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In the quiet hours of the night, a sudden knock at the door can provoke fear and confusion. But according to Massad Ayoob, a renowned firearms expert and self-defense instructor, the way we respond in such moments can be the difference between life and death.

“Why on earth would you open that door to begin with?” Mr. Ayoob asked during a discussion on home defense strategies on the Wilson Combat YouTube channel. His advice was direct: avoid opening the door entirely unless absolutely necessary. Modern technology – like affordable doorbell cameras and intercom systems – can effectively mitigate risks by allowing occupants to see and communicate with visitors without exposing themselves.

According to Mr. Ayoob, who has decades of experience as a firearms instructor and expert witness in self-defense trials, the most common late-night visitor is not an intruder but rather a local police officer. Police typically deliver urgent news or safety warnings at odd hours—information regarding stolen vehicles, dangerous criminals nearby, or tragic news about loved ones.

“They’re there at 3 a.m. to tell you that at 2 a.m. they recovered your stolen car that you didn’t realize was missing,” Mr. Ayoob explained. Officers might also be delivering “an untimely death notification” or warning of “a burglar or a very dangerous felon in your area.”

Ayoob strongly advises against opening the door visibly armed. “When you open that door with a gun in your hand, shotgun, carbine, or pistol, what do you suppose it’s going to look like to the officer?” He stresses that such scenarios often result in tragic misunderstandings, noting that “every single one of those cases I’m aware of, the courts have found for the officer.“

His advice on safely answering unexpected late-night visitors emphasizes preparation, clear communication, and cautiousness. If the situation demands opening the door, Mr. Ayoob recommends discreetly carrying a handgun concealed—not visible—to avoid misunderstandings. He cautions against openly brandishing weapons such as shotguns or rifles, as these can trigger a defensive response from law enforcement.

“Be prepared,” he urged. “Have your cell phone right there with you,” and if you think it’s not actually a police officer – immediately dial 911 to confirm whether an officer has in fact been dispatched.

Mr. Ayoob also highlighted the importance of firearm safety and proper selection. He advised choosing handguns with manual safeties or double-action triggers, making them safer to carry discreetly during tense situations.

Finally, Ayoob underscores the importance of preparation and education: “Think it out beforehand. Waking up at three o’clock in the morning out of deep REM sleep is a lousy time to start thinking how you’re going to handle an unexpected situation.” Ensuring all household members understand these precautions could save lives.

Watch:

Authored by Andrew Lowenthal via The Brownstone Institute,

Over the past three weeks, anyone interested in free speech (or not) has been on the receiving end of a non-consensual firehouse of flood-the-zone information warfare. Every man and his DOGE has chimed in, capturing via screenshot a score of Osama bin Laden of censorship hideouts – “It’s USAID!” “It’s NED!” “It’s NIH”!

USAID in particular has been made responsible for everything, from funding chemtrails in Naples to biting your own cheek. It’s a shame the word misinformation is of so little use anymore.

USAID is important, but the censorship happens via a system comprising hundreds, possibly thousands, of organisations, small and large. Is there a secret bunker? I don’t know, it isn’t impossible, but the approach is cartoonish. There are key nodes, organisations, and networks that are more important than others, particularly those that hand out money. In fact “complex” was the term that quickly gained favour during the Twitter files, precisely because it captured the system’s complexity – it’s what made it work and minimised public scrutiny.

Over the past couple of months, liber-net has built a database of almost 1,000 federal government awards from 2016-2024 that went towards countering “misinformation” and other similar censorship pretexts. That work aims to complement the mapping of the Censorship Industrial Complex we did for Matt Taibbi. That work looked partly at government funding but focused more on the leading censorship organisations and their often public and private support.

Not all of the 1,000 grants logged are dubious, but many are. We’ve been going through each by hand – reading their project pages, papers, and reports to find out how big a problem they are. Can AI help? Yes to a degree but from what we’ve tried, AI can’t yet really understand why one grant is horrible and the next one is just a bit meh.

The map above is a sketch of where we think the funds have come from to date based on the analysis we’ve been able to do. I emphasise sketch because out of the almost 1,000 awards, I still have another 300-400 to review. Of the 500+ I have looked at so far, around 200 are highly problematic, and another 100 are extremely dubious.

Keep in mind we are looking only at grants that could be considered “censorship” so anything that looked at “misinformation,” “hate speech,” “information integrity,” “information operations,” “content moderation,” “fact-checking” et al. We aren’t looking at grants for dubious woke culture war projects that have set the internet aflame the past couple of weeks.

To give you an idea, the grants include NSF money to Meedan (one of Twitter’s four go-to organisations for Covid “misinformation”) to develop AI to spy on encrypted private messaging groups to weed out so-called “misinformation,” including to create and scale “tip lines” “to millions of users” – aka snitching on a mass scale.

Or more NSF money to the University of Illinois to “track locations, people, and organizational affiliations of dubious COVID-19 information” based on whether they questioned CDC guidance.

Once we’ve finalised reviewing the remaining grants we’ll produce a much more accurate map and systemic analysis of how much each agency was funding censorship, and who they were paying to do it. This teaser is because I have a bee in my bonnet about the dynamite fishing I am seeing where a net, if not a rod, would be more useful.

The downside of dynamite is that it is indiscriminate. The Free Press reported last week people like Chris Rufo were falsely accused of being a USAID shill because a computer program said so. In my previous post, I pointed out other errors being circulated as social media influencers feasted on fresh DOGE kills.

Again, this isn’t to say that USAID isn’t in large part a massive covert operation – it should be shut down and the actual humanitarian work shifted to an entirely new agency. But our research shows a lot more censorship grants from the State Department (not getting shut down) and the National Science Foundation, to say nothing of the Pentagon which has dropped, among a slew of problematic awards, up to one billion dollar counter “disinformation” contracts. To compare that to a $100k grant to an irrelevant woke NGO in Kenya is like putting an ant next to a whale.

