(Ken Silva, Headline USA) In its ongoing case against alleged would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh, the Justice Department filed a motion on Monday that not even Routh’s attorneys are allowed to see.
The DOJ’s sealed, ex parte motion was filed pursuant to the Classified Information Procedures Act, which allows the U.S. government to keep state secrets just that: secret—even if it negatively impacts the rights of a defendant. The government’s motion seeks to keep some evidence under wraps, apparently because it’s classified.
In the Fla. attempted Trump assassination case, Trump's DOJ just filed a sealed motion that not even Routh's attorneys are allowed to see 🤔 pic.twitter.com/ytsGMr5puS
The DOJ hasn’t signaled what evidence could be classified in Routh’s case, but it could pertain to his travels to Ukraine and connections to the U.S. intelligence community. Routh was recruiting fighters to go to Ukraine up to within days of his alleged Sept. 15 assassination attempt.
Routh is set to stand trial in September. His case is at least the second Trump assassination case to involve classified information.
In December, the DOJ filed a similar motion to keep classified information secret in the case of Asif Merchant, the Pakistani man who allegedly tried hiring two hitmen in an Iranian-sponsored assassination plot against Trump.
As Headline USA has detailed, the notion that Iran conspired to assassinate Trump is highly dubious. In the Merchant case, the two hitmen he attempted to hire were undercover FBI agents introduced to him by one of their informants. Merchant appears to have been an unwitting dupe in an FBI sting operation.
However, the evidence that would prove whether Merchant was a legitimate assassin or an FBI patsy may never see the light of day, thanks to CIPA.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
(Kyle Anzalone, Antiwar.com) Department of Defense officials are telling Congress behind closed doors that it does not believe the new military campaign in Yemen has degraded the Houthis’ military capabilities. Within a month, the operations will cost over $1 billion.
According to the New York Times, the Pentagon informed Capitol Hill that the new operations against the Houthis – or Ansar Allah – have had “limited success.” The Houthis have reinforced their underground bunker, frustrating the White House.
The private assessment to Congress is far different from the public messages from the White House. “These Houthi strikes have been incredibly successful,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “Last time I was at this podium, there were more than 100 successful strikes. There have now been over 200 successful strikes – Iran is incredibly weakened as a result of these attacks.”
On March 15, President Donald Trump announced that he would restart President Joe Biden’s bombing campaign in Yemen at an accelerated pace. In January 2024, Biden ordered his Pentagon to attack the Houthis after the group closed the Red Sea to Israeli-linked shipping in an effort to pressure Tel Aviv to end its genocide in Gaza.
Biden’s attacks on Yemen proved ineffective as Ansar Allah expanded the blockade of shipping to US-linked commerce. The group has also attacked US warships in the region and conducted direct missile and drone strikes on Israel.
In January, Hamas and Tel Aviv reached a ceasefire and hostage, leading Ansar Allah to lift its blockade and end attacks on US ships and Israel. After Tel Aviv broke that agreement, the Houthis announced they would reimpose their blockade on Israeli-linked shipping.
In a now infamous Signal chat, Trump’s top national security officials discussed resuming the bombing of Yemen. Vice President JD Vance was the only participant in the chat to dissent, claiming that the bombing campaign benefited Europe at the expense of the American taxpayer.
Vance did not note that the primary beneficiary of the policy is Tel Aviv. In the Signal chat, several officials celebrated the bombing of an apartment building in Yemen’s capital city, believing an Ansar Allah official was inside the structure. That target was hit with intelligence from Tel Aviv.
Officials speaking with the Times confirmed that the Department of Defense continues to use Israeli intelligence to generate targets in Yemen.
During the first week of bombing Yemen, at least 25 civilians were killed in the US strikes. Yemeni officials say a total of 60 civilians have died from the American bombs.
Following the US resumption of the bombing of Yemen, the Houthis have also restated targeting US warships and Israel with missiles.
