With CEO Tim Cook standing next to him in the Oval Office as the president announced a fresh (and very laughable) $100 billion investment plan by Apple which it would then add to the $500 billion already pledged over the next 4 years (which is ridiculous since Apple spent $43 billion in capex in the past 4 years and generated less than $100 billion in net income in its best year), Trump announced he would impose a 100% tariff on chip and semiconductor imports, but would exempt companies moving production back to the United States.

Apple had previously pledged to spend $500 billion in the US over the next four years, an acceleration over its prior investments and previously announced plans, adding about $39 billion in spending and an additional 1,000 jobs annually. The announcement will bring Apple’s cumulative commitment to $600 billion, and appears to be an ad hoc bundling of pretty much everything on the income and cash flow statements, including CoGS, SG&A, CapEx, buybacks and so on. The previously-planned $500 billion was said to include work on a new server manufacturing facility in Houston, a supplier academy in Michigan and additional spending with its existing suppliers in the country.

“We’re going to be putting a very large tariff on chips and semiconductors, but the good news for companies like Apple is, if you’re building in the United States, or have committed to build, without question, committed to build in the United States, there will be no charge,” Trump told reporters.

“So in other words, we’ll be putting a tariff of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors. But if you’re building in the United States of America, there’s no charge,” Trump said. “Even though you’re building and you’re not producing yet, in terms of the big numbers of jobs and all of things building, if you’re building, there will be no charge.”

BREAKING: President Trump just announced a 100% tariff on chips and semiconductors. Companies that are in the process of moving manufacturing into the United States won’t be charged.

“If for some reason you say you’re building and you don’t build, then we go back, and we add it… pic.twitter.com/LWoXQuQX8D

— George (@BehizyTweets) August 6, 2025

The hollow announcement which is largely unenforceable and amounts to nothing more than a promise by Apple, represents a major victory for Apple and Cook, who have faced escalating threats from Trump’s tariffs that threatened to ratchet up the cost of producing their signature phones and computers. And while AAPL will spend precisely zero dollars, it already got the benefit of the market which sent its stock price billions of dollars higher on absolutely nothing.

In theory, Apple’s $100 billion US investment will include a new manufacturing program designed to bring more of Apple’s production to the US. The company’s American Manufacturing Program partners include glassmaker Corning, Applied Materials, Texas Instruments and others, the company said. 

Corning will dedicate an entire factory in Kentucky to Apple glass production, increasing that company’s workforce in the state by 50%. Corning was already a supplier to Apple, making glass for the very first iPhone at the same factory.

The increased pledge comes as Trump escalates a tariff push that’s set to raise costs for Apple throughout its international supply chains. 

Meanwhile, Trump followed through with his plans to hit India – a key production market for Apple – with 50% tariffs, the first half of which takes effect just after midnight alongside a raft of other country-specific levies designed to reduce trade imbalances. The other half, to penalize India for buying Russian energy, will take effect later this month. 

The president has said he could unveil separate levies on all products containing semiconductor chips as soon as next week.

Cook, who attended the president’s inauguration and donated to his inaugural committee, has pushed for tariff exemptions for his company’s iPhones. Most iPhones sold in the US come from India, while the bulk of other products, including Apple Watches, iPads and MacBooks, are manufactured in Vietnam, which was hit with a 20% tariff. While details of those tariffs, and how firms would qualify for exemptions, have yet to be released, Trump singled out Cook’s Apple as an example of how to avoid the increased levies. Namely, make bombastic promises that make for glitzy headlines.

Cook’s investment echoes dozens of pledges from companies since Trump won the 2024 presidential election, with CEOs flying to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, and then to the White House once he was sworn in, to court the new administration and announce hundreds of billions of dollars worth of new deals.

Most if not all of these investments were already in the works prior to the November election, or were on par with previous investment trends, Bloomberg previously reported. Economists have also questioned whether all of the pledged spending, and associated job opportunities, will come to fruition.

Meanwhile, Apple’s promised investments, while substantial, fall short of the full shift to US-based production that Trump and top White House officials have envisioned and encouraged. Earlier this year, the president threatened to impose a tariff of at least 25% on Apple if it didn’t move manufacturing of the iPhone to the US, a day after he met with Cook at the White House. 

Cook told the president that final iPhone assembly “will be elsewhere for a while,” though highlighted that several components are being made in the US. Trump, seemingly satisfied, praised the Apple leader’s plans.

“Look, he’s not making this kind of an investment anywhere in the world, not even close,” Trump said of Cook. “He’s coming back. I mean, Apple’s coming back to America.”

Actually, no he isn’t. 
 

