Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

Americans were taught about Paul Revere’s ride in school. He was said to have ridden from his home in the North End of Boston, to Lexington and Concord, to warn the people there that Federal troops had landed in Boston Harbour and would soon reach the townships.Of course, the story was tarted up a bit for the history books. First, it’s unlikely that he shouted, “The British are coming,” since, at the time of the ride, in 1775, he was in fact British – a British colonial – and would have regarded himself as British, as would the townspeople.

It’s also unlikely that he galloped through the towns shouting, “To arms! To arms!” since a major portion of the British colonists, particular those who were older and had a lot to lose, were loyalists, and taking up arms would be treasonous. (At that time, treason was one of only two capital crimes.)

So, what did he shout on his ride… or did he in fact shout anything? It’s more likely that he simply went to the back doors of select sympathisers and asked them to spread the word that the Federal troops were on the way. But, of course, that would have made for a far less colourful story.

It is likely, though, that the ride itself did actually take place and that he did succeed in rousing the townspeople. Amongst them were the minutemen, who later did quite a good job of picking off the Federal troops.

At that time, this practice was looked upon by armies as cowardly. It was considered honourable for columns of troops to march toward each other and fire. Those with the most troops to sacrifice usually won. The colonists could not have prevailed, had they followed this method of battle.

But the colonists’ cause was a laudable one, even if they were far outnumbered and not as well-trained or well-armed as the Federals. Under the circumstances, they succeeded because they swallowed their pride, used their wits and, fighting guerilla style, prevailed against a greater opponent.

In creating the United States, the founding fathers of the US endorsed the concept of a republic – a conglomerate of states in which the individual right was tantamount. They were deeply suspicious of sliding into becoming a democracy. As Thomas Jefferson said,

“Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49.”

Quite so. And yet, from the very first presidential cabinet, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton pushed for a move away from a republic toward a stronger federal government. (In 1789, he formed the Federalist Party and the contest began.)

Since that time, the US has moved away from being a republic and has become more of a federalist state.

This progression continued fairly steadily until 1913, at which time two major changes occurred. The banking interests in the US had become powerful enough to push through two bills that would serve to enrich them for generations. The source of that wealth would be the American taxpayer.

• First, income tax (which had been attempted previously, but never gained full acceptance) was introduced. 

• Second, to add insult to injury, the Federal Reserve was created. It was neither a federal body, nor was it a reserve. However, in addition to having the power to create all currency for the US, it had the power to set interest rates.

Through this control, it was possible to create steady annual inflation (defined as an increase in the currency in circulation). This had the effect of diminishing the purchasing power of the dollar by slow measures, effectively robbing the population incrementally through inflation.

Had Paul Revere been around in 1913, he might well have wished to get on his horse to warn the people that the Federals were coming. Only this time, it wasn’t the Federal troops, it was the Federal Reserve.

The Fed’s power made it possible to create large amounts of money out of thin air, to be loaned by banks. With this easy money, investors could borrow heavily and buy into the stock market a level previously regarded as impossible. This cornucopia was so forthcoming that, by 1929, a level of debt was reached that was unsustainable. If even a small increase in the interest rate was advanced, a stock market crash would occur, as debtors, who were up to their teeth in debt, would be underwater overnight.

What’s interesting here is that the very body that had taken over the economy in 1913 – the Federal Reserve – had created the artificially low interest rates, supplied the money, created the bubble, then, by raising interest rates in 1929, provided the pin to prick the bubble.

Not very sporting.

Today, the value of the dollar has been eroded by over 97% of its 1913 purchasing power and is due for replacement. If the owners of the Federal Reserve are to continue to regularly scalp the hoi polloi, the best approach would be to engineer a second major buildup of debt, trigger a crash, then introduce a new currency to “save the economy.”

This, they will most assuredly do. The debt has already been created. A crash can be triggered in many ways, including the tried-and-true method of raising interest rates.

And, after the predictable crash, the public will most assuredly cry out for those in power to “do something.” The warning signs have been in view for some time that that “something” will be digital currency – a currency that will make it necessary for virtually all economic transactions to pass through the hands of banks. Person-to-person transactions will virtually end, except for the possibility of barter, which would be likely to flourish as soon as the public have realized that they’ve been hoodwinked.

Unfortunately, our friend Paul Revere is nowhere to be seen on the horizon, but the Federals are indeed coming and the American people, in the not-too-distant future, will need to learn to survive the onslaught from the digital currency system that will take the place of the bullets of the late eighteenth century.

