As of Q1 2023, the annualized GDP of the U.S. sits at $26.5 trillion.

Of this, 88% or $23.5 trillion comes from private industries. The remaining $3 trillion is government spending at the federal, state, and local levels.

Here’s a look at the largest private industries by economic contribution in the United States:

Some US officials are criticizing the Biden administration for deliberately downplaying the threat from Yemen’s Houthis on US naval forces, Politico reported Tuesday. The criticism follows an attack on Sunday on several commercial vessels in the Red Sea, which forced a US Navy warship to scramble to respond.

The Yemeni resistance movement launched missiles and drones against three separate commercial vessels. The USS Carney fired back, taking down three unmanned aerial drones. It is unclear whether the US Navy ship was also a target of the attack or was simply coming to the aid of the commercial vessels. 

Defense Department and Biden administration officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, have said the US "cannot assess" whether the USS Carney was the target of the attacks. 

Have you heard about Joe Biden’s historic presidency? Or about the historic accomplishments of Joe Biden’s first term?

I have. Repeatedly. Of course, I force myself to watch “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, Jake Tapper on CNN, and Jonathan Karl on ABC, so I’m well-informed about the thinking of left-wing elites and their game plan for keeping Donald Trump out of office. Apparently, part of the plan is to convince the American public that Joe Biden has been a great president, mostly when you weren’t looking.

In a sense, this is the political equivalent of the recent cleanup of San Francisco by California Gov. Gavin Newsom to make the dangerous and dirty city look better for the arrival of the Chinese Communist leader Xi Jinping. I’m not sure who Newsom thought he was fooling. The residents surely know that the city is an open sewer, and a two-week makeover wasn’t going to change that. Xi Jinping himself was also not fooled. He probably reads the papers or has someone else read them for him, and he probably got a chuckle out of the governor’s groveling.

Zelensky did sort of get screwed, if we’re honest.

This is one of the most important news items ever.

Or, rather, it will be if Bibi is able to turn this thing into a world war, which is clearly what he is trying to do by committing this slaughter in Gaza.

Don’t expect this story to get much play in the media.

The Biden administration is moving to impose sanctions on Israeli settlers involved in attacks on Palestinians, which will involve banning them from traveling to the United States.

Fresh Axios reporting on Tuesday has cited government officials who specify that multiple dozens of known Israeli settlers will be impacted by the visa ban, expected to be implemented by the State Department.

The US government has not sanctioned Israeli settlers going all the way back to the Clinton administration, but Washington has consistently condemned settler expansion in the West Bank, at least as far as public policy and rhetoric goes.

Gaza sources have said the death toll in the Strip has reportedly surpassed 15,200. Meanwhile the White House has come under increased international pressure to impose limits on Israel's military operations as well as usage of US-supplied bombs.

An air force colonel has said that Israeli airstrikes may have intentionally killed Israeli captives rather than let them be taken to Gaza.

Speaking in Hebrew about the airstrikes, Colonel Nof Erez told a Haaretz podcast in November, that “the Hannibal Directive was apparently applied” and that 7 October “was a mass Hannibal.”

After weeks of claiming that 1,400 “civilians” were killed that day, Israel last month revised its death toll down to about 900 civilians plus around 300 soldiers and police. An official Israeli account posting to X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday appeared to lower the death toll even further to “over 1,000.”

It felt like we were on the way to hell.

We had to walk 14 kilometers. It took us six hours.

There were elderly people, pregnant women, children, including many babies.

There were people with cancer and other serious diseases.

There were people with disabilities, forced to carry their bags as they held white flags.

Nobody dared to demonstrate any curiosity about what was going on. We were all afraid that we would be struck with a bullet in the back of our heads.

Israeli authorities banned a Palestinian NGO after it reported the rape of a Palestinian child by Israeli forces to the US State Department in 2021, former official Josh Paul said in a CNN interview on Monday.

Paul, who resigned in October in protest over arms sales to Israel, said in an interview with Christiane Amanpour that Israeli forces had raided Defense for Children International- Palestine’s offices and designated it a terrorist organisation.

That followed a complaint made by the US State Department about the rape of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in Al-Mascobiyya detention centre in West Jerusalem.

“[They] removed their computers and declared them a terrorist entity,” Paul said.

Israeli forces launched a devastating assault on the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Tuesday, in one of the most violent days since the military launched a ground offensive on the besieged enclave in October. 

Israeli air strikes hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis overnight, killing at least 30 people.

