Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump said on Friday that the Justice Department (DOJ) has returned to him boxes of documents seized by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago home during an investigation in 2022.

Trump stated that the DOJ has “just returned the boxes that Deranged Jack Smith made such a big deal about,” referring to the former special counsel who led the investigations into Trump’s alleged retention of classified documents from his first presidential term and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.

“They are being brought down to Florida and will someday be part of the Trump Presidential Library. Justice finally won out,” Trump stated on his Truth Social platform.

Trump reiterated his stance that the FBI investigation against him was politically motivated.

“I did absolutely nothing wrong. This was merely an attack on a political opponent that, obviously, did not work well. Justice in our Country will now be restored,” the president stated.

Alina Habba, the president’s counselor, said that she personally loaded some of the “infamous boxes” onto Air Force One before Trump’s flight back to Florida on Friday.

“Justice has been and will continue to be restored in this country under President Trump. Truth and justice always win in the end. God Bless America,” Habba stated on the social media platform X.

In August 2022, the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, as part of an investigation into his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office during his first term in 2021.

During the raid, FBI agents seized over 11,000 documents and photographs without classified markings, along with more than 100 documents marked classified. Some of these documents were labeled “top secret.” The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) also retrieved 15 boxes of government documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in January 2022.

The raid followed a warrant issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, which enabled agents to seize any documents with classification markings, as well as containers in which the documents were located and any containers stored or found together with the documents.

In 2023, Smith indicted Trump with felony charges over his alleged unlawful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and concealing a document in a federal investigation.

Trump had denied any wrongdoing in the cases and called the investigation politically motivated. In a June 2023 interview with Fox News, Trump defended his handling of the documents and said he believes that he had rights to the retained documents.

“Everything was declassified because I have the right to declassify,“ he told the news host. “This is purely a Presidential Records Act [thing]. This is not a criminal thing.”

Smith dropped both cases after Trump won a second presidential term in the 2024 election, citing the DOJ’s policy against prosecuting a sitting president. The special counsel resigned from the DOJ ahead of Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

Prior to his resignation, Smith completed a final report on his investigations into Trump’s criminal cases. Former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who appointed Smith in the investigation, told congressional leaders in January that the report would be made public after gaining approval by the courts.

Trump’s lawyers told Garland in a Jan. 6 letter that they had reviewed a draft of the report and identified some issues. They argued that releasing the report would be “imprudent and unlawful.”

“The Draft Report violates fundamental norms regarding the presumption of innocence, including with respect to third parties unnecessarily impugned by Smith’s false claims,” the lawyers said.

They stated that releasing the report would violate the Presidential Transition Act and the doctrine of presidential immunity. Trump’s lawyers also argued that Smith lacked authority to issue the report due to his alleged invalid appointment.

Deranged leftists, suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, stormed the Tesla showroom at 860 Washington St. in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District early afternoon, chatting “Zelenskyy is a hero,” along with anti-DOGE and anti-Trump slogans. Protest turnout was notably weak, as DOGE-era swamp draining in Washington, DC, has curbed USAID’s ability to funnel taxpayer funds to corrupt NGOs that bankroll leftist protests. 

Footage shows unhinged liberals taking over the Tesla showroom. 

BREAKING: Protesters are currently occupying the Tesla Dealership in lower Manhattan. Security is trying to keep more people from entering. pic.twitter.com/p0EFeOk0x0

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) March 1, 2025

🚨🇺🇸 BREAKING: TESLA DEALERSHIP OCCUPIED IN MANHATTAN

One agreeable participant even asked why anyone thinks they have a right to stop him from forcefully entering the building, with some reference to the ‘United States of America.’

Source: https://t.co/VH9KOxReAM pic.twitter.com/5nY4fw2B6i

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 1, 2025

Dozens gathered outside, holding anti-Elon Musk, anti-Trump, and anti-DOGE signs. The radicals, seemingly oblivious to basic statecraft, chanted, “Zelenskyy is a hero.”

NOW: Crowd chants “Zelenskyy is a hero” outside of Tesla Dealership in Manhattan as Anti-Elon protesters occupy the inside. pic.twitter.com/fOoixHhJWE

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) March 1, 2025

NOW: Ukrainians chant “Thank you America!” as american responds “Thank you Ukraine!” During emergency protest in Times Square NYC pic.twitter.com/w6TrFmPF8n

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) March 1, 2025

This is the left’s hero. 