Once again, Americans will need to understand, as did their late eighteenth century forebears, that their only hope against a more powerful opponent is to use their wits – to adopt the minuteman approach and implement the economic equivalent of guerilla warfare.

*  *  *

Excessive money printing and misguided economic ideas have created all kinds of distortions in the market. All signs point to this trend continuing until it reaches a crisis… one unlike anything we’ve seen before. That’s exactly why Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent video that explains how and why this is happening… and what you can do to protect yourself and even profit from the situation. Click here to watch it now.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

Why precisely were Anthony Fauci and his cohorts so anxious to blame SARS-CoV-2 on bats and later pangolins in wet markets? It was not just to deflect attention from the possibility that the novel virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan doing gain-of-function research. There was a larger point: to reinforce a very important narrative concerning zoonotic spillovers. 

It’s a fancy phrase that speaks to a kind of granular focus that discourages nonspecialists from having an opinion. Leave it to the experts! They know! 

Let’s take a closer look. 

For many years, there has been an emerging orthodoxy in epidemiological circles that viruses are jumping from animals to humans at a growing rate. That’s the key assertion, the core claim, the one that is rarely challenged. It is made repeatedly and often in the literature on this subject, much like climate claims in that different literature.

The model goes as follows. 

Step one: assert that spillover is increasing, due to urbanization, deforestation, globalization, industrialization, carbon-producing internal combustion, pet ownership, colonialism, icky diets, shorter skirt lengths, whatever other thing you are against, or some amorphous combination of all the above. Regardless, it is new and it is happening at a growing rate. 

Step two: observe that only scientists fully understand what a grave threat this is to human life, so they have a social obligation to get out in front of this trend. That requires gain-of-function research to mix and merge pathogens in a lab to see which ones pose the most immediate threats to our existence. 

Step three: in order to protect ourselves fully, we need to deploy all the newest technologies including and especially those which allow for fast production of vaccines that can be distributed in the event of the pandemics that are inevitably coming, probably just around the corner. Above all, that requires testing and perfecting mRNA shots that deliver spike protein through lipid nanoparticles so they can be printed and distributed to the population widely and quickly. 

Step four: as society breathlessly awaits the great antidote to the deadly virus that comes to us via these vicious spillovers, there is no choice but to enact common-sense public-health measures like extreme restrictions on your liberty to travel, operate a business, and gather with others. The top goal is disease monitoring and containment. The top target: those who behave in ways that presume the existence of anachronisms like freedom and human rights. 

Step five: these protocols must be accepted by all governments because of course we live in a globalist setting in which otherwise no pathogen can possibly be contained. No one nation can be permitted to go its own way because doing so endangers the whole. We are all in this together. 

If that way of thinking strikes you as surprising, ridiculous, and scary, you have clearly not attended an academic conference on epidemiology, a trade show for pharmaceutical companies, or a planning group feeding information to the United Nations and the World Health Organization. 

This is conventional wisdom in all these circles, not even slightly unusual or strange. It is the new orthodoxy, widely accepted by all experts in this realm. 

The first I had heard of this entire theory was the August 2020 article in Cell written by David Morens and Anthony Fauci. Written during lockdowns that the authors helped shepherd, the article reflected the apocalyptic tone of the times. They said humanity took a bad turn 12,000 years ago, causing idyllic lives to face myriad infections. We cannot go back to a Rouseauian paradise but we can work to “rebuild the infrastructures of human existence.”

I was obviously stunned, reread the piece carefully, and wondered where the evidence for the great spillover – the crucial empirical assertion of the piece – could be found. They cite many papers in the literature but looking at them further, we find only models, assertions, claims rooted in testing bias, and many other sketchy claims. 

What I found was a fog machine. 

You see, everything turns on this question. If spillovers are not increasing, or if spillovers are just a normal part of the complicated relationship between humans and the microbial kingdom they inhabit alongside all living things, the entire agenda falls apart. 

If spillovers are not a pressing problem, the rationale for gain-of-function evaporates, as does the need for funding, the push for the shots, and the wild schemes to lock down until the antidote arrives. It’s the crucial step, one that has mostly evaded serious public attention but which is nearly universally accepted within the domain of what is called Public Health today. 

Who is challenging this? A tremendously important article just appeared in the Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health. It is: “Natural Spillover Risk and Disease Outbreaks: Is Over-Simplification Putting Public Health at Risk?” by the Brownstone-backed team at REPPARE. It’s something of a miracle that this piece got through peer review but here it is. 

