Convicted Child Sex Offender To Run For Office In California You can already hear some liberals and left-leaning libertarians now:  “He paid for his crime, right?  So what’s the problem? What about the politicians mentioned in the Epstein files…?” But “whataboutism” is not a valid argument for rationalizing societal decay.  And if America isn’t capable of applying the most basic standards at the lowest levels of government, […]

Market Topping Process? Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, As we will discuss further in today’s commentary, the market remains stuck in a fairly narrow trading range. The week opened with a broad selloff after Anthropic’s expanded AI capabilities rattled software, cybersecurity, and financial stocks, with IBM suffering its worst session since 2000. CrowdStrike and Zscaler also dropped about 10% on the […]

Iran Names Interim Successor To Khamenei Under 2nd Day Of Massive Bombs, Trump Demands Regime Change As questions hang over who will ultimately succeed Iran’s slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, an interim leader has been appointed to fulfill his duties. Top Shia cleric Alireza Arafi has been named to the interim Leadership Council after Supreme Leader Khamenei was confirmed killed in US-Israeli strikes, state media […]

‘I Have Agreed To Talk’: Trump Floats Next Steps As Pentagon Confirms First US Troop Deaths Of ‘Operation Epic Fury’ Summary: President Trump said Iran wants to talk and he has agreed to negotiations The Pentagon confirmed three US service members were killed and five seriously wounded in the opening phase of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury campaign against Iran. Congressional leaders have criticized the administration for launching […]

Three Maritime Incidents Reported In Strait Of Hormuz Energy Chokepoint Update (1045ET): The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations reports three maritime incidents in or around the Strait of Hormuz involving commercial vessels. First Incident Second Incident Third Incident Reuters wrote on X, “Tanker owners, oil majors and trading houses suspended oil, fuel and LNG shipments through the Strait of Hormuz after Tehran […]

Germany’s Pension Time Bomb: $2+ Billion In CRE Losses Expose Cracks In The Fiat Era Submitted by Thomas Kolbe, A shock for the insured members of the Versorgungswerk Zahnärzte Berlin-Brandenburg (VZB). According to a report this week by Bloomberg, losses at the private pension fund total €1.1 billion. Roughly 50 percent of its invested capital has effectively been wiped out—channeled into private loans to non-listed […]

Amazon Warns Of “Degraded” AWS Service In UAE After “Power Issues” Amid Middle East Conflict Iran’s retaliatory attack ramped up on Sunday after the U.S.-Israeli Operation Epic Fury killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday morning. Follow-on strikes were reported in Israel, across multiple Gulf states, and maritime incidents affected commercial shipping lanes in and around the Strait of Hormuz. One notable and […]

Tens Of Thousands Stranded Amid Mass Airspace Closures At Mideast Hubs: “It’s Chaos Here” The US State Department is warning all American citizens to exercises extreme caution when traveling abroad amid the ongoing US-Israeli military operation against Iran, which has included two days of heavy bombing aimed at regime change – and which has already resulted in the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some 40 top military leaders. […]

EU Imposes Drastic Tariffs on Chinese Goods: Is A Trade War Looming? Submitted by Thomas Kolbe Tensions in international trade policy are escalating on multiple fronts. After the U.S. Supreme Court initially declared the tariff regime implemented by President Donald Trump since April of last year unlawful, it appears the administration has explored new ways to stabilize its tariff policy going forward. The signs on the […]

85% Of Babies In 2026 Will Be Born In Asia And Africa In 2026, 85% of babies worldwide will be born in just two continents: Asia and Africa. Where someone is born can shape everything from access to education and healthcare to long-term economic opportunity. This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, shows how global births are distributed across continents, based on population projections from the United Nations. Asia […]

AI Boom And European Bond Markets: A Deep Dive Submitted by Thomas Kolbe The “credit pump” could rightfully claim its place as a symbolic flag of the European Union. With virtually unlimited access to the bond market, politics magically transforms an inexhaustible credit stream into political maneuvers and ideological wizardry. Through this manipulation of money, processes and institutions are transplanted into the real world […]

Germany To Scrap Subsidy For Rooftop Solar Germany is planning to abolish fixed feed-in tariffs for small rooftop solar installations as of 2027, saying that falling costs have made the technology economically sound without subsidies (narrator: “it isn’t”), Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing a draft proposal for reforms it has seen. At present, rooftop solar installations of any kind are eligible for guaranteed tariffs. But […]

In Sensational Ruling, Court Prohibits German State From Classifying AfD As A “Confirmed Right-Wing Extremist” Organization Authored by ‘eugyppius’, Old friends may remember the farce we experienced last May, when outgoing Marshmallow Interior Minister Nancy Faeser pushed her gaggle of goons in the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) to upgrade their political classification of Alternative für […]

