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US Treasury Sanctions GAESA: The Cuban Military Conglomerate That Controls the Economy and Thrives on Donations

Secretary of State Marco Rubio described Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA) as a “Cuban military-controlled financial conglomerate that steals millions in aid for the Cuban people at the behest of the regime.” The United States sanctioned GAESA on May 7, 2026, under Executive Order 14404, signed by President Trump on May 1. The State Department issued the designations while the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) administered them.

Founded by Raúl Castro, GAESA is the economic arm of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and one of the country’s most powerful institutions. Despite existing within a nominally socialist state, it operates under an opaque structure resembling a capitalist corporation, with subsidiaries incorporated in Panama, Cyprus, and Liberia to bypass U.S. sanctions restrictions.

It controls an estimated 40 percent or more of the island’s economy, with gross profits representing close to 37 percent of Cuba’s GDP, total revenues 3.2 times greater than the annual Cuban state budget, and exports accounting for roughly 34 percent of the island’s total. The Food Monitor Program, in a formal complaint to the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, described GAESA as “a state within a state,” accusing it of worsening hunger and malnutrition through monopolistic control and financial opacity.

GAESA dominates Cuba’s most strategic and profitable sectors through a web of subsidiaries: tourism through Gaviota, retail and wholesale trade through CIMEX and TRD Caribe, and finance through RAFIN S.A. and Banco Financiero Internacional. It also controls remittances, logistics, port operations, including the Port of Mariel, construction, transportation, and foreign trade.

Its former chief, Gen. Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, the former son-in-law of Raúl Castro, was separately sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury, which froze his U.S.-jurisdiction assets and prohibited American persons from dealing with him.

Leaked internal accounting documents reported by the Miami Herald showed GAESA held approximately $18 billion in current assets as of March 2024, of which $14.5 billion sat in undisclosed overseas bank accounts, even as Cuba’s broader economy collapsed. The U.S. State Department stated in its May 2026 sanctions announcement that GAESA controls up to $20 billion in illicit assets funneled into hidden overseas accounts, and that GAESA’s executive president Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera is personally responsible for managing those assets internationally.

Those funds exist entirely outside the Cuban government’s budget. In 2024, Cuba’s State Comptroller was dismissed after 14 years in office. The dismissal came after she publicly admitted that she lacked access to GAESA’s financial accounts. The conglomerate is entirely exempt from government audit. “There’s the Cuban government and they have a budget,” Rubio told reporters, “and then there’s this private company that has more money than the government does.

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The Market’s Biggest Buyer May Be Disappearing

Yesterday, as part of laying out the two paths I can see the economy taking, I wrote that beneath the surface, the American consumer is tapped out. The average consumer – AKA the “retail investor” – has been a key in driving the stock market higher the past half decade.

This morning, I noticed two reports that came out yesterday that add to the conclusion that this “retail investor” looks increasingly broke. 

Yesterday The Wall Street Journal highlighted how rising prices and the highest interest rates in decades have pushed even relatively high-income households into financial distress. One example was a hospital operations director earning nearly $200,000 annually who accumulated $15,000 in credit card debt at a 26% interest rate. Despite making the minimum payments, the balance barely moved.

And the broader data confirms this isn’t an isolated story.

As I’ve noted, the percentage of credit card balances that are 90+ days delinquent climbed to 13.1% in the first quarter, the highest level in 15 years and the worst reading since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Total credit card balances reached a record $1.25 trillion for a first quarter, while average credit card interest rates have surged from 14.6% in early 2022 to roughly 21% today.

Delinquency rates have risen across low-, middle-, and high-income households alike. In other words, this is no longer just a lower-income problem. The financial strain is moving up the income ladder, which fits perfectly with what I’ve been writing about for months.

Student loan delinquencies have also exploded higher as repayment obligations returned. Credit card delinquencies have surged to post-financial-crisis highs.

Auto loan defaults, particularly among subprime borrowers, are sitting near multi-decade extremes. New data from Experian shows that nearly 19% of new vehicle loans now carry monthly payments of at least $1,000, up from 17.4% a year ago and more than triple the 5.4% level seen just five years ago.

