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Sat, 29 Nov 2025 21:20:00 +0000 Japan Denies Trump Asked PM Not To Provoke Beijing
Japan Denies Trump Asked PM Not To Provoke Beijing
Japan Denies Trump Asked PM Not To Provoke Beijing
Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Japan has refuted a report indicating that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi received advice from U.S. President Donald Trump to refrain from provoking the Chinese regime over Taiwan.
Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi answers questions from reporters about her telephone talks with U.S. President Donald Trump at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo on Nov. 25, 2025. JIJI Press / AFP via Getty Images
Trump and Takaichi spoke by phone on the evening of Nov. 24, their first conversation since the Chinese communist regime ramped up its pressure campaign against Japan following Takaichi’s remarks suggesting that a crisis in Taiwan could pose a threat to Japan.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing anonymous sources, reported on Nov. 27 that Trump had advised the Japanese prime minister “not to provoke Beijing on the question of Taiwan’s sovereignty ” during the call. The report described Trump’s advice as subtle, saying that he did not pressure Takaichi to withdraw her comment.
When asked about the WSJ report at a briefing on the morning of Nov. 27, Minoru Kihara, the Japanese government’s top spokesperson, declined to comment on the meeting between Takaichi and Trump, saying it’s a matter of diplomatic exchanges.
However, at a regular press conference hours later, Kihara said he found it necessary to clarify this matter.
“In the article you mentioned, there is a description that President Trump advised not to provoke the Chinese government on the issue of Taiwan’s sovereignty, but I would like to make it clear that there is no such fact,” Kihara told reporters when asked about the WSJ report.
He confirmed that Tokyo had reached out to the U.S. media outlet regarding this article.
Kihara at the briefings on Nov. 27 was not asked about other reports containing similar claims. Those include a Reuters report saying that Trump asked Takaichi not to further escalate the dispute with Beijing, citing two unnamed Japanese government sources. The report added that Trump did not present any specific demands to Takaichi.
Japanese media outlet Kyodo News also reported that during the phone call with Takaichi, Trump advised her to refrain from escalating the row with Beijing while emphasizing the importance of managing the relationship between the two Asian neighbors, citing an unnamed government source.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the three reports by publication time.
President Donald Trump speaks to the media aboard Air Force One in flight en route to Florida on Nov. 25, 2025. Pete Marovich/Getty Images
Takaichi, speaking to reporters shortly after the call with the U.S. president, said they exchanged views on a wide range of topics, including strengthening the Japan–U.S. alliance and addressing challenges facing the Indo-Pacific region.
“During the conversation, President Trump provided me with an update on the latest situation in U.S.–China relations, including the U.S.–China summit meeting held yesterday evening,” she told reporters in Tokyo. “I also responded to his question about the recent G20 summit that I attended.”
Takaichi said they affirmed the importance of continued cooperation between Tokyo and Washington under the current international situation.
“President Trump said that he would be willing to receive calls from me at any time as a close friend of his.”
Trump also said that the talk with Takaichi was “great.”
“She’s very smart, she’s very strong, and she’s going to be a great leader,” he said of the Japanese leader aboard Air Force One on Nov. 25, without disclosing the details of the exchange.
The fast-escalating spat between Tokyo and Beijing began on Nov. 7 after Takaichi, in response to a parliamentary committee question, said that a naval blockade against Taiwan may constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. She used a legal term that could enable Japan to mobilize its military.
The comments on a theoretical possibility drew furious responses and violent threats from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which views self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province to be taken by force if necessary.
China, Japan’s largest trading partner, has turned to economic measures to pressure Japan to retract the prime minister’s comments.
The regime’s foreign ministry has advised tourists against traveling to Japan, and its education ministry has asked students to plan their studies in Japan with caution. Along with postponing the release of Japanese movies in China, Beijing has stated that there is “no market” for Japanese seafood in China.
Amid a deteriorating relationship with China, Takaichi said on Nov. 26 that the government remains open to dialogue with the Chinese side.
As for a Taiwan contingency, she said the government’s stance is that it would evaluate the situation comprehensively, based on the specific circumstances that actually occurred. This position, she said, had been repeatedly stated.
She explained that her initial comments were simply to respond to a question that was limited to a Taiwan contingency and that also mentioned the blockade of sea lanes.
“Since it was asked with specific examples, I answered sincerely within that scope,” she said.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/29/2025 - 16:20 Close
Sat, 29 Nov 2025 20:45:00 +0000 The 'K-Shaped' Economy In One Graph
The 'K-Shaped' Economy In One Graph
Tuesday’s weak Consumer Confidence report was a good reminder of why some economists are calling our economy the K shaped economy .
