British Chat Forums Shutter To Avoid New Internet Policing Law

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

British chat forums are shutting themselves down rather than face regulatory burdens recently applied to internet policing laws.

On March 17, the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act, a law that regulates internet spaces, officially kicked into force.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, LFGSS, Lemmy.zip, The Hamster Forum, Dads with Kids/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

The law means that online platforms must immediately start putting in place measures to protect people in the UK from criminal activity with far-reaching implications for the internet.

However, for some forums—from cyclists, hobbyists, and hamster owners, to divorced father support and more—the regulatory pressure is proving too much, and its myriad of rules are causing chat forums that have been operating for decades, in some cases, to call it a day.

Conservative Peer Lord Daniel Moylan told The Epoch Times by email that “common sense suggests the sites least likely to survive will be hobby sites, community sites, and the like.”

‘Small But Risky Services’

The Act—which was celebrated as the world-first online safety law—was designed to ensure that tech companies take more responsibility for the safety of their users.

For example, social media platforms, including user-to-user service providers, have the duty to proactively police harmful illegal content such as revenge and extreme pornography, sex trafficking, harassment, coercive or controlling behavior, and cyberstalking.

But what the government calls “small but risky services” which are often forums, have to submit illegal harms risk assessments to the Online Safety Act’s regulator, Ofcom, by March 31.

Ofcom first published its illegal harm codes of practice and guidance in December 2024 and had given providers three months to carry out the assignment.

Riverside House is seen along the waterfront on Bankside in London on July 27, 2010. It houses the United Kingdom’s Office of Communications. Jim Linwood/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

It was given powers under the law and warned that those who fail to do so may face enforcement action.

“We have strong enforcement powers at our disposal, including being able to issue fines of up to 10 percent of turnover or £18 million ($23 million)—whichever is greater—or to apply to a court to block a site in the UK in the most serious cases,” said Ofcom.

Some of the rules for owners of these sites—which are often operated by individuals —include keeping written records of their risk assessments, detailing levels of risk, and assessing the “nature and severity of potential harm to individuals.”

While terrorism and child sexual exploitation may be more straightforward to assess and mitigate, offenses such as coercive and controlling behavior and hate offenses are more challenging to manage with forums that have thousands of users.

‘No Way To Dodge It’

LFGSS (London Fixed Gear and Single Speed), a popular cycling forum and resource for nearly two decades, shut down in December.

“We’re done ... we fall firmly into scope, and I have no way to dodge it,” the site said, adding that the law “makes the site owner liable for everything that is said by anyone on the site they operate.”

“The act is too broad, and it doesn’t matter that there’s never been an instance of any of the proclaimed things that this act protects adults, children, and vulnerable people from ... the very broad language and the fact that I’m based in the UK means we’re covered,” it said.

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Dee Kitchen, the Microcosm forum software developer that was used to power 300 online communities including LFGSS, said he deleted them all on March 16, a day before the law kicked in.

More recently the Hamster Forum shut down.

On March 16, it wrote that while the forum has “always been perfectly safe, we were unable to meet the compliance.”

The resource forum dadswithkids for single dads, and fathers going through divorce or separation—and also teaches how to maintain relationships with their children, also shut down.

(Top) London Fixed Gear and Single Speed (LFGSS), a popular cycling forum for nearly two decades, announces its shutdown on Dec. 16, 2024. The forum officially closed on March 16, 2025, one day before the UK’s Online Safety Act took effect. (Bottom Left) The Hamster Forum, a site offering tips and discussions on hamster care, announces its closure just days before the legislation took effect on March 14, 2025. (Bottom Right) Dads with Kids, an online community for single and divorcing fathers seeking help with child access after separation, announces its closure on March 15, 2025. LFGSS, The Hamster Forum, Dads with Kids/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

UK users are also being blocked from accessing sites hosted abroad.

The hosts of the lemmy.zip forum, hosted in Finland, said to ensure compliance with international regulations while avoiding any legal risks associated with the Act, it has made the difficult decision to block UK access.

“These measures pave the way for a UK-controlled version of the ‘Great Firewall,’ granting the government the ability to block or fine websites at will under broad, undefined, and constantly shifting terms of what is considered ‘harmful’ content,” it said.

‘Not Setting Out to Penalize’

An Ofcom spokesman told The Epoch Times by email: “We’re not setting out to penalize small, low-risk services trying to comply in good faith, and will only take action where it is proportionate and appropriate.”

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/25/2025 - 08:05

Alibaba's Chairman Warns About "The Beginning" Of AI Data Center Bubble

The news of the (extremely) cheaper Chinese DeepSeek response to OpenAI's ChatGPT — "40–50x more efficient than other large language models," according to Goldman's Rich Privorotsky in the days following DeepSeek's launch earlier this year — ushered in a new theme: doing more with less and the mounting risks of an emerging AI data center bubble.

On Tuesday, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Chairman Joe Tsai told the audience at the HSBC Global Investment Summit in Hong Kong that the hundreds of billions of dollars in AI data center investments in the US appear to be the start of a bubble. 

"I start to see the beginning of some kind of bubble," Tsai said. He said some AI data center projects raised funds without securing "uptake" agreements, adding, "I start to get worried when people are building data centers on spec. There are a number of people coming up, funds coming out, to raise billions or millions of capital." 

At the same time as Tsai's warning, ChatGPT creator OpenAI, along with SoftBank, Oracle, and other US tech firms, have planned $500 billion in AI infrastructure projects. Also, Meta recently announced $200 billion in data center projects, while Apple revealed new AI investments in the US. 

"People are talking, literally talking about $500 billion, several 100 billion dollars. I don't think that's entirely necessary. I think in a way, people are investing ahead of the demand that they're seeing today, but they are projecting much bigger demand," Tsai pointed out. 

Days after DeepSeek's launch, we provided readers with enough color about the unfolding AI data center bubble: 

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

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

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

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 26, 2025

By late February, TD Cowen's Michael Elias spooked the market and warned clients in a note that Microsoft had begun canceling data center leases. At the time, MSFT refuted those claims. 

The last few months — during which Big Tech firms like Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta competed to outspend each other on AI data centers — may be ending (at least for now), as growing evidence suggests that peak AI data capacity could be much closer than previously thought.

On Monday, Goldman's Allen Chang, Verena Jeng, and others revised down their "Rack-level AI Server volume forecast due to the combined reasons of product transitioning and uncertainties of demand and supply." 

Here's their outlook for servers:

"Training" server will remain the growth driver given the increasing need for computing power to upgrade advanced AI models, but the volume ramp up is slower than we previously expected due to the combined reasons of product transitioning (Read more) and uncertainties of demand and supply. As the GPU platform is transiting to next generation in 2H25, shipment can potentially slow during the transition period. Uncertainties remain in production ramp up, given the complexity of full rack systems and there remains debates on the demand for intense computing power after the release of more efficient AI models like DeepSeek.

We expect revenues of AI training servers will grow at 24%/58% YoY to US$150bn/237bn in 2025-2026E, (vs. US$179bn/248bn previously). By segment:

• AI training servers - full racks started shipment in 4Q24 and we expect will ramp up to a larger volume from 2Q25. We now model shipments of 19k/57k racks in 2025-26E (measured in 144-GPU equivalent), or a TAM size of US$54bn/ 156bn (vs. US$88bn/182bn previously).

• AI training servers - high power (servers in traditional baseboard-based format) shipments will amount to 419k/418k units in 2025-26E (measured in 8-GPU equivalent), or a TAM size of US$97bn/81bn (vs. US$90bn/66bn previously).

• "Inferencing" servers to follow up. We model AI inferencing servers to increase +41%/+39% YoY in volume and +105%/+30% YoY in value in 2025-26E, driven by increasing applications

• "General" servers in gradual recovery. We expect volumes to grow 6%/4% in 2025-26E and revenues to grow 9%/7% YoY in 2025-26E, supported by the mile recovery of replacement cycles and the introduction of new CPU platforms.

Outlook for servers

In markets, Alibaba Group shares in Hong Kong fell 4% following comments from its chairman. Goldman's China Data Center basket plunged 8% overnight. More broadly, Chinese technology stocks tumbled from a three-year high to the brink of a correction in just five sessions.

Saxo Markets chief investment strategist Charu Chanana told clients, "Alibaba's caution around a potential bubble in AI data center buildouts has added pressure, hinting that the red-hot AI theme may face a short-term bump." 

The development of an AI data center bubble throws a massive wrench into President Trump's Stargate AI infrastructure project.

Tsai concluded at the HSBC Global Investment Summit: "I'm still astounded by the type of numbers that's being thrown around in the United States about investing into AI."

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/25/2025 - 07:45

Nationwide Injunctions Pit Executive Versus Judicial Authority

Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Donald Trump’s agenda has been slowed by a long list of orders issued by federal judges against his policies. Those orders include many that are nationwide in scope.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock, Getty Images

Dubbed nationwide or universal injunctions, they are considered extraordinary because they allow a single judge to block national policies. Nationwide orders have increasingly been used by judges in recent years, prompting pushback from presidential administrations.

Trump recently denounced their use and asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

“Unlawful Nationwide Injunctions by Radical Left Judges could very well lead to the destruction of our Country!” the president said in a March 20 post on Truth Social. “These people are Lunatics, who do not care, even a little bit, about the repercussions from their very dangerous and incorrect Decisions and Rulings.”