The left and their heroes..🤣🤣🤣pic.twitter.com/7G9U6WzF5P

— Ava- I Love My USA! 🇺🇸 (@WEdwarda) March 1, 2025

NYPD has arrived. 

🇺🇲🚨#AGORA: NYPD está fazendo prisões em massa depois que “manifestantes” anti-Elon Musk ocupam um showroom da Tesla em Manhattan. Os protestos estão massivos, alguns pedem a morte de Elon Musk, enquanto outros pedem a deportação alegando que ele nasceu na África do Sul, não nos… pic.twitter.com/8zTyWI2ooN

— Conservatism And Elegance 🇺🇲 (@ThayzzySmith) March 1, 2025

Perhaps the era of Soros and other leftist billionaires using taxpayer funds through their NGOs to unleash color revolutions ‘rent a riot’ is over. The turnout at today’s Tesla showroom was pathetic.

Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times,

Vice President JD Vance said he was surprised to hear of Pope Francis’s criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration policy while speaking at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Feb. 28.

Despite that disagreement, Vance prayed for Pope Francis at the event, as the pope remained in critical condition on Feb. 28 after suffering a bronchospasm that caused vomiting and the need for non-invasive mechanical ventilation, the Holy See announced.

Vance also said he believes that the pontiff is a man who deeply cares about the spiritual direction of the faith and the world’s Christians.

“I will always remember the Holy Father as a great pastor, as a man who can speak the truth, the faith, in a very profound way at a moment of great crisis,” Vance said. 

He recalled a sermon of hope that the pope delivered in March 2020 at the height of the pandemic in an empty St. Peter’s Square, likening it to the gospel in which Jesus calmed the sea after his terrified disciples awakened him during a storm.

Vance, the first Catholic convert to serve as vice president, asked fellow Catholics to say a prayer that he and his family had been praying daily for the pope ever since he was admitted to the hospital.

Pope Francis has criticized President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and condemned mass deportations.

“The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” he said in a Feb. 10 letter.

Vance had argued that his administration’s immigration policy was aligned with his Catholic faith, citing “Ordo Amoris,” a centuries-old teaching that suggests a hierarchy of how one is supposed to love, justifying the needs and concerns of the immediate family before those of strangers.

Pope Francis appeared to correct Vance’s understanding of the concept in his letter.

“Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” he wrote. 

“The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan,’ that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”

Vance’s address also came as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has taken the Trump administration to court over the cut-off of millions of dollars in funding for refugee programs in the United States.

The vice president also discussed using social media to respond to messages and criticism from the pope, bishops, and other religious leaders.

“Sometimes the bishops don’t like what I say,” Vance said. 

“I’m sure, by the way, sometimes they’re right, and sometimes they’re wrong. My goal is not to litigate when I’m right and when they’re wrong or vice versa. My goal is to maybe articulate the way that I think about being a Christian in public life.”

Vance said that he believes Christians are not called to obsess over social media controversies involving the Catholic Church, clergy, “or the Holy Father himself,” he said.

“I think that we should frankly take a page out of the books of our grandparents who respected our clergy, who looked to them for guidance, but didn’t obsess and fight over every single word that came out of their mouth.”

Vance said that the clergy are important spiritual leaders with a 2,000-year-old duty to speak on the issues of the day, but that they are now faced with the challenges of social media, and it is just as important for the Church’s clergy to recognize that as it is for lay people.

“I think it’s incumbent upon our religious leaders to recognize that in the era of social media, people will hang on every single word that they utter, even if that wasn’t their intention, and even if a given declaration wasn’t meant for consumption in the social media age,” he said.

The vice president’s speech touched upon his conversion to the faith and the emotional declaration that his 7-year-old son’s baptism was far more significant than winning the election in November 2024.

He stated that the administration’s door was open to feedback from the nation’s faithful.

“I’ll make this commitment to you in front of God, and in front of all those television cameras back there, that we will always listen to people of faith and people of conscience in the United States of America,” Vance said. “You have an open door to the Trump administration, even and especially, maybe, when you disagree with us.

“So, please use that opportunity to communicate with us when we get things right, but also when we get things wrong.”

