🇺🇸🇲🇽 A War in Mexico would mean War in America

The Global Drug Trade is valued 200-300 billion per year the vast majority of which passes through the Central American Cartels… If they capture merely 1/3-1/2 of that that’s more than the value of all foreign Aid to Ukraine since the start of the war… And they do that every year.

This is in addition to all the money the Cartels receive from protection rackets they run, the cartelization of other industries they’ve affected (every avocado you buy is significantly overpriced thanks to their schemes), and the massive amount of money they and their associates bring in by effectively taking over and governing large swathes of Mexico, mostly under a Mexican Government coat of paint. US Northern Command estimates 30-35% of Mexico is effectively ungoverned, ie. Cartel Governed… that’s an area the size of Texas and a population comparable to Iraq.

A US intervention against the Mexican Cartels would be taking on organized forces that have been under arms longer than the Taliban, are better funded than Ukraine, Have a population and territory bigger than Saddam had in Iraq, and some of whom, as in the case of the Los Zetas Cartel, are themselves former Special Forces trained by American Green Berets.

- Anarchonomicon

🇺🇸🇲🇽 A convoy of vehicles crossing into Mexico from the US was attacked by armed civilians early Saturday, and nine people, including American citizens, were wounded with gunshots.

- Bloomberg

🇺🇸🇺🇦 The anonymous intelligence official says with a straight face "if you count on us paying $2 billion a week for the next 5 years, it could look broadly similar."

- LinguaMachina

🇺🇸📉 New container bookings for US imports are in a free fall with no signs of slowing.

This trend is eerily similar to late ‘08 and through ‘09 when the GFC caused a decline in import volumes (20-30% y/y) that took another 4-5 years to catch back up to the trend line from ‘03-‘07.

- Henry Byers

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Destruction of a Ukrainian BMP-1 by an FPV drone

🇺🇸🏦 Delinquency rates at small banks rise to 7.5%, the highest on record.

Meanwhile, delinquency rates at large banks are at 2.9%, well below levels seen at small banks, but up from a low of ~1.5%.

The same banks that almost collapsed in the regional bank crisis have exposure to historically high delinquency rates.

- The Kobeissi Letter

🇺🇸🏦 Regional and Local Banks are exposed to roughly $1 trillion worth of commercial real estate 👀 Is this a problem?

- Barchart

🇷🇺🇺🇲 The SVR invites US citizens to work who are not satisfied with the situation in the country under Biden.

🇺🇸📉 US office vacancy rate just hit record highs. A storm is coming for regional banks.

- Game of Trades

🇺🇸🏦 A wave of corporate debt refinancing over the next 6 months will spark a recession in 2024 warns Fidelity International.

- Barchart

🇺🇸 Some National Guard units haven't followed order to ditch Confederate items: report

📝 "If the Democrats were smart the fact provincial military units are starting to get increasingly defiant of the Federal government should be making them nervous."

https://www.foxnews.com/us/some-national-guard-units-havent-followed-order-to-ditch-confederate-items-report

🇺🇸📉 “Units in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia have so far not complied with an order to turn over Confederate battle streamers to the Army's Human Resources Command as the deadline to do so has passed, according to a report from Military.com.”

🇺🇸 For the first time, 13 presidential libraries have joined to make a public declaration over their concern for U.S. democracy. It emphasizes the need for compassion, tolerance and pluralism while urging Americans to respect democratic institutions.

- Associated Press

🇺🇸🪖 Secessionist sentiments in the United States, measured by polling in 2021.

Of note, the Southern States have a majority of Republicans and almost a majority of Independents in favor of Secession.

🇺🇸📚 160 Years Ago, the Battle of the Wilderness

Scarce had we moved a step when General Lee, in front of the whole command, raised himself in his stirrups, uncovered his grey hairs, and with an earnest, yet anxious voice, exclaimed above the din and confusion of the hour, “Texans always move them!”

Never before in my lifetime or since, did I ever witness such a scene as was enacted when Lee pronounced these words, with the appealing look that he gave. A yell rent the air that must have been heard for miles around, and but few eyes in that old brigade of veterans and heroes of many a bloody field was undimmed by honest, heart-felt tears.

Leonard Gee, a courier to General Gregg, and riding by my side, with tears coursing down his cheeks and yells issuing from his throat exclaimed, “I would charge hell itself for that old man.”
 
- Private Robert Campell, 5th Texas Infantry

🇺🇸 🦅 Nothing more starkly divides Americans than guns. Handing gun owners their wet dream (second only to red dawn), does nothing but energize the militant right and convert others to join them. 

The firearm manufacturing base is in red states where we're already seeing companies cut off blue states from supply, including law enforcement and state agents. Blue State locals have also refused gun grabs outside of major cities.

There is a surge in first-time gun owners spurred by the common threat environment in America today. Something akin to South Africa, where the population lives in different centuries simultaneously.

Arresting peaceful Americans won't suppress them, it just creates more men with nothing left to lose.

🇺🇸🪖 ⚡️🇺🇸 The United States increasingly seems to be sleep walking into a crisis the likes of which it has not seen since the late 1850s…

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Covering a group of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers with a VOG dropped from a quadcopter in the Kupyansk direction.