Tag Archives: Zero Hedge

The March Jobs Report

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While everyone was focused on the tariffs and the stock market, the March jobs report came out. It provided some good news, along with a workforce participation rate that increased slightly in March. If the work requirements are passed on food stamps and medicaid, I suspect that the workforce participation rate will increase rapidly.

On Friday, Zero Hedge reported:

After today’s shocking retaliation by China, which hiked tariffs on US goods by 34%, the jobs report was an afterthought. To be honest, it would have been an asymmetric afterhought any way, as any upside would have been viewed as stale and not reflecting the new tariff reality, while any miss would have cemented the recession case. And while the market is certainly far more focused on the ongoing trade war, in the end, the March jobs report ended up being far stronger than expected, as the US added a whopping 228K jobs, the highest since December and more than double the 117K in February (revised lower from 151K)…

…The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for January was revised down by 14,000, from +125,000 to +111,000, and the change for February was revised down by 34,000, from +151,000 to +117,000. With these revisions, employment in January and February combined is 48,000 lower than previously reported.

The article concludes:

Commenting on the numbers, Trump posted on Truth Social that job numbers were “far better than expected” and that “it’s already working.”

Trump’s tweet suggests that contrary to some expectations, the president isn’t actually looking to throw the economy in a recession, but will push to keep it from crashing while he is playing the great game of trade war chicken with China and the rest of the world, which makes lives for traders more difficult as it means the Fed will have to make decisions on a tweet by tweet basis, which will be problematic.

Meanwhile, others disagreed: here is Seema Shah from Ptincipal Asset Management who encapsulates prevailing sentiment well:

“Everyone knows that economic weakness is coming, but at least we can be reassured that the labor market was robust coming into this policy-driven shock and therefore, the slowdown should not be overly steep. Next month is when hard data is likely to start showing signs of what soft data has already been signalling. From the Fed’s perspective, today’s payrolls number will not prevent them from future policy rate cuts – they know that this is just a moment of calm before the storm hits.”

Gregory Faranello, strategist at AmeriVet Securities, explained why today’s jobs report was largely ignored: “it’s all about the forward outlook around tariffs and the ensuing impact on global demand. You would never have thought to see yields performing this way with a jobs report like this.”

Ed Al-Hussainy, rates strategist at Columbia Threadneedle Investment, says “the market is betting that recession risks and the tightening of financial conditions will force the Fed to cut aggressively” now up to 100bp this year and rising. 

As for Powell’s speech later this morning, Al-Hussainy says: “If we get any pushback against this from Powell & Co., front end rates may end up offside.”

But perhaps the best wrap of today’s jobs report, however, was from Omair Sharif,  Inflation Insights: “Someone forgot there was a recession coming.”

President Trump has been in office less than three months. Are they planning to blame him for a recession? Why are some economists so focused on recession? Is this focus on recession political or economic?

Who Should Vote In American Elections?

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In the beginning days of America, only land owners were allowed to vote because it was assumed that they had a stake in the game. Later male citizens were allowed to vote. Women were not voting at that time because it was assumed that the man in the house represented the family. There were few single-parent families in those days, and generally women were expected to be married and in families. Obviously that has changed, and women now have the right to vote. But should non-citizens have the right to vote? There does not seem to be agreement on that question.

According to the Cornell Law School website:

18 U.S. Code § 611 – Voting by aliens

(a) It shall be unlawful for any alien to vote in any election held solely or in part for the purpose of electing a candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, or Resident Commissioner, unless—

(1)the election is held partly for some other purpose;
(2)aliens are authorized to vote for such other purpose under a State constitution or statute or a local ordinance; and
(3)voting for such other purpose is conducted independently of voting for a candidate for such Federal offices, in such a manner that an alien has the opportunity to vote for such other purpose, but not an opportunity to vote for a candidate for any one or more of such Federal offices.

On April 2nd, Zero Hedge reported the following:

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) and two top U.S. lawmakers on March 31 sued President Donald Trump over a recent executive order that aims to enforce the law against illegal immigrant voting and election dates.

“The Executive Order seeks to impose radical changes on how Americans register to vote, cast a ballot, and participate in our democracy—all of which threaten to disenfranchise lawful voters and none of which is legal,” says the lawsuit, filed by Democratic Party attorney Marc Elias in federal court in Washington.

Trump’s March 25 order has multiple sections. Several deal with laws that bar foreigners from registering to vote or from voting in federal elections. Trump directed the independent Election Assistance Commission to require proof of U.S. citizenship in its mail voter registration form, ordered U.S. officials to work with the Department of Government Efficiency to review voter rolls to identify noncitizens who are already registered, and told the U.S. attorney general to prosecute individuals who have illegally registered or voted.

Another prong takes aim at how some states in recent years have begun counting mailed ballots that arrive after Election Day, which the order says contravenes federal law.

A third portion says the Election Assistance Commission shall stop providing federal funds to states that don’t comply with the laws on election dates and noncitizen voting and voter registration.

The U.S. Constitution’s election clause says that states can set election dates, although Congress can alter them.

“Outside of the Elections Clause, other provisions in the Constitution place certain requirements and limitations on the regulation of elections—but none allows the President to override the will of the States or Congress in this space,” the new suit states.

The legal challenge also says that the Election Assistance Commission is an independent agency over which the president, who appoints commissioners, has no control, and that federal law lets applicants who vote in federal elections attest to citizenship with a signature as opposed to requiring proof from documents such as a passport.

Not allowing people who are not citizens to vote does not disenfranchise anyone who is legally allowed to vote. One wonders why the Democrats brought this suit (other than simply to harass President Trump).

Paying Federal Employees To Do Union Work

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On Friday, Zero Hedge posted an article about the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS is ending collective bargaining for Transportation Security Officers with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). That seems a little odd until you look into the details.

The article reports:

According to the report, The TSA has more people doing “full-time union work” vs. performing actual screening functions at 86% of US airports. Put another way, 374 out of 432 federalized airports have fewer than 200 TSA Officers to perform screening functions, while the rest are paid by the government but work “full-time on union matters” and do not retain certification to perform screening.

