US Spent > Double What It Collected In Feb., 2024 Deficit 2nd Highest Ever, Debt Explodes

 Earlier today, CNBC's Brian Sullivan took a horse dose of Red Pills when, about six months after our readers, he learned that the US is issuing $1 trillion in debt every 100 days, which prompted him to rage tweet, (or rageX, not sure what the proper term is here) the following:

We’ve added 60% to national debt since 2018. Germany - a country with major economic woes - added ‘just’ 32%.   

Maybe it will never matter.   Maybe MMT is real.   Maybe we just cancel or inflate it out. Maybe career real estate borrowers or career politicians aren’t the answer.

I have no idea.  Only time will tell.   But it’s going to be fascinating to watch it play out.

He is right: it will be fascinating, and the latest budget deficit data simply confirmed that the day of reckoning will come very soon, certainly sooner than the two years that One River's Eric Peters predicted this weekend for the coming "US debt sustainability crisis."

According to the US Treasury, in February, the US collected $271 billion in various tax receipts, and spent $567 billion, more than double what it collected.

The two charts below show the divergence in US tax receipts which have flatlined (on a trailing 6M basis) since the covid pandemic in 2020 (with occasional stimmy-driven surges)...

... and spending which is about 50% higher compared to where it was in 2020.

The end result is that in February, the budget deficit rose to $296.3 billion, up 12.9% from a year prior, and the second highest February deficit on record.

And the punchline: on a cumulative basis, the budget deficit in fiscal 2024 which began on October 1, 2023 is now $828 billion, the second largest cumulative deficit through February on record, surpassed only by the peak covid year of 2021.

But wait there's more: because in a world where the US is spending more than twice what it is collecting, the endgame is clear: debt collapse, and while it won't be tomorrow, or the week after, it is coming... and it's also why the US is now selling $1 trillion in debt every 100 days just to keep operating (and absorbing all those millions of illegal immigrants who will keep voting democrat to preserve the socialist system of the US, so beloved by the Soros clan).

And it gets even worse, because we are now in the ponzi finance stage of the Minsky cycle, with total interest on the debt annualizing well above $1 trillion, and rising every day

... having already surpassed total US defense spending and soon to surpass total health spending and, finally all social security spending, the largest spending category of all, which means that US debt will now rise exponentially higher until the inevitable moment when the US dollar loses its reserve status and it all comes crashing down.

We conclude with another observation by CNBC's Brian Sullivan, who quotes an email by a DC strategist...

.. which lays out the proposed Biden budget as follows:

The budget deficit will growth another $16 TRILLION over next 10 years. Thats *with* the proposed massive tax hikes.

Without them the deficit will grow $19 trillion.

That's why you will hear the "deficit is being reduced by $3 trillion" over the decade.

No family budget or business could exist with this kind of math.

Of course, in the long run, neither can the US... and since neither party will ever cut the spending which everyone by now is so addicted to, the best anyone can do is start planning for the endgame.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/february-us-spent-double-what-it-collected-2024-budget-deficit-second-highest-ever-debt

Biden's Bridge to Nowhere

 Back in 2020, Joe Biden addressed concerns that he would be the oldest president in history. "Look," he said, "I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else." Four years later, as Biden delivered his election year State of the Union address, I found myself pondering where, exactly, Biden's bridge leads.

Not to a younger, spryer, less compromised Democratic nominee in 2024, it would seem. Biden is convinced that he is the only candidate who can beat Donald Trump. Barring a health emergency, he will be on the ballot in November—despite majorities in his own party and supermajorities among all Americans telling pollsters that he is too old for another term. The country is faced with a choice that it does not want, between two candidates it views unfavorably.

