Violence broke out in the northern England city of Leeds late this week with rioters overturning a police car and setting a double-decker bus on fire.
The riot is thought to have broken out after social services took four children away from a family in Harehills, an inner city area, at around 5pm on Thursday.
People in the Harehills area were urged to stay at home as officers were called to Luxor Street at about 5pm due to an “ongoing disturbance” involving agency workers and children, which was described as a “family matter”.
While the children were moved to a safe place, crowds gathered and the situation escalated, with objects thrown at police.
Shocking videos posted on social media showed a police car being toppled – before being attacked by people wielding a scooter, a pram and a bike – and a double-decker bus torched as multiple fires were set along the street.
“The politics of the subcontinent are currently playing out on the streets of Leeds. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Lee Anderson, the Reform MP for Ashfield, echoed Mr Farage’s argument on Friday morning as he condemned the “disgraceful scenes”.
“Import a third world culture, then you get third world behaviour,” he said.
“These animals need locking up for good. They are a product of our spineless namby-pamby establishment who have betrayed our great country.”
West Yorkshire Police said the disorder was “instigated by a criminal minority intent on disrupting community relations”, urging residents not to speculate on the cause.
As Paul Joseph Watson explains below, the UK experienced yet another taste of what ‘diversity being our greatest strength’ looks like in reality last night…
Two-and-a-half years after Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to overhaul Germany’s military, his government’s proposed budget for 2025 calls for only a modest increase in defense spending.
With the war in Ukraine grinding on, Russia continuing to saber-rattle and Donald J. Trump gaining momentum for a return to the White House, Germany has been under increasing pressure from its allies to step into a more robust security role.
To live up to that pledge, Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister, had asked for an increase of 6.7 billion, or $7.3 billion, over the 52 billion euros, or nearly $57 billion, in this year’s budget. He was given only 1.2 billion. The shortfall deepened concerns that Mr. Scholz’s unpopular government lacks the will or political backing to push Germans to overcome their historical reluctance to take the lead militarily since the calamity of World War II.
The budget, which has to pass Parliament before being adopted, also proposes that Germany cut its military aid to Ukraine by half in 2025.
Germany is the second largest contributor to Ukraine. That contribution will be cut in half.
Senator J.D. Vance, Trump’s Vice President running mate, is an open critic of aid to Ukraine.
Trump won’t care much about the cut to Ukraine other than to welcome it. But expect an immediate confrontation over Germany’s military spending and contribution to NATO.
Debt Brakes and Treaty Requirements About to Smash the EU
In addition to the Excessive Debt Proceedings against many countries, every EU county has defense spending issues, climate spending issues, and demographic issues as shown in the lead chart.
Highly indebted EU countries with debt levels over 90% of GDP have to reduce their debt ratio by one percentage point annually, countries
Additionally, the general government deficit — the shortfall between government revenue and spending — must be kept below 3%.
According to the commission’s economic forecast, France is at -5.5%, Italy is at -4.4% and Belgium is at -4.4% and will breach this deficit limit in 2024.
Austria, Finland, Estonia, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia also have deficits that are too high according to the rules. Spain is at exactly -3.0%.
France in the Crosshairs of Budget and Debt Rules
France is in the immediate crosshairs of EU deficit rules and debt rules.
The assessments of the 27 EU states’ budgets and economies will be published by the European Commission on Wednesday, with France, Italy and Belgium among the member states to be reprimanded over their accumulated excessive new debt.
The Commission said it was satisfied that “the opening of a deficit-based excessive deficit procedure is warranted” in the case of seven countries. The group also included Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia.
The EU suspended debt and deficit regulations to help countries cope with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The rules are now back in place and now any EU country going over debt and deficit limits run the risk of legal action.
In the future, various longer-term challenges are likely to exert pressure on public finances in the euro area. On top of the existing fiscal burdens – as reflected in the high debt ratios in a number of euro area countries, which were exacerbated by the pandemic and the subsequent energy crisis – there are several important longer-term challenges for fiscal dynamics. This article starts by reviewing some of the most important challenges and discussing their fiscal relevance, with a focus on demographic ageing (Section 2), the end of the “peace dividend” (Section 3), digitalisation (Section 4) and climate change (Section 5). Acknowledging the uncertainties surrounding any quantification of these challenges, Section 6 then presents some tentative – purely indicative – estimates of the additional fiscal effort that could be required to ensure the long-term sustainability of public finances in the presence of such developments. The implications of digitalisation are excluded from that exercise, given the particular uncertainty that surrounds their quantification. Section 7 then provides some concluding remarks.
Cumulative Impact
Achieving a government debt-to-GDP ratio of 60% by 2070 from today’s debt levels would require euro area governments to immediately and permanently increase their primary balances by 2% of GDP on average.
Moreover, additional fiscal burdens may well emerge in the medium term. For instance, the model-based simulations used in this article exclude the digitalisation gap, the long-term implications of which are still hard to grasp. Furthermore, one does not need to go back very far in time to find a large fiscal shock appearing out of the blue: the euro area’s government debt-to-GDP ratio increased by a total of 13 percentage points in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the simulation of climate change is based on simplified assumptions and on the unlikely premise that limiting global warming to 1.5°C is still feasible. It also does not capture the impact of societal repercussions (such as conflict), tipping points or macroeconomic effects (such as changes to prices and productivity). This suggests that there could be substantial additional fiscal costs associated with climate change.
Fiscal Costs of the End of the “Peace Dividend”
After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, all NATO members agreed to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense.
Germany and France have reduced their spending from over 4% of GDP to less than 2% today.
Expect Major Trumpian Confrontation Fireworks
Macron wants an EU army and more support for Ukraine. But that will not happen because France is under severe budget constraints.
Germany can afford to spend more and pledged to do more, yet refuses to do so. Trump rates to be more than a little irate.
Expect fireworks because they are coming. And those defense spending fireworks will be on top of tariff fireworks.
Meanwhile, Back in the States a Recession has Started
Ultra Processed Foods Make Up 2/3rds Of Diet For Kids In Britain, New Study Reveals
Two thirds of the calories children in Britain are getting are coming from “ultra processed” foods, new research suggests.
