Month: January 2025

Authored by Joseph Lord, Jackson Richman & Stacy Robinson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The 119th Congress of the United States will officially sit for the first time on Jan. 3, 2025 – marking the official close of the particularly tumultuous and divided 118th Congress.

The Congress was defined by ideological splits among House Republicans, whose narrow majority meant that everything—from who held the speaker’s gavel to how the government would be funded—was on the line, and Republicans needed broad agreement to advance any course of action.

With President Joe Biden in the White House and Democrats in control of the upper chamber, partisan divisions were also especially pronounced.

While Republicans mounted investigations into the administration and executive officials, Democrats broke records in the Senate for judicial confirmations.

Aside from the compromise deals that resulted from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) negotiations with Democrats—largely related to financial issues—there were few major legislative agreements during this Congress.

Here are the highlights of the 118th Congress as it concludes its final days.

1. House Republicans’ Razor-Thin Majority

Ideological divisions among House Republicans were the main story of the 118th Congress—due in large part to the razor-thin majority the party held in the lower chamber.

Splits between conservatives and moderates have always defined the party. With such a narrow margin in the House, the impact of these divisions was substantially magnified. Republicans could only afford a small handful of defections on partisan votes. That meant that members of both major GOP factions were able to hold an outsized influence on the most controversial bills.

Those dubbed moderates—members like Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), John Duarte (R-Calif.), Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), and others—showed a willingness to break with their party when they thought the majority was pushing too far.

The conservatives—members like Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), and Cory Mills (R-Fla.)—pushed for leadership to go further in forcing financial and other concessions from Democrats.

These splits were compounded by irregular but impactful interventions by then-candidate Donald Trump, who enjoys a far greater influence in the House than in the Senate.

In the House Rules Committee, which considers the rules governing votes and debate on bills, conservatives like Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), and Chip Roy (R-Texas) often tanked legislation that came before the panel.

Massie opposed a short-term spending bill in September intended to avert a government shutdown. The bill later passed under suspension.

Suspension of the rules, under which a bill can pass the House without passing the Rules Committee, became a mainstay in the 118th Congress due to the challenges posed by Massie, Norman, and Roy on the Rules panel.

2. Speaker Fight 1.0

The consequences of Republicans’ ideological split were visible from the first sitting of the 118th Congress in January 2023, when it took 15 ballots over five days for McCarthy to be named speaker.

A recognized leader in the House Republican conference since the early 2010s, McCarthy was considered the heir apparent to the speakership on the day the 118th Congress first sat.

However, many Republicans were unhappy with McCarthy. His most prominent critic was Gaetz, with others like Roy, Norman, Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), and others opposing the California Republican.

McCarthy’s conservative credentials were questioned, and he was seen by his critics as too aligned with the establishment and unable to effectively lead GOP opposition to the Biden administration.

The votes dragged on for days, raising questions about McCarthy’s ability to win.

Ultimately, Gaetz and other holdouts relented, voting “present.”

But that came at a cost, as these conservatives forced several key concessions from McCarthy—a return to the one-member motion to vacate the chair, seats on the Rules Committee for conservatives, and budget-related concessions.

While McCarthy was able to clinch a narrow victory, it may have been a pyrrhic one in the end—and it set the tone for the 118th House moving forward.

3. Debt Ceiling

While Democrats and Republicans rarely worked together during the Congress, certain budget issues—particularly the debt ceiling and government funding—required compromises.

In 2023, the House GOP passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act to lift the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion while implementing significant fiscal and other reforms.

Even conservative Republicans backed it due to its features: clawing back COVID funds, reducing energy regulations, revoking green energy, and strengthening some federal welfare requirements.

However, this package was unable to pass Congress due to Democrats’ opposition. Instead,

Congress ultimately agreed to the Fiscal Responsibility Act—a compromise between McCarthy and Biden—to suspend the debt ceiling until January 2025.

Aside from suspending the debt ceiling, it reclaimed unspent COVID funds, capped non-defense discretionary spending, strengthened federal welfare requirements, and streamlined energy permitting.

This bill—which 71 Republicans opposed—further disenchanted some Republicans with McCarthy’s handling of the speakership.

The compromise means that the issue will come up again in the opening months of Trump’s second term, and it may require negotiations with Democrats to raise or suspend the ceiling again, though the GOP could raise the debt ceiling through reconciliation, which would avoid the need to overcome the filibuster and therefore any Democrat votes. On the other hand, Trump has called for abolishing the debt ceiling.

4. Government Funding

While the 118th Congress didn’t get much done in the way of major legislation, one issue came up again and again: government funding.

To fund the government every year, each chamber of Congress must pass 12 appropriations bills by Sept. 30 to keep agencies running. Failure to do so triggers a government shutdown, when only essential services and personnel are retained.

But many conservative House Republicans take a firm stance against any spending they perceive to be wasteful and have historically refused to back government funding plans that could win Democrats’ support.

That made it difficult to reach an agreement on any of the funding bills—particularly as the Democratic Senate was opposed to substantial spending cuts.

This led leadership to rely on a slate of stopgap government funding bills, dubbed a “continuing resolution” (CR) in Washington-talk.

The year 2024 saw multiple  CRs passed, the latest of which squeaked through on Dec. 20, just hours before the deadline.

The CR passed on Dec. 20 was the “plan C” version of the bill, which extends government funding until March 14. The first attempt was a massive 1500-page package that failed amid opposition by Trump and others; the second was much shorter, coming in at 118 pages.

