Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Breitbart News that American adversaries like Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, and Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei “were thrilled” with the “weakness” on display from President Joe Biden during his first overseas trip.

On The Verge Of The Unthinkable Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, Over the past couple of years we have become accustomed to expecting the unexpected, but soon we many have to start anticipating the unthinkable.  In this article, I am going to be discussing a couple of potential scenarios that would have been unimaginable to the vast majority of Americans just a few short years ago.  Unfortunately, our world is now changing at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking, and many things that were once “unimaginable” could soon become reality. Let’s start by talking about the record-setting heat wave which is making the epic megadrought in the western half of the country even worse.  Many western farmers planted crops this year hoping that weather conditions would eventually turn in their favor, but that has definitely not happened.  In fact, at this point 88 percent of the West is experiencing at least some level of drought. 2021 has been the worst year of this multi-year megadrought so far, and last week was the worst week for this drought up to this point in 2021.  Old temperature records were shattered all over the West, and some areas were already seeing triple digits by 8 o’clock in the morning… The West is in the midst of a record-breaking heat wave this week, as all-time records were shattered and daily records broken in over a dozen states. Even by desert standards, the heat wave in the Southwest is atypical. On Thursday, the National Weather Service in Tucson tweeted that the city recorded a temperature of 100 degrees at 8:14 a.m., the second earliest time in the day recorded since 1948. That is crazy. Can you imagine hitting triple digits before you have even finished your morning coffee? Summer had not even officially begun

Plunge ‘Protected’: BoJ-Buying, FedSpeak Bailout Friday’s ‘Bullard Bomb’ Last week ended this way… So someone had to do something! h/t Japan’s Plunge Protection Team stepped in to rescue markets overnight as The Bank of Japan purchased 70.1b yen of ETFs Monday after the Topix declined by 2.5% in morning trading. That was the first “intervention” since April 21st… Then The White House called America’s Plunge Protection Team in, as Fed Speakers unleashed their double-talk, sending US equities rebounding dramatically from overnight lows… Erasing all of Friday’s Bullard-Bomb losses… On the day, Small Caps were the huge outperformer. Nasdaq the laggard but still managed solid gains… Dow’s best day in 3 months, S&P’s best day in a month (why?) Russell 2000 and S&P 500 both bounced off their 50DMAs today… Notably the Nasdaq/Russell ratio found support AGAIN at a key level… Source: Bloomberg Funny how these short-squeezes happen right on cue with magical capital being deployed massively and broadly… Source: Bloomberg Value roared back just as HFs had rotated back to Growth… Source: Bloomberg VIX was monkeyhammered lower today, but was unable to break below 18… Bonds were clubbed like a baby seal on the day with a massive rise in yields off overnight lows. 2s and 5s remain around 10bps higher post-FOMC, 30Y around 8ps lower and 10Y unch… Source: Bloomberg 10Y yields soared back 14bps off overnight lows, erasing Friday’s drop and back at pre-FOMC levels… Source: Bloomberg But 30Y yields spiked a massive 19bps off the overnight lows!! Source: Bloomberg The yield curve perfectly erased Friday’s flattening… Source: Bloomberg 5Y Breakevens pushed back up to the post-FOMC spike lows… Source: Bloomberg Cryptos were crushed again by China crackdown headlines… Source: Bloomberg Bitcoin tested back below $32k again holding key support… Source: Bloomberg Bitcoin also formed a death cross,