Contrary to popular belief, these aren’t primarily luxury vehicles, either. Roughly three-quarters of the loans are tied to mainstream models, led by popular pickup trucks like the Ford F-150, Chevrolet Silverado, and Ram 1500.

The surge reflects years of rising vehicle prices and larger loan balances, with the average amount financed reaching a record $43,952 and the average monthly payment climbing to an all-time high of $770. While delinquency rates remain below 2018 levels overall, both 30- and 60-day late payments are increasing, with the most significant stress emerging among subprime borrowers, who face the highest risk of default as elevated rates and larger loan balances continue to strain household finances.

Meanwhile, as noted yesterday, the personal savings rate has collapsed back toward historic lows as households burn through what little financial cushion remains.

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Brutal Media Split Screen Emerges as New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill Begs Anti-ICE Rioters to “Bring the Temperature Down” and Demands Closure of ICE Facility 

Fox News has gone viral after utilizing a devastating split screen regarding New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherill and the ongoing riots in Newark, which will remind some of the images from the George Floyd riots back in the Summer of 2020.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, the protests outside the ICE detention facility in Newark have spiraled into chaos.

Demonstrators have confronted law enforcement, federal officers have been targeted, journalists have faced hostility, and authorities have been forced to respond as crowds escalated near the facility.

The Gateway Pundit also revealed that independent journalist Nick Sortor, who blew the lid off years of taxpayers’ abuse at the hands of Somali fraudsters, infiltrated an Antifa camp at the Newark, New Jersey, ICE protests.

As he moved through the camp, he found tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment, food, and even riot gear. Hot meals are delivered every hour. Clearly, there is a massive, shadowy infrastructure behind the movement that is providing funding.

When one combines this with the open encouragement of Democrat politicians to bully ICE agents, it’s no wonder that Antifa is so emboldened.

During a Saturday press conference, Sherill begged the Antifa protesters to “bring the temperature down” and to protest “peacefully.”

Then, she vowed to work toward “better conditions at Delaney Hall” until it was closed for good.

But while Sherill was ranting, a Fox News producer put up a devastating split screen showing exactly what the New Jersey Governor was presiding over.

In the split screen, one can see agitators getting violent with law enforcement officers and throwing projectiles.

Smoke bombs are also deployed.

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Outrage Mounts After Trans Athlete AB Hernandez Wins California Girls Track Championship

A controversial transgender athlete in California has caused another backlash after winning a girls’ track championship on Saturday.

AB Hernandez, a boy who identifies as a girl, won a medal at the CIF State Track & Field Championships being held at Veterans Memorial Stadium at Buchanan High School in Clovis, California, this weekend, according to the New York Post.

Hernandez, who competes for Jurupa Valley High School, was participating in the girls’ long jump. But this is not the athlete’s first time stirring controversy. All year, Hernandez has been at the center of protests by parents who want to protect girls’ sports from the incursion by boys identifying as girls.

Even as Hernandez was winning events inside, parents had gathered outside the venue to protest transgender athletes in girls’ sports.

Parents held signs blasting the ruination of girls’ sports. Signs included, “No boys. No bias. Just fairness, and “Save Girl’s Sports.”

Parents also accused event officials of allowing boys to compete and said males winning means the events have been “stolen from our daughters.”

Hernandez did not win the long jump event, but did come in third with a mark of 20 feet, 2 1/4 inches.

Ellie McCuskey-Hay of St. Ignatius High School and Gianna Gonzalez of Moorpark High School, who each jumped 20 feet, 3 1/2 inches, shared first place.

Corinne Jones from St. Mary’s High School achieved the fourth best jump but was still awarded third place, which she shared with Hernandez. This occurred due to a change in state rules.

The new rule, put in place last year, states that when a trans athlete places in a postseason event, the next-closest “cisgender” girl will share the placement.

Despite the rule being made to mollify parents, Hernandez’s mom was less than pleased with it. Early in May, Nereyda Hernandez ripped the new rule.

“All these big, tough ex-athletes at CIF, and the most courage they could muster was to hand this to coaches at AB’s meet today,” the group wrote. “Not one of them was brave enough to look her or her mother in the eye and say: ‘This whole project of violating Ed Code is aimed at you. A child.’”

Hernandez also wrote that her “heart was full watching A.B compete.”