Read more.....
The 'K-Shaped' Economy In One Graph
Tuesday’s weak Consumer Confidence report was a good reminder of why some economists are calling our economy the K shaped economy .
As RealInvestmentAdvice.com reports, The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index fell 6.8 points to 88.7 in November, below expectations of 93.
Moreover, it sits at levels similar to those of early 2020, when the pandemic shuttered the economy. Similarly, the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey is slightly above 70-year lows.
Both surveys indicate that a large majority of consumers are struggling.
Within the surveys, the outlook on current jobs and job availability is low.
Inflation, tariffs, politics, and the government shutdown are also weighing on the consumer and limiting big-ticket spending plans.
A K shaped economy describes a post-crisis recovery where different parts of the economy and society are performing at sharply diverging rates , forming the two arms of the letter “K.”:
The upper arm (going up): Sectors, companies, assets, and people that benefit from the recovery and, in many cases, are wealthier than before the pandemic. This includes investors in technology stocks, big tech companies, the luxury sectors, high-income professionals, and asset owners.
The lower arm (going down): Sectors, small businesses, and people that continue to decline or stagnate even as the overall economy appears to improve. Examples include: the hospitality and travel industries, many lower-priced retail outlets, low-wage service workers, small businesses, and many middle-class and lower-income households.
The graph below showing the stark divergence between the S&P 500 and the University of Michigan consumer survey best depicts the K shaped economy.
You can make similar K shaped plots comparing stock markets, GDP, and megacap corporate profits versus small business closures, wage growth for low-income workers, and economic activity in the manufacturing sector .
The question is - how do the jaws of that widening alligator's mouth snap shut? Sentiment surge or equity purge?
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/29/2025 - 15:45 Close
Sat, 29 Nov 2025 20:10:00 +0000 Documents Stuffed Into Burn-Bags At FBI HQ To Be Made Public: Kash Patel
Documents Stuffed Into Burn-Bags At FBI HQ To Be Made Public: Kash Patel
Documents Stuffed Into Burn-Bags At FBI HQ To Be Made Public: Kash Patel
Authored by Zachary Stieber and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times,
Sensitive documents found in burn bags at FBI headquarters will all be made public, FBI Director Kash Patel said in a new interview with The Epoch Times.
“You’re going to see everything we found in that room in one way or another, be it through investigation, public trial, or disclosure to the Congress,” Patel told The Epoch Times’ Jan Jekielek in an exclusive interview, which is set to air on EpochTV at 5 p.m. ET on Nov. 29.
Before becoming FBI director, one of Patel’s past roles was working as a congressional investigator. He was on the House Intelligence Committee team that uncovered previously unknown information about the FBI’s probe of possible links between the 2016 campaign of President Donald Trump and Russia.
The probe and fallout over the information that emerged, including the reliance on a dossier compiled on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign, has come to be known as “Russia Gate.”
Patel said on X in August that “we just uncovered burn bags/room filled with hidden Russia Gate files, including the Durham annex, and declassified them.”
The declassified annex to a report from former special counsel John Durham, whose team investigated the FBI’s actions and found that the full probe was based on unverified intelligence, was released in July by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). It showed that the FBI did not adequately review reports showing the Clinton campaign may have been promoting a false narrative connecting Trump to Russia, Grassley said at the time.
Clinton’s office has not commented on the annex. Robby Mook, Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager, has said he believed that work done by the international law firm Perkins Coie, which paid the dossier author, “was done for the purpose of providing legal services and legal advice” to the campaign.
During a hearing in September, Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.) asked Patel why somebody would place documents related to the investigation into the FBI’s probe of Donald Trump and Russia in burn bags.
Patel said he could not comment on the case because it was ongoing.
“In general terms ... a burn bag is what you use to put classified documents into, generally, because that is literally how you destroy them,” he said.
Patel told The Epoch Times that “when the United States government and agency heads want things to disappear and want things to be buried and hidden, they know how to do it.”
“But what they didn’t count on was President Trump winning, him electing leadership across the United States government to say, ‘Go, find out how they corrupted and weaponized law enforcement,’ and that’s what we did—that’s what we’re doing; that’s how we found it, and we’re going to continue to expose it.”
Patel said the FBI is working with partners in Congress to release documents, including those relating to the Department of Justice investigation into Trump for alleged unlawful interference with the transfer of power after the 2020 election, which involved obtaining records from senators’ phones.
While investigations are ongoing, “we are going to have full accountability and we are going to have full transparency for the American public,” he said.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/29/2025 - 15:10 Close
Sat, 29 Nov 2025 19:35:00 +0000 "Intense Solar Radiation" Corrupted A320 Flight Systems, Airbus Rushes Emergency Update
"Intense Solar Radiation" Corrupted A320 Flight Systems, Airbus Rushes Emergency Update
Airbus warned Friday that "intense solar radiation " may have corrupted critical flight data in an incident involving an
Read more.....
