Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com,

• Last week’s attempt by the U.S.’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives to unblock the stoppage on approvals of permits for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) looks highly unlikely to succeed.

• Just after the White House’s announcement on 26 January to ‘pause’ approvals of new LNG projects, the European Commission said that this will have no short- or medium-term impact on the E.U.’s security of supply.

• Shell: a long-term U.S. ban on issuing new LNG export permits would have “quite an impact” on the global LNG market.

Last week’s attempt by the U.S.’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives to unblock the stoppage on approvals of permits for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) looks highly unlikely to succeed. Despite the House approving a bill to remove the pause on LNG permits, it still needs to be passed in the Democratic-controlled Senate and then to be signed by Biden to become law. LNG remains the key emergency energy source in the new global oil market order, as analysed in full in my new book of the same name, and without the U.S. continuing to play its role as key producer and coordinator of other LNG supplies, the political cohesion of Europe – and of the West’s core NATO security alliance – may falter.

NATO’s response to Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine and subsequent annexation of its Crimea region was non-existent to all intents and purposes. The reason why is that key countries in Europe – especially its de facto economic leader, Germany – had become reliant on cheap and plentiful supplies of Russian gas to power their economic growth over the years. None of them wanted any major punishments meted out on Russia for the 2014 invasion that might jeopardise these gas flows. The response of these European countries to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was exactly the same at first. As also highlighted in my book, Germany’s principal concern was ensuring that Russia did not stop supplying it, or other European countries, with either gas or oil, due to their not being able to pay in the way Moscow preferred. This followed the 31 March 2022 decree signed by President Vladimir Putin that required European buyers to pay in roubles for Russian gas via a new currency conversion mechanism or risk having supplies suspended.

The official guidance document sent out to all 27 European countries that are members of the European Union (E.U.) on 21 April by its executive branch, the European Commission (EC), simply stated:

“It appears possible [to pay for Russian gas after the adoption of the new decree without being in conflict with EU law],… EU companies can ask their Russian counterparts to fulfil their contractual obligations in the same manner as before the adoption of the decree, i.e. by depositing the due amount in euros or dollars.”

The one and only reason that the view of these European countries changed towards being willing to punish Russia for a further invasion westwards into Europe was the U.S. ensuring that substitute supplies for Russian gas became available early on. As also detailed in my new book on the new global oil market order, the U.S. strategy for replacing Russian gas supplies at that point was twofold.

• First, increase its own gas deliveries to Europe.

• Second, pressure other gas suppliers to do the same. As LNG does not require the enormous time, cost, and infrastructure build-out as pipelined gas, it was the gas resource upon which the U.S. focused these efforts.

On the first point, from zero LNG exports before 2016, the U.S. quickly became the world’s biggest exporter, with around 86 million metric tonnes of LNG shipped in 2022.

And around two-thirds of all the U.S.’s LNG exports since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022 have gone to Europe. The new LNG projects that have seen their permit permissions paused for an unspecified period are key to the U.S.’s LNG exports doubling by the end of this decade.

On the second point, the U.S. leveraged every proverbial carrot and stick available to it to pressure Qatar, for one, to stop signing LNG supply deals one after another with China – as it had been doing in the run-up to Russia’s 2022 invasion, as also analysed in depth in my new book. Given this, May 2022 saw Qatar signed a declaration of intent on energy cooperation with Germany aimed at becoming its key supplier of LNG into the future.

These new supplies of LNG from Qatar would come into Germany through existing importation routes augmented by new infrastructure approved by the German Bundestag on 19 May. The plans would run in parallel with, but were likely to be finished significantly sooner than, the plans for Qatar to also make available to Germany sizeable supplies of LNG from the Golden Pass terminal on the Gulf Coast of Texas. QatarEnergy holds a 70 percent stake in the project, with the U.S.’s ExxonMobil holding the remainder. The Golden Pass terminal’s estimated send-out capacity is projected to be around 18 million mtpy of LNG.

Just after the White House’s announcement on 26 January to ‘pause’ approvals of new LNG projects, the European Commission said that this will have no short- or medium-term impact on the E.U.’s security of supply.

“The reality is that there’s no doubt the U.S. has been the key factor in ensuring cohesion in the E.U.’s approach to punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, both in terms of brokering deals with other suppliers such as Qatar, and in providing LNG itself,” a senior figure in the E.U.’s energy security complex exclusively told OilPrice.com last week.