It didn’t include any provisions related to the debt ceiling, a last-minute demand put forward by Trump in an effort to avoid a showdown on the issue during his term.

5. Speaker Fight 2.0

It was a CR, ultimately, that cost McCarthy the gavel and his spot in Congress.

During his relatively short time in the speaker’s chair, McCarthy faced heightened scrutiny from conservative Republicans, who felt he had failed to win acceptable concessions from Democrats or to fight on budget issues.

After McCarthy backed a continuing resolution on Sept. 30, 2023, these criticisms came to a head.

Gaetz, an outspoken McCarthy critic, brought to the floor a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair. That motion was possible only through a rule change that allowed a single member to bring such a resolution to the floor—one of the multiple rule changes McCarthy agreed to in order to win the job.

Seven other Republicans joined all Democrats to oust McCarthy, who became the first-ever speaker to be deposed by the mechanism.

This led to three weeks of paralysis as Republicans tried to find a replacement. Three candidates, including Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) each unsuccessfully sought the top spot.

Ultimately, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.)—until then a little-known lawmaker—was able to win enough support to be named speaker, in part, Republicans have said, because his personality made him popular with moderates and conservatives alike.

McCarthy ultimately left Congress in December 2023.

In May, it looked as though Johnson too might be removed, a push led this time by Greene; as in the case of McCarthy, Greene’s resolution was based on Johnson’s decision to pursue a CR with Democrats.

However, Greene’s effort didn’t gain momentum, and it failed after Democrats joined Republicans to table the motion to vacate.

Read the rest here…

Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

A US official explained that the Joe Biden administration was hoping Syria could hold elections “as soon as possible” following the ouster of long-time president Bashar al-Assad. The de facto ruler in Damascus, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, said elections could take place in four years. 

In an interview published on Sunday, Julani said elections could happen in four years and a new constitution installed in three. “The process of writing the constitution may take about three years, and we look forward to a constitution that lasts for the longest possible period, and this is a difficult and lengthy task,” Julani, the former leader of al-Qaeda in Syria, told Al-Arabiya. “Organizing elections may take four years; any valid elections will require a comprehensive population census.”

A US official responding to those remarks told The National on Monday that Syria’s elections “should be free and fair, and carried out in a transparent and inclusive manner. We hope these conditions will be in place as soon as feasibly possible.”

They added, “Ultimately, we would like to see a Syria that is inclusive and protects the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all Syrians, including women and minority groups.”

Julani swept to power in Syria at the beginning of December after more than a decade of violent American intervention in the country. Washington backed Al Qaeda-linked terrorist organizations against Assad while imposing crippling sanctions which devastated the Syrian economy. 

The result of the policy is that Julani, a veteran of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and leader of a militia designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department, is now the ruler of Syria. 

The Biden administration claims Julani has broken from his al-Qaeda roots and is committed to establishing an inclusive government in Damascus that protects minority sects. 

Results of 2024 Syrian elections while Assad was still in power, Graphic From Wikipedia

However, Julani has already staffed his government with the al-Qaeda-linked fighters that helped him to overthrow Assad, including foreign jihadists. 

The White House may be starting to recognize that the jihadists it helped in Damascus have no interest in supporting liberal values. On Tuesday, a State Department official was dispatched to Syria to discuss attacks on minority groups. 

Authored by Irina Slav via Oilprice.com

• Focus on China’s oil demand, predicted to peak in 2025 or 2027, is expected to keep a lid on oil prices next year.

• Supply disruptions from OPEC+ or renewed sanctions on Iran could challenge price stability in 2025.

• India’s rising oil demand and potential for a supply glut are other factors to consider in the 2025 oil price outlook.

This year in oil has been marked by chronic trader pessimism about Chinese demand and an equally chronic downplaying of supply disruption risks. This has made for a rather stable year in prices—and the stability could continue in 2025, on a few conditions.

Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate appear set to end the year at nearly the same levels that they started. WTI started 2024 at a little over $70 per barrel and is about to end a little below that. Brent crude looks like it will post a little more noticeable loss, starting the year at $77 per barrel and ending at a bit over $74 at the time of writing.

The biggest reason for this somewhat unnatural stability in oil prices has been the focus on China. Every single report on oil prices this year has featured Chinese economic data or oil import figures in its lead. This is set to continue in 2025 amid a flurry of reports predicting peak oil demand growth for the world’s biggest importer.

China’s very own state oil giants are saying it. CNPC said earlier this month that it expected demand growth to peak in 2025, moving the peak year from 2030, which was its prediction in 2023. The company cited electric vehicle adoption and LNG truck growth as reasons for its predictions, even though the record share of EVs in total car sales this year has failed to reverse China’s oil demand growth.

Sinopec was next, publishing a report a week ago saying that oil demand growth in China was about to reach its peak in three years in 2027. The peak will occur at a daily demand level of some 16 million barrels or a total of 800 million metric tons, the Chinese state oil major said. A year ago, Sinopec saw Chinese oil demand peaking at around 800 million metric tons sometime between 2026 and 2030. China’s oil demand this year is seen reaching 750 million metric tonnes, according to Sinopec.

