Pablo Picasso The sculptor and his statue 1933
The prosecutions of every Populist Leader proves that Democracy is an illusion. pic.twitter.com/WmAAHH3aQy
— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) March 31, 2025
The risk Elon Musk and the DOGE team are taking by auditing USAID, the DoD, the CIA etc can not be overstated
Mike Benz tells Shawn Ryan that stuff Elon Musk is going through are things people have been threatened to be killed over
“This was the sort of thing that even the… pic.twitter.com/ebG6O94i4S
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) March 30, 2025
Elon NGOs
Elon Musk believes that YES, prominent Democrats like Maxine Waters, Adam Schiff and Chuck Schumer have received USAID money funneled through NGOs
“There is a massive amount of corruption — So they'll send the money overseas to one NGO, then it'll go through a bunch of them, and… pic.twitter.com/mB1kR4aCjJ
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) March 31, 2025
Elon votes
Elon Musk speaks on Democrats “I think it's the biggest voter fraud thing in history, by far”
The number of millions of illegals put on Social Security was “DOUBLING EACH YEAR”
Elon Musk explains how Democrat operatives “farm votes”
“This is why we need Voter ID — The social… pic.twitter.com/TrGvzLe7WP
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) March 31, 2025
Clients
🚨🇺🇸 EXPOSING THE SCHEME: WHISTLEBLOWER REVEALS PLAN TO HOOK MIGRANTS ON LIFETIME BENEFITS
A whistleblower's shocking testimony reveals a coordinated effort to sign illegal immigrants up for permanent Social Security disability benefits—a disturbing strategy to create lifetime… https://t.co/wqd4bgiICU pic.twitter.com/CSY8uQnx8s
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 31, 2025
Jennings
https://twitter.com/PapiTrumpo/status/1906437104785097141
RFK
MAHA: RFK Jr announced he is doubling HHS layoffs from 10,000 to 20,000 consolidating 28 divisions to 15 and renaming the agency the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA). pic.twitter.com/Nmhj27nwvJ
— @amuse (@amuse) March 31, 2025
NYT
Just so everyone is clear, the New York Times is confirming: (1) that U.S. military boots are on the ground in Ukraine. (2) the U.S. military targeted the Russian strikes. (3) the CIA operated in Ukraine, and targeted strikes into Russian mainland.
Just so we are clear! https://t.co/XGfJGMbm6a
— TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) March 31, 2025
It’s taking a lot of reading to get an even halfway satisfactory idea of what goes on with Marine Le Pen, who was sentenced to 4 years in jail for embezzlemennt of EU funds yesterday. 2 of the four years are probation, 2 are house arrest. And she can’t run for office for 5 years, with presidential elections coming in 2027.
The penalties cover the period from 2004-2016, when her National Rally (Rassemblement National – RN) had representatives seated in the Euopean Parliament. Which pays parties in that position to cover salaries etc. for assistants. Now a French court determines they did not handle these EU funds properly, 20-odd years ago, they need to pay it back with fines, and she must go to jail.
But RN doesn’t appear to be the only party with similar issues, not even the only French one. So why is this happening, and why now? Every answer provides 5 new questions.
There are strong similarities with Donald Trump’s case in the US (including judges grasping political power), and of course Le Pen is not the only EU politician who is declared ineligible for an election.
We get to choose from pre-selected candidates. That’s not democracy.
She will appeal the decision. That can take a year or more, so a bunch of judges will decide if she will be in time to run, even if she wins the appeal.
• Paris Court Finds Le Pen Guilty of Embezzlement of EU Funds (Sp.)
A court in Paris found Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally faction in the French parliament, guilty of embezzlement of European Parliament funds by hiring fictitious assistants to party members, the judge announced on Monday. “Madame Le Pen has been found guilty of embezzlement of public funds,” the judge said. Another eight other party lawmakers were found guilty, while some 12 party members were found guilty of “hiding information.” According to the court, the damage to the European Parliament is estimated at 2.9 million euros ($3.1 million). The court sentenced Le Pen to four years in prison, including two years on probation.
“The court decided to impose a 4-year prison sentence against Madame Le Pen, two of which are on probation, and two can be commuted. She will also not be able to be elected to public authorities for a term of five years,” the judge said. Le Pen will not go to prison, and will serve her sentence with an electronic bracelet at home, the judge said. Le Pen was also ordered to pay a fine of 100,000 euros ($108,200).
Le Pen and 24 of her party members are accused of allegedly laundering the funds of the European Parliament by allegedly fictitiously hiring assistants to lawmakers. The politicians are accused of “misuse of public funds” of the European Union in the period from 2004 to 2016, and Le Pen is accused of creating a “centralized system” of laundering European Parliament’s money. According to the prosecution, the European Parliament allocated funds to pay for the work of parliamentary assistants to European Parliament lawmakers from Le Pen’s party, although in fact the assistants worked only for the National Rally faction.
Unreal. They took out the opposition. Marine Le Pen, who is currently leading in opinion polls for the 2027 election in France, has been sentenced to 4 years in prison and banned from running in the next election. pic.twitter.com/BcDgfvmnol
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) March 31, 2025
“.. she has accused the EU of mishandling illegal immigration and has criticized its support for Ukraine in the conflict with Russia..”
• France’s Le Pen Sentenced To Four Years In Jail (RT)
A Paris court has sentenced French right-wing politician Marine Le Pen to a four-year jail term, half of which is without parole, in a case involving the embezzlement of EU funds for her National Rally (RN) party. Le Pen has also been barred from running for president in 2027. The verdict on Monday is the culmination of an extended case, in which RN and several of its senior figures were accused of diverting money meant for the offices of European Parliament members towards the national party structure. Le Pen and eight MEPs were found guilty of running the scheme between 2004 and 2016. The five-year ban on participating in elections, which was requested by the prosecution, comes into effect immediately regardless of any appeal process.
The top French constitutional court ruled last week in an unrelated case that such a punishment was legal under the basic law. The court has reportedly allowed Le Pen to serve half of her jail time under home arrest monitored by an ankle bracelet. Others found guilty in the case on Monday were sentenced to serve time in prison, with punishments varying between 12 months and three years. RN president Jordan Bardella denounced the sentence on his X account, calling it “unjust” and amounting to an execution of French democracy. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has expressed support for Le Pen, posting “I am Marine” in French and tagging her account on X.
