gmail.com If you enjoyed this report and others posted by the team, consider supporting our latest film project, Died Suddenly 2: Nano Sapiens, at DS2NANO.COM

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 17:40

"Runaway Spending": Canada on Track for $92 Billion Deficit, Think Tank Projects

"Runaway Spending": Canada on Track for $92 Billion Deficit, Think Tank Projects

The federal government is on pace to post a $92-billion deficit this fiscal year — nearly double what was projected just four months ago, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. If accurate, it would mark the second-largest deficit in Canadian history, trailing only the $327.7-billion shortfall of 2020-21 during the pandemic, according to National Post.

“The picture is definitely not pretty,” said Alexandre Laurin, C.D. Howe’s vice-president, who co-authored the report with William Robson and Don Drummond.

The think tank now forecasts annual deficits of over $77 billion for the next four years, far higher than the government’s projections in its most recent budget — which is now more than a year old. The report criticizes the government’s delay in tabling a new budget, saying, “Delaying a budget until the fiscal year is more than half over is never good, but Canada’s current high-spending trajectory makes this delay especially bad.”

National Post writes C.D. Howe attributes the worsening outlook to rising defence spending, Trump-era tariffs, tax cuts, and the scrapped digital services tax. It also questions whether promised revenue boosts from fines, penalties, and savings will materialize.

The report notes Ottawa is making major fiscal commitments without disclosing key figures, including the expected tax intake, spending levels, and future interest payments. “Ottawa is making costly commitments… without showing key numbers to the public,” it warns.

“It is widely accepted that Canada’s economy is at a critical crossroads,” the authors write. “So are Canada’s finances – beyond the economic drag of high deficits and rising debt, it is unfair to pass these burdens on to the current young and future generations.”

In contrast, the Parliamentary Budget Officer had projected in March that the federal deficit would shrink to $50.1 billion this year, with continued improvements in future years — assuming no major new spending or tax cuts.

C.D. Howe recommends the government cut operating costs, abandon some costly platform promises, consider increasing less harmful taxes like the GST, and reduce federal transfers. It also rejects Ottawa’s plan to separate operating and capital budgets: “The large deficits projected in this update cannot be downplayed or disguised by dividing the budget into two new categories.”

The report concludes that greater transparency is essential: “The government must improve its accountability by sharing its revenue and spending figures with taxpayers.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 17:20

US Insurers Are Refusing To Cover Climate-Change Risk-Zones

US Insurers Are Refusing To Cover Climate-Change Risk-Zones

Authored by Felicity Bradstock via OilPrice.com,

  • U.S. insurers are rapidly pulling coverage from homes in high-risk climate zones, particularly in California, Florida, and North Carolina.

  • Millions of homeowners are facing nonrenewals, impacting their ability to secure mortgages and causing housing market instability.

  • Government and local efforts are underway to mitigate risks and persuade insurers to continue coverage, but significant gaps remain.

As countries worldwide experience more regular extreme weather events, insurers have become more reluctant to cover properties in high-risk areas. However, without insurance, it is impossible for many people to gain access to mortgage financing. We are seeing an insurance crisis in the United States, as insurers are becoming less likely to offer coverage for homes in certain areas, particularly those that have experienced natural disasters, such as flooding and wildfire, in recent years. 

Between 2018 and December 2024, over 1.9 million home insurance contracts were “nonrenewed”, meaning they came to an end. The nonrenewal rate tripled or more in over 200 U.S. counties, according to a congressional report. These figures became clear following an investigation spurred by the Senate Budget Committee, which demanded in November 2023 that the largest U.S. insurance companies provide the number of nonrenewals by county and year.

Some states and cities are seeing greater nonrenewal rates than others, particularly those at greater risk of fire, flood, hurricanes and other severe weather events. Although there is still a lack of information on the reason behind the nonrenewals, the countrywide map of nonrenewals strongly reflects the climate crisis as it is being seen across the U.S. Some of the areas most affected include California, Florida, and North Carolina.

Following the publication of the report, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said, “The climate crisis that is coming our way is not just about polar bears, and it’s not just about green jobs.”

Whitehouse added, “It actually is coming through your mail slot, in the form of insurance cancellations, insurance nonrenewals and dramatic increases in insurance costs.”

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in 2024, there were 27 individual weather and climate disasters, coming only behind the record-setting 28 events in 2023. Last year was the fourth-costliest year on record in terms of these types of events, with a total cost of approximately $182.7 billion, coming after 2017 ($395.9 billion), 2005 ($268.5 billion), and 2022 ($183.6 billion). The 2024 weather events included storms, wildfires, droughts, flooding, tornadoes, tropical cyclones and other types of extreme weather. 

In addition to considering which areas are “high risk”, insurers also assess the building materials used for construction. Many mobile or manufactured homes are not covered by insurers. Companies may also impose restrictions on houses constructed out of wood and other fire-prone materials. However, even states with strict building codes are seeing more coverage denials. In California, which has strict building codes to mitigate wildfire risk, insurers have been increasingly rejecting requests for coverage. In certain counties, nonrenewal rates have risen by over 500 percent since 2018. 

The government has started to respond to the problem in some areas of the country. For example, in December, officials announced that they would make it easier for insurers to increase rates, but in exchange, they must agree to continue insuring consumers in fire-prone areas. Other state and local governments are carrying out prescribed burns in residential areas, as well as clearing vegetation close to houses, to reduce the risk of wildfire spread in these areas. 

Some companies have halted new insurance policies in certain parts of the country, such as AllState. In 2022, AllState paused the sale of new home and condo insurance policies in California. A spokesperson for the firm stated, “Our payments to help California residents recover from accidents and disasters have increased significantly in recent years due to higher repair costs and more frequent and severe weather… We continue to offer coverage to most existing home insurance customers.” 

State Farm, one of the biggest insurance providers in the U.S., followed suit in 2023 by halting the sale of new housing insurance products in California. In Florida, by the spring of 2024, at least 12 insurance companies had stopped selling housing insurance in the state. Farmers Insurance stated upon withdrawing from Florida, “This business decision was necessary to effectively manage risk exposure.”

A 2024 report by the non-profit First Street Foundation, showed that 23.9 million properties in the U.S. were at risk from damaging winds, 4.4 million properties were at risk from wildfire, and a further 12 million properties were at significant risk of flooding – in addition to properties in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema)'s Special Flood Hazard Areas. The report stated, “Private insurance companies are effectively labelling areas as uninsurable.”

The result of the withdrawal of insurance companies from certain parts of the country is the inability for consumers to get a mortgage, meaning fewer people can buy a house. As houses sit empty, it drives down property prices in the area and leads to less tax revenue being collected to invest in services. Many communities are facing these consequences and feel left behind.

If the U.S. government does not take action to mitigate the risk of the impact of extreme weather events in these areas or encourage insurers to continue covering high-risk areas, this will happen to a greater number of communities across the country.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 17:00

Cotati Man Gets DUI After 70 Empty Bud Light Cans Found In His Car

Cotati Man Gets DUI After 70 Empty Bud Light Cans Found In His Car

We're not really sure you can call it a "suspected" DUI at this point...

But that's how it was reported when a driver in California was taken into custody for DUI after failing a field sobriety test and being found with dozens of empty beer cans in his vehicle, according to police.

The Cotati Police Department said officers pulled the driver over on Sunday night after noticing he was “struggling to maintain their travel plans” , according to KBTX.

During the stop, they spotted an open alcohol container in the vehicle’s cupholder.

KBTX reported that following a field sobriety evaluation, officers determined the driver’s blood alcohol content was more than three times the legal limit. He was arrested for driving under the influence and for operating a vehicle with a suspended license — a suspension stemming from a previous DUI offense.

During a subsequent search of the SUV, authorities allegedly discovered “more than 70 empty Bud Light cans,” according to the department.

“We want to remind everyone that drinking and driving is not worth it! The outcome could have been much worse had our officers not stopped the driver,” the Cotati Police Department stated.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 16:40

"Who Knows What To Believe These Days..."

"Who Knows What To Believe These Days..."

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

Cage Match!

“...[W}e are closing in on more disclosures and fixing past wrongs to personnel. We’re making sure this is done correctly. But it’s absolutely getting done.”

 - Dan Bongino, Deputy Director, FBI

Who knows what to believe these days? Well, what would you expect after years, even decades, of anti-reality operations by everyone from the CIA to The New York Times to Harvard U. Is it any wonder that reality-optionality is making the people both apathetic and insane?

We are told now by the FBI that there is no evidence that Jeffrey Epstein ran a blackmail operation against the politicos of Western Civ, or that a “client list” existed, or that JE was murdered in his jail cell. It well might be true that there is no evidence, strictly speaking.

