Podcasts about China

Meet my friends, Clay Travis and Buck Sexton! If you love Verdict, the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show might also be in your audio wheelhouse. Politics, news analysis, and some pop culture and comedy thrown in too. Here’s a sample episode recapping four takeaways. Give the guys a listen and then follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Buck's NASA Visit Buck Sexton shares firsthand insights from his visit to NASA and Blue Origin, transitioning the discussion into national security, defense manufacturing, and the future of American military power. He describes what he calls a renaissance in U.S. defense and aerospace innovation, emphasizing the growing importance of advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, drone warfare, hypersonic weapons, and rapid production capabilities. Buck explains that modern warfare increasingly depends on technological superiority and scale, warning that the ability to manufacture advanced systems quickly may determine future conflicts more than traditional troop strength. Clay and Buck also discuss how Silicon Valley’s relationship with the U.S. military has evolved, crediting the Trump administration with pushing major technology companies to reengage with national defense efforts. They highlight concerns about China’s manufacturing capacity and argue that American tech companies have a responsibility to support U.S. national security. The hosts draw historical parallels to World War II–era industrial mobilization, suggesting that today’s defense challenges require similar cooperation between private industry and government. The final segment of Hour 1 explores the rapid commercialization of space and the growing influence of companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. Buck Sexton describes space exploration as entering a new era driven by private enterprise, faster launch capabilities, and long‑term ambitions such as low‑Earth‑orbit infrastructure and lunar missions. Clay Travis connects these developments to broader trends in media, technology, and artificial intelligence, noting how formerly separate industries are rapidly converging into a single interconnected ecosystem. Have You Noticed this About Epstein? Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show is anchored by an extended, in‑depth discussion of the latest Jeffrey Epstein document release, with Clay Travis and Buck Sexton analyzing the significance of more than three million pages of emails and records made public. The hosts argue that the Epstein story has effectively reached its endpoint, contending that the newly released materials do not reveal criminal evidence against additional high‑profile figures. They frame Epstein primarily as a wealthy facilitator who leveraged access to attractive, of‑age women to ingratiate himself with powerful, older men, rather than uncovering a broader, prosecutable conspiracy. The conversation includes discussion of reputational damage suffered by public figures named in the emails, distinctions between criminal conduct and morally questionable behavior, and why federal investigators typically do not release non‑criminal but embarrassing communications. Clay and Buck also address listener skepticism, calls into the show, and questions surrounding Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction, emphasizing that her charges centered on trafficking for Epstein specifically, not a wider group of clients. Where is Nancy Guthrie? A major developing news story involving the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie’s mother, Nancy Guthrie, in Arizona. Clay and Buck carefully walk through the known facts, including her age, physical limitations, and the troubling indicators surrounding the case, such as reports of blood at the scene. They caution against assuming the incident is connected to Savannah Guthrie’s celebrity, drawing comparisons to other tragic but random crimes involving relatives of famous individuals, including the murder of Michael Jordan’s father. The hosts stress that, based on available information, the case appears to be a serious and concerning missing‑person investigation rather than a targeted kidnapping, while urging listeners in Arizona to stay alert as law enforcement updates emerge. The tone shifts as Hour 2 moves into cultural commentary, beginning with a critique of the Grammy Awards and what Clay and Buck describe as its overtly political and “woke” messaging. They focus in particular on Billie Eilish’s statement that “no one is illegal on stolen land,” which sparks a broader discussion about celebrity activism and perceived hypocrisy. Clay highlights the response from the Tongva tribe, which publicly asserted that Billie Eilish’s Los Angeles mansion sits on their ancestral land and suggested she return the property if she truly believes her statement. The hosts use the moment to question performative politics in Hollywood and whether celebrities are willing to apply their rhetoric to their own personal wealth and property. Clay's Controversial Music Take Buck Sexton reports that the United States has shot down a suspected Iranian drone approaching a U.S. aircraft carrier, using the development to discuss the evolving nature of modern naval warfare. Buck explains how drone technology, hypersonic missiles, and ship‑killing capabilities are reshaping global military strategy, potentially turning aircraft carriers into high‑value targets in future conflicts. This segment underscores broader geopolitical tensions involving Iran, U.S. military readiness, and the changing balance of power in international security. The hour then pivots back to urgent domestic news, with continued updates on the disappearance and apparent abduction of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today Show co‑host Savannah Guthrie. Clay and Buck relay that the FBI is now involved, there is no surveillance footage, and authorities believe she was taken against her will in Tucson, Arizona. Emphasizing that this is one of the top stories on national newscasts, the hosts urge listeners—especially those in Arizona—to contact the FBI with any tips. They stress that there is limited verified information available and avoid speculation, framing the situation as a troubling and unresolved missing‑person case. Following the serious news, Hour 3 takes a sharp tonal turn into what becomes the most talked‑about and interactive segment of the entire program: Clay Travis’s declaration that Taylor Swift is the “modern‑day Beatles.” Clay doubles down on his cultural take, arguing that Taylor Swift’s songwriting catalog, longevity, and stadium‑selling power will endure for decades, much like The Beatles, while Buck Sexton strongly disagrees. The debate quickly ignites a flood of listener reaction, with calls, emails, and talkbacks pouring in from across the country. Listeners challenge the comparison, propose alternative analogies—such as Taylor Swift being more akin to Elvis or Madonna—and passionately defend or reject Clay’s argument. Make sure you never miss a second of the show by subscribing to the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton show podcast wherever you get your podcasts! ihr.fm/3InlkL8 For the latest updates from Clay and Buck: https://www.clayandbuck.com/ Connect with Clay Travis and Buck Sexton on Social Media: X - https://x.com/clayandbuck FB - https://www.facebook.com/ClayandBuck/ IG - https://www.instagram.com/clayandbuck/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck Rumble - https://rumble.com/c/ClayandBuck TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@clayandbuck YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VerdictwithTedCruzSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch The X22 Report On Video No videos found (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:17532056201798502,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-9437-3289"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="https://cdn2.decide.dev/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");pt> Click On Picture To See Larger Picture Conspiracy no more, Germany and the EU shutting down energy production while China was increasing theirs. This tells you everything you need to know. Trump tariff system is getting stronger, it’s improving the economy and this is something the [CB] does not want. The [CB]s are losing control over the Fed, watch gold and silver. Trump need to wake the people of this country up. The only way to do this was to have the people go down a path that would make the uncomfortable, scared and angry, this is how you break the brainwashing. People can now see it is the tryrants against the people of this country. The picture is clear. Every step of the way the [DS] is losing their grip on the people. The people are ready to take back the country.   Economy https://twitter.com/HansMahncke/status/2018402875693580744?s=20   (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:18510697282300316,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-8599-9832"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="https://cdn2.decide.dev/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs"); https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2018664901959462953?s=20   ended in June 2025, when missed payments began appearing on credit reports. Meanwhile, the percentage of student loans transitioning into 90+ days of serious delinquency is up to 14.3%, an all-time high. This significantly exceeds the 2013 peak of 10.5% and 2008 levels of 7.5%. The student loan crisis is accelerating. https://twitter.com/profstonge/status/2018663257675018691?s=20 Political/Rights https://twitter.com/AnthonyGalli/status/2018716797864661049?s=20 https://twitter.com/luvgod/status/2018390600475644333?s=20  Code of Conduct explicitly requires justices to avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety, including political activity that undermines public confidence in judicial independence. https://twitter.com/RichardStiller4/status/2018460663329472526?s=20   https://twitter.com/amuse/status/2018673649985683709?s=20   https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/status/2018551227416756485?s=20   drive from these people?” This is what she said happened: ‘My friend told us about a dive burger place in Minnesota that we absolutely had to try. As we were driving in, we passed a small group of maybe 30 people holding large “F ICE” signs, spelled out. Many of the houses in the neighborhood also had signs saying “F ICE” and similar messages. When we were leaving to drive back to the hotel, we passed the group again. At that point, the resistance group stepped out in front of our car and would not let us drive. One woman appeared to be looking at our license plate and doing something on her phone. She was standing directly in front of the car, blocking us — I cannot imagine being a sane person and living in this city. We were with my brother-in-law's family, and they said that restaurants and other places are empty because of this, the resistance is out doing their thing, and the normal people are just staying home and not going out.' https://twitter.com/CynicalPublius/status/2018412853435527587?s=20 https://twitter.com/CynicalPublius/status/2018416970111311967?s=20 the execution of federal laws. Further, as we have all seen in innumerable videos, this conspiracy includes the use of violent force. I think everyone–even Democrats–must agree that what I just said is true. Now read 18 U.S.C. § 2384 (Seditious conspiracy): “If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.” Draw your own conclusions as to what is required here. https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/2018389609563017674?s=20   CBS News is parting ways with contributor Dr. Peter Attia, a prominent longevity physician, after Epstein documents revealed over 1,700 mentions of his name and emails showing a close friendship, including Attia’s 2015 note on Epstein’s “outrageous” life he couldn’t share and a 2016 lewd quip about “pussy” being low-carb.   https://twitter.com/FFT1776/status/2018490549733322850?s=20  interview instead of sworn testimony • Withdrawal of the subpoena before testifying • A pause on contempt proceedings • A hard 4-hour time limit • 30-minute alternating question blocks • A personal transcriber of Clinton's choosing • No video recording • Written statements for Hillary Clinton instead of appearing in person Congress said no.: No carve-outs. No special rules. No special treatment. Testify under oath. Thank you Rep. Comer https://twitter.com/RepJamesComer/status/2018740003501678769?s=20  Secretary Clinton will appear for a deposition on February 26, 2026. After delaying and defying duly issued subpoenas for six months, the House Oversight Committee moved swiftly to initiate contempt of Congress proceedings in response to their non-compliance. We look forward to now questioning the Clintons as part of our investigation into the horrific crimes of Epstein and Maxwell, to deliver transparency and accountability for the American people and for survivors. NO BODY IS ABOVE THE LAW 2725 Feb 14, 2019 11:46:33 PM EST Q !!mG7VJxZNCI ID: 46cb93 No. 5182398  Chatter – Bill & Hillary's ‘public' HEALTH will begin to rapidly deteriorate. Q DOGE   illegalities that they have committed. This should be a Criminal, not Civil, event, and Harvard will have to live with the consequences of their wrongdoings. In any event, this case will continue until justice is served. Dr. Alan Garber, the President of Harvard, has done a terrible job of rectifying a very bad situation for his institution and, more importantly, America, itself. He was hired AFTER the antisemitism charges were brought – I wonder why??? We are now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages, and want nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard University. As The Failing New York Times clearly stated, “Some connected to the University, however, think Harvard has no option but to eventually cut a deal. The Administration has repeatedly attempted to cut off research grants, which would be an untenable crises. Like many major research universities, Harvard relies on federal funding for its financial model.” Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP  Macron's Authorities Raid Elon Musk's X French Offices in Paris Under the direction of France's globalist President Macron, French authorities escalated their confrontation with American tech entrepreneur Elon Musk this week, launching high-profile raids of X's offices in Paris and summoning Musk himself for what prosecutors termed a “voluntary interview.” The move marks a dramatic intensification of France's long-running effort to rein in the America-based free-speech platform. According to the Paris public prosecutor's office, the operation was carried out by French cybercrime units with assistance from Europol, targeting the French premises of X. Authorities claim the investigation centers on whether X's algorithm improperly influenced French political discourse. Summonses were issued to Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino, calling them to Paris in April 2026 to answer questions related to the probe. Yaccarino, who stepped down last year, is listed alongside Musk as a manager during the period under review.   French prosecutors later broadened their inquiry, citing concerns related to X's AI chatbot Grok, including claims it produced offensive or false content. Musk's company responded by correcting errors, removing disputed posts, and publicly documenting its moderation actions—steps critics say would have been praised had they come from a European firm. Source: thegatewaypundit.com https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/2018625815114567850?s=20 https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/2018683758006665352?s=20   far-reaching Digital Services Act thread   https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/2018732491125727232?s=20   with social media platforms to pressure them to censor political speech in the days before the vote. Leading up to the Dutch elections of 2023 the EU commission even made the then Dutch Interior Ministry @hugodejonge a “trusted flagger” entitled to make priority censorship requests under the DSA. What kind of political speech did they want to censor, you ask? – “Populist rhetoric” – “Anti-government/anti-EU content” – “Anti-elite” content – “Political satire” – “Anti-migrant and Islamophobic content” – “Anti-refugee content/anti-immigrant sentiment” – “Anti-LGBTQI content” – “Meme subculture” In other words, anything that goes against their agenda, anything remotely right-wing or conservative, and anything pertaining to the disastrous migrant situation we have here in Europe. And guess what the only platform was that did not cooperate? @X , of course. The same platform that the EU is fining for 120 million euros under the DSA and the same platform that is currently having its offices raided in France. This is the type of stuff over which governments should resign and institutions like the EU should fall. Democracy is dead. Abolish the EU! Now! https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/2018644283096523244?s=20  turning “algorithmic manipulation and amplification of illegal content into a new criminal offense” and developing a new system to monitor hate, “because spreading hate must come at a cost.” Geopolitical https://twitter.com/JackInTully/status/2018663771213086808?s=20   https://twitter.com/Geiger_Capital/status/2018711873240105407?s=20 War/Peace https://twitter.com/BehizyTweets/status/2018029749889638850?s=20 https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/2018505966765924723?s=20 https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2018750332231131642?s=20  has a range of options, including military force. Iran knows that better than anyone. Look no further than Operation Midnight Hammer!”    U.N. Facing ‘Imminent Financial Collapse' Admits Secretary General as Countries Won't Cough Up Membership Fees The United Nations is facing an “imminent financial collapse” as member states refuse to cough up billions of dollars in mandatory contributions. The financial woes were laid out in an emergency letter from Secretary-General António Guterres sent to all 193 member countries. Guterres said the organisation's financial crisis is worsening rapidly, threatening the delivery of core programmes and potentially leaving the U.N. bankrupt by July. He urged member states to either pay what they owe in full or agree to sweeping changes to the UN's financial rules to avoid collapse. “Either all member states honour their obligations to pay in full and on time—or member states must fundamentally overhaul our financial rules to prevent an imminent financial collapse,” he wrote. The warning comes as the United States, the U.N.'s largest contributor, has refused to fund the organisation's regular and peacekeeping budgets and has withdrawn from multiple UN agencies.    The Trump administration has repeatedly criticised the U.N. for wasting taxpayer dollars, appeasing criminal regimes and infringing on the sovereignty of the U.S. and other member nations. Several other member states are also in arrears or have declined to pay their assessed contributions. Source: thegatewaypundit.com Medical/False Flags https://twitter.com/liz_churchill10/status/2018439093420536119?s=20 FBI Raids ILLEGAL Biolab Inside a Private Home in Las Vegas — Authorities Discover THOUSANDS of Vials, Links to CCP-Connected California Lab Federal agents with the FBI and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department executed a dramatic early-morning raid on a residential property in northeast Las Vegas this weekend after investigators uncovered what appears to be a fully operational illegal biological laboratory inside a private home. Refrigerators containing unknown liquids and vials of suspected biological material were found inside the residence, prompting an aggressive response from HazMat teams, SWAT units, and FBI specialists due to the potential threat presented by the materials, The Hill reported. At least one individual was taken into custody in connection with the Las Vegas raid, identified by local officials as a 55-year-old property manager, Ori Solomon. He is currently booked on felony charges linked to the improper disposal of hazardous waste, though investigators continue to determine the full scope of charges that may arise. Property records reveal that the Las Vegas home is owned by “David Destiny Discovery, LLC,” according to The Sun. If that name sounds familiar, it should. It is a shell company registered to Jia Bei Zhu (also known as David He), the very same Chinese national who ran the illegal Reedley, California biolab exposed in 2023. Zhu, a fugitive from Canada with deep ties to the Chinese government, is currently in federal custody. The FBI has taken the lead in analyzing the more than 1,000 samples collected from the scene, with evidence transported to federal laboratories for further testing. https://twitter.com/RepKiley/status/2018514131876213199?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2018514131876213199%7Ctwgr%5E1616a599ecdcff26961307ece268007bf47acbbc%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2026%2F02%2Ffbi-raids-illegal-biolab-inside-private-home-las%2F Source: thegatewaypundit.com https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/2018714265247453494?s=20 https://twitter.com/liz_churchill10/status/2018321118000476222?s=20   https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/2017614901028786500?s=20   [DS] Agenda BREAKING: Jill Biden's Ex-Husband Arrested and Charged with Murder of His Wife Jill Biden's ex-husband Bill Stevenson was charged with first-degree murder of his wife, Linda Stevenson. Last month police swarmed Stevenson's home after his wife died amid a domestic dispute. Police removed several items from the Stevenson home last month. 64-year-old Linda Stevenson, wife of Jill Biden's ex-husband Bill Stevenson, was found unresponsive after police arrived to the New Castle, Delaware, residence late Sunday night. According to TMZ, Linda Stevenson was found dead in the living room. TMZ obtained 911 dispatch audio, which references cardiac arrest: According to TMZ, Stevenson is being held on a $500,000 bond. Fox 29 reported:   Source: thegatewaypundit.com https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/status/2018513235868299678?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2018513235868299678%7Ctwgr%5E6abdb9eedc5852ca532cc2c248c01795a00b5389%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2026%2F02%2Fjust-days-before-ayanna-pressley-was-sworn-her%2F https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/2018549471160734081?s=20 https://twitter.com/TriciaOhio/status/2018419624295960839?s=20 https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/2018741593071648855?s=20 Media's Bogus Minneapolis Narrative About to Be Nuked As DHS Turns on the Cameras Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem announced Monday that all immigration officers working in Minneapolis will start wearing body cameras as an added layer of protection for those officers and, presumably, against the false narratives being pushed by the left after a series of deadly officer-involved incidents in the sanctuary city. Source: redstate.com https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/2018536832489889937?s=20 https://twitter.com/TriciaOhio/status/2018502877321334812?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2018502877321334812%7Ctwgr%5Efce8ad7eb6d8fb345b1483e2b135162684061896%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fredstate.com%2Fsmoosieq%2F2026%2F02%2F03%2Ftps-decision-n2198777 for decades.   Temporary means temporary and the final word will not be from an activist judge legislating from the bench. https://twitter.com/grok/status/2018537805073330361?s=20 cases like Haitians may face ongoing challenges. President Trump's Plan https://twitter.com/profstonge/status/2018490184677900551?s=20 https://twitter.com/profstonge/status/2018680520549257396?s=20   better. He is running because he realizes Thomas Massie has been totally disloyal to the President of the United States, and the Republican Party. He never votes for us, he always goes with the Democrats. Thomas Massie is a Complete and Total Disaster, we must make sure he loses, BIG! https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/2018488252219699617?s=20 https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/2018397484209635625?s=20  to defund ICE   OPPOSE: 58% https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2018712280645484664?s=20 https://twitter.com/TheStormRedux/status/2018473020835192964?s=20   complying voluntarily – They are suing the states that are not complying in the next couple weeks – 24 states + DC in current litigation because they are making all kinds of excuses Gee I wonder why these states won't share their voter rolls? Because it's all a fraud. The jig is up. Harmeet went on to specifically discuss the FBI raid in Georgia. “We're going to figure out the logistics there with the court and with our colleagues and see what those ballots show. I think it was highly unusual. A lot of things that happened in 2020 in the swing states… We're going to see what we see and whatever the evidence shows, I think it's important for the American people to know what happened in Fulton County and in Georgia…”  Don't tell me nothing is happening! WSJ Anonymous Hit Piece On Gabbard Is Based On Complaints That ‘Weren't Credible' ‘Here's the truth: There was no wrongdoing by @DNIGabbard, a fact that WSJ conveniently buried 13 paragraphs down,' a DNI official said. https://twitter.com/alexahenning/status/2018313944360702063?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2018313944360702063%7Ctwgr%5E2d40da39babc1191fd219e747e9e7022814c8641%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthefederalist.com%2F2026%2F02%2F03%2Fwsj-anonymous-hit-piece-on-gabbard-is-based-on-complaints-that-werent-credible%2F   Gabbard were not credible. Source: thefedearlist.com https://twitter.com/HansMahncke/status/2018367694823735378?s=20   fabricated source feeding supposedly ultra-sensitive information that sends everyone chasing a lie. So yes, exactly like a le Carré novel (by the way, the fraudulent Steele dossier followed the same le Carre blueprint).   https://twitter.com/DNIGabbard/status/2018504435769520156?s=20   nation and ensure the integrity of our elections  https://twitter.com/TheStormRedux/status/2018463747095003285?s=20  willfully defrauds the residents of a state of a fair and impartial election process. “In other words, the focus of this investigation, the focus of that raid, the reason that federal judge approved that raid, was that they're looking at possible crimes related by election workers and the administration of that election in 2020.” Can't wait to see how this plays out  https://twitter.com/realLizUSA/status/2018692087345025302?s=20 https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/2018553787036623201?s=20   South, Midwest, and Mountain West. Democrats are largely confined to the coasts and a handful of Midwest holdouts like Illinois and Minnesota. This is where policy actually gets made. Abortion, elections, education, guns. It all starts here. https://twitter.com/CollinsforTX/status/2018698529036808560?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2018703572016287879?s=20   https://twitter.com/Geiger_Capital/status/2018717121425834279?s=20 https://twitter.com/RepLuna/status/2018480826741055929?s=20  is through the standing filibuster. This would effectively keep the government open while allowing Republican senators to break through the “zombie” filibuster and put the SAVE America Act up for a vote on the Senate floor. The standing filibuster is not common parliamentary procedure, but it is one of the only mechanisms available to go around senators who want to block voter ID. @LeaderJohnThune we are very pleased that you are discussing the standing filibuster, and we believe you will go down in history if this is pulled off as one of the best leaders the Senate has ever had. Voter ID is a must, and the ball is now in your court. https://twitter.com/AwakenedOutlaw/status/2018510290653155445?s=20 https://twitter.com/CynicalPublius/status/2018439757227819347?s=20   IMMEDIATELY blasted off like gangbusters. In one year we have seen more productive conservative change in the federal government than with every other GOP president since Reagan combined. Trump has significantly degraded the Deep State in a way most of us could only dream of ten years ago. Moreover, Trump's economic policies are bearing fruit right now and we will likely see a very strong economy by the midterms. But… Ah yes, the midterms. I know so many of you will only be happy when Bill Clinton, Hillary, Obama and Joe Biden are in jail, but you need to join the world of reality. Right now Trump and his team are gauging everything they do through the lens of “How will this effect the midterms?” They have sophisticated polling that you and I will never see, and at the moment every Trump action is tempered by “Let's be aggressive but not in such a way it turns public opinion against us before the midterms.” Trump knows that if he loses the midterms, all is lost. The Dems will constantly impeach him and most of his cabinet, and even if the Senate never convicts, the acts of impeachment will grind the Trump machine to a halt. The midterms are everything. So I'm warning you, from now until November you are going to see a less aggressive Trump If you are a Doomster for whom nothing is ever enough, you need to understand why that is. But here is the good news. I believe that one day after the midterms Trump will once again go shock and awe for a year, and then back off again in 2028 to get JD or Rubio elected. (For example, I can easily see Trump taking zero drastic action in the near term to further inflame the Minnesota situation, but invoking the Insurrection Act the day after the midterms and sending in the 82nd.) Since the Super Bowl is coming up, consider it this way: In the first quarter, Trump ran up the score. In the second quarter, he went prevent defense to hold onto the lead. After halftime, once again in the third quarter he will run up the score, and then hold the lead in the fourth quarter to win the game. This is not Qtard “trust the plan” nonsense. This is simply good political strategy. Everyone needs to realize two things: (1) the Constitution includes checks and balances that inherently weaken the absolute power of each branch and (2) even though they are in the minority, Democrats still have a HUGE say. Our system is DESIGNED THIS WAY. We have to account for the opposition—you cannot ignore them. With that in mind, I have every confidence that Trump and his team will navigate through a treacherous course and come out on the winning side. I’m hoping this post makes the things you see in the months ahead more comprehensible. Have a nice day. https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2018742785017336107?s=20   the SAVE Act is not included in the government funding bill that advanced via the 217-215 House procedural vote on February 3, 2026. That legislation is a $1.2 trillion spending package funding most federal agencies through September 30, 2026, while extending funding for the Department of Homeland Security only through February 13, 2026, to allow for further negotiations on immigration enforcement. Efforts by some conservative Republicans to attach the SAVE Act—a separate bill requiring proof of U.S. citizenship for federal voter registration—were rejected during the process, following calls from President Trump to pass the package without changes.  (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:13499335648425062,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-7164-1323"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.customads.co/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");