So, focus on China and pessimism about its demand has kept a lid on prices this year and is likely to keep that lid in place in 2025 as well—unless all the stimulus that the government in Beijing is throwing at the economy doesn’t spur greater demand for the key commodity. As one analyst from Brokerage Pepperstone put it to the Wall Street Journal, “The apparent calm in the oil market hides a complex interplay of macroeconomic factors that could trigger sharp movements at any moment.”

“Attention is focused on the evolution of macroeconomic data and future OPEC+ decisions, which will determine the market’s direction in the coming months,” Quasar Elisundia told the WSJ. In macroeconomic data, the focus will remain on China but also on India, which is shaping up as the next leading demand driver globally. Indeed, S&P Global Commodity Insights recently forecast that India’s oil demand growth rate was set to exceed China’s this year.

“India will be the leading driver, along with Southeast Asia and other parts of South Asia, of the region’s future oil demand growth,” SPGCI’s global head of macro and oil demand research, Kang Wu, said.

But even weaker growth markets such as the European Union, continue to see growth in oil demand, as suggested by import figures. The latest available, for the second quarter of the year, showed a decline in natural gas imports but a pickup in what the EU categorizes as “petroleum oils”. The EU is not the oil market traders look to for insight into demand trends, but this may be an oversight.

On the supply side, the focus, of course, remains on OPEC+, even as forecasters keep repeating how they expect great production growth things from non-OPEC majors such as the United States, Guyana, Canada, and Brazil. These forecasts have started to moderate with regard to the U.S., however, as the industry gives repeated signs that there will be no drilling at will just because there is a pro-oil president in the White House.

The situation with OPEC+ is quite similar. Forecasters have been making traders nervous and bearish for months, reminding them of all that spare capacity that OPEC could bring back online when it decides to roll back its output cuts. What they’ve consistently forgotten to mention is that OPEC and its OPEC+ partners made it clear from the start of the cuts that output would only be brought back online when prices rose high enough. This basically means that several price routs this year were entirely the result of unrealistic expectations, with zero relation to actual oil fundamentals.

In the current context, fundamentals appear to be largely in balance. Many expect a supply glut next year, but that’s based on assumptions about EV adoption that have consistently tended to disappoint. Trump sanctions on Iran could tighten supply from the Middle East further and lend some upward momentum for prices, but chances are that the idea of that big spare capacity cushion of 5 million bpd or more is going to play the role of a market blowout preventer once again.

 

Today, some of the highest paid U.S. federal agencies are financial regulators overseeing multi-trillion dollar asset markets.

While the median pay for federal workers is $99,000, wide variations exist across 438 agencies and sub-agencies. Employees at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have a median pay of $247,518 while employees working for Veterans Affairs and the Treasury Department are paid among the lowest.

This graphic shows the highest paid U.S. government agencies, based on data from the Office of Personnel Management via Barrons.

Top 10 Federal Agencies by Median Pay

Below, we show the highest paying federal government agencies as of March 2024:

Ranking in first is the CFTC, largely composed of attorneys, economists, and auditors.

The agency, with 736 staff, oversees the swaps market worth $400 trillion in notional value, along with commodity and Treasury futures, among other derivatives. Similarly, the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates stock exchanges and financial advisors, pays upwards of $227,000.

Following next is the Farm Credit System Insurance Corporation, an agency of 10 people that ensure the repayment of agricultural loans issued by Farm Credit System banks. As of the third quarter of 2024, gross loans from these banks totaled $414.4 billion.

In some cases, federal agencies will pay a higher rate to remain competitive with the private sector. Yet as a whole, civil workers with advanced degrees earn up to 22% less than comparable corporate roles.

Top 10 Lowest Paid Government Agencies

On the flip side, here are the agencies at the bottom end of the federal pay scale:

The Armed Forces Retirement Home, which runs two retirement homes in Washington D.C. and Mississippi, pays the lowest.

Additionally, median pay for workers at the Veterans Affairs Department, ranks among the bottom 10. With a staff of 486,522, the agency employs about a fifth of the U.S. federal workforce, responsible for providing compensation, health care, and home loan guarantees to veterans.

As we can see, median pay at the Treasury Department is $76,778, the fifth-lowest overall. According to Indeed, a tax examiner earns on average $44,065 per year while a tax specialist earns $105,711.

Looking ahead, the civil-servant workforce could see sharp reductions with the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency, where Elon Musk has proposed eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Education Department, in addition to other sweeping job cuts. This comes at a time of record public debt and an expanding fiscal deficit.

However, proposed spending cuts are expected to encounter significant resistance from Congress and unions, given that federal employees are rarely terminated and operate under binding agreements.

To learn more about this topic from a corporate perspective, check out this graphic showing the top companies receiving the most subsidies since 2000.

Authored by Steve Cortes via RealClearWire.com,

Time to prioritize the citizens and taxpayers of our homeland…

When considering immigration policy, we must first affirm that America is a country, not merely an economy. We are a national family, not a corporation. Incoming Vice President J.D. Vance said it well when he stated at the 2024 Republican National Convention that “America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.”

Indeed, the economy of America exists to serve those people, those citizens … and NOT the other way around. We are far more than cogs in an economic machine, than simple inputs into a GDP model.

Just as important as enterprise, America must work always to exalt our shared culture, heritage, and ideals. In this regard, building broad prosperity is far more important than just growing topline GDP. America’s strongest economic eras prioritized a Main Street capitalism that sustains and grows families and communities through the distributism of financial success.

