A federal judge on March 26 denied the Trump administration’s motion to dissolve her order that prevents the Pentagon from blocking transgender people from enlisting in the military, which was scheduled to go into effect on Friday.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyesfiled a memorandum opinion and order on Wednesday denying the administration’s request to dissolve, or stay pending appeal, her March 18 preliminary injunction halting the new military policy.
The government filed an appeal after Reye’s Wednesday order.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” on Jan. 27 that says individuals “expressing a false gender identity” do not meet the standards for military service and that “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle.”
On March 18, Reyes ruled that Trump’s order likely violates the constitutional rights of transgender-identifying active-duty service members who challenged the order and could cause them irreparable harm. She agreed to stay the preliminary injunction until March 21 to give the administration enough time to appeal.
“Indeed, the cruel irony is that thousands of transgender service members have sacrificed—some risking their lives—to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them,” Reyes stated in a 79-page ruling.
During a March 21 hearing, Reyes requested that the Department of Defense delay its original March 26 deadline for instituting the policy.
The government filed a motion to dissolve the injunction on March 21 and argued that the policy is not an overarching ban on transgender-identifying people but rather “turns on gender dysphoria–a medical condition–and does not discriminate against trans-identifying persons as a class.”
The administration also asked that if the motion to dissolve is rejected, the court should stay the preliminary injunction pending appeal. It also cited new guidance issued on March 21 that clarified that “the phrase ‘exhibit symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria‘” only applies to “individuals who exhibit such symptoms as would be sufficient to constitute a diagnosis.’”
Reyes said she preferred to give additional time for the appeals process and said she had previously granted enough time to appeal her last opinion, stopping the ban from going into effect. She also acknowledged that the government’s cited guidance was new but that the defense’s argument was not.
“Defendants re-emphasize their ‘consistent position that the [Pentagon] Policy is concerned with the military readiness, deployability, and costs associated with a medical condition,’” Reyes wrote.
“Regulating gender dysphoria is no different than regulating bipolar disorder, eating disorders, or suicidality. The Military Ban regulates a medical condition, they insist, not people. And therein lies the problem.
“Gender dysphoria is not like other medical conditions, something Defendants well know,” Reyes wrote. “It affects only one group of people: all persons with gender dysphoria are transgender, and only transgender persons experience gender dysphoria.”
CBO Forecasts DOGE And AI Will Be Massive Failures: Sees US Debt Exploding As Productivity Collapses
Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative will be an epic failure.
That’s the message from the latest forecast by the “non-partisan” Congressional Budget Office which projected staggering increases in federal budget deficits and debt over the next 30 years, coupled with a collapse in population growth and productivity, largely due to surging interest costs – the same soaring interest costs we have been warning about for years – as it laid out a dismal economic picture for the twilight days of the United States.
The CBO’s latest long-term budget projections show federal deficits accelerating to 7.3% of the economy in fiscal year 2055 from 6.2% in 2025. That is up from the 30-year average from 1995 to 2024 of 3.9%. In other words, the CBO is giving zero credibility to DOGE’s stated mission of slashing US spending and deficit. Just earlier today, Elon Musk said that his Govt Efficiency Department aims to finish $1 trillion in cuts by the end of May. Needless to say, the CBO disagrees.
But where it gets really scary is the CBO’s update of what is arguably the scariest chart in the world: that of US public debt which is now seen rising alarmingly, to 156% of GDP in 2055 from 100% in 2025.
“Mounting debt would slow economic growth, push up interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt and pose significant risks to the fiscal and economic outlook,” the Long-Term Budget Outlook: 2025 to 2055 stated.
Of particular note, government interest payments on its ballooning debt were projected at 5.4% of GDP in fiscal year 2055, up from the anticipated 3.2% in the current fiscal year that ends on September 30.
That too is overly optimistic: as we noted previously, interest on the debt will surpass social security spending as the #1 outlay as soon as 2027 unless interest rates tumble or debt is drastically reduced. Neither is likely to happen.
Breakdown of US spending by category: Interest on the debt will surpass social security as the #1 outlay by 2027 unless i) rates tumble; ii) debt is drastically reduced https://t.co/CYpYVPg9nJpic.twitter.com/wuNBq59P6e
At least the CBO acknowledges that interest costs are projected to be even larger than spending on the government’s “discretionary” programs, such as military operations, air traffic control, law enforcement and nutrition programs. Altogether, those will comprise 5.1% of GDP in 2055.
The “non-partisan” CBO quickly showed its partisan colors by advocating implicitly for a resumption of Biden’s illegal alien acceptance policies. According to the forecast, the aging US population will push spending on Social Security benefits to 6.1% of GDP in fiscal year 2055, up from 5.2% in 2025.
The CBO also forecast slower U.S. population growth over the next 30 years than during the past three decades largely due to reduced immigration. That will slow economic output in a shrinking labor force. Without mentioning Trump, it added: “Without immigration, the U.S. population would begin to shrink in 2033.”
Annual deaths are projected to exceed the number of births in the US just eight years from now, at which point net immigration would drive population growth. Last year, the CBO estimated the US population would begin to shrink in 2040, but that was thanks to Biden hoovering up every Venezuelan murdered-cum-illegal alien in hopes they would vote for him.
According to Bloomberg, the projection “showcases the risk of imposing draconian immigration policies at a time when the Trump administration has been implementing sweeping actions to curb the inflow of non-native-born people. Measures have included restricting deportation protections and sharply tightening border security. Border crossings in February were 94% lower than they were a year prior, according to US Customs and Border Protection data.”
