iftttwall

President Trump said he did not plan to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell, days after saying he would “soon” pick his nominee – to lead the central bank next, with Polymarket odds suggesting Hassett, Warsh and Bessent are favorites to replace Powell.

“The fake news is saying, ‘Oh, if you fired him, it would be so bad, it would be so bad.’ I don’t know why it would be so bad, but I’m not going to fire him,” Trump said at a White House event on Thursday.

Trump went on to reiterate his complaints that the Fed has not moved quickly enough to cut interest rates, as more evidence emerged of cooling inflation. Powell’s term as chair expires in May 2026.

Trump went on to complain that “we’re going to spend $600 billion a year because of one numbskull that sits here, ‘I don’t see enough reason to cut the rates now.’… Cut your rates now, there’s no inflation.”

President Trump calls Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell a “numskull” for not lowering interest rates but says he won’t fire him. pic.twitter.com/VwydtLM673

— CSPAN (@cspan) June 12, 2025

“We call him ‘Too Late,’ right?” Trump said, adding he was frustrated that the current rates were increasing the federal government’s borrowing costs. The president said the Fed could always increase rates if inflation returned.

“Let’s say there was inflation. In a year from now, raise your rates. I don’t mind, raise your rates. I’m all for it. I’ll be the one to be calling you,” Trump said. “He’ll be too late for that too.”

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The 700 Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops ordered to Los Angeles by President Donald Trump in response to protests over immigration enforcement operations lack the authority to arrest protesters but may temporarily detain them if necessary, an Army general said on Wednesday.

“Strictly for the protection of the federal personnel and the protection of the federal buildings, they’re allowed to temporarily detain and wait for law enforcement to come and arrest them,” Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman said of the troops.

“They do not do any arrest, they are strictly there to detain and wait for law enforcement to come and handle those demonstrators.”

The Marines are trained to use their weapons for personal protection, but their rifles will not be loaded with live ammunition during the deployment, said Sherman, who is leading the deployment of the troops.

“Not in their rifle, no,” he said when asked whether rifles would carry live ammunition.

The Marines are undergoing “civil disturbance training and the standing rules of force training” for two days, Sherman said. The Marines will not be deployed to the streets of Los Angeles on Wednesday, but will be there soon, he added.

In a statement issued Wednesday, U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) confirmed that the Marines will conduct the same missions currently being performed by the National Guardsmen under Title 10 status.

They can and have accompanied Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on missions, but they are “not a part of the operations,” Northern Command said.

Northern Command said forces are authorized to temporarily detain an individual in specific circumstances, such as “to stop an assault, to prevent harm to others, or to prevent interference with federal personnel performing their duties.”

Any temporary detention will end immediately when the individual can be safely transferred to the custody of appropriate civilian law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated.

According to Northern Command, approximately 2,800 service members have been deployed to the greater Los Angeles area as of Wednesday.

Trump has said the military deployment in Los Angeles prevented violence—which has included protesters throwing projectiles at officers—from raging out of control, an assertion California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other local officials have said was untrue.

Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed an emergency motion in court on Tuesday seeking to block the federal government’s deployment of troops, arguing that the mission “orders soldiers to engage in unlawful civilian law enforcement activities in communities across the region, beyond just guarding federal buildings.”

Bonta said on Tuesday that allowing federal troops to protect ICE personnel could also violate an 1878 law that generally forbids the U.S. military, including the National Guard, from taking part in civilian law enforcement.

“Protecting personnel likely means accompanying ICE agents into communities and neighborhoods, and protecting functions could mean protecting the ICE function of enforcing the immigration law,” Bonta said.

The protests continue to spread from Los Angeles to other cities in the United States, with hundreds of nationwide demonstrations planned for Saturday.

Protests have been held in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Dallas, Washington, New York, Atlanta, and Chicago.

In Austin, Texas, police fired tear gas and pepper balls in a standoff with demonstrators on Monday.

Further demonstrations are set to take place in Austin this weekend, as well as in other parts of the state, including Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. In advance of those protests, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said he would deploy the National Guard to ensure they remain peaceful.

Reuters contributed to this report.

 

Authored by Jon Fleetwood via JonFleetwood.com (subscribe here),

South Korean scientists have conducted a lab experiment that made a purported wild avian influenza “bird flu” virus 100% lethal in mammals, achieving total death in infected mice by enabling the virus to adapt inside their bodies and spread to others.

The dangerous move comes as the U.S. develops a “next-generation” universal vaccine platform called ‘Generation Gold Standard’ that will focus on avian influenza jab creation, signaling a coordinated international push to engineer and preemptively vaccinate against lab-enhanced bird flu strains with pandemic potential—despite worldwide fallout from similar COVID-era strategies.