Biden's bridge doesn't connect to a healthier politics. The State of the Union illuminated the stark divide between Democrats and Republicans. I can't recall a more partisan State of the Union address, nor a State of the Union where the president's predecessor was invoked so frequently. Biden painted Republicans as unserious about the border, as radicals on abortion and IVF, as threats to American democracy, and as useful idiots for Vladimir Putin. Today's Republicans do not stand idly by when attacked, and they responded in the tetchy and feisty way to which we have become accustomed. No one who listened to the State of the Union can believe that the general election will be any less vitriolic and inflammatory than 2020 or 2016.

Nor will Biden's bridge carry us to a safer world. Since Biden took office, America has retreated in disgrace from Afghanistan, desultorily assisted Ukraine to resist Russia's invasion, and watched in horror as Hamas murdered, raped, and kidnapped Israelis—including American citizens. Under Biden, America has behaved ambivalently as the Middle East descended into regional war, and watched China, North Korea, and now Haiti with worried eyes. Inflation and neglect have eroded America's defense industrial base just as Russia and China ramp up defense spending. Millions of illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border, including individuals on the FBI terror watch list and hardened criminals. Terrible crimes like the murder of Laken Riley have put illegal immigration top of mind for voters.

Rather than bridge the gap between the Silent Generation and the Millennial Generation, between one Democratic Party and another, between a nation rocked by the early decades of the 21st century and a more hopeful future, Joe Biden has left the country at an impasse. Americans doubt his capacities and say his policies have hurt not helped them. They do not believe in "America's comeback" and, if they do sense improvement in their lives, do not credit Biden for it. Consequently, Biden has the worst job approval of an incumbent president since Jimmy Carter and is running behind Donald Trump in national and swing state polls.

The DNC speech that the president called a State of the Union address won't change things. Biden may have talked more rapidly and more loudly than usual, but he did not say anything new. He bragged about lower inflation, but hardly dwelled on higher prices and interest rates. His most original policy initiative was his call for the U.S. military to "lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters."

This is insane. I would like to have been a fly on the wall when the Gaza pier found its way onto the whiteboard. Who will be on the receiving end of the pier? What will they do with the aid? How will we know that the food and fuel won't be stolen by or funneled to a terrorist army with genocidal aims? A terrorist army that killed 34 Americans and are holding 6 Americans hostage? Did anyone ask these questions? Or did they ask Google Gemini to design their Mideast policy?

The passage on Israel and Hamas revealed the true purpose of this year's State of the Union. Biden's emphasis on aid to the Palestinians in Gaza, and on pressuring Israel to conduct a just war according to an impossible double standard, was a panicked response to divisions on his left. Indeed, the whole speech was a panicked response to divisions on his left. The Biden high campaign must believe that its problem is the Democratic base—and that the way to boost turnout among the Democratic base is through progressive messaging.

I have no doubt that Democrats will be pleased with the result. But I am also skeptical it will persuade independents and working-class men and women of all races that Biden has the answers to America's problems. And if something doesn't change for Biden soon, he will be the bridge from one Trump term to another.

https://freebeacon.com/columns/bidens-bridge-to-nowhere/

Turns Out Biden Lied About Hur, Beau, And Why He Pilfered Classified Documents

 One of the big takeaways from the newly-released transcript of Joe Biden’s two-day interview with Robert Hur is that the special counsel was being exceedingly generous when describing the president as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Much of the conversation with Hur is littered with barely incoherent answers and spiraling word salads. Though, the reader is occasionally entertained by Biden’s blowhard-y non-sequiturs. We learn about Biden’s Corvette — twice. We learn that the president is a frustrated architect but an excellent archer. Biden jokes that there might be risqué pictures of Dr. First Lady Jill Biden.

Then again, the fact that the entire two-day interview isn’t a giant nonsensical rant is not as impressive as his defenders might believe. The president is, indeed, completely coherent at times. And those are the times he’s probably lying.

When Hur released his report last month, for example, it noted that Biden couldn’t recall the year his son died. This is not the kind of event that typically slips a healthy person’s mind — not even one who is constantly trying to emotionally manipulate the public with misleading claims about the cause of his son’s death.

