CHINA DELIVERED FAKE DRIVER LICENSES TO ALLOW MASS ILLEGAL VOTING FOR BIDEN IN 2020 ELECTION, FBI HID THIS INFORMATION, TIK TOK USER DATA USED TO CREATE FALSE ID’S

Patel, Bongino say prior FBI leaders hid evidence of Chinese interference in 2020 election

“Previous FBI leadership chose to play politics and withhold key information from the American people,” the bureau’s new top two leaders say.

FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino alleged Tuesday that the bureau’s prior leadership “chose to play politics” and hide evidence from the American people of a Chinese plot to hijack the 2020 U.S. election with fake mail-in ballots for Joe Biden.

The two FBI leaders’ statement came a week after Just the News reported Patel turned over to Congress earlier this month a long-hidden intelligence report raising concerns that China had mass-produced fake U.S. driver’s licenses to carry out a scheme to swing the 2020 election to Biden with fake mail-in ballots.

Patel located the evidence based on information that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, got from whistleblowers and forwarded to the FBI, officials said.

Patel and Bongino said Tuesday they are committed to getting Grassley and the American public more evidence about the plot and the failure to fully investigate it.

“Based on our continued review and production of FBI documents related to the CCP’s plot to interfere in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, previous FBI leadership chose to play politics and withhold key information from the American people – exposing the weaponization of law enforcement for political purposes during the height of the 2020 election season,” Patel and Bongino said in statement given to Just the News.

“Thanks to the great Oversight work of Chairman Grassley, the information the old FBI regime covered up will now be released to the public,” they added. “This FBI leadership team will continue keeping our promise of aggressive transparency and working around the clock to fix the underlying problems to restore the FBI to the trusted institution the American people deserve.”

The newly declassified intelligence reports from August 2020 weren’t corroborated or fully investigated and instead were recalled from intelligence agencies at about the time that then-FBI Director Chris Wray testified there were no known plots of foreign interference ahead of the 2020 election in which Biden defeated Donald Trump, officials told Just the News.

When they were recalled, FBI officials asked fellow spy agencies to destroy their copies of the intelligence report, which included detailed information from a cooperating confidential human source.

“This report was recalled in order to re-interview the source. Recipients should destroy all copies of the original report and remove the original report from all computer holdings,” the recall notice obtained by Just the News stated.

The subject line of the FBI intelligence bulletin succinctly stated the potential nature of the alleged plot: “Chinese Government Production and Export of Fraudulent US Driver’s Licenses to Chinese Sympathizers in the United States, in Order to Create Tens of Thousands of Fraudulent Mail-in Votes for US Presidential Candidate Joe Biden, in late August 2020

That said, the FBI bulletin provided significantly detailed information for agencies to investigate as leads to make sure the U.S. election wasn’t being hijacked by a foreign power seeking to exploit a sudden explosion in mail-in voting during the COVID-19 pandemic that struck earlier in 2020.

“In late August 2020, the Chinese government had produced a large amount of fraudulent United States driver’s licenses that were secretly exported to the United States,” the report reads “The fraudulent driver’s licenses would allow tens of thousands of Chinese students and immigrants sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party to vote for U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden despite not being eligible to vote in the United States.”

“China had collected private US user data from millions of TikTok accounts, to include name, ID and address, which would allow the Chinese government to use real US persons’ information to create the fraudulent driver’s license,” the report continues. “The fraudulent driver’s licenses were to include true ID number and true address of US citizens, making them difficult to detect. China planned to use the fraudulent driver’s licenses to account for tens of thousands of mail-in votes.”

GET USA RESIDENCY WITH $5 MILLION COST GOLDEN VISA, ALMOST 70,000 HAVE APPLIED!

Lutnick hails Trump’s $5mn investor visa as almost 70,000 apply

Programme to grant foreigners legal residency in US in exchange registers 68,703 people on waiting list

a person looking at the new website on a phone and laptop for the planned $5 million US residency permit — Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said the Trump card will be made of gold. ‘It will be beautiful’ © Etienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images

current progress 100%

Alex Rogers in Washington

Published13 hours ago

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Nearly 70,000 people have signed up for the new golden Trump Card, a visa scheme led by commerce secretary Howard Lutnick that will grant foreigners legal residency in the US at a cost of $5mn.

Last week, Lutnick’s department launched a website — trumpcard.gov — for would-be applicants to register their interest in the visa and to provide basic contact information, including their name, email address and region of the world. The card shown on the website features President Donald Trump’s face and signature, as well as an eagle, the Statue of Liberty and the American flag.

On Monday morning, Lutnick said his department’s internal online dashboard showed 67,697 people on the waiting list. Within an hour, the number had jumped to 68,703.

“The card will be made of gold,” the US commerce secretary told the Financial Times. “It will be beautiful.”

“Donald Trump appreciates these kinds of things. He cares about how it looks. He cares about how it feels. I mean, he deeply cares about that, and thinks if you’re going to buy and make this investment in America, we should give you something that is beautiful.”

Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick — US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick has said issuing 200,000 visas would reap $1tn for the Treasury © Eric Lee/Bloomberg

Lutnick has said the initial idea for the visa came from billionaire Trump donor John Paulson as a way to raise revenue for the US and help it pay down its $36tn debt.

The commerce secretary said the Trump Card will appeal to business leaders and companies seeking legal residency in the US for themselves or their employees.

The chief executive of a global technology company who asked not to be named said through a spokesperson that his group would seek to buy more than 100 Trump cards if the scheme comes to “fruition”, adding he viewed the initiative as a way “to welcome the world’s best and brightest to the United States — particularly entrepreneurs, engineers, and scientists”.

In 1990, Congress created a route to permanent residency for foreign investors through the EB-5 visa programme, which has a minimum investment of up to $1.8mn. About 14,000 such visas were granted last year, according to Invest In the USA, an EB-5 trade association.