It’s a complex complex! It will take more than lobbing off a few government branches to get to the root of it, to say nothing of the private foundations supporting censorship, and the slack the EU will no doubt pick up.

Republished from the author’s Substack

Prices for some of the most common breakfast staples have fallen over the past month. While attention has primarily focused on President Trump’s countermeasures — which have helped arrest the rise in egg prices and send them tumbling in recent weeks — orange juice prices are now on track to post their sharpest quarterly decline in over 50 years.

Bloomberg data shows that if losses of 45% persist through the end of the month, the first quarter would mark the largest quarterly decline since the second quarter of 1967.

Prices have been halved from $5 a pound in mid-December to around $2.50. 

As we previously mentioned in December, prices hovered over $5 on production figures in Florida, sliding to 1930 levels. There are shifting consumer behavior trends of falling demand for the sugary citrus drink usually paired with eggs and bacon. 

Data from Nielsen and the Florida Department of Citrus show a 7% drop in juice volumes sold this season through February. The latest drop adds to the ongoing trend of shifting consumer habits, with orange juice consumption halved since the DotCom peak.

In addition to plunging OJ prices, egg prices have been more than halved in just a few weeks after President Trump announced a plan to offset a loss of domestic production following Biden-Harris’ reckless culling of 150 million egg-laying hens. 

• Supply Chain Sabotage? Biden “Killed 8 Million Chickens” Right Before Trump Entered Office

Breakfast is about to become cheaper in the weeks ahead.

Authored by Anders Corr via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. national debt is now $36.6 trillion. Interest is building rapidly due to the high rates offered by the Federal Reserve to bring down inflation during the previous administration.

Starting in 2022, the net interest outlays of the U.S. government started skyrocketing and are headed for $1.63 trillion annually by 2034. That is more than today’s annual defense and Medicaid budgets combined.

Even after some spending cuts instituted by President Donald Trump, new data indicate that federal spending was at an all-time high of $603 billion for the month of February.

Given that context, most voters reasonably support a smaller federal government. A Reuters poll on March 11–12, the outcome of which was not particularly friendly toward Trump, found that 59 percent of respondents still support the downsizing of the federal government, for which he is becoming known. That support is a massive 20 points higher than the 39 percent who do not support such downsizing. This lead is a strong mandate for change, which Trump has followed through with the establishment of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), reportedly run by a certain chainsaw-wielding billionaire named Elon Musk.

Musk’s chainsaw could usefully be compared to the sword of Damocles. In the ancient Roman story, the statesman and philosopher Cicero describes a man named Damocles who lived large and reclined happily, until he realized that a sword hung over his head, suspended by a single horse-hair. Afterward, Damocles acted more reasonably.

This is the function of Musk’s chainsaw today. The federal government departments are living large and have been told by Trump to pare down their expenses. If they do not, then Musk’s chainsaw will descend upon their departments, come what may.

It already has, to some extent. Musk claimed on March 11 to be saving the taxpayer more than $4 billion a day, on track to save a total of $1 trillion by the end of the year. Even that would be far less than the $36.6 trillion national debt. And some say Musk has overstated his effect by as much as 80 percent so far.

As hard as cuts are, some will be needed if the U.S. government does not come up with new sources of revenue. Musk has proposed privatizing the entire United States Postal Service (USPS), for example. The USPS has expected losses of approximately $160 billion over the next decade.

One congressman predicted that DOGE would “undermine it [the USPS], privatize it, and then profit off Americans’ loss.” But there is talk of combining the USPS with the Commerce Department and giving postal service employees some of the tasks previously handled by the Social Security Administration. As email and Amazon take the place of snail mail and parcel posts around the world, cuts and privatizations are perforce taking place.

While most poll respondents support cutting government, there is also widespread dissatisfaction with how the DOGE is proceeding. According to a poll released on March 13, 60 percent disapprove of how Musk and DOGE “are dealing with workers employed by the federal government,” while 36 percent approve.

Not every DOGE rocket will escape the Earth’s atmosphere every single time. Mistakes have been made along the way, as Musk and Vice President JD Vance admit. Nuclear security experts were let go and then rehired. Other “mistakes” are in the eye of the beholder. Food for bomb-sniffing dogs was canceled. Musk has called the Social Security system “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” infuriating workers of both parties who paid into it their entire lives.

Trump has said there are no plans to cut Social Security benefits. He said Musk’s DOGE team would use a “scalpel,” not a “hatchet.” And some improvements are being made to the initial approach. The president has now given cabinet secretaries the lead in cost-cutting at their departments. Secretary of State Marco Rubio seems to have been instrumental in this shift. The secretaries, not Musk, are, after all, the experts of their portfolios and should know better than others what fat can be cut without destroying the muscles, bones, and sinews necessary for good government.

The laws of bureaucracy and empire-building, however, lead to department heads who usually seek larger budgets. That is their nature. “Where you stand depends on where you sit,” according to political scientists. So the chainsaw must always loom overhead to force cabinet-level officials to make the tough decisions and spend more responsibly. Musk is always ready in the background in case the secretaries fail, and more drastic measures are needed.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Amid its ongoing air and ground campaign in Gaza, renewed after the collapse of the ceasefire with Hamas earlier this month, Israel has conducted a string of assassinations of Hamas top leadership.

Hamas commander Ismail Barhoum was widely dubbed the ‘Prime Minister of Gaza’ and was killed Sunday night amid expanded airstrikes across the Strip. Israel’s military (IDF) said a ‘precision strike’ took him out at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.

An Israeli statement called him “key Hamas terrorist” – and the Palestinian group has since confirmed his death.

At the time of the strike on the hospital wing, Barhoum had been undergoing treatment for injuries sustained in a previous airstrike.