They present the core assumption: “Arguments supporting pandemic policy are heavily based on the premise that pandemic risk is rapidly increasing, driven in particular by passage of pathogens from animal reservoirs to establish transmission in the human population; ‘zoonotic spillover.’ Proposed drivers for increasing spillover are mostly based on environmental change attributed to anthropogenic origin, including deforestation, agricultural expansion and intensification, and changes in climate.”

And the observation: “If a genuine misattribution bias regarding spillover risk and consequent pandemic risk is arising, this can distort public health policy with potentially far-reaching consequences on health outcomes.”

Then they take it on with a careful examination of the literature generally footnoted as proof. What they find is a typical game of citation roulette: this guy cites this guy who cites this guy who cites that guy, and so on in spinning circles of authoritative-seeming apparatus but fully lacking in any real substance. They write: “We see a pattern of assertive statements of rapidly rising disease risk with anthropogenic impacts on ecology driving it. These are cited heavily, resting largely on opinion, which is a poor substitute for evidence. More concerningly, there is a consistent trend of misrepresenting cited papers.”

We’ve seen this movie many times before. What’s more, there does exist a largely ignored literature that closely examines many of the supposed causal factors that drive spillovers that reveals grave doubts about any causal connection at all. The authors then place the skeptical papers against the opinion papers usually cited and conclude that what has emerged is an evidence-free orthodoxy designed to back an industrial project. 

“There are several potential reasons for this tendency to reference opinion as if it is fact. The field has been relatively small, with authorship shared across many papers. This risks the development of a mechanism for circular referencing, reviewing and reinforcement of opinion, shielding claims from sceptical inquiry or external review. The increased interest of private-sector funders in public health institutions including WHO, and its emphasis on commodities in health responses, may deepen this echo chamber, inadvertently downgrading or ignoring contrary findings while emphasizing those studies that support further funding.”

See the pattern here? 

Anyone who has followed sociology of “the science” over these last five years can. It’s groupthink, the acceptance of doctrine believed because all their peers believe it. In any case, the gig pays well. 

Now we can better explain why it is that Fauci and the rest were so emphatic that the coronavirus of 2019 did not originate in a lab for which they had arranged the funding but instead leapt from a bat or something else from a wet market.

“Sadly, it appears we have a leak from a lab.”

“No worries. We’ll find some scientists and steer some grant money to prove the pathogen in question originated from zoonotic spillover, thus proving the point that we need more funding.” 

“Brilliant Dr. Fauci! Do we have contacts in the media?”

“We do. We’ll get on that.”

The wet market narrative was not only designed to cover up their scheme and avoid blame for a global pandemic of any level of severity. It was also to deploy the potentially catastrophic consequences and resulting public panic as a rationale for continuing their own biological experimentation and funding grift.

House Republicans have returned to Washington after a two-week break, laser-focused on assembling the “big, beautiful bill” that’s set to carry President Trump’s legislative agenda, and they’re wasting no time getting to work.

Six of the 11 House committees tasked with piecing together the massive package are holding markups this week, with the others gearing up to join the push in the coming days. The plan is to stitch the various proposals together in the House Budget Committee before sending the final monster bill to the floor.

The Republicans are banking on the budget reconciliation process to ram the legislation through without needing a single Democrat vote, bypassing the Senate filibuster – which of course assumes the GOP can stay united. With a razor-thin margin, just four Republican defections could sink the entire package.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had circled Memorial Day on the calendar as the deadline to get the bill on President Trump’s desk. But even getting it through the House within the next month looks dicey, thanks to intraparty squabbles over spending and tax cut details.

The action kicks off Tuesday with three committees, Armed Services, Homeland Security, and Education & Workforce – meeting at the same time.

The Armed Services Committee is proposing a staggering $150 billion in defense funding, including $34 billion for shipbuilding, $25 billion for a “Golden Dome” missile defense system, and $21 billion to restock America’s munitions. “President Trump has a visionary strategy of peace through strength, and this investment is how we begin to execute it,” said Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL).

Meanwhile, the Homeland Security Committee plans to shovel $46.5 billion into completing Trump’s border wall and boosting border security tech. There’s also $5 billion earmarked to upgrade Customs and Border Patrol facilities, $4.1 billion to hire over 8,000 new agents, and $2 billion to keep and recruit staff with bonuses.

The Education & Workforce Committee is doing its part to find savings, touting $330 billion in cuts by overhauling student loan programs. “This plan brings accountability and holds schools financially responsible for loading students up with debt,” said Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI).

But these are the easy fights. The real fireworks are expected when committees turn to tackling safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps, and hammering out the details on tax cuts – areas where Republicans are eyeing even bigger savings but where internal divisions loom large.

