Market Volatility, Political Drama Increases Uncertainty As Metals Fall

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Market Volatility, Political Drama Increases Uncertainty As Metals Fall

(Mike Gleason, Money Metals News Service) As Democrats prepare to coronate Kamala Harris, investors are growing nervous.

One measure of investor apprehension is the VIX volatility index, also known as the fear index. The VIX spiked on Thursday to its highest level in three months.

That coincided with a selloff on Wall Street, with tech shares getting hit especially hard. Commodities and precious metals markets also got hit.

Also falling under selling pressure recently has been copper. The red metal is down more than 20% since peaking in May, though it remains up modestly for the year.

Weakening durable goods orders in the United States combined with concerns of a sluggish economy in China are weighing on copper prices in the near term. But the long-term outlook for copper remains bullish given that demand for the metal is expected to grow rapidly in the years ahead from electric vehicles and electricity infrastructure.

Each electric vehicle produced requires 132 pounds of copper on average – far more than a gasoline-powered vehicle. And each new electric vehicle produced requires additional charging capacity. Charging stations require large quantities of copper and other metals.

According to the International Energy Forum, copper output from mines will need to more than double over the next 30 years in order to meet projected global demand growth. That would require dozens of new copper mines to be opened, even as the process of developing and readying a new mine for production can take 20 years or more.

Meanwhile, many existing mines will struggle just to maintain current production levels due to degrading deposits and rising costs of extraction.

A looming supply crunch in copper could lead to price spikes. The upshot is that investors can position themselves to profit from it.

They can try to find publicly traded mining companies that are actually profitable. But for a variety of reasons, rising metal prices don’t always translate into higher share prices.

A more direct way to play the copper market is to own physical copper itself. Yes, copper bullion products are available to investors, as are copper pennies.

Of course, copper isn’t a precious metal. Given its much lower price by weight compared to gold and even silver, copper may not be as practical a metal to accumulate for wealth protection. It’s generally sought out by those with extremely limited budgets and by those who want to add some small-denomination units to a hard money barter stash.

An alternative way to play copper is to buy silver. Like copper, silver is essential in EVs and electrical infrastructure. And like the copper market, the silver market faces supply deficits that push prices much higher in the years ahead — regardless of who the next President is.

We now know it won’t be Joe Biden. In his address to the nation, he said he was dropping out of the presidential race in order to save democracy.

He was clearly losing the popular vote to Donald Trump, according to all the polls. But apparently, a democratic election that resulted in a Trump win would be undemocratic.

After rigging the primary system to prevent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from challenging him for the Democrat nomination, Biden is now pushing to install Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s presidential nominee – without any say from voters. All supposedly to save democracy.

Harris has been broadly unpopular as Vice President. Whether she will fare better than Biden in a matchup against Trump remains to be seen.

The bigger question is whether the election will bring social unrest and a Constitutional crisis that causes the world to question the stability of the United States and its currency.

Democrats may be unwilling to accept a Trump victory as a legitimate outcome under any circumstance. And Trump may be unwilling to accept defeat under any circumstance – especially now that his standing in the polls is much stronger than it was in 2016 or 2020.

We’ve already seen an attempted assassination along with what some have described as a coup by Democrat party bosses, who left an ailing Joe Biden with no choice but to abruptly end his re-election bid.

It’s not clear whether Biden will finish out his term as a lame duck. It’s not even clear whether he is still in charge of anything at this very moment.

What does seem clear is that 2024 won’t be a typical election year filled with typical political drama. It is shaping up to be one of great peril, one that brings heightened risks to unprepared investors.

Mike Gleason is a Director with Money Metals Exchange, a national precious metals dealer with over 500,000 customers. Gleason is a hard money advocate and a strong proponent of personal liberty, limited government, and the Austrian School of Economics. A graduate of the University of Florida, Gleason has extensive experience in management, sales, and logistics, as well as precious metals investing. He also puts his longtime broadcasting background to good use, hosting a weekly precious metals podcast since 2011, a program listened to by tens of thousands each week.

Did Joe Biden Give Us a Record Breaking Stock Market?