What’s more, DHS cited a recent TSA employee survey which found that over 60% of “poor performers” are allowed to stay employed and “not surprisingly, continue to not perform.”

(Also, maybe get rid of the nut-grabbers in the TSA patdown area when we don’t want to submit to those Total Recall scanners made by Leidos – formerly SAIC).

This is not a successful business plan.

The article concludes:

“Thanks to [DHS] Secretary Noem’s action, Transportation Security Officers will no longer lose their hard-earned dollars to a union that does not represent them. The Trump Administration is committed to returning to merit-based hiring and firing policies,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement, adding “This action will ensure Americans will have a more effective and modernized [workforce] across the nation’s transportation networks—meaning shorter airport security wait times. TSA is renewing its commitment to providing a quick and secure travel process for Americans.”

Another step in the right direction for American taxpayers.

Protecting The Pocketbook Of The American Taxpayer

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On Saturday, Zero Hedge posted an article about Elon Musk’s efforts to cut government spending. David A. Lebryk, the acting Secretary of the Treasury has retired after refusing Elon Musk access to Treasury Department records.

The article reports:

David A. Lebryk, a decades-long Treasury official who President Trump named as acting secretary upon taking office last week, announced his retirement in a Friday email to colleagues. According to the report, Lebryk had a dispute with Musk surrogates over access to the US government’s payment system used to disburse trillions of dollars every year.

[Imagine Musk and team uncover decades of improper payments and shady dealings?]

The Musk surrogates are affiliated with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and have been asking since the election for access to the system, according to the report. The requests were reiterated after Trump’s inauguration.

After Trump pick Scott Bessent was confirmed as Treasury Secretary on Monday, Lebryk ceased to be acting agency head.

The payment system in question is run by a handful of career officials within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service – which controls the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses, and other entities nationwide – and includes Social Security, Medicare, federal salaries, payments to government contractors, tax refunds, grant recipients, and more.

…Unfortunately for the career bureaucrats, Trump signed an executive order instructing all agencies to ensure DOGE has “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems,” which appear to include the Treasury payment systems.

Musk has previously slammed rising national debt as an existential threat to the country, while DOGE has already made progress in rooting out bullshit programs established by Democrat administrations.

On Saturday, The New York Times reported:

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency full access to the federal payment system late on Friday, according to three people familiar with the change, handing Elon Musk and the team he is leading a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending.

The new authority follows a standoff this week with a top Treasury official who had resisted allowing Mr. Musk’s lieutenants into the department’s payment system, which sends out money on behalf of the entire federal government. The official, a career civil servant named David Lebryk, was put on leave and then suddenly retired on Friday after the dispute, according to people familiar with his exit.

This is what America voted for.

It Would Be Nice If Someone Were Held Accountable

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President Biden’s preemptive pardons may have spared his family members jail time, but the information that has come out about the family business should make every member of the Biden family ashamed. Part of me wants to simply leave all of their dishonesty behind and move on, but how will that deter future political types from the same criminal activities? If you believe that all politicians are corrupt, shouldn’t all of us be working to change that?

On Sunday, Zero Hedge posted an article about some documents about the Biden family’s financial transactions that have recently come to light.

The article reports:

Recently pardoned Hunter Biden has once again found himself at the center of controversy, as newly surfaced bank records and corporate documents indicate that a shared bank account linked to the future first son was used in a fraudulent bond transaction tied to Burnham Asset Management. The firm was involved in a million-dollar securities fraud that saw two of Biden’s business partners arrested and convicted – while Hunter escaped accountability, Just the News reports.

Huntr’s former business partners, Devon Archer and Jason Galanis, were convicted for their roles in a scheme that defrauded an Oglala Sioux Native American tribal entity of tens of millions of dollars. Federal authorities found that instead of investing the funds as promised, Archer, Galanis, and their associates misappropriated the bond proceeds.

While Archer and Galanis faced prosecution, Hunter quickly faded into the bushes, telling lawmakers in his impeachment inquiry deposition that his proposed role in the company “never came to fruition.” However, bank records and a signature analysis reveal that Biden was more entangled with the firm than he has publicly acknowledged.

The article concludes:

House Republicans are now weighing their next steps considering Hunter’s massive pardon in December, the investigation remains far from over. With documented financial transactions, corporate records, and sworn testimony painting an increasingly complicated picture, the Biden family’s business dealings continue to fuel questions about influence peddling and financial transparency.

As Just the News notes further, one Senator believes it may be possible to bring Hunter Biden back for more questioning. Now that he is protected by his father’s expansive pardon, Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wis., says Hunter Biden cannot exercise his fifth amendment right to avoid incriminating himself. 

“But what is interesting is, with Hunter Biden’s pardon, he has no Fifth Amendment right not to testify and tell the truth, and so he could be, we could prosecute him for lying to Congress,” Sen. Johnson told the John Solomon Reports podcast earlier this month. “He’s going to have to answer truthfully. So that’s a real possibility.” 

I am not sure Congress should waste its time on this garbage. They might be better served by looking at current political figures to make sure it doesn’t happen again. If someone becomes a millionaire after one term in Congress when their net worth upon entering was a few hundred thousand, their financial dealings might be worth some scrutiny, but what is past is past.

Thank God That The Biden Economy Will Be Over Soon

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On Wednesday, Zero Hedge reported that American manufacturing jobs in November saw their biggest losses since June 2023.

The article includes the following:

The article also reports:

Worse still, wage growth starting to rise again (after unions scored huge wage increases).

    • Job-changer wage growth rose to 7.20% YoY  from 6.70%, highest since August.
    • Job-stayer wage growth 4.80%, highest since June; year-over-year pay gains for job-stayers edged up for the first time in 25 months

Although wage growth is good for workers, when wages outpace workers’ value, companies either relocate to other countries or decrease the number of workers. I was in a store yesterday that I hadn’t been in for a while and all of the check-out registers were self-serve. When wages outpace productivity, that is the result.