On this week of The Bugle, Andy is joined by Anuvab Pal and Sara Barron, as they navigate through the week's biggest and strangest stories, from Melania Trump's movie release, the new Springsteen number, Starmer's trip to China and a potentially habitable new planet has been discovered 146 light-years away – but it may be -70C

A.M. Edition for Feb. 4. Software stocks are sliding again today, following a rough day on Wall Street that saw the rise of new AI tools shave more than $300 billion off of companies that sell or invest in software. WSJ's Hannah Miao explains what's driving the selloff and what it all means for investors. Plus, Novo Nordisk shares plummet as the weight-loss drugmaker warns of unprecedented pricing pressure. And we look at why China is banning retractable car door handles. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we're talking about U.S. deals that put fresh pressure on Russia and China; a partial government shutdown ending yesterday; Bill and Hillary Clinton agreeing to testify in Congress; and other top news for Wednesday, February 4th. Stay informed while remaining focused on Christ with The Pour Over. Looking to support us? You can choose to pay ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our sponsors! We actually use and enjoy every single one. Cru Wild Alaskan HelloFresh Safe House Project Gloo QAVA CCCU Filament Bible Upside Mosh LMNT Not Just Sunday Podcast Bible Gateway Plus TPO Corrections Page

Donate (no account necessary) | Subscribe (account required) Join Bryan Dean Wright, former CIA Operations Officer, as he dives into today's top stories shaping America and the world. In this Listener Question episode of The Wright Report, Bryan shares good news for Texas farmers as Mexico finally agrees to deliver long-owed water under a decades-old treaty, then breaks down the high-stakes fight ahead over ICE funding, voter ID laws, and the risk of another government shutdown. Bryan also answers pointed questions about foreign-backed activism tied to Minneapolis protests, why the CIA cannot simply target an American billionaire operating from China, and how misinformation has warped the public's understanding of asylum, detentions, and so-called "illegal" versus "legal" migrants. The episode closes with a major shift in the medical world, as leading plastic surgeons reverse course on gender transition surgeries for children, signaling what Bryan calls the start of a long-overdue reckoning.   "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." - John 8:32     Keywords: February 4 2026 Wright Report, Listener questions episode, Texas Mexico water treaty Rio Grande, Claudia Sheinbaum Trump water deal, ICE funding shutdown fight DHS, SAVE America Act voter ID filibuster, MEGA Act mail-in ballot rules, Roy Singham China funding protests, CIA authority limits foreign activists, fake asylum claims explained, Biden app parole fraud, plastic surgeons reject gender transition surgery children, trans medicine reckoning  

Today, let's examine the Chinese Communist Party's biowarfare program, specifically Chinese officials' interest in making a bioweapon capable of targeting the DNA markers specific to distinct ethnic groups.

If the 20th century was defined by oil, journalist and author Nicolas Niarchos bets that the 21st century will be defined by batteries. In his book, The Elements of Power: A Story of War, Technology and the Dirtiest Supply Chain on Earth, Niarchos unpacks the hidden costs behind the world’s battery boom. In this episode, he and Oz trace how the race for cobalt and other critical metals is reshaping global power—why China dominates refining and battery innovation, what the U.S. would actually have to build to compete, and whether trade deals can realistically “clean up” the system. Additional Reading: The Elements of Power by Nicolas Niarchos| PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A significant industry has emerged of expectant mothers flying from China to states such as California or U.S. territories such as Saipan to give birth to American citizens, says investigative reporter Peter Schweizer.As soon as the newborn is old enough to fly, mother and child travel back to China with their babies. Chinese state-run media began promoting such services years ago, Schweizer says.“They are exploiting this on a massive scale,” Schweizer said. “It's industrial, and we are completely oblivious to it.”He estimates there are tens of thousands of such cases per year. When the child turns 21, their parents can then potentially claim green cards through them.There are also growing anecdotes of surrogacy as another preferred route.“Politically connected elites in China ... are hiring women in the United States to carry their children. They call them carriers. And these women are American citizens,” Schweizer says.Schweizer is the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, including most recently “The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon.”In this episode, he breaks down some of the incredible findings of his book.Over the course of history, “migration has oftentimes been used as a weapon: a weapon of subversion, a weapon to overwhelm an enemy, a weapon to divide an enemy, a weapon to sow chaos,” he says.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

I drove downtown not too long ago to meet with Jesse Appell to talk about his first book, "This was funnier in China" https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/This-Was-Funnier-in-China/Jesse-Appell/9781668087565 Jesse's been performing stand-up comedy and Xiangsheng 相声 for years now. When he isn't engaging in this profession, he's managing and promoting his global tea company, Jesse's Teahouse https://jessesteahouse.com/en-us. This book tells the story of Jesse's experiences engaging with the PRC and building a nice, comfortable, and exciting life for himself. You'll learn about what it was like living there, about his apprenticeship under Xiangsheng Master Ding Guangquan 丁广泉, his performances, the comedy club he created in Beijing, a whole bunch of interesting characters, and a whole lot more. You may want to slow the audio down to half or quarter speed to take in everything Jesse has to say. This is all raw and unedited from the Livestream he ran on his various platforms. We clipped on a couple of Bluetooth mics and hit Play on my iPhone to record. The video of this recording can be found at Jesse's TikTok, YouTube, and IG. Thanks, everyone! Video of the interview: https://www.youtube.com/live/QqSNje4fRzg?si=YzMhQx_ohFt6exR4

Today we look at how we can pray for the persecuted Christians in Iran, and other Muslim-majority nations, where believers are isolated and word is scarce. Hebrews 13:3 is a good reminder in these situations, as well. I'm your China travel guide, Missionary Ben. Follow me on Twitter/X (@chinaadventures) where I share a new Chinese city or county to pray for every single day. Please send any questions or comments to our new, secure email: chinacompass@privacyport.com. You can also find China Compass on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/chinacompass), which not only allows for donations, but also lets me sort episodes into various collections, making it easier to find all the shows on a certain topic or person. Everything else we are involved in can be found at PrayGiveGo.us! Why the Prison Pulpit? The goal is to remind people to pray for persecuted believers as Hebrews 13:3 teaches: “Remember those who are in prison, as bound with them.” We’ve looked at Wang Yi and Early Rain Church’s writings in the aftermath of their arrest and attack in 2018, but I’ve also regularly turned to other persecuted ministers who have gone before, such as Richard Wurmbrand, to give us a voice literally from prison. Unrest in Iran: How to Pray https://www.opendoors.org.hk/en-US/news/latest/iran-unrest-prayer/ Iran is Killing Christians https://email.revelationmedia.org/iran-is-killing-christians Living as Secret Christians in Iran https://www.opendoorscanada.org/living-as-secret-christians-in-iran/ Christians in Somalia Who Do Not Hide Their Faith https://www.opendoorsus.org/en-US/stories/christians-in-somalia-aweis-will-not-hide-his-faith/ Follow China Compass Thank you for listening! Subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! There’s also a donation link at PrayforChina.us if you’d like to support our China ministry. For everything else, visit PrayGiveGo.us. Hebrews 13:3: Remember those who are in prison, “as bound with them”!

Why Trump can't make up his mind, the pressure he's under, and what the outcome will be, and what Russia and China want.

This week on The Global Fresh Series, we're coming to you from Fruit Logistica in Berlin, where the global fresh produce industry gathers to shape the future of trade, innovation, and market access.In this special episode, we share insights from the show floor and introduce a guest with years of hands-on experience doing business in the China fresh produce market. As China continues to play an outsized role in global pricing, demand, and premium fruit trends, understanding how to navigate this market has never been more critical.Our conversation explores what it really takes to succeed in China—from market access and consumer expectations to branding, logistics, and relationship-driven business culture—while connecting those lessons to the broader global themes emerging at Fruit Logistica.Whether you're a grower, exporter, importer, or marketer, this episode offers timely perspective on how global trade shows like Fruit Logistica intersect with one of the world's most influential fresh produce markets.

Joe's Premium Subscription: www.standardgrain.comGrain Markets and Other Stuff Links —Apple PodcastsSpotifyTikTokYouTubeFutures and options trading involves risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone.

