Authored by David Jensen via Substack,

Dutch trading specialist Karel Mercx posted the following commentary where the opposite (multiply by -1) of the silver swap rate minus US interest rates can be used as a proxy for the implied silver lease rate to determine physical shortage in the London silver market.:

“The 1-year silver swap minus the US interest rate is now –7.18%.

That distortion explains why the silver rally is not over.

Only at the red line do supply and demand normalize.”

A further six days ago Mercx posted the following commentary:

“ The 1-year silver swap minus the US interest rate is now almost –7%! That distortion is the key reason the silver rally is not over.

That spread should be positive, since silver needed in one year comes with storage, insurance, and financing costs.

Extra explanation.

The silver swap rate is a crucial part of the global precious-metals trade. It exists because major players such as banks, producers, industrial users, and investors constantly exchange silver for dollars without physically moving metal from vault to vault. This mechanism keeps the London physical market tightly connected to the New York financial market.

But that system is now under strain. Physical silver today is almost 7% more expensive than silver for delivery one year from now. Swaps were designed to avoid shipping metal around the world, yet today silver is being moved because buyers are demanding delivery.

Holding physical silver isn’t easy or cheap.

A $1 million position weighs several hundred kilograms, spread across dozens of heavy bars that require vault space, insurance, and security…

…That question is now being priced in. As long as the 1-year silver swap minus US rates remains below the red line, silver’s upside pressure continues. No one knows where supply and demand will reconnect. … ”

I’ve added a trend arrow to the chart that Mercx posted:

Figure 1 – One Year Silver Swaps Minus One Year One Year US Interest Rates at Dec 23, 2025; source: Karel Mercx x.com

Note that the distance from the red line normalization is increasing as the London silver shortage intensifies. The London silver market is devolving, not stabilizing.

[ZH: the spread between SHFE and COMEX silver futures is extreme to say the least – incentivizing the flow from London to Shanghai]…

This is what a run on the London ‘physical’ silver market looks like where holders of unallocated promissory notes for silver ownership and delivery, at the margins, start to demand physical metal delivery.

The enormous leverage of London paper (vapor) claims vs physical silver available for delivery gives the potential for a very quick unwind of London.

On the holiest day of the Christian calendar, the nonprofit Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) purchased a gigantic Times Square advertisement in New York City declaring, “Jesus is Palestinian.” This inflammatory and divisive rhetoric is nothing more than an attempt by the Arab nonprofit to stir up the Christian nation with their own narrative.

Adeb Ayoub, National Executive Director of ADC, told The New York Post that the nonprofit has been renting ad space in Times Square this year, with rotating weekly messages.

“There’s a lot more similarities between Arabs and Muslims and Christians in this country than others want to allow us to believe and there are similarities and there is a fear of culture, shared religion,” Ayoub said.

NYPost’s report continued:

“Most of the Americans in this country are Christian and the birthplace of Christianity is Palestine. If people wanna go back and forth and debate it, then great, the billboard sparked debate. At least you’re having a conversation about it. Otherwise, we’re silenced and our voices and positions don’t come out.”

When asked whether his group is disputing that Jesus was Jewish, Ayoub said that “Jesus lives within all of us” and that the subject was “up for interpretation.”

He added that Jewish groups he claims have waged a digital war against him since the Spring are free to promote their own views about Jesus.

Based on publicly available records, Adeb Ayoub appears to be affiliated with the United Mission for Relief and Development (UMR), which has a significant focus on Palestine. He also has links to “Liberation Legal” … 

Earlier this year, ADC hosted ArabCon 2025, the nation’s largest annual convention of Arab Americans, in Deaborne, Michigan, which hosted anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour and China-linked Medea Benjamin of CodePink, among others.

Ahead of ArabCon, ADC wrote on their website, “Recent attempts to smear the organization and our upcoming conference deploy the same racist and tired playbook meant to intimidate and shame Arab and Muslim spaces– branding ArabCon with inflammatory labels like ‘pro‑terrorism’ and ‘antisemitic.'”

Ayoub told NYPost that a new billboard will appear in Times Square for New Year’s Eve… 

A common pattern across America’s far-left organizations is alarming behavior that appears militant, resembling revolutionary movements more than civic advocacy. There is a historical explanation that is rarely discussed: for decades, Cuban intelligence has penetrated and influenced segments of the radical left, enabling influence operations with nation-killing objectives.

This is not a new phenomenon, nor is it speculative. The pattern stretches back more than half a century and follows a consistent arc: student activism, escalation into disorder, foreign ideological grooming, and institutional capture through nonprofits that later rebrand as “civil society.”

