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  • Brandon Smith: Men Of The West, We Are At War

    Brandon Smith: Men Of The West, We Are At War

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

    It’s a strange thing. I was writing today about the tests of brutality we endure in the western world in modern times, trying to explain why things cannot continue the way they have been for much longer, when the news hit the feeds on the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I forced myself to watch the video footage, just as I forced myself to watch the recent murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska by a black man on a train who then bragged about how he “Got that white girl”.

    I witnessed leftist journalists try to hide the event and bury the story until it blew up on social media and they had no choice but to cover it. And when they did, they complained more about online treatment of the killer than they complained about the murder itself.

    I have watched thousands of leftists across the web cheer for the death of that innocent girl. I have watched hundreds-of-thousands of them cheer for trans mass shooters after they killed Christian kids, just as they now cheer for the death of Charlie Kirk.

    They can barely contain their glee. They blame Kirk and his beliefs as the catalyst; as if he is being punished for a crime. They say “people are fed up with right wing violence”, but where is this violence? It doesn’t exist. The claim is gaslighting on an epic level. The only violence we have seen for the past decade has been from the political left. Normally this behavior would be called terrorism.

    Riots in the streets, innocent people assaulted, Christian events attacked, multiple assassination attempts and a slew of mass shootings, all from politically motivated leftists. And the only thing they can come up with is January 6th, a short lived riot which was CAUSED by Capitol Police shooting peaceful protesters with rubber bullets and tear gas.

    What was Charlie Kirk’s real crime? He committed the most egregious sin there is when it comes to the political left – He told the truth without shame. For this, he was murdered.

    I didn’t necessarily agree with Kirk on every issue. In particular, I think he put far too much stock in the idea that public debate would make a difference. I think it has diminishing returns. Progressives only seem to get worse with each argument they lose. They only become more unhinged, more violent. Trying to reason with such zealots is a waste of energy, but at least it gets the message out to the normies, if there are any normies left.

    The reliance on public debate is part of a deeper problem within conservative and populist movements; we tend to cling to the notion that we are fighting a political battle and that this battle can be won by being the most factual, the most reasonable, the most right.

    As I have always said: Leftists do not care about being right. They only care about winning.

    We have been engaging in civics while the woke cult engages in sabotage, mob violence, child grooming and assassination. Conservatives are naturally reticent to abandon order or abandon the law. The political left knows this – they count on it. They know we are limited in how we fight back because we have an expectation that the system can be corrected and reformed.

    The problem is that the system is infected. It’s infested by parasites. In order for social discourse to achieve anything constructive, both sides have to be patriotic. Both sides have to love their culture and country to a certain degree and want the best for the future. Leftists and globalists HATE the west. They hate the US. They want to turn it to dust. They want the memory of it erased from history. There is no level of reason or diplomacy that can dissolve their bitter psychopathy.

    In other words, McCarthy was right. The left needs to go.

    This is not to say that conscience and respect for order is a weakness. If we didn’t have these things then we would be no better than the progressives. My point, however, is that we need to come to grips with the reality that total war has been declared against the west and we must start acting like we are at war if our civilization is going to survive.

    This is where I part ways with many of my Libertarian colleagues. This problem is not about American citizens in disagreement. This is not about the old days of polite political dysfunction. Again, this is a war, a shooting war and a mind war. I’m not interested in the constitutional rights of people who have declared war on me, my country and the very freedoms they hide behind.

    If they want to burn the west to the ground to usher in their own dystopian collectivist vision, then the only logical response is to burn THEM to the ground.

    For the past few years I have warned about the events that are now unfolding. In my article “Terror Attacks Kick Off In 2025 – It’s Only Going To Get Worse So Be Prepared”, published in January, I argued that:

    …There is a serious risk of civil destabilization in 2025 caused by a steady series of terror attacks. Some of them might be planned by legitimate suspects while others could be fabricated by covert interests in order to stir up public fear. I would also warn specifically about far-left groups reverting to Weather Underground-like tactics in order to disrupt conservative reforms…”

    After witnessing the “fiery but peaceful” activities of groups like Antifa and BLM during the 2020 riots I don’t find it hard to believe that there may also be an activist element in the US right now that’s willing to engage in infrastructure terrorism and political assassination. This is not to say that the leftists themselves are highly organized, but there is evidence that they are managed by calculating people behind the scenes.

    In other words, elitist institutions can very easily use far-left actors to carry out terror attacks because leftists only need a “nudge” to go down that path. Just as many Islamic fundamentalists are so easy to nudge into mass violence…”

    There are those that theorize that Kirk’s shooting is a “false flag” and that this is about sowing divisions among Americans. News Flash: We are already divided. Even without encouragement we would be divided. Too many liberty minded people make the mistake of thinking our problems stop with the globalists at the top, but they are only one part of this conflict.

    The other part is at the bottom of the pyramid – The millions of progressives that want to see the world in ashes.  Ultimately it doesn’t really matter if Kirk was killed by a “lone nut” or an organized conspiracy, the end result is the same.  The lefties are still applauding.  They still want you dead.  So, they still need to be dealt with.

    Before the news of the assassination I was thinking about measured responses – Particularly the subject of “martial law” and whether or not this is a justifiable solution given the circumstances, or a reaction of fear leading to a slippery slope of government authoritarianism.

    Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Washington DC has been a resounding success so far, but he can’t keep the troops there forever. The root of the disease needs to be addressed, particularly the corrupt Democrat leaders in blue cities who are keeping repeat offenders out of prisons and on the streets.

