Two Views on the Current State of the US Economy 

* A smart, engaging essay on the big picture by my colleague, the always smart and amusing Garrett Baldwin.

* Victor David Hansom, who has the gift of sounding like he is exactly right, even when I know little to nothing about which he is opining, on some recent, hopeful metrics.

RFK Jr. Orders Clean Sweep of Corrupt CDC “Advisors”
I said it before. In taking on BIG MEDICINE (which includes Big Pharma, Big Hospitals, Big Insurance, Big Food, and the Legacy Media), RFK Jr. has taken on a much, much, much bigger – and more dangerous – job than any other in the Trump administration. So it wasn’t surprising to me to see how the entire world of Big Medicine erupted in a vitriolic attack against him after he ordered the removal of 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), even though it’s been documented that these creeps and criminals have been receiving multimillion-dollar bribes from them for decades. If you want to know the story behind the BS you are currently reading, check this out.

Well, guess what? RFK Jr. didn’t cut deep enough. He should have taken a machete to the FDA. Here’s news I was not happy to hear. The FDA has just approved a next-generation COVID-19 shot, without a single placebo-controlled trial and contradicting public assurances that “all new vaccines will undergo safety testing in placebo-controlled trials prior to licensure.” Click here.

The AI Revolution: Has Schmidt Been Reading My Blog?
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicts that by 2030, artificial intelligence will not only write its own code but also surpass human intelligence. He says that in three to five years, AI will reach artificial general intelligence (AGI), matching the intellect of top human experts, and by 2031, artificial superintelligence machines will be smarter than the collective human intellect and operating largely beyond our control. Click here.

Could This Be True? 20% of American Adults Can’t Read?
I’ve been looking at the surveys for years and thought I was fully aware of how bad things have become with the American educational system. But this shocked me: According to a recently released mega-survey, 48 million adults in the US read at or below the third-grade level. Some educators think it’s not possible to teach them. They’re wrong. Click here.

If Biden Wasn’t Running the Country, Who Was? 

After four years of willful blindness, Lefties and the Legacy Media have discovered that – hold your hat – Joe Biden has been in Mental La-La Land since he took office in 2016.

One of the chief La-La deniers, CNN anchor Jake Tapper, is trying to cash in on this “news” by selling a book about it called Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.

Now that this old cat is out of the see-through bag, Lefties and the Legacy Media are being asked a new question: If Biden wasn’t making the big decisions, who was?

Turns out it was a “protective politburo” of three or four people in the White House who hid Biden’s decline by making his decisions for him. Apparently, to save democracy from the existential threat of Donald Trump, it was necessary to subvert democracy and the US Constitution.

Olympians on Steroids: Why Not? 

Aron D’Souza, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, is planning to produce a new international sports competition called The Enhanced Games, where contestants will be not just permitted but required to use performance-enhancing drugs to… well, to enhance their performance.

(I’m wondering if D’Souza provides bowls of amphetamines to his employees when they clock in each morning!)

But this drug-heavy Olympics is an idea that I’ve been recommending for at least 20 years, since it became obvious that just about everyone at the top of professional sports was taking drugs routinely. “And anyway,” I used to say, “think of how much fun it would be to watch athletes compete that look like Marvel Comics characters.”

I always thought that was an original idea. Then, this morning, JM told me about this YouTube video using the same premise.

CDC: Vaccines No Longer Recommended for Children and Pregnant Women 

On May 27, the CDC announced that it was no longer recommending COVID-19 vaccinations for healthy children and healthy pregnant women. This is a no-brainer and a long time coming. The COVID-19 virus was never a real danger for healthy people of any age, but it was especially useless for healthy young people. The vaccines, however, have many negative side effects including myocarditis, pericarditis, stroke, heart attacks, and death. And yet, the FDA so far has refused to “black label” them.

This is a developing story. I’ll be following it and giving you the latest each week.

The Biden Cover-Up: Everyone Knew. No One Spoke. 

What was obvious to anyone willing to look – starting from January 2020 – was that Joe Biden was not mentally fit to be President of the United States. You didn’t need a medical degree or a security clearance to spot it. You just had to watch him speak off-script. He wasn’t “slow.” He wasn’t “gaffe-prone.” He was non compos mentis. Plain and simple.

And the people around him knew it. They all did.

But rather than tell the truth – or step aside – they built a presidency around concealment. They kept him out of the public eye, shielded him from questions, and staged the most controlled media environment in modern American history. When he appeared in public, it was with a teleprompter, note cards, and handlers who looked ready to tackle anyone with a follow-up question.