Le Pen stepped down from the RN party leadership in favor of Bardella in 2022, but remains the head of its faction in the National Assembly. Described as “far-right” by her detractors, she has accused the EU of mishandling illegal immigration and has criticized its support for Ukraine in the conflict with Russia, among other policies. As part of the court’s decision, RN was sentenced to seizure of already-confiscated funds and a fine totalling €2 million ($2.2mn).
https://twitter.com/CilComLFC/status/1906793471802835057
“..the prosecution of Le Pen was “particularly concerning, given the aggressive and corrupt lawfare waged against President Trump here in the United States.”
• Le Pen Conviction ‘A Very Big Deal’ – Trump (RT)
US President Donald Trump has said that the criminal prosecution of French opposition leader Marine Le Pen reminds him of his own legal battles under the Biden administration. On Monday, Le Pen, the ex-leader of the conservative National Rally (RN) party, was sentenced to four years in prison, two of which will be suspended, and was barred from holding public office for five years. The embezzlement conviction effectively bars her from the 2027 presidential race. When asked by reporters in the Oval Office about the verdict, Trump replied, “That’s a very big deal.” “I know all about it, and a lot of people thought she wasn’t going to be convicted of anything,” Trump said.
“But she was banned [from] running for five years, and she’s the leading candidate. That sounds very much like this country,” he added. Trump has often claimed that the court cases and investigations into his activities were part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” led by the Biden administration and the Democrats. US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said earlier that the prosecution of Le Pen was “particularly concerning, given the aggressive and corrupt lawfare waged against President Trump here in the United States.”
According to the prosecutors, Le Pen siphoned off the EU funds intended for covering her staff’s work in the European Parliament to fund the activities of her party in France. She had denied any wrongdoing and dismissed the verdict as “a fatal day for our democracy.” Le Pen’s party holds the highest number of seats in the National Assembly. According to the Ifop poll published in Le Journal du Dimanche on Sunday, between 34% and 37% of those surveyed said they planned to vote for Le Pen in 2027, which is more than 10 points ahead of her nearest rival, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. Le Pen ran for president three times, placing second in 2017 and 2022.
https://twitter.com/CilComLFC/status/1906857560306495699
“Le Pen has been a prominent critic of NATO’s policies in Eastern Europe and has opposed Ukraine’s accession to the military bloc. She has also advocated against the EU’s anti-Russia policies.”
• Le Pen Sentence a ‘Declaration of War by Brussels’ – Salvini (RT)
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has condemned the verdict against French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen as “a declaration of war by Brussels.” Le Pen has been sentenced to four years in prison on embezzlement charges and barred from running for public office for five years, including an upcoming presidential election in 2027.In a post on X on Monday, Salvini compared the outcome of the trial in Paris to the recent barring of independent candidate Calin Georgescu in Romania.”Those who fear the judgment of the voters often find reassurance in the judgment of the courts,” Salvini said. “A bad film that we are also seeing in other countries such as Romania.”
Georgescu, a critic of NATO, the EU, and aid to Ukraine, won an unexpected first-round victory in last year’s election. The results were promptly annulled by Romania’s Constitutional Court, citing funding irregularities. Georgescu was subsequently barred from running in the election rerun scheduled for May 2025.Salvini called the ruling against Le Pen “a declaration of war by Brussels, at a time when the warlike impulses of Von der Leyen and Macron are frightening.” He was apparently referring to the push by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to militarize the EU and proposals by French President Emmanuel Macron to deploy troops to Ukraine. Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally party (RN), was convicted of embezzling over €4 million from the European Parliament from 2004 to 2016. She received a four-year prison sentence, with two years suspended, and a five-year ban from holding public office, effectively disqualifying her from the 2027 presidential election.
Le Pen has been a prominent critic of NATO’s policies in Eastern Europe and has opposed Ukraine’s accession to the military bloc. She has also advocated against the EU’s anti-Russia policies. In the 2022 presidential election, she advanced to a runoff against Macron, securing around 41.5% of the vote. Earlier this year, polls suggested that Le Pen would secure 61% of the vote against her main rival in the upcoming presidential election. The conviction of Le Pen and the disqualification of Georgescu occur amid an emergence of political movements across the EU opposed to the bloc’s policies. A number of French and foreign politicians have condemned the court’s ruling as undemocratic.
Got to get a deal first.
• Putin Will ‘Follow Through’ On Ukraine Deal – Trump (RT)
US President Donald Trump has said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, would honor his part of a potential peace agreement on the Ukraine conflict. At the same time, Trump warned Kiev against backing out of a rare-earth minerals deal with the US. Speaking to reporters on Monday, the US leader repeated that he aims to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as soon as possible, adding that he “want[s] to make sure that he [Putin] follows through” on any peace deal. “I think he will. I don’t want to go secondary tariffs on his oil, but I think it’s something I would do if I thought he wasn’t doing the job,” Trump stated. He expressed hope that Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky would also uphold his end of the bargain, but rebuked him for apparent attempts to renegotiate the rare-earths deal which would grant the US access to Ukraine’s mineral deposits.
While Trump has portrayed the deal as a way for Ukraine to pay back past US assistance, Zelensky has insisted that Kiev owes Washington nothing. “We made a deal for rare earths. It was all done. They’re now saying, ‘Well, I’ll only do that deal if we get into NATO or something to that effect,’” Trump said. He insisted that NATO membership for Ukraine was “never… discussed,” suggesting that the issue was the likely reason for the escalation of hostilities between Moscow and Kiev in 2022.Trump earlier threatened Zelensky with “big problems” if he rejects the rare-earths deal. The Ukrainian leader, however, has said that “the framework [of the agreement] has been changed” from what he was willing to sign during a meeting with Trump in late February.
On that occasion, the pair’s White House meeting turned into a heated clash, with Trump accusing Zelensky of ingratitude and “playing with World War III” over what he perceived as reluctance to make a deal with Russia. At the same time, Trump said on Sunday that he was “very angry” with Putin’s proposal to place Ukraine under a temporary UN-led administration to organize new elections. Russia has long insisted that Zelensky is an “illegitimate” leader, given that his presidential term expired in May 2024. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said Moscow and Washington are exploring several ideas aimed at resolving the Ukraine conflict, adding that Putin is open to any contact with Trump. Russia maintains that the conflict could be settled if Ukraine commits to bloc neutrality and demilitarization, and recognizes the territorial reality on the ground.
“Ukraine needs changes to legislation governing election procedures before it can choose its next president and parliament..”