Authored by Chris Morrison via DailyScheptic.org,

Net Zero is dead in the United States and the last rites have been administered in the devastating official report from the Department of Energy. Released earlier this week, the report cancels the decades-long censorship imposed by so-called ‘settled’ climate science. It is compiled by five eminent scientists and is a systematic take-down of the claims, methodologies and motivations driving activist scientists, politicians and opinion formers promoting the hard-Left Net Zero fantasy. Despite its ground-breaking importance, to date it has been largely ignored by mainstream media including the BBC and Guardian.

Computer models are said to offer “little guidance” on how much of the climate responds to higher levels of carbon dioxide, most extreme weather events are not increasing, sea levels in North America show no increasing trend while weather attribution claims are challenged by natural climate variation along with an admission that they were originally designed with ‘lawfare’ in mind. For Anthony Watts, who has spent decades challenging the ‘settled’ politicised science, the most important consideration is that the report, “directly confronts the exaggerated and politicised rhetoric that has dominated headlines for decades”.

Watts, who runs the Watts Up With That? (WUWT?) site that was responsible for publicising the infamous Climategate scandal, argues that the new report is unique in that it has both official status and author independence. It is not a think tank paper or an article in a ‘dissenting’ journal.

“It’s rare to see scientists of this calibre (with backgrounds at NASA, IPCC and major universities) allowed to directly challenge prevailing policy narratives with government resources behind them”, he notes.

The work is a “comprehensive critique” quoting extensively from peer-reviewed literature with clear explanations of scientific uncertainties and climate model error. 

For regular readers of WUWT? and other inquiring publications such as the Daily Sceptic, many of the issues discussed in the report will be familiar. In the last four years, your correspondent has written nearly 500 articles on climate science and Net Zero in an attempt to fill in the significant reporting gaps left by the narrative-driven mainstream media. Many of the papers quoted are familiar, not least in the section that deals with the sensational ‘greening’ of the planet caused by higher levels of CO2. 

The report quotes from recent work that shows extensive plant and crop growth due to the atmospheric fertilisation that has enhanced photosynthesis and improved water use efficiency. Over the past 60+ years, the authors observe that there have been thousands of studies on the response of plants to rising CO2 levels, and the overwhelming theme is that they benefit from the extra gas. In 2016, Zhu et al detected greening over 25%–50% of the planet. But there is a near official news blackout on the subject. A few mentions can be found in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports but overall, observe the authors, “the Policymakers Summaries, Technical Summaries and [IPCC] Synthesis reports of AR5 and ASR6 do not discuss the topic”.

Needless to say there are few kind words for the climate projections based on the notorious IPCC emission scenario known as RCP8.5. Most academic climate impact studies in recent years are based on this extreme scenario, “that is now considered implausible”. Why is this castigation important – because RCP8.5 litters the scientific clickbait literature and has a key role in promoting the Net Zero plan. Most stories in mainstream media debunked in recent years by the Daily Sceptic and others – from the future collapsing Gulf Stream to the disappearing coral – are based on this trash “business-as-usual” computer model pathway.

Climate models are noted to be the primary tool used to project future climate changes in response to higher levels of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. It might be added that their outputs are the basis of 40 years of fear mongering designed to drive Net Zero and the destruction of the hydrocarbon industrial economy.

“Of great concern”, continue the authors, “is the fact that after several decades of the climate modelling enterprise involving approximately three dozen models operated by research centres around the world, the range of future warming they produce in response to a hypothetical doubling of CO2 extends over a factor of three”.

This range of disagreement among models has not decreased for decades, they add.

Those inclined to use less charitable language might comment that climate models are useless for the purpose of providing genuine science upon which reasonable public policy can be determined – and always have been.

Much of the recent climate fear mongering surrounds ‘extreme’ weather events and the suggestion that something Nature has always thrown at life on Earth can now be directly attributed to the actions of humans. The most prominent in this field is the Green Blob-funded World Weather Attribution (WWA) run out of Imperial College in London and headed by BBC favourite, Dr Friederike Otto. “WWA’s extensive promotion of non-peer-reviewed findings, its open admission to shaping analyses to serve litigation, and its methodological challenges have sparked controversy”, it is noted.

The biggest problem (apart from using computer models) is the lack of past data on extreme weather events. A few years of data allied to an unproven conviction that all current warming is caused by humans, cannot provide guidance for events that crop up as outliers.

If paleoclimate reconstruction are considered, “it becomes very difficult for an event to pass thresholds of what is expected from natural variability”, it is concluded. 

A Florida boater stumbled upon the plot of a Netflix cartel drama—23 tightly wrapped bricks of suspected cocaine bobbing five miles off Islamorada—and, in a shocking twist, didn’t grab them and speed away. Instead, he called the cops, according to the Daily Mail.