“The big fear here is not just that these pauses in permits for the big U.S. LNG projects will take months and maybe longer but also that some of them may not be allowed to go ahead at all,” he added.

“Both of them raise questions about the U.S.’s entire commitment to the LNG sector now, and with that there is a very great danger of this [E.U.] cohesion [in its approach to punishing Russia for the invasion of Ukraine] being seriously undermined,” he concluded.

More recently, British oil and gas supermajor Shell warned that world demand for LNG would jump more than 50 percent by 2040. It added that a long-term U.S. ban on issuing new LNG export permits would have “quite an impact” on the global LNG market. This appears to be British understatement at its finest, as Shell also forecasts that North American LNG exports will grow to about 200 million metric tonnes per year by the end of the decade, accounting for about 30 percent of global LNG demand and about 5 percent of global natural gas demand.

In the meantime, Eurogas President Didier Holleaux warned that should additional U.S. LNG export projects not materialise, it would risk increasing and prolonging the global gas supply imbalance. And last week European Commission Executive Vice President, Maros Sefcovic, said that the U.S. is now the “global guarantor of energy security”.

Intuitive Machines Inc. investors have experienced more volatility than crypto traders since its Odysseus moon lander was catapulted into space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 15. Shares soared as the Odysseus spacecraft successfully entered the moon’s orbit and landed. However, in the after-hours trading on Friday, shares crashed on reports the spacecraft had toppled over upon landing in the moon’s south pole region. 

Intuitive Machines initially said its Odysseus moon lander landed successfully on Thursday. But as AP News reports, CEO Steve Altemus said Friday that the spacecraft “caught a foot in the surface,” falling on its side and possibly leaning against a rock. He said a high landing speed might have snapped one of Odysseus’s support legs. 

“So far, we have quite a bit of operational capability even though we’re tipped over,” Altemus told reporters.

He said engineers are in the process of downloading data and hope to understand the severity of the issue as early as this weekend:

“We’re downloading and commanding data from the buffers in the spacecraft and trying to get you surface photos because I know that everyone’s hungry for those.” 

What a rollercoaster ride for investors. Shares crashed as much as 31% on landing woes report. 

Odysseus is the first US lunar lander in half a century. It remains to be seen if the lander can conduct its mission. 

As we’ve penned before, another bubble could be forming: “Forget AI Bubble. A New One Emerges As Space Firms Prepare For IPO Launchpad.” 

After ceasefire negotiations have faltered, Israel has given Hamas a new ultimatum, with top Israeli war cabinet official Benny Gantz saying that Israel will launch a full assault on the southern city of Rafah if all remaining hostages aren’t released by Ramadan. The Muslim holiday begins on March 10 this year, which is a few weeks away.

“The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know — if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue to the Rafah area,” Gantz told a conference of Jewish American organizations in Jerusalem on Sunday.

There have been airstrikes and sporadic ground raids on some parts of the refugee-packed city; however, the full assault has yet to come. On Monday 26 out of 26 European Union states issued a plea for immediate ‘humanitarian pause’ and for the impending Rafah operation to be halted. Hungary was the lone dissenter.

“To those saying the price is too high, I say this very clearly: Hamas has a choice — they can surrender, release the hostages, and the citizens of Gaza will be able to celebrate the holy holiday of Ramadan,” Gantz added in his statement.

This marks the first time Israeli leadership has issued a clear timeline on the start of the Rafah offensive.

Israel, following recent weeks of mounting pressure from Washington and other allies, has sought to assure the West that it will seek to evacuate those civilians willing to leave Rafah before the full assault begins. 

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi earlier this month explained, “We know that it is more difficult for us to fight in an environment where there are over a million people and another 10,000 Hamas operatives.”

The then pledged to allow for the safe exit of civilians. It’s believed the city has been inundated with over a million internally displaced since the war started after Oct.7. “In previous parts of the war, we sought to isolate the population. We have the capabilities to do it. We did it in Gaza City. We did it in Khan Younis. We did it in the central camps [of Gaza],” Halevi said.

As of last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also affirmed Israel is committed to civilian evacuations before the full offensive kicks off:

“We are going to do it while providing safe passage for the civilian population so they can leave,” Netanyahu said.