Ultra-processed foods include ice cream, processed meats, chips, mass-produced bread, breakfast cereals, biscuits and sodas. They make up a “significant proportion” of the diet of kids 11 to 18, according to the Independent.
These foods have been linked to increase risk of obesity and heart disease, the report notes, due to their high levels of saturated far, salt and sugar additives.
The Independent reported that ultra-processed foods often contain additives like preservatives, emulsifiers, and artificial colors and flavors that are not commonly used in home cooking.
A study, published in the European Journal of Nutrition by the University of Cambridge and the University of Bristol analyzed four-day food diaries from nearly 3,000 children aged 11 to 18, from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey between 2008 and 2019.
The study found that UPFs made up 66% of daily energy intake, averaging 861 grams per day. However, UPF consumption dropped from 67.7% to 62.8% over this period, possibly due to health campaigns and the UK Government’s sugar tax. Data beyond 2019 was not included.
“Adolescents’ food patterns and practices are influenced by many factors, including their home environment, the marketing they are exposed to and the influence of their friends and peers,” commented study author Dr Yanaina Chavez-Ugalde.
She continued: “But adolescence is also an important time in our lives where behaviours begin to become ingrained.”
“It’s clear from our findings that ultra-processed foods make up the majority of adolescents’ diets, and their consumption is at a much higher level than is ideal, given their potential negative health impacts,” she said.
Study author Dr. Esther van Sluijs concluded: “Ultra-processed foods offer convenient and often cheaper solutions to time and income-poor families, but unfortunately many of these foods also offer poor nutritional value.”
“This could be contributing to the inequalities in health we see emerging across childhood and adolescence.”
Belarusian Foreign Minister Maksim Ryzhenkov revealed earlier this week that Poland rebuffed his country’s proposal to resolve their border problems, which followed President Aleksandr Lukashenko declaring earlier in the month that he won’t order the border service to protect the EU from migrants.
According to the Belarusian leader, it was the West that scrapped cooperation with his country, not the inverse.
Here are five relevant news items about these official statements for the reader’s interest:
It’s worthwhile pointing out that Belarus’ proposal called for Poland “to send to Belarus any Polish delegation, any Polish experts, specialists, representatives of the country’s authorities” to jointly investigate alleged migrant training camps and corrupt law enforcement officers.
Poland’s refusal led to Belarus suspecting that Warsaw actually intends to exploit the situation in order to build a new Iron Curtain.
This aligns with the insight that was shared over the past few months in these five analyses:
Belarus is at the very least turning a blind eye towards civilizationally dissimilar migrants illegally crossing the border with Poland as revenge for Warsaw’s support of summer 2020’s failed Color Revolution and continued hosting of anti-government militants. It might even be doing more than that according to Western media reports, however, which is why it’s odd that Poland declined to send any of its representatives to Belarus in order to investigate.
The Poles might have thought that they’d be taken on a “Potemkin tour” and that everything would be cleaned up before they got there since their itinerary would have to be agreed upon in advance, though there are also sensitive political dimensions to this that evade most observers’ attention. Any agreement to carry out joint work with Belarus in any capacity would lend legitimacy to its national authorities who Warsaw has considered to be “illegitimate” since summer 2020’s elections.
Seeing as how Poland has presented itself as NATO’s vanguard state against Russia (and its Union State partner of Belarus by extension), this would represent a noticeable break in Western unity driven by national interests, which could demoralize the West and also possibly risk a domino effect. Even if Poland went through with it and the consequences were manageable, no solution would likely be achieved until Warsaw recognizes Lukashenko’s re-election and stops hosting anti-government militants.
The Polish elite have no interest in complying with these implied demands even though they’re required to resolve the illegal immigrant crisis, hence why Belarus is right to suspect that it has ulterior motives in rebuffing the latest cooperation proposal in order to build a new Iron Curtain. Ultimately, Poland is sacrificing its national interests in pursuit of what its leadership considers to be the “greater good” of the US-led West as a whole, which reflects very poorly on its policymakers’ wisdom.
To be sure, these same policymakers believe that their national interests are indeed aligned with the US-led West’s in terms of retaining a united front against Russia and Belarus, but that’s arguably a misguided perception that’s responsible for subordinating Poland to Germany as explained here. The problem is that there isn’t any truly patriotic force with policymaking influence at the national level which prioritizes the pursuit of Polish interests over perceived collective ones even at the latter’s possible expense.
Until that changes, and there’s no telling when or even if that’ll even happen, the illegal immigrant crisis will continue since Belarus has no other means of asymmetrically responding to Poland’s failed Color Revolution attempt four years ago and continued hosting of anti-government militants. That’s not even to mention Poland’s unprecedented military buildup, which includes hosting more NATO forces than ever before, all of which has worsened their security dilemma and toxified ties between them.
Saturday’s attempted assassination of President Trump killed one rallygoer, a father of two who died shielding his children from the assassin, and critically wounded two others. President Trump miraculously escaped with a slight wound in one ear, and in the photo of the century, he stood up from under the swarm of secret service agents, literally bloody but unbowed, raised his right hand in a fist, and mouthed, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Some of Mr. Trump’s partisan critics attacked Mr. Trump’s “violent rhetoric.”
We do not know, and may never know, whether the murderer perceived that he was simply following an order from his Commander in Chief.
It is time to man up, stop blaming others, and figure out what we ourselves have done or not done that made this attack and the inciting rhetoric that led to it possible. The hard truth is that it is our weakness, not our extremism or our own “violent rhetoric,” that invited this attack.
The regime media from the top down, in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Republic, on television and on social media, have repeatedly called Mr. Trump a fascist, compared him to Hitler, and called for his elimination from the race by any means necessary.
We know that nothing Mr. Trump did or said, and nothing we, his partisans, have done or said, can be called the true cause of this kind of talk. We know that because the same outlets said the same kinds of things about other Republican leaders, from Thomas Dewey to Mitt Romney.
