North Carolina Rep. Tricia Cotham, who won election to a deep-blue Charlotte-area seat as a Democrat just five months ago, changed parties Tuesday — an extraordinary move that gives Republicans more power to override gubernatorial vetoes in the state House and push their agenda through the legislative process.

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Livingstone College to host ATF recruitment event

The law enforcement agency is seeking to diversify its workforce.

The mission of the ATF in this case is to diversify the criminal justice landscape by recruiting fellow Blue Bears to the agency.

SALISBURY, N.C. (WBTV) – Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Special Agent Tanisha Jeter, a Livingstone College alumna, is coming to Livingstone College on April 5 and she’s bringing a host of law enforcement personnel with her.

The mission: To diversify the criminal justice landscape by recruiting fellow Blue Bears to the agency.

Like many other criminal justice entities across the country, diversifying the workforce is a top priority for ATF in order to help change the system from within. And what better way to accomplish that than by visiting colleges and recruiting graduating seniors.

The ATF’s Law Enforcement Leaders of America (LELA) will host a panel discussion from 9-11:30 a.m. on April 5 at the Tubman Theater on the campus of Livingstone College. It is open to all students, regardless of major or classification. Students from other schools are also invited.

Read the Whole Article Here…

The state of Oregon is denying the application of a woman who wants to adopt because she is a Christian and will not agree to support gender transition if the child she adopts ends up being trans.

This is where the left has planned to take this argument from the start. It’s a backdoor way to openly discriminate against people of faith.

They don’t care about the welfare of children, they care about spreading their ideology.

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As the Wisconsin high stakes spring election came to a close, election officials in Green Bay reported a voting machine malfunctioned which caused the city to borrow an election machine from Brown County.

City Clerk Celestine Jeffreys reported an election machine malfunctioned at the Green Bay Botanical Garden voting station.

After voters noticed the machine stopped working, officials replaced it but the replacement machine didn’t work either.

Election officials then tried to replace the new machine with another machine but that too didn’t work.

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Spoiler: the liberal candidate won over the conservative candidate. Liberals now control the Wisconsin Supreme Court because “nonpartisan” candidates for this position.

h/t WRSA

Malaysia is reviving a decades-old proposal to create an Asian Monetary Fund to reduce dependence on the U.S. dollar, with China being open to talks about the matter.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim proposed the fund last week, Bloomberg reported.

“When I had a meeting with President Xi Jinping, he immediately said, ‘I refer to Anwar’s proposal on the Asian Monetary Fund’, and he welcomed discussions,” Anwar, who also serves as the country’s finance minister, told the Malaysian parliament on Tuesday.

“There is no reason for Malaysia to continue depending on the dollar,” he added.

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Source

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The total Federal debt held by foreign and international investors is currently $7.2 trillion. Let’s put that into perspective:

1. Costs of the 20-year war on terror: $8 trillion and 900,000 deaths.
2. US and its allies have frozen more than $58 billion from Russian oligarchs.
3. Seven countries have frozen assets barring Russia from at least $284 billion.
4. Putin’s War in Ukraine Has a Trillion-Dollar Price Tag.
5. Inflation example: From 2014 through today, the inflation rate was 27.1% . That means that a ten year UST lost almost $2 trillion of $7.2 trillion (not accounting for the interest paid on the T-bills). Ask SVB how that worked out for them.

My point is that the USD is quickly becoming worthless. If we see it in our everyday lives, foreign countries and leaders see it also. Let’s consider China:

China slips away from Treasuries but sticks with dollar bonds

China’s holdings of U.S. Treasuries last year shrank by $173.85 billion, Bertaut and Judson’s figures show, the second-largest fall on record after the $189 billion slump in 2016, around the time of China’s mini devaluation.

Beijing’s stash of U.S. government bonds ended last year at $862.3 billion, the lowest since May, 2010, according to Refinitiv data.

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Now consider the cost of a war with the United States for China. It would be cheaper for China to dump their US treasuries and collapse the US dollar than fight a war. And when China dumps their treasuries, they will get at least 50% of their investment.

Russia already has had their assets illegally seized or frozen. The end result after one year of sanctions is a strong economy, low inflation and higher profits on their commodity sales. Do you think the rest of the world is missing this point? How much value do you put in the full faith and credit of the United States’ government.

David DeGerolamo

RELEASE

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine

April 4, 2023

Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) announces critical new security assistance for Ukraine. This includes the authorization of a Presidential Drawdown of security assistance with more ammunition for U.S.-provided HIMARS, air defense interceptors, and artillery rounds that Ukraine is using to defend itself, as well as anti-armor systems, small arms, heavy equipment transport vehicles, and maintenance support essential to strengthening Ukraine’s defenders on the battlefield valued at up to $500 million. 