Recall that Biden feigned great anger about this interaction. “There’s even a reference that I don’t remember when my son died,” he barked at reporters when the report was released. “How in the hell dare he raise that? Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself: It wasn’t any of their damn business.”

The transcript shows that it was Biden who brought up his late son Beau, not Hur. The president claimed he believed Beau had died in 2017 or 2018 when he had tragically died of brain cancer in 2015.

Who knows? Maybe Biden forgot what he said? Reading the full context of his answer, and considering the president’s lifelong fabulism, it is not entirely out of the question that the president purposely floated the wrong date to try and justify his pilfering of classified documents. Either way, it’s bad.

Here is the key interaction:

MR. HUR: So during this time when you were living at Chain Bridge Road and there were documents relating to the Penn Biden Center, or the Biden Institute, or the Cancer Moonshot, or your book, where did you keep papers that related to those things that you were actively working on?

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, um .. . I , I, I, I, I don’ t know. This is, what, 2017, 2018, that area?

MR. HUR: Yes, sir.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Remember, in this timeframe, my son is either been deployed or is dying, and, and so it was and by the way, there were still a lot of people at the time when I got out of the Senate that were encouraging me to run in this period, except the President. I’m not — and not a mean thing to say. He just thought that she had a better shot of winning the presidency than I did. And so I hadn’t, I hadn’t, at this point — even though I’m at Penn, I hadn’t walked away from the idea that I may run for office again. But if I ran again, I’d be running for President. And, and so what was happening, though – what month did Beau die? Oh, God, May 30th –

MS. COTTON: 2015.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: 2015.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Was it 2015 he had died?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: It was May of 2015.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: It was 2015.

By the way, just as Beau did not die in Iraq, Joe was never “at Penn,” not in any real way. The outgoing vice president was bequeathed an honorary professor position at the school, which the Philadelphia Inquirer noted in 2019 was “a vaguely defined role that involved no regular classes and around a dozen public appearances on campus, mostly in big, ticketed events.”

More importantly, Biden also contradicted himself when speaking about the documents themselves.

When Hur asked the president about the classified papers in his possession, the president contended that he “had no purpose for them, and I think it would be inappropriate for me to keep clearly classified documents.” But Hur, in his prepared testimony for Congress, says: “We also identified other recorded conversations during which Mr. Biden read classified information aloud to his ghostwriter.”

So, the documents did have a very specific purpose. Those files were used, according to Amtrak Joe, to help earn $8 million writing a book after leaving the Obama administration.

Yet, when the Hur report was released, the left wing did what they always do when confronted with bad news: they feigned a meltdown. They smeared the messenger. They concoct conspiracy theories. They denied reality. They’re doing the same right now.

The media continues to frame Hur’s findings as an exoneration of Biden to head off the (correct) perception that there is a stark, selective prosecution when it comes to the hoarding of classified documents. Donald Trump, yes. Biden and Hillary Clinton, no.

In The New York Times, Charlie Savage begins the paper’s story on the leaked transcripts by misleading readers with the contention that Hur had found “insufficient evidence to charge Mr. Biden.” This is not true. Hur’s report concluded that Biden came off as too feeble-minded to be convicted by a jury for his decades-long mishandling of classified information. According to the special counsel, the president had “willfully retained classified information.” And he had done it for years before winning the presidency.

During today’s hearing Democrats falsely used the word “exoneration” a number of times. Hur noted that the word “does not appear anywhere in my report, and that is not my conclusion.”

So, the fact remains that there are two ways to look at the Hur report. Either the president lacks the mental acuity to be charged for breaking the law, or he should be charged for breaking the law. Pick one.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent.

https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/12/turns-out-biden-lied-about-hur-beau-and-why-he-pilfered-classified-documents/

Mr. Garland, Can I Vote In France And Spain?

 by Roger L.Simon via The Epoch Times,

I would like to vote in France and Spain. And for that matter, I wouldn’t mind voting in Germany as well.