Democrats talk this way about Republicans because they are not afraid of the consequences of talking that way. The party that banned God from the schoolroom and forbade public worship has no fear of God, who sees and punishes the deceitful, and has no fear of us. They believe, correctly, that they can, without fear of us, delegitimize elections by effectively licensing fraud and intimidation of voters, and that they can turn mobs on synagogue-goers and conservative speakers. Too many Democrats live their lives in media, public “service,” nonprofit or academic echo chambers in which everyone either amens such transgressions or is silenced by fear of violence or corporate HR.
Ignore the hysterics about “violent rhetoric.” Politics is about violence, about the control and deployment of the force of the community for the ends of the community. Free and fair elections, free discussion, and even the right of the people to peaceably assemble come not from rhetorical or actual disarmament. These necessary features of free government come from a balance of terror that produces mutual fear and, thus, mutual respect.
Sadly, in western countries, including the United States, that balance of terror does not exist. MAGA may have guns, but our anti-populist, that is to say anti-democratic rivals, have the secret police, the intelligence services, and, when necessary, Antifa, the stormtroopers of the woke capital, ever ready at the nod of the authorities or the regime media to target peaceful opposition.
We who fear God have to be better than them, but that also means we have to be at least as frightening as them.
It is better to fight it out with violent rhetoric and ballots than with bullets, but that is only possible, Malcolm X explains, as long as every side fears what their rivals could do should they become enemies.
Yes, my friends, we have to fight. We have to fight for the right to speak and to be heard, for the right to rally for our candidates and our beliefs, and for the right to wear a red hat in every corner of this great land.
The only way that we can maintain our right to fight this “campaign” without resorting to actual violence is to frighten our rivals into refraining from violence, even when they know that the media and “authorities” will take their side.
In this struggle, there is no substitute for courage, but there is also no substitute for brains about when and how to show fight. Our situation is not yet desperate, and to make sure it never becomes so, we must manifest both menace and discipline.
Distraction? Blinken Says Iran Just 1-2 Weeks Away From Producing Material For A Nuclear Weapon
A well-timed distraction? Or is it real this time? The White House says Iran is on the verge of being nuclear weapons capable.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Friday that the Islamic Republic will have enough enriched uranium for producing fissile material to achieve a nuclear weapon within just “one or two weeks.”
“Iran, because the nuclear agreement was thrown out, instead of being at least a year away from having the breakout capacity of producing fissile material for a nuclear weapon, is now probably one or two weeks away from doing that,” Blinken said at a forum in Colorado.
He did add a caveat, saying there’s as yet no evidence Iran is actively pursuing a nuke at this point; however, the timing is interesting given the White House crisis of Biden’s reelection bid, as well as the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address Congress next week.
“What we need to see, if Iran is serious about engaging, is actually pulling back on the work that it’s been doing on his program,” Blinken continued.
“Second, we have been maximizing pressure on Iran across the board. We’ve imposed more than 600 sanctions on Iranian persons and entities. We haven’t lifted a single sanction,” he said.
And yet the irony here is that clearly the sanctions haven’t worked. While Biden and Democrats in general had long ago been frequent critics of Trump’s prior “maximum pressure” campaign, in reality little has changed.
Blinken still touted the Biden admin’s record on Iran at the Aspen Security Forum, describing, “When this administration came in, we tried to pursue again, nuclear diplomacy with Iran, because if you could at least take one problem off the board, which is Iran potentially with a nuclear weapon, that’s inherently a good thing.”
The White House says it has still been wielding a big stick, particularly in light of the Gaza crisis and the prior Israeli massive attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus which sent tensions spiraling.
Axios reported earlier this week that the Biden admin’s behind the scenes pressure campaign has yielded limited results:
The U.S. officials said the Iranians came back with a response that included explanations for these nuclear activities, stressing there has been no change in policy and they are not working on a nuclear weapon.
The exchange of messages and other information obtained by the U.S. and Israel addressed some of the concerns and somewhat eased anxieties over the Iranian research and development activities, U.S. and Israeli officials said.
A U.S. official said that the message the U.S. sent to the Iranians was effective, but added there are still significant concerns about the Iranian nuclear program.
Iran has grown bolder in its declarations of late, and so all of the above doesn’t actually sound like “effective” diplomacy.
JUST IN: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Iran is “probably one or two weeks away” from getting their hands on a nuclear weapon.
The comment ‘ironically’ came at the same time as Rep. Michael Waltz said Trump’s would-be assas*in Thomas Crooks had “3 encrypted overseas… pic.twitter.com/IqCQjfYbcp
Without doubt, Iranian leadership is watching the US presidential race closely, given that a potential future Trump administration will be stacked with Iran hawks, as was the first.
Israel has meanwhile vowed preemptive attack if its intelligence believes Tehran is bent on developing a nuke, and if it is on the threshold. At the same time, critics of Netanyahu have alleged his hawkish position is rooted in political survival, like with his hardline Gaza policies.
An International Man lives and does business wherever he finds conditions most advantageous, regardless of arbitrary borders. He’s diversified globally, with passports from multiple countries, assets in several jurisdictions, and his residence in yet another. He doesn’t depend absolutely on any country and regards all of them as competitors for his capital and expertise.
Living as an international man has always been an interesting possibility. But few Americans opted for it, since the U.S. used to reward those who settled in and put down roots. In fact, it rewarded them better than any other country in the world, so there was no pressing reason to become an international man.
Things change, however, and being rooted like a plant – at least if you have a choice – is a suboptimal strategy if you wish to not only survive, but prosper. Throughout history, almost every place has at some point become dangerous for those who were stuck there. It may be America’s turn.
For those who can take up the life of an international man, it’s no longer just an interesting lifestyle decision. It has become, at a minimum, an asset saver, and it could be a lifesaver. That said, I understand the hesitation you may feel about taking action; pulling up one’s roots (or at least grafting some of them to a new location) can be almost as traumatic to a man as to a vegetable.