Messrs. Patel and Bongino, coming into office rather late in the Epstein game, were apparently left with big bag of nuthin. What else can they truthfully report? So, they had to put it out there, knowing a whole lot of people would be miffed. “We’ve got nuthin, sorry.” Were they chagrined to do that? Evidently so. Of course, this Epstein business has been going on for years and years and it is certainly possible that the most damning evidence has been destroyed by interested parties.

Personally, I find it implausible that absolutely nothing ever leaked, no video of, say, Tony Blair or Bill Clinton violating a child, if it ever happened. Everything else in our world leaks, eventually. And there were supposedly how many cameras around the Epstein properties, and how many thousands of hours of video recordings? There is more video of Bigfoot than of compromised Epstein bigshots. Just sayin’.

AG Pam Bondi, the FBIs boss, also has some ‘splainin’ to do. In February, she claimed to have the Epstein client list “sitting on my desk right now to review,” and hinted it would be released shortly. That material, when released, turned out to be the old dog-eared flight logs that have been circulating through every news outlet for years. Did she not know the difference between an alleged “client list” and the old flight logs? Let’s face it: seems kind of dumb. . . seems like the AG got played. . . and now the mob on “X” is having sport with her.

Among the miffed, apparently, is Elon Musk. At the height of his feud with Mr. Trump, on June 5, Elon put out a message on his “X” platform saying, "@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!". This intemperate utterance naturally prompts you to wonder: how (or what) might Elon know about any supposed Epstein evidence? At this point, the FBI might send somebody to inquire. Did Elon, who has more money than even Scrooge McDuck, somehow manage to buy up all those alleged blackmail tapes? Does he otherwise know where they might have disappeared to? Has he ever seen anything? Anyway, he didn’t produce any actual evidence.

Is Elon losing it, a little bit. His grip, that is. Mr. Trump thinks so. He declared over the weekend that Elon has “gone off the rails” . . . has become “a train wreck.” Well, what you can see in this very public, very regrettable cage-match between two giant public personalities is that Elon has lost his cool and the president has not.

For one thing, Elon is apparently incensed over the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) just signed into law because it ends the electric vehicle mandate left over from the “Joe Biden” regime, as well as the whopping $7,500 federal tax credit for new electric cars — loss of which which is apt to break Tesla’s business model. The bill also calls for sunsetting subsidies for battery production by 2028, meaning Tesla’s Powerwall business is likewise affected. Mr. Trump took pains to explain that he’d informed Elon from the get-go (and repeatedly) that all those subsidies were done for when he got elected.

Elon was visibly perturbed over the process that produced the OBBB, the proverbial political sausage-making (i.e., a nasty business you’d be appalled to watch). It appeared, he said, to un-do all of his DOGE spending cuts so laboriously made. Mainly, Elon deplored the failure to address the $36-trillion-plus national debt, widely recognized as a time-bomb on a short fuse liable to sink the whole USS United States. I will tell you a harsh truth: nobody will do anything about the national debt. The sheer math of our annual debt service is simply impossible. Our country is heading into some sort of bankruptcy proceeding, some kind of ferocious “work out” — as they say in the banking board-rooms.

Mr. Trump is betting that re-industrialization of the USA will produce enough of the right sort of growth — that is, production of real things of real value, as opposed to mere financial shenanigans — that the debt reckoning can be overcome somehow. Or mitigated. It’s a bold risk, and many pieces of the scheme are indeed falling into place: tariffs, bigly investment capital from foreigners, a general realignment of trade relations, tax reform, downsizing of government.

But a virulent opposition, the mad-dog remnants of the Democratic Party, seeks to wreck Mr. Trump’s program (and perhaps the USA altogether), and it is a miracle that the president has gotten this far with his plan. Personally, I’m doubtful that the energy resources will be there to underwrite this reindustrialization, but that is a topic for another day.

And now Elon, peeved as he is, proposes to bring another big obstacle onto the scene, his proposed new “American Party.” Looks like he is making a tactical blunder, and his distraught emotional demeanor suggests poor decision-making. Frankly, I’ve been concerned about Elon’s soundness-of-mind since he came on-board Mr. Trump’s band-wagon last summer. There was something peculiar about his spastic rompings on stage, his jerky movements, his garbly speeches. You wonder if all the talk about his world-beating “genius” has messed with his mind.

Also, frankly, I’ve long thought that attempting to colonize Mars was absurd, or at least premature. Shouldn’t we rather make an effort to demonstrate that we can live on this planet successfully before we venture off to a new one? After all, this Earth is perfectly suited to our needs and Mars is absolutely not. I doubt that even the most extreme transhuman program would avail to implant us up there.

To cut to the chase: the grandiosity of Elon’s plans, and the oddness of his public performances, suggests to me that he has gone a bit crazy in the pure sense of the word.

This new party he proposes looks like a crazy play by a crazy person. He can throw zillions of dollars into it, and create a whole lot of political mischief, but what would that prove?

How would that make him any better than such obvious villains as George Soros and Bill Gates?

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

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 16:20

"Who Knows What To Believe These Days..."

"Who Knows What To Believe These Days..."

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

Cage Match!

“...[W}e are closing in on more disclosures and fixing past wrongs to personnel. We’re making sure this is done correctly. But it’s absolutely getting done.”

 - Dan Bongino, Deputy Director, FBI

Who knows what to believe these days? Well, what would you expect after years, even decades, of anti-reality operations by everyone from the CIA to The New York Times to Harvard U. Is it any wonder that reality-optionality is making the people both apathetic and insane?

We are told now by the FBI that there is no evidence that Jeffrey Epstein ran a blackmail operation against the politicos of Western Civ, or that a “client list” existed, or that JE was murdered in his jail cell. It well might be true that there is no evidence, strictly speaking.

Messrs. Patel and Bongino, coming into office rather late in the Epstein game, were apparently left with big bag of nuthin. What else can they truthfully report? So, they had to put it out there, knowing a whole lot of people would be miffed. “We’ve got nuthin, sorry.” Were they chagrined to do that? Evidently so. Of course, this Epstein business has been going on for years and years and it is certainly possible that the most damning evidence has been destroyed by interested parties.

Personally, I find it implausible that absolutely nothing ever leaked, no video of, say, Tony Blair or Bill Clinton violating a child, if it ever happened. Everything else in our world leaks, eventually. And there were supposedly how many cameras around the Epstein properties, and how many thousands of hours of video recordings? There is more video of Bigfoot than of compromised Epstein bigshots. Just sayin’.

AG Pam Bondi, the FBIs boss, also has some ‘splainin’ to do. In February, she claimed to have the Epstein client list “sitting on my desk right now to review,” and hinted it would be released shortly. That material, when released, turned out to be the old dog-eared flight logs that have been circulating through every news outlet for years. Did she not know the difference between an alleged “client list” and the old flight logs? Let’s face it: seems kind of dumb. . . seems like the AG got played. . . and now the mob on “X” is having sport with her.

Among the miffed, apparently, is Elon Musk. At the height of his feud with Mr. Trump, on June 5, Elon put out a message on his “X” platform saying, "@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!". This intemperate utterance naturally prompts you to wonder: how (or what) might Elon know about any supposed Epstein evidence? At this point, the FBI might send somebody to inquire. Did Elon, who has more money than even Scrooge McDuck, somehow manage to buy up all those alleged blackmail tapes? Does he otherwise know where they might have disappeared to? Has he ever seen anything? Anyway, he didn’t produce any actual evidence.

Is Elon losing it, a little bit. His grip, that is. Mr. Trump thinks so. He declared over the weekend that Elon has “gone off the rails” . . . has become “a train wreck.” Well, what you can see in this very public, very regrettable cage-match between two giant public personalities is that Elon has lost his cool and the president has not.

For one thing, Elon is apparently incensed over the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) just signed into law because it ends the electric vehicle mandate left over from the “Joe Biden” regime, as well as the whopping $7,500 federal tax credit for new electric cars — loss of which which is apt to break Tesla’s business model. The bill also calls for sunsetting subsidies for battery production by 2028, meaning Tesla’s Powerwall business is likewise affected. Mr. Trump took pains to explain that he’d informed Elon from the get-go (and repeatedly) that all those subsidies were done for when he got elected.

Elon was visibly perturbed over the process that produced the OBBB, the proverbial political sausage-making (i.e., a nasty business you’d be appalled to watch). It appeared, he said, to un-do all of his DOGE spending cuts so laboriously made. Mainly, Elon deplored the failure to address the $36-trillion-plus national debt, widely recognized as a time-bomb on a short fuse liable to sink the whole USS United States. I will tell you a harsh truth: nobody will do anything about the national debt. The sheer math of our annual debt service is simply impossible. Our country is heading into some sort of bankruptcy proceeding, some kind of ferocious “work out” — as they say in the banking board-rooms.

