Electric Bill Crisis Blame-Game Begins: Democrats Slam Data Centers, GOP Faults “Climate-Cult Ideology” It only took politicians a little over a year to catch up to our Mid-Atlantic power bill crisis theme (read here), as the battle to control the narrative over surging electricity costs intensifies. Democrats are pointing the finger at the explosion of data center buildouts and power-hungry server racks, while conservative […]

Trump Asks Supreme Court To Take Up E. Jean Carroll’s Defamation Case Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times, President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to wade into his defamation dispute with author E. Jean Carroll, alleging that an appeals court failed to recognize multiple evidentiary flaws that led to an adverse verdict for him. Trump’s legal team told The Epoch Times it filed a petition for writ of certiorari […]

EU Eyes Huawei Ban Over Half-Decade After Trump Flagged ‘Security Danger’ Once again Donald Trump has proven himself light-years ahead of Europe in foreseeing major security issues and deep flaws in EU policy. It was of course all the way back in President Trump’s first term that he first signed the May 2019 executive order seeking to block Chinese telecommunications companies like Huawei from selling equipment in the US, as tech […]

Russia Claims It Thwarted British & Ukrainian Plot To Steal Hypersonic Missile-Equipped Jet In an entirely bizarre – though perhaps not completely without precedent – allegation from the Russian government, Ukrainian and British intelligence attempted to steal a MiG-31 fighter jet equipped with a Kinzhal hypersonic missile. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that it had thwarted the alleged plot in which the […]

Futures Slide As AI Jitters Return After SoftBank Liquidates Nvidia Stake US futures are weaker following the best day for the S&P500 in almost a month and the Nasdaq’s best day since late May. The market frontran the catalyst: late on Monday the Senate passed its funding bill, and the House is expected to vote on Weds, as it always eventually does, especially since it has Trump’s full support. The government reopening will […]

Dollar Dumps As ADP Report Shows Big Job Losses In October, Small Biz Optimism Hits 6 Month Lows Recent announcements of large layoffs at a few prominent companies have raised concerns that the labor market could be weakening further, and today’s new weekly ADP employment report confirms that fear. The ADP weekly jobless report pointed to a deterioration in US labor momentum, stating that “for the four weeks ending Oct. 25, 2025, […]

‘War Zone’: Violent Protest Erupts At UC Berkeley TPUSA Event Authored by Jennifer Kabbany via The College Fix, The lead up to a Turning Point USA event on Monday night at UC Berkeley was filled with violence and mayhem, as aggressive protesters banged against barriers, set off a smoke grenade, and screamed at attendees waiting in line as law enforcement worked to keep things from spiraling into uncontrolled chaos. The event, […]

SoftBank Dumps Entire Nvidia Stake To Double-Down On ‘Core AI Enablers’ In another warning sign for the AI bubble, one we’ve been tracking closely, from the accelerating AI-linked debt binge and widening Oracle CDS spreads to repeated cautions from BofA’s Michael Hartnett and others – yet another red flag emerged Tuesday morning.  Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Group cashed out its $5.83 billion stake in Nvidia in October and is now […]

U.S. Aluminum Prices Surge To Record Highs As Tariffs Squeeze Supply Aluminum prices in the U.S. climbed to new record highs on Monday as domestic inventories tightened sharply, driven by the Trump administration’s steel and aluminum tariffs designed to bolster and revitalize America’s industrial base. According to Bloomberg, the all-in U.S. aluminum price, combining the London Metal Exchange (LME) benchmark and the U.S. […]

Why Tether Is Acting More Like A Central Bank Than A Stablecoin Authored by Bradley Peak via CoinTelegraph.com, Tether operates a Treasury- and repo-heavy balance sheet, holding $181.2 billion in reserves against $174.5 billion in liabilities, leaving $6.8 billion in excess. High interest rates have turned those reserves into profit, generating more than $10 billion in interest income so far in 2025, which is uncommon for a […]

Infighting Boils Over After Handful Of Democrats Vote To Reopen Government How quickly the tone of the Democratic Party has changed in the past week.  Only a few days ago they were boasting about a “blue wave” after winning a small number of elections that they were guaranteed to win regardless.  Some even cited the ongoing government shutdown as a catalyst for their victories in NYC, New Jersey and Virginia.  This might have […]

Has China Become The New Risk-Free Rate? Authored by Charles de Quinsonas via BondVigilantes.com, On 5th November China issued $4 billion worth of US dollar (USD)-denominated bonds split across two equal tranches. The orderbook was $161 billion at one point, but ended near $118 billion when final pricing was announced. The 3-year $2 billion tranche priced at US Treasury + 0bp (aka flat to UST) and the 5-year $2 billion tranche […]