In contrast, a fixation on massive corporate profits concocts a false policy north star that distorts our fraternal bonds and dehumanizes the masses. So, America at its best emphasizes economic subsidiarity, the philosophy of widely dispersed economic power. But mass migration predominately suppresses the working classes and centralizes economic power among a small cadre of credentialed, connected elitists who derive disproportionate benefits from the constant flow of cheap foreign labor.

Accordingly, in recent days, the winning 2024 Republican coalition stirs into tumult as a needed and healthy debate unfolds regarding legal migration to the United States. This argument juxtaposes populist nationalists vs. the international, business wing of the nascent Trump 2024 coalition.

The issue of immigration drove much of the impressive Trump victory on November 5, winning the popular vote, sweeping every swing state, and piling up massive gains in deeply blue jurisdictions like New York City. Those voters who rallied to President-elect Trump demand real action to secure America’s border and fix a badly broken immigration system that serves the interests of multinational conglomerates and nongovernmental organizations, to the detriment of everyday American citizens.

On specifics, Trump voters almost universally agree on a massive crackdown on illegal migration, but major fissures open up regarding the legal side of immigration. This issue resonates as the total foreign-born population of America exploded under Joe Biden, and now stands at 50 million people, the highest percentage in American history at 15% of the population. This massive cohort eclipses even the levels of the Ellis Island era of the Industrial Revolution, when the need for human labor was nearly insatiable.

That period of massive immigration poured into an America that provided almost zero safety net for migrants and into a country that demanded assimilation. After that period of heavy inflows, restrictionists prevailed and America’s foreign-born population share plunged in the 1950s, to only 5% of the country, as American workers thrived and patriotism pervaded. Then, after the 1965 Hart-Celler Immigration Act was signed by Lyndon B. Johnson, the flow of foreigners began to soar.

In addition to the upsurge in legal migration, the flow of illegals vaulted higher following Ronald Reagan’s misbegotten decision to amnesty illegal aliens in 1986. Now, America faces an all-out crisis as Biden threw open the front door to our homeland with reckless disregard for public order or the prerogatives of American citizens.

Americans have clearly had enough of this porous border radicalism, including worker visa programs like H-1B which are massively abused and serve the interests of C-suite American executives and Asian foreign nationals, while undermining the pay and job stability of American citizens. These programs were intended to allow the truly exceptional outliers of the world to enter and assimilate into America. But, like so many government programs, visa programs have been hijacked and perverted by powerful corporate interests, both here and abroad.

After a lot of online debate, it seems the populist nationalists prevail, with Elon Musk agreeing with the most potent and efficient reform of all: requiring large salaries and fees from employers to bring in such foreign workers. The super wealthy mogul, himself a legal immigrant, posted on X that worker visas only make sense  by “raising the minimum salary significantly and adding a yearly cost for maintaining the H1B, making it materially more expensive to hire from overseas than domestically.”

Bingo. Therein lies the solution.

Now, the devil is in the details, of course. So, a reasonable annual fee for each incoming worker on a visa should be at least $50,000, with half going to the state of the business and half to the federal government. The average minimum salary for these workers should be at least $250,000 per year, and should be mandated to stay above three times the median household income as determined by the Census Bureau ($80,000 in 2023).

Such high minimums would guarantee that work visas only welcome in the truly talented stars that will bring big advances to American society. Instead of a worker replacement program that undercuts Americans, this new system would bring in a very small but super-talented pool of outperformers – and it should replace the entirety of current, confusing worker visa programs.

If these foreign workers are actually essential, then U.S. firms will willingly pay the high fees and salaries!

Once these reforms are joined with strict border enforcement and vigorous deportations, then America will reclaim sovereignty, build diffused prosperity, protect our culture, and pave the way for a new “roaring ’20s” period ahead. Such a roadmap can also maintain the unity of the broadening America First coalition.

Authored by The Empowerment Alliance via RealClearEnergy,

Much has been said in recent months about America’s energy production and consumption. Specifically, which types of energy are optimal for today and — perhaps more importantly — for our needs tomorrow is a subject from town halls to coffee shop conversations and kitchen tables.

Bloomberg Intelligence’s research shows data centers, buildings filled with servers and other computing equipment for data storage and networking that supports operations and artificial intelligence (AI), could be responsible for as much as 17% of all U.S. electricity consumption by 2030. 

One data center can require 50 times the electricity of a typical office building, according to The Department of Energy.

As America wrestles with its future energy needs, this indisputable fact remains: Natural gas is the affordable, reliable and clean energy source that should serve as the benchmark by which all other energy sources are measured.

Consider:

• Carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation have declined 61% due to increased use of natural gas over other sources like coal, according to The American Gas Association.
• The restarting of coal plants underscores the real issue, which is the need to build more gas-fired power plants fairly soon.
• U.S. utilities and investors plan to add 133 new natural gas-fired power plants to the nation’s grid, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data, by 2030.
• Renewable energy sources can’t keep up with our growing energy needs.

A tale of two Heartland states

One community in Omaha, Nebraska, is considering restarting an old coal power plant. We understand the urgency here, but the neighborhood that has had some of the worst air pollution in the region should consider other options. 

The fact that they’re bringing a coal plant online in Nebraska illustrates the dire situation facing officials and energy companies with AI and the growing need for affordable, reliable energy for decades to come.
Here’s a better example from the neighboring state of Kansas, which is what The Empowerment Alliance (TEA) advocates should be happening nationwide.

