In a highly unusual and embarrassing incident, a US Navy aircraft carrier has collided with a merchant ship off the coast of Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea, a US Sixth Fleet spokesman revealed Thursday.

The collision involved the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and the merchant vessel Besiktas-M at around noon local time on Wednesday.

The vessels collided near Port Said, but there were no injuries reported on either ship. No injuries or flooding on the aircraft carrier were reported, and its propulsion plants “are unaffected and in a safe and stable condition,” the Navy’s 6th Fleet said.

However, the Truman did sustain some damage, statements indicate:

The Truman was approaching the Suez Canal to go from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, a Navy official told CBS News. There’s no assessment at this time which vessel was at fault, the official said.

The Truman sustained some damage above the waterline, the official said. It wasn’t clear if it will be going in for repairs. The ship remained in the Mediterranean.

The Navy is conducting an investigation and has released few other details, including which vessel was at fault. The Besiktas-M also sustained damage – likely more significant than that of the carrier.

The carrier deployed to the Mediterranean and Mideast region starting in September and has reportedly been conducting ‘counter-ISIS’ missions, including Trump-ordered strikes on Somalia on Feb.1st. As of late last week it was in a Greek port.

The Truman was likely headed into the Red Sea to monitor developments out of Yemen, and to be in a position for a potential response. The Houthis have vowed to resume attacks on Red Sea shipping if the Gaza ceasefire collapses.

Three more Israeli hostages are expected to be handed over on Saturday, but Hamas earlier this week called off the handover, but in the last 24 hours indicated it plans to move forward with the exchange. Israel has warned that if the hostages aren’t freed, attacks on Gaza will ensue. This means the Houthis would unleash more Red Sea attacks, including on American warships.

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

Politicians are screeching at the top of their lungs, there have been threats of extreme violence, and Washington D.C. has never seen a tsunami of lawsuits of this magnitude.  Amazingly, all of this is happening just because Elon Musk and his team are targeting waste, fraud and abuse in our federal agencies.  

The left suddenly hates Elon Musk with a passion, and that is because he is coming after their money.  It has now become clear that multiple federal agencies have been used as giant money laundering operations, and billions upon billions of dollars are at stake.  If they cannot put an end to what Musk is doing, it will be an unmitigated financial and political disaster for the left, and many of them will likely end up in prison.  

The following are 7 examples that show why there is such a conspiracy to stop Elon Musk…

#1 Last year, Medicare paid out more than 800 billion dollars in benefits, and Social Security paid out more than 1.5 trillion dollars in benefits.  Unfortunately, it appears that vast amounts of money are being paid out through these programs fraudulently.  In fact, Elon Musk is now claiming that “the magnitude of the fraud in federal entitlements” is greater than “the combined sum of every private scam you’ve ever heard by FAR”…

At this point, I am 100% certain that the magnitude of the fraud in federal entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Disability, etc) exceeds the combined sum of every private scam you’ve ever heard by FAR.

Just think about that.

If Musk’s claim is true, it is a scandal that is absolutely unparalleled in American history.

At the White House, Musk told the press that there are people that are supposedly 150 years old that are still receiving Social Security payments each month…

‘Reexamination of Social Security – we’ve got people in there that are 150-years-old,’ Musk lamented during an impromptu press conference as Trump signed an executive order.

‘Now do you know anyone who’s 150?’ the billionaire asked. ‘I don’t know. They should be in the Guinness Book of World Records. They’re missing out.’

‘So, you know, that’s the case where I think they’re probably dead, is my guess, or they should be very famous – one of the two,’ he concluded.

In other cases, people that have no Social Security numbers at all are getting payments.

Prominent Democrats keep warning their constituents that Elon Musk is coming after their Social Security checks.

And in a twisted way, they are correct.

It appears that vast numbers of people are illegally receiving Social Security checks each month, and if those checks suddenly get cut off many on the left are going to be incredibly angry.

#2 The Department of Education has always been a giant money-generating machine for the Democratic Party, and now Elon Musk has gone in and cancelled nearly a billion dollars in DOE contracts…

Elon Musk has already saved nearly $1 billion after slashing contracts at the beleaguered Department of Education.

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been combing through the embattled agency and has cut $982 million in spending so far.

The bulk of that – $881 million – was saved by ditching 89 contracts dished out by the department’s Institute of Education Sciences.

#3 Elon Musk has revealed that retirement paperwork for federal employees is stored 230 feet underground in an abandoned limestone mine in Pennsylvania…

Today we learned the absolutely INSANE process our Government uses for Federal Employee Retirements.

You wouldn’t think that would be anything special or weird, but it is!

For some reason, back in the 1950s, our Government decided that Federal Employee Retirements would be processed in an abandoned limestone mine in Pennsylvania, 230 feet underground.

What this means is that the speed at which federal retirements can be processed is literally limited by the speed of the single elevator shaft that goes down to that limestone mine…

Elon Musk says that there is a literal limestone mine where they store all the US Government’s retirement paperwork built in 1950 that they need to go up and down every time they want to retire someone from Federal Government. The speed in which they can retire people is limited by the speed of the elevator shaft. Yes, actually.