Israeli media had tallied that since last Tuesday, he’s the fourth member of Hamas’s political bureau to have been killed. Prime Minister Netanyahu has vowed to wipe out Hamas, and ensure it can never control Gaza again.

According to the Times of Israel, “Out of the 20 members of Hamas’s political bureau elected in 2021, 11 have been assassinated during the war in Gaza. Seven are either certain or highly likely to be outside the Gaza Strip.”

The war which has been going on since the Hamas terror attack of Oct.7, 2023 has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Gaza sources have announced a grim milestone on Monday:

More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s war with Hamas began, the territory’s health ministry said Sunday, a grim milestone for a war with no end in sight as Israel resumes fighting and warns of even tougher days ahead.

The ministry on Sunday reported 41 more deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the toll to 50,021.

Authorities in Gaza do not distinguish between civilians and Hamas fighters when reporting casualty figures, but the health ministry and the United Nations say the majority of deaths are women and children. And the true toll could be much higher, with many thousands believed to still be under the rubble.

These figures have been greatly disputed, especially in Israeli and American media. Israel has in the recent past said that some 17-20,000 among the total dead were Hamas fighters.

Leaked 2008 U.S. cable reveals Israel’s Gaza power blockade isn’t just a wartime measure—it’s part of a long-term strategy to restrict essential supplies and keep Gaza “on the brink of collapse” dating back well before Oct 7. Now, with Trump bypassing Israel to engage Hamas… pic.twitter.com/NDWaBStO7J

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 12, 2025

The White House earlier this month said it was notified in advance that the IDF would renew the Gaza bombing campaign. And on the question of the enclave’s future, US National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes has said: “Gaza is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordinance.”

But it remains unclear whether President Trump will ultimately stick by his plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza. Regardless, it seems Israel is already trying to pursue this.

Authored by Glenn Minnis via The Center Square,

For the 13th consecutive year, the city of Chicago once again reigned as the nation’s homicide capital in 2024 with 573 murders.

Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski views that as a sickness he argues has been allowed to fester for too long.

Even as overall murder rates across the country dipped, Chicago also claimed the top spot for highest murder rate per capita among big cities at 21.5 per 100,000 population, or three times the levels of Los Angeles and nearly five times of New York City.

“It means we have a real problem and we’re sick,” Dabrowski told The Center Square. 

“Until we get serious, this murder problem is going to be a drag on the city in terms of attracting people, attracting businesses and, worse, it’s going to keep chasing people away and chasing businesses away. It’s something we have to get our hands around.”

Dabrowski adds that while Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson often talks about crime being down in the city, the truth is numbers are down across the country, just not nearly as much in Chicago.

“It’s true the crime is down somewhat, but it’s down dramatically across the country,” he said. 

“It’s barely down here. You’ve got places like Jacksonville where murders are down 50%. You’ve got places like Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington D.C., where it’s down 30 to 35%. Our murders are only down 8%. We’re just part of the national wave, but we’re almost not participating in that national wave.”

In all, 19 of the top 20 cities for total homicides in 2024 saw fewer murders than the year before.

“It’s kind of sickening that we don’t think that we need to have rule of law,” Dabrowski said. 

“We have a mayor that makes apologies for kids doing big crimes as they’re just being kids; we’ve had a state’s attorney that has refused to prosecute in the way that she should and we have a really low arrest rate, which is a big result of low police morale due to city officials that don’t support police. It’s a broken chain of criminal justice.”

General Motors executives met this week with U.S. Secret Service Director Sean Curran in Warren to discuss a new presidential limousine, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The meeting follows Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s call to buy Tesla stock and President Trump’s recent showcase with Elon Musk and Tesla vehicles at the White House.

GM declined to comment on government contracts, but the Secret Service said the talks focused on “advancements that could benefit the next generation of armored SUVs.”

A Secret Service spokesman confirmed to the Free Press that GM has been contracted to build a new presidential limousine, but offered no details on the design or Director Curran’s talks with the company.

“The U.S. Secret Service is always exploring emerging technology to enhance our protective operations,” said spokesman Nate Herring, adding that Curran’s visit to GM’s Tech Center focused on advancements for future armored SUVs.

“Due to operational security, we are unable to discuss the means and methods used for our protective operations,” he continued. 

The Detroit Free Press said that in September, the Department of Homeland Security and Secret Service awarded GM a $14.8 million contract to develop the next presidential limo, with the deal potentially totaling $40.8 million by 2029. Nicknamed “The Beast” since 2001, these heavily armored vehicles have long served U.S. presidents.

U.S. Rep. John James praised the contract, saying, “I’m proud to see the efforts of our Michigan autoworkers, engineers and manufacturers… This is what we do in Michigan: use our grit and genius to innovate.”

The last Beast, a custom Cadillac CT6 built in 2018, weighs 22,000 pounds, runs on diesel, and features 8-inch armor. GM previously won limo contracts in 2010 and again from 2014–2017, totaling over $50 million.

Trump, a longtime Cadillac fan, once said of his father: “His biggest luxury in life was to get a brand new, dark blue Cadillac every two years… he didn’t know about a Rolls Royce. All he liked was Cadillac, and I love it.”

“…my father liked Cadillacs and that’s good enough for me. Does that make sense? Good.”

Every few weeks, fireworks explode across the night sky in Cambodia. These displays, however, are not festive celebrations or cultural ceremonies. Rather, they are the bold salutes of online scammers marking their most lucrative swindles – each colorful burst signaling the a successful operation on an unsuspecting target.

Victims worldwide lose tens of billions of dollars annually to scams involving romance fraud, fake cryptocurrency platforms, and investment hoaxes. Once stolen, the money disappears quickly, funnelled into a complex international money-laundering network designed to swiftly erase any trace of its illegal origins. Authorities across the globe—including the FBI, China’s Ministry of Public Security, and Interpol—have tried repeatedly to curb this phenomenon. Telecom companies block suspicious numbers, banks issue urgent warnings, and law enforcement agencies execute raids. Yet the scams continue, resilient as ever, according to some actual journalism by the NY Times.