Judges have defended the broad scope of the injunctions, saying they’re necessary to avoid purported harms resulting from executive action.

Critics, meanwhile, argue that courts are exceeding their authority, even as lawyers “shop” for favorable judges who are likely to agree with their policy preferences.

While the Supreme Court has yet to address this issue, it could have the final say, as challenges to Trump’s actions make their way up the appeals process.

Rise in Nationwide Injunctions

According to a study by the Harvard Law Review, the number of universal orders has increased in recent years.

Most come from judges appointed by a president from the opposing party to the one in the White House.

The trend, the study said, has been fueled by “judge shopping,” where plaintiffs strategically file lawsuits before judges they view as more favorable to their case.

Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama saw six and 12 universal injunctions, respectively, during their terms.

That number increased to 64 during Trump’s first term—59 of which came from a judge appointed by a president of the opposing party.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, saw a slightly higher number than Obama with 14—all of them coming from judges appointed by a president of the opposing party.

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles on Feb. 6, 2025. Following President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting gender-related procedures for minors, the hospital announced on Feb. 4 that it would pause the initiation of hormone therapy for patients under 19 while it reviews the order “to fully understand its implications.” Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

Judges have defended the nationwide scope of their rulings.

“The reason the Executive Orders are unconstitutional—namely that, at minimum, they violate the separation of powers—are applicable to jurisdictions throughout the country,” U.S. District Judge Brendan Hurson said in February while blocking Trump’s order on so-called gender-affirming care.

“The necessity of a nationwide injunction is underscored by the fact that hospitals all over the country could lose access to all federal funding if they continue to provide gender-affirming medical care.”

In issuing a preliminary injunction on Trump’s birthright citizenship order, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said in February that a geographically limited injunction would be “ineffective” as plaintiff states would have to pay for the children of illegal immigrants who travel from other states.

Supreme Court Review

Experts have pointed to Trump’s order restricting birthright citizenship as one that’s likely to reach the Supreme Court. Given a recent filing by the Trump administration, it could prompt a broader ruling about nationwide injunctions.

Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris has asked the Supreme Court to say “enough is enough.” She filed a petition asking the court to review three nationwide preliminary injunctions against Trump’s birthright citizenship order.

“Universal injunctions have reached epidemic proportions since the start of the current Administration,” Harris said. She noted that the number of universal injunctions and temporary restraining orders issued against the current administration has already outpaced the first three years of the Biden administration.

She argued that “only this court’s intervention can prevent universal injunctions from becoming universally acceptable.”

Under Biden, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued in a filing that “the government must prevail in every suit to keep its policy in force, but plaintiffs can block a federal statute or regulation nationwide with just a single lower-court victory.”

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/25/2025 - 07:20

These Are The Most And Least Stressed States In 2025

Americans face a range of stressors—rising prices, job pressures, relationship strains—but 77% say the future of the nation is a major source of anxiety. Stress levels, however, vary widely by state, according to WalletHub.

To find where life might feel a little less tense, WalletHub analyzed all 50 states using 40 indicators, including work hours, sleep habits, and personal bankruptcy rates.

To identify the most and least stressed states, WalletHub ranked all 50 based on four key categories: work, money, family, and health-related stress. Using 40 weighted metrics scored on a 100-point scale, each state received a composite score to determine its overall stress ranking.

The WalletHub study showed that New Mexico tops the list as the most stressed state, driven by the nation's highest violent and property crime rates. It also leads in separation and divorce, with one of the highest rates of single-parent households. Financial strain is another factor—New Mexico has the third-highest poverty rate and a low median credit score of 697, limiting residents' economic mobility.

Nevada ranks second, largely due to financial pressures. It has the highest unemployment rate, high bankruptcy filings, and one of the lowest median credit scores (693). Family stress is also high, with elevated rates of divorce and single-parent homes. Health issues add to the burden—21% rate their health as “fair” or “poor,” and many lack access to healthcare and insurance.

Louisiana comes in third, weighed down by the second-highest poverty rate and widespread health struggles. Nearly 12% skip medical care due to cost, and the state ranks poorly in mental health and depression rates. Limited access to psychologists and low job security further deepen residents' stress.

As far as least stressed states go...

Nebraska ranks as the least stressed state in the nation. It scored lowest in work-related stress and near the bottom in health and family stress, suggesting a solid work-life balance and strong community support. Low crime rates and a stable job market contribute to residents’ peace of mind.

Minnesota is especially resilient when it comes to financial pressures, ranking 50th in money-related stress. With strong employment rates, high credit scores, and widespread access to healthcare, residents report less worry about both their wallets and well-being.

New Hampshire performs consistently well across all categories, especially in terms of low crime and family stability. Its overall calm environment, combined with relatively low financial and health-related stress, keeps residents feeling secure.

South Dakota leads the nation in family-related stability, with the lowest ranking for family stress. While it lands mid-pack for health-related stress, strong community ties and a steady economy help buffer other stress factors.

Iowa benefits from low financial strain and a manageable work culture. Ranking high in health and safety, the state offers residents a sense of security and support that helps ease daily stress.

“There are plenty of small ways for people to manage stress, from staying active and participating in hobbies to taking vacations from work and getting help from a mental health professional. What many people don’t realize, though, is that changing location can also be a big stress reducer. For example, states that have lower crime rates, better health care and better economies tend to have much less stressed residents," one study analyst said. 

You can read the full study data here. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/25/2025 - 06:55

The Real Importance Of The Latest Russian-Pakistani Naval Drills

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Pakistan continues relying on Russia to pragmatically rebalance ties with China...

The Russian and Pakistani Navies conducted a passing exercise (PASSEX) in the Arabian Sea last week. This is a standard drill, “during which communication and interaction between them are checked in a military situation or when providing humanitarian assistance”, according to Izvestia. It therefore wasn’t a big deal even though some observers, both within their respective countries and India, might hype it up given those two’s impressive rapprochement over the past decade.

This analysis here from late January explained why Russian-Pakistani defense ties will likely remain limited, namely because of the respect that Russia has for India’s sensitivities and due to Pakistan’s military-technical dependence on China, which disincentivize one another from taking such ties further. Their closer military cooperation in recent years (almost exclusively anti-terrorist and naval drills), however, have been interpreted in the following three ways by observers.

Some believe that Pakistan is pivoting away from the US towards Russia; others that Pakistan is pragmatically rebalancing its ties with China via Russia; while some think that Russia is doing the same with India via Pakistan. The second one is the closest to reality since Pakistan returned to the US’ sphere of influence after spring 2022’s post-modern coup against former Prime Minister Imran Khan while Russia relies on India as a means of preemptively averting disproportionate dependence on China.

It therefore doesn’t compute that Pakistan would pivot away from the US towards Russia, let alone without the US doing anything to obstruct this trend, or that Russia would disrespect India’s sensitivities. Even so, there are some in Russia’s “global media ecosystem” who push the first narrative to craft the optics that Russia “poached” a top US partner, while some in Pakistan’s domestic media ecosystem push the second since it crafts complementary optics of their country “poaching” a top Indian one.

That last narrative is also pushed or implied by some US-friendly Indian commentators so as to misportray Russia as an unreliable partner in order to then justify pivoting towards the US at the expense of India’s strategic ties with Russia on this emotive but nevertheless false pretext. As was written, the only one of the three that’s related to reality is the narrative that Pakistan is pragmatically rebalancing its ties with China via Russia, but with the caveat that this is being done with tacit US approval.

This analysis here from mid-December explained the rationale, namely that private American companies can’t compete with state-run Russian ones for modernizing Pakistan’s resource infrastructure, and obstructing Russia’s associated inroads in Pakistan would only deepen Pakistan’s dependence on China. It therefore follows that the US shouldn’t impede what’ll ultimately be the limited expansion of Russian-Pakistani ties in strategic spheres if it truly wants to see other countries rebalance their ties with China.

Pakistan’s de facto military regime also knows that their country’s closeness with China was one of the implicit pretexts upon which the US pressured it in the past so high-profile engagement with Russia, especially in the context of the nascent Russian-US “New Détente”, might help alleviate some of that. All in all, this insight shows that the latest Russian-Pakistani naval drills were no big deal, though they do align with the trend of closer – and more high-profile – cooperation that the US doesn’t seem to mind.

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/25/2025 - 06:30

Italy "Eager" To Help Trump Solve Biden's Egg Crisis 

The Biden-Harris regime's questionable handling of the nation's food supply chain—which led to the culling of 150 million egg-laying chickens amid the avian flu crisis—forced the Trump administration to fix the mess by scouring the globe for eggs over the last several weeks. The latest reports indicate that Trump officials have reached out to Italian producers. 

Gian Luca Bagnara, head of the Assoavi Italian Association of Egg Producers, told Bloomberg that a representative from the U.S. Embassy had inquired about commercial poultry farm export capacity over the next six months. 

"I felt really proud and started making inquiries. This could be an opportunity for building new international relations and we are eager to help," Bagnara said. He noted that only 10% of Italian egg production is exported. 

Data from Unaitalia shows that Italy is Europe's fourth-biggest producer, and a quarter of production comes from the northern Veneto region. 

