The current VIX level of 13 reflects a hesitancy among investors to take a bearish stance on the prominent Big 7 stocks. Global corporate buybacks, on a downward trajectory since 2019 despite heightened volatility in inflation and interest rates, may indicate a erosion of savings.

 California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) implied this week that the inflation pains Americans are feeling this Thanksgiving are simply a lie pushed by conservatives.

 New Jersey officials announced Tuesday that the state would be joining a growing list of Democrat-led states slated to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035.

 New state abortion bans are resulting in tens of thousands more babies being born per year, a new analysis of the data shows.

 Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) will not be investigated by the House Ethics Committee for pulling a fire alarm in a House office building ahead of a government spending vote at the end of September when there was not an emergency.

As investor purchases in the housing market plummet at an unprecedented rate, dropping 29.7% year over year to 48,667 in Q3 2023—the lowest third-quarter level since 2016—the broader US real estate landscape faces a significant slowdown.

Investors are withdrawing money from sustainable funds as the ESG enthusiasm of the past few years is waning amid high interest rates, poor returns, plunging renewable energy stocks, tightened SEC rules, and political backlash.

So this is why the push to get those forced out to come back?

Since August 2021, up to 100,000 or more members of the Armed Services were wrongfully discharged, kicked off active-duty, forced into early retirement, involuntarily transferred to the inactive ready reserve, or were denied pay or retirement benefits due to Department of Defense’s (“DoD”) COVID-19 vaccine mandate and refusing to take unlicensed, experimental vaccines.

Ever since its maiden flight almost 17 years ago, the US F-35 – an aircraft with a staggering per-plane cost of $70-$90 million – has been plagued by a long list of technical bugs affecting both hardware and software. The latest upgrade to the jet is again proving a challenge for defense giant Lockheed Martin.

The Pentagon has reportedly been scrambling to fix embarrassing delivery setbacks of its beleaguered F-35s due to upgrades hindered by software problems.

The US Defense Department is currently being forced to consider uploading "interim versions" of the Tech Refresh 3 (TR-3) software into the latest F-35s, reported a military outlet. The debut flight of an upgraded F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is said to have been carried out last week with an incomplete version of the software installed. The flight took place at the manufacturer Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas, facility.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-abdollahian warned Wednesday that the threat of the Gaza war spreading would grow unless a truce between Israel and Hamas lasts, in an interview as he visited Beirut.

“If this ceasefire starts tomorrow, if it does not continue... the conditions in the region will not remain the same as before the ceasefire and the scope of the war will expand,” Amir-Abdollahian told the Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen television channel, according to Iran’s Fars news agency.

“We do not seek to expand the scope of the war,” he added. “If the intensity of the war increases, every possibility is conceivable for the expansion of the scope of the war.”

No Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza will be released before Friday despite the two sides having agreed to a truce, Israel's national security adviser has revealed.

Officials say negotiations for the four-day ceasefire and release of kidnapped Israelis are 'advancing and continuing', but the 10 women and children who were expected to be freed tomorrow will now not be released until Friday.

It was not immediately clear if the deal between Israel and Hamas blew up or if the delayed release of hostages stems from a technical matter.

News of the delay broke just hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed during a televised news conference to 'rescue all hostages held by Hamas' and 'obliterate' the terrorist group.

Webmaster addition: It's just been announced that the ceasefire will start 7AM local time Friday.

Social networking sites, mostly Meta-owned, have deleted thousands of pro-Palestinian posts since the outbreak of Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, in response to Tel Aviv’s request to do so.

The Israeli Attorney General’s Office has sent approximately 9,500 requests since October 7 to Meta - which owns Facebook and Instagram - as well as the video-sharing app TikTok, to remove content related to Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, according to a recent report published by Forbes.

As a result, around 94 percent of that content has been deleted, digital researcher Mona Shttayeh said in an interview with Al Jazeera Mubasher, citing the report.

Ukraine has significantly boosted its holdings of US government debt since the start of the conflict with Russia, the news agency RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday, citing data from the US Treasury and the Ukrainian Finance Ministry.

From February 2022 through the end of September of this year, Kiev’s investment in US debt jumped 1.8 times, or by $10.7 billion, according to RIA. The country’s current holdings of $24.5 billion are the highest since at least 2011. At the end of last winter, Ukraine’s US Treasury portfolio amounted to $13.8 billion, whereas at its lowest level, in mid-summer 2022, it stood at $7.9 billion, RIA's data shows.

During the same period, the Ukrainian government received $22.9 billion in financial assistance from Washington. RIA’s calculations show that Ukraine invested roughly half of the American aid in US debt bonds, thus effectively recycling half of what it received back to the US government.

Frontline casualties and conflict-related emigration are set to decimate the Ukrainian labor force, as they take away skilled workers and younger replacements, the German newspaper Die Welt reported on Monday.