Even so, the mask slipped often enough. Biden’s long, slurred tangents. His confusion about where he was. The time he shook hands with thin air. The videos of him being led offstage by Dr. Jill like a confused hospital patient. And, of course, the famous stair stumbles.

And yet, for four years, the mainstream press treated these moments not just as minor embarrassments, but as right-wing conspiracy theories. Videos of Biden appearing confused? “Cheap fakes,” declared CNN and The Washington Post. Concerns raised about Biden’s capacity were dismissed as uncharitable or “Republican talking points.” If you so much as asked whether he was up to the job, you were accused of attacking “our democracy.”

Now, suddenly, as Biden exits the stage, those same people – reporters, operatives, and cabinet members alike – are scrambling to pretend they only just figured it out. Jake Tapper has a book. Axios is releasing leaked audio. Democrats are “furious” they weren’t told sooner. But this is not an awakening. It’s an alibi.

Because the truth is: They all knew. And they covered it up anyway.

We now know that President Biden was often unable to complete coherent answers, even in private. The leaked audio from his interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur is shocking – not because it shows a decline, but because it confirms that decline was happening far earlier, and far more severely, than we were led to believe. Biden can’t remember the year his son died. He thinks Trump was elected in 2017. He drifts into meaningless tangents about Gutenberg’s printing press and Mongolian sumo wrestlers. He confuses dates, events, and people. Hur politely concludes he is “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” The audio makes it sound like he was being generous.

And here’s the kicker: that interview took place in October 2023.

Let that sink in. While Biden was speaking like a patient in a memory care unit, the White House was insisting he was “sharp as ever.” The press kept praising his “behind-the-scenes mastery” of foreign policy. Democrats were rallying behind his 2024 reelection. And any American who questioned what they were seeing with their own eyes was ridiculed and shamed.

Even his family – those who knew him best – played along. Dr. Jill, who now poses as a devoted caregiver, was one of the chief architects of the charade. According to numerous reports, she shut down any talk of Biden stepping aside. His son Hunter, facing his own scandals, had every incentive to keep his father in power. Neither acted out of concern for the country. They acted to preserve the illusion.

It’s not just that Biden was unfit. It’s that others were willing to wield his office while hiding behind his name. That is the most disturbing part of this story. The American people did not know who was really making the decisions during his presidency – on the border, on Ukraine, on the economy, on COVID. And the Constitution offers no easy remedy for a president who is functionally absent but refuses to step down.

In that way, the cover-up of Biden’s condition mirrors the COVID-19 vaccine debacle. In both cases, the institutions that were supposed to protect the public deliberately misled us. They knew the truth. They hid it. And when the truth became undeniable, they pivoted to the same excuse: “We were doing our best with the information we had at the time.”

No. They weren’t. They were doing their best to preserve power.

Let’s be clear: Joe Biden was not the principal villain in this story. He may have been only a tool. It’s more than likely that by the time he moved into the White House, the people around him knew that he was too far gone to run the country, and too brain-addled to even understand what was happening to him.

No, the real evil lies with those who used him – who ran a presidency through him and lied about it every step of the way. They defrauded the American public to advance their own interests, and they gambled the future of the nation to do it.

And now, as the consequences come due, they are all hoping we’ll forget.

Let’s not.

Indiana Unshackles Its Schoolkids

Indiana just blew the doors off school choice. Starting next year, any kid – rich, poor, or somewhere in between – can take a state voucher and walk straight into a private or charter school. Property taxes? They’ll follow the student, not the bureaucracy, by 2029. Public school monopolists are fuming. Parents? Grinning. (Source: WSJ)

Supreme Court Hears: Storytime or Indoctrination? 

Montgomery County public schools won’t let parents opt kids out of pre-K LGBTQ storytime. Justices weren’t amused: Alito and Barrett read aloud gender-disruption texts. Jackson compared it to bus ads. If school’s no more persuasive than a billboard, maybe just let the parents decide? (Source: National Review)

Pentagon Bureaucrat Caught Plotting “Resistance”

A DoD branch chief was caught on camera calling Trump “illegitimate” and vowing to sabotage him. Also mocked Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth – who doesn’t know who he is. Turns out he’s linked to a Soros-Gates NGO. When the Pentagon starts freelancing foreign policy, maybe it’s time to audit more than the F-35. (Source: The Vigilant Fox)

Trump vs. Lawyers: The Revenge Eos

Trump has blacklisted law firms that investigated him. Think: bans from federal buildings and legal retaliation by executive fiat. WilmerHale and Jenner & Block are fighting back, calling it “unconstitutional bills of attainder.” If Trump wins this one, lawyers might be next on the endangered species list. (Source: National Review)

Harvard vs. Trump: Free Speech or Federal Cash?