The story begins in 1968, when members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), including Mark Rudd and Bernadine Dohrn, were invited to Cuba. That trip resulted in the founding of the Venceremos Brigade, which publicly framed itself as a solidarity delegation but privately represented something more consequential. Multiple intelligence assessments and contemporary reporting alleged that SDS radicals requested formal training from the Castro regime, including instruction in explosives and sabotage. The objective was explicit: to move from protest politics to revolutionary struggle with foreign backing.

Upon his return to the U.S., Rudd was elected president of Columbia University’s SDS chapter and quickly presided over a wave of sit-ins, building takeovers, and riots that paralyzed campus life and captured national attention. After his expulsion, Rudd, alongside Dohrn, went on to become co-founders of the Weather Underground, a domestic extremist organization responsible for bombings and violent underground activity throughout the early 1970s.

The lesson Cuba learned from this period was very simple: American radicals could be trained, networked, ideologically shaped, and then sent back to do their dirty work.

Last week, we were honored to send a delegation of 40 DSA elected leaders & rank-and-file members from chapters big & small across the country to #Cuba, where they delivered hundreds of pounds of solidarity aid & learned about the achievements & challenges of Cuban socialism. pic.twitter.com/SD1hul0PB7

— DSA (@DemSocialists) October 20, 2025

Guess where Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass got her start in politics…

Did You Know:

Karen Bass got her start in politics in the Venceremos Brigade, a Marxist front group in the US funded by Cuba

She traveled to Cuba many times

The Venceremos Brigade directly spawned domestic terror groups the Weather Underground and May 19th Org pic.twitter.com/Pno87kL50S

— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) January 25, 2025

Here’s what happened in Los Angeles this summer…

Fast-forward to 2025, and the same structure still exists, but it has been supercharged with vastly greater assets and manpower, fueled by billionaire leftists who operate what is now widely described as the protest industrial complex. This network is increasingly described as a color-revolution-style operation led by NGOs to undermine the Trump administration and ‘America First.’ What were once underground protest movements now operate openly and, in some cases, violently, supported by armies of “movement lawyers,” expansive national coalitions, and dark-money-funded NGOs. There was even the political assassination of Charlie Kirk this fall, a reality that even Deep State media outlets like The Atlantic were forced to acknowledge…

According to a defected Cuban intelligence officer and corroborating intelligence reporting, legacy Castro-aligned groups such as the Venceremos Brigade and the National Lawyers Guild have been controlled by Cuba’s Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI) since at least the 1980s. That influence is exerted through ICAP (the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples).

ICAP is an official Cuban government organization, founded in 1960, that promotes international solidarity and cultural exchange. On paper, it organizes delegations, volunteer brigades, educational tours, and international conferences that oppose U.S. sanctions and support Cuba’s political system. It appears benign – almost quaint.

WATCH: Washington Post Reporter Says Democrats Won’t ‘Go Hard’ On Cuba Because They Agree With The Regime https://t.co/O8tP3Wb17a pic.twitter.com/tV2Uk9B9h3

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) July 19, 2021

But declassified CIA documents dating back to the Cold War describe a consistent operational method: foreign recruits were brought to Cuba for training in intelligence tradecraft or guerrilla sabotage and were received by DGI officers posing as ICAP officials. ICAP functioned as the intake valve – political cover for intelligence operations designed to cultivate long-term assets rather than short-term spies.

What exists today is not a single organization but a complex ecosystem.

ICAP sits at the center, functioning as a coordinating hub. Orbiting it is the National Network on Cuba (NNOC), a deliberately loose coalition that links 77 organizations of activists, nonprofits, and campaigns while minimizing legal exposure or clear command structures. The National Lawyers Guild serves as the lawfare and agitation arm, training protesters, facilitating delegations, and litigating against U.S. institutions under the guise of civil rights.

Funding and infrastructure come from the Neville Roy Singham Network, a web of organizations tied to Chinese Communist Party-aligned capital that provides money, logistics, and professionalized organizing capacity. Public narratives are amplified by legacy anti-war organizations like CODEPINK and the ANSWER Coalition, which are also now under the Singham umbrella. They frame U.S. foreign policy as illegitimate while defending authoritarian adversaries. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) functions as the political activation channel, translating activist energy into electoral and legislative influence on behalf of the Cuban regime.

Viewed individually, each organization insists it is merely engaging in advocacy. Viewed together, the pattern is unmistakable.

Examine the leadership and membership of the National Network on Cuba and the picture sharpens further. Calla Walsh, founder of PalAction U.S. and Unity of Fields, served as a co-chair of NNOC. Manolo De Los Santos lived in Cuba for six years and maintains relationships with senior ICAP officials and Cuban political leadership. Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK lived in Cuba for five years, married a Cuban communist, and went on to build organizations centered around Cuba delegations. Groups as radical as Armed Queers of Salt Lake City appear inside NNOC membership rolls. The DSA has held meetings at the Cuban Embassy in New York City and subsequently traveled to Cuba, where it announced a formal partnership with ICAP.