#4 Elon Musk’s team has discovered that 59 million dollars was paid out last week to house migrants in luxury hotels in New York City…

The Department of Homeland Security told Fox News that “four employees are being fired today for circumventing leadership and unilaterally making the egregious payment for hotels for migrants in New York City.”

The firings come after Elon Musk wrote on X Monday that “The DOGE team just discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants.”

“Firings include FEMA’s Chief Financial Officer, two program analysts and a grant specialist,” the DHS also said. “Under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership, DHS will not sit idly and allow deep state activists to undermine the will and safety of the American people.”

#5 Elon Musk’s team has also discovered that the Department of Health and Human Services had signed a $168,000 contract for “an Anthony Fauci exhibit at the NIH Museum”…

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) canceled more than $180 million in contracts over 48 hours, including a nearly $170,000 contract for an Anthony Fauci museum exhibit.

“In the past 48 hours, HHS canceled 62 contract [sic] worth $182 million,” The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced in a Friday social media post. “These contracts were entirely for administrative expenses – none touched any healthcare programs. This included terminating a $168,000 contract for an Anthony Fauci exhibit at the NIH Museum.”

#6 Do you remember that scene from Office Space in which two consultants named “Bob” ask employees what they actually do at the company?  Well, it sounds like that is precisely what has been happening at the General Services Administration…

Three General Services Administration employees — all of whom spoke to POLITICO anonymously out of fears of retribution — described their and their subordinates’ recent interviews with Musk’s DOGE agents as potentially career-ending, with federal employees feeling like every word they’re saying could be grounds for future dismissal. The behind-the-scenes agency handles the federal government’s real estate, software and logistics — so Musk and his team’s efforts to trim GSA could have a domino effect across the government.

“The interviews are anxiety provoking,” said a GSA supervisor whose employees were recently interviewed by a DOGE worker. The tension swells the moment a worker receives a calendar invite from a Gmail account, they said, “frequently with almost no notice and often scheduled over existing client meetings.”

I am sure that those interviews were definitely “anxiety provoking”.

If you are making over $100,000 a year but are not really doing much that is productive, there is a very good chance that you will be on the chopping block.

#7 On top of everything else, Elon Musk says that the Federal Reserve could soon be audited by DOGE…

Billionaire Elon Musk on Sunday signaled that the Federal Reserve could face scrutiny as Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues to audit federal agencies and spending.

Musk wrote on X in response to a user’s post about the billionaire’s support for an audit of the Fed that the central bank isn’t above scrutiny from DOGE.

“All aspects of the government must be fully transparent and accountable to the people. No exceptions, including, if not especially, the Federal Reserve,” Musk wrote.

If you don’t understand why this would be a really, really big deal, please see my previous article entitled “11 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Is Bad”.

Fortunately, it appears that President Trump is quite pleased with Elon Musk’s work so far.  In fact, he just signed an executive order that gives the Department of Government Efficiency even more authority…

With Musk standing to his right in the Oval Office, Trump praised the work of his office, known as the Department of Government Efficiency Service (DOGE). And Trump said he wanted Musk to now do more, even as DOGE faces multiple lawsuits from labor unions and Democratic state attorneys general over whether it is acting within the law.

The new executive order directs federal agencies to “coordinate and consult” with DOGE to cut jobs and limit hiring, according to a summary provided by the White House. Each agency will be ordered to “undertake plans for large-scale reductions in force” and limit hiring to only “essential positions,” the summary says.

Of course the more that Elon Musk and his team dig into the waste, fraud and abuse, the more irate the left is going to become.

All sorts of people have been making violent threats against Musk, and that includes a Baptist pastor in Tennessee…

A Baptist church in Tennessee has taken down its website amid calls for its pastor to step down after a video clip surfaced in which he stated that “sometimes violence is necessary” when speaking about the Trump administration’s efforts toward fiscal transparency.

Dr. Steve Caudle, senior reverend at Greater Second Missionary Baptist Church (GSMBC) in Chattanooga, delivered a sermon on Sunday in which he appeared to threaten the “possibility of violence” over the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its ongoing investigations into misappropriation of taxpayer funding.

In a message titled “The Violent Kingdom,” Caudle warned about the DOGE initiative as a threat to “steal your personal information and your Social Security check” and appeared to link the effort to “the devil.”

As large numbers of fraudulent payments start to get cut off, there will be widespread chaos in the streets.

People will be screaming that they “want their entitlements”, but the truth is that everyone that is legally eligible to receive them will still be getting their checks.

Those that are illegally raking in money from the federal government every month are stealing from all the rest of us.

If we want Social Security, Medicare and other key programs to be there for us in the future, we must root out waste, fraud and abuse.

Otherwise, eventually the system would simply collapse under the weight of all of the corruption that currently exists.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Authored by Thaddeus McCotter via American Greatness,

In a January 30 appearance with Elizabeth MacDonald on Fox Business’s The Evening Edit, American Majority CEO Ned Ryun, author of the best-selling American Leviathan: The Birth of the Administrative State and Progressive Authoritarianism, advanced a singular proposition for President Trump to utilize an often neglected tool in the executive branch’s workshop for dismantling the “Deep State”: presidential commissions.