Asked by host Jonathan Karl where 1.4 million Palestinians are supposed to go, he responded: “The areas that we have cleared north of Rafah, there are plenty of areas there, but we are working out a detailed plan to do so.”

But there’s as yet no clear evidence of a massive evacuation of civilians from Rafah, and in reality the big question remains: where would they go?

Some international leaders have accused Israeli officials of simply floating false hopes and rhetoric in order to calm Western allies, particularly the US. In Europe there’s a move to prevent more arms from reaching Israel amid accusations of mass human rights violations, also as the Netherlands has been forced by a court to temporarily halt transfers of F-35 parts.

Authored by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Each year from 2023 to 2030, climate change sustainable development goals will cost every person in economies such as the United States $2,026, the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development estimates. In lower-income economies, the per-person annual cost ranges from $332 to $1,864.

In total, the global price tag comes to about $5.5 trillion per year.

Separately, a report from the left-aligned nonprofit Climate Policy Initiative found that in 2021 and 2022, the world’s taxpayers spent $1.3 trillion each year on climate-related projects.

It also found that the “annual climate finance needed” from 2031 to 2050 is more than $10 trillion each year.

“Anyone who willfully denies the impact of climate change is condemning the American people to a very dangerous future,” President Joe Biden said on Nov. 14, 2023, while announcing $6 billion in new investments through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

“The impacts we’re seeing are only going to get worse, more frequent, more ferocious, and more costly.”

At its signing in August 2022, President Biden said the IRA “invests $369 billion to take the most aggressive action ever—ever, ever, ever—in confronting the climate crisis and strengthening our economic—our energy security.”

A report from Goldman Sachs put the dollar amount much higher, stating, “Critical funding for this next energy revolution is expected to come from the IRA, which will provide an estimated $1.2 trillion of incentives by 2032.”

The trillions of dollars being poured into new initiatives stem from the goals set by the United Nations’ Paris Agreement’s legally binding international treaty to “substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions” in the hope of maintaining a temperature of no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

But any decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions won’t have an effect for hundreds to thousands of years—even under the most restrictive circumstances, according to some experts.

“If emissions of CO2 stopped altogether, it would take many thousands of years for atmospheric CO2 to return to ‘pre-industrial’ levels,” the Royal Society states in a report on its website. The organization describes itself as a “fellowship of many of the world’s most eminent scientists.”

“Surface temperatures would stay elevated for at least a thousand years, implying a long-term commitment to a warmer planet due to past and current emissions,” the report states. “The current CO2-induced warming of Earth is therefore essentially irreversible on human timescales.”

A frequently asked questions page on NASA’s website holds the same position.

“If we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years. Temperatures would then plateau but remain well-elevated for many, many centuries,” NASA states.

And, other scientists say, that’s because CO2 isn’t the culprit in the first place.

“CO2 does not cause global warming. Global warming causes more CO2,” said Edwin Berry, a theoretical physicist and certified consulting meteorologist. He called Royal Society’s position on CO2 “pure junk science.”

Ian Clark, emeritus professor for the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Ottawa, agreed that if all greenhouse gas emissions ceased today, the Earth would continue warming—but not because of CO2.

He said that contrary to popular opinion, temperature doesn’t follow CO2—instead, CO2 follows temperature, which, itself, is due to solar activity.

Temperature and CO2

One of Mr. Clark’s primary areas of research is paleoclimatology (the study of climate conditions using indirect records such as tree ring data, ice cores, and other proxy records), and in particular, Arctic paleohydrogeology, which is the study of the Earth’s water throughout history.

“During the ice ages, we had great temperature variations, and this has to do with, not straight-up solar activity, but the amount of solar activity that is hitting the Earth at certain important latitudes, all caused by celestial events,” Mr. Clark said.

“The Earth, in our solar system, is moving around and being jostled. And we have different orbiting patterns that affect solar input, and that creates ice ages and interglacial periods—which we’re in now. And CO2 tracks that. So we’ll see enormous temperature changes, going from ice ages to interglacials, and CO2 gets very low during ice ages and very high during interglacials.

“And that gives the appearance that CO2 is driving the climate, but it’s actually following. It lags by about 800 years.”

