At a recent pre-election speaking and podcast event, comedian and Libertarian political commentator Dave Smith expressed his view that it is very realistic that the next President Donald Trump could successfully negotiate an end to the Ukraine war. 

Smith’s view is optimistic, as he articulated that he believes Trump’s expressed desire to end wars in Ukraine and Gaza is genuine. But Smith also laid out that much depends on who Trump puts around him in top national security positions. Below is the hard-hitting segment featuring the prominent commentator addressing the question: will Trump be able to end the war in Ukraine?

PBD: Will Trump be able to end the war in Ukraine?

Dave Smith: Yes, If he listens to Tucker Carlson, Bobby Kennedy, and Vivek Ramaswamy, but not if he picks Mike Pompeo, Liz Cheney’s pick for Defense Secretary, or John Bolton, Hillary Clinton’s pick for National Security Advisor pic.twitter.com/1f5kQZQEW4

— Liam McCollum (@MLiamMcCollum) November 6, 2024

Below are Dave Smith’s words from the segment on Trump and Ukraine below [emphasis ZH]…

“Why the hell are we even expanding our military alliance to Ukraine? And listen, Donald Trump always says that the war ‘never would have happened if I was president, and I would negotiate an end to this.’

And I gotta say I think he’s right about that. I don’t think the war would have happened if he was president – I think he will negotiate an end to it.

I don’t think he’s right that Hamas wouldn’t have attacked Israel if he was president – that seems kind of ridiculous to me. But he’s right: the Ukraine war could be over tomorrow if American wanted to negotiated a peace to it.

Vladimir Putin has been trying to the entire time… 

Well the question becomes who does Donald Trump put around him? If Donald Trump puts Mike Pompeo, aka Liz Cheney’s pick for Defense Secretary… if he puts John Bolton, aka Hillary Clinton’s pick for national security adviser – then maybe not, maybe it doesn’t happen.

But if he listens to Tucker Carlson, and ‘Bobby’ Kennedy, and Vivek Ramaswamy, and all the smart people around him – then yes, he could negotiate an end to that war.”

* * *

Indeed, the question ultimately becomes: will Trump really keep the ‘swamp’ out of his administration this time around? We hope so.

Via SchiffGold.com,

On Friday Peter capped off the week by discussing the latest round of troubling data. With the nonfarm payroll report coming in far below expectations, Peter elaborates on the predicament the Fed is in. With mounting political pressure and an election in mere days, how will the Fed possibly manage both inflation and a stagnating labor market? Peter’s answer? They can’t.

During the last several months, the media and political class have insisted the economy is healthy, even if it is cooling. But disappointing economic metrics and multiple downward revisions to important data reinforce the American consumer’s intuition. The economy is not doing well:

“Voters are not necessarily fooled. That’s why so many want change – they don’t want to stay the course. They’re not buying what the media is selling about how great the Biden-Harris economy is. In fact, all the data coming out this week confirms that this is a weak economy. We’re probably in a recession. It’s stagflation, or worse—recession and inflation at the same time.”

The Fed’s gambit to cut rates and hope for the best is backfiring. The cuts have actually triggered long-term rates to rise, and the recent nonfarm payroll report is only going to make things worse:

“Rising government debt is causing bond investors to lose confidence in the Treasury’s ability to repay without creating inflation. What’s happening in the bond market is exactly what I predicted. … Today’s results offer more proof. They were expecting 125,000 jobs, but we ended up with just 12,000—well below the lowest estimate of 57,000. Plus, the prior two months were revised down.”

The Fed is stuck between inflation and a stagnating economy. The nation’s eyes are on the election, and it’s very unlikely Jerome Powell will be able to resist political pressure to start printing more money:

“The Fed’s not going to do anything about it—they can’t. In fact, they’re going to fuel the fire. They’re going to cut rates, going back to quantitative easing, because the recession is going to keep getting worse. The economy will weaken as inflation gets stronger. So what can they do? They can’t fight both; they have to pick. And all the political pressure, whether from Harris or Trump, will push them toward stimulating the economy.”

Turning to the latest campaign headlines, Peter notes that the betting market have seemingly backed off of their Trump optimism. In reality, Peter says, this fluctuation is probably the result of traders closing their positions, not a sudden loss of confidence in Trump:

“It reached about $55 a share on Tuesday and then closed barely over $30, at $30.56. DJT stock was plunging as traders took profits on DJT, covering their bets on Donald Trump and unwinding them. That’s why we saw this big move today, with Harris shooting up and Trump collapsing. It’s not that the polls really changed or that Trump is much less likely to win today than yesterday; it’s simply that those who made those bets now have an incentive to cover because they exited their trade.”

