New York City’s first Drag Story Hour Read-a-Thon officially kicked off on Sunday, hosted by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The Drag Story Hour with James was attended by several other elected officials and LGBTQ advocacy groups. According to a press release from James' office, nearly 200 other guests, including families, "enjoyed four back-to-back Story Hours" at The LGBT Community Center.

James celebrated the occasion on Twitter, featuring pictures of herself alongside elected officials, New York families and drag queens.

Technically, the cutoff for SIFIs is $250 billion  in assets. However, the reason they are called “systemically important” is not their asset size but the fact that their failure could bring down the whole financial system. That designation comes chiefly from their exposure to derivatives, the global casino that is so highly interconnected that it is a “house of cards.” Pull out one card and the whole house collapses. SVB held $27.7 billion in derivatives, no small sum, but it is only .05% of the $55,387 billion ($55.387 trillion) held by JPMorgan, the largest U.S. derivatives bank.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is essentially using the same legal theory to potentially indict former President Donald Trump that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was fined for, argued former United States Attorney Brett Tolman.

Tolman asserted Saturday that Bragg’s legal theory that Trump tried to hide a campaign expenditure by using his then-lawyer to pay porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in alleged hush money before the 2016 presidential elections would have applied to Clinton when her campaign hid a payment for the phony Russian pee dossier against Trump as “legal fees.”

Former New York City police officer and conservative pundit John Cardillo tweeted, “Bill Clinton paid Paula Jones $850,000 and no one cared.” Tolman tweeted in response, “And the Hillary Campaign was actually fined for hiding the Steele Dossier payment under ‘legal fees’ — essentially the same legal theory on the Stormy Daniels payment the DA is running criminal investigation of Trump.”

CBS reporter Robert Costa took to Twitter on Monday morning and uploaded a video that shows NYPD officers placing steel barricades all around the Manhattan DA’s office.

On Sunday, Costa made an appearance on Face the Nation and stated the DA of Manhattan Alvin Bragg has previously told his colleagues he will do everything to keep his colleagues safe so the barricades outside of Manhattan could be a request from Bragg himself.

Watch NYPD set up the barricades here:

All those things I’ve been telling you for years are finally starting to happen – right in time for the ten year anniversary of the Daily Stormer!

Basically, there is a looming crisis of the US dollar at the same time that the Chinese are taking their place as the dominant world power.

China is moving rapidly now, playing cards they’d been holding in their hand. The importance of the Iran-Saudi peace deal cannot be overstated. The US media is downplaying it, saying that this simply restores 2016 norms. In actual fact, if you read about the details of what has been agree to (which I just had the time to finally do today), this deal takes relations between these two countries to a level they haven’t been at since before Khomeini’s 1979 revolution.

It is incredible that this was effectively a kind of surprise announcement. The US has been taking the alliance with Saudi Arabia as a given, even though it has been collapsing ever since the American media made such a massive deal about Saudis killing one single terrorist-supporter journalist. After the US put those lunatic sanctions on Russia, it was obvious that the relationship was over – but somehow, the US didn’t act as though they understood that, just as when they did the sanctions, they didn’t act as though they understood that China and India would refuse to sign on to them.

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Moscow today for a three-day state visit.  The two powers will discuss the War in Ukraine, strengthening ties, and the emerging global world order.

The two are expected to announce solidarity against Western hegemony.

The current lack of US leadership on the international stage opened the door for this Russo-Chinese alliance.

A leading Republican on Sunday issued a warning to President Joe Biden after his committee says it has discovered more evidence of ties between the first family and China, on the heels of news that former President Donald Trump may be indicted this week by a Manhattan grand jury.

During an interview with Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, provided an update on the panel’s inquiry into the Biden family’s business dealings.

He disclosed that the House is scrutinizing the bank records of the family’s business associates and cautioned that evidence from Hunter Biden’s laptop could spell trouble for the White House, as it has revealed a connection between the Biden family and China.