As Democrats struggle with reality – namely, that they’ve allowed crime, illegal immigration, and inflation to run rampant due to disastrous, anti-American policies – at least a few seem to be willing to acknowledge what’s going on.

During a Friday appearance on ‘Realtime With Bill Maher,’ former Chicago Mayor and US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, an CNN‘s Fareed Sakaria slammed progressive policies that have resulted in a populist backlash. 

“I read that the current mayor of Chicago has an approval rating of 6.6%. What’s going on in Chicago?” asked Maher.

Rahm Emanuel: “We’ve gone through 5 years where people became way too permissive as a culture. Which is why everything is locked up at CVS and Walgreens, that’s a disaster.

“I don’t want to hear another word about the locker room, I don’t want to hear another word about the bathroom. You better start focusing on the classroom. In 7th grade if I had known I could have said ‘they’ and got in the girls bathroom, I would have done it.”

Zakaria then chimed in, “This is a huge Democrat party problem. Democrat cities are terribly run. Cost of housing is crazy.

“The budget of New York state is twice that of Florida. Lots of taxes, lots of regulation, but nothing gets done. Democrats have to own this: The answer to everything is not more taxes, more regulations. People are fed up with it, and feel that it isn’t working.

Watch (via @EricAbbenante);

Bill Maher asks Rahm Emanuel why Chicago’s mayor has such a low approval rating, and the panel agrees that Democrat policies have ruined large American cities:
Bill Maher: “I read that the current mayor of Chicago has an approval rating of 6.6%. What’s going on in Chicago?”
Rahm… pic.twitter.com/Wn3rj5kQ9v

— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) March 1, 2025

*  *  *

Anza MINI-Swat: Like it’s big brother, only more concealable…

Authored by Zoltan Vardai via CoinTelegraph.com,

US President Donald Trump will host the first White House Crypto Summit on March 7, bringing together industry leaders to discuss regulatory policies, stablecoin oversight, and the potential role of Bitcoin in the US financial system.

The attendees will include “prominent founders, CEOs, and investors from the crypto industry,” along with members of the President’s Working Group on Digital Assets, according to an announcement shared by the White House “AI and crypto czar,” David Sacks, in a March 1 X post.

The summit will be chaired by Sacks and administered by Bo Hines, the executive director of the Working Group.

Source: David Sacks

Sacks was appointed White House Crypto and AI and Czar on Dec. 6, 2024, to “work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the U.S.,” Trump wrote in the announcement. 

Part of Sacks’ role will be to “safeguard” online speech and “steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship,” Trump added.

Source: Donald Trump

Trump has previously signaled that he intends to make crypto policy a national priority and make the US a global hub for blockchain innovation. The upcoming summit may set the tone for crypto regulations over the next four years.

Sacks only has two years to push through pro-crypto policies before the 2026 midterm elections in the US, Joe Doll, the general counsel for NFT marketplace Magic Eden, told Cointelegraph in an interview.

According to Doll, the threat of a gridlocked government could stifle regulations, and the current administration must push through pro-crypto policies while still in control of both chambers of Congress.

Stablecoin, Bitcoin reserve regulation remain focus

While there are no additional details about the summit’s agenda, stablecoin regulation and legislation related to a potential strategic Bitcoin reserve have been at the forefront of regulatory discussions in the US.

The White House announcement came days after Jeremy Allaire, co-founder of Circle, the company behind the world’s second-largest stablecoin, said that stablecoin issuers worldwide should be required to register with US authorities.

Citing consumer protection, Allaire argued that US dollar-based stablecoin issuers should not get a “free pass,” enabling them to “ignore the US law and go do whatever the hell you want wherever and sell into the United States.” Allaire told Bloomberg:

“Whether you are an offshore company or based in Hong Kong, if you want to offer your US dollar stablecoin in the US, you should need to register in the US just like we have to go register everywhere else.”

The upcoming summit may shed more light on upcoming stablecoin legislation, considering Sacks previously stated that stablecoins could “extend the dollar’s dominance internationally.”

Interest in a US-based strategic Bitcoin reserve is also on the rise. So far, at least 24 states have introduced legislation related to a potential Bitcoin reserve, Bitcoinlaws data shows.