In other news, Michael Saylor’s company, MicroStrategy, is planning on purchasing over $40 billion in Bitcoin. Peter shows his literary side, comparing Saylor to the myopic Captain Ahab:

“He really is Captain Ahab, and Bitcoin is his Moby Dick. But he’s going to go down, and everyone on the ship is going down with him. Even if I were bullish on Bitcoin—I know there are people who watch this podcast and say, ‘Hey, I agree with everything Peter Schiff says, except for Bitcoin.’ So, if you really like Bitcoin, here’s what you need to do: Sell your Bitcoin now and buy it back when MicroStrategy goes bankrupt.”

Peter wraps up what may be his last podcast before the election with a sober dose of reality. Donald Trump is undoubtedly the best hope America has to fix our political dysfunction, but we shouldn’t pretend his track record is something to be proud of: 

“Everybody knows I support Trump. I’ve encouraged my supporters to vote for him. But I am not going to say that his first term was an economic miracle. Now, I know people like to oversell, hype it up to get votes, but that destroys all your credibility. If we’re ever going to solve the problems that need solving, we can’t pretend that Trump’s first term was great. All the problems got worse under Trump. They would have gotten worse under Hillary too, but they got worse under Trump. Government spending increased—where’s the miracle? Trade deficits hit record highs under Trump even before COVID. … They slashed interest rates to zero, and we had massive quantitative easing. That’s the illusion that was created.”

Make sure you catch up on other news from last week with JD and Joel’s analysis on the SchiffGold Gold Wrap Podcast.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu, visualizes the results of an Ipsos poll that asked adults whether they thought aliens would visit Earth.

The survey consisted of 24,471 adults across 36 countries, conducted between October and November, 2022.

Where E.T.’s Existence Would be Most Accepted

India, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE had the highest share of respondents who believe an alien visit would be likely.

It’s hard to ascertain any one reason these three countries believe in aliens so strongly. It may be due to rich mythologies where the acceptance of various gods, djinn, and other magical beings translates into acceptance of alien life.

There might also be a religious element at play. Ongoing discussions about what the Quran states about other forms of life, except for humans, have generated interest on the internet.

It could also be an effect of mass media: the Star Wars movies, for example, were very popular in India.

However, the same influence for some countries clearly doesn’t work for others. The U.S., home to Hollywood—which seems to release at least one movie about aliens a year—sits firmly middle of the pack.

And then there’s Japan, where only 8% of those surveyed believed a visit was likely.

This is somewhat surprising, given the country’s strong technological advancements and fascination with futuristic themes in popular culture.

So… Do Aliens Exist?

NASA has said that so far, no credible evidence exists for extraterrestrial life. And despite multiple “strange light sightings,” over the years, the Department of Defense’s most recent report states there’s no “verifiable evidence” that all the “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (a new term for UFOs) actually represents alien life.

However, as a case study for probability, the odds of humans being the only advanced civilization in the whole universe is one in ten billion trillion. Or really, really, small.

So, purely mathematically, the chances of alien life existing are likely.

Now whether they’d visit—is another question entirely.

If aliens did visit, they’d probably bump into one of the many satellites hovering over the planet. Check out Operational and Planned Low Earth Orbit Internet Satellite Projects by creator MadeVisual to see which companies own what constellations.

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Imagine living in a city built on kindness, where residents are encouraged to respect one another and not judge their neighbors.

John Ohanian, general manager of DMB Development, hopes to build just that—a “City of Kindness” called Silverwood in San Bernardino County.

“It’s really important to us,” Ohanian told The Epoch Times. “The idea is to create some expectations of how we’re all going to live together.”

The nearly 15-square-mile development is in Hesperia, California, on State Route 138 near the Cajon Pass in the San Bernardino Mountains, about 75 miles east of Los Angeles.

The project will offer homes built around active outdoor lifestyles and priced from the mid-$400,000s up to the $700,000s. The community will also have five elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school, according to plans.

“We’re trying to create a special place for folks to live that embraces an outdoor lifestyle and is community oriented,” Ohanian said.

With home prices far below those closer to the coast, Ohanian said the housing will be more attainable for Californians who can’t afford Los Angeles and Orange County.

“We’re trying very hard to articulate a lifestyle that is family oriented, allowing young families to be able to stay in California and afford to live here,” Ohanian said.

Living in Silverwood will also include paying $158 a month in homeowner association fees, but that will include connections to full-gig speed internet, which is 10 times faster than older cable connections, according to the developer.

Ohanian was inspired to build a community of kindness after hearing about former Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait’s “Kindness Initiative,” developed after he took office in 2010. The city officially made “kindness” its motto in 2017.

Silverwood might be just the kind of city the former mayor was hoping to inspire.

“Kindness is very simple. It’s doing something for someone else with no expectation in return,” he explained in 2017 on City Talk. “Imagine an entire city where people are just a little kinder. Where they know it’s who we are. When that happens, literally everything gets better.”

Tait did not return a request for comment about Silverwood on Friday.

