Individual Economists

ChatGPT, Reddit, And Roblox To Face Increased Scrutiny In Europe

Zero Hedge -

ChatGPT, Reddit, And Roblox To Face Increased Scrutiny In Europe

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The European Commission has designated Reddit and Roblox as very large online platforms and ChatGPT as a very large online search engine under its Digital Services Act (DSA), subjecting these online services to higher scrutiny in the region.

The Berlaymont building, the European Union Commission headquarters, in Brussels on Dec. 15, 2025. Nicolas Tucat/AFP via Getty Images

The DSA sets rules for online services used by EU citizens, including social media networks, app stores, digital marketplaces, and online travel platforms.

Platforms or search engines that have more than 45 million monthly users in the European Union are classified as Very Large Online Platforms or Very Large Online Search Engines.

ChatGPT, Reddit, and Roblox have "declared that they reach at least 45 million average monthly users in the EU and thus meet the threshold for designation," the commission said in an Aug. 31 statement.

Once this designation is applied, these services must fulfill certain obligations, including establishing a point of contact for European authorities, reporting criminal offenses, and ensuring transparency in advertising and content moderation decisions.

The services must also identify, analyze, and assess "systemic risks" in their offerings, including those related to public security, electoral processes, public health, the protection of minors, illegal content, mental and physical well-being, and fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and media freedom.

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence system that engages with user prompts, including by searching the web, which qualifies it as an online search engine, the commission said. Since Reddit and Roblox - a gaming and creation platform - allow users to disseminate third-party content, the commission deemed them online platforms under the DSA.

Services designated as very large online platforms or very large online search engines are also required to share their data with the commission and national authorities to enable monitoring and assessment of these services for DSA compliance. The services must establish an internal compliance function to ensure identified risks in their offerings are mitigated.

The recent designations require ChatGPT, Reddit, and Roblox to comply with additional DSA obligations by January 2027.

The Epoch Times reached out to Reddit, Roblox, and OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

The commission's very-large-online-platform designation was previously challenged by Amazon in 2023. However, in a November 2025 decision, the Court of Justice of the EU's General Court declined to annul the designation.

At the time, Amazon said it was disappointed in the ruling.

"The Very Large Online Platform status was designed to address systemic risks posed by very large companies with advertising as their primary revenue and that distribute speech and information," the company said in a statement.

"The Amazon Store, as an online marketplace, does not pose any such systemic risks; it only sells goods, and it doesn't disseminate or amplify information, views or opinions."

Amazon Store continues to be listed as a very large online platform by the European Commission.

In total, the EU has now designated 28 services as very large search engines and online platforms under DSA, the commission said in its recent statement. This includes Apple's App Store, AliExpress, TikTok, WhatsApp, X, Wikipedia, and Facebook.

Henna Virkkunen, executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security, and democracy at the European Commission, said that the latest designations will hold ChatGPT, Reddit, and Roblox to a "higher standard of scrutiny and accountability in the European Union, in line with their large impact on our citizens and society."

"We continue to watch the digital landscape closely and will not hesitate to designate any platform that meets the threshold for enhanced supervision under the Digital Services Act," Virkkunen said.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has taken a strong stance against the EU's rules for American tech companies.

In a July 24 Truth Social post, Trump announced a formal investigation into the EU's trade practices, threatening to impose new tariffs after the bloc levied billions of dollars in fines on U.S. businesses.

The comments came after the European Commission fined Google 890 million euros (approx. $1 billion) for violating the Digital Markets Act, a complementary regulation to the DSA that targets online platforms.

Trump said that fines on Google and other U.S. tech companies will be reversed.

"The European Union will pay a very big price for this illegal and highly unethical conduct, which I have consistently warned them about," Trump said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/02/2026 - 03:30

The Global Population Is Aging At An Unprecedented Pace

Zero Hedge -

The Global Population Is Aging At An Unprecedented Pace

The world’s population is aging rapidly, with people aged 65 and older expected to account for nearly one fifth of the global population by 2060, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s An Aging World: 2025 report.

The share of people aged 65 and older is projected to rise from 10.5% in 2025 to 19.6% in 2060. A major demographic milestone has already occurred. Between 2020 and 2025, older adults outnumbered children aged 5 and younger for the first time in recorded history.

In 2025, 18.9% of the U.S. population was aged 65 or older, ranking the country 48th oldest among 227 countries. By 2060, that share is expected to reach 23.4%. Despite this increase, the United States is projected to fall to 110th place as populations in many other countries age even faster.

Japan had the world’s oldest population in 2025, with 29.7% aged 65 and older. By 2060, South Korea is expected to take the lead, with older adults representing about 41% of its population.

Europe remains the world’s oldest region, with its population aged 65 and older projected to grow from 21% in 2025 to 30.8% in 2060. However, Africa is expected to surpass Europe in the total number of older adults. By 2060, Africa could have 249 million people aged 65 and older, compared with 214 million in Europe.

The report notes that falling birth rates, longer life expectancy, improved healthcare, better education and economic development are driving this demographic transformation. The shift is expected to place growing pressure on healthcare systems, government finances, employment and long term care.