The Spanish government has announced plans to legalise the status of half a million undocumented migrants. Many arrive with student or tourist visas but overstay and start working on the black market. Migration is a polarising issue in western Europe, so why is Spain keen to hurry up the process of regularisation? One reason is that Spain's economy has been outstripping its European Union partners. In 2024 the economy grew by 3.5% but in sectors that struggle to recruit enough workers, so Spain wants its migrant population to work in a legal way to keep its economic momentum going. We meet some of the people the Spanish government wants to give legal status to and speak to organisations that are helping them to work legally.If you'd like to get in touch with the team, you can send us an email to businessdaily@bbc.co.ukPresented and produced by Ashish SharmaBusiness Daily is the home of in-depth audio journalism devoted to the world of money and work. From small startup stories to big corporate takeovers, global economic shifts to trends in technology, we look at the key figures, ideas and events shaping business.Each episode is a 17-minute deep dive into a single topic, featuring expert analysis and the people at the heart of the story.Recent episodes explore the weight-loss drug revolution, the growth in AI, the cost of living, why bond markets are so powerful, China's property bubble, and Gen Z's experience of the current job market.We also feature in-depth interviews with company founders and some of the world's most prominent CEOs. These include the CEO of Google Sundar Pichai, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and billionaire founder Judy Faulkner of Epic Systems, one of the world's largest medical record software providers.(Picture: View of Madrid city skyline from a sky bar terrace where people are gathered. Credit: Getty Images)

WORST DAY EVER for SILVER Cold Snap in Florida – Massive Critter Drop New Fed Chair named Pausing on space PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts! Click HERE for Show Notes and Links DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar. Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter Interactive Brokers  Warm-Up - WORST DAY EVER for SILVER - Cold Snap in Florida - Massive Critter Drop - New Fed Chair named - Pausing on space Markets - Bitcoin plunges - Crypto "winter" - Deep dive into January economic results - USD rises from multi-month low - EM still powered ahead - ELON - PT Barnum move Cold Snap - On February 1, 2026, Florida faced a significant drop in temperatures, reaching a record low of 24°F (-4°C) in Orlando. This marked the lowest temperature recorded in February since 1923. - Iguanas dropping from tress all over the streets - Iguanas can survive temperatures down to the mid-40s Fahrenheit (around 7°C) by entering a "cold-stunned" state, where they appear dead but are just temporarily paralyzed and immobile; however, prolonged exposure to temperatures in the 30s and 40s, especially below freezing, can be lethal, particularly for smaller individuals, leading to tissue damage and organ failure. - They get sluggish below 50°F (10°C) and fall from trees as they lose grip. - The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) issued Executive Order 26-03 on Friday, allowing residents to collect and surrender cold-stunned green iguanas without a permit during an unprecedented cold weather event. Right on Schedule - Remember we talked about how the Nat Gas price was going to reverse, just as quickly as it spikeed? - Nat gas down 25% today - down about 28% from recent high - Still about 50% higher than it was before the spike. THIS! - Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said the company's proposed $100 billion investment in OpenAI  was “never a commitment” and that the company would consider any funding rounds “one at a time.” - “It was never a commitment,” Huang told reporters in Taipei on Sunday. “They invited us to invest up to $100 billion and of course, we were, we were very happy and honored that they invited us, but we will invest one step at a time.” Then Oracle announced that it will do a fundraiser in the form of equity and debt - needs to fund more datacenter build-out. - What happened to the OpenAI $300 Billion committment? - Or is the money that NVDA "committed to OpenAi, that they must have committed to Orcle, not a committment - GIGANTIC CIRCLE JERK Fungus - -Interesting - Did you know? Botrytis cinerea, a fungus causing grey mold, affects grapes by causing bunch rot, ruining fruit in high humidity. - While it often destroys crops, specific dry, warm conditions can transform it into "noble rot," concentrating sugars and creating high-value dessert wines (e.g., Sauternes, Tokaji) with honeyed, raisin-like, and apricot flavors. January Economic Review Employment — Job growth was nearly flat in December, with 50,000 new jobs added and earlier months revised lower. — Unemployment dipped slightly to 4.4%, but it's still higher than it was a year ago. — Long-term unemployment didn't change and remains high, and the labor force participation rate slipped to 62.4%. — Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% in December and are up 3.8% over the past year. — Weekly jobless claims stayed close to last year's levels, showing a labor market that is cooling but not weakening sharply. FOMC / Interest Rates — The Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged at 3.50%–3.75%. — Most policymakers agreed the economy continues to grow at a solid pace, though job gains are slowing and inflation remains above target. — Two committee members supported a small rate cut, but the majority preferred to wait. - Fed Chair Powell: Clearly, a weakening labor market calls for cutting. A stronger labor market says that rates are in a good place. It isn't anyone's base case right now that the next move will be a rate hike. - The economy has once again surprised us with its strength. Consumer spending numbers overall are good, and it looks like growth overall is on a solid footing. - Upside risks to inflation and downside risks to employment have diminished, but hard to say they are fully in balance. We think our policy is in a good place. - Overall, it's a stronger forecast since the Fed's last meeting. Haven't made any decisions about future meetings, but the economy is growing at a solid pace, the unemployment rate is broadly stable and inflation remains somewhat elevated, so we will be looking to our goal variables and letting the data light the way for us. - Most of the overrun in goods prices is from tariffs. We think tariffs are likely to move through, and be a one-time price increase. - Dissent: Miran and Waller (Miran is a admin shill and Waller wanted job as Fed Chair) GDP & Federal Budget — Economic growth remained strong in Q3 2025, with GDP rising at an annualized 4.4% driven by strong spending, higher exports, and reduced imports due to tariffs. — Investment was mixed, with business spending increasing while housing activity declined. — The federal deficit for December rose to $145 billion, though the fiscal year-to-date deficit is slightly smaller than last year. Inflation & Consumer Spending — Personal income and consumer spending rose moderately in October and November. — Inflation, measured by the PCE index, increased 0.2% in both months and roughly 2.7% year-over-year. — The Consumer Price Index rose 0.3% in December, with shelter, food, and energy all contributing. — Producer prices also increased, though 2025 producer inflation slowed compared to 2024. Housing — Existing home sales rose in December, but the number of homes for sale is still low. — Prices dipped a bit from November but remain higher than they were a year ago. — New-home sales in October were steady compared with the prior month but much higher than last year. — New-home prices fell compared to 2024, though they are still high relative to long-term norms. Manufacturing — Industrial production rose 0.4% in December and was up 2.0% for the year. — Manufacturing output increased, while mining activity declined and utility output jumped. — Durable goods orders grew sharply in November, driven by a big increase in transportation equipment, pointing to strong demand in key industries. Imports & Exports — Import and export prices rose slightly through November 2025. — The goods trade deficit widened in November because exports fell while imports increased. — For the year so far, both exports and imports are running above 2024 levels, though the overall trade deficit remains larger. Consumer Confidence — Consumer confidence fell sharply in January after improving in December. — Both views of current conditions and expectations for the future weakened, with expectations dropping well below the level that often signals recession risk. Earnings — Roughly one-third of S&P 500 companies have reported Q4 earnings, and overall results are strong. — 75% of companies have beaten EPS estimates, though this is slightly below long-term averages. Revenue beats remain solid at 65%. — Companies are reporting earnings 9.1% above estimates, which is well above the 5-and 10-year surprise averages. — The S&P 500 is on track for 11.9% year-over-year earnings growth, marking the 5th straight quarter of double-digit earnings growth. — Eight of eleven sectors are showing positive year-over-year earnings growth, led by Information Technology, Industrials, and Communication Services. — The Health Care sector shows the largest earnings declines among lagging categories. — The forward 12-month P/E ratio sits at ~22.2, elevated relative to 5-and 10-year averages, signaling continued optimism despite tariff and cost concerns. — FactSet also notes the S&P 500 is reporting a record-high net profit margin of 13.2%, the highest since 2009. INTERACTIVE BROKERS Check this out and find out more at: http://www.interactivebrokers.com/   S3XY No More - Tesla is ending production of the Model S sedan and Model X crossover by the end of Q2 2026 to focus on autonomous technology and humanoid robots (Optimus). - Do we have any idea with the TAM for either of these are? - Huge assumptions that Robotaxi will be a bug part of the global transportation. But, what if it isn't? - Unproven being built, taking out the proven - investors were not too happy about this...Stock was down after earnings showed continued sluggish EV sales and BIG Capex for Robotaxi refit, robots and chip manufacturing. But... - Friday - not to allow TESLA stock to move down tooo much. - With SpaceEx looking for an IPO in June - valuations have moved from $800B to 1.5T supposedly. - Now there is discussion of merging in xAI and possibly Tesla - Tesla shares dropped after earnings FED CHAIR PICK - Drumroll: Kevin Warsh - Seems like a good pick from the aspect of experience and ability - Deficit reducer? - More hawkish than market expected? - Announce Friday after several leaks in the morning And then... - Silver futures plummeted 31.4% to settle at $78.53, marking its worst day since March 1980. -It was down 35% during the day - the worst daily plunge ever on record. - It was the worst decline since the March 1980 Hunt Brothers crash. - The sharp moves down were initially triggered by reports of Warsh's nomination. - However, they gained steam in afternoon U.S. trading as investors who piled into the metals raced to book profits.- USD Spiked higher - Gold was down 10% - GOLD saw a drop of 10% to the close - 12% intraday - this was also a record - Bitcoin is down 25% from its recent level 2 weeks ago - ALL BEING BLAMED ON THE FED CHAIR PICK -- QUESTION - Will Trump back-peddle this OR talk to supporters in congress or tell them not to confirm him if markets continue to act squirrely? Fed Statement and Rates - Fed out with statement - no change on rates - Changes: Inflation up, employment steady, economy strong - Does not bode for much in the way of cuts - probably on hold though end of Powell term Apple Earnings - Apple reported blowout first-quarter earnings on Thursday, and predicted growth of as much as 16% in the current quarter, matching the period that just ended. - Sales could be even better, Apple said, if the company just secure enough chips to meet its customers' iPhone demands. - The company reported $42.1 billion in net income, or $2.84 per share, versus $36.33 billion, or $2.40 per share, in the year-ago period. - Apple saw particularly strong results in China, including Taiwan and Hong Kong. Sales in the region surged 38% during the quarter to $25.53 billion. - “The constraints that we have are driven by the availability of the advanced nodes that our SoCs are produced on, and at this time, we're seeing less flexibility in supply chain than normal,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said. - Stock up slightly - no great moves.... Blue Origin - Blue Origin will pause tourist flights to space for “no less than two years” to prioritize development of its moon lander and other lunar technologies. - The decision reflects Blue Origin's commitment to the nation's goal of returning to the Moon and establishing a permanent, sustained lunar presence. - The pause in tourist flights grounds the company's reusable New Shepard rocket, which has sent more than 90 people to the edge of space and back to experience brief periods of weightlessness. - Datacenters on the Moon? (sounds like a Pink Floyd album)     Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? ANNOUNCING THE WINNER OF THE THE CLOSEST TO THE PIN CUP 2025 Winners will be getting great stuff like the new "OFFICIAL" DHUnplugged Shirt!     FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS   See this week's stock picks HERE Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

– World News Briefing– Persecution in China– Falun Dafa Practitioners in Finland Stand in Solidarity with Victims of Persecution Worldwide – Shen Yun Continues to Fill Venues in Taiwan To provide feedback on this podcast, please email us at feedback@minghuiradio.org

In this episode, I dissect the truth behind the liberal media-sponsored "conservative civil war", China's alarming economic moves, and the actual good news getting buried under the noise. What's Going on in Georgia? ANOTHER Democrat Charged with Fraud https://www.theblaze.com/news/dexter-sharper-pandemic-fraud-un-employment Look What Happened to D.C. Crime Problem After Trump Deployed National Guard https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/crime/4442729/dc-crime-drops-below-pandemic-levels-three-week-stretch-no-homicide/ Ricky Gervais Hits Leftist Grammy Winners With Blunt Reality Check https://www.foxnews.com/media/ricky-gervais-mocks-grammy-winners-making-political-speeches-says-theyre-still-not-listening Sponsors: American Financing - https://Americanfinancing.net/Bongino Brickhouse Nutrition - https://BrickhouseNutrition.com/dan - code: dan Ethos - https://ethos.com/bongino Dose - https://DoseDaily.co/Bongino code: Bongino Helix Sleep - https://helixsleep.com/dan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

