KF

[Selene Mariposa @Selene_Mariposa]

The World Cup has turned America into a discovery channel for the rest of the world.

And they are not handling it well.
In the best possible way.

Here is what they are discovering:

Free public restrooms. Europeans pay every time.
Free water at every restaurant. Just appears.
Free refills. Coffee. Sodas. Iced tea. Unlimited.
Free chips and salsa before you even order.
Free warm bread with dinner.
Ice in drinks like civilized people.
Air conditioning everywhere. Not a moral debate. A fact.
Parking lots attached to the actual place you are going.
Drive throughs where the food comes to the car while you sit in it.
Ranch dressing by the gallon.
Tex-Mex that cannot be explained only experienced.
Dental care that actually works.
Buccee’s. There are no words for Buccee’s.

Then they found the grocery stores.

Five of them within one mile.
Each one the size of an aircraft hangar.
Burgers. Steaks. Brisket. Ribs. Pulled pork. Lamb. Veal. Every cut of every animal ever domesticated by human civilization available in one refrigerated aisle at ten in the morning on a Tuesday.

The Germans stood in the meat section for forty five minutes.
In silence.
Processing.

They finally understand why we do not have trains.

We have roads wide enough for the cars we actually drive.
Parking lots the size of small European countries.
Airports in every city worth visiting.

Why would we need trains.

The Germans are taking ranch home by the bottle.
The Dutch found queso and briefly lost the ability to speak.
The Japanese are photographing HEB like it is the Louvre.
The Czechs are weeping in West, Texas.

Welcome to America.
Everything is free, enormous, air conditioned, comes with chips, and has five grocery stores within a mile that will sell you any cut of any animal you have ever imagined.

Write that down. 🦋

[John Ʌ Konrad V @johnkonrad]

The brass tack:

[Flopping Aces @FloppingAces]

They spent weeks screaming that Trump’s foreign policy was a chaotic disaster. Iran was messy. Ukraine was stuck. Tariffs were unpopular. NATO was mad. Therefore it must be a failure. That’s the entire depth of their analysis.

Meanwhile China and every parasite attached to it got their asses kicked across the map.

Iran went from China’s oil lifeline and regional enforcer to a broke, inflation-ravaged paper tiger getting blockaded into submission with zero American troops on the ground. Venezuela’s Maduro is gone and China’s cheap oil spigot got shut off.

Cuba is starving and already crawling toward negotiations. Xi’s own sister was caught flipping discounted Venezuelan crude inside China and that little family hustle just died with the regime.

Russia rolled into Beijing acting like it still mattered. It left as a depleted, bankrupt junior partner that torched $750 billion and half a million men for nothing while Ukraine takes territory back.

Europe, which spent years hiding behind American protection, is finally being dragged into reality because Trump called them out as the freeloaders they are.

And China itself? Demographic implosion, foreign investment in freefall, property sector collapsing, and over 70% of its generals purged while its top military commander vanished without a trace. Xi can’t even trust his own army anymore and Taiwan is suddenly looking a lot harder to swallow.

But the media clowns are still out here pretending the real story is that Trump looked undignified on cable news. They’re not stupid enough to miss this. They’re just lying because admitting that China is losing ground on every front that actually matters would destroy the “Trump is a bumbling failure” narrative they’ve been running for years.

They’re not grading foreign policy. They’re protecting a story. And the scoreboard doesn’t give a damn about their feelings.
(article below)

[Michael A. Arouet @MichaelAArouet]

The most impressive thing about Europe isn’t the history, the food, or the public transport. It’s the collective commitment to pretending 30°C inside an apartment is perfectly normal, and not a serious health hazard.

Why is Europe still refusing to use air-conditioning?

[Micro2Macr0 @Micro2Macr0]

Over the last 11 years, #Bitcoin hasn't given you a lot of opportunity down here.

[Autism Capital 🧩 @AutismCapital]

Simultaneous thunder and rainbows is completely symbolic of 2026 America

[DNI Tulsi Gabbard @DNIGabbard]

Today, I’m releasing never before seen intelligence revealing new evidence of past US government funding for more than 120 biolabs in over 30 countries, including Ukraine.

In support of President Trump‘s Executive Order to end federal funding of dangerous gain of function research around the world, and increase transparency and accountability, ODNI will continue working with partners across the Administration to identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain, and what “research” is being conducted.

https://t.co/pLMD0krc69

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

Activist: "Dairy's finished. It's unsustainable. The world's switching to almond milk."

Farmer: "Switching to what's grown where?"

Activist: "Almonds. California, mostly."

Farmer: "A single almond drinks about a gallon of pumped aquifer, in a state that rations water in a drought. Your green swap is draining an underground reserve that took millennia to fill."

Activist: "It's still less than a dairy cow."

Farmer: "Per litre, on a chart that ignores where the water came from. My cows drink rain off a Welsh hill. The almond drinks fossil groundwater in a desert."

Activist: "Almonds don't burp methane."

Farmer: "They need two million beehives trucked across America every spring, because the orchard's a green desert the rest of the year. My field's full of clover and birds between milkings."

Activist: "Dairy's still got a footprint."

Farmer: "Off grass, on land that grows nothing else, handing back a complete food. The almond gives you water with a vitamin sprayed in."