"Intense Solar Radiation" Corrupted A320 Flight Systems, Airbus Rushes Emergency Update
Airbus warned Friday that "intense solar radiation " may have corrupted critical flight data in an incident involving an A320 narrow-body aircraft . While the company did not disclose which flight was affected, it was likely last month's JetBlue Flight 1230, which suddenly dropped in altitude while en route from Newark to Cancun.
Airbus issued an Alert Operators Transmission to all airlines operating A320 Family aircraft, warning that an urgent fix is required .
The company believes this is the first time this specific problem has emerged in its fleet and says it has "proactively worked with aviation authorities… keeping safety as our number one and overriding priority," according to CNN .
"Airbus acknowledges these recommendations will lead to operational disruptions to passengers and customers ," Airbus wrote in a statement.
Airbus told CNN on Saturday that most of the narrow-body aircraft can be repaired in a matter of hours by simply reverting to the previous software. It said about 900 older aircraft would need more complicated fixes.
Here's more from the report:
American Airlines has about 209 of the aircraft which need to be updated , less than the 340 it had earlier predicted, according to a statement from the airline.
. . .
Delta Air Lines said fewer than 50 of its A321neo aircraft will be impacted and the work should be complete by Saturday morning.
. . .
JetBlue, which operates a fleet mostly made up of A320 and A321 aircraft, did not say how many of their planes needed to be fixed, but told CNN in a statement it has already started repairs.
. . .
Southwest Airlines does not have any of the impacted aircraft . Meanwhile, in the Asia-Pacific, Jetstar Airways Australia, Air New Zealand, IndiGo and Air India Express have also taken precautionary measures.
At cruising altitude, commercial jets are exposed to 100 to 300 times more solar radiation than at ground level, and a major solar storm can push that even higher .
High-energy particles can disrupt modern avionics processors , including corrupting memory or causing a logic error. While Airbus hasn't specified which exact flight systems were affected, here are the likely candidates:
Flight Control Primary Computers (FCPCs)
ADIRUs (Air Data & Inertial Reference Units)
FADEC engine control
Autopilot & flight director
Fly-by-wire actuator command modules
Latest space weather events:
Airbus' warning is an unusual confirmation of space weather risk to the modern economy...
... something we've warned about for years.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/29/2025 - 14:35 Close
Sat, 29 Nov 2025 18:25:00 +0000 Zelensky's Sacked Top Aide 'Escapes' To Front-Line To 'Hide' From Corruption Investigators
Zelensky's Sacked Top Aide 'Escapes' To Front-Line To 'Hide' From Corruption Investigators
Andriy Yermak, the man who until just over 24 hours ago was Zelensky's right hand man and the president's top most powerful aid as chief of s
Read more.....
Zelensky's Sacked Top Aide 'Escapes' To Front-Line To 'Hide' From Corruption Investigators
Andriy Yermak, the man who until just over 24 hours ago was Zelensky's right hand man and the president's top most powerful aid as chief of staff, and Ukraine's appointed chief negotiator with the US on the peace process, is going to the front lines , apparently to "fight".
After his home and offices were raided by Ukraine's anti-corruption investigators Friday related to the ongoing massive energy sector kickback scandal, Yermak announced by text message to The New York Post , "I’m going to the front and am prepared for any reprisals." He followed with, "I am an honest and decent person."
The Post added further, "He then apologized if he no longer answers calls. He did not say when or how he intended to go to the frontlines of the war against Russia."
Via Reuters
He appears to still be rejecting allegations he was involved in the graft probe, centered on at least $100 million being siphoned off by corrupt Ukrainian officials amid a series of payoffs and kickbacks.
The narrative in his defense is being spun by the same NY Post report, which suggests this is all merely 'political' due largely to jealously and growing rivalries related to the enormous decision-making influence Yermak was coming to wield :
Despite his towering frame, you might not always have spotted him. Yet, wherever President Volodymyr Zelensky was, Yermak was often not far away.
As his chief of staff, Yermak wielded enormous power at the top of government and was even trusted to negotiate on Ukraine's behalf at peace talks with the US.
But as his influence grew, so did public resentment of the power this unelected official held . His political career came to an abrupt end on Friday, hours after anti-corruption investigators raided his home in Kyiv.
But clearly his dramatic declaration of "going to the front lines" is meant to signal a sense of self-sacrificial patriotism and induce feelings of sympathy.