Senate Passes Bill To End Shutdown – Now On To The House Update (2135ET): The Senate has finally approved a long-sought funding package to end the government shutdown, after eight Democrats crossed the aisle to back the bill – which will keep the lights on until Jan. 30 when we get to do this all over again. The legislation now heads to the House for approval. Senate Majority Leader John Thune. R-S.D. The final version also […]

India Races To Replace Russian Oil With US, Iraqi, & UAE Crude Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com, Two Indian refiners bought a total of 5 million barrels of crude oil from the United States, Iraq, and the UAE on the spot market as they seek alternatives to Russian crude. Reuters reported, citing unnamed industry sources, that Hindustan Petroleum Corp. had bought 2 million barrels of West Texas Intermediate and 2 […]

“We May Have To Evacuate Tehran”: Iranian President’s Remarks Stun Amid Water Crisis Coming off a very ‘hot’ geopolitical summer which saw Israel and the US attack Tehran and the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy facilities, Iran is now facing yet another immensely threatening crisis amid historic drought: lack of water for the population of 90+ million. Rainfall has been at record lows, causing reservoirs to be nearly empty, in an […]

Epoch Of Change Authored by T.L.Davis via Substack, I hope people are recognizing that they live in a very volatile world. Growing up in the 60s-70s it was pretty tame. There was the Vietnam war and war protesters, there was the free-love movement, feminism and other cultural changes taking place, but the whole world was not aflame as it is now. This could only be brought about by a worldwide effort to throw it into chaos. Chaos […]

Not Married, No Kids While Chinese Singles‘ Day (today) was originally conceived as a celebration of people who are not in a relationship, the growing popularity of a lifestyle that prioritizes personal independence and self-discovery over traditional societal expectations has not come without side effects. One such side effect has been a steep decline in marriage rates in China. As Statista’s Felix Richter details below, […]

Poland Might Impede The EU’s Push To Speedily Grant Ukraine Membership Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack, Poland has more to lose from this than Hungary does, but it’s happy to let Hungary feel the heat for impeding Ukraine’s plans, unless Orban is ousted next spring and Poland is then compelled to replace its role. The EU is making a renewed push to speedily grant Ukraine membership as suggested by two recent news […]

The Hidden World War Authored by Chris Macintosh via InternationalMan.com, World War III is already underway, but most people don’t recognize it because they’re conditioned to expect war to look like traditional physical violence with bombs, guns, and battlefield confrontations. This bias stems from centuries of warfare taking a particular form, similar to how people once couldn’t conceive of light without fire until […]

Latest US Attacks On Drug Boats Brings Total To 19, As Conservatives Urge Trump Stop Foreign Distractions At a moment that more and more conservative voices are calling on President Trump to drop the distraction of entangling foreign policy issues and instead work on setting domestic issues in order after a lengthy government shutdown, the Pentagon has announced yet more strikes on alleged drug boats off the coast of South America. […]

Trump Admin To Lend “Hundreds Of Billions” To Build Nuclear Power Plants While the market is finally starting to grapple with the most unpleasant question of who will plug the funding gap needed to build out all the data centers required to make the AI dream a reality, a gap which Morgan Stanley recently calculated would be as large as $2.9 trillion in capex funding needs, of which at least $1 trillion will come in the form of debt […]

SNAP And The Growth Of The American Welfare State Authored by Sylvia Xu and Lawrence Wilson via The Epoch Times, The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP, unexpectedly took center stage in debates over the federal government shutdown. As funding for the program, formerly known as Food Stamps, ran out in October, Congress, President Donald Trump, and the federal courts have wrestled with what to do […]

Wall Street Sees Hegseth’s Pentagon Procurement Overhaul As “Wake-Up Call” For Prime Contractors U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s sweeping reforms to secure “drone domain dominance” by 2027 are accelerating, following a Reuters report last week that the U.S. Army plans to acquire at least one million drones in the coming years. The initiative, driven by the Pentagon’s DOGE modernization team, marks a major shift toward a new […]

Lukoil Declares Force Majeure At Major Iraqi Oil Field Due To New US Sanctions Via The Cradle Russian energy corporation Lukoil has declared force majeure at Iraq’s West Qurna-2 oil field as a result of US sanctions on the firm, four sources told Reuters on Monday.  “Iraq has halted all cash and crude payments to Lukoil,” the sources said. The Russian energy firm operated Iraq’s West Qurna-2 oil field, which produces 480,000 […]

“Motivated To Get Income And End Their Housing Crisis”: Homeless Job Training Spikes 38% In San Diego San Diego’s Father Joe’s Villages reports a sharp rise in job training completions through its Gene Burkard Employment and Education Services program, which helps people experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity re-enter the workforce, CBS 8 reported last week. Father Joe’s Villages is one of Southern California’s […]