Despite Slumping Sentiment & Lower Gas Prices, The American Consumer Is Still Spending Strongly While headline spend at gas stations is expected to decline (due to tumbling pump prices), BofA’s almost omniscient analysts forecast a stronger than consensus print for today’s US Retail Sales data. After a big jump in May (revised up), June’s Headline retail sales rose 0.2% MoM (as expected), with sales up 6.7% YoY (down […]

Futures Slide After Another Korea Rout, TSMA Results Revive AI Fears Futures are lower, erasing much of yesterday’s gain with both Nasdaq and Rusell lagging SPX, following a continued rollercoaster in Korea where stocks tumbled after the BOK hired rates for the first time in 3 years. As of 8:15am ET, S&P futures dropped 0.3%, while Nasdaq 100 contracts dropped 0.8%. In premarket trading, semis are weaker again while Mag7 is […]

The Big Pharma Psychedelic Buyout Spree Has Begun Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance Massive validation for psychedelics…not as drugs, but as investments could be moments away. Just months after I argued for the millionth time that psychedelic drug developers were likely to become acquisition targets as the sector gained legitimacy, it looks like the first major domino may finally be falling. According to a Bloomberg report […]

New Poll Shows American Voters Overwhelmingly Reject Communism, Dealing A Blow To DSA The Democratic Socialists of America are intensifying their consolidation of power within the Democratic Party, winning low-turnout local elections as establishment Democrats struggle to contain the spread of socialism and Marxism within their DEI kingdom. DSA leaders and politicians have openly embraced anti-American rhetoric centered on […]

UBS: TSMC’s ‘Surprise CapEx Hike’ Reinforces Confidence In AI Supply Chain TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract chipmaker, raised its 2026 spending and revenue outlook on Thursday morning, a move UBS analysts said “boosts confidence in the AI supply chain.” TSMC manufactures chips designed by companies such as Nvidia, Apple, AMD, Qualcomm and Broadcom. It is a major supplier of Nvidia chips […]

Ukraine Intensifies Attacks On Russian Tankers In The Black Sea By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com After striking 116 vessels linked to Russia’s shadow fleet in the Sea of Azov in recent weeks, Ukraine’s military is turning its sights on ships in the Black Sea, hitting in drone attacks as many as 20 vessels overnight on Wednesday. Ukrainian forces struck 17 Russia-linked oil tankers, 2 gas carriers, and one tugboat early on […]

G7 Partners Have Low Confidence In President Trump Confidence in U.S. leadership has fluctuated significantly over the past two decades, closely tracking changes in the occupant of the White House. As Statista’s Felix Richter shows in the following chart, based on data from past and present editions of Pew’s Global Attitudes Survey shows, confidence in President Donald Trump among key U.S. allies has mostly been low, […]

Trump: Iran Has Freed Detained American Woman In ‘Goodwill’ Gesture, After Days Of Bombing Summary Detained American woman freed by Iran; Trump: “appreciates this gesture of Goodwill by Iran!” Pentagon announces second wave of strikes later Wednesday, the after initial 90-minute attack to start the day. Trump threatens wider strikes unless Iran returns to talks – says attacks to ‘expand’ next week. Wednesday saw 5th strait day […]

Japan’s Landmark Vote Reclassifies Bitcoin And Crypto As Financial Assets Authored by Micah Zimmerman via The Epoch Times, Japan’s parliament passed an amendment on Wednesday that reclassifies cryptocurrency as a “financial asset,” a shift that pulls bitcoin and other digital assets out of the country’s payments regime and into the framework that governs stocks, bonds, and investment trusts, according to a report from […]

Baltic Leaders Claim Moscow Eyeing Wave Of Infrastructure Attacks In Europe NATO’s ‘eastern flank’ members are at it again, seeking to hype an imminent Russian threat which they now say will target their critical infrastructure.  The presidents of Poland, Lithuanian and Latvia have joined together and issued a dire warning over an impending plot on Wednesday, citing intelligence reports. “We are talking about energy and transport […]

You Will Not Believe What’s Happening In This Tiny English Village Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News, Residents of the small leafy Oxfordshire village of Piddington have delivered a thunderous rebuke to Westminster’s latest asylum experiment. With roughly 180 adults casting ballots on July 4, 175 backed holding a referendum on breaking away from the United Kingdom in protest against plans to house up to 1,250 single […]

Russia Struggles To Deliver Crude Oil As It Hits 135 Million Barrel Traffic Jam Russia is struggling to deliver all of the crude it’s being forced to ship overseas in the face of escalating Ukrainian drone strikes on its refineries. Nearly 135 million barrels of Russian crude oil are currently stranded at sea as a result of Ukraine’s airstrike campaign targeting refineries with the intent to cripple crude processing. The […]

