[Breitbart] ‘The Shot Heard Round the World,’ Subjects Become Citizens, Lexington and Concord and the 250th Anniversary of the Start of the Revolutionary War.
[YouTube] U.S. Had Enough of Houthis - F AROUND AND FIND OUT! The massive military campaign the US launched on Saturday, March 15. After the Houthis shot down an MQ-9 Reaper drone. The campaign is the largest US combined arms offensive since the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the biggest naval battle since World War Two. This is part one in a series that will examine the day-to-day campaign as it unfolds.
[YouTube] Here I switch from Issues of Contemporary politics to Russian History Playlist. In honor of the 80eth anniversary of the Russian allied victory over germany in WW2, I will post several videos on the major stages of that great war. Today i discuss the German Invasion in June 1941 up to the battle of Moscow in December 1941.
Dr. Brovkin is an American historian of Russian origin, now retired, served as an Associate Professor of Soviet History at Harvard University.
Text taken from a press release by the Russian spy agency, SVR
[ColonelCassad] A retrospective analysis of the policies of Western states shows Europe's "historical predisposition" to various forms of totalitarianism, which periodically produces destructive conflicts on a global scale. According to experts, the current discord in relations between the United States and the EU countries, which accuse D. Trump of authoritarianism, is becoming, against the backdrop of the upcoming 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, a factor contributing to the situational rapprochement between Washington and Moscow, as has happened more than once in the past.
This is evidenced, in particular, by the scandal associated with the demands of the French member of the European Parliament Raphael Glucksmann to the Americans, who "decided to side with the tyrants", to return to Paris the Statue of Liberty, which was previously donated to the United States. R. Glucksmann, being a representative of globalist forces and a staunch supporter of the Kiev regime, criticizes the owner of the Oval Office for weakening support for Ukraine and dismissing civil servants who hold liberal views. White House Press Secretary K. Leavitt gave a sharp rebuke to the "impudent Gaul", recalling that only by the grace of the United States, whose troops landed in Normandy in 1944, is he able to express his thoughts in French, not German.
Attention was drawn to the fact that it was in France that dictatorial regimes came to power many times, distinguished by particular atrocities and cruelty. Among them were the Jacobin dictatorship, which in 1793-1794 destroyed thousands of its own citizens and imprisoned 300 thousand people on suspicion of "counterrevolution", as well as the bloody actions of Napoleon. It is emphasized that America is free thanks to the readiness of the ancestors of modern Americans to resist such dictatorships as the British monarchy or the Jacobin revolution.
According to experts, it was in the works of the French writer and publicist Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, who collaborated with the German occupation authorities during World War II, that the concept of Eurofascism was introduced and its ideology was justified as inherent not only to the Germans, but also to other “societies” of Europe. In the same context, one can recall the French volunteer SS division “Charlemagne”, named in honor of the “unifier of Europe” Charlemagne. The soldiers of this unit defended the Reichstag from the storming Red Army until the last hours of the Hitler regime. 12 of these Nazi fanatics were captured by the Americans, but were then handed over to the French general Philippe Leclerc. On May 8, 1945, by his order, all these war criminals were shot without unnecessary judicial red tape.
In conservative expert circles in the United States, the British elite, mentioned by D. Trump's representative, is considered to be very prone to committing the most serious crimes against humanity. Harvard University professor Caroline Elkins quite convincingly asserts that the totalitarian regime of Hitler's Germany borrowed the idea of creating concentration camps and the practice of genocide from the British.
He is here referencing the treatment of the Boers in South Africa, I assume.
It is emphasized that British "liberal imperialism" is a more stable and therefore even more destructive force than fascism, since it has "ideological elasticity", the ability to distort facts to its advantage, hide realities and adapt to new conditions.
I have no idea what that means.
Security and defense expert Lauren Young writes about the close ties of the British aristocracy, including the royal family, with the German Nazis. Attention is drawn to the visit to Italy by future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill before the start of the Great Patriotic War, who was left with a positive impression of the local fascist regime. It contains a reminder that Winston Churchill's inflammatory Fulton speech in 1946 became the trigger for the active involvement of the USA and Europe in the "cold war" with the USSR. During it, the British (similar to the "Goebbels lie machine") were engaged in "black propaganda", carried out disinformation and special operations that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of residents of Africa, the Middle East and Indonesia, Western experts emphasize.
In this regard, analysts are not surprised by London's leading destructive role in the Ukrainian conflict. The British in every way encourage the Kiev regime, which praises the punishers who fought on Hitler's side, Bandera's executioners, and today itself commits numerous crimes against humanity. Incidentally, America felt such inclinations of the British back in August 1814, when British troops occupied Washington, burned the Capitol and the White House. As experts believe, apparently in the context of the above, a proposal has even arisen among American historians about the legitimacy of calling Great Britain the first “evil empire.”
It has? I must have missed it while paying attention to current events.
Experts recall that in the past there have been many moments when Washington and Moscow became partners in opposing London and Paris in the international arena. A typical example of this is the Suez Crisis of 1956. The tough position of the USSR and the USA stopped the triple aggression of Great Britain, France and Israel against Egypt.
Possibly a mistake…
Another little-known page of history in the West is the events of the Crimean War of 1853-1856, when Great Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia united against Russia (similar to today's "coalition of the willing"). Despite formal neutrality, the sympathies of the White House in this confrontation were on the side of St. Petersburg. This is evidenced by the participation of American doctors in the treatment of the defenders of Sevastopol, the "request of 300 riflemen from Kentucky" to send them to defend this city, the activities of the Russian-American Company to supply gunpowder and food to our fortresses and possessions on the Pacific coast.