Net immigration would “increase the size of the overall population in coming years and boost the share of people in age groups that have higher rates of labor force participation,” the CBO said in its outlook. What the CBO forgot to add is net ILLEGAL immigration, which has been the primary source of net immigration in the past decade.
Because how will the US ever survive without continuing to import every Latin American criminal?
Overall, the CBO projected real economic growth, forecast at 2.1% in 2025, slowing to 1.4% in 2055.
At the same time, net immigration would “increase the size of the overall population in coming years and boost the share of people in age groups that have higher rates of labor force participation,” the CBO said in its outlook.
The silver lining to the economic slowdown is that it will keep rates on 10-year Treasury notes largely flat over the 30 years, “reflecting upward pressure from increases in federal borrowing and downward pressure from slowdowns in the growth of the labor force.”
But things could get much worse. The CBO bases its projections on current law, which could change significantly in the short-term. That is due in part to the push now underway by President Trump and Republicans to slash federal spending and the government’s workforce, while also extending tax cuts that are due to expire at the end of this year under current law.
“As bad as this outlook is, it represents an ‘optimistic scenario,’ because policymakers are currently considering adding trillions more in tax cut extensions, which would add to the debt,” said Michael Peterson, head of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which advocates fiscal policy reforms.
There are estimates that extending those tax cuts for a decade could add around $4.6 trillion to deficits and debt. House Republicans have proposed spending cuts, including to federal healthcare programs, to achieve some savings.
Trump also has ordered tough border security measures and efforts to deport immigrants that experts see potentially denting the economy as a result of labor shortages.
Another unknown factor is the outcome of court challenges to Trump policies that already are pending. The CBO does not include any consideration of the outcome of those court cases in its long-term projections. The report also does not factor in the potential impact on the U.S. economy from a broad range of tariffs Trump is implementing against foreign goods.
There was some good news: for now, the risk of a fiscal crisis “appears to be low,” but it’s not possible to reliably quantify the danger, the CBO said.
“In the agency’s assessment, no tipping point can be identified at which the debt-to-GDP ratio would become so high that it would make a crisis likely or imminent,” the report said. “Nor is there a specific tipping point beyond which interest costs would become so high in relation to GDP that they were unsustainable.” Uhm, maybe they should take a look at their debt forecast chart again.
But it’s not just DOGE that the CBO dissed: it also threw the entire AI bubble under the bus. You see, despite all the current fervor over the application of artificial intelligence, the CBO is projecting weaker productivity gains over coming decades. That’s in part due to slower investment because of a crowding-out effect from massive public-sector borrowing.
“Increased federal borrowing is projected to reduce the resources available for private investment,” the CBO said. Declines in federal investment relative to GDP are also seen as a drag on so-called total factor productivity — a term to describe efficiency gains.
Well if only the previous administration hadn’t listened to the CBO’s cheerful forecasts years ago when the “nonpartisan” budget office said to do… precisely what was done and lo and behold, here we are. And now the CBO wakes up?
The bottom line, however, is that the CBO has openly declared war on Musk and is daring him to shutdown whole swaths of the government, and if there is anything Elon lives for, it’s a dare. It sure would be ironic if the completely useless and thoroughly partisan CBO itself were to be the next to be eliminated.
A federal judge on March 27 ordered government officials to try to preserve their Signal messages about an attack on terrorists in the Middle East earlier this month.
“Defendants shall promptly make best efforts to preserve all Signal communications from March 11–15, 2025,” U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said in a minute order.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other top officials, who were part of a chat group on messaging platform Signal discussing the attack, must file a status report by March 31 on steps they’ve taken to preserve the messages, the judge said.
The order will expire on April 10 “in the event that Defendants’ measures are satisfactory to the Court,” Boasberg wrote.
The order was handed down after a hearing involving government lawyers and the watchdog group American Oversight, which sued the officials this week over their recently disclosed chat on Signal.
The mid-March discussion on Signal involved Hegseth, Secretary of State and acting Archivist Marco Rubio, and others. It centered on strikes in the Middle East against Houthi terrorists. Its existence was revealed after Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was inadvertently added.
American Oversight said in its complaint, which was filed in federal court in Washington, that Signal is not authorized to preserve federal records, and at least one or more messages sent in the recent chat were deleted, violating the Federal Records Act (FRA).
American Oversight earlier this year submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to agencies headed by the defendants, including the Pentagon, seeking Signal records. Because the messages are not forwarded to official email accounts, American Oversight and other requesters are barred from obtaining the records, the suit states.
An attorney for the government told the judge during the hearing that the government was “certainly looking to fulfill its obligations” in regard to the chats.
The attorney also said the agencies were looking to preserve the records they have, and that an order by the judge was unnecessary because the government was already working toward that goal.
She cautioned that the government was still in the process of determining which messages it possesses.
U.S. government lawyers had said in a filing to the judge that American Oversight’s allegation that officials have not taken measures to prevent the destruction of Signal messages, and are therefore violating the Federal Records Act, is not reviewable by the court under court precedent.
“Even if the claim were reviewable, it is belied by Defendants’ declaration submitted herewith. That declaration establishes that Defendants are taking steps to locate and preserve the Signal chat, and that at least one of the agencies has located, preserved, and copied into a federal record keeping system a partial version of the Signal chat,” they said.
The case was assigned to Boasberg, who recently blocked the government from deporting suspected and confirmed members of the Tren de Aragua gang under a wartime law that President Donald Trump invoked unless authorities had other reasons for the deportations.