Mr. Clark said that during ice ages, and particularly the past 10,000 years, scientists have a fairly good idea of the temperature, thanks to proxy records. He said those records show that the Medieval Warm Period was likely much warmer than today, and agriculture and civilization flourished.

But the Little Ice Age followed that from the 1400s to 1800s. “And that’s when we had difficulty with agriculture,” Mr. Clark said.

“The Thames froze over. We have all sorts of recollections about how cold, and some would say miserable, it was back then. But then it started warming up again. So, about every 1,000 years or so, we seem to have these fluctuations. This is due to solar activity, and that’s where we see the importance of the sun, which is the ultimate source of energy beyond geothermal and nuclear energy. Solar drives climate.”

Another peer-reviewed study, by scientist William Jackson, examined the relationship between CO2 levels and temperature over the past 425 million years.

Mr. Jackson is a distinguished research and emeritus professor for the department of chemistry at UC–Davis who specializes in understanding the role that molecules such as CO2, nitrogen, and carbon monoxide play in planetary atmospheres.

His paper, published in 2017, found that “changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration did not cause temperature change in the ancient climate.”

Similarly, a group of researchers whose report was published in Nature found that when looking at carbon isotope compositions at the million-year scale, long-term atmospheric carbon dioxide was unrelated to temperature, and even showed an inverse trend, especially after major events such as volcanic eruptions.

They further found that when temperature and atmospheric CO2 reached a certain level, organic carbon burial drastically increased, eventually resulting in a significant decrease in atmospheric CO2 levels.

That activity, Mr. Berry said, is nature balancing the levels of CO2—which is an ongoing process.

Read more here…

Authored by Daniel Lacalle via The Epoch Times,

Upon perusing the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals included in the well-known 2030 Agenda, one may conclude that they are all harmless and entirely reasonable goals.

Who could be opposed to reducing poverty and hunger or advancing infrastructure, innovation, and industry?

The trick, akin to the tale of the Trojan Horse, is that those goals have been appropriated by the most heinous interventionism, and bureaucrats with a foundation of conceit and stupidity use it to impose governmental control over every aspect of the economy.

They are attacking farming, agriculture, and nearly any private activity in a Europe that is beginning to resemble a society suffocated by a predatory state and zombies close to the government, à la Chapter 9 from Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”

First, they destroyed the very industry that the 2030 Agenda is purportedly committed to strengthening.

The most interventionist politicians are really attacking the 2030 Agenda because, despite their pretenses to the contrary, their policies invariably have the opposite effect of what they seem to support.

The socialists in all parties have taken over the 2030 Agenda, which does not advance industry, growth, equality, or the fight against poverty or hunger.

This exploitation of the 2030 Agenda’s objectives is exactly like the Trojan Horse that conceals people who will destroy the city beneath the guise of an impressive and lovely gift.

The number of farms in the European Union has drastically decreased in recent years. According to Eurostat, there were 9.1 million farms in 2020, a projected 37 percent decrease, or roughly 5.3 million fewer than in 2005. This trend has only worsened since 2020.

According to the European Commission itself, the EU’s agricultural land is predicted to shrink by 1.1 percent between 2015 and 2030, primarily due to the declines of the two main groupings (agricultural land and farming), which are forecast to decline by 4.0 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively. This implies ruining our future and increasing Europe’s dependence and poverty.

It is not acceptable for the industrial fabric to be destroyed. According to the International Energy Agency, businesses are now paying twice as much for electricity and natural gas as they would in China or the United States due to an energy strategy that is incorrect and enforced by activists who lack industry knowledge. And how is it justified by the bureaucracy?

“The breakdown analysis reveals that the lower economic growth in the EU in relation to the world had the greatest negative impact on the contribution of its manufacturing sector,” according to a study published by the European Commission.

It’s not that they are destroying industry, so don’t worry. It is just that the EU is growing far less than before. Fascinating (note the irony). As if the decline in competitiveness isn’t already a contributing factor in stagnation.

A report from the European Round Table for Industry (Vision Paper 2024–2029) states that the market share of European Union industry in the globe has plummeted from 21 percent in 2001 to a pitiful 14.5 percent. The paper also offers positive remedies. The U.S. proportion, which had a 21 percent share during the same period, decreased less significantly, to 16.5 percent. They reaffirm that “business is the lifeblood of a robust economy.”