Oleksandr Dubinskyi, a rare and controversial oppositional lawmaker in Ukraine's parliament who has long called for Zelensky's impeachment, has a very different take based on his sources. He detailed in an X post a series of specific claims, the chief of which is that Yermak is 'hiding' from anti-corruption investigators :
I have learned where exactly he is going to “serve.”
Fact: Yermak, with his security detail, was brought to the location of commander nicknamed Madjar - one of the most media-prominent Ukrainian fighters, known for harsh Telegram rhetoric and the “Drone Wall” project. Unit commanders refuse to assign Yermak to their ranks .
He is physically present but has no tasks , no role, and no assigned position. Yermak is hiding from NABU anti-corruption investigations in a zone where detectives cannot serve him a notice of suspicion or court summons .
Separate detail: Madjar accepted Yermak only after a personal request from Zelensky. For Yermak, the front is not service. The front is a hideout . And it is interesting how people will meet Yermak - the man who organized the forced rounding-up of people in the streets of Ukraine.
Interestingly, when the teams of NABU and SAP agents searched his office on Friday, this was just meters away from President Zelensky's own office.
As a reminder, Andrew Korybko recently opined that Yermak's removal could prompt some progress in peace talks:
He’s Zelensky’s powerbroker so his downfall could undo the already shaky alliance between the armed forces, the oligarchs, the secret police, and parliament that keeps Zelensky in power, thus pressuring him into peace , especially if his warmongering grey cardinal is no longer pushing him to keep fighting.
One geopolitical source, known on X as The Islander , agrees: this is largely the result of the Trump administration finally bringing real pressure to bear on the Zelensky regime at a moment a clear, workable peace plan is on the table - which much to Kiev's chagrin features territorial concessions in the Donbass and Crimea.
According to the lengthy analysis [emphasis ZH]:
The fall of Andriy Yermak – Zelensky’s fixer, enforcer, gatekeeper, and indispensable ally, isn’t a “corruption scandal.” It’s Washington slapping the table . NABU, the U.S.-trained attack dog of Ukrainian politics, didn’t raid the Presidential Office by accident.
It raided to remind Zelensky that the war isn’t his to command, the peace process isn’t his to veto , and the leash around Bankova Street is held in Washington, not Kiev and certainly not European chihuahuas. Because the real story isn’t Yermak’s resignation. The real story is the West turning on itself over how to end a war Russia has already won .
The fall of Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s most loyal ally and the de facto power manager of Ukraine, is not a scandal. It is a strike from above. NABU, the U.S.-funded, U.S.-trained anti-corruption bureau , didn’t raid the home and office of Ukraine’s most powerful unelected official by coincidence. And in any other country, his resignation after a corruption raid would be a political scandal. In Ukraine, it’s a geopolitical detonation.
Yermak wasn’t just a chief of staff, he was the shadow architect of the regime, the man through whom every appointment, every oligarchic negotiation, every Western request, and every wartime decision had to pass. And the speed of his resignation makes clear this was less about corruption, and more about pressure — engineered, timed, and executed by the one actor that can pull such a lever, Washington .
For months, the U.S. has been split between the neocons clinging to fantasies of a battlefield reversal, and the rising bloc of realists (JD Vance et. al) who have finally accepted what the frontlines have shown for over a year, Russia has already won. Ukraine’s army is shattered, NATO’s ammunition reserves are exhausted, and American voters are done with a war that offers no victory and no strategy.
The realists now want a controlled, face-saving diplomatic exit, that locks in territorial losses quietly while Washington claims it “secured peace.” Zelensky has resisted every inch of this pivot because peace ends his power. And Yermak was the immovable pillar of that resistance, insulating Zelensky from any pressure to negotiate, the filter preventing unwanted messages from reaching the president. By purging him through a NABU raid, the U.S. has isolated Zelensky .
Meanwhile, the EU is panicking. European leaders fear peace more than war because peace forces accountability... why did they destroy their own industries, torch their energy security, plunge their economies into recession, and funnel hundreds of billions into corruption for a war Washington itself is now preparing to fold?
Brussels supported Zelensky unconditionally not out of conviction but out of sheer self-preservation. If the war ends, they must answer for the ruin they inflicted on their own populations . Europe needs perpetual conflict to postpone the political reckoning. Washington, by contrast, wants a face saving offramp. This is the real EU–US divide: Brussels wants to delay the inevitable, Washington wants to manage it, and Kiev wants to deny it. Only one of them has the power to dictate the timeline, and it isn’t Europe.
Moscow sees the Western fracture, senses the desperation, and understands its advantage. Putin’s message has been cold and consistent: either negotiations occur on terms that reflect the battlefield reality and addreses the root cause of the conflict, or Russia will continue grinding down NATO’s proxy forces until nothing remains to negotiate with.