Over the past 30 days, the Trump administration has been scouring the globe for eggs—including in several European countries—while working diligently to cap out-of-control egg prices and drive them back down. 

The latest USDA prices show egg prices have been more than halved since Trump unveiled his plan to combat sky-high prices produced under the Biden administration's irresponsible culling policies:

Trump top-ticked egg prices with:

• February 27: Trump's Bold Plan: Boost Egg Imports To Reverse Biden's Bird Flu Blunder That Tanked Nation's Hen Population

Followed by:

• U.S. Scours World For Egg Supplies After Biden's "Insane Slaughter Of 150 Million Chickens"

And now:

• Egg Prices Plummet After Trump Unveiled Plan To Reverse Biden's Bird Flu Mess

Earlier this month, Elon Musk wrote on X, "It's true. There was an insane slaughter of 150 million egg-laying chickens ordered by the Biden administration." 

It’s true.

There was an insane slaughter of 150 million egg-laying chickens ordered by the Biden administration. https://t.co/wCTZpuEAuH

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2025

Americans should be furious with the Biden-Harris regime, which nearly destroyed part of the food supply chain without any meaningful countermeasures to offset lost production. 

Trump is fixing Biden's egg mess ahead of Easter. 

*  *  *

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Click pic... buy seeds... take food supply into your own hands... Tyler Durden Tue, 03/25/2025 - 05:45

Ed Dowd Fears A 'Short, But Deep' Recession Coming As DOGE Exposes 'Mind-Shocking' Fraud That Propped Up Biden's Economy

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Former Wall Street money manager and financial analyst Ed Dowd of PhinanceTechnologies.com is back with an update of a report on “Danger of Deep Worldwide Recession in 2025.”  

It was not just heavy government spending on illegal immigration, but “mind shocking” fraud that has been revealed with DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency).  

Investigators have uncovered $115 billion so far with many hundreds of billions more to be exposed.   Dowd says, “Both sides of the aisle are probably going to have problems..."

"The DOGE revelations are mind shocking.  The clear way in which the government was spending money through NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and people taking kickbacks and profits along the way is going to come out.  There may have been theft along the way.  What business does Stacy Abrams have getting $2 billion for an NGO?  This doesn’t make any sense.  It’s going to be shocking, even shocking to me.  I knew there was rot in the system, but the mind blowing way the NGOs were used to facilitate the illegal immigration just blows my mind.  The 10 million plus illegals that came in over the last four years, you just don’t wake up one day in Central America and say I am going to the Darien Gap, and go to the Mexican border and then meander my way into the interior of the US without a tremendous amount of aid along the way.  

NGOs facilitated that and probably took their cut.  What was the all-in economic cost of the goodies they got once they got here?  Plus, the NGOs spent and what the government spent themselves to facilitate this, it’s not hard to imagine $50,000 to $100,000 all-in cost per illegal. . . . This is the all-in cost up and down the entire economic food chain. . . . It was anywhere between $500 billion to $1.5 trillion depending on the illegals.  It was an illegal project funded purposely, and it was very logistical.  It was not something that just happened overnight.”

The result, says Dowd, was the US economy was propped up when it should have already tanked.  Now, all this spending on this illegal invasion is going away.  Dowd says, 

“When we wrote our report, we were surprised on how fast DOGE would get to work. . . . This is why our thesis is playing out a little quicker than we thought. . . . The housing market was on fragile ground the last year or so.  It was held up by illegal immigrants supporting rent prices.  So, as that unwinds, we think there will be a mini 2008–2009 housing issue.  Housing prices are going to come down, and that is a big driver of consumption in the economy.  That needs to happen because home affordability is off the charts.”

Dowd also see a recession coming as the government downsizes, illegal alien funding gets cut and illegals continue to self-deport.  Dowd says, 

“Consumer confidence has taken a nosedive recently, and you can see why.  There are 10 million to 15 million illegal immigrants worried about their gravy train coming to an end.  So, they may be holding back on their spending.  There are millions of government employees worried about their jobs. 

Then, you have the NGO networks that employ about 6 million people.  So, you have about 20 million to 25 million people that are in the workforce . . . worried about where their money is going to come from, and that can cause consumer spending to slow down.”

There is good news with the spending cuts, according to Dowd, and that will come in the form of lower interest rates in the bond market.  

Dowd still likes gold as a core asset and does not see Trump tariffs as inflationary.  

Dowd says the problems with tariffs are “overblown” and are a negotiation tool to get fair trade for America around the world. 

Dowd sees “deflation” and possibly a short but “deep recession” coming before inflation.  

A possible black swan event is an intensified war in Ukraine and no peace deal along with the EU getting deeply involved in a war with Russia.  

This could be a plus for the US if it stays out of the conflict.  Dowd says,

“There seems to be war drums beating in Europe, and capital will flee to the US.  Martin Armstrong says all the gold movement coming to the US is because of a coming war, and of all the theories on this, that makes the most sense to me.  I am not predicting war, but that is a geopolitical risk out there.  That is one of those ‘black swan’ events.  Another ‘black swan’ event is a Bank of Japan currency crisis and, also, something going on with Iran and the Middle East. . . . Black swan events add to the risk, and those are hard to predict.”

There is much more in the 50-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with money manager and investment expert Ed Dowd, as he talks about massive crime and fraud that President Trump will stop and give way to a “Danger of Deep Worldwide Recession in 2025” for 3.22.25.

*  *  *

If you want a copy of Dowd’s new report called “Danger of Deep Worldwide Recession in 2025,” click here. There is lots of free information on Dowd’s website called PhinanceTechnologies.com. You can order Dowd’s updated book called “Cause Unknown” by clicking here.

* * *

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Click pic... add to cart... (buy 2 for free shipping)... enjoy Multitool! Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. Tyler Durden Tue, 03/25/2025 - 05:11

7 Actions That NATO Countries Are Taking Which Indicate That Something Really Big Is Coming

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

If peace is on the way, why are they feverishly preparing for World War III?  It appears to me that NATO countries are convinced that something really big is coming.  Is there something that they know that they aren’t telling the rest of us?  As I discussed yesterday, things in the Middle East are really heating up, and the conflict in Ukraine has reached a very dangerous stage.  If negotiations with Russia fail, both sides are likely to significantly escalate matters in a desperate attempt to win the war, and the Russians could come to the conclusion that a final showdown with NATO has begun.  We do not want the Russians to view the conflict in Ukraine in those terms, because they are already extremely paranoid and it wouldn’t take much to push them over the edge.  Unfortunately, NATO countries continue to do things that will raise tensions instead of easing them.  

The following are 7 actions that NATO countries are taking which indicate that something really big is coming…

#1 France is getting ready to distribute a 20 page survival manual that instructs citizens what to do if a full-blown war erupts…

France is the latest country set to issue an invasion survival how-to guide for its citizens.

The 20-page booklet will give advice to French civilians on how to defend the republic in the face of an invasion by signing up to reserve units or local defence efforts.

It will also have tips on how to create a survival kit with essentials including six litres of water, canned food, batteries, and basic medical supplies.

#2 The French government is also telling their citizens to leave Iran “immediately”…

French authorities on Thursday requested its citizens to immediately leave the territory of Iran.

The French Foreign Ministry has issued a warning to its citizens amid the release of one of its nationals who had been imprisoned in Iran for over 880 days.

#3 It is being reported that military planners in the UK have ordered special forces units to get ready to be sent to Ukraine…

Special Forces units were told to prepare for mobilisation to Ukraine by military planners tasked with readying forces by the Cabinet Office, according to two military sources with knowledge of the directive.

The command centre for UK military planning, the Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ), was sent directives last week to begin the process for the deployment of personnel and resources.

The orders, which also applied to Special Forces reservists, put personnel on standby in order to ensure military equipment is in working order before receiving a notice to mobilise to Ukraine.

#4 Turkey has announced that it would also be willing to deploy troops to Ukraine “if needed”…

Turkey would be ready to deploy troops to Ukraine as part of a broader peacekeeping mission if needed, a Turkish defence ministry source said on Thursday.

“The issue of contributing to a mission … will be evaluated with all relevant parties if deemed necessary for the establishment of regional stability and peace,” the source said.

The Russians have already stated that they will never accept NATO troops on Ukrainian soil under any circumstances.

So why are these nations preparing to send troops anyway?

#5 Poland is preparing for a showdown with Russia by “conscripting every adult male for military training”…

Warsaw is preparing to face down any invasion by Vladimir Putin by conscripting every adult male for military training.

But the Eastern European nation also wants nukes and President Andrzej Duda has now said the US could send some of its arsenal to his country.

#6 The Baltic states are jointly constructing a massive defense line that includes six hundred bunkers, tank ditches, dragon’s teeth and rocket systems…

The Baltics are building a joint defence line on their border with Russia that will have some six-hundred bunkers across each border.

It will also include tank ditches, forests, dragon’s teeth, hedgehogs, and rocket systems.

Poland and the Baltics have also withdrawn an international treaty banning anti-personnel landmines as they prepare to stop an advancing Russian army in its tracks.

#7 In a letter that was delivered to the Iranians, Donald Trump has given Iran only two months to reach a peace agreement…

President Donald Trump has given Iran a two-month deadline to reach a new nuclear agreement, according to a report by Axios.