Health is a particularly important concern. People are living longer, but healthy life expectancy is not increasing at the same pace. In the United States, an estimated 73% of adults aged 65 and older had at least two chronic health conditions between 2016 and 2019. Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias are also among the five leading causes of death globally for people aged 60 and older.

Aging populations could also increase financial pressure on governments. Across OECD countries, government health spending is projected to grow at roughly twice the rate of government revenues over the next decade. Pension systems vary significantly as well, with retirement benefits replacing more than 90% of average wages in some countries but only about half in others, including the United States.

Caregiving presents another challenge. Unpaid care provided by relatives and friends remains the primary source of long term support for older adults worldwide, with women providing a large share of that care. The COVID 19 pandemic further exposed vulnerabilities among older people, including social isolation, disrupted healthcare, job losses and limited digital access.

At the same time, older adults continue to make important economic and social contributions. Labor force participation among people aged 65 and older has increased in many high income countries, while volunteering remains significant in some nations.

The Census Bureau’s findings show that population aging is no longer limited to a handful of wealthy countries. It is becoming a worldwide demographic shift that will reshape healthcare, employment, pensions, caregiving and social policy for decades to come.

An Aging World: 2025 is the sixth edition of the U.S. Census Bureau’s global aging series, first published in 1987. The report draws on the Census Bureau’s International Database and data from organizations including the World Bank, International Labour Organization and OECD.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/02/2026 - 02:45

Judge Frees Illegal Migrant Caught Mid-Rape By Police

Zero Hedge -

Judge Frees Illegal Migrant Caught Mid-Rape By Police

Authored by - Remix News Staff - via Remix News,

A 27-year-old Moroccan construction worker in an irregular immigration situation in Spain was released from custody on Monday after being caught in the act of raping a 22-year-old woman on Valencia's Malvarrosa beach. The duty judge cited the victim's failure to appear in court to formalize a complaint as the reason for granting him provisional liberty - a Spanish procedural requirement that is relatively unusual compared with many other Western countries.

The incident took place around 6:45 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 30, near the Akuarela night club. According to Spanish media reports drawing on police sources, the young woman had been in the sea and was lying on the sand when the man approached her. He initially made complimentary remarks before suddenly lunging at her, violently tearing off her dress and forcing penetrative sex while covering her mouth with his hand to stifle her screams. She resisted and cried for help.

A passerby walking along the shoreline spotted the assault from a distance and alerted authorities. Four officers from the Valencia Local Police's Security, Support and Prevention Unit (USAP), two of them in plain clothes, were already patrolling nearby, according to Spanish news outlet OKDiaro.

They heard the screams and arrived quickly. The suspect tried to flee across the sand. Officers caught him after a short chase. He resisted arrest and punched one officer several times in the face, causing injuries that required medical attention. The officers handcuffed him and handed him over to the National Police. The victim's mobile phone, found nearby, was also recovered.

Several reports noted the victim was in a state of intoxication, with one account describing her as having left a nearby nightclub for fresh air. Police later found her showing clear signs of alcohol consumption. She was taken to Hospital La Fe, where she received gynecological care and gave an initial statement to officers from the gender-violence victim assistance unit.

The man, identified as a 27-year-old Moroccan construction worker living in Spain without legal papers, was charged with sexual assault involving penetration and assault on an agent of authority. Authorities have confirmed his irregular status.

On Monday, the duty magistrate of the Violence Against Women section of Valencia's Court of First Instance ordered his provisional release.

The decision, taken in agreement with the public prosecutor, followed the police's inability to locate the victim so she could appear and ratify a formal complaint.

Spain has some rather unusual rules in regards to this criminal charge. Under Article 191 of the Spanish Penal Code, a complaint from an adult victim is required to pursue sexual offense of this type. Other European nations, like France and Germany, do not require a victim to file a criminal complaint to move forward with criminal proceedings.

Remarkably, even in a case where the woman gave a police statement about the rape and the fact that officers caught the man in the middle of penetrative rape, authorities still released the suspect.

The court opened preliminary proceedings and instructed police to continue searching for the woman. Officials said her situation could change immediately if she is found and decides to proceed. The assault on the police officer is being handled separately and can still be pursued criminally.

Meanwhile, the case has drawn attention on social media due to the man being released within hours and the unique procedural requirements involved in the case.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/02/2026 - 02:00

5 Warning Signs That America's Systems Are Under Strain

Zero Hedge -

5 Warning Signs That America's Systems Are Under Strain

Authored by Madge Waggy via 'A lot will happen in 2026!',

Most people carry a mental image of collapse that looks like a movie scene. Tanks rolling through streets. Banks locking their doors overnight. Crowds panicking in front of empty stores. These dramatic moments do happen, but they're usually the endpoint of a much longer process, not the beginning. By the time things get visibly chaotic, the foundations have already shifted in ways that are harder to see but easier to prepare for.

Real change tends to move slowly. It accumulates in the spaces between news cycles, in the gradual adjustment of expectations, in the slow realization that the systems we counted on have changed their nature without announcing the shift. You don't usually get a memo when your society enters a transitional phase. You just notice, gradually, that things that used to work smoothly now require more effort, more patience, more improvisation.

