Jamie Dimon is the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., which is also ranked the riskiest global bank by its regulators. But instead of getting his own house in order in the midst of a banking crisis, Dimon has been peculiarly focused elsewhere.

Over the past five days, Jamie Dimon’s legions of publicists have been burning up the phone lines with reporters, pushing the narrative that Jamie Dimon is some kind of financial wizard who needs to have a seat at the table to save the regional bank, First Republic Bank. (Scroll down here to see the exhaustive public relations effort that has gone into this narrative.)

Last Thursday, news hit the wire services that Dimon had lined up 11 banks willing to place $30 billion in uninsured deposits into First Republic Bank. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo each ponied up $5 billion – or two-thirds of the $30 billion. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) caps federal deposit insurance at $250,000 per depositor, per bank.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper states that he will NOT veto a bill sent to his desk that will increase punishments for rioters in the state.

Fox News reports that the GOP-led legislature sent a bill to the desk of the Governor that would increase penalties on rioters. The bill passed through the bipartisan legislature, and the governor had until Monday to veto it. However, he has stated that he will not do so. The Associated Press reports that the governor let the bill become law without his signature. This is a move that the Governor can make, given the laws in the state. It allows him to allow the bill to become the law of the land without his express approval.

The decision to allow the law to go into effect may help prevent what could have been an override by the heavily GOP legislature in North Carolina. Therefore, Governor Cooper might simply be making sure that he is getting out of the way of a potentially embarrassing situation where he could have an override.

Louisiana Republican lawmakers gained a significant upper hand after a longtime Democrat switched parties.

State Rep. Francis Thompson, who has served as a Democrat from northeast Louisiana for decades, changed his party registration on Friday, according to CBS affiliate WAFB.

With this party swap, Republicans now have the numbers in both chambers of the state legislature to muster a two-thirds supermajority to override vetoes by Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards.

This is the first time Republican lawmakers in the state have had such an advantage in Louisiana’s roughly 210-year history, per Newsweek.

On October 13, 2022, the FBI testified that they were using geo-tracking data to identify Trump supporters who had gathered near the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

A bombshell report by the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) revealed the “vast, secretive” partnership between private companies and the federal government to surveil and track the movements of millions of Americans.

According to the EFF, the intel alphabet agencies, including ICE, the FBI, US Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Defense (DoD), as well as state and local law enforcement, are being funneled hordes of private cell phone location data by private brokers who harvest the information.

This is the same tactic that Gregg Phillips, Catherine Engelbrecht, and True The Vote used for their investigation into the mail-in ballot dropbox fraud during the 2020 election. The cell phone location data collected by this group was used to identify the network of Democrat operatives who committed mass election fraud, as seen in the recently-released documentary “2000 Mules.”

The FBI was alleged to have used this data to identify patriotic protesters who traveled to Washington DC on January 6, 2021, to support President Trump and the US Constitution.

For her efforts to report injuries to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) and to educate others in her hospital system on doing the same, Physician Assistant Deborah Conrad said she was labeled an anti-vaxxer and fired from her job.

Today, the New York-based Conrad tells her story at medical freedom conferences throughout the country, the most recent being one in Mississippi where physicians, scientists, and the vaccine injured warned state lawmakers to pull the COVID-19 vaccines from the market.

Conrad told The Epoch Times she began to see early danger signals in 2021 upon the vaccine rollout, and with that, resistance among her colleagues to report on them.

“After the vaccines came out, there was this uptick in unusual symptoms, some of which I had never seen in my 20-year career,” Conrad said. “In every case, it was in somebody who had received the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Conrad said she had never admitted an adult patient with RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) until the COVID-19 vaccines.

“And every patient who came in with RSV was vaccinated for COVID,” Conrad said. “It wasn’t normal.”

Kari Lake joined Bannon’s War Room this morning to announce a prayer rally on Tuesday during the Arizona Supreme Court’s deliberations on whether or not to consider Lake’s election lawsuit. 

The Gateway Pundit has reported extensively on Kari Lake’s lawsuit, which has moved to the Arizona Supreme Court and will be considered in a conference tomorrow, March 21. “At the conference, the Court will decide whether to accept review and schedule an oral argument,” states a recent Order from the Supreme Court.

Rogan O’Handley, aka DC Drano, tweeted recently that he is “in shock” that Arizona Courts don’t see an issue with Maricopa County intentionally causing over 59% of machines to malfunction and fail Republican Election Day voters. The election should be thrown out on this issue alone.