• Kansas’ largest electric utility plans to build two new natural gas plants by the end of the decade.

Evergy, which serves 1.6 million customers in Kansas and Missouri, will construct combined-cycle natural gas plants — each with a 705-megawatt capacity — in 2029 and 2030.

A key takeaway comes from Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly, who said the plants would ensure reliable energy, including in emergencies or periods of high demand, like hot summer days. “As Kansas continues to transition to more sustainable energy, we’re doing it responsibly. These plants are much cleaner than traditional coal plants.”

We agree with Gov. Kelly’s rationale and we encourage other states with growing data center footprints, such as Ohio and Virginia, to follow suit.

Energy Security ARC

At TEA, we have a plan for our energy future called the Energy Security ARC. Natural gas is the obvious solution to our clean energy needs.

The two examples above underscore the crossroads that many communities, large and small, are facing regarding energy choices. The decisions made affect local jobs (165 new jobs in this city), and will have a direct impact on consumer costs for decades. 

So they shouldn’t be taken lightly, based on these facts:

• The U.S. is the world leader in lowering carbon emissions, largely because of increased use of natural gas for electricity generation.
• Increased use of natural gas for electricity generation is the top reason for power sector emissions reductions over the past 17 years — almost double the impact compared to renewables.
• In 2022 alone, the shift to natural gas provided an emissions reduction equivalent to 156 coal-fired power plants operating for a year.

There are various practical options for energy, and those may include nuclear and coal. But natural gas is the clear choice when discussing affordable, reliable and clean energy. This pertains to millions of households, small businesses, family farms, factories and technologies still being developed.

Natural gas is America’s trusted energy choice — past, present and future.

The Empowerment Alliance was formed in 2019 to offer common-sense energy solutions that promote production and consumption of Affordable, Clean, Reliable natural gas. We believe that our nation’s energy independence is essential for America’s independence.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

What kind of year is 2025 going to be?  If you ask 1,000 different people that question, you will probably get 1,000 different answers.  There are some that are very optimistic about the year ahead, but there are others that are very pessimistic about the year ahead.  In fact, Gallup just conducted a survey that discovered that most Americans believe that 2025 will be a year of “political conflict, economic difficulty, international discord, increasing power for China and Russia, and a rising federal budget deficit”…

Americans foresee a somewhat challenging year ahead for the country, based on their predictions for various aspects of U.S. affairs and daily life. Majorities of U.S. adults think 2025 will be a year of political conflict, economic difficulty, international discord, increasing power for China and Russia, and a rising federal budget deficit.

I agree with all of that.

The U.S. is facing both internal and external turmoil, and our economy is very rapidly moving in the wrong direction.

But another major global health crisis would make things so much worse.

In recent weeks, so many of the usual suspects have been doing interviews in which they warn that a bird flu pandemic among humans has become inevitable.

Do they know something that the rest of us do not?

Already, we are starting to see public officials freak out.  The state of California recently declared a state of emergency, and now it is being reported that Arizona has detected bird flu in the wastewater in the cities of Phoenix, Tempe and Surprise…

Bird flu has been detected in wastewater in multiple metro Phoenix cities, county health officials confirmed Monday.

Routine wastewater surveillance in Phoenix, Tempe and Surprise — the three cities in the county where monitoring occurs — confirmed the presence of avian influenza, according to a press release from the Maricopa County Department of Public Health (MCDPH).

The influenza subtype, which includes bird flu as H5N1, has been detected in multiple locations in the Valley in the past couple of months.

Meanwhile, the bird flu continues to spread like wildfire among animals all over the nation.

123 million birds, most of them chickens and turkeys, have already died in the United States alone.  And now a farm in Ohio that has nearly a million chickens has been infected…

Ohio agriculture officials are investigating after avian flu was detected in nearly one million chickens in Darke County.

The National Veterinary Services Laboratory confirmed Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza was detected in Darke County on Dec. 27, involving 931,302 chickens.

Since it’s an active case, the ODA did not identify the individual farms.

Cats are dying from coast to coast too.

In Oregon, it has been determined that a cat that recently died from the bird flu caught it by eating turkey-based cat food…

Experts and some public officials are warning against raw pet foods after a cat in Oregon was found to have died from a product contaminated by bird flu. The maker of that cat food, Northwest Naturals, has since recalled certain batches of the turkey-based food.

If humans start getting infected and dying on a widespread basis, it really will be a nightmare scenario, and the level of panic that we will witness will be off the charts.

It appears that 2025 will also be a year of war.

The U.S. and Israel are openly talking about conducting a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear program, North Korea is threatening to invade South Korea, and long-range NATO missiles continue to hit targets deep inside Russia.  In response, the Russians just fired missiles at Kyiv…

Russia launched an aerial attack on Ukraine on Tuesday, striking the capital and other regions with multiple missiles and drones.

Ukraine’s air force reported a ballistic missile threat at 3:00 a.m. (0100 GMT), with at least two explosions heard in Kyiv minutes later. Another missile alert was issued at 8:00 a.m. followed by at least one explosion in the city. Missile debris fell in the Darnytskyi district of the capital with no reports of casualties or damage, the local administration said.