Trump administration officials have stated that its bombing of Yemen will successfully deter Ansar Allah, even though that policy failed under the previous administration. They argue that heavier strikes will erode the Houthis’ military capabilities.
While the Pentagon said the renewed bombing campaign has not degraded the Houthi power, it has come at a significant price.
The Times reports that the Pentagon has spent $200 million on munitions to strike Yemen. The additional deployment of two aircraft carrier strike groups and B-2 bombers will push the total cost of the operations to over $1 billion next week.
The price of striking Yemen is so high, in part due to Ansar Allah’s air defense capabilities. In recent weeks, the Houthis have downed multiple Reaper Drones. This has led the Pentagon to use longer-range missiles to strike Houthi targets.
Some Defense officials have expressed concern that the administration is using too many munitions in Yemen and degrading the military’s ability to fight a potential war with China.
(Jon Styf, The Center Square) Former President Barack Obama would lead President Donald Trump 53% to 47% if the 22nd Amendment was changed to allow presidents to serve a third term, according to a new poll released Monday from Overton Insights.
The poll included interviews with 1,200 registered voters across the U.S. between March 24-28.
Trump would lead former Vice President Kamala Harris 48% to 45% if the pair were to face off today, the poll showed.
“These results are fascinating, offering a clear window into how perennial undecided voters view the current administration,” said Overton Insights Poll Director Mark Cunningham. “Despite President Trump’s approval being underwater (-5%), 2024 voters show no signs of buyer’s remorse – Trump even edges out Harris by a slightly wider margin. But when offered a Democrat they actually like, such as former President Barack Obama, voters – especially Independents and moderates – swing decisively toward him.”
The poll also looked at a hypothetical 2028 Republican primary race without Trump, showing that Vice President J.D. Vance leads the field with 36% of the vote, followed by Donald Trump Jr. (31%), Ron DeSantis (13%), Vivek Ramaswamy (6%), and Marco Rubio (6%).
Harris has a large lead amongst Democrats (48%), followed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (15%), California Gov. Gavin Newsom (10%), Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (9%), Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (6%), Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (3%), and sports commentator Stephen A. Smith (2%).
Israeli security sources also said that the US deployed two Patriot air defense batteries to Israel. US officials previously told The Wall Street Journal that the US was sending Patriot systems to “defend US air bases and nearby allies” as part of its military buildup in the Middle East that’s aimed at Iran.
The US has also sent a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East, deployed additional B-2 bombers to its base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, and sent other additional air assets to the region.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former US Ambassador David Friedman visit a US THAAD that was temporarily deployed in Israel on March 6, 2019 (US Air Force photo)
The THAAD system the Biden administration deployed to Israel remains, meaning two out of the seven THAAD batteries the US operates are based in the country.
The deployment of the second THAAD system and two Patriot batteries to Israel suggests hundreds more US troops could be headed to the country as well. The deployment is a strong show of support for Israel amid its genocidal war in Gaza, ramped-up military operations in the West Bank, continued occupation of southern Lebanon, and invasion of southern Syria.
(Clint Siegner, Money Metals News Service) Silver prices dropped 12% in the final two trading days of last week. Gold lost 2.6%.
While gold has held up relatively well, silver fell in tandem with the general stock market after President Trump announced reciprocal tariffs against nations that impose a levy on goods from the U.S.
Bullion was exempted; gold, silver, platinum, and palladium coins, rounds, and bars will not be subject to the tariff.
This news provided some of the impetus for heavy selling in the futures markets.
Long speculators, who made leveraged bets that tariffs would drive metal prices higher, discovered they had gambled and lost.
The big sell-off highlights a frustrating truth about bullion investing. In the short term, metal prices are impacted, in large part, by organizations that bullion investors have almost nothing in common with.
Shorter-term price movements are driven by money flows in the leveraged futures markets.
In the futures market:
Investors mostly have a short-term mindset. The longest-dated contract with major volume matures within a few months.
There is more than 10-to-1 leverage built into futures contracts. That often makes for weak hands. Investors who don’t have the deep pockets or the stomach needed to hang on when a bet goes against them will sell.