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Did Joe Biden Give Us a Record Breaking Stock Market?

(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) According to your friends on Facebook, Joe Biden has gifted us with record-breaking stock market highs.

Is this true, or is something else going on?

It is true stocks have soared to new heights multiple times over the last several months. So, what does President Biden have to do with it?

Not much. 

I like to remind my Facebook friends that if you are going to play the “lookie, my president made the stock market be biggly” game, you have to give Trump credit for the upward trajectory of stocks during most of his term (I don’t).

In reality, the recent bull market in stocks is mostly a function of the promise of a return to easy money with the Fed set to cut interest rates.

In the current economic environment, presidents and their policies have very little to do with the stock market.

That’s not to say they have no impact at all. Taxes, spending, regulations, trade policies, etc. all impact the economy, and through it, stock prices. But in this modern age of aggressive central bank intervention, Federal Reserve monetary policy serves as the biggest market driver. Fed intervention has been so extreme in the 21st century it has overwhelmed normal market dynamics such as corporate fundamentals or federal economic and tax policy.

As you can see from this graph showing the trajectory of the Dow Jones Index, other than the onset of the pandemic, movements in the stock market correlate almost perfectly with the trajectory of monetary policy. Looser monetary policy proceeds and drives bull markets, and tighter monetary policy pushes the markets lower.

Note the dip in the orange box. At the time, the Federal Reserve was trying to normalize interest rates after nearly a decade of artificially low rates in the wake of the 2008 financial. The Fed held rates at zero through most of that period. During that time, the trajectory of the Dow was generally upward.

As you can see on the graph, the market starts to climb again before the big crash during the pandemic.

Why?

The Fed cut rates three times that year because the previous hikes had started the process of the next bust cycle. The central bank pumped a little easy money back into the system juicing the markets in 2019 and stalling the looming bust (And all the Trump people said, “See! He’s making America great!”).

Then we had COVID. You can see the pandemic era as a big dip on the chart.

The pandemic bailed the Fed out. It gave the central bankers an excuse to go back to an unprecedented easy money policy. It cut rates to zero again and put quantitative easing on steroids. Over the next 18 months or so, the Fed injected nearly $5 trillion into the economy in QE alone.

I’m convinced that had we not had the Rona, the economy was on the path to crashing in 2020. But the pandemic created an opportunity to reinflate the bubbles with an unprecedented loose monetary that almost made 2008’s intervention look normal.

With all of the money flowing during and after the pandemic, you can see the Dow climb until 2022. Then we have the first rate hike to fight “transitory” price inflation in March 2022. Notice the Dow tanked as the Fed was raising rates then stabilized and traded sideways (Green box) during the balance of the hiking cycle.

The Dow took off again and started setting record highs in late 2023.

What exactly did Biden do to cause this?

Nothing.

But the Fed did something.

Powell & Company started signaling an end to rate hikes and the markets started anticipating rate cuts – a return of the easy money punchbowl. Earlier this month, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell gave the strongest signal yet that the Fed will likely start cutting rates in the fall. That’s why the Dow was up and set more records a couple of weeks ago.

You saw this same phenomenon on a micro level throughout the hiking cycle. Every time it looked like price inflation was cooling off and the Fed might stop hiking rates, the Dow rallied. And whenever there were signs of hotter price inflation, stocks sagged because the markets worried rates would stay higher for longer.

The point is easy money is the lifeblood of this stock market – and the economy more generally.

Booms and Busts

Joe Biden Cartoon

The truth is this stock market is a great big bubble fueled by inflation and artificially low interest rates. It’s been an impressive boom. But little or nothing to do with Joe Biden.

Whoever wins this kabuki theater of an election will likely have to deal with a massive crash because tighter monetary policy over the last couple of years is in the process of breaking things in this house of cards economy. Even with rate cuts on the horizon, I believe it will be too little too late to stop the bust.

Here’s an analogy.

Easy money (artificially low interest rates and money printing) is heroin.

The economy is an addict.

The Fed is the drug dealer.

