CNN Misinformation

Hey CNN

What's up with this headline? (10/15/2025)

Is Hamas killing someone? I can't find anything about this in the linked article.

 

 

Financial Engineering

My guess is that any description like the paragraph below (emphasis by TNB) is a red flag for future financial problems.

First Brands’ implosion is ripping through private credit – and lenders are scrambling to contain the fallout 

First Brands, founded in 2014 and owned privately by Singapore-born investor Patrick James, quickly grew through acquisitions of other auto parts companies across the U.S. It was fuelled by an assortment of off-balance sheet private debt and broadly-syndicated bank financing, as well as other non-traditional lending structures, much of which was backed by outstanding invoice receivables, factoring and other supply chain financing, often involving special purpose vehicles and collateralized loan obligations.  

 

 

Argentina

A good article on the current state of affairs in Argentina.

Things Are Getting Seriously Surreal in Milei’s Argentina 

So, in sum, the Trump administration is preparing a potentially open-ended bailout (because that is what it will probably end up being) to a government that was already bailed out by the IMF, the World Bank and the InterAmerican Development Bank just six months ago. And that government, just like Ecuador’s US-aligned Noboa administration, has proven ties to drug traffickers.

Meanwhile, the US is vaporising boats in the Caribbean Sea that it claims are carrying drugs without presenting a single shred of evidence. It is also escalating its threats against Venezuela, even warning of strikes against land targets. 

 

Foreign Aid

The US Spent Over $31 Billion Aiding Israel in the Past Two Years

The Cost of War Project at Brown University calculated that total US military support to Israel over the past two years has cost US taxpayers over $30 billion. Israel has received over $21 billion in military aid from the US and Washington has bombed Iran and Yemen for Tel Aviv.  

Drill Baby Drill

Dallas Fed Survey Reveals Slowdown in U.S. Oil Sector

For the second consecutive quarter, drilling and completion activity declined. Operators are scaling back exploration budgets, and the aggressive growth that defined shale’s early years has given way to more measured operations. That shift comes despite oil prices that, while still historically high, are no longer delivering the outsized returns that emboldened companies a decade ago. 

 

 

Inflation

Yeah, free government money during the post-COVID 2020s helped spark inflation but the real inflation fire was corporate profits going through the roof. 

 

 

Corporate Profits in Nonfinancial Industries Plunge by Most Ever in $, amid Massive Downward Revisions 

The Liberal Media Isn't

LG&M: We Are Not the Same  commenting on this The People Who Are Still Convinced Kamala Won

Imagine sitting down to write an article about claims of election fraud, and thinking to yourself “wow, these claims happen on both sides!” And then imagine not mentioning that the Democratic candidate in 2024:

    Conceded
    Made no claim that the election was fraudulent
    Made no effort to browbeat the party into supporting that claim
    Refrained from launching a failed coup d’etat in support of those claims
    Has yet to spend four years repeating and extending those claims.

Imagine sitting down to write that article, and not talking about any of those things. I consider myself to be an educated and imaginative man, but I’m really struggling to wrap my mind around this one. Or to put this differently (and I apologize in advance for the emphasis) WHAT IN THE EVER LIVING FUCK HAS TO BE WRONG WITH YOU TO THINK IT’S WORTH AN ARTICLE IN THE ATLANTIC COMPARING A FEW FRINGE WHACKADOODLES ON THE LEFT WITH THE CURRENT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?

I’ll wait. 

Christian Zionists

10 people who should be kept far away from the reins of power in the US.

 

Trump - Free Speech

Our president making threats over free speech. 

Kimmel pulls no punches as he ramps up battle with Trump 

 Shortly before Kimmel's return, the president wrote that the host puts his network "in jeopardy", that Kimmel is a Democrat mouthpiece and amounts to "a major Illegal Campaign Contribution", and that "I think we're going to test ABC out on this".

"Let's see how we do," the president continued. "Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative."

Trump - Corruption

Tariffs make this sort of thing easy. 

Does Anybody Care This Is the Worst Bribery Scandal Since Teapot Dome? 

The UAE put $2 billion into World Liberty Financial, then got export restrictions lifted on AI chips. Nothing to see here, move along.

 

In May, Zach Witkoff, the 32-year-old son of the billionaire Steve Witkoff, announced at a Dubai conference—while sitting beside Eric Trump—that he’d collected $2 billion from one Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who controls the sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates. That $2 billion purchased a stablecoin called USD1 from World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm of which Witkoff père et fils are co-founders, and in which the Trump family owns a 60 percent stake. It was, according to Binance (another participant in the deal), “the single largest investment into a crypto company” that the world had ever seen.

Around the same time that Zach announced the UAE investment, his father, Steve Witkoff, said he was divesting his own stake in World Liberty Financial. Four months later, though, the White House says Witkoff is “still in the process of divesting.” (High-ranking Trump officials are notorious slowpokes in this regard.)

What was worth $2 billion to UAE? By what we’re supposed to believe is sheerest coincidence, two weeks after Zach Witkoff announced Sheik Tahnoon’s stablecoin purchase, President Donald Trump agreed to allow the UAE to import a large quantity of U.S.-produced AI computer chips, with many of those chips going to a company named G42 that just happens to be controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon. Previously, the Biden administration had sharply limited how many such chips could go to UAE because the country conducted joint military exercises with China, with which G42 had multiple business partnerships. The UAE didn’t like being told no, so after Trump entered office it negotiated a better deal—with, among others, Steve Witkoff.