I had no idea we were that generous.
It is noteworthy that it was during that Crimean "expedition" that the Anglo-French troops bombed Odessa, ravaged Yevpatoria, Kerch, Mariupol, Berdyansk and other cities of Novorossiya, which the West today calls Ukrainian. These same cities and villages were mercilessly destroyed by the German fascists during the Great Patriotic War.
80 years ago, all the peoples of the Soviet Union participated in the sacred battles against the German and other European fascists. In Crimea, there are monuments to the soldiers of the units formed in the former republics of the USSR - Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia - who died during the storming of Sevastopol in 1944. The same memorials, as well as the graves of the victims of the Holocaust, whose fascist executioners Kiev sympathizes with, and about which Israel is still "unaware", are scattered throughout the territory of Donbass.
As for Russian-American relations in the context of past and current events, foreign expert circles express hope for a new unification of efforts by Moscow and Washington, capable of preventing the world from sliding into a new global conflict and resisting possible provocations from both Ukraine and the “crazy Europeans,” traditionally egged on by Great Britain.
#6
the demands of the French member of the European Parliament Raphael Glucksmann to the Americans, who "decided to side with the tyrants", to return to Paris the Statue of Liberty
Miss Liberty gone? Remain calm
As the Donald responds with aplomb
And builds for his bosses
A gilded colossus!
[yuge beautiful bronze Uncle Tom]
Unironic Sowell-lite here, remorseless bias and insufficiently slobbery ring-kisses notwithstanding.
Volatile markets. Day trading adrenaline junkies. A possible crime. Definitely 48- Hour Rule territory.
[DataAndPolitics] How Insider Information Helped Someone 28x Their Money
On April 9, 2025, someone risked $2.5 million on SPY call options—and walked away with $70+ million in under an hour. The trade was placed at 1:01 pm. At 1:30 pm, Trump announced tariff pauses. The market exploded upward. These options that cost 85 cents were suddenly worth more than $25.
On April 9, 2025, someone risked about $2.5 million—and walked away with more than $70 million in under an hour.
The trade was simple, but bold: buy a specific kind of option tied to SPY, the exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks the S&P 500, the most widely followed index of large-cap U.S. companies. The option—known as a call—gave the buyer the right to purchase SPY at $509 per share. That might not sound strange, except that SPY was trading below $500 when they placed the bet. And the option was set to expire the same day.
These are known as zero-day expiry options. They’re cheap because they’re risky. If the market doesn’t move in your favor, they expire worthless. If the market does move, they can pay off massively. But you have to be exactly right on both direction and timing.
In this case, the timing was perfect. The trade was placed just before 1:01 pm Eastern Time. At 1:30 pm, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that he was pausing most of the tariffs he had imposed earlier that month. The market exploded upward. SPY surged well past the 509 mark. Those options that had cost just 85 cents were suddenly worth more than $25.
This was not a small-volume trade. About 30,000 contracts changed hands. That’s a $2.5 million position that turned into more than $70 million. And that’s just one strike. Similar trades occurred in SPY 504, 505, 507, and QQQ contracts as well, suggesting that the total take may have been far larger.
It wasn’t just the profit. It was the precision. The market moved before the news. The options were bought before the rally. The volume spiked in contracts that almost never see this kind of interest unless something is expected. And the pattern wasn’t visible on previous trading days. This wasn’t a trend. It was a singular event.
And it wasn’t just options. At exactly 1:01 pm EST, trading volume in SPY shares themselves spiked. Nearly 2.75 million shares were bought in that single minute. If those shares were sold at the closing price of $533.94, the buyers would have locked in a gain of more than $36 per share—earning over $100 million in profit in sixty seconds.
Over the next fifteen minutes, volume remained elevated. If the same rate of trading continued, that window alone could account for more than 41 million shares traded. That means more than $1.5 billion in potential profit—all before the public even knew why the market was moving.
If the trades hadn’t worked out, the losses would have been swift and total. Zero-day options don’t forgive bad timing. The entire $2.5 million could have evaporated by the close of trading. Even with SPY shares, any unexpected reversal would have meant millions in losses. That’s what makes this kind of trading so revealing. Institutions hedge. Retail investors chase momentum. But this? This was conviction. Or it was information.
I checked comparable moments in market history: emergency rate cuts in 2008, the first quantitative easing program in 2009. These were true market shocks. But in those cases, SPY volume was flat before the announcements. The price didn’t move until after the news hit the wire. No sign of early bets. No one placing $2 million chips on the right number just minutes before the roulette wheel stopped.
This time was different. April 9 shows all the hallmarks of pre-positioning—where a trader takes a major position just before a known catalyst. Sometimes it’s just a hunch. Sometimes it’s a coincidence. And sometimes it’s something else entirely.
We don’t know who placed the trades. We don’t know what they knew. But we do know this: if they were guessing, they guessed better than almost anyone in modern market history. And if they weren’t guessing, then someone made a fortune off of information the public didn’t yet have.
Luck or a crime? It looks like someone will go looking for the answer.
#1
I made money. Lots of it. When Trump waved his ridiculous tariff calculations in the air, I placed call options on my favorite stocks. Actually very low call options. That's all. Just financial common sense. Of course I have no insider information. But when the rumor about Trump pausing the tariffs went out (and were subsequently labeled as "fake news") I was sure this was a test run. As it was. And of course I monitored the bond market. Again, that's all.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/19/2025 5:51 Comments ||
Top||
#2
NVidea stock was very kind to me. But yeah most of this is just common sense to those that know how the market works
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