During the Great Recession, the Fed pumped nearly $4 trillion of new money into the economy and held interest rates artificially low until 2017. That’s a lot of heroin! When the central bank started trying to wean the addict of the drug, the druggy threw a fit (the stock market crash and shaky economy in the fall of 2018). Instead of letting the addict go through withdrawal and get better, the dealer went back to supplying the drug.

Then when COVID hit, the dealer gave the addict more drugs than he could ever want. The Fed pumped nearly $5 trillion of new money into the economy and slashed rates to zero again. Not only did we get asset price inflation, but we also got consumer price inflation. It was a predictable result of all the money and credit creation on top of government stimulus handed out while production slowed to a crawl while everybody was locked in their houses.

When the Fed finally acknowledged price inflation was a problem, it raised rates. It effectively cut off the drug supply. But unlike in the aftermath of the Great Recession, the Fed didn’t ease the addict off the drug. It basically made him stop cold turkey, and we still haven’t seen the consequences. The addict hasn’t had time to get all the heroin out of his system.

Today, the Fed is promising to start supplying the drugs again. It doesn’t want the addict to start going into convulsions. Meanwhile, the addict is already partying in anticipation of more heroin. The problem is it’s not going to be enough drugs to keep the party going. At some point, the addict is going to crash (There are too many malinvestments and too much debt in the economy for it not to).

At that point, the pusher will face a choice: go back to the zero percent interest rates and money printing in the hope that the addict can get high enough again to enjoy the party, or let the addict go through painful withdrawal.

Either option is going to be bad for those of us caught in the middle. We’re either going to suffer through an economic bust commensurate with the nearly two-decade heroin-induced boom, or we’re going to deal with levels of price inflation we have not seen yet.

Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for MoneyMetals.com with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.

Support Sound Money: Bring Back Gold Clause Contracts

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Support Sound Money: Bring Back Gold Clause Contracts

(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) One of the ways the government maintains its fiat money system is by throwing up legal and regulatory roadblocks to those wanting to use real money such as gold and silver. Reviving the use of gold clause contracts removes one of those barriers. 

The principle behind a gold clause contract is simple. It requires that payment must be made in a specific amount of gold or its paper equivalent. For example, a mortgage might stipulate that repayment must be in the form of 30 ounces of gold. 

Gold clauses protect the parties to a contract from currency debasement.

If I enter into a contract where I receive a $1,000 payment in five years, inflation will likely eat away at least 10 percent of the purchasing power if I’m paid in Federal Reserve notes (This is assuming the Fed’s target 2 percent inflation rate). By requiring payment in gold (or a gold equivalent), I will preserve the purchasing power of my money. 

To mitigate the inflation problem, many modern contracts include inflation adjustment clauses. The problem with this approach is nobody knows how severe price inflation will get in a given period. This makes clauses adjusting for a predetermined price inflation rate arbitrary and inaccurate. 

On the other hand, as the government creates more dollars, it will take more dollars to buy an ounce of gold. A gold clause provides a more stable hedge against inflationary dollar depreciation. 

Gold clause contracts were common in the United States until the early 1930s when Congress and Franklin D. Roosevelt launched a multi-pronged attack on gold.

It started with FDR’s Executive Order 6102 on April 5, 1933, commonly known today as his gold confiscation order. Congress followed this with a joint resolution on June 5, 1933, voiding all current gold contracts and banning them in the future. 

Voiding contracts was a radical move, but the Supreme Court ultimately validated the policy in four separate cases. The Court held that the federal government’s plenary power to regulate money empowered Congress to control the ownership and use of gold.

“Congress, by virtue of its power to deal with gold coin as a medium of exchange, was authorized to prohibit its export and limit its use in foreign exchange, and the restraint thus imposed upon holders of such coin was incident to their ownership of it, and gave them no cause of action.”

This was all part of FDR’s scheme to remove gold from private hands, which enabled the Federal Reserve to fire up the printing press. 

More broadly speaking, these various moves in the 1930s created the foundation for the government’s monopoly on money of today by forcing everybody to use Federal Reserve notes instead of gold and silver. 