Activist: "..."

Farmer: "Swap a rain-fed cow for a drought-fed nut and you haven't gone green. You've just moved the thirst somewhere you can't see it."

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

BREAKING: The average price of US ground beef rises +13% YoY in May to a record $7.06 per pound, with prices now up +58% since 2020.

Steak prices surged +16% YoY to $12.80 per pound, the 2nd-highest on record.

This comes as the US cattle herd has shrunk to its lowest in 75 years, with drought conditions, elevated production costs, and a New World screwworm outbreak in Texas limiting supply recovery.

Meanwhile, nearly 80% of US cattle are currently located in areas facing dryness or drought, threatening to keep beef prices elevated well into 2027.

American consumers are paying record prices for beef.

[Lyn Alden @LynAldenContact]

The result of 1) ever-rising public debt and 2) no longer structurally decreasing interest rates to offset it is: 3) the deficits are going to be *lit* for the foreseeable future.

[Heisenberg @Mr_Derivatives]

$GDX The gold miners are due for a decent sized dead cat bounce starting as soon as tomorrow given gold looks interim capitulatory overnight.

Watchlist!

[David Stockman @DA_Stockman]

Amazing. Mind the math of depopulation.

[unusual_whales @unusual_whales]

The Top 1% of U.S. earners now have more wealth than the entire middle class, per WSJ

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

The very first food every human gets is high-fat, high-cholesterol, and entirely animal.

Breast milk takes about half its calories from fat. It is rich in cholesterol. It is built for the fastest brain growth of your whole life.

No fibre. No grains. No vegetables. Nature didn't think the newborn needed a scrap of any of it.

It floods the baby with saturated fat and cholesterol, on purpose, because that is what builds a brain.

That same baby grows up and is told the exact combination will kill him.

The first meal nature ever designed for you is the one the guidelines now warn you off.

Funny that nobody warns the baby.

[Financelot @FinanceLancelot]

The SpaceX IPO filing values its total addressable market at $28 trillion

To give you context, the entire US economy produces roughly $31.8 trillion annually in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The global food market annual revenue is roughly $10 trillion.

[JH @CRUDEOIL231]

We absolutely have to start discounting a much more prolonged structural drag here.

Tehran is going to get completely emboldened, knowing for a fact that Trump is too paralyzed to touch the military lever. They’ve sized him up as total jelly, completely ripe for the picking.

With that thesis locked in, Iran’s play will be to keep throwing the street a bone—offering just enough 'hope' to keep these fake negotiations on life support while they deliberately run out the clock in a massive stalemate.

They smell his fear of a dragged-out mess, so they know damn well that whatever concessions A and B they can extract today will automatically compound into A+B+C+... down the road. Time is entirely on their side, naturally forcing Washington to sweeten the pot just to get a deal done.

But here’s the real macro problem: while this theater plays out, global crude stocks are aggressively drawing down. The West is already a non-factor here, but now China is being forced into a massive corner.

China can’t just mothball its refinery runs indefinitely. This isn't a pandemic lockdown where downstream demand vanishes into thin air; they have to maintain a baseline floor for both products and petchems.

That leaves them with two very ugly cards to play: 1) keep import volumes capped and completely drain their onshore crude inventories—which hits a hard wall on energy security and physically can't last forever or 2) step right back into the physical market with size and send the crude tape ripping into outer space.

China’s hit a massive wall here. Real negotiation means both sides give a little to meet in the middle.

But when one actor on the board figures out, 'Hey, I don't have to blink or give up any leverage, I just have to play the clock and this guy will eventually hand over the keys to the kingdom,' the whole game changes.

Have taken a beating of over 200 pips off the highs, but reading between the lines on these macro implications is worth every single bit of the headache.

#oott #iran

[Rudy Havenstein, Senior Markets Commentator. @RudyHavenstein]

“Inflation’s going to soar, but they’re going to lie about it. Inflation will be running 12% to 15% easy. But they’re going to tell you it’s four, four and a half.”

Luke Gromen

[US Oil & Gas Association @US_OGA]

Read this.

[Kyle Becker @kylenabecker]

Western Civilization didn't flourish because "white males" stopped other groups from succeeding.

The West thrived because of rational thought, individual rights, and free enterprise.

"White males" that invented the steam engine, electric generation, the combustion engine, flight, and space exploration did not do so because they "stole" the ideas of minorities.

These inventions helped lift mankind out of ignorance and hardship, improving the quality of life for all of humanity.

"White males" didn't oppress the entire world, they helped make it a better place.

"White males" didn't oppress everyone's rights, they invented the idea of rights and paid in blood to liberate tens of millions of people.

"White males" didn't invent slavery, they ended it.

"White males" didn't invent tyranny, they devised a form of government to end it.

Destroying Western Civilization isn't about empowering groups that were "oppressed." It is about tearing down civilization itself so that globalist parasites can rule over all of us.

[Global Markets Investor @GlobalMktObserv]

⚠️HOLY COW:

The Information Technology sector's share of total S&P 500 capital expenditure has surged to a record 35%.

This is now well above the 25% peak seen during the 2000 Dot-Com Bubble.

Tech companies are spending more on AI than ever.