The Shitshow Macro Weekly Wrapup Podcast for Friday, February 21, 2025 is out:
Domestic:
-Many members of the US media seem like they either never watched Schoolhouse Rock as kids, don’t understand the basics of civics, or they know better and are purposely obtuse in their attempts to cause division & anger along political lines by misreporting the way that things are supposed to work.
--Take 2 minutes out of your day to watch Stephen Miller give a civics lesson to the media on the Presidential authority vested in the office by the Constitution and as the only official in the entire government in whose votes come from the entire US population:
--From @TimRunsHisMouth :
x.com/TimRunsHisMout…
-At a meeting with the 50 state Governors today, President Trump urged them to move their voting systems to paper ballots, which is only 8% of the cost of the machines (that are not auditable, take longer to count for some reason, are more costly, and are susceptible to hacking):
--From @BehizyTweets :
x.com/BehizyTweets/s…
--For those who don’t know, requiring voter ID has 77% nationwide support
-President Trump signed a memorandum today (Friday) directing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) to restrict China’s investment in strategic areas:
finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-cfi…
-Judge Nichols has (today) denied the restraining order that was seeking to prevent the Trump administration from pausing USAID grants & funding flows to look for fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption.
--For a non-lawyer and English translation of the order, here’s a thread from @ProfMJCleveland who has been tracking this filing:
x.com/ProfMJClevelan…
-Mitch McConnell announced this week that he will not seek re-election in 2026.
-The Senate voted to confirm Kash Patel yesterday (Thursday), and he was officially sworn in today (Friday).
Congressman Tim Burchett has stated that he thinks DOGE will find a lot of foreign aid payments finding their way back to members of Congress.
--The article from @TheLastRefuge2 below has some other interesting insights about Social Security anomalies that were discovered this week.
-Both Elon and Trump spoke publicly about social security payments going to millions of people who were over 100 years old (some much older).
--The pushback focused on an archaic coding language possibly misinterpreting their ages - but that wasn’t the biggest revelation.
--The big one is that there are somewhere around 60mm more people listed in the Social Security database than there are American citizens.
theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/02/1…
--Here’s another take on the Social Security revelations from Real Clear Investigations:
realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/…
-Similarly, a lot of revelations have been made this week about Climate Change funds that were spent in the waning days of the Biden administration.
--James O’ Keefe captured undercover video of an EPA executive claiming they were “throwing gold bars off the Titanic” before Biden left office, and we’re only starting to get some tracking of where funds went.
--It’s being reported by @FreeBeacon that Jahi Wise was tasked with directing Biden’s $27 billion in climate grant funding for the EPA, allocated $5 billion of that to his former employer, and then went back to work where he had directed the funds after Biden left office:
freebeacon.com/energy/activis…
--A non-profit that is being said to be linked to Stacy Abrams was sent $2 billion despite only having $100 in its account, no prior performance or history, and seemingly having been created for the sole purpose of receiving these funds:
--From Americans for Public Trust ( @apublictrust ):
x.com/apublictrust/s…
-Yet another USAID revelation that came out this week was that US taxpayers have been funding the far left network that installed “Soros DAs” and prosecutors in US cities that have gone lenient on crime:
thepoliticsbrief.com/usaid-gave-27-…
Domestic:
-Many members of the US media seem like they either never watched Schoolhouse Rock as kids, don’t understand the basics of civics, or they know better and are purposely obtuse in their attempts to cause division & anger along political lines by misreporting the way that things are supposed to work.
--Take 2 minutes out of your day to watch Stephen Miller give a civics lesson to the media on the Presidential authority vested in the office by the Constitution and as the only official in the entire government in whose votes come from the entire US population:
--From @TimRunsHisMouth :
x.com/TimRunsHisMout…
-At a meeting with the 50 state Governors today, President Trump urged them to move their voting systems to paper ballots, which is only 8% of the cost of the machines (that are not auditable, take longer to count for some reason, are more costly, and are susceptible to hacking):
--From @BehizyTweets :
x.com/BehizyTweets/s…
--For those who don’t know, requiring voter ID has 77% nationwide support
-President Trump signed a memorandum today (Friday) directing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) to restrict China’s investment in strategic areas:
finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-cfi…
-Judge Nichols has (today) denied the restraining order that was seeking to prevent the Trump administration from pausing USAID grants & funding flows to look for fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption.