If you look carefully at the American landscape right now, you can spot patterns that suggest we are living through one of these transitional periods. Not a sudden collapse, but a gradual reconfiguration of how things work. The signs are there for those willing to see them, though they require looking past the noise of daily politics and economic headlines.

Here are the key observations that frame what follows:

  • Debt has become a permanent feature, not a temporary bridge - Federal obligations now exceed $34 trillion, with annual interest payments consuming resources that once funded actual services. This isn't a projection of future danger; it's the current reality that shapes every budget decision.

  • Emergency guidance has shifted from "we will help" to "prepare to help yourself" - Federal agencies now routinely advise citizens to maintain 72-hour emergency supplies, not as supplemental caution but as acknowledgment that immediate response may not arrive.

  • Supply systems function on razor-thin margins - The efficiency that brings us cheap goods has eliminated the redundancy that ensures those goods remain available when conditions strain. Our logistical infrastructure assumes nothing goes seriously wrong, which is a risky assumption.

  • Trust in major institutions has entered freefall - Polling data across decades shows consistent decline in confidence toward government, media, corporations, and educational establishments. This isn't partisan dissatisfaction; it's structural delegitimation.

  • Local services are quietly degrading - Cities and counties face fiscal pressures that manifest in slower emergency response, deferred maintenance, and reduced staffing in essential functions. These failures hit home immediately and personally.

  • What comes next is uncertain, but preparation is possible - Recognition of vulnerability doesn't require surrender to fear. Understanding these patterns allows for prudent adaptation without panic.

These observations aren't predictions of doom. They're diagnostic markers, like checking the oil in a car or reading blood pressure. They tell us something about the current condition of the systems we navigate daily.

Sign One: When Money Buys Less Every Week

There's a moment in every inflationary cycle that people miss because it doesn't look like crisis. It looks like ordinary life getting slightly harder. Your grocery bill creeps up five dollars, then ten. The gas pump shuts off a few dollars earlier than it used to. The rent increase notice arrives, and you negotiate a compromise that leaves you with less discretionary income than before.

These moments feel personal. They feel like individual financial management challenges. You tell yourself you need to budget better, pick up extra shifts, or find a side hustle. What you don't recognize - what most people miss - is that these personal moments are actually signals of systemic monetary stress. Your shrinking purchasing power isn't a reflection of your work ethic or intelligence. It's the visible surface of a much deeper process.

Federal Reserve data puts the national debt at over thirty-four trillion dollars. That number is so large it becomes abstract, like trying to visualize the distance to distant galaxies. But the meaning becomes concrete when you look at where federal spending actually goes. An increasing percentage of the budget doesn't build roads, fund schools, or maintain infrastructure. It services interest on money borrowed years ago. It pays for past consumption with present revenue, leaving less available for current needs.

This creates a feedback loop that's difficult to escape. When interest payments consume budget space, governments face unpopular choices. They can raise taxes, which slows economic activity and angers voters. They can cut services, which angers voters and reduces quality of life. Or they can expand the money supply, which feels painless in the moment but shows up later as rising prices.

Historically, governments almost always choose the third option. It's the path of least immediate resistance. Roman emperors debased their coinage, mixing copper into silver denarii until the currency became worthless. Weimar Germany printed marks until the paper was worth more than the purchasing power printed on it. More recently, Venezuela and Zimbabwe provided object lessons in how quickly monetary confidence can evaporate when governments treat currency as an unlimited resource.

American monetary policy operates through more sophisticated mechanisms than ancient coin-clipping, but the underlying dynamic remains similar. Quantitative easing, stimulus packages, and deficit spending all expand the money supply. When more dollars chase the same amount of goods and services, prices rise. This isn't conspiracy theory; it's basic economics that predates modern politics by centuries.

What makes this sign particularly insidious is how slowly it unfolds and how quickly people normalize it. Inflation doesn't arrive as a sudden shock that triggers immediate response. It arrives as a series of small disappointments that accumulate over years. You adjust your expectations downward. You learn to do without. You tell yourself this is just how things are now.

But historical patterns suggest that monetary deterioration follows predictable trajectories. Early stages involve steady price increases that outpace wage growth. Middle stages see savings losing value and fixed-income populations falling into hardship. Late stages can involve rapid currency collapse, though that's not inevitable and depends on policy responses.

Right now, we're somewhere in the early-to-middle phase. You can see it in the way people talk about housing costs, in the proliferation of "side hustle" culture as people scramble to cover basic expenses, in the way grocery shopping has become a strategic exercise in cost comparison that previous generations didn't need to practice.

The people who feel this pressure first are usually those without assets to appreciate alongside currency depreciation. Retirees on fixed incomes watch their purchasing power erode monthly. Renters see housing costs absorb increasing percentages of their wages. Workers in industries without strong bargaining power find their raises lagging behind price increases.

Meanwhile, those with tangible assets - property, productive equipment, commodity reserves - often weather monetary instability better because these things retain utility regardless of what happens to currency values. A house provides shelter whether dollars are strong or weak. A fruit tree produces food regardless of exchange rates. This isn't investment advice; it's historical observation about what happens when monetary systems stress.