Democrats aren’t sitting idly by. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) led a 12-hour sit-in on the Capitol steps Sunday to protest potential cuts to Medicaid and other safety net programs.

“As Democrats, we’re going to continue to stand on the side of the American people, and we will not rest until we bury this reckless Republican budget in the ground,” Jeffries vowed.

Booker chimed in, hoping enough Republicans could be pressured to “do the right thing and vote no.”

The legislative slog continues Wednesday, when the Judiciary, Financial Services, Oversight and Government Reform, and Transportation & Infrastructure committees dive into their pieces of the bill.

The Judiciary Committee’s slice is packed with immigration crackdowns: $45 billion to expand detention facilities, $14.4 billion for transport and removal ops, $8 billion to hire more ICE agents, and $1.25 billion for immigration judges and staff.

Oversight and Government Reform found more than $50 billion in offsets, including $31 billion from hiking federal workers’ retirement contributions and $10 billion by axing an early retirement annuity for most employees.

Financial Services would claw back unspent Inflation Reduction Act funds for green housing retrofits, fold the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board into the SEC, and cap the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding.

The Transportation & Infrastructure Committee is set to unveil its piece Tuesday.

With the clock ticking and tensions rising, the fate of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is barreling toward a showdown — and the GOP’s unity will be put to the ultimate test.

In our preview of today’s Treasury borrowing estimate release, we said that we expect the Treasury to announce $507bn in Q2 borrowing, a “figure much higher than Treasury’s estimate of $123bn in February” and entirely due to a lower starting cash balance, which as regular readers know, has collapsed due to the debt ceiling impasse that has forced the Treasury to draw down on its TGA (cash) balance as well as use various extraordinary measures.

We were off by a tiny $7 billion, $507BN vs $514BN as per the table below:

At 3pm ET, ahead of Wednesday’s Refunding statement, the Treasury published its debt borrowing estimates for calendar Q2 and Q3 and it was just as expected:

• During the April – June 2025 quarter, Treasury expects to borrow $514 billion in privately-held net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-June cash balance of $850 billion. The borrowing estimate is $391 billion higher than announced in February 2025, primarily due to the lower beginning-of-quarter cash balance and projected lower net cash flows, partially offset by lower QT (i.e. debt redemptions) to the tune of $60 billion. 

The above was completely expected, which means it is completely distorted due to the ongoing debt ceiling standoff. This is what we said earlier:

Treasury issuance in Q2 will most likely end up short of the estimate if the debt ceiling remains unresolved this quarter. Similarly, Q3 estimate will assume a normal beginning-of-quarter cash balance, but actual issuance could end up materially higher once the debt ceiling constraint is lifted during the quarter and Treasury begins to rebuild its cash balance (and if it isn’t, and the US begins to default, there will be much bigger problems at hand than termed-out debt issuance).

Translation: the Treasury drew down its cash by $444BN from $850BN to $406BN, also as we said in our preview.

What we didn’t say, because we didn’t know it (and neither did anyone else), is what the Treasury reported as an endnote to its borrowing needs paragraph, namely that “the current quarter borrowing estimate is $53 billion lower than announced in February” which indicates that DOGE is indeed working and the US funding needs are actually declining. 

To be sure, this also should not be a huge surprise, because as we also reported just before the Treasury press release, “fiscal flows year-to-date are coming in better than expected (thank you DOGE). Gross receipts are tracking slightly above prior-year levels (adjusted for CBO forecasts for 2025), while outlays are closer to the bottom of the historical range, although sadly nowhere near enough to make a notable impression over the long-term.”

And while fiscal flows could deteriorate in the coming quarters – especially if there is a sharp recession – that risk is largely viewed as relatively low, for now. Meanwhile, DB economists estimate the deficit impact from TCJA extension and other Trump proposals could be largely offset by higher tariff revenues this year, before the deficit widens out more substantially relative to the CBO baseline next year and onward.

Looking ahead to calendar Q3, or the July – September 2025 quarter, the Treasury now expects to borrow $554 billion in privately-held net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-September cash balance of $850 billion. It remains unclear if the Treasury will be able to restore cash to its “runrate” balance of $850BN, as that will depend entirely on when the debt ceiling deal will be concluded. As a reminder, earlier we highlighted the thoughts of DB’s Steven Zeng who moved
his x-date estimate from late July to mid-August, indicating that there is a modest buffer, but not enough to push the debt ceiling date into Q4 without major damage.