The assignment was random, according to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Houthis Launch More Ballistic Missiles At Tel Aviv Despite Ongoing US Strikes
At a moment Western media has been consumed with ‘Signalgate’ – involving top Trump officials planning and discussing the initial March 15 bombing raid on Yemen and its aftermath via unsecure channels and with a journalist in the group – the Houthis have continued launching missiles directly at Israel, as well as against targets in the Black Sea.
Clearly the Pentagon’s repeat bombing raids on the capital as well as the key port city of Hodeida have done nothing to actually deter the Houthi (Ansarallah) attacks.
On Thursday the group announced another ballistic missile attack. “The missile force targeted Ben Gurion Airport in the occupied Jaffa (Tel Aviv) area with a Zulfiqar ballistic missile, and a military target south of occupied Jaffa with a Palestine-2 hypersonic ballistic missile. The operation successfully achieved its goal,” said a military statement.
The Israeli army confirmed there was an inbound missile, and sirens sounded across central Israel, sending tens of thousands into emergency shelters.
The IDF military said, “following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, two missiles launched from Yemen were intercepted prior to crossing into Israeli territory,” adding that “sirens were sounded in accordance with protocol.”
Israeli anti-air defense systems were active during the attack. The IDF has said at least two projectiles coming from the south were intercepted in the morning hours.
The Houthis further on Thursday said they’ve “targeted hostile warships in the Red Sea, including the American aircraft carrier (USS Harry S) Truman,” which he said was “in retaliation to the ongoing US aggression against our country.”
Below: two ballistic missiles are launched from Yemen Israeli media says they were intercepted, with no injuries reported.
Alarms sound over Jerusalem and central Israel as two ballistic missiles are launched from Yemen
The Truman has been targeted several times over the past nearly two weeks. However, the Pentagon has given no indication it has ever been hit, or come even close to it – but details have been scant.
Meanwhile US airstrikes on Yemen have been ongoing:
Earlier Thursday, the rebels said two people had been killed in overnight air strikes near the rebel-controlled capital Sanaa that they blamed on the United States.
The Huthis’ Al-Masirah TV channel reported nearly 20 strikes on Sanaa governorate, both north and south of the capital.
“The American aggression killed two and injured two,” the Huthi-run health ministry’s spokesman Anis al-Asbahi said on social media platform X.
Clearly at this point forces under US Central Command (CENTCOM) are in an active state of war in Yemen and the Red Sea.
And yet, there’s still been no war authorization from Congress – or so much as a public debate. A tiny handful of Congressional leaders have called the US administration out on this, especially Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie. The US airstrikes also appear to be more about defending Israel, and less about immediate US national security interests.
Everything you’ve been told is a lie – especially when it comes to polio. Dr. Suzanne Humphries reveals what really made all those polio cases disappear after the vaccine was introduced…
Most people are told vaccines are “safe and effective” with no real downside. But Dr. Humphries pulled back the curtain on decades of deception, starting with a major turning point in 1986—when President Reagan signed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act into law.
Before that, vaccine manufacturers were getting hammered with lawsuits. Humphries explained that after the 1976 swine flu vaccine disaster, Guillain-Barré cases were piling up. It got so bad that the companies couldn’t even get insurance.
They ran to the government and basically said: “Bail us out, or we’re done making vaccines.” So the government stepped in. First, it agreed to cover the lawsuits. Then came the 1986 law—sold to the public as a way to help injured families get compensation faster, but in reality, it became a kangaroo court system that rarely paid families deserving of vaccine injury claims.
Companies like Wyeth (now Pfizer) admitted their vaccines were “unavoidably unsafe,” yet instead of making them safer, they were handed blanket immunity.
Humphries explained that this opened the floodgates for “creativity” by the vaccine makers. They could now play with adjuvants without fear of being sued. Profits soared, and the childhood vaccine schedule expanded rapidly.
Dr. Suzanne Humphries, former board-certified nephrologist and co-author of Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History, just made a bombshell appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience—and what she shared will completely change how you think about vaccines.… pic.twitter.com/s3k50BXWnE
That freedom also meant cutting corners in safety testing. Most people assume vaccines are tested like other drugs—with placebo controls. But that’s not the case. Instead, vaccines are actually tested against other vaccines, which obscures negative outcomes.
“The few studies that exist with saline placebos show how bad the vaccine actually is and how it makes you not only not respond to the disease when it comes around, but more susceptible to it in many cases,” Dr. Humphries explained.
That freedom also meant cutting corners in safety testing. Most people assume vaccines are tested like other drugs—with placebo controls. But that’s not the case. Instead, vaccines are actually tested against other vaccines, which obscures negative outcomes.
When the conversation turned to polio, Dr. Humphries blew just about everyone’s mind on the internet. She challenged one of the most sacred beliefs in modern medicine: that vaccines eradicated polio.
The truth is that polio wasn’t actually eradicated. “Polio is still here. Polio is still alive and well,” Dr. Humphries declared. It’s just that a few sleights of hand made the world believe otherwise.
The real change that happened, according to Humphries, wasn’t the vaccine’s impact—it was the definition.
“Polio is called different things today,” Humphries explained. “Whereas back in the 1940s, 1950s, the criteria for diagnosing polio were completely different to the year that the vaccine was introduced. The playing field, the goalposts—everything was changed… they were able to show a complete cascading drop of paralytic polio simply because of the way they changed the definitions of what polio is and what could cause it.”
After the vaccine rollout, cases that would’ve been diagnosed as polio were now labeled as Guillain-Barré syndrome, coxsackievirus, echovirus, or chalked up to lead or mercury poisoning.
