Germany’s Strategic And Economic Vulnerability Submitted by Thomas Kolbe A year of tariff disputes with the U.S., coupled with tighter climate regulations, has left deep marks on the German economy. The most visible consequence is a 17.8% collapse in German car exports to the United States last year. Overall exports to the U.S. fell 9.4% to €146.2 billion, while total trade volume dropped by 5%. At the same time, China has […]

Where Food Inflation Is Expected To Hit Hardest In 2026 Food prices remain one of the most persistent cost pressures for households worldwide. In 2026, grocery bills are projected to rise sharply in some countries, while remaining relatively stable in others. According to new forecasts from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food inflation will vary dramatically across 160 countries in 2026, ranging from […]

Poland Plans Social Media Ban For Under-15s Three months after Australia banned minors under the age of 16 from accessing social media, Poland is preparing to do the same thing. A 14-year-old boy poses at his home near Gosford as he looks at social media on his mobile phone in New South Wales, Australia, on Oct. 24, 2025. David Gray/AFP via Getty Images A bill is currently being prepared by the largest party in Poland’s ruling […]

Gulf States Say They’ve Shot Down More Than 1,500 Iranian Missiles, Drones Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Five Persian Gulf nations that host U.S. military installations claim they have collectively shot down more than 1,500 Iranian missiles and drones since the United States and Israel launched their joint attack at 9:45 a.m. Tehran time on Feb. 28. A plume of smoke rises from a reported Iranian […]

UK, France, Germany Slam Iran For ‘Reckless’ Retaliation – Are Ready To Assist Israel And US Leaders from Germany, the UK and France are waving their fists over Iran’s “reckless” retaliatory strikes in the region, and say they’re ready to throw down to stop Tehran from further responses.  Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer makes a statement from Downing Street in central London on Feb. 28, 2026, following the U.S. and Israeli […]

When The Return Flight Is The Only Goal: Merz Ends China Trip Submitted by Thomas Kolbe It took some time for the supposed difference between Annalena Baerbock’s feminist foreign policy and the approach that the diplomatic corps under Chancellor Friedrich Merz would take to become clear. What has changed is less the substance than the performative act. Under the Sauerland-born Merz, tone and gestures shifted—the staging is […]

Is The US Military Campaign Against Iran Part Of Trump’s Grand Strategy Against China? Authored by Andrew Korybko, The goal is to obtain proxy control over Iran’s enormous oil and gas reserves so that they can be weaponized as leverage against China for coercing it into a lopsided trade deal that would derail its superpower rise and therefore restore US-led unipolarity. Trump claimed that the US’ military […]

US-Israel War On Iran ‘Decided ⁠Weeks Ago’ Under Cover Of Nuclear Talks: Report Via The Cradle The unprovoked US-Israeli war against Iran launched on Saturday had “been planned for months, and the ⁠launch date ⁠decided ⁠weeks ago,” even as the US and Iran carried out indirect nuclear negotiations, an Israeli defense official told Reuters. Washington and Tel Aviv renewed negotiations in February over Iran’s nuclear […]

Joe Biden Accuses Trump Of Planning To ‘Steal’ The Midterms, Claims Credit For Border Security Former President Joe Biden made one of his rare post-presidential appearances Friday in Columbia, South Carolina, stepping onto a stage at a downtown art museum to accept a lifetime achievement honor from the state’s Democratic Party.  During the speech, Biden claimed that Donald Trump is rigging the 2026 midterms before a single vote […]

I Do Solemnly Swear: How Profanity Has Taken Hold Of American Politics Authored by Jonathan Turley, “Respectfully, f–k off.” Those words by California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s spokesperson, Izzy Gardon, summed up the current race to the bottom of American politics. Democrats appear in a competition of the profane where voters are now subject to a virtual carpet-bombing of f-bombs and other indecent language. Gardon’s […]

Trump Admin Seeks Months-Long Pause For Tariff Refunds Just days after Senate Democrats introduced a bill seeking tariff refunds after the Supreme Court struck down many of President Trump’s (IEEPA-backed) tariffs, the Trump administration says it needs months of additional time to weigh its steps, as a wave of refund requests pours in from importers seeking billions of dollars in tariffs. The bill, sponsored by 22 Senate […]

The Iran Question Is All About China By Zineb Riboua, author of Beyond The Ideological Iran is most often discussed as a nonproliferation problem, a sponsor of terrorism, a regional spoiler. Each of these framings captures a real problem, but none captures what matters most. The nuclear file, the militia archipelago stretching from Lebanon to Yemen, the question of Gulf security architecture: these only acquire their full meaning […]