“Well, we know that when the president was vice president in the Obama administration, he made several trips to China. He brought his son and some of these associates with him,” Comer told Bartiromo.

“They met in different places with some of these people that the president claimed he never met with. So we know the president hasn’t been truthful about his involvement when he was vice president. But from talking to former associates that were involved with Hunter Biden, what we know the Biden family had agreed to help China do was get their foot in the door,” he continued.

In spite of the financial market losses and crashes of 2022, government agencies kept assuring us that the banking system was in good shape. Until it wasn’t. Then they were citing “systemic risk” as the reason for a bailout. Surprised again!

The Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) failed on March 10 with great fanfare, as befitted the second largest bank failure in U.S. history. It failed, it turns out, with the balance sheet mistake of borrowing very short and investing very long, a mistake so elementary as to display remarkable financial incompetence.

SVB’s failure was preceded by the collapse of Silvergate Bank, and followed by the failure of Signature Bank (the third largest bank failure), by lines of customers making withdrawals from First Republic Bank, and pressure on banks known to have large unrealized losses on their investments. As always happens in a banking crisis, the government intervened. In this case, it guaranteed the uninsured deposits at the failed banks—and presumably all banks—and created a special Federal Reserve loan facility backed by the U.S. Treasury that will lend on an under-collateralized basis to banks which have large market value losses on their bonds and mortgage-backed securities.

Major vaccine companies are preparing avian flu vaccines if the H5N1 virus that has killed millions of animals mutates to infect humans.

Vaccine makers GSK, Moderna, and CSL Seqirus have begun developing new human shots to target the rapidly spreading strain of the virus. Others such as Sanofi have vaccines for H5N1 virus in stock that could serve as a base for producing shots tailored to the currently circulating strain. 

Epidemiologists maintain that the risk to humans is low, but the specter of another pandemic upending hundreds of millions of lives worldwide has kicked scientific investigation into high gear.

Webmaster addition:

What in the world was she thinking?  When a bailout was hastily arranged for uninsured depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, the implication was that the same thing would be done for uninsured depositors at any other banks that failed.  But now U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is telling us that is not actually what will happen.  She just admitted that depositors at a failed bank will only be protected if officials determine that a “failure to protect uninsured depositors would create systemic risk and significant economic and financial consequences”.  So that means that depositors at big banks are likely to be protected and that depositors at small banks are much less likely to be protected.  In other words, Janet Yellen just poured lighter fluid on every small bank in America.

"So I've seen rumors swirl," DeSantis said. "I have not seen any facts yet, and so I don't know what's gonna happen. But I do know this, 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."

"He has downgraded over 50% of the felonies to misdemeanors," DeSantis continued. "He says he doesn't want to even have jail time for the vast, vast majority of crimes. And what we've seen in Manhattan is we've seen the crime rate go up and we've seen citizens become less safe."

"And so you're talking about this situation with, and look, I don't know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair," he added. "I just, I can't speak to that, but what I can speak to is that if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction, and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to use something about porn star 'hush money' payments, you know, that's an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office.'

President Vladimir Putin said Monday that deepening ties between Russia and Africa was a key goal for the Kremlin, as Moscow seeks to expand its influence on the continent.

He added that Russia would continue supplying the continent with grain if Moscow exits a landmark agreement with Ukraine to allow exports from the country's Black Sea ports.

"Let me emphasize that our country has always given — and will continue to give — priority to cooperation with African states," Putin said in a televised address at a conference on Russian-African relations.

The White House will take a preemptive shot at Republicans on the federal budget this week, rolling out a blistering five-point critique of a plan by the far-right House Freedom Caucus, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: The Biden administration — still waiting for Republicans' official budget plan for fiscal 2024 — is trying to gain a tactical advantage in the upcoming budget talks by casting a proposal by three dozen GOP hardliners as a "five-alarm fire" for Americans.