She also pointed to another key factor: environmental toxins. The rise in polio diagnoses, she said, mirrored the use of toxic chemicals like DDT.
As use of neurotoxic pesticides like DDT, arsenic, and lead declined, so did toxic exposures that mimicked polio symptoms. Fewer kids were bathing in poisons that caused spinal nerve damage, so naturally, paralysis decreased.
“The tonnage of production of DDT absolutely mirrored the diagnosis for polio,” Dr. Humphries explained. Even today, she added, “The countries that still make DDT… are where we’re still seeing this paralytic polio situation happen.”
And when it comes to the poliovirus itself? It’s not quite as harmful as people think. Humphries explained that polio is actually a “commensal”—a virus that lives in most people without causing harm.
“95 to 99% of all polio is asymptomatic.” Dr. Humphries described a study of the Javante Indians, where “98 to 99% of every person they tested… had evidence of immunity to all three strains of polio,” yet none of the children were crippled. “They were like, ‘We don’t have any of that problem,’” she recalled.
Dr. Humphries also cited a chilling story in history. In 1916, a Rockefeller lab in Manhattan set out with “the specific stated goal… to try to create the most pathological, neuropathological strain of polio possible.” Researchers injected monkey brains and human spinal fluid into monkeys.
And that experimentation came with devastating consequences. “There was a big problem with that, which was [polio] released into the public by accident,” Dr. Humphries explained. “And the world experienced the worst polio epidemic on record. 25% mortality.”
In short, Humphries argued that polio didn’t vanish because of vaccines. It disappeared under a mountain of redefinitions, environmental triggers, manmade disasters, and a lot of propaganda.
When the conversation turned to polio, Dr. Humphries blew just about everyone’s mind on the internet. She challenged one of the most sacred beliefs in modern medicine: that vaccines eradicated polio.
The truth is that polio wasn’t actually eradicated. “Polio is still here. Polio… pic.twitter.com/wZ91AERL6d
Dr. Humphries also raised concerns about a link between vaccines and food allergies.
“It’s very well known that the vaccines that have aluminum in them skew the immune system,” she said.
Aluminum is added to many vaccines to make the immune system react more strongly. But when that reaction happens, the immune system can mistakenly target other things in the body, like food proteins.
For example, if a baby is exposed to something like peanuts or eggs around the time of vaccination, the immune system might mistakenly tag those foods as threats, potentially leading to a long-term food allergy.
“So that’s kind of the paradox there [with vaccines],” Dr. Humphries explained.
Dr. Humphries also raised concerns about a link between vaccines and food allergies.
“It’s very well known that the vaccines that have aluminum in them skew the immune system,” she said.
Aluminum is added to many vaccines to make the immune system react more strongly. But when… pic.twitter.com/D68apscwaP
And then there’s mercury. Did you know that if a mercury-containing vaccine drops on the floor, “the HAZMAT people have to come and take that away”?
Yet we inject it into 3-month-old babies.
Vaccines might look like a clear liquid, but the process behind them is anything but clean. According to Humphries, it often starts with diseased animal tissue—like monkey kidneys or even pus scraped from ulcers on cows.
To keep those cells alive, manufacturers use a mix of animal blood, antibiotics, and mercury.
Why mercury? Because it helps kill off microbes that might survive the process. But as she pointed out, mercury is so toxic that the only places it’s considered “safe” are in vaccines, dental fillings, and toxic waste sites.
“Yet we’re okay to take a portion of that vial and inject it into a child, a three-month-old child. How does that work?” she asked.
And then there’s mercury. Did you know that if a mercury-containing vaccine drops on the floor, “the HAZMAT people have to come and take that away”?
Yet we inject it into 3-month-old babies.
Vaccines might look like a clear liquid, but the process behind them is anything but… pic.twitter.com/M5WbTLz0FI
In Humphries’ book, she credits clean water, improved sanitation, better nutrition, and overall living conditions—not vaccines—for the dramatic decline in infectious disease.
Dr. Humphries argues that these public health advances were already reducing illness and death long before widespread vaccination campaigns began. In her view, vaccines came in at the tail end of a trend that was already well underway—and then took the credit.
For more on this topic, check out these articles from A Midwestern Doctor, someone I consider one of the most qualified voices in the world when it comes to telling the truth about vaccines:
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Kim Jong Un Unveils Large AI-Equipped Combat Drones
North Korea has unveiled a new batch of new AI-equipped suicide and reconnaissance drones which the country is showcasing as part of military modernization plans.
State-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Thursday that leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the testing of “various kinds of reconnaissance and suicide drones” which have long been in development by North Korea’s Unmanned Aerial Technology Complex. One particular unmanned vehicle featured in an official photo set appeared huge in size…
KCNA noted that Kim has authorized expanding production of the drone line, and there are reports the program had the assistance of Russia.
Kim further at the event unveiled what’s considered to be North Korea’s first airborne early-warning aircraft.
“The field of unmanned equipment and artificial intelligence should be top-prioritized and developed in modernizing the armed forces,” Kim announced.
The new airborne early warning and control aircraft is believed the result of North Korea modifying Russian-supplied aircraft into airborne radar platforms.
The plane will complement North Korea’s existing ground-based radar systems, allowing better radar detection unhindered by the Korean peninsula’s mountainous terrain.
As for the recent increasing military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow, Western media reports on Wednesday say that North Korea sent at least 3,000 more soldiers to Russia early this year.
This is the conclusion of South Korean intelligence, and could bring the total amount sent in the context of the Ukraine war to somewhere between 12,000 to 15,000. Several thousand are believed to have been killed or injured, particularly in combat in Russia’s Kursk.