• Kiev Looking To Further Delay Elections – Ukrainian Official (RT)
Ukraine needs changes to legislation governing election procedures before it can choose its next president and parliament, Central Election Commission Chair Oleg Didenko has said. In an interview with the news outlet Ukrainskaya Pravda published on Monday, Didenko argued that it would be impossible to hold elections immediately after martial law is lifted, despite constitutional requirements. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s presidential term expired in May 2024, yet he has remained in office and refused to hold elections, citing the martial law introduced in 2022 due to the conflict with Russia. Parliamentary elections, also due last year, have been indefinitely postponed for the same reason. Under current legislation, voting must be announced within a month of martial law ending, with parliamentary elections held within 60 days and presidential elections within 90.
“Is this [time] enough to prepare for the elections? If we are talking about voting that will be democratic and will meet the standards, then probably not… We need much more time to prepare for the post-war elections,” Didenko argued. “We need to adopt a law on the specifics of holding post-war elections,” he stated. Didenko declined to give a timeline, citing multiple challenges: the state of the budget, territorial realities, voter registration for millions displaced or living abroad, election sequencing, and infrastructure. The official noted that the CEC plans to propose an additional voting day and more polling stations abroad. He also floated the idea of electronic or mail voting but said both face cybersecurity risks.
The CEC is drafting a proposal for post-war election legislation to present to parliament, Didenko stated. He did not give a timeframe but said any new voting mechanism must first be approved by lawmakers. Kiev’s delay in holding elections has drawn criticism from both Moscow and Washington. US President Donald Trump last month called Zelensky “a dictator without elections.” Moscow considers the absence of elections in Ukraine a barrier to peace talks, as there is no clear way to sign any agreements, including a potential peace deal to end the conflict, with Kiev, because its current leadership lacks legitimacy. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently proposed that the UN establish a temporary external administration in Ukraine to facilitate elections and enable legitimate negotiations.
“The current conflict between Europe and America is not reducible towards contrasting approaches towards Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” —Frank Furedi on Substack
• Convergence Calling (James Howard Kunstler)
You’re going to see what a truly consequential span of weeks, looks like, as Western Civ goes into full churn on April’s doorstep. Remember, TS Eliot called it the “cruelest month.” Too many uncomfortable things are converging, too many ongoing operations are unwinding, too many tensions are breaking. The conclusion of “Joe Biden’s” Ukraine War fiasco looms. You can tell because The New York Times published a gigantic piece Sunday detailing how the Pentagon and the CIA actually ran all of Ukraine’s tactical operations out of a base in Wiesbaden, Germany — after building a colossal Ukraine war machine post our 2014 color revolution in Kiev. Since the very start of the hot war in 2022, we did all the targeting for the weapons we gave them and planned their every move. What a surprise! (Not.)
The motive behind all that, as conceived by US neo-cons and NATO neo-morons, was to “weaken” Russia, bust it up, and seize its resources. All the sanctions piled on only induced Russia into an import-replacement campaign that actually strengthened its economy, while the war led to a revolution in Russian war-fighting tactics and advanced weaponry. Now, the whole thing is ending in Ukraine’s defeat and the West’s humiliation. The Times could have published this in 2023-24, but it would have been a major embarrassment for “Joe Biden” and his shadow managers moving into the election. They put it out just now because the jig is up and the paper desperately needs to pretend that it’s ahead of events to preserve the last shreds of its credibility. Mr. Trump, the uber-realist, knows that the Russians are going to roll up in Ukraine this spring and there is increasingly not much that can be done about that, except to try to put the best face on it — which is, that it wasn’t his war.
As long as the coke freak Zelensky remains in charge, Ukraine will be negotiation-unworthy, as the Russian phrase goes. So, US-Russia peace talks were largely diplomatic showbiz. Both Putin and Mr. Trump were painfully aware of this, and hence, Mr. Trump’s latest performative bluster about “more sanctions” will probably not amount to anything. And also hence, the synchronized idiocy on display in France, Germany, and the UK. They were all-in on the neo-con scheme that is now falling apart and its failure has driven them plumb crazy. As the US drops out of the stupid proxy war, they declare their intention to take it from here and go beat-up Russia. Their war-drums are teaspoons beating on so many quiches.
Soon-to-be chancellor Friedrich Merz proposes an 800-billion-Euro debt spree to finance the re-arming of Germany, which, just now, is utterly incapable of war. He is insane. German industry is collapsing from a lack of affordable natural gas (as arranged by “Joe Biden” blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, danke schön). Turning Volkswagen factories to missile production will not help the German people one bit. It probably will remind them about the Weimar hyper-inflation, though. Mr. Trump, the uber-realist, knows that the Russians are going to roll up in Ukraine this spring and there is increasingly not much that can be done about that, except to try to put the best face on it — which is, that it wasn’t his war. As long as the coke freak Zelensky remains in charge, Ukraine will be negotiation-unworthy, as the Russian phrase goes.
So, US-Russia peace talks were largely diplomatic showbiz. Both Putin and Mr. Trump were painfully aware of this, and hence, Mr. Trump’s latest performative bluster about “more sanctions” will probably not amount to anything. And also hence, the synchronized idiocy on display in France, Germany, and the UK. They were all-in on the neo-con scheme that is now falling apart and its failure has driven them plumb crazy. As the US drops out of the stupid proxy war, they declare their intention to take it from here and go beat-up Russia. Their war-drums are teaspoons beating on so many quiches.
Soon-to-be chancellor Friedrich Merz proposes an 800-billion-Euro debt spree to finance the re-arming of Germany, which, just now, is utterly incapable of war. He is insane. German industry is collapsing from a lack of affordable natural gas (as arranged by “Joe Biden” blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, danke schön). Turning Volkswagen factories to missile production will not help the German people one bit. It probably will remind them about the Weimar hyper-inflation, though. Macron pledges to put French boots on the ground in Ukraine. Ain’t gonna happen. Today, his stooge judiciary found political rival Marine LePen guilty of a Mickey Mouse offense in order to bar her from running against him in the next election. Ain’t gonna work. He will provoke the biggest national uprising since the Bastille.
His government will be too busy putting down French Revolution 2.0 to play war games in history’s graveyard of armies. Maybe he’ll try nukes. I’m sure that’ll work — if you’re eager to see Russian hypersonic “hazelnuts” rain down on the Île-de-France. And then, there is the amazing idiot PM Keir Starmer in the UK, calling on his “coalition of the willing” to step up and intervene in the lost cause that is Ukraine. How many hands went up on that call? For practical purposes, the Brits have no war-fighting capacity whatsoever, and no resources for generating such capacity. And, anyway, they are facing some dreadful combo of a civil war / internal jihad against their own indigenous population, plus an economic collapse cherry-on-top.