Commerce Secretary Lutnick is pressing for the new scheme to replace the EB-5 visa, and is planning to expedite the creation of a much larger programme within months.

The commerce department plans to issue tens of thousands of Trump cards over the summer, said people familiar with the matter. Lutnick has said issuing 200,000 visas would reap $1tn for the Treasury.

Lutnick in May travelled with the president to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and concluded his conversations with foreign dignitaries with a pitch for the Trump Card.

“Whenever I meet with international executives, I always go through it with them and sell it to them,” he said. “I can’t help myself.”

The White House still needs to determine crucial details about the scheme, although three months ago Lutnick claimed on the All-In Podcast that it would launch in about a fortnight.

The design of a special tax structure for Trump Card holders has yet to be finalised, and while the vetting of applicants is expected to be done by the departments of homeland security, state and commerce, Trump has not decided whether citizens of any particular countries would be excluded from applying.

The White House has banned travel to the US from a dozen nations and is reportedly considering others.

Italian billionaire and stablecoin Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino in April told the FT that the success of such visas depended on the tax treatment they afforded.

Ardoino, who has partnered with Lutnick’s former firm Cantor Fitzgerald in a crypto venture, said “the problem” with Americans is “wherever they go, they have to pay taxes in the US”.

FRESH WATER FROM SEAWATER WITH NEW TECHNOLOGY!

Instead of pumping seawater onto land, why not take advantage of the ocean’s extreme natural pressure?

The world’s largest desalination plant, in Ras al-Khair, Saudi Arabia, uses older desalination technology which requires large amounts of energy.

With the world running out of clean water, deep-sea salination is on the cusp of offering a solution from the Caribbean to the Emirates

Half of all people on earth experience severe water scarcity at least one month out of the year, according to the UN. A radical new kind of desalination technology is finally on the cusp of helping to slake the world’s thirst. The pitch: Put desalination plants on the ocean floor.

First proposed in the early 1960s, this deep-sea process would benefit from both the crushing water pressure and relatively pure seawater more than 1,000 feet down. It has been unworkable until now. Only the recent commercialization of enabling innovations— including deep-sea robots from the oil-and-gas industry, and advanced reverse-osmosis filters now standard in terrestrial desalination— make it viable.

Water scarcity is projected to become much more acute in the coming decades, owing to more extreme weather patterns, the decimation of the world’s aquifers, saltwater incursion, and growing urban populations. This threatens humanity at a fundamental level— not just because we need water to drink, but because without it there’s no food or manufacturing, and precious little electricity.

Last resort

For decades, desalination has been the only reason that many places, from the Caribbean to the Emirates, have been habitable. But it’s always been a solution of last resort, for one big reason.

“Desalination is the most expensive way to make water, and there’s no getting around it,” says Tom Pankratz, who has been in the industry for 45 years, and has consulted on many of the world’s biggest desalination projects.

Up on land, engineers would literally boil the ocean, creating steam that would become drinking water and, on its way, drive some power-generating turbines to pay back a bit of its cost. It was so energy intensive that in the 1960s, some proposed using nuclear power to do it. The world’s largest desalination plant, in Ras al-Khair, Saudi Arabia, produces much of its water through evaporation.

Around the year 2000, reverseosmosis changed everything, says Pankratz. In this process, water is forced across a plastic membrane with holes so tiny only water molecules fit through, leaving behind salt and other impurities. This process requires about half the energy, making it a credible option for Trinidad, which in 2002 got a plant that now produces 40 million gallons of water a day, and Israel, which got one in 2005 that now produces 85 million gallons of water daily. Many more plants followed, and this is now the standard way to desalinate water.

That said, it is still expensive compared with traditional water sources like reservoirs and aquifers— between about $2 and $6 per 1,000 gallons, says Pankratz. A lot of that cost depends on the price of electricity, says Eric Hoek, a professor of engineering at University of California, Los Angeles, who advises OceanWell, a desalination tech company.

There are other costs to keeping desalination plants at the ocean’s edge. Intakes can suck up marine life; outflow pipes can dump a concentrated brine hazardous to that same marine life back into the sea. These issues led California to reject in 2022 a decades- in-the-works desalination plant for water-starved Hunting–ton Beach.

Down where it’s wetter

Oslo-based Flocean, Nether–lands- based Waterise and Bay Area-based OceanWell are among the companies that seized on this idea—then submerged it to a depth of at least 400 meters.

The principle is easy to grasp: Instead of expending huge amounts of energy to pump seawater onto land, and then pressurize it inside a plant, why not take advantage of the ocean’s extreme natural pressure? At depth, seawater naturally wants to cross a desalination membrane, so long as the fresh water on the other side of it is being pumped to the surface. The result is a net energy savings of up to 40%.

There are other big advantages: These facilities can be far from shore and out of sight, so there’s no competition for beachfront property. Once in place, the systems can be scaled up without having to negotiate over real estate.

Because the process happens down so deep, the saltier brine byproduct is quickly dispersed by the ocean without harming aquatic plants or animals. And at that depth, the ocean is cleaner— free of the microorganisms, fish poop and other debris that can quickly foul a reverse-osmosis membrane.

There’s no fundamental scientific breakthrough enabling these systems, say the CEOs of all three companies, just the wider availability, lower prices and increasing functionality of deep-sea robots, undersea power cables and other technologies.

Actual customers

Despite the technology’s promise, these three companies have so far only built modest facilities to prove their value to potential customers. The deals they’re all seeking are multidecade contracts with governments. While they don’t come easily, they are the kind of customers that are necessary to turn these tech demos into actual businesses.

Both Flocean and Waterise put their pilot plants on the seabed just offshore of Norway, not far from all the North Sea drilling that produces energy for the region. Flocean is already producing ultrapure water for a local company that makes high-end cocktail ice.

OceanWell has its demo facility at a reservoir in California’s Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, not far inland from Malibu.