There are a number of ways the Trump administration can work to solve the ongoing loss of manufacturing jobs without impacting workers’ wages. Cheaper energy cuts the cost of manufacturing, deregulation cuts the cost of manufacturing, and lower taxes on corporations will also bring manufacturing back to America. Tariffs will also discourage companies from moving out of the country. We can bring manufacturing back to America, but it will take someone who understands economics to do that. I believe President Trump understands economics.

I Think We Just Dodged A Bullet

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On Wednesday, Zero Hedge posted an article about a meeting between Marc Andreessen, an American businessman and former software engineer, and Biden administration officials.

The article reports:

Marc Andreessen, the billionaire investor and co-founder of the influential Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, revealed in a new episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast that after an “alarming” meeting with Biden administration officials earlier this year was the moment he would have no other choice but to support Donald Trump. 

For decades, Andreessen has supported Democrats, including Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. However, a troubling spring meeting with Biden administration officials caused major concerns. During the meeting, officials explained their plan to control AI through government regulatory capture—a strategy reminiscent of Communist policies in China.   

“We had meetings [Biden officials] this spring that were the most alarming meetings I’ve ever been in. Where they were taking us through their plans, and it was – basically just full government – full government control – like this sort of thing, there will be a small number of large companies that will be completely regulated and controlled by the government, they told us. They said don’t even start startups – there’s just no way that they can succeed – there’s no way that we’re going to permit that to happen.” 

The article notes:

Andreessen told Rogan (Joe Rogan) about the federal government’s rogue “Operation Choke Point.” He described it as a move by the Department of Justice that initially targeted marijuana businesses and gun manufacturers. He said under Biden, it was then weaponized to destroy political opponents, tech founders, and the crypto community. 

We have seen the Biden administration act in violation of the Supreme Court in the past (student loan forgiveness). Is there anyone who believes that if Kamala Harris had been elected her administration would have been reined in by the rule of law? I believe we dodged a bullet on November 5th.

Learning From The Past

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On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the latest economic numbers released by the Biden administration. On the surface, they look wonderful. At closer examination, not so much.

The article reports:

The economy expanded by 2.8% from July to September, according to Commerce Department figures. The growth is said to be driven by consumer spending, also up 3.7% during this time. Job gains actually slowed to the lowest point since 2020, a sharp decline from 254,000 in September to just 12,000 in October, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Yet the regime has plenty of excuses — storms and strikes — and touts how the unemployment rate remains unchanged at 4.1%. Meanwhile the inflation rate is approaching the Federal Reserve’s target, meaning it could lower interest rates as soon as next week. All told, things are looking alright — at least on the surface.

“Consumers are spending. Inflation is cooling. And the U.S. economy looks as strong as ever,” The New York Times giddily ledes with.

When the corporate media and financial regulators are on the same page, there’s always an instinctual reason to be distrustful. During the Biden-Harris administration, all the Very Smart People running the U.S. economy have made a habit of quietly revising their optimistic numbers after they come out. After all, it’s only the initial headlines that count.

The article includes the following screenshot:

There’s some history here–in the Biden administration (and possibly in previous administrations), the initial numbers are not always accurate.

The article concludes:

This might even be an understatement; the downward revisions on jobs numbers have been nothing short of egregious this year. The revised figures between Q1 2023 and Q1 2024 showed there were 818,000 fewer jobs added than initially reported. But the new figures did not trickle out until August 2024, at which point it was safe for CNN to admit that job growth was “far weaker” than many thought. The pattern has continued throughout the year as well, with the last two months’ figures being revised significantly downward after their initial release. August figures were revised down by more than half, from a gain of 159,000 to just 78,000. September was less drastic, but still dropped by 31,000 jobs after revision. With just a measly 12,000 jobs added last month, there’s hardly any room to revise without the figure turning negative. Only time will tell.

Downward revisions are also an issue in growth figures, albeit to a lesser degree. Already poor Q1 2024 growth rates of 1.6% were quietly revised to a sluggish 1.3% at the end of May.

It’s an undeniable pattern. We get these awesome economic releases, a barrage of friendly headlines and then months later quiet updates that dramatically alter the actual, final number. Either all the Very Smart People are much worse at this than they used to be, or there’s some shady politicking at play. With the numbers coming days before an extremely tight election, skepticism toward the latter is certainly warranted. Either way, there’s good reason to think these new economic numbers will go down. It’s only a matter of when.

If the people reporting these numbers are that far off, maybe we need new people reporting them.

The Impact Of A Possible Trump Victory

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As usual, follow the money. Look at the corporate boards some of our current top military figures sit on. Follow the money trail as the money moves from companies that make munitions to companies that rebuild after peace is declared. I don’t mean to be cynical, but much of what goes on in the world is decided by a group of elites that are heavily invested in munitions and companies that rebuild war zones after peace is declared. President Trump is a threat to the ongoing income of this group of elites–there were no new wars while he was in office. He knew how to use economic leverage to avoid war.

On Thursday, Zero Hedge reported the following:

In a huge and surprise development, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has specified and verbalized what could be a first concrete step toward ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

He told journalists in Kiev this week that both sides should mutually agree on halting all aerial attacks on energy targets and cargo ships, and that this could pave the way for negotiations to end the war.

The comments were first reported by Financial Times on Tuesday, which quoted the Monday remarks as follows: “when it comes to energy and freedom of navigation, getting a result on these points would be a signal that Russia may be ready to end the war.”

The article concludes:

And yet recent escalations appear to have made it less likely that direct negotiations would happen, at least according to public statements from officials on both sides. But on the ground in the east, in the Donbass, Russian forces are clearly on the advance, and Ukraine’s severe manpower problems have become more and more obvious and public.

Zelensky’s potential ‘offer’ of mutually halting aerial attacks on energy sites comes as he’s been promoting his five-point ‘victory plan’ – which so far has received a muted response in Washington and among NATO leaders. The quiet signals from the Western allies appear to be pushing Kiev toward winding down the conflict, at the negotiating table, as opposed to escalation which could lead to direct Russia-NATO fighting.