As any intelligent observer surveys the world’s economic and political landscape, he has to be disturbed – even dismayed and a bit frightened – by the gravity and number of problems that mark the horizon. We’re confronted by economic depression, looming financial chaos, serious currency inflation, onerous taxation, crippling regulation, a developing police state, and, worst of all, the prospect of a major war. It seems almost unbelievable that all these things could affect the U.S., which historically has been the land of the free.
How did we get here? An argument can be made that things went bad because of miscalculation, accident, inattention, and the like. Those elements have had a role, but it is minor. Potential catastrophe across the board can’t be the result of happenstance. When things go wrong on a grand scale, it’s not just bad luck or inadvertence. It’s because of serious character flaws in one or many – or even all – of the players.
So is there a root cause of all the problems I’ve cited?
If we can find it, it may tell us how we personally can best respond to the problems.
In this article, I’m going to argue that the U.S. government, in particular, has been overrun by the wrong kind of person.
It’s a trend that’s been in motion for many years but has now reached a point of no return. In other words, a type of moral rot has become so prevalent that it’s institutional in nature. There is not going to be, therefore, any serious change in the direction in which the U.S. is headed until a genuine crisis topples the existing order. Until then, the trend will accelerate.
The reason is that a certain class of people – sociopaths – are now fully in control of major American institutions.
Their beliefs and attitudes are insinuated throughout the economic, political, intellectual, and psychological/spiritual fabric of the U.S.
What does this mean to you, as an individual? It depends on your character.
Are you the kind of person who supports “my country, right or wrong,” as did most Germans in the 1930s and 1940s? Or the kind who dodges the duty to be a helpmate to murderers? The type of passenger who goes down with the ship? Or the type who puts on his vest and looks for a lifeboat? The type of individual who supports the merchants who offer the fairest deal? Or the type who is gulled by splashy TV commercials?
What the ascendancy of sociopaths means isn’t an academic question. Throughout history, the question has been a matter of life and death. That’s one reason America grew; every American (or any ex-colonial) has forebears who confronted the issue and decided to uproot themselves to go somewhere with better prospects. The losers were those who delayed thinking about the question until the last minute.
I have often described myself, and those I prefer to associate with, as gamma rats. You may recall the ethologist’s characterization of the social interaction of rats as being between a few alpha rats and many beta rats, the alpha rats being dominant and the beta rats submissive. In addition, a small percentage are gamma rats that stake out prime territory and mates, like the alphas, but are not interested in dominating the betas. The people most inclined to leave for the wide world outside and seek fortune elsewhere are typically gamma personalities.
You may be thinking that what happened in places like Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and scores of other countries in recent history could not, for some reason, happen in the U.S. Actually, there’s no reason it won’t at this point. All the institutions that made America exceptional – including a belief in capitalism, individualism, self-reliance, and the restraints of the Constitution – are now only historical artifacts.
On the other hand, the distribution of sociopaths is completely uniform across both space and time.
Per capita, there were no more evil people in Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China, Amin’s Uganda, Ceausescu’s Romania, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia than there are today in the U.S. All you need is favorable conditions for them to bloom, much as mushrooms do after a rainstorm.
Conditions for them in the U.S. are becoming quite favorable. Have you ever wondered where the 50,000 people employed by the TSA to inspect and degrade you came from? Most of them are middle-aged. Did they have jobs before they started doing something that any normal person would consider demeaning? Most did, but they were attracted to – not repelled by – a job where they wear a costume and abuse their fellow citizens all day.
Few of them can imagine that they’re shepherding in a police state as they play their roles in security theater.(A reinforced door on the pilots’ cabin is probably all that’s actually needed, although the most effective solution would be to hold each airline responsible for its own security and for the harm done if it fails to protect passengers and third parties.) But the 50,000 newly employed are exactly the same type of people who joined the Gestapo – eager to help in the project of controlling everyone. Nobody was drafted into the Gestapo.
What’s going on here is an instance of Pareto’s Law. That’s the 80-20 rule that tells us, for example, that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your salesmen or that 20% of the population are responsible for 80% of the crime.
As I see it, 80% of people are basically decent; their basic instincts are to live by the Boy Scout virtues. 20% of people, however, are what you might call potential trouble sources, inclined toward doing the wrong thing when the opportunity presents itself. They might now be shoe clerks, mailmen, or waitresses – they seem perfectly benign in normal times. They play baseball on weekends and pet the family dog. However, given the chance, they will sign up for the Gestapo, the Stasi, the KGB, the TSA, Homeland Security, or whatever. Many seem well intentioned, but are likely to favor force as the solution to any problem.
But it doesn’t end there, because 20% of that 20% are really bad actors. They are drawn to government and other positions where they can work their will on other people and, because they’re enthusiastic about government, they rise to leadership positions. They remake the culture of the organizations they run in their own image. Gradually, non-sociopaths can no longer stand being there. They leave. Soon the whole barrel is full of bad apples. That’s what’s happening today in the U.S.
It’s a pity that Bush, when he was in office, made such a big deal of evil. He discredited the concept. He made Boobus americanus think it only existed in a distant axis, in places like North Korea, Iraq and Iran, which were and still are irrelevant backwaters and arbitrarily chosen enemies. Bush trivialized the concept of evil and made it seem banal because he was such a fool. All the while, real evil, very immediate and powerful, was growing right around him, and he lacked the awareness to see he was fertilizing it by turning the U.S. into a national security state after 9/11.
Now, I believe, it’s out of control.
The U.S. is already in a truly major depression and on the edge of financial chaos and a currency meltdown.
The sociopaths in government will react by redoubling the pace toward a police state domestically and starting a major war abroad. To me, this is completely predictable. It’s what sociopaths do.
* * *
A big part of any strategy to reduce your political risk is to place some of your savings outside the immediate reach of the thieving bureaucrats in your home country. Obtaining a foreign bank account is a convenient way to do just that. That way, your savings cannot be easily confiscated, frozen, or devalued at the drop of a hat or with a couple of taps on the keyboard. In the event capital controls are imposed, a foreign bank account will help ensure that you have access to your money when you need it the most.