1. Entertainment as National Security American film and television are portrayed as a strategic asset that shapes global perceptions of freedom, democracy, and U.S. values. Weakening U.S. media companies allow authoritarian nations, particularly China, to fill the cultural vacuum with propaganda. 2. China as the Primary Adversary China is repeatedly the main threat due to: State control over media Global investment in influence campaigns Censorship of American films (e.g., Top Gun: Maverick being blocked over a Taiwan patch). TikTok is an example of why foreign ownership of media platforms is viewed as dangerous. 3. Merger Framed as Pro‑American Jobs The entertainment industry is supporting hundreds of thousands of middle‑class American jobs across multiple states. Netflix’s $1 billion New Jersey studio investment is used as evidence that large, stable companies create domestic employment. The argument asserts that scale = stability, and stability prevents layoffs. 4. Pro‑Consolidation Argument Unlike traditional antitrust concerns, the author claims this merger: Does not reduce competition Actually protects U.S. production from outsourcing Helps resist foreign-backed acquisitions Consolidation is defensive, not monopolistic. 5. Opposition to Foreign Capital in Media Strong concern is raised over foreign government money (Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Qatar) potentially entering U.S. media. Such investments are not neutral and are intended to influence narratives and public opinion. 6. Historical Framing Ronald Reagan is cited: Culture and storytelling were weapons in the Cold War Media independence is essential to freedom The merger is consistent with Reagan-era American leadership principles. 7. Call to Action Share the op-ed Contact lawmakers Support the merger publicly Please Hit Subscribe to this podcast Right Now. Also Please Subscribe to the The Ben Ferguson Show Podcast and Verdict with Ted Cruz Wherever You get You're Podcasts. And don't forget to follow the show on Social Media so you never miss a moment! Thanks for Listening X: https://x.com/benfergusonshowYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VerdictwithTedCruzSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch The X22 Report On Video No videos found (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:17532056201798502,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-9437-3289"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="https://cdn2.decide.dev/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");pt> Click On Picture To See Larger PictureThe green new scam is dead, and in Texas people are now seeing that wind and solar cannot support the electrical load during the cold. China said the quiet part out loud, they were suppose to be the reserve currency. Trump’s new Fed chair help with the transition. Trump is now exposing the criminal underworld the people of this country. The people are seeing all the pieces of the crimes they have committed. When the people see that all the characters are criminals and have done horrible things and that these people are the same ones that have been trying to stop trump, it is game over. Trump is now pushing the Save Act to shutdown the [DS]. Trump is setting the country up for the win.   Economy Report: Texas Wind and Solar Failed During This Week's Winter Storm, Grid Carried by ‘Natural Gas and Coal' The recent snow storm that overtook Texas reportedly crashed the state's wind and solar energy generators, leading to natural gas, coal, and nuclear providing most of the state's electricity. https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/2015854614206206101?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2015854614206206101%7Ctwgr%5Eccb14922c034250da614ea4ff40e89ae08ce9117%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2026%2F02%2Freport-texas-wind-solar-failed-weeks-winter-storm%2F According to David Blackmon, an energy-related public policy analyst and consultant, by the early morning hours of Jan. 26, natural gas, goal, and nuclear were providing 89 percent of all the state's power. “Natural gas alone is chugging along at an impressive 68%,” Blackmon reported online on Substack later that same day. Politico similarly reported that the U.S. energy grid “leaned heavily on coal and natural gas generation to satisfy the energy appetite from Winter Storm Fern.” https://twitter.com/mayes_middleton/status/2015822288663228536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2015822288663228536%7Ctwgr%5Eccb14922c034250da614ea4ff40e89ae08ce9117%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2026%2F02%2Freport-texas-wind-solar-failed-weeks-winter-storm%2F Source: thegatewaypundit.com China is on a ‘strong currency' mission to make the yuan a global reserve: Xi Xi Jinping says the goal of becoming an international powerhouse is a long-term one and will rest on core foundations China needs to build a “strong currency” that can become widely used in international trade, investment and foreign exchange markets, and reach the status of a global reserve. Source:.scmp.com Trump Launches $12 Billion Strategic Mineral Stockpile To Counter China; Rare Earth Stocks Jump The Trump administration is preparing to launch a major initiative aimed at protecting US manufacturers from disruptions in the supply of critical minerals, committing about $12 billion in initial funding to build a strategic stockpile of essential materials, according to Bloomberg. The project, known as Project Vault, is designed to reduce America's dependence on China for rare earths and other strategically important metals. By creating a centralized reserve for civilian industries, officials hope to cushion companies against sudden shortages and sharp price swings that can disrupt production and strain finances. Shares of MP Materials, USA Rare Earth, Critical Metals and other rare earth associated names are higher between 5% and 10% heading into the cash open on Monday on the news. At this point it’s safe to say last week’s Reuters rare earth hit piece (authored most likely at the behest of a disgruntled short), which sent the sector tumbling on disputed claims the Trump administration was seeking to distance itself from the rare earth space by moving away from a price floor on critical metals and suggesting MP’s deal with the government may be in question, has been thoroughly debunked. Even the MP Materials X account was mocking the grotesque misreporting: https://twitter.com/MPMaterials/status/2016734732835573833?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Project Vault will be financed through a mix of private and public funding: $1.67 billion is expected to come from private investors, while the US Export-Import Bank is set to provide a $10 billion loan with a 15-year term. The bank's board is scheduled to vote on the deal, which would be the largest in its history. More than a dozen major companies have joined Project Vault, including General Motors, Stellantis, Boeing, Corning, GE Vernova, and Google. Three large trading firms – Hartree Partners, Traxys North America, and Mercuria Energy – will handle sourcing and purchasing materials for the stockpile.    Source: zerohedge.com https://twitter.com/Geiger_Capital/status/2018319873609290010?s=20 https://twitter.com/StephenMoore/status/2017295983940354307?s=20 https://twitter.com/profstonge/status/2018300872447418573?s=20 (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:18510697282300316,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-8599-9832"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="https://cdn2.decide.dev/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs"); Political/Rights https://twitter.com/rickygervais/status/2018249171900227730?s=20 https://twitter.com/NICKIMINAJ/status/2018147684276748388?s=20 https://twitter.com/NICKIMINAJ/status/2018146323581513971?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2018146323581513971%7Ctwgr%5Ebf8eb4e3fdfcee731660a65a8ed9f8dad15fa004%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2026%2F02%2Fnicki-minaj-fires-back-grammys-host-trevor-noah%2F know — yet they continue to attempt bullying. Also, I won't be releasing an album until my contract is renegotiated & until I tell you about all the sabotage this RICO is finding out about Billboard. https://twitter.com/NICKIMINAJ/status/2018156644689920362?s=20   https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/2018142074906845333?s=20    accused of being there, not even by the Fake News Media. Noah, a total loser, better get his facts straight, and get them straight fast. It looks like I'll be sending my lawyers to sue this poor, pathetic, talentless, dope of an M.C., and suing him for plenty$. Ask Little George Slopadopolus, and others, how that all worked out. Also ask CBS! Get ready Noah, I'm going to have some fun with you! President DJT https://twitter.com/Patri0tContr0l/status/2018162192676229182?s=20   the TV tells them to. https://twitter.com/DrunkRepub/status/2017198485510963485?s=20   https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/2018184786209087562?s=20   Lord Mandelson resigns from Labour Party over Epstein links Lord Mandelson says he has resigned his membership of the Labour Party as he does not want to “cause further embarrassment” by his links to the late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The former cabinet minister, who was sacked as US ambassador last year because of his past connections to Epstein, appeared in the latest release of files by the US Department of Justice on Friday. Documents suggest Epstein made $75,000 (£55,000) in payments to Lord Mandelson in three separate $25,000 transactions in 2003 and 2004. In his letter to Labour’s general secretary on Sunday, Lord Mandelson said: “I have been further linked this weekend to the understandable furore surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and I feel regretful and sorry about this.” He added: “Allegations which I believe to be false that he made financial payments to me 20 years ago, and of which I have no record or recollection, need investigating by me. Source: bbc.com https://twitter.com/Patri0tContr0l/status/2018011104094380207?s=20  TRUMP'S DOJ that arrested Epstein. Facts are hard for professional liars like Eric Swalwell.   Newly-Released Emails Reveal Jeffrey Epstein May Have a Secret Son  Newly-released emails reveal Jeffrey Epstein may have a secret son. Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York, congratulated Epstein on the birth of his baby boy. Ferguson said she ‘heard from the Duke' that Epstein had a baby boy. The email is date September 21, 2011 so if Epstein has a secret son, he would be 14 years old today. The Daily Mail reported:   Source: thegatewaypundit.com https://twitter.com/JayTC53/status/2018073517368184847?s=20  Jew night” “media elite” and “once the money is paid” https://twitter.com/JayTC53/status/2018128138715443273?s=20 the biggest Trump haters were best friends with Jeffery Epstein https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/2018358307052793892?s=20   since been neutralized by King Salman and new crown Prince MBS. This Epstein email reveals (confirms) two sides of the Deep State triangle. House of Saud, and the Rothschilds. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/2018185343263019234?s=20  https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/2017859237502767117?s=20 https://twitter.com/amuse/status/2018351298685419772?s=20   the documents with required redactions. With Trump exonerated & damaging details now pointing toward Democrat power brokers, the pressure has abruptly flipped back to secrecy. https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/2018138887655133692?s=20   https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/2018017331499213275?s=20      DOGE Geopolitical https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/2018020919252230227?s=20   since 1996 but was stormed by the police for the eviction 5 weeks ago. Nearly 2000 of the protesters later broke off from the main demonstration and fought the police for hours in the streets. They threw stones, fireworks and homemade bombs while also setting barricades and police vehicles on fire. Many Italians are now calling on Meloni to launch a crackdown against violent far-left extremist. https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2018311833405293048?s=20    friendship and respect for Prime Minister Modi and, as per his request, effective immediately, we agreed to a Trade Deal between the United States and India, whereby the United States will charge a reduced Reciprocal Tariff, lowering it from 25% to 18%. They will likewise move forward to reduce their Tariffs and Non Tariff Barriers against the United States, to ZERO. The Prime Minister also committed to “BUY AMERICAN,” at a much higher level, in addition to over $500 BILLION DOLLARS of U.S. Energy, Technology, Agricultural, Coal, and many other products. Our amazing relationship with India will be even stronger going forward. Prime Minister Modi and I are two people that GET THINGS DONE, something that cannot be said for most. Thank you for your attention to this matter!   War/Peace  https://twitter.com/AP/status/2017881629440483383?s=20     https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/2018022342731976897?s=20 We have the biggest, most powerful ships in the world over there… hopefully, we’ll make a deal. If we don’t make a deal, then we’ll find out whether or not he was right.” https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/2018030967823192563?s=20 Medical/False Flags   [DS] Agenda https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/2018176829723398321?s=20  https://twitter.com/Tyler2ONeil/status/2017430244496412840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2017430244496412840%7Ctwgr%5E1d06078b39cc73de0216e98cb34ee981fb7d135c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailysignal.com%2F2026%2F02%2F02%2Fbreaking-2-more-arrested-minnesota-church-invasion%2F  Armstrong tells Lemon—who knows the location but is hiding it from his audience—that they’re going to “disrupt business as usual” at what we later learned was Cities Church. Lemon said he would see her there. https://twitter.com/AGPamBondi/status/2018326184468058566?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2018326184468058566%7Ctwgr%5E1d06078b39cc73de0216e98cb34ee981fb7d135c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailysignal.com%2F2026%2F02%2F02%2Fbreaking-2-more-arrested-minnesota-church-invasion%2F   https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/2018337163188846994?s=20   https://twitter.com/Rightanglenews/status/2018101057902059727?s=20 Anti-ICE Resistance Manuals and Training at Schools Receiving Federal Funding Anti-ICE resistance training manuals, including de-arresting and blocking, are being distributed, and in some cases, the training is being held in schools receiving government funding. Image of de-arresting by Minnesota ICE Watch. Minnesota ICE Watch, the organization that Renee Good and her wife were members of, distributed a document known as the “De-Arrest Primer,” which instructs activists on how to physically interfere with law enforcement officers during arrests. The manual provides detailed guidance on pulling detainees from officers' grips, pushing and pulling officers, breaking holds, and opening law enforcement vehicles to free suspects. The manual also teaches the use of coordinated chanting to create confusion and overwhelm officers during active arrests, as well as surrounding officers until they release detainees. The guide openly acknowledges that these actions may constitute criminal offenses but argues that the risk is justified. Each successful interference is described as a “micro-intifada,” framed as a tactic meant to spread, replicate, and inspire wider disruption. The manual claims these methods originated in pro-Palestinian campus protests and presents them as a model for broader resistance activity. While no single formal publisher is identified, the manual appears to originate from broader activist and radical networks that promote direct physical interference with law enforcement. It has circulated widely through Instagram and other activist communication channels and has been used in training individuals described as “constitutional observers” or “ICE watchers.”   Source: thegatewaypundit.com https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2018111147237425556?s=20   https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2018114619320017259?s=20   JUST IN: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Signs “ICE On Notice” Executive Order to Prosecute ICE Agents  Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson at a press conference hosted by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker / Screenshot: MSNBC Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order on Saturday, launching investigations into ICE agents and laying the groundwork for criminal referrals for alleged law violations.  The order “creates a framework for public accountability in the event federal agents violate local or state law while operating in Chicago,” a press release from Johnson's office reads.  “Nobody is above the law. There is no such thing as ‘absolute immunity' in America,” Johnson said in a statement. Source: thegatewaypundit.com https://twitter.com/9mmsmg/status/2017633783638368516?s=20 https://twitter.com/Sec_Noem/status/2018435428932538861?s=20   President Trump's Plan  Federal Appeals Court Tosses Justice Department's Misconduct Complaint Against Judge Boasberg  A federal appeals court tossed out a Justice Department misconduct complaint against Judge James Boasberg. AS previously reported, DC Chief Judge James Boasberg and other DC Judges admitted bias against the Trump Administration during a March 2025 judicial conference with Chief Justice Roberts, according to a memo obtained by The Federalist. For the last year, DC Circuit Court Judges have engaged in a judicial coup against President Trump. Far-left DC judges James Boasberg, Beryl Howell, Chutkan, Berman Jackson and others have ruled against President Trump in every case related to deportations and firings in the Executive Branch. Source: thegatewaypundit.com   https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/status/2018099758943084657?s=20   agencies, Los Angeles County has more than 36 states combined and 30X MORE than the whole state of Florida and New York “How is that possible? And take a look at this map, a cluster of 287 hospice providers, in a two-mile radius, some in strip malls, unmarked buildings, even a wrecking yard and vacant lot. All of it is just paperwork. I could fill that out in Kazakhstan if I want and get a hospice license waiting for me.” https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/2018172495535247571?s=20      Rebuilding, can be, without question, the finest Performing Arts Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World. In other words, if we don't close, the quality of Construction will not be nearly as good, and the time to completion, because of interruptions with Audiences from the many Events using the Facility, will be much longer. The temporary closure will produce a much faster and higher quality result!   Based on these findings, and totally subject to Board approval, I have determined that the fastest way to bring The Trump Kennedy Center to the highest level of Success, Beauty, and Grandeur, is to cease Entertainment Operations for an approximately two year period of time, with a scheduled Grand Reopening that will rival and surpass anything that has taken place with respect to such a Facility before.   Therefore, The Trump Kennedy Center will close on July 4th, 2026, in honor of the 250th Anniversary of our Country, whereupon we will simultaneously begin Construction of the new and spectacular Entertainment Complex. Financing is completed, and fully in place! This important decision, based on input from many Highly Respected Experts, will take a tired, broken, and dilapidated Center, one that has been in bad condition, both financially and structurally for many years, and turn it into a World Class Bastion of Arts, Music, and Entertainment, far better than it has ever been before. America will be very proud of its new and beautiful Landmark for many generations to come. Thank you for your attention to this matter!   PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP President Trump to SETTLE $10 BILLION IRS LAWSUIT — Plans to DONATE THE PROCEEDS TO CHARITY President Donald J. Trump is preparing to settle his massive $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Treasury Department, and he says he will donate the entire payout to reputable charities instead of keeping a penny for himself. President Trump, Eric Trump, Don Jr., and the Trump Org filed a lawsuit against the IRS for leaking their tax returns. They are seeking $10 billion in damages. In September 2023, federal prosecutors charged a former IRS contractor who worked for the agency from 2018 to 2020 with unlawfully obtaining and disseminating the tax details of a high-ranking public official and numerous affluent Americans to media outlets. According to court documents and an official press release from the Department of Justice, Charles Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, D.C., stole tax return information associated with a high-ranking government official, referred to as Public Official A  – now known as Donald Trump. He then disclosed this information to a news organization identified as News Organization 1 – now known as The New York Times. Littlejohn reportedly stole IRS information on thousands of wealthy people. The stolen information was then disseminated to two news outlets (New York Times and ProPublica). “In July and August 2020, Littlejohn separately stole tax return information for thousands of the nation's wealthiest individuals. Littlejohn was again able to evade IRS detection. In November 2020, Littlejohn disclosed this tax return information to News Organization 2, which published over 50 articles using the stolen data. Littlejohn then obstructed the forthcoming investigation into his conduct by deleting and destroying evidence of his disclosures,” the DOJ previously said. L Source: thegatewaypundit.com   https://twitter.com/CynicalPublius/status/2018117811625730171?s=20   some facts: 1. Yesterday’s voter turnout was 94,938. 2. In the same district in 2024, the voter turnout was 400,339. 3. In the same district in 2022, the voter turnout was 277,883. 4. This was a special election to fill a vacant seat resulting from a state senator's promotion into state comptroller. 5. Based on the timing of this election and the next election, and the peculiar nature of Texas state government, it is a 99.99% certainty that this new Democrat will never cast a single vote in the term he is filling. 6. The vote was on a Saturday. I am as passionate a MAGA voter as is alive, but if I lived in TX-SD9, I would have stayed home and enjoyed my Saturday based on fact #5 alone. Is this good for the GOP? No. Is it bad for the GOP? No. Then what is it, CP, you big smartypants? IT'S NOTHING. IT'S MEANINGLESS. So everybody please calm down. For the 2026 midterms, every Trump voter knows that if he does not win, the House will impeach him twice weekly. That fact will be as widely understood as any fact during the 2024 election. There are still many issues Trump needs to work on, and I'm not guaranteeing a 2026 victory. What I AM guaranteeing is that yesterday's TX-SD9 election has as much meaning as peanut butter on a dog's nose. (The dog freaks, everybody laughs, but ultimately the dog gets the peanut butter and we all move on.) https://twitter.com/JohnBasham/status/2018199554764447926?s=20   The Georgia Elections Board. https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/2018277500464275804?s=20 Complaint against Tulsi Gabbard could do ‘grave damage to national security': Report The whistleblower's allegations are so highly classified that documents are being kept locked in a safe and the complaint still hasn't been shared with Congress From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford i   Source: the-independent.com There’s an “8 month old complaint” from a “US official” alleging “wrongdoing”   https://twitter.com/awaitekw14/status/2018081688803516456?s=20   ballots from Fulton. Coincidence? No way. COVID wasn’t just a ‘pandemic’—it was the engineered pretext that flipped every state rule on mail-ins, drop boxes, and signature verification. Harvest those ballots, truck them in after 3 a.m. stops, rinse & repeat in swing-state blue zones. Regime change 2.0 after Russiagate flopped.If they can prove those Fulton ballots trace back to illegal harvesting (or even foreign interference via the biolab network), the whole house of cards collapses. Treason on a scale we haven’t seen since the founding. Trump saying ‘interesting things happening’ soon? Understatement of the century. Stay frosty, patriots. The storm is here. https://twitter.com/liz_churchill10/status/2018006616369496424?s=20   https://twitter.com/AndrewDesiderio/status/2018375101847097793?s=20 Andrew Desiderio Schumer issues new statement reiterating that the SAVE Act is “dead on arrival” in the Senate — amid push from GOP Rep. Luna & others “If House Republicans add the SAVE Act to the bipartisan appropriations package it will lead to another prolonged Trump government shutdown” https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2018378753873969400?s=20 elections from fraud.  REP. AUGUST PFLUGER, Chair of Republican Study Committee nails it: “The House did our job nearly 300 days ago. It's high time that the Senate do theirs!”   President Donald Trump has proposed building a massive triumphal arch in Washington, D.C., often referred to as the “Independence Arch” or “Memorial Circle arch,” to be located on Columbia Island near the Potomac River, close to the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.  The structure is envisioned as a 250-foot-tall monument, which would make it more than twice the height of the 100-foot Lincoln Memorial, taller than the 70-foot White House, and larger than Paris’s 164-foot Arc de Triomphe—though still shorter than the 630-foot Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Trump’s motivations stem from a desire to create a grand symbol of American pride and exceptionalism, emphasizing that Washington, D.C., is “the only city in the world that’s of great importance that doesn’t have a triumphal arch  The arch signifies Trump’s emphasis on monumental nationalism and grandeur, evoking historical triumphal arches built by emperors and leaders to commemorate triumphs and project power—earning it nicknames like “Arc de Trump.”  (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:13499335648425062,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-7164-1323"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.customads.co/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");

In this episode of China Decode, Alice Han and James Kynge unpack how China is reshaping global power—sometimes loudly, sometimes through pandas, ports, and pop culture. As Donald Trump warns allies like the U.K. and Canada that getting closer to Beijing is “dangerous,” reality tells a messier story: British pharma giant AstraZeneca is cutting billion-dollar deals in China, Japan is losing its last pandas amid rising tensions, and Washington is scrambling to blunt China's grip on critical minerals. They also dive into a Panamanian court ruling that just blew up a Hong Kong firm's control over key canal ports—an apparent U.S. win that could quickly become a new U.S.–China flashpoint over one of the world's most important trade chokepoints. And finally, they decode the viral idea that everyone is living a “very Chinese time,” from wellness trends to memes, and what it says about growing American disillusionment—and China's evolving soft power. Why does all this matter? Because these fights aren't abstract: they affect supply chains, prices, travel, jobs, and how the next generation sees America's place in the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jesse Kelly announces his new FREE book, which uses sharp commentary and historical contrast to critique Mao Zedong’s ideology and its lasting influence. China expert Steven Mosher joins as guest to provide insight into Mao’s policies, the human cost of his rule, and the ways communist tactics continue to appear in contemporary politics. Together they examine key events from Mao’s era, compare them to modern ideological trends in the West, and explain why understanding this history remains relevant today.I'm Right with Jesse Kelly on The First TVMasa Chips: Ready to give MASA a try? Get 25% off your first order by going to http://masachips.com/JESSETV and using code JESSETV.Beam: Visit https://shopbeam.com/JESSEKELLY and use code JESSEKELLY to get our exclusive discount of up to 40% off.American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an average of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-891-2821 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/Jesse.Follow The Jesse Kelly Show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheJesseKellyShowSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's finally here. China was almost free. What’s in the files? The masses can’t handle it. A fire hydrant of information. Follow The Jesse Kelly Show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheJesseKellyShowSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Guest: Gregory Copley. Copley details a civil war within the CCP as Xi Jinping purges military leaders, risking regime collapse while Western leaders ignore China's economic hollowing.1903

PREVIEW FOR LATER TODAY Guest: David Shedd. Shedd criticizes allowing Nvidia chip sales to China, warning Beijing will reverse engineer this technology to enhance military and cyber capabilities against Western allies.FEBRUARY 1930

Guest: David Shedd. Shedd discusses the conviction of a Google engineer for stealing AI secrets, illustrating corporate naivety regarding China's state-mandated espionage and intelligence gathering operations. With Thaddeus McCotter co-host.1963

Guest: David Shedd. Shedd warns against selling advanced chips to China, describing Beijing's "capture, cage, and kill" economic strategy and criticizing the U.S. administration's transactional approach. With Thaddeus MCCotter co-host.1955

SHOW SCHEDULE2-2-20261719 ROME1.Bill Roggio of the Long War Journal and Husain Haqqani discuss imminent potential US air strikes on Iran, expressing skepticism that air power alone can achieve regime change or lasting results without ground forces or sustained commitment.2.Bill Roggio and Husain Haqqani analyze Russia's offer to mediate between the US and Iran, concluding Moscow is not a credible partner and aims to distract Washington while protecting its strategic interests in Tehran.3.Alejandro Peña Esclusa reports that Cuban personnel are fleeing Venezuela as oil payments cease, signaling a crisis for Havana following Maduro's detention and the collapse of the socialist alliance that sustained both regimes.4.Alejandro Peña Esclusa explains that while Europeans criticize Maduro's capture, Venezuelans support it, hoping for the release of remaining political prisoners under a new amnesty law restoring democratic governance.5.James Holmes of the Naval War College and Gordon Chang discuss Alfred Thayer Mahan's nineteenth-century view of Hawaii as strategic opportunity, drawing parallels to modern Chinese expansionism and current interest in Greenland.6.James Holmes and Gordon Chang argue Greenland is vital for Arctic defense and mineral access, suggesting the USseeks military bases there to deny access to Russia and China in polar competition.7.Fraser Howie and Gordon Chang assert Xi Jinping's goal of making the renminbi a global reserve currency is impossible without lifting capital controls and accepting trade deficits that Beijing refuses to tolerate.8.Conrad Black criticizes the Prime Minister for labeling Canada a middle power, urging increased defense spending to secure the Northwest Passage and Arctic sovereignty against encroaching rivals.9.Edmund Fitton Brown and Bill Roggio warn that US-Iran talks ignore the mass killings of protesters, while characterizing Maliki's potential return in Iraq as a hostile act against Western interests and regional stability.10.Edmund Fitton Brown and Bill Roggio argue Saudi Arabia's refusal to allow airspace use for strikes on Iran is theatrical to avoid Iranian retaliation, noting Riyadh privately remains a dependable US partner.11.David Daoud and Bill Roggio explain Hezbollah is downplaying Gaza ties to avoid dragging Lebanon into war, prioritizing the rehabilitation of its image among the economically weary Shiite population in Lebanon.12.David Daoud and Bill Roggio note Hezbollah is refilling ranks after Israeli strikes, suggesting new leader Naim Qassem's quiet demeanor may help the group lay low and regenerate its capabilities.13.John Hardie and Bill Roggio report Russia is recruiting gamers and specialists for a new military branch, the Unmanned Systems Forces, aiming for 210,000 troops by 2030 to expand drone warfare capabilities.14.John Hardie and Bill Roggio state negotiations are deadlocked as Russia demands territory and a veto on security guarantees, while Putin ultimately seeks domination over Ukraine's geopolitical orientation and sovereignty.15.Joe Truzman and Bill Roggio describe the war as a slow boil, noting Phase 2 of the Gaza ceasefire is stalling because Hamas refuses to disarm or surrender heavy weapons to Israel.16.Ahmad Sharawi and Bill Roggio report a fragile deal where the SDF integrates into the Syrian state to avoid destruction, though tensions remain regarding Turkey and the fate of ISIS prisoners in the northeast.