I have opinions about the government in all three countries and I can even speak their languages relatively well, well enough to read the newspapers anyway. (My German is a little shaky.)

Unfortunately, I don’t have identification in any of those countries in order to vote, but according to our Attorney General Merrick Garland, that’s not a problem, because IDs are somehow discriminatory and should not be required to vote.

Did you hear that, Monsieur Macron? Say the word and I’ll be on a plane to Charles de Gaulle within a day. But, alas, I know you still require a French National Identity Card or French Passport to vote. How old fashioned of your country!

In Spain, I can use a driver’s license, but regrettably that is also a form of photo ID.

Dang! Life is just unfair!

Thank goodness Mr. Garland feels differently, as reported by the Washington Times:

“Attorney General Merrick Garland said on the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries that states requiring voter ID at the polls and restricting drop boxes are suppressing Black voters, and the Justice Department has doubled the number of its lawyers to fight those laws.”

The man himself is quoted as adding the following at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama:

“That is why we are challenging efforts by states and jurisdictions to implement discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary restrictions on access to the ballot, including those related to mail-in voting, the use of drop boxes, and voter ID requirements.”

With all due respect, Mr. Garland, that is not what you are doing. You are making it easier to stuff the ballot, through the mail, in those drop boxes, and now in-person for individuals sans ID, some of whom could easily be illegal immigrants.

Most people know this. A majority of Americans do not believe we have fair elections anymore. You are just adding to the perception.

This is true even in your own party.

A Rasmussen poll in early March found that 57 percent of Democrats would oppose certification of the forthcoming presidential election were Donald Trump to win.

We live in a country of mutual distrust fanned by years of prevarication, electoral and otherwise.

But it’s actually worse.

Behind this pandering to black and other minorities is the notion that they are incapable of obtaining IDs for themselves.

Were I one of these minorities, I would be insulted and appalled. This is racism at its purist.

In a world where black people have already been president of our country, CEOs of major corporations, and the first in history to surgically separate conjoined twins joined at the head, this kind of thinking seems both meretricious and bizarre.

Would Mr. Garland dare say that the same people not be required to have a legal ID to get on an airplane like the rest of us?

Not if he or one of his relatives or friends were on that plane, I would wager.

But to vote, that’s fine. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you came from. Zetas cartel? No problem. CCP? No problem.

In a recent appearance on Maria Bartiromo’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” the newly installed co-chair of the Republican National Committee, Lara Trump, named election integrity as the primary goal of her party’s new regime.

Amen to that. And high time, too, since the GOP has acquiesced to a tainted system for many years. The country had acquiesced to it as well, much of the public, until now, not realizing until recently how corrupt it had become.

Without election integrity, we do not have the semblance of a democratic country of any sort, specifically, in our case, a constitutional republic.

For some time, Donald Trump has adamantly supported the purity of same-day voting on paper ballots, though he has argued of late that his supporters must engage in early and mail-in voting for now to combat a situation that is radically unbalanced.

Lara Trump also emphasized on Maria Bartiromo’s show that an unprecedented effort was going to be made by the RNC in November via poll watchers and election observers of every sort to preserve integrity and prevent cheating.

For Mr. Garland’s part, to heighten the propaganda impact, because that was what he was engaged in, the attorney general made his arguments in favor of the unnecessary IDs in Selma, Alabama, where Dr. Martin Luther King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) began a then highly justifiable voting rights march in 1965.

I remember watching this historic event from afar as a young man in graduate school. It helped inspire my own small participation in the civil rights movement in South Carolina in the summer of 1966.

I made a mistake then that was to some extent similar, although in no way on as great a scale, to what Mr. Garland made in 2024. I was advised to go into the fields to register cotton pickers, who were largely women, to vote, generally a good thing. Most were illiterate in those days, so I would instruct them in writing an X on the line to formalize their registration.