A letter sent earlier this month to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned of consequences if Tehran continued its nuclear program while also offering renewed talks. The message, described as uncompromising, made clear that prolonged negotiations were not an option.

According to Axios, it “isn’t clear whether the two-month clock begins from the time the letter was delivered or from when negotiations start”.

Since the Iranians have already said that there will be no negotiations, I would assume that the clock started when the letter was delivered.

So the good news is that the bombing of Iran will probably not happen next month.

But if Trump is serious, there is a very good chance that it could happen before the midpoint of this year.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainians just conducted an absolutely massive drone strike on a Russian strategic bomber airfield that is located hundreds of miles from the front lines…

Ukrainian forces backed by Western munitions and technology struck a major Russian strategic bomber airfield on Thursday with drones, 435 miles from the Ukrainian front lines.

The strike ignited a massive explosion and sent a huge blast of fire into the air at Engels-2 airbase in Russia.

Videos posted by Reuters showed a huge blast spreading out from the airfield and wrecking nearby cottages.

Russia reportedly called this the largest drone attack ever.

The Ukrainians keep trying to provoke the Russians into doing something really dramatic.

One of these days, the Ukrainians might just succeed.

The Russians are fed up with the government in Kyiv.  If negotiations with Trump fail, I expect the Russians to bring down the hammer.

We really are right on the verge of an apocalyptic conflict with Russia, and we really are right on the verge of an apocalyptic conflict in the Middle East.

The final exit ramps for both of these conflicts are rapidly approaching, and so let us hope that global leaders make very wise decisions in the months ahead.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/25/2025 - 05:00

Houthis Say New US Airstrikes Obliterated Residential Neighborhood

At this point the Pentagon has engaged in over a week of 'continuous' operations in Yemen, and Monday has seen US airstrikes pound Houthi sites across the country once again. The Houthis are now reporting that American strikes have hit a residential neighborhood, resulting in casualties.

"The rebel-controlled SABA news agency reported, citing health officials, that the US-attributed strike on a residential neighborhood in western Sanaa killed one and injured 13, including three children," says regional media.

The person killed was reportedly a senior Houthi official. Israeli media observes that "Footage released by the rebels showed the rubble of a collapsed building and pools of blood staining the gray dust covering the ground."

Aftermath of latest US strikes, via regional media.

"A building next to the collapsed structure still stood, suggesting American forces likely used a lower-yield warhead in the strike," the report continues.

The prior day, Sunday, saw the Houthis launch another ballistic missile at Israel, with the Israel Defense Forces saying it intercepted the inbound projectile. However, the IDF said the threat still caused "millions" of Israeli citizens to have to take shelter as warning sirens sounded.

"Following the alerts that were activated a short time ago in several areas of the country, the Air Force intercepted one missile launched from Yemen. The missile was intercepted before it crossed into the country’s territory," the IDF said in a Hebrew social media post.

Air traffic at Israel’s busy international Ben Gurion airport was briefly shut down due to the missile threat. This marked nearly a half-dozen Houthi missile attacks directly on Israel since the collapse of the ceasefire with Hamas.

A Saturday missile out of Yemen had disintegrated as it traveled over Saudi airspace. Such attacks could soon become daily, and the Houthis have vowed not to back down even amid the renewed American attacks.

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz described in a Sunday media interview that 75% of US-flagged shipping has been forced to take the far-longer route around the southern coast of Africa due to the ongoing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea area, as opposed to the normal Suez Canal route.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) has indicated on social media that its anti-Houthi operations are taking place "24/7"...

24/7#HouthisAreTerrorists pic.twitter.com/A9pL3gCjgJ

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 22, 2025

This has remained true of the majority of global shipping in general - and Egypt's revenues from the Suez have continued to crater.

The situation will likely continue and even escalate, given that last week a Houthi military statement said: "We are confronting US aggression by targeting its aircraft carrier, warships, and naval vessels, with greater escalation options if it persists."

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/25/2025 - 04:15

White House Demands Iran Give Up Entire Nuclear Program, Including Civilian Enrichment

Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

While continuing to closely tie the recent US attacks on the Houthis in Yemen to Iran, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz confirmed that the Trump Administration is demanding "full dismantlement" of Iran’s nuclear program, including its capacity to enrich uranium for civilian use.

Waltz made the comments on CBS' Face the Nation, and when asked what full dismantlement meant and to clarify the distinction between it and the verification deal the US had with Iran before President Trump pulled out of it in 2018, he made it clear this is far broader, covering everything, including enrichment, "weaponization," and strategic missile programs.

Iran’s enrichment program, which is under IAEA monitoring, has no military component in the first place. Enrichment was purely for making fuel rods for the Bushehr nuclear power plant along Iran’s coast and for making somewhat higher enriched fuel for its medical isotope reactor. Iran has a long history of having a substantial nuclear medicine program, and supplied its own isotopes for that.

The long-abandoned nuclear deal was meant to give Iran a design to produce isotopes without 20% enriched uranium through a heavy-water reactor. Like most of the promises to Iran under the deal this was never honored, and Iran is left with the old research reactor. Higher levels of enrichment were also done to try to encourage new negotiations, though Iran promised the IAEA that they would not go above 60% levels, and weapons-grade uranium is a minimum of 90%.

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz meets with US soldiers in D.C.

Waltz’ new demand is not that Iran goes back down to 20% or anything, it’s to stop enrichment entirely. It’s unclear in the context if Iran is even allowed to keep it’s power plant, though without the ability to enrich uranium to make their own fuel, it would be effectively useless in fairly short order.

Beyond that, Waltz demanded Iran scrap its "weaponization" program, which will be a challenge because Iran does not have one, and US intelligence assessments have repeatedly said Iran hasn’t decided to try to make such a weapon though such assessments never seem to inform the content of US demands.

He also demanded Iran get rid of its entire strategic missile program, which since they haven’t even attempted to create nuclear warheads would exclusively impact conventional weapons in Iran’s arsenal. Though presented as something to do with nuclear dismantlement, it is effectively unrelated in the case of these missiles.

Waltz confirmed that the US had received multiple responses from Iran regarding the demands, which were initially submitted through a letter. He declined to discuss what the responses were in any way, but said there was an ongoing "back and forth" and that "all options are on the table." He further vowed Iran would face consequences if they didn’t submit to the demands.

The latest US demands are by far the furthest they’ve gone in demands for nuclear concessions from Iran, but they once again appear founded in the same false narrative that the program has a military component, even though US intelligence has consistently confirmed it does not.

The refusal to disclose what Iran’s response to the demands has been so far is likely based in part on avoiding talking about how Iran doubtless reiterated that they don’t have such a program to give up. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has publicly responded in part, by rejecting the idea of direct talks with President Trump on the matter.

Khamanei has previously expressed openness to direct talks with the US, but since Trump was the one who tore up the previous nuclear deal, he has said that there is no value in talking with a party they can’t count on to fulfill their commitments.

The US must know that when facing Iran, threats will never achieve anything.

— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) March 21, 2025

Russia issued a statement on Friday which appears to reject the basis of the US demands, saying Iran has every right to have a peaceful nuclear program for civilian purposes. Western European nations have previously given lip-service to past US demands to restrict Iran, but it is unclear if even they will go along with the idea that Iran isn’t allowed to enrich uranium to civilian levels. Beyond Israel, the Trump Administration might be alone given the severity of this latest demand.

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/25/2025 - 02:00

The Golden Dome: We Have The Tools To Build It Right Now

Authored by Tory Bruno via RealClearWire,

Recently during President Trump’s State of the Union, he declared: “As commander in chief, my focus is on building the most powerful military of the future. As a first step, I’m asking Congress to fund a state-of-the-art Golden Dome missile defense shield to protect our homeland, all made in the USA.”

Also referred to as an “Iron Dome,” a Golden Dome is a pretty awesome rebranding of the current Israeli missile defense system and a new initiative to protect the US from missile and hypersonic attack. President Trump is right—we absolutely want one, and it is finally possible.

Ballistic missiles are the weapons of choice for our adversaries to strike the U.S. homeland from far away. Our most sophisticated adversaries are also developing the dreaded maneuvering hypersonic weapon which is capable of defeating today’s missile defenses.

A ballistic missile would arrive in minutes, be hard to see, and come in blisteringly fast. That’s because they are launched with rockets, the fasted delivery systems on earth, making this threat really tough to counter. Enter the missile defense interceptor.

If you want to stop a rocket, you use another rocket. An interceptor flies out at high velocity into the path of the incoming warhead, destroying it in midair. Its radar detects an incoming warhead and alerts your Battle Management System that aims and fires. All this only takes a few minutes. It’s like shooting clay pigeons. The interceptor is wicked fast, but so is the warhead, so we aim at a point in front of the target, so they arrive at that spot together.

The marquis example is THAAD, which I developed a few years ago. It utilizes a powerful radar and an interceptor that flies at twice the speed of a rifle bullet. The radar can also be tipped off by a SBIRS satellite, allowing it to focus and pick up the warhead earlier. THAAD is ideal for short range to medium range threats, but it can also handle ICBMs within a smaller area. It can operate above the atmosphere or closer in, where decoys will be stripped away. It’s a great underlay for systems designed to defend large swaths of the country from ICBMs and works well with its own underlay of systems like Patriot that defend against cruise missiles. Layering is vital.