The motivations are entirely different. Nobody buys a futures contract because they care about things like having something to pass on to the grandkids. In fact, a lot of the trading isn’t even done by humans; instead, it’s often algorithmic or machine trading.
Speculators in the futures market play a zero-sum game. One party is betting on higher prices and the counterparty is betting prices will go down.
The playing field is not level. There are smaller fish, with shallow pockets and without tricks and tools at their disposal. They are often paired against whales: bullion banks with deep pockets, plenty of extra tools, and, unfortunately, a history of dirty tricks.
The futures market has rules which are subject to change without notice. These changes often happen during moments of extreme trading activity. For example, the COMEX raised margin requirements in the middle of last week’s selloff. The move put even more long investors underwater, thereby ramping the pressure on them to sell.
The supply of contracts is effectively unlimited. The Hunt brothers might be the last people who were turned away when trying to buy a silver contract, and that was in 1980. Since then, the bullion banks have been able to sop up any amount of demand with a contract for everyone who wants to buy one.
In the retail bullion market:
Investors tend to buy with the intention of holding long-term. Nearly all of the players in the market are individual investors motivated by instincts for wealth preservation and reducing counterparty risk.
There is no leverage.
There is no counterparty when an investor buys coins, rounds, and bars – especially not a bullion bank with a rap sheet.
There is an actual cap on supply. Bullion markets are limited to the metal on the shelf.
For anyone frustrated by short-term price action in metals, here is more suggested reading. The futures markets were created, in part, to discourage physical ownership of gold and silver.
Suffice it to say, that if price discovery in gold and silver was done in the physical markets, rather than the futures markets, the price action would be different.
Last week is a prime example. Very few people who own physical metal saw the news regarding tariffs and decided it was time to sell.
Rather bullion investors saw the price drop as an opportunity to buy.
Friday was the busiest day in a couple of years in terms of buying. And the number of people selling was way down.
Clint Siegner is a Director at Money Metals Exchange, a precious metals dealer recently named “Best in the USA” by an independent global ratings group. A graduate of Linfield College in Oregon, Siegner puts his experience in business management along with his passion for personal liberty, limited government, and honest money into the development of Money Metals’ brand and reach. This includes writing extensively on the bullion markets and their intersection with policy and world affairs.
(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) On Saturday, Yemen’s SABA news agency reported that footage shared by President Donald Trump that showed a US airstrike in Yemen hit a religious gathering, not a Houthi military meeting as the president claimed.
Trump posted the video on his social media, which showed a group of people gathered in a large circle who were then bombed. “These Houthis gathered for instructions on an attack. Oops, there will be no attack by these Houthis!” the president wrote on X.
Trump added that the Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, will “never sink our ships again,” although there have been no known incidents of the Yemeni group sinking an American ship.
These Houthis gathered for instructions on an attack. Oops, there will be no attack by these Houthis!
In response to the post, a source told SABA that the video showed an airstrike on a gathering for Eid, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan. “The source explained that the video clip published by the criminal Trump, claiming that it was a gathering of military leaders, was merely an event for a social Eid visit in Hodeida province,” SABA reported.
The report said the source “emphasized that those present at that gathering had no connection to the operations carried out by the Yemeni Armed Forces, which are implementing the decision to ban navigation on ships linked to the American and Israeli enemy, as the criminal Trump claimed.”
Mohammed al-Houthi, a senior member of Ansar Allah’s political council, said the video was evidence of a US intelligence failure. “The video clip published by Trump and the situation of the visitors attest to the falsity of what he said. The video he published is in fact the targeting of an Eid social gathering,” he said. Users on social media were quick to point out that the circle of people resembled a common way Yemeni tribes gather.
A member of the US and Saudi-backed Yemeni government in exile, which is based in Saudi Arabia, claimed the US strike killed 70 Houthi fighters and several Iranian advisors but offered no evidence for the claim. At the time of the attack, there were no reports in Yemeni media of a major casualty in Hodeidah.