US states with Bitcoin reserve bill propositions. Source: Bitcoinlaws

However, the state-level Bitcoin reserve initiatives may not represent a pivotal moment for Bitcoin; they are only a “symbolic move” unless a significant purchase is announced, according to Iliya Kalchev, dispatch analyst at Nexo.

“Unless the hearing unveils a near-term purchase plan or a major policy shift, the market’s response will likely be mild, as Texas’ pro-crypto stance is already well known,” Kalchev told Cointelegraph.

Bitcoin has averaged over 1,077% returns over the past five years, showing the lucrative potential of a long-term holding strategy.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is demanding an apology from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after Friday’s Oval Office fireworks and heated exchange. Trump had sarcastically quipped the whole scene will make for “great television” before he shut it down and kicked Zelensky out of the White House, prior to a planned lunch.

Rubio told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that the Ukrainian leader should “apologize for turning this thing into the fiasco for him that it became. There was no need for him to go in there and become antagonistic. Look, this thing went off the rails.”

“When you start talking about that aggressively, and the President’s a deal maker. He’s made deals his entire life, you’re not going to get people to the table,” the US top diplomat added.

Many sources say that before the blow-up which started when Zelensky specifically called out Vance to ‘answer’ a question (after which the vice president appropriately unleashed on Zelensky), a final minerals deal was all but assured and ready to be signed.

But Rubio in his Saturday comments said he’s unsure whether Zelensky actually wants to see any kind of peace agreement at all.

“And so you start to perceive that maybe Zelensky doesn’t want a peace deal. He says he does, but maybe he doesn’t, and that active, open undermining of efforts to bring about peace is deeply frustrating for everyone who’s been involved in communications with them leading up to today,” Rubio explained.

Zelensky just prior to these fresh remarks of Rubio’s expressed what perhaps came close to regret, but something far short of an apology…

“No, I respect the president, and I respect the American people and if, I don’t know, I think that we have to be very open and very honest and I’m not sure that we did something bad,” Zelensky responded when asked by Fox News’s Bret Baier if he would apologize for the meeting. 

“This is not good for both sides, anyway, and I was very open, but I can’t change our Ukrainian attitude toward Russia,” he said. 

Still, on the same day Zelensky issued a very lengthy thread on X, at over a dozen full posts, which many will see as reeking of desperation.

He wrote that he knows that the US is on ‘our’ side and that “America’s help has been vital in helping us survive, and I want to acknowledge that.” This appears a response to Vance the day prior noting that he had not once said “thank you” during Friday’s meetings. “Peace can only come when we know we have security guarantees, when our army is strong, and our partners are with us,” Zelensky also said.

“It will be difficult without the U.S. support. But we can’t lose our will, our freedom, or our people. We’ve seen how Russians came to our homes and killed many people,” he continued in the long message.

At one point he further expressed: “I want the U.S. to stand more firmly on our side. This is not just a war between our two countries; Russia brought this war onto our territory and into our homes.”

Zelensky had two explicit verbal commitments from Trump that he was going to continue arming Ukraine, which is the most acute policy issue from Ukraine’s perspective. But then later he decided to stupidly interject with Vance, and everything went haywire. Epic diplomatic meltdown pic.twitter.com/J4t5HVtNia

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 28, 2025

And again, more after-the-fact efforts to salvage that disaster of an Oval Office meeting: “Our relationship with the American President is more than just two leaders; it’s a historic and solid bond between our peoples. That’s why I always begin with words of gratitude from our nation to the American nation.”

…though that’s not what President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance are saying. All of this from Zelensky is likely too little, too late.

Below is Zelensky’s full thread on X…

We are very grateful to the United States for all the support. I’m thankful to President Trump, Congress for their bipartisan support, and American people. Ukrainians have always appreciated this support, especially during these three years of full-scale invasion. pic.twitter.com/Z9FlWjF101

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 1, 2025

Authored by Jennifer Torres via The Epoch Times,

On Feb. 22, a large group of outdoor enthusiasts gathered at El Capitan, one of the world’s most iconic rock formations, in California’s Yosemite National Park to witness the “Firefall”—a natural phenomenon that occurs when the setting sun hits the park’s Horsetail Fall at just the right angle, causing it to resemble a flow of lava. 

