Oil Unimpressed As Trump Says ‘Iran Asked For Ceasefire’, Threatens Blasting Them “Back To The Stone Ages” If Strait Unopened Summary UAE mulls becoming first Gulf country to directly joint US-Israeli war against Iran, lobbies for firm UNSC security resolution. Trump to Reuters: will be “out of Iran pretty quickly” and could return for “spot hits” if needed. Also says he’s open to exiting ‘paper tiger’ NATO after Iran war […]

Palantir Develops IRS Tool To Flag “Highest Value” Audits, Are Crypto Bros Next? Crypto bros and those of you with ‘creative’ accountants, heads up – the IRS is beefing up its ability to flag accounts for audits. Not only is this the first year that major US-based custodial crypto brokers are reporting gross proceeds to the agency, the IRS is getting aggressive elsewhere. Last year they paid Palantir $1.8 million to identify cases […]

The Barbell Economy: Why The Middle Is Vanishing Authored by Tamuz Itai via The Epoch Times, There’s a pattern quietly reshaping daily life, work, and society itself. Economists now call it the “barbell economy.” Value, growth, and opportunity concentrate at the two extremes—ultra-cheap utility on one end, premium experience and status on the other—while the broad, reasonable middle thins out. Once you start noticing it, […]

Trump To Address Nation With ‘Important Update’ On Iran War: What Will He Say? Update (0845ET): Minutes after we prepared this post, President Trump posted on his social media feed that Iran has asked for a ceasefire: “Iran’s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!” Trump added that he will consider it if the Strait […]

US Retail Sales Jumped Most In 8 Months In February Bank of America’s omniscient analysts forecast a very strong month for Retail Sales in February data (released today)… The actual print was +0.6% MoM (better than the 0.5% consensus, but less than BofA’s forecast) comes after a revised higher 0.1% MoM decline in January (and December’s nothingburger)… Source: Bloomberg That is the highest MoM rise since June 2025, and […]

Futures, Bonds Surge On Optimism War May End, Oil Tumbles Below $100 Futures and bonds jump and oil fell, sending Brent briefly below $100 a barrel, as the de-escalation/technical/macro led relief rally continues on hopes of the Middle East conflict reaching an end soon  after Donald Trump said he expects the war in Iran to end in two to three weeks, and indicated that it was possible that Iran could still reach a deal with the US […]

Suspension Lifted On Helicopter Crews For Viral Fly-By At Kid Rock’s Home Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times, Two AH-64 Apache helicopter crews were suspended, then quickly unsuspended Tuesday after they hovered next to Kid Rock’s “Southern White House” home in Nashville on Saturday. The long-time country rock musician posted a video of the fly-by on X, showing him clapping and saluting the helicopter crews, whose […]

ADP Employment Reports Shows Better Than Expected Job Gains, Accelerating Wages Hiring and pay gains both held steady in March. The ADP National Employment report printed a better than expected +62k jobs added in March (+40k exp) and modestly down from an upwardly revised 66k in February. That is the ninth straight month of job gains. Source: Bloomberg The smallest employers drove job growth for a second month, while hiring in […]

LVMH Posts Biggest Quarterly Drop Since Dot-Com; UBS Sees Luxury Opportunity LVMH, the owner of Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Fendi, Bvlgari, Moët & Chandon, and dozens of other luxury brands, just posted its worst quarter since the dot-com bust era, making it the worst-performing European luxury stock this year as demand for luxury handbags, shoes, watches, perfumes, and wines continues to soften amid an intensifying Middle […]

The “Good News” Is Always The Same: The Stock Market Is Up… Until It Isn’t Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, Cloaking a fake “market” with artifice to maintain its asymmetrical distribution of wealth and income also cloaks its detachment from the real world. I often refer to the dynamics of self-correction and self-liquidation. Systems that use feedback to rebalance extremes are self-correcting: rather than […]

China’s Sci-Fi Boom Drives Record Revenue Growth Public interest in science fiction is rapidly rising in China, alongside the country’s push toward technological advancement. A new report says revenues hit a record in 2025 while related online searches surged by over 200%, according to the South China Morning Post. According to data released at the China Science Fiction Convention and reported by Xinhua, total industry revenue […]

Beyond Cheap Fish Oil: How A 5:1 DHA Ratio Powers Brain Health & Vision Omega-3s are an amazing family of fats that our bodies can’t make efficiently on their own. Long used for general heart and inflammation support, research shows that when formulated with a heavy emphasis on DHA plus targeted eye nutrients, they can support brain structure, cognitive performance, memory, attention, and eye/retinal health.  Most people get […]