Harvard’s suing to stop Trump’s EO cutting off federal funding, claiming it’s an attack on free speech. Trump says play stupid games, lose taxpayer prizes. Now they’re talking “negotiated resolution,” which sounds like “we’re nervous.” Either way, expect academic freedom to come with more fine print. (Source: National Review)

Trump Declares War on “Disparate Impact”

Trump just nuked decades of civil rights law with a stroke of the pen – eliminating the government’s reliance on “disparate impact” theories. Intentional discrimination? Still banned. But unequal outcomes? Not enough. Clarence Thomas, call your tailor – your legacy just got extended. (Source: National Review)

News You DIDN’T Hear Last Month, or…
Different Views on News You DID Hear 

CDC Finally Admits It: You Didn’t Need Those COVID Jabs

File under “Too Little, Three Shots Too Late.” In a dramatic about-face, the FDA just announced it will no longer recommend COVID boosters for healthy Americans under 65. Yes, that includes the kids and the kale-eating 40-somethings who masked alone in the car. Going forward, Pfizer and Moderna will have to prove – not just imply – that their vaccines actually prevent bad outcomes. Imagine that! For those keeping score: The virus is now officially just a flu, and the vaccine you were socially bullied into getting may have been more public performance than public health. Even Dr. Vinay Prasad, now running the FDA’s vaccine division, says the old one-size-fits-all approach “fatigued the country.” Maybe what really fatigued us was being forced to pretend this wasn’t all politically motivated theater from the beginning. But, sure… welcome to the party. Read more here.

Antarctica Is Gaining Ice. Please Update Your Apocalypse.

According to SciTechDaily, Antarctica gained trillions of tons of ice between 2021 and 2023, marking it the first net ice growth in decades. Yes, the same continent that was supposed to drown us all by 2020 is quietly swelling. Climate catastrophists are now backpedaling faster than Greta’s crew catching her carbon-fiber yacht (which, amusingly, required multiple commercial flights to retrieve). But before you trade your Prius for a Hummer, consider this: Antarctica still lost 1.8 trillion tons of ice over the prior two decades. The recent growth may be the result of natural variability, changes in snowfall, or temporary cooling trends – none of which were accounted for in the “settled” science. So is this the beginning of a long-term reversal or just a blip in the Antarctic narrative? No one knows. But it’s a timely reminder that when it comes to climate models and their prophets, we might want to keep the receipts. Read more here.

Trump’s Palace in the Sky… or Just a Qatari PR Disaster?

Apparently, Qatar wanted to gift Donald Trump a $400 million retrofitted 747-8 jumbo jet as a thank you for… something. Trump said it was for “official use,” maybe Air Force One, maybe a display piece for his presidential library. Legally, it could fly. Optically? It’s a crash landing waiting to happen. Even his supporters were muttering, “Really?” Part of me wanted him to take it, just to watch MSNBC combust. But someone in his inner circle needed to remind him: Just because you can accept a flying palace from a terror-financing state doesn’t mean you should. Read more here.

SCOTUS to Ex-Presidents: Immunity Yes, but Only for Official Mischief 

The Supreme Court ruled that ex-presidents can’t be prosecuted for “official acts” done while in office. Cue media hysteria, claiming Trump just got a lifetime “get out of jail free” card. Wrong. The ruling doesn’t protect business deals, sex crimes, or anything else outside the job. But, yes, it covers presidential decisions, even the ugly ones: pardoning scumbags, launching wars, drone-striking wedding parties. Like it or not, it’s necessary. Without it, every ex-president would face a decade of lawsuits from political enemies with law degrees. Not a Trump loophole – a constitutional shield. Read the ruling, not the headlines, here.

Ye Goes Full Mein Kampf: New Singles Drop, Decorum Doesn’t

Kanye West (a.k.a. “Ye,” a.k.a. “Inpatient #88”) marked the anniversary of Hitler’s defeat by releasing two Nazi-themed singles – because subtlety is for the weak. “Nigga Heil Hitler” and “WW3” feature lyrics defending himself from accusations of antisemitism by, naturally, invoking Hitler. Ye has long claimed Jewish execs control the music industry and that Black people are the “real Jews.” Now, apparently, he’s making mixtapes for the Third Reich. Predictably, the industry yanked the songs faster than you can say “career suicide.” Next up: “Hava Nigga-lah,” coming to a tinfoil hat near you. Read more here.