The response from authorities typically involves reassurance that inflation is "transitory" or "manageable," accompanied by statistical measurements that exclude the categories rising fastest. Official inflation metrics often don't capture the reality of grocery bills or rent increases because they're designed to measure something different - general price levels across the entire economy, including categories like electronics that tend to decrease in price due to technological advancement.

This creates a disconnect between official narrative and lived experience. You hear that inflation is two percent while your grocery bill has increased twenty percent over three years. Both can be true simultaneously, but only one matches your daily reality.

What's happening beneath the surface is a slow transfer of wealth from those holding currency to those holding debt, since debt can be repaid in devalued dollars. It's a quiet redistribution that never appears on ballots or in legislative debates, yet it shapes economic outcomes more profoundly than many explicit policy choices.

Understanding this sign doesn't require predicting collapse. It simply requires noticing that the relationship between work and purchasing power has shifted in ways that make life harder for millions of people simultaneously. When that happens across an entire economy, it's not a personal failing - it's a systemic signal worth recognizing.

Sign Two: When Officials Start Suggesting You Handle It Yourself

Language matters. Not just in poetry or literature, but in the dry prose of government documents and emergency guidelines. When official messaging changes, it often reveals shifts in institutional thinking that aren't announced in press conferences.

Consider how emergency preparedness guidance has evolved over the past two decades. Previously, the implicit message from federal agencies was: "We have this covered." Emergency management existed to coordinate response, mobilize resources, and restore normalcy. Citizens might be advised to have basic supplies, but the underlying assumption was that professional systems would handle serious crises.

Contemporary guidance tells a different story. FEMA now routinely recommends that households maintain seventy-two hours of self-sufficiency - food, water, medications, emergency supplies. The Red Cross suggests two weeks of preparation for certain scenarios. Local emergency management offices increasingly emphasize "community resilience" and "neighbor helping neighbor" rather than centralized response capabilities.

On the surface, this looks like sensible caution. Preparation is good. Self-reliance is virtuous. But the shift in emphasis matters. A system confident in its capacity doesn't need to constantly remind citizens that help might not arrive immediately. The frequency and urgency of these messages suggests something beyond standard precaution.

Look at the lessons drawn from recent disasters. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 revealed that federal logistics couldn't quickly reach everyone who needed help. Thousands waited on rooftops and in overcrowded shelters while supplies sat undistributed in warehouses. The system didn't just move slowly; in places it broke entirely under the weight of demand.

Hurricane Maria in 2017 showed similar patterns in Puerto Rico. Months passed before full electrical restoration. Clean water access remained problematic for extended periods. Medical supply chains failed. These weren't remote historical events; they happened within recent memory and involved territories under federal jurisdiction.

The Texas winter storm of 2021 provided perhaps the clearest demonstration of infrastructure fragility. A modern American state, rich in energy resources, saw its electrical grid collapse under weather conditions that other regions handle routinely. Millions lost power during freezing temperatures. Water treatment plants failed. People died in their homes from hypothermia, a cause of death that shouldn't occur in a developed nation with functioning infrastructure.

After each of these events, official messaging adjusted. Not dramatically, not through announced policy changes, but through gradual recalibration of expectations. The new normal involves acknowledging that help may be delayed, that citizens should prepare for initial self-sufficiency, that systems have limits.

This represents a significant psychological shift in the relationship between governed and governing. For most of the modern era, the social contract in developed nations included an assumption that serious emergencies would trigger institutional response. Police, fire departments, medical services, and logistical support would arrive. The question was when, not if.

Current messaging suggests a more qualified understanding. Response will come, but perhaps not immediately. Systems will function, but perhaps not completely. Help is available, but citizens should be prepared to bridge gaps.

For individuals, this shift has practical implications. It changes how people think about their relationship to systems. When you internalize the possibility that you might be on your own for seventy-two hours or longer, your behavior changes. You stock supplies. You learn basic emergency skills. You build relationships with neighbors that might prove crucial if external support is delayed.

Historically, when governments begin emphasizing citizen self-reliance, it often signals institutional capacity constraints. Late Soviet emergency protocols increasingly emphasized local organization as central capacity contracted. Pre-revolutionary French provincial administrations distributed self-help guides as royal authority weakened. These weren't admissions of failure in those contexts either; they were adaptations to reality.

The modern American version involves "resilience" as a buzzword. Community resilience. Infrastructure resilience. Economic resilience. The word sounds positive, but its prevalence suggests awareness that brittleness exists and needs mitigation.

What's striking is how quickly populations adapt to these lowered expectations. Within a few years, having emergency supplies shifts from "prepper" eccentricity to mainstream prudence. Discussing grid failure possibilities moves from conspiracy theory to dinner table conversation. The normalization happens gradually enough that people don't notice their expectations have shifted.

This sign matters because it changes the psychology of crisis. When people assume help will arrive quickly, they wait. When they assume delays are possible, they act. This affects everything from evacuation compliance to resource hoarding behavior. It can make communities more resilient in some ways - better prepared, more connected - but also more fragmented in others, as trust in institutional response diminishes.

The shift also reflects fiscal reality. Maintaining emergency response capacity sufficient for simultaneous major disasters is expensive. As municipal and federal budgets face pressure from pension obligations, debt service, and deferred infrastructure maintenance, emergency preparedness often faces cuts. It's easier to advise citizens to prepare themselves than to maintain the stockpiles and personnel for comprehensive response.