It also, as noted above, enabled the Federal Reserve to print more paper money. The Federal Reserve Act required the central bank to hold enough gold to back at least 40 percent of the notes in circulation. But the central bank was low on gold and up against the limit. By transferring gold from public to private hands, the Roosevelt administration could create more paper currency. 

During a Fireside Chat, Roosevelt assured Americans that “not to let any of the gold now in the country go out of it” would strengthen the fiat currency. He also promised debtors that the “administration has the definite objective of raising commodity prices to such an extent that those who have borrowed money will, on the average, be able to repay that money in the same kind of dollar which they borrowed.”

But as Wendy McElroy pointed out in an article published by the Future of Freedom Foundation (FFF), “Gold clauses prevented Roosevelt from fulfilling his objective. If such contracts were widely used, then the ‘controlled’ inflation would have a diminished impact because dollar payments would simply rise to reflect the dollar equivalent of the specified gold. The gold clause constituted a free-market version of a gold standard.”

The right to own gold was effectively banned for more than four decades but was finally restored in 1975. 

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed a bill repealing the joint resolution abrogating gold contracts – making them once again enforceable.

If gold clauses were used more often, it would effectively create currency competition. As Edwin Vieira, Jr. explained to Jp Cortez of the Sound Money Defense League, “If enough people in a particular area did begin to employ gold-clause contracts on a routine basis, the relentless forces of competition would drive the economy in that area away from depreciating paper currency.”

In a paper on gold contracts, Hans Sennholz wrote, “Surely, a wide use of gold in contracts would greatly advance the importance of gold and degrade that of government money. It could conceivably lead to a universal rush to gold out of depreciating paper, which may force the monetary authorities to halt the depreciation and once again resume payments in gold.”

There is still one barrier to employing gold clauses in many states – usury laws that limit the amount of interest that can be charged on a loan. 

Because the price of gold can rise significantly over the course of a contract, a debtor could be required to pay back far more in equivalent dollars than the initial face value of the contract, if they decide to pay in U.S. dollars. Some mistakenly interpret this devaluation of fiat dollars as “interest” and argue usury laws prohibit or limit gold contracts. McElroy called gold clauses in states with strict usury laws “a legal gray area.”

According to UpCounsel, a legal aid service, “Because it is illegal to demand unreasonable amounts of interest on an obligation, and requiring payment in gold might constitute a violation of that law, the government does not give consent for any of its agencies or employees to enforce gold clauses.”

The path forward is for states to amend their laws to require state courts to give gold clauses full effect and enforceability. 

A provision in a new Louisiana law that makes gold and silver legal tender does just that.

“No person shall incur any liability for refusal to accept recognized legal tender for the payment of debts, except as provided by contract.” 

In practice, including the contract clause would mean if parties voluntarily agree to be paid, or to pay, in gold and silver coin or bullion, the Louisiana courts could not substitute another currency, e.g. Federal Reserve Notes, as payment.

Opening the door to gold clauses would knock down a barrier to using sound money – gold and silver – in the marketplace, and would serve to limit the Fed’s monopoly fiat money system. Then it would just be up to people to take advantage of the more free legal framework and use sound money. 

This article was also published by the Tenth Amendment Center.

Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for MoneyMetals.com with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.

Meta Takes Down 1,000s of Accounts Running Nigerian Sextortion Scams

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Meta Takes Down 1,000s of Accounts Running Nigerian Sextortion Scams

(Headline USA) Meta said Wednesday that it has taken down about 63,000 Instagram accounts in Nigeria running sexual extortion scams and has removed thousands of Facebook groups and pages that were trying to organize, recruit and train new scammers.

Sexual extortion, or sextortion, involves persuading a person to send explicit photos online and then threatening to make the images public unless the victim pays money or engages in sexual favors.

Recent high-profile cases include two Nigerian brothers who pleaded guilty to sexually extorting teen boys and young men in Michigan, including one who took his own life, and a Virginia sheriff’s deputy who sexually extorted and kidnapped a 15-year-old girl.