Transactions within this network are predominantly denominated in Tether, which allows scammers to swiftly move money across borders and through a web of intermediaries known as “money mules,” obscuring its illicit origins.

The Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, and coastal city Sihanoukville serve as global hubs for these sophisticated money-laundering operations. In Phnom Penh, a sprawling financial conglomerate called Huione Group presents itself as a reputable enterprise with legitimate commercial activities across Southeast Asia. Huione’s recognizable QR codes are everywhere in Cambodia, facilitating transactions at hotels, supermarkets, and restaurants. Its advertisements line highways, highlighting services ranging from banking to insurance.

Integral to the money laundering operations are individuals called “matchmakers,” trusted intermediaries who connect scammers to money mules. These mules manage the bank accounts or cryptocurrency wallets that swiftly funnel the stolen funds. Transactions are strategically divided into amounts below reporting thresholds such as $10,000, and moved quickly, often converted into Tether within hours or days, greatly complicating law enforcement’s ability to trace the money’s path.

The network profits at every step. Huione affiliates earn fees for escrow services and charge for advertisements and transactions conducted on their platforms. Remarkably, this marketplace has even launched its own cryptocurrency, further facilitating illicit financial flows.

Documents reviewed in the investigation detail a highly organized system operated by a Huione affiliate known as Huione International Pay. Based at the conglomerate’s Phnom Penh headquarters, departments within this affiliate meticulously track mule accounts in numerous countries, manage customer relations with scammers, and actively monitor relevant online platforms like Telegram.

The scale of this criminal enterprise is staggering. Analytics firms Elliptic and Chainalysis have traced approximately $26.8 billion in cryptocurrency transactions since 2021 back to the illicit marketplace run by Huione affiliates. One Telegram channel alone, aptly named “Demand and Supply,” had over 400,000 active users exchanging hundreds of daily messages about money-laundering services before being shut down briefly by Telegram after an inquiry. Within a week, another nearly identical channel emerged, quickly amassing around 250,000 members.

Although Huione Guarantee, the affiliate originally hosting the marketplace, publicly denied affiliation with the broader Huione conglomerate – going so far as to change its name – the marketplace nonetheless identified Huione Group as one of its “strategic partners and shareholders.”

Operating openly in Cambodia, Huione companies benefit from weak enforcement and ambiguous corporate structures, along with significant political connections. Notably, Hun To, a cousin of Cambodia’s prime minister, serves as a director at a Huione company. Such connections contribute to the network’s apparent impunity. John Wojcik, a threat analyst with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, explained: “The reality is even if Huione were dismantled, competitors would quickly replace it. We can already see competitors now positioning themselves.”

Cambodian regulators recently refused to renew the license for Huione’s payment service, citing its failure to “meet the renewal requirements.” In response, Huione immediately announced intentions to register new operations internationally, targeting jurisdictions like Japan and Canada. Cambodian regulators insist they are committed to ensuring financial transparency and safety, pledging cooperation with global anti-money laundering standards.

When problems arise – if a mule is caught or decides to run away with the money – a matchmaker arbitrates disputes, protecting scammers through deposits held in escrow by Huione affiliates. Profits flow through the system at every step, benefiting Huione’s operations and fueling expansion into luxury goods, property, and, notably, extravagant fireworks displays.

The human cost behind these operations is considerable. Many scammers themselves are victims of human trafficking, coerced into conducting fraud under threat of violence or captivity. Captive employees live in fortified compounds, forced to spend earnings in company-controlled establishments, including restaurants, casinos, and brothels. A secondary industry flourishes alongside, with sophisticated websites and applications built by software developers, stolen data purchased from thieves, and even attractive models paid to persuade potential victims via manipulated video calls.

Despite international investigations, temporary shutdowns of online channels, and occasional arrests, the industry adapts and thrives. Scammers maintain professionalism reminiscent of large corporations, managing employees, human resources departments, and extensive infrastructure.

With each stolen dollar meticulously laundered and eventually reintegrated into legitimate economies around the world, the cycle remains difficult – nearly impossible – to break. As long as billions of illicit dollars continue to flow through Cambodia’s opaque financial networks, the scammers’ fireworks over Phnom Penh will continue, illuminating nights already heavy with human misery and lost fortunes.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

“A New World Order With European Values.” Emblazoned across banners and signs, those words met the participants at this week’s meeting of the World Forum in Berlin.

Each year, leaders, executives, journalists and academics gather to address the greatest threats facing humanity. This year, there was little doubt about what they view as the current threat: the resurgence of populism and free speech.

In fairness to the Forum, “a New World Order” likely sounds more ominous for some civil libertarians than intended. While the European Union is a transnational government stretching across 27 nations, the organizers were referring to a shift of values away from the United States to Europe.

As one of the few speakers at the forum who was calling for greater protections for free speech, I found it an unnerving message. Even putting aside the implications of the New World Order, the idea of building a world on today’s European values is alarming for free speech.

Free speech is in a free fall in Europe, with ever-expanding speech regulations and criminal prosecutions — including for having “toxic ideologies.”

The World Forum has a powerful sense of fraternity, even an intimacy, among leaders who see each other as a global elite — a cadre of enlightened minds protecting citizens from their own poor choices and habits.

There has long been a push for transnational governing systems, and European figures see an opportunity created by the conflict with President Trump. The European Union is the model for such a Pax Europaea or “European peace.”

The problem is that this vision for a new Holy Roman Empire lacks a Charlamagne. More importantly, it lacks public support.

The very notion of a “New World Order” is chilling to many who oppose the rise of a globalist class with the rise of transnational governance in the European Union and beyond.