Elsewhere, Chinese President Xi Jinping is boldly declaring that “reunification” with Taiwan is inevitable and nobody will be able to stop it…

No one can stop China’s “reunification” with Taiwan, Chinese President Xi Jinping said in his New Year’s speech on Dec 31, laying down a clear warning to what Beijing regards as pro-independence forces within and outside of the island of 23 million people.

In the past year, Beijing has stepped up military pressure near Taiwan, sending warships and planes almost daily into the waters and air space around the island in what Taiwanese officials view as a creeping effort to “normalise” China’s military presence.

Will 2025 be the year when China finally pulls the trigger?

When it happens, we will instantly be at war with China.

Ominously, the Chinese are in the midst of “the largest military build-up of any nation in the world since Germany in the 1930s”…

According to a report by a national security expert, the People’s Republic of China has ordered the largest military build-up of any nation in the world since Germany in the 1930s, raising concerns about the military threat presented by China.

On top of everything else, it appears that Afghanistan and Pakistan are on the brink of “all-out war”…

Fears of an all-out war erupting between Afghanistan and Pakistan are rising after the Taliban sent troops to the border as the two countries continue to trade deadly strikes.

The Afghan Taliban has unleashed a series of devastating artillery strikes on Pakistani military checkpoints along the tense border, sparking fears of a full-blown conflict between the two neighbours.

The hardline Islamist group boasted it had obliterated ‘several’ Pakistani positions and mobilised battalions of fighters to confront any retaliation from Islamabad, in a chilling show of force.

While all of this is going on, our entire planet continues to become even more unstable as well.

On average, we experienced a “billion dollar disaster” in the United States about every two weeks in 2024.

Just think about how crazy that is.

And that doesn’t even count all of the “billion dollar disasters” that have been happening in other nations.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

Today, we are being warned that a massive underwater volcano off the coast of Oregon that is thousands of feet tall is likely to erupt in 2025…

Scientists have warned that an underwater volcano off the coast of the northwestern US is likely to blow sometime in 2025.

The volcano, called Axial Seamount, is more than 3,600-feet-tall and sits half a mile underwater just 300 miles off the coast of Oregon.

Our world is going completely nuts, but for the moment those at the very top of the economic pyramid continue to party like it is 1999.

On Tuesday, it was being reported that the 500 wealthiest people in the world now have a combined net worth of 10 trillion dollars…

The world’s 500 richest people got vastly richer in 2024, with Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jensen Huang leading the group of billionaires to a new milestone: A combined $10 trillion net worth.

An indomitable rally in US technology stocks played a key role in turbocharging the trio’s wealth, as well as the fortunes of Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The eight tech titans alone gained more than $600 billion this year, 43% of the $1.5 trillion increase among the 500 richest people tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

If you are one of the lucky few that is sitting on a giant mountain of money, life may still seem pretty good for the moment.

But a day of reckoning is coming for them too.

2024 was certainly a chaotic year, but I am entirely convinced that 2025 will be much more wild.

Brace yourself for what the next 12 months will bring, because it appears that all sorts of craziness is about to start breaking loose.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Authored by Haley Zaremba via OilPrice.com,

• Rare earth elements are crucial for clean energy, advanced technology, and modern warfare, making them a new axis of geopolitical power.

• China currently dominates the global rare earth market due to its near-monopoly on refining capacities.

• Western powers are concerned about China’s control over rare earth supply chains and are seeking to diversify sources and develop their own refining capabilities.

Rare earth elements are the new oil. This group of 17 metallic elements has become indispensable for the clean energy transition and for modern manufacturing in general. These elements have unique characteristics that make them essential ingredients for the future of technology.

“[Rare earths] just change everything about automobiles; about green technology; about the accuracy of weapons systems. And so they’ve just become essential.” said Jim Kennedy, the president of ThREE Consulting, a rare earths consultancy.

“You want a Prius? You need rare earths. You want a long-range Tesla? You need rare earths. You want a cruise missile that is accurate to 1 meter? You need rare earths.”

The particular utility of rare earth elements primarily comes from their uses as catalysts and magnets in traditional and low-carbon technologies. Other important uses of rare earth elements are in the production of special metal alloys, glass, and high-performance electronics. Rare earth elements “have remarkable physical and chemical properties that make them arguably the superheroes of the periodic table,” Ryan Castilloux, the managing director of minerals consultancy Adamas Intelligence, told Foreign Policy.

Rare earths aren’t really as ‘rare’ as the name would lead you to believe. These minerals are naturally occurring all over the world – but the key lies in finding them in great enough concentrations to make their extraction worth the time and money required. 

All of this serves to make rare earths the new axis of geopolitical power on a global scale. The nations that have naturally occurring reserves of these elements and the capacities and resources to extract and refine them will find themselves wielding enormous financial and political leverage in the coming years.

So which countries are at the top of this new geopolitical totem pole?

China is far and away the largest producer of rare earth elements. After China, which provides about 38 percent of the world’s raw rare earth minerals, Vietnam has the next biggest rare earth reserves, accounting for about 19 percent. Then there is Brazil with 18.1 percent, Russia with 10.4 percent, India with 6 percent, Australia with 3.5 percent, and finally a tie between the United States and Greenland, accounting for 1.3 percent each. No other country has more than one percent of rare earth reserves. 

However, out of all these countries, only one really has geopolitical control of rare earth supply chains and all of the secondary markets that rely on those materials, and that country is China.