In short, your savings in a foreign bank will largely be safe from any madness in your home country. Despite what you may hear, having a foreign bank account is completely legal and is not about tax evasion or other illegal activities. It’s simply about legally diversifying your political risk by putting your liquid savings in sound, well-capitalized institutions where they’re treated best. We recently released a comprehensive free guide where we discuss our favorite foreign banks and jurisdictions, including, crucially, those that still accept Americans as clients and allow them to open accounts remotely for small minimums. New York Times best-selling author Doug Casey and his team describe how you can do it all from home. And there’s still time to get it done without extraordinary cost or effort. Click here to download the PDF now.
Illegal Alien TikToker Who Urged Migrants To Invade US Homes Reportedly Worked For Venezuela’s Military Intel
Millions of Americans were disgusted when they learned earlier this year that an illegal alien used TikTok to inform other migrants how to “invade” unoccupied homes across America and take advantage of progressive squatter laws.
We noted at the time, “The Marxist destruction of private property rights is on full display after a viral video circulating TikTok, then posted on X, shows a migrant informing other migrants how to “invade” unoccupied …”
Remember this idiot?
Remember the ILLEGAL who encouraged squatting in US homes? Turns out, he’s a (former) sergeant in Venezuela’s military intelligence unit named Leonel Moreno. pic.twitter.com/UCa5RBUneG
The good news is that in March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested the illegal alien who goes by the name “Leonel Moreno.”
And now, time for the bad news: Since Moreno’s arrest, US intel officers have found the illegal alien was a sergeant in Venezuela’s military intelligence unit before he invaded the US southern border, the New York Post reports, citing a Homeland Security source.
It’s believed Moreno illegally entered the US through Eagle Pass, Texas, on April 23, 2022, and was released into the country with no proper vetting. He intentionally skipped check-ins with ICE.
Here’s more from NYPost:
Information from foreign countries is often hard to come by for border agents trying to protect the country from potential threats.
When it comes to Venezuela, the task is nearly impossible because the government there is unwilling to communicate with US authorities, several Border Patrol sources have told The Post.
The issue with Moreno is that many others like him are still running amok across this nation, unvetted and lost by the incompetent federal government overseen by the Biden administration. This risk has been repeatedly highlighted by former President Trump, Elon Musk, and many others who have warned Biden’s disastrous open southern border policies are flooding the nation with military-aged men.
Meanwhile, we were the first to report in early March about the Iranian assassin roaming the US and possibly plotting assassination attacks against former and current government officials. This is still a very real and active threat.
Since the beginning of 2023, no one has given more to political causes than Timothy Mellon. Through the first five months of 2024, Mr. Mellon gave more than $115 million to various Republican candidates for federal office and conservative causes.
Brendan Glavin, deputy research director at money-in-politics watchdog OpenSecrets, told The Epoch Times what makes Mr. Mellon’s millions so odd is the apparent lack of desire for attention attached to the gifts.
“When you are making these contributions … it gives you access, it makes you a player,” Mr. Glavin said of the typical so-called megadonor. “It creates a situation where you know people are going to cater to you because they want your money.”
Despite this, Mr. Mellon can only be found in donor records.
The recipients of his money and his associates often decline to speak about the 81-year-old investor, who apparently lives close to Saratoga, Wyoming. He’s hard to reach. Even biographers writing about his influential family can’t get a word from him.
The Epoch Times attempted to reach Mr. Mellon through his publisher, a public relations firm who represented him in the past, associates who said they read his book, the Mellon family foundation, and through organizations he regularly supports.
Old Money
Timothy Mellon is an heir to the Mellon family fortune. Forbes estimates the entire group of descendants of Irish immigrant Thomas Mellon is worth more than $14.1 billion.
The family’s wealth dates back to the 19th century and its name is attached to companies such as The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University. Timothy Mellon’s grandfather, Andrew Mellon, and his father, Paul Mellon, were instrumental in the foundation of the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
As the U.S. treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon served from 1921 to 1932 under Republican Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.
Timothy Mellon founded a privately held transportation company—Guilford Transportation Industries—in 1981, which acquired several New England-area railways. In 1998, Guilford paid $24.5 million for the name and assets of the airline Pan American World Systems and renamed itself Pan Am Systems. In 2020, that company was purchased by CSX Corp. for an undisclosed amount.
Mr. Mellon also sat on the board of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation from 1981 to 2002. Maggie Slowey, a spokeswoman for the foundation, told The Epoch Times, “Neither Tim Mellon nor any other family member has any current connection to the Foundation nor have they, in recent years, played a significant role in the Foundation’s giving strategy or day-to-day operations.”
Mr. Glavin said Mr. Mellon is the only eight-figure political donor of this cycle to come from so-called old money. Most others, he said, have made their fortunes as investors or entrepreneurs relatively recently.
Liberal commentator and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has called Mr. Mellon “the poster child” for the perils of generational wealth in America.
“Timothy Mellon … is the product of a tax system pioneered by his grandfather that allows the perpetuation of dynastic wealth and the maintenance of its political power,” Mr. Reich wrote on his blog in February.
Representatives of Mr. Reich did not respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.
Silent Partner
In 2024, Mr. Mellon is drawing attention for simultaneously bankrolling the presidential campaigns of former President Donald Trump and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
On May 31, the day after the 45th president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee was convicted of multiple felonies in New York, Mr. Mellon sent a $50 million check to Make America Great Again Inc., the super political action committee (PAC) that’s backing former President Trump’s campaign.
Representatives of MAGA Inc. declined to comment, citing the group’s policy not to comment on donors.
Mr. Glavin said the $50 million contribution was one of the largest in American history. Donor records indicate it is the biggest single gift of Mr. Mellon’s federal giving career.
Mr. Mellon’s May donation brought his overall support for MAGA Inc. since the beginning of 2022 to $76.5 million, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records. He is currently the PAC’s biggest individual sponsor.
Federal records show Mr. Mellon also gave $20 million to the Trump-supporting super PAC America First Action Inc. in 2020.
Additionally, since the beginning of 2023, Mr. Mellon has donated $25 million to American Values 2024. The hybrid PAC is helping Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Mellon is also the biggest individual backer of the PAC.