Mr. Trump is betting that re-industrialization of the USA will produce enough of the right sort of growth — that is, production of real things of real value, as opposed to mere financial shenanigans — that the debt reckoning can be overcome somehow. Or mitigated. It’s a bold risk, and many pieces of the scheme are indeed falling into place: tariffs, bigly investment capital from foreigners, a general realignment of trade relations, tax reform, downsizing of government.

But a virulent opposition, the mad-dog remnants of the Democratic Party, seeks to wreck Mr. Trump’s program (and perhaps the USA altogether), and it is a miracle that the president has gotten this far with his plan. Personally, I’m doubtful that the energy resources will be there to underwrite this reindustrialization, but that is a topic for another day.

And now Elon, peeved as he is, proposes to bring another big obstacle onto the scene, his proposed new “American Party.” Looks like he is making a tactical blunder, and his distraught emotional demeanor suggests poor decision-making. Frankly, I’ve been concerned about Elon’s soundness-of-mind since he came on-board Mr. Trump’s band-wagon last summer. There was something peculiar about his spastic rompings on stage, his jerky movements, his garbly speeches. You wonder if all the talk about his world-beating “genius” has messed with his mind.

Also, frankly, I’ve long thought that attempting to colonize Mars was absurd, or at least premature. Shouldn’t we rather make an effort to demonstrate that we can live on this planet successfully before we venture off to a new one? After all, this Earth is perfectly suited to our needs and Mars is absolutely not. I doubt that even the most extreme transhuman program would avail to implant us up there.

To cut to the chase: the grandiosity of Elon’s plans, and the oddness of his public performances, suggests to me that he has gone a bit crazy in the pure sense of the word.

This new party he proposes looks like a crazy play by a crazy person. He can throw zillions of dollars into it, and create a whole lot of political mischief, but what would that prove?

How would that make him any better than such obvious villains as George Soros and Bill Gates?

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

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 16:20

'Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste': Press & Pundits Push False Story On Trump Cuts Causing Texas Tragedy

'Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste': Press & Pundits Push False Story On Trump Cuts Causing Texas Tragedy

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Democratic strategist and former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel once stated that “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

That philosophy seemed to be the playbook for the media and pundits immediately after the flood in Texas as many rushed to claim that it was caused by Trump budget cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS).

From George Stephanopoulos to Rosie O’Donnell, the hoax was spread that there was an understaffing at the NWS that may have caused these deaths.

It did not matter that it was an easy matter to confirm or that the underlying claims of understaffing the NWS team were false.

The weaponization of such tragedies has become commonplace in American politics.

Previously, Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer bizarrely attempted to blame the crash of a Mexican ship in New York and air accidents around the world on Trump cuts.There are legitimate reasons to question whether cuts to agencies like the NWS might impact key programs, such as weather warning systems. There are also questions about whether long-standing forecast modeling failed to capture the severity of this particularly storm. However, basic honesty and decency would demand a modicum of inquiry before blaming the NWS for a failure that caused mass deaths, including a large number of children.

Indeed, the rush to claim that the tragedy was caused by understaffing can make it more difficult to find any real failures in the system. It is also possible that this was a convergence of weather systems that happened so fast (and late at night) that few citizens could take meaningful action. Some reports indicate that the river rose by 20 feet in only 45 minutes.Nevertheless, many rushed to take political advantage of the tragedy. Grant Stern, the executive editor of Occupy Democrats wrote on X “It only took 9 days for Trump’s cuts to the [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] to kill dozens of children in Texas when Tropical Storm Barry landed this week.”

In reality, the NWS had extra personnel working the storm and issued the first warning 12 hours before the flood.

Moreover, even assuming that the cuts to the NWS might impact warning systems, they are not even scheduled to take effect until next year. While there were retirements and resignations early in the Trump Administration, there is no evidence that those departures are impacting weather warnings, let alone this emergency.

However, the media pounced as the death toll rose. Even after the Administration refuted the false claims, they were still being promulgated by the press. On ABC’s This Week George Stephanopoulos ominously declared “We’re also learning there were significant staffing shortfalls to the National Weather Services offices in the region.”

Whatever “shortfalls” are being reported “in the region”, they did not appear to impact the early warning given 12 hours earlier or the fact that there were extra, not fewer, staffers working the storm.

Again, none of this mattered. Politicians and pundits, such as Hakeem Jeffries and Adam Kinzinger, joined the chorus to suggest that cuts would make this a repeated failure.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) told CNN Sunday the NWS should be investigated. “I don’t think it’s helpful to have missing key personnel from the National Weather Service not in place to help prevent these tragedies.”

As parents mourned dead children, commentators rushed to lay the losses at the feet of the Administration. Ron Filipkowski, the editor-in-chief of MediasTouchNews, wrote “The people in Texas voted for government services controlled by Donald Trump and Greg Abbott. That is exactly what they (sic) getting.”

Rachel Bitecofer, assistant director at Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Public Policy declared “What has happened to the girls at Camp Mystic is EXACTLY what one of the country’s best meteorologists, John Morales, warned would happen. Trump’s cuts to the NOAA & NWS have critically impacted storm prediction nationwide.”

Rosie O’Donnell, who famously fled the United States for the safety of Ireland after the election, added to the false narrative:

“What a horror story in Texas. When the president guts all of the early warning systems and the weathering forecast abilities of the government, these are the results that we’re going to start to see on a daily basis.”

There are obvious familiar aspects to the news coverage.

It takes very little for the media to seed a false, viral story. It quickly enters the echo chamber and is repeated on countless social media sites.

When it is finally debunked, the media just shrugs and walks away.

Whether it was the false story about agents whipping migrants in Texas or the photo op claim in Lafayette Park, false stories were disproven only to have a collective shrug from those who spread them.

Heading into the presidential debate, the White House and the media attacked Fox News and other outlets for “cheap fake” videos designed to make the President look confused and feeble. For months, politicians and pundits insisted that Biden was sharp and commanding in conversations even after Special Counsel Robert Hur cited his decline as a reason for not charging him criminally.

On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough stated “start your tape right now because I’m about to tell you the truth. And F— you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. Not a close second. And I have known him for years…If it weren’t the truth I wouldn’t say it.”

When the truth came out after the election loss, reporters ran around claiming that they were shocked by the fact that Biden was indeed mentally and physically diminished. By that point, it did not matter. Biden was out and the truth could be reported in a slew of belated books and articles.

Yet, some media outlets have refused to acknowledge false stories even after they were debunked. At the Washington Post, columnist Philip Bump previously had a meltdown in an interview when confronted about past false claims. After I wrote a column about the litany of such false claims, the Post surprised many of us by issuing a statement that it stood by all of Bump’s reporting, including false columns on the Lafayette Park protests, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and other stories. That was long after other media debunked the claims, but the Post stood by the false reporting.

Many media outlets pushed such stories because they knew that their readers want the claims to be true — and will not be outraged (or even convinced) when the stories are later debunked. Notably, when the New York Times recently ran a confirmed story that was negative for the Democratic mayoral nominee in New York, liberal readers and pundits were outraged.

Once again, we need to see what went wrong in Texas to try to avoid such tragedies in the future. However, the NWS appears to have done its job with adding extra staff and reportedly issuing the first warnings 12 hours in advance.  We need to look at precisely when those warnings were issued during the critical period and what information they conveyed. The hair-triggered response of the media to weaponize the tragedy should also be reviewed.

However, it is far more likely that there will be changes to emergency procedures than any serious change to journalistic practices.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 15:45

'Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste': Press & Pundits Push False Story On Trump Cuts Causing Texas Tragedy

'Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste': Press & Pundits Push False Story On Trump Cuts Causing Texas Tragedy

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Democratic strategist and former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel once stated that “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

That philosophy seemed to be the playbook for the media and pundits immediately after the flood in Texas as many rushed to claim that it was caused by Trump budget cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS).

From George Stephanopoulos to Rosie O’Donnell, the hoax was spread that there was an understaffing at the NWS that may have caused these deaths.

It did not matter that it was an easy matter to confirm or that the underlying claims of understaffing the NWS team were false.

The weaponization of such tragedies has become commonplace in American politics.

Previously, Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer bizarrely attempted to blame the crash of a Mexican ship in New York and air accidents around the world on Trump cuts.There are legitimate reasons to question whether cuts to agencies like the NWS might impact key programs, such as weather warning systems. There are also questions about whether long-standing forecast modeling failed to capture the severity of this particularly storm. However, basic honesty and decency would demand a modicum of inquiry before blaming the NWS for a failure that caused mass deaths, including a large number of children.

