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. 

A Citigroup attempt to credit a client’s account with just $280 went wildly wrong, with the financial services giant crediting it with $81 trillion instead, the Financial Times has reported. The colossal error undermines the company’s drive to convince regulators that it has rectified operational shortcomings that have plagued it for years. 

The error went undetected by a payments worker, and a bank official responsible for checking the payment before it was approved for processing as the next business day began. It was only 90 minutes after posting that a third Citigroup employee saw something terribly wrong with the bank’s cash balances, the Times reports, citing an internal summary of the incident it obtained, along with the recollection of two people knowledgable of the mega-mistake. No money actually left the bank. 

The “near miss” was kept secret from the public and investors for nearly a year, as it happened last April. Citi did disclose it to both the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). In its defense, Citi said “detective controls promptly identified the inputting error between two Citi ledger accounts and we reversed the entry,” adding that those controls “would have also stopped any funds leaving the bank.” 

A near miss is defined as the processing of a wrong-amount transaction in which the institution eventually recovers the funds. Citi may well be the near-miss king, with 10 near misses of $1 billion or more in 2024 alone, after racking up 13 in 2023, the Times reports. 

“While there was no impact to the bank or our client, the episode underscores our continued efforts to continue eliminating manual processes and automating control,” said Citi. 

The Times’ sources say the trouble started with a computer-screen that blocked four transactions heading for an escrow account in Brazil. That screen flagged the payments as potential violations of the US government’s sprawling sanctions regime. To bypass that obstacle, Citi’s tech team told a processor to manually input the $280 credit with a rarely-used workaround process in which the amount field defaults to 15 zeroes that have to be manually deleted. In this case, some of those zeroes clearly weren’t. It’s not clear why the numerals of the intended $280 don’t align with the erroneous $81 trillion credit.  

To put the $81 trillion in perspective, consider that the current M2 measure of US money supply is “only” $21.5 trillion. The Times‘ revelation of that error comes almost five years after Citi accidentally sent $900 million to creditors involved in a fight over Revlon debt. Rather than making a $7.8 million interest payment on behalf of Revlon, Citi paid off the entire loan balance. Several creditors refused to return the money. Despite intense litigation, Citi was unable to recover $500 million. 

That debacle toppled then-CEO Michael Corbat, and the firm was showered with fines and served with consent orders under which regulatory agencies demanded the firm address its operational shortcomings under the agencies’ tight, intrusive supervision.

In a memorable 2022 incident, a Citi employee singlehandedly triggered a flash crash in European equity markets with a keying error that initiated the unintended sale of a massive $444 billion basket of stocks from 13 different countries. UK regulators last year fined Citi the equivalent of $78 million for the disaster. 

Citigroup is still plagued by problems — and paying a dear price. Last year the Fed and OCC hammered the firm with $136 million in fines for its inability to rectify risk control and data management issues. Corbat successor Jane Fraser says that remedying the rolling regulatory clusterf*ck is her “top priority.” The Times report will do little to bolster the confidence of regulators or customers. 

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Following Ukrainian President Zelensky’s absolute car crash of a visit to President Trump and JD Vance at the White House, European globalists all creepily posted the same robotic message to X in support of Zelensky.

Zelensky left the White House early and in disgrace after he acted disrespectful during the meeting with the President and Vice President in the Oval Office.

The Ukrainian leader clearly didn’t expect to be holding the meeting in front of the press and was visibly irked for the entire 50 minute exchange.

Look at the body language in this screenshot. He had no clue what he was in for. 😂 pic.twitter.com/EYhwlziX24

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) February 28, 2025

Everything came to a head around 40 minutes into the discussion when Zelensky started talking down to JD Vance, prompting the VP to note that the Ukrainian President has not once said thank you for the ongoing support and the opportunity to visit the White House.

Trump then took over getting into a heated exchange with Zelensky, telling him he is “gambling with World War Three.”

Here is the full 50-minute conversation between President Trump and President Zelensky.

There are a lot of politicians claiming Zelensky was “ambushed.”

There was a full 40 minutes of dialogue before the “fireworks” started.

The president insisted throughout the first 40… pic.twitter.com/yu1ragwpAS

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 28, 2025

Trump kicked Zelensky out before the scheduled lunch and before an agreement of access to minerals in exchange for ongoing security could be signed.

Trump then told reporters that Zelensky clearly is not ready to accept peace and that he “has no cards to play” without US support.

JUST IN: President Trump says Zelensky wanted to come back to the White House “right now” but he wouldn’t let him.