Lawyer “sundance” doesn’t think Patel and Bongino have what it takes.
• Current Status: FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino (CTH)
Kash Patel and Dan Bongino both fail to understand the severity of the compromise underneath them. Hence the “95% honorable” quote by Patel recently. The core issue is that institutional corruption is the status of the FBI. That is challenging to deal with and simply cannot be addressed (in any reasonable timeframe, or effect) from the top of the leadership pyramid. The various downstream field offices of the same institution (there are hundreds) will keep Patel/Bongino flush with busy work and positive investigative outcomes for them to announce on television. [see VA recently] That approach purposefully satiates a reviewing audience yet leaves the process under them without oversight.
Corrupt FBI officials continue operations as needed (influence selling, evidence burying, pay-to-play investigative outcomes, DC monitoring, money laundering, trafficking, drugs and generally willful blindness to their outside group partners) and simultaneously push specific attention-grabbing info up the ladder toward leadership offices in DC. [As decades of top-down corruption took over, it slowly permeated the field offices. Most of the really good FBI officials; those who did not want to follow a path paved with the need to join the internal corruption; took up FBI positions in foreign countries. The good guys, the SMEs are overseas now, having long left the domestic rank and vile behind them.] Kash Patel and Dan Bongino would likely make excellent FBI special operation compliance officers and internal auditors. That’s where the real impact can be delivered [think Elliot Ness approach].
However, as leaders of the institution, the function of their role – as outwardly prestigious as it might seem, essentially isolates them with busy work. They must assign the role of compliance and audit review below them, to the same internal silo operators who have previously been identified as working within a corrupted institution. You might note that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noticed this need very quickly, because he was/is a subject matter expert in large institutional leadership. Bessent has experience, Patel and Bongino do not. Secretary Bessent hired/promoted/moved the IRS whistleblowers into strategic position; to become the heads of an internal compliance and audit team, reporting almost exclusively to Bessent himself. Bongino and Patel would have been good in similar roles within the FBI organization. However, as heads of the agency they can affect very little operational change.
Yes, they can steer the ship, but it is the chief engineer who determines the speed of the vessel. The mechanics within the FBI will simply control the speed and wait out the leadership. Kash and Dan will then play a long game of whac-a-mole, removing each identified agent stalling as they are discovered. This will take more years than they have. Contrast that FBI approach (Patel, saying everyone is awesome) with Treasury (Bessent, saying there’s an institutional problem here), and you will understand the visible absence of accountability. So far, the duo has not publicly admitted the severity of the corruption they sit atop; let alone announce a plan to deal with it. Ergo the intellectually honest person who understand the silo operations, only expect soundbites and pretenses.
Or, think of the problem like President Trump and Elon Musk (DOGE) to the total executive branch. President Trump is the tip-top of the silo. Elon Musk and DOGE are the compliance/audit officers, reviewing each agency – taking action and reporting back to the principal, President Trump. Both President Trump and Elon Musk are familiar leading massive organizations (high competence, high motivation). However, even with their incredible large institutional skillset, both Trump and Musk need to break down the responsibilities using DOGE. Musk hires highly competent highly motivated DOGE members to do the actual compliance and audits. Again, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino do not possess the same executive leadership skills (they are low competence, high motivation). The pair of FBI directors need high-direction and high-support to overcome their competency challenge.
If the institutional corruption within the FBI was being addressed, we would not need to be told the institutional corruption within the FBI was being addressed. We would be able to visibly see it. Ex. If Treasury was saying 95% of IRS employees were honorable and good, Secretary Bessent would not be removing tens-of-thousands of IRS agents. The FBI reportedly has around 48,000 agents/employees. Step one begins as President Trump, Elon Musk and Scott Bessent each noted. First, admitting there’s an institutional problem. Patel and Bongino are denying they have an institutional problem. I/We want to see Kash Patel and Dan Bongino succeed. However, it takes large system executive leadership skills to execute any effective reform strategy. Patel and Bongino would be excellent compliance officers, unfortunately that’s not the role they have been assigned to. That’s the problem.
“Hold to no illusions: There is nothing beyond this reality …”.
““Sanctions are neither temporary nor targeted measures; they constitute a mechanism of systemic, strategic pressure against our nation.”
• Transactional Weakness Tips The Balance of Power (Alastair Crooke)
The post-WWII geo-political outcome effectively determined the post-war global economic structure. Both are now undergoing huge change. What remains stuck fast however, is the general (Western) weltanschauung that everything must ‘change’ only for it to stay the same. Things financial will continue as before; do not disturb the slumber. The assumption is that the oligarch/donor class will see to it that things remain the same. However, the power distribution of the post-war era was unique. There is nothing ‘forever’ about it; nothing inherently permanent. At a recent conference of Russian industrialists and entrepreneurs, President Putin highlighted both the global fracture, and set out an alternate vision which is likely to be adopted by BRICS and many beyond. His address was, metaphorically speaking, the financial counterpart to his 2007 Munich Security Forum speech, at which he accepted the military défie posed by ‘collective NATO’.
Putin is now hinting that Russia has accepted the challenge posed by the post-war financial order. Russia has persevered against the financial war, and is prevailing in that too. Putin’s address last week was, in one sense, nothing really new: It reflected the classic doctrine of the former premier, Yevgeny Primakov. No romantic about the West, Primakov understood its hegemonic world order would always treat Russia as a subordinate. So he proposed a different model – the multipolar order – where Moscow balances power blocs, but does not join them. At its heart, the Primakov Doctrine was the avoidance of binary alignments; the preservation of sovereignty; the cultivation of ties with other great powers, and the rejection of ideology in favour of a Russian nationalist vision.
Today’s negotiations with Washington (now narrowly centred on Ukraine) reflect this logic. Russia isn’t begging for sanctions relief or threatening anything specific. It is conducting strategic procrastination: waiting out electoral cycles, testing Western unity, and keeping all doors ajar. Yet Putin is not adverse either to exerting a little pressure of his own – the window for accepting Russian sovereignty of the four eastern oblasts is not forever: “This point can also move”, he said. It is not Russia racing ahead with the negotiations; quite the reverse – it is Trump who is racing ahead. Why? It appears to hark back to the American attachment to Kissinger-esque triangulation strategy: Subordinate Russia; peel away Iran; and then peel Russia from China. Offer carrots and threaten to ‘stick’ to Russia, and once subordinated in this way, Russia might then be detached from Iran – thus removing any Russian impediments to an Israel-Washington Axis attack on Iran.