Succinctly, the chief executive establishes presidential commissions to address an issue and report directly back to them for prospective further action. The president determines the commission’s scope; appoints its leadership and membership; establishes its charge, functions, and powers; its funding and other administrative support from the executive branch; and sets a deadline for its termination. (See Mr. Biden’s presidential commission on expanding—i.e. packing—the Supreme Court.)

Per Mr. Ryun, there needs to be a presidential commission composed wholly of members of the public to investigate abuses of power and all instances of the weaponization of government by those who were—and perhaps still are—entrusted with the police and surveillance powers of the state.

“I think it is time for President Trump to appoint a special presidential commission, in which he appoints all the members of that commission; gives them full investigative and subpoena powers; and has that commission report directly to him. And then when Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbards, and John Ratcliffe are confirmed, have all of them come before the commission; [and] have those hearings be public.”

Mr. Ryun then went further, explaining what should be done with the presidential commission’s findings:

“[The presidential commission] should do a final report with recommendations, including stripping even more people of security clearances, prosecutions, [proposing] legislative reforms from Congress. It’s time to pull back and have radical transparency and accountability for these institutions that have been massively abused over the last nine years.”

Some may argue that the presidential commission is merely repeating much of the oversight work performed by Congress over the last few years. 

This overlooks two important factors.

First, the Biden administration was, shall we say, less than cooperative and forthcoming in responding to Congressional oversight requests, especially from the Republican-led House. 

There is likely a lot left on and, more importantly, under the table for a public commission to unearth and investigate. 

Given the diminished, though still extant, bipartisan opposition to reforming the administrative state, President Trump is best served by establishing his commission rather than wholly relying upon Congress to do it.

Secondly, as Mr. Ryun stresses, these abuses of power were falsely deemed justified as being done in the defense of the very public whose trust they violated:

“If President Trump were to do this, he should announce: ‘I’m doing this for the American people. This abuse has been done in the name of the American people, they have funded it; and the American people deserve to know the whole truth about what’s happened the last nine years with the FBI, the DOJ, and our intel community.’”

I could not agree more. 

As I responded to Mr. Ryun at the time: 

“Great idea, @nedryun, for a presidential commission composed of the public for the public to protect the public from government abusing its powers.”

Mr. Ryun is correct, and this renders it critically important that his proposal not be incorrectly perceived.

This or any other prospective presidential commission would be designed by Mr. Trump to facilitate reforming and deciding the future and fate of the components of the executive branch. Thus, such a presidential commission could operate contemporaneously to provide suggestions for current and future reforms to President Trump or could serve as a post-mortem inquest providing to him ameliorative measures for the damage the rogue agency and individuals caused and the prophylactic policies to ensure such abuses of power never again occur.

Above all, as his final term progresses, by keeping the administrative state’s abuses front and center in the citizenry’s mind, any of Mr. Trump’s prospective presidential commissions will maximize the first and best guard against the resurrection of the rogue administrative state: public awareness and transparency.

The deep state thrives in darkness; the deep state dies in daylight. 

Consequently, if President Trump implements Mr. Ryun’s sound proposal, I would humbly offer a further suggestion: next up, a publicly comprised, likely post-mortem, presidential commission on the waste, fraud, abuse, and weaponization of USAID. 

Talk about lit…

New York’s top federal prosecutor and two senior federal prosecutors in Washington DC have resigned after refusing to follow a DOJ order to drop corruption charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams, NBC News reports, citing ‘multiple officials.’

The resignations of Danielle R. Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, John Keller, the acting head of the Public Integrity Section, and Kevin Driscoll, the acting head of the department’s criminal division, came three days after acting US deputy AG Emil Bove issued a memo ordering federal prosecutors in New York to drop the case against Adams because, in part, it hampered his ability to combat “illegal immigration and violent crime.”

And before anyone gets too crazy about this, let’s look at the timeline…

• Jan. 23, 2022: Mayor Eric Adams Begs For Federal Help As NYC’s Crime Problem Spirals Out Of Control

• Jan. 20, 2023: NYC Mayor Adams Calls For ‘National Czar’ To Manage Border Crisis, Despite VP Harris Already Holding Role

• May 11, 2023:  NY Mayor Adams Booted From Biden Surrogate Squad After Immigration Criticism

• May 25, 2023:  NYC Mayor Eric Adams Asks To Suspend ‘Right To Shelter’ Rule, Citing Illegal Immigrant Influx

• Aug.15, 2023:  New York’s ‘Right To Shelter’ Law Now Has Mayor Adams Saying “Go Away”

• Sept. 10, 2023:  NYC Mayor Adams Proposes Budget Cuts As Biden’s Migrant Crisis ‘Destroys’ Big Apple

Revenge…

• Nov. 10, 2023: FBI Seized NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ Phones, iPad

• Nov. 23, 2023:  NYC Mayor Eric Adams Accused Of Sexual Assault

• May 27, 2024:  NYC Mayor Adams Working With ICE To Circumvent ‘Sanctuary City’ Laws ”