“Free Speech Has Its Limits”, Rules Czech Supreme Court Via Remix News, The Czech Supreme Court has upheld a suspended prison sentence imposed on a former dissident who publicly wore clothing displaying symbols associated with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to Echo24, botanist Pavel Křivka walked through Pardubice in April 2024 wearing a black sweatshirt bearing a large white letter ‘Z’ and the Russian words […]

All Socialists Are Ignorant, But Some Are More Ignorant Than Others… Authored by Lloyd Billingsley via AmericanThinker.com, In The Law, published in 1850, Frédéric Bastiat made a case against “legal plunder,” the perversion of the law to violate liberty and property rights. Nearly 100 years later in The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek warned that socialists, whatever their intentions, lacked the knowledge to command the […]

“Sub-Second Detect- To-Fire”: Futuristic Dome Turret Could Be US Military’s Answer To Drone Swarms Picket Defense Systems is developing a next-generation counter-drone turret designed to eliminate the delays conventional systems face when targeting fast-moving, one-way attack drones or incoming swarms. This is a major vulnerability confronting the US military and allied forces as drone threats proliferate across modern battlefields […]

Hegseth Announces New Mandatory Military Testosterone Tests Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times, Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday announced a measure to screen U.S. armed forces members’ testosterone levels and offer therapy as a way to optimize the military’s performance. “While we invest heavily in our weapon systems, platforms, and gear, our most decisive tactical advantage will always be […]

Australia Slaps Power, Water, And Copyright Rules On Data Centers After Anthropic Lobbying Push Over the last year or so, several US states have taken measures to regulate or prevent data centers from being built, citing local concerns over electricity and water use, pollution (noise and otherwise), and the fact that they’re a godawful eyesore. On Tuesday, New York became the first state to enact a one-year ban on data centers. […]

Key Takeaways From DNI Nominee Jay Clayton’s Confirmation Hearing Authored by Timothy Frudd via The Epoch Times, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton shared his vision for the Intelligence Community during his confirmation hearing for the position of director of national intelligence (DNI) on July 15. Clayton, who was nominated last month by President Donald Trump, faced questions from lawmakers regarding the independence of the DNI and […]

“Asymmetric Warfare Boom” Accelerates As US Army Awards Neros $500 Million For FPV Attack Drones Defense startup Neros has secured a US Army contract valued at up to $500 million to supply the military with Ukraine-style, low-cost attack drones, reinforcing our view that the “Asymmetric Warfare Boom” is now underway. As we have told readers, the Department of War’s massive push to procure inexpensive, attritable autonomous systems, […]

Trump Endorses MyPillow’s Mike Lindell For Minnesota Governor Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times, President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced he is endorsing MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell as the Republican candidate for Minnesota governor, saying he is one of “America’s greatest and most hard working Patriots.” “Mike will be SPECTACULAR!!! He truly loves Minnesota, as do I, and wants to bring it back from […]

University Of California Suspends Move To Restore Standardized Testing Authored by Jonathan Turley, A University of California advisory board suspended the much-celebrated planned review of the system’s admissions policies to bring back standardized testing requirements for undergraduate applicants. The decision of the academic senate’s Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools is not surprising to many of us who have been […]

Indian Companies Increasingly Turn To Chinese LLMs Due To “Unsustainable” US Token Bills Several weeks ago we laid out the increasingly attractive proposition for global enterprises that are Chinese LLM: 95% of the latest US frontier model capabilities and 10% of the cost. Why pay the premium, when one way or another someone will steal your IP, be it Dario Amodei or Beijing? India, it appears, agrees.  According to the NIkkei, […]

Japan Trade Chief Says Hormuz Off-Limits As Hostilities Reignite By Michael Kern of OilPrice.com Commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is once again off-limits in the near term as the renewed hostilities and threats to vessels led to another spike in risks of transiting the key tanker and container shipping lane, according to Masahiro Okafuji, chair of the Japan Foreign Trade Council. “No one would go there, because […]

Amy Coney Barrett Warns Of Escalating Death Threats Against Supreme Court It’s sad to say, but the truth must be acknowledged – Mob violence and threats of political assassination can often be effective in influencing the policy decisions of courts and governments.  It’s the reason why the militant left has consistently used these methods over the course of generations.  It works, and they know it. It’s not that political […]

What Does Socialism Actually Deliver? Authored by Christian Milord via The Epoch Times, If we examine the history of alleged “democratic” socialism around the globe, it’s not difficult to flesh out the contradictions within its entire framework. However, for someone who hasn’t studied history or been grounded in the timeless principles of hard work and individual responsibility, socialism might tug at their heartstrings […]