This is a significant turn, given that up until this week Zelensky had always rejected the very idea of talks with Putin, saying he would not negotiate with Moscow so long as the Russian strongman remains in power. That thinking appears to have changed, likely a reflection of the increasing desperation Ukraine’s armed forces are feeling.

I believe that if President Trump is elected, he will find a way to end the war. I believe that is why Zelensky is moving in the direction he is moving. Understand that Zelensky would love to see Kamala Harris elected so that the money train will continue and never be audited. If he ends the war now, it will be the ultimate October surprise and may influence the election. Actually, if the war ends now and Kamala Harris is elected, the gravy train will continue under the guise of reconstruction and the American taxpayer will again get fleeced. If President Trump wins, the money going to Ukraine will probably be audited, and that could be very awkward. That is where we are.

How Many Is Appropriate?

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During a recent interview with Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week, JD Vance brought up the subject of illegal migrant gangs taking over hotels in American cities. When Martha Raddatz commented “The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes and the mayor said our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns — a handful of problems.”  JD Vance replied, “Do you hear yourself? Only ‘a handful’ of apartment complexes in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem? Not Kamala Harris’s open border?” (The quotes are from RealClearPolitics.) How many gang takeovers of American apartment buildings is appropriate?

On Wednesday, Zero Hedge reported:

The Biden-Harris administration misled the public with phony FBI crime statistics, pushing the narrative that far-left policies were actually making America safer. Weeks later, those numbers were “revised,” revealing a shocking truth: a 2.1% decrease in US violent crime in 2022 was actually a 4.5% increase! 

…This brings us to the current crime crisis spreading across certain New York City boroughs, like stage four cancer, where armed illegal alien kids are brazenly robbing citizens and tourists alike.

…Here’s more from a separate NYPost report:

Law enforcement sources said gang members hid among the millions of asylum seekers who crossed the US border with Mexico since 2022, then scattered throughout the country.

…

In New York, gang members exploited the city’s migrant shelter system, running robbery crews, as well as trafficking drugs, guns and sex workers under the noses of private security guards. according to sources.

Tren de Aragua has become such a significant concern that leaked US Army documents estimate more than 5,000 of these gangsters, some of which are armed, are running amok nationwide.

These are the illegal immigration numbers from recent years. When you let in that many unvetted people, there are going to be bad apples in the bunch:

The article concludes with a message from a truck driver:

Do yourself a favor this holiday season: Avoid NYC and, in fact, boycott sanctuary towns. Spend your money elsewhere.

Immigration policies (or lack of) have consequences.

 

Dealing With America’s Health Crisis

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There is a health crisis in America. It has taken many forms. How many people do you know in your life that take less than two pills a day (other than vitamins)? Compare the beach-goers of today with those of the 1960’s–admittedly in the 60’s they were covered in more material, but there was a whole lot less fat. Did the entire country stop exercising or eating right? What happened? A number of well-informed people believe the increase in obesity is due to things being added to our food that weren’t there 60 years ago.

On Tuesday, Zero Hedge posted an article about the health crisis in America and some plans to make us all healthier.

The article reports:

After more than four decades in public health, Redfield believes the former president “chose the right man [RFK Jr.] for the job” to combat the processed foods industrial complex, which has ignited an obesity crisis across the Heartland. 

“For instance, obesity in American children has increased dramatically since John F. Kennedy’s presidency, from around 4 percent in the 1960s to almost 20 percent in 2024,” he said, adding, “The causes of childhood obesity are complex, but a primary origin is clearly the modern American diet of highly processed foods.” 

He explained the causes for this obesity crisis are primarily due to “special interest and corporate influences on our federal agencies.” 

Redfield pointed out that “Kennedy is right” about the corporate capture problem of federal agencies.

Kennedy is right: All three of the principal health agencies suffer from agency capture. A large portion of the FDA’s budget is provided by pharmaceutical companies. NIH is cozy with biomedical and pharmaceutical companies and its scientists are allowed to collect royalties on drugs NIH licenses to pharma. And as the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I know the agency can be influenced by special interest groups.

Redfield acknowledges that agency capture is a serious issue, highlighting that federal agencies responsible for regulating food and medicine are possibly compromised by the food industrial complex and big pharma. 

Maybe it was a warning sign when big pharma and the feds pushed Ozempic as the ‘wonder shot’ to end the obesity crisis instead of promoting exercise and safe, clean food.

Voting for President Trump could improve your health!

The Problem Of Illegal Immigrant Gangs Is Spreading

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On Friday, Zero Hedge posted an article about a problem a Texas oil company is having with Venezuelan gangs who are in America illegally.

The article reports:

It’s only going to get worse from here, as the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous open border policies have now come to a ‘neighborhood near you’ (for some of you). In the past week, we saw armed Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua members terrorize the northern Denver suburb of Aurora and other sanctuary cities run by far-left Democrats. New concerns out Thursday afternoon indicate critical infrastructure is now under threat from migrant cartel members. 

According to Libs of TikTok, a Texas-based oil/gas company issued a memo to employees informing them that police and the FBI have warned armed Cuba and Venezuela migrant gangs are committing thefts in the Permian Basin (America’s highest producing oil field). 

Here’s the memo:

Industry peers and law enforcement in West Texas (WTX) are aware of a recent increase in organized criminal activity inclusive of violent crimes, gang activity and oil field thefts in and around WTX operational areas. Specifically, regional law enforcement and the FBI advised that gang members emanating from Cuba and Venezuela are organizing and working in concert to commit thefts within the Permian Basin. These individuals and groups are armed, violent in nature and will not hesitate to use force.

Crimes associated with these groups include the theft of oil, diesel fuel, copper wire, and catalyst elements. Recent incidents have also included two assaults by water haulers who were attempting to steal oil from WTX oilfield sites. After the thieves were observed by witnesses who drove up to investigate, the thieves attempted to use their vehicles to run the witnesses off the road. In another incident, a thief, acting as a spotter and following a water hauler who had stolen oil, also attempted to run a witness off the road. There have been numerous reports of second vehicles acting as spotters for water haulers committing oil thefts.