• Sept. 26, 2024: Eric Adams Charged With Bribery, Wire Fraud: Unsealed Indictment

In December of last year, Adams vowed to work with the Trump administration on mass deportations, saying “I reached out to [Trump] and I shared that I would like to sit down and speak with him to hear what are his ideas, because I don’t want people talking at each other, I want people to talk to each other. And I made it clear that I’m not going to be warring with this administration, I’m going to be working with this administration.“

BREAKING: NYC Mayor Eric Adams says he will work with Trump and Border Czar Tom Homan regarding deportations

“Cancel me, I don’t care” pic.twitter.com/8nXolPEhgi

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 3, 2024

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

Here are some of the untruths told about Elon Musk and DOGE…

“Musk has no right to cut USAID.” 

Elon Musk and his team are not cutting any federal programs.

They are auditors. They were given legal authority under a presidential executive order creating the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Its mandate is to identify waste, abuse, fraud, and irrelevance in the federal budget at a time when the U.S. is $37 trillion in debt.

The agency will expire on July 4, 2026.

Ultimately, Musk can propose program cuts, but Trump holds the authority to approve or reject them. He may or may not act on all, some, or none of the DOGE recommendations.

“No one elected Musk.” 

Like hundreds of government officials, Musk was appointed by an elected president to run an agency that does not require Senate confirmation.

Musk is as legally legitimate as the national security advisor and his National Security Council, none of whom require Senate confirmation.

Does the left believe former national security advisor Jake Sullivan, who made decisions far more pivotal than Musk, had no authority to do so because he too was neither elected nor confirmed by the Senate?

“It is a dangerous precedent to give a private citizen billionaire like Musk so much power.”

In fact, Musk has far more legal authority than did FDR’s best friend Harry Hopkins. He moved into the White House and de facto set U.S. foreign assistance policies toward Stalin’s Russia.

Musk’s position is more akin to past captains of industry like Henry Ford, Henry Kaiser, and William Knudson appointed by FDR to run the wartime economy.

None of them were either elected or confirmed by the Senate. All of them helped to save a poorly armed US after the debacle of Pearl Harbor.

“Foreign aid is ending.”

Hardly.

Foreign aid, which in all its manifestations in various cabinets and agencies is reaching nearly $80 billion per year, is not ending.

One of its distribution centers, USAID, may be vastly curtailed or bundled into the State Department. But the important bulk grants to allies like Israel or friends like Egypt or aid in times of famine relief and natural disasters to the needy abroad will remain. And these programs will be strengthened and saved precisely because they will be trimmed of skimmers and scammers.

“It is illegal to end USAID.”

USAID was created by an executive order in 1961 by then President John F. Kennedy in response to congressional legislation codifying foreign aid and allowing the president to execute the statute at his discretion.

Nearly four decades later, in 1998, Congress passed another law reifying Kennedy’s USAID as a formal agency but still within the executive branch.

But neither law mandates that Trump bundle all or even most foreign aid in USAID. He can disperse money as he sees fit throughout the cabinets. And he can keep whatever funds or programs he chooses under the aegis of USAID should he wish.

“Trump cannot impound any USAID money legislated by Congress.”

That legal question apparently depends on whose ox is gored.

Neither Congress nor the courts have ever, in blanket fashion, either approved and sustained a line-item presidential veto or outright banned any form of presential impoundment.

But recently Joe Biden, as both vice president in 2016 and president in 2021, set a precedent that an administration most certainly can impound or delay congressionally passed funding as it pleases.

Infamously, Biden publicly bragged that on a trip to Ukraine, he had threatened that government by withholding $1 billion in approved US foreign aid unless it immediately fired Biden enemy prosecutor Viktor Shokin.

That condition was never discussed in any congressional aid authorization (and was the sort of act the left would impeach Trump for in 2020).

More flagrantly in 2021, Biden abruptly and permanently stopped all construction on the border wall. And he impounded those congressionally approved construction funds through a variety of gimmicks.

Biden, remember, without Congressional approval, gratuitously canceled student loan obligations, issued blanket loan amnesties, and promised to ignore or work around court prohibitions of his illegal acts.

“China will be delighted by USAID cuts.”

False. China will be likely upset by the Trump cuts.

Beijing finds its own concrete development projects far more effective than USAID imposing American cultural agendas abroad. Beijing likes self-destructive American aid like LGBTQ activism, transgender chauvinism, and anti-conservative American media.

Does anyone believe China was angry that the USAID created a vast gender studies program at the University of Kabul or had the U.S. embassy there advertise its pride activism, or itself snagged $40 million to engineer deadly viruses?

So, China will be quite unhappy that organs like the New York Times and the BBC are having their USAID subsidies ended. After all, they, along with China, so often vilified their shared existential nemesis—Donald J. Trump.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win,” Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian political and spiritual leader, famously said decades ago.

Remember Gandhi’s quote throughout the note as a rough framework of what could happen next… 

Gandhi’s quote could very well apply to the situation unfolding in Washington, D.C., where President Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have exposed what some believe to be the D.C. Swamp Uniparty siphoning billions of US taxpayer dollars each year through a complex web of NGOs funded by USAID. 