For Russia, both paths lead to victory. Russia has no reason to rush, it is the West running out of time, weapons, unity, and credibility . And when European publics finally realize their leaders sacrificed prosperity, stability, industry, and geopolitical autonomy for a war that ended exactly where Moscow predicted it would, the political reckoning will be seismic. Yermak’s fall is not the end of an era, it marks the beginning of the collapse for the EU.
Already, President Zelensky has on Saturday announced a delegation headed by security council secretary Rustem Umerov was on its way to Washington continue talks on the Trump-proposed deal to end the war.
Umerov has been put in charge of the Ukrainian delegation at a moment Yermak is on the run toward the front lines. This is all happening very fast, and the White House can now more easily impose its will on an increasingly disunified and somewhat panicked Zelensky government.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/29/2025 - 13:25 Close
Sat, 29 Nov 2025 17:50:00 +0000 Trump Did It: Wasserman Schultz Accuses The President Of Causing The Shooting Of National Guard Members
Trump Did It: Wasserman Schultz Accuses The President Of Causing The Shooting Of National Guard Members
Trump Did It: Wasserman Schultz Accuses The President Of Causing The Shooting Of National Guard Members
Authored by Jonathan Turley,
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) has long performed a key role for many on the left. When there is an argument barred by decency or decorum, Wasserman Schultz is happy to make it, from attacking journalists in her defense of censorship to attempting to rig an election and bar Republicans from ballots as part of her defense of democracy. However, on Friday, the Florida representative set a new low in American politics: attempting to assign some of the blame for the shooting of two National Guardsmen on President Donald Trump.
On CNN’s “News Central,” Rep. Wasserman Schultz declared that
“This is a deeply concerning situation, but, you know, it’s one that I think we have to — it begs the question, would an individual have flown across the country to target law enforcement officers in Washington, D.C.? And, I mean, the answer is likely no. So why wasn‘t the president‘s first thought, ‘Wow, you know, maybe I should reconsider deploying military troops in the nation‘s capital or in any city?’ Particularly not when they haven‘t coordinated closely with the leadership of these cities and when we have law enforcement that are quite capable of handling the criminal justice issues that are — that we need law enforcement to focus on, and not our military.”
There is a good-faith debate over the deployment of National Guard personnel in cities. However, the mayor of Washington, D.C., has worked with the Administration on that deployment, and crime has fallen in the Capitol. They have been coordinating with the city.
Nevertheless, Wasserman Schultz pressed on:
“I just think, you know, the president looks everywhere except inward to blame his own policies. We need to make sure that we don‘t have our military deployed in our cities, doing — handling law enforcement responsibilities. And we need to make sure that we address gun violence. We certainly need to make sure we always have the proper and appropriate and tight, tight vetting processes, and those should be reviewed. But it‘s never the president‘s fault or his policies when it comes to his reaction, and it’s pretty disgusting.”
D.C. has some of the strongest gun control measures in the nation. Moreover, this is a crime committed with a handgun brought from another area with strong gun control, Washington State.
Wasserman Schultz is also assuming that it was the deployment that motivated the shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal , a 29-year-old Afghan national. Lakanwal entered the U.S. on September 8, 2021, under Operation Allies Welcome, a program established by former Democratic President Joe Biden after the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
The father of slain Guardsman Staff Sgt. Darin “Taylor” Hoover blamed the “feckless Biden Administration” for the death of his daughter the day of Wasserman Schultz’s statement.
Wasserman Schultz, however, does not blame former President Biden for Lakanwal’s presence in the United States. (Lakanwal, a former member of a CIA unit in Afghanistan, was reportedly granted asylum under the Trump Administration in April).
Investigators are still working to discover the motive of Lakanwal for murdering one soldier and critically wounding another. However, Wasserman Schultz feels entirely comfortable in suggesting that it was the deployment of the Guard in cities over Democratic objections. Of course, a few other possibilities come to mind. First, it could be an act of religious-based terrorism. Second, it could be an act of mental illness. Third, it could be a personal grievance with the U.S. government.
Killing soldiers in the nation’s Capitol can be appealing for any of these motivations or a combination of motivations. It is not obvious that someone travels across the country because this is where you can find personnel on the streets. After all, there are also troops deployed in other states closer to Washington state. There are also large bases in Washington state where military personnel are present in large numbers in public areas.
A shooter with any of these motivations could view the location as amplifying his grievances against the government. Wasserman Schultz seems to suggest that Trump is responsible for making troops targets due to the controversial use of the Guard and supplying targets for a terrorist.