“Worst Of The Worst”: Top MS-13 Leader Arrested In Virginia In Joint Operation
US law enforcement arrested one of the top three MS-13 gang leaders in the country after a Trump-backed operation in Virginia that resulted in the arrest of more than 340 criminals in the past month alone, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced.
“Early this morning, one of the top leaders of MS-13 was apprehended. He was the leader for the East Coast, one of the top three in the entire country, right here in Virginia … He is an illegal alien from El Salvador — and he will NOT be living in our country much longer,” said Bondi.
.@AGPamBondi: “Early this morning, one of the top leaders of MS-13 was apprehended. He was the leader for the East Coast, one of the top three in the entire country, right here in Virginia … He is an illegal alien from El Salvador — and he will NOT be living in our country much… pic.twitter.com/cW8QJNe48L
“They executed a clean, safe operation and the bad guys in custody. And thanks to the FBI, we got one of the worst of the worst of the MS-13 off the streets this morning. Virginia and the country is a lot safer today,” Bondi told Fox News following the arrest.
FBI Director Kash Patel said of the operation, “This is what happens when you let good cops be cops,” after the arrest of the 24-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador during a raid near Dale City, Prince William County on Thursday morning.
.@FBIDirectorKash on the capture of an MS-13 leader: “This is what happens when you let good cops be cops and we’re going to continue to let good cops be cops across this country… We are returning our communities to safety.” pic.twitter.com/DXe68LA2eE
As we mark five years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many headlines trumpet the resilience of the US economy: unemployment is low, GDP has returned to growth, and markets have rebounded. But beneath the surface-level indicators lies a more complicated and sobering picture.
A close examination of key economic metrics reveals that in several important areas, the US economy has not fully recovered from the effects of both the virus and the extraordinary government interventions it prompted. Despite warnings from economists and policy experts in 2020, the country implemented sweeping lockdowns, business closures, and monetary and fiscal expansions at a scale never seen before. These efforts were often framed as a necessary tradeoff between public health and economic output — a false dichotomy that ignored the long-run consequence of suppressing economic activity at such a vast scale.
Today, the costs of those tradeoffs are still being paid, and the full price may not be known for years to come.
(All images sourced from Bloomberg Finance, LP)
1. US Manufacturers New Orders for Nondefense Capital Goods Excluding Aircraft (Conference Board)
One key indicator is the Conference Board’s New Orders for Nondefense Capital Goods Excluding Aircraft, which serves as a proxy for business investment in equipment and durable inputs. From 2015 through early 2020, the metric showed steady growth, signaling strong confidence and ongoing capital formation. But in the wake of pandemic disruptions, new orders plummeted. Although recovery began in 2021 and was supported by historically low interest rates, the metric remains below its pre-pandemic trajectory. As of March 2025, a slight month-over-month decline (-0.1 percent ) suggests that firms remain cautious about long-term investment. The uneven rebound signals lingering uncertainty in the business environment and may point to structural concerns like reshoring, labor shortages, or geopolitical risk.
2. US CPI Ex Food & Energy, Year-Over-Year (US Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Core CPI, which strips out volatile food and energy prices to provide a clearer picture of underlying inflation, remained stable at around 2 percent from 2015 to early 2020. But pandemic-era policies — including trillions in federal stimulus and prolonged supply chain disruptions — led to a surge in price growth. Core inflation peaked in 2022 and has cooled since, but as of early 2025, it remains elevated at roughly 3.1 percent year-over-year. This persistent inflation has eroded consumer purchasing power, particularly for middle- and lower-income households. It also complicates the Federal Reserve’s ability to ease monetary policy, potentially dampening future growth.
Consumer confidence, as measured by the Conference Board’s Present Situation Index, offers insight into how Americans perceive current economic conditions. Between 2015 and early 2020, consumer sentiment was buoyant, driven by low unemployment and strong income growth. The pandemic caused a steep drop, and while confidence has partially rebounded, it has not returned to prior highs. In 2025, many households remain wary amid ongoing concerns over inflation, interest rates, and job security. This hesitancy is reflected in cautious spending patterns and a reluctance to take on new debt, both of which could suppress future economic dynamism.
4. Real Average Hourly Earnings (1982–1984 Dollars, Seasonally Adjusted) (US Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Real average hourly earnings (adjusted to 1982-1984 dollars) present a mixed picture. From 2015 to 2020, real wages rose modestly in line with productivity gains and low inflation. In 2020, as lower-wage workers were disproportionately affected by job losses, average real wages appeared to increase temporarily. But subsequent inflation wiped out those gains. By 2025, real wages have only slightly improved relative to pre-pandemic levels, indicating that nominal wage increases have not kept pace with the cost of living. This stagnation undermines household financial resilience and places greater pressure on public support programs.
5. US Average Hourly Earnings Private Nonfarm Payrolls (1982 Dollars) (US Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Similarly, real average hourly earnings in the private nonfarm sector have struggled to regain momentum. Prior to 2020, steady gains reflected a competitive labor market and healthy economic fundamentals. Post-pandemic, however, wage growth has been neutralized by rising prices, leaving many workers with stagnant or declining real incomes. While some sectors — such as tech and logistics — have fared better, much of the workforce remains in a holding pattern. This weak earnings recovery affects not just consumption but also savings, investment, and overall quality of life.