Israel’s Iron Dome system is quite good, but there’s one big challenge when we look at the United States: geography. Israel is only 85 miles wide vs. America’s 2,600 miles. But don’t worry, it turns out that we already have the most capable missile defense technology in the world. We just need more of them... Plus one extra for the dreaded hypersonic.

The United States requires a three-layered defense: 

1. An ICBM killer that takes a first shot and efficiently covers the entire country, 

2. a sea-based system off our coasts, and 

3. a regional defender providing an underlay for population centers.

Today, we have Ground-Based Midcourse Defense in Alaska. 

It’s there for North Korean ICBMs. It also does an okay job with Iran. But it would do better if it were also deployed on that side of the country. This technology is being updated right now with Lockheed Martin’s Next Generation Interceptor (NGI). So for our US Iron Dome ICBM element, we just need to finish NGI and base them in Alaska, the Northeast, and perhaps the South.

We already have a highly capable sea-based missile defense system on Aegis Cruisers using the Standard Missile family. 

Ships would be posted off both coasts and in the Gulf of America.

And, finally, a THAAD battery or two would provide the underlay for each US region. 

Some would be located near major metropolitan areas providing a “point” defense against an ICBM “leaker”.

Boom! Done. A practical American Golden Dome could begin deployment right now.

What about maneuvering hypersonics? This is a unique physics challenge. That’s why China and Russia have been investing in it. Remember my earlier trap shooting analogy? This threat seeks to defeat an interceptor by waiting until after you “shoot” and then swerving out of your path.

We could kill it in terminal flight, just over its target. If it maneuvers then, it misses…. But we’d have to put a THAAD battery in every city, which would be impractical. There’s only one way to do this. We need an interceptor that travels at the speed of light, aka: Directed Energy (lasers).

The saying inside the community is that “directed energy is ALWAYS ten years away”. That was true for so long, that no one noticed when it wasn’t. I developed a practical system that killed rockets and drones over ten years ago using a commercial laser source. We can develop a system to be based on a constellation of satellites that would monitor large regions of the country and destroy hypersonic gliders in any part of their flight path from space. Having also developed hypersonics myself, I can tell you that they are fast, but not very sturdy.

We have all the tools for America’s Golden Dome. We can start deploying the first elements tomorrow. Congress just needs to act.

Let’s get on it!

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/24/2025 - 23:25

Exposing The Chinese "Rent-A-Womb" Industry In America

Federal officials are targeting a long-running underground birth tourism industry in California, where Chinese nationals pay baby brokers to ensure their children are born as U.S. citizens.

Authorities say pregnant women are often housed in upscale homes and apartments near Los Angeles—dubbed “baby farms” by locals. These illegal operations can charge over $100,000 per pregnancy, according to NewsNation.

“This was an industry,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph McNally. “These were criminal enterprises that operated here in the United States and also people in China who would recruit. The organizers... were responsible for the birth tourism of thousands of babies. They had a system in place.”

McNally estimates that roughly 30,000 babies were born through these schemes.

NewsNation reports that hotels and motels across the U.S. have reported an influx of pregnant Chinese women staying for months to give birth on American soil.

For wealthier couples, another route is surrogacy—paying American women to carry their child. These babies, born with U.S. citizenship, often return to China immediately after birth.

“Anytime somebody has a U.S. passport, it means they have access to the United States,” warned Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph McNally. He cited a case where a baby born in Irvine later joined the Chinese military while still holding a U.S. passport. “That provides a real national security asset to China. And a real problem to the United States,” he said.

While not illegal, McNally said the trend is deeply concerning.

Parham Zar, head of a Beverly Hills surrogacy agency, said at one point 90% of his clients were Chinese, with surrogacy packages costing around $200,000. He defended the practice: “It is a misnomer in this field that people are just coming here to be a U.S. citizen... I haven’t met anyone who had nefarious intentions of having a child.”

Still, the issue has drawn political scrutiny. Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) called it “strange and dystopian,” adding: “We need to be having a national dialogue... whether we should be interpreting our own laws to be allowing the buying and selling of children essentially or the buying and selling of wombs.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/24/2025 - 23:00

What's Happened Since A Judge Ruled Water Fluoridation Is Lowering IQ?

Authored by Amy Denney via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Though Dr. Mark Burhenne has been railing against water fluoridation on his social media accounts and his “Ask the Dentist” podcast, he never thought he’d see it banned from so many public water supplies in his lifetime.

Elena Elisseeva/Shutterstock

A landmark ruling in September that directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address the “unreasonable” risk fluoride in drinking water poses to lowering IQ in children has become a tipping point, Berhenne told The Epoch Times in an email. The decision has motivated large numbers of local and state governments to ban fluoride in their water supplies.

“Change like this isn’t going to happen overnight, but this was the kind of momentum we’ve been waiting for,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d see this kind of progress on fluoride in my lifetime, but now? I think it’s possible. It’ll take time—decades, maybe—but the wheels are turning.”

Utah is set to be the first state to ban fluoride in drinking water. At the same time, at least 50 communities nationwide have removed fluoride from water—representing about 4.5 million people—according to the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Florida is considering legislation to prevent local governments from adding it to water supplies, and several states are considering reversals of fluoridation mandates.

The chain reaction on the local level is obscured by silence on the federal level, where decades of denials and obfuscation have clouded the contentious public health issue. It remains unresolved and unaddressed, even as new research confirms fluoride health risks. There may be legal loose ends as well. Three days before President Trump took office, EPA’s acting administrator Jane Nishida filed an appeal of the federal court decision under pressure from dental organizations.

Stakeholders Respond

The Epoch Times reached out to the EPA to ask whether it is pursuing the appeal or if it is pursuing action related to the court’s findings.

An agency spokesperson didn’t address specific questions but replied, “In keeping with a longstanding practice, EPA does not comment on pending litigation.”

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco issued an 80-page ruling in September, which stated “the risk to health at exposure levels in United States drinking water is sufficiently high to trigger regulatory response by the EPA.”

*  *  *

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Chen did not order a specific course of action. Currently, the government recommends a fluoride level of 0.7 milligrams per liter (mg/L) in drinking water for the prevention of tooth decay.

“Community water fluoridation is a practical, cost-effective, and equitable way for communities to improve oral health regardless of age, education, or income by preventing cavities. This results in less mouth pain, fewer fillings or teeth pulled, and fewer missed days of work and school,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The lawsuit was filed in 2017 by several nonprofits led by environmental advocacy organization Food & Water Watch. Chen paused the suit in 2020 to wait for a National Toxicology Program report that was in the works, which was published in August, showing a link between higher amounts of fluoride exposure and a lower IQ in children. The findings were based on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water or approximately 1.4 mg/L.

The American Dental Association (ADA) and other organizations wrote a letter to Nishida requesting the appeal one week before it was filed, noting that the CDC hailed water fluoridation as a top public health achievement, reducing cavities by 25 percent.

“It would be regrettable to compromise nearly 80 years of public health success due to challenges in effectively communicating the science, which often extends beyond the simplicity of a sound bite,” the organizations wrote.

The ADA did not reply to The Epoch Times for an interview request.

Burhenne countered that the EPA’s appeal was surprising in light of overwhelming data.

“It’s hard to see it as anything but a stall tactic. Honestly, it feels like ego is driving their actions at this point, and it’s frustrating,” he said.

The lawsuit findings are sufficient to end water fluoridation, according to Stuart Cooper, executive director of FAN, which was a plaintiff in the suit. The EPA has two years to devise a tactic for protecting the vulnerable from fluoride risks. The neurotoxic effects of fluoride are more prevalent in formula-fed infants, African Americans, and undernourished people.

Cooper said new EPA rules could be designed either to ban municipalities from buying fluoride—which is a manmade chemical form of the mineral—or somehow inform every pregnant woman of the risks to fetal and child development from drinking fluoridated water. The latter seems so out of reach that Cooper doesn’t conceive any option outside of ceasing the practice.

Other federal agencies could also step in and take action, Cooper told The Epoch Times, including the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which sets fluoride limits in drinking water and is headed by long-time fluoride opponent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“We expect to see CDC and HHS to change their stance in the coming months,” Cooper said. “In the meantime, HHS is currently promoting water fluoridation, they are providing grants to communities for the infrastructure so they can initiate fluoridation, and they spend tax dollars on PR campaigns in favor of fluoridation.”

He added that nothing would prevent HHS or the CDC from updating recommendations on the optimal upper limit of fluoride to zero, much like HHS and the EPA did when they lowered the upper limit of fluoride from 1.2 mg/L to 0.7 mg/L in 2011.

The Epoch Times reached out to several federal agencies to ask whether the new administration plans to issue advisories or launch new studies on fluoride. Agencies that responded referred questions to the EPA.

Cooper said neither a pending appeal nor the EPA’s legal directive prevents other agencies from stepping in to take action. Also, he pointed out that the new administration isn’t beholden to following through on the appeal.

“The CDC and HHS can act unilaterally outside of that. They can put out an advisory and end the promotion of water fluoridation tomorrow,” he said. “I imagine they’re busy right now. It hasn’t been very long, but it’s going to happen. You’re already watching water fluoridation unravel in real-time.”