Finally, looking at the historical data, during calendar Q1 which ended March 31, 2025 quarter, the treasury borrowed $369 billion in privately-held  net marketable debt and ended the quarter with a cash balance of $406 billion. In February 2025, Treasury estimated borrowing of $815 billion and assumed an end-of-March cash balance of $850 billion. The $446 billion difference in privately-held net market borrowing resulted primarily from the lower end-of-quarter cash balance. However, excluding the lower than assumed end-of-quarter cash balance, actual borrowing was $2 billion lower than announced in February.

In other words, DOGE is working: in Q1, US debt funding needs were $2BN less than the Treasury forecast in February, and in Q2 the Treasury is expected to need $53 billion less than it forecast 3 months ago.

This unexpected drop in pro forma debt issuance (because one way or another, the debt ceiling constraint will go away), may be the reason why yields have been sliding all day, and at 4.21% are at session lows.

Source: US Treasury

*  *  *

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Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

China has not imported any liquefied natural gas from the United States since early February, data from Kpler cited by Nikkei has shown. 

The last LNG cargo that left the Gulf bound for China set off on February 6, the data showed.

The Chinese tariffs on U.S. goods, including energy products, and the broader trade war between the world’s two biggest economies could have long-term consequences on the ability of new U.S. LNG export projects to attract anchor offtake commitments, analysts have warned.

The United States was never a major supplier of LNG to Chinese buyers, but after Beijing slapped retaliatory tariffs on U.S. energy imports, the flow ended completely.

Following the tariff exchange, Chinese LNG buyers with long-term supply contracts with U.S. producers started reselling the cargos to Europe, Bloomberg reported in March, citing sources from the trading world. What’s more, Chinese traders have grown cold towards new long-term commitments for future supply from the United States, instead seeking long-term deals with gas producers in the Middle East and the Asia Pacific.

The latest news in that space was for a 15-year supply deal for liquefied natural gas from Emirati Adnoc, at a rate of 1 million metric tons annually. 

This made the contract the largest LNG supply deal for a Chinese company, ENN Natural Gas. ENN said the agreement will boost energy supply security and diversify its sourcing.

The outlook for Chinese LNG imports in general appears to be bearish, with BloombergNEF forecasting last month that high levels of gas inventories will push demand lower for the year, leading to the first annual decline in LNG imports since 2022.

The tariff push is now affecting the U.S. LNG industry in another way as well. 

President Trump has slapped tariffs on Chinese-built ships calling at U.S. ports, aiming to stir U.S. energy companies towards using U.S.-built vessels, of which there are none yet.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker — a far-left billionaire born into wealth as an heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune — has called for “mass protest and mobilization for disruption” against the Republican Party.

“Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now,” Pritzker told the audience at the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s annual McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club Dinner on Sunday evening. 

Pritzker continued: “These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They must understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soap box and then punish them at the ballot box.”

Pritzker calls for mass protests and disruption – “Republicans cannot know a moment of peace,” he says, swaying their portraits will one day be put in museums “reserved for tyrants and traitors” pic.twitter.com/BBBuL1Uz9O

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) April 28, 2025

Pritzker’s fiery speech last night at the 100 Club Dinner in New Hampshire strongly suggests he is considering a presidential run and testing the waters: 

• New Hampshire is a critical early primary state, and the McIntyre-Shaheen Dinner is one of the biggest Democratic Party events in the state.

• Presidential hopefuls typically use speeches there to build national visibility, court party insiders, and gauge grassroots support. 

The billionaire Democratic governor is testing the waters after socialists Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders toured the country in private jets to campaign against “oligarchy” — a nationwide touring effort largely seen as a dud.

Pritzker, who is an heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, has criticized the Trump administration’s deportation efforts of illegal alien criminals, as well as Elon Musk’s DOGE efforts to eliminate fraud and waste from the bloated federal government. 

Publicly available data shows the wealthy Pritzker family and their connection with Hyatt.

Pritzker might also be jumping into action after President Trump issued a presidential memorandum last week to target Democratic online donation platform, ActBlue, specifically cracking down on foreign contributions in American elections.

The rudderless Democratic Party can’t win with common sense, so they are doubling and tripling down on more protests funded by NGOs. As the saying goes, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

Authored by Mark LaBrosse via FreightWaves.com,

We’ve all heard how emerging AI technologies will optimize the freight industry in ways we can only dream about. But the scary truth is that AI is already fueling our nightmares—by supercharging freight theft.