Israeli tanks entered the area for the first time, taking up positions in the town of Bani Suhaila and in Hamad City, a Qatar-funded housing development. 

At least 43 dead Palestinian bodies were brought to Nasser Hospital - Khan Younis's main medical facility - on Tuesday morning, according to Palestinian health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra. 

You might as well face it, markets are “addicted to gov.” Government monetary interference, that is. Government money printing and massive Federal spending.

The Washington Post has produced a long, two part piece, about the failed 'counter-offensive' in Ukraine. It dispenses equal blame on the U.S. and British planning of the whole mess and the Ukrainian execution of it.

Israeli occupation forces have arrested more than 3,580 Palestinains across the occupied West Bank since 7 October, according to a joint statement issued by the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs Authority and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club yesterday.

The detainees were taken from their homes, or while passing through military checkpoints or were ordered to hand themselves in, noting that while some of them were later released, a majority remained behind bars, held without charge.

The Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades announced yesterday that its fighters have targeted 25 Israeli military vehicles in various areas in the city of Khan Yunis in the besieged Gaza Strip, the Safa news agency reported.

In a statement, the Palestinian resistance group said its fighters targeted eight Israeli military vehicles, three tanks, a military bulldozer and an army personnel carrier with Yasin 105 shells in the eastern part of the city of Khan Yunis, and killed a number of Israeli soldiers there including a special unit which included eight soldiers.

The group’s fighters also targeted six Israeli soldiers with homemade Ghoul rifles, in the Al-Zana area in eastern Khan Yunis, injuring a number of them, while in the northern part of the city the fighters targeted three military bulldozers, a tank and a personnel carrier with Yasin 105 missiles.

Webmaster addition: Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." -- Leading Nazi leader, Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg Trials before he was sentenced to death

Internal Revenue Service agent Joseph Ziegler told the House Ways and Means Committee in closed-door testimony Tuesday that Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, received almost $5 million in loans from a donor for personal expenses.

"Hunter appeared to follow a pattern of attempting to avoid paying taxes on relevant income. This first started with Hunter not reporting the Burisma income in 2014 and allegedly falsely claiming that it was a loan to him," Ziegler said in his testimony.

"He, again, tried to claim the millions in income earned from Hudson West III was a loan to him, which was refuted by the evidence and was not allowed by his tax accountants. This continued into 2020, 2021 and 2022, in which Hunter received approximately $4.9 million in payments for personal expenses, again in the form of a loan and gift from Democratic Donor Kevin Patrick Morris," he added.

Ziegler also said that Morris paid Hunter's delinquent taxes.

In a high-stakes hearing today, FBI Director Christopher Wray faced intense questioning from Senate Judiciary Committee members regarding the potential renewal of key surveillance powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

These powers, allegedly crucial to the bureau’s national security operations but controversial for their overreach, are set to expire this month amidst a swirling debate over privacy rights and government oversight.

Senator Kennedy (R-LA) steered the discussion towards a more contentious topic: the FBI’s handling of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

“Why didn’t the FBI just say, hey, the laptop’s real?” Senator Kennedy asked. “Why didn’t you just tell everybody the laptop’s real. We’re not vouching for what’s on it, but it’s real. This isn’t a fiction.”

Is your job safe?  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were more than 13 million layoffs and discharges in the United States during the first nine months of 2023, and now “layoff season” has arrived.  As the end of the year approaches, companies start taking a hard look at the bottom line, and that can result in harsh job cuts.  When I was growing up, most large companies would at least wait until after the holiday season to shove workers into the street, but these days they just don’t care.  The moment you are no longer considered to be an asset, they will throw you aside like a rotten fish.  We live in a cold, cruel world, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.

From a disposable income standpoint the Fed data agrees that the consumer is better able to service their debt now than they ever have. That peaked during the stimmie checks but that gap has closed from -25% to -5% in the past 2 years. Which is not a promising trend.

 Representatives and witnesses highlighted concerns for girls and women during a contentious hearing on Tuesday challenging the Biden administration’s proposed changes to Title IX, which would effectively broaden the definition of sex to include “gender identity.”

 President Joe Biden said he is “not sure” he would be running for re-election in 2024 if former President Donald Trump was not also seeking a second term.

 A Colorado school district assigned an 11-year-old girl to share a bed with a biological boy who identifies as transgender, according to a demand letter from the girl’s parents.

Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago – A blueprint reviewed by The Times laid out the attack in detail. Israeli officials dismissed it as aspirational and ignored specific warnings.