RFK Jr: Fluoride Friend or Foe?

Adding to the confusion is a post Kennedy made on X that Trump would “advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water” on his first day as President, leaving followers questioning the silence in the weeks since.

Neither Kennedy nor the White House responded to The Epoch Times about why that recommendation wasn’t made.

Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back... Just let us know it didn't work for you.

“Public policy takes time,” Cooper said. “You have to be patient and determined and put your head down and just keep advocating if you believe in something. Eventually I think integrity and truth wins out.”

Burhenne said the nature of Kennedy’s announcement was disappointing and hasn’t helped forge awareness or cooperation.

“It shifted the focus back to polarizing, sensationalized rhetoric—the kind of ‘conspiracy theory’ framing we’ve been trying to avoid. That made things a bit harder, but I don’t think it derailed the progress entirely,” Burhenne said.

New Fluoride Evidence

Another study showing fluoride exposure in children was tied to lowered cognitive abilities was published earlier this month in Environmental Health Perspectives.

Researchers followed 500 women and their children in rural Bangladesh who were exposed to naturally occurring fluoride in drinking water at levels similar to those in the United States. Fluoride exposure was measured through urine, accounting for not only water but also exposure to fluoride in food and dental products, which aren’t considered a significant exposure since they aren’t intended to be ingested.

Fluoride concentrations in children at more than 0.72 mg/L were associated with lower cognitive abilities—including being able to hear or read and then follow instructions—and being able to process and interpret information with their senses. Of note, the associations were only statistically significant when children were 10 years of age and not 5 years of age—although a negative effect was also seen at 5 years.

Beyond Fluoride

Fluoride also highlights a larger problem, Burhenne said, about the state of municipal water supplies, which vary drastically and are filled with carcinogens and other toxins like microplastics, heavy metals, prescription drugs, and other chemicals.

The federal government should have stricter guidelines for water and require more frequent testing, he said. Governments have failed to provide access to safe, clean drinking water, he added, leaving the burden of filtering and purifying water up to homeowners.

Funds used for purchasing and maintaining fluoride systems could be redirected toward improving overall water quality, Burhenne suggested.

“Clean water is fundamental—after all, we’re mostly water ourselves—and the fact that this basic right to clean, uncontaminated water is being overlooked in favor of political and emotional debates is deeply concerning.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/24/2025 - 22:35

South Korea's Constitutional Court Nixes Impeachment Of Acting President Han

Monday brought a new twist in South Korea's ongoing political discord, as the country's Constitutional Court negated the impeachment of Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and immediately reinstated him as acting president. The country now awaits an even more consequential ruling about the propriety of the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol. 

"I thank the Constitutional Court for its wise decision," said Han. "I will work to bring the government to order." Han became acting president in December, following Yoon's impeachment after he stunned South Korea and the world by attempting to declare martial law.

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo will immediately retake the role of acting president (Reuters via Japan Times)

Han's hold on the presidency proved short-lived, however, as he too was impeached by the National Assembly less than two weeks after taking command. His ouster came after he blocked the appointment of three more justices to the Constitutional Court -- a move intended to increase the chances of Yoon's impeachment. (Justices serve renewable six-year terms, but must retire upon reaching age 70.) He was also accused of aiding and abetting Yoon's martial law declaration. 

Since then, the South Korean government has been led by Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok. In a sign that the National Assembly's impeachment fever is still in full force, opposition parties last week put forward a motion to impeach Choi too, as they have been angered by his frequent vetoes of legislation and his procrastination in appointing a new, left-leaning Constitutional Court justice who's already been approved by the assembly. 

That brings us to Monday, when the Constitutional Court decisively struck down Han's impeachment in a 7-1 ruling. The reasoning differed among the justices, with some saying Hans actions cited by the assembly weren't illegal, others saying they were insufficiently serious to warrant impeachment, and some saying the impeachment motion itself didn't reach requisite two-thirds majority.   

While Han's case has been resolved, tension is soaring as the country awaits the court's ruling on Yoon's impeachment. The court, which gets the final word on the National Assembly's impeachments, hasn't said when it will announce a decision. If Yoon's impeachment is upheld, South Korea must elect a new president within 60 days. Otherwise, he will retake the presidency, which would surely cause even more national friction.

Opponents of the impeached Yoon demand his permanent removal from office (AP/Ahn Young-joon)

As anxiety over the pending Yoon decision increases, huge demonstrations have been organized in recent days by both supporters and opponents of Yoon. Saturday saw dueling protests in Seoul comprising tens of thousands split into two dueling, chanting masses separated by a makeshift barrier composed of police buses. 

Polls in recent weeks showed that South Koreans preferred Mr. Yoon’s ouster to his reinstatement roughly three to two. But in a deeply divided nation, Parliament’s decision to impeach him has also galvanized the political right. -- New York Times

In another visible sign of the perceived volatility of the situation, the Constitutional Court's physical security has been enhanced, with razor wire now seen atop its walls. Rhetoric is running hot. “If President Yoon is not reinstated, there will be a civil war,” Pastor Jun Kwang-hoon, who has organized pro-Yoon demonstrations, told a crowd on Saturday. He says the drive to restore Yoon to office is a battle against "Communist reds."

Supporters of impeached President Yoon wave South Korean and US flags -- and an English-language STOP THE STEAL sign (AP/Ahn Young-joon)

Despite Jun's prediction, as is the case in the West, the likelihood of political violence might be higher if the left comes out on the losing end. As Sogang University political science professor Shang E. Ha told the Times: 

“If [the Constitutional Court] endorses Yoon’s impeachment, there will be some commotion, but the political landscape will quickly shift toward a presidential election. But if he returns to office, even those who have been waiting patiently for a ruling will take to the streets. We will see riots.”

That's not to say the South Korean right is thoroughly nonviolent. When a judge issued a warrant to arrest Yoon for insurrection in January, Yoon backers vandalized a courthouse. On another occasion, two Yoon partisans self-immolated to protest his impeachment. 

Bracing for the Yoon ruling, South Korea is set to impose a range of extraordinary measures for the day of the announcement: Some 14,000 police will be on standby, schools will close, and authorities have called for trash bins, rocks, empty bottles and other potential makeshift weapons to be removed from the streets. 

Buckle up...

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/24/2025 - 22:10

Who Controls The Administrative State?

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

President Trump on March 20, 2025, ordered the following: “The Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education.”

That is interesting language: to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” is not the same as closing it. And what is “permitted by law” is precisely what is in dispute. 

It is meant to feel like abolition, and the media reported it as such, but it is not even close. This is not Trump’s fault. The supposed authoritarian has his hands tied in many directions, even over agencies he supposedly controls, the actions of which he must ultimately bear responsibility. 

The Department of Education is an executive agency, created by Congress in 1979. Trump wants it gone forever. So do his voters. Can he do that? No but can he destaff the place and scatter its functions? No one knows for sure. Who decides? Presumably the highest court, eventually. 

How this is decided – whether the president is actually in charge or really just a symbolic figure like the King of Sweden – affects not just this one destructive agency but hundreds more. Indeed, the fate of the whole of freedom and functioning of constitutional republics may depend on the answer. 

All burning questions of politics today turn on who or what is in charge of the administrative state. No one knows the answer and this is for a reason. The main functioning of the modern state falls to a beast that does not exist in the Constitution. 

The public mind has never had great love for bureaucracies. Consistent with Max Weber’s worry, they have put society in an impenetrable “iron cage” built of bloodless rationalism, needling edicts, corporatist corruption, and never-ending empire-building checked by neither budgetary restraint nor plebiscite. 

Today’s full consciousness of the authority and ubiquity of the administrative state is rather new. The term itself is a mouthful and doesn’t come close to describing the breadth and depth of the problem, including its root systems and retail branches. The new awareness is that neither the people nor their elected representatives are really in charge of the regime under which we live, which betrays the whole political promise of the Enlightenment. 

This dawning awareness is probably 100 years late. The machinery of what is popularly known as the “deep state” – I’ve argued there are deep, middle, and shallow layers – has been growing in the US since the inception of the civil service in 1883 and thoroughly entrenched over two world wars and countless crises at home and abroad. 

The edifice of compulsion and control is indescribably huge. No one can agree precisely on how many agencies there are or how many people work for them, much less how many institutions and individuals work on contract for them, either directly or indirectly. And that is just the public face; the subterranean branch is far more elusive. 

The revolt against them all came with the Covid controls, when everyone was surrounded on all sides by forces outside our purview and about which the politicians knew not much at all. Then those same institutional forces appear to be involved in overturning the rule of a very popular politician whom they tried to stop from gaining a second term. 

The combination of this series of outrages – what Jefferson in his Declaration called “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object” – has led to a torrent of awareness. This has translated into political action. 

A distinguishing mark of Trump’s second term has been an optically concerted effort, at least initially, to take control of and then curb administrative state power, more so than any executive in living memory. At every step in these efforts, there has been some barrier, even many on all sides. 

There are at least 100 legal challenges making their way through courts. District judges are striking down Trump’s ability to fire workers, redirect funding, curb responsibilities, and otherwise change the way they do business. 

Even the signature early achievement of DOGE – the shuttering of USAID – has been stopped by a judge with an attempt to reverse it. A judge has even dared tell the Trump administration who it can and cannot hire at USAID. 