Indeed, the rush to claim that the tragedy was caused by understaffing can make it more difficult to find any real failures in the system. It is also possible that this was a convergence of weather systems that happened so fast (and late at night) that few citizens could take meaningful action. Some reports indicate that the river rose by 20 feet in only 45 minutes.Nevertheless, many rushed to take political advantage of the tragedy. Grant Stern, the executive editor of Occupy Democrats wrote on X “It only took 9 days for Trump’s cuts to the [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] to kill dozens of children in Texas when Tropical Storm Barry landed this week.”

In reality, the NWS had extra personnel working the storm and issued the first warning 12 hours before the flood.

Moreover, even assuming that the cuts to the NWS might impact warning systems, they are not even scheduled to take effect until next year. While there were retirements and resignations early in the Trump Administration, there is no evidence that those departures are impacting weather warnings, let alone this emergency.

However, the media pounced as the death toll rose. Even after the Administration refuted the false claims, they were still being promulgated by the press. On ABC’s This Week George Stephanopoulos ominously declared “We’re also learning there were significant staffing shortfalls to the National Weather Services offices in the region.”

Whatever “shortfalls” are being reported “in the region”, they did not appear to impact the early warning given 12 hours earlier or the fact that there were extra, not fewer, staffers working the storm.

Again, none of this mattered. Politicians and pundits, such as Hakeem Jeffries and Adam Kinzinger, joined the chorus to suggest that cuts would make this a repeated failure.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) told CNN Sunday the NWS should be investigated. “I don’t think it’s helpful to have missing key personnel from the National Weather Service not in place to help prevent these tragedies.”

As parents mourned dead children, commentators rushed to lay the losses at the feet of the Administration. Ron Filipkowski, the editor-in-chief of MediasTouchNews, wrote “The people in Texas voted for government services controlled by Donald Trump and Greg Abbott. That is exactly what they (sic) getting.”

Rachel Bitecofer, assistant director at Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Public Policy declared “What has happened to the girls at Camp Mystic is EXACTLY what one of the country’s best meteorologists, John Morales, warned would happen. Trump’s cuts to the NOAA & NWS have critically impacted storm prediction nationwide.”

Rosie O’Donnell, who famously fled the United States for the safety of Ireland after the election, added to the false narrative:

“What a horror story in Texas. When the president guts all of the early warning systems and the weathering forecast abilities of the government, these are the results that we’re going to start to see on a daily basis.”

There are obvious familiar aspects to the news coverage.

It takes very little for the media to seed a false, viral story. It quickly enters the echo chamber and is repeated on countless social media sites.

When it is finally debunked, the media just shrugs and walks away.

Whether it was the false story about agents whipping migrants in Texas or the photo op claim in Lafayette Park, false stories were disproven only to have a collective shrug from those who spread them.

Heading into the presidential debate, the White House and the media attacked Fox News and other outlets for “cheap fake” videos designed to make the President look confused and feeble. For months, politicians and pundits insisted that Biden was sharp and commanding in conversations even after Special Counsel Robert Hur cited his decline as a reason for not charging him criminally.

On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough stated “start your tape right now because I’m about to tell you the truth. And F— you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. Not a close second. And I have known him for years…If it weren’t the truth I wouldn’t say it.”

When the truth came out after the election loss, reporters ran around claiming that they were shocked by the fact that Biden was indeed mentally and physically diminished. By that point, it did not matter. Biden was out and the truth could be reported in a slew of belated books and articles.

Yet, some media outlets have refused to acknowledge false stories even after they were debunked. At the Washington Post, columnist Philip Bump previously had a meltdown in an interview when confronted about past false claims. After I wrote a column about the litany of such false claims, the Post surprised many of us by issuing a statement that it stood by all of Bump’s reporting, including false columns on the Lafayette Park protests, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and other stories. That was long after other media debunked the claims, but the Post stood by the false reporting.

Many media outlets pushed such stories because they knew that their readers want the claims to be true — and will not be outraged (or even convinced) when the stories are later debunked. Notably, when the New York Times recently ran a confirmed story that was negative for the Democratic mayoral nominee in New York, liberal readers and pundits were outraged.

Once again, we need to see what went wrong in Texas to try to avoid such tragedies in the future. However, the NWS appears to have done its job with adding extra staff and reportedly issuing the first warnings 12 hours in advance.  We need to look at precisely when those warnings were issued during the critical period and what information they conveyed. The hair-triggered response of the media to weaponize the tragedy should also be reviewed.

However, it is far more likely that there will be changes to emergency procedures than any serious change to journalistic practices.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 15:45

US Ends Foreign Terror Designation On Syria's HTS, Nearly 2 Months AFTER Trump Met Its Leader

US Ends Foreign Terror Designation On Syria's HTS, Nearly 2 Months AFTER Trump Met Its Leader

The United States announced Monday that has formally revoked the foreign terrorist organization designation for Syria's ruling Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, ironically coming nearly two months after President Trump met with its leader, Syria's self-declared interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa (formerly Abu Mohammad al-Jolani).

It's not just ironic, but scandalous, that Trump met with a US-designated terrorist during this Gulf tour while in Saudi Arabia. If any individual American citizen did the same, they would likely be investigated and prosecuted by the FBI. But Sharaa is the "former" al-Qaeda in Syria man who helped overthrow Bashar al-Assad, and that's apparently all that Washington cares about.

The newly published State Department memo, signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reads as follows: "In consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, I hereby revoke the designation of al-Nusra Front, also known as Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham."

The memo is actually dated to June 23, but has gone into effect at the time of publication.

Recall that Trump had gone so far as to praise al-Sharaa as a "young, attractive guy" who has a "real shot at doing a good job". There was no mention at the time of protecting some of the world's most ancient churches and Syria's sizeable Christian community.

The fruit of that 'good job' thus far has been a genocidal campaign launched against Alawites near Latakia, as well as attacks on churches, including last month's suicide bombing of St. Elias Orthodox Church in Damascus, which left at least 25 people - including children - dead. A group affiliated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham actually took responsibility. 

Why aren't Christian leaders in the West more vocal about the plight of Syria's blood-soaked churches?

Not only has Trump dropped sanctions on post-Assad Syria, but is even encouraging historic rapprochement and normalization with Israel:

Since assuming power, Sharaa has admitted that his government is holding "indirect talks" with Israel, and last week, Syrian authorities said they were willing to cooperate with Washington on reimplementing a 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel. 

Speaking earlier on Monday, the US special envoy to Syria and Lebanon, Tom Barrack, said "dialogue has started" between the two countries. 

Sharaa is likely to face opposition from his base and the broader Syrian population over a possible normalization deal, as Israel continues to wage war on hungry and besieged Palestinians in Gaza.

Sadly, the message from the White House seems to be that Syria should prioritize ending the long-running state of conflict with Israel, but there's been barely a peep about the massacres being conducted against Syria's ancient Christian, Alawite, and Druze populations.

But this was all about the US-Gulf-Israeli push for regime change, and Jolani is now their #1 terrorist 'man in Damascus'. Assad and the Syrian Army ultimately lost the proxy war which was waged since 2011, with billions of dollars sunk into the effort from the Gulf and Western alliance.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 15:25

US Ends Foreign Terror Designation On Syria's HTS, Nearly 2 Months AFTER Trump Met Its Leader

US Ends Foreign Terror Designation On Syria's HTS, Nearly 2 Months AFTER Trump Met Its Leader

The United States announced Monday that has formally revoked the foreign terrorist organization designation for Syria's ruling Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, ironically coming nearly two months after President Trump met with its leader, Syria's self-declared interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa (formerly Abu Mohammad al-Jolani).

It's not just ironic, but scandalous, that Trump met with a US-designated terrorist during this Gulf tour while in Saudi Arabia. If any individual American citizen did the same, they would likely be investigated and prosecuted by the FBI. But Sharaa is the "former" al-Qaeda in Syria man who helped overthrow Bashar al-Assad, and that's apparently all that Washington cares about.

The newly published State Department memo, signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reads as follows: "In consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, I hereby revoke the designation of al-Nusra Front, also known as Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham."

The memo is actually dated to June 23, but has gone into effect at the time of publication.

Recall that Trump had gone so far as to praise al-Sharaa as a "young, attractive guy" who has a "real shot at doing a good job". There was no mention at the time of protecting some of the world's most ancient churches and Syria's sizeable Christian community.

The fruit of that 'good job' thus far has been a genocidal campaign launched against Alawites near Latakia, as well as attacks on churches, including last month's suicide bombing of St. Elias Orthodox Church in Damascus, which left at least 25 people - including children - dead. A group affiliated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham actually took responsibility. 

Why aren't Christian leaders in the West more vocal about the plight of Syria's blood-soaked churches?