Published June 2025 in Virology Journal, the study describes how researchers at Konkuk University infected mice with a highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza strain—one that already contained a small percentage (4%) of a mammalian-adaptive mutation known as PB2-E627K.

That tiny minority of mutant virus was enough to take over and kill every infected host.

“All challenged mice died by 8 dpc. Transmission through direct-contact occurred in 100% of cases, and all contact mice died within 12 days.”

This was not an accidental discovery.

Researchers intentionally infected mammals with a virus they knew contained a mutation that helps bird flu spread and replicate more effectively in mammals, including humans.

Once inside the mice, the mutation exploded to near-total dominance—not just in the lungs, but in the brain, where it caused seizures, ataxia, and fatal neurological damage.

“The PB2-E627K variant, initially present at 4% in the virus stock, was selected and reached near-fixation (~ 100%) in the lungs and brains by 6 days post-challenge and was subsequently transmitted.”

“In dead direct-contact mice, the E627K mutation in PB2 was found at a proportion of 99.8–100% in both the lungs and brains.”

The virus became neurotropic—targeting the brain—and caused seizures and other neurological symptoms before death.

“Two out of three direct-contact mice displayed significant neurological symptoms, including seizure, ataxia, and bradykinesia.”

This is precisely the kind of gain-of-function-style research that Congressional hearings and federal reports have linked to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic—a disaster that killed over a million Americans and possibly far more if COVID vaccine injury data is fully accounted for.

“Even a small proportion of mammalian-adaptive mutations can quickly become dominant as the virus serially transmits between mammals.”

The virus strain used in the study—isolated from a wild duck in Korea—was given to mice intranasally at high dose.

After just one round of infection, the mutation that enables efficient replication in mammals (PB2-E627K) went from 4% to nearly 100%, and was then passed to other mice who also died.

“In experiment 2, with a 1:1 challenge-to-contact ratio, all the challenged mice died. Transmission occurred in 50% of cases; three out of six contact mice died.”

This was not nature running its course—this was a deliberate laboratory setup that triggered a lethal evolutionary pathway, with full awareness of the risks.

No genetic engineering was needed—just the right environment and host to favor viral adaptation.

This is exactly the kind of procedure that reportedly allowed a bat coronavirus to become a pandemic-capable human pathogen in Wuhan.

“These findings highlight the need for continuous genomic monitoring to detect mammalian adaptation markers and assess interspecies transmission risks.”

Yet this isn’t the only high-risk bird flu experiment South Korea is conducting.

Just a month earlier, South Korean scientists published another Virology Journal paper revealing that they had engineered a chimeric H5N1 virus using hallmark gain-of-function (GOF) techniques—combining gene segments from three different influenza viruses to increase the virus’s heat resistance, alter host targeting, and enhance human cell entry.

“Recombinant viruses were generated using a pHW2000 plasmid-based reverse genetics system.”

“Combining the R90K and H110Y mutations (22W_KY) resulted in a synergistic increase in thermal stability and maintained HA activity without measurable reduction even after 4 h at 52 °C.”

“22 W HA and 22 W NA genes, along with six internal genomic segments (PB2, PB1, PA, NP, M, NS) from PR8 and a PB2 gene from 01310 containing the I66M, I109V, and I133V (MVV) mutations”

The study also confirmed enhanced antigen uptake and intracellular penetration in human cells:

“The highest level of intracellular entry was observed for BEI_22W_KY, confirming its superior effectiveness in penetrating cells.”

These GOF enhancements—increased thermostability, host retargeting, and replication modulation—were achieved without any mention of special oversight or biosecurity risk assessments, despite the White House having confirmed that the COVID-19 pandemic was caused by a virus engineered using similar techniques.

The timing raises concern, especially as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently launched a $500 million “next-generation” bird flu vaccine initiative, drawing direct parallels between vaccine development programs and risky virological engineering.

If any of these engineered viruses escape containment—accidentally or intentionally—they could ignite a global pandemic, ironically the very scenario these experiments claim to prevent.

This particular mouse-killing study was performed in Biosafety Level 3 facilities at Konkuk University, sanctioned by the university’s Institutional Biosafety and Animal Care Committees:

“All experiments involving viable HPAI H5N1 viruses were conducted at a Biosafety Level (BSL)-3 facilities (Konkuk University) in accordance with procedures approved by the Konkuk University Institutional Biosafety Committee (approval no. KUIBC-2024-06).”

“Animal infection studies were reviewed, approved, and supervised by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Konkuk University (approval no. KU24080).”