Why aren’t more people talking about the dark side of AI? For one, most of the worries are centered on job loss and plagiarism. But perhaps it’s largely because it’s so good that it’s hard to detect. Regardless, it’s clear some strategies are already in play.

What’s critical to know: Even those highly attuned to scams can fall victim as generative AI more closely mimics real business experiences and enables crime syndicates to operate at scale.

This is an arms race. It will take good-guy tech fighting bad-guy tech and a coordinated human response to protect cargo from these modern cyber pirates.

Discerning real from fake is getting increasingly difficult

Crime syndicates can already evade detection and prosecution by operating outside the United States and creating new fraudulent documentation whenever they’re discovered. 

With AI in play, these bad actors are orders of magnitude more effective.

“Generative AI makes fraud an infinitely scalable and near-automatic process,” warns BAYNCORE senior consultant Dr. Richard Paul, who earned his PhD in computer simulation and artificial intelligence.

“Anyone can now set up an AI bot to scan the internet for key fragments of information,” Paul explains. “When assembled, these simple AI tools can automatically create documents, emails, and text messages that appear legitimate.”

Monitoring a freight industry awash in phishing scams, Brittany Graft, COO of fraud prevention platform Highway, shares Paul’s concern.

“If we take phishing schemes, for example, we historically have been able to detect and avoid them because the English is broken, the grammar is poor, or a logo is misplaced. AI is going to help the bad guys create an experience that so closely replicates what brokers and carriers are used to,” says Graft, “that the discerning eye will have a harder time picking up that it’s a scam.”

“Already, we’re seeing phishing attempts work because the imitations are so good,” Graft continues. “If we click some of these links, they look exactly like the legitimate site.”

And once brokers and carriers enter their credentials into illegitimate login pages and websites, their accounts—even email inboxes—are immediately compromised. From there, it’s quick work for AI agents and those using the tools to insert themselves at every level, logging into load boards, capturing freight, and creating havoc.

Complicating matters further, bad actors can use generative AI to beat the numbers game by creating tens or even hundreds of fraudulent carriers or brokers—complete with cloned sites, identical documents, and perfectly written emails. 

One, two, even fifty fraudulent carriers could be caught, and it would barely be a dent in the coming cyber threat onslaught.

“At the same time, freight brokers are being held to ever-higher standards of accountability in the court of law,” according to FreightWaves Group President, Kaylee Nix. “The situation has reached a crisis, and it’s time for the industry to come together to address this critical problem and share best practices on how to mitigate it.”

In response, the logistics industry’s largest media platform is hosting a FreightWaves Fraud Symposium on May 14 to help brokers better protect their businesses and customers.

FBI raising the alarm on deepfakes

In December 2024, the FBI issued an alert, drawing attention to how criminals are using generative AI to scam the general public. These same tactics are also being deployed against freight industry businesses and their customers.

In addition to creating fraudulent credentials, the FBI specifically cites how vocal cloning, audio bots, and generative video can falsely confirm the identity of the person you’re speaking to.

Now classic verification methods, like a simple phone call to confirm identity, can be thwarted.

“They can convince you they are from someone you know,” Paul says. “Complete with intimate details about you, in a familiar tone, even convincingly cloning a voice you know well.”

Paul adds, “The content and messaging these custom AIs generate is near-perfect, even better than legitimate actors frequently create—and thus is very hard to detect.”

Graft shares these concerns.

“We go really deep on verifying the identities of motor truck carriers and the individuals who represent them,” she says. “We collect their driver’s license, ask them to take a live photo, and verify that their digital identity matches their physical identity.”

“We’re aware of the potential for generative AI to replicate that live photo step and potentially try to brute force the system by creating multiple attempts to see which one will work,” Graft continues. “We’re bringing machine learning into that process to detect the visual signals on AI-generated photos and monitor the number of attempts.”

It’s clear—we’ll need tech solutions like this to get ahead of AI-enabled fraud.

Building trust face-to-face: The freight industry’s human response

If you’re worried about strategic cargo theft, you’re not alone. A Freight Caviar poll found that double brokering was the leading fraud concern among brokers, topping outright theft and hijacking. 

In this threat landscape, it’s highly likely that every broker and carrier in the country has already been targeted—or will be in short order. It’s the worst-kept secret in the industry. Unfortunately, victimized brokers and carriers have experienced a shocking lack of action when they’ve turned to the FMCSA. This rapidly rising fraud simply hasn’t been an agency priority.

While the federal government has yet to take meaningful action, freight brokers and carriers aren’t standing idle. They are taking their own actions, adopting new tools, and opening up dialogue.