Reporter: “How long do you think it will take for Zelensky to want peace and be invited back to the White House?

Trump: “Well, he says he wants it now. He wants to… pic.twitter.com/soFrrzBkry

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 28, 2025

Zelensky also refused to apologise in a subsequent interview with Fox News.

🚨 #BREAKING: Zelensky refuses MULTIPLE TIMES to apologize to President Trump after disrespecting him and our country in the Oval Office

GO HOME, Zelensky.

Your time is over. We’re done with you. pic.twitter.com/GMvrYMcqu5

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) February 28, 2025

Following all of this, EU globalists Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, EU Commission, Roberta Metsola, President of EU Parliament, Antonio Costa, President of the European Council, and Manfred Weber, President of the European People’s Party all began sent out this same message…

Your dignity honors the bravery of the Ukrainian people.

Be strong, be brave, be fearless.
You are never alone, dear President @ZelenskyyUa.

We will continue working with you for a just and lasting peace.

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) February 28, 2025

Your dignity honours the bravery of the Ukrainian people.

Be strong, be brave, be fearless.
You are never alone, dear President @ZelenskyyUa.

We will continue working with you for a just and lasting peace.

— Roberta Metsola (@EP_President) February 28, 2025

Your dignity honors the bravery of the Ukrainian people.

Be strong, be brave, be fearless. You are never alone, dear President @ZelenskyyUa.

We will continue working with you for a just and lasting peace.

— António Costa (@eucopresident) February 28, 2025

Your dignity honors the bravery of the Ukrainian people.

Be strong, be brave, be fearless.
You are never alone, dear President @ZelenskyyUa.

We will continue working with you for a just and lasting peace.

— Valdis Dombrovskis (@VDombrovskis) February 28, 2025

Your dignity honors the bravery of the Ukrainian people.

Be strong, be brave, be fearless.
You are never alone, dear President @ZelenskyyUa.

We will continue working with you for a just and lasting peace.

— Manfred Weber (@ManfredWeber) February 28, 2025

So… how did all the Euro leaders happen to post the exact same identical thing?

I mean it was identical – down to the letter!

Can you explain?

Of course you can, but will you?https://t.co/JUAtVpjP2G

— Phil Holloway ✈️ (@PhilHollowayEsq) March 1, 2025

Other globalists wrote their own messages of solidarity with Zelensky, despite the fact that he came across like a petulant toddler and clearly had no intention of being diplomatic with Trump and Vance.

It’s almost as if they don’t actually want peace.

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

The Washington Post was hit with another wave of subscription cancellations—its second in months—following an op-ed by its owner, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, in which he advocated for “personal liberties and free markets.”

Bezos announced on Wednesday morning that the WaPo’s opinion pages will be “writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” 

As Bezos explained on X:

There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.

I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.

I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning:

I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.

We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too…

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) February 26, 2025

According to NPR News, this led to the immediate resignation of Opinions Editor David Shipley and the cancellation of 75,000 digital subscribers. 

The number of cancellations comes from a person who asked for anonymity because of the fear of repercussions at the Post.

… 

The rapid-fire cancellations since Wednesday represent a historic level of reader fury over the changes. Yet they are only the most recent wave in a series of mass cancellations that began in late October. That was when Bezos killed a planned endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Between then and Election Day, more than 300,000 subscribers canceled the Post, as NPR first reported last month. That was more than 12% of digital subscribers, which make up the vast majority of the paper’s paid circulation.

The Post has aggressively wooed new subscribers to replace them, boosting circulation by 400,000, often at highly discounted rates, according to a Post executive.

Google Search trends data showed “cancel Washington Post” surged the most in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, three states home to the radical left – and subs of WaPo that would be the most angry with Bezos shifting towards libertarian views. 

What happened last fall:

• After “Colossal” Exodus Of Subscribers, WaPo Boss Bezos Explains “The Hard Truth” About Not Endorsing Kamala

• WaPo Editor Quits, Staff Has Total Meltdown After Non-Endorsement Of Kamala Harris

. . . 

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

We have a government that is literally fighting against itself.  The federal workforce has always been more liberal than the population as a whole, but in recent years things have gotten really bad.  Prior to this year, Democrats had been in control of the White House for 12 of the past 16 years.  Over time, leftists that were hired for key positions just kept hiring more leftists underneath them.  In fact, it got to a point where DEI policies at various agencies essentially institutionalized the systematic hiring of leftists.  By the end of the Biden administration, leftist domination of most of our federal agencies was virtually complete.  But now we have a new administration that most of our leftist federal workers absolutely detest.  Many of them have absolutely no intention of cooperating with the new administration, and some of them have started to openly rebel against it.