Flocean’s first customer will be a large offshore industrial facility

in Norway called Mongstad, which is expected to initially produce about 264,000 gallons of water a day from a single, 40-ton unit. Expected to come online in the second half of 2026, it will be the world’s first large-scale deep-sea desalination plant, says Alex Fuglesang, CEO of the company.

Waterise has announced a deal with an industrial customer, Jordan Phosphates Mines Co., to provide 6.6 million gallons of water a day desalinated deep in the Gulf of Aqaba. The company plans to begin construction later this year on its first plant capable of producing between 7.9 million and 13 million gallons a day.

That’s the goal, at least. Until some of these are actually operating at the bottom of the ocean, for years if not decades, it will be hard to know if they can make good on their promises, says UCLA’s Hoek. It’s unclear how much maintenance they’ll require, and how fluctuations in salinity and temperature might affect their performance.

History is full of ideas that worked in principle, from nuclearpowered cargo ships to solar-thermal power generators in the deep desert. Pankratz, the saltiest of industry veterans, thinks at least one of these companies will be able to set up shop in the down deep. “How close that is, and how many of these things there eventually are, is another question,” he says.

An OceanWell desalination pod. The company has a demo facility not far inland from Malibu, Calif.

FBI LIES AND LIES AND HIDES FACTS ABOUT OKLAHOMA BOMBING TRAGEDY, BIGGEST DOMESTIC TERRORIST ATTACK BEFORE 9/11

30-Year Cover-Up: Newly Unearthed Records Confirm FBI Lied about OKC Bomb Footage

‘These same RTA videotapes would show John Doe 2, the accomplice that 24-witnesses have said was in the truck with McVeigh that morning…’

Aftermath of the OKC bombing. PHOTO: FBI

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) There was a lot of news last week about the FBI suppressing evidence: Sen. Chuck Grassley alleged Thursday that the bureau has a “Prohibited Access” label to hide damning documents, while Director Kash Patel was widely criticized a day later for his dubious claims that the FBI doesn’t have footage of sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s associates abusing girls.

To top it off, an attorney suing the FBI in federal court filed a motion Friday afternoon, accusing the bureau of lying about footage in another scandalous case: the Oklahoma City bombing, which remains the deadliest domestic terrorism attack in American history.

The late-Friday motion comes from Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue, who’s been suing the FBI for records on the OKC bombing for decades. Trentadue said in his motion that a researcher he works with recently uncovered previously hidden FBI records about the bombing. Those records, unearthed by OKC bomb researcher Richard Booth, show that an agent falsely testified in court that the bureau didn’t have surveillance footage of OKC bomber Timothy McVeigh and his mystery accomplice “John Doe 2.”

“Booth did a text based search of those FBI records and discovered therein four documents proving that the Bureau is in possession of videotapes from security cameras at the Regency Towers Apartments (“RTA”) that show the destruction of the Murrah Federal Building, and Timothy McVeigh actually arming the truck bomb at approximately 8:57 am on the morning of [April] 19, 1995, when the Ryder Truck that was carrying the bomb was parked in front of the RTA,” Trentadue’s motion states.

“More importantly, these same RTA videotapes would show John Doe 2, the accomplice that 24-witnesses have said was in the truck with McVeigh that morning, but who the FBI insists never existed.”

Trentadue’s filing comes some 17 years after he initially sued the FBI for surveillance footage of the OKC bombing in 2008. His lawsuit went to trial in 2014, and the FBI vociferously argued that no footage from the RTA buildings exists. The presiding judge has yet to issue a final judgment, in large part due to allegations that the FBI tampered with one of Trentadue’s witnesses (that wild saga can be read here).

While the court continues to investigate the witness-tampering allegations, Trentadue now also wants the presiding judge to reopen his original case that went to trial, and to consider the new evidence uncovered by Booth.

According to Trentadue, the existence of new records gives him an even stronger case for the presiding judge to rule in his favor. Moreover, Trentadue said the new OKC records support Sen. Grassley’s allegations that the FBI intentionally hides FBI records by filing them under “Prohibited Access” status—meaning that they don’t appear in the bureau’s general records-keeping system.

The FBI has declined to comment on Trentadue’s case.

New Records: What do They Say?

Just eight days after the Oklahoma City bombing, an FBI agent named Jon Hersley testified in court that security footage from the top of a nearby apartment complex showed the bombers’ Ryder Truck heading towards the Murrah building minutes before the explosion.

“I believe that particular camera was located on the apartment building there,” Hersley said on the stand during McVeigh’s April 27, 1995, preliminary hearing—referring to the Regency Tower Apartments, or RTA. “I don’t know the exact location of the camera, but it kind of scans that whole area there … It scans in front of the Tower building and also over towards the parking lot.”

But when Trentadue sued for the footage nearly 20 years later, Hersley suddenly changed his tune. At Trentadue’s 2014 trial, he testified that he was mistaken in his 1995 testimony, and that the RTA camera he described didn’t exist. Instead, Hersley testified he had only seen pictures from an ATM machine’s camera that was inside of the Regency Tower Apartments.

At the time, Trentadue expressed skepticism over Hersley’s contradictory testimony.

“The testimony about this videotape given by Mr. Hersley 20 years ago just after the bombing conflicts with the testimony that he gave at this trial,” Trentadue said in a December 2014 proposed findings of facts, which he filed after the trial concluded. “The testimony given by Mr. Hersley at the [April 1995] Preliminary Hearing is the more credible.”

Fast forward another 10-plus years: OKC bombing researcher Booth has apparently proven that Trentadue was correct.

In a sworn declaration accompanying Trentadue’s Friday motion, Booth said he was tasked to search through a trove of some 1.5 million pages of documents from the FBI case file of Terry Nichols—one of McVeigh’s accomplices who helped him build a bomb, but who wasn’t in Oklahoma on the day of the attack. Booth said he found records about the Regency Tower Apartments’ security footage—records that were hidden from Trentadue and the public for decades.