Democrats see this connection as clear evidence that Mr. Mellon is backing Mr. Kennedy exclusively to foil President Joe Biden’s reelection effort. In a March release, Alex Floyd, the Democratic National Committee’s Rapid Response Director, called RFK Jr. a “stalking horse to help Trump return to the White House.”
Mr. Glavin agreed with the Democratic analysis, saying he believes the funding is a “tactical move” to help former President Trump’s chances in November.
In a May 26 interview with host Brian Tyler Cohen, Mr. Kennedy said he’d met Mr. Mellon twice.
“Here’s what I believe from talking to Tim Mellon: I think Tim Mellon would prefer me to be president,” Mr. Kennedy said in the interview. “If I’m not going to be president, then he would prefer President Trump to President Biden.”
Deep Mellon–Kennedy Connections
The Mellon family’s links to the Kennedys stretch back to the 1960s.
According to author Meryl Gordon’s 2017 book, “Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend,” Timothy Mellon’s mother, Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, was a friend of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s uncle President John F. Kennedy. Bunny Mellon redesigned the White House Rose Garden during his presidency.
Ms. Gordon told The Epoch Times that Mr. Mellon declined to be among the hundreds interviewed for the book.
Much of what is known about Mr. Mellon comes from a self-published 2016 autobiography, “panam.captain,” that is no longer publicly available. Skyhorse Publishing is due to publish a new version of “panam.captain” in July.
At some point after June 2020, when The Washington Post published an article claiming Mr. Mellon used “racial stereotypes to describe African Americans,” the book was scrubbed from the internet. The Epoch Times cannot independently verify the newspaper’s claims about the book’s content.
According to screenshots of the book’s website captured when it was still live, “panam.captain” could be purchased with a donation to groups apparently picked by Mr. Mellon. None of the groups Mr. Mellon solicited donations for—Hillsdale College, the Pan Am Historical Foundation, and Landmark Legal Foundation—responded to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.
Since its foundation in 2006, the New York-based imprint has published numerous books by and about Mr. Kennedy and others associated with the non-profit organization Children’s Health Defense. Skyhorse’s “panam.captain” will feature a quote from Mr. Kennedy on its front cover.
Skyhorse President Tony Lyons co-founded American Values. In FEC filings, Mr. Lyons is listed as the group’s treasurer.
Furthermore, three of the six reviewers of “panam.captain,” listed on the Skyhorse website, are connected to either Children’s Health Defense or American Values. Mr. Kennedy, the group’s founder; Mary Holland, the group’s CEO; and Gavin de Becker, founder of private security firm Gavin de Becker & Associates, all provided quotes in praise of Mr. Mellon and the book.
According to federal records, Mr. de Becker is the second-largest sponsor of American Values behind Mr. Mellon. His firm is also providing security for Mr. Kennedy during his presidential run. As of the end of May, Mr. de Becker had sent $14 million to American Values since the beginning of 2023.
“These pages reveal Tim Mellon’s open-mindedness in action—and show that it’s possible to resist tribalism,” Mr. de Becker’s review said.
Mr. de Becker declined to comment further about Mr. Mellon. Representatives of Children’s Health Defense and the Kennedy campaign did not respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.
The Power of Money
According to donation data collected by OpenSecrets and shared with The Epoch Times, Mr. Mellon has donated about $239 million to federal and state political causes since he began giving in 1990.
Most of the money went to Republican candidates or conservative causes; $22,800 has gone to Democrats or liberal causes; and about $25 million has gone to Mr. Kennedy’s American Values 2024.
Records show Mr. Mellon did not begin to make significant contributions until 2018.
After his presidential donations, Mr. Mellon’s most significant contributions have gone to the Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund. Since 2018, Mr. Mellon sent a combined $75 million to the funds.
Both are conservative PACs helping Republicans win seats in the House and Senate.
Representatives of the Congressional Leadership Fund and Senate Leadership Fund did not respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.
In August 2021, Mr. Mellon reportedly donated about $53.1 million in stock to the state of Texas to aid in Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s effort to build a wall along the U.S. southern border. The state is building the border wall as part of Mr. Abbott’s Operation Lone Star.
According to the operation website, as of July 2, the state had collected about $55.4 million in donations specifically for the border wall project.
The report about Mr. Mellon’s border wall donation was initially published by the Texas Tribune Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headed by Sonal Shah. Ms. Shah is a former member of the Obama administration and former leader of Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign. Mr. Buttigieg is now the Secretary of Transportation.
Mr. Abbott’s office declined to comment on Mr. Mellon’s reported donation. Instead, it directed The Epoch Times to file a public records request. On July 16, the open records division of Mr. Abbott’s office sent documents to The Epoch Times that confirmed Mr. Mellon had donated stock worth about $52.7 million in August 2021.
In 2022, Mr. Mellon sent about $29 million to eight different PACs backing Republican Senate candidates. Most of his chosen candidates were not successful and the Democratic Party retained control of the chamber in the mid-term election.
The increase in Mr. Mellon’s giving matches up with what Mr. Glavin of OpenSecrets described as an “explosion” in the amount of money a handful of extremely wealthy people are injecting into American politics.
A 2020 report published by OpenSecrets summarizing the effect of the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling on Citizens United vs. FEC found that total super PAC spending increased from $62 million in 2010 to $822 million in 2018. The decision is often credited with creating super PACs that can accept and spend unlimited amounts of money, given that they do not directly interact with political campaigns or candidates.
The same report found that donations from the top 1 percent of the wealthiest Americans accounted for 96 percent of super PAC funding in 2018.
Mr. Glavin said most Americans don’t know who the big donors are that channel money into competitive races.
Donors get access to politicians, Mr. Glavin said. Those who give the most get the most. However, only the people with the money and the people with the power know precisely how much influence donors may have on politicians.
“They don’t always have to necessarily ask for something because they’ve already chosen the candidate that they know agrees with them,” Mr. Glavin said.