6. Total Net US Saving, All Sectors (Flow of Funds, NIPA) (US Bureau of Economic Analysis)
Net saving across all sectors, as measured by the Flow of Funds accounts, showed balance in the years leading up to the pandemic. In 2020, government transfers and reduced consumption pushed household savings to record highs. But that was a temporary artifact. As of 2025, net saving has returned to trend or even fallen below it, as households grapple with higher living costs and diminished purchasing power. This reversal undermines long-term capital accumulation and leaves families more exposed to economic shocks.
7. US Employment-Population Ratio, Total Labor Force (Seasonally and Not Seasonally Adjusted) (US Bureau of Labor Statistics)
The employment-population ratio offers a broad view of labor market health. From 2015 to 2020, it trended upward, reflecting robust employment gains across most demographics. The ratio collapsed in early 2020 due to mass layoffs and business shutdowns and has not fully recovered even five years later. Persistent shortfalls can be attributed to early retirements, long-term illness, childcare challenges, and shifting labor force preferences. A lower employment-population ratio means fewer workers supporting growing pool of retirees, with implications for productivity, tax revenues, social program solvency, and economic growth as a whole.
8. Food Price Indexes (Various Measures, US Bureau of Labor Statistics / USDA)
Food prices remained relatively stable for decades, with annual increases closely tracking general inflation. However, the combination of extraordinary fiscal and monetary expansion, global supply chain breakdowns, and labor dislocations during the pandemic triggered a sharp and sustained rise in food costs. Beginning in late 2020 and accelerating through 2022, food prices followed a classic “hockey stick” pattern, with steeper increases in staples such as meat, dairy, and grains. By 2025, although the rate of increase has moderated, prices remain significantly above pre-pandemic levels. For American households — particularly those with fixed or low incomes — this has created lasting pressure on household budgets and elevated food insecurity across communities.
9. Median Inflation Expectations (One-, Three-, and Five-Year Horizons) (Federal Reserve Bank of New York)
Inflation expectations are critical to economic decision-making, influencing wage negotiations, consumer spending, and business investment. Before the pandemic, one-, three-, and five-year inflation expectations were typically stable. Since 2020, however, these expectations have not only risen but become substantially more volatile. This shift reflects the uncertainty introduced by both the initial inflation spike and the policy responses that followed. Elevated and unstable inflation expectations increase the risk premium on investment, discourage long-term contracting, and diminish real wealth as households adjust their behavior to hedge against future price instability. For policymakers, regaining credibility around inflation targeting is now a central challenge.
10. Housing Affordability Index, First-Time Buyers (National Association of Realtors)
A combination of factors, including a flight from urban centers facilitated by historically low interest rates and limited inventory drove home prices to unprecedented levels, especially in suburban and rural areas. As a result, first-time buyers — who often lack significant savings — have, since the pandemic, been priced out of the market at historic levels. Massively expansionary Fed policies also drove asset prices, which include home prices, up much faster than wages. Fiscal stimulus programs intended to mitigate economic damage inadvertently fueled demand for housing, intensifying growing price increases. Those dynamics, coupled with ongoing supply chain issues and delays in new housing construction, have deepened the affordability gap to record lows (since 1986), placing homeownership increasingly out of reach of many aspiring buyers.
Taken together, the post-COVID trends in these economic phenomena make clear that while some headline figures paint a rosy picture, the US economy remains structurally altered by the events of 2020. Pandemic-era policies, ostensibly aimed at preserving lives and livelihoods, imposed immense costs on economic activity, some of which were foreseeable and avoidable. By presenting the crisis as a binary choice between public health and economic output, policymakers created a narrative that neglected the possibility of more balanced, targeted interventions. And now, five years later, the economy bears the weight of those decisions. The consequences — lost earnings, reduced investment, lingering inflation, and lower labor force engagement — are stillunfolding. As we look ahead, it is crucial to understand that the price of those tradeoffs is not only massive, but still growing and will be paid in ways both visible and hidden for many years to come.
Nevada’s Secretary of State’s office is investigating more than 300 cases of possible double votes during the 2024 election, according to a recent report released by the office.
State elections officials received at least 303 complaints about individuals trying to vote twice in the November election, the report found. Each individual who allegedly attempted to vote twice in the election was caught before they cast their second vote.
Five of the cases have been closed, including one that was referred to an unspecified “outside agency,” and the four remaining cases were marked as “civil notice/no violation,” the office said in the March 21 report. The remaining possible cases, 298, are still marked as “open” in the report.
The 303 potential cases represent about 0.02 percent of the ballots cast in the Silver State during last year’s General Election, the office said.
“The Secretary of State’s Office takes every allegation of election integrity violations very seriously and investigates them to the full extent of the law,” the report said.
The office is now working “very closely with the Attorney General’s Office through the investigative process,” the report added. “Once a determination is made regarding the validity of any allegations, a report is prepared and cases are referred to outside investigatory agencies, including the Attorney General’s Office and county District Attorney offices.”
In the report, officials provided examples of double-vote complaints and investigations.
“A father and son with the same name who live in the same household both receive a ballot. The son votes in-person. The father mistakenly fills out his son’s ballot and mails it to his County Clerk or Registrar’s Office,” it said, adding that the registrar or clerk may detect a double vote for the son but doesn’t count the second ballot that was cast.
An investigation is then launched, and the secretary’s office sends a Civil Letter Notice to the father.
“The letter details the situation and outcome of the investigation, with a warning that attempting to vote twice is illegal, however, no intent was found and no further action will be taken unless more information is revealed. All civil notices are tracked by our office to monitor potential future irregularities,” the report said.
It’s not clear whether the example is based on a real-world incident or was one of the cases that were investigated during the 2024 election.
Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump defeated then-Vice President Kamala Harris in Nevada by about 46,000 votes, enough to secure the state and its six electoral votes. Trump also won every other speculated battleground state during that contest.
Trump and other Republicans have said they want to bolster election security, including voter ID laws; ensure more secure vote-by-mail procedures, including using paper ballots; and maintain more accurate voter rolls. Since 2020’s contest against Democrat Joe Biden, Trump has said he believes that the election was fraught with fraud that ultimately caused the election to be called in favor of his opponent.
After taking office more than two months ago, Trump has yet to sign an executive order on elections but appeared to preview a forthcoming decision during his first Cabinet meeting this month. Trump said in the meeting that he thinks the United States needs to have an “honest” election system, while making a call to “go back to paper ballots” and have elections be completed in one day.
“This Is Existential”: Billionaire Cancer Researcher Says Covid & Vaccine Likely Causing Surge In Aggressive Cancers
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong – a transplant surgeon-turned-biotech billionaire renowned for inventing the cancer drug Abraxane – has issued a startling warning in a new in-depth interview with Tucker Carlson.
Soon-Shiong, founder of ImmunityBio ($IBRX) and owner of the Los Angeles Times, claims that the COVID-19 pandemic, and the very vaccines developed to fight it, may be contributing to a global surge in “terrifyingly aggressive” cancers. In the nearly two-hour conversation, the Los Angeles Times owner leveraged his decades of clinical and scientific experience to outline why he suspects an unprecedented cancer epidemic is unfolding. This report examines Dr. Soon-Shiong’s background and assertions, the scientific responses for and against his claims, new data on post-COVID health trends, and the far-reaching implications if his alarming hypothesis proves true.
Dr. Soon-Shiong’s Claims
Soon-Shiong is a veteran surgeon and immunologist who has spent a career studying the human immune system’s fight against cancer. He pioneered novel immunotherapies and even worked on a T-cell based COVID vaccine booster during the pandemic. In the interview, he draws on this background to voice deep concern over rising cancer cases, especially among younger people – something he describes as a “non-infectious pandemic” of cancer. He tells Carlson that in 50 years of medical practice, it was extraordinarily rare to see cancers like pancreatic tumors in children or young adults, yet recently such cases are appearing. For instance, Soon-Shiong was alarmed by seeing a 13-year-old with metastatic pancreatic cancer, a scenario virtually unheard of in his prior experience.
“I never saw pancreatic cancer in children… the greatest surprise to me was a 13-year-old with metastatic pancreatic cancer,” Soon-Shiong told Carlson, adding that he’s seen examples of very young patients (even children under 11 with colon cancer) and unusual surges in aggressive diseases like ovarian cancer in women in their 30s. These personal observations of more frequent, aggressive cancers in youth led him to probe what might have changed in recent years.
“We’re clearly seeing an increase in certain types of cancer, like pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer… colon cancer… in younger people.”
— Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong
According Soon-Shiong, the COVID era is the obvious change – and suggests that both the SARS-CoV-2 virus infection and the widespread vaccination campaignscould be key drivers behind this cancer spike. He emphasizes the massive scale of human exposure to the virus and its spike protein (via infection or vaccination).
“I don’t know how to say that without saying it. It scares the pants off me because I think what we may be, I don’ think it’s virus versus man now, this is existential. I think when I talk about the largest non-infectious pandemic that we’re afraid of, this is it.”
“Billions of people – literally billions – had the COVID virus. Over a billion got the spike protein vaccine,” said Carlson, adding “So that’s like, we’re talking like a huge percentage of the Earth’s population, unless I’m missing something.”
“Now you understand what keeps you awake at night and kept me awake at night for two years, two and a half years,” Soon-Shiong replied, suggesting that exposure to both is silently undermining the immune system’s natural defenses against cancer on a global scale.
Soon-Shiong frames COVID-era cancers as potentially virally triggered or exacerbated. In the interview, he described cases of “virally induced cancers” in clinics during the pandemic – patients whose cancers may have been kicked into overdrive by the cascade of inflammation and immune stress associated with COVID-19 (Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong: You’re Being Lied to About Cancer, How It’s Caused, and How to Stop It). COVID infection causes a massive inflammatory response, and some cancers are known to exploit inflammation to grow.
TUCKER: “a lot people have pointed to both COVID, the virus, and to the mRNA COVID vaccines as potential causes. Do you think that they’re related?“
SOON-SHIONG: “The best way for me to answer that is to look at history. What we know about virally-induced cancers is well-established. We know that if you get hepatitis, you get liver cancer. Hepatitis is a virus infection. We know if you got human papillomavirus, HPV, you get cervical cancer.”
We know that certain viruses directly cause cancer (e.g. HPV, Epstein-Barr), so it’s not unprecedented for a virus to play a role in oncogenesis. While SARS-CoV-2 is not a known oncovirus, Soon-Shiong worries its indirect effects – chronic inflammation, immune exhaustion, or “suppressor cells” that emerge in the wake of infection/vaccination – could be accelerating tumor development. “The answer is to stop the inflammation…clear the virus from the body,” he argues, positing that until we eradicate lingering virus and restore immune balance, we may see mounting cancer cases.
In sum, Dr. Soon-Shiong’s claim is that the pandemic has set the stage for anexplosion of aggressive cancers: the COVID virus itself (especially if it persists in survivors) might suppress immune surveillance, and the mRNA vaccines “that didn’t stop it” might inadvertently contribute to an immunosuppressive environment. These effects, in his theory, could be unleashing cancers that the immune system would ordinarily have kept in check.