The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office says the mystery mariner found over 50 pounds of black brick-shaped packages drifting in turquoise waters on Thursday. Deputies, with help from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, hauled the 23 kilos ashore. The stash was turned over to federal agents, who are now testing it, though officials are pretty confident it’s cocaine.

Photos show the “party favors” floating serenely before being scooped up by law enforcement. Whether the Good Samaritan will get a reward—or just bragging rights—is unclear.

The Daily Mail writes that holding onto cartel-marked cocaine isn’t just reckless; it’s a legal time bomb. “It should go without saying that retaining possession of (a washed-up block of drugs) is an incredibly bad idea…” Florida law firm Perlet & Shiner warned, noting that keeping a $100,000 brick could mean “grand theft in the first degree, which can carry up to 30 years in prison, plus significant fines.”

The Keys are no stranger to “blow bales.” Just weeks ago, a Panhandle beachgoer stumbled across $500,000 worth of cocaine. Last year alone, authorities recovered over 180 pounds statewide, from floating bricks near Key West to stashes buried in Volusia County sand. Smugglers often dump cargo when chased by law enforcement, letting the currents—and occasionally storms like Hurricane Debby—deliver it ashore.

It’s not just a human problem, either. Scientists have even raised concerns that dumped cocaine could be affecting Florida’s marine life—yes, including sharks. Which is one more reason to leave floating cartel care packages to the professionals.

Authored by Nick Giambruno via The Epoch Times,

The next time someone sneers “conspiracy theorist,” “anti-vaxxer,” “climate denier,” “far right,” “hate speech,” “terrorist,” or the ever-popular “racist,” understand what they are really saying: stop thinking.

These words are a linguistic kill-switch—engineered to short-circuit thought by triggering a reflexive emotional spasm.

If you encounter someone using these words, you can be certain you are not dealing with someone interested in a good faith effort to find the truth.

These terms are precision-guided psychological weapons, fired by unseen hands to herd the public mind. Recall the CIA’s own 1967 memo coining “conspiracy theorist” expressly to silence anyone doubting the magic-bullet fairy tale that supposedly killed JFK.

Although they are a poor substitute for an actual argument, these propaganda terms unfortunately work on many people. Call someone one of these words and you no longer need to refute their ideas with facts, logic, or reason. The slur does the work like magic.

Take the granddaddy of all elastic scare-labels: terrorism.

One hundred years ago the word barely existed. Today it vaporizes civil liberties on contact.

Glenn Greenwald nailed it: the T-word is “simultaneously the single most meaningless and most manipulated word in the American political lexicon.”

The only difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist is who controls the narrative.

Greenwald elaborates:

“There is this common paradox which is that the words that are most frequently used and have the greatest impact are often the words that are the most ill-defined. And therefore subject to manipulation, deceit, and propaganda.

So the word ‘terrorist’ for example is something that pervades countless political discussions of great significance. And we are essentially at the point, literally, where if the government points to somebody and simply utters the word ‘terrorist,’ and large numbers of citizens… will cheer for whatever it is that is done… No matter how lawless, no matter how little evidence has been presented to justify it, the mere fact that they have been labeled a ‘terrorist’ is something that will basically cause a majority of people to sanction whatever is done.

And yet what is so fascinating about the word ‘terrorist’ is that it really is a term that has absolutely no fixed meaning, it’s simply a term that means whatever the person wielding it wants it to mean.”

Greenwald continues:

“Because the word terrorism is so potent and shuts down all debate, the mere application of that label by the government, anonymously and with no evidence… has made huge numbers of people stand up and cheer the most radical power a government can seize, which is the power to target one’s own citizens for death, for assassination, in total secrecy and with no due process.

And that to me really illustrates the potency of how these propagandistic terms are wielded….

If we’re really going to vest virtually unlimited power in the government to do anything it wants to people they call ‘terrorists,’ we ought at least to have a common understanding of what the term means. But there is none. It’s just become a malleable, all-justifying term to allow the US government carte blanche to do whatever it wants.

‘Terrorism’ is really more of a hypnotic mantra than an actual word.”

In short, say the magic T-word and—poof—your rights, your property, your life evaporate, all without trial, all to thunderous applause.

The Antidote

Using these words is almost like casting a spell—most people who hear them become hypnotized, immediately stop thinking, and turn into easily herded automatons.

Fortunately, the counter-spell is simple: demand consistent and logical definitions. Make them spell out exactly what they mean by “terrorist,” or “science denier.” Watch their argument collapse into ad hominem attacks, straw men arguments, appeals to emotion, and crocodile tears. And if that all fails they will play the “racist” card.

That’s the playbook.

In short, when sophistry is all they have, facts become kryptonite.