Understanding this sign means recognizing that the safety net has developed holes, and official guidance now implicitly acknowledges those holes. It doesn't mean abandonment - emergency services still exist and still respond. But the assumption of comprehensive coverage has given way to a more qualified understanding that individuals bear initial responsibility for their own safety.

Sign Three: Supply Chains That Assume Perfect Weather

Walk through any major retailer and you'll see the miracle of modern logistics. Thousands of products from around the world, arranged in neat rows, available for immediate purchase at prices that would have seemed miraculous to previous generations. Fresh produce in winter. Electronics from Asia. Clothing from multiple continents. The abundance feels permanent, inevitable, natural.

But this abundance rests on a specific set of conditions: stable energy prices, functioning ports, available trucking capacity, international trade agreements, and complex software systems coordinating movement across thousands of miles. When these conditions hold, the system delivers efficiency that previous eras couldn't imagine. When they falter, the system reveals its fragility.

The 2021 supply chain disruptions provided a glimpse of this brittleness. During the pandemic's peak disruption, Americans encountered empty shelves, delayed deliveries, and shortages of basic goods. Baby formula became scarce enough to constitute a crisis for families with infants. Automobile production halted due to semiconductor shortages despite adequate assembly facilities and labor. Construction projects stalled as lumber prices tripled.

Official explanations attributed these disruptions to pandemic-specific factors: factory closures, labor shortages, shipping bottlenecks. The implied promise was that once conditions normalized, the system would restore itself. To some extent, this happened. Shelves restocked. Shipping resumed. Prices stabilized, though often at higher levels than before.

What didn't happen was fundamental structural change. The supply chain architecture that created those vulnerabilities remains largely intact. If anything, efficiency pressures have made systems even leaner, removing buffer inventory that might provide resilience against future shocks.

Modern supply chains operate on "just-in-time" principles. Inventory is expensive to store, so companies minimize stockpiles, coordinating delivery to arrive precisely when needed. This works beautifully in stable environments. It fails catastrophically when disruptions occur, because there's no slack in the system. A delay in one component halts entire production lines. A port closure ripples through continental distribution networks.

Geographic concentration creates additional vulnerability. Critical manufacturing for pharmaceuticals, electronics, and industrial components is concentrated in specific regions, often in East Asia. Rare earth elements essential for batteries and renewable energy technology come from limited sources. Major ports handle percentages of national imports that suggest dangerous centralization.

Climate volatility increasingly tests these systems. Drought conditions on the Mississippi River recently reduced barge traffic, threatening agricultural exports and domestic commodity movement. Canadian wildfires disrupted air freight across North America. Texas freeze events affected chemical production facilities whose outputs serve national manufacturing.

Cyber vulnerabilities present another attack surface. The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack demonstrated how digital infiltration translates immediately into physical shortage - fuel distribution ceasing across entire regions not from mechanical failure but from software compromise. Similar attacks against meatpacking facilities, port operating systems, and agricultural processors suggest adversaries have identified these logistical vulnerabilities.

What makes this sign particularly concerning is the interconnection between different supply systems. Energy shortages affect fertilizer production, which affects agricultural yields, which affects food prices, which affects social stability. Financial stress triggers credit contraction, which triggers inventory reduction, which triggers employment reduction. These connections create cascade risks where problems in one sector amplify across others.

The margin between abundance and absence has narrowed to invisibility. Grocery stores typically maintain about three days of inventory under normal consumption patterns. Hospital pharmaceutical supplies increasingly depend on daily deliveries rather than stockpiled reserves. Electrical grids operate without surge capacity sufficient for demand spikes that previously would have been considered within normal variation.

Historical parallels are instructive. Pre-industrial societies maintained local food reserves because they understood harvests could fail. Modern societies have traded this redundancy for efficiency, assuming that global markets will always provide. This assumption holds until it doesn't.

The psychological impact of supply disruption shouldn't be underestimated. Populations accustomed to immediate availability experience empty shelves as existential threats even when actual hunger isn't imminent. The sight of bare grocery cases triggers panic buying, which creates further shortages in self-fulfilling cycles.

Understanding this sign means recognizing that apparent abundance masks structural fragility. It means understanding that "just-in-time" is also "just-barely" and that the system assumes nothing goes seriously wrong in multiple places simultaneously. When those assumptions fail, the transition from abundance to scarcity can happen faster than institutional responses can manage.

Sign Four: Institutions Running on Fumes of Trust

Trust is the invisible infrastructure of modern society. It doesn't appear on balance sheets or infrastructure maps, but without it, complex systems simply stop working. When people trust institutions - courts, media, scientific bodies, electoral mechanisms - they cooperate with decisions they might not fully understand or support. When that trust erodes, cooperation becomes grudging or absent, and systems that looked stable suddenly require constant enforcement.

Long-term polling data from Gallup and other survey organizations reveals a steady, decades-long decline in public confidence across virtually every major American institution. Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court, banks, big business, newspapers, television news, organized religion - all have experienced significant drops in public trust since the mid-twentieth century.