Mid-Atlantic Braces For Another Winter Blast Before A Spring Warmup Winter in the Mid-Atlantic region is certainly winding down, and March is always an unpredictable month. Early next week, a fast-moving Alberta Clipper is forecast to bring yet another round of wintry weather to the region before a spring warm-up arrives by mid-month. Marko Korosec, lead forecaster at SWE, wrote in a new weather note that the Alberta Clipper is set […]

Trump Vows ‘American Energy Dominance’ In Texas Rally Ahead Of Primary Elections Authored by Travis Gilmore via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas—President Donald Trump promised “American energy dominance” during a rally Friday at one of the nation’s biggest export hubs for energy and liquid natural gas (LNG) products.  President Trump speaks about the American energy industry at the Port of Corpus […]

Israel Suffers Significant Casualties In Iran War Retaliation In a rare moment, Israel is confirming at least nine people killed and over 40 injured after an Iranian ballistic missile slammed into a residential area west of Jerusalem on Sunday afternoon. The missile impact was in Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem, and according to Israeli media destroyed a synagogue and even caused damage to a bomb shelter beneath surrounding homes. […]

Hot Headline, Cooler Reality: What The PPI Really Shows According To Peter Navarro Authored by Peter Navarro via RealClearEnergy, The January Producer Price Index landed with a predictable media spin: “hotter than expected” and therefore proof that tariffs, Trump, and the so-called “new protectionism” are reigniting inflation. That narrative collapses under even modest scrutiny of the underlying data.  Start with the […]

War Stocks Back In Focus As ‘Operation Epic Fury’ Drains Tomahawk Supplies The scale of the U.S.-Israeli strike on Iran this weekend was massive, involving hundreds of fighter jets, bombers, and air-delivered munitions across more than 100 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-linked targets. Our focus has shifted to U.S. munitions stockpiles, which were already dwindling after four years of the Russia-Ukraine war. The conflict so far […]

Equity Futures Slide, Oil And Gold Jump, But No Panic The widely anticipated Sunday night open of futures trading is here, and it is a bit anticlimatic. Yes, futures are broadly lower, oil and gold are higher, but there is no panic, and as Bloomberg’s Mark Cudmore writes, most non-energy moves are relatively contained and almost everything has pared back from the opening extremes.  To wit, oil is up 8.5%. but it was up as much […]

The Microreactor Race Is On Authored by Duggan Flanakin via RealClearEnergy, For the past half century, successive Presidential administrations and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have thwarted the development of advanced reactor designs that might fulfill President Eisenhower’s vision for the “peaceful uses of atomic energy.” Westinghouse’s eVinci microreactor, a cross-section of which is shown here. Westinghouse […]

Beyond Phishing: The New ‘Deepfake’ And QR Code Credit Card Scams Of 2026 Authored by Adam H. Douglas via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The newest credit card scam warning signs look different from old-school phishing emails. In 2026, face-tampered QR codes (“quishing”) in public places are a growing trend. Or an urgent phone call from what sounds exactly like your bank, but is actually an AI-generated voice clone. Man holds […]

Iran Blowback: At Least 22 Killed Trying To Storm US Consulate In Pakistan Mass anti-American protests have broken out in areas of the Middle East especially with large Shia Muslim populations. This is happening in parts of Pakistan, but also across Iraq – given the majority of Iraq is Shia, and shares deep sympathies with the Iranian religious establishment. The blowback to the Trump-ordered attacks on Iran has begun, especially […]

Is Credit Whispering, Or Screaming? By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities Is Credit Whispering? Or Screaming? For the past couple of years, it has been relatively safe to assume credit is well behaved and relatively range bound. It is unclear if that remains the case. We may be in a situation where the AI spend, the AI displacement, and the Working Poor are forming a storm of some sort. How severe remains to be seen, but for the […]

“We Will Not Negotiate”: Iran Security Chief Denies WSJ Report Summary: Iran seeks to resume discussions with the United States, spearheaded by Iranian security chief Ali Larijani OR NOT: Larjiani has denied a Wall Street Journal report that he reached out to Washington. Trump said he had three or four potential candidates to lead Iran, but they were all killed in the initial attack.  Trump on Iran ops: “We have hit […]

DOJ Charges 30 More People For Minnesota Church Invasion Via Headline USA, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced charges Friday against 30 more people who are accused of civil rights violations in a January protest inside a Minnesota church where a pastor works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Bondi said on social media that 25 people were in custody and more arrests would follow. The new indictment comes a month […]

Joe Biden Makes Insane Claim That He Reduced Illegal Immigration It’s time for a fact check.  Former President Joe Biden is back after a year largely absent from the public eye, and he’s just as incoherent as ever.  Biden left the White House in disgrace after a dismal first term when his own party supplanted him as the primary candidate for the 2024 elections against Donald Trump.  His cognitive decline became obvious after his […]