This year, there is a sense of panic among Europe’s elite over the victory of Trump and the Republicans in the U.S., as well as nationalist and populist European movements.

For globalists, the late Tip O’Neill’s rule that “all politics is local” is anathema. The European Union is intended to transcend national identities and priorities in favor of an inspired transnational government managed by an expert elite.

The message was clear. The new world order would be based on European, not American, values. To rally the faithful to the cause, the organizers called upon two of the patron saints of the global elite: Bill and Hillary Clinton. President Clinton was even given an award as “leader of the century.”

The Clintons were clearly in their element. Speaker after speaker denounced Trump and the rise of what they called “autocrats” and “oligarchs.” The irony was crushing. The European Union is based on the oligarchy of a ruling elite. The World Forum even took time to celebrate billionaires from Bill Gates to George Soros for funding “open societies” and greater transnational powers.

The discussions focused on blunting the rise of far-right parties and stemming the flow of “disinformation” that fosters such dissent.

Outside of this rarefied environment, the Orwellian language would border on the humorous: protecting democracy from itself and limiting free speech to foster free speech.

Yet, one aspect of the forum was striking and refreshingly open. This year it became clear why transnational governance gravitates toward greater limits on free speech.

Of course, all of this must be done in the name of democracy and free speech.

There is a coded language that is now in vogue with the anti-free speech community. They never say the word “censorship.” They prefer “content moderation.” They do not call for limiting speech. Instead, they call for limiting “false,” “hateful” or “inciteful” speech.

As for the rise of opposing parties and figures, they are referred to as movements by “low-information voters” misled by disinformation. Of course, it is the government that will decide what are acceptable and unacceptable viewpoints.

That code was broken recently by Vice President JD Vance, who confronted our European allies in Munich to restore free speech. He stripped away the pretense and called out the censorship.

With the rise of populist groups, anti-immigration movements and critics of European governance, there is a palpable challenge to EU authority. In that environment, free speech can be viewed as destabilizing because it spreads dissent and falsehoods about these figures and their agenda. Thus far, “European peace” has come at the price of silencing many of those voices; achieving the pretense of consensus through coerced silence.

Transnational governance requires consent over a wide swath of territory. The means that the control or cooperation of media and social media is essential to maintaining the consent of the governed.

That is why free speech is in a tailspin in Europe, with ever-expanding speech regulations and criminal prosecutions.

Yet, it is difficult to get a free people to give up freedom. They have to be very afraid or very angry. One of the speakers was Maria A. Ressa, a journalist and Nobel laureate. I admire Ressa’s courage as a journalist but previously criticized her anti-free speech positions. Ressa has struck out against critics who have denounced her for allegedly antisemitic views. She has warned that the right is using free speech and declaring “I will say it now: ‘The fascists are coming.’”

At the forum, Ressa again called for the audience of “powerful leaders” to prevent lies and dangerous disinformation from spreading worldwide.

But the free speech movement has shown a surprising resilience in the last few years. First, Elon Musk bought Twitter and dismantled its censorship apparatus, restoring free speech to the social media platform. More recently, Mark Zuckerburg announced that Meta would also restore free speech protections on Facebook and other platforms.

In a shock to many, young Irish voters have been credited with killing a move to further expand the criminalization of speech to include “xenophobia” and the “public dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures or other material” from viewpoints barred under the law.

Anti-free speech forces are gathering to push back on such trends. Indeed, Hillary Clinton has hardly been subtle about the dangers of free speech to the new world order. After Musk bought Twitter with the intention of restoring free speech protections, Clinton called upon the European Union to use its infamous Digital Services Act to make Musk censor her fellow Americans. She has also suggested arresting those spreading disinformation.

The European Union did precisely that by threatening Musk with confiscatory fines and even arrest unless he censored users. When Musk decided to interview Trump in this election, EU censors warned him that they would be watching for any disinformation.

For many citizens, European governance does not exactly look like a triumph over “oligarchs” and “autocrats.” Indeed, the EU looks pretty oligarchic with its massive bureaucracy guided by a global elite and “good” billionaires like Soros and Gates.

Citizens would be wise to look beyond the catchy themes and consider what Pax Europaea would truly mean to them. We have many shared values with our European allies. However, given the current laws limiting political speech, a “New World Order Based on European Values” is hardly an inviting prospect for those who believe in robust democratic and free speech values.

*  *  *

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

While investors and economists are squarely focused on whether the US stock market has bottomed or if this is just a short-squeezing bear market rally, and whether the US economy is still growing or – as the Atlanta Fed GDPNow tracker strongly hints – is rapidly shrinking, a far more troubling problem has emerged for the US economy and the Trump administration: the US consumer, and especially the lower income cohort, is now fully tapped out.

Which should not be news to anyone, and certainly not regular zerohedge readers. After all, for the past few years we have been chronicling how US savings are increasingly shrinking and being replaced with credit card borrowings and other forms of debt, including the insidious Buy Now Pay Later (also known as Burrito Now Pay Later, or BNPL), which we learned is being used for food purchases because millions of Americans can’t even afford to pay for their next meal, but they will still use doordash for highly overpriced deliveries!)

And it certainly is not a Trump phenomenon, quite the contrary. Consider the following data from the Philadelphia Fed, which recently showed that the share of active credit card accounts making only the minimum payment hit a series high, 10.75% in third quarter 2024. 

In addition, more consumers are falling behind on their monthly card payments. The balance-based 30+ days past due rate increased 33 basis points year-over-year to 3.52% in third quarter 2024. This represents more than double the delinquency rate of 1.57 percent at the pandemic low in second quarter 2021.

It’s even uglier when looking at the charge-off rates by such “less than prime” card issuers like Capital One and Discovery, both of which just hit their highest charge-off rates since the global financial crisis.