The first record Booth found is an FBI report detailing an interview agents conducted with Wesley Edward Bogie, who worked security at the Regency Tower Apartments. According to the FBI report, agents showed Bogie “three still photographs taken from the RTA security camera,” which depicted McVeigh’s Ryder Truck and two individuals nearby. The significance of this report is that the footage it describes couldn’t have been from the ATM machine inside the apartment complex—it must’ve been from another camera, according to Booth.

Another record Booth found describes footage clear enough that the Regency Tower Apartment’s assistant manager was able to identify a tenant that was pictured. Again, this indicates that the footage came from a camera other than the ATM inside of the building, Booth said in his declaration.

A third record Booth found is from the FBI’s June 1996 interview of Oklahoma City Police Department Sgt. Ritchie Willis, who told agents that he recovered film from a Regency Towers security camera that “was still recording” at the time it was removed. Willis said he provided that film to FBI agent Lou Ann Sandstrom about eight hours after the bombing.

“This document is highly significant because it establishes as a fact that the tape obtained by Sgt. Willis was still recording when it was taken into custody, that the recording came from one of the RTA security cameras, that the camera depicted 5^th Street, and that it was removed from a VCR,” Booth said in his declaration.

The fourth record states that the private firm ADT Security serviced the external security cameras at the Regency Tower Apartments—another indication that such footage exists, but is being suppressed by the FBI.

“More importantly, the obvious conclusion one can draw from these documents is that the RTA videotapes contain material that the Bureau does not want people to see, namely, the still-unidentified John Doe #2,” Booth added—referring to McVeigh’s accomplice, whom the FBI initially launched a massive manhunt for, only to later claim that he never actually existed.

What Now?

In his Friday motion, Trentadue asked for the judge to reopen his case to consider the new records unearthed by Booth.

“This newly discovered evidence consists of the Bureau’s own records that were deliberately withheld from both the Court and Plaintiff,” Trentadue said.

“This evidence is also very important because it shows that the FBI did not conduct a good faith reasonable search for responsive records and, in all fairness, the Court should receive and consider this evidence especially given the FBI’s attempts to mislead the Court about the ‘search’ that was actually done in response to Plaintiff’s FOIA Request and the results of that search,” he added.

The Justice Department must now respond to Trentadue’s motion. What happens next is unclear, as Trentadue’s case is already in uncharted territory—this writer is unaware of any other FOIA case in history to go to trial, and the transparency group Judicial Watch has described the lawsuit as one of the most extraordinary FOIA cases in American history.

“We’re one of the largest FOIA litigants in this country, and we’ve never been involved in anything that involves that degree of alleged misconduct by the [FBI]. It’s astounding,” Judicial Watch investigator Sean Dunagan told this reporter in 2022.

If the judge rules in his favor, Trentadue seeks to depose FBI agents and search their physical archives to see what they did with the missing surveillance footage. But the FBI has said in court briefings that the court doesn’t have the power to let Trentadue do that—suggesting that the bureau would appeal any judgment against it.

Such an appeal could extend the litigation for years. Meanwhile, Trentadue still awaits a separate judgment in the same case, over the witness tampering allegations he made a decade ago.

HOW DO HEDGE FUNDS ACTUALLY WORK, AD HOW INVESTORS TYPICALLY JUST HAVE LACKLUSTER RETURNS

HOW TO HEDGE FUNDS ACTUALLY WORK???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtO5hg69ZUs

Secrets of Hedge Funds: How Billionaires Gamble Without Losing

Today’s billionaires have a private playground for investing—and it’s not the stock market you know. Hedge funds have become the go-to tool for the world’s elite to seek big returns, explore secret deals, and enjoy a level of freedom rarely seen anywhere else in finance. But hedge funds weren’t always this secretive, exclusive, or even risky. To understand how hedge funds work and why the rich love them, you need to know where it all started, who gets in, and how the money is really made.

Video summary generated with artificial intelligence.

Back in the 1950s, Alfred Winslow Jones—a sociologist, not a Wall Street banker—changed investing forever. He created the first hedge fund. The word hedge simply means protection. Think of buying travel insurance for a flight: if your flight’s canceled, you lose the ticket price, but the insurance gives some money back. Jones applied this concept to investing by betting on winners and against losers in the market. This clever mix aimed to balance risk no matter which way stocks moved. At the time, this was a game-changing idea.

Jones’s original hedge fund idea focused on reducing risk, but today hedge funds are almost the opposite: high-risk, secretive, and closed off to most people. Instead of safety, modern hedge funds have earned a reputation for exclusivity and aggressive bets. How did things shift so much?

The 1920s was a wild party for the economy. Companies like Ford made goods cheaper and life more modern. Almost everyone tried their luck in the stock market, hoping to get rich overnight. But there were no rules to keep things honest.

Popular but fake investments included:

Gold mines that didn’t exist
Airline companies with no planes
Cactus farms in New Jersey

This fantasy crashed in October 1929. Stocks tanked, banks failed, millions lost their savings, and the U.S. sank into the Great Depression.

To fix the chaos, Congress passed the Securities Act of 1933, forcing companies to honestly report their finances when selling stock. In 1934, the Securities Exchange Act created the SEC, a watchdog over markets. These actions gave public investors two important things: real data and a fair shot. Today, you can see real company reports before you put your money at risk.

Unlike mutual funds, hedge funds don’t need to cater to the public. They only accept money from “accredited investors”—typically people with over $1 million net worth (not counting their home) or earning above $200,000 a year. Because they’re private, hedge funds skip most of the safety rules that protect regular investors. The logic: if you’re that rich, you can afford to risk it.

In a typical hedge fund, a group of wealthy people pools their money and trusts a fund manager to invest it. The approach is simple: “Trust me.” There’s hardly any day-to-day reporting, and managers don’t have to share their moves. Investors let the manager “cook” their strategy with little oversight and hope for bigger returns.