• The Freedom Caucus' plan calls for across-the-board cuts in U.S. agencies' funding by capping spending at 2022 levels for the next 10 years. It would end Biden's $400 billion student loan forgiveness program, reclaim unspent Covid funds, increase work requirements for welfare recipients, and more.
• House Republicans insist that Biden cut his $6.8 trillion budget or they won't approve raising the debt ceiling — a move that could create an economic calamity.

Bloomberg reported that Amazon sent an internal email notifying its employees about an upcoming wave of layoffs, which is part of the company's continuing strategy to reduce costs amid mounting macroeconomic uncertainty. 

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy reportedly told employees that an additional 9,000 people would be laid off in the coming weeks. 

Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy announced the cuts internally Monday, saying they would occur in the coming weeks and primarily affect Amazon Web Services, human resources, advertising and the Twitch livestreaming service groups. --Bloomberg 

For Vladimir Putin, the state visit to Russia by Chinese President Xi Jinping, which begins on Monday, provides a giant morale boost and a chance to showcase the much-vaunted new world order that the Russian leader believes he is forging through his war on Ukraine — in which the United States and NATO can no longer dictate anything to anyone.

Xi’s visit to Russia, just after cementing his precedent-breaking third term in power, brings together two men who have positioned themselves as leaders for life — and it sets the scene for global confrontation, with Beijing willing to use its partnership with Moscow to counter Washington, even if that means granting tacit approval to Putin’s brutal, destabilizing war.

“The grim outlook in China is that we are entering this era of confrontation with the U.S., the gloves are off, and Russia is an asset and a partner in this struggle,” said Alexander Gabuev, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

It remains to be seen whether this confrontation will heat up, pushing three nuclear powers to the brink of World War III, or merely marks the opening chords of Cold War 2.0. But Xi’s visit shows sides being taken, with China, Russia and Iran lining up against the United States, Britain and other NATO allies — in a competition for global influence and for alliances with nations such as South Africa and Saudi Arabia, which seem ambivalent but up for grabs.

Matthew Morales boarded the Metro Red Line at MacArthur Park as classical music blared over the station loudspeakers.

It was rush hour on a Tuesday afternoon, and Morales made his way to a back corner seat and unfolded a tiny piece of foil with several blue shards of fentanyl. As the train started west, he heated the aluminum with a lighter and sucked in the smoke through a pipe fashioned from a ballpoint pen.

Doors opened and closed. A few passengers filed in and out. A grain of the opioid fell to the floor. He concentrated on trying to pick it up, then lost track, as his body went limp. His shoulders slumped and he slowly keeled forward.

By the time the train arrived at the Wilshire/Western station, Morales, 29, was doubled over and near motionless, his hand on the floor. The train operator walked out of the cabin, barely glancing at him as she passed — as if she encountered such scenes all the time.

After agreeing with Saudi Arabia in December to buy its oil for Chinese yuan instead of just US dollars, while at the same time Russia is successfully cooperating with Saudi Arabia and Iran in the oil sector, Beijing is helping a historic reconciliation between the two major Muslim countries. Chinese efforts are all the more impressive when considering the persistent efforts of the US to cause conflict between the two countries instead of reconciliation.

It is hoped that reconciliation will lead to a huge blow to the hegemony of the US dollar. In Beijing on March 17, following negotiations in Iraq and Oman during the previous two years, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia announced an agreement which includes the restoration of diplomatic relations, a confirmation of respect for the sovereignty of states and non-interference in their internal affairs, and agreements on security, economy, trade, investment, science and culture.

In short, with the mediation of China, the two regional powers, often framed as having a Sunni-Shi’a rivalry, made it official that they are embarking on a new path of improving relations instead of further spoiling them for the sake of serving Western interests that are contrary to the interests of the Islamic World.

Big Four firm KPMG was the auditor for SVB and Signature Bank.  It recently gave these companies clean bills of health in their 10K filings.  Two weeks later, SVB became the second largest bank in US history to fail and Signature Bank the 3rd largest bank in history to fail.