The propaganda spell breaks the moment you refuse to flinch at the linguistic kill-switch.

The good news is that it’s a fragile method of control; people can snap out of their hypnosis. And once they do, they never go back. It’s like pulling back the curtain to see the Wizard of Oz and still being intimidated by him… that just doesn’t happen.

So never stop asking questions and thinking critically.

Don’t be intimidated by cowards, intellectual midgets, charlatans, and petty tyrants who use propaganda words to get you to shut up and stop thinking.

And when they reach for the next emotionally-charged empty label, smile and say:

“Is that all you’ve got?”

*  *  *

You’ve just seen how a handful of engineered words can disarm an entire population. Refusing the verbal trap is only half the battle—real protection requires action before the next wave of crises rolls in. Currency debasement, confiscatory policies, and the weaponization of language are accelerating. We’ve built a concise, free briefing that shows exactly what’s coming next and the three moves you can make right now to safeguard your money, your mobility, and your freedom. Get the full playbook here: The Most Dangerous Economic Crisis in 100 Years—Top 3 Strategies You Need Right Now.

This is precious farmland. 

Now this is precious farmland bulldozed in the name of the so-called “green” energy movement – all to fight a ‘climate crisis’ that exists more in the headlines of leftist corporate propaganda media outlets than in the actual world. 

Remember this…

Citizens around the world have been spoon-fed doomsday climate propaganda for decades – and warned of an impending climate apocalypse that never arrives. Yet every year, climate taxes increase and energy costs soar, as well as power grid reliability crumbles. Why? Because climate alarmist progressives have hijacked energy policy, pushing reckless green agendas that are now backfiring.

Spain’s blackout a few months ago provided a glimpse into what it truly means to be ‘net zero’ for a day…

Now, households and businesses across the U.S. Mid-Atlantic are feeling the pain as their power bills skyrocket, courtesy of Democrat-led green energy delusion… 

Since 2015, global solar installations have outpaced all fossil fuels combined. In 2024, the U.S. solar sector grew significantly, and public support for solar is at an all-time high.

Yet there’s a dark side to solar. We already know it’s an unreliable form of power generation, but did you know one of its major drawbacks is the massive land requirement? 

Solar projects are now surpassing 200 megawatts in size, and to support them, companies are gobbling up vast swaths of precious farmland. This land grab has ignited the early stages of a global revolt. 

“From Spain to Texas and India to England, solar projects are encroaching on prime agricultural land. Farmers and ranchers are fighting back,” energy expert Robert Bryce explained in a new short-form documentary titled “SUNBLOCK: The Global Fight To Save Farmland From Big Solar.”

Here’s a trailer for my short new documentary on the global fight to save farmland from Big Solar. You can watch the entire 10-minute film by clicking here: https://t.co/XBoesYprxJ pic.twitter.com/WbDIM4fKjG

— Robert Bryce (@pwrhungry) August 5, 2025

Bryce highlighted the glaring inefficiency of the green energy push: a 270-megawatt solar plant in Texas that consumes 2,300 acres of farmland, while a 1,200-megawatt natural gas facility down the road delivers 88 times more power on just 26 acres… So for the “efficiency” of the green revolution…

Bryce pointed out – and we agree – that the most efficient forms of power for fueling AI data centers and other emerging electrification trends are nuclear and natural gas. Solar may work well on the rooftops of homes or businesses, but as the energy expert warned, its dark side lies in the massive land grab of valuable farmland.

Is there a secret agenda behind the destruction of farmland for sprawling fields of unreliable solar panels? It’s time to reevaluate the solar agenda – and hold leftist lawmakers accountable in elections, from city halls to Capitol Hill, for pushing climate crisis propaganda that’s devouring our farmland in pursuit of a utopian green fantasy that will never materialize (well, it will with nuclear).

Must Watch:

. . . 

Authored by Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration has announced a proposed rule on drones aimed at stimulating the U.S. drone market.

“We are going to unleash American drone dominance,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at an Aug. 5  press conference.

Duffy noted that China dominates drones with 90 percent control of the market.

“We’re turning over our skies to one of our main adversaries,” he said.

The new rule would allow people to get products such as a Starbucks cup of coffee via drone, he said, adding that it will also change energy production, farming, manufacturing, and filmmaking.

This regulation deals with drones being flown beyond the visual line of sight. It will be open to public comment for 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register.

“Operators in the past would have to get individual waivers to operate these drones, very complicated. They were issued on a case-by-case basis, and because of that complication, I don’t think we saw the innovation that we should have in America,” Duffy said.

