Watch: School Kids Chant “F**k ICE” In Disturbing Classroom Presentation Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, A disturbing video has surfaced showing middle school students delivering a classroom presentation that openly attacks U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and promotes unchecked immigration. Dressed in black hoodies, the boys stand before their peers, chanting profanities and gesturing defiantly […]

2025 New Home Sales Highest Since 2021 US New Home Sales dipped 1.7% MoM in December (after a 15.5% MoM surge in November)… …but ended the year at 745k – the highest SAAR since 2021… “New” home sales have notably decoupled from “used” home sales in the last few years as homebuilders incentivize buyers (reducing margins) and lower prices (reducing revenues)… Lower mortgage rates support modest further improvements in […]

Inflation Fears Plummet As UMich Sees Democrats’ Confidence Pick Up In February After rebounding strongly in preliminary February data (as Democrats came to their senses over the fearmongered Trump tariff-flation), the final UMich sentiment survey print slipped lower with the headline lowered from 57.3 to 56.6. Both Current Conditions and Expectations were lower than the flash print with the latter falling to 2 month lows and the […]

Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump Tariffs – But He Has ‘Backup Plan’ The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down Trump’s tariffs. In a 6-3 decision (170-pages), the court ruled that Trump’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) – which constitute about half of the tariffs we’ve seen under Trump – was not lawful. Kavanaugh, Thomas and Alito dissented.  “IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose […]

Matt Taibbi: Epstein Files Are “Uniquely Destructive” To Both Political Parties Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance This week I interviewed Matt Taibbi at a moment when, as he put it, “this is a pretty weird time.” He had just learned that his outlet, Racket News, had been investigated by the British government using what he described as “human intelligence sources and all kinds of crazy stuff.” “It’s been pretty […]

Weather & Weak Demand Drive US PMIs Down To 10-Month Lows In February, But… While ‘hard’ data has been fading modestly in recent weeks, ‘soft’ survey data has bounced back but today we get a first glimpse at February’s PMIs from S&P Global to see if that survey-based confidence is continuing. It is not as both Manufacturing and Services PMIs dropped notably., Flash US Services PMI Business Activity Index: 52.3 […]

Nvidia Favors $30 Billion OpenAI Investment, Retreating From Prior $100 Billion Commitment Update (Friday):  Bloomberg reported earlier this week that OpenAI is nearing completion of a new funding round that could raise more than $100 billion. Separately, the Financial Times reported on Thursday that Nvidia is close to finalizing an investment of about $30 billion in OpenAI, a significantly smaller amount than the $100 billion […]

With Shaky Reasoning, Trump Weighs Limited Initial Strike On Iran To Force A Deal Having amassed the heaviest US air power in the Middle East since the disastrous 2003 Iraq invasion, President Trump is now considering an initial, limited strike on Iran to force it to bow to the maximalist demands of Israel and the United States. The idea is based on two deeply questionable premises: that air strikes alone will compel Iran to give […]

US & Chinese Fighter Jets In Rare Brief Face-Off Near Korea US and Chinese fighter jets engaged in a brief aerial standoff over waters near the Korean Peninsula this week, according to South Korean media, in a rare and dangerous incident that underscores ongoing simmering tensions between Washington and Beijing. Yonhap, citing military sources, reported that China scrambled aircraft on Wednesday after roughly 10 US jets took […]

Agentic AI Isn’t Eating Software – It’s Feeding Market Volatility Authored by David Parsons via BondVigilantes.com, The sharp sell‑off across software names in recent weeks has prompted questions from investors, many centred on whether the rapid rise of agentic artificial intelligence marks the beginning of a deeper structural shift in enterprise technology. The catalyst was the latest demonstration from Anthropic’s Claude […]

Q4 GDP Unexpectedly Grows At 1.4%, Half Expected Pace, As Government Shutdown Slams Growth There was a big surprise at 8:30am ET when the BEA reported the (delayed) GDP print for the last quarter of 2025: With consensus expecting a 2.8% print  (and the Atlanta Fed GDPNow model even higher) which would already be a big drop from the 4.4% in Q3, the BEA instead reported that the US economy grew at just 1.4% in the fourth quarter, the […]

FBI Director Kash Patel Says Bureau Uncovered Antifa Funding Sources Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), FBI Director Kash Patel said on Feb. 18 that the law enforcement agency uncovered what he said are funding sources tied to antifa organizations, suggesting that more enforcement actions could come against the left-wing movement. FBI Director Kash Patel speaks during a news conference at the Department […]