First, the Uniparty ignored and mocked DOGE… 

Then, in the last several weeks, Uniparty swamp creatures declared war on DOGE:

• “Completely Unhinged”: Screaming Democrats Call Musk A “Nazi”, Bash DOGE, Amid Meltdowns Outside Treasury Building

• Watch: Hornet’s Nest Kicked As Raskin, Omar Throw Public Tantrum Over USAID Hostile Takeover

• Level Of Democrat Panic Over Musk Freezing USAID “Unlike Anything Ever Seen”

Meltdowns… 

DOGE kicked a roach infested couch and the roaches are now scattering
pic.twitter.com/QcmcR0EARo

— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) February 6, 2025

“He wants us to bow to him, but we want him in jail!”

Democrats are now writing & performing songs to protest DOGE, Elon Musk, & Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/qVjcRKXqBJ

— Timcast News (@TimcastNews) February 11, 2025

Tennessee preacher Dr. Steve Caudle appears to call for violence against Elon Musk while spreading a rabid form of misinformation about DOGE:

“Sometimes the devil will act so ugly that you have no other choice but to get violent and fight.”

Disgraceful. pic.twitter.com/5KK3K2yHkN

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) February 10, 2025

‘BRING YOUR A–!’: Democrats lash out at @elonmusk and DOGE as millions spent on “woke” programs are slashed from the federal budget. Liberal lawmakers threatened “to see” the billionaire “in the streets” as they vowed to “fight back.” pic.twitter.com/4Qcc1d8pxc

— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) February 11, 2025

All because the Deep State grift is over… Here’s how it worked through a web of NGOs:

🧵THE UNIPARTY UNMASKED – They Believe They Are “Democracy”

The seven NGOs in the chart below, in my view, represent the Uniparty. Each of these organizations receives substantial financial support from USAID or the Department of State.

Around 2019, the phrase “democracy in… pic.twitter.com/eG3mI1lOuQ

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) February 11, 2025

And now, swamp creature Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer—after weeks of attacking DOGE, along with his colleagues declaring war on Musk and Trump, has finally admitted an inconvenient truth for the Deep State cheerleaders of the Democratic Party: “Everyone knows there’s waste in government that should be cut.” However, he noted: “But DOGE is using a meat axe, and they’re cutting things that are efficient and effective.”

SCHUMER: “Everyone knows there’s waste in government that should be cut. But DOGE is using a meat axe, and they’re cutting things that are efficient and effective.” pic.twitter.com/3ZgHHdrSis

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 11, 2025

Just a week ago, Schumer was in full panic mode, warning that DOGE would bring disaster—without a single mention of the need to cut government waste. In fact, he and his colleagues were advocating for the opposite: preserving USAID and maintaining the status quo.

🚨 CHUCK SCHUMER: “If Elon Musk and DOGE can shut down USAID, next it might be the IRS!”

Why don’t democrats understand this is EXACTLY what the American people want??! 🤣 pic.twitter.com/0cQAts8kKm

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) February 4, 2025

Chuck Schumer just said that Elon Musk is taking away HIS money and HIS privacy after DOGE just exposed that USAID is an elaborate money laundering scheme.
Does he even realize what he is saying?
Everything is being exposed like never before.
DC is having a meltdown. pic.twitter.com/GrO4AJhSV3

— Green Lives Matter (@Ultrafrog17) February 4, 2025

So what changed in one week for Schumer to admit there’s actual waste and fraud in the government? Maybe because he finally understood that most Americans gave Trump this mandate for more transparency in the government to understand where their monies are going. 

Suppose we follow Gandhi’s quote, given Schumer’s admittance that government fraud and waste are plentiful. In that case, Trump has a good shot at overcoming and winning the fight on government efficiency despite the short-term noise of Democrats yelling at the sky outside the US Treasury building.

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Two US Navy ships transited the Taiwan Strait this week, marking the first US naval passage through the sensitive waterway under the new Trump administration, which drew a rebuke from China.

US Indo-Pacific Command said the guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson and the survey ship USNS Bowditch carried out the transit from February 10 to February 12.

While the presence of US warships in the Taiwan Strait is extremely provocative from the viewpoint of Beijing, the US always frames the transits as “routine.”

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said it monitored the US warships as they sailed through the Strait. “The US action sends the wrong signals and increases security risks,” the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command said.

“Troops in the theater are on high alert at all times and are resolute in defending national sovereignty and security as well as regional peace and stability,” the Chinese command added.

Justifying the transit, a spokesman for US INDOPACOM said it “occurred through a corridor in the Taiwan Strait that is beyond any coastal state’s territorial seas.”

The new Trump administration is stacked with China hawks and is expected to continue the Biden administration’s policies of building up the US military footprint in the Asia Pacific.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that one reason why the US wants to wind down its support for the Ukraine proxy war is so more focus can be put on China, which he claimed posed a threat to the US “homeland.”