This is what happens when you have no southern border.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Has Specific Issues He Wants To Target

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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is an interesting addition to the Trump team. I am sure there are places where the two seriously disagree, but I suspect there are also places where they strongly agree. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has said for years that he distrusts the pharmaceutical companies who push vaccines and that is concerned about the chemicals being put into our food supply. While I don’t agree with all of his ideas on either subject, he does have some good ideas.

On Saturday, Zero Hedge posted an article about one of the good ideas.

The article reports:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent decades as an environmental lawyer fighting polluters and supported ‘green’ organizations for environmental justice. He is now setting his crosshairs on the pharmaceutical industry and cleaning up the nation’s food supply chain of ultra-processed foods and seed oils that poison consumers. He has determined that suspending his presidential campaign to team up with former President Trump will be necessary for the strongest success rate in making Americans healthier again, not through big pharma’s Ozempic shots but instead revitalizing small farms and shaking up corrupted federal agencies.

Lifelong liberals like RFK Jr. backing Trump is one of the strongest indicators of just how extreme the ticket, unoriginal Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats have become. Harris’ team recently announced their first proposed economic policy, which was rooted in communism and included disastrous price controls. It appears the far-left ticket is being advised and heavily influenced by Marxists. 

The article concludes:

Mega corporations, some of which are part of the ‘green’ cult, want greater and greater control over the nation’s food supply chain. Some are even pushing insect-based diets.

The big takeaway from RFK Jr.’s support of Trump is that he believes the correct path to restoring America’s health is not Ozempic shots but revitalizing the nation’s local food supply chains by making small farms great again. He wants to reset the food supply chain system and purge it of ultra-processed foods and seed oils that are killing consumers. He also proposed shaking up federal agencies in health and food that have close ties with ultra-processed food companies. 

For years, we have told readers that it’s critical to support local farmers and put the food supply chain back into the hands of the people—not corrupt mega-corps that flood store shelves with cancer-causing junk food.

Henry Kissinger famously said, “Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”

It’s time for Americans to regain control of the nation’s food supply chains by making small farms great again. Also, boycotting the processed food industry and buying local food is critical.

If Trump wins, RFK Jr. will likely provide tailwinds for small farmers. And Europe will take note as corp/gov’ts have also waged war on small farms. 

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. This would be very good for all Americans.

Is Anyone In Washington Ever Held Accountable?

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On Monday, Zero Hedge posted an article about the Congressional investigation into the Biden family finances.

The article reports:

The GOP-led House committees who have been investigating the Biden family shook their fist at the sky on Monday, announcing in a 291-page report that the president engaged in impeachable conduct by helping to enrich his family with millions of dollars through various business schemes to trade on the family name – and then defrauded voters by lying to cover it up, Just the News reports.

The House Oversight, Ways and Means and Judiciary Committees said they believe the evidence from their nine-month investigation establishes that Biden abused his office and violated his oaths under the Constitution, according to the 291-page report reviewed by Just the News. 

Obviously this would have been infinitely more helpful even a few months ago when there was time for the GOP-controlled House to take action (particularly before the DOJ concluded that Biden is too senile to prosecute), but hey – better late than never.

The article concludes:

According to Just the News:

The committee cited evidence that Biden “actively participated” in an influence-peddling conspiracy by attending dinners with his family’s foreign associates and speaking to them over the phone. These interactions were documented by email evidence and testimony from several of Hunter Biden’s ex-business partners, including Devon Archer and Jason Galanis.

The committees also said evidence shows Hunter Biden used his father’s official position as vice president to “garner favorable outcomes in foreign business dealings and legal proceedings.”

Beyond Biden’s conduct as vice president, the report argued the Justice Department during his presidency deviated from normal practices in order to provide favorable treatment to Hunter Biden, throwing up roadblocks in the investigation and preventing attorneys from pursuing certain avenues of inquiry, as two IRS whistleblowers testified to the House Ways and Means Committee. -Just the News

The report also alleges that Biden engaged in a coverup by lying about he and his family’s conduct.

“President Joe Biden conspired to commit influence peddling and grift,” the committees wrote. “In doing so, he abused his office and, by repeatedly lying about his abuse of office, has defrauded the United States to enrich his family.“

As JTN notes, the report is unlikely to result in a formal impeachment since Biden has stepped out of the 2024 race and is coasting towards January 2025 as the lamest of ducks.

I don’t think impeachment is reasonable at all–I think when you look at the timeline–the continuous breaking the law for years–many family members belong in jail.

Altering Headlines

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On Tuesday, Zero Hedge posted an article about a campaign tactic being used by the Harris, Walz campaign that is very misleading.

The article reports:

Despite corporate media’s unabashed u-turn to support Kamala Harris, her campaign has been busted creating made-up headlines next to the names of real news outlets to trick people into thinking they’ve stumbled upon the real thing, Axios reports.

The article includes a few screenshots of the fake headlines:

Just for the record, President Trump has made it very clear that abortion is a states’ issue. It falls under the Tenth Amendment. Roe vs. Wade was unconstitutional because of the Tenth Amendment, and any effort to ban abortion nationwide would be unconstitutional for the same reason. The issue of abortion is left to the states, so that the voters in each state can choose. I will say that I think it is criminal that abortion is a billion-dollar industry selling aborted baby body parts, but each voter has the right to evaluate that fact.

The article concludes:

Meanwhile, according to Google’s ad transparency center, the Trump campaign isn’t running these types of ads – and says that because ads on Search are prominently labeled as “Sponsored,” they’re “easily distinguishable from Search results.” A Google spokesperson added “we’ve provided additional levels of transparency for election ads specifically.”

Nevermind that news outlets pay to promote their own articles all the time.

And nevermind that there was a “glitch” which hid the ad disclosure.

A source familiar with the Harris campaign’s ads team said the campaign buys search ads with news links to give voters searching for information about Vice President Harris more context.