Watch:
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong is a surgeon who made billions inventing cancer drugs. He says that Covid, and the vaccines that didn’t stop it, are likely causing a global epidemic of terrifyingly aggressive cancers.
A number of clinicians and researchers have reported similar worrying observations, though these remain largely anecdotal at this stage. One prominent voice echoing Soon-Shiong’s concern is Dr. Angus Dalgleish, a veteran oncologist and professor at St. George’s, University of London. In late 2022, Dalgleish wrote to the BMJ’s editor after noticing that some cancer patients who had been stable for years experienced “rapid progression of their disease after a COVID-19 booster.” He cited cases of individuals who were doing well until shortly after vaccination – new leukemias, sudden appearance of Stage IV lymphomas, and explosive metastases in patients who had post-vaccine bouts of feeling unwell.
“I am experienced enough to know that these are not coincidental,” Dalgleish wrote, noting that colleagues in Germany, Australia and the U.S. were independently seeing the same pattern. This frontline testimony aligns with Soon-Shiong’s fear: something about the immune system post-vaccination might be removing restraints on latent cancers. Dalgleish specifically pointed to short-term innate immune suppression after mRNA vaccination (lasting for several weeks) as a plausible mechanism. Many of the cancers he saw were ones normally held in check by immune surveillance (melanomas and B-cell cancers), so a temporary post-vaccine drop in immune vigilance could allow a tumor growth spurt. He also alluded to “suppressor gene suppression by mRNA in laboratory experiments” – a reference to preliminary studies that found the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein might interfere with key DNA repair or tumor-suppressor proteins in cells. These lab findings (while not yet confirmed in living organisms) lend some biological plausibility to the idea that spike exposure could affect cancer-related pathways.
Beyond individual doctors, some research is probing links between COVID and cancer behavior. For example, a 2022 study in Frontiers in Oncologyexplored how SARS-CoV-2 proteins interact with cancer cells. It found that the virus’s membrane (M) protein can “induce the mobility, proliferation and in vivo metastasis” of triple-negative breast cancer cells in the lab (Frontiers | SARS-CoV-2 M Protein Facilitates Malignant Transformation of Breast Cancer Cells). In co-culture experiments, breast cancer cells exposed to the viral protein essentially became more aggressive and invasive. The researchers concluded that COVID-19 infection “might promote…aggressive [cancer] phenotypes” and warned that cancer patients who get COVID could face worse outcomes.
While this is one specific context (breast cancer cells and one viral protein), it underpins Soon-Shiong’s general concern: the virus can directly alter the tumor microenvironment to the cancer’s advantage.
Another line of evidence involves latent viruses and inflammation. Doctors have documented unusual reactivations of viruses like Epstein-Barr (which is linked to lymphomas and other malignancies) during both COVID-19 and post-vaccine immune reactions. Such reactivations hint at a period of immune dysregulation that might also let nascent cancer cells slip past defenses.
Or course,fact-checkers and medical authorities argue that there is no credible evidence of vaccines causing meaningful immune suppression.“There isn’t evidence to date that COVID-19 vaccines cause cancer or lead to worsening cancer,” one infectious disease expert told FactCheck.org, though they do acknowledge rare side effects like myocarditis or blood clots were found, but not cancer.
Phinance Data Insights: Post-COVID Health Trends
While the scientific community debates mechanistic links between COVID and cancer, independent analysts have been parsing population-level data for unusual patterns. One notable effort is by Phinance Technologies, a research firm co-founded by former BlackRock portfolio manager Edward Dowd. Phinance has been analyzing excess mortality and disability data since the pandemic, looking for signals of broad health impacts in the aftermath of COVID and mass vaccination. Their findings reveal concerning trends, especially among younger, working-age populations, that lend some weight to Dr. Soon-Shiong’s general warning of a post-COVID health crisis (though not specific to cancer alone).
Phinance’s “Vaccine Damage Project” examined the U.S. population aged 16–64 (essentially the workforce) and stratified outcomes into four groups: no effect, mild injuries, severe injuries (disabilities), and death. Using official government databases (the CDC, Bureau of Labor Statistics, etc.), they estimated how each category changed starting in 2021 – when vaccines rolled out and COVID became widespread. The results are sobering. According to Phinance’s analysis, by the end of 2022 the U.S. had experienced approximately 310,000 excess deaths among adults aged 25-64 (a ~23% increase in mortality in that group over normal expectations). Notably, they argue that after mid-2021, with vaccines available and the virus itself becoming less deadly (due to immunity and milder variants), COVID-19 should not have been causing such high excess death rates. Therefore, those 310k “unexplained” deaths in 2021–2022 could represent an upper bound on vaccine-related fatalities or other pandemic collateral damage.
Even more striking is the data on new disabilities. Phinance found that from early 2021 through late 2022, about 1.36 million additional Americans (age 16–64) became disabled – a 24.6% rise in disability in that cohort, far above historical trend. This jump in disabilities among the workforce correlates in time with the vaccine rollout (and was disproportionately higher in the labor force than among those not working). The analysts note that the healthiest segment of the population (employed working-age adults) saw a greater relative increase in disabilities after Q1 2021 than the older or non-working groups. This is unusual, since typically health shocks hit the elderly hardest – but here something was impacting younger, healthy people to a significant degree. Phinance investigated further and found a tight relationship between the cumulative number of vaccine doses administered and the rise in disabilities in 2021-22. In fact, for the 16–64 population, they computed a ratio of about 4 new disabilities per excess death in that period, suggesting many survivors were left with lingering health issues even if they didn’t die.