“The United States faces consequential threats to our homeland. We must, and we are focusing on the security of our own borders. We also face a peer competitor in the Communist Chinese with the capability and intent to threaten our homeland,” he had said.

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

Elon Musk is partnering with the Dubai government to develop the “Dubai Loop,” an underground high-speed transportation system aimed at connecting the city’s most densely populated areas and reducing congestion.

Omar Sultan al Olama, the United Arab Emirates’s minister of state for artificial intelligence, digital economy, and remote work applications, announced the collaboration during the World Governments Summit in Dubai on Feb. 12.

Al Olama said the project will cover Dubai’s busiest areas and allow people to go from point to point seamlessly.

The Boring Company, owned by Elon Musk and headquartered in Bastrop, Texas, has created a similar underground transportation system called the Vegas Loop in Nevada, which serves the Las Vegas Convention Center.

It took two years to build and has been operational since 2021.

Musk, the world’s richest man, appeared at the Dubai summit via video link and explained that the new transportation system in the UAE would work like a “wormhole.”

“It’s going to be like a wormhole–you just wormhole from one part of the city—boom—and you’re out in another part of the city,” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said.

“I think once people try it out, they’ll be like, ‘This is really cool.’ And it’s going to seem so obvious in retrospect, but until you actually do it, you don’t know.”

Details regarding the deal—such as how much it will cost to build or when development might begin—were sparse, but Musk said he was “looking forward” to working with the Dubai government.

Musk’s existing Vegas Loop uses Tesla Model 3 cars to shuttle passengers to four stations between the center complex and other transportation connections in the city.

The eventual plan is for the Vegas Loop to expand to 68 miles of tunnel featuring 104 stations, transporting more than 90,000 passengers per hour, according to The Boring Company’s official website.

While speaking via video at the summit in Dubai, Musk addressed safety concerns regarding the underground tunnels, telling the audience the transportation system would be safe even in the event of earthquakes or extreme weather.

“One of the safest places to be in an earthquake is an underground tunnel,” the tech mogul said. 

“Earthquakes are largely a surface phenomenon—so they’re like the waves of a surface [of an ocean]. Being in a tunnel, it’s like being in a submarine, even if there’s a storm above you, the waters are calm as a submarine.”

Musk also joked that the underground tunnels would be safe during global thermonuclear warfare.

“Of course, if there is global thermonuclear warfare, I think you’d really want some tunnels. Underground’s a good place to be in a worst-case scenario for global thermonuclear warfare,” the businessman said.

On a more everyday note, however, building such infrastructure underground is incredibly useful for alleviating traffic and congestion in cities, which is becoming a growing problem, Musk stated.

Former State Department official-turned-truthsayer Mike Benz sat down with Joe Rogan for three hours this week, where the two went down the USAID rabbit hole.

To review – over the past several weeks, Elon Musk’s team at DOGE have descended on several key levers of power within the US government – including the US Treasury, the Office of Personnel Management, and of course, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) – which was quickly revealed as a rogue, unaccountable ‘blob’ that used its vast funds not only to spread propaganda worldwide, it paid news organizations and ‘disinformation’ researchers to collude against outlets such as ZeroHedge, The Federalist, and others in order to strip us of ad revenues and damage our reputation. (Fortunately your subscriptions, and generous support of our new store, are keeping the lights on).

Rogan and Benz

“It must have been very exciting to have the vault opened and to get a peek into the machine, because you’ve been describing this,” Rogan told Benz – who’s spent the last several years dispensing redpills. “The last time you were on the podcast, you went into depth about usaid, and it’s very curious why they chose USAID as the first organization for DOGE to investigate.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the joke that I tell here is, it’s like what they tell you to do your first day of prison is you go in, you walk up to the meanest, baddest SOB and you punch them right in the mouth. I mean, that’s basically what’s happened here with the White House’s first target being USAID,” Benz replied.

Benz then went into how USAID funded NGOs, along with the deep state’s global propaganda news complex via ‘Internews.’

If you have 13 minutes – watch this:

Joe Rogan and Mike Benz expose how USAID-funded NGOs—Internews, CEPPS, and EcoHealth Alliance—financed the Wuhan lab, a global propaganda network, and the online censorship of American citizens.

“You sponsored your own state censorship.”@joerogan@MikeBenzCyber pic.twitter.com/BGx6fqVKei

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 12, 2025

How USAID Targets US Independent Media

Benz explained how USAID leaned on advertisers to boycott independent media outlets.

Benz: “For example, we just played internews and the internews CEO campaigning to governments and corporations and private sector civil society organizations around the world that they need to economically Blacklist news sites that operate on social media and those are U.S. news sites. This is the basis of lawsuits here in the US like Daily Wire and the Federalist suing the State Department. Because U.S. news sites are in these advertiser blacklists. And to that end, I want to note two things. First, if you go to my X feed and you type in the word advertiser or advertisers and if you need to, you can plug in the word USAID or CEPS in this.