Hedge funds can invest in anything—Japanese interest rates, collapsing Chinese real estate, rare paintings, natural gas futures, or even the fate of entire economies. They use strategies most public funds aren’t allowed to touch, such as aggressive short selling, complex derivatives, and heavy borrowing. The rich look for new hunting grounds, and hedge funds let them in.

Imagine public investing as fishing from a crowded dock. It’s safe and transparent, but you only catch what’s already close by. Hedge funds are submarines: small, expert crews with hidden tools dive deep for treasures no one else can see. That secrecy gives them an edge—at least in theory.

Hedge funds don’t broadcast what they own or trade. If rivals saw their strategies, they could simply copy them or drive up prices mid-trade. Even investors rarely get frequent updates. With no public oversight, trust is key, and managers guard their bets jealously.

Once you’re in, you often can’t get out quickly. Most hedge funds have lock-up periods—six months, a year, or more. This helps managers avoid selling assets in a panic and lets their long-term bets mature.

Hedge fund managers use a famous pay model: the 2% management fee and 20% performance fee.

Fund Size	Annual 2% Fee	20% Performance Fee (on $100M gain)
$1B	$20M	$20M

Managers get 2% of the fund’s assets every year, win or lose. If returns are good, they collect 20% of profits as well. There’s a “high water mark” rule that stops repeated performance fees unless the fund recovers any losses—but that 2% rolls in no matter what.

Investors question the high fees, lack of transparency, and mixed results—especially when simple index funds often perform just as well or better after fees. Many wonder: why pay big for mystery deals? For those curious about long-term market returns, watch Will The Stock Market Always Go Up?.

Despite doubts, hedge funds pull in billions. The lure isn’t just big profits. It’s access to unique deals and strategies you simply can’t get elsewhere. For the ultra wealthy, it’s about being in the right rooms and not missing out on private opportunities.

Hedge funds offer plays regular investors can’t find. These include:

High-frequency trading
Global macroeconomic bets
Political and regulatory bets
Complex derivatives
Private loans and rare asset deals

These go way beyond standard stocks and index funds.

Managing complex portfolios full-time is a headache. Hedge funds act like private chefs—they do the heavy lifting, let the client enjoy results, and save time along the way.

Hedge funds operate like private clubs. Joining means access to strategic relationships, insider deals, and social status. Being a limited partner signals you belong to an influential financial circle.

The wealthy lean on hedge funds for strategies that don’t move with the rest of their portfolio. Even if returns lag, they can reduce risk by spreading bets across different investments.

Hedge funds carry a mystique. They’re seen as the secret weapon of the rich—fuel for headlines, movies, and envy. For many, being “in” gives hope of catching the next big winner and the social status that comes with it.

What started as a tool for risk control has become an exclusive club for chasing big wins. Hedge funds now mean access, secrecy, and high stakes in a world few ever see.

For most investors, public markets offer safety and fairness. Hedge funds sit behind closed doors, trading higher risk for a chance at higher rewards. Know how these worlds differ before venturing in.

Conclusion

Hedge funds began as a clever way to protect against loss but have grown into something far more complex. They aren’t just about chasing returns—they offer access, connections, and status. Most people will never set foot in that world, but understanding hedge funds helps explain how the rich invest and why those rooms remain the most exclusive in finance.

THE FBI LIES, IS CORRUPT AND CREATED AN APP THAT HID INFORMATION !

Sen. Chuck Grassley’s release last week of an FBI memorandum discussing the Bureau’s ability to render computerized records invisible to other agents raises huge constitutional and corruption concerns. On Monday, The Federalist analyzed the revelations from that recently declassified document, explaining that material coded “Prohibited Access” in the FBI’s Sentinel case management system will not appear in search results, meaning that users of Sentinel would not know that information relevant to their search even exists.

If Sentinel users do not know that relevant evidence exists, the DOJ cannot possibly provide exculpatory or impeachment evidence to criminal defendants or fulfill their discovery obligations in civil cases. Nor could the DOJ and FBI find all responsive documents for Freedom of Information Act requests, or in response to congressional inquiries or investigations by the inspector general. And the FBI cannot possibly properly investigate criminality if its agents do not even know of potentially relevant evidence.

From the scant evidence available to date, we know that these concerns are not merely hypothetical. Documents related to the Trump/Russia-collusion investigation were coded “Prohibited Access.” That coding prevented agents in the Washington Field Office from identifying potentially relevant evidence concerning whether Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr lied to Congress about her role in the Crossfire Hurricane hoax.

We also know that the U.S. attorney screening material related to Ukraine corruption and the Biden family did not know that the FBI could render material invisible in Sentinel. Likewise, senior DOJ officials familiar with the investigation into the Russia collusion hoax had no knowledge of the “Prohibited Access” functionality. Whether those investigations were similarly stymied is currently unknown because there is so little we presently understand about the FBI’s use of “Prohibited Access.”

Likewise, whether — and if so, how frequently — the DOJ violated its obligation to provide exculpatory and impeachment evidence to criminal defendants, or failed to meet discovery obligations, because of Sentinel’s “Prohibited Access” functionality, is a giant question mark. Whether files rendered invisible in Sentinel were likewise wrongfully withheld from Congress, the inspector general, or those submitting FOIA requests also remains unknown and will be until we get answers to some fundamental questions.

Here are the questions the FBI needs to answer:

When was the Prohibited Access function added to Sentinel? Who decided to add that functionality? Who approved that decision? And who was told of that decision?

Who could mark material Prohibited Access? What standard determines whether material is classified Prohibited Access versus Restricted Access? Who must approve the Prohibited Access designation? Who can see the existence of files designated Prohibited Access?

How long are materials maintained under the Prohibited Access designation? What happens if all the individuals with Prohibited Access to a file leave the Bureau? Can anyone see the existence of the file?

