The legacy corporate news media remains disturbingly silent as the United States hurtles toward a financial abyss, ignoring the glaring signs of an impending debt crisis, potential banking collapse, and an economic downturn that threatens the nation’s stability.

In a striking irony, the Democratic Party’s primary strategy for the 2024 presidential election involves efforts to imprison their prominent opponent, utilizing a dual strategy of fraud (Russiagate) and censorship (Hunter Biden docs) with the collaboration of corporate media. 

As many as 36 groups advocating free speech, the Free Speech Alliance, have turned to US Congress with a request to stop any further funding of NewsGuard.

NewsGuard is an outfit that describes itself as countering “misinformation on behalf of news consumers, brands and democracies.”

That “mission” also includes (trust) rating system for news sites – right in people’s browsers.

But members of the Free Speech Alliance, and those supporting it are not buying this pitch, summing up and denouncing NewsGuard instead as an ideologically-motivated “internet traffic cop.”

And they are warning that taxpayer money should never have been spent on financing it, and its ilk – and even less so, that the US authorities should continue to spend taxpayer money on what is described as politically motivated censorship of speech.

Sometimes, this is all it takes…those darn real estate bubbles.

Congressional leaders with the House Energy and Commerce investigative subcommittee will question CDC Director Mandy Cohen tomorrow in what should be an interesting hearing on restoring public trust.

The hearing “should” be interesting, because this committee has a long history of holding corporate and government leaders accountable.

However, we have yet to see this committee get any actual explanation for a rash of mistakes and failures during the COVID pandemic.

Global banks’ increasing liquidity hoarding, seen in the eurodollar space and reflected in the record highs of the Federal Reserve’s BTFP balance, heightened borrowings instead of repaying emergency funds, and a surge in the Foreign Repo Pool at FRBNY, indicates widespread caution.

In a new media landscape dominated not by Western media giants but by Instagram reels, TikTok videos and YouTube shorts, Israel’s ongoing war on the besieged Gaza Strip is more than televised.

Audiences across the world, and especially young people, have been watching the devastation caused by Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of the Palestinian enclave on their preferred social media platforms, in real-time, for over a month. Anyone with internet access has seen countless videos of babies torn apart by bombs, women crushed under tonnes of concrete and mothers cradling the dead bodies of their children.

Israel, of course, still continues with its usual efforts – and more – to control the narrative about its bloody wars and decades-old occupation.

Islamic Jihad militants captured Israeli intelligence servers while participating in the Hamas attack on Israel last month, the group’s representative in Iran claimed on Wednesday. Nasser Abu-Sharif said the servers contained the names of multiple Israeli spies, some of whom were operating in Iran.

During the October 7 assault, “the resistance managed to take the Israeli regime’s intelligence servers to Gaza,” Abu-Sharif announced at an event in Tehran, according to Iranian media. 

“The servers contained the names of many spies, even those who were inside the Islamic Republic [of Iran],” he added.

Appropriately it was along Unter der Linden Stasse, inside the foyer of a palatial office building that had served as headquarters of the Nazi regime's Gestapo secret police and Soviet East Germany's Stasi spy service, that I had the dubious honor of shaking hands with Heinz "Henry" Kissinger, or perhaps that gesture was in dishonor, a low point for both the great man and this lowly investigative journalist, who did not cross swords with the grand-master of global affairs. Such is this Universe, a constant clash of destruction and reconstruction, of courage and ignominy.

The occasion was a conference celebrating the millennium, sponsored by a major German-European publishing house, focused on assessing Germany's foreign policy priorities in the post-Soviet rubble. Kissinger spoke of the need to cobble together the many fragments a global consensus, however fraught with distrust and misgivings. My much lesser role, as a American reporter with long experience in China, Japan, Southeast Asia and the USA, was to discuss the vexing issue of maintaining a cool demeanor toward a Beijing leadership eager to fill the Soviet vacuum. Since the forum focused on reconciliation, and cooperation in global power relations, past history with its horrifying brutalities went mostly unmentioned and indeed unnoticed, given the great man's utterances of political assurance.