SHOW SCHEDULE 2-3-20261882 CONSTANTINOPLE Guest: Elizabeth Peek. Peek discusses Trump's nomination of hawk Kevin Warsh for Federal ReserveChairman, noting the immediate drop in precious metals and potential monetary policy shifts. Guest: Elizabeth Peek. Peek predicts Democrats will take the House in midterms, forcing Trump to rely on executive actions and non-traditional voter turnout to maintain his agenda. Guest: Judy Dempsey. Dempsey analyzes the stalemated Ukraine conflict, noting European refusal to accept Russian victory, while discussing rising tensions and internal political divisions within Iran. Guest: Judy Dempsey. Amidst the Mandelson-Epstein scandal, Dempsey explains how economic struggles and Brexit regrets are driving the Labour Party to consider re-engaging with the European Union. Guest: Joseph Sternberg. Sternberg details Starmer's unpopularity and lack of economic agenda, noting potential leadership challenges within the Labour Party from rivals like Burnham and Streeting. Guest: Joseph Sternberg. Sternberg warns that revelations linking Peter Mandelson to Epstein reinforce narratives of elitism, damaging Starmer's already unpopular Labour government among working-class voters. Guest: David Shedd. Shedd discusses the conviction of a Google engineer for stealing AI secrets, illustrating corporate naivety regarding China's state-mandated espionage and intelligence gathering operations. Guest: David Shedd. Shedd warns against selling advanced chips to China, describing Beijing's "capture, cage, and kill" economic strategy and criticizing the U.S. administration's transactional approach. Guest: Mary Kissel. Kissel argues U.S. talks with Iran are dangerous, as Tehran uses negotiations to stall while maintaining brutality and nuclear ambitions amidst regional military buildup. Guest: Mary Kissel. Kissel discusses the futility of appeasing Putin regarding Ukrainian territory and the need for security plans to support Venezuela's opposition against the Maduro regime. Guest: David Albright. Albright warns of "loose nukes" and dangerous materials in Iran, urging planning for a "day after" scenario to secure nuclear assets during potential regime instability. Guest: David Albright. Albright emphasizes the need for a coalition-led inspection and removal regime to secure Iranian nuclear materials and protect scientists if the government collapses. Guest: Gregory Copley. Copley analyzes new talks involving Turkey and the UAE, noting U.S. reluctance to support Iranian civil society leaves the clerical regime breathing room despite weakness. Guest: Gregory Copley. Copley observes Russia targeting Ukrainian infrastructure to pressure the public, noting that despite Western support, Moscow retains the upper hand while demanding territorial concessions. Guest: Gregory Copley. Copley details a civil war within the CCP as Xi Jinping purges military leaders, risking regime collapse while Western leaders ignore China's economic hollowing. Guest: Gregory Copley. Copley discusses the Epstein scandal involving Lord Mandelson and Prince Andrew, suggesting King Charles is distancing the monarchy from these revelations to protect the institution.

Stay informed on current events, visit www.NaturalNews.com - Introduction and Segment Overview (0:10) - Brightelearn.ai Milestone and AI Avatar Introduction (4:36) - AI Avatar Creation and Voice Issues (8:41) - Future Plans for AI Avatars and Content Creation (25:24) - Special Report on China's Export Restrictions (38:25) - Impact of China's Export Restrictions on US Military (1:08:42) - Conclusion and Call to Action (1:18:13) - Meeting of Two Worlds: Corporate and Independent Innovators (1:18:55) - Technology and Human Enhancement (1:23:34) - Impact of Automation on Jobs (1:26:59) - Singularity University and Exponential Organizations (1:30:13) - Community and Consulting Services (1:32:58) - Decentralization and Value Creation (1:38:26) - Radical Abundance and Decentralization (1:44:11) - Challenges and Opportunities in Agriculture (1:47:57) - Energy and Battery Technology (1:52:30) - Governance and AI in Decision-Making (2:08:56) - Privacy and Self-Sovereignty (2:11:17) - Automation and Decentralization (2:22:16) - Embracing Free Speech and Technology (2:30:21) - Revolutionizing Creativity and Activism (2:32:36) - Challenging the Status Quo (2:34:11) - Call to Action for a Better World (2:36:21) - Valentine's Day Sale at Health Ranger Store (2:37:59) Watch more independent videos at http://www.brighteon.com/channel/hrreport  ▶️ Support our mission by shopping at the Health Ranger Store - https://www.healthrangerstore.com ▶️ Check out exclusive deals and special offers at https://rangerdeals.com ▶️ Sign up for our newsletter to stay informed: https://www.naturalnews.com/Readerregistration.html Watch more exclusive videos here:

Donate (no account necessary) | Subscribe (account required) Join Bryan Dean Wright, former CIA Operations Officer, as he dives into today's top stories shaping America and the world. In this episode of The Wright Report, Bryan breaks down President Trump's major move in the Mineral Wars with a new multi-billion-dollar stockpile aimed at countering China's grip on critical resources, plus why a high-level global meeting this week could shake commodity markets. He then reveals how Chinese drone makers appear to be sneaking banned technology back into the United States under new brand names, raising fresh national security alarms. The episode turns global with a potentially war-altering oil deal involving India and Russia, mounting evidence that Iran is rebuilding its nuclear sites and edging toward a second U.S. strike, and intensifying pressure on Cuba as Trump signals regime change may be near. Bryan closes with encouraging medical breakthroughs from Japan and the UK that highlight the growing importance of gut and oral health in treating schizophrenia and cancer.   "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." - John 8:32     Keywords: February 3 2026 Wright Report, Project Vault mineral stockpile China, Mineral Wars rare earths strategy, China drone ban DJI workaround, Xtra Drones SkyRover national security risk, India stops buying Russian oil Ukraine war impact, Iran nuclear site rebuilding satellite images, Midnight Hammer II strike risk, Cuba oil blockade regime change Trump, Russian plane Havana mystery, gut microbiome schizophrenia Japan study, fecal transplant capsules cancer UK research

Today's Headlines: The Wall Street Journal reported that a whistleblower complaint about Tulsi Gabbard is considered so sensitive it's been locked away by an inspector general for eight months due to concerns it could cause “grave damage to national security,” even as Gabbard has remained in her role. The report landed just days after her unusual involvement in an FBI raid on a Georgia election office, which the New York Times says included a phone call where Trump spoke directly with agents on speakerphone. Elsewhere, DHS announced ICE officers in Minneapolis will begin wearing body cameras, as reports surfaced of a measles outbreak at an ICE detention center in Texas holding hundreds of children. Meanwhile, Bill and Hillary Clinton agreed to testify behind closed doors before House investigators about Jeffrey Epstein, narrowly avoiding contempt charges. Trump generated headlines of his own after plans for a massive “Independence Arch” in Washington were revealed, followed by threats to sue Grammy Awards host Trevor Noah over Epstein jokes. On Resources/Articles mentioned in this episode: WSJ: Classified Whistleblower Complaint About Tulsi Gabbard Stalls Within Her Agency NYT: Gabbard Arranges Trump Call With FBI Agents After Georgia Election Center Search WSJ: Federal Officers in Minneapolis to Receive Body Cameras SA Current: Source: Measles outbreak reported at ICE's Dilley family detention facility Axios: Clintons agree to Republican demands on testifying to Congress WaPo:Trump wants to build a 250-foot-tall arch, dwarfing the Lincoln Memorial Axios: Trump, China swipe at political Grammys show WSJ: U.S. Will Cut Tariffs on India to 18% in Trade Deal WSJ: SpaceX, xAI Tie Up, Forming $1.25 Trillion Company ProPublica: FAA Warns Airlines About Safety Risks From Rocket Launches, Urges “Extreme Caution” People: Savannah Guthrie's Mom Was Possibly Kidnapped ‘in the Middle of the Night' from Her Home: Police Morning Announcements is produced by Sami Sage and edited by Grace Hernandez-Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of Joe Oltmann Untamed, Joe kicks things off with the bombshell President Trump dropped on Dan Bongino this morning something massive is about to break on 2020 election fraud in Fulton County, Georgia, right after the FBI raid seized those long-hidden ballots get ready for the truth to explode. Joe dives into the ongoing injustice of Tina Peters still sitting in prison for exposing the fraud, dismantles Matt Cain's misleading claims about 2020 vote totals, and highlights Lara Logan's warning of an aggressive Democrat plan to retake Congress and impeach Trump. Plus, a resurfaced Victor Marx interview reveals more hypocrisy and lies from the governor hopeful Joe isn't holding back.Then, China expert and engineer Dan Collins joins the show to unpack the wild economic landscape: silver's brutal 25%+ single-day plunge to $83–$85/oz, gold's relative stability, and what it signals about U.S.-China tensions, commodity markets, and industrial demand. With 20 years inside China's manufacturing world, Dan breaks down how vulnerable Beijing is to Trump's tariffs, reshoring push, and supply-chain decoupling especially as volatility hammers raw materials. From his work with GM to founding Tyrell Chemical stateside, Dan delivers firsthand insight on the economic battle, under-the-radar risks, and why American manufacturing must fight back against CCP overcapacity and dumping.FBI whistleblower and veteran Kyle Seraphin returns for Retribution Week, reacting to Kash Patel's explosive congressional testimony on Epstein-linked child trafficking, reflecting on a brutal year of revelations, and sounding the alarm on bleeding institutions that need strong leadership to stop the damage. We also revisit Patrick Byrne's Mel K Show appearance exposing Mike Pompeo's briefing on 2020 election fraud. Truth is surging, fraud is crumbling, and accountability is coming. Don't miss this hard-hitting episode. Join us live justice is rolling!

What's going on with the big Ryan Wedding arrest and extradition? The Canadian city that had to declare a state of emergency because of Indo-Canadian gangs extorting everyone. China executes 11 scammers. All that and more in this Stash House: Sean is moving continents edition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We hear from a former senior advisor to President Bill Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal and also from one of the survivors of sexual assault by Jeffrey Epstein, Lisa Phillips who was a young model at the time.   Also on the programme: China bans hidden car door handles; and the heroic Australian teenager who swam miles to save his family.   (Photo: Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrive for Donald Trump's inauguration Credit: Shawn Thew/Reuters)

This week we talk about the European Union, India, and tariffs.We also discuss trade barriers, free trade, and dumping.Recommended Book: The Kill Chain by Christian BroseTranscriptA free trade agreement, sometimes called a free trade treaty, is a law that reduces the cost and regulatory burden of trading between two or more states.There are many theories as to the ideal way to do international trade, with some economists and politicians positing that complete free and open trade is the way to go, because it allows goods and services to cross borders completely unencumbered, which in turn allows businesses in different countries to really lean into whatever they're good at, selling their cars to countries that are less good at making cars, while that recipient country produces soy beans or computer chips or whatever they're good at making, and sending those in the other direction, likewise unburdened by stiff tariffs or regulatory hurdles. Each country can thus produce the best product cheapest and sell it to the market where their products are in high-demand, while they, in turn, benefit from the same when it comes to other products and services.This theory leans on the idea that everyone is better off when everyone does what they're best at, rather than trying to do everything—specialization. But those who oppose this conception of international trade argue that this creates and reinforces asymmetries between different nations and businesses: a country that's really good at producing soybeans may be at a substantial disadvantage if the country that makes cars ever decides to go to war, because they won't have the existing infrastructure to build tanks or drones or whatever else, while the country that specializes in computer chips might hold all the cards when it comes to generating economic pressure against its enemies or would-be enemies, because such chips are in everything these days, from military hardware to kitchen appliances.This also creates potential frailties for countries that specialize in, say, buggy whips, only to have a new technology like the automobile come around and put a significant chunk of their total economy out of business.This theory may also leave local businesses that don't lean into a regional strength kind of in the lurch. If a country with a decent-sized automobile industry decides leaves their borders completely open to international competition, there's a chance that could light a fire under those local producers, forcing them to become more competitive, but there's also a chance it could collapse the market for local offerings—their cars might no longer be desirable, because the international stuff flooding across the borders from a nation that has heavily prioritized making cars are just so much better and cheaper, whether naturally or artificially, because of subsidies by that foreign government meant to help them take out international competition.This is why most nations have all sorts of tariffs, regulations, and other trade barriers erected between them and their trading partners, and why those trade barriers are ultra-specific, different for every single possible trade partner. The goal is to make international options less appealing by making them more expensive, or making it trickier for foreign competition to smoothly and quickly get their products on your shelves, while still making those things available in a volume that aligns with local consumer demands. And then ideally making it easier and cheaper for your stuff to get on their shelves.The negotiation of all this is massively complicated because Country A might want to favor their soybean farmers, who are an important voting bloc, and Country B might want to do the same for their car industry, because tax income from that industry is vital, and these two governments will thus do what they can to ensure their favored local industries and businesses have the biggest leg-up possible in as many foreign markets as possible, without giving away so much to their trade partners that they create worse situations for other industries and businesses (and the people who run them) on the home-front, as a consequence.What I'd like to talk about today is a recent, massive and potentially quite vital trade deal that was struck in early 2026, and what it might mean for global trade.—At the tail-end of January 2026, the European Commission announced that they had struck what they called “the mother of all deals” with India, this deal the culmination of two decades worth of negotiation, its tenets impacting about 2 billion people and around a quarter of the world's total GDP.The agreement, as is the case with most such agreements, is fairly complex. But in essence it reduces or eliminates tariffs on 96.6% of all EU goods exported to India, which means about 4 billion euros of annual duties that would have otherwise been paid on European products in India will disappear—a savings for Indian consumers, and a boon for European producers whose products will now be cheaper in India.This is expected to be especially beneficial for European automakers like Volkswagen, Renault, and BMW, which have long been weighed down by a 110% tariff in India; that tariff will be reduced to as little as 10% on the first 250,000 vehicles sold, following this agreement. Lower priced vehicles will still face higher tariffs, to help protect India's local carmakers, but electric vehicles will benefit from a five-year grace period, as India has been focusing on allowing as many cheap, renewable energy assets and infrastructure into the country as possible, regardless of where they come from.Tariffs on machinery, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals coming from the EU will be almost entirely eliminated, down from tariff rates of 44, 22, and 11%, respectively. Wine, which has long been tariffed at a rate of 150%, will be cut to between 20-30% for many varieties, and spirits from the EU coming into India will see 150% tariffs cut to 40%.On the other side of this deal, the EU will also open its market to Indian goods, reducing tariffs on about 99.5% of all such goods, including seafood, textiles, gems and jewelry, leather goods, plastic products, and toys. Several of these categories, like Indian seafood, textile-making, and other labor-intensive industries, have had a rough time of late, because of high US tariffs enforced by President Trump's second administration, so this is being seen as a significant win for them in particular.Interestingly, while the reduction in trade barriers is substantial here, and the number of people and industries, and amount of money that's involved is massive, this deal doesn't include, and in some cases explicitly excludes, any agreements related to labor rights, climate commitment, or environmental standards.This means that while the European Union has thus far been pretty strict in terms of ensuring incoming products align with their policies and values regarding things like carbon emissions and ensuring goods aren't produced by people laboring in slave-like conditions, this deal falls short of such enforcements, allowing India to operate with relative impunity, with regards to those issues, at least, and still sell with dramatically reduced barriers, on the European market. That's a big deal, and is perhaps the biggest indicator of just how badly the EU wanted to make this deal work.The EU was also able to keep significant protections in place for important local sectors like beef and chicken, dairy, rice, and sugar—all industries in which India would have liked to compete in the EU, but which, because of those maintained barriers, they practically can't. That would likely have been a feverishly negotiated topic, and it's likely an indicator of how much India wanted this to work, too.On that note, both India and the EU were apparently especially interested in making this multi-decade deal work, now, because of increasing pressure from China on one side and the US on the other.China has been rerouting many of its cheap products that would have previously gone to the US market, elsewhere, engaging in what's often called ‘dumping' which slowly but surely puts businesses that produce comparable products at a profit in those local target markets out of business, at which point these Chinese companies can then ratchet up their prices and profits, operating without real competition.The EU and India have both been targeted by Chinese companies taking this approach, because they're still producing at a feverish pace and because of US tariffs and the general unpredictability and irregularity of US policy overall under the second Trump administration, they've been firing that cheap product cannon more intensely at other large markets, instead—and India and the EU are the next two big markets in line right now, after the US and China.On the US side of things, those same tariffs have been hurting companies in both the EU and India that would otherwise been shipping their goods to the rich and spendy US market, and in many cases these tariffs have been fine-tuned to hurt important local industries as much as possible, because that's one of Trump's main negotiating tactics: lead with pain and then negotiate to take some of the pain away.This deal, then, serves multiple purposes in that it creates a valuable, newly polished trade relationship between a rich and powerful existing bloc and the newly most-populous country on the planet, which is also rapidly expanding economically and geopolitically.One last point to note, here, though, is that the European Union has been trying to create these sorts of mutually beneficial deals with non-US partners for a while, now, and the two most recent wins, trade deals with a South American trade bloc and with Indonesia, in early January 2026 and in September of 2025, respectively, have borne mixed results.The deal with Indonesia seems to be moving forward apace, and while it's a heck of a lot smaller than the India deal, only worth about 27 billion euros, that's still important, as Indonesia is increasingly important, both economically and geopolitically, especially in a Southeast Asia that's slowly reinforcing itself against China's economically and potentially militarily expansionist tendencies.The deal with that South American bloc, however, was referred to the EU Court of Justice in mid-January for legal review due to its lack of alignment with other EU treaties, and that could delay or prevent its ratification.This new mother of all deals with India could likewise face holdups, or could fizzle before being implemented—though most analysts who are keeping eyes on this are seeing it not just as an economic agreement, but a gesture of solidarity at a moment in which China and the US are signaling their intent to carve up the world into hemispheric hegemonies, when those who might otherwise be forced into subordinate positions are scrambling to figure out who they can team up with and create counter-balancing forces capable of standing up against current and future aggression and coercion.There's a chance that even if politics and propriety threaten to get in the way, then, India and the EU will figure out a way to work together, on this and potentially other matters of global import, as well.Show Noteshttps://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jan/27/eu-and-india-sign-free-trade-agreementhttps://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/eu-india-trade-deal-leaves-blocs-carbon-border-tariff-intact-2026-01-27/https://archive.is/20260127162349/https://www.ft.com/content/b03b1344-7e92-4d0d-b85e-5ed92fc8f550https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade_agreementhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_barrierhttps://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_184https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/document/print/en/ip_26_184/IP_26_184_EN.pdfhttps://www.ndtv.com/world-news/how-indias-mother-of-all-deals-with-eu-wipes-out-pakistans-trade-advantage-10921011https://theconversation.com/what-the-mother-of-all-deals-between-india-and-the-eu-means-for-global-trade-274515https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/economic-impact-us-tariff-hikes-significance-trade-diversion-effectshttps://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20260116IPR32450/eu-mercosur-meps-demand-a-legal-opinion-on-its-conformity-with-the-eu-treatieshttps://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/1/27/mother-of-all-deals-how-india-eu-trade-deal-creates-27-trillion-markethttps://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/27/trump-reaction-eu-india-trade-deal-fta.htmlhttps://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/inflection-points/the-mother-of-all-trade-deals-in-the-time-of-trump/https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/foreign-trade/with-mother-of-all-deals-in-bag-minister-piyush-goyal-says-mother-will-be-compassionate-fair-to-all-28-children/articleshow/127821015.cmshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93European_Union_Free_Trade_Agreementhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93European_Union_relations This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