Partly in response to this chaos, they’ve banded together and launched the Broker-Carrier Summit to deliver critical education, build relationships, and open up the lines of communication necessary to strengthen the industry and help fend off scammers.

Fighting fire with fire: The freight industry’s tech response

While emerging technologies have enabled a whole new level of criminality, brokers and carriers also leverage cutting-edge tech to protect against AI-powered scammers. In fact, tech-enabled fraud prevention tools have done more to combat this increasingly sophisticated threat than anything else out there.

Graft agrees.

“We’ll have to increasingly rely on technology to help us ascertain identities because AI is going to get better at impersonating reality,” she says.

What tools do we have at our disposal?

Digital identity wallets, like the well-established ID.me, are now taking direct aim at deepfakes, leveraging biometrics for facial verification and liveness detection. (Privacy concerns aside.)

Carrier vetting platforms, including FreightValidate and Carrier411, surface an operator’s entire history—or, in the case of many bad actors, the lack of a legitimate history.

Some carrier identity SaaS systems and plugins, like Highway, feature machine learning (ML) to monitor inbound phone calls and email inboxes, looking for various fraud signals, like spoofed phone numbers and email addresses.

As this digital war rages on, some fraud detection tools are getting into a more proactive position, now executing real-time behavioral and intent monitoring—detecting increasingly subtle patterns.

It’s a lot to take in, I realize. The growing scale of strategic freight theft—up 1,500% since 2021, according to the American Trucking Association—is enough to leave you breathless.

We’ll need every human and tech-enabled arrow in our quiver to protect our supply chain.

In an unexpected development on Monday Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine on the occasion of Russia’s Victory Day celebrations, coming next week.

This year’s observance will mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. The Kremlin published a statement calling for the ceasefire to being at midnight on May 8, lasting until midnight on May 11. The Kremlin intends for all Russian military operations to be suspended.

This full three-day ceasefire would mark the longest such pause in fighting of the war, following on the heels of this month’s 30-hour Easter truce, which largely held but saw accusations of repeat violations hurled between both sides in some locales.

The ceasefire is “out of humanitarian considerations,” the statement indicated. “Russia believes that the Ukrainian side should follow this example,” the Kremlin added.

“In the event of ceasefire violations by Ukraine, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will respond appropriately and effectively.”

Moscow further said it “reaffirms its readiness for peace negotiations without preconditions, aimed at addressing the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis and engaging constructively with international partners.”

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, was the first to respond on behalf of Kiev, and asked why there can’t be an immediate ceasefire, if Moscow is willing to declare one for May 8.

“Why wait until May 8th? If the fire can be ceased now and since any date for 30 days — so it is real, not just for a parade,” Sybiha wrote on X. “Ukraine is ready to support a lasting, durable and full ceasefire. And this is what we are constantly proposing, for at least 30 days.”

One Russian source has been quoted as pointing out this is largely about signaling the Trump administration:

“We are sending a signal to the outside world: we are peace-loving, and they [in Ukraine] are terrorists — referring, for example, to the recent killing of General Moskalik,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to talk candidly about the situation.

“Another intended recipient of this signal is the U.S. president himself: ‘Look, Mr. Trump, we are trying,’” the official added.

Trump has been increasing the pressure not only on Zelensky but on Russia too, warning both sides that US patience will run out, and urging the forging of a ceasefire within days.

But in reality neither side has budged, given also just on Monday FM Lavrov set forth maximalist demands to end the war: full recognition of Russian control over the four territories, ‘deNazification’, and a pledge for Ukraine to never joint NATO, along with protection of the Russian language in Ukraine.

New on MoA:
Russia Rejects Trump’s Freeze Of The War In Ukrainehttps://t.co/Adz8e0loFS pic.twitter.com/Gxk7JTtvZ5

— Moon of Alabama (@MoonofA) April 28, 2025

However, Trump has lately suggested he thinks Zelensky is ready to give up Crimea, but there’s been no official confirmation of this as of yet. The Ukrainian leader would face immense pushback from many of his own military commanders if he formally relinquishes territory.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

The peace process might go kaput if they can’t resolve these issues…

Trump speculated that Russia’s bombing of civilian areas might signal that “maybe [Putin] doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along”, and then reiterated his earlier threat to impose “secondary sanctions” against those who violate the US’ primary ones, which was analyzed here. This followed Trump’s latest meeting with Zelensky, who might have negatively influenced over his hitherto largely positive perceptions of Putin, and comes after reports that the US has finalized its peace plan.

Five significant disagreements that have emerged throughout the course of negotiations account for Trump’s volte-face toward Putin.