🇨🇺 🇨🇳 These Cuba trips are run through ICAP, a shadowy Cuban intel front, and the Venceremos Brigade. Since 1970, at least 744 delegations have brought U.S. activists to Havana for a crash course in communist collaboration. Cuba used to be a proxy for the Soviets but lately it’s… pic.twitter.com/n4QePQ99UE

— Peter Schweizer (@peterschweizer) September 16, 2025

None of this proves espionage in the cinematic sense. It does not need to.

🧵🚨 MAJOR BREAKING 2: The 2025 May Day trip of SLC Armed Queers to Cuba: “Well, if we’re terrorists, we’re proud to be terrorists”

I’ve obtained a now-deleted video.

In it, Ermiya Fanaeian and an unidentified man named Connor talk openly about:

👉 Palestinian students at… pic.twitter.com/CBkStDYjEO

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) September 16, 2025

Come on now…

So here is @senwarren with the head of the Salt Lake City Armed Queers (she/her). Let’s see what a few hours of tracing lobby fund flows will reveal next. https://t.co/8TaLE0e4QA

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 17, 2025

Influence operations are not about secrets; they are about shaping norms, training protest foot soldiers, and aligning political instincts. By that measure, Cuba’s intelligence services have been extraordinarily successful. Entire segments of the U.S. radical nonprofit sphere now reflexively defend foreign authoritarian regimes and justify violence, while dehumanizing and demonizing half the country by calling them “Nazis” and “fascists.”

Here is the roadmap to Charlie Kirk’s assassination… pic.twitter.com/S4JPbPiFy8

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) September 12, 2025

The reason target profiling of Republicans was done by the radical left and Democrats is very simple:

“Planning War Against Fascists” – Socialist Rifle Association Boasts 10,000 Members

Many of these organizations are conspicuously opposed to anything associated with America First, with some openly calling for the destruction of Western capitalism and even the end of the U.S. Strikingly, they all sing from the same radical Marxist songbook.

If you want to understand why the radical left appears to hate America and seeks to implode the nation from within, it is not difficult to see that these ideas are rarely developed organically. More often, they are shaped and reinforced by outside influences. This chart helps explain why the radical left has become so radical.

As per The Washington Times, “Cuba’s intelligence apparatus is training foreign nationals to wage war against the West.”

It’s already begun:

US Gov’t Foils Terror Plot By Far-Left Group Plotting New Year’s Eve Bomb Attack

The Atlantic is absolutely correct: “Left-Wing Terrorism Is on the Rise.” And perhaps we just unveiled why… 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

“And may all your Christmases be [woke].”

As Santa prepares for his harrowing journey around the world, he is being closely pursued by liberal commentators protesting his race, gender, and capitalist leanings.

The perpetually outraged have finally come for Christmas.

One columnist at Slate called for Santa to be replaced by a penguin due to his race.

Aisha Harris admitted that she was being a bit cheeky in pushing the penguin substitute but sought to express “my real concern that America continues to promote the harmful idea of whiteness-as-default.”

Back to Santa. The British Brighton and Hove Museums have been the focus of this debate over the reposting of an earlier column by the museum’s Joint Head of Culture Change, Simone LaCorbinière, who explained that the traditional Christmas simply will not do with a Santa who is “too white, male” and a colonizer of elves.

I suppose that when you use public dollars to hire someone who will serve as “Joint Head of Culture Change,” it was only a matter of time before they came for Christmas. After all, the idea is that the British culture must generally change, right?

In a 2023 column titled Decolonising Father Christmas, LaCorbinière warns that Santa is “too white, male” and the traditional story “presents Santa as the ultimate authority of all societies. This asks us to accept colonial assumptions of cultural superiority. It doesn’t recognise the complex realities colonised people face.”

She expresses horror at the fact that Santa is “an old white man [who] supervise[s] the elves’ work.” We can put aside that Santa was identified in “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (1823) as a  “chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.” LaCorbinière portrays him as a heartless white capitalist living off the labor of a captive elf workforce. She calls for “Santa to work in the factory alongside the elves.”

Changes must be made, according to the museum, to decolonize Christmas and break away from holiday images that are “white, male and non-disabled”:

“This perpetuates the harmful ‘colonial gaze’. Non-Western cultures are ‘othered’. It says that the coloniser has the power to judge all people. And it ignores many communities’ histories and traditions. Telling the story like this teaches new generations that the coloniser knows best.”

Santa is not alone.