      • The campaign has complied with all of Google’s rules, although a technical glitch in Google’s Ad Library made it appear as though some ads lacked the necessary disclosures Google requires when they ran. (A Google spokesperson confirmed the glitch and said it’s investigating what happened.)
      • “Election advertisers are required to complete an identity verification process and we prominently display in-ad disclosures that clearly show people who paid for the ad,” the spokesperson said. -Axios

That said, according to Google the ads don’t violate its rules – however other platforms have taken action against such deception. Facebook, for example, banned advertisers from editing text from Instant Article news links in their ads in 2017, citing its “continuing efforts to stop the spread of misinformation and false news.” 

A candidate so good they have to deceive voters…

If the polls really show that they are winning, why are they cheating?

Preparing To Cheat

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On Friday, Zero Hedge reported that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has reinstated unsupervised ballot drop boxes for the 2024 election. Anyone who is familiar with the movie 2000 Mules understands the problem with that ruling. On a lighter note, if President Biden is forced off the ballot, all of the phony ballots prepared for the November election will have to be scrapped.

The article reports:

In a 4-3 decision that reverses their own 2022 prohibition on unmanned dropboxes, the justices agreed with Democrats who argued that the Wisconsin Supreme Court had previously misinterpreted the law in its 2022 ruling, and wrongly concluded that absentee ballots can only be returned to a clerk in their office, and not to a drop box that is located elsewhere.

“What if we just got it wrong?” said Justice Jill Karofsky during May arguments. “What if we made a mistake? Are we now supposed to just perpetuate that mistake into the future?”

Attorneys representing Republican backers of the 2022 ruling argued that there have been no changes in the facts or the law to warrant overturning the ruling that’s less than two years old.

In 2023, the Wisconsin Supreme Court switched from a Republican majority to a Democrat majority. That explains the change in the voting process. At some point you have to ask yourself why the Democrats are so focused in preserving voting practices that enable cheating.

Things To Think About Before You Vote

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On Friday, Zero Hedge posted an article about some things that the Biden administration will not be talking about during the presidential campaign.

These are the facts:

1. It takes the typical U.S. household $1,069 more a month just to purchase the same goods and services that it did three years ago.

2. Two-thirds of the respondents to one recent survey indicated that they had to take action to deal with rising financial stress within the past year.  Those actions included “cutting back on spending, skipping monthly bills, or taking an additional job”.

3. Home insurance rates have risen by 38 percent since 2019.

4. Home rental prices are up 30 percent since Joe Biden entered the White House.

5. A whopping 61 percent of U.S. renters cannot afford the rent on a median-priced apartment in the United States right now.

6. Gasoline prices are up 46 percent since Joe Biden entered the White House.

7. The average rate on a 30 year fixed mortgage is up 148 percent since Joe Biden entered the White House.

8. According to Zillow, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical home in this country has almost doubled during the past four years.

9. One recent poll discovered that 44 percent of retired Americans are considering going back to work because the cost of living has become so oppressive.

10. New home sales fell 11.3 percent last month.

11. Pending home sales are dropping at the fastest rate ever recorded.

12. According to the House Budget Committee, there have been more than 8 million migrant encounters nationwide while Joe Biden has been in the White House.  We truly are in the midst of an immigration crisis that is far greater than anything that we have ever witnessed before.

13. Thanks to our unprecedented immigration crisis, the homeless population in the city of Chicago actually tripled in just one year.

14. Murder rates are up by double digit percentages in many major U.S. cities this year.

15. Continuing jobless claims just shot up to the highest level in almost three years.

16. The number of job openings in the United States has dropped to the lowest level in more than 3 years.

17. Rite Aid just announced that it will be closing 27 more stores.  That is on top of more than 500 stores that it has already decided to shut down.

18. Walgreens plans to close approximately one-fourth of its 8,600 U.S. stores.  If the economy really was “booming”, why would they be doing this?

19. Today, 20 percent of the entire population of the state of California is living in poverty.

20. According to one recent survey, 46 percent of Americans don’t even have 500 dollars saved up.

21. So far, the U.S. has spent a total of approximately 175 billion dollars on the war in Ukraine, and the Russians are still winning.

Hopefully, President Trump will mention some of this during his campaigning.

Is This The Beginning Of Telling The Truth?

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On Wednesday, Zero Hedge posted the following headline:

AstraZeneca Pulls COVID Vaccine After Admitting Rare Side Effect

Note that the headline says ‘admitting’–not discovering. When did they discover the ‘rare’ side effect.

The article reports:

In yet another damning development for the ‘safe and effective’ crowd, AstraZeneca has announced the worldwide withdrawal of its Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, branded as Vaxzevria, due to a rare but serious side effect. This decision marks the end of the vaccine once hailed as a “triumph for British science” by Boris Johnson and credited with saving over six million lives, The Telegraph reports.

How does anyone know how many lives the vaccine saved? How many people would have not gotten Covid or survived Covid without the shot? There really is no way to track that because there is no way to set up a control group.

The article notes:

Legal experts and victims, however, see the withdrawal as a vindication of their long-held concerns over the vaccine’s safety. “To those who we represent, all of whom have suffered bereavement or serious injury as a result of the AstraZeneca vaccine, this decision to withdraw marketing authorisation, ending the usage of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the EU, will be welcomed,” said Sarah Moore, a partner at Leigh Day, the law firm representing many of the claimants.

“It will be seen as a decision linked with AstraZeneca’s recent admission that the vaccine can cause TTS, and the fact that regulators across the world suspended or stopped usage of the vaccine following concerns regarding TTS.”

Victims and their families have reported a range of severe reactions, from fatal thrombosis to lasting disabilities, sparking a debate over the adequacy of vaccine safety monitoring and compensation for vaccine injuries.

Kate Scott, whose husband suffered a permanent brain injury after receiving the vaccine, expressed mixed feelings: “AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine no longer being used in the UK or Europe, and soon the rest of the world, means no one else will suffer from this awful adverse reaction,” she said. “They say it is for commercial reasons, but maybe it’s because it can no longer be seen as being within the acceptable safety parameters, with 445 confirmed cases of VITT, 81 of these fatal in the UK alone.”

I am temporarily swearing off all vaccines until I am convinced that medicine is about caring for people and not providing profits for the drug companies.