    Frankly, I see martial law as nothing more than a stop gap even with the best of intentions; like giving someone morphine for their Stage 4 cancer. It feels good and takes the pain away for a little while but on the inside the body is still dying. Martial law doesn’t go far enough. The time for measured responses is over.

    Consider for a moment, though, what the natural alternative is? What is going to happen next? It’s not hard to predict: It’s going to be open season on leftist activists and the elites who fund them. It’s going to be widespread vigilantism. And, honestly I welcome it. I wish that this was not necessary, but I accept the reality that it is inevitable.

    I don’t think leftists understand what is about to happen. I think they have gotten away with their evil for so long they think they are untouchable. In truth, the only reason they continue to exist is because of men like Charlie Kirk who put so much value in traditional and peaceful opposition. Whoever the shooter is, they killed one of the nice guys.

    When we witness a defining moment like the assassination of Kirk, it’s important to hold these images in our minds, as horrible as they are. Civilized society is quick to move on and absorb the next tragedy without properly dwelling on their rage. We need to be much angrier than we are.

    Is vengeance the answer? I would say balance is the answer. Justice is the answer. For now, there is no justice. There is no balance.

    What I see is a culture under siege on every level and we are not taking these attacks seriously enough. How much longer can we endure mass invasions from the third world? How much longer can we endure the indoctrination of our children? How much longer can we allow our speakers to be silenced, by censorship or by the bullet? How much longer will our neighborhoods remain safe when career criminals are protected by the system?

    People who hate the west and want to see the west harmed should be kicked out. NGOs and corporations that fund these activists need to be shut down and scattered to the winds, by force if necessary. People and groups that actively seek to cripple the west and exploit or kill western citizens need to be eliminated. This is not complicated.

    Men of the west must stand and defend themselves. We must defend our principles, our ideals and our people. This means destroying all enemies, foreign and domestic. This means patriots going to war.

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

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  • Nvidia AI chips sales rise but so do fears of an AI bubble bursting

    Nvidia AI chips sales rise but so do fears of an AI bubble bursting

    Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, is not seeing its sales grow as quickly as expected, fuelling investors’ worries about a persisting tech bubble.

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    Nvidia’s shares slid after the AI semiconductor giant reported its latest quarterly profit and gave a revenue forecast that was slightly below expectations in its latest earnings report.
    Demand for the company’s chips, an essential part of AI data centres, wasn’t quite feverish enough to ease recent worries that the AI craze may be fading.

    The results announced on Wednesday were hotly anticipated because Nvidia has emerged as a key barometer of a two-year-old AI boom that has been propelling the stock market to new heights.
    The Silicon Valley chipmaker also became the first publicly traded company to achieve a $4tr (€3.44tr) market capitalisation, surpassing the value of the German stock market.
    In recent weeks, though, research reports and comments by prominent tech executives have raised investor fears that the AI mania has been overblown.

    More than 50% increase in sales is not enough to calm nerves

    In the May-July period, Nvidia’s data centre division posted revenue of $41.1bn (€35.3bn), a 56% increase on the same time last year, but below analysts’ forecast of $41.3bn (€35.48bn), according to FactSet Research.
    Even so, Nvidia’s profit of $26.4bn (€22.68bn), or $1.08 per share, was higher than analysts predicted, as was its total revenue of $46.7bn (€40.1bn) — also a 56% increase on the previous year.

    Nvidia signalled it believes more good things are still to come by forecasting revenue of $54bn (€46.4bn) for the August-October period, slightly above what analysts had been envisioning for the quarter.
    “We are in the beginning of the buildout,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told analysts during a Wednesday conference call where the company predicted another $3tr to $4tr will be spent on AI initiatives by the end of this decade.
    But Nvidia’s stock still slipped 3% in extended trading after the fiscal second quarter report came out, indicating the performance wasn’t enough to allay investors’ fears. A letdown was almost inevitable, given that the stock price has increased by more than tenfold during the past two and a half years.
    “Saying the stock was priced for perfection would be an enormous understatement,” said Investing.com analyst Thomas Monteiro.

    Delivering the kind of growth to push Nvidia toward a $5tr (€4.3tr) market value has become more daunting as Nvidia’s annual sales have ballooned from $44bn (€37.8bn) in its fiscal 2024 to a projected $204bn in the company’s current fiscal year that ends in January.
    That has translated into progressively slower rates of year-over-year revenue growth. After Nvidia’s revenue at least doubled or tripled from the previous year in five consecutive quarters during 2023 and 2024, the growth has been tapering off over the past four quarters.

    What the tariffs cost Nvidia’s results

    Nvidia would have fared better in the most recent quarter if President Donald Trump hadn’t imposed a ban that prevented Nvidia from selling its AI chips in China during the quarter. But investors had already been forewarned that the restrictions would cost the company about $8bn (€6.87bn) in sales from May through July, so that challenge was already reflected in Nvidia’s stock price.
    Trump took the China handcuffs off of Nvidia earlier this month in return for a 15% cut of the company’s sales in that country — a compromise that is expected to help boost revenue during the upcoming months, although it’s unclear how quickly that will happen.
    In the best-case scenario, Nvidia may be able to bring in $2bn to $5bn (€1.7bn to €4.3bn) in AI chip sales to China, according to Colette Kress, the company’s chief financial officer.
    While the technology industry has been the biggest beneficiary of the AI frenzy, it has also been a boon for the overall stock market. The benchmark S&P 500 has gained 69% since the end of 2022, with AI fervour fueling much of the investor optimism.
    But even amid the general euphoria, there have recently been murmurs about whether AI mania will prove to be an echo of the late 1990s dot-com boom and meltdown that plunged Silicon Valley into a funk that lasted several years.