Not only has Trump dropped sanctions on post-Assad Syria, but is even encouraging historic rapprochement and normalization with Israel:

Since assuming power, Sharaa has admitted that his government is holding "indirect talks" with Israel, and last week, Syrian authorities said they were willing to cooperate with Washington on reimplementing a 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel. 

Speaking earlier on Monday, the US special envoy to Syria and Lebanon, Tom Barrack, said "dialogue has started" between the two countries. 

Sharaa is likely to face opposition from his base and the broader Syrian population over a possible normalization deal, as Israel continues to wage war on hungry and besieged Palestinians in Gaza.

Sadly, the message from the White House seems to be that Syria should prioritize ending the long-running state of conflict with Israel, but there's been barely a peep about the massacres being conducted against Syria's ancient Christian, Alawite, and Druze populations.

But this was all about the US-Gulf-Israeli push for regime change, and Jolani is now their #1 terrorist 'man in Damascus'. Assad and the Syrian Army ultimately lost the proxy war which was waged since 2011, with billions of dollars sunk into the effort from the Gulf and Western alliance.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 15:25

Goldman Sachs Expects Another OPEC+ Superhike In September

Goldman Sachs Expects Another OPEC+ Superhike In September

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

The OPEC+ producers are expected in August to agree on another superhike in production for September that would complete the unwinding of the 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) output cuts, Goldman Sachs said after the alliance surprised the market with a larger-than-forecast boost for August.

The OPEC+ group is set to unwind the last 550,000 bpd of the 2.2-million-bpd cut in September, the investment bank said in a weekend note.

On Saturday, the eight OPEC+ producers withholding supply to the market decided to ramp up oil production more aggressively than anticipated in August.

At the virtual meeting Saturday, the eight core members led by Saudi Arabia agreed to add 548,000 bpd to global supply—exceeding earlier expectations of a 411,000 bpd hike. The move sets the bloc on track to fully unwind 2.2 million bpd of prior cuts nearly a year ahead of schedule.

“Saturday's announcement to accelerate supply hikes increases our confidence that the shift, which we started flagging last summer, to a more long-run equilibrium focused on normalizing spare capacity and market share, supporting internal cohesion, and strategically disciplining US shale supply, is continuing,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a note carried by Reuters.

Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman cited “current healthy oil market fundamentals and steady global economic outlook”, as well as “low oil inventories”, for their decision to boost August production by more than previously expected.

The decision reflects short-term bullish fundamentals for this summer.

The superhike also reaffirms OPEC’s major pivot from defending oil prices to boosting output and market share for producers such as Saudi Arabia that have stuck to their quotas, and punishing producers that have overproduced and now have to forego most of their share of the production hike.

Of these overproducers, Iraq and Russia appear to be trying to fall in line, but Kazakhstan continues to defy OPEC+ and pumps hundreds of thousands of barrels per day above its output ceiling, citing its inability to force foreign oil majors to cut production from new projects.

The actual production increase from OPEC+ will be lower than the headline figure suggests, due to compensations for previous overproduction.

Nevertheless, the superhike in August – and possibly in September – would accelerate the market glut after peak summer demand starts to wane in the autumn and winter, analysts say.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 15:05

Goldman Sachs Expects Another OPEC+ Superhike In September

Goldman Sachs Expects Another OPEC+ Superhike In September

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

The OPEC+ producers are expected in August to agree on another superhike in production for September that would complete the unwinding of the 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) output cuts, Goldman Sachs said after the alliance surprised the market with a larger-than-forecast boost for August.

The OPEC+ group is set to unwind the last 550,000 bpd of the 2.2-million-bpd cut in September, the investment bank said in a weekend note.

On Saturday, the eight OPEC+ producers withholding supply to the market decided to ramp up oil production more aggressively than anticipated in August.

At the virtual meeting Saturday, the eight core members led by Saudi Arabia agreed to add 548,000 bpd to global supply—exceeding earlier expectations of a 411,000 bpd hike. The move sets the bloc on track to fully unwind 2.2 million bpd of prior cuts nearly a year ahead of schedule.

“Saturday's announcement to accelerate supply hikes increases our confidence that the shift, which we started flagging last summer, to a more long-run equilibrium focused on normalizing spare capacity and market share, supporting internal cohesion, and strategically disciplining US shale supply, is continuing,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a note carried by Reuters.

Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman cited “current healthy oil market fundamentals and steady global economic outlook”, as well as “low oil inventories”, for their decision to boost August production by more than previously expected.

The decision reflects short-term bullish fundamentals for this summer.

The superhike also reaffirms OPEC’s major pivot from defending oil prices to boosting output and market share for producers such as Saudi Arabia that have stuck to their quotas, and punishing producers that have overproduced and now have to forego most of their share of the production hike.

Of these overproducers, Iraq and Russia appear to be trying to fall in line, but Kazakhstan continues to defy OPEC+ and pumps hundreds of thousands of barrels per day above its output ceiling, citing its inability to force foreign oil majors to cut production from new projects.

The actual production increase from OPEC+ will be lower than the headline figure suggests, due to compensations for previous overproduction.

Nevertheless, the superhike in August – and possibly in September – would accelerate the market glut after peak summer demand starts to wane in the autumn and winter, analysts say.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 15:05

Trade Crackdown: 14 Countries Receive Tariff Letters Including Japan, South Korea, & Thailand

Trade Crackdown: 14 Countries Receive Tariff Letters Including Japan, South Korea, & Thailand

Update (1422ET): By late afternoon, the White House social media team had posted a total of seven trade warning letters, with the latest addressed to Malaysia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Serbia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Tunisia. Earlier in the day, letters to Japan and South Korea were also made public on Truth Social.

Here are the trade warning letters per country:

  1. Malaysia

  2. Kazakhstan

  3. South Africa

  4. Laos

  5. Myanmar

  6. South Korea

  7. Japan

  8. Tunisia

  9. Thailand

  10. Cambodia

  11. Serbia

  12. Bangladesh

  13. Indonesia

  14. Bosnia and Herzegovina

The remaining letters, as noted by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt earlier, will be released via Truth Social. 

*   *   *

Update (1345ET):

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that, alongside Japan and South Korea, a dozen additional countries will soon receive similar trade warning letters, all of which will be publicly posted on President Trump's Truth Social account.

Leavitt also stated that the tariff implementation deadline has been moved from July 9 to August 1, giving the countries that receive letters a clear ultimatum: negotiate now.

Latest headlines:

  • LEAVITT: THERE WILL BE 12 OTHER COUNTRIES GETTING NOTIFICATION

  • LEAVITT: TRUMP TO SIGN ACTION TODAY DELAYING TARIFFS

  • LEAVITT: LETTERS WILL BE POSTED TO TRUTH SOCIAL

  • LEAVITT: TRUMP ALSO SIGNING ORDER DELAYING TARIFFS TO AUG 1

*   *   * 

 

Update (1246ET):

U.S. main equity indexes, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, fell to session lows after the Trump administration released tariff letters to a handful of countries, citing "persistent trade imbalances" and the failure to reach trade deals before the July 9 deadline. The tariffs are expected to take effect on August 1.

The first two trade letters were sent to South Korea and Japan, imposing a 25% tariff on all goods, effective August 1. 

Here are the key points from the letter addressed to South Korea that was posted on President Trump's Truth Social page:

  • The U.S. views the trade relationship as unbalanced and non-reciprocal.

  • The 25% tariff applies to all Korean goods, unless they are produced within the U.S.

  • The tariff is separate from sectoral tariffs and will be increased if Korea retaliates with its own tariff hikes.

  • The U.S. encourages Korea to open its markets and remove trade barriers—offering a possible tariff reduction if this happens.

  • The trade deficit is framed as a national security threat. 

Full Letter US Sent South Korea

Here are the key points from the letter addressed to Japan that that was posted on Trump's Truth Social page:

  • A 25% tariff will be imposed on all Japanese products entering the U.S. starting August 1, 2025.

  • This tariff applies separately from all existing sectoral tariffs.

  • The U.S. cites Japan’s tariffs, non-tariff policies, and trade barriers as causes of a persistent and unsustainable trade deficit; The U.S. claims the relationship has been non-reciprocal for too long.

  • No tariffs will apply if Japanese companies manufacture products within the U.S.

  • If Japan raises its tariffs, the U.S. will add that amount to the existing 25% tariff.

  • The U.S. expresses willingness to reconsider or adjust tariffs if Japan opens its markets and removes trade barriers.

Full Letter US Sent To Japan

The instant reaction in U.S. markets was traders hitting the 'sell button,' with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq sliding to session lows. 

Both yen and won tumbled on the news...