And as more consumers default on their debt, more are increasingly reliant on debt, period. Going back to the Philly Fed study, it found that revolving and total card balances have hit record highs since the series started in 2012. Revolving card balances reached $645 billion in third quarter 2024, which represents 52.5% growth since a decade low of $423 billion in second quarter 2021. Total card balances have also grown, reaching a record high of $914 billion. 

Of course, it’s all circular: in response to weaker credit performance, banks are adopting more conservative lending standards. Tighter bank underwriting is resulting in a measurable decline in new card origination commitments and higher origination credit quality, seen in rising original credit scores. Card balances increased to a new series high, but year-over-year card growth slowed to a nearly three-year low. Meanwhile, nobody can afford to buy a home:
first-lien mortgage origination activity remains at series lows in a high-rate environment, as banks averaged only $55 billion in mortgage originations per quarter in the first three quarters of 2024 after originating $219 billion at the peak of originations in third quarter 2021. With high interest rates, consumers with low-rate mortgages have less financial incentive to refinance, dampening new mortgage demand. The silver lining: wxisting mortgages are performing well as delinquency rates remain low (for now).

As the Philly Fed summarizes ominously, “consumers are not only spending more, leading to higher balances, but paying off less, increasing revolving amounts. Revolving balances as a percentage of total balances have steadily climbed since the pandemic low of 65 percent in fourth quarter 2021 to 71% in third quarter 2024.”

But it’s not just the macro that is ugly; listening to some of the recent company earnings calls shows just how truly miserable the US consumer has become at the end of the Biden administration.

As Goldman Delta-One head trader Rich Privorotsky wrote a few days ago, “the (weak) consumer theme is very well understood but in case it’s unclear, we have a low end consumer problem” and here are some soundbites: 

• KSS CEO: “when you look at income level, if you’re making less than 50, that consumer is pretty constrained from a discretionary standpoint, if you’re making less than 100, it’s also pretty challenging. And you see that very clearly in the numbers”. 
• DG CEO: “What has really become apparent leaving Q4 and moving into Q1 is the trade-down is back, both the mid and upper-end trade-down, and as we moved into Q4, seems to be accelerating. We’ll know a little bit more as we pull Q1 here, but I would tell you nothing that we’ve seen so far would show that that trade-down has slowed down”. 
• ACN confirmed the impact of government spending cuts rippling through its business and noted a recent change in trend.
• FDX guidance was downbeat. “The current environment … is adding uncertainty to demand”… “I think it’s reasonable to assume that the macro-environment is not going to significantly improve at least for the first half of FY26” 

That’s just the start. As Goldman reveals in its latest Consumer Retail tracker (full note available to pro subs), commentary from earnings calls is almost uniformly ugly:

• AAP (Feb 26): There is continued softness in the consumer spending environment, with deferral in spending for maintenance and discretionary items. They expect the consumer to remain pressured in the 1H, with the macro improving in the back half of the year.
• ASO (Mar 30): Consumer spending power remained constrained throughout the holiday seasom, and they assume that consumer behavior in 4Q will continue in 2025. They also expect to see continued growth in the upper income quintiles, while there is continued softness in the lower to middle income quintiles.
• AZO (Mar 4): Discretionary sales will continue to he pressured until consumer confidence improves. Lower income consumers are under pressure and will likely continue to he under pressure.
• BBWI (Feb 27): They are not assuming any improvement in the macro or consumer sentiment in their guidance. They
• are also continuing to see value-seeking behavior along with competitive intensity.
• BBY (Mar 3): The consumer will remain resilient but is still dealing with high inflation that is driving expenses up, making them more value focused and thoughtful about big ticket purchases. However, consumers are willing to spend on high price points when there is necessity/technology innovation.
• BJ (Mar 6): Consumers remain highly value conscious and discern from discretionary purchases. Tariffs may disrupt consumer spending given consumer wallets are stretched.
• BYD.TO (Mar 19): Consumers are currently putting themselves in a position where they are unable to afford fixing their vehicle. They also face high levels of insurance premiums as used car pricing increases.
• DG (Mar 13): “Consumers have reported that their financial situation has worsened over the last year as they have been negatively impacted by inflation. Many of their customers report that they only have enough money for basic essentials, with some having to sacrifice on necessities. As they enter 2025, they are not anticipating improvement in the macro environment and assume there is continued economic pressure similar to 2026.”
• DRVN (Feb 25): “They anticipate that the ongoing inflationary environment will likely continue to pressure consumer spending for 2025, with lower income households being the most impacted. There continues to he a lot of uncertainty, specifically with inflationary pressure and tariffs.”
• EYE (Feb 26): “The first few weeks of the year have been choppy for consumer retail, they have seen some wobble in the consumer. They see immigration as one of the many factors affecting consumer sentiment, with cash paying consumers the rnost challenged.”
• FL (Mar 5): “As they moved towards February, consumers became more cautious and sensitive; however, they are seeing consumers spend during compelling activations, key shopping events, or product launches. As they enter 2025, they are recognizing heightened levels of marketplace uncertainties and experienced increased pressure in the lulls between key events.“
• LOW (Feb 26): “They are still seeing a cautious consumer leading to contin !Jed near-term pressure on DIY discretionary spending.”
• OLLI (Mar 19): “Consumers rernain under pressure, with big-ticket categories remaining softer and the consumables category becoming stronger. The higher income consumer continues to trade down and the consumer responds to deals, whether they are discretionary or nondiscretionary.”
• ORLY (Feb 6): “Pressure on consumers and continued softness in discretionary categories persisted in 4Q. However, they remain cautious for the potential of worsening economic conditions, such as high price levels, high interest rates, and high energy costs. The consumer still remains cautious, especially the lower-end consumers.“
• TGT (Mar 4): “Consumers show a willingness to splurge on newness and holiday events, but persistent economic uncertainty has led consumers to take a cautious approach towards spending. While consumer spending trends are not hack to normal, they are seeing encouraging trends in their discretionary businesses. Consumers also cottinue bo resourceful, looking for the best deals and prices.”
• WMT (Feb 20): “They are assuming a relatively stable macroeconomic environment, but acknowledge there are still some uncertainties related to consumer behavior and geopolitical conditions.”