Primakov, were he here, likely would be warning that Trump’s ‘Big Strategy’ is to tie Russia into subordinate status quickly, so that Trump can continue the Israel normalisation of the entire Middle East. Witkoff has made Trump’s strategy very plain: “The next thing is: we need to deal with Iran … they’re a benefactor of proxy armies … but if we can get these terrorist organisations eliminated as risks … Then we’ll normalise everywhere. I think Lebanon could normalise with Israel …That’s really possible … Syria, too: So maybe Jolani in Syria [now] is a different guy. They’ve driven Iran out … ImagineImagine if Lebanon … Syria … and the Saudis sign a normalisation treaty with Israel … I mean that would be epic!” U.S. officials say the deadline for an Iran ‘decision’ is in the spring … And with Russia reduced to supplicant status and Iran dealt with (in such fantastical thinking), Team Trump can turn to the main adversary – China.
Putin, of course, understands this well, and duly debunked all such illusions: “Set illusions aside”, he told delegates last week: “Sanctions and restrictions are today’s reality – together with a new spiral of economic rivalry already unleashed …”. “Hold to no illusions: There is nothing beyond this reality …”. “Sanctions are neither temporary nor targeted measures; they constitute a mechanism of systemic, strategic pressure against our nation. Regardless of global developments or shifts in the international order, our competitors will perpetually seek to constrain Russia and diminish its economic and technological capacities …”. “You should not hope for complete freedom of trade, payments and capital transfers. You should not count on Western mechanisms to protect the rights of investors and entrepreneurs … I’m not talking about any legal systems – they just don’t exist! They exist there only for themselves! That’s the trick. Do you understand?!”.
“Trump can end the conflict by ceasing to participate. There is no reason for bureaucrats and emissaries to hold endless negotiations.”
• Deep State Uses NY Times to Announce Its Withdrawal from Ukraine (PCR)
Last Saturday the New York Times completely abandoned the official narrative of the Ukraine Conflict, thus overturning the apple cart full of lies. Jeff Childers gives us the gist of the New York Times abandonment of the ruling lie. https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/narrative-whiplash-sunday-march-30. What is the explanation? My guess is that the Deep State has decided to abandon the conflict and is most likely the author of the Times’ article. The purpose of the article is to set up Zelensky as the scapegoat who caused the war to be lost and to get rid of him so that the conflict can be brought to an end.
These paragraphs show the purpose: It was going according to plan, the Times sadly said, “until it wasn’t.” The problem wasn’t the Russians, the Americans, or even the slowly draining numbers of trained Ukrainian military forces. No, the problem was one spotlight-hogging Vladimir Zelenskyy. With two y’s, for you’ve got to be kidding me, squared. “Zelensky was hoping to attend the United Nations General Assembly,” the Times reported. “A showing of progress on the battlefield would bolster his case for additional military support. So the Ukrainians upended the plan at the last minute — a preview of a fundamental disconnect that would increasingly shape the arc of the war.”
Childers’ translation: Zelensky started making his own decisions —ones not approved by the Americans— and the war began unraveling. A few of us have known from day one that the Ukraine conflict was Washington’s war run out of Wiesbaden. The questions are: Why didn’t Putin know, and if he did know why didn’t he do anything? Now that the New York Times has admitted that the conflict in Ukraine was America’s war with Russia disguised as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a war that, as I have often said, Trump has no stake in, Trump can end the conflict by ceasing to participate. There is no reason for bureaucrats and emissaries to hold endless negotiations. Trump simply declares the war is over. Let’s hope Trump and Putin have the wits to see this.
United Auto Workers (UAW).
• Trump’s Auto Tariffs Just Got a Huge Endorsement (Margolis)
United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain, who backed Kamala Harris in last year’s election, just delivered the most significant endorsement yet of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on foreign-made automobiles. Defying the left’s narrative, Fain called the tariffs a necessary tool to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Fain agreed with Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro’s assessment that American auto plants are operating at only 60% capacity, which leaves plenty of room to ramp up production domestically. “He’s spot on,” Fain said, citing the example of Stellantis, which recently laid off 2,000 workers in Warren, Mich., after shifting Ram truck production to Mexico. “They could shift that work back in very short order and be producing Ram trucks right back there and put those people back to work.”
Fain also pointed to Volkswagen, which he called “the biggest violator of all” for its reliance on Mexican production. “Seventy-five percent of their production for the North American market is made in Mexico, so they can shift product there overnight,” he said, emphasizing that American plants can absorb that production. Recalling World War II, Fain argued that America has successfully repurposed its manufacturing base before. “The way that we formed the Arsenal of Democracy that won the war was, they took the excess capacity of all the automotive manufacturing plants in the country and produced tanks and planes and bombs and engines and all those things,” he said. “And it’s no different right now.”
“And Shawn, for people who are listening to you, how do tariffs make that happen?’ asked Major Garrett. “What is the relationship between a 20 or 25% tariff and getting that capacity back up to where you’d like to see it?” When asked how tariffs would help restore domestic auto production, Fain said they would serve as a deterrent against offshoring. “Well, because, like everything, the companies abuse the process,” he said. “They’re in the pursuit of driving a race to the bottom.” He referenced Ross Perot’s warning in 1992 about the “giant sucking sound” of jobs leaving under NAFTA, adding, “He was spot on.”
Fain noted that 90,000 manufacturing plants have closed in the past 30 years, including 65 facilities belonging to the Big Three automakers. He cited ongoing threats to move production from Wisconsin’s John Deere plant and Pennsylvania’s Mack Truck facility to Mexico. “Tariffs are a tool in the toolbox,” Fain said. “They’re not the end-all solution. We have to fix the broken trade system. But the way tariffs work, I mean, it’s a motivator, because there’s going to be a penalty for everything the companies ship in here, and I’ve had companies tell us, point blank, that they’re going to have to bring product back here if those tariffs are implemented.”
“..I hope they raise their prices, because if they do, people are going to buy American-made cars. We have plenty.”
• Trump Says ‘Couldn’t Care Less’ If Foreign Auto Makers Raise Prices (ET)
President Donald Trump said on March 29 that he did not ask automotive CEOs to avoid raising prices in response to sweeping tariffs and that he “couldn’t care less” if they do so on foreign-made cars. The Trump administration is poised to levy 25 percent tariffs on all foreign-made automobiles and components on April 2, with temporary exceptions given to companies that import vehicles or parts under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) until the government creates a process for applying those duties, according to the White House. Trump made the comments in a Saturday phone interview with NBC News. He was asked about his recent message to automotive industry executives and whether he warned them against raising prices. “The message is congratulations, if you make your car in the United States, you’re going to make a lot of money. If you don’t, you’re going to have to probably come to the United States, because if you make your car in the United States, there is no tariff,” Trump said, adding that he never told them not to raise prices.