However, the moment was marked by the presence of an upside-down American flag draped over the side of the granite monolith near the fall.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Flag Code determines that when the U.S. national flag is displayed, the union should be uppermost and to the observer’s left. Furthermore, “it should never be displayed upside down unless trying to convey a sign of distress or great danger.” However, the code does not specify any legal penalties for violations.

Yosemite employees reportedly positioned the upside-down flag to protest recent budget cuts, hiring freezes, and federal layoffs, all components of President Donald Trump’s budgetary package, which was narrowly approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday—authorizing at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade.

A spokesperson for the National Park Service told NTD that the agency “is aware of the unauthorized and inappropriate display that occurred at Yosemite National Park over the weekend.”

“The NPS does not condone such actions, and the flag was removed as soon as possible,” the spokesperson said. “We take the protection of our national parks seriously and will not tolerate behavior that undermines their integrity. At this time, we have nothing further to add.”

The flag appeared on the same day that an email was sent to thousands of federal employees by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), requiring them to submit a report within 48 hours detailing five specific achievements they had made at work in the previous week.

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk warned in a social media post that failure to meet the deadline would result in termination.

On Monday, Trump told reporters that Musk’s agency has already found “hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud.”

“A  lot of people are not answering because they don’t even exist. That’s how badly various parts of our government were run,” Trump said, “So, by asking the question, ‘Tell us what you did this week,’ what he’s doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?’”

A new poll by Harvard CAPS-Harris reveals that 76 percent of those surveyed support a “full-scale effort to find and eliminate fraud and waste in government” and that 77 percent support a “full examination of all government expenditures.”

According to a statement from the National Parks Conservation Association, more than 700 National Park Service staff across the country have submitted resignations as part of the Trump administration’s buyout offer, while another 1,000 employees are at risk of termination—and more than 2,000 seasonal and permanent parks positions across the country have been eliminated.

Responding to the upside-down flag incident, Connecticut State Sen. Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) shared a quote in an Instagram post this week, purportedly from Gavin Carpenter, a Yosemite maintenance mechanic Duff identified as a “disabled military veteran.” Carpenter allegedly admitted he had supplied the flag and helped position it.

“We’re bringing attention to what’s happening to the parks, which are every American’s properties,” the quote read.

In his post, Duff asked his followers, “Are we listening to one of our veterans?”

The photo Duff used in the Instagram post was from the San Francisco Chronicle with the caption indicating that the flag was intended to “protest the thousands of federal job cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration.”

Many geopolitical pundits who are of the realism camp said from the start of the Ukraine war that it would be settled on the battlefield. Russia’s military superiority has been evident to all – especially in the last two years of the conflict – which is of course why Kiev has remained totally reliant on military arms and aid from US-NATO countries.

This week as international press was focused on a flurry of diplomatic activity, which saw President Trump host France’s Macron, the UK’s Starmer, and Ukraine’s Zelensky – all in quick succession, there hasn’t been enough attention paid to developments on the battlefield in Ukraine’s east.

While Zelensky was readying to make his last stand and ‘confront’ Trump at the White House – which of course did not go well at all – Ukrainian forces were steadily losing ground on the eastern frontline. Indeed Kiev forces were being beaten back at the very moment Zelensky and VP Vance were arguing in the Oval.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said at the moment all eyes were on Trump-Zelensky meeting that its forces were busy seizing two more villages along the eastern frontlines.

“Moscow on Saturday said it had seized two more villages in eastern Ukraine as Kyiv officials said Russian strikes had killed one person and wounded 19,” AFP reports.

“The Russian defense ministry said its forces had captured Skudne and Burlatske in the south of the eastern Donetsk region,” the report continues. This is just outside the town of Velyka Novossilka, which Russia captured at the end of January.

The Ukrainians have been steadily losing ground for months in Donetsk, but have continued efforts to strike Russian oil and gas facilities inside Russian territory, which hasn’t made any level of a strategic difference in the war. Russia too has been sending drones on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, with at least 150 launched overnight. Ukraine said it was able to down at least 100 of these inbound UAVs.

The Russian military and security services are also reportedly taking back ground in southern Kursk region, which has been occupied by Ukrainian forces since last August.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday that four villages have been taken back in the Kursk region over the last week, with the village of Novaya Sorochina being the latest to be liberated.