China supplies about 85–95 percent of the world’s refined rare earth minerals and has dominated the global market since the late 1990s. This is because Beijing has a near-monopoly on rare earth refining capacities. As we know, a handful of other countries also have significant reserves of critical rare earth elements, but lack the established infrastructure necessary to process them for use in an efficient or cost-effective manner.

China alone accounts for 85-90 percent of the world’s rare earth mine-to-metal refining. What’s more, Chinese refineries supply 68 percent of the world’s cobalt, 65 percent of nickel, and 60 percent of EV-battery-grade lithium. As a result, a whopping 75 percent of all EV batteries are made in China.

There is significant concern that if other nations rich in rare earths don’t step up to compete with China, this is giving Beijing entirely too much leverage and creating a market that is anything but free. So far, however, some experts contend that such worries are overblown. But it’s no secret that rare earths are the new oil, and Western powers are scrambling to regain control. Global tensions around rare earth are certain to heat up in coming years, and mitigating such lopsided control of the market will be critical to maintaining balanced trade mechanisms.

Authored by Andfrew Korybko via substack,

New York Times contributor Rajan Menon wrote in a mid-December op-ed that Trump is unlikely to agree to give Ukraine the security guarantees that Zelensky is demanding in temporary lieu of NATO membership. He’s apparently unaware that Trump will soon inherit the bilateral security agreement that the Biden Administration reached with Ukraine in June. It essentially institutionalizes existing US military aid for Ukraine and obligates it to resume the present scale and scope of such if the conflict reignites.

Nevertheless, Menon’s factually inaccurate assessment raises the question of whether Trump would terminate that agreement as part of his plan to “Pivot (back) to Asia” for more muscularly containing China, which his administration could never do in full if it maintains such commitments to Ukraine. Last June’s document stipulates that “Either Party may terminate this Agreement by providing a written notification through diplomatic channels to the other Party” within six months of planning to abandon it.

It’s therefore legally feasible, but Trump would predictably get a lot of flak from his “deep state’s” Russophobic hawks, though he’d then free the US up to “Pivot (back) to Asia” without worrying about being dragged back into another proxy war with Russia in Europe. Moreover, by depriving Ukraine of the US security guarantees that it took for granted, he’d make it less likely that Kiev would violate the ceasefire in an attempt to manipulate America and others into fighting Russia on its behalf afterwards.

Far from reducing the chances for peace, Trump would greatly raise them by withdrawing the US from the so-called “coalition of the willing” that Ukraine aims to pit against Russia through its machinations. Without American participation, Ukraine would be much less likely to provoke another conflict with Russia since it couldn’t take for granted that its other security guarantee partners (e.g. the UK, Germany, Poland, etc.) would risk war with Russia if NATO’s core member isn’t willing to do so anymore over this.

Another important point is that Trump’s reported plan for NATO, whereby he’d pressure them to spend more on defense and assume more responsibilities for their own security, would automatically become a fait accompli in this scenario. He wouldn’t have to bargain with or threaten them since they’d do this on their own out of their self-interests. Knowing that there’d be no chance of the US directly intervening to save Ukraine if the conflict reignites, they’d step up and begin doing what they should have decades ago.

The years of freeloading off of the US would instantly end, thus enabling Trump to accelerate America’s “Pivot (back) to Asia” and redirect the resources that he’d save in Europe to that theater instead. It’s therefore a win-win from the perspective of the US’ grand strategic interests, albeit one that requires tremendous political will. If Trump is serious about implementing his foreign policy agenda, then he should terminate the US’ bilateral security agreement with Ukraine on his first day of office.

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

It’s a dazzling Tuscan winter morning, and I am inside the legendary Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella, founded in the early 13th century and finally consecrated in 1420, in a very special place in History of Art: right in front of one of the monochrome frescos painted in 1447-1448 by master of perspective Paolo Uccello, depicting the Universal Deluge.

Paolo Uccello: Universal Deluge. 1448 fresco at Santa Maria Novella, Florence. Photo by Pepe Escobar

It’s as if Paolo Uccello was depicting us – in our current times of trouble. So inspired by neoplatonic superstar Marsilio Ficino – immortalized in a chic red robe by Ghirlandaio at the Cappella Tornabuoni – I tried to pull off a back to the future and ideally imagine who and what Paolo Uccello would feature in his depiction of our current deluge.

Let’s start with the positives. 2024 was the Year of the BRICS – with the merit for all the accomplishments going for the tireless work of the Russian presidency.

2024 was also the Year of the Axis of Resistance – until the serial blows suffered during the past few months, a serious challenge which will propel its rejuvenation.

And 2024 was the year that defined the lineaments of the endgame in the proxy war in Ukraine: what remains to be seen is how deep the “rules-based international order” will be buried in the black soil of Novorossiya.

Now let’s turn to the auspicious prospects ahead. 2025 will be the year of consolidation of China as the paramount geoeconomics force on the planet.

It will be the year where the defining battle of the 21st century – Eurasia v. NATOstan – will be sharpened in an array of unpredictable vectors.

And it will be the year of advancing, interlocking connectivity corridors – the defining factor in Eurasia integration.

Not by accident Iran is central to this interlocking connectivity – from the Strait of Hormuz (through which transits, daily, at least 23% of the world’s oil) to the port of Chabahar, which links West Asia with South Asia.