This isn't a recent phenomenon tied to any particular administration or scandal. It's a structural trend that spans generations and political alignments. The decline has been gradual enough that it doesn't generate headlines, but the cumulative effect is profound. Institutions that once commanded automatic respect now face automatic skepticism.

The consequences extend beyond political inconvenience. Modern societies depend heavily on voluntary compliance. Laws alone can't regulate every interaction; systems assume people will generally follow rules because they believe the system is legitimate. When that belief weakens, coordination becomes harder even if the formal structure remains intact.

You can see this in how people respond to public health guidance, financial advice, or educational recommendations. When institutional trust is high, people follow guidance even when it requires sacrifice. When trust is low, people filter information through suspicion, looking for hidden agendas or incompetence behind official statements.

The causes of this erosion are complex and debated. Some point to the Vietnam War and Watergate as moments when establishment credibility suffered lasting damage. Others cite the democratization of information through the internet, which eliminated elite monopoly over narrative construction. Still others note that institutional performance has, in some cases, genuinely declined, with failures in financial regulation, military intervention, and public health response providing evidence for skepticism.

Whatever the causes, the effects are visible in daily life. Conspiracy theories flourish not because people are stupid, but because they no longer trust official sources to provide accurate information. Partisan polarization increases as people retreat into information ecosystems that confirm their existing suspicions. Voluntary associations decline as people withdraw from civic engagement that feels futile or corrupt.

Historical parallels suggest this is a dangerous trajectory. Pre-revolutionary France experienced similar fragmentation, with Enlightenment philosophy undermining religious authority while court culture maintained aristocratic pretensions increasingly disconnected from rural reality. Late-stage Soviet society operated through official narratives that virtually no citizen believed, yet everyone publicly affirmed - creating a society of pure performance where reality existed only in whispered kitchens.

The American version involves parallel information ecosystems where identical events receive contradictory interpretation. Climate change, election integrity, medical guidance, economic data - all become contested territories where "truth" depends on tribal affiliation rather than empirical evidence. This makes coordinated response to shared problems nearly impossible, since there's no agreement on what the problems actually are.

What makes this sign particularly concerning is how it affects crisis response. During emergencies, systems rely on rapid population compliance: evacuation orders, emergency instructions, resource rationing. If large portions of the population no longer trust the sources issuing these instructions, compliance becomes unpredictable. People may reject legitimate warnings based on previous false alarms, or conversely panic based on misinformation that official sources lack credibility to correct.

The breakdown also affects economic behavior. Financial systems depend on confidence - hence the term "confidence game." When people lose faith in banking institutions, they withdraw deposits, which can trigger the very failures they feared. When investors doubt regulatory oversight, they demand higher returns to compensate for perceived risk, which raises capital costs throughout the economy.

Rebuilding trust is difficult because it requires both institutional reform and cultural shift. Institutions must demonstrate competence and integrity over extended periods to earn back credibility. Populations must remain open to the possibility that institutions can improve, despite accumulated evidence of failure. Both requirements face significant headwinds in current conditions.

Understanding this sign means recognizing that the social fabric is fraying in ways that make collective action harder. It means understanding that even accurate information from official sources may be rejected simply because of its source. And it means recognizing that this skepticism, while often justified by genuine institutional failures, creates vulnerabilities when coordinated response is actually necessary.

Sign Five: Local Services Reaching Breaking Points

National politics dominates headlines and attention, but daily life happens locally. The water that comes from your tap, the roads you drive on, the police and fire protection available in emergencies, the schools your children attend - these are municipal functions. When local systems degrade, the impact is immediate and personal in ways that abstract federal debates rarely achieve.

Across the United States, cities and counties face fiscal pressures that increasingly force hard choices between competing necessities. Pension obligations incurred during more prosperous decades consume growing percentages of operating budgets. Infrastructure maintenance deferred across generations now requires attention that crowds out current services. Tax bases erode as commercial real estate values decline and residents migrate to lower-tax jurisdictions.

Chicago provides a stark example. Decades of structural deficits have produced credit ratings approaching junk status despite the city's economic significance. Basic services - street maintenance, snow removal, public lighting - experience visible degradation. Police response times have extended to durations that render emergency calling functionally symbolic for crimes in progress. The city's fiscal situation constrains options in ways that affect daily life for millions of residents.

Detroit's municipal bankruptcy in 2013 provided a template for potential futures. Streetlights extinguished across neighborhoods. Emergency services operated with skeleton crews. Assets were privatized to satisfy creditor demands. While Detroit has since stabilized, the experience demonstrated how quickly major American cities can reach breaking points under sustained fiscal pressure.

Similar pressures manifest in smaller jurisdictions. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Stockton, California; and dozens of other municipalities have faced insolvency requiring state intervention or bankruptcy proceedings. These aren't isolated failures; they're early indicators of widespread structural stress affecting local government across the country.

Rural areas experience parallel but distinct deterioration. County sheriff departments cover territories requiring hours for emergency response. Volunteer fire departments face recruitment crises as demographic shifts reduce available personnel. Hospital closures eliminate emergency medical access across entire regions, requiring ambulance transport across county lines for basic trauma care.