Kamala Blames Joe for Her Lack of Lift-Off

A Kamala Harris adviser is now blaming Joe Biden for torpedoing her presidential dreams. Apparently, if he had exited just a little earlier, Kamala would’ve “soared.” (Never mind that her popularity tanked faster than Biden’s approval ratings during the balloon fiasco.) A new book reveals that Team Biden worked hard to cover up his decline. (When pressed about his age on The View, Dr. Jill, ever the nurse-in-chief, insisted Joe still “puts in a full day”… as he stared blankly into the void.) Watch this. 

P. Diddy, a Meth-Addled Raccoon, and the End of the Music Industry

In Springfield, Ohio, cops found a raccoon named “Chewy” cradling a meth pipe like it was an Oscar. And somehow, that wasn’t the most disturbing celebrity crime story of the week. Sean “P. Diddy” Combs is under fire for allegedly orchestrating ketamine-fueled “freak offs” involving Cassie Ventura, a male escort nicknamed “The Punisher,” and enough baby oil to drown a dolphin. Diddy allegedly filmed the whole thing – blackmail, they say, is the new A&R strategy. As one wag put it, “Cassie must be thrilled she signed with a kind, homegrown mogul rather than a ‘Tin Pan Alley Jew’ like Kanye complains about.” Classy all around. Read more here.

Egg Prices Fall, Media Scrambles 

Lower egg prices are a crisis now – because under Trump, everything is. NBC News just launched a “Trump-flation” tracker, spotlighting the very grocery inflation they memory-holed during the Biden years. Meanwhile, a Chinese-linked company is dropping $300 million into $TRUMP coin (because nothing says clean governance like Beijing-backed crypto). JP Morgan has quietly canceled the recession, and Trump’s tariff dance with China seems to have worked – tariffs are down, trade’s back, and so is Trump’s approval rating. Which is why the media’s now treating stable grocery prices like a Category 5 scandal. Lord, give them strength… and maybe a dozen cage-free excuses.

Vader Burnout and Skull Goblets: Just Another Week in British HR

A UK NHS employee won nearly £30,000 after being compared to Darth Vader during a Star Wars-themed personality quiz. The comparison, allegedly made by a coworker while she was out force-choking a vending machine, was ruled workplace harassment. NHS brass tried to salvage things by noting that Vader at least acknowledged paternity – “a rare move for a black man,” they helpfully argued. Meanwhile, Oxford dons were accused of drinking wine from the skull of a Caribbean slave. They only stopped when it started to leak – then repurposed it as a chocolate dish. Diversity, equity, and demonic stemware. Read more here.

Senators Against Smut and the Curious Case of the Johnsons

Senator Mike Lee wants to rid America of pornography by redefining “obscenity” to include anything involving nudity, sex, or, rather poetically, “excretion.” Artistic or political value need not apply. This follows Speaker Mike Johnson’s admission that he and his teenage son monitor each other’s devices as “porn accountability partners” – a setup that sounds less like a moral crusade and more like the opening scene of a very regrettable family-themed adult film. With all this talk of “Punishers” and Johnson & Johnson baby oil, one wonders if the real problem isn’t porn… but the screenplay. Read more here.

The Wind Beneath Your Meals 

Meet the “Family Fart Walk,” America’s newest health fad – and quite possibly its most acoustically vibrant. According to New York internist Dr. Tim Tiutan (not a forgotten Mayan ruin), going outside to crop-dust the local foliage post-meal may lower blood sugar and prevent diabetes. Canadian cook Mairlyn Smith proudly partakes in this windy tradition with her husband, making for the deadliest crop-dusting scene since North by Northwest. It may sound like the niche-est genre of internet pornography imaginable, but trust the science: When it comes to health, breaking wind may be breaking ground.
Read more here.

Biden Meets the Bumping Men 

In London, a Japanese fitness trend called “butsukari otoko” – which roughly translates to “bumping man” – involves hulking men charging at unsuspecting pedestrians like linebacker sumo wrestlers. Meanwhile, stateside, Joe Biden was reportedly falling so frequently during the 2024 campaign that aides considered strapping him into a wheelchair. The solution? Send the President to Tokyo for an immersive leg-strengthening bump course. After enough mid-shuffle tackles from chunky Japanese strangers, he might finally learn to stay upright while rammed from all sides – just like he does in Congress. Read more here.

All the news you miss when you get your news from the mainstream media… 

Trump Issues Order to Slash Drug Prices by 50% 

President Trump has done it again – signing an executive order that he probably has no right to sign but that, if put into action, will help his already strong poll numbers move even higher.

I’m talking about an order that directs the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) to work with pharmaceutical companies to drastically lower the prices of many of their most expensive drugs.