In the bad old days, before G-Men took down the mob, were urbanites getting a better deal? Does the betting man receive worse odds from state run lotteries than Vinny gave on the corner running numbers? Did businesses shaken down for “protection” have higher hopes of survival in mob clutches than in municipal ones? Was there more or less anxiety about making rent or the mortgage in 1974 than in 2024? Which is the greater fiscal peril, organized crime or uber-societal-organization? It has become a valid question.
Gangsters had fingers in a lot of pies. Credit card racketeers, waging the present battle against physical currency, demand a slice of everything out of the oven. They’d gladly have us believe that paying for anything, without their supervision and cut, equals a criminally tainted transaction. Mobsters found their pecuniary prevalence legit in its way too. Transactions that jibed with their economic codes they called “kosher.” Other trading activity inside their ambit was deemed transgressive. Parasites tend to sound tiresomely alike. The difference is that the above ground finance industry finds no place outside its ambit.
Street people’s encampments clutter cities all over the country. What pushed so many over the edge? And how many are treading that edge carefully now? We know that insanity is somewhat genetic, but scientific observation has yet to prove external factors can’t nudge innately inclined individuals into psychosis. Facts point that way.
Should we harbor suspicion of so-called improvements in the finance system? The Bush-Obama era housing crisis arrived after the government gradually amped up its influence on the mortgage market. Once mortgages became de-localized and Wall Street joined in default skyrocketed and losses went international. Isn’t the NYSE supposed to make markets safer and more efficient? Have we seen anything like that coming out of financial centralization?
The present squeeze goes on in commercial space. Businesses, particularly restaurants, are shutting down at disturbing rates. The biggest burden is rent. This goes on as city centers are awash in more empty commercial space than ever. Local government isn’t helping. While serenading us about how much they love love and hate hate, they stay busy inundating entrepreneurs with licensing fees, new taxes, permit demands and other hurdles that restrain new ventures from ever launching. If they somehow get going anyway the municipality lurks at every juncture. They’ll keep you from thriving when they can’t stop you altogether. Actions speak louder than words. What they “love,” in practice, is bleeding prey pale with revenue demands and entangling bureaucratic complications.
In 1977 the minimum wage was $2.30 an hour. You could get nearly four Big Macs for that amount then. When the minimum went up to $12 on July 1st, the same earner only got two and one third double-deckers for his money. Losing 1.3 sandwiches an hour takes a big bite out of a working class lifestyle. 10.4 Mc-grubbings per eight-hour-day to be exact.
One year after the bicentennial average rent in the US was about $160.An NYT article from 1973 said a family of four needed less than $12,000 a year to live “moderately” in NYC in 1973. The same amount must have been a somewhat comfortable living in flyover country. By 1977 average income was over $13,000. 47 years later, average rent is at least ten times higher. While only about 10% of the population earns $130,000 or more. Where did all the value go?
Clearly, production is out of sync with consumption. What is the variable? Crops still grow at the same rate. Cargo travels at the same speed. Bricks are laid at the same pace. Chickens plop their eggs with the same regularity. Is anyone in the economy getting more than their fair share?
Almost 103 billion in “official” currency was circulating in the US in 1977. As of today, that figure stands at nearly 2 trillion 340 billion. The population has increased by about 58%. The greenbacks flowing back and forth went up by over 2000%. Those figures describe a small fraction of the overall economy. Because banks can create spending power with credit, leaving out other fiscal legerdemain, hundreds of trillions are outstanding in fiscal reality. Federal tax revenue alone, will soon hit over 5 trillion so far this year. That’s over twice the official amount of currency in circulation.
The Big Mac went from 65 cents to $5.17 in that time span. That’s about 700%. Minimum wage rose by about 450%. Watching these fiscal details we know at once that sparse fractions of all that new money is getting to where it is needed most – while we have no evidence it lands in hands that have created actual value. With everyone competing for resources and finished goods, these facts equal a devastating pay cut for many making far above minimum wage.
The idea that people are taking out according to what they contribute simply doesn’t fly. We can start with where the money supply is expanded.
A century ago banks were more accountable. They could make risky loans, as they did for Fritz Heinze, but doing so could still mean hell to pay. The series of events that shook the fiscal foundations of South Manhattan in 1907 remain mysterious over a century later. By 2007, banks were getting bailed out and it was everyone else who paid. How we got there is an intriguing conundrum of modern finance.
Heinze was a mining engineer from New York who showed up in Butte, Montana in the 1890’s. The copper market was hot at the time. That rustic town was already swimming in East Coast toffs and class consciousness. Although born into wealth and circumstances, Augustus Heinze was above pretension and indifferent to “society.” He soon developed a smelting process that greatly expanded the profitability of low-grade copper ore. Rather than pocketing the plunder, his next step was cutting 2 hours off the miner’s workday. How did that go over in the part of Butte that ‘dressed for dinner’? About like The Declaration of Independence did with George III.
Fritz couldn’t have cared less. The airs put on at posh WASP tables left the man impatient and bored. He did his excess boozing in public places where a man who’d spent the day 500 feet underground was at the next stool. Guys who loaded trams rarely bought a round with Heinze in the house.
By 1895 he’d amassed the capital to purchase the Rarus copper mine. The new-coming city slicker literally hit paydirt. His holes were always filled with the best pick and shovel men Montana could provide. The swells he snubbed had to take what hired help they could get.
An officer fraternizing with the enlisted class was high treason to mine owners of the aughts. Heinze was held in a kind of hostile awe. Butte gentry were unaccustomed to a guy who dared not to care if they liked him. What’s an enraged starched collar to do? We’ll never be entirely sure. Deadly measures were far from uncommon in late 19th century mining strife. What happened to Heinze is one of the murkier mysteries of the robber baron era.
J.D. Rockefeller’s brother, William, was a director of Anaconda Copper. That firm was run by people who’d never pop a cork with working stiffs. They were revolted by Augie’s effrontery. Their solution was one that has retained its financial force. Whether Heinze was bought out under duress, or sold out of his own volition in 1906 isn’t fully clear. What is known is that he returned to New York as a Wall Street plunger specializing in copper stocks. Using familial connections, and a personal fortune, Heinze got himself onto the boards of almost a score of NYC banks. When shares of United Copper were being shorted in a bear run, Fritz used his position to buy aggressively, borrowing heavily from the Knickerbocker Bank and other commercial lenders where he held sway.