Then I did something I now regret. On the lines below to register their party affiliations, I instructed them to place their Xs next to Democrat, and all of them did.

This was the wrong thing to do on many levels, the most obvious one being that I had no right, political or moral, to do it. But, smugly, in those days, I thought I was doing the right thing.

Over the years, I have corrected myself. At least I hope so. But I strongly suspect the same self-righteousness motivates Mr. Garland. A little self-inspection might be advisable, because what he is promoting is not the road to justice or equality in any form. It is a road to totalitarianism.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/mr-garland-can-i-vote-france-and-spain

Regulus Positive Top Line in Phase 1b for Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease

 Mechanistic dose response observed at a 2mg/kg dose level based on urinary biomarker analyses

Encouraging exploratory results of imaging-based biomarkers with greatest reductions in total kidney volume seen in patients with the highest increases in PC1 and PC2

Cohort 3 fully enrolled with data readout anticipated in mid-2024; Cohort 4 screening to start in 2Q 2024

Company to hold conference call at 8:30am ET today

More information about the MAD clinical trial is available at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT05521191).

The Company will host a conference call and live audio webcast on March 12, 2024, at 8:30 am Eastern Time. To access the call, please dial (833) 816-1394 (domestic) or (855) 669-9657 (international). The live webcast can be found under "Events and Presentations" through the investor relations section of the Company's website. To access the telephone replay of the call, dial (877) 344-7529 (domestic) or (412) 317-0088 (international), passcode ID 6852735.  The webcast and telephone replay will be archived on the Company's website at www.regulusrx.com following the call.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/regulus-therapeutics-announces-positive-topline-data-from-the-second-cohort-of-patients-in-its-phase-1b-multiple-ascending-dose-mad-clinical-trial-of-rgls8429-for-the-treatment-of-autosomal-dominant-polycystic-kidney-disease-ad-302086081.html

Veeva Systems Inc.: Morgan Stanley raises the target price from USD 160 to USD 210.

 maintains its underweight recommendation

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/VEEVA-SYSTEMS-INC-14551091/

GEO Group in 5-Year Contract to Provide Air Operations Support Services for U.S. ICE

 The GEO Group (NYSE: GEO) (“GEO”) announced today that its wholly-owned subsidiary, GEO Transport, Inc. (“GTI”) has been awarded a five-year contract, inclusive of option periods, to provide air operations support services on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), as a subcontractor to CSI Aviation, Inc. (“CSI Aviation”) which has been selected by ICE as the prime contractor. CSI Aviation is a veteran-owned aviation services company, founded in 1979, with a long-standing record as a leading provider of aviation support services to the U.S. federal government. GTI first began providing air operations support services to ICE as a subcontractor to CSI Aviation, under a nine-month emergency contract starting in July of 2023. The new five-year contract is expected to generate approximately $25 million in annualized revenues for GEO.

George C. Zoley, GEO’s Executive Chairman, said, “Our GTI transportation division has a long-standing record providing secure transportation services for our government agency partners across the United States. The award of this new five-year contract to provide air operations support services on behalf of ICE is a testament to GTI’s service delivery and safety record since its founding in 2007. We look forward to continuing to work with CSI Aviation as we jointly deliver high-quality services under this important contract.”

About The GEO Group

The GEO Group, Inc. (NYSE: GEO) is a leading diversified government service provider, specializing in design, financing, development, and support services for secure facilities, processing centers, and community reentry centers in the United States, Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. GEO’s diversified services include enhanced in-custody rehabilitation and post-release support through the award-winning GEO Continuum of Care®, secure transportation, electronic monitoring, community-based programs, and correctional health and mental health care. GEO’s worldwide operations include the ownership and/or delivery of support services for 100 facilities totaling approximately 81,000 beds, including idle facilities and projects under development, with a workforce of up to approximately 18,000 employees.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240311975241/en/