“No, I never said that. I couldn’t care less if they raise prices, because people are going to start buying American-made cars,” he said. “I couldn’t care less. I hope they raise their prices, because if they do, people are going to buy American-made cars. We have plenty.” The president emphasized that he wasn’t concerned about car prices increasing. “No, I couldn’t care less, because if the prices on foreign cars go up, they’re going to buy American cars,” Trump said. Following the interview, one of the president’s aides clarified to NBC that Trump was specifically talking about an increase in foreign car prices. The Epoch Times has requested a full transcript of the call from NBC. Trump also said the 25 percent tariffs on foreign cars and components would be permanent.
“Absolutely, they’re permanent, sure. The world has been ripping off the United States for the last 40 years and more. And all we’re doing is being fair, and frankly, I’m being very generous,” he said. Set to take effect on April 2, which he has referred to as “Liberation Day,” the tariffs will also hit a variety of other consumer goods. Trump said on Saturday that he prefers to not further delay the implementation of those tariffs, but he would consider negotiations “only if people are willing to give us something of great value. Because countries have things of great value, otherwise, there’s no room for negotiation.” The Trump administration has said its goal with the tariffs is to promote American manufacturing and equalize the nation’s trade deficit worldwide.
“Maybe we need to add some more history lessons back in schools,” Musk said. “Do they know what Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin did? It seems they don’t.”
• Musk Demolishes Media’s Trump-Dictator Fantasy (Margolis)
Elon Musk headlined a town hall in Green Bay, Wisc., on Sunday evening, just days before Wisconsin voters decide a pivotal state Supreme Court race. During the event, Musk underscored his opposition to activist judges by signing two $1 million checks to supporters of an online petition against judicial overreach. Wearing a Wisconsin cheesehead, which he later autographed and tossed into the crowd, Musk used the event to highlight the stakes in the election between conservative candidate Brad Schimel and Democrat-backed Susan Crawford. During his speech, he also sharply criticized the media’s treatment of President Trump, calling out the absurdity of comparisons between Trump and some of history’s most notorious dictators. Musk argued that such hyperbole reveals both a political agenda and a fundamental failure in historical education.
“They’ve called President Trump every name in the book,” Musk said. “I think there was one article that called the president worse than Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin combined.” Musk dismissed such comparisons as not only ridiculous but also factually indefensible. “Uh, actually, President Trump has not killed anyone,” he said. “In fact, he’s very good at stopping wars — not starting them.” Musk’s comments reflect a growing frustration with the left-wing media’s efforts to demonize Trump, often with exaggerated and unfounded claims. The idea that leftists could equate Trump with mass-murdering dictators, Musk suggested, exposes a serious lack of historical knowledge among those making these arguments. “Maybe we need to add some more history lessons back in schools,” Musk said. “Do they know what Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin did? It seems they don’t.”
Musk argued that this ignorance is not accidental but rather a consequence of a broken education system that fails to properly teach history. He placed much of the blame on the Department of Education and accused it of pushing a politicized curriculum that leaves students with a skewed understanding of world events. “It’s just indicative of the poor quality of education pushed by the National Department of Education,” Musk said. He went on to call for a return to state control over education, arguing that bureaucrats in Washington have hijacked the system to promote ideological agendas rather than genuine learning. “That’s why we want to restore freedom to the states — let the states decide on the educational agenda and not have something pushed by a bunch of neo-Marxists in D.C.,” Musk said.
Conservatives have long sought to decentralize education and empower parents and local governments to have a greater say in what children are taught. Trump signed an executive order earlier this month to begin dismantling the Department of Education. “After 45 years, the United States spends more money on education by far than any other country and spends, likewise, by far, more money per pupil than any country,” Trump said. “And it’s not even close. But yet we rank near the bottom of the list in terms of success.”Trump added, “Seventy percent of eighth graders are not proficient in either reading or in math.” Even more troubling, “Forty percent of fourth graders lack even basic reading skills, can’t read.” He noted that public school students today perform worse in reading than when the Department of Education was created.
“DOGE is basically exposing that the United States is corrupt and a shitty place to do business.”
• Gold in Hyperdrive in Hyper-Levered House of Cards – Bill Holter (USAW)
Precious metals expert and financial writer Bill Holter has long said there is a long list of financial trouble coming to America. DOGE (Department of Government Accountability)has put the financial reckoning for massive debt and fraud into hyperdrive. Gold smells big trouble with another new record high just last week. Gold is in hyperdrive in an economic hyper-levered house of cards. Holter explains, “Gold is now considered a Tier 1 asset, but more importantly, gold cannot bankrupt. I think big money is looking at the financial system and understanding that it is a hyper-levered house of cards or Ponzi scheme. Sovereign Treasuries from across the world can and, highly likely, will default in some cases.
Gold and silver cannot default. Gold and silver are money. This fiat experiment started off with dollars, European currencies, the yen, etcetera. They were derivatives of gold. . . . They have had several suppression schemes to keep the price down, and they desperately have to keep the price of silver down because if silver runs, gold is going to follow. High and rising gold process are basically a vote of no confidence by the international community.” Don’t underestimate how disruptive DOGE cutting fraud and waste will be on the economy. Holter points out, “The last time we interviewed, we talked about DOGE and all of this slush money being paid out. Look at the 14 magic money machines that Elon Musk has found. All this money being spewed into the economy registers as GDP.
So, if you shut those spigots off, you are shutting off the money, and the real economy slows down. There is less cash flow from that. The real danger, and I am not so sure it is by accident, is this Trump’s idea of pulling the plug? I have to believe he understands that by cutting the spending or cutting the capital that is going into the system, with the system as leveraged as it is right now, it’s going to take everything down. What you are doing is cutting off new money to the Ponzi scheme, and no Ponzi scheme can survive without continually getting new money coming into it.” Holter also says, “The United States was considered for years and years the safe haven because of its pristine rule of law. When you pull the curtain back and everything is rotten, confidence breaks.
You are not going to have money moving into the US for safe haven status. You are going to have money leaving the United States. It’s not just the money that is not going to hit the streets because of DOGE, but mentally because of the corruption they are exposing. DOGE is basically exposing that the United States is corrupt and a shitty place to do business.” In closing, Holter says, “DOGE revealing that they just pay money out of thin air is a huge problem. You can’t do the math if you don’t have good numbers. . . . If we can glean that they are going to cut $500 billion or $1 trillion or $2 trillion and we can figure out that is a problem for the real economy and the financial markets, don’t you think the people running the show know that? That tells me they are purposely pulling the rug out from under the system. It’s game over.”