All in all, this is a trade ultimatum from the Trump administration to South Korea, Japan, and other countries, pressuring them to reduce trade barriers and tariffs and to reshore manufacturing in the U.S. The letter signals a broader 'America First' agenda and tariff diplomacy, aimed at reducing trade deficits by penalizing countries with perceived unfair trade practices. We suspect the other letters will be sent out shortly.

Related: 

Vietnam has become the benchmark—both the ceiling for countries striking deals with the U.S. Trump is giving Japan and South Korea a final three-week deadline to reach a deal—failure to do so could mean severe consequences.

*   *   * 

 

Trade tensions are back in view as the 90-day deadline to reciprocal tariffs (which sparked a painful but extremely short market correction) approaches on July 9, with Trump pledging to start issuing unilateral rates to dozens of countries in the coming days. Stocks retreated at the start of a potentially volatile week as US trading partners rushed to finalize trade deals with the Trump administration ahead of the Wednesday deadline. However, one potential offset is that there are increasingly suggestions that August 1st might be the new July 9th (more below).

As a benchmark, DB's economists believe the current effective tariff rate is around 15% (same as Morgan Stanley, see chart below), which is obviously a good deal below the implied rate from Liberation Day, but well above the low single figures before Trump returned to office. It is good news for markets that Section 899 (the revenge tax) has been consigned to the history books after not making it into the tax bill. It's also good news that Bessent has recently sounded more positive on the direction of travel in recent talks. 

However, with financial conditions easy again and with the S&P 500 back at all-time highs, it wouldn't be a surprise to see the Trump Administration take a tough stance with those who they don't think negotiations are going in the right direction (this was discussed over the weekend in "The Risk For Stocks Is That The Administration Decides It Was Correct All Along On Tariffs"). 

President Trump said at the end of last week that by the July 9 deadline, tariffs would be "fully covered and they’ll range in value from maybe 60 or 70% tariffs to 10 and 20%." Then over the weekend he said that he'd “signed some letters and they’ll go out on Monday – probably 12”. Overnight this was firmed up to noon Washington time today, so expect a flurry of headlines at noon!

On Thursday Trump mentioned that the letters could go out on the Friday holiday and apply from August 1st if no deal can be made. This gave some comfort that there could be yet another extension and time to do deals. Bessent has also reiterated over the weekend that some countries would be able to negotiate a three-week extension to August 1st. So maybe we'll just be here again in three weeks when everyone is on the beach apart from the trade negotiators.

Bessent also said Trump will send letters to trading partners notifying them if no deal is reached, they will revert to April 2nd tariff levels while also adding that they are close to several deals and expect to see some big announcements in the next days. Furthermore, Bessent said 100 smaller countries will get set a tariff rate and many never even contacted the US.

For Europe, Bloomberg reported that the union is willing to accept a 10% universal tariff if exemptions for areas such as autos (25%) and steel and aluminum (50%) are provided. For Japan, the mood turned negative last week as President Trump said that they should "pay 30%, 35%, or whatever the number is that we determine, because we also have a very big trade deficit with Japan." On the bright side, Treasury Secretary Bessent said they were "very close" to a deal with India, and on Thursday the US reached a trade deal with Vietnam. 

Then overnight Trump posted on social media that "Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff”

This follows a BRICs summit in Rio over the weekend where the group leaders, including China and India, condemned and called for a "just and lasting" resolution to conflicts across the Middle East.

Courtesy of Newsquawk, here is a summary of all the latest trade/tariff news from the weekend and this morning:

  • Trump said trade letters are signed and are going out on Monday addressed to 12 countries but declined to say which countries or the different tariff levels involved. Trump later commented that they will have a deal or letter with most nations done by July 9th and could send out 12 or 15 letters on tariffs on Monday.
  • Trump posted "I am pleased to announce that the UNITED STATES TARIFF Letters, and/or Deals, with various Countries from around the World, will be delivered starting 12:00 P.M. (Eastern), Monday, July 7th"
  • Trump posted "Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy."
  • Bessent said Trump will send letters to trading partners notifying them if no deal is reached, they will revert to April 2nd tariff levels with the tariffs to take effect on August 1st, while Bessent added that they are close to several deals and expect to see some big announcements in the next days. Furthermore, Bessent said 100 smaller countries will get set a tariff rate and many never even contacted the US.
  • Russian President Putin told BRICS through a video link that it is important to enhance cooperation at BRICS and the usage of national currencies, while he commented that the liberal globalisation model is becoming obsolete.
  • White House Economic Adviser Hassett said it is possible that some trade negotiations will push past the deadline, while he added that trade deals with the UK and Vietnam provide guidelines for additional agreements with other countries, according to a CBS interview.
  • EU diplomats said on Friday that EU negotiators failed to achieve a breakthrough in US trade talks and negotiations to continue into the weekend, while EU negotiators were looking to secure a US tariff pause extension if no wider trade deal is agreed. It was also separately reported that the US threatened the EU with a 17% tariff on food exports, according to FT.
  • Japan’s tariff negotiator Akazawa held in-depth phone talks with US Commerce Secretary Lutnick on Thursday and Saturday, according to Japan’s government.
  • Japanese automakers are reportedly exploring all options to help reduce trade imbalances with the US, via Nikkei; one idea is Toyota Motor (7203 JT) importing cars made in the US back to Japan.
  • China retaliated against the EU ban regarding public tenders for medical devices by imposing import restrictions on medical devices. China’s Finance Ministry said it is to exclude imports of medical devices exceeding CNY 45mln from the European Union from July 6th, while imports of medical devices from non-EU countries should not contain EU-made components worth more than 50% of the contract value.
  • India and the US are likely to take the final decision on a mini trade deal in the next 24-48 hours (reported on Sunday), with an average tariff under the mini trade deal likely to be 10%, while talks have currently only been completed on a mini-trade deal and negotiations on a larger bilateral trade agreement will begin after July 9th, according to CNBC-TV18.
  • Thailand is to offer the US more trade concessions to avert a 36% tariff with Thailand’s Finance Minister expected to submit the revised orders before July 9th with a proposal to boost bilateral trade volume and reduce Thailand’s USD 46bln trade surplus with the US by 70% within 5 years, according to Bloomberg.
  • South African Trade Department spokesperson says it remains committed to a trade deal with the US; conversations are constructive and fruitful.
  • US-Indonesia trade deal includes buying US soybean, corn and energy products, according to an official.
  • German government spokesperson says time is money when it comes to tariff negotiations; adds, Chancellor Merz is coordinating with EU President von der Leyen, Italy PM Meloni, and French PM Macron on tariff talks.
Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 14:33

Trade Crackdown: 14 Countries Receive Tariff Letters Including Japan, South Korea, & Thailand

Trade Crackdown: 14 Countries Receive Tariff Letters Including Japan, South Korea, & Thailand

Update (1422ET): By late afternoon, the White House social media team had posted a total of seven trade warning letters, with the latest addressed to Malaysia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Serbia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Tunisia. Earlier in the day, letters to Japan and South Korea were also made public on Truth Social.

Here are the trade warning letters per country:

  1. Malaysia

  2. Kazakhstan

  3. South Africa

  4. Laos

  5. Myanmar

  6. South Korea

  7. Japan

  8. Tunisia

  9. Thailand

  10. Cambodia

  11. Serbia

  12. Bangladesh

  13. Indonesia

  14. Bosnia and Herzegovina

The remaining letters, as noted by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt earlier, will be released via Truth Social. 

*   *   *

Update (1345ET):

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that, alongside Japan and South Korea, a dozen additional countries will soon receive similar trade warning letters, all of which will be publicly posted on President Trump's Truth Social account.

Leavitt also stated that the tariff implementation deadline has been moved from July 9 to August 1, giving the countries that receive letters a clear ultimatum: negotiate now.

Latest headlines:

  • LEAVITT: THERE WILL BE 12 OTHER COUNTRIES GETTING NOTIFICATION

  • LEAVITT: TRUMP TO SIGN ACTION TODAY DELAYING TARIFFS

  • LEAVITT: LETTERS WILL BE POSTED TO TRUTH SOCIAL

  • LEAVITT: TRUMP ALSO SIGNING ORDER DELAYING TARIFFS TO AUG 1

*   *   * 

 

Update (1246ET):

U.S. main equity indexes, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, fell to session lows after the Trump administration released tariff letters to a handful of countries, citing "persistent trade imbalances" and the failure to reach trade deals before the July 9 deadline. The tariffs are expected to take effect on August 1.

The first two trade letters were sent to South Korea and Japan, imposing a 25% tariff on all goods, effective August 1. 

Here are the key points from the letter addressed to South Korea that was posted on President Trump's Truth Social page:

  • The U.S. views the trade relationship as unbalanced and non-reciprocal.

  • The 25% tariff applies to all Korean goods, unless they are produced within the U.S.