The US military has shared virtually no details about its bombing campaign in Yemen and has not offered specifics about the video that Trump posted. The president shared the footage on the same day that The New York Times reported that the daily airstrikes on Yemen have had “limited success” as the Houthis are not deterred and are not backing down.
The US bombing campaign has had a heavy toll on civilians, with at least 25 civilians being killed in the first week from March 15 to March 21, according to the Yemen Data Project.
(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A veteran is under fire after sharing gay porn of himself on X. But there were two problem: he is a married Army Reserve lieutenant colonel specializing in diversity, equity, and inclusion—and some of his porn was recorded during his deployment overseas.
Lt. Col. Adam Harmon served as both an equal opportunity adviser and a diversity, equity, and inclusion professional in the Army—later working as a DEI attorney at prominent firms Foley Hoag and WilmerHale.
According to the New York Post—the first to report on Harmon’s acts Thursday—both Harmon and his husband are West Point graduates.
Harmon allegedly ran an X account called “franzkafka2007,” where he shared “workplace fantasies, self-generated X-rated content and lurid propositions for the past six years,” the Post noted.
Harmon apologized for his behavior while on deployment, telling the Post: “Serving this country in uniform for 24 years has been the greatest honor of my life. That’s why I am deeply sorry for the lapse in judgment that brought embarrassment to the Army, my unit and myself.”
“This occurred during an especially lonely chapter of my life, but I take full responsibility,” he added. “I believe in accountability, in learning from our mistakes and in using them as a path to growth — and that’s exactly what I intend to do here.”
The Post‘s analysis of the raunchy X page noted that Harmon left “his fingerprints” all over the account despite his apparent attempts to remain anonymous.
In December 2022, he shared a vacation photo in a Speedo on both his personal Instagram and X, displaying a right-arm tattoo.
Then, in September 2023, he boasted about three sex toys—known in gay culture as “butt plugs”—featuring his lieutenant colonel insignia.
In one video, Harmon recorded himself masturbating in the middle of barracks, captioning it, “A few guys have been very into f–king me in uniform lately so why not.”
Even worse, he shared what appeared to be a nude photo of himself timestamped in the United Arab Emirates in November 2024, while he was officially stationed in Kuwait.
The posting did not stop there. The Post noted, “The lieutenant colonel also shared two blushworthy sex pics of himself taken by other men — one in which he performs fellatio. Neither post identifies the other man as his husband.”
It added, “Harmon also posted two raunchy photos of a man whom he identifies as his husband, Bennett, who has been awarded the Bronze Star, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Combat Action Badge and 15 other decorations during his service, according to Army Reserve records.”
Critics say the issue with Harmon’s posts isn’t their sexual nature, but that they violated his duty to protect the country.
While he has deleted the page, the Post’s reporting led to his dismissal from his current job.
(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Hundreds of individuals have reportedly donated over $160,000 to a digital fundraiser for Karmelo Anthony, the man accused of fatally stabbing a 16-year-old white teen at a Texas track meet..
The fund—started by Anthony’s family—appeared to seek to cover the legal fees tied to first-degree murder charges. According to the Frisco Police Department, Anthony fatally stabbed Austin Metcalf, a 16-year-old student-athlete with a 4.0 GPA, during a track meet on April 2.
The incident reportedly began when Metcalf and his twin brother, Hunter, asked Anthony to move from seats assigned to them. Anthony allegedly refused, and after a brief altercation, took a knife out of his bag and stabbed Metcalf in the chest.
When apprehended by police, Anthony defiantly said, “I’m not alleged, I did it,” claiming his actions were in self-defense. His family echoed these claims in a GiveSendGo fundraiser.
“This is the Official Support Fund for Karmelo and his family during this challenging and difficult time,” the family wrote.
They added, “The narrative being spread is false, unjust, and harmful. As a family of faith, we are deeply grateful for all of your support during this trying period. Your prayers and assistance mean more to us now more than ever.”