Sometimes Congress’ Priorities Are Amazing

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On Monday, Zero Hedge reported the following:

While Congress failed to pass a border security bill over the weekend amid a flurry of billions in international aid to Ukraine and Israel, they did set aside $3.5 billion for “Migration and Refugee Assistance” for the State Department to “address humanitarian needs of vulnerable populations and communities.”

While written in an absurdly broad brushstroke that’s going to be open to interpretation, X user ‘Oilfield Rando‘ suggests that the funds will be used “to pay the NGOs coordinating the illegal invasion at our southern border, and providing all the freebies once they’re in.”

The article includes the following screenshot from Twitter:

It really is time for a new Congress.

Be Careful How Much You Skim

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On Sunday, Zero Hedge posted an article with the following headline:

Ukraine Gets Their Billions Despite CIA Director Reportedly Warning Zelenksy To Stop Stealing So Much Money

I think this comes under the heading “You can’t make this stuff up.” Democrats in Congress have consistently blocked an audit of how money sent to Ukraine is spent, so Americans really have no idea where their tax dollars are going.

The article reports:

As Seymour Hersh recently reported, CIA Director Burns had to warn Zelensky to stop stealing so much money.

The issue of corruption was directly raised with Zelensky in a meeting last January in Kiev with CIA Director William Burns.

His message to the Ukrainian president, I was told by an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting, was out of a 1950s mob movie.

The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelensky’s greed, so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because “he was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals.”

Burns also presented Zelensky with a list of thirty-five generals and senior officials whose corruption was known to the CIA and others in the American government.

Zelensky responded to the American pressure ten days later by publicly dismissing ten of the most ostentatious officials on the list and doing little else.

“The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,”the intelligence official told me.

Zelensky’s half-hearted response and the White House’s lack of concern was seen, the intelligence official added, as another sign of a lack of leadership that is leading to a “total breakdown” of trust between the White House and some elements of the intelligence community.

The article concludes

But, remember, the first rule of sending money to corrupt Ukraine is… you don’t talk about how corrupt Ukraine is (or you get impeached).

 

Standing Up For Women Athletes

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On Friday, Zero Hedge posted an article about a soccer team in the NorthWest Association, a league in Australia.

The article reports:

Calling itself the “biggest LGBTQIA+ women’s and non-binary football club in the world,” the Flying Bats FC has made international headlines for fielding 5 self-identifying transgender players, with at least nine transgender players in the wider NorthWest Association.

Critics have said the Bat’s domination of the four-week pre-season Beryl Ackroyd Cup, which followed an undefeated season in 2023 that produced scorelines disproportionate to other teams’ results, was a direct result of the inclusion of male-born transgender players.

According to the feminist and pro-woman online news source, Reduxx, president of St. Patrick’s Football Club Frank Parisi said a March discussion over the Flying Bats FC’s ease of victories had prompted an informal meeting with stakeholders of the Northwest Sydney Football Association to address “concerns around how implausible it has become for any team to win against the Flying Bats as well as physical safety concerns.”

Incensed by the Flying Bats’ domination, other clubs asked the league’s governing body Football NSW to force them into playing in a mixed-sex league.

One club official told the Daily Telegraph, “Our girls are here to play for fun and expect to play in the female competition. They did not sign up for a mixed competition. It was so disheartening for them to see the huge difference in ability—they’re killing it.”

The involvement of transgender athletes in sports is a current hot-button issue, as policymakers grapple with how to balance the effects on women’s players, versus the “rights” of female-identifying players born as biological men

Any soccer team with biological males on it is going to beat a team composed of only biological women. Although there are occasionally women who have the muscle structure to compete with men, they are rare. This is totally unfair competition. It is like adding five professional baseball players to a high school team so that they can have a winning season. Kudos to the women who walked away from the unfair competition.

Cooking The Books

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The Biden administration claims that the economy is really doing well. Some of us who buy gasoline or shop at grocery stores might not agree with that statement. The other claim has been that there is a booming job market. Our city is have layoffs in some of our local companies, is yours? There seems to be something fishy here. On March 29th, Zero Hedge posted an article explaining what was fishy. This is one of those articles when I post what I don’t totally understand, so please be patient. I have very little to add–the article says it all.

The article reports:

The first red flags emerged in the summer of 2022: that’s when the Biden Labor Department started well and truly rigging the labor market data.

Regular readers may recall that it was back in July of 2022, when we first warned that something had “snapped” in the labor market: that’s when a striking discrepancy emerged between the number of US Payrolls (as measured by the BLS’ Establishment Survey, a far more crude and imprecise, yet much more market-moving data series), and the number of actual Employed Workers (as measured by the BLS’ far more accurate Household Survey) . As we showed then, after the two series had tracked each other tick for tick for years, a wide gap opened in March 2022 which quickly grew to 1.5 million jobs in just 3 months…

The article includes the following chart:

 

The article further explains:

And while some of this discrepancy could be explained with the record surge in multiple jobholders, which increased by 1 million since March 2022 to an all time high of 8.6 million at the end of 2023 (as a reminder, the Establishment Survey counts 1 worker have 2 or 3 (or more) multiple jobs as, well, 2 or 3 (or more) separate jobs, even if it is just one worker trying to make ends meet under the roaring inflation of Bidenomics), most of the gap remained unexplained.

There was more: it was around the summer of 2022 that the Biden labor department – in its zeal to show job growth no matter the cost, or quality of jobs – also started fooling around with the composition of the labor market, with most of the monthly gains going to part-time workers, even as full-time workers stagnated or declined. The culmination, as we reported earlier this month, is that in February 2024, the US had 132.9 million full-time jobs and 27.9 million part-time jobs. Which is great… until you look back one year and find that in February 2023 the US had 133.2 million full-time jobs, or more than it does one year later! And yes, all the job growth since then has been in part-time jobs, which have increased by 921K since February 2023 (from 27.020 million to 27.941 million).

The article concludes:

Putting it all together, we now know – as the Philly Fed reported first – that the labor market is far weaker than conventionally believed. In fact, no less than 800,000 payrolls are “missing” when one uses the far more accurate Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data rather than the BLS’ woefully inaccurate and politically mandated payrolls “data”, and if one looks back the the monthly gains across most of 2023, one gets not 230K jobs added on average every month but rather 130K.