Recorded live at our Founders Summit, a16z general partner Chris Dixon speaks with Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril and Oculus VR. They talk about what it takes to build hardware at scale, where the biggest technological bottlenecks are today, and why optimism is still warranted despite geopolitical turmoil and regulatory constraints. They also cover crypto, stablecoins, modern warfare, the U.S.–China technology race, AI and manufacturing, and frontiers like fusion and quantum computing—plus lessons from Oculus, the founding of Anduril, and how to build mission-driven teams. Resources:Follow Palmer Luckey on X: https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckeyFollow Chris Dixon on X: https://twitter.com/cdixon Stay Updated:If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends!Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16zFind a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16zListen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYXListen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenbergPlease note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see http://a16z.com/disclosures. Stay Updated:Find a16z on XFind a16z on LinkedInListen to the a16z Show on SpotifyListen to the a16z Show on Apple PodcastsFollow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A succession of political leaders have been trooping to Beijing in recent months. Is it an indication of a new world order? Tania Branigan explains. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus

The selloff in precious metals, particularly silver, has extended into today's session. One reason why, one additional reason why, we're seeing reports of fraud emerge in heavy buyer China, including from a guy who's apparently called “the hat.” It's the kind of thing that usually comes up when big bubbles go up and then pop, so another sign that's what's happening here in the short run. Which raises another question, how far down might silver go in the near-term? Eurodollar University's Money & Macro Analysis---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What if your gold could actually pay you every month… in MORE gold?That's exactly what Monetary Metals does. You still own your gold, fully insured in your name, but instead of sitting idle, it earns real yield paid in physical gold. No selling. No trading. Just more gold every month.Check it out here: https://monetary-metals.com/snider---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------China gold "protests"https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HbICfItSfZAhttps://www.eurodollar.universityTwitter: https://twitter.com/JeffSnider_EDU