A secretive movement known as “#AltGov” has become the epicenter of that rebellion.  Those that are involved primarily communicate through anonymous social media accounts and an encrypted messaging app…

Calling itself #AltGov, the network has developed a visible, public-facing presence in recent weeks through Bluesky accounts, most of which bear the names or initials of federal agencies, aimed at getting information out to the public – and correcting disinformation – about the chaos being unleashed by the Trump administration.

With 40 accounts to date, their collective megaphone is getting louder, as most of the accounts have tens of thousands of followers, with “Alt CDC (they/them)” being the largest, at nearly 95,000 followers.

The network has also formed a group and a series of sub-groups on Wire, the encrypted messaging app, to share information and develop strategies – as played out on Saturday.

Most people don’t realize this, but the “#AltGov” movement was very active during the first Trump administration.

Of course during the Biden administration it went away, because the leftists inside our federal agencies saw no need to rebel against Joe Biden.

But now it is back with a vengeance…

“#AltGov dates from the first Trump administration, but it’s even more needed now,” said an employee at Fema, the disaster response agency, who requested anonymity to avoid being targeted at work. She recently launched an #AltGov Fema account on Bluesky. With nearly 13,000 followers, the account says it’s dedicated to “helping people before, during, and after (this democratic) disaster”.

One member of the group that has dared to go public with her identity has explained what the purpose of “#AltGov” actually is…

The network is aiming to “expose harmful policies, defend public institutions and equip citizens with tools to push back against authoritarianism,” Lynn Stahl, a contractor for the Department of Veterans Affairs and member of the group, told the Guardian.

In other words, they want to use their positions inside the federal government to oppose the Trump administration any way that they can.

If it sounds like this is gross insubordination to you, that is because it is gross insubordination.

And we are already seeing the results.

Attorney General Pam Bondi instructed the FBI to deliver all documents related to Jeffrey Epstein to her office, and they told her that they had done so.

But now it turns out that they had secretly held back thousands of documents, and Pam Bondi is extremely upset…

Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a fiery letter to FBI Director Kash Patel on Thursday accusing federal investigators in New York of withholding thousands of pages of Jeffrey Epstein documents she has vowed to make public.

Bondi said she had requested the full Epstein case file before Patel was confirmed as the head of the FBI and received about 200 pages of files — far less than the number of pages released last year in a civil lawsuit connected to Ghislaine Maxwell, the trafficker’s former lover and convicted accomplice.

“I repeatedly questioned whether this was the full set of documents responsive to my request and was repeatedly assured by the FBI that we had received the full set of documents,” Bondi wrote. “Late yesterday, I learned from a source that the FBI Field Office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein.”

Unfortunately, many of the documents that Bondi wants may no longer exist.

FBI whistleblower Garret O’Boyle has revealed that operatives inside the FBI have been working feverishly to destroy sensitive files…

“There are FBI servers,” said ex-agent-turned-whistleblower Garret O’Boyle, “and people inside the FBI have been working night and day to destroy files on these servers.”

“No idea on what it is — I can only speculate — but you mentioned the Epstein list,” he added. “I’d imagine it’s cases like that.”

Now that Kash Patel has finally been confirmed, he is moving quickly to try to get control of the agency, but it appears that many FBI agents have no intention of obeying his lawful orders…

“Last week, right out of the gate, Kash Patel said 500 people were going to Alabama,” O’Boyle said, explaining that they would still be “headquarters personnel, but in Alabama.”

The other 1,000 agents, he said, were sent out to the field nationwide.

“Already, people are saying, we are not going to comply with that,” O’Boyle told Johnson. “We are going to make it seem as if we transferred—we’re going to do what they call ‘paper transfers’—and we’re not going to obey these lawful orders.”

What a mess.

If this sort of insubordination persists, more agencies may have to be almost entirely dismantled just like USAID was.

Sadly, many workers that were fired at USAID and other federal agencies are now conducting wild protests…

Dozens of the protesters crammed into the lobby of the office of Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, but they were eventually tossed out by security. They also tried to get into the district office of Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, but they were pushed out by staffers.

“It’s been an emotional roller coaster. Like I said, I came to USAID intending on staying there for as long as I could. I really loved the work that we were doing,” said one unnamed former USAID worker to WCSH-TV.