Staffing shortages in essential services have reached critical thresholds. Police departments nationwide report recruitment deficits that force overtime dependency, accelerating burnout and retirement. Nursing shortages close hospital wings regardless of capital availability. Teaching vacancies force classroom consolidation that degrades educational outcomes, producing generational capability deficits.

Infrastructure maintenance backlogs grow geometrically. Water main breaks flood intersections with increasing frequency. Bridge weight restrictions force commercial detours that increase transportation costs. Electrical grid components operate beyond designed lifespans, increasing failure probability during stress periods.

What distinguishes current local deterioration from previous cyclical downturns is its systemic nature. Post-industrial urban decline previously occurred within functioning national contexts - individual cities struggled while federal transfers and regional adaptation provided cushions. Contemporary fiscal stress manifests simultaneously across diverse jurisdictions, suggesting macro-economic causes rather than local policy failures.

The psychological impact of local service degradation proves more profound than abstract national concerns. When streetlights extinguish and remain dark, when 911 calls receive automated apologies rather than dispatched assistance, when water quality degrades visibly from taps - citizens encounter government failure in immediate, visceral ways. These experiences erode social contract foundations more effectively than any political rhetoric.

Local systems are also where early warning signs tend to appear first. When resources become limited, central systems often remain stable for longer while local systems absorb pressure. But over time, that pressure builds downward. When local systems begin to fail in multiple regions simultaneously, it signals not isolated inefficiency but widespread strain.

The response from residents typically involves private adaptation. People install generators when grid reliability declines. They hire private security when police response times lengthen. They drill private wells when municipal water quality degrades. Each adaptation represents rational individual response to collectively experienced system failure.

Understanding this sign means recognizing that the infrastructure of daily life is showing wear in ways that affect safety, convenience, and quality of life. It means understanding that "government" isn't just the federal institutions that dominate news coverage; it's the local systems that handle waste, water, safety, and streets. And it means recognizing that these systems are under stress that manifests in delayed response, deferred maintenance, and reduced capacity.

Living With Uncertainty: What These Patterns Mean Together

Taken individually, each of these signs can be explained away or dismissed as temporary. Monetary stress is just inflation. Emergency guidance is just prudent caution. Supply chain fragility is just pandemic aftermath. Trust erosion is just partisan politics. Local fiscal stress is just specific mismanagement.

Together, they form a pattern that appears historically whenever systems move from stability toward strain. The pattern doesn't predict specific outcomes - history is too contingent for that - but it suggests that current conditions involve structural pressures that won't resolve without significant adaptation or transformation.

What's important is maintaining clarity without surrendering to either panic or denial. Panic paralyzes useful action and destroys quality of life before any crisis actually arrives. Denial prevents preparation and leaves people vulnerable when pressures actually materialize. The middle path involves recognition and prudent preparation.

This means different things for different people depending on circumstances. For some, it means building financial resilience through diverse assets and reduced debt. For others, it means developing practical skills - gardening, basic repair, emergency medical knowledge - that increase self-sufficiency. For many, it means strengthening local community relationships that provide mutual aid when systems falter.

It also means participating in civic life to advocate for the changes that might address these structural issues. Monetary policy, infrastructure investment, emergency preparedness, and institutional reform are all subject to democratic influence, however imperfect. Abandoning the field to those with narrower interests guarantees worse outcomes.

Historical experience suggests that systems rarely collapse completely and suddenly. More often, they transform, with some functions continuing while others degrade. The transition period can last years or decades, during which people adapt to new normals gradually enough that they don't notice how much has changed.

The goal of recognizing these signs isn't to predict catastrophe but to navigate uncertainty with eyes open. Those who understand the patterns can make better decisions about where to live, how to structure their finances, what skills to develop, and how to build communities that can weather stress. Those who ignore the signs risk being caught unprepared when the systems they assumed would always function begin to falter.

The future remains unwritten. These signs suggest vulnerability and pressure, but they don't determine outcomes. Human societies have faced similar pressures before and emerged transformed but intact. They've also sometimes collapsed into darker periods. The difference often lies in whether enough people recognized the patterns early enough to make adjustments.

Awareness is the first step. What follows depends on choices - individual and collective - that haven't been made yet.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 23:25

"Cartel Connections": 600 Pounds Of Cocaine Worth $10 Million Found In Queens Self-Storage Facility

Zero Hedge -

"Cartel Connections": 600 Pounds Of Cocaine Worth $10 Million Found In Queens Self-Storage Facility

A routine-looking storage facility in Queens was allegedly holding something far more valuable than furniture and moving boxes, according to new reports from the New York Post and NBC New York.

In fact, authorities say they uncovered nearly 600 pounds of cocaine worth an estimated $10 million at a self-storage location in Long Island City, resulting in one of New York City’s most significant drug seizures in decades.

The investigation led police to Nelson Salcedo, 35, of Englewood, New Jersey, who was arrested Aug. 26 as authorities say he was preparing to transport another load from the facility. Investigators found 19 cardboard boxes in and around his van containing 230 brick-like packages.

Together, the suspected cocaine weighed approximately 586 pounds.