The most important point for Wasserman Schultz is a familiar one: Trump did it.
Yet, blaming the deployment is like blaming the Republican members for the mass shooting at the 2017 softball field. After all, if they had not made themselves targets, James T. Hodgkinson would not have gone there. Hodgkinson, a former Bernie Sanders supporter, hated Republicans and would have found another gathering to carry out his murderous plan. In the same way, Lakanwal may have been on the hunt for any soldiers as a symbol of the United States in the Capitol.
The point is that we do not know. The effort to use this tragedy for political purposes is to dishonor the victims and capitalize on their deaths. Few would feel comfortable getting into the head of a homicidal madman without any evidence or support. However, that appears to be a unique skill set for Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
* * * BLACK FRIDAY SALE AT ZeroHedge Store !
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/29/2025 - 12:50 Close
Sat, 29 Nov 2025 17:15:00 +0000 Trump Declares Airspace Above Venezuela "To Be Closed In Its Entirety"
Trump Declares Airspace Above Venezuela "To Be Closed In Its Entirety"
President Trump said on Saturday on X that the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela will "be closed in its entirety."
Read more.....
Trump Declares Airspace Above Venezuela "To Be Closed In Its Entirety"
President Trump said on Saturday on X that the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela will "be closed in its entirety."
"To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP ," Trump wrote on X.
Earlier this month, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned pilots to "exercise caution" near Venezuela's airspace due to the "worsening security situation and heightened military activity.
The Pentagon has been deploying warships and other military assets in the Caribbean this year. The deployment centers around bolstering Hemispheric Defense, and the Trump administration has formally characterized Nicolás Maduro as the head of a terrorist organization and considers his government illegitimate.
Joint Special Operations Command has ordered numerous airstrikes on speed boats carrying narcoterrorists. The intent is to stop drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narcoterrorists that are part of a sophisticated network pumping drugs into America, resulting in the drug death overdose crisis that kills 100,000 Americans per year - one that the Biden-Harris regime ignored by opening borders to the third world.
On Friday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth dismissed fake news from corporate media about recent lethal kinetic strikes.
Hegseth explained:
As usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland.
As we've said from the beginning, and in every statement, these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be "lethal, kinetic strikes." The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narcoterrorists who are poisoning the American people. Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization.
The Biden administration preferred the kid gloves approach, allowing millions of people — including dangerous cartels and unvetted Afghans — to flood our communities with drugs and violence. The Trump administration has sealed the border and gone on offense against narcoterrorists. Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them.
Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict—and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.
Our warriors in SOUTHCOM put their lives on the line every day to protect the Homeland from narcoterrorists — and I will ALWAYS have their back.
Hegseth followed the post with, "We have only just begun to kill narcoterrorists ."
What the U.S. airspace shutdown over Venezuela signals:
Pressure Maduro into stepping down
Or intent to collapse the Maduro regime
Expectation of Russian/Iranian pushback
Readiness to escalate militarily
Maduro and his circle would treat this as both an existential threat, and it remains to be seen how he would respond. We guess Trump's airspace announcement only suggests talks aren't going well .
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/29/2025 - 12:15 Close
Sat, 29 Nov 2025 16:40:00 +0000 What Is Unaffordable?
What Is Unaffordable?
What Is Unaffordable?
Authored by Richard Lyons via American Greatness,
The new Democrat Party’s appeal to the public these days is that the failure of a free enterprise system has made America unaffordable and that all Americans need government help! This sort of emergency plea to the public has been made before.
In order to make housing more affordable in the early 2000s, Fannie and Freddie Mac, US government mortgage guarantor companies, began pressuring mortgage lenders to widen their rules for mortgage lending, even to include NINJA loans —No Income, No Job, No Problem—for purchasing real estate properties; then Fannie and Freddie married that expansion with marketing Adjustable Rate Mortgages, which would float according to Federal Reserve rates.
The outcome was the real estate and stock market crash of 2008. Since then, between 2009 and 2016, the fed rate was kept arbitrarily low at .75%, which inflated real estate prices; from 2020 to 2022, the fed rate was pushed down again to .25%, with the result of further increasing the average home price from $220,900 in 2010 to $420,000 in 2024. At the same time, the Federal Reserve has pushed up interest rates to 5.5%, so the average American has to pay more and borrow at higher rates for real estate, thanks to the government’s interventions to make housing more affordable.
During the Obama presidency, there was a grand push to make a university education more affordable ; that is when the whole student loan industry was taken over by the federal government. In 2010, the total US student loan debt was $772 billion; today, the total debt is $1.750 trillion.