“And now I don’t know what to do,” she added. “And I have cried every day. I think that that’s normal. I have a 15-month-old at home, and I’m looking at him and thinking, ‘What’s this country that we’re now living in?’”

On Thursday, USAID employees that have been let go were given approximately 15 minutes to clear their personal belongings out of their former workspaces…

USAID employees clutching backpacks and wheeling suitcases full of their belongings trickled out of the now-shuttered agency’s headquarters on Thursday morning after the Trump administration gave them 15 minutes to clear out.

Outside the building in downtown Washington, D.C., a line of demonstrators broke into applause and cheers as each employee left the building. Bouquets of flowers for employees stood nearby, alongside a sign reading, “You and your mission mattered!”

Samantha Power, USAID’s administrator, greeted and hugged supporters down the line before she disappeared through the doors of the agency.

Of course this is just the beginning.

The cuts are only going to get deeper in the weeks ahead.

For example, the Trump administration has announced that 120 IRS offices will be permanently shut down…

The Trump administration is moving forward with plans to shut down more than 120 IRS offices that provide taxpayer assistance as part of a broader effort to reduce the federal government’s footprint and cut costs.

The decision, outlined in a letter from the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) obtained by The Washington Post, comes at a crucial time—right in the middle of the federal tax filing season, which ends on April 15.

And President Trump has instructed those running our federal agencies “to turn in a plan for ‘large-scale’ headcount reductions” by March 13th…

The Trump administration directed federal agency heads Wednesday to turn in a plan for “large-scale” headcount reductions by March 13 — as the president told his first cabinet meeting he wanted to purge government workers who are “scamming our country.”

The memo, sent jointly by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Office of Personnel Management (OPM), tells agency leaders to work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to make cuts to the “bloated, corrupt federal government” by methods including firing “underperforming employees,” closing unneeded regional offices and not renewing contracts.

The memo comes after DOGE overseer Elon Musk threatened twice to fire government employees who didn’t respond to an email asking for five things they did in the last week.

Ouch.

So how many federal workers could eventually lose their jobs?

Well, Trump just said that a million federal workers could potentially be “on the bubble”…

President Donald Trump warned that one million or more federal employees are now “on the bubble” because of their failure to respond to an email demanding they justify their jobs.

In a wild monologue during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, the president jumped in after Elon Musk responded to a question from a pool reporter about the fates of those who failed to respond to the email sent Saturday by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) — which asked federal employees to list five bulletpoints of items they accomplished in the last week. Despite having previously warned federal employees that failure to respond would be considered a resignation, Musk softened his position — in response to the pool reporter asking whether those million-plus employees who blew off the email demand would be terminated.

“We’re going to send another email,” Musk said. “But our goal is not to be capricious or unfair. We want to give people every opportunity to send an email. And the email could simply be ‘What I’m working on is too sensitive or classified to describe.’ Like, literally just that would be sufficient. You know, I think this is just common sense.”

We have never seen anything like this before.

It shall be very interesting to see how all of this plays out.

On top of everything else that is going on, a potential government shutdown is looming in the middle of next month…

Congress is barreling toward a deadline to avert a government shutdown in just over two weeks, with Democrats and Republicans at odds over whether there should be guardrails on President Trump’s ability to withhold funding approved by Congress.

Democrats want to insert language in the funding bill to ensure that the administration implements the spending directed by Congress, a reaction to Mr. Trump and top adviser Elon Musk’s work to downsize large swaths of the executive branch. But Republicans have made it clear that they won’t accept those terms.

Government funding expires on March 14, and keeping the government open past the deadline will likely require bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. Republicans control 53 seats in the Senate, but a funding measure requires 60 votes for passage. In the House, Republicans are operating with a razor-thin majority and a divided conference in which conservatives regularly vote against government spending bills.

In my entire lifetime, we have never seen this much chaos in Washington.

And of course the chaos in Washington is just one element of the “perfect storm” that is raging all around us.

I do not believe that our society will be able to handle what is about to happen.

I would encourage you to make your plans accordingly.

*  *  *

Michael’s new blockbuster 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.

Europe takes the crown for having the highest share of drinkers in the world.

Within the region, alcohol preferences vary significantly. This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, visualizes the most popular type of alcohol in various European countries, based on per capita consumption (in liters of pure alcohol) among individuals aged 15 and older.

Data comes from the World Health Organization (WHO) and is from 2020.

Beer is Becoming More Popular Across Europe

Below, we show the most popular type of alcohol in each European country, based on per capita consumption in liters of pure alcohol.