• The first was referenced by Trump in his post where he condemned Russia’s bombing of civilian areas. Putin argued earlier in April that Russia is targeting Ukrainian troops there, but the optics of continued Russian strikes against civilian areas amidst peace talks with the US evidently left a very negative impression on Trump, who now doubts Putin’s commitment to peace.

• The second concerns European peacekeepers in Ukraine, which the US’ reportedly finalized peace plan suggests despite Russia opposing it. Although Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth already declared that the US won’t extend Article 5 mutual defense guarantees to NATO countries’ troops in Ukraine, Russia fears that the US could be manipulated by the Europeans into mission creep if the latter deploy there. Putin therefore prefers for there to be no ambiguity about this and for Trump to scrub it from his plan.

• Third, it’s unclear whether Ukraine will be obligated to at least partially demilitarize like Kiev provisionally agreed to do during spring 2022’s ultimately failed peace talks, which is one of Russia’s explicitly declared goals in the conflict. Trump is reluctant to support this since he seems to believe that it could embolden Putin to recommence hostilities in the future, especially in the absence of European peacekeepers, but this demand isn’t something that Putin could easily walk away from.

• The fourth disagreement is over the US’ refusal to accede to Russia’s demand for coercing Ukraine into withdrawing from the disputed territories that are still under Kiev’s control. The New York Times cited a source who described this as “unreasonable and unachievable”, but it’s imperative for Russia after the Kremlin recognized the entirety of these regions as Russian following September 2022’s referenda. Just like with demilitarization, Putin also can’t easily walk away from this either, hence the disagreement.

• And finally, the US’ reportedly finalized peace plan also requests that Russia hand over the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and Kakhovka Dam to the US, which is as unacceptable for Putin as the preceding points of accepting European peacekeepers, dropping demilitarization, and curbing his territorial claims. All five disagreements, including the first-mentioned one about Russia’s continued strikes against military targets in civilian areas, collectively contributed to this impasse right before the diplomatic finish line.

If Putin and Trump can’t resolve these issues, after which Trump would then also have to get Zelensky to agree to their new deal, then the peace process will probably go kaput. 

Putin and Trump are incentivized to resolve their disputes due to how mutually beneficial the nascent Russian–US “New Détente” is while Zelensky would struggle to continue fighting if the US once again cuts off military aid as punishment for rejecting whatever those two agree to. Be that as it may, it’ll still be very difficult to break this deadlock.

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump said on April 27 that he would bring Columbus Day back “from the ashes,” as he accused the Democrats of tarnishing the reputation of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus.

Columbus Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the second Monday of October to honor Italian-Americans and Christopher Columbus, whose 1492 expedition from Spain reached the Caribbean and marked the beginning of sustained European exploration and colonization of the Americas.

On Oct. 8, 2021, then-President Joe Biden issued two separate presidential proclamations commemorating both Indigenous People’s Day and Columbus Day.

Trump said that he plans to commemorate Columbus Day “under the same rules, dates, and locations, as it has had for all of the many decades before,” suggesting that he won’t follow Biden’s practice.

“I’m bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes. The Democrats did everything possible to destroy Christopher Columbus, his reputation, and all of the Italians that love him so much,” Trump stated on Truth Social.

“They tore down his Statues, and put up nothing but ‘WOKE,’ or even worse, nothing at all!”

The federal holiday was still known as Columbus Day during Biden’s term, but also as Indigenous Peoples Day. 

That was a longtime goal of activists who wanted to shift the focus from commemorating Columbus’ navigation to the Americas to his and his successors’ exploitation of the indigenous people he encountered there.

In his 2021 Columbus Day proclamation, Biden said he acknowledged “the painful history of wrongs and atrocities that many European explorers inflicted on Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities.”

Biden said it should serve as a reflection of “the courage and contributions of Italian Americans throughout the generations,” as well as “the dignity and resilience of Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities.”

During his first term, Trump stated in a 2020 proclamation that “radical activists have sought to undermine Christopher Columbus’s legacy” amid reports of vandalism targeting statues of the Italian explorer in some states.

“These extremists seek to replace discussion of his vast contributions with talk of failings, his discoveries with atrocities, and his achievements with transgressions,” he stated. 

“Rather than learn from our history, this radical ideology and its adherents seek to revise it, deprive it of any splendor, and mark it as inherently sinister.”

There have been reports of Columbus statues being vandalized in several states in recent years. 

In October 2019, vandals threw red paint and sprayed graffiti on two Columbus statues in Rhode Island and California.