The COVID pandemic taught the world what happens when supposed mammal-adaptive viruses leak from research settings.

Yet instead of a global moratorium on these reckless experiments, labs are still running trials that kill every mammal they infect—and worse, documenting how to do it again.

Follow us on Instagram @realjonfleetwood & Twitter/X @JonMFleetwood.

The House is expected to vote Thursday on a sweeping $9 billion-plus rescissions package that would slash foreign aid and cut $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS, even as deeper dysfunction in the congressional appropriations process threatens another government shutdown this fall.

The legislation, drafted by the White House and backed by Republican leadership, is likely to pass despite resistance from some GOP moderates and unified Democratic opposition.

The vote arrives amid growing uncertainty over the fiscal year 2026 spending process. With little progress in either chamber on the 12 annual appropriations bills, lawmakers are increasingly resigned to the likelihood of another continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open past September, Punchbowl News reports.

“If I were betting man right now, given the current environment, we will appropriate money by CR for the foreseeable future,” said Senator John Kennedy (R-LA), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “So if you have a chance to change from the Approps Committee to Finance, you probably ought to do it.”

The House Appropriations Committee is expected to complete markup of four spending bills by Friday, all written to match the lower spending levels in former President Donald J. Trump’s budget proposal. The package includes tens of billions in cuts to domestic programs, making it a nonstarter for Democrats and the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Complicating matters further, Senate appropriators have not yet agreed on a topline number for spending. Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and chair of the Appropriations Committee, and Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington and the committee’s ranking member, are not expected to reach a deal until after Republicans pass their reconciliation bill — likely no earlier than July.

“We just don’t know yet,” said Representative Tom Cole (R-OK), chair of the House Appropriations Committee. “Let’s assume we pass the ‘Big Beautiful Bill.’ I don’t think we know what that does. Does that break things loose or not?”

“There’s plenty of people on our side who like a CR,” he added. “It could easily happen again. It’s bad governance.”

The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” – a Trump-endorsed initiative – includes $175 billion for border security, $150 billion in military spending, and a two-year increase in the debt ceiling. Democrats have rejected the measure, citing deep cuts to domestic programs and the absence of accountability mechanisms on executive spending.

Some Republicans, however, suggest that Trump and his advisers may prefer the flexibility afforded by a CR – or even a government shutdown, particularly if the BBB is signed into law.

“I think there are probably some people in the administration who think quite frankly that they have more flexibility under a CR or even a shutdown,” said Representative Ken Calvert (R-CA), chair of the Defense Subcommittee on House Appropriations. “I think that shocks a lot of members here.”

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), warned that repeated use of CRs undermines congressional authority.

“If we do two CRs in a row, it will be a self-inflicted wound by Senate Republican appropriators and Senate Republicans to diminish not just the power of the committee but to diminish Congress’s power of the purse,”  he said.

Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), said the effect is to sideline legislative input on federal spending. “Any long-term CR plays into what it seems this administration would like, which is bills with no guardrails,” she said.

The underlying tension is a struggle over control of federal spending between Congress and the executive branch. Democrats blame Trump and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought for flouting the 1974 Budget and Impoundment Control Act, which requires presidents to spend money as appropriated by Congress.

Republicans counter that Democrats stalled earlier efforts to reach a compromise, particularly over efforts to restrict Trump’s spending discretion. “You’re not gonna have a Republican Senate and the House limit a Republican president,” said Cole.

The political cost of such battles has already been significant. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy lost his position over a CR. Speaker Mike Johnson vowed early in his tenure to avoid repeating that path, but growing pressure within his conference suggests another short-term funding bill is increasingly likely.

Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, offered a grim assessment.

“To hell with the Congress,” she said. “It’s bad for the American people. It’s bad for the American people. They’re lying about what’s in these bills. That’s the tragedy.“

Meanwhile, on a lighter note, Republicans defeated Democrats 13–2 in Wednesday night’s Congressional Baseball Game – their fifth straight win. More than 31,000 tickets were sold, raising $2.8 million for charity.

Big Beautiful Bill

Meanwhile, House Republicans have successfully amended their party-line tax and spending package, eliminating policies that would have ruined the Big Beautiful Bill’s ability to be passed without a simple majority, and would have been subject to Democrat filibuster.

Among the major items deleted, “$2 billion for Pentagon military intelligence programs and more than $500 million for developing missiles, as well as removing a crackdown on the “employee retention” tax credit that became a magnet for fraudsters during and after the pandemic,” according to Politico. 

Republicans are now hoping to rewrite some of these policies tossed by the House and fold them into the Senate’s version of the package before their target passage date of July 4th.