This week's episode of Wealth Formula features an interview with Claudia Sahm, and I want to share a quick takeaway before you listen — because she's often misunderstood in the headlines. First, a quick explanation of the Sahm Rule, in plain English. The rule looks at unemployment and asks a very simple question:Has the unemployment rate started rising meaningfully from its recent low? Specifically, if the three-month average unemployment rate rises by 0.5% or more above its lowest level over the past year, the Sahm Rule is triggered. Historically, that has happened early in every U.S. recession since World War II. That's why it gets cited so much. And to be clear — it's cited a lot. The Sahm Rule is tracked by the Federal Reserve, Treasury economists, Wall Street banks, macro funds, and economic research shops globally. When it triggers, it shows up everywhere. That's not by accident. Claudia built one of the cleanest early-warning indicators we have. But here's the part that often gets lost. The Sahm Rule is not a market-timing tool and it's not a prediction machine. Claudia emphasized this repeatedly. It was designed as a policy signal — a way to say, “Hey, if unemployment is rising this fast, waiting too long to respond makes things worse.” In other words, it's a call to action for policymakers, not a command for investors to panic. What makes this cycle unusual — and why talking to Claudia directly was so helpful — is what's actually driving the data. We're not seeing mass layoffs. Layoffs remain low by historical standards. What we're seeing instead is very weak hiring. Companies aren't firing people — they're just not expanding. That distinction matters. And this is where I think the big picture comes in — not just for understanding the economy, but for investing in general. When you step back, the big picture includes a government with massive debt loads that needs interest rates to come down over time. It includes fiscal pressures that make prolonged high rates politically and economically painful. And it includes the reality that if the current Fed leadership won't ease fast enough, future leadership will. History tells us that governments eventually get the monetary conditions they need — even if it takes time, even if it takes new appointments, and even if it takes a shift toward a more dovish Federal Reserve. That doesn't mean reckless money printing tomorrow. But it does mean that structurally high rates are unlikely to be permanent. And when you combine that with investing, the question becomes less about this month's headline and more about what's positioned to benefit when the environment normalizes. That's why I continue to focus on real assets that are already deeply discounted — things like multifamily real estate — assets that were repriced brutally during the rate shock, but still sit at the center of a growing, rent-dependent economy. This conversation with Claudia reinforced something I've been talking about for a long time:The biggest investing mistakes usually happen when people zoom in too far and forget to zoom back out. I've made this mistake myself. If you want a thoughtful, non-sensational, data-driven discussion about where we actually are in this cycle — and what the indicators really mean — I think you'll get a lot out of this episode. Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Well Formula Podcast coming to you from Montecito, California. Before we begin today, I wanna remind you, uh, listen, we’re back in, uh, back in the saddle in here in, uh, 2026. I know it’s takes some time to get used to it, but we’re, gosh, we’re at the end of the month actually by the time this plays. I think we’re in February. It’s time again to start thinking about investing. And so if you are interested in potentially using this year, which I believe and which many believe to potentially be the last year, uh, big discounts, uh, in real estate and, uh, various other types of offerings. Make sure. To sign up for the Accredit Investor group, our investor club, as we call it wealthformula.com. You do need to be an accredit investor and then you get onboarded. An accredit investor is just defined by who you are. If you make over $300,000 per year filing jointly, or 200 by yourself, every reasonable expectation to do so in the future. Or you have a net worth of a million dollars outta your personal, outside of your personal residence, you’re an accredit investor. Congratulations. Join the club wealthformula.com. Interesting podcast. Today we have, uh, Claudia Sahm She’s a Big Deal, Claudia Sahm. You may recognize that last name som, for this som rule. And what is a som rule in plain English. You actually have heard of the som rule multiple times from other economists who’ve been on the show. The som rule looks at unemployment. And asks a very simple question. Now, has the unemployment rate started rising meaningfully from its recent low? So specifically, if the three month average unemployment rate rises 0.5% or more above its lowest level, over the past year, this som rule is triggered. Now, historically, that has happened early in every US recession since the World War ii. That’s why it gets cited so much. It gets cited a lot. By the way, the sum rule is tracked by the Fed treasury economists, wall Street Banks, macro funds, economic research shops globally, and when it triggers, it shows up everywhere, and that’s not by accident. Uh, Claudia has built one of the cleanest early warning indicators we have, but here’s the part that often gets lost. The som rule is not a market timing tool, and it’s not a prediction machine. Claudia, uh, emphasized that repeatedly. It was designed as a policy signal, a way to say, Hey, if unemployment’s rising this fast, wait, waiting too long to respond makes things worse. In other words, it’s call to action for policy makers, not a command for investors to panic per se. So what makes this cycle unusual and why talking to Claudia directly was so helpful? Well, it’s what’s actually driving the data. We’re not seeing mass layoffs. Layoffs remain low by historical standards. Um, what we’re seeing instead is very weak. Hiring companies aren’t firing people, they’re just not expanding, and that distinction matters. This is where the big picture comes in, not just for understanding the economy. For investing in general and when you step back, the big picture includes a government with massive debt loads that need interest rates to come down over time. It includes fiscal pressures that make prolonged high rates politically and economically painful. I’ve mentioned this before and it includes the reality that have to fed, fed, uh, if the current Fed leadership won’t ease fast enough. I am likely the case that future leadership appointed by. Donald Trump himself, uh, will, so history tells us that governments eventually get the monetary conditions they need, even if it takes time, even if it takes new appointments. And even if it takes a shift towards a more dovish federal reserve. Uh, that doesn’t mean, uh, reckless money printing tomorrow, but it does mean that structurally. High interest rates are unlikely to be permanent. Okay? And when you combine that with investing, the question becomes less about this month’s headline and more about what’s positioned to benefit when the environment normalizes. Okay? That’s really, really important, and that’s why I continue to focus on things like real estate, right? Real estate is currently. Not for long, in my opinion, but deeply discounted things like multifamily real estate, um, that were repriced brutally during the rate shot, uh, but are still at the center of a growing and, and rent dependent economy. And again, uh, this conversation with Claudia reinforced something that I’ve been talking about a long time, which is the biggest investing mistakes usually happen when people zoom in too far and forget to zoom back out. I’ve made that mistake myself. I am not immune. I have made lots of mistakes, and that’s one of them. So this is a great conversation. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it, especially if you want a thoughtful, nons sensational data-driven discussion. Where we are actually at in this cycle and what these indicators really mean. I think you’ll get a lot of this episode and we will have this conversation for you right after these messages. Wealth formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net. The strategy supercharges your investments. First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own bank to invest in other cash flowing investments. Here’s the key. Even though you borrowed money at a simple interest rate, your insurance company keeps. Paying you compound interest on that money even though you’ve borrowed it at result, you make money in two places at the same time. That’s why your investments get supercharged. This isn’t a new technique. It’s a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its backbone. Turbocharge your investments. Visit Wealthformulabanking.com. Again, that’s wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Today my guest on Wealth Formula podcast is Dr. Claudia Sahm. Uh, she’s an American, uh, macroeconomic expert, uh, known for her work, uh, on monetary and fiscal policy and real-time economic indicators. She developed this som rule, which I think, uh, people have mentioned on this show before, so this is a great opportunity to talk to her about that. Uh, it’s a widely, uh, followed recession signal based on unemployment. She’s also a former Federal Reserve economist and senior policy advisor in government. Um, so welcome, uh, Dr. Sahm. Great. Happy to be here. Thank you. Well, let’s, let’s kind of start out with this som rule because, uh, you know, it’s funny, we, we have had a few different people, uh, at various times bring up the SOM rule, and I think one had actually said that it was triggered, but I don’t don’t think it was at any rate, let’s, let’s start with that. What is the som rule? Lemme start with why is there a som rule, and then we’ll then we’ll get to specifically what the, what the rule is itself. So when I started out on the project, it wasn’t so much about. Calling a recession, like there are some really fancy technical ways that economists like look at the tea leaves and the data and either try to forecast a recession, which is incredibly hard, or even just say we’re in a recession in real time. So like that’s a useful endeavor. But what actually was behind the development of my recession indicator was more of a call to action. How do we develop policies that, that the Congress can put into place very quickly if a recession comes? So these kind of what are referred to as automatic stabilizers, so they’re decided upon ahead of time, but then you do need a trigger that says a recession is here. So now that enhance the unemployment benefits, send out the stimulus checks, whatever it is that we kind of have as our typical tools that are used in recessions, we could have those ready to go as kind of guardrails. Then like you, you turn the policy on. So that was really my emphasis was on how do we do better policy and recessions, get the support out quickly. ’cause that’s the best chance of kind of stabilizing the situation. And then it’s like, well it was in a, it was in a policy volume that they asked for, like a really concrete proposal. So if I’m gonna say an automatic stabilizer, I need to have a proposal for what a trigger could be. So that’s really where the som rule came. So I think it is important. It’s definitely important to me to, I always remember like what the kind of reason for it’s sure. Now that also guided what the indicator itself looks like. So again, it was gonna be in, in fiscal policy. It needs to be simple, it needs to be something that we track it and it needs to, I felt it was important that it capture the reason that we. Fight recessions, why there’s such a bad, uh, you know, outcome. And so it looks at the, the unemployment rate. I use the national unemployment rate, take a three month average. ’cause we wanna smooth out, like there’s bumps and wiggles in the data from month to month. So you kind of, you know, three month average. One way to smooth it out. So you take that series of three month averages, you look at the current value, you compare to the lowest value over the prior 12 months, if you’ve seen an increase of a half, a percentage point or more. Which is really pretty modest, but half a percentage point or more. Historically, we have been in the early months of a recession, so it’s not a forecast. It’s supposed to be like we’re in it. Let’s go. It’s an empirical pattern. It’s one that’s worked in the United States. It reflects kind of our labor market institutions, the way unemployment rate moves and recessions. It historically is the case that once you get past a certain threshold of increased unemployment rate, it tends to build on itself. And in a typical recession, we see increases of. Two, three or more percentage points in the unemployment rate. Uh, so that’s, that’s what the summer rule is. And in fact, it did trigger in the summer of 2024. At that time I had said like, look around, we are not in a recession. GP is still expanding. Job creation is still happening. We don’t see the other hallmarks of a recession. And pointed to the fact that we’d had a very disrupted labor market after the pandemic in particular. You know, there had been a lot of immigration at that point. The unemployment rate is the total number of unemployed. So people who don’t have a job but are actively looking for one out of the labor force, right? And so these people that have to either be employed or looking for jobs, and so we actually saw from the pandemic. Both with the pandemic and then later with the surge and now the reversal in immigration. We’ve seen a lot of movement in the, in the labor force, which makes unemployment rate a little tricky to interpret. And then I’d also argue, we saw early in the pandemic, the unemployment rate dropped very rapidly. We even had labor shortages. So in some ways unemployment rate rising and it has risen over. I mean, it continued to rise last year in 2025. A lot of that’s also normalization. We’d had a very low unemployment rate. So I think the, the pandemic recession has a lot of features that were very unusual. We’ll talk probably more about the labor market continued to be kind of unusual. So the, you know, the somal was not the only recession indicator to fall flat on its face in the cycle. Um, but I think it’s still a useful, useful guide and I, and. You know, even if it’s not a recession, the, the unemployment rate is a full percentage point above, its low in 2023. So, I mean, that, that could, that could be a reason for policymakers to respond, even if it’s not responding to a recession. Right. That was the first time that it, that triggered and, and actually didn’t. End up in a recession, right? There’s some back in the 1950s, earlier, but it’s, it’s the first time where there’ve been some false positives in the past or, or near false positives. Like in 2003. It was kind of close, uh, is like the unemployment rate rises a little bit and then it falls back down. What we saw after it triggered in 2024 is it stabilized. Then last year it continued to rise. So this the pattern that we’ve seen since the pandemic of rapid recovery dropping unemployment rate and then it’s like gradually rising and yet has risen a full percentage point that you go all the way back in the post World War II period. We don’t see anything that looks like that. So that is a very unusual. Paris. So something’s more is going on in the labor market than just our typical business cycle, boom, bust, recession type dynamics. So what is that? What is the thing that’s happening that’s unusual right now in the labor market? Right? So the thing that is driving the unemployment rate up, I think this is a good lesson, a reminder to all of us. It’s not about layoffs. The rate of layoffs in the United States is really quite low. You look at unemployment insurance claims, they’re also quite low. What’s been pushing the unemployment rate up over the last two and a half years has been a very low rate of hiring and, and it’s, and it is something that over time will at least gradually put upward pressure on the unemployment rate and frankly. Until hiring picks up and we really don’t have many signs of it. Even as we enter 2026 unemployment rate’s gonna probably keep drifting up ’cause we’re not keeping job creation’s, not keeping up with, you know, people coming into the, into the labor market and, and that what’s, I think the puzzle right now is that hiring has been very low. But what we’ve seen in terms of consumer spending, business investment, so the kind of the big pieces of GDP, they’ve really held up pretty well, so. Business. It’s not, again, not that recession of the customers have disappeared. And so we’re not hiring, or we may even be firing workers. The customers are there for the businesses, but they’re choosing in this environment not to add, uh, to their payrolls. And that’s slowly pushing up down point rate. Yeah. Um, you know, it, it’s interesting what you’re, you’re talking about, but essentially you’re, people aren’t getting fired. They’re just, when they retire or leave, they’re just not replacing those. Individuals, you know, makes me think a little bit about what’s going on in the big, you know, in the tech push with artificial intelligence and that kind of thing, and increased in efficiency. Certainly you see that in the larger companies like Amazon and all that, where they’re just becoming massively more productive and cutting expenses essentially by, you know, using tech. Do you think that this is sort of an early indication, potentially of that kind of movement? So it. It’s possible, but I think we’re at the very front end of AI disrupting the labor market. This low hiring rate that we’ve talked about. You see this across all kinds of industries, including ones that don’t show high levels of AI adoption, and frankly, a AI adoption is pretty low. I mean, there are some sectors like tech and increasingly finance and some professional services have higher adoption rates. Uh, but in terms of it being able to explain the low hiring. I think it’s pretty tough ’cause the low hiring is such a, such a broad based, um, phenomenon. Now, AI might be, I think, indirectly contributing in that one of, one of the hypotheses about why, um, businesses have been, uh, not hiring despite, you know, economic activity. Continuing to push ahead could be that there’s a lot of uncertainty. Now there is a long list that we could draw of, of factors that might be causing businesses to be uncertain and hesitant to add to their payrolls. Uh, a lot of times you talk about things with tariffs or, you know, economic policy, regulations changing, you know, so there’s a lot going on there. But it could also be, there’s a lot of uncertainty about what this technology means for the future. Maybe you don’t need to bring on more workers because your ability to kind of use and adapt this technologies coming online. And so like that could be part of it. I think there’s another piece, you know, we have a lot of discussion about ai, but I do think that there’s, there could be a, a technology angle to this that’s, that is. Not in the AI technologies, but maybe just some of the more basic kind of automation is again, right after, you know, the, the pandemic recession as we came out of a, you know, very rapid recovery, uh, there was, there was a lot of hiring or that, ’cause businesses had done a lot of firing and they needed to bring back workers really rapidly and we actually had a period of labor shortages. There were workers moving around a lot and there were, that also put a lot of pressure on some employers, particularly in service sector, to automate more ’cause they just couldn’t get the workers, so they needed to bring technology. Online to help, you know, fill the gap. And over time, you know, businesses though, they haven’t done as much hiring, they have been firing. So the workers, they have longer tenures, have more experience, they’re probably more productive. So maybe businesses can kind of, you know, get away with not doing more hiring. ’cause the people they have there can kind of keep up with it. Um, and they’ve done some more automation. I don’t think those are sustainable. I think we’re going to need to see hiring pickup in terms of, of staying with, um, you know, as expanding, uh, demand from customers. But I won’t pretend to know what AI means for the future of the labor force. Right. So like there could be, I think that’s a big conversation about we’re headed, where we’re headed. I think it’s probably a pretty small slice of explaining. Where we’re at right now. You know, it’s interesting because obviously there was a lot of concerns about rising inflation, and particularly in the context of, you know, tariffs and, and among those types of things that were, were, um, coming down the pipe. And as it turns out, inflation seems to be coming down. How do you explain that from where you sit? Because it, it, it seems sort of to contradict a lot of what, you know, many economists believe to be likely. So when thinking about the effects of tariffs on inflation and this, this idea that it didn’t end up being as much of a factors we had really feared, uh, you know, a year ago. I think there’s a few things to keep in mind. One, the announced tariffs, uh. Didn’t come to pass fully. Right? So there’s a big difference between some of the, the, the initial announcements, whether it was on Liberation Day, April 2nd, or the initial kind of retaliation tit for tat with China, where we ended up with some triple digit, uh, tariff numbers. Those didn’t end up being where we, we ended now tariff, the effect of tariff rate. Is much higher than it was before. Right. Uh, president Trump came into office for the second time, so like, I don’t wanna minimize the, the, the increase in tariffs and the US government collected about $200 billion last year in, in additional tariffs. But there is a, there’s a good bit of daylight between what was announced and where we actually ended up. Businesses also proved very capable of trying to avoid those tariffs and not in like a. Illegal kind of way of avoiding them, but, but using inventories like trying to get ahead of them. We know the tariffs are tariffs. There’s been some evidence that, that it’s businesses are gonna start passing on the tariff cost increase when it’s actually tied to the inventories that they’re putting out in front of customers. And for some of our goods, like say apparel or things that have long seasons or come from, you know, all across the world, it actually takes quite a bit of time from the inventories being what actually shows up in front of customers. So there’s been the ability to. Kind of get around the tariffs ’cause they were rolling in. And so do be smart in terms of your inventories. And then it just takes time for those inventories to be, you know, um, to come down. Mm-hmm. By, there’s been several studies at this place, at this point that, that demonstrate that the, the tariffs, the cost of the tariffs is coming into the us. So the, it’s always the importer that pays the tariff, like literally writes the check to the US government. But it’s possible that the foreign producer could say, reduce their prices on what they’re, you know, paying or what they’re asking to be paid for that, uh, imported good. And then that would be a way of the foreign producer sharing the cost of the tariff. But everything that we see from the M Court data suggests that a very small fraction, probably less than 10%. Of the total tariff burden is being born by, at least at this point, born by the foreign producers. So it’s coming into the us. It’s sitting with either US businesses that are importing the goods or have the goods at some point in their, you know, in their supply chains and, and with us customers, the consumers we have, we’ve seen. I think you can really look at the inflation data. You can see the goods prices, which often are kind of a drag on inflation that they did turn around. They’re, they’re putting upward pressure on inflation. It’s not massive. It doesn’t explain all of these, you know, 200 billion in tariff costs, but then it is, it’s sitting with businesses. The effects still, it’s still just not that long enough to really understand. You know what, what the implications. It’s possible. I, I think that’s true with any, with any big policy change. Like it doesn’t happen overnight. I think that’s one thing that a lot of, a lot of economic models that, like, they’re, they’re very sensitive, right? Like as soon as a policy change happens, the models will kind of tell us something pretty dramatic in terms of adjustments. But this last year was a reminder, like when there’s, when there’s a big cost, there’s gonna be a lot of attempts to adjust around it to try to minimize that cost and then. It takes time, like in the real world, like the interactions are much more complex. You know, inventory lags all of the, like, it takes time to move its way through. So I think we’re not done with the pass through. I think we’ll probably still see more come to consumers, but businesses could decide to bear that cost. They, they could, you know, with profit margins. I mean some of, some of the inflationary environment in the pandemic did allow. There were very broad base increases in prices. You did see some companies be profitable from that because it was, there was a, you know, some of the costs were more targeted, but the, you know, the, the price increases were broad. So it could be a time where businesses see that, you know, consumers are more price sensitive now than they were in 21, 20 21, 20 22, so they’re not passing as much on it. Could be that that’s part of where. Like the cost businesses are dealing with that cost by maybe doing less hiring as opposed to passing it on to consumers. Uh, you know, they could be taking a hit with their profits. They, you know, so like, it doesn’t have to go all the way through to consumers. There are different levers that can be pulled. I do think we’ll still see some pass through in the, in probably the first half of this year, and that’s assuming that our whole tariff regime. Sit still, right? It looks like once again we might be, uh, increasing those tariffs, but, um, so yeah, I think it’s just tracing, you know, the tariffs through the system is really complicated. And one last thing I’ll say about the tariffs is they’re not just tariffs on goods that go to consumers. These tariffs have been broad enough that we’re also taring imported goods that are used by our manufacturers used for our, by our businesses in their production. So then it can take a really long time for that to end up with the, you know, the end customer could be a business to start with, and then it moves its way down. So I think these are just, you know, the costs are real. We can see the tariffs have been collected, the costs are there. We can see in the import data, there haven’t been import price data, there haven’t been a lot of adjustments by the foreign suppliers. So then it’s just a question of, we have these costs. Where did the cost go? I believe the last GEP was 4.3% and, uh, inflation was around 2.6, 2.7, or at least core. You’ve obviously, uh, worked at the Fed. Um, give us a sense of the situation that the Fed is trying to figure out here. Like what do they do with these numbers and, you know, all of the issues that surround them. The work at the Fed, I mean, it, it’s laser focused on the, the response, the mandates that the Fed has. So with maximum employment and price stability and with maximum employment, that’s not something that can be easily defined. It’s not like it’s a particular unemployment rate, it’s not a particular payroll number. But I mean, broadly speaking, it’s, you know, do, are, you know, the people who wanna work, are they working? In such a way that it’s not putting pressure on inflation, right? Like labor shortages that end up with wage increases that just, you know, end up with inflation. Like that would be a situation where the Fed would actually want to kind of help restrain some of the. Uh, employment growth. And we, we saw that in this cycle. I mean, the Fed raised rates a lot in 2022 and 2023. Uh, so that’s the maximum employment on the stable prices. The Fed has set a target of the 2%, uh, year over year PCE inflation. So a little different than the CPI inflation, but very much related. And, and it’s one, I mean, that’s, that’s the goal, right? And it, uh. So it starts with those two pieces and, and what’s been, I think what’s been challenging in say the last year as the Fed was, you know, trying to figure out what it was gonna do with interest rates was the fact that it, there was pressure on both sides of the mandate. Mm-hmm. Um, and not necessarily the, well, I mean, inflation itself has, was above the 2%. It continues to be above the 2%. Target has been. Since 2021. Now the Fed’s policy doesn’t have a look back, but I mean, they do worry that the longer inflation stays closer to three than two businesses. Consumers are gonna start to kind of embed three into their actions, their expectations. Then you kind of get stuck there. So like that, that both, you know, they were missing on the inflation mandate and there were, there were concerns that the, that we might see inflation get stuck above the mandate and the way you dislodge it if it gets stuck. Could end up risking a recession, right? So the Fed doesn’t want that to happen. So that’s a real concern. But then on the employment side, you know, we started out talking about the small rule, the rising unemployment rate. We’ve seen the unemployment rate rising. And then last year in particular, it wasn’t just the unemployment rate rising, we saw job creation just really take a leg down. Um. Some of that probably is less immigration population aging, so less supply of workers, which isn’t something the Fed would react to. ’cause that, I mean, if you don’t have as many people that wanna work, you don’t need to create as many jobs. But the unemployment rate was rising, so it’s clear, like there just wasn’t, there wasn’t enough job creation to keep up with, um, the workers who were there, uh, to work. And, and there was a concern that this could, could spiral out. Those small increased unemployment rate that, that very low level of job creation. And frankly, if you look at, I mean the, I mean, we have multiple months and probably more after revisions of declines in payroll employment. Mm-hmm. Like if you looked at the labor market data, you’d be like, aren’t we in a recession or like on the edge of one? Again, that’s not where we’re at, but it, it certainly gave that, that risk. Things could be slowing down. And, and the, the last piece that was really important in the Fed’s decisions was where, where’s the federal funds rate? Where are the interest rate, the policy interest rate they control? And it was still relatively high. For, for recent history, right. Not in the long history of the Fed, but mm-hmm. And so, like the Fed had raised, they’d raised interest rates quite aggressively to fight the inflation in 2022. They’d very gradually lowered it. Some was taken out in 2023 because made some pro, made quite a bit of progress on inflation in, or in 2024, they lowered the rates in 2025, the 75 basis points of cuts that the Fed did. It was out of concern. Of the labor market unraveling a risk, not a, not saying, hey, the labor market is unraveling, but saying the risk that the downside risk to employment are larger and more worrisome than the upside risk to inflation. So this inflation getting stuck, is that still the case as a going into 2026 here? So, you know, even, even last year we saw, we listened to Fed officials, there’s quite a bit of disagreement. Because it was a tough situation to read. There are some Fed officials that were more focused on inflation, some that were more focused on the employment side. Uh, and it really was just a matter of kind of reading the economy and trying to figure out this, a very unusual situation, like where, where was this headed? What did the Fed need to do? In the end, the consensus on the Fed was to do the rate cuts, kind of front load them. They talked a lot about it as insurance. They’re taking out insurance against the labor market deteriorating. And I think with that approach, in all likelihood, and there’s been certainly signaling of this, that when they meet at the end of January, it’ll, they’re unlikely to move again. That this is, this will be an opportunity to hold steady, be patient the Fed has, has taken out their restriction. So they don’t have the higher rates, so they’ve pulled rates down. We also know that early this year there’s various kinds of fiscal support that are coming online or tax cuts to households and to businesses that should give a little extra lift, uh, to the economy. So I think it’s a period of the Fed waiting to see what the effects of their policy changes are, seeing what the effects of the fiscal policy with the expectation this will be enough to stabilize the labor market. Even help get it back on track and really what the Fed would like. I mean, we’ll see what they get, but they’d really like the next cut to be a good news cut. Like inflation. Oh look, it’s moving back down again. We’re making clear progress back to 2%. I think that’s probably gonna take maybe even till the middle of this year to build that case. A strong case for the disinflation. Mm-hmm. But that’s, that’s what they would, would like to do. But they’re gonna keep an eye on the labor market. But nothing we’ve seen in the most recent data suggests that they gotta get moving like that. There’s some, you know, real pressure building. Um, in fact, the labor market looks a little bit better probably than when they met in December and inflation. Showing some signs of progress, but it, it’s pretty bumpy in terms of, there’s a lot of noise in the data at the moment. You mentioned, um, the Fed’s mandate and you know, certainly that’s something, um, that, uh, you know, that, that we know the Fed looks at these unemployment numbers that look at inflation. I’m curious though, that there’s, you know, there is this push and pull with the treasury. In particular, you know, looking at the amount of, of, of, of bonds that need to be refinanced, that kind of thing. I mean, presumably that’s one of the reasons why the Trump administration is pushing so hard, uh, on the Fed to reduce, um, you know, to reduce rates so that you know, this sovereign debt can be refinanced at a, something a little bit more palatable. How much of that actually. I know it’s not supposed to play a part in the Federal Reserve’s actions, but in reality is there, is there that kind of, you know, thinking that, you know, they have to, they, they may try to play ball a little bit with the, with the situation, with the debt. Yeah. There, the, the Fed is not playing ball right now with the administration. Uh, but, but there have been, there have been times in our past. So during World War II, there was an explicit cooperation between the Fed and the Treasury. The Fed kept interest rates low. Both the federal funds rates, so the short term interest rates, they also did, uh, some purchases of longer term to help keep longer term rates down. Right. So I mean, the, the Fed really, they, their policy was oriented exactly on this objective, keeping the borrowing cost of the US government low because it was financing the war effort. So, so there have been times where the Fed has cooperated with treasury. Now, when they came out of World War ii. What happened is, you know, treasury wants to keep interest rates low. This is good for, you know, the economy, good for growth, but it was, it really was creating a lot of inflationary pressures and it took until the early 1950s for the Fed to kind of regain its kind of operational independence from treasury and then go back to pursuing, you know, inflation as a key goal. And then also in the late seventies and maximum employment was added as an explicit goal. So we’re in a place now where. It’s employment, it’s inflation, it, there was quite, um, I mean, president Trump and some other officials have been, you know, very open about saying rates should be low to help with the deficit, with funding the gov. So like, it’s, it’s been in the discussion in the air. But that’s not, that’s not a mandate that Congress has given the Fed. That’s not what they’re pursuing. It does, you know, but things can change at the Fed. We’re gonna see a change in leadership this year with a new Fed chair. Um, the Fed always, I mean, Congress created the Federal Reserve. It’s changed its abilities, its responsibilities over time. I don’t wanna say that we’ll never get back to a place where the Fed thinks about. Its effect on the deficit. I mean, they’re watching it, they know, right? They’re tracking all these aspects of the economy. But in terms of what’s driving the Fed’s decisions about what the, the federal funds rate should be, that’s not part of the calculus right now. Yeah. Um, you know, another, just another question is for clarity. You know, the, the, um, officially right now there’s, there’s no quantitative easing. However, there is. Uh, you know, I’ve been reading, uh, about even, I think even today, there was a, a fair amount of liquidity, uh, being injected in by the Fed. Can you, for people who don’t understand the mechanics of this and what the difference in terminology is, can you explain to us maybe what the difference is between quantitative easing and what’s being done right now? So just as for context, where quantitative easing even came from. So if we go back to the global financial crisis in 2008, the Federal Reserve, in response to that recession, pulled the federal funds rate all the way to zero. Cut rates to zero And as sure many of us remember that that recession was a very deep and long recession. So, and the unemployment rate was, you know, 10% and inflation was not a problem. So the, the Fed would want in that environment to do more to support the economy. But when the federal funds rate is at zero, that’s, its, that has been its primary tool. Well, that’s, that’s. Stepped out. So then as a question of, well, what else could we do to help support the economy? And, and there, there were. Different possibilities. Uh, some European central banks looked at, you know, they actually did negative interest rates or tried to pull their policy rates, and that’s not what the US did. What was done was to do purchases of, uh, treasuries. Uh, there’s also been purchases of mortgage backed securities, and this is where the Fed is. I mean, and, and they’re creating reserves. So the fed, I guess, secretary, uh. Treasury doesn’t refer to it as magic money. Um, you know, they create reserves and then they’re going out and they’re buying tr so they’re pushing that liquidity, that demand into markets. And if you’re, if there’s a lot more demand for treasuries, well, the price of the treasuries will go up. The yield comes down. Interest rates go down. Yep. Interest rates go down. So they. They were, the Fed wanted to support the economy more. That was the tool that they used to do it. So when, when the Fed talks about quantitative easing, it’s not just the tool, the asset purchases, it’s also the intent, right? They wouldn’t do quantitative easing right now. ’cause if the Fed thought they really need to stimulate the economy more, they’ve still got like. More than three percentage points they could cut from the federal funds rate. Like if the issue were right now, we need to like get the economy going, they’re gonna like cut the funds rate and do it that way. They wouldn’t be pur like purchasing assets, purchasing treasuries to do that. But what what happened is between the global financial crisis, the Great recession, so all the asset purchases done then. There was some, some runoff of the balance sheet, but then again, in the pandemic there were a lot of asset purchases. Uh, the Fed has a really big balance sheet, and it has, uh, it, it kind of changes the way that the Fed can even just move around the federal funds rate. Like, I don’t wanna get too much into the, the technicals, but it’s, it’s just, you know, when the Fed says, well, we wanna lower the, the funds rate to 3.5%. In the old days, they could kind of do, you know, with the bank reserves and they could like, make these small purchases and it would, it would make that stick. Now with, there’s, uh, banks have a lot of reserves, so they’re not as responsive. And so just to kind of, there’s like the, the technical, the tools, the Fed has to just make it happen. In terms of operationally, it means that they have to do some purchases now and then they call their, I mean the new name they have for these are reserve management. Purchases. So it’s really about operations. It’s not about, but it does mean they’re purchasing assets. So if you’re just focused on like the Fed’s purchasing assets, they’re putting liquidity into the system. Yes, they are doing that, but it’s not with the intent to kind of push the economy to run harder. It’s just enough liquidity to keep. The federal funds rate stable at the level that they wanted to be at, to just make sure that all these operations are short in the very short term lending markets amongst banks, that it’s all kind of working as mm-hmm. As it should be. So it’s more about operations and it’s about stimulus policy. Right. A lot of our, um, a lot of our listeners are real estate owners, investors, and they’re, you know, they think about, um. Mortgage rates and that kind of thing. There was recently a, a pretty significant, well, I don’t know how significant it really was. I think it was about, was it maybe $250 billion worth of mortgage backed securities purchased by Fannie Mae. Um, that ca can you talk about the purpose of that and really the, you know, what kind of effect that would actually, we could actually expect from that. It’s certainly been, I mean it’s, it is clear. You know, we talked about one reason that the administration would want interest rates down. It’d be like financing the deficit. Right. Another reason that very much pulls into kind of the affordability debate is we want interest rates lower, one of them lower for consumers. Now the White House has put a lot of pressure on the Fed for them to lower rates even faster than they have. Has not played ball with that. But then the Fed has lowered its rates. The Feds rates are very short term rates, and the federal funds rate is like an overnight rate with between banks. Right. So it, and it has an effect on, you know. Credit card rates, short term rates, but it’s not one, it, it has an effect, but it’s really not like driving necessarily 30 year mortgage rates or you know, some of the longer term rates. There’s a lot of other factors that go into that, and so in this kind of, you know, push for lower mortgage rates. Pushing on the Fed is not the only lever to pull, right? The administration has other levers that they could potentially pull, um, in trying to influence mortgage rates. Now, there, I’d argue the administration’s tools here, like the, the $200 billion, Fannie and Freddie purchase that you mentioned. That really is about trying to reduce the spread. Between mortgages and treasuries. So in some ways it sounds similar, like, oh, fed and Franny, which are, you know, GSEs. So part, part of the, you know, government right now, at least they were privatized during the global financial crisis. You think, oh, they’re going out and purchasing this Sounds a lot like the Fed going out and purchasing. There are there, there’s some parallels, but we need to remember, Fannie and Freddie don’t create money. The Fed, when they start, when they start the process of their quantitative easing, they’re creating reserves like they’re actually creating liquidity and money supply. Fannie and Freddie have authorization to be able to make these purchases, but they’re not like the fed. They’re not creating reserves, but they can, so I don’t wanna think about them like bringing down the whole set of interest rates, but they can affect this spread between mortgages and say treasuries. Right? And so, because again, if you’re, if the. If the GSEs are going out, they’re purchasing mortgage backed securities, well that’s increasing demand for those, and that can push down the rates, that can like squeeze that spread. And, and while the announcement has been made, you know, I mean they’re, they’re in the early stages of putting that in place, but we even on the announcements, saw a response in financial markets and you’re seeing some movement down, uh, in mortgage rates now. It was. Pretty modest, right? And, and 200 billion while, you know, not nothing, uh, really pales in comparison to like the scale of say, the quantitative easing that the Fed did. Um, and there are probably other, but the, you know, the administration’s not done. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that Fannie and Freddie do more purchases. The the spread between mortgage rates and treasuries is pretty substantial. There’s other places where, you know, the fees that go into getting a mortgage are quite a bit larger than they were before the, the global financial crisis. So maybe they go in and try to chip away at the fees and, you know, so there’s, there’s different levers. And I fully expect, and I think we’re gonna get some announcements here again soon on the White Houses. Housing affordability agenda. So there may be other, other ways that they’re trying to, uh, influence, uh, the mortgage spreads. But that’s, that’s what that is all about. And it, it should have, and it looks like, you know, it’s having some effect in terms of bringing rates down, but it likely, it’d be modest, like in the 10 basis points, maybe 20 if they ramp up the program some. But like, it, you know, it’s, it, it, you know, every, every bit counts. But this is not a. Uh, this won’t be enough to, you know, move rates down, dramatic mortgage rates down dramatically, uh, when you, when you look at the economy. Um, and I, I, I think just, you know, one last question. I mean, I just in terms of, you know, the people listening to this are. They’re, they’re people, you know, with jobs and who are trying to invest their money, and they’re trying to, you know, build long-term wealth, but they’re, you know, everybody’s worried about what’s happening with the economy. What, what, what do you think, like, just as, um, um, you know, perspective for people to understand or try to have some framework for how to look at what’s going on in the economy. How they should judge it. Like what would you suggest, like just for mom and pop investors trying to, what is happening with the economy? I’m not an economist. What, what are the, what are the things that you think they should consider studying up on, looking into a little bit? One challenge for a lot of investors, I mean, frankly, it’s, it’s been a challenge that I try to deal with too. Uh, we’re, we’re in an environment where there’s just. There’s so much news coming out of DC uh, with the White House and policies and the Fed, and you know, I mean, like, there’s just, there’s a lot. The headlines are big. And like I talked about with the tariffs, we had like really big tariff announcements. The really scary numbers were, and then it like dialed back and then we pushed through it and it’s like, and it’s this remembering that, um. There’s always a tendency to have this idea that the, the president really runs the economy. I mean, that’s not just about this administration. That’s like a longstanding, you know, the president gets, uh, blame or credit for the economy when really, right. Like we have a over 33, $30 trillion economy, hundreds of millions of workers, tens of millions of businesses. Like this is not about one administration. And so we always need to be careful about. Putting too much weight on the policies coming out of dc. Uh, and you know, last year if you really just listened to all the, you know, we’re cutting immigration, we’re raising tariffs, we’re doing, you know, all, there’s a lot of uncertainty in Doge. Well then you might have missed, like, there’s a bunch of AI investment happening and we’ve got a lot of growth in the economy and while consumers are still pretty resilient, so you, it’s kind of like. Tuning down the volume, some coming out of Washington, especially the like every twist and turn. Uh, and then kind of focusing in on the fundamentals. I will say, you know, you don’t wanna turn down DC too far because we, we do have some like big picture events that could play out over many years. Right. So kind of keeping an eye on it, but for the long game. As opposed to reacting to every twist and turn, every policy announcement, because a lot of this clearly is more of a negotiation than it is like, we’re gonna actually do this. So, you know, as investors, you don’t wanna get whipped around by the latest headline, but you also can’t put your head in the sand. Like you gotta kind of try and find a way to pull the signal out of the noise. And it is really. It’s really hard. Yeah. Like this has been a challenging time and the, the US economy’s been doing things that are not typical. We talked about some of the things with the labor market and we are running some policy experiments that haven’t been run in a long time, so things could change pretty dramatically. But I think it’s just trying to absorb the information, not get too wound up about it, but like also keep an eye on like what’s good for long-term growth. Yeah. Because it’s good for long-term productivity. Thank you so much Dr. Sahm. It’s uh, it’s been a pleasure talking to you on, uh, wealth Formula Podcast today. Great. Thank you so much. You make a lot of money but are still worried about retirement. Maybe you didn’t start earning until your thirties. Now you’re trying to catch up. Meanwhile, you’ve got a mortgage, a private school to pay for, and you feel like you’re getting further and further behind. Now, good news, if you need to catch up on retirement, check out a program put out by some of the oldest and most prestigious life insurance companies in the world. It’s called Wealth Accelerator, and it can help you amplify your returns quickly, protect your money from creditors, and provide financial protection to your family if something happens to you. The concept. Here are used by some of the wealthiest families in the world, and there’s no reason why they can’t be used by you. Check it out for yourself by going to wealthformulabanking.com. Welcome back to the show everyone. Hope you enjoyed it. It was Claudia Sahm. She is, uh, she’s a very, very smart lady. And, uh, just a reminder, if you have not done so, uh, I, I don’t frequently ask to do, do this, but, uh, make sure you give the show. Five stars and a positive review because that’s how we’re getting, you know, really high quality people like Claudia on the show, I’ve been around for a long time. It helps that the show is, you know, like over a decade old and all that stuff too. But, uh, anything you can do to support would be very helpful. And also one more reminder, uh, if you have not done so and you weren’t a credit investor, make sure you sign up for that investor club. At Wealth formula.com. That’s it for me. This week on Wealth Formula Podcast. This is about Joffrey signing out. If you wanna learn more, you can now get free access to our in-depth personal finance course featuring industry leaders like Tom Wheelwright and Ken m. Visit wealthformularoadmap.com.