The fundraiser, set at $200,000, has already attracted significant donations—some as high as $3,000—with supporters commenting, “Let’s get this baby home” and “We are here for you, Karmelo!” The Daily Mail was first to report on the fundraiser.
In contrast, Metcalf’s twin brother offered a different account of the seat dispute’s events.
In an interview with WFAA the day after the athlete’s death, Hunter recalled: “We asked him to move. He started getting aggressive and talking reckless, and my brother stepped in and said, ‘You need to move.’ He’s like, ‘Make me move,’ [and] also grabbed his backpack,” Hunter said, before saying he couldn’t explain further what happened.”
He added: “I look at my brother and then, I’m not gonna talk about the rest… I try to, I try to help him but it was just senseless. It was, it was really senseless, really. I don’t know why a person would do that to someone just over that little argument.”
(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Billionaire Shark Tank star Mark Cuban offered a rather uninspiring explanation for his support of Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. He admitted that his reason for voting Democratic boiled down to a single point: Harris was not Donald Trump.
Cuban made these remarks during a Friday interview with ESPN personality and podcast host Stephen A. Smith on The Stephen A. Smith Show. Smith had asked Cuban to explain his support for Democrats.
“Why is it—tell us and remind us—why you were so supportive of Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party considering how chaotic things looked and we ultimately learned that side of the aisle was?” Smith asked.
“Because she wasn’t Donald Trump,” Cuban replied.
Taken aback by the lack of substance in the answer, Smith pressed further: “Simple as plain? Just that simple? If it were anybody else other than Donald Trump—let’s say for example it was Nikki Haley, let’s say for example it was Ron DeSantis, or Chris Christie even a Vivek Ramaswamy or somebody—are you saying that you may have thought differently?”
Cuban confirmed, admitting he “voted for Nikki Haley in the Texas primary.”
“I got you,” Smith said. “So you would have voted for her for presidency if she had won the Republican nomination?”
Cuban hesitated at first, admitting he did not agree with all of Haley’s policy proposals, but added, “I certainly would have considered it.”
Only then did Cuban share some positive thoughts about Harris.
“Look, I like Kamala,” Cuban said. “I don’t want to throw her under the bus. I think she’s smarter than people give her credit for but I think she was really held back by her team they would not let her do just basic things that would have made a lot of difference.”
Stephen A. Smith: “Tell us, and remind us, why you were so supportive of Kamala Harris?”
Mark Cuban: “Because she wasn't Donald Trump.”
Stephen A. Smith: “Simple as plain. Just that simple?”
(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) Stocks have taken a beating over the last several days. The conventional wisdom is that the sell-off is due to worries about the impact of the Trump tariffs.
The aggressive tariff regime certainly triggered the sudden and sharp downturn in the stock market, but is something deeper going on?
I think there is.
The big sell-off in response to tariffs is just one chapter in a much longer novel. A look at a metric known as the Dow-to-gold ratio hints at the larger narrative.
In a nutshell, the stock market is historically overvalued. In other words, it is a bubble. And one thing we know about bubbles is that they eventually pop.
All it takes is a pin.
Tariffs might be the pin.
But even if stocks manage to regain their footing, another pin is out there.
What Is the Dow-Gold Ratio?
The Dow-to-Gold ratio prices the Dow Jones Index in ounces of gold. Currently, the ratio stands at just over 12.5-1. In other words, it would take around 12.5 ounces of gold to “buy” the Dow.
As you can see from the chart, the ratio is starting to break down.
What is this telling us?
Ratios are valuable in revealing trends and cycles. For instance, a large spread in the gold-to-silver ratio (such as the 100:1 ratio today) tells us that silver is significantly undervalued compared to gold. When we get these large spreads, ratios typically revert back to the mean. For instance, the gold-to-silver ratio fell to 30-1 in 2011 after rising to over 80-1 during the money creation of the Great Recession in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
We can track similar trends in the Dow-to-gold ratio.