“Ironically, Fox News is more diverse than NPR and has more Democratic viewers than CNN or MSNBC..”
• NPR’s CEO Just Made the Best Case Yet for Defunding NPR (Turley)
“This is NPR.” Unfortunately for National Public Radio, that proved all too true this week. In one of the most cringeworthy appearances in Congress, Katherine Maher imploded in a House hearing on the public funding of the liberal radio outlet. By the end of her series of contradictions and admissions, Maher had made the definitive case for ending public funding for NPR and state-subsidized media. Many of us have written for years about the biased reporting at NPR. Not all of this criticism was made out of hostility toward the outlet — many honestly wanted NPR to reverse course and adopt more balanced coverage. That is why, when NPR was searching for a new CEO, I encouraged the board to hire a moderate figure without a history of political advocacy or controversy.
Instead, the board selected Katherine Maher, a former Wikipedia CEO widely criticized for her highly partisan and controversial public statements. She was the personification of advocacy journalism, even declaring that the First Amendment is the “number one challenge” that makes it “tricky” to censor or “modify” content as she would like. Maher has supported “deplatforming” anyone she deems to be “facsists” and even suggested that she might support “punching Nazis.” She also declared that “our reverence for the truth might be a distraction [in] getting things done.” As expected, the bias at NPR only got worse. The leadership even changed a longstanding rule barring journalists from joining political protests.
One editor had had enough. Uri Berliner had watched NPR become an echo chamber for the far left with a virtual purging of all conservatives and Republicans from the newsroom. Berliner noted that NPR’s Washington headquarters has 87 registered Democrats among its editors and zero Republicans. Maher and NPR remained dismissive of such complaints. Maher attacked the award-winning Berliner for causing an “affront to the individual journalists who work incredibly hard.” She called his criticism “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.” Berliner resigned, after noting how Maher’s “divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR” that he had been pointing out. For years, NPR continued along this path, but then came an election in which Republicans won both houses of Congress and the White House. The bill came due this week.
Much of NPR’s time to testify was exhausted with Maher’s struggle to deny or defend her own past comments. When asked about her past public statements that Trump is a “deranged, racist sociopath,” she said that she would not post such views today. She similarly brushed off her statements that America is “addicted to White supremacy” and her view that the use of the words “boy and girl” constitute “erasing language” for non-binary people. When asked about her past assertion that the U.S. was founded on “black plunder and white democracy,” Maher said she no longer believed what she had said. When asked about her support for the book “The Case for Reparations,” Maher denied any memory of ever having read the book. She was then read back her own public statements about how she took a day to read the book in a virtue-signaling post.
She then denied calling for reparations, but was read back her own declaration: “Yes, the North, yes all of us, yes America. Yes, our original collective sin and unpaid debt. Yes, reparations. Yes, on this day.” She then bizarrely claimed she had not meant giving Black people actual money, or “fiscal reparations.” When given statistics on the bias in NPR’s hiring and coverage, Maher seemed to shrug as she said she finds such facts “concerning.” The one moment of clarity came when Maher was asked about NPR’s refusal to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story. When first disclosed, with evidence of millions in alleged influence-peddling by the Biden family, NPR’s then-managing editor Terence Samuels made a strident and even mocking statement: “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”
Now Maher wants Congress to know that “NPR acknowledges we were mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner.” All it took was the threat of a complete cutoff of federal funding. In the end, NPR’s bias and contempt for the public over the years is well-documented. But this should not be the reason for cutting off such funding. Rather, the cutoff should be based on the principle that democracies do not selectively subsidize media outlets. We have long rejected the model of state media, and it is time we reaffirmed that principle. (I also believe there is ample reason to terminate funding for Voice of America, although that is a different conversation.) Many defenders of NPR would be apoplectic if the government were to fund such competitors as Fox News. Indeed, Democratic members previously sought to pressure cable carriers to drop Fox, the most popular cable news channel. (For full disclosure, I am a Fox News legal analyst.)
Ironically, Fox News is more diverse than NPR and has more Democratic viewers than CNN or MSNBC. Berliner revealed that according to NPR’s demographic research, only 6 percent of its audience is Black and only 7 percent Hispanic. According to Berliner, only 11 percent of NPR listeners describe themselves as very or somewhat conservative. He further stated that NPR’s audience is mostly liberal white Democrats in coastal cities and college towns. NPR’s audience declined from 60 million weekly listeners in 2020 to just 42 million in 2024 — a drop of nearly 33 percent. This means Democrats are fighting to force taxpayers to support a biased left-wing news outlet with a declining audience of mainly affluent white liberal listeners.
Compounding this issue is the fact that this country is now $36.22 trillion in debt, and core federal programs are now being cut back. To ask citizens (including the half of voters who just voted for Trump) to continue to subsidize one liberal news outlet is embarrassing. It is time for NPR to compete equally in the media market without the help of federal subsidies. If there was any doubt about that conclusion, it was surely dispatched by Maher’s appearance. After years of objections over its biases, the NPR board hired a CEO notorious for her activism and far-left viewpoints. Now, Maher is the face of NPR as it tries to convince the public that it can be trusted to reform itself. Her denials and deflections convinced no one. Indeed, Maher may have been the worst possible figure to offer such assurances. That is the price of hubris and “this is NPR.”
“Peter Marks—a top FDA regulator and pro-vaxxer..”
• Vaccine Stocks Tank, Moderna Craters As FDA Top Regulator Steps Down (ZH)
Vaccine stocks tumbled in the early U.S. cash session after Peter Marks—a top FDA regulator and pro-vaxxer—abruptly resigned on Friday. Wall Street analysts view Marks’ departure as a bearish signal for vaccine stocks, such as Moderna, Novavax, BioNTech, and others, which already face mounting headwinds, including a wave of layoffs expected at the Department of Health and Human Services. Moderna puked at the open, down 12% in early trading, while the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF sank 2%. Other makers of vaccine stocks plunged, including Novavax -10% and BioNTech -5.8%. Moderna shares are also down 95% from peak Covid highs.
Bloomberg provided color on Marks’ role and how his departure is bearish for the industry: As the leader of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Marks was a key figure in the quick approvals of Covid vaccines during the pandemic. Along with shots, he was responsible for the agency’s evaluation of cutting-edge treatments such as cell and gene therapies. In his resignation letter, Marks cited friction with the views of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine critic. “I was willing to work to address the Secretary’s concerns regarding vaccine safety and transparency,” he said. “However it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.”