There has been a marked rise in sextortion cases in recent years, fueled in part by a loosely organized group called the Yahoo Boys, operating mainly out of Nigeria, Meta said. It added that it applied its “dangerous organizations and individuals” policy to remove Facebook accounts and groups run by the group.

“Because they’re driven by money, their targeting can be indiscriminate,” said Antigone Davis, Meta’s global head of safety. “So in other words, think of this as a little bit of a scattershot approach: get out there and send many, many, requests out to individuals and see who may who may respond.”

In January, the FBI warned of a “huge increase” in sextortion cases targeting children. The targeted victims are primarily boys between the ages of 14 to 17, but the FBI said any child can become a victim.

Meta said its investigation found that the majority of the scammers’ attempts did not succeed and mostly targeted adult men in the U.S., but added that it did see “some” try to target minors, which Meta says it reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The removed accounts included a “coordinated network” of about 2,500 accounts linked to a group of about 20 people who were running them, Meta said.

In April, Meta announced it was deploying new tools in Instagram to protect young people and combat sexual extortion, including a feature that will automatically blur nudity in direct messages. Meta is still testing out the features as part of its campaign to fight sexual scams and other forms of “image abuse,” and to make it tougher for criminals to contact teens.

Davis said users should look out for messages from people with “highly stylized” photos, people who are “exceptionally good looking” or have never sent you a message before.

“That should give you pause,” she said. Users should also take a pause if somebody sends an image first — scammers often use this tactic to try to gain trust and bait unsuspecting people into sending them back a photo of themselves.

“This is one of the one of these areas where if you have any sort of suspicion, I would urge caution,” she said.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Andrew Tate’s Defamation Lawsuit Against Human-Trafficking Accuser OKed to Proceed

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Andrew Tate’s Defamation Lawsuit Against Human-Trafficking Accuser OKed to Proceed

(Headline USA) A judge says social media personality Andrew Tate’s defamation lawsuit against a Florida woman who accused him of imprisoning her in Romania can move forward, but he threw out Tate’s allegations against her parents and some allegations against the woman.

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Joseph Curley ruled that the widely followed former professional kickboxer, 37, and his brother, Tristan, 36, can pursue their allegations that the woman in 2022 enlisted another woman in a plot to extort money from them.

The British-American brothers say the woman falsely accused them of human trafficking and rape, costing them their freedom and millions of dollars in income from their lucrative social media, podcasting and business ventures. Romanian officials indicted the Tates last year, saying the brothers forced seven victims into pornography and subjected them to physical violence.

Her attorneys say the lawsuit is in retribution for her reporting him to authorities.

Curley said in last week’s ruling, posted to online court records Tuesday, that the Tates’ attorneys have shown enough possible evidence that the woman defamed their clients and was attempting to defraud and extort them to warrant that the sides exchange discovery. He pointed to April 2022 text messages the woman and her friend exchanged where they say they will ask the Tates for $200,000 and “act like we still love them and stuff.”

Curley also pointed to other text messages that could indicate the woman knew she falsely accused the Tates of sex trafficking and false imprisonment. No trial date has been set and because of discovery and legal challenges it could be years before one occurs, if ever.

Curley did throw out parts of the lawsuit accusing the woman of false imprisonment for the Tates being arrested, intentional infliction of emotional distress and interfering with their business relationships. He left the door open to their attorneys amending and refiling those accusations.

Curley dismissed the Tates’ accusations that the woman’s parents defamed them when they told American diplomatic officials about their daughter’s allegations. He said they had no reason to believe their daughter’s accusations were false and had a right to report them. He had earlier dismissed allegations against the second woman because she is a Moldovan citizen living in Great Britain and outside Florida’s jurisdiction.

Attorneys for the Tates and the woman each said Curley’s decision was a win for their side.

Tate attorney Joseph McBride said they are “most pleased with Judge Curley’s ruling” as the defamation accusation directly addresses the “plot to destroy Andrew and Tristan Tate’s lives.” He said no decision has been made on whether to amend and refile the dismissed accusations.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation Law, which represents the woman and her parents, called Curley’s ruling a “huge victory.”