“We are going to eliminate that prior process, and the approval will be done in a far different way. The rules are going to completely change the way that drone use is going to be approved, and what this is going to do is, again, allow our innovators and businesses to continue to create and innovate and change the way our industry works with the use of these drones.”

Under the regulation, commercial drones would operate at under 400 feet above ground, and operators would need Federal Aviation Administration approval to fly them in certain airspaces. The drones can weigh up to 1,320 pounds, including what they’re carrying.

The proposed regulation was developed under an executive order that President Donald Trump signed on June 6 titled “Unleashing American Drone Dominance.”

“The United States must accelerate the safe commercialization of drone technologies and fully integrate UAS into the National Airspace System,” it stated.

“The time has come to accelerate testing and to enable routine drone operations, scale up domestic production, and expand the export of trusted, American-manufactured drone technologies to global markets.

“Building a strong and secure domestic drone sector is vital to reducing reliance on foreign sources, strengthening critical supply chains, and ensuring that the benefits of this technology are delivered to the American people.”

The rule would also require operators to address security risks, such as protecting drones from intentional electronic interference.

A Texas deputy is learning the hard way that TikTok clout doesn’t mix well with police work—especially when your viral joke involves ticketing everyone because you “didn’t get cracked last night.”

The now-deleted video featured Harris County Precinct 5 Deputy Jennifer Escalera in full uniform, scribbling on a notepad, with the caption: “Didn’t get cracked last night so everyone is getting a ticket.” She blurred parts of her uniform but left her nametag clearly visible—because nothing says “low-profile investigation” like tagging yourself in your own controversy., according to the NY Post.

The constable’s office was not amused. “Our administration is aware and internal affairs has opened an investigation. We have no other comment at this time,” they told Fox 26. Translation: please stop sending us screenshots of her TikTok.

The Post writes that Escalera, sworn in back in September 2021, has a TikTok history filled with uniformed posts, sometimes about the balancing act of being a cop and a mom. In one video she’s seen getting ready for work with the text: “contemplating if I really need this job, knowing that I do.” After this week, she might be contemplating it even harder.

Local residents weren’t impressed with her attempt at humor. “I think it’s really inappropriate and disrespectful,” said Alex Fitch, who added, “It makes them look unprofessional when they start posting videos like that. You can’t take them seriously… Then they wonder why, when you see them, they say, ‘Why don’t you respect me?’ Well, you don’t treat yourself like a woman, and you ain’t treating yourself like a police officer.”

“I feel like they’re playing. They’re childish. They ain’t taking nothing serious. You gon write me a ticket because you ain’t get cracked? That’s crazy, but that’s the society and world we live in today,” one resident said to Fox 26. 

In other words: less thirst-trapping TikTok, more traffic safety.

Authored by Eric Salzman via Racket News,

When I was told Friday that President Trump fired the BLS commissioner due to a poor July payroll report (a less-than-expected monthly job add of 73,000 and very large negative two-month revision of 258,000), I waited for a laugh track that never came.

He did what? Really?

I spent most of the weekend shaking my head and laughing that the president would fire BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer for a lousy Non-Farm Payroll report.

Then I thought about it a bit more.

Most of us who have been in the markets have probably spent at least six of the 12 first Fridays of the month every year scratching our heads when the monthly report is released. Our staff economist leads us through the various seasonal adjustments, model adjustments, survey participation rates, data revisions to the last two reports and other assorted “kinks” in the reporting, and by the end it usually sounds like nonsense. I believe these monthly reports warrant a good dose of skepticism.

Year-over-year however, I always thought the numbers were relatively accurate, which is why I was pretty surprised when in February the BLS revised the total 2024 non-farm payroll employment level down 598,000, a revision of −0.4%. That’s the largest revision in 10 years. Annual benchmark revisions have averaged 0.1% in the last decade, ranging from less than .05% to 0.3%.

Trump already had his suspicions back in August 2024 when the BLS estimated that the 2024 revision would be a whopping 818,000 fewer jobs than previously reported.

A big negative revision for 2024 annual job creation meant that his Democratic opponent had been campaigning on inflated employment numbers. While it was probably just poor data, as Racket’s Matt Taibbi has been tirelessly reporting, the president has a very justified “trust issue” with other supposedly non-partisan organs of government, so why not the BLS as well?

It has not been a good decade for the BLS in the “trust” department. In 2022, BLS investigated a suspicious event and found it did nothing wrong. Then, in 2024, senior BLS officials blatantly lied about a release of material nonpublic information to a select group of people.

“Super Users”

The New York Times reported that in January 2024 a BLS staff economist engaged in highly inappropriate communication revealing material nonpublic information to a select group of banks and hedge funds. From the Times:

In an email addressed to “Super Users,” the economist explained a technical change in the calculation of the housing figures. Then, departing from the bureaucratic language typically used by statistical agencies, he added, “All of you searching for the source of the divergence have found it.”