The average student graduating today carries $30,000.00 in debt. The average price of a university education has risen from $20,000 in 2010 to $31,000 per year today, or 59% higher since the Democrat Party took over the US university financing system. The average college education costs $120,000 these days; that does not sound affordable. It sounds like every single student needs a loan…
In the mid-1960s, the Democrat Party dominated Washington, D.C., and as part of the Great Society, decided to make healthcare (you got it!) more affordable.
With that, Medicare was created at an initial cost of $3 billion in 1967. Since 1967, the cost of Medicare has increased 370X, to an annual cost to the taxpayers of $1.12 trillion per year. Medicaid began as a $1 billion program and has since increased to $909 billion per year today. Even with this government control and expenditure, the average cost per capita is $13,432 per year, compared to the average cost per capita of other developed nations of $7,393. Aren’t costs supposed to go down or remain stable when the government creates affordability?
Even with the government’s control and expenditure, by 2010, healthcare in America was still deemed “unaffordable” to the Democrat Party. In answer to the problem, the Obama administration created the Affordable Care Act, which went into effect in 2014. In 2013, the average consumer paid $232 for their monthly premium, with an average deductible of $2,425. Today, that same consumer must pay $621/month or $7,452/year while having $6,000 in deductibles. Premiums and deductibles are expected to increase by 25% again in 2026. The Affordable Care Act is becoming more unaffordable by the day.
In 2020, the Biden administration decided the Earth could not afford the use of fossil fuels any longer, so it began an all-out effort to strangle the fossil fuel industry through regulations and executive orders that made land leases and drilling unaffordable, giving rise to a 38% inflation spike in the costs of energy products.
Inflating the costs of energy affects literally everything in an economy that is produced, warehoused, or delivered: think of the factories and machines that do the manufacturing, the warehouse heating or cooling needed to store product, and the ships, trains, and trucks needed to get product to the stores, then what about the light, heat, and refrigeration… Strangling the energy sector of an economy creates a gusher of inflation affecting every single product from fruits and vegetables to meats and dairy. During Biden’s administration, inflation rose 20%.
An inflation rate of 20% also means that every person who had put away savings of $100,000 by 2020 was worth $80,000 by 2024.
Midway through Biden’s term, the administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act , which pushed trillions of dollars into green energy “investments” and expansions of healthcare payouts, none of which helped to reduce inflation.
It turned out to be just another Democrat act that neither the taxpayer nor the consumer could afford.
Now we have the new mayor of New York , claiming that socialist policies will make life more “affordable” by taking over rental properties, grocery stores, transportation lines, and utility companies.
The fact is, the Democrats create our nation’s unaffordability problems by advancing (quasi-socialist) government control of energy, healthcare, education, finance, and housing sectors. And then Democrats propose to solve the problems their policies create with the solution of the government taking the same sectors over entirely through socialism.
What has proven to be unaffordable for over half a century in this country is pseudo-socialism. Apparently, the Democrat Party believes in the aspiration of advancement through failure. We, as voters, need to let the Democrats know we understand and reject their policy failures.
What is no longer affordable are Democrat policies that pervert the virtuous American free enterprise system, which has been the cornerstone of this nation’s prosperity since its founding.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/29/2025 - 11:40 Close
Sat, 29 Nov 2025 16:05:00 +0000 Bessent Set To Pull The Plug On Federal Benefits For Illegal Aliens
Bessent Set To Pull The Plug On Federal Benefits For Illegal Aliens
Under President Trump's direction, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is "working to cut off federal benefits to illegal aliens and preserve them for U.S. ci
Read more.....
Bessent Set To Pull The Plug On Federal Benefits For Illegal Aliens
Under President Trump's direction, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is "working to cut off federal benefits to illegal aliens and preserve them for U.S. citizens ."
"Treasury announced that it will issue proposed regulations clarifying that the refunded portions of certain individual income tax benefits are no longer available to illegal and other non-qualified aliens, covering the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Additional Child Tax Credit, the American Opportunity Tax Credit, and the Saver’s Match Credit ," Bessent wrote late afternoon on Friday.
Bessent's move to cut federal benefits to illegal aliens comes hours after President Trump's lengthy X post that describes a national crisis driven by nation-killing open borders . Trump claims there are 53 million foreign-born residents, many of whom supposedly rely heavily on welfare and contribute to rising social dysfunction such as crime, school failures, hospital strain, housing shortages, and deficits.
"A migrant earning $30,000 with a green card will get roughly $50,000 in yearly benefits for their family . The real migrant population is much higher. This refugee burden is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America, something that did not exist after World War II (Failed schools, high crime, urban decay, overcrowded hospitals, housing shortages, and large deficits, etc.)," the president said.