By October of 1907 the Heinze brothers thought they had cornered the market in United Copper. They demanded the shares from traders who were contractually short – falsely believing the bears would be forced to buy from them. It soon became clear that these shares were not hard to come by. Heinze’s bullishness ended in catastrophic loss rather than profit. This meant that he would default on loans of millions from each of over 15 NYC banks.
The story, possibly apocryphal but true in effect, goes as follows. Knickerbocker was experimenting with 24 hour banking in 1907. The brainchildren of Wall Street met for dinner at an upstairs private dining room in Delmonico’s to discuss the coming cash crunch. Waiters for the event heard what was said in the meeting. They shared this knowledge with less connected patrons chowing down on the ground floor. A run on Knickerbocker began that night, by morning it had spread to every bank in town. The Panic of 1907 was instantly afoot.
Soon banks all over Gotham were out of cash to meet a seismic wave of withdrawals. In no time connected institutions from further out were tapped too. JP Morgan famously locked every player he could muster into his mansion’s library to discuss solutions. A plan was worked out and widespread depression was averted. But the financial hierarchy of south Manhattan was far from done. Their next step entailed placing the money supply and credit generally into the possession of elite governors.
This banking scandal ultimately resulted in the Federal Reserve Act that was passed December 23rd 1913. Whether it solved the problem or laid the foundation for larger ones has been debated since. Getting into the particulars of the statute became inconvenient with the legislature still in session so close to Christmas. ‘Fightin’ Bob LaFollette, gave in and failed to press for a more exacting bill he saw as necessary at the time. The ruckus over the bill’s details were mostly passed over as ‘conspiracy theory’ throughout the 20th century. That line held sway in economic academia for many decades. Scholarly reckoning always comes too late; there is little dispute the charter helped cause and make the Great Depression worse among “experts” today. We are commanded to defer to them with amps at 11. What they got wrong is reported by the same sources at about 2.5.
Left unexamined is why the Heinze brothers misunderstood who held what in United Copper in 1907. Why did they mistakenly believe they had cornered the market? These were highly educated, seasoned men in the world of finance. How far would William Avery Rockefeller Jr. go to settle a score with Fritz Heinze? Was he cleverly stashing available shares in ostensibly immobile accounts to set up an ambush? The first generation of the Rockefeller fortune was not known to take financial affronts lightly. Is it possible, or more likely probable, William Avery had the means and motive to manipulate the market into this unlikely position?
John D. Rockefeller Jr. married Abby Aldrich in 1901. Her father, Nelson Aldrich, was the driving senatorial force behind the Federal Reserve Act, although he left the Senate before its passage. The Rockefeller gang has been evangelizing the faith of centralization in everything for over a century. It started when JD Sr. practically accomplished that in the petroleum industry before the turn of the 20th century. If you think they were never capable of violent, gangland style treachery, fast your gaze on the Ludlow massacre of 1914.
Can we measure the effect of centralization in the financial sector? By 2013 it had almost doubled its share of the economic pie since 1980. When their take went from 5% to 9% in 40 years it had to come at a loss for others at the table. Did the Fed have a role in this? And what justification is offered for doubling the squeeze? As the economy grows so does the money industry’s cut, just as any salesman’s commission rises as the sales price is higher. Is South Manhattan insatiable? What explanation, other than parasitic predation, fits here?
The idea of market liquidity and available credit is efficiency and a fluent trading place for financial wares. Theoretically, this is competitive and brings transactional costs down while driving transactional fluidity up. Have we seen any such thing? The NYSE and kin have become like those “clubs” everyone is forced to join avoiding rip-offs for groceries, lunch, medicine, movies etc. The difference is that Wall Street’s anti-rip-off club is exclusive. You are not invited.
Where are we now? Exactly in the same place as when mobsters skimmed off the top in Vegas casinos, but far worse. The difference is that you get clipped without ever placing a bet or owning a share of a betting parlor. The south Manhattan mob is, supposedly, worth nearly 10% of all the action. What other slices of the take have widened with government intrusion and centralization? The mob focused its shakedowns on high rollers. Higher Ed goes after every kid hoping to drag letters behind his name. They call themselves “non-profits.” Does the description fit the beast?Disciplines of a Godly…Hughes, R. KentBest Price: $4.97Buy New $9.41(as of 01:52 UTC – Details)
Finding university administrators at leisure is not a job for Columbo. Just head toward any resort, high-dollar fleshpot or country club where profiteers do their squandering. Educational altruists, financial “experts” and well-heeled bon vivants occupy the same weekend turf – as well as the same self-serving sphere of self-justification.
The Rockefeller family was the largest private benefactor of that ultimate centralizing scheme, the UN. The patriarch, William Avery Rockefeller Sr., was an infamous snake oil salesman and bigamist. He’s not the Rocky the family likes to advertise. They are prouder of efforts to get around the principle of one-man-one-vote and rule the world from the modern equivalent of a royal court on a planetary scale. Make a list of plans to place more bosses overhead and move them further out of reach. The UN, CFR, WEF, Bilderberg, Trilaterals – you name it and the progeny of that greasy grifter is in on it. And who would they place in charge? The very soul-suckers with their fangs in the US neck pulsing at Wall and Broad.
We are not looking at an abstruse, undecipherable picture here. You can do differential equations, make “relative assumptions” and discuss monetary theory until you ascend to the meta-fiscal plane of Laputa. None of that supposed “understanding” leaves Joe Six-Pack with another square foot of living space or another Big Mac. Uber-economic organization, aka David Rockefeller’s so-called “more integrated world,” is a progressively feudalistic plot that – with the compliance of the un-fake-news industry – rarely experiences any setbacks.
Shrinking buying power has a very simple explanation: a prim and proper syndicate that is more ubiquitous and avaricious than any criminal mob ever.