Savings Rate Tumbles To 4 Year Lows As Fed’s Favorite Inflation Indicator Comes In Hot The Fed’s favorite inflation indicator – Core PCE (a measure of price changes in consumer goods and services that excludes volatile food and energy costs) – rose 0.4% in December (the latest data released today), slightly hotter than expected (+0.3% MoM). That lifted YoY inflation up 3.0% (above the prior month and hotter than expected) – the […]

ECB Quietly Prepares Global Liquidity Backstop As Euro Debt Wave Builds Submitted by Thomas Kolbe Starting in the third quarter of 2026, new rules will apply to the so-called euro repo facility. Central banks worldwide will be able to post up to €50 billion in euro-denominated collateral, such as government bonds, with the ECB in order to obtain euro liquidity from the central bank in cases of acute need. The goal is to guarantee […]

Futures Drop As Iran Tensions Rise, Data Deluge Looms US equity futures are lower, sliding from session highs around the European open to session low just before 8am E as traders assessed the potential market impact of war with Iran, and awaited a firehose of US economic data including GDP and core PCE. As of 8:15am ET, S&P and Nasdaq futures are down 0.1% having traded in the green for much of the overnight session. […]

EssilorLuxottica Logs Worst Week In Nearly Four Years As Apple Eyes AI Smart Glasses Shares of EssilorLuxottica SA are on track for their worst weekly decline in nearly four years, as competition in the smart-glasses market intensified this week following reports that Apple plans to launch AI-powered smart glasses in 2027. EssilorLuxottica manufactures the smart glasses that Meta sells under the Ray-Ban partnership. These glasses […]

Europe’s Civilizational War Will Be Bloody Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker, It seems as if every month a new story comes out of Britain warning about the likelihood of future civil war.  Retired colonel Richard Kemp recently gave a television interview during which he warned that the “Islamification” of the United Kingdom would lead to “inevitable conflict.”   Several British academics specializing in […]

VW’s 20% Cost-Cutting Plan Exposes Germany’s Industrial Crisis Submitted by Thomas Kolbe For too long, Germany’s economy has watched political developments from the sidelines – perhaps far too long. The cost pressures triggered by the energy transition and Brussels’ extensive regulatory policies are now reflected in business results. Following Stellantis and Opel, Volkswagen on Monday announced sweeping measures to confront […]

Supertanker Rates Soar As War Fears Put Strait Of Hormuz Chokepoint At Risk Brent crude futures rose to a six-month high by the end of the week, with prices trading above $71 a barrel (charts here). President Trump said Tehran has 10 to 15 days to reach a deal with Washington over its nuclear program, as US forces assembled across the Middle East. With war risks rising, the cost of chartering a supertanker is soaring. Bloomberg […]

German Court Orders X To Hand Over Data To NGOs Searching For Election ‘Disinformation Or Foreign Interference’ Via Remix News, A Berlin appeals court has legally compelled Elon Musk’s social network X, formerly Twitter, to provide two German-based NGOs with access to public data regarding Hungary’s upcoming parliamentary elections, slated for April 12, 2026. The judicial order was issued on Feb. 17 and came about due to a […]

Why Exactly Did They Destroy The Border? Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness, Why would any president destroy the U.S. southern border? The Left typically “pounces” on anyone daring to suggest that the Biden administration had green-lighted illegal immigration to gain new constituents for agendas that otherwise were without broad public support. The Left smears critics of open borders as racist […]

Spot The Odd One Out: US Defense Spending By President Since 1997, U.S. defense spending has moved through multiple cycles, but the long-term trajectory is upward. This chart, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, tracks National Defense (Function 050) budget authority in constant 2025 dollars and shows how totals changed under each president and party, culminating in a proposed record $1.5 trillion budget for 2027P. Data is […]

Guyana Fast-Tracks Gas Expansion As Oil Cash Piles Up Authored by Julianne Geiger via OilPrice.com, Guyana’s sights are set much higher than just being the new oil darling of the Western hemisphere. It wants to be the gas darling too.  That’s the frame coming out of Georgetown as Guyana lines up a second gas pipeline project, even before the first one is fully online. President Irfaan Ali said a new gas development at […]

US Plans Sprawling Base For 5,000 International Troops In Southern Gaza “The Board of Peace is going to almost be looking over the United Nations and making sure it runs properly,” Trump claimed in Thursday remarks during the inaugural meeting of the panel in Washington. He said this in response to some allies – which are not participating – recently complaining that post-Gaza war reconstruction should be directly under UN […]

Just When You Thought The BBC Couldn’t Get Any More Repugnant… Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, The BBC is under fire for a headline that branded 23-year-old conservative student Quentin Deranque as a “far-right student” after he was fatally beaten by a mob of far-left militants in Lyon, France. Critics are calling it blatant bias, turning the victim into the villain while downplaying the attackers’ extremism. […]