Of course, none of that paints Bidenomics in a flattering picture, because while one can at least pretend that issuing $1 trillion in debt every 100 days to add 3 million jos per year is somewhat acceptable, learning that that ridiculous amount buys 800,000 jobs less is hardly the endorsement that the White House needs.

Which is also why nobody in the mainstream media – which is now nothing more than the PR smokescreen for the Biden puppetmasters, the government and the deep state – will ever mention this report.

As such, we urge all readers to read Philly Fed analysis (link here) and to analyze the excel data (link here) at their own leisure, because in a fascist state, the media no longer works for the people.

Think of these numbers when you vote in November.

Behind The Jobs Numbers

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On Saturday, Zero Hedge posted an honest analysis of the jobs report that recently came out. It may be the only honest analysis out there. All of us know that the Biden economy is a problem for middle America–food inflation is in double digits, gas prices are lower than they have been but still a dollar or so a gallon more than they were under President Trump, and utility bills have increased dramatically in some places. President Biden may tell us that the economy is wonderful, but many of us living in it are not convinced. Just as an example, the total increase in my husband’s and my Social Security this year (after deducting the cost of Medicare) was about $115. I suspect that a lot of retirees didn’t even see that much of an increase. I can assure you that our grocery bill has gone up more than that.

The article at Zero Hedge is complicated and detailed. I suggest that  you follow the link and read it for yourselves. I will try to highlight some of it.

The article reports:

The headline data was stellar across the board, starting with the unemployment rate which once again failed to rise – denying expectations from “Sahm’s Rule” that a recession may have already started – all the way to average hourly earnings, which unexpectedly spiked from 4.1% (pre-revision) to 4.5%, the highest since last September, and a slap in the face to the Fed’s disinflation narrative…

… or it would be if one didn’t think of checking how the average rose: well, it turns out that, since average hourly earnings is a fraction, it did not rise due to a jump in actual wages but – since it is earnings over a period of time – “rose” because the BLS decided to sharply slash the number of estimated hours that everyone was working, from 34.3 to just 34.1, which may not sound like a lot until one realizes that the last time the workweek was this low was when the economy was shut down during covid.  Excluding the covid lockdowns, one would have to go back to 2010 to find a workweek that was this anemic.

The article concludes:

…Said otherwise, not only has all job creation in the past 4 years has been exclusively for foreign-born workers, but there has been zero job-creation for native born workers since July 2018!

This is a huge issue – especially at a time of an illegal alien flood at the border – and is about to become a huge political scandal, because once the inevitable recession finally hits, there will be millions of furious unemployed Americans demanding a more accurate explanation for what happened – i.e., the illegal immigration floodgates that were opened by the Biden admin.

Which is also why the Biden admin will do everything in his power to insure there is no official recession before November… and is why after the election is over, all economic hell will finally break loose. Until then, however, expect the jobs numbers to get more and more ridiculous.

Where The Money Is Actually Going

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On Friday, Zero Hedge reported the following:

President Joe Biden is heaping another $5 billion onto a $136 billion pile of taxpayer-funded student loan debt forgiveness, as one of his signature 2024 (vote buying) schemes heading into the 2024 election.

Not only has moral hazard been reduced to an academic concept, shouldn’t taxpayer funds be used to bail out poverty-stricken Americans before people with college degrees who signed their names to a contract for non-dischargeable debt? We digress.

Around 74,000 student loan borrowers will now see debt canceled as a result of administrative changes enacted by the US Department of Education in the latest round of relief – including borrowers enrolled in the government’s income-driven repayment and public service loan forgiveness programs, Bloomberg reports.

Each program requires at least a decade of payment or service to be eligible for relief. Mismanaged federal student-loan plans have left some borrowers without promised relief after making payments for as long as 25 years. -Bloomberg

“My administration is able to deliver relief to these borrowers – and millions more – because of fixes we made to broken student loan programs that were preventing borrowers from getting relief they were entitled to under the law,” Biden said in a Friday statement written by other people.

Of those receiving taxpayer-funded assistance, roughly 60% are taxpayer-funded “public servants” – so the snake continues to eat its tail. So, buying votes with voters’ money.

Since when is the federal government able to change the details of a contract mid-stream? Since this is essentially an expenditure, why is it coming from the Executive Branch? The House of Representatives is supposed to be in charge of spending. This should quickly be found unconstitutional by the courts, but I seriously doubt anyone will bring the case.

Who Is UNRWA?

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On December 27th, Zero Hedge posted an article about The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) .

The article reports:

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was originally a small agency mandated to provide basic humanitarian relief for Palestinians, including a vote for renewal every three years. Seventy-three years and four generations later, and with more than 30,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $1 billion, it has astonishingly become one of the largest UN agencies.

The article notes:

In the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, UNRWA has, in fact, long been operating as the de facto government. By providing the residents of the Gaza Strip with various services, UNRWA exempted Hamas from its responsibilities as the governing body, such as creating a working economy that would pay for education and healthcare, and allowed it, instead, to invest resources in building tunnels and manufacturing weapons. If UNRWA were not there, Hamas would have been forced to fill the vacuum and, for example, build hospitals and schools and find solutions to economic hardship, including unemployment and poverty.

As senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk said, in explaining why no cement could be spared from terror tunnels to build bomb shelters for Gazan citizens:

“The tunnels were built to protect the fighters of Hamas from [Israeli] airstrikes. As you know, 75% of the residents of the Gaza Strip are refugees. It is the responsibility of the United Nations to protect the refugees.”

Hamas was effectively saying: We are responsible for what happens underground, while UNRWA is responsible for what happens above ground.

In addition to evolving into a monster-sized agency, UNRWA has also morphed into a very costly incubator for terror. UNRWA-run schools emphasize and promote the “right of return,” a euphemism for flooding Israel with millions of Palestinians and turning it into a Muslim-majority Islamist state backed by Iran.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. Is there any doubt that we need to stop supporting the United Nations? American taxpayer dollars are funding terrorism.