Not a day goes by when the New York Times does not manufacture some maudlin defense of the put-upon minions of the tax-funded managerial class. In this worldview, the agencies are always right, whereas any elected or appointed person seeking to rein them in or terminate them is attacking the public interest. 

After all, as it turns out, legacy media and the administrative state have worked together for at least a century to cobble together what was conventionally called “the news.” Where would the NYT or the whole legacy media otherwise be? 

So ferocious has been the pushback against even the paltry successes and often cosmetic reforms of MAGA/MAHA/DOGE that vigilantes have engaged in terrorism against Teslas and their owners. Not even returning astronauts from being “lost in space” has redeemed Elon Musk from the wrath of the ruling class. Hating him and his companies is the “new thing” for NPCs, on a long list that began with masks, shots, supporting Ukraine, and surgical rights for gender dysphoria. 

What is really at stake, more so than any issue in American life (and this applies to states around the world) – far more than any ideological battles over left and right, red and blue, or race and class – is the status, power, and security of the administrative state itself and all its works. 

We claim to support democracy yet all the while, empires of command-and-control have arisen among us. The victims have only one mechanism available to fight back: the vote. Can that work? We do not yet know. This question will likely be decided by the highest court. 

All of which is awkward. It is impossible to get around this US government organizational chart. All but a handful of agencies live under the category of the executive branch. Article 2, Section 1, says: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”

Does the president control the whole of the executive branch in a meaningful way? One would think so. It’s impossible to understand how it could be otherwise. The chief executive is…the chief executive. He is held responsible for what these agencies do – we certainly blasted away at the Trump administration in the first term for everything that happened under his watch. In that case, and if the buck really does stop at the Oval Office desk, the president must have some modicum of control beyond the ability to tag a marionette to get the best parking spot at the agency. 

What is the alternative to presidential oversight and management of the agencies listed in this branch of government? They run themselves? That claim means nothing in practice.

For an agency to be deemed “independent” turns out to mean codependency with the industries regulated, subsidized, penalized, or otherwise impacted by its operations. HUD does housing development, FDA does pharmaceuticals, DOA does farming, DOL does unions, DOE does oil and turbines, DOD does tanks and bombs, FAA does airlines, and so on It goes forever. 

That’s what “independence” means in practice: total acquiescence to industrial cartels, trade groups, and behind-the-scenes systems of payola, blackmail, and graft, while the powerless among the people live with the results. This much we have learned and cannot unlearn. 

That is precisely the problem that cries out for a solution. The solution of elections seems reasonable only if the people we elected actually have the authority over the thing they seek to reform. 

There are criticisms of the idea of executive control of executive agencies, which is really nothing other than the system the Founders established. 

First, conceding more power to the president raises fears that he will behave like a dictator, a fear that is legitimate. Partisan supporters of Trump won’t be happy when the precedent is cited to reverse Trump’s political priorities and the agencies turn on red-state voters in revenge. 

That problem is solved by dismantling agency power itself, which, interestingly, is mostly what Trump’s executive orders have sought to achieve and which the courts and media have worked to stop. 

Second, one worries about the return of the “spoils system,” the supposedly corrupt system by which the president hands out favors to friends in the form of emoluments, a practice the establishment of the civil service was supposed to stop. 

In reality, the new system of the early 20th century fixed nothing but only added another layer, a permanent ruling class to participate more fully in a new type of spoils system that operated now under the cloak of science and efficiency. 

Honestly, can we really compare the petty thievery of Tammany Hall to the global depredations of USAID?

Third, it is said that presidential control of agencies threatens to erode checks and balances. The obvious response is the organizational chart above. That happened long ago as Congress created and funded agency after agency from the Wilson to the Biden administration, all under executive control. 

Congress perhaps wanted the administrative state to be an unannounced and unaccountable fourth branch, but nothing in the founding documents created or imagined such a thing. 

If you are worried about being dominated and destroyed by a ravenous beast, the best approach is not to adopt one, feed it to adulthood, train it to attack and eat people, and then unleash it. 

The Covid years taught us to fear the power of the agencies and those who control them not just nationally but globally. The question now is two-fold: what can be done about it and how to get from here to there? 

Trump’s executive order on the Department of Education illustrates the point precisely. His administration is so uncertain of what it does and can control, even of agencies that are wholly executive agencies, listed clearly under the heading of executive agencies, that it has to dodge and weave practical and legal barriers and land mines, even in its own supposed executive pronouncements, even to urge what might amount to be minor reforms. 

Whoever is in charge of such a system, it is clearly not the people.

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/24/2025 - 21:45

How To Answer A Knock At 3:00 AM: An Expert's Advice On Staying Safe

In the quiet hours of the night, a sudden knock at the door can provoke fear and confusion. But according to Massad Ayoob, a renowned firearms expert and self-defense instructor, the way we respond in such moments can be the difference between life and death.

"Why on earth would you open that door to begin with?" Mr. Ayoob asked during a discussion on home defense strategies on the Wilson Combat YouTube channel. His advice was direct: avoid opening the door entirely unless absolutely necessary. Modern technology - like affordable doorbell cameras and intercom systems - can effectively mitigate risks by allowing occupants to see and communicate with visitors without exposing themselves.

According to Mr. Ayoob, who has decades of experience as a firearms instructor and expert witness in self-defense trials, the most common late-night visitor is not an intruder but rather a local police officer. Police typically deliver urgent news or safety warnings at odd hours—information regarding stolen vehicles, dangerous criminals nearby, or tragic news about loved ones.

"They're there at 3 a.m. to tell you that at 2 a.m. they recovered your stolen car that you didn't realize was missing," Mr. Ayoob explained. Officers might also be delivering "an untimely death notification" or warning of "a burglar or a very dangerous felon in your area."

Ayoob strongly advises against opening the door visibly armed. "When you open that door with a gun in your hand, shotgun, carbine, or pistol, what do you suppose it's going to look like to the officer?" He stresses that such scenarios often result in tragic misunderstandings, noting that "every single one of those cases I'm aware of, the courts have found for the officer."

His advice on safely answering unexpected late-night visitors emphasizes preparation, clear communication, and cautiousness. If the situation demands opening the door, Mr. Ayoob recommends discreetly carrying a handgun concealed—not visible—to avoid misunderstandings. He cautions against openly brandishing weapons such as shotguns or rifles, as these can trigger a defensive response from law enforcement.

"Be prepared," he urged. "Have your cell phone right there with you," and if you think it's not actually a police officer - immediately dial 911 to confirm whether an officer has in fact been dispatched.

Mr. Ayoob also highlighted the importance of firearm safety and proper selection. He advised choosing handguns with manual safeties or double-action triggers, making them safer to carry discreetly during tense situations.

Finally, Ayoob underscores the importance of preparation and education: "Think it out beforehand. Waking up at three o'clock in the morning out of deep REM sleep is a lousy time to start thinking how you're going to handle an unexpected situation." Ensuring all household members understand these precautions could save lives.

Watch:

* * *

You can support ZeroHedge with the purchase of a high-quality, sharp, ZeroHedge Multitool.

Click pic... add to cart... (buy 2 for free shipping)... enjoy Multitool! Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. Tyler Durden Mon, 03/24/2025 - 21:20

Key Nodes Of Federal Government Censorship

Authored by Andrew Lowenthal via The Brownstone Institute,

Over the past three weeks, anyone interested in free speech (or not) has been on the receiving end of a non-consensual firehouse of flood-the-zone information warfare. Every man and his DOGE has chimed in, capturing via screenshot a score of Osama bin Laden of censorship hideouts – “It’s USAID!” “It’s NED!” “It’s NIH”!

USAID in particular has been made responsible for everything, from funding chemtrails in Naples to biting your own cheek. It’s a shame the word misinformation is of so little use anymore.

USAID is important, but the censorship happens via a system comprising hundreds, possibly thousands, of organisations, small and large. Is there a secret bunker? I don’t know, it isn’t impossible, but the approach is cartoonish. There are key nodes, organisations, and networks that are more important than others, particularly those that hand out money. In fact “complex” was the term that quickly gained favour during the Twitter files, precisely because it captured the system’s complexity – it’s what made it work and minimised public scrutiny.

Over the past couple of months, liber-net has built a database of almost 1,000 federal government awards from 2016-2024 that went towards countering “misinformation” and other similar censorship pretexts. That work aims to complement the mapping of the Censorship Industrial Complex we did for Matt Taibbi. That work looked partly at government funding but focused more on the leading censorship organisations and their often public and private support.

Not all of the 1,000 grants logged are dubious, but many are. We’ve been going through each by hand – reading their project pages, papers, and reports to find out how big a problem they are. Can AI help? Yes to a degree but from what we’ve tried, AI can’t yet really understand why one grant is horrible and the next one is just a bit meh.

The map above is a sketch of where we think the funds have come from to date based on the analysis we’ve been able to do. I emphasise sketch because out of the almost 1,000 awards, I still have another 300-400 to review. Of the 500+ I have looked at so far, around 200 are highly problematic, and another 100 are extremely dubious.

Keep in mind we are looking only at grants that could be considered “censorship” so anything that looked at “misinformation,” “hate speech,” “information integrity,” “information operations,” “content moderation,” “fact-checking” et al. We aren’t looking at grants for dubious woke culture war projects that have set the internet aflame the past couple of weeks.