Catholic Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò warned at a pro-Russian meeting that Democratic Megadonors George Soros, World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab and Microsoft founder Bill Gates have “perpetrated a real world coup d’etat” for their actions during the COVID-19 pandemic followed by the war in Ukraine.

Speaking at the Founding Congress of the International Movement of Russophiles last week in Moscow, Viganò said, as translated: “We cannot be surprised that, after de-Christianizing the Western world, this elite considers Russia an enemy to be overthrown. The Russian Federation undeniably stands as the last bastion of civilization against barbarism.” 

He also said the elites use global organizations such as NATO, the United Nations and similar groups for the “indoctrination of the masses.” 

News is breaking that Donald Trump will turn himself in to New York authorities Tuesday, where he expects to be arrested. Huh? Where did this come from? Arrested for what exactly? Why now? And why in New York? What is the proudest and least humble man in America 2.0 doing humbling himself like this?

Several questions arise here. Why is Trump traveling from Florida to New York, for the purpose of being arrested? In these cases, usually witnesses are extradited to other states. And governors can always refuse to extradite, as happened consistently during Jim Garrison’s investigation. So wouldn’t Ron DeSantis, as a loyal Republican, deny any laughable extradition order for Trump? Or would DeSantis be happy to get rid of his obnoxious rival for the presidential nomination, especially given Trump’s curious attacks on his character? So many potential plot twists.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in Moscow today, Putin accused the West of attempting to curb Russia and China's progress.

In an article published by the People's Daily newspaper, he asserted that the Western world is trying to divide the Eurasian space into military blocs to contain the two countries' development. Putin went on to say that the crisis in Ukraine, which he believes is being fueled by the West, is a "manifestation of its desire to retain its international dominance and preserve the unipolar world order."

In response, Xi, in an article published in the Kremlin's Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, asserted that his visit to Moscow is a "journey of friendship, cooperation, and peace." He also noted that the relationship between Russia and China is based on principles of "nonalignment, nonconfrontation and nontargeting of third parties."

Webmaster addition: Gosh DARN that human-caused global warming!

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has slammed District Attorney Alvin Bragg as a “Soros-funded prosecutor.” This was in reference to Democratic campaign backer George Soros.

The governor of Florida is anticipated to run against Trump for the Republican nominee.

On Monday, DeSantis (R-Fla.) claimed that Bragg was “pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office” as he reportedly considered indicting former President Donald Trump on charges related to alleged hush-money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016.

“I’ve seen rumors swirl, I have not seen any facts yet, and so I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I do know this,” DeSantis said. “The Manhattan district attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor, and so he, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety.”

“Soros-funded prosecutors,” according to DeSantis, “may conduct a high-profile politicized case, and that’s awful.”

Jen “Circle Back” Psaki was lit up online for her inaugural MSNBC show on Sunday after ironically slamming a conservative author for not offering a clear and concise answer for what “woke” means during a recent interview.

Psaki, of all people, should know that some issues are complex. When someone is in the position of communicating a message and has a human moment, the result can be less than ideal.

President Joe Biden’s first press secretary got countless passes for being awful at her job and failing to provide coherent answers to reporters' questions.

Two bills under consideration in Texas propose restoring sound money and enforcing the US Constitution’s monetary provisions that could weaken the grip by the Federal Reserve. If enacted, SB 1558 would officially recognize gold and silver coins as legal tender and eliminate capital-gains taxes on gold and silver — thus bringing Texas closer to constitutional compliance and treating gold and silver as money. HB 4305 would require the Texas comptroller to establish gold and silver reserves, thus reducing its dependence on the federal government.

These bills are important steps toward nullifying the unconstitutional Federal Reserve, which has a monopoly on money, and will help Texas avoid the federal government’s plans to impose Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC).

Chris Rock warned American lawmakers on Sunday, cautioning that arresting former President Trump would only make him more popular.

The comedian made this comment while attending an event in Washington D.C. honoring Adam Sandler, where the room was filled with prominent political figures, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and representatives from President Biden's administration. Rock asked, "Are you guys really going to arrest Trump? Do you know this is only going to make him more popular? It's like arresting Tupac. He's just gonna sell more records. Are you stupid?" He then moved on to Trump's relationship with adult film star Stormy Daniels, quipping that "f---ing a porn star and paying someone off so his wife wouldn't find out - that's romantic."

Shares of Credit Suisse plunged 63% in early trading Monday after the announcement that banking giant UBS would buy its troubled rival for almost $3.25 billion in a deal orchestrated by regulators to stave off further market-shaking turmoil in the global banking system.