  • The tariff is separate from sectoral tariffs and will be increased if Korea retaliates with its own tariff hikes.

  • The U.S. encourages Korea to open its markets and remove trade barriers—offering a possible tariff reduction if this happens.

  • The trade deficit is framed as a national security threat. 

Full Letter US Sent South Korea

Here are the key points from the letter addressed to Japan that that was posted on Trump's Truth Social page:

  • A 25% tariff will be imposed on all Japanese products entering the U.S. starting August 1, 2025.

  • This tariff applies separately from all existing sectoral tariffs.

  • The U.S. cites Japan’s tariffs, non-tariff policies, and trade barriers as causes of a persistent and unsustainable trade deficit; The U.S. claims the relationship has been non-reciprocal for too long.

  • No tariffs will apply if Japanese companies manufacture products within the U.S.

  • If Japan raises its tariffs, the U.S. will add that amount to the existing 25% tariff.

  • The U.S. expresses willingness to reconsider or adjust tariffs if Japan opens its markets and removes trade barriers.

Full Letter US Sent To Japan

The instant reaction in U.S. markets was traders hitting the 'sell button,' with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq sliding to session lows. 

Both yen and won tumbled on the news...

All in all, this is a trade ultimatum from the Trump administration to South Korea, Japan, and other countries, pressuring them to reduce trade barriers and tariffs and to reshore manufacturing in the U.S. The letter signals a broader 'America First' agenda and tariff diplomacy, aimed at reducing trade deficits by penalizing countries with perceived unfair trade practices. We suspect the other letters will be sent out shortly.

Related: 

Vietnam has become the benchmark—both the ceiling for countries striking deals with the U.S. Trump is giving Japan and South Korea a final three-week deadline to reach a deal—failure to do so could mean severe consequences.

*   *   * 

 

Trade tensions are back in view as the 90-day deadline to reciprocal tariffs (which sparked a painful but extremely short market correction) approaches on July 9, with Trump pledging to start issuing unilateral rates to dozens of countries in the coming days. Stocks retreated at the start of a potentially volatile week as US trading partners rushed to finalize trade deals with the Trump administration ahead of the Wednesday deadline. However, one potential offset is that there are increasingly suggestions that August 1st might be the new July 9th (more below).

As a benchmark, DB's economists believe the current effective tariff rate is around 15% (same as Morgan Stanley, see chart below), which is obviously a good deal below the implied rate from Liberation Day, but well above the low single figures before Trump returned to office. It is good news for markets that Section 899 (the revenge tax) has been consigned to the history books after not making it into the tax bill. It's also good news that Bessent has recently sounded more positive on the direction of travel in recent talks. 

However, with financial conditions easy again and with the S&P 500 back at all-time highs, it wouldn't be a surprise to see the Trump Administration take a tough stance with those who they don't think negotiations are going in the right direction (this was discussed over the weekend in "The Risk For Stocks Is That The Administration Decides It Was Correct All Along On Tariffs"). 

President Trump said at the end of last week that by the July 9 deadline, tariffs would be "fully covered and they’ll range in value from maybe 60 or 70% tariffs to 10 and 20%." Then over the weekend he said that he'd “signed some letters and they’ll go out on Monday – probably 12”. Overnight this was firmed up to noon Washington time today, so expect a flurry of headlines at noon!

On Thursday Trump mentioned that the letters could go out on the Friday holiday and apply from August 1st if no deal can be made. This gave some comfort that there could be yet another extension and time to do deals. Bessent has also reiterated over the weekend that some countries would be able to negotiate a three-week extension to August 1st. So maybe we'll just be here again in three weeks when everyone is on the beach apart from the trade negotiators.

Bessent also said Trump will send letters to trading partners notifying them if no deal is reached, they will revert to April 2nd tariff levels while also adding that they are close to several deals and expect to see some big announcements in the next days. Furthermore, Bessent said 100 smaller countries will get set a tariff rate and many never even contacted the US.

For Europe, Bloomberg reported that the union is willing to accept a 10% universal tariff if exemptions for areas such as autos (25%) and steel and aluminum (50%) are provided. For Japan, the mood turned negative last week as President Trump said that they should "pay 30%, 35%, or whatever the number is that we determine, because we also have a very big trade deficit with Japan." On the bright side, Treasury Secretary Bessent said they were "very close" to a deal with India, and on Thursday the US reached a trade deal with Vietnam. 

Then overnight Trump posted on social media that "Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff”

This follows a BRICs summit in Rio over the weekend where the group leaders, including China and India, condemned and called for a "just and lasting" resolution to conflicts across the Middle East.

Courtesy of Newsquawk, here is a summary of all the latest trade/tariff news from the weekend and this morning:

  • Trump said trade letters are signed and are going out on Monday addressed to 12 countries but declined to say which countries or the different tariff levels involved. Trump later commented that they will have a deal or letter with most nations done by July 9th and could send out 12 or 15 letters on tariffs on Monday.
  • Trump posted "I am pleased to announce that the UNITED STATES TARIFF Letters, and/or Deals, with various Countries from around the World, will be delivered starting 12:00 P.M. (Eastern), Monday, July 7th"
  • Trump posted "Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy."
  • Bessent said Trump will send letters to trading partners notifying them if no deal is reached, they will revert to April 2nd tariff levels with the tariffs to take effect on August 1st, while Bessent added that they are close to several deals and expect to see some big announcements in the next days. Furthermore, Bessent said 100 smaller countries will get set a tariff rate and many never even contacted the US.
  • Russian President Putin told BRICS through a video link that it is important to enhance cooperation at BRICS and the usage of national currencies, while he commented that the liberal globalisation model is becoming obsolete.
  • White House Economic Adviser Hassett said it is possible that some trade negotiations will push past the deadline, while he added that trade deals with the UK and Vietnam provide guidelines for additional agreements with other countries, according to a CBS interview.
  • EU diplomats said on Friday that EU negotiators failed to achieve a breakthrough in US trade talks and negotiations to continue into the weekend, while EU negotiators were looking to secure a US tariff pause extension if no wider trade deal is agreed. It was also separately reported that the US threatened the EU with a 17% tariff on food exports, according to FT.
  • Japan’s tariff negotiator Akazawa held in-depth phone talks with US Commerce Secretary Lutnick on Thursday and Saturday, according to Japan’s government.
  • Japanese automakers are reportedly exploring all options to help reduce trade imbalances with the US, via Nikkei; one idea is Toyota Motor (7203 JT) importing cars made in the US back to Japan.
  • China retaliated against the EU ban regarding public tenders for medical devices by imposing import restrictions on medical devices. China’s Finance Ministry said it is to exclude imports of medical devices exceeding CNY 45mln from the European Union from July 6th, while imports of medical devices from non-EU countries should not contain EU-made components worth more than 50% of the contract value.
  • India and the US are likely to take the final decision on a mini trade deal in the next 24-48 hours (reported on Sunday), with an average tariff under the mini trade deal likely to be 10%, while talks have currently only been completed on a mini-trade deal and negotiations on a larger bilateral trade agreement will begin after July 9th, according to CNBC-TV18.
  • Thailand is to offer the US more trade concessions to avert a 36% tariff with Thailand’s Finance Minister expected to submit the revised orders before July 9th with a proposal to boost bilateral trade volume and reduce Thailand’s USD 46bln trade surplus with the US by 70% within 5 years, according to Bloomberg.
  • South African Trade Department spokesperson says it remains committed to a trade deal with the US; conversations are constructive and fruitful.
  • US-Indonesia trade deal includes buying US soybean, corn and energy products, according to an official.
  • German government spokesperson says time is money when it comes to tariff negotiations; adds, Chancellor Merz is coordinating with EU President von der Leyen, Italy PM Meloni, and French PM Macron on tariff talks.
Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 14:33

The Frightening Dream House Of Zoran Mamdani

The Frightening Dream House Of Zoran Mamdani

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

Zoran Mamdani built his dream on radical chic... but now that he's winning, he's scrambling to bury the blueprint...

After his first-place win in the New York City mayoral primaries, Zoran Mamdani is furiously denying everything that he once glibly thought was cutting-edge and cool.

So, like a good postmodern relativist, Mamdani now claims he didn’t really mean that violence was merely a “construct.”

I suppose Mamdani asked Jewish New Yorkers—the target of 44 percent of all hate crimes in the city—and discovered that their concussions and blood were all too real.

As a good soldier in the ranks of Black Lives Matter, Mamdani now insists he did not trash the police and advocate defunding them.

Neither did he really, really mean to claim falsely he was African-American when he applied to college nor did really, really mean to do a video mocking the Jewish holiday of Hannukah.

Mamdani once thought it was cool to boast about defunding the police when he was an edgy, rising, left-wing community activist.