To the inflation obsessives who received the email — and other forecasters who quickly heard about it — the implication was clear: The pop in housing prices in January might have been not a fluke but rather a result of a shift in methodology that could keep inflation elevated longer than economists and Federal Reserve officials had expected. That could, in turn, make the Fed more cautious about cutting interest rates.

That kind of information had tremendous value in the wrong hands.

There was an uproar when news of the Super User group leaked. When confronted in early March 2024 by news outlets, the BLS called what happened a mistake and denied there was an actual “Super Users” group, but rather a one time reply to multiple inquiries. From Bloomberg News:

“To expedite a response, the employee blind-copied a number of requesters and referred to them as super users — this was a mistake,” said Jeffrey Hill, a BLS associate commissioner.

The New York Times filed a FOIA with BLS, and found there was indeed a “Super User” list, kept by at least one “low ranking” staff economist who was communicating with a number of banks, money managers and hedge funds.

The emails show that the employee did engage in extended, one-on-one email exchanges with data users about how the inflation figures are put together. Such details, though highly technical, can be of significant interest to forecasters, who compete to predict inflation figures to hundredths of a percentage point. Those estimates, in turn, are used by investors making bets on the huge batches of securities that are tied to inflation or interest rates.

In at least one case, emails to super users appear to have shared methodological details that were not yet public. On Jan. 31, the employee sent an email to his super users describing coming changes to the way the agency calculates used car prices, at the time a crucial issue for inflation watchers. The email included a three-page document providing detailed answers to questions about the change, and a spreadsheet showing how they would affect calculations.

“Thank you all for your very difficult, challenging and thoughtful questions,” the email said. “It is your questions that help us flesh out all the potential problems.”

The questions also seemed to have fleshed out for the Super Users important changes to how the BLS was changing their calculations of the CPI two weeks before their official release in mid-February!

The Times identified several “Super Users.” Among them: Barclays, Nomura, BNP Paribas, Millennium Capital Partners, Breven Howard and Citadel.

Bloomberg News, after reviewing the documents, found JP Morgan, BlackRock and Moore Capital were also part of the group.

In response, an external team of experts was formed to investigate the incidents and suggest improvements.

While the team’s report stated that “none of the incidents were related to the quality or accuracy of the agency’s core data work,” the issue of the Super User group had nothing to do with the quality of the agency’s work. Rather, it had to do with disseminating that work to a select group before it was made public.

Here is what McEntarfer had to say about the Super User incident:

It was an idiosyncratically collected group of emails of people who had been asking him questions that he put together against policies and procedures that BLS outlined, so, yeah, it was limited to one person and ceased at the moment its attention was brought to the agency.

Idiosyncratically collected group of emails? I have to give McEntarfer credit for some fantastic, institutionalized bullshit there!

How many times did this “idiosyncratic” behavior take place, who did it take place with, and what was discussed in each of these idiosyncratic exchanges? What did the members of the Super User group do with the information that they knew was material and non-public? Why did the employee provide this service?

Regarding the expert report, the McEntarger concluded:

I want to emphasize that throughout their conversations with me, the team emphasized that overall, their investigation revealed a really excellent organization with a highly capable staff, deeply committed to their mission and their agency,”

Nothing to see here, please move along

You might remember that back in 2022, inflation was raging. On the morning of December 13, 2022, the markets were on pins and needles waiting for the 8:30 a.m. November Consumer Price Index report. About one minute before the release, 10-year U.S. Treasury Futures began to skyrocket, along with equity futures. At 8:30 the BLS reported that inflation for November came in much lower than expected, something that would have caused bond and equity futures to surge higher, like they did 60 seconds prior to the release! The March 2023 Ten-Year Treasury futures saw the buying of 13,000 contracts seconds before the release, a notional value of nearly $1.5 billion.

Interestingly, while there was much hand-wringing, the incident passed without any investigation. This was a bit “disconcerting” since the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) could have discovered who traded right before 8:30 a.m.

The CFTC could have rounded up all the Futures Clearing Merchants and had them divulge which clients placed the trades. It might have taken subpoenas and some investigative work, but the government has folks who do that sort of thing. As far as we know, this was never done, or at least disclosed.

Hilariously, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre contorted herself into a pretzel later in the afternoon, essentially telling the press it was no big deal and if it was, the White House wasn’t the leaker!

The Labor Department conducted an initial investigation as to whether the data was hacked and dismissed the possibility of a data leak. The BLS denied any awareness of an early release of the data. Not exactly The Inquisition!