Are Prohibited Access materials ever deleted? Can Sentinel be audited to determine if documents have been deleted, and, if so, by whom? Can those documents be recovered?

Has an audit ever been conducted on Prohibited Access files? By whom? What were the results?

Can the FBI obtain a list of all Prohibited Access materials? How? Has the FBI obtained such a list? How many documents were logged as Prohibited Access? Has anyone reviewed those documents to ascertain whether they were relevant to any criminal or civil cases? Congressional or IG investigations? FOIA requests?

When someone searches for a term that appears in a Prohibited Access document and receives a message that indicates there are no responsive documents, does that trigger an alert to the agents working on the Prohibited Access case? If so, what steps are taken to ensure any relevant information hidden behind the Prohibited Access coding reaches the proper parties?

Do all FBI agents know about the Prohibited Access functionality? Is it in training material? Does the FBI’s Domestic Investigations Operations Guide cover Sentinel? Does Sentinel show the “Prohibited Access” coding as an option when entering a document? Have any agents expressed concerns over their inability to learn of the existence of relevant materials because of Prohibited Access?

When was the DOJ’s inspector general first alerted to the Prohibited Access functionality? By whom? What was the inspector general told?

What is the FBI’s procedure for searching Sentinel in response to requests from the DOJ for either criminal or civil cases? For FOIA cases? In response to congressional inquiries? In response to requests from the inspector general?

These are merely the general questions about Sentinel and the Prohibited Access functionality that need answering. How many more questions follow depends on the answers to these initial queries: If there were only a few cases or a few documents classified as Prohibited Access, the concerns will be much narrower. But if the FBI used Prohibited Access coding on a widespread basis, the ramifications will be enormous.

Jason Foster, the Founder and Chair of Empower Oversight, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to combat waste, fraud, and abuse both inside and outside government, concurred with this assessment, telling The Federalist:

“Making a digital record unsearchable effectively deletes it for all other FBI users and creates the potential to taint thousands of FBI investigations, much like the 1990s FBI crime lab scandal did. That scandal sparked decades of consequences, even as late as 2015 when a DOJ review found errors in FBI hair analysis testimony in dozens of death penalty cases. The implications here for the government’s constitutional obligations to disclose evidence could be staggering.”

Foster, whose Empower Oversight organization represented the IRS whistleblowers who exposed the political interference in the Hunter Biden investigation, added that the Prohibited Access “feature sounds like it creates a digital black hole where evidence vanishes to all but the select few who already know it exists. This echoes J. Edgar Hoover’s secret ‘Official and Confidential files’ that were kept under the direct physical control of only himself and his personal secretary, who destroyed many of them after his death.”

But as Foster told The Federalist, the “new FBI leadership has an opportunity and an obligation to come clean.” “There needs to be a comprehensive review of how many records are essentially locked in this secret digital vault and who holds the keys,” Foster stressed.

Yes, and the FBI can start by answering the questions detailed above.

MAKING GASOLINE FROM THE AIR!!! IT IS HERE!

The Aircela acts like a mini direct air capture facility, sucking up carbon dioxide and then synthesizing it into real, usable gasoline for cars.

The company hosted a demonstration in New York City earlier this month. Image: Aircela/ ANDREW LEVINE

In 2022, transportation was responsible for an estimated 28 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The majority of those emissions came from everyday gas-powered cars. And while electric vehicles have been heralded as a greener alternative, decades of advocacy and hundreds of billions of dollars in investment have yielded meager results.

Today, electric cars make up just around 8 percent of all vehicles on U.S. roads. (Roughly 90 person of vehicles globally still run on fossil fuels.) Most EVs remain prohibitively expensive for the majority of Americans, and they require enormous amounts of critical minerals—resources that, when extracted at scale, pose their own environmental dilemmas. Most Americans also still just aren’t interested in ditching their gas guzzlers to save the planet.

But what if they didn’t have to?

That’s the alluring—if wildly ambitious—vision being presented by New York–based fuels startup Aircela. Earlier this month, the company announced it had created the world’s first functional machine capable of generating real, usable car gasoline “directly from the air.” Aircela’s new device, roughly the size of a commercial refrigerator, combines direct air capture (DAC) with on-site fuel synthesis to create gasoline using just air, water, and renewable energy. No fossil fuels, they say, are required.

The product their device produces can be poured directly into the tank of any standard gas-powered car. Aircela demonstrated the process, making gasoline directly from air, in front of a live audience in New York. Though most would describe this proof of concept as a “prototype,” company co-founder and CEO Eric Dahlgren takes some umbrage with that label.

“We didn’t build a prototype. We built a working machine,” Dahlgren said in a statement. “We want people to walk away knowing this isn’t too good to be true—it actually works.”

How an at-home carbon capture facility would work

Aircela’s device essentially functions as a compact, portable direct carbon capture facility (DAC) unit. Carbon capture generally refers to the practice of removing carbon dioxide from sources like smokestacks or fossil fuel power plants. Direct air capture, the approach used by Aircela, pulls CO₂ directly from the atmosphere. Europe currently has more than a dozen DAC facilities in operation, and the U.S. federal government is also investing in the technology. Some facilities, such as those run by Climeworks, use large fan-like machines to filter carbon dioxide from the air. Others, like those developed by Carbon Engineering, use chemical mists that bind with CO₂ to extract it. Some researchers are even exploring methods to capture carbon dioxide from the oceans. In most of these cases, the aim is to capture and store the harmful greenhouse gas. Aircela wants to recycle it into cars.