But then it was smarter to play it down as a candidate. And now it is essential to lie and deny it as a front-runner.

As a good communist, Mamdani echoed Karl Marx by bragging about his ultimate agenda: “the end goal of seizing the means of production.”

But whose “means of production” would Mamdani start seizing?

Trump Tower? Tesla dealerships? Amazon warehouses?

Mamdani warns us, “I don’t think that we should have billionaires, frankly.”

Then, please tell us, how would you get rid of them?

Confiscate their money? Tax them at a 99 percent rate?

Maybe dox them and let the public handle the rest?

Mamdani brags he would “globalize the intifada.”

Given that most define the intifada (“shaking off”) as the two violent Palestinian waves of terrorism against Israel, what then does Mamdani mean by globalizing it?

Is the violence at universities like Columbia insufficient without escalating to the old PLO or current Hamas levels?

Mamdani said that, as mayor, he would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he came to New York City.

But what crime would Netanyahu be guilty of?

Trying to stop another Hamas October 7 massacre of Jewish civilians?

Attempting to prevent the Iranians from getting a nuclear bomb and thereby fulfilling their daily promise of destroying Israel?

If Mamdani believes the democratically elected Netanyahu deserves to be jailed, then would he similarly arrest a visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping for putting a million Uyghurs in labor camps?

How about arresting Venezuelan communist dictator Nicolas Maduro, who has “disappeared” some 20,000 of his own people?

How about Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, whose government executes homosexuals?

Or is it just Jewish leaders who would be subject to Mamdani’s warrants?

Mamdani promises to target “richer” and “whiter” neighborhoods for higher taxes.

But in all analyses of median family household income, so-called whites rank far from the top at a distant eighth.

Who, on average, ranks as the richest ethnic group in America?

Asian immigrants of Indian ancestry—like Mamdani and his own family.

So, why didn’t the supposedly erudite Mamdani say he was going after the statistically “richest” group in the nation for his tax hikes—like Indian-American households?

Or was race more important than income in Mamdani’s Marxist view of collective enemies?

Mamdani touts free transportation, rent control, and state-owned grocery stores as if they were new ideas. But they are stale, old-fashioned policies that have failed everywhere from the Soviet Union to Castro’s Cuba—and often here in blue-state university cities.

Mamdani reflects a pattern of affluent, left-wing, and highly educated immigrants from impoverished countries.

Barack Obama’s father, Kamala Harris’s father, and Rep. Ilhan Omar’s parents fled the poverty, violence, and corruption of their homeland only to find prosperity, even affluence, amid the safety and the rule of law in the United States.

They and their American-born children were often the recipients of generous government scholarships and favorable preferences in admissions, hiring, and career advancements under affirmative action and diversity/equity/inclusion protocols.

But instead of appreciating the unique security and magnanimity of their adopted country, they so often embraced boilerplate invective against America as an unkind, unfair, and unequal place.

For Obama, America needed to be “fundamentally transformed.” For Omar, her adopted homeland was one of the “worst” countries, and she added it had become even worse than the Somaliland dictatorship she fled.

For Mamdani, whose parents rank in the top one percent of income and educational brackets, the America his family sought as a refuge must be transformed into one of the socialist-communist nations of the sort that have failed everywhere.

The glib Mamdani has canned answers for all of his past embarrassments—except one.

Why would he wish to turn New York City into a social basket-case like Uganda, which his now-rich parents fled to reach America in the first place?

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 14:25

'Hit Us, Please' - America's Left Issues A 'Broken Arrow' Signal To Europe

'Hit Us, Please' - America's Left Issues A 'Broken Arrow' Signal To Europe

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

“Broken arrow” is arguably the most chilling and desperate order that an American military commander can issue. When faced with an enemy about to overrun a surrounded force, a commander uses it to call in an air or artillery strike on his own position.

This month, many on the American left are issuing their own “broken arrow” signals, including calling on globalist allies to hit the U.S. with sanctions and other measures. They are seeking to achieve through sanctions what they could not achieve through elections.

The most recent such call came from commentator Elie Mystal on “The Joy Reid Show” this week.

“Our country needs to be sanctioned,” he said.

“We are the bad guys on the world stage. We are a menace to not only free people everywhere, but we are a menace to peaceful people everywhere at this point, and I’m not even going to say that we’ve only been a menace for the past three or four months.”

Mystal’s call was hardly a surprise for those familiar with his writings. A regular commentator on MSNBC, he previously called the Constitution “trash” and urged not just the abolition of the U.S. Senate but also of “all voter registration laws.”

Yet, he is not alone in signaling that his position is being overrun by his fellow citizens.

After Elon Musk bought Twitter with a pledge to dismantle its censorship system, former Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called upon Europe to use its infamous Digital Services Act to force him to censor fellow Americans.

Nina Jankowicz, the former head of Biden’s infamous Disinformation Governance Board, appeared recently before the European Parliament. She called upon the 27 EU countries to fight against the U.S., which she described as a global threat.

To the delight of globalists, she declared, “Before I describe the details of Russia’s recent online influence campaigns, I would like to call upon you to stand firm against another autocracy: The United States of America.”

This year, I spoke in Berlin at the World Forum and was surprised to see many Americans joining European leaders in support of the forum’s slogan, “A New World Order with European Values.” Attended by figures such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, the conference heralded Europe as key to countering the threat posed by the U.S.

Others denounced America as the world’s villain with boycotts and protests during Fourth of July celebrations. One leading influencer declared that “this country is beyond f**ked” and encouraged citizens to “walk away from the illusion that they built” around this country.

Democratic politicians and pundits have fueled the anger by claiming fighting the current U.S. government is like fighting against the Nazis, including most recently former Vice President Al Gore. Others like Rep. Pramila Jayapal have called ICE agents “terrorists” for enforcing immigration laws.

The crisis of faith on the left often seems to be triggered by any adverse decision or election. In 2022, the Pima County, Arizona Democratic Party tweeted “F–k the Fourth” after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

This year, Fourth of July celebrations were canceled in Los Angeles under the claim that officials feared a mass arrest by ICE — rather implausible, considering that protests against ICE will be held as planned.

Others are organizing protests this week, declaring “F**k fourth of July. We have a king that we need to get rid of first.”

The problem for those calling on the EU to fight the U.S. is democracy itself, something of a headache for the global elite in Brussels. European governments are cracking down on conservative and other groups, which are soaring in popularity, with calls for stronger borders and reversing mass immigration trends. Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, and other countries have experienced a similar surge in the popularity of conservative parties.

The fact is, many of the triggers for these “No Kings” protests are the product of the democratic process from the “Big Beautiful Bill” to changes in immigration policy. Citizens voted for change and successfully secured it, and some people are angry about it.

At the same time, our courts continue to function as designed in reviewing these orders and policies. Trump has won some and lost some before the Supreme Court, as constitutional limits are defined and enforced.

In my forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I explore the future of American democracy in the 21st Century in light of economic and political movements, including the current crisis of faith of many on the left over our fundamental values and institutions.

The irony is that this crisis is largely centered among the most privileged classes. Yet recent Gallup polling shows patriotism is at an all-time low. However, the drop is found almost entirely among Democrats. Only 36 percent of Democrats reported being extremely or very proud to be American, compared to 92 percent of Republicans.

Some are simply moving to foreign countries. The New York Times has fanned the flames of those claiming that the U.S. is a new fascist regime. Recently, it featured the declaration of three Yale professors fleeing American fascism for the free nation of Canada. In their piece, titled “We study fascism and we are leaving the United States,” the professors explain that “the lesson of 1933 is that you get out sooner rather than later.”

But what these professors call fascism looks a lot like the democratic process to others. The problem with democracy is that it does not always produce the outcome you want.

For some, support for democratic choice seems to extend only to fellow citizens who make the “right” choice, from their own perspective, of course. So faced with losses in elections and in Congress, many are shouting “broken arrow” and hoping for external help in crushing the opposition.

Yet the fact is, this country is not being “overrun.” Those are fellow citizens who are calling for these policy changes and rejecting far-left policies. Just as many in Europe are calling on the EU to block far-right democratic victories, many in this country are advocating for the trashing of the Constitution or transnational interventions to reverse political voting trends.

The fact is, the far left is not truly surrounded. They have simply retreated into smaller and smaller echo chambers rather than engage the rest of the country on these issues. Viewed from within the protected spaces of MSNBC or BlueSky, you can feel surrounded, but it remains a type of self-isolation. It is like watching wagons frantically circling on the plains without a hostile in sight. The problem is that most of America has moved on.

In the end, the calls for a globalist intervention are a final desperate call of America’s self-isolated left.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the best-selling author of “The Indispensable Right.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/07/2025 - 13:45

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