What is true is the report got into the wrong hands at the wrong time. Either somebody at BLS leaked the report, or it was a very senior official from either the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, or the president and/or his senior economic advisors. The odds point to the former. Either way the BLS seemed to want no part in finding out the answer to this mystery.

Personally, I don’t think that the July Non-Farm Payroll report was rigged. However, I do think the BLS has a credibility problem, which unfortunately extends beyond its statistical acumen. Once the lying and potential covering up begins, credibility is shot. There has been much talk this week about how casting doubt on our economic data is another blow to democracy. Interestingly, I have not seen any mention of either the “Super User” or the December 13, 2022, scandals in the reporting.

The timing and optics of Commissioner McEntarfer’s firing could have been much better, but it’s past time to clean house at the BLS.

Update (1543ET): 

The Fort Stewart shooter has been identified as Army Sergeant Quornelius Radford. He shot five soldiers earlier today, all of whom are now in stable condition at a local hospital. Radford is currently in custody, and the motive remains unclear.

FORT STEWART SHOOTING | LATEST:

– 5 soldiers shot, all stable
– Fellow soldiers stopped the gunman
– Suspect is Army Sergeant Quornelius Radford
– Radford never served in combat
– Motive unknown pic.twitter.com/kNZphff91w

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) August 6, 2025

Army officials provided additional details during a 3:30 p.m. ET press conference: 

🚨 BREAKING: ALL 5 soldiers who were shot at Fort Stewart are now in STABLE CONDITION

3 of them underwent surgery, but are expected to survive their injuries

Thank the LORD🙏🏻

Several brave soldiers intervened and subdued the shooter, Quornelius Radford, saving countless lives… pic.twitter.com/YxkRB2yeaH

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) August 6, 2025

*   *   *

Update (1428ET): 

ABC News reports that the active shooter incident at Fort Stewart in Georgia was carried out by a fellow service member. The suspect was arrested shortly after the incident, in which five soldiers were shot.

No fatalities were reported, a U.S. official said. The soldiers’ conditions were not immediately clear, but two of the victims were rushed to Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah, which is a Level 1 trauma center, hospital officials told ABC News. 

President Donald Trump and other top administration officials have been briefed on the incident. 

No motive has been released.

CNN: The shooter is an army sergeant. He is a male. He is alive, and he is in custody. But it’s important to note here that it is unclear whether this soldier is a soldier at Fort Stewart pic.twitter.com/cQTQneNn1W

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 6, 2025

Timeline of active shooter situation (via AP News):

• 10:56 a.m. — Law enforcement is dispatched for a possible shooting in the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team complex of the fort.

• 11:04 a.m. — Fort Stewart is locked down due to the shooting threat.

• 11:09 a.m. — Emergency medical personnel are dispatched to treat the wounded soldiers.

• 11:35 a.m. — Shooter is apprehended and in custody.

• 12:10 p.m. — Fort Stewart lifted the lockdown of the main cantonment area, but the 2nd Armored Brigade complex, which is located about 3 miles down the highway, remains locked down. The scene is no longer considered an active incident.

• Around 12:45 p.m. — Three Liberty County schools — two elementary schools and a middle school — enter a soft lockdown “out of an abundance of caution,” according to the school system. This is the first day of school for the county system.

• Around 1:30 p.m. — Shooter is identified as a male soldier, according to a U.S. official, as reported by ABC News. His identity has not been released.

• 1:56 p.m. — Fort Stewart gives the all-clear and lifts lockdown on surrounding facilities.

• Between noon and 2 p.m. — Soldiers arrive at a local emergency hospital with injuries, but no fatalities.

• Around 2 p.m. — Soft lockdowns for surrounding schools are lifted.

*   *   *

Five U.S. Soldiers were shot on Fort Stewart, Georgia, within the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team complex, according to Fort Stewart Hunter Army Airfield’s Facebook page. 

The active shooter incident occurred late Wednesday morning (around 11:35 am ET). All injured Soldiers received on-site treatment before being transported to Winn Army Community Hospital.

The shooter was apprehended almost immediately, and there is no ongoing threat to the military base, according to Fort Stewart officials, adding that a lockdown was lifted. 

Here are more details: 

Law enforcement was dispatched for a possible shooting in the 2nd ABCT complex at 10:56 a.m. The shooter was apprehended at 11:35 a.m.

The installation was locked down at 11:04 a.m. and Fort Stewart lifted the lockdown of the main cantonment area at 12:10 p.m. 2nd ABCT complex is still locked down.

Emergency medical personnel were dispatched to treat the wounded Soldiers at 11:09 a.m.

Fort Stewart is home to the 3rd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army. Located in southeast Georgia, it is the largest Army installation east of the Mississippi River.