The order has a 30-day deadline for compliance, which means that if companies fail to meet these targets, the administration may implement regulatory actions, including tariffs and antitrust measures. Click here.

The New ID Cards: Are They Keeping Us Safe?

Sometime soon you will no longer be able to board a plane in the US without a new type of ID card.

They call it Real ID, and, unlike previous ID requirements, it is digital and will put you into a centralized federal data base, which gives the government the ability to track you and stop you wherever and whenever you travel.

The program was introduced in response to the 9/11 attacks, ostensibly to standardize identification across states and enhance national security, which it surely will do. But in doing so, it will also enormously increase the federal government’s ability to know what you are doing 24/7, and will allow government bureaucrats to charge you and prosecute you for high crimes and misdemeanors without your knowledge or consent.

Real ID requires stringent documentation, such as proof of residency, your Social Security number, and your birth certificate, creating concerns about privacy and data security. A recent essay published by the Mises Institute argues that the program is a federal power grab and contends that it is not about enhancing safety but about expanding surveillance – a charge I not only agree with but have been predicting for many years.

The next step will be the Digital Dollar. After that, outlawing and eventually confiscating non-inflatable currencies such as Bitcoin and gold. Remember – you heard it here first.

Here’s what you need to know about the Real ID.

And here’s how to get one and use it for transportation.

The Consequential Trump Move No One’s Noticed 

On April 23, in yet another bold move early in his presidential term, Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14281, titled “Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy.”

The order targets the judicial doctrine of “disparate impact,” established in the 1970s. Under disparate impact, practices can be deemed discriminatory based on outcomes, even without intent to discriminate. Examples include aptitude tests or job requirements that disproportionately affect certain minority groups.

This is a radical move. It represents a significant shift in civil rights enforcement, moving away from outcome-based assessments. The order is based on the view that the doctrine of disparate impact has effectively created a “second Constitution” by redefining discrimination.
 
What’s Going on with Stacy Abrams? 

In April 2024 – when it was already clear that Trump was going to replace Biden as president – the EPA awarded a grant to Power Forward Communities (PFC), under the National Clean Investment Fund, to fund energy-efficient housing projects in low-income communities.

That may have been another “nothingburger” (see below), except that the primary beneficiary of the grant was none other than Stacy Abrams, who became famous for trying to put Trump in jail, and that the amount of the grant was an astonishing $2 billion.

To make matters worse, PFC, formed just months earlier, reported only $100 in revenue in 2023. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that Stacey Abrams served as senior counsel at Rewiring America, a PFC member organization.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin criticized the allocation as “extremely concerning,” and the DOJ and FBI launched investigations into possible financial mismanagement. The grant has since been frozen, pending the outcome of the investigations. Senator Kennedy addressed the issue in a recent Congressional session.

Click here and here.

The Donald’s Art of the Nothingburger 

President Trump and his Make America Richer Again team have been touting the tariff agreement they made last week with the United Kingdom. Unsurprisingly, the Never Trump pundits began criticizing it before the ink was dry.

I didn’t bother to waste my time finding out what they had to say, but when I saw the headline on this article – “The Donald’s Art of the Nothingburger” – I felt I owed it to myself to read it. It’s by David Stockman, arguing that the deal is going to cause a $1 billion to $6 billion increase in the costs of US imports from the UK, and that the touted increase in US beef exports and Boeing aircraft sales will be negligible.

In News & Views, I strive to alert my readers to recent events and happenings that I don’t think they are likely to read about in the mainstream media. I have six items for you today.

1. No More Gain-of-Function Research?
I touched on “gain-of-function” research several times in the pieces I wrote on COVID. It was an issue Rand Paul repeatedly questioned Anthony Fauci about during Congressional hearings. Although Fauci flatly stated under oath that gain-of-function research was not being done by any US governmental institution, we know now that he was lying. Not only was it going on in labs around the world supported by US tax dollars, it was the research in Wuhan, China, that made the COVID-19 virus so contagious. And it was a doctored virus that escaped the facility in Wuhan that directly led to the pandemic.

If you are under the impression that this is just another politicized nothing story, click here and here for two articles that will give you a sense of the magnitude of the danger and the need for some sort of national and international protocols for ending it.

2. The Political Roots of Harvey Weinstein’s Retrial
This is an interesting take on Harvey Weinstein’s retrial. The writer, Kat Rosenfield, points out how the online right adopted Weinstein as symbol of perceived liberal hypocrisy and argues that the left’s handling of the #MeToo movement and its inconsistencies contributed to this shift.