The failures of the Democratic Party are piling up, and the consequences are growing, spanning fraud, terrorism, and rising public outrage:
Don’t stop at cutting off funding to illegal aliens. It’s time for Bessent’s team to go after the dark-money billionaire-funded NGOs and leftist activist groups that helped facilitate the nation-killing migrant invasion .
* * * BLACK FRIDAY SALE AT ZeroHedge Store !
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/29/2025 - 11:05 Close
Sat, 29 Nov 2025 15:30:00 +0000 Europe's New Thought-Policing 'Chat Control' Legislation Nudges Forward
Europe's New Thought-Policing 'Chat Control' Legislation Nudges Forward
Europe's New Thought-Policing 'Chat Control' Legislation Nudges Forward
Authored by Christina Comben via CoinTelegraph.com,
Representatives of European Union member states reached an agreement on Wednesday in the Council of the EU to move forward with the controversial “Chat Control” child sexual abuse regulation, which paves the way for new rules targeting abusive child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on messaging apps and other online services.
“Every year, millions of files are shared that depict the sexual abuse of children… This is completely unacceptable. Therefore, I’m glad that the member states have finally agreed on a way forward that includes a number of obligations for providers of communication services,” said Danish Minister for Justice, Peter Hummelgaard.
The deal, which follows years of division and deadlock among member states and privacy groups, allows the legislative file to move into final talks with the European Parliament on when and how platforms can be required to scan user content for suspected child sexual abuse and grooming.
The existing CSAM framework is set to expire on April 3, 2026, and is on track to be replaced by the new legislation, pending detailed negotiations with European Parliament lawmakers.
EU Chat Control laws: What’s in and what’s out
The EU’s efforts to make scanning of private messages compulsory suffered a setback earlier this month, when mandated client-side scanning was removed from the latest proposal draft . Wording was also added to ensure that providers were not unduly burdened with detection obligations:
“Nothing in this Regulation should be understood as imposing any detection obligations on providers.”
In its latest draft, the EU Council keeps the core CSAM framework intact, but service providers would also have to cooperate with a newly established EU Centre on Child Sexual Abuse to support the implementation of the regulation.
While the latest EU Council text removes the explicit obligation of mandatory scanning of all private messages, the legal basis for “voluntary” CSAM detection is extended indefinitely.
A compromise that satisfies neither side
To end the Chat Control stalemate, a team of Danish negotiators in the Council had worked to remove the most contentious element: the blanket mandatory scanning requirement. Under previous provisions, end-to-end encrypted services like Signal and WhatsApp would have been required to systematically search users’ messages for illegal material .
Still, it’s a compromise that leaves both sides feeling shortchanged. Law enforcement officials warn that abusive content will still lurk in the corners of fully encrypted services, while digital rights groups argue that the deal still clears the way for broader monitoring of private communications and for mass surveillance, according to a Thursday Politico report.
Lead negotiator and chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs in the European Parliament, Javier Zarzalejos, urged both the Council and the Parliament to enter negotiations immediately. He stressed the importance of establishing a legislative framework to prevent and combat child sexual abuse online, while respecting encryption.
Source: Javier Zarzalejosj
“I am committed to work with all political groups, the Commission, and member states in the Council in the coming months in order to agree on a legally sound and balanced legislative text that contributes to effectively prevent and combating child sexual abuse online,” he said.
The Council celebrated the latest efforts to protect children from sexual abuse online; however, former Dutch Member of Parliament Rob Roos lambasted the Council for acting similarly to the “East German era, stripping 450 million EU citizens of their right to privacy.” He warned that Brussels was acting “behind closed doors,” and that “Europe risks sliding into digital authoritarianism.”
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov pointed out that EU officials were exempt from having their messages monitored. He commented in a post on X, “The EU weaponizes people’s strong emotions about child protection to push mass surveillance and censorship. Their surveillance law proposals conveniently exempted EU officials from having their own messages scanned.”
Privacy on trial in broader global crackdown
The latest movement on Chat Control lands in the middle of a broader global crackdown on privacy tools. European regulators and law-enforcement agencies have pushed high-profile cases against crypto privacy projects like Tornado Cash, while US authorities have targeted developers linked to Samurai Wallet over alleged money-laundering and sanctions violations, putting privacy-preserving software into the crosshairs.
In response, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin doubled down on the right to privacy as a core value. He donated 128 ETH each (about $760,000) to decentralized messaging projects Session and SimpleX Chat, arguing their importance in “preserving our digital privacy.”
Session president Alexander Linton told Cointelegraph that regulatory and technical developments are “threatening the future of private messaging,” while co-founder Chris McCabe said the challenge was now about raising global awareness.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/29/2025 - 10:30 Close