In this spirit, though, Silverwood’s homeowner association would offer residents who buy one of their nearly 15,700 homes a chance to sign a pledge promising to be kind.

“We’re trying to make it feel like people have a voice, and have an opportunity to also be respected, not judged, and treated kindly,” Ohanian said. “It sets an expectation and we hope everybody who becomes a homeowner signs a pledge.”

Kindness won’t be enforced, but Ohanian said he hoped peer pressure and conscience would drive residents to enforce the idea themselves.

The project has been in the works since 2012, when the developer purchased the land out of a bankruptcy. The southern edge of the property was a working cattle ranch and will remain open space.

The lower cost of the land is part of what will allow the developer to offer more affordable houses. The homes will range from 1,400 square feet for a one-story condo close to the town’s center, up to 4,000-square-foot executive homes at the higher end.

“Silverwood will create the opportunity for thousands of families to live in a gorgeous natural setting with endless opportunities for outdoor recreation, all within a reasonable commute to San Bernardino, Riverside, Ontario, and other existing employment hubs,” according to the project’s website.

Each house will also come with solar panels, which are now required by California law. 

The development will also build a wastewater treatment facility that will allow the association to use recycled water for all parks and schools. Half of the houses will also be built to offer homeowners the ability to use recycled water for irrigation and landscaping, according to the developer.

The project is planned to include eight villages, each with its own theme and anchored by a green space. One might be built around pickleball courts, while another might have a swimming complex, according to the developer.

“Each village will have their own neighborhood identity and each of them will have their own character,” Ohanian said.

The community will also have its own medical services, grocery stores, and other services, he added.

People will be able to gather at the pools, recreational facilities, bandstands, and other areas, according to the developer. Nearly half of the land in the development has been set aside for natural open space, conservation easement, parks, and the Serrano Preserve.

The project is expected to include 59 miles of off-street trails, 107 miles of paths and paseos, and 387 acres of parks. Every house will be within a five-minute walk of a park, according to plans.

Silverwood Lake is on the southern boundary of the property, and Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear are about an hour away.

Model homes at the development should be open in the spring of next year, Ohanian said. He expects to have people living in the community between April and June.

Home builders include Lennar, Richmond American Homes, Watt Capital Developers, and Woodside Homes.

The developer expects to take up to 20 years to completely build out the community.

Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Early voting has exploded in popularity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, but some voters still prefer to cast their ballots in person on Election Day.

For those preparing to join those lines, here are the answers to some common questions they might have.

When Is Election Day?

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5.

Am I Eligible to Vote?

Only U.S. citizens ages 18 or older are permitted to vote in federal elections.

Additionally, all states and territories except North Dakota require voter registration.

Each state has its own registration deadline, though some offer same-day registration or conditional registration and provisional ballots for those who missed the cutoff.

Voters can check the status of their registration here. A list of state registration deadlines and policies can be found here.

Where Do I Vote?

Verify your polling location and the hours it will be open with your local elections office.

Do I Need ID?

Most states either require or request that voters present some form of identification to vote in person, though rules vary.

Some states require that voters present a valid photo ID at the polls to vote. Others allow voters to present other identifying documents, such as a birth certificate, current utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, or government-issued document that shows the individual’s name and address.

In some cases, voters may be allowed to vote without showing any form of identification.

Confirm your state’s requirements here.

Who’s on the Ballot?

All eyes will be on the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrat nominee, and Republican candidate former President Donald Trump. But with control of Congress hanging in the balance, pundits will also be watching several House and Senate races closely to see which way the pendulum swings.

Toss-up Senate races in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin will receive plenty of attention as the night progresses. So will Montana’s contest, where three-term Democrat Sen. Jon Tester is expected to lose his seat to Republican newcomer Tim Sheehy.

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) are also defending their seats, while Arizona’s Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) will face off against former Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in the race to replace Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.).

In the House, every seat is up for grabs. The Epoch Times has identified 20 races that could decide control of the chamber.

When Will We Know Results? (lol)

It’s unlikely that every race will be decided on election night thanks to the post-pandemic popularity of voting by mail.

State deadlines vary for returning absentee ballots, as do the times when officials may start processing and counting them.

In Arizona, for instance, officials may count absentee ballots immediately upon receipt, though they must be received by the elections office by 7 p.m. MST on Election Day.

In Illinois, ballots can be received and counted as late as 14 days after the election, provided that they are postmarked by Election Day. Officials begin the counting process after the polls close.

Verify your state’s ballot return deadlines here or with your elections office.

The U.S. Postal Service encourages those voting by mail to mail their completed ballots before Election Day and at least one week before their state’s deadline to ensure their vote is counted.

How Do I Report Election Integrity Issues?

If you suspect voter or election fraud has occurred, report it to your local elections office.

Other authorities you may contact include a local FBI office, U.S. attorney’s office, or the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division.

The Department of Justice also has an online form through which voters may report incidents of voter suppression or intimidation.