“We are very pleased the Court has tossed out the majority of this frivolous lawsuit and wisely narrowed the issues and claims,” attorney Dani Pinter said in a statement. “If the case proceeds, we look forward to the opportunity to prove the truth of what occurred in Romania, and we are confident that ultimately we will succeed and this harassing lawsuit will fail.”

Romanian investigators said in their indictment that the Tates and two Romanian women formed a criminal group in 2021 “in order to commit the crime of human trafficking” in that country, the United States and Britain. Prosecutors also confiscated the Tates’ assets, including 15 luxury cars, luxury watches and about $3 million in cryptocurrency.

Investigators say the seven accusers were recruited with false declarations of love, but then forced to take part in pornography. The women were controlled by “intimidation, constant surveillance” and claims they were in debt, officials said.

But the Tates, in their lawsuit, paint a different picture. They say the Florida woman and all women who lived at their estate were free to come and go as they pleased, and closed-circuit security video can prove it.

Andrew Tate has been banned from TikTok, YouTube and Facebook after the platforms accused him of posting hate speech and misogynistic comments, including that women should bear responsibility for being sexually assaulted. But he remains popular on X, with almost 10 million followers, many of them young men and schoolchildren. He runs an online academy where he says he teaches young men how to get rich and attract women.

Several women in Britain also are pursuing civil claims against Andrew Tate, alleging they were victims of sexual violence. British authorities have charged the Tates criminally with sexual aggression. Details have not been disclosed.

In a 2023 interview with the BBC, Andrew Tate denied spreading a culture of misogyny and accusations that he manipulated women for financial gain.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

FBI Employee Who Endorsed Trump Shooting under Internal Investigation, Director Says

Ken Silva
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FBI Employee Who Endorsed Trump Shooting under Internal Investigation, Director Says

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) FBI Director Chris Wray said at a Wednesday congressional hearing that the bureau employee who celebrated the assassination attempt against Donald Trump has been referred to the FBI’s inspection division for disciplinary review.

Wray’s disclosure came in response to questions from Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who was asking about the FBI’s long history of making anti-Trump statements.

“In 2015 and 2016 top FBI officials infamously texted about their insurance policy to make sure Trump was never elected or inaugurated as president,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, referencing the infamous texts between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. “Have any FBI agents texted, emailed, or expressed disappointment that Trump survived the assassination attempt?”

Wray responded: “There have been at least two instances, I think, or one instance, of an individual who posted something that I consider outrageous, and, totally inappropriate, and unacceptable, and that individual has been referred to our inspection division.”

Roy asked whether Wray would report other similar incidents to Congress, to which the director responded, “I’ll do my best.”

Wray’s statements corroborated information from ex-FBI agent Kyle Seraphin, who identified the FBI employee as Jenna Howell. Seraphin noted Howell’s anti-Trump posts the day after the shooting.

“Jenna Howell, an @FBI employee who works in the NICS firearms background check unit, posted her disappointment @realDonaldTrump survived an assassination attempt. Jenna has a Top Secret clearance. This is a typical #FBI support employee. And she hates gun owners,” Seraphin said.

Two days later, Seraphin reported that Howell has been suspended.

“Jenna Howell has been suspended pending investigation after a post (below) made on @X exposing her disappointment @realDonaldTrump survived an assassination attempt Saturday. This is being shared by sources familiar with the FBI’s CJIS offices,” he said on July 16.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

FBI Wants to Interview Trump about Assassination Attempt

Ken Silva
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FBI Wants to Interview Trump about Assassination Attempt

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) CNN reported Friday that the FBI wants to interview presidential frontrunner Donald Trump about the attempt against his life at the July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

According to CNN, the FBI just wants a victim statement—a standard part of the investigation because he is a crime victim.

“The FBI also said in a statement Thursday that investigators continue to examine bullet fragments and other evidence in the attack on Trump at his Pennsylvania rally this month, but that the agency has always considered the shooting an attempted assassination of the former president,” CNN reported.