In addition, we are announcing a significant package of air defense capabilities, as well as artillery and tank ammunition, mortar systems, rockets, and anti-armor systems using $2.1 billion in Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) funds.

The Presidential Drawdown is the thirty-fifth such drawdown of equipment from DoD inventories for Ukraine that the Biden Administration has authorized since August 2021. 

The capabilities in this package include:

• Additional munitions for Patriot air defense systems;
• Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS);
• 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds;
• 120mm mortar rounds;
• 120mm and 105mm tank ammunition; 
• 25mm ammunition;
• Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles;
• Approximately 400 grenade launchers and 200,000 rounds of ammunition;
• 11 tactical vehicles to recover equipment;
• 61 heavy fuel tankers;
• 10 trucks and 10 trailers to transport heavy equipment;
• Testing and diagnostic equipment to support vehicle maintenance and repair;
• Spare parts and other field equipment.

Under USAI, the DoD will provide Ukraine with:

• Additional munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS);
• Nine counter-Unmanned Aerial System 30mm gun trucks;
• 10 mobile c-UAS laser-guided rocket systems;
• Three air surveillance radars;
• 30mm and 23mm anti-aircraft ammunition;
• 130mm and 122mm artillery rounds;
• 122mm GRAD rockets;
• Rocket launchers and ammunition;
• 120mm and 81mm mortar systems;
• 120mm, 81mm, and 60mm mortar rounds;
• 120mm tank ammunition;
• Javelin anti-armor systems;
• Anti-armor rockets;
• Precision aerial munitions;
• Approximately 3,600 small arms and more than 23,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition;
• Seven tactical vehicles to recover equipment;
• Eight heavy fuel tankers and 105 fuel trailers;
• Armored bridging systems;
• Four logistics support vehicles;
• Trucks and ten trailers to transport heavy equipment;
• Secure communications equipment;
• SATCOM terminals and services;
• Funding for training, maintenance, and sustainment.

Unlike Presidential Drawdown, USAI is an authority under which the United States procures capabilities from industry rather than delivering equipment that is drawn down from DoD stocks. The announcement of this USAI package represents the beginning of a contracting process to provide additional capabilities to Ukraine’s Armed Forces.

The United States will continue to work with its Allies and partners to provide Ukraine with capabilities to meet its immediate battlefield needs and longer-term security assistance requirements.

Source

The United States and much of Western Civilization generally have been experiencing a perfect storm of economic, social, and political calamities and misery.  Is it only a coincidence that this expanding misery and civilizational destruction followed the accumulating confusion of sharp declines in faith, spiritual discernment, respect for truth, and private and public standards of morality? Indeed. it brings to mind the words of Isaiah 5:20: [All verses ESV except as noted.]

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”

In London on May 10, 1983, on the occasion of the awarding the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, the recipient, Russian Orthodox author,  Christian social commentor and  scholar, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, began by reminiscing to a distinguished audience.

“More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia:”

“Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”

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h/t Dee Sams

You would think that the US Secretary of the Treasury would focus on the state of the US economy instead of a Democrat talking point. Imagine if “climate change” was restricted in the same manner as people who were warning about the mRNA gene therapy. I suppose this illegal regime only silences the truth and promotes misinformation and misdirection.

David DeGerolamo

U.S. farmers last fall reportedly planted their largest winter wheat area in eight years, but many of those added acres are in very poor condition due to drought, potentially minimizing their impact on production.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday pegged 28% of the U.S. winter wheat crop in good or excellent (GE) condition, the lowest for early April since 1996. That compares with 34% at the end of November and 30% at the start of April 2022.

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The stock market is closed on Good Friday. What would I do if I wanted to destroy the United States’ economy? I would wait until the close of trading on Thursday and then release a statement signed by several countries (Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, India, North Korea and Brazil would be more than enough) that they are converting to a new currency based on based on oil and gold.

When the Asian markets start to open after 9:30 PM on Thursday evening, US stocks, bonds and treasuries will collapse. Oil will quickly hit $100 a barrel and $2000 gold will be a memory. The banking sector in this country and other Western nations will also collapse and the banks may not open on Monday. The average American will have no way to sell their savings/pension as they can do nothing but watch as the full faith and credit of the United States falls to zero.

David DeGerolamo

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Gold & Bonds Soar After Weak Jobs, Manufacturing Data;

Rate-Cut Odds Soar

Spot Gold soared back above $2020. The precious metal has only ever been higher than this on seven days in history…

Treasury yields are plunging…

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