Connectivity corridors to watch are the return of one of the top Pipelineistan sagas, the 1,800 km-long Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline; the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), which links three BRICS (Russia-Iran-India) and several aspiring BRICS partners; the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project; and last but not least, the fast advancing Northern Sea Route (or Northern Silk Road, as the Chinese call it), which will eventually become the cheapest and fastest alternative to the Suez canal.

A few days before the start of Trump 2.0 in Washington, Russia and Iran will finally, officially sign a comprehensive strategic partnership deal in Moscow, over two years in the making: once again, a key deal between two top BRICS, with immense, cascading repercussions in Eurasia integration terms.

A completely sealed channel of negotiation

Dmitri Trenin, respected member of Russia’s Foreign and Defense Policy Council, has what is so far the most realist road map for an acceptable end of the proxy war in Ukraine.

“Acceptable” does not even begin to describe it – because from the point of view of the collective West political “elites” which bet the farm and the bank on this war, nothing is acceptable except Russia’s strategic defeat, which will never happen.

As it stands, President Putin is in fact containing elite sectors in Moscow who favor not only cutting off the head of the snake but the body as well.

Trump for his part has less than zero incentive to be dragged into a further quagmire; leave that to the clueless European chihuahuas.

So a possible drive towards a wobbly “peace” agreement also suits the Global Majority – not to mention China, which understands how war is bad for business (at least if you’re not in the weaponizing racket).

When it comes to an always possible “existential” escalation, we’re not out of the woods yet; but there are still three weeks left for some major terror-fueled coup, as in a false flag.

The first two months of 2025 will be absolutely decisive, when it comes to sketching a possible compromise.

Elena Panina from RUSSTRAT has offered a concise, and sobering, strategic assessment of what may pan out.

What Trump essentially craves, like a trashy McDonald’s burger, is to look like the ultimate Alpha Male. So Putin’s tactical negotiating strategy will not be focused on undermining Trump’s tough guy act. The problem is how to pull it off without undermining Trump’s pop star power – and without adding more fuel to the NATOstan warmongering pyre.

Putin holds an array of trump cards close to his chest – related to Europe, the Brits, China, Ukraine itself and the Global South as a whole.

Determining spheres of influence will be part of a possible agreement. The thing is no specific details should be leaked – and must be kept impermeable to Western intel.

That means, as Panina notes, Trump needing a completely sealed channel of negotiation with Putin, which even the MI6 cannot crack.

A tall order, as privileged Zio-con silos across the Deep State are dizzy with the latest Old Testament psycho-pathological victories in Lebanon and Syria, and the way they enfeebled Tehran. Yet that does not mean the Iran-Russia-China-BRICS link is in jeopardy.

The dynamics are set; tread carefully

Putin and the Security Council should be ready to implement a quite complex, step-by-step diplomatic game, as they know that the trifecta of defeated, supremely angry Democrats, Brits and Bankova will apply maximum pressure on Trump and turn him into “an enemy of America” or some similar crap.

Moscow will accept no truce and no freeze: only a real solution.

It that doesn’t work, the war will continue in the battlefield, and Moscow has no problems with that – or with more escalation. The final humiliation of the Empire of Chaos will then be total.

Meanwhile, Cold War 2.0 between China and the U.S. will advance more on the pop sphere than in substance. The sharpest Chinese analysts know that the real competition is not over ideology – as in the original Cold War – but over technology, from AI to upgrading seamless supply chains.

Moreover, Trump 2.0, at least in principle, has less than zero interest in unleashing a proxy war – Ukraine-style – on China in Taiwan and the South China Sea. China has way more geoeconomic resources than Russia.

So it’s not exactly intriguing that Trump is floating the idea of a G2 between the U.S. and China. The Deep State blob will see it as the ultimate plague – and fight it to death. What’s already certain is assuming this goes ahead, the European poodles will be left drowning in a dirty swamp.

Well, political “elites” that appoint braindead specimens like the Medusa von der Lying and the batshit crazy Estonian chick as top representatives of the EU; who start a war against their most important energy supplier; who fully support a genocide broadcast 24/7 to the whole planet; who are obsessed on eradicating the culture which has defined them; and who at best pay only lip service to democracy and freedom of speech, these “elites” do deserve to wallow in filth.

On the Syrian tragedy, the fact is Putin knows who the real enemy is; certainly not a bunch of Salafi-jihadi head-chopping mercenaries. And the Sultan in Ankara is also not the enemy; from Moscow’s perspective, for all his lofty dreams of replacing “Central Asia” with “Turkestan” in Turkiye’s school textbooks, he is a minor geoeconomic and even geopolitical player.

To paraphrase the inestimable Michael Hudson – perhaps our Marsilio Ficino dressed by Paolo Uccello as a writer in a chic red robe – it’s as if in this pre-deluge juncture American elites were saying, “The only solution is total war with Russia and China”; Russia is saying, “We hope there’s peace in Ukraine and West Asia”; and China is saying, “We want peace, not war.

That may not be enough for reaching a compromise – any compromise. So the dynamics are set: the U.S. ruling class will keep imposing instances of chaos while Russia, China and BRICS will keep testing in the “BRICS lab” de-dollarization models, alternative set ups to the IMF and World Bank, and eventually even an alternative to NATO.

An anarchy and War of Terror cornucopia on one side; cool-headed, coordinated realism on the other. Be prepared – for anything. From Renaissance Florence, one of the – few – peaks of humanity, now living in memory, tread carefully across this flame-filled 2025.