While CNN painted the interview as innocuous, FBI Director Chris Wray expressed doubt that Trump was shot at a Wednesday congressional hearing—raising questions of whether investigators will be looking to grill Trump about the event. The FBI has been known to arrest people simply for making contradictory statements during interviews.

“My understanding is that it [the bullet], or some shrapnel, is what grazed his ear, so I don’t know if I have the answer to that,” Wray said Wednesday.

“As I said, with respect to former President Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray later said when asked again about the matter.

Wray was widely criticized for his remarks, including by Trump.

“Wray told Congress yesterday that he wasn’t sure if I was hit by shrapnel, glass, or a bullet (the FBI never even checked!), but he was sure that Crooked Joe Biden was physically and cognitively ‘uneventful’ – Wrong!” Trump posted Thursday on Truth Social, also referencing Wray’s comments about not noticing Biden’s cognitive decline.

“No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a ‘bullet wound to the ear,’ and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!”

Trump’s former White House physician, Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, also released a doctor’s note following the shooting confirming that Trump had been shot in the ear by a bullet.

Jackson immediately blasted the remarks by Wray, calling it “absolutely irresponsible” and “politically motivated.”

“What little credibility he may have left is GONE after recklessly suggesting Trump might not have been hit from a bullet,” Jackson wrote on his Twitter/X page. “IT WAS A BULLET — I’VE SEEN THE WOUND!”

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Emhoff’s Ex Opens Up about Parenting Trio w/ Kamala

Luis Cornelio
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Emhoff’s Ex Opens Up about Parenting Trio w/ Kamala

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Kerstin Emhoff, the first wife of Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, has spoken up about the non-existent attacks aimed at Vice President Kamala Harris for having no biological children. 

In remarks to CNN on Thursday, Emhoff claimed that Harris has acted as a parent to her children, Ella and Cole Emhoff, who were born during her marriage to Doug Emhoff, now Harris’s husband.

“These are baseless attacks,” Kerstin Emhoff claimed, citing no evidence of such attacks. “For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Dough and I. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present.” 

Emhoff’s remarks were likely prompted by the media’s false assertion that the Trump-Vance campaign has criticized Harris for being “childless.” 

These claims are far from reality. Fueling the left’s paranoia are comments from Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, made in 2021 about politicians without children influencing the future. 

Missing from most leftist outlets’ reporting is Vance’s clarification that individuals unable to have children despite their wishes are not included in his criticism. 

As explained in a video by the Daily Caller, Vance stated that Democratic politicians should not have a “direct stake” in the country.

At the time, Vance was a private citizen running for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio. Neither the Trump campaign nor Vance, now Trump’s running mate, have raised such criticism against Harris. 

Despite this, the Harris family rushed to counter these imaginary attacks. In a temporary Instagram post, Ella Emhoff asked, “How can you be ‘childless when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I.” She added, “I love my three parents.” 

Ella Emhoff’s defense comes months after she came under fire for fundraising for anti-Israeli and Hamas-linked groups. 

In March, the New York Post reported her fundraising for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), whose teachers and workers were accused of participating in the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7. 

In November 2023, Ella Emhoff promoted a fundraiser for the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip through the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. 

America’s Only Never-Elected President Eerily Predicted Kamala’s Rise 

Luis Cornelio
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America’s Only Never-Elected President Eerily Predicted Kamala’s Rise 

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Former President Gerald Ford—the only U.S. leader never to have been elected either president or vice president—made a startlingly accurate prediction 35 years ago that appeared to harbinger the recent political rise of Vice President Kamala Harris.

During a 1989 appearance at the Herbert Hoover Library in West Branch, Iowa, Ford stated that the stigma of a woman president would only be broken if she were first elected vice president and then elevated to the presidency if her running mate were to pass away while in office.

In response to a question from a young girl seeking advice on how to become president, Ford explained that such an election would not occur in the “normal” course of events.

“Either the Republican or Democrat political party will nominate a man for president and a woman for vice president and the woman and man will win. So you’ll end up with a president a male and a vice president of female,” Ford began. 