Jesus was part of an extended family. The Bible says he had brothers and sisters. Some churches try to spin that these were only cousins, or Joseph's from a previous marriage, but Mary, Jesus' mother, was not an only child. At the very least, Jesus had cousins, Aunts, and Uncles. John the Baptist was Jesus' second cousin according to Luke 1:5-38.

For the purpose of this discussion, we do not need to go into the question of whether Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a family.

But the fact is that Jesus had kinfolk; blood relations, at least on his mother's side (although the Bible provides a paternal genealogy for Jesus back to the House of David).

Those kinfolk had children. Those children had children. Those children had children. And so forth.

Modern genetics testing has demonstrated that modern-day Palestinians have a direct genetic trail back to the biblical Israelites.

So here is the deal. Some of the people walking around Palestine, Gaza, and the West Bank are blood relatives of Jesus. Distant blood relatives, but still blood relatives. Given 2000 years, it is possible that the vast majority of present day Palestinians are remote relatives of Jesus.

Israel is killing them.

For all the people who want the end of days to come sooner rather than later, just find a church where author Dr. Mike Evans speaks. He’ll be the first to tell congregations of 500 or more that bombing Iran is the only way to save Israel. The former 700 Club superstar warmonger claims America can only avert Armageddon by starting it. No, really. The congregations out there seem fully ready for the “big ride” to begin.

Evans’ latest report in the Jerusalem Post, entitled “America needs to bomb Iran,” wreaks of Zionist hatred for Sunni and Shia Muslims. Evans and his benefactors make sure every good Christian is a card-carrying Arab hater, Russia hater, China hater, and bigot against everyone and everything that is not in the interest of Israel. Good Christians are expected to applaud the Zionists blasting babies and their moms into the sky or burying them beneath a hundred tons of rubble in Gaza.

The former prime minister, who spent 50 days in office before being forced to resign in October 2022, arrived in Washington this week with Tory colleagues to try to convince the GOP’s MAGA wing to reverse its stance on Ukraine funding. But given her sorry record at home, the ex-PM’s chances are anyone’s guess, a leading UK politics expert says.

With less than two weeks left in the current legislative calendar to pass Joe Biden’s new proposed package of aid to Ukraine, the president has called out the big guns to try to lobby conservative Republicans.

Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, a well-known "specialist" on Eastern European affairs, who once confused a pair of two Russian regions for Ukrainian ones, and vowed that London would always support its “Baltic allies across the Black Sea,” arrived in Washington, DC this week to explain to skeptical Republicans why the United States needs to shell out more money for Kiev in its failing proxy war with Moscow.

Russia has never refused to hold talks with Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said. To start them, Kiev must stop hostilities and revoke a decree banning talks with Russia, Putin said in September.

The West and some Ukrainian politicians are beginning to prepare the people for a peaceful settlement of the conflict with Russia, said Ukrainian political scientist Ruslan Bortnik.

"Western media and some of our politicians are already hanging this gun on the wall so that we can see it, so that we can get used to the sight of it. Obviously, certain preparations need to be made for possible negotiations," the expert said.

Israel has resumed its attacks on Hamas after a lull lasting several days, accusing the Palestinian armed group of violating the ceasefire. West Jerusalem has repeatedly said that it would resume the hostilities after the truce is over.

In a statement in the early hours of Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that “Hamas violated the operational pause, and in addition, fired toward Israeli territory.” 

“The IDF has resumed combat against the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip,” it added. The military also announced that it was conducting air raids on Hamas targets in Gaza.

Leading Wall Street bankers are opposed to both Joe Biden and Donald Trump as candidates for next year’s US presidential election, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

According to the outlet, JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon stated this week that voters should support former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley as a potential alternative to Trump for the Republican nomination.

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman told Bloomberg on Tuesday that current US President Biden should make way for a new candidate to emerge.

Israel lacks “credit” to keep the fight against Hamas going for months and needs to change its tactics in the south of Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a war cabinet meeting on Thursday, according to Israel’s Channel 12.