3. Like We Didn’t Know: Gender Transition Surgeries Are Not Good!
A new US government report indicates that there is very little evidence that “pediatric” gender transitions help the children that undergo them, while there is mounting evidence that such “care” is harmful – both physically and mentally. In fact, there has never been a significant study of “gender affirming care” that justified allowing the irreversible procedure on minors. This article questions why it took so long for the US government, its health institutions, and its medical schools to recognize the obvious truth.

4. Federal Investigation into Illinois School District 
This is one of those stories that illustrates just how demented the Biden administration and the leftist media became during the height of their romance with the BLM movement and Critical Race Theory.

5. Critique of Harvard’s Antisemitism Report
In response to widespread criticism that Harvard had a history of antisemitism, the university supposedly did an investigation of the charge and recently issued a report. In this piece, Rabbi David Wolpe makes the case that it was “superficial” and “inadequate” and suggests that there is no real commitment to ridding the school of antisemitism because of “deep-seated ideological issues” within the faculty that are not going away.

6. The Wit and Wisdom of The Donald
On May 1, at the University of Alabama, President Trump delivered a commencement address that was, according to Matthew Continetti writing in The Free Press, “more revealing about his mind” and how he thinks than any speech since taking office. In the article, Continetti gives a 10-point distillation of Trump’s personal philosophy.

Four stories that I’m guessing you missed if you rely on the mainstream media for your news…
 
Was Over-Reliance on Renewables Behind the Catastrophic Blackouts in Spain, Portugal, and France? 

Michael Shellenberger argues that the blackout was a foreseeable consequence of excessive reliance on intermittent renewable energy sources and that it’s likely to happen again and again so long as political leaders prioritize ideological green energy goals over engineering and grid stability realities.

Source: Michael Shellenberger (April 28, 2025)

Tulsi Gabbard Declassifies Biden’s Secret Plan to “Counter Terrorism” by Surveilling Social Media & US Citizens 

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified the Biden administration’s “Strategic Implementation Plan for Countering Domestic Terrorism,” originally developed in June 2021. The plan outlines a comprehensive strategy involving expanded surveillance, social media monitoring, and military involvement aimed at addressing domestic terrorism threats. It includes measures such as surveillance expansion, screening, and social reengineering.

Source: Classy Thomas Massie (April 23, 2025)

Two Huge Government Grants for “Biomedical Research” Are Located Within a Military Base. Why? 

On Jan 17, the National Cancer Institute (a branch of NIH) apparently gave a grant of $89 billion (over 25 years) to a medical charity to manage the National Cancer Institute’s facility in Frederick, MD, that is linked to (and located inside of) Fort Detrick. In this piece, Meryl Nass asks the obvious question: Is this biowarfare development?

Source: Meryl’s CHAOS Letter

RFK Jr. Puts to Rest Unjustified Fears About Recent Measles “Outbreak” on NewsNation Panel 

During a NewsNation interview with Chris Cuomo, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. addressed concerns about the measles outbreak in the US, noting approximately 842 cases nationwide. Kennedy argued that media focus on measles is disproportionate compared to chronic health issues like autism and diabetes, which he views as more pressing public health concerns.

Just the Facts 

* Canada, with one-eighth the US population, has a similar number of cases, and Europe has 10 times more, suggesting the US situation is comparatively moderate.

* There have been only four measles deaths in the US over the past 20 years, contrasting this with 100,000 annual autism cases and 38% of children being diabetic or pre-diabetic.

Source: The Vigilant Fox (May 1, 2025)

An Iron Dome for America: Realistic? 
Michael E. O’Hanlon, the Brookings Institute

The News: On Jan. 27, President Trump issued an executive order titled “The Iron Dome for America” that called for a “next generation” missile defense shield with “reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan” against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries.

The View: On the face of it, it’s a good idea. If Israel built one with US support, surely we should be able to build one capable of providing similar protection for US citizens. And what rational argument could be made against spending some of the Defense Department’s $10 billion yearly budget on defense rather than prolonging 75-year-old proxy wars? But there are already concerns about it, coming not just from the Dems and the lame-stream media but from conservative think tanks. Click here.

Is NATO Going to Cancel Democracy?
Matt Taibbi, Racket News

The News: The populist/anti-populist controversy boils over in Romania, where frontrunner Calin Georgescu has been barred from running for a presidential election.

The View: As always, Matt Taibbi brings a sensible perspective to a serious problem. The parallels between how the EU interfered with that election and the last three years of legal battles over Donald Trump’s eligibility to run for president are disturbing. As Taibbi says, “Is the European Union a collection of democracies that belongs to a military alliance, or a military alliance containing cosmetic democracies? It’s not hard to see that this is just the beginning of a series of fractures.” Click here.

