We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
Authored by Michael Letts via American Thinker,
Portland officials were proud of themselves in 2020 when they defunded the Police Bureau by $15 million instead of increasing it by $3 million as planned. One commissioner was even upset that the council didn’t remove more from the budget.
"Please take a moment to celebrate this victory, and let it fuel your fire, because we're not done," Commissioner Chloe Eudaly said at the time.
Along with the $15 million, another $12 million was cut because of pandemic-caused economic shortfalls. “As a result, school resource officers, transit police and a gun violence reduction team -- which was found to disproportionately target Black Portland residents during traffic stops, according to an audit in March 2018 -- were disbanded,” PBS reported.
A year later, the council was trying to add funding and retain the city’s police officers. “The added police spending is occurring amid a year of a record number of homicides, the city’s greatest police staffing shortage in decades and reform recommendations made by the U.S. Department of Justice,” PBS reported.
It was too little, too late. The damage was done, and the city has yet to recover. In fact, the city government is telling residents not to call police unless their lives are at risk. Given how dangerous Portland has become, it might not affect the volume of calls to police because more residents’ lives are at risk from criminal activity than ever before.
Commissioner Rene Gonzalez told residents that the city’s 911 system is overwhelmed with people calling about addicts on the streets suffering fentanyl overdoses. This is not a Portland-only problem. The state of Oregon decriminalized drug use three years ago. Gonzalez urged people on X (formerly Twitter), “Our 911 system is getting hammered this morning with a multiple person incident -- multiple overdoses in northwest park blocks. Please do not call 911 except in event of life/death emergency or crime in progress (or change of apprehending suspect).”
Over the past year, the city has experienced 104 homicides and 529 arrests were made for drug offenses, according to Portland Police. The city’s homeless population has also grown by 50 percent since 2019, topping more than 5,000 people.
“Portland's neighborhoods have been overrun with crime, homelessness, and drugs since the pandemic -- and despite pouring funds into relief initiatives, little change is occurring on the streets of the city,” the Daily Mail reported.
Ukrainian forces have begun training and testing exoskeletons for battlefield use. Soldiers from the 147th Separate Artillery Brigade are using them in the Pokrovsk sector for both logistics and frontline operations. The goal is to reduce physical strain, especially when loading heavy artillery shells into howitzers without automatic loaders. Artillery crews can handle up to 1200 kg of ammunition per day, and early tests show that exoskeletons help them work faster and with less fatigue Above all, by improving the conditions for those soldiers on the front lines who handle such heavy loads, plus the stress of work. Seeking to reduce overall fatigue in the troops
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🇮🇷🇮🇱 - 14 wounded in Iranian missile strike in central Israel, according to Israeli media.
🇬🇧🇮🇶 - A drone struck British Castrol oil warehouses in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, causing extensive damage.
🇮🇷🇮🇱 - Iran launched 9 missiles towards Israel this morning alone, with at least 3 of them being cluster missiles.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - Over the past 12 hours, Hezbollah launched counterattacks in Khiam and Qantara, in the Nabatieh direction, southeast Lebanon. Hezbollah recaptured northern Khiam, with fighting ongoing for the south of the town. Hezbollah units also re-entered Qantara; frontline sources reported clashes in the center of the town last night.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - 48 IDF soldiers have been wounded in clashes with Hezbollah over the last 24 hours in southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli Army.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - "The Israeli army is barely catching its breath in southern Lebanon, and its resources are less than in the previous round of fighting," - Haaretz....
🇺🇸 Blue Owl Capital just disclosed that investors tried to pull 40.7% of one fund and 21.9% of another in a single quarter, and both funds gave the same answer, you can only have 5% back, and everyone else waits in line.
This is a bank run, not a normal withdrawal.
Wall Street spent the last decade selling millions of investors on something called semi-liquid private credit, higher yields, steady income and the promise you could get your money back every quarter if you needed it. What they buried in the fine print was what happens when too many people try to leave at the same time.
Analysts who have covered private credit for decades say nothing on this scale has ever been reported before at any major private credit manager.
These funds do not hold stocks you can sell on a Tuesday afternoon, they hold private loans to mid sized companies that cannot be liquidated quickly without destroying the price for every investor still trapped inside.
This product was originally designed for ...
🇺🇸 President Trump wants to switch to war economy in 2027 with massive increase in military spending and massive cuts to healthcare and other domestic agencies
Once a deficit hawk — he said in 2016 that he thought he could balance the budget in five years — Trump ended his first term with $7.8 trillion in added debt. His 2027 proposal is expected to give an update on 10-year deficit projections currently estimated at around $16 trillion.
The GOP's message for the Midterms will be focused on the "need" for a massive defense build up while the Democrats' message will be focused on affordability.
The fiscal 2027 budget will be the first time Trump puts his second-term governing agenda into one comprehensive document — with the numbers to back it up. The budget he released last year lacked detailed line-by-line spending targets and the economic assumptions necessary to project the long-term cost of his proposals.
Investors in US Treasuries will be looking to see if the debt and ...