US Senators Unveil ‘Mined In America Act’ To Reshore BTC Mining, Codify Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com, Republican Senators Bill Cassidy and Cynthia Lummis introduced legislation Monday aimed at reshaping the U.S. digital asset mining sector, tightening supply chains, and embedding bitcoin into federal reserve strategy. The proposal, titled the “Mined in America Act,” would […]

Political Polarization Particularly Strong In The US The share of people who consider themselves on the far left or far right of the political spectrum is particularly high in the United States, according to a survey by Statista Consumer Insights. As Statista’s Tristan Gaudiat details below, among U.S. respondents surveyed between January and December 2025, 12 percent placed themselves on the far left (0 on a 10-point scale) and […]

Poland Rejects ‘Unofficial’ US Request To Redeploy Patriot Batteries To Mideast Via The Cradle Poland has rejected an “unofficial” US request to deploy one of its Patriot air defense systems to West Asia, Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz announced on Tuesday, following reports by Polish daily Rzeczpospolita that Washington had informally approached Warsaw amid rising regional tensions. “Our Patriot batteries […]

Israel Halts Arms Purchases From France In Rebuke For Iran War Stance Israel on Tuesday took the drastic step of announcing that it will halt the acquisition of defense-related goods and services from France, according to an Israeli Defense Ministry announcement. “The Director General of the Israel Ministry of Defense. Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amir Baram has decided to reduce all defense procurement from France to zero, replacing it with […]

Iran Says ‘Prepared To End War’ If Security Guarantees Offered, But Still No Direct Negotiations – Just ‘Messages’ Summary President Pezeshkian: prepared to end war with guarantees against further attacks. IRGC warns it will hit 18 US tech companies in region, says Siemens in Israel already attack China, Pakistan issue broad five-point framework for peace (document below); France, Italy begin to block airspace for […]

‘A National Calamity’: 1 In 8 UK Children Reported As Disabled By Parents Authored by Mary Gilleece via dailysceptic.org, The recent news that one in eight children are now reported by their parents as being disabled ought to prompt an immediate national inquiry into what on earth is causing a large proportion of the population to sicken. That millions of children and young people are stricken with disabilities ought to be front […]

Not Just Cigarettes, Vaping Likely Causes Cancer, Major Study Finds A new report from researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia, published in Carcinogenesis, finds that nicotine-based e-cigarettes are likely to cause lung and oral cancers, a finding that may alarm the millions of young people, from high school through college, and into the professional world, who use them heavily.  Researchers examined human […]

Germany’s Merz Expects 80% Of Syrians To Return Home Within 3 Years Via Remix News, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) met with controversial Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former jihadi terrorist, in Berlin on Monday afternoon. Among the topics discussed, one of the most prominent was the fact that Merz wants 80 percent of the Syrians currently living in Germany to return home. “In the longer perspective of the next three […]

Restoring Meaning To American Citizenship Authored by John Velleco via Gun Owners of America, This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that could redefine one of the most fundamental questions in American law: Who is a citizen of the United States? Does birth on U.S. soil automatically confer citizenship, even when the parents owe allegiance to a foreign nation? Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners […]

Blue States Are Still Facing A Mass Taxpayer Exodus Long After COVID Remember when blues state Democrats tried to enforce sweeping pandemic mandates for years after it became clear that covid was not the “mass killer” that the supposed experts claimed it would be?  Remember when they called for people to be jailed for publicly speaking about scientific facts that contradicted the narrative?  Remember when they called for people’s […]

Trump Signs Executive Order To Crack Down On ‘Legendary’ Cheating With Lists For Mail-In Voting President Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that establishes a list of voters eligible to vote by mail in an effort to crack down on cheating.  “The cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It’s horrible what has been going on,” said Trump, adding “If you don’t have honest voting, you can’t have, really, a nation.”  […]

Federal Judges Rule Against White House Ballroom, Defunding NPR And PBS Another week, another couple of activist judges ruling against the Trump administration. Architect Shalom Baranes shows a site plan for the White House ballroom during a meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission in Washington on Jan. 8, 2026. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images On Tuesday, federal judges issued orders blocking the ongoing ballroom […]

DOJ Sues Minnesota Over Rules For Girls Sports Authored by Brett Rowland via The Center Square, The U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division filed a lawsuit Monday against Minnesota, alleging the state’s sports policies violate federal civil rights laws that protect against sex-based discrimination. Title IX, the landmark federal law enacted in 1972, prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities […]