Zerohedge

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix news,

Tesla owners in Vienna are increasingly finding threatening flyers placed on their vehicles, warning them of potential vandalism and public backlash if they do not sell their cars.

The notes, which have appeared on multiple vehicles in recent days, are part of an apparent campaign by left-wing extremists who have made Tesla — and its CEO, Elon Musk — a target due to his political positions and support for populist parties across Europe.

One flyer, titled “Our condolences! It’s not your fault. It will only be your fault if you don’t act now”, warns Tesla owners that they are driving a vehicle associated with “right-wing agitator” Elon Musk.

The note urges drivers to sell their cars while they still can, hinting at consequences such as public shaming and criminal damage to the vehicle.

The leaflet reads: “Now you own a car that you may be ashamed of, whose value has gone to its knees and you have to be afraid every night that someone will scratch a big ‘fuck Tesla’ into your paintwork.” 

The document continues with suggestions such as speaking to employers about removing Tesla vehicles from company fleets, and even discussing the matter with friends and family in an effort to ostracize the brand.

The campaign is not limited to Vienna. Similar anti-Tesla actions have been reported in several other European cities. In Berlin and Paris, Teslas have been defaced with spray paint and stickers labeling drivers as supporters of “right-wing conspiracy.” In Amsterdam, demonstrators have held protests outside Tesla garages and engaged in confrontations with drivers, calling their cars “capitalist machines” and demanding they abandon them.

In March, an arson attack that knocked out power to a Tesla factory and parts of Berlin was claimed by a left-wing terror group.

“Together, we are bringing Tesla to its knees. Switch off for Tesla. Greetings to everyone on the run, in the underground in prisons and in the resistance! Love and strength to all Antifa,” read a letter by the perpetrators published in the German media.

The vandalism is, in part, fueled by left-wing politicians who have made inflammatory remarks about Musk and his company.

In January, after Musk endorsed the Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of the country’s federal elections, Poland’s Sports Minister Sławomir Nitras said, “I can only say this much, listening to these words: Probably no normal Pole should buy a Tesla anymore.”

Berlin Senator Cansel Kiziltepe, of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), went further earlier this week, comparing Tesla to “Nazi cars.”

“Who wants to drive a Nazi car? Manufacturers of electric cars are experiencing a sales boom – apart from Tesla,” she said.

Authorities in Vienna have not yet commented on the distribution of these flyers, but some Tesla owners have expressed concern for their safety and the security of their property, according to Austrian news outlet Exxpress.

Read more here…

The first rule of diplomacy is you never directly say what you mean, and you never, ever say what you mean you say.

Japan’s finance minister, Katsunobu Kato, forgot the first rule and it can cost Japan dearly.

Addressing a question on a Tokyo TV program on Friday, Japan FinMin Kato said the country’s $1.1 trillion in Treasury holdings – the highest of any foreign creditor – could be a “negotiation card” in its trade talks with Washington but “whether or not we use that card is a different decision.” In other words, Japan is threatening to sell some/all of its $1.1 trillion in bonds if tariffs are imposed.

Well, of course, such a move could be a “card”… and as we saw so vividly on April 8 when yields exploded higher amid a furious liquidation of basis trades and/or dumping by both China and Japan, it already has been a “card.”

But the last thing Japan would want to do as its enter the critical tariff negotiation phase, is remind Trump that it may well have a, pun intended, trump card against the US, if only enough to infuriate the president and shake the Fed out of its stupor by forcing it to re-engage QE and purchase anything Japan has to sell… which is precisely what Trump wants! 

Or, as the Treasury strongly hinted yesterday, failing debt monetization by the Fed, Bessent could just dramatically expand its Treasury buyback program and gobble up any sell orders emerging from Tokyo and/or Beijing.

In short, this is the nuclear button for Japan… but good luck engaging in “amicable” trade negotiations, as a result of which the export-heavy Japan simply has to reach a deal – by daring to speak of the one thing everyone in high finance should know is unspeakable. And certainly everyone in Japan, a nation in demographic crisis with 400% in total debt/GDP which has trillions in direct and indirect dollar exposure via the current account and unhedged foreign holdings, which is faced with just as powerful a nuclear button in the form of the Fed’s USD swap lines. 

Because if Japan were to start dumping Treasuries, sure – it will send yields surging for a few days – but then the Fed/Treasury will step in to buy all the excess supply, but not before Trump orders a global dollar funding squeeze margin call on counterparts such as Japan, one which will require Tokyo to quickly spit up a few hundred billion, and Japan simply does not have absent the Fed wiring the cash instantly via swap lines… as it did every day for months on end during covid

So no, the reality is that Japan does not have a long-term bargaining chip, unless its political elite is so dumb it believes it can threaten the US by going after the very thing Japan desperately needs, the world’s reserve currency.

Which apparently is the case, because as a shocked Tsuyoshi Ueno, executive research fellow at NLI Research Institute said just minutes after the TV remarks, “Katsunobu Kato’s comments on US Treasuries could be interpreted as  dangerously provoking the US government.“

He added that for the US, unstable long-term rates are a concern, and having Japan continue to hold US Treasuries is beneficial, while maintaining fiscal soundness and the dollar’s status as the reserve currency are important issues that would have positive effects in the medium to long term. Translation: chaos in the US would be painful, but it would be catastrophic for Japan.

Furthermore, Ueno noted that while Japan has never easily sold its holdings of US Treasuries, the fact that it is now actively seeking other options is evidence of its desperation. Worse, Japan’s stance is to keep exchange rate policy separate from tariff policy, and using this card could lead to spillover effects on exchange rate issues. Translation: today’s sharp drop in the yen could become an unstoppable waterfall, which finally sparks the hyperinflation that Japan has been fighting for decades.

Others were just as stumped: a befuddled Daisaku Ueno, chief currency strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ, said that given that negotiations are underway between Japan’s top trade representative Akazawa and US Treasury Secretary Bessent, the statement was likely made to avoid confusion, with a focus on playing it safe. Unfortunately, it came off as just the opposite, potentially threatening to derail any deal, which would be a catastrophic outcome for Tokyo.

Westpac also chimed in, noting that Japan is “clearly disappointed” with trade negotiations so far given the nation is a strong ally with the US. “As Theodore Roosevelt said, ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’ — and Treasuries are a big stick,” Martin Whetton, head of financial markets strategy, said of Japan Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato’s comments on US government debt as a negotiation card

“It means when the trade negotiations start, they have some cards” adding that “Japan is clearly disappointed that as such a strong ally, they have been treated this way.” Of course, it will be far more disappointed if it starts dumping Treasuries.

Finally, as Win Thin, global head of markets strategy at BBH said, Kato’s threat is “a double-edged sword” as “threatening to dump an asset that you are sitting on huge pile of means that you can hurt yourself in the process.”

He added that “as far as I can recall, China has never played that card before and so I’m a bit surprised that Japan is thinking about it.”

His conclusion is that “the key takeaway is that Japan is not going to roll over easily to US demands and is starting to push back.”

And now we wait and see how Trump reacts when Japan decides to “push back” – surely, the measured US president’s reaction will be cool, calm and collected, and result in the best possible outcome for all…

Via Middle East Eye

US President Donald Trump asked his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, for American ships to enjoy free passage through the Suez Canal in an April phone call, as the US presses ahead with its bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen.

Trump has made no secret of his belief that US vessels should transit the strategic waterway for free. On Saturday, he publicly demanded as much, saying the canal “would not exist without the United States of America.” One Egyptian MP was reported as characterizing the Trump administration’s moves as blackmail and rubbished Trump’s claim about the canal’s existence, saying it was “purely Egyptian”.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Trump raised the issue with Sisi directly this month. The two leaders spoke on April 1.

An Egyptian readout of the call stated that the two leaders “discussed developments in the Middle East and mediation efforts to restore calm to the region, which reflects positively on navigation in the Red Sea.”

At the end of 2024, Egypt’s presidential office said the country had lost at least $7bn in Suez Canal revenue.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump told Sisi the US wanted Egyptian support for its campaign against the Houthis, including military assistance, intelligence sharing and funding, because the US bombing campaign would help to restore traffic through the Red Sea and Suez Canal. Sisi sidestepped the request and told Trump the best way to address the Houthi threat was a ceasefire in Gaza.

The conversation dovetails with Trump’s public messaging on the Suez Canal. His reasoning also aligns with that of private discussions between US senior officials, as revealed in a leaked Signal group chat earlier this year.

“As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return,” one person identified in a group chat started by national security advisor Mike Waltz was revealed as saying in The Atlantic.

The person was identified as SM, which appears to refer to Trump adviser Stephen Miller. “If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost, there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return,” the Signal user said. 

Trump’s demand for Egypt to provide military support or economic assistance to the US is a stark reversal in the two countries’ post-war relationship, which usually has it the other way around. 

The US brokered the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Since then, the US has provided roughly $1.3bn in military aid to Egypt. But ties between Egypt and the US have been dented by Israel’s war on Gaza. US diplomats in Cairo have tried to dissuade the Trump administration from pressing Egypt to accept forcibly displaced Palestinians, Middle East Eye reported previously. 

Egyptian officials are already simmering with anger at the US for siding with Israel when the latter seized Gaza’s southern city of Rafah in May 2024 and accused Egypt of being negligent in policing the border.

MEE revealed in March that the UAE, a close patron of Egypt, was lobbying the Trump administration against a plan that Cairo introduced to the Arab League for post-war governance of the Gaza Strip.

According to US and Egyptian officials, the US has told Egypt it is considering cutting military aid. The officials say the threat to cut aid stems from frustration within Trump’s inner circle that Egypt has refused to accept forcibly displaced Palestinians.

#US aircraft carriers pass through the Suez Canal… without fees and #Egyptians watch and cannot do much. #Trump said he won’t pay. https://t.co/Hyz0mVfMpu

— Observer (@nasermoh29) May 1, 2025

Trump’s call for Sisi to support the US bombing campaign against the Houthis is not the first time Sisi has had to resist appeals to become involved in Yemen. Egypt was one of the first countries to leave a Saudi-led coalition that was bombing the Houthis in 2016.

Egypt has a long history in Yemen, and the Arabian Gulf country is often equated to Egypt’s “Vietnam” by Arab officials – a play on the US’s gruelling war in Asia. During the 1960s, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser intervened in Yemen’s civil war, backing so-called Republicans against Royalists.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Russia wants the world to know that North Korea might play a larger role in the conflict…

Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov’s acknowledgement that North Korean troops helped expel Ukraine from Kursk ended around nine months of speculation about their role in the conflict. Rumors began to circulate after Russia and North Korea updated their strategic partnership last June and reaffirmed its mutual defense clause. Western, Ukrainian, and South Korean media then alleged that North Korea sent troops to help Russia while the Kremlin reacted coyly to these reports.

It was only in late October that a clearer picture began to emerge after Putin lent credence to these claims by saying that “Images are a serious thing. If there are images, then they reflect something” upon being asked about satellite images of North Korean troop movements. He also said during the same press conference that “We know who is present there, from which European Nato countries, and how they carry out this work”, thus hinting at Russia’s motive in requesting North Korea’s assistance in Kursk.

Adversarial media’s reports about North Koreans fighting within Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders remain unconfirmed, including the disputed regions that Russia claims as its own in their entirety, but it’s now an indisputable fact that they were fighting within Russia’s universally recognized borders. Kursk region was invaded by Ukraine last August as part of an ultimately failed ploy to swap whatever it could occupy there for some of the Ukrainian-claimed land under Russian control.

Just like Ukraine reportedly requested Western assistance for fighting Russia inside its pre-2014 borders per Putin, who also accused the West of assisting Ukraine’s attacks inside Russia’s universally recognized borders, so too did Russia request North Korea’s assistance for fighting Ukraine in Kursk. His motive was therefore to reciprocally respond to the West’s direct but still unofficial military involvement in the conflict by having North Korea enter the fray on Russia’s side in a similarly clandestine manner till now.

This segues into the why North Korea would agree to Russia’s request, which was presumably for aid (agricultural, military-technical, and space-related) and experience, the latter with regard to having its troops learn how to fight a modern war in case of future hostilities with the South. Given the mutual defense basis for complying with this request, Russia could return North Korea’s favor in that event, the scenario of which might deter its enemies from provoking a war in the peninsula like Pyongyang fears.

Officially acknowledging North Korea’s role in Kursk might have been more about sending a message to Ukraine, however, since the precedent of Putin claiming that the West assists its attacks inside Russia’s universally recognized borders could lead to North Korea participating in an expanded ground offensive. 

Russia might make a major push in Sumy, Kharkov, and/or even Dniepropetrovsk regions, all universally recognized as Ukrainian, either during the ongoing peace talks or especially if they collapse.

The Damocles’ sword of large-scale North Korean involvement in any offensive might be sufficient for coercing Ukraine into concessions or crushing its forces but it could also backfire if the US doubles down on its military aid to Ukraine in response as part of a policy of “escalating to de-escalate”. In any case, Russia wants the world to know that North Korea might play a larger role in the conflict, thus making its official acknowledgement a powerful but risky diplomatic card to play at this pivotal moment.

Thursday saw President Trump and the US Treasury unleash a new sanctions pile-on against Iran, with a new rollout of secondary sanctions targeting Iranian oil and petrochemical products, sending crude prices higher on the day…

“They will not be allowed to do business with the United States of America in any way, shape, or form,” the President wrote on Truth Social in combination with a Treasury statement. It’s as yet unclear precisely how such sanctions will be implemented, with the most extreme or ‘nuclear option’ being naval intervention against vessels transporting Iranian oil.

The main warning and teeth behind it centers on the threat that any nation buying oil or petrochemicals from the Islamic Republic will be barred from doing any business with the US.

“Any Country or person who buys ANY AMOUNT of OIL or PETROCHEMICALS from Iran will be subject to, immediately, Secondary Sanctions,” Trump stated in the post. Oil had quickly jumped 2% on the mid-afternoon announcement.

Trump is clearly setting out to negotiate from a position of “strength” amid his maximum pressure campaign, aimed at getting Tehran to sign on to a fresh nuclear agreement.

Talks have apparently hit some logistical hurdles, or perhaps Trump’s new secondary sanctions have resulted in jitters and renewal of anger and lack of trust from Iranian leadership:

A fourth round of Iran-US talks over Tehran’s nuclear program has been postponed.

Iran said the two countries, along with facilitators Oman, had jointly decided to postpone Saturday’s meeting in Rome for “logistical and technical reasons”. The US said the timing of the talks had not been confirmed in the first place.

Is this an intentional stall?

Surely it’s also a shot across China’s bow, given that it imports over a million barrels per day from Iran, and for years amid Tehran’s isolation has been the biggest buyer of Iranian crude.

As for when US-Iran talks might resume, after relatively ‘positive’ prior recent rounds, Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi emphasized Thursday on X that Tehran’s “determination to secure a negotiated solution” had not changed.

He wrote: “In fact, we are more determined than ever to achieve a just and balanced deal: guaranteeing an end to sanctions, and creating confidence that Iran’s nuclear program will forever remain peaceful while ensuring that Iranian rights are fully respected.”

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has announced a new policy that reduces the default withholding rate to 50 percent for recovering Social Security benefit overpayments under Title II, the federal program covering retirement and disability insurance.

The change, outlined in an “emergency message” dated April 25, comes less than a month after the agency raised the withholding rate to 100 percent of monthly benefits—up from a prior 10 percent—to recoup overpayments. The initial sharp increase drew criticism from some lawmakers and advocates, who warned that full withholding could harm some lower-income Americans who rely on Social Security to meet basic needs.

Under the updated directive, any overpayment notice issued on or after April 25 will automatically carry a 50 percent withholding rate. Beneficiaries will have 90 days to respond—either by contesting the overpayment, requesting a waiver, or negotiating a lower repayment rate. If no action is taken within that window, the SSA will start withholding half the monthly benefit until the overpayment is fully repaid.

The updated rules do not apply to Title XVI overpayments, such as those involving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients, who still face the 10 percent withholding rate. The revised policy also excludes cases involving fraud or similar fault, which follow different recovery procedures.

The shift marks the third related policy change in just over a year. In March 2024, the agency lowered the default withholding rate from 100 percent to 10 percent, citing the wish to ease financial hardship for affected Americans.

“It’s unconscionable that someone would find themselves facing homelessness or unable to pay bills, because Social Security withheld their entire payment for recovery of an overpayment,” Martin O’Malley, then Commissioner of Social Security, said at the time.

That policy was reversed last month, on March 27, when SSA reinstated full 100 percent withholding, citing fiscal responsibility and an estimated $7 billion in savings over the next decade.

“We have the significant responsibility to be good stewards of the trust funds for the American people,” Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, said in a statement.

Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.) criticized the increase as “unconscionable,” arguing that overpayments are not the fault of beneficiaries and overpaid recipients who rely on Social Security to make ends meet would face undue hardship if their entire checks were suddenly seized.

With its latest decision to cut the withholding rate in half, the SSA appears to be seeking a middle ground between fiscal responsibility and potential beneficiary hardship.

The agency disbursed roughly $1.4 trillion in benefits in fiscal year 2023 across its retirement and disability programs, according to the agency’s 2024 financial report. Of that amount, around $3.3 billion—or 0.24 percent—was classified as overpayments.

SSA’s overpayment recovery practices have come under increasing scrutiny from lawmakers and watchdogs in recent years, particularly for the stress they impose on beneficiaries who may have had little or no role in the errors.

In a November 2023 letter, Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) urged the agency to minimize overpayments and protect recipients from abrupt financial disruption, especially when the mistakes stem from agency error.

The Government Accountability Office has echoed those concerns, noting that the majority of disability beneficiaries who return to work eventually face overpayments—often amounting to thousands of dollars due to complex reporting rules and processing delays.

The SSA says it has launched an internal review and is working to expand data-sharing with payroll systems to help reduce payment errors.

It’s an old dictum but it remains true that you never want to interrupt your enemies when they are making a mistake.  That said, it’s oh so tempting to analyze the behavior of the Democratic Party as a perfect representation of blind cultism.  How did they plunge from the heights of the Obama Administration and near complete control of American culture to the depths of the Biden Administration, the Kamala Harris campaign and the degeneracy of woke groomers?

One could follow the root back to the problem of absolutism; leftist never admit when they are wrong and they always double down because they think they are the ultimate arbiters of ethics.  Even with the abject failures of Kamala Harris during the 2024 elections the Democrats continue to claim that the “real reason” they lost, the real reason their public approval numbers are at historic lows, is because they “need to do the same things they’ve been doing, but do them harder”.  

This is why the progressive movement is dead in the water.  They just can’t accept that the majority of Americans fundamentally do not like them, their polices or their beliefs.  Most Americans can’t connect to the hypocrisy, and they certainly don’t want to hear criticisms of the Trump Administration by the same people who lied incessantly and failed the country in every way imaginable.

An army of naysayers, primarily among Democrats, have gone on the attack against Trump’s tariffs using obviously scripted terminology, repeating the word “chaos” over an over again in the hopes that it will stick.  In reality, most of the “chaos” has come from the political left trying to disrupt or sabotage Trump’s efforts in any way they can. It’s almost like the 2024 campaign never ended, but that’s how these people operate. 

Kamala Harris, an economic illiterate and possibly one of the most embarrassing candidates the Democrats have ever fielded, has suddenly slithered up from the wreckage of her recent White House bid to regurgitate the same predictable talking points.  She says the tariffs are creating chaos; she also claims that she predicted they would cause a recession and she’s here to say “she told us so”. 

One could argue that recession factors were already heavily present during the Biden Administration, but Democrats are hoping most people don’t actually know what a recession is.

The chaos narrative is a scheme to tap into a subset of the population that innately fears change or reform.  Keep in mind, four years of Biden and Harris brought nothing but total chaos to the US, but economically they did maintain the status quo.  The status quo being the perpetual march into stagflatiory crisis, ever higher prices, ever higher taxes and less economic freedom for the average citizen. 

What the public is desperate for is to try something different, but anytime new fiscal policies are suggested they are immediately and viciously degraded as a trigger for “chaos”. 

These arguments come from people (like Harris) that don’t have the slightest understanding of America’s financial situation.  At this stage, a recession and some moderate deflation would be a welcome development given that the Biden regime helped to inflate prices on necessities beyond what most people in the middle class can afford.  And, if Trump can actually convert tariffs into government revenues to replace the income tax as he has promised, then the economic renaissance that would result would be unmatched.

To be fair, it is in many ways a gamble.  If tariffs are applied for the long term they will require subsequent and speedy manufacturing development on US soil.  This is happening already on a limited scale.  There is also the likelihood that prices on many imported goods will rise.  However, a focus on lowering the costs of domestic necessities like food, energy and housing is what needs to be prioritized (not plastic Chinese trinkets) and sticking with the inflationary trends of globalism is not going to help.     

Harris and Democrats want to tie Trump and conservatives to the economy like an anchor and throw it overboard in the hopes that their ideological opponents will be dragged to the bottom.  They are also overestimating the public’s capacity for forgiveness when it comes to the damage the Dems have already done.  At no point have they offered any practical solutions to the dangers facing the US system. Furthermore, they are greatly underestimating the American desire to see the globalist system crash and burn.  People are cheering the death of globalism, not living in fear of it.

Authored by David Bruce Smith via RealClearPublicAffairs,

John and Abigail Adams envisioned an America with a school in every neighborhood and a well-informed citizenry that was adept in languages, literature, and music, as well as science, history, and religion. Their vision was practical until the ages recast it, little by little.

Then sometime between Joseph McCarthy and Joan Baez, the status quo of the educational system came undone.

Students who had been accustomed to a traditional 50/50 split between the humanities and the sciences were capsized academically by the surprise Sputnik launch in 1957. The U.S.’s race to space sent higher education into a tizzy, becoming fixated on improving science education above all. In the succeeding seven decades, resources have consistently risen for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), which has been to our benefit. But this has come at an unnecessary cost: the humanities have been downplayed, devalued, and dodged.

That uneven ratio has bestowed an unfortunate historic illiteracy on three generations. Most people, for example, do not know the philosophical roots of the Declaration of Independence, their rights as laid out in the Constitution, or the civic virtues their teachers should have taught them. For these three reasons, many Americans do not vote in local, state, or national elections.

Even amid this crisis of civic illiteracy, only about 18% of colleges and universities nationwide require the study of history and government in their general education programs. In years past, when the architecture of academe was different, a plethora of institutions, such as Harvard, Rice, Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins, and William & Mary, proffered requirements for focused classes in American history. But their phase-out – begun in the 1960s – was practically completed by 2000.

According to a report from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, nowadays, at Columbia University, “Students must take at least nine courses to graduate with a B.A. in history. Of these courses, four must be in a chosen field of geographical, chronological, or thematic specialization, and three must be outside of the specialization, including one course removed in time and two courses removed in space.” In other words, the major requires exposure to a variety of histories – none of which need touch on America.

That gap in Columbia’s history major requirements is deeply troubling, though it at least has a Contemporary Civilization requirement in its signature core curriculum for undergraduates that addresses founding documents and key concepts of United States government. Meanwhile, at Colgate University, which has no such option in its general education requirements,

“Students choose one of two pathways to graduate with a B.A. in history. Both require nine courses. The Field of Focus (FoF) Pathway requires one history workshop, seven electives….. The FoF Pathway allows students to devise individualized, intellectually coherent specializations. Possible fields of focus include environmental history, gender and sexuality, and race and racism.”

This reorientation away from the study of American history – even as a point of reference for students who are focusing their studies on other parts of the world – is now the norm in the American academy. In the 2020–21 academic year, 18 of the top 25 public universities did not have a wide-ranging American history requirement for students seeking a B.A. in history in the major or core curriculum, nor did 24 of the 25 best national schools.

Even the legendary linchpins of the liberal arts – Amherst, Swarthmore, Vassar, Smith, Williams, and Pomona – fared poorly: 21 out of 25 colleges examined did not have an American history requirement.

The consequences of forgoing the study of American history have a powerful effect on the population. Much of what is not learned – or stays uncorrected – turns into the misinformation that is so damaging in a free and democratic society.

When 8th graders were asked in 2011 to choose a “‘belief shared by most people of the United States,’ a majority (51 percent) picked ‘The government should guarantee everybody a job,’ and only a third chose the correct answer: ‘The government should be a democracy.’”

In 2015, 10% of college graduates believed Judy Sheindlin – TV’s “Judge Judy” – was a member of the Supreme Court.

In 2019, ACTA found that 18% of American adults thought New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was the architect of the New Deal, a package of programs introduced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933. Twenty-six percent believed Brett Kavanaugh was the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, along with another 14% who identified Antonin Scalia, although he had been dead for two years at the time of the survey. Only 12% knew the 13th Amendment freed the slaves in the United States. And 30% thought the Equal Rights Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote.

In 2024, an ACTA survey of college students showed that fewer than half identified ideas like “free markets” and “rule of law” as core principles of American civic life. The survey also found that 60% of American college students failed to identify term lengths for members of Congress. A shocking 68% did not know that Congress is the branch that holds the power to declare war. Seventy-one percent did not know when 18-year-olds gained the right to vote.

All of these results were based on multiple-choice questions. All the respondents had to do was select the correct option out of four possibilities.  

The late Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2001 to 2009, admonished, “Unlike a monarchy, a democracy is not automatically self-perpetuating. History and values have to be renewed from generation to generation.” Our failure to educate future citizens for informed civic participation compromises the country. Institutions need to take ACTA’s findings to heart and, starting with their requirements for the history major, embrace their obligation to address the crisis in civic education.  

David Bruce Smith is the founder of the Grateful American® Foundation and co-founder of the Grateful American® Book Prize.

Futures spiked, moving back to session highs and forgetting all about the bitter taste from disappointing results from Amazon and Apple, following news from Bloomberg that China was “assessing the possibility of trade talks with the US” the first sign since Donald Trump hiked tariffs last month that negotiations could begin between the two sides.

China’s Commerce Ministry said in a Friday statement that it had noted senior US officials repeatedly expressing their willingness to talk to Beijing about tariffs, and urged officials in Washington to show “sincerity” towards China.

“The US has recently sent messages to China through relevant parties, hoping to start talks with China,” the ministry added. “China is currently evaluating this.”

Of course, the Chinese spin is one in which the Trump admin reached out first, and which the US pro-China media will promptly use to hammer Trump with, resulting in an even quick denial by the president and thus, China, thereby erasing any hope of an overture, one which won’t come until both sides are quite desperate.

For now, however, the reaction to the flashing red headline was stark as &P 500 erased early losses in Asia while a gauge of regional equities also turned positive after the statement. The offshore yuan edged stronger, while the Australian dollar, a China proxy, also extended gains.

The statement signals the stalemate between the world’s two largest economies could shift, after Trump hiked US tariffs to the highest level in a century and Beijing retaliated in kind.

Trump has repeatedly said President Xi Jinping needs to contact him in order to begin tariff talks and earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it’s up to Beijing to take the first step to de-escalate the dispute; China has done the same.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The State Department recently instructed employees to report workers who exhibited anti-religious bias, including bias against Christians, according to a cable obtained by The Epoch Times.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the April 11 cable directed State Department employees to a reporting form and instructed them to provide “information regarding any Department or individual practices involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration (2021-2025); and recommendations to the Secretary of State to remedy any anti-religious bias at the Department.”

The cable was obtained by The Epoch Times via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Employees could provide information anonymously, Rubio said.

The submitted information would be collated, he said, to help the department contribute to an interagency report required by President Donald Trump’s February order aimed at halting anti-Christian discrimination.

“It is the policy of the United States, and the purpose of this order, to protect the religious freedoms of Americans and end the anti-Christian weaponization of government,” Trump wrote in the order, which alleged that during the Biden administration, government officials “engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses,” such as bringing charges against people who demonstrated outside facilities that perform abortions.

Rubio said that while the order focused on anti-Christian bias, targeting anyone for their religious beliefs violates the Constitution, so people can report other instances of anti-religious bias.

The cable listed examples such as being mistreated for requesting religious exemptions from mandatory vaccination or observing religious holidays; being forced to remove displays of religious faith from desks and clothing; and being mistreated for refusing to participate in activities with themes that ran counter to religious beliefs, such as those “related to preferred personal pronouns.”

The State Department declined to say whether any employees have been fired or otherwise disciplined for exhibiting bias against Christians. “As a general practice, we do not comment on internal personnel matters,” a spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email on April 30.

Last week, Rubio participated in the first meeting of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias in the federal government, which was created by a Trump executive order.

During that meeting, Rubio raised some of the reported allegations of bias, including claims that Christian Foreign Service officers who homeschooled their children were either reported to the IRS or threatened with a child abuse investigation, according to a Department of Justice readout.

He also disclosed that State Department employees were called “murderers” and “troublemakers” for opposing the government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on religious grounds.

“In one instance, an ambassador yelled at an employee, accusing the employee of wanting to kill the ambassador’s mother despite her being back in the States,” the readout stated.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in an April 22 statement that “Biden’s Department of Justice abused and targeted peaceful Christians while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses,” adding, “Thanks to President Trump, we have ended those abuses, and we will continue to work closely with every member of this Task Force to protect every American’s right to speak and worship freely.”