The silver lining is that for now, the high end is doing just fine: “Italian luxury group Brunello Cucinelli Thursday said its operating profit had risen 12.9% last year and confirmed its expectations of sales growth of around 10% in 2025 and 2026.” And yet, in a surprising twist, it is the Goldman “high-income consumer” basket that has been the worst performing over the past year, down about 13% since the start of 2024, with Middle-income down 4% over the same period. The surprising winner: stocks that track the low-income consumer are actually up about 3% since Jan 1 2024.

Don’t hold your breath on this outperformance to continue, however, especially when considering that dramatic cut to EPS guidance unleashed during Q4 earnings season which is shown in the Goldman chart below, which summarizes company results vs both the bank’s estimates and consensus.

It’s not all bad news: according to the latest Consumer Checkpoint report from Bank of America which uses aggregated card data as a source of data, consumers’ credit and debit card spending per household dropped 2.3% year-over-year (YoY) in February, compared to a rise of 1.9% YoY in January. However, that decline reflected the extra leap day in February 2024, which boosted spending last year and depressed the YoY growth rate for February 2025. Seasonally adjusted (SA) spending per household rose 0.3% month-over-month (MoM), with the three-month seasonally adjusted annualized growth rate (SAAR) at 2.4%, To be sure, the latest retail sales which came in stronger than expected corroborated this modest increase.

The bank founds that while spending was relatively strong in services in February on a MoM basis, there was a continued decline in restaurant spending. Additionally, retail spending (ex- gas and restaurants) was flat MoM, after declining in January. Here, BofA speculates that “the consumer is still demonstrating some underlying forward momentum in these early months of the year, though at a more measured pace.” This is particularly the case as the weather may be responsible for some weakness in the data, although as noted below, the weather is no longer seen as the primary culprit behind spending weakness (January was a cold month, with snow and ice in the South and Northeast). February also brought winter storms to the midwestern and southern US, evident in slowing spending growth in Texas in mid-month, although spending recovered toward the end of February

Card spending growth also weakened in the D.C. area in February, possibly due to the significant snow received during the third week of February. However, other major cities in the eastern portion of the US also received winter snowstorms and they experienced a spending growth recovery. So, it could also be that recent announcements and actions to reduce the size of the federal workforce may be weighing on spending throughout the DC area.

Not surprisingly, when looking at spending across income cohorts, the top-third of households by income category have largely had higher card spending growth than middle- or lower-income peers since February 2024. This contrasts with 2023 when the opposite was true. One reason for the recovery in spending growth in the higher-income cohort appears to be stronger after-tax wage and salary growth, which accelerated over 2024 after a period of weakness in 2023. In February 2025, after-tax wage and salary growth for this cohort accelerated further, up 3.5% YoY, compared to a slowdown in growth for lower-income households, up 2.4% YoY, according to Bank of America deposit data.

Also worth noting that higher-income households tend to hold more of their overall financial assets in equities. Data from the Fed suggests that the top 20% of households by income held around 43% of their non-real estate assets in directly held corporate equities and mutual fund shares in Q3 2024, compared to around 20% for the other 80% of households. The size of overall financial wealth will generally be higher for these higher-income households, too.

Rising financial asset values over 2023 and 2024 have likely provided an additional boost to spending growth for higher-income households over the past year or so through so-called “wealth effects” – the tendency for consumers to spend more as their wealth rises. 

But how this relative boost to higher-income spending develops over the course of 2025 will depend, in part, upon how equities perform: according to BofA current levels of the S&P may suggest some of these wealth effects could dissipate this year. Worse, according to an analysis from BofA’s Michael Hartnett which we discussed over the weekend (see here), using BofA private client equity data, Hartnett estimated that US household equity wealth could fall $3tn in Q1 2025, which would explain the drop off in spending across most cohorts, not just low and medium-income households.

While stock prices are a key driver for high-income consumer spending, for lower- and middle-income households, it is elevated deposits that are likely to have been consequential in providing a tailwind or support to their spending, given they represent a larger share of their wealth. As the chart below shows, while diminishing, household savings balances are still above 2019 inflation-adjusted levels (but not for long).

Additionally, BofA notes that at this time of year, tax refunds can also be a seasonal boost to household deposits and potentially provide another tailwind, albeit temporary, to their spending. Looking at average tax refund payments into Bank of America deposit accounts over the 2025 tax filing season as of February 28, for households at the lower-end of the income distribution, the average refund was up around 4% YoY, with increases around 7% YoY for middle- and higher-income households. 

However, it’s still very early in the tax season to draw conclusions:  according to IRS data, only around a quarter of the total tax filings had been made as of February 21st as the majority are likely to come throughout March and April.

Not surprisingly, perhaps the biggest wildcard is how much consumption will inflation, unleashed by the previous administration, steal. Consider that over the past year, prices for ‘food away from home’ (e.g., restaurants) have risen by more than prices for ‘food at home’ (e.g., groceries).  But recently, prices for food at home have been increasing notably: up 0.5% MoM, following a 0.3% rise in December, and well above the average 0.14% MoM increase in 2024. While these sequential price increases are still relatively small, they are occurring after grocery prices have already risen nearly 30% since 2019. In fact, the largest MoM price increases appear to be for the grocery items that are already up the most.