Aircela claims its device captures carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and then converts it into gasoline. The resulting fuel doesn’t contain sulfur, ethanol, or heavy metals. Photos of the machine shared by the company show a device composed of three large blue hexagonal units—two side by side on the bottom and one stacked on top. These separate sections handle the stages of air capture and fuel synthesis. On the back of the machine is a standard-looking gasoline nozzle, similar to what you’d find at a gas station. In theory, someone could install one of these units outside their home and use it to refuel their vehicle before heading out for the day. More importantly, it suggests drivers could potentially reduce their environmental impact without needing to change their daily habits.

a clear bottle filled with a yellow liquid — L: The gasoline produced by the machine. Right: The nozzle for delivering gasoline. *Images: Aircela*

a hand holds a gas nozzle — L: The gasoline produced by the machine. Right: The nozzle for delivering gasoline. *Images: Aircela*

A spokesperson from Aircela told Popular Science that their machine is designed to capture 10 kgs of CO₂ each day. From that, it can produce 1 gallon of gasoline. The machine can store up to 17 gallons of fuel in its tank. For context, a Toyota Tacoma’s fuel tank has a capacity of 21.1 gallons. In other words, at least in its current form, the device wouldn’t be capable of filling up a car’s tank with gas overnight. The spokesperson didn’t comment on the device’s precise cost but noted that “affordability is essential” to the company’s mission. Aircela is designing the device for mass production, which they believe will drive down costs over time.

The company reportedly wants to start manufacturing the machine by the fall with an interest in targeting a mix of residential, commercial, and industrial customers.

The age old question: will it scale?

The most obvious downside to an approach like this compared to a larger, industrial-scale DAC facility, is sheer impact. A single device, on its own, won’t make a meaningful dent in reducing carbon emissions. But Aircela believes its relatively small size actually makes it less costly and faster to deploy at scale. CEO Eric Dahlgren says the compact form factor gives the technology the flexibility to scale down for individual car owners or scale up for larger clients, such as gas stations or even cargo shipping containers.

“We truly believe that our approach is the fastest way to bring carbon neutral fuels to as many people as possible, to as many places as possible, as soon as possible,” Dahlgren said in a statement.

Aircela hopes to start manufacturing the device in fall 2025. Image: Aircela Image: Aircela

Of course, that vision also depends entirely on the continued expansion and viability of renewable energy sources. If an Aircela machine uses electricity from a grid powered by natural gas, then not much has really been achieved in terms of carbon reduction. In the U.S., the trend toward renewable energy is strong, though notably less so under the current presidential administration, which has openly embraced the motto“drill baby drill.” Still, Dahlgren says it’s important to approach carbon reduction and environmentalism with a broad perspective and a sense of urgency.

“We cannot wait decades,” Dahlgren added “we need to do something about it right now.”

SAVE US FROM THE ERRORS OF THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET DINGBATS (CBO)

Save Us From the CBO

White House chief economist Kevin Hassett hit on a wider problem last week when he criticized the overly pessimistic prediction out of the Congressional Budget Office’s revenue estimating partner. The Joint Committee on Taxation said extending the 2017 tax cuts would cost some $4.6 trillion in government revenue over 10 years. Mr. Hassett pointed out that if the House reconciliation bill’s tax cuts could boost economic growth to 3%—still less than the post-World War II average— it would restore more than $4 trillion in income to Washington. In doing so, Mr. Hassett uncovered an issue that has swerved Washington into bad policy for decades.

The most powerful forces on Capitol Hill aren’t the House speaker and Senate majority leader, they’re the CBO and JCT. These two unelected bodies forecast how legislation could change spending and revenue over the next decade. Too often, these predictions are wildly off base.

In their defense, it isn’t an easy job. As Yogi Berra is supposed to have said: “Making predictions is hard to do, especially about the future.” What’s less defensible: The computer models that the CBO and JCT use for their predictions keep making the same mistakes.

The CBO and JCT routinely overestimate revenue from tax-rate increases as well as losses from tax cuts. The most recent example is the CBO estimate of the 2017 Trump tax cut’s fiscal effects. Its prediction has proved almost $1.5 trillion too low so far.

The explanation for this persistent error is that the CBO’s and JCT’s computer models fail to take adequate account of how tax-rate changes affect the amount and timing of businesses’ and workers’ decisions—including how much to save, invest and work. Higher tax rates also lead to more tax-avoidance strategies. Imagine how many decisions you would make differently if your income-tax rate rose from 20% to 50%.

Though the modelers now do some dynamic scoring, even this insufficiently accounts for the macroeconomic effects of lower taxes on growth.

Economists have decades of evidence that in most cases, U.S. tax-rate increases have lowered economic growth while tax-rate reductions have increased growth and employment. It happened after the tax cuts urged by Presidents Coolidge, Kennedy, Reagan and Trump. The CBO and JCT’s algorithms don’t adequately account for those historical data.

An infamous example of the JCT and CBO models’ spitting out crazy results came when Sen. Bob Packwood in 1988 requested that the JCT estimate how much revenue would be raised if Congress lifted the top tax rate on income above $200,000 to 100%. The answer to that is obviously close to zero. But the CBO calculated revenue increases of $104 billion the first year, $204 billion the second year, $232 billion in the third, and $299 billion in the fourth and fifth.

That gaffe is old, but the models are hardly better today. The CBO issued one of its most absurd revenue estimates to date this year on a bill sponsored by Senate Majority Leader John Thune to eliminate the federal gift and estate tax. The CBO told Congress it would cost the government more than $600 billion in lost revenue over the next decade. That’s hard to believe, given that the tax raised less than $34 billion in 2023, the latest year reported and the highest level of annual revenue from that tax this century. The CBO’s estimate entirely ignores studies that find that eliminating the estate tax would direct less money into estate-tax planning and avoidance and more money toward reinvestment in family-owned businesses and other ventures. Yet the CBO assumes virtually no benefit to the economy from eliminating this deleterious tax. A Ouija board could turn out more accurate prognostications.

Though these predictions so often fail, relying on terrible assumptions, Congress is still largely a slave to the CBO’s authority on the cost of a bill. The media brandish estimates from it and the JCT to frighten off legislators interested in growth-focused policy. Too often, it works. That’s no way to run a country.