UBS shares were down 14% in early trading on the Swiss stock exchange.

Swiss authorities urged UBS to take over its smaller rival after a plan for Credit Suisse to borrow up to 50 billion francs ($54 billion) failed to reassure investors and the bank's customers. Shares of Credit Suisse and other banks plunged after the failure of two banks in the U.S. raised questions about other potentially shaky global financial institutions.

Credit Suisse is among 30 financial institutions known as globally systemically important banks, and authorities worried about the fallout if it were to fail.

Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy says the idea that officers will handcuff former President Trump and arrest him after an indictment "couldn't happen," and that it will instead be up to the U.S. Secret Service and the New York Police Department to arrange a location for him to surrender.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is weighing possible charges against Trump and could bring an indictment. Those charges stem from the $130,000 hush-money payment that then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen made to Stormy Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.

As automated technology has evolved and become more capable, it has revolutionised the way we live, interact with each other, and even vote, affecting society from the heights of government through to everyday behaviours. Better understanding the scope of AI’s capability is key to developing and, crucially, managing the technology in the future. In recent years, academic research has played a fundamental role in supporting this knowledge base and, as the first dedicated academic facility to study the impact that technology is having on politics, the Centre for Technology and Global Affairs at Oxford University is a leading-edge example of this knowledge exchange in action.

Abhishek Dasgupta, Research Fellow in Artificial Intelligence at the Centre for Technology and Global Affairs (the Centre), discusses how this pioneering interdisciplinary research facility is driving our understanding of AI’s societal impact, how technology is influencing political governance today, and how these changes are shaping our lives – for better or worse.

French mathematician and Fields Medal recipient Cédric Villani has devoted some of his formidable natural intelligence to the subject of artificial intelligence (AI), helping write a report that was submitted to the French government in March. He also knows a thing or two about politics having been elected as a national deputy last year. It is his belief, as surprising as it may sound, that AI and politics could very well have a future together.

"Even though not everything is clear yet, AI could become very useful in terms of politics, especially regarding the link between citizen and government," Villani states in the latest edition of Charles magazine.

"No one is supposed to be unaware of the law. But the law is a set of incomprehensible texts," he adds. That's where AI could come in. The mathematician turned lawmaker imagines a chatbot, for example, that could review all the articles in our dense legal codes in order to extract a substantial response to any particular legal question.

Webmaster addition:

California can’t ban residents from buying modern handguns.

That’s the ruling handed down by Federal District Judge Cormac J. Carney, a George W. Bush appointee, on Monday. He found California’s requirement that all new pistols sold in the state include a series of uncommon or even theoretical safety devices is unconstitutional. He ruled the regulation, which has resulted in no new handgun models being sold to civilians in nearly a decade, violates the Second Amendment.

“Californians have the constitutional right to acquire and use state-of-the-art handguns to protect themselves,” Judge Carney wrote in his preliminary injunction for Boland v. Bonta. “They should not be forced to settle for decade-old models of handguns to ensure that they remain safe inside or outside the home.”

The decision is the latest blow to California’s strict gun-control laws in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 opinion in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which set a new standard for reviewing gun laws. Late last year, a federal judge also blocked the state’s attempt to discourage legal challenges to its restrictions. Many of the state’s other high-profile gun restrictions are similarly embroiled in ongoing litigation, and Monday’s ruling may signal they may face a tough climb to clear the bar set by the Supreme Court.

The also ruling paves the way for law-abiding Californians to access new pistol models for the first time in a long time.

The European Union has agreed on the ammunition plan for Ukraine worth two billion euros ($2.1 billion), media reported on Monday, citing diplomats.

Brussels hosts a meeting of the EU Council of Foreign Ministers is taking place in Brussels on Monday.

Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, after the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics appealed for help in defending themselves against Ukrainian provocations.

Former Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) expressed his disappointment in the "sad" conservatives who proclaim their faith in Christ and all he stands for but still stand in enthusiastic support of Donald Trump, who is reportedly facing a criminal indictment for allegedly failing to disclose a $130,000 payment to adult film star, Stormy Daniels.

APolish-British company is offering individuals the opportunity to receive a subcutaneous implant inside the hand that is capable of making payments–like any credit card or digital payment.

The company, called Walletmor, is selling microchips the size of a small safety pin that is implanted under the skin of the individual's hand and cost just over $200.

According to the company, more than 200 individuals have already received the microchip, and Walletmor believes it's because people do not want to worry about losing their wallets or getting their bank cards stolen.