“Today at the CIF Track & Field Finals, my heart was full watching A.B compete,” she wrote after her son’s competition.

“No matter how differently she may be seen by some, she continues to walk onto that field with the most beautiful smile on her face, gives EVERY event her ALL, and carries herself with grace, determination, and sportsmanship,” she wrote.

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The Nocebo Effect: The Real PsyOp Behind Fake Pandemics

When authorities tell you to be afraid of a virus, your mind can make symptoms real, even when no pathogen exists. This is not conspiracy theory; it’s documented science, and it has been weaponized against the public for decades. The nocebo effect — the evil twin of the placebo — is the key to understanding how pandemics are manufactured as psychological operations. The word “nocebo” means “I will harm” in Latin, and that’s exactly what this phenomenon does: it turns negative expectations into real physical harm.

The idea that a suggestion can make you sick is as old as medicine itself, yet it has been deliberately ignored by the scientific establishment because it threatens the entire foundation of the infectious disease model. Research on the nocebo effect in the context of COVID-19 shows that the pandemic produced a “nocebodemic effect” characterized by mass negative interpretation of health services and medical treatments. When combined with the fear narrative pumped out by governments and media, this creates a perfect storm of psychogenic illness that requires no actual virus to produce symptoms. The institutions that profit from sickness have learned to weaponize this effect on a scale never seen before.

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Girl Power? Dem Reps. Say Employers Who Won’t Pay Women to Stay Home from Work During Menstruation Are Committing ‘Economic Violence’

For the crowd that doesn’t seem to be able to define what a woman is, Democrat Reps. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) recently went full ‘girl power’ during a press conference.

The trio complained that employers who won’t pay female workers to stay home during menstruation are committing ‘economic violence’ against women.

Reps. Yassamin Ansari said, “Today we are here to talk about women’s pain and how long it’s been overlooked. In the summer of 2015, while starting my career in New York City, I woke up on the floor of my local bodega, drenched in sweat, being dragged into an ambulance. Two male paramedics hovered over me and continued to ask me if I was pregnant. I had passed out from period pain.”

“Even now, every month, I have days where it feels like barbed wire is tightening inside me. I’ve taken 2,000 milligrams ibuprofen in 24 hours and still been in tears from the pain. Often end up on the bathroom floor in the fetal position crying, moaning, or vomiting. Still, I’ve put on a blazer and gone to work.”

“I’ve sat in committee hearings nauseous from the pain, quietly breathing to make my way through it. I’ve given speeches at rallies and run town halls while my body was in full revolt. I smiled for photos while silently wondering if I might faint right then and there. In fact, about 15% of women have period pain so debilitating that it disrupts work or school. That is no small number, and yet we are told to’ suck it up.’”

“It’s why during Women’s History Month, I’ve introduced legislation to give workers up to 12 days of paid leave a year for reproductive health. This would cover period pain, yes, but also menopause symptoms, IVF miscarriages, endometriosis flare-ups, and more.”

Rep. Adelita Grijalva added, “I’m here to speak to the, to the thousands of women in Southern Arizona who are tired of being ignored. They are tired of having their pain minimized. They are tired of a healthcare system that treats women’s bodies like an afterthought.”

“Forcing a worker to choose between paying her rent or losing a day pay to recover from a grueling gynecological procedure is not a choice. It’s an economic violence.”

“We are done being gaslit in the exam room. Health is not a luxury and our pain is not an inconvenience. It is time to pass healthcare agenda that truly sees us, respects us, and protects us. It’s time to acknowledge our country’s history history of systemic injustice in women’s healthcare and needs to end.”

Rashida Tlaib closed out the remarks saying, “We’re sick and tired of women having to be expected to say suck it up or still perform at the highest level. They are expected to show up to work despite incredibly painful periods and sit through meetings after being denied competent healthcare. And for far too long, women’s pain has been minimized, ignored, dismissed, and even politicized.”

“We have to guarantee paid leave for reproductive health. That is the minimum.”

“No one should have to choose between their paycheck and their health to be able to manage that kind of incredible pain. This is about listening to us, listening to women when they say they are hurting and that they’re in so much pain, and rejecting the dangerous idea that suffering is simply the price of being a woman.”