In the meantime, NPR noted White Christmas has racist undertones, while Joy Reid has declared Jingle Bells to be a racist song.

Even “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a “bigoted” story fed to the populace to reinforce capitalist and racist values. Professor James Deaville warned recently that “while some viewers see the ending as affirming community, the film also keeps George partly ignorant of how the forces of inequity are actually operating in his largely white community.”

They are the self-flagellants of the holidays, moving through Christmas markets (which are also fascist traditions) with Gregorian chants of guilt.   Here are some enlightened carolers seen recently spreading “Tidings of Great Joy [Reid]” for the holiday:

Clearly there are many liberals who still enjoy the holidays without the need for self-affirming declarations of outrage or disgust. 

However, for some on the left, there is little joy in Christmas without identity politics and white guilt.

So the more the merrier and, as Tiny Tim declared, “God bless us, every one!”

The Trump administration has ordered the U.S. military to enforce a two-month “quarantine” of Venezuelan oil, signaling an intensification of gunboat diplomacy aimed at fostering regime instability in Caracas, with potential spillover effects that could ripple across the Caribbean into Cuba.

“While military options still exist, the focus is to first use economic pressure by enforcing sanctions to reach the outcome the White House is looking (for),” a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday afternoon, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. Coast Guard has already intercepted two Venezuelan crude tankers this month and is prepared to seize another dark fleet tanker, but the vessel Bella-1 was chased away.

Sources familiar with the sanctioned Bella-1 told Bloomberg that the tanker retreated into the Atlantic after being pursued by U.S. Coast Guard forces. The tanker failed to comply with instructions to move to calmer waters for boarding.

Bella-1’s decision to evade closely monitored Venezuelan waters underscores how the Trump administration’s U.S. blockade, widely viewed as gunboat diplomacy, has already disrupted Venezuela–Cuba–China oil flows. The blockade is set to further tighten financial pressure on President Nicolás Maduro’s government by constraining crucial oil revenues. Beijing has already condemned Trump’s gunboat diplomacy.  

According to analytics firm Kpler, Caracas has shipped nearly 900,000 barrels per day this year and relies on 400 dark-fleet tankers to transport the crude, much of which is bound for China. 

“The efforts so far have put tremendous pressure on Maduro, and the belief is that by late January, Venezuela will be facing an economic calamity unless it agrees to make significant concessions to the U.S,” the U.S. official told Reuters.

Also reported this week, the Trump administration continues to expand its large military presence in the Caribbean, with more than 15,000 troops, an aircraft carrier, multiple warships, and stealth fighters staged across the region.

As we have repeatedly noted, this all reflects a significant reposturing of the U.S. military toward so-called Western hemispheric defense, effectively a Monroe Doctrine 2.0.

A Tuesday UN Security Council session quickly grew tense and members squared off over what’s happening off the coast of Venezuela, scene of apparent preparations for some kind of US military action.

Russia and China issued common condemnation of Washington, blasting a campaign of intimidation against Caracas which goes against the principles of the United Nations, and is based on “cowboy behavior”.

via Reuters

The emergency session of the UNSC was formally requested by Venezuela and immediately backed by China and Russia.

Additionally the Chinese side complained that the US is currently “infringing upon other countries’ sovereignty, security, and legitimate rights and interests, seriously violate the UN Charter and international law, and threaten peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro initially submitted a formal appeal to all 193 UN member states and Caribbean leaders, calling out the US “escalation of extremely serious aggression” and urging the UN to act.

The the American side wasn’t having it, with US Ambassador Mike Waltz responding by saying, “The United States will do everything in its power to protect our hemisphere, our borders, and the American people.”

“Maduro’s ability to ‌sell Venezuela’s oil enables his fraudulent claim to power and ‍his narco-terrorist ‍activities,” Waltz said before the 15-member council. “The people of Venezuela, ⁠frankly, ‌deserve better.”

The US administration’s rhetoric has grown increasingly in favor of admitting the end goal is regime change, also connected with Trump’s earlier declaration of “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned oil vessels sailing to and from Venezuela. 

The American President has insisted that Maduro is using oil money to finance “drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder and kidnapping” and so it would be “smart” for him to step down.

🇻🇪🇺🇸 FROM ROBOT DANCE TO OIL CRACKDOWN: MADURO’S SHOW MEETS U.S. PRESSURE

Maduro just had a dance-off with a humanoid robot at a tech fair in Venezuela.

Yep, the president of a country where many people still can’t afford basic food is out here vibing with a machine.

It… pic.twitter.com/eVrIrUaeFU

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) December 24, 2025

American military assets, including special forces, are at the moment in a ‘holding pattern’ awaiting potential orders from the Commander-in-Chief, in a build-up which has been happening for a long time.