Webmaster addition: Now you can worry about your hand being chopped off!

Recently, a report posted on the Social Science Research Network found that 186 banks in the United States are at risk of failure due to rising interest rates and a high proportion of uninsured deposits. The report titled ‘Monetary Tightening and US Bank Fragility in 2023: Mark-to-Market Losses and Uninsured Depositor Runs?' estimated the market value loss of individual banks' assets during the Federal Reserve's rate-increasing campaign. The study also examined the proportion of banks' funding that comes from uninsured depositors with accounts worth over $250,000. This blog post aims to explore the implications of the report and why it matters to buyers and sellers.

Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary and ex-Federal Reserve Chairman, is presiding over the death of the dollar. Others are responsible for the bioweapons that are attacking us and our food supply.

Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan Chase is getting billions in deposits every day from depositors at small and regional banks. He is gladly depositing that money at banks like First Republic that are on a list of banks that must be saved. I heard a talking head say America only needs 4 or 5 banks.

How did we get here? It started with the assassination of President Lincoln whose non-interest bearing Greenbacks were the subject of derisive editorials in London newspapers in the 1860s. A hundred years later President Kennedy issued a few billion dollars in Treasury Notes which also bore no interest. If lone assassins did not despise interest free money, we would live in an entirely different world. Last year the taxpayers paid $706 billion in interest payments on a national debt that need not be. This was a gift from us to Bankers who gave themselves the right to charge us interest on money they created out of nothing.

Video 1: A group of Black females attack a White female at Target.

Video 2: A massive group of Black males attack and attempt to murder a White male at the mall next door to the Target where the attack in Video 1 took place (victim is possibly Asian - conflicting reports).

Both videos are from this past weekend.

These videos are not cherrypicked.

These videos are not rare.

These videos are not random.

These are but two more videos in an endless and ongoing list of videos that show the world exactly who commits violence and exactly who suffers violence.

Saudi Arabia plans to reopen its consulate in the Syrian capital, Damascus, over a decade after it was closed at the onset of the US-led war on Syria in 2011, Middle East Monitor reported.

The kingdom plans to reopen the consulate in Damascus following the month of Ramadan. Additional preparations will be made during the upcoming visit to Syria by Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, who will meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Two decades ago, I sabotaged my career at The New York Times. It was a conscious choice. I had spent seven years in the Middle East, four of them as the Middle East Bureau Chief. I was an Arabic speaker. I believed, like nearly all Arabists, including most of those in the State Department and the C.I.A., that a “preemptive” war against Iraq would be the most costly strategic blunder in American history.

It would also constitute what the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg called the “supreme international crime.” While Arabists in official circles were muzzled, I was not. I was invited by them to speak at The State Department, The United States Military Academy at West Point and to senior Marine Corps officers scheduled to be deployed to Kuwait to prepare for the invasion.

Mine was not a popular view nor one a reporter, rather than an opinion columnist, was permitted to express publicly according to the rules laid down by the newspaper. But I had experience that gave me credibility and a platform. I had reported extensively from Iraq. I had covered numerous armed conflicts, including the first Gulf War and the Shi’ite uprising in southern Iraq where I was taken prisoner by The Iraqi Republican Guard.

I easily dismantled the lunacy and lies used to promote the war, especially as I had reported on the destruction of Iraq’s chemical weapons stockpiles and facilities by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspection teams. I had detailed knowledge of how degraded the Iraqi military had become under U.S. sanctions. Besides, even if Iraq did possess “weapons of mass destruction” that would not have been a legal justification for war.

Webmaster addition:

It's a surprise that Reuters has published an article revealing that the electric vehicle revolution might not be as environmentally friendly as automakers claim. Furthermore, a scratched or slightly damaged battery pack could lead insurance companies to scrap the entire car.

"We're buying electric cars for sustainability reasons," Matthew Avery, research director at automotive risk intelligence company Thatcham Research, said. 

Avery pointed out, "an EV isn't very sustainable if you've got to throw the battery away after a minor collision." 

A Tesla battery pack costs tens of thousands of dollars and represents a large percentage of the vehicle's price tag. Insurance companies have found that it's uneconomical to replace battery packs if damaged. 

Many automotive manufacturers, including Tesla, have made battery packs a structural part of the car to reduce cost products but have shifted costs to consumers and insurers when batteries need to be replaced. 

Unless carmakers produce more easily repairable battery packs, there will be a growing number of low-mileage EVs scrapped after collisions.