Another alarming warning sign about the Chinese Communist Party is flashing red today. A second CCP-connected biolab has now been uncovered on American soil — this time in Las Vegas — where thousands of biological samples were allegedly seized from a private residence. What was being stored, who funded it, and how it was allowed to operate under the radar raises serious national security questions the media refuses to ask. But that’s not all. We also expose a deeply disturbing reality many Americans have never been told. Material derived from aborted fetuses has been used in the development and testing of numerous vaccines. The ethical, moral, and medical implications are staggering. Today on Stinchfield, we connect the dots, cut through the lies, and expose truths powerful institutions desperately want buried.

In this episode, we explore everything from missing teaspoons and land acknowledgments to capital punishment and medieval economic thinking. We examine what everyday shortages reveal about prices and incentives, debate China's use of executions for online scams, and unpack why symbolic gestures like mandatory land acknowledgments often collapse under scrutiny. We're also joined by Andrew Heaton, host of The Political Orphanage podcast, to discuss zero-sum thinking, inequality versus poverty, and why so many economic intuitions still haven't escaped the Dark Ages. Along the way, we look at profit caps, price controls, and the persistent temptation to treat economics like theology rather than systems thinking. 00:00 Introduction and Overview 00:28 Land Acknowledgment 01:30 The Curious Case of the Disappearing Teaspoons 03:31 What Teaspoons Teach Us About Prices and Resources 06:04 China Executes Online Scammers 08:21 When Capital Punishment Expands Too Far 09:51 Foolishness of the Week: Mandatory Land Acknowledgments 13:13 Free Speech, Property Theory, and a Faculty Lawsuit 18:32 Andrew Heaton Joins the Show 21:12 Economics Thinking That Never Escaped the Dark Ages 24:42 Zero-Sum Thinking and the Origins of Envy 27:37 Why Humans Think in Proportions, Not Absolutes 29:53 Inequality vs. Poverty 34:59 Greed, Merchants, and Medieval Economics 37:20 Why Price Controls Never Work 41:08 Theology vs. Economics 42:43 Why Profit Caps Backfire 48:09 Supply and Demand Is Not Optional 51:48 Systems Thinking vs. Witch Hunts 55:01 Why Bad Incentives Create Bad Outcomes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe's Premium Subscription: www.standardgrain.comGrain Markets and Other Stuff Links —Apple PodcastsSpotifyTikTokYouTubeFutures and options trading involves risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone.

As governments cut back on how much they spend on global aid, the head of the Gates Foundation Mark Suzman speaks exclusively to Business Daily about how the world's poorest are being affected. He tells us world governments “should be embarrassed” that the Foundation has overtaken them to become the largest financial backer of the WHO.When governments reduce their air spend, the organisation inevitably becomes more prominent. But is there too much reliance on the Gates Foundation globally for an institution with little democratic accountability? And are its priorities the right ones? If you'd like to get in touch with the team, our email address is businessdaily@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Sam Fenwick Producer: Matt LinesBusiness Daily is the home of in-depth audio journalism devoted to the world of money and work. From small startup stories to big corporate takeovers, global economic shifts to trends in technology, we look at the key figures, ideas and events shaping business.Each episode is a 17-minute deep dive into a single topic, featuring expert analysis and the people at the heart of the story.Recent episodes explore the weight-loss drug revolution, the growth in AI, the cost of living, why bond markets are so powerful, China's property bubble, and Gen Z's experience of the current job market.We also feature in-depth interviews with company founders and some of the world's most prominent CEOs. These include the CEO of Google Sundar Pichai, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and billionaire founder Judy Faulkner of Epic Systems, one of the world's largest medical record software providers.(Picture: Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman speaking at an event in New York City. Credit: Getty Images)

Share a commentThe story starts with a stubborn five-year-old asking God for blue eyes and ends with a sanctuary where hundreds of children found a new birthday. Between those moments lives a fierce kind of obedience that refused to bow to fashion, caste, or fear. We trace Amy Carmichael's arc from an Irish home marked by loss to a calling forged by Scripture—especially Paul's warning that our work will face the fire—and a conviction that “go ye” is a command with a name on it.You'll hear how early mentorship in the Keswick movement and a rejected application to China set the stage for a different path: a brief, painful stint in Japan, then a one-way voyage to India. There, Amy shed European dress, learned Tamil through setbacks, and followed compassion past respectable lines. The turning point arrives with Preena, a child sold to a temple and branded for wanting freedom. When ritual masks brutality, Amy builds a refuge. Donavur becomes a living argument against the caste system and a haven where rescued girls and boys claim a “coming day” as the start of their true lives.The journey isn't tidy. Reports home are “too shocking,” legal threats loom, a board relationship frays, and a fall leaves Amy bedridden for twenty years. Yet the work deepens. From her room, she writes books and poems that still ignite courage: a faith that asks not for softer winds but stronger hearts, a mission that promises only “a chance to die” and somehow gives life. We reflect on what endures—gold, silver, precious stones—and how ordinary choices become extraordinary when tested by fire. If you've ever wondered whether conviction can outlast convention, or how one life can push back on entrenched injustice, this story offers a clear, bracing answer.If this episode moves you, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves true courage, and leave a review telling us the moment that challenged you most.Support the showStephen's latest book, The Disciples Prayer, is available now. https://www.wisdomonline.org/store/view/the-disciples-prayer-hardback

A selection from the 22nd China Fa Conference on Minghui.org. A 92 year old woman from Shandong Province has been practicing Dafa for over 20 years. She has maintained righteous thoughts that have carried her through several life threatening accidents and enabled her to walk freely after being detained by the police many times. At her age she lives in good health and has helped many people understand the truth of Falun Dafa, and to quit the Chinese Communist Party. This and other experience-sharing from the Minghui website.Original Articles:1. China Fahui | At 92, I Devote My Life to Cultivating Myself and Helping Master Save People2. China Fahui | Treasuring My Twenty-Year-Long Cultivation Journey With Elderly Practitioners To provide feedback on this podcast, please email us at feedback@minghuiradio.org

This story sounds like fiction—but it's real, documented, and terrifying. ⚠️ A Chinese Communist Party member, illegally in the U.S., allegedly operated multiple clandestine biolabs—one in rural California and another less than three miles from a major U.S. Air Force base in Las Vegas. Thousands of vials labeled Ebola, COVID, and other pathogens.

❄️ Could the South really see another round of snow flurries? Tara opens with a look at unusual winter weather before pivoting into a sweeping deep dive on politics, power, and accountability.

Xi Jinping has removed yet another senior official from China's Central Military Commission (CMC). After 14 years of eliminating officials, prioritizing loyalty over competence, China's institutions are hollow.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihan

Josh Hammer cuts through the noise surrounding celebrity activism, dismantling the anti-ICE spectacle that unfolded at the Grammys while highlighting polling that continues to show broad public backing for President Trump’s immigration posture. Professor and author Jonathan Turley joins the show to discuss his new book, "Rage and The Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution." Josh also weighs in on the evolving Iran debate as envoy Steve Witkoff travels to the Middle East, unpacking what’s at stake diplomatically and strategically. The episode closes with an examination of Trump’s outreach to India and why strengthening ties with New Delhi matters not just economically, but as a crucial counterweight to China’s growing influence.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.