After The Iran Attack, Is Bitcoin Giving A “Green Light” Ahead Of Monday’s Market Open The first time Iran found itself in a major regional war with Donald Trump about to enter the White House, was April 13, 2024 when as part of escalating tensions with Israel, “Iran began an attack on Israel by launching dozens of suicide drones” on April 13, 2024. That said, it is s stretch to call that particular weapons exchange war, as both […]

What A Taiwan Invasion Would Cost China Authored by Antonio Graceffo via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Shortly after meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping in late October, President Donald Trump said China would never attack Taiwan while he is president because Chinese officials “know the consequences.” While support from the United States is welcome news for Taiwan, Trump’s words raise a real […]

The Transatlantic Divide In Language Learning The benefits of learning a foreign language are extensive and go way beyond the ability to converse with people from other countries. Speaking a second language broadens the horizon, takes the guesswork out of restaurant orders on vacation and even makes the Super Bowl Halftime Show more enjoyable. It has professional benefits as well, as multilingualism is a much sought-after […]

Fed Plans To Release Sweeping Bank‑Capital Rule By Late March: Top Regulator Authored by Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Long-awaited banking regulation—also known as the Basel III Endgame framework—will be released next month, said the Federal Reserve’s top banking regulator. Michelle Bowman, vice chair for supervision of the Federal Reserve Board, in Washington on July 22, 2025. Ken Cedeno/Reuters Fed […]

Epstein Had More Female Accomplices: Some Were Masquerading As Victims Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, New revelations from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna expose Jeffrey Epstein’s network as a sophisticated honeypot operation likely tied to foreign intelligence, designed to compromise powerful figures through sex trafficking and blackmail. Luna, leading the congressional probe, asserts the scandal runs deeper than […]

Iranian State TV Belatedly Confirms Death Of Ayatollah Khamenei Iranian state TV confirms the Supreme Leader’s death… as well as the deaths of his daughter, son-in-law, grandson, and daughter-in-law. Iranian state media confirms the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and announces 40 days of mourning, 7 days of public holiday pic.twitter.com/eiV5a9Qo7Y — Nicole Grajewski (@NicoleGrajewski) March 1, 2026 What comes the day after? […]

If You’re Freaking Out About A Future Jobless AI Dystopia… Amid an armada of dystopian futurists, projecting linear thoughts into a future of ‘AI uber alles’, Marc Andreessen stands as a beacon of potential utopian light, seeing a future that looks very different and very positive for young and old alike. In a brief few minutes, the co-founder of Netscape and VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) believes instead that we are […]

What War With Iran Could Mean For Markets Monday Tl;dr: Bloomberg macro strategist, Michael Ball, warned that President Trump’s urging of Iranians to overthrow the government gives Saturday’s US and Israeli strikes on Iran the potential to usher in a more prolonged higher-volatility era rather than being a one-off tradeable shock. Traders will be closely watching for updates on crude production and shipping disruptions, and […]

“Tone Down My Opinions”: Police Visit Maryland Man Over Facebook Rage Posts About Soaring Power Bill A Baltimore County, Maryland resident in a Facebook group called “BGE Victims,” which has 22,000 Marylanders venting about the power bill crisis, revealed earlier this week that a Baltimore County Police detective “paid [him] a visit” over posts in the online group that allegedly threatened “the parasites of BGE and the grid […]

US Again Demands Iraq End Maliki Nomination, Or Else Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com, Iraq’s Coordination Framework is still putting forward Nouri al-Maliki as its candidate for prime minister, despite President Trump loudly and repeatedly demand he be withdrawn. The US had reportedly set a deadline of Friday, February 27, to end the candidacy or face unspecified repercussions. What happens next, after the US has attacked […]

Iran Says US-Israeli Attack Hit Elementary School, Killing 85+ Girls Via Middle East Eye At least 85 people, almost all of them young girls, have been killed in an air strike on a primary school in southern Iran, the Iranian judiciary said. The attack on Saturday morning hit Shajareh Tayyebeh schoolin the city of Minab, in Hormozgan province, as the United States and Israel began launching strikes on targets across Iran. The […]

DOE Announces $171 Million For Geothermal Expansion The DOE released a Notice of Funding Opportunity offering up to $171.5 million for next-generation geothermal field tests and resource exploration.  The program targets field-scale demonstrations of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) for electricity generation, along with drilling to characterize and confirm hydrothermal and next-gen prospects nationwide. The funding splits […]