And days ago the military announced it had recaptured the nearby villages of Pogrebki and Gorlovka, near Novaya Sorochina, and also the village of Nikolsky, toward the Sudzha direction.

This steady Russian progress has been well understood by the Trump White House, which is why during the Friday meeting Trump kept telling Zelensky that he has no more cards to play.

“You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people,” Trump said. “You’re gambling with World War III, and what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country that’s backed you far more than a lot of people say they should have.”

Zelensky again repeated the lie that Putin violated the Minsk Agreement.

The Minsk Agreement demanded the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Donetsk and Luhansk regions (Donbass). Ukraine did not withdraw and continued attacking civilians from 2014 until 2022.

In 2019,… pic.twitter.com/L76HlFj7y9

— Sentletse 🇿🇦🇷🇺🇵🇸🇱🇧 (@Sentletse) March 1, 2025

In essence, everyone but Zelensky (and some European leaders, apparently), understands that there’s no military solution to the conflict, and that greater Western military intervention seems a sure path to WW3. The ‘solution’ at this point is for Ukraine to negotiate and cede territory, or face total military defeat. Trump is now making crystal clear to all allies that any kind of US-NATO military intervention simply will never happen.

*  *  *

Anza Knives are back In Stock! We just got a huge delivery.

Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back, lifetime guarantee. If you’re looking for a great daily carry, check this one out.

*  *  *

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US-funded organization that meddles in elections and pushes regime change around the world in the name of spreading democracy, has confirmed reports that its funding from the US government has been frozen, forcing it to suspend operations.

“The [NED] is currently unable to access its Congressionally appropriated funds, which sustain nearly all of its grantmaking and operations. As a result, for the first time in the organization’s four-decade history, it has been unable to meet its obligations and has been forced to suspend support for nearly 2,000 partners worldwide,” the NED said in a statement on Tuesday.

While the NED presents itself as an “independent” organization, it is nearly entirely funded by the US government, which it acknowledged in the statement. The NED claimed that its funding should have been exempt from the Trump administration’s pause on foreign aid.

“Ninety-five percent of NED’s funding is directly appropriated by Congress and is not considered foreign assistance. This funding therefore was not subject to the executive order freezing foreign assistance for a ninety-day review. However, despite being exempt, access to these funds has been inexplicably cut off, forcing NED to halt all partner support and furlough the majority of its staff,” the NED said.

The NED, which was founded during the Cold War in 1983, received $315 million from the US government for the 2025 fiscal year. In 1991, Allen Weinstein, a co-founder of NED, acknowledged to The Washington Post that a lot of what the organization did was done “covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

In the 1991 article, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius listed some examples of the NED’s “overt” action that was previously done by the CIA, including “providing money and moral support for pro-democracy groups, training resistance fighters, working to subvert communist rule.”

The NED has been targeted by Elon Musk, who asked his followers in a recent post on X to list “all the evil things that NED has done.” Jim Bovard, a senior fellow at the Libertarian Institute, replied with an article about how he has been critical of the organization for 40 years.

In a 2009 article for the Future Freedom Foundation, Bovard said the NED is “based on the notion that its meddling in foreign elections is automatically pro-democracy because the US government is the incarnation of democracy. 

NED has always operated on the principle that ‘what’s good for the US government is good for democracy.’”

In a 2006 piece for The American Conservative, Bovard detailed NED’s efforts to push for regime change in Latin America.

“In 2001, NED quadrupled its aid to Venezuelan opponents of elected president Hugo Chavez, and NED heavily funded some organizations involved in a bloody military coup that temporarily removed Chavez from power in April 2002. After Chavez retook control, NED and the State Department responded by pouring even more money into groups seeking his ouster,” he wrote.

Bovard continued, “The International Republican Institute, one of the largest NED grant recipients, played a key role both in the Chavez coup and also in the overthrow of Haiti’s elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In February 2004, an array of NED-aided groups and individuals helped spur an uprising that left 100 people dead and toppled Aristide.”

Authored by Egon von Greyerz via vongreyerz.gold,

Trump would not be surprised if there is no gold in Fort Knox.

There should be 4,600 tons there, at a value of $430 billion. 

The U.S. allegedly holds 8,100 tons of gold in Fort Knox, with most remaining reserves stored at the New York Fed.