Analysts—including BMO Capital Markets’ Evan David Seigerman—view the departure as a “significant negative” for the biotech and biopharma sectors. “It’s no secret that Biotech has been under immense pressure recently given broader macro issues, this unfortunate update does nothing to reassure investors or provide relief,” Seigerman told clients, adding that gene and cell therapy companies are under pressure given Marks’ relationship with many of them. Here’s further analyst insight into the change of guard at the FDA in the era of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. running the Department of Health and Human Services (courtesy of Bloomberg):
William Blair, Matt Larew: “Expects in the space could weaken further given that Marks “was a cheerleader for innovation in biotech and strong supporter of new modalities”. Says Marks’s departure and the recently announced HHS cuts stack on top of “an unsettlingly large pile of news flow in the space year-to-date that creates uncertainty for funding, regulatory and approval processes, and supply chains”. Adds that the steady stream of negative news flow “has simply been too much for stocks in the space to overcome
RBC Capital Markets, Brian Abrahams: Says the news is not good for the biotech industry even beyond vaccines, as Marks had been a key advocate for more flexible, efficient approval processes for drugs particularly those for orphan diseases such as gene therapies. “We expect some weakness for biotech as uncertainty continues to be perpetuated”. Truist, Joon Lee: Says news of the resignation could put some pressure on companies whose drugs are currently, or planned to be, under review by the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Researc Last week, Bloomberg reported that leaked documents reveal the Trump administration plans to slash $28 billion in global health initiatives—including funding cuts to Bill Gates’ vaccine alliance, Gavi.
https://twitter.com/liz_churchill10/status/1906368113592893525?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1906368113592893525%7Ctwgr%5E312b7553902375ec8d728fda6389ba2d59746f7b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fmarkets%2Fvaccine-stocks-tank-after-fda-biologics-head-abruptly-steps-down-era-rfk-jr
We could have known this years ago.
• Repeat COVID Vaccines Provoke Two Kinds Of Inferior Antibodies (JTN)
As the Trump administration winds down the National Institutes of Health’s devotion to increasing COVID-19 vaccine uptake, expanding mRNA technology and policing purported wrongthink, its incoming director – dubbed a “fringe epidemiologist” by a predecessor – will have no shortage of supportive research to call upon. Spanish scientists documented a second so-called class switch in people with “repeated” mRNA COVID jabs, meaning their bodies start churning out two kinds of antibodies that learn to live with infection rather than destroy it, not just the IgG4 antibodies observed in prior studies. “IgG4 is primarily involved in regulatory functions, and is associated with immune tolerance and chronic antigen exposure,” while IgG2 targets “polysaccharide antigens” and “has received less attention” in the context of weakening immune response to COVID, they wrote this month in the British Infection Association’s Journal of Infection.
“Here, we show that higher levels of IgG4 and IgG2, as well as higher proportions of non-cytophilic [nonbinding] to cytophilic antibodies, following booster vaccination, are associated with a heightened risk of SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infection.” IgG1 and IgG3 antibodies, by contrast, are better at activating immune system reactions to neutralize COVID, though the researchers caution that IgG2 and IgG4 “may also help prevent severe COVID-19 by mitigating inflammation-driven pathology.” German scientists also took a glass-is-half-full approach in a study published earlier this week in the European Molecular Biology Organization’s Molecular Systems Biology. The University of Cologne researchers found that at least two consecutive mRNA jabs “induce a highly dynamic and persistent training of innate immune cells enabling a sustained pro-inflammatory [neutralizing] immune response,” but cautioned it’s unknown whether they lead to “long-term alterations of innate immune cells with corresponding epigenetic alterations.”
Even before Stanford medical professor Jay Bhattacharya’s Senate confirmation as director this week, NIH’s attitude toward mRNA technology had reportedly turned. Unnamed researchers told Kaiser Family Foundation Health News mid-month that NIH officials were urging them to remove mRNA references from grant applications.
A National Cancer Institute senior official said acting Director Matthew Memoli asked staff to report mRNA grants, contracts or collaborations to the White House and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s office – the same thing Memoli did before NIH canceled vaccine hesitancy studies, KFF Health News said. The morning Bhattacharya was confirmed – he hadn’t been sworn in as of late Friday – NIH told staff in an email titled “URGENT” to compile grants and contracts related to “fighting misinformation or disinformation … any form of censorship at all or directing people to believe one idea over another related to health outcomes,” STAT News reported. The email, which asked for responses by noon Wednesday, gave examples such as contracts to promote vaccine uptake and public health messages about the “dangers of Covid or not wearing masks,” STAT said, though the medical news organization falsely claimed it was Bhattacharya’s “first day” until investigative journalist Paul Thacker fact-checked it.
The Kennedy-founded Children’s Health Defense said Thursday its Freedom of Information Act requests revealed which grants and contracts were likely on the chopping block, some of which concerned pushing HPV vaccines on adolescents with resistant parents. Prompted by NewsNation host Chris Cuomo, Kennedy said Thursday that NIH would continue a Biden administration-created division “devoted to studying long COVID,” but also that HHS was “incorporating an agency within” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “that is going to specialize in vaccine injuries,” which is Kennedy’s long-term concern. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is meeting in mid-April to review data and vote on recommendations, following an unexplained February postponement. The agency recently added a page to its website on advisers’ conflicts of interest.
Soon Shiong – Clear the virus
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong says spike vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna) don’t clear the virus. Persistent spike + new infections may cause replication, inflammation, and immunosuppression—cancer hallmarks. This, with toxins like PFAS, may explain rising cancer in the young. pic.twitter.com/9X9iNnigEr
— Camus (@newstart_2024) March 30, 2025
Dive
Nothing special to see, just an army of piglets queuing up to dive.pic.twitter.com/GJJ85j9VF7
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 31, 2025
Reunite
Two loving swans are reunited and their joy is absolutely infectious. pic.twitter.com/uWp0nkh8v0
— The Figen (@TheFigen_) March 30, 2025
Rain
Beautiful https://t.co/NUygSurDXu
— Dr. Urso (@richardursomd) March 31, 2025
Donkey
https://twitter.com/Yoda4ever/status/1906408751479107639
Owl
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1906575964160602318
Their pumpkin orange eyes and feathery ear tufts make Eurasian Eagle-owls one of the most striking birds in the world.
Even as newborn.pic.twitter.com/q7L7GXvFT8
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) April 1, 2025
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