He continued, “In that term of office, the president will die and the woman will become president under the law or Constitution and once that barrier is broken, from then on, men better be careful because they’ll have a hard, hard time ever even getting a nomination in the future.” 

Ford concluded his prediction by saying such a scenario would happen “sometime in the next four or eight years.” Nobody’s perfect.

Notably, Ford himself was elevated to the presidency after serving as vice president to President Richard Nixon, who resigned under pressure over the Watergate scandal. 

Nixon had selected Ford as second-in-command after his original vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned over a criminal investigation.

Ford—a centrist who had previously served on the Warren Commission, which determinied no conspiracies had occured in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy—became Nixon’s top choice because he was advised that the House minority leader would be most easily confirmed by Congress.

But according to some, Nixon, who was elected into office as one of the most popular presidents only to resign as one of its most reviled, may have been a target of the Deep State, much like Kennedy and former President Donald Trump.

Although Ford had a reputation for being clumsy yet amicable, behind the scenes he may have been helping intelligence operatives to cover up their Kennedy hit and to successfully execute the Nixon coup. Ford’s appointment of globalist billionaire heir Nelson Rockefeller as his own vice president only underscored where his loyalties lay.

Fast forward to 2024: Ford’s prediction is making a comeback on social media after President Joe Biden was forcibly ejected from the 2024 presidential ticket by Democrat party elites under threat that they would have the 81-year-old declared unfit to serve. Biden then endorsed Harris, his running mate, as the heir to the ticket. 

Some Democrats are even demanding Biden resign from office and make Harris the incumbent to increase the chances of winning the election. Willie Brown, the former San Francisco mayor and former boyfriend of Harris, is among those Democrats calling on Biden to step down.

“I hope all those Democrats who’ve been pushing Biden to quit will now show up and ring doorbells with me,” he said recently.

However, where Kennedy, Nixon and Trump all defied the demands of powerful plutocrats and paid the price for it, Bidenplayed the obedient foot soldier and is likely to be rewarded by finishing out his term, health permitting.

With attention now focused on Harris, the lame-duck, wholly unaccountable president is well positioned to ramp up his pursuit of one of the most radical and corrupt agendas in U.S. history, and to ensure that the outcome that Ford foretold long ago comes to pass as promised.

Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.

Fox News Open to Hosting Debate Between Trump and Harris, If She Is Nominee

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Fox News Open to Hosting Debate Between Trump and Harris, If She Is Nominee

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Fox News offered to host a presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris after Joe Biden stepped out of the race on July 21, 2024, and endorsed Harris for president.

Fox News Media President and Executive Editor Jay Wallace and Fox News Vice President of Politics Jessica Loker wrote a letter to both the Trump and Harris campaigns on July 23, 2024, proposing a debate.

“Now that Vice President Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee, FOX News Media is amending our proposal for a debate this cycle. Given that the race has changed, we’d like to request the opportunity to host a presidential debate between VP Harris and former President Trump,” the letter stated.

They also wrote that the debate could occur in Pennsylvania in September before early voters go to the polls in the 2024 election.

“We propose to host the debate in the state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday, September 17, just as early voting is getting underway there and in other key battlegrounds. We are open to discussion on the exact date, format and location – with or without an audience. Again, we believe Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, the faces of our political coverage, are the best choices to moderate,” the letter stated.

Despite the gaslighting from leftists in the media about how he is supposedly afraid of debating Harris because she is a non-white woman, Trump enthusiastically responded to Fox News the same day by saying he would “absolutely” be open to debating Harris.

However, on July 25, 2024, Steven Cheung, Trump’s Campaign Communications Director, published a statement regarding the debates, in which he wrote that the debates will not happen until Democrats make a formal and final announcement of their presidential candidate.

“Given the continued political chaos surrounding Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, general election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee,” he wrote.

Cheung then pointed out that Democrats use Harris as a temporary Biden replacement until they find someone better.

“There is a strong sense by many in the Democrat Party – namely Barack Hussein Obama – that Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump, and they are still holding out for someone ‘better.’ Therefore, it would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats… could still change their minds,” he added.

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