“The EU’s industrial sector contributes 16 percent of its GDP. It creates millions of jobs indirectly and 25 percent of direct employment. It is essential for advancing innovation and enhancing the capabilities of the labor force in addition to creating income and jobs. Its potential to promote growth and prosperity is enormous, given the correct conditions. These factors make it clear that Europe needs to increase its appeal to foreign investors.”

Furthermore, what has been accomplished? Taxes, restrictions, and bureaucracy are increased, destroying the very thing they claim to safeguard.

Why do people accept the 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda which are redundant as free-market capitalism would achieve all of them without the need for propaganda? Interventionism has denigrated capitalism and free markets while positioning itself as the answer to the mistakes brought about by extensive intervention. The only ways that any of those goals will actually be met are through increased capitalism and economic freedom. Socialism not only falls short of all these goals, but it also adds a secret number 18: the cancelation and persecution of complainants.

It is not anti-European to criticize this agenda’s incorrect imposition. It is in favor of Europe.

Many of us were labeled anti-Europeans years ago for supporting nuclear energy. The EU made agreements recently to create new reactors in large quantities. When we criticized the fiscal plunder and bureaucracy placed on farming, agriculture, and industry years ago, we were labeled anti-Europeans. Many governments are realizing now how grave a mistake they made.

Similarly, criticizing the digital euro does not mean attacking the euro; rather, it means arguing that it should continue to be a store of value and maintain its purchasing power.

Being pro-European does not mean accepting every interventionist policy put out by a committee of bureaucrats. We must reject socialism and central planning if we are to protect Europe. Despite decades of financial support, East Germany is still struggling to recover from the devastation caused by central planning.

Centralized planning does not work.

It was never successful. However, there are always those who believe that if they put it into practice, it will work because they do not have to pay for the repercussions.

What is the ruse behind this latest attack on liberty?

The usual “good intentions” to target and penalize those who produce and create jobs, using goals that appear innocent and that we all defend. Thus, if you disagree, some may claim that you are opposed to ending poverty, hunger, and inequality if you publish a piece like this one or warn against the risks of central planning. Can you spot the ruse? In actuality, it employs the same tactic as Leninism, which is to create an oppressive government while hiding behind a cause that everyone supports.

The people who have stocked this Trojan Horse with warriors ready to mercilessly slaughter the city’s populace once they are behind the wall are well aware that their scheme will fail so they must enforce objective number 18, which establishes the only connection between reality and the fallacy of central planning. What does objective number 18 mean? Suppression and annihilation of personal autonomy, impoverishment, and elimination of demand. It’s not even a hidden target. This set of self-proclaimed European saviors is aware that imposing a contraction in demand is the only way to make the equation of corporate destruction and declining supply square, rendering us less free and poorer.

The first thing we should do is give up on socialism and stand up for the promotion of individual freedom if we want to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals without the covert eighteenth of poverty and elimination of individuals’ rights.

The only way to accomplish the goals that the 2030 Agenda purports to support is to take these policies out of the hands of socialist and extortionate interventionism and give Europe greater economic freedom, more robust businesses, and regulations that are straightforward, predictable, and conducive to investment. There should be less poverty redistributors and more manufacturing, farming, and agriculture.

In its latest US Equities Weekly Rundown note, Goldman Sachs wrote that In international markets, the desk continues to field demand for India as investors move capital out of China ETFs; the result is that INDA (iShares MSCI India ETF) has seen consistent inflows this past year, while MCHI (iShares MSCI China ETF) redemptions persist.

And yet, the stellar rally in Indian equities that’s made them an investor favorite has run into headwinds that go beyond elevated valuations, according to Bloomberg market live reporters Abhishek Vishnoi and John Cheng. The commentators note that earnings misses, the attractiveness of rival markets amid expectations of a dovish policy shift by the Federal Reserve and a nascent recovery in Chinese equities “are casting doubts over India extending a rally that saw the nation’s main gauges posting a record eighth-straight year of gains in 2023.”

Recently, Citigroup and Societe Generale SA have downgraded India, while foreigners have sold a net $3.8 billion of local shares so far this year, the highest in emerging Asia outside of China. Multi-asset investors are favoring rupee bonds over the South Asian nation’s equities, and some even refute Goldman’s observations, saying that the money flows out of China may be slowing as the country steps up its market rescue efforts.