Blinken was in Jerusalem for meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the cabinet overseeing the war on the Palestinian militant group. Some of the quotes from the meeting somehow made their way to Channel 12, Israel’s most popular commercial TV station, which aired them on Thursday evening.

“You can’t operate in southern Gaza in the way you did in the north. There are two million Palestinians there,” Blinken said at one point, according to a translation from Hebrew posted by the Times of Israel.

“You need to evacuate fewer people from their homes, be more accurate in the attacks, not hit UN facilities, and ensure that there are enough protected areas,” the US diplomat added. “And if not? Then not to attack where there is a civilian population.”

The confrontations in southern Lebanon between the resistance movement Hezbollah and Israel did not only lead to military casualties.

Israel also systematically targeted civilian houses, burned tens of thousands of olive trees and destroyed schools for disabled children.

Thousands of makeshift tombstones were displayed in the center of Rome to commemorate the children of Gaza who were slaughtered by Israel in recent weeks.

Jamil: 11 years of age; Salma: 16; Jawan: 2; Mohammed 13.

These are the names of just four Palestinian children who have been slaughtered in Gaza since Israel started bombing the besieged territory on October 7th, 2023.

Their names, together with those of 5000 other deceased Palestinian boys and girls, were placed on makeshift tombstones and displayed at a central Piazza in Rome, in memory of all the children killed during Israel's ongoing brutal military assault on Gaza.

Israel's so-called national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has threatened to dissolve the regime’s incumbent administration if the devastating bombing campaign against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip stops.

“Stopping the war = dissolution of the cabinet,” the 47-year-old far-right politician wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, also said on X that a ceasefire in exchange for returning all captives held in Gaza is “a plan to eliminate Israel.”

The controversial comments coincided with talks on a possible new agreement for a long-term humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip.

On Wednesday, a source close to the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement said the group is willing to extend the truce by an additional four days.

Israeli officials reportedly saw a blueprint for Hamas’s October 7 massacre more than a year before it was carried out, prompting fresh questions about intelligence failures over the attack that claimed 1,200 lives.

The New York Times reported that Israeli intelligence bosses were passed a 40-page battle plan for the attacks, but dismissed it as unrealistic.

Webmaster addition: Or (as was the case with Pearl Harbor) allowed the attack to push a larger war agenda.

Dozens of Zionist settlers carried out, on Wednesday, a storming of the courtyards of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, with strict protection from the police of the Zionist enemy.

The Palestine News Agency quoted the Islamic Waqf Department as saying that the settlers stormed Al-Aqsa from the door of the Moroccans, carried out provocative tours in its courtyards, and performed Talmudic rituals in the vicinity of Bab al-Rahma Chapel.

The transformation has happened so fast that I don’t think people have yet grasped it:

• The official definition of “antisemitism” before October 7, 2023 was “hating Jews for no reason.”
• The post-7/10 definition of “antisemitism” is “saying Jews should stop killing babies.”

It’s a really massive transformation.

I know that most non-Jews don’t understand it, but what is even crazier is that most Jews don’t appear to understand it.

Jews have a psychosis where they view any criticism of their behavior as “hate.” I am supposed to be the world’s top anti-Semite, but all I ever did was criticize their behavior. However, Jews had some degree of plausible deniability with regards to their agenda to push homosexuality on children, or their agenda to flood white countries with poor, illiterate nonwhite immigrants. They could also claim that these things were good.

Now, they’re taking the same tack (“if you criticize our behavior, it means you hate us, and therefore you are evil”), but they are taking this position in the context of “we slaughter children.”

Avdeevka is one of strategically important strongholds of Kiev forces, which they are already loosing. In an attempt to stop Russian advance in the city and on its outskirts, the Ukrainian military command sent additional forces in the area and transferred its units from other regions, the reinforcement included forces of the so-called Ukrainian foreign legion.