Ukraine is having problems drafting new troops to fight Russia and intends to address the problem by widening the scope of conscription and cracking down on draft-dodgers. But the country’s long-term economic viability is being undermined by the “bloodletting” on a scope that is hard to estimate, the outlet warned.

Citing analysis by Yuliya Kosyakova, a labor market researcher at the University of Bamberg in Germany, who assessed the economic impact of the mass migration from Ukraine triggered by hostilities with Russia, the outlet concludes that the country's recovery prospects are dire.

A hostage exchange deal between Israel and the Hamas militant group will be postponed until Friday, a senior Israeli official has said. The arrangement was originally set to begin on Thursday, with Israeli forces expected to pause operations for four days to allow aid into Gaza.

Israeli National Security Council Director Tzachi Hanegbi announced the delay in a statement on Wednesday, stressing that the negotiations were still underway and that the deal was set to be finalized.

“The contacts on the release of our hostages are advancing and continuing constantly. The start of the release will take place according to the original agreement between the sides, and not before Friday,” Hanegbi said.

A US official admitted that 10 American servicemen were injured in a missile attack in Iraq. On Monday, the US Barracks and storage facilities in the Ain al-Asad airbase in Anbar province of Iraq were targeted by a missile attack by the Iraqi Islamic Resistance.  Today, the US Struck Back . . .

Late Tuesday the US launched strikes directed against “Iran and Iranian-Backed Forces” in Iraq who U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) claims are both responsible for the recent attacks on U.S. Troops.

A world-renowned oncologist has warned it is “no coincidence” that turbo cancers are soaring among those vaccinated for Covid with mRNA shots.

Professor Angus Dalgleish recently wrote an open letter to the editor-in-chief of the medical journal The BMJ.

He is urging the journal that the harmful effects of Covid injections be “aired and debated immediately” because turbo cancers and other diseases are rapidly progressing among “boosted” people.

Professor Dalgleish is a Professor of Oncology at St George’s, University of London.

His letter to Dr. Kamran Abbasi, the Editor in Chief of the BMJ, was written in support of a colleague’s plea to Dr. Abbasi that the BMJ make valid informed consent for Covid vaccination a priority topic.

Russian President Vladimir Putin questioned on Wednesday why world leaders are "not shocked" by the words of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that Gaza has turned into a huge children's cemetery.

At the virtual G20 summit, Putin noted the words of other world leaders who said they were shocked by Russia's actions in Ukraine and the loss of life.

"I understand that this is a war, the death of people is shocking. And the bloody coup in Ukraine in 2014, followed by the war of the Kiev regime against its people in the Donbass, is it not shocking? And the extermination of the civilian population in Palestine, in the Gaza Strip today is not shocking? And the fact that doctors have to do operations on children, abdominal operations, operate with a scalpel on a child's body without anesthesia, is it not shocking? And the fact that the UN Secretary-General said that Gaza has turned into a huge children's cemetery, is it not shocking?" Putin said, speaking at the G20 summit.

As global debt skyrockets to nearly $310 trillion and gold reclaims its position above $2,000, investor @Frank_Giustra warns of an impending crisis dwarfing the impact of the 2008 recession. 

The revelation of the ‘Hemisphere’ program, a covert surveillance initiative operating from the White House, has unleashed a bombshell report exposing the unprecedented access and scrutiny of trillions of American phone records without the requirement for warrants.

No one could have predicted this.

The recent ruling by the German constitutional court, declaring the government’s Climate Budget fund as illegal and unconstitutional, has delivered a sudden blow, tearing a significant 60-billion-euro hole in the budget virtually overnight.

From World War I to the Present: Dollar-denominated debt has been the driving force behind all US led wars.

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Wall Street creditors are the main actors.

They were firmly behind Nazi Germany. They financed Operation Barbarossa and the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. 

Webmaster addition:

Tucker Carlson, co-founder of the Daily Caller, recently made a bold prediction at a conference, stating that the year 2024 will be "like nothing we've ever seen."

His statement was in reference to the forthcoming presidential election and the prevailing political and cultural climate in the United States.

Carlson was a speaker at the Risk On 360! Global Success Conference held in Las Vegas. He took the opportunity to share his perspective on the current state of affairs in America, both politically and culturally. He began his address by noting the prevalent sentiment of anger and paranoia among the majority of Americans he interacts with.

In a significant development, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has upheld a previous ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire, thereby ensuring that former President Donald Trump remains on the ballot in the state.

This decision comes in the wake of an attempt by a relatively unknown Republican presidential candidate, John Anthony Castro, to have Trump removed from the ballot.

Castro's argument hinged on the assertion that Trump had violated the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment. This Civil War-era clause prohibits anyone who has "engaged in an insurrection or rebellion" against the Constitution from holding political office. However, the court found Castro's claims to be unconvincing.