--For a non-lawyer and English translation of the order, here’s a thread from @ProfMJCleveland who has been tracking this filing:
x.com/ProfMJClevelan…
-Mitch McConnell announced this week that he will not seek re-election in 2026.
-The Senate voted to confirm Kash Patel yesterday (Thursday), and he was officially sworn in today (Friday).
Congressman Tim Burchett has stated that he thinks DOGE will find a lot of foreign aid payments finding their way back to members of Congress.
--The article from @TheLastRefuge2 below has some other interesting insights about Social Security anomalies that were discovered this week.
-Both Elon and Trump spoke publicly about social security payments going to millions of people who were over 100 years old (some much older).
--The pushback focused on an archaic coding language possibly misinterpreting their ages - but that wasn’t the biggest revelation.
--The big one is that there are somewhere around 60mm more people listed in the Social Security database than there are American citizens.
theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/02/1…
--Here’s another take on the Social Security revelations from Real Clear Investigations:
realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/…
-Similarly, a lot of revelations have been made this week about Climate Change funds that were spent in the waning days of the Biden administration.
--James O’ Keefe captured undercover video of an EPA executive claiming they were “throwing gold bars off the Titanic” before Biden left office, and we’re only starting to get some tracking of where funds went.
--It’s being reported by @FreeBeacon that Jahi Wise was tasked with directing Biden’s $27 billion in climate grant funding for the EPA, allocated $5 billion of that to his former employer, and then went back to work where he had directed the funds after Biden left office:
freebeacon.com/energy/activis…
--A non-profit that is being said to be linked to Stacy Abrams was sent $2 billion despite only having $100 in its account, no prior performance or history, and seemingly having been created for the sole purpose of receiving these funds:
--From Americans for Public Trust ( @apublictrust ):
x.com/apublictrust/s…
-Yet another USAID revelation that came out this week was that US taxpayers have been funding the far left network that installed “Soros DAs” and prosecutors in US cities that have gone lenient on crime:
thepoliticsbrief.com/usaid-gave-27-…
--Staying on this thread, I’ve had this article from The Daily Wire bookmarked since Q4 last year that dug into how George Soros (or his network) controls US prosecutors:
dailywire.com/news/documents…
--Along the same lines, media and BlueAnon have repeated the “NOBODY VOTED FOR ELON!” mantra ad nauseum since the election.
--They never want to talk about Alex Soros and his “trophy” pictures with every high-level progressive politician in the US and Europe, though. Matt Palumbo digs into that below:
newsbusters.org/blogs/business…
-If you have a hard time believing or digesting all of the USAID revelations that have come out in the past 30 days, the article and interview linked below are from an interview with the former USAID Chief Operating Officer and Chief Assistant to the Acting Deputy Administrator outlining that yes, it really was that bad:
dailysignal.com/2025/02/20/for…
War/Military:
-It looks like President Trump has fired the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General CQ Brown
-The US State Department has officially listed 8 cartel, gang, and transnational terrorist groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).
--This seems like a “gimmie” to many civilians, but the official designation opens up specific authorities, like Title 10 (military) and Title 50 (covert action).
--The groups are:
--Tren de Aragua
--MS-13
--Sinaloa Cartel
--Jalisco New Generation Cartel
--United Cartels
--Northeast Cartel
--Gulf Cartel
--Michoacan Family
-RUS has retaken ⅔ of the Kursk territory from UKR:
theepochtimes.com/world/russia-h…
-On the other side of the coin, UKR troops successfully repelled an attempted RUS motorcycle attack in the Donetsk region:
--Yes, you read that correctly. They were launching a Mad Max-style attack on motorcycles:
sofx.com/footage-shows-…
-The opening talks to see if there is a desire to find an amicable peace have begun, with RUS and the US starting with allowing each other to staff their embassies in each others nations again:
theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/02/1…
-While these are not peace talks, and much of what is going on has been grievously misreported in various aspects of the media, Catherine Herridge sat down for an interview with Marco Rubio who outlined the current Statecraft strategies of the US:
x.com/C__Herridge/st…
-As mentioned by Rubio in the interview above, Zelensky was not honest about his talks with them and then his version of it that he told to the media:
theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/02/1…
--Note: reports started coming out as I was writing that Zelensky did agree to sign a mineral rights deal - but I need to dig into that a little more deeply.