Rag Vendors: Trump’s Tariffs “Gonna Be a Killer”
Olivia Reingold, The Free Press

The News: Small fabric shop owners in NYC’s Garment District express panic over looming Trump tariffs, fearing price hikes, shrinking margins, and survival threats for immigrant-run businesses.

The View: Another story about how Trump’s tariff strategy is going to destroy the American economy. I don’t think it will. Click here.

The Global Pivot Towards Peace 
Joel Bowman, Notes from the End of the World

The News: My esteemed colleague Joel Bowman highlights three major global developments: a surprising pivot toward peace in Europe regarding the Ukraine conflict, a renewed commitment from Donald Trump to balance the US budget through a “zero deficit” strategy, and political and economic upheaval in Argentina.

The View: Bowman lives in Argentina and has been writing about macroeconomic and geopolitical developments with intelligence and fairness for more than 20 years. In my view, he does so in this essay. Click here.

US Labels Cartels as Terrorist Groups
Madeleine Rowley, The Free Press

The News: The US has designated several Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, expanding its legal power to seize assets and pursue capital punishment. The move signals a dramatic escalation in the war on drug trafficking, with bipartisan support and major implications for US-Mexico relations.

The View: There are some things you can’t fix in a “fair” and “just way.” El Salvador’s Cartel crime problem was one of them until Nayib Bukele took over. In a few short years, he changed the country dramatically. When I visited San Salvador 10 years ago, my Salvadoran colleague and I needed an armed guard to accompany us to dinner. Today, another colleague tells me, the downtown is like Paris. Click here.

And just briefly… 

* Is It True? Are Millions Fraudulently Receiving Social Security Checks? 
A Substack piece by Michael Snyder alleging widespread fraud in US entitlement programs, particularly Social Security. It highlights discrepancies between official enrollment numbers and census data, raises concerns about non-citizens obtaining Social Security numbers, and features Elon Musk as a whistleblower revealing massive abuse in the system. Click here.

* Tesla Chooses a Harder Set of Unanswered Questions 
Joe Nocera, Reuters Breakingviews
Tesla’s Cybercab push raises new questions about AI strategy and regulation. Click here.

* JAMA Hit Piece Signals Full-Blown Panic Over Vaccine-Autism Investigation 
This JAMA editorial attacks David Geier’s leadership of a vaccine-autism probe. Critics argue it’s a desperate move by entrenched institutions to silence dissent amid shifting public opinion. Click here.

* Take the NPR “That’s Not Funny!” Challenge 
Matt Taibbi critiques NPR’s warning about humor as a gateway to extremism, linking it to rising cultural moral panics and the media’s tendency to suppress satire under the guise of safety. Click here.

* Signs of a Category 5 Housing Crisis Forming and Coming Straight for Us 
Eric Salzman outlines an emerging housing crisis fueled by rising insurance premiums, Forced Place Insurance, and rising foreclosure risk, drawing comparisons to 2008. Click here.

* Timeline: Panama Canal Politics, Policy, and Tensions 
A comprehensive timeline tracks Trump’s increasing rhetoric about regaining control of the Panama Canal, Chinese port influence, and US-Panama diplomatic friction. Click here.

* What Do US Steelworkers Think About Trump’s Tariffs?
Steelworkers express mixed feelings: They welcome higher steel prices but fear consumer backlash, foreign retaliation, and nonunion competition from new domestic plants. Click here.

* White House Announces End of “Biden’s Dumb War on Things That Work” 
A satirical WSJ piece announcing the end of Biden-era regulations, praising Trump’s rollback of policies affecting consumer goods, appliances, and even showerheads. Click here.

* Keir Starmer on a Mission to Erase England 
John Leake criticizes UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s removal of Queen Elizabeth I’s portrait from Downing Street, seeing it as symbolic of a broader effort to erase English history. Drawing parallels to Orwell’s 1984, he accuses Starmer of cultural vandalism and globalist subservience, especially regarding the war in Ukraine. Click here.

Did You Hear About This? 

Jackass climate activists at it again!

On a square-foot basis, the Rijksmuseum could be my favorite museum in the world, with a collection of all the greatest works of the greatest Dutch artists, from Rembrandt to Van Gogh. Thus, I was disappointed to hear that Extinction Rebellion, the naïve activist group whose tactics are as obnoxious as their ideas are nonsensical, “cyber-attacked” the museum last month. They did it by booking out a weekend exhibition online and then cancelling their reservations at the last minute. As a result, the museum, normally packed on a holiday weekend with about 8,000 people, was practically empty.