The Mediterranean’s traditional wine belt—spanning Southern Europe, where a warm climate, fertile soil, and deep-rooted traditions have long made wine a staple in countries like France, Italy, Spain, and Greece—is losing its dominance as beer gains popularity across some of these countries.

Shifting consumer preferences, globalization, and the rise of craft brewing has boosted beer’s popularity in these traditionally wine-drinking countries.

In Eastern Europe, spirits—namely vodka—has been the drink of choice for many years but some countries like Romania and Serbia are starting to shift towards a lighter alternative in beer.

According to the latest WHO data, there are over 470 million current drinkers in Europe, with an average of two out of every three adults consuming alcohol.

Alcohol use disorder is a health concern in the WHO European region. According to WHO, around one in every 10 adults in Europe are estimated to have an alcohol use disorder, and almost one in every 20 live with alcohol dependence.

Roughly one in every 11 deaths in the region is linked to alcohol consumption, resulting in a total of around 800,000 deaths a year—almost a third of the global total of 2.6 million deaths.

To learn more about alcohol consumption patterns across the world, check out this graphic that visualizes each WHO region’s share of people aged 15 and over who consume alcohol.

Authored by Frank Fang and Eva Fu via The Epoch Times,

Two top House lawmakers expressed concerns about China’s plan to build a new large embassy in London, in a Feb. 26 letter to British Ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), said that allowing China to build what they called a “super-embassy” on the site of the Royal Mint Court in London would be a “counterproductive and unearned reward.”

The two lawmakers wanted Mandelson to convey their concerns to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who met with President Donald Trump in Washington on Feb. 27.

The Chinese regime first announced plans for a nearly 700,000-square-foot embassy at the Royal Mint Court, a historic site near the Tower of London, in 2018. The plans received a boost in January after the British foreign and interior ministers indicated they would support the construction proposal.

If completed, the new Chinese Embassy would be 10 times the size of China’s current embassy at London’s Portland Place and almost twice that of the Chinese Embassy in Washington. It would also be China’s biggest mission in Europe.

Beijing’s plans have also sparked some opposition in the British Parliament.

In a post on social media platform X on Feb. 17, Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith said it would be the “biggest act of ‘kowtowing’ in British history” and a “nightmare” if China were allowed to proceed with its plans.

Smith and Moolenaar wrote in their letter that allowing the Chinese regime “such a prominent diplomatic foothold in the UK will only embolden its efforts to intimidate and harass UK citizens and dissidents and experts across Europe who oppose or criticize its policies.”

“China’s transnational repression operations are well-documented in the UK and throughout Europe,” they wrote.

In October 2022, Bob Chan, a Hong Kong pro-democracy protester, was dragged from a protest outside the Chinese Consulate General in Manchester onto the consulate grounds, where he was beaten by staff members. Speaking to The Epoch Times in March 2023, Chan said he was indignant at Chinese diplomats’ behavior but felt “powerless to hold them to account.”

The U.S. lawmakers also highlighted a case of the regime’s transnational repression in San Francisco in November 2023, when organizations connected to Chinese consulates helped mobilize individuals to harass peaceful pro-democracy protesters during CCP leader Xi Jinping’s visit for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

At that time, many of the pro-democracy protesters were injured due to violence committed by pro-CCP supporters, prompting two rights groups to call on the Department of Justice to investigate the CCP’s united front groups in the United States. The “united front” is a multipronged strategy for pushing the regime’s agenda overseas.

The two lawmakers reminded Mandelson that the British government “is likely well aware of the Chinese Communist Party’s systematic effort to coopt social and business elites to advance its political and economic goals through malign influence operations.”

American and British authorities have also uncovered Chinese spy cases in recent years.

In September 2024, a former CIA officer was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of providing classified U.S. national defense information to China.

In the UK, a parliamentary researcher and another man were charged in April last year with spying for China.

The CCP’s record of human rights violations in China and Hong Kong is another reason that the British government should reconsider allowing China to build the giant embassy, Smith and Moolenaar said in their letter.

The lawmakers pointed to British citizen and former media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who has been imprisoned in Hong Kong since December 2020.

“We know that Prime Minister Starmer has expressed concern about Jimmy Lai’s detention and promised to make his release a UK government ‘priority.’ We urge him to use his meeting with President Trump to coordinate efforts to gain Lai’s unconditional release,” the lawmakers wrote.

Smith and Moolenaar said they would be “happy to discuss” their concerns directly with Mandelson.