“Women’s pain is so often dismissed, minimized, or treated as inconvenient instead of a medical priority. I know this personally. For years, I lost 1 or 2 days of work every month to hormonal migraines, nausea, and severe period pain. And when I did stay at work, I wore sunglasses to block the fluorescent office lights. Our pain is real, and it can no longer be ignored.”

“I’ve seen what happens when women, especially Black women, don’t have access to the care that takes their body seriously. We have been penalized economically for our biology that has been ignored clinically.”

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Three Stories You Missed While The White House Parades The UFC On The Front Lawn

The second century Roman satirical poet Decimus Junius Juvenalus once famously said “Give them bread and circuses, and they will never revolt”. An astute observation of how the Roman populace became complacent in the face of abuses by their government, placated with free grain and spectacles rather than exercising their civic duties.

This phrase has been oft repeated in the centuries since, applied to numerous governments across the world. But perhaps nowhere is it more prevalent than in present-day America.

In the lead up to the much anticipated 250th anniversary of the founding of our nation, and in the midst of a wave of the worst presidential scandals in over 100 years, the Trump administration is doing everything in its power to shift attention away from the disastrous Iran War and the fact that The sitting president of the United States is implicated hundreds of times in the sexual exploitation and abuse of minors.

Whether it be by continuing the limited hangout of selective UFO disclosure, or by hosting the Ultimate Fighting Championship on the White House front lawn in some sort of weird hyper-masculine MAGA charade, the political theatrics only continue to intensify.

That being said, here are a few worthwhile stories that actually matter.

Pro-2A Pushback In Virginia

In March, the Free Thought Project reported on a massive anti gun crusade being pushed by legislators in Virginia under the new Democrat administration of former CIA analyst Abigail Spanberger. Among the myriad of infringements to Virginia’s Second Amendment rights were proposals seeking civil liability for firearms manufacturers, expansions of the already blatantly unconstitutional red flag laws, attempts to prohibit 3D printed firearms, the implementation of gun buyback programs, ending the right to open carry, and an outright ban on so-called “assault weapons”.

The most egregious of these, the “assault weapons” ban, was signed into law on May 14th, 2026. 

Thankfully, however, this callous disregard for the Constitution was immediately challenged, with several gun rights groups including the Second Amendment Foundation as well as the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, and the Virginia Citizens Defense League have all filed lawsuits in response to the new legislation.

Additionally, at least four Virginia prosecutors have publicly come out in opposition to the new legislation, signaling their intent to refuse to enforce the law. According to the Washington Times:

Prosecutors in Spotsylvania, Smyth, Powhatan and Pulaski counties argued that it violates Second Amendment protections, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings in District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008 and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen in 2022.

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The End Of Digital Trust: How Quantum Computing Could Upend Security, Business, & Global Stability

The scariest technology threats are usually the boring ones. Not the giant killer robots. Not the science fiction stuff. Not the dramatic movie scenes where somebody in sunglasses launches cyberattacks from a glowing underground bunker while alarms blare in the background. The truly dangerous threats arrive quietly. Q-Day falls squarely into that category.

To most people, the phrase sounds like something Netflix would slap on a conspiracy thriller thumbnail. In reality, it refers to the moment quantum computers become powerful enough to break the encryption systems that protect modern digital life. And when cybersecurity experts talk about this possibility, they don’t sound excited. No, they sound exhausted—because they know how unprepared much of the world still is.

Encryption is the invisible architecture underneath almost everything people interact with daily. Online banking. Cloud storage. Corporate systems. Government communications. Military operations. Healthcare records. Financial transactions. Satellites. Power infrastructure. Nearly every digital system that matters relies on cryptographic protections developed for a pre-quantum world.

That world is running out of time. Experts increasingly warn that quantum computing breakthroughs are advancing faster than expected, while organizations remain painfully slow to adapt. And corporate leadership still doesn’t fully grasp the seriousness of what’s coming.

A lot of companies approach cybersecurity the way people approach oil changes. They know they’re supposed to deal with it eventually, but they’d rather postpone the expense until smoke starts coming out of something important. Meanwhile, cybercriminals and hostile governments are operating several moves ahead.