Why did they do it? Because the museum banks with ING, a global financial institution that, like any large company, respects its fiduciary duties to its shareholders.

The “ineffectuals” ineffectually protesting at the SOTU Address

I didn’t watch Trump’s State of the Union Address, but I caught some clips on social media and read a few online reviews, including this from John Leake writing in Focal Points:

“A friend just sent me the image above…. I was instantly reminded of the scene in the film Animal House when the endearing but hapless Larry Kroger and Kent Dorfman attend a party at the snobby and sadistic Omega House and are promptly shuffled to a side room and introduced to Muhammed, Jugdish, Sidney, and Clayton.

“Back when Harold Ramis and Douglas Kenney wrote the script in 1978, we all understood that Douglas Neidermeyer and Greg Marmalard were terrible guys and that Larry Kroger, Kent Dorfman, Muhammed, Jugdish, Sidney, and Clayton were something like ‘the meek who shall inherit the Earth.’ However, at some point over the last 20 years, the pendulum of the American Zeitgeist swung to the other extreme, resulting in silly, ineffectual people like Representative Nydia Velázquez being elected to high office.

“Now, in Trump’s second term, the ineffectual are losing the support structure that has propped them up in power. Being ineffectual, they are flailing about looking for some means of resisting their acceleration towards irrelevance and obscurity. It seems that holding up lollipop-shaped protest signs during the President’s address is the best they can do.”

Tapper’s surprise: Yes, Biden was brain dead! 

I don’t know whether to admire him for his balls or mock him for his brazen sycophantism, but CNN’s Jake Tapper deserves some kind of award for writing and promoting a book on Biden’s mental decline, after having fiercely denied that the old man was unplugged if not batshit crazy from 2020 to 2024. As someone (sorry, I didn’t make a note of the name) said, Tapper is both the person who should not have written the book and the person who should have, because “his dishonesty and hypocrisy exactly encapsulate modern journalism.” Click here

 
Speaking of hypocrisy…

I literally slapped the side of my head the other day reading Jeff Bezos’s statement last week about remaking the image of The Washington Post. He said, “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” Click here.

Newsy cartoon of the month

Did You Hear About This? 

The News: NPR has a new chief operating officer

On Jan. 13, Ryan Merkley was named NPR’s new COO. “Throughout his career Ryan has demonstrated a commitment to the public trust, leading organizations that prioritize universal access to the common good,” said NPR president Katherine Maher (who is perhaps best known for describing the First Amendment as the “number one challenge” that makes it “tricky” to remove content).

The View: Merkley’s prior job was Director of the Aspen Institute’s “Commission on Information Disorder,” whose big-name participants included Katie Couric, Prince Harry, and DHS official Chris Krebs. Under Merkley, the Commission drafted a report containing a series of hair-raising proposals, including creating “holding areas” into which “influencers with repeat bad behavior” would be placed for “manual moderation and scrutiny,” and the use of “demonetization” to “remove access to product features for violative behavior.”

Hmm… Maybe COO at NPR stands for Censorship Optimization Officer.

The News: The US is getting its own Iron Dome!

One of Trump’s executive orders that got virtually no attention in the media except for a short piece in the WSJ was a project titled “The Iron Dome for America.” The order asks for a plan to develop an advanced technological defense system based on the very successful system created by Israel. It instructs new Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to submit to the White House within 60 days “a reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defense shield.”

The View: The threat of nuclear war via ICBMs is being eclipsed by super-high-tech military style drones that can drop a hundred little bombs for every massive ICBM. America’s current defense (and I mean North America, including Mexico and Canada) is dependent entirely on the US nuclear defense system, which was built to defend against atomic bombs. This transition has been evolving for at least a dozen years. Why haven’t the previous three administrations – not to mention Democrat war hawks and Republican neocons in Congress – ever proposed something like this? The answer is fascinating and scary. And more than 75 years old. If you don’t know the answer, you’ll want to take the Quick Video Course I’m working on, tentatively titled “The Cold War Isn’t Over. In Fact, It’s Been Heating Up for Years.”

The News: Another EV startup fails 

Canoo, an EV startup launched in 2020, boasting it had secured deals with the US Army, NASA, Walmart, and USPS, declared bankruptcy in late January and immediately shut down operations. According to The Hustle, the company squandered $600 million in funding and folded owing $164 million to creditors, far more than its remaining assets are worth. Canoo follows other EV manufacturers recently gone bankrupt, such as Fisker and Lordstown Motors.

The View: Tech analysts I know tell me that Tesla has been, since inception, so far ahead of its competitors technologically that it’s nearly impossible for them to catch up.