CryptoFire

Trump: "We're in a position we haven't seen. We're respected. You know, our country now is respected all over the world. A year and half ago we were a laughingstock. The King of Saudi Arabia told me."

Trump turns to Patel after Stephen Miller praises him for five minutes and says, "So Kash, see if you can top that. That's a tough one, Kash." "That is tough," Patel replies, and then he starts praising him too

Amanda’s story is unique. She’s been targeted since she was at least 15 yo & was trapped in a relationship with a powerful older man who spent 20+ years abusing her in various ways. Then when she finally broke free & found freedom, Paolo used his influence to have ICE deport her.

Donald Trump’s family continues to become strategic investors and advisers to the military contractors getting government contracts and profiting off of the wars Donald Trump is starting. This is corruption.

Once again, people really underestimate how powerful and secure the US is, which is why they keep hoping against all evidence to the contrary that something terrible will befall to Americans because of their foreign policy blunders that will finally make them learn and stop doing stupid shit. But even in the worst case scenario, where Trump orders a ground invasion and it turns into a quagmire that lasts years, Americans will be fine. They will be harmed, but less than almost everyone else, because the US will be relatively insulated from the both the energy shock and the economic slowdown that will result from it since it's a net exporter of energy and is probably the least trade-dependent major economy. Moreover, while the cost will be huge even for Americans, it will be relatively invisible because 1) it will be very diffuse, 2) Americans are so rich that even a much larger cost per capita would still leave them very well-off and 3) people won't really see it for the same kind of reasons that Bastiat explained a long time ago in his parable of the broken window. For the rest of the world, especially some of the poorest people, it will be a different story, but Americans mostly won't feel much. Even the invasion of Iraq, which is widely seen as one of the worst foreign policy blunders in US history and cost the US trillions of dollar, didn't make such a huge difference for Americans. They complain about it and talk about how it was a terrible mistake, but for the average American it was mostly a non-event, for the same reasons I just mentioned. I also don't think it will have the effects some people think on US influence in the world in general and in the Middle East in particular. It's not going to end the role of the dollar and I don't think Gulf states will abandon their alliance with the US either. Where else would they go? It's not as if China was going to protect them from Iran or as if they had a lot of attractive yuan-denominated assets to buy with their earnings from oil and gas exports. To be clear, I don't say that to defend this stupidity or to deny that it will have large costs even for Americans in absolute terms (to say nothing of the effects it will have on the rest of the world), I'm just saying that people are fooling themselves if they think that it will teach Americans a lesson. At best it will be a very short-lived lesson they will forget after a few years because it won't matter much for them.

BREAKING: Just five minutes before Trump's announcement to halt the attacks on Iran, massive trades reportedly hit the market. In one move, $1.5 billion in S&P 500 (ES) futures was bought while $192 million in oil (CL) futures was sold. These orders were 4–6x larger than anything else at the time. The trader seemingly made huge gains. Unusual.

BREAKING: Just five minutes before Trump's announcement to halt the attacks on Iran, massive trades reportedly hit the market. In one move, $1.5 billion in S&P 500 (ES) futures was bought while $192 million in oil (CL) futures was sold. These orders were 4–6x larger than anything else at the time. The trader seemingly made huge gains. Unusual.