-And of course, the EU nations that have been instigating this war to continue to escalate now say they won’t send troops without US troop involvement:
theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/02/1…
-The nation of Ecuador has publicly announced it will seek foreign SOF assistance in its battle against cartels and organized crime within the nation:
sofx.com/ecuador-seeks-…
-Three empty busses filled with explosives were detonated near Tel Aviv (Israel) on Thursday, but there
were no injuries or other casualties:
sofx.com/three-buses-de…
-Turkey is set to take control of a base in Eastern Chad (Africa) after France’s withdrawal:
sofx.com/turkey-to-take…
-The Department of Veterans Affairs have granted/extended additional GI Bill benefits to veterans with multiple service periods (in which one may qualify for Montgomery and another for post-9/11):
sofx.com/additional-gi-…
Markets/economics:
-If you are a macro investor or someone interested in understanding “the big picture,” Tucker Carlson recently released an interview with one of the greats, Ray Dalio, and recorded (but has not yet released) another with Luke Gromen (who is in “The List” at the end of each of these Monday & Friday wrap ups).
--Here’s the interview with Dalio:
x.com/TuckerCarlson/…
tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-ra…
--I’ll post the Gromen interview when it’s published.
dailywire.com/news/documents…
--Along the same lines, media and BlueAnon have repeated the “NOBODY VOTED FOR ELON!” mantra ad nauseum since the election.
--They never want to talk about Alex Soros and his “trophy” pictures with every high-level progressive politician in the US and Europe, though. Matt Palumbo digs into that below:
newsbusters.org/blogs/business…
-If you have a hard time believing or digesting all of the USAID revelations that have come out in the past 30 days, the article and interview linked below are from an interview with the former USAID Chief Operating Officer and Chief Assistant to the Acting Deputy Administrator outlining that yes, it really was that bad:
dailysignal.com/2025/02/20/for…
War/Military:
-It looks like President Trump has fired the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General CQ Brown
-The US State Department has officially listed 8 cartel, gang, and transnational terrorist groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).
--This seems like a “gimmie” to many civilians, but the official designation opens up specific authorities, like Title 10 (military) and Title 50 (covert action).
--The groups are:
--Tren de Aragua
--MS-13
--Sinaloa Cartel
--Jalisco New Generation Cartel
--United Cartels
--Northeast Cartel
--Gulf Cartel
--Michoacan Family
-RUS has retaken ⅔ of the Kursk territory from UKR:
theepochtimes.com/world/russia-h…
-On the other side of the coin, UKR troops successfully repelled an attempted RUS motorcycle attack in the Donetsk region:
--Yes, you read that correctly. They were launching a Mad Max-style attack on motorcycles:
sofx.com/footage-shows-…
-The opening talks to see if there is a desire to find an amicable peace have begun, with RUS and the US starting with allowing each other to staff their embassies in each others nations again:
theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/02/1…
-While these are not peace talks, and much of what is going on has been grievously misreported in various aspects of the media, Catherine Herridge sat down for an interview with Marco Rubio who outlined the current Statecraft strategies of the US:
x.com/C__Herridge/st…
-As mentioned by Rubio in the interview above, Zelensky was not honest about his talks with them and then his version of it that he told to the media:
theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/02/1…
--Note: reports started coming out as I was writing that Zelensky did agree to sign a mineral rights deal - but I need to dig into that a little more deeply.
-And of course, the EU nations that have been instigating this war to continue to escalate now say they won’t send troops without US troop involvement:
theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/02/1…
-The nation of Ecuador has publicly announced it will seek foreign SOF assistance in its battle against cartels and organized crime within the nation:
sofx.com/ecuador-seeks-…
-Three empty busses filled with explosives were detonated near Tel Aviv (Israel) on Thursday, but there
were no injuries or other casualties:
sofx.com/three-buses-de…
-Turkey is set to take control of a base in Eastern Chad (Africa) after France’s withdrawal:
sofx.com/turkey-to-take…
-The Department of Veterans Affairs have granted/extended additional GI Bill benefits to veterans with multiple service periods (in which one may qualify for Montgomery and another for post-9/11):
sofx.com/additional-gi-…
Markets/economics:
-If you are a macro investor or someone interested in understanding “the big picture,” Tucker Carlson recently released an interview with one of the greats, Ray Dalio, and recorded (but has not yet released) another with Luke Gromen (who is in “The List” at the end of each of these Monday & Friday wrap ups).
--Here’s the interview with Dalio:
x.com/TuckerCarlson/…
tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-ra…
--I’ll post the Gromen interview when it’s published.