This has been more obvious in some high-profile items; for example, the price of eggs rose 15% MoM in January, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), but have since fallen back. Eggs account for 2.5% of a typical grocery bill, so this increase alone may not be enough to ‘eat’ into the rest of consumer budgets. However, looking across all grocery categories, we can see that prices increased MoM for nearly 80% of typical spending in January. Additionally, meat, poultry, and fish – accounting for nearly 20% of an average grocery basket – experienced a 0.5% MoM increase

Conversely, fruit and vegetables, accounting for over 13% of a typical basket declined 0.6% MoM. However, given that imports have made up an increasing share of US food consumption, especially for non-manufactured goods like fruits and vegetables, potential tariffs may put price pressures on even more items in consumers’ grocery carts in future. This rise in grocery prices appears to be partially reflected in household spending, according to Bank of America internal data. Chart 13 shows that those with lower incomes spent around 1% MoM more on groceries in January, with smaller rises for middle- and higher-income households. While lower-income households saw a decline in February, middle- and higher-income households saw another rise. It may be that some of the recent decline in grocery spending at the lower end of the spectrum may be due to a spreading out or trading down effect, as some lower-income households head to general merchandise or discount stores to save money.

How might consumers respond to higher food prices if they continue to take a ‘bite’ out of their spending power? Chart 14 chart shows that one response to earlier food inflation was that consumers shopped for groceries more often but spent less each time. More recently though, the amount spent per transaction has increased while the number of times consumers shop has eased only slightly.

This approach of ‘more but smaller’ shops may allow consumers to focus on buying things they feel represent good value at particular stores. And a natural counterpart is households also shopping increasingly at ‘value’ grocery stores (see our piece on value groceries for more). The chart below shows that this trend is ongoing, and in February 2025, grocery spending per household at value stores rose 1.2% YoY, while it dropped 1.4% YoY for premium grocers.

Overall, if food prices continue to rise, consumers could continue to employ some of these strategies to try and limit the pass-through of higher prices onto their grocery bills, which, in turn, may reduce the risk of them needing to pull back their spending elsewhere. This is particularly relevant for lower-income households, where groceries swallow up a significant share of income.

So what does Wall Street think of all of this? For the answer we went to Goldman Consumer specialist Scott Feiler who published a note yesterday (available to pro subscribers) laying out 5 points about the health of the US consumer. Here is his assessment.

Has the US Consumer Slowed?: I would argue the debate has moved past whether or not we have seen some slowing in US consumer. We have. I think the bigger focus/question should now shift to what is already priced in as opposed to any surprise when a company notes some volatility in 1Q trends. The other debate should be whether the slowdown can quickly stabilize/reverse if the tariff outcome/headlines are not as bad as feared and confidence readings stabilize. Some thoughts on timing for a trade below…
 
1. Not Just Weather: The year started off choppy in January and February, though it was most impacting companies with exposure to adverse weather trends, especially apparel companies and restaurants. After comments from airlines, cruise lines (just modest slowing) and some data in hotels recently pointed to some slowing  (hotel the focus this past week from investors), it seems clear that the slowdown has spread some and it is not just weather related.

2. Shouldn’t This Be Known By Now? Many of the names (especially in travel) are down 20-40% into their updates. My view is the price action is ultimately going to be much more interesting to me than when a company tells you they saw some volatility in February/March. I would note CCL rallied back from –7% to close down just -1% on their comments about the macro, hotels rallied from -5% to -1% after some of their weekly data came out soft and FDX, while -6% on the day, did finish at the highs. Lastly, footwear and athletic stocks traded very well Friday, despite NKE’s weak guide and comments that they expect tariffs to have a big impact to both top and bottom-line for them.

3. It is specific to the low-income? We received this question a lot this week.  While the high-end consumer has continued to hold up better than other pockets of consumer and the confidence readings have been better vs this cohort, there have been companies speaking to a slowdown at the higher-end in the US, including Prada and Viking. Ultimately though, if the market stabilizes, so too should high income spend.

4. Is it all bad? No. I would argue we got some slightly better reads this week vs fears. Government retail sales came in better than feared, the BofA CEO spoke very constructively about the consumer, DRI (a bellwether of sorts in casual dining) noted an acceleration in their QTD trends and FIVE/SIG (while not bellwethers of spend) both spoke to better 1Q trends. While some of these may be company specific, we are not yet in an environment where it’s a coordinated across the board slowdown, even if it is impacting more companies than not.

5. Next Catalyst: The Consumer Discretionary group is -8% YTD, underperforming the market by 500 bps. Our PB data also reflects concern, as the sector has been the most sold in our PB data YTD and was net sold again this past week, despite the slight relief in the market. Despite that, I do think investors are looking to 2H of April as a long trade for the group. On the seasonal and general merchandise side, the later Easter (April 20th in 2025 vs March 31st in 2024) will create headwinds right now that become tailwinds shortly, Gross relative PB exposure is at 5-years lows in the group and there’s a hope that there could be some relief (a couple weeks of wiggle room for negotiations post April 2nd), or at least some certainty, on the tariff front by then.

Bottom line: The low – and increasingly medium – consumer is broke and struggling to make ends meet from month to month. And while the high-income consumer is anecdotally still doing well, they are increasingly trading down and judging by the market, this will be the next shoe to drop. In any case, if and when the US consumer finally falters – bearing some 70% of US economic growth on his back – that will be the trigger for the next recession, and while all the pieces were put in place by the Biden admin for the next economic contraction, it will be Trump who will be the object of the mainstream media’s propaganda ire. 

Which once again brings us to the question we asked two weeks ago: is Trump trying to push the US into a recession, one which he will blame on Biden, then promptly stimulate out of, and set both the economy and market on the correct footing into the midterms.  If so, Trump better make up his mind fast, because every day that US economy does relatively well without grinding to a halt, is one day that will make blaming Biden for the current dismal economic picture that much more difficult.

More in the full notes from Goldman (here and here) and Bank of America (here), all available to pro subscribers.