“India is the best longer-term story, but we are taking a bit of profit” due to high valuations, said Sean Taylor, chief investment officer at Matthews Asia. “I will be trimming more of India into Fed cuts on a relative basis because I need to put more capital into places like Korea and Taiwan.”

Despite the short-term profit-taking, the longer-term outlook for India remains intact thanks to the nation’s fast economic growth, an expanding middle class and rising manufacturing prowess.

“Even though there’s a valuation concern, India is in a sweet spot,” said Joohee An, chief investment officer at Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. in Hong Kong. “We’re looking at India with a longer-term approach than other emerging markets.”

Still, a slew of earnings misses in the latest earnings season on top of already stretched valuations, weak consumer demand in some pockets of the $3.4 trillion economy and a still-hawkish central bank have put some investors on the back foot for now.

Indian stocks remain near their most expensive levels ever against battered Chinese peers, just when Xi Jinping’s administration is unveiling measures to prop up the market and boost confidence. That may prompt some investors to rethink their asset allocations across the region.

The S&P BSE Sensex Index is valued at 20 times 12-month forward consensus earnings estimates, higher than its 10-year mean and the most expensive in Asia. China’s mainland benchmark CSI 300 Index, which hit a five-year low earlier this month, trades at little over 10 times future earnings.

“We’ve been underweighting the country because we’re value investors and we struggle in this market,” said Vicki Chi, a Hong Kong-based portfolio manager at Robeco. “We like dirt cheap, but there’s hardly anything in India.”

Authored by Jason Rantz via mynorthwest.com,

As if “Queers for Palestine” wasn’t enough of a self-parody, keffiyeh-donning gay activists in Seattle have declared a “homosexual intifada.”

After another pro-Hamas/anti-Israel march and rally that took over city streets that Seattle mayor Bruce Harrell ceded, the extremists plastered their signage around downtown Seattle. That’s when we started seeing a new flyer showing two men with faces covered with keffiyeh while embracing in a kiss. The pink-hued message says “Homo-sexual Intifada” in all caps.

Seattle’s homosexual intifada flyer is a stark oxymoron as brazen as it is ignorant. It signals LGBT Seattle activists are willing to become more violent in support of a terrorist organization that would order them tossed from the highest rooftop the moment they accuse someone of misgendering them.

LGBT Seattle activists support violent Hamas with more violence

Hamas, the governing body in Gaza since 2007, is as welcoming to the LGBT community as it is to Jews. And their track record is hardly rainbow-colored. Under Hamas rule, being openly gay isn’t just a social taboo; it’s a fast track to execution. LGBT people face arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings based purely on sexual orientation. And these views against the LGBT community are not merely those of Hamas.

The situation is not much different in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank, where there are no LGBT rights. Palestinians in Gaza are as hostile, with, ironically, gay Palestinians fleeing to Israel for refuge. Israel is the only Middle East country with constitutional, employment, and other codified LGBT rights.

Pro-Hamas activists, in and out of Seattle, routinely and purposefully ignore the fact that Hamas hates the LGBT community. Yet, they continue to stay silent so that they may use all their hot air to attack Jews defending Israel against an existential threat.

Is the Seattle homosexual intifada trying to send a different message?

Is it possible the Seattle homosexual intifada flyer is meant to envision a world in which gay Palestinians fight back in Gaza? Are they trolling us with their flyer? Not likely. The pro-Hamas faction of Seattle activists has consistently downplayed or ignored Hamas terrorism against Jews because they believe “resistance is justified when people are occupied.”

Generally, Hamas’ dangerous hostility to the LGBT community is ignored. But in the rare instances in which it is not, progressive activists use their hatred of Jews to gaslight. Radical Swarthmore professor Sa’ed Atshan dismissed Hamas and Gazan homophobia as if it’s no different than anywhere else. In an interview, Atshan tries to explain why there’s “queer solidarity” with Palestinians without having to mention it’s driven by blatant antisemitism, historical ignorance, or both.

Atshan noted, “Homophobia is not unique to Palestinian society. It exists in most parts of the world, including in Israeli society, as well as here in the United States.” He even manages to blame Jews for homophobia in Gaza, falsely claiming they participate in a brutal military occupation of Gaza.