The phrase “harvest now, decrypt later” has become one of the most alarming concepts in modern cybersecurity. Adversaries are already stealing encrypted information today with the expectation that future quantum systems will eventually crack the protections surrounding it.

That means the threat isn’t waiting for some future technological milestone. The threat has already started. And the scope of what’s potentially vulnerable is staggering. Intellectual property. Trade secrets. Proprietary AI systems. Pharmaceutical research. Defense communications. Infrastructure schematics. Diplomatic cables. Financial data. Internal corporate strategy. Decades of archived encrypted communications that organizations assumed would remain secure indefinitely.

A lot of executives still imagine cyberattacks as noisy smash-and-grab operations. Ransom notes. Locked systems. Flashing warnings. But some of the most effective compromises are almost embarrassingly subtle.

“Stealer” malware remains devastatingly efficient in the current cyber landscape, quietly extracting passwords, session cookies, authentication credentials, browser data, crypto wallets, and sensitive company access without triggering major alarms. Fake file deletion warnings and fraudulent system compromise messages still trick countless ordinary users into handing over access voluntarily. Some of the oldest scams in the book continue working because panic overrides common sense faster than any firewall can react.

Quantum computing doesn’t replace those existing threats; it magnifies them. And the implications extend far beyond corporate cybersecurity budgets.

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Dr. Jill Repeatedly Claims She Never Saw Signs that Joe Biden Was Falling Into Cognitive Decline – And CBS Mornings Host Isn’t Even Buying It

Dr. Jill insisted that she had never seen anything to indicate that Joe Biden was in cognitive decline during an interview with CBS Mornings host Rita Braver.

Jill Biden sat down for an interview with CBS Mornings to discuss life after the White House.

“Did you ever see signs that [Biden] was falling into cognitive decline?” Rita Braver asked Jill Biden.

“No,” Jill Biden said.

Rita Braver was not buying Jill Biden’s claim.

“No?” Rita Braver asked.

“No,” Jill Biden insisted.

“Truly?” Rita Braver asked.

“No,” Jill Biden said.

“Oh, he was definitely aging; I mean, we were all aging,” Jill added. “So, yes, he was slowing down.”

“People were saying he wasn’t the same Joe Biden,” Rita Braver said.

“Well, I don’t think that’s true,” Jill said.

She continued, “He was the same, the essence of the same Joe Biden, but yeah, he was slowing down. He was getting older.”

“It’s a very intense job. I think it ages you quickly. Look at the other presidents, I mean, in comparison, when they started in office and got out of office. It was natural aging,” Jill Biden insisted.

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Yemen’s Prisoner Swap and the UAE–Israel Project Saudi Arabia Couldn’t Bury

Behind a UN-backed prisoner exchange between Yemen’s internationally recognised government and the Houthis lies a deeper story of islands, radar, black sites, and a southern Yemen security order Riyadh chose to dismantle after years of coalition decay. This proxy network stretching from Yemen’s Socotra Island to Bosaso on Somalia’s coast, across the maritime corridor between the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, was built on torture, constant sea surveillance and coalition infighting, only to be sold to the world by Western navies as “freedom of navigation.”

After January 2026, we were told that this decade-long tripartite between the UAE, Israel, and the Yemeni separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) had been dismantled. But how much of that machinery still stands, under new flags and quieter names, waiting for the next round? Since January 2026, the noise has been about “dissolving” the STC and managing Saudi–UAE friction, but what almost no one has asked is whether the UAE–Israel island pact, its radars, runways and black‑site prisons strung along Yemen’s southern waters, ever stopped operating, or just slipped under friendlier flags.

Riyadh’s strike on the STC shattered a larger Red Sea order

On 14 May 2026, negotiators for Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council and Ansarallah signed the country’s largest prisoner exchange since the war began, agreeing in Amman to swap more than 1,600 detainees under UN auspices. Saudi Arabia helped facilitate the deal behind the scenes, while the Emirati-backed Southern Transitional Council stayed out of sight and the UAE had no formal role at the table, even though some of the war’s most notorious detention networks grew out of the southern security order they built together. For families searching prisons, camps, and unofficial detention sites, the agreement offered a rare opening in a war that turned disappearance into routine.

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