The base houses several key units:

• 3rd Infantry Division Headquarters

• 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team

• 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team

• 3rd Division Sustainment Brigade

• 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade

No details have been released about the shooter or whether they were a member of the U.S. military. 

Scenes from the ground:

🚨 BREAKING: Soliders run to shelter as active shooter situation at Fort Stewart unfolds

They are STILL on lockdown, as a potential SECOND shooter could be in the vicinity

MULTIPLE casualties reported

Pray for our troops 🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/zUlm0bUe5p

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) August 6, 2025

*Developing… 

Update(1512ET): It appears the Wednesday Witkoff-Putin meeting in Moscow has led to a breakthrough of sorts, coming right down to the wire of threatened fresh US anti-Russia sanctions set to be imposed Friday. Presidents Trump and Putin plan to meet in person as soon as next week, the NY Times is reporting. A meeting with Ukraine’s leader would then follow.

“President Trump intends to meet in person with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as soon as next week, and he plans to follow up shortly afterward with a meeting between himself, Mr. Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the plan,” the breaking report says.

There’s as yet been no indicators from the Russian or Ukrainian sides of the plan, or even that Moscow is aware of an ‘agreement’ to proceed with a meeting. According to more details:

Mr. Trump disclosed his plans in a call with European leaders on Wednesday, the people said. The meetings would include only those three men, and would not include any European counterparts. The European leaders, who have tried to play a coordinating role on meetings to end the violence between Russia and Ukraine while supporting their European neighbor, appeared to accept what Mr. Trump said, one of the people familiar with the call said.

Anti-Moscow critics have said that the Kremlin is just buying more time with Washington while its military operations in Ukraine proceed at full pace. Will a breakthrough actually come of this? 

Trump has said of a fresh call with European leaders that they agreed with him that “the war must end” – but that it must be “an honest end”.

There must be something substantial cooking if both sides agree to a meeting, which would be the first such face-to-face interaction between Trump and Putin of the US president’s second term.

* * * 

Bloomberg is reporting Wednesday that President Donald Trump suggested he would hike tariffs on more countries buying Russian energy, including China, as the deadline for ceasefire looms, and as US envoy Steve Witkoff is in Moscow trying to make headway with President Putin.

Witkoff’s talks with Putin lasted three hours, according to Russian media, after Witkoff landed in the country early on Wednesday. Images in Russian media showed the two men smiling and shaking hands in an ornate, gilded hall – after having met for several rounds of meetings spanning prior months.

The Kremlin in follow-up called it “constructive and useful” – according to TASS. They discussed the ongoing war in Ukraine, RIA Novosti stated.

Last month, Trump’s outlook turned more dire and negative on the chances for peace. “We thought we had [the war] settled numerous times, and then President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever,” he had said.

And last week witnessed the single deadliest airstrikes on Kiev since the war’s start – with the death toll having risen to 32 after another man recently died of his injuries, following the collapse of a nine-story apartment that was struck.

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has of course welcomed the prospect tougher US sanctions and tariffs on nations buying Russian oil. He has made clear Ukraine’s perspective that Putin would be forced into a serious peace deal if his war machine ran out of money.

Another u-turn on Russia pic.twitter.com/Bgm62H63qu

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 6, 2025

Wednesday saw a fresh Russian attack in the central region of Zaporizhzhia, reportedly striking a holiday camp which left two dead and 12 wounded. “There’s no military sense in this attack. It’s just cruelty to scare people,” Zelensky said in the aftermath.

As for the dialogue with Trump’s envoy Witkoff, part of it took place through conversation with Putin’s economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev, with the two taking a relaxed stroll through a public park in Moscow, which apparently caught some random Muscovites by surprise.

Our exclusive footage of Steve Witkoff and Vladimir Putin’s economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev taking an early morning walk through Zaryadye park next to the Kremlin.

Notably minimal visible security as ordinary Muscovites appear surprised to find themselves among such company. pic.twitter.com/9NJWNiXLDI

— Margarita Simonyan (@M_Simonyan) August 6, 2025

So the Kremlin appears to be sending calm messaging, likely in hopes that Trump will hold off on implementing the more dire and drastic of consequences and threats.

Dmitriev has at the same time said he is confident Moscow and Washington can find common ground through diplomacy and honest dialogue. The CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) took to X after the Witkoff meeting and thanked his followers in English for “kind wishes for a successful visit of Steve Witkoff to Moscow,” adding that “Dialogue will prevail.”

Thank you all for your kind wishes for a successful visit of @SteveWitkoff to Moscow. 🇷🇺🇺🇸🕊️

Dialogue will prevail. 🤝

— Kirill A. Dmitriev (@kadmitriev) August 6, 2025

Will it? Let’s hope so.