TRUMP: “Elon and I are going to Fort Knox to see if there is any gold there. If there are only 27 tons, we would be happy. Would not be surprised if there is nothing here – they stole this too!”

So, is Trump preparing the world that there is no gold in Fort Knox?

In a recent Tweet, I said:

So, the time has now arrived for the U.S. to show the world their gold hand.

Will Trump suppress the news, if it is bad? Very likely.

GOLD IN FORT KNOX A SIDESHOW

Whether the gold is or is not in Fort Knox, it could be seen as a sideshow.

After all, it accounts for only 2% of all the gold ever mined in history.

But on the other hand, either little or no gold there, results in no confidence in the U.S. or in the dollar.

GOLD PRICE IS RIDICULOUS

At $2,920, all the gold officially held by Central Banks is $3 trillion.

Just one US stock – Microsoft – has a market cap of $3 trillion. 

How can the value of a SINGLE AMERICAN COMPANY equal the total central bank gold holdings?

It tells us, how overvalued stocks are; and that the gold price is ridiculously low.

EXPONENTIAL GOLD MOVE IS STARTING 

Gold is just starting another massive UP-MOVE. This is the acceleration or exponential phase, as explained below.

This is when gold will again go up by multiples, just as it always has when currencies collapse.

Stocks will also fall rapidly, and a bit later, bonds will fall (interest rates up).

Any major correction in gold is unlikely until it has reached much, much higher prices.

Thus, anyone watching conventional overbought indicators will miss the Gold Wagon. 

And don’t forget, the next very big silver move hasn’t started yet. Paper-short positions in silver by bullion banks are temporarily keeping silver down. 

When, or even before, the gold-silver ratio falls below 75 (now 91), silver will explode.

Silver will then move 2-3 X as fast as gold.

But remember that silver is very volatile and not for widows and orphans. So if you want to sleep at night, hold no more than 25% in silver and 75% in gold.

And remember, it must only be physical. There is an unlimited supply of paper, gold, and silver. One day, these paper contracts will be worthless.

SO WHY SHOULD ANYONE BUY GOLD?

As a matter of fact, virtually no one does as gold is only 0.5% of global financial assets.

Still, gold is up 10X, or more, in most currencies in this century.

When Nixon went off The Gold Standard in 1971, few understood that this would be the start of the biggest global debt creation in history, leading to gold going up 84 X. More accurately – paper money losing 99%.

This is not meant to be sensational – I am a conservative Swiss born in Sweden. 

My message has been consistent for the last 25 years of advising High-Net-Worth Investors to preserve wealth in physical gold and silver stored outside the banking system. 

WE HAVE HAD SKIN IN THE GAME SINCE 2002. 

That’s when we and our HNW clients put the majority of their liquid assets in physical gold at $300. I had been fortunate to advise some of them in successful corporate deals in 1999, like selling tech businesses at a valuation of multiples of sales (no profits, of course) in 1999. So, these investors trusted me and put major amounts into gold 23 years ago.

Why is physical gold the only money in history that hasn’t gone to ZERO?

Simple – GOLD IS NATURE’S MONEY!

It is the only money not made by man.

So it can’t be printed or manufactured.

It can’t be debased.

It can’t be hacked – North Korea just stole $1.5 billion from the world’s second-largest crypto exchange. 4›

It is not dependent on a computer (like crypto or paper money).

It is unlikely to be confiscated (if you hold it in the right jurisdiction), thus not in the U.S.

It is unlikely to be stolen if you hold it in the safest vaults.

GOLD IS VIRTUALLY INDESTRUCTIBLE.

It is the only money that has maintained its purchasing power for thousands of years. 

All other money has gone to ZERO, without fail. 

With such a fantastic record, why is only 0.5% of global assets invested in gold?

Why doesn’t anyone buy gold? They have been spoiled by a stock market fuelled by printed money. 

That is about to change. When stock markets start falling in earnest and the era of “stocks-always-go-up” is finished, a stock collapse is very likely. 

At that time, some investors will realise that they need protection in the form of physical gold. The problem is that gold will not be available at current prices. 

So, gold will go up by multiples.

And remember, there will be major bank failures and exponential money printing. 

As my previous article stated – PRINT BABY PRINT.

Please, please jump on the Gold (and Silver) Wagon now, before it is too late.