“It’s very dangerous to pathologize Palestinian society as uniquely homophobic or that homophobia is endemic to the society without this broader context, as well as without understanding the ways that life under brutal military occupation exacerbates homophobia within Palestinian society as well. In order for us to deal with questions of how queer people are treated in Palestine, we have to address the broader landscape of the denial of freedom to Palestinians more generally speaking,” he said.

This is all pretty simple, just not simple enough for Progressive Seattle activists

Palestinians are not synonymous with Hamas. But only a fool pretends there’s no overlap for a significant portion of the Palestinian people in Gaza. It doesn’t matter, though.

Read more here…

Russian carmaker Aurus, best known for producing President Vladimir Putin’s new bulletproof limo, delivered a new limousine to the North Korean dictator on behalf of the Russian government. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the limousine was delivered to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He said the vehicle was a gift following Putin’s visit last year when Kim took great interest in the limo. 

“When the head of the DPRK [North Korea] was at the Vostochny cosmodrome, he looked at this car, Putin showed it to him personally, and like many people, Kim liked this car,” Peskov said when asked by reporters about the gift, who The Guardian quoted. 

‼️🇷🇺🤝🇰🇵 Vladimir #Putin gave Kim Jong-un an Aurus

And we saw in detail how the first acquaintance with this car took place pic.twitter.com/pPCNemntbu

— Maimunka News (@MaimunkaNews) February 20, 2024

“So this decision was made,” Peskov said, adding, “North Korea is our neighbor, our close neighbor, and we intend, and will continue, to develop our relations with all neighbors, including North Korea.” 

North Korea’s state-run media outlet KCNA also confirmed the Russian-made limousine arrived in Pyongyang. 

KCNA quoted Kim’s sister, who said, “courteously conveyed Kim Jong-un’s thanks to Putin to the Russian side, saying that the gift serves as a clear demonstration of the special personal relations between the top leaders.” 

A record 7.3 million illegal aliens have crossed the southwest border under President Biden’s watch, a number which according to Fox News.is greater than the population of 36 individual states.

That figure is sourced from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which has already reported 961,537 Southwest land border encounters in the current fiscal year, which runs from October through September, and if the current pace of illegal immigration does not slow down, fiscal year 2024 will break last year’s record of 2,475,669 southwest border encounters — a number that by itself exceeds the population of New Mexico.

The total number of southwest land border encounters since Biden assumed office in 2021 is 7,298,486, CBP data shows.

That number is larger than the population of 36 U.S. states including: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

In fact, the only states that are not in danger of being “replaced” are the blue ones.

Compared to the largest U.S. states, the 7.3 million number is about 18.7% of California’s population of 39 million, 23.9% of the state of Texas and its 31 million residents, 32.3% of the population of Florida and 37.3% of New York. It’s more than half the size of Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio.

As Fox News graphically describes, were the number of illegal immigrants who entered the United States under President Biden gathered together to found a city, it would be the second-largest city in America after New York.

Shockingly, that total does not include an estimated additional 1.6 million illegals who entered the US at other locations, nor 1.8 million known “gotaways” who evaded law enforcement, which would make the total bigger than the population of New York.

Taken together, over 10 million migrants have crossed into the U.S. illegally during the Biden administration, a record Biden’s critics assert could only be achieved by intentionally refusing to enforce the law.

“This unprecedented surge in illegal immigration isn’t an accident. It is the result of deliberate policy choices by the Biden administration,” said Eric Ruark, Director of Research for Numbers USA, a nonprofit that advocates for immigration restrictions.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO:

Late last night in Darién Gap Panama, I spotted a migrant bus transporting a bus full of invaders from Africa. The bus stopped in front of the San Vicente Migrant camp in Darien Gap to drop someone off. While the door was open, I hopped on the bus and started… pic.twitter.com/WFGLTrboSm

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) February 21, 2024

While some republicans and anti-illegal immigration activists have for blamed Biden for allowing the current overwhelming surge of migrants by reversing former President Donald Trump’s border policies – a fact clearly visible in the chart above when comparing alien entrants under Trump and under Biden, the White House has denied responsibility for the crisis and pointed to external “push” factors like violence and economic instability in South and Central America as the culprit responsible for vast waves of migration to the U.S.