After the Russian military took control of the southern districts of Avdeevka, including the heavily fortified industrial area, various reports claimed the surrender and deaths of foreign mercenaries in the region.

For example, as a result of one of the recent Russian attacks near Avdeevka, a unit of foreign mercenaries suffered losses. In particular, Russian and Canadian reports confirmed deaths of Canadian militant Brad Stradford and US mercenary Eric Vargas. Their deaths were also confirmed by the foreign legion. The number of dead and wounded was reportedly larger, but the personal data of the victims was not disclosed.

According to the recent reports from the front, Russian forces also captured two military instructors from the US and several Polish soldiers during the battles near the Coke and Chemical Plant.

The Israeli army has been holding the bodies of dozens of Palestinians killed during its genocide in the Gaza Strip beginning on 7 October, and Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has called for the creation of an independent international investigation committee into organ theft suspicions.

Euro-Med Monitor has documented the Israeli army’s confiscation of dozens of dead bodies from Al-Shifa Medical Complex and the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, and others from the vicinity of the so-called “safe corridor” (Salah al-Din Road) designated for displaced people heading to the central and southern parts of the Strip.

According to Euro-Med Monitor, the Israeli army also dug up and confiscated the bodies from a mass grave that was established more than 10 days ago in one of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex’s courtyards.

While dozens of corpses were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which in turn transported them to the southern Gaza Strip to complete the burial process, the Israeli army is still holding the bodies of dozens of dead people.

Israel used to be an asset to the US, but now it’s a burden, says Prof Mohammad Marandi. Genocide taking place in front of a global audience has changed the equation

Israel's war on Gaza has unleashed a torrent of worldwide denunciation. Many western governments are cranking up repression of pro-Palestine activists in response. In Europe, Germany has set a grim bar in brutalizing protestors and violating their civil liberties. The Real News reports from Berlin's largely Arab and Muslim Sonnenallee neighborhood.

Today is the big day. I’m not talking about the release of the US PCE deflator or the OPEC+ meeting (though both are on the calendar and will be a big deal), but the annual event that is the Spotify Wrapped summary and associated ubiquitous social media posts. Consequently, we can look forward to learning that we spent the whole year listening to the same 3 artists as last year, which might just be the definitive symptom of the cruel descent into middle age.

While millennials are poised to again discover that TayTay was number 1, central bankers are equally surprised to learn that the imminent trajectory for policy rates is down (as it largely has been since Volcker). We had more Fed speak overnight from Raphael Bostic (a dove), who said that he is increasingly confident that inflation’s downward trajectory will continue. Conversely, Thomas Barkin adopted Bowman’s wrongthink of the day before by saying that the Fed needs to keep the option of further hikes on the table, and noted hawk Loretta Mester hedged her bets by suggesting the Fed has the luxury of waiting for more data.

Predictably, markets chose to accentuate the positive. The jubilation over Chris Waller’s dovishness on Tuesday carried into yesterday’s price action for bonds. The US 10-year yield fell another 6.5bps to 4.25% and 2-year yields fell almost 9bps to 4.65%. This was despite a substantial upgrade to Q3 GDP that saw real annualized growth revised up to 5.2% from the originally reported 5%. The core PCE index that accompanied the national accounts ticked a little lower to 2.3%, which perhaps helps to explain the move in yields.

An internationally recognized mRNA expert has provided evidence during congressional testimony, revealing that Big Pharma giant Moderna is aware that its Covid mRNA shots are causing “turbo cancer.”

Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of mRNA vaccine technology inventor, delivered testimony at a Capitol Hill hearing chaired by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. In his presentation, Dr. Malone showcased the patent for Moderna’s Covid vaccine.

Moderna’s patent reveals that the vials of its COVID-19 vaccine comprise billions of DNA fragments. These fragments, alongside other impurities, have been associated with the risk of birth defects and cancer.

In the patent, Moderna acknowledges that the contaminants in the shots can lead to cancer. Despite this admission, as emphasized by Malone in his testimony, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seemingly overlooked this information when granting approval for public use of the shots.