To give you an idea, the grants include NSF money to Meedan (one of Twitter’s four go-to organisations for Covid “misinformation”) to develop AI to spy on encrypted private messaging groups to weed out so-called “misinformation,” including to create and scale “tip lines” “to millions of users” – aka snitching on a mass scale.

Or more NSF money to the University of Illinois to “track locations, people, and organizational affiliations of dubious COVID-19 information” based on whether they questioned CDC guidance.

Once we’ve finalised reviewing the remaining grants we’ll produce a much more accurate map and systemic analysis of how much each agency was funding censorship, and who they were paying to do it. This teaser is because I have a bee in my bonnet about the dynamite fishing I am seeing where a net, if not a rod, would be more useful.

The downside of dynamite is that it is indiscriminate. The Free Press reported last week people like Chris Rufo were falsely accused of being a USAID shill because a computer program said so. In my previous post, I pointed out other errors being circulated as social media influencers feasted on fresh DOGE kills.

Again, this isn’t to say that USAID isn’t in large part a massive covert operation – it should be shut down and the actual humanitarian work shifted to an entirely new agency. But our research shows a lot more censorship grants from the State Department (not getting shut down) and the National Science Foundation, to say nothing of the Pentagon which has dropped, among a slew of problematic awards, up to one billion dollar counter “disinformation” contracts. To compare that to a $100k grant to an irrelevant woke NGO in Kenya is like putting an ant next to a whale.

It’s a complex complex! It will take more than lobbing off a few government branches to get to the root of it, to say nothing of the private foundations supporting censorship, and the slack the EU will no doubt pick up.

Republished from the author’s Substack

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/24/2025 - 20:55

First Eggs, Now Orange Juice Prices Crash Most In Half Century

Prices for some of the most common breakfast staples have fallen over the past month. While attention has primarily focused on President Trump's countermeasures — which have helped arrest the rise in egg prices and send them tumbling in recent weeks — orange juice prices are now on track to post their sharpest quarterly decline in over 50 years.

Bloomberg data shows that if losses of 45% persist through the end of the month, the first quarter would mark the largest quarterly decline since the second quarter of 1967.

Prices have been halved from $5 a pound in mid-December to around $2.50. 

As we previously mentioned in December, prices hovered over $5 on production figures in Florida, sliding to 1930 levels. There are shifting consumer behavior trends of falling demand for the sugary citrus drink usually paired with eggs and bacon. 

Data from Nielsen and the Florida Department of Citrus show a 7% drop in juice volumes sold this season through February. The latest drop adds to the ongoing trend of shifting consumer habits, with orange juice consumption halved since the DotCom peak.

In addition to plunging OJ prices, egg prices have been more than halved in just a few weeks after President Trump announced a plan to offset a loss of domestic production following Biden-Harris' reckless culling of 150 million egg-laying hens. 

• Supply Chain Sabotage? Biden "Killed 8 Million Chickens" Right Before Trump Entered Office

Breakfast is about to become cheaper in the weeks ahead.

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/24/2025 - 20:30

Musk's Chainsaw Of Damocles

Authored by Anders Corr via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. national debt is now $36.6 trillion. Interest is building rapidly due to the high rates offered by the Federal Reserve to bring down inflation during the previous administration.

Starting in 2022, the net interest outlays of the U.S. government started skyrocketing and are headed for $1.63 trillion annually by 2034. That is more than today’s annual defense and Medicaid budgets combined.

Even after some spending cuts instituted by President Donald Trump, new data indicate that federal spending was at an all-time high of $603 billion for the month of February.

Given that context, most voters reasonably support a smaller federal government. A Reuters poll on March 11–12, the outcome of which was not particularly friendly toward Trump, found that 59 percent of respondents still support the downsizing of the federal government, for which he is becoming known. That support is a massive 20 points higher than the 39 percent who do not support such downsizing. This lead is a strong mandate for change, which Trump has followed through with the establishment of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), reportedly run by a certain chainsaw-wielding billionaire named Elon Musk.

Musk’s chainsaw could usefully be compared to the sword of Damocles. In the ancient Roman story, the statesman and philosopher Cicero describes a man named Damocles who lived large and reclined happily, until he realized that a sword hung over his head, suspended by a single horse-hair. Afterward, Damocles acted more reasonably.

This is the function of Musk’s chainsaw today. The federal government departments are living large and have been told by Trump to pare down their expenses. If they do not, then Musk’s chainsaw will descend upon their departments, come what may.

It already has, to some extent. Musk claimed on March 11 to be saving the taxpayer more than $4 billion a day, on track to save a total of $1 trillion by the end of the year. Even that would be far less than the $36.6 trillion national debt. And some say Musk has overstated his effect by as much as 80 percent so far.

As hard as cuts are, some will be needed if the U.S. government does not come up with new sources of revenue. Musk has proposed privatizing the entire United States Postal Service (USPS), for example. The USPS has expected losses of approximately $160 billion over the next decade.

One congressman predicted that DOGE would “undermine it [the USPS], privatize it, and then profit off Americans’ loss.” But there is talk of combining the USPS with the Commerce Department and giving postal service employees some of the tasks previously handled by the Social Security Administration. As email and Amazon take the place of snail mail and parcel posts around the world, cuts and privatizations are perforce taking place.

While most poll respondents support cutting government, there is also widespread dissatisfaction with how the DOGE is proceeding. According to a poll released on March 13, 60 percent disapprove of how Musk and DOGE “are dealing with workers employed by the federal government,” while 36 percent approve.

Not every DOGE rocket will escape the Earth’s atmosphere every single time. Mistakes have been made along the way, as Musk and Vice President JD Vance admit. Nuclear security experts were let go and then rehired. Other “mistakes” are in the eye of the beholder. Food for bomb-sniffing dogs was canceled. Musk has called the Social Security system “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” infuriating workers of both parties who paid into it their entire lives.

Trump has said there are no plans to cut Social Security benefits. He said Musk’s DOGE team would use a “scalpel,” not a “hatchet.” And some improvements are being made to the initial approach. The president has now given cabinet secretaries the lead in cost-cutting at their departments. Secretary of State Marco Rubio seems to have been instrumental in this shift. The secretaries, not Musk, are, after all, the experts of their portfolios and should know better than others what fat can be cut without destroying the muscles, bones, and sinews necessary for good government.

The laws of bureaucracy and empire-building, however, lead to department heads who usually seek larger budgets. That is their nature. “Where you stand depends on where you sit,” according to political scientists. So the chainsaw must always loom overhead to force cabinet-level officials to make the tough decisions and spend more responsibly. Musk is always ready in the background in case the secretaries fail, and more drastic measures are needed.

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

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/24/2025 - 20:05

Hamas Commander Known As 'Prime Minister Of Gaza' Killed In Hospital Strike

Amid its ongoing air and ground campaign in Gaza, renewed after the collapse of the ceasefire with Hamas earlier this month, Israel has conducted a string of assassinations of Hamas top leadership.

Hamas commander Ismail Barhoum was widely dubbed the 'Prime Minister of Gaza' and was killed Sunday night amid expanded airstrikes across the Strip. Israel's military (IDF) said a 'precision strike' took him out at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.

Ismail Barhoum of Hamas, via X/TOI

An Israeli statement called him "key Hamas terrorist" - and the Palestinian group has since confirmed his death.

At the time of the strike on the hospital wing, Barhoum had been undergoing treatment for injuries sustained in a previous airstrike.

Israeli media had tallied that since last Tuesday, he's the fourth member of Hamas's political bureau to have been killed. Prime Minister Netanyahu has vowed to wipe out Hamas, and ensure it can never control Gaza again.

According to the Times of Israel, "Out of the 20 members of Hamas’s political bureau elected in 2021, 11 have been assassinated during the war in Gaza. Seven are either certain or highly likely to be outside the Gaza Strip."

The war which has been going on since the Hamas terror attack of Oct.7, 2023 has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Gaza sources have announced a grim milestone on Monday:

More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s war with Hamas began, the territory’s health ministry said Sunday, a grim milestone for a war with no end in sight as Israel resumes fighting and warns of even tougher days ahead.

The ministry on Sunday reported 41 more deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the toll to 50,021.

Authorities in Gaza do not distinguish between civilians and Hamas fighters when reporting casualty figures, but the health ministry and the United Nations say the majority of deaths are women and children. And the true toll could be much higher, with many thousands believed to still be under the rubble.

These figures have been greatly disputed, especially in Israeli and American media. Israel has in the recent past said that some 17-20,000 among the total dead were Hamas fighters.

Leaked 2008 U.S. cable reveals Israel’s Gaza power blockade isn’t just a wartime measure—it’s part of a long-term strategy to restrict essential supplies and keep Gaza “on the brink of collapse” dating back well before Oct 7. Now, with Trump bypassing Israel to engage Hamas… pic.twitter.com/NDWaBStO7J

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 12, 2025

The White House earlier this month said it was notified in advance that the IDF would renew the Gaza bombing campaign. And on the question of the enclave's future, US National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes has said: "Gaza is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordinance."

But it remains unclear whether President Trump will ultimately stick by his plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza. Regardless, it seems Israel is already trying to pursue this.

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/24/2025 - 19:40