And I want to show you that this is not internews gone wrong. This is not a half a billion dollar year grantee of USAID going rogue and being ideological about this. This is top down US government policy from the White House.“

…

“SEPS is a program that is basically a joint baby of USAID and the State Department and is implemented by USAID’s key operational arm, the National Endowment for Democracy. But this is a USAID program on countering disinformation. Internet censorship is what they do and we went over last time, remember we played that two minute video where they were openly saying that the plan is to get foreign governments to pass legal reform, pass laws and regulations to stop the spread of misinformation on US social media websites.”

Benz discussed how USAID has been used in the past to interfere in domestic politics – similar to how the CIA once targeted anti-Vietnam war activists in the 1960s and 1970s.

“This happened against the left, against the Democrats in the 1960s and 70s when the CIA and its sister orgs like USAID were pumping money into domestic politics to stop the anti-Vietnam War movement,” said Benz.

More on how USAID has been influencing international politics.

WOW. Mike Benz on Rogan lays out the entire USAID template that was used not just in Poland but here in the U.S.
When Poland elected a populist President that was not “Friendly to their influence”, NED began pressure to call for jailing of their political enemies AND to NOT… pic.twitter.com/SEVfaWdJlu

— Johnny St.Pete (@JohnMcCloy) February 13, 2025

Benz goes on to describe how every major institution in America, from media to universities, unions, NGOs, and even conceptions of public health, are instrumentalized by this system.

“What people are going to see on this is going to completely reorient their mental map of how they think the world works, how they think American power projects into the institutions.”

How Did We Get Here?

Benz delved into the history of how the government ‘breached the social contract’ with Americans.

Benz: You know, it was really set up in 1948 when George Kennan created this NSC 10 2, this National Security Council. We completely reoriented the structure of the American Empire in 1948, after World War II. In 1947 we passed something called the National Security Act. That’s what established the CIA. That’s what established the National Security Council, which coordinates all of our foreign, foreign facing empire management work. It renamed the Department of War to the Department of Defense so that it didn’t look like we were acquiring territory by military force which had just been banned under international law under the UN Declaration of Human Rights. So we moved from primarily kinetic warfare into what George Kennan called just two months before he created the plausible deniability doctrine that we live under. He called this organized political warfare.

…

So in 1948, when we established the secrecy doctrine, doctrine that we now live under, and all these NGOs work under this cover effectively because of their sponsoring organizations, USAID or CIA or State.

Turned On Our Own People

Benz then goes into a group called the OCCRP (Corruption Reporting Project).

Benz: “This is a group that half of its funding comes from USAID and the US State Department. OCCRP has to the USAID and the State Department have a veto right over the staff that it can hire. This is the largest consortium of investigative journalists on planet Earth. This is the group that broke the Panama Papers. They got all these hacked documents. They got special access to it. I don’t have any facts on this. I’m simply noting that it’s an oddity that a group funded by a major CIA funding conduit, usaid, while the CIA has the ability to hack any target around the world that’s authorized by the National Security Council, they’re getting these special access documents that are reportedly either hacked or leaked and they’re being sponsored by the group that’s connected to something with a hacking power.”

…

They’ve been around for almost 20 years. And they were sponsored in order to do. They do investigative hit piece journalism about corruption. And what they do is they go after all of the State Department and USAID and DOD’s opponents in the region.

Ukraine

Benz and Rogan then segued into the topic of Ukraine, where then-Vice President Joe Biden bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations about forcing them to fire prosecutor Victor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma.

Benz: “So Viktor Shokin was investigating Burisma. Joe Biden personally weaponized USAID in order to force a foreign country’s prosecutor to be fired in order to get that billion…”

Rogan: “Can I stop you for a second? What was the investigation of Burisma? What did it entail?”

Benz: “I believe it was a similar corruption probe that there was misuse of funding. Other stuff is. Is well documented in Miranda Devine’s book, the Big Guy. But if you. So if you open those four screenshots, I don’t know if you’re able to center it or zoom out a little bit … Remember when Hunter Biden’s permanent blanket pardon goes back to, it goes back to 2014. And so this directs USAID to guarantee loans. So it’s loan guarantees for every phase of development of oil and gas in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Now if you go to go to the next screenshot in this, this is from. This is a, you know, a foiaed or legally obtained internal document at the State Department which says despite his ruined name in Ukraine, Zlocheski is actively campaigning for. He’s been sending letters to Ambassadors Yannick, Yovanovitch and Pyatt. They note that Hunter Biden and Devon Archer are on the board. And they say even internally at State, USAID does have cooperation with Burisma. Says pre existing small scale, preexisting cooperations. They’re formally cooperating with Burisma in the region. They’re noting that. And then if you go to the next screenshot now this again is State Department email traffic that’s been unearthed. Okay, so they’re talking about doing co branding with USAID and Burisma and the public private partnership around USAID and Burisma, but then noting, quote, the very sticky wicket of the Hunter Biden connection on Burisma’s board.”

Watch the entire interview here.

*  *  *

Thank you to everyone who has subscribed or bought something from the ZeroHedge Store (our waxed canvas hats have been flying off the shelf!). With ad revenues in the toilet, we we couldn’t do it without you. 

