Consumer Stock Bosses Reinforce ‘K-Shaped’ Bifurcation Theme A bifurcated consumer landscape is one of the top themes (besides everything AI) of the third-quarter earnings season. Even though most consumer companies beat expectations and raised FY25 guidance, notably Dollar General, Five Below, and Ulta, management teams highlighted an unsettling financial squeeze on working-class and lower-income consumers.  Readers have […]

Another $222 Million Saved In Terminated Contracts: DOGE Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Federal agencies have terminated and descoped 43 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $3.5 billion, saving $222 million in taxpayer funds, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said in a Dec. 6 post on X. The Department of Government Efficiency website displayed on a phone, in this photo […]

These Are America’s Most-Murderous Cities This visualization, via Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte, highlights the top 30 U.S. cities with the highest homicide rates per 100,000 residents, offering a population-adjusted view that goes beyond raw totals. The data for this visualization comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via USAFacts. New Orleans and Memphis Lead the Nation New Orleans tops the list with […]

Why Does The End Of The World Look So Profitable? Authored by Michael Kern via OilPrice.com, Sovereignty is shifting from public institutions to private tech entities like Palantir and SpaceX, which secure massive government contracts and offer “governance as a service.” The AI boom’s massive resource demands, particularly for energy and water, are being subsidized by the public, driving up costs while “efficiency” in the […]

Zelensky Definitively Shuts Door On Trump Peace Plan, Won’t Cede Territory Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while meeting with so-called ‘coalition of the willing’ European leaders in London on Monday definitively ruled out that his country will agree to cede territory as part of a peace deal. He specified that the question of territorial compromise is why he has not reached agreement on Donald Trump’s peace deal. “There are […]

Machine-Speed Warfare: When Drones Decide Faster Than Humans Authored by Tamuz Itai via The Epoch Times, On June 1, 2025, 117 quadcopters—total cost under $120,000—flew from hidden launchers inside Russia and crippled 10 strategic bombers across five air bases in a single morning. Operation Spiderweb, as Ukraine called it. It was a public demonstration of a new form of conflict: When the price of precision falls far enough, […]

Netanyahu Rejects Retirement In Exchange For Pardon: ‘Let Voters Decide’ In Israel there’s talk of the scenario where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can receive a full pardon in his criminal corruption cases if he agrees retires from political life, and on Sunday he addressed this controversial proposal during a press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. When asked by a reporter if he will retire in order to obtain […]

What’s The Likelihood Of A NATO-Russian Non-Aggression Pact? Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack, Putin recently proposed providing Europe, the majority of whose countries are part of NATO, with formal guarantees that it won’t attack. In connection with this, he also assessed that those who fearmonger about Russia are serving the interests of the military-industrial complex and/or trying to bolster their domestic image, […]

Jim Quinn On The West’s Mass Collective Societal Suicide Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog, “Historians will look back at the wreckage of a once-great American civilization and not with wonder that tens of millions of people who were entirely dependent upon government welfare payments were nonetheless allowed to vote. Even to include millions of illiterate 3rd world illiterate aliens who snuck in, then were […]

Seattle’s Woke World Cup Agenda Implodes As ‘Pride Match’ Set Between Countries With Anti-Gay Laws Authored by Sarah Anderson via PJMedia.com, You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried… The 2026 World Cup has been the talk of the sports – and political – world lately. The United States, Mexico, and Canada will host it, and last week, the presidents of all three countries attended and participated in the draw to determine […]

Governor Pritzker’s Sanctuary Policies Freed 1,700 Criminal Aliens Since January Illinois sanctuary policies have allowed more than 1,700 criminal illegal aliens to slip back onto the streets since President Trump took office on January 20, and the Department of Homeland Security is now calling out state officials for putting politics ahead of public safety. Among those released are individuals charged with or convicted of homicide, […]

Immigration Gone Wild Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness, It is hard now even for Democrats to defend illegal immigration, given that the Biden administration allowed in more than 10 million entrants. Among them were an estimated 500,000 criminals. No one believes that was wise or should ever be repeated. Worse, the message went out that there would be few, if any, deportations and no real ICE kinetic […]

Japan Urges More Support From Trump In Spat With China Several reports say that Japan is currently pressing the United States to step up its public support for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi amid the spat with China unleashed in the wake of her recent controversial comments about willingness to defend Taiwan. The Japanese government has reportedly disappointed by what it views as insufficient backing from Washington, after […]