SO CALLED VACCINES WERE MISREPRESENTED

Hidden Betrayal: Moderna and Pfizer Shots Hijack Immune Cells to Rewrite mRNA, Prolonging Spike Protein Production

For years, health authorities assured the public that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were a temporary intervention — delivering a brief genetic message before harmlessly fading away. But a shocking new study published in Nature reveals a far darker reality: These shots don’t just deliver instructions — they reprogram the body to extend their lifespan, forcing cells to produce spike protein far longer than disclosed. The bombshell findings expose a hidden layer of genetic manipulation, raising urgent questions about long-term risks, informed consent, and the true cost of Big Pharma’s rushed “miracle” technology.

Key points:

A new study in Nature confirms Moderna and Pfizer’s mRNA shots induce the body to produce an enzyme (TENT5A) that rewrites the vaccine’s mRNA, doubling its tail length and prolonging spike protein production.
Spike protein — linked to heart, brain, and immune damage — may persist for years, contradicting official claims it would last “a few weeks.”
Moderna’s own scientists admitted mRNA vaccines carry “unacceptable toxicity” risks in a 2024 paper, yet regulators greenlit them for billions.
The process hijacks immune cells (macrophages), forcing them to stabilize and amplify the synthetic mRNA, turning the body into an unwitting accomplice.
Novavax’s protein-based vaccine does not trigger this effect, suggesting the danger is unique to mRNA technology.

The body’s betrayal: How mRNA shots rewrite their own code

The Polish study (Krawczyk et al., 2025) reveals a chilling mechanism: After injection, immune cells detect the foreign mRNA and activate TENT5A — an enzyme that normally plays no role in vaccine responses. TENT5A then latches onto the vaccine’s genetic code, extending its poly(A) tail — a molecular “timer” that dictates how long mRNA survives. In some cases, Moderna’s mRNA tail doubled in length, from 100 to 200 nucleotides.

“This wasn’t just persistence — it was amplification,” explains Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist and outspoken critic of COVID vaccine safety. “The body is essentially tricked into editing the shot’s instructions to make it last longer. This was never part of the clinical trials.”

A timeline of deception

Public health officials repeatedly claimed mRNA vaccines were “short-lived.” Dr. Paul Offit, a CDC advisor, stated in 2021 that spike protein production would last “a couple of weeks.” Yet studies have since detected spike in blood samples for 187 days, 245 days, and even 709 days post-injection. Moderna’s internal documents acknowledge “challenges” with mRNA toxicity, yet these risks were buried beneath relentless propaganda touting the shots as “safe and effective.”

The Nature study confirms the worst: The vaccines don’t just deliver a message — they reprogram the body to keep that message alive. “It’s like giving someone a self-replicating memo,” says molecular biologist Dr. Jessica Rose. “The memo was supposed to be read once and discarded. Instead, the recipient photocopies it endlessly.”

Why Novavax escapes the trap

Unlike mRNA shots, Novavax’s protein-based vaccine — which contains pre-made spike protein — does not trigger TENT5A activity. This critical distinction suggests the mRNA platform itself is the problem. “The lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) used in Pfizer and Moderna’s shots are the Trojan horse,” explains immunologist Dr. Byram Bridle. “They smuggle synthetic mRNA into cells, but the payload doesn’t just fade away — it gets enhanced by the immune system.”

*The unanswered questions

Long-term damage: If spike protein lingers for years, what does that mean for cardiovascular, neurological, and autoimmune risks?
Informed consent: Were patients ever told their bodies might rewrite the vaccine’s code?
Regulatory failure: Why did agencies fast-track these shots while ignoring red flags about mRNA stability?

The Nature study’s authors frame TENT5A’s role as a way to “enhance efficacy.” But for millions already injured, “efficacy” is a euphemism for uncontrolled biological manipulation. The truth is clear: These shots were never as temporary as claimed. The question now is: How many lives will be forever altered by their hidden toll?

AMERICANS ARE FINANCIALLY ILLITERATE!

One in Four Americans Financially Illiterate

Financial literacy is steadily declining in America. The percentage of US adults demonstrating a very low level of financial literacy increased from 20% in 2017 to 25% in 2023.

Around 58% of Americans know about debt and borrowing. Over half (55%) understand saving, and 50% understand consumption. About 42% understand insurance, 44% know about investing, and only 35% know about risk comprehension.

Financial literacy is declining with every generation. Around 53% of the Silent Generation understood finance, followed by 52% of Boomers, 50% of Gen, 45% of Millennials, and 38% of Gen Z. Around 74% of teens admitted that they do not feel confident in their personal finance knowledge, but the good news is that that 73% would like to learn.

There is a drastic difference in knowledge across socio-economic classes, as 75% of American teens are learning about personal finance through their family, with 52% learning a bit at school. An alarming 88% of Americans reported that high school public education did not prepare them for managing their finances. Interestingly, 48% said that they learned about personal finance through social media, which may not be the best reference.

Around 62% of teens said that they learned about savings, 50% were taught about earning, and 44% had some prior information on banking. Only 23% of teens in the US know how to make a budget, but 42% said they were taught how to do so.

This is why we see such a significant difference in financial literacy across socio-economic classes. Only 28% of people earning under $25,000 understand personal finance. That figure rises to 38% for those earning between $25,000 and $49,000, rising once more to 47% for those earning between $50,000 and $99,000. Over 58% of those earning six figures understand personal finance.

The National Financial Educators Council believes that financial illiteracy cost the American public $388 billion in 2023. Americans are facing a private debt crisis. Credit card and household debt have reached record highs and continue to rise. The majority of American households have insufficient emergency savings. The same survey found that 74% of Americans believe they would have made fewer money mistakes if they were properly educated on the subject matter in high school, and 80% believe they would have been more successful if they had that knowledge earlier in life. Politicians believe we should implement countless social programs and simply pay people to exist. America should focus on educating future generations on personal finance as it is perhaps one of the most essential life skills.