As reported last night, Trump has officially signed an action on reciprocal tariffs, targeting all countries around the globe that have higher tariffs than the US. It appears that Trump has picked reciprocal in place of a inform tariff on all exports. That’s just the start however: what is more important is that as we cautioned earlier, the US also appears set to retaliate against Europe’s VAT buffer which could very well cripple the continent’s exporters. Trump ordered his secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick to prepare the tariffs for implementation by April 1.

This is what Trump published on his Truth Social account:

On Trade, I have decided, for purposes of Fairness, that I will charge a RECIPROCAL Tariff meaning, whatever Countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them – No more, no less!

For purposes of this United States Policy, we will consider Countries that use the VAT System, which is far more punitive than a Tariff, to be similar to that of a Tariff. Sending merchandise, product, or anything by any other name through another Country, for purposes of unfairly harming America, will not be accepted. In addition, we will make provision for subsidies provided by Countries in order to take Economic advantage of the United States. Likewise, provisions will be made for Nonmonetary Tariffs and Trade Barriers that some Countries charge in order to keep our product out of their domain or, if they do not even let U.S. businesses operate. We are able to accurately determine the cost of these Nonmonetary Trade Barriers. It is fair to all, no other Country can complain and, in some cases, if a Country feels that the United States would be getting too high a Tariff, all they have to do is reduce or terminate their Tariff against us. There are no Tariffs if you manufacture or build your product in the United States.

For many years, the U.S. has been treated unfairly by other Countries, both friend and foe. This System will immediately bring Fairness and Prosperity back into the previously complex and unfair System of Trade. America has helped many Countries throughout the years, at great financial cost. It is now time that these Countries remember this, and treat us fairly – A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD FOR AMERICAN WORKERS. I have instructed my Secretary of State, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of the Treasury, and United States Trade Representative (USTR) to do all work necessary to deliver RECIPROCITY to our System of Trade!

Here are the details, as BBG notes, the president signed a measure directing the US Trade Representative and Commerce secretary to propose new levies on a country-by-country basis in an effort to rebalance trade relations, a sweeping process that could take weeks or months to complete, leaving doubt as to when the tarifffs would take effect.

“I’ve decided, for purposes of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff, meaning whatever countries charge the United States of America,” Trump said in the Oval Office with Howard Lutnick standing by his side. “In almost all cases, they’re charging us vastly more than we charge them but those days are over.”

President @realDonaldTrump announces RECIPROCAL TARRIFFS! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/3gdw11RkC6

— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) February 13, 2025

Fresh import taxes would be customized for each country, and will be meant to offset not just their own tariffs on US goods but also non-tariff barriers the nations impose in the form of unfair subsidies, regulations, value-added taxes, exchange rates and other factors that act to limit US trade, said an official, who briefed reporters before the announcement.

The VAT response is notable because as we noted last night, the tariff differential for the EU, for example, with and without VAT is massive and rises from just 2% (without VAT) to a whopping 18% with! And judging by Trump’s comments, which said that the EU is “absolutely brutal” on trade, the inclusion of VAT is precisely meant to punish Europe.

As we discussed in greater depth last night, the chart below shows the amount that each country’s VAT exceeds the US sales tax. And so, if indeed Trump imposes a reciprocal tariff policy also accounted for foreign VATs, it could add another 10% to the average US effective tariff rate.

Needless to say, that could be catastrophic to exporters, and Deutsche Bank’s George Saravelos agrees writing that if reciprocal tariffs are applied on a VAT basis, “European countries would be much higher on the list of impacted countries given high consumption taxes.” Like Goldman, the DB strategist notes that the overall US tariff rate would increase by more than 10% (figures below).

Reciprocal tariffs amount to Trump’s broadest action to address US trade deficits and what he characterizes as unfair treatment of American exports around the globe. Trump has already imposed 10% tariffs on Chinese goods and plans to slap 25% duties on all US steel and aluminum imports next month.

There’s more: Trump told reporters that he would enact import taxes on cars, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals in addition to the reciprocal tariffs.

The text of Trump’s directive on tariffs was not immediately provided by the White House. Trump cited barriers in the EU, including a VAT, as an example of what the US is looking to respond to, while the official said Trump has also singled out Japan and South Korea as nations that he believes are taking advantage of the US, and thus could be targeted in his latest push.

The president said that he is hoping to have a discussion with other nations about how existing policies have created an imbalanced trade environment, the official said. And he’s more than happy to lower tariffs if countries want to pare their levies or remove other trade barriers, the official added.

Reciprocal tariffs are expected to hit hard in less-developed economies where average duties on US products are higher, according to Bloomberg Economics. It differs from a universal levy on all imports, as Trump proposed during the 2024 presidential campaign. The official said Trump could divert back to a global tariff strategy later on.

Trump announced his move just hours before he was set to host Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose country stands to be affected by reciprocal tariffs more than many other major trading partners. Trump has repeatedly criticized India’s its high tariff barriers.

According to Bloomberg, “Trump’s brinkmanship has injected uncertainty into the global economy, with businesses and consumers waiting to see how Trump proceeds on decision that could disrupt the US’s trade relationships with the rest of the world.” According to others, Trump is merely responding to a world where all countries have higher tariffs than the US!