Gen Z, Socialism, And The System That Failed Them Authored by Steve Cortes via Cortes Investigates, There’s real angst among older Americans about Gen Z’s openness to socialism. For those of us shaped by the Cold War, this flirtation with Marxism-lite feels alarming. But we need to pause and rethink what we’re actually seeing. Gen Z isn’t embracing socialism because they dream of five-year plans. They’re listening […]

Australia Imposes World’s First Under-16 Social Media Ban Australia will soon bar anyone aged 15 and under from using major social media platforms — an unprecedented national ban set to take effect Wednesday — leaving many young users bracing for sudden offline life, according to Nikkei.  Fourteen-year-old TikTok creator Zoey, whose account will be frozen despite more than 50,000 followers, told Nikkei Asia she expects to feel […]

Homan Defends Operations Against Illegal Somalis In Minnesota Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times, The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown on Somalis in Minnesota is targeted at illegal immigrants and felons, White House border czar Tom Homan said in a Dec. 7 interview with CNN, dismissing concerns of unjust targeting. “There’s a large illegal Somali community there … if you’re a U.S. citizen, you […]

Americans Spent $2.6 Billion On OnlyFans In 2025 The United States is now the most OnlyFans-obsessed country on the planet, according to a new global rankings study that is almost certain to fuel debate online. The “OnlyFans Wrapped 2025” report, published by platform search engine OnlyGuider, names the U.S. as both the biggest market overall and home to the most intensely engaged cities anywhere in the world. While Americans […]

Saudi Arabia Didn’t Learn Anything From China’s ‘Ghost Cities’ Authored by Stefan Barti via TheDailyEconomy.org, You can’t build a castle on sand, and you can’t build a city on assumptions. Saudi Arabia unveiled The Line in January 2021 as a perfect, linear utopia stretching 170 kilometers across the desert. Three years later, the castle is already sinking. When Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced The Line on […]

Hypersonics, AI, Space Weapons, & Directed Energy: Lawmakers Release Defense Bill As Expiring Obamacare Subsidies Marinate On Back-Burner With Congress in its second-to-last week in session for this year, lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee released the final bill text of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Sunday night, which allocates a topline of roughly $8 billion over the $892.6 billion the […]

Trump Envoy Says ‘Benevolent Monarchies’ Work Best In Mideast While Hailing Syria’s Sharaa Via Middle East Eye The US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, has stated that a “benevolent monarchy” has “worked best” in the Middle East. Speaking at a panel on Syria during the Doha Forum on Sunday, Barrack praised the Syrian administration of President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s “epic” and “heroic” achievements following the fall of […]

NJ Governor Murphy Using Last Months In Office To Free 31 Convicted Killers…And Promises Even More New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is using his last months in office to release dozens of inmates convicted of homicide — and says many more are coming, according to NJ 101.5. Since December 2024, Murphy has granted clemency to 283 offenders, including 31 people convicted of murder, felony murder, or aggravated manslaughter, according […]

Greed, Centralization, Monopoly, Ruin Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, Greed is good up to the point that it delivers ruin. The primary characteristic of this era is the purposeful confusion of profit and greed, as if they are the same thing. Greed is good because profit is good, and profit is good because the profit motive is the engine of Capitalism which is the engine of global prosperity. The problem […]

“Things Are About To Snap”: China’s Trade Surplus Tops $1 Trillion For The First Time, Sparking Global Howls Of Outrage With Europe finally realizing – very belatedly, as usual – that Trump was right all along in his crusade to hammer Beijing’s relentless dumping of exports to flood foreign markets with its below-cost wares as China no longer has nearly the required demand for goods and services and so has to crush and dominate […]

Trump Says He Has ‘Other Methods’ To Impose Tariffs If Supreme Court Limits Powers Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times, President Donald Trump on Dec. 7 urged the Supreme Court to uphold his tariff program, saying a ruling against his use of emergency economic powers would weaken national security, while also saying there are alternative legal tools to keep the duties in place. Trump said in a Dec. 7 post on Truth Social […]

“Xi Responded Positively”: NVDA Spikes After Trump Allows H200 Chip Exports To China Having pumped (and dumped) earlier today on reports that the Trump administration will allow H200 chip exports to China, NVDA shares extending gains the after-hours (to the highs of the day) after President issued a statement on X, confirming he will allow Nvidia to ship its chips to China and noting that “President Xi respondedly positively.” NVDA […]