What we find is that historically, a falling Dow-to-Gold ratio precedes or coincides with financial crises or long-term bear markets.
Going way back in time, the ratio fell from around 18-1 to 2-1 in the early years of the Great Depression.
During the stagflationary years of the ’70s, stocks tanked, but gold took off on a long bull rally. In 1980, the Dow-Gold ratio briefly touched 1-1.
As we can see from the chart, stock valuations took off in the 90s. Between that low in 1980 to 2000, the index moved as high as 43-1.
How do we account for this massive runup in stocks?
There were certainly many factors, but one of the most significant drivers was money creation by the Federal Reserve that helped pump up the dot-com bubble. The extreme overvaluation of tech stocks drove the Dow-to-gold ratio to all-time highs.
And then the bubble popped.
The Fed managed to keep some air in the bubble for a while with a massive injection of easy money, but the bubble popped as we endured the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession. Between 2000 and 2011, the ratio fell to as low as 6:1.
And then the Fed went to work again.
The Dow-to-gold ratio peaked at over 18:1 in 2018, thanks to a decade of easy money. The ratio fell modestly in late 2018 as the stock market tanked and the central bank finally attempted to “normalize” monetary policy. But when the market crashed in the fall of that year, the central bank pivoted back to quantitative easing to keep the air flowing.
The pandemic gave the Fed cover to double down on loose monetary policy and blow even more air into the stock market bubble. The chart shows the post-pandemic rebound as stocks surged due to massive liquidity injections inflating the ratio yet again.
Since then, we’ve seen a relatively steady ratio until the drop in recent weeks.
Bubbles Pop
The relationship between Federal Reserve monetary policy and the Dow-to-Gold ratio underscores an important fundamental — the stock market is subject to inflation just like consumer prices. In fact, monetary inflation often shows up in equities first. In a nutshell, central bank money creation tends to blow up asset bubbles.
In effect, this means that while stocks have surged in nominal terms, they have made much less progress in real (inflation-adjusted) returns.
I have been saying for years that the stock market is extremely overvalued, thanks to the Fed’s monetary malfeasance. It is a bubble waiting for a pin. It started to deflate in 2018, but the Fed was able to use the pandemic as an excuse to pump the air back in. Now, it may have found its pin in Trump tariffs.
There is little question that the stock market is extremely overvalued. In December, CurrentMarketValuation.com called the S&P 500 “strongly overvalued” based on the price-earnings ratio.
If history is any indication, the sudden drop in the Dow-to-Gold ratio could be signaling the beginning of a massive selloff in stock and a major rally in gold.
An Opportunity for Investors
The recent breakdown in the Dow-to-gold ratio may signal that it’s time to consider getting out of stocks and into gold.
Even if Trump backs off the aggressive tariffs and provides some relief for markets, it won’t change the fact that stocks are overvalued. We still haven’t dealt with the ramifications of well over a decade of artificially low interest rates and multiple rounds of QE.
We will.
Consider this: if the Dow-gold ratio were to revisit the 1-1, we’d be looking at either a massive stock market crash, an explosive move higher in precious metals prices, or some combination of both.
While a return to a 1-1 ratio would be extreme, even a more modest contraction of the ratio presents an opportunity. If the ratio returned to 5-1, we’d be looking at $7,500 gold if there was no corresponding drop in the Dow. If the Dow fell to 20,000, gold would still be over $4,000 an ounce.
And don’t forget that silver typically outperforms gold in the latter part of a gold bull market. With the gold-to-silver ratio over 100-1, we know that silver is significantly undervalued compared to gold and set up for a major gain. So this extremely high gold-to-silver ratio suggests one might be overweight to silver in comparison to gold.
Nobody has a crystal ball. Trump could relent on tariffs tomorrow and set off a relief rally in stocks. But it won’t change the fact that the market is a “big, fat, ugly bubble,” to quote Donald Trump in 2016. Smart investors are positioned for that reality.
Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for Money Metals 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.