Meanwhile, the president’s critics say migrants face more of a “pull” factor in the form of job opportunities and government benefits because they know they will not face deportation under Biden’s lenient policies.

“The administration has refused to enforce existing immigration law and taken every opportunity to aid and abet illegal border crossings — through policies such as catch-and-release, mass parole, and offering temporary work permits to tens of thousands of foreigners who make dubious claims for asylum,” Ruark told Fox News Digital. “In actual effect, the United States government is completing the human smuggling and trafficking process for the Mexican cartels.”

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), said migrants have learned in the last three years that they won’t face deportation for entering the country illegally.

“They have sent the signal that if you come to the U.S. illegally, if you abuse the asylum system, you’ll be released into the country and allowed to remain here, in most cases given work authorization,” Mehlman said. “Even if you neglect to show up for your hearings, the odds of you being removed are negligible. The president claims he doesn’t have the authority to enforce our laws. He absolutely does. He is deliberately not enforcing those laws.”

There is another reason why the Biden admin has refused to crack down on illegal immigration: as we first revealed, all of the jobs since 2018 have gone to non-native born workers, which primarily means illegal immigrants.

Since then establishment economists and lunatic idiots such as Paul Krugman and Jerome Powell have claimed that these illegal immigrants are actually beneficial for the economy as they take jobs that Americans are “too lazy” to take and have helped push down wage inflation; meanwhile the CBO has taken this grotesque stupidity one step further, and projected that the surge in illegal immigration will boost the US labor force significantly more than previously forecast…

… with CBO Director Phill Swagel, going so far as predicting that “as a result of those changes in the labor force, we estimate that from 2023 to 2034, GDP will be greater by about $7 trillion and revenue will be greater by about $1 trillion than they would have been otherwise.”

Got that? The surprise increase in immigration is largely responsible for an anticipated extra **$7 trillion** boost in GDP.

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) February 8, 2024

“Got that?”, the Washington Post in-house propaganda appartchik asked rhetorically: Illegal immigration is not only not bad, it’s great for the country, as it enables Americans to remain lazy, it reduces wage inflation and ends up boosting GDP by trillions. In fact, the only thing preventing the US from entering a new golden age of growth is that instead of a mere 10 million illegals, the US should gladly accept 100 million or more, and be thankful to the Biden regime, which alone could come up with this absolutely brilliant theory of common sense, sanity – and of course population – replacement.

Of course, for a far saner take on what is really going on, listen to the latest Tucker, who in his latest video note says that “mass immigration is completely destroying our country.”

Mass immigration is completely destroying our country. Why is no one doing anything about it? Because they’re afraid of ending up like Lydia Brimelow. pic.twitter.com/B5B0bh6t5O

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 20, 2024

Listen to it before Tucker is also taken out by a CIA magic bullet.

Teens are becoming increasingly addicted to the gamification of stock and options trading, allowing them to buy and sell ‘meme’ stocks and trade zero-date options directly from their smartphones through well-known trading apps like Robinhood. 

A new study from Fidelity Investments, titled “2023 Teens and Money Study,” reveals more than half of the respondents (ages 13 to 17) received a smartphone around the age of 10. By eleven, they spoke with their parents about opening a brokerage or checking account. 

One thing the post-Covid world has created is younger and younger gamblers. 

And why is that? Well, one word: gamification of trading apps. 

During Covid, for example, Robinhood experienced an unprecedented surge of young traders that entered the stock market casino. Thank the government-enforced lockdowns that kept everyone on their couches and the Federal Reserve’s monetary bazooka that led to the greatest stock market bubble ever. 

Everyone was a genius when stocks only went vertical. Until they don’t…  

In a separate report, The Wall Street Journal said custodial accounts for teenagers at Schwab reached  200,000 in 2022, an increase from around 120,000 in 2019. This number soared past 300,000 in 2023, partly due to Schwab’s acquisition of TD Ameritrade. 

Other brokerage firms such as Vanguard, Fidelity, and E*Trade by Morgan Stanley have also seen a rise in custodial accounts in recent years. 

To sum up, Western society is turning out even younger degenerate stock traders than ever before through the gamification of stock trading apps on smartphones. 

Maybe the kids should put down their smartphones and go outside.