Photo: NBC New York

Initial testing identified the substance as cocaine, although additional laboratory analysis was still pending. Investigators believe the drugs were part of a much broader distribution network stretching between New Jersey and New York, with the DEA indicating that the supply chain ultimately has cartel connections.

The NY post reported that the case developed from a separate narcotics investigation in New Jersey. Authorities had previously recovered 33 pounds of cocaine, about $170,000 in cash and a firearm in Fort Lee. That investigation eventually put Salcedo on their radar and prompted detectives to begin following his movements.

Prosecutors allege that Salcedo transported boxes from the Long Island City facility on at least two earlier occasions, Aug. 12 and Aug. 19, bringing them to an area near the northern end of Central Park. Investigators moved in when he allegedly returned for another shipment on Aug. 26.

Officials say the quantity recovered suggests the cocaine was destined for further packaging and distribution rather than direct sale in its seized form. The haul represents the NYPD’s biggest cocaine seizure in at least a decade and the largest handled by the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s office in more than 20 years.

Three people, including Salcedo, have been arrested in connection with the broader investigation. Another person suspected of receiving previous deliveries had not yet been taken into custody.

Salcedo was arraigned on charges of first- and second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 23:00

Feedstock Is Not Fuel: Why Venezuelan Crude Is No Near-Term Fix

Zero Hedge -

Feedstock Is Not Fuel: Why Venezuelan Crude Is No Near-Term Fix

Authored by former CIA officer Larry Johnson

My friend, Karl Miller, is out with a great piece that exposes Trump’s claims about Venezuelan oil as a massive case of gaslighting. I am summarizing his piece, which is titled,“Venezuela Oil: The Physical Barrel and the Capital Bill,” because it is not publicly available via a link.

On August 27 2026, President Trump announced what he called the biggest oil deal in world history — a US-Venezuela agreement giving the United States majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves, which he said would “substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans.” The pitch landed with gasoline near $4.09 a gallon, about 27% higher than a year earlier and on track for the most expensive August on record, as a six-month Iran war and the Hormuz disruption kept a fifth of world supply under strain — and with the midterms two months away.

Independent analysts noted the arithmetic fails on that timeline: the 30 to 50 million barrels Trump floated is less than half a day of global consumption, the 65 billion is an in-ground estimate rather than available supply, and any price effect would take years. Miller’s briefing goes underneath that objection to the more fundamental one: Venezuelan crude is the wrong substance to fix the shortage Americans feel at the pump. It is not a magical fix. In the near term it is not a fix at all.

The point most likely to be missed

The shortage that bites right now is in product — diesel and jet fuel — and extra-heavy Venezuelan crude is not product. It is refinery feedstock. You cannot relieve a middle-distillate shortage with a barrel that still has to be diluted, blended, upgraded, coked, and hydroprocessed before it yields a usable gallon of anything.

via Reuters

This is why the “turn Venezuela on” reflex fails on its own terms. Even setting aside whether Caracas can produce more, the barrels that already exist do not add supply where the market is tight. Prompt US cargoes would largely be diverted from Venezuela’s current buyers — China, India, Europe — not created on top of global production. That reshuffles refinery slates and trade routes; it does not repair a physical shortage. A barrel moved from a Chinese refiner to a US one is a change of address, not a new barrel, and certainly not a new gallon of jet fuel.

Why the feedstock gap is binding

The nature of the crude is the reason. Roughly three-quarters of Venezuelan production through 2028 is expected to be heavy, extra-heavy, or bitumen, with the Orinoco Belt supplying about 60%. That material is the raw input at the very front of the conversion process; the finished distillate barrel sits many capital-intensive steps downstream — coking and hydroprocessing capacity, hydrogen, refinery uptime, yields, distribution — none of which a cargo of Merey crude supplies.

The price tells the same story: Merey 16 averaged $67.36/bbl in July 2026, about $12.35 under the OPEC basket, the market pricing in the cost of converting this crude into something useful. Venezuela cannot repair a current crude or middle-distillate shortage, because the missing piece was never the crude.

The supply side only reinforces it

Nor can the volume be conjured quickly. July 2026 output was near 1.1 million b/d — about a third of the 3.4 million b/d peak of 1998 — and the system that would lift it has been hollowed out: the EIA documents pipelines over 50 years old, power outages, constrained diluent, and impaired refineries, with PDVSA estimating some $8 billion for pipelines alone. Rystad puts full-cycle breakevens at $70–$80/bbl or higher and its base case adds only about 194,000 b/d through 4Q 2028; a return toward 3 million b/d would take well over $150 billion across 10–15 years.

Large in-ground reserves, Miller stresses, are not deliverable supply — and the 65 billion barrels in the President’s announcement is exactly that kind of number: a resource estimate, not a delivery schedule.

The revealed preference: what the majors already told the White House

The strongest confirmation is not a model but the behavior of the companies that would have to fund the rebuild. At the White House on January 9 2026, shortly after the US removal of Maduro, Trump insisted the industry would spend more than $100 billion to rebuild Venezuela’s oil sector. The room did not agree. ExxonMobil’s Darren Woods told the President to his face that Venezuela is, as it stands, “uninvestable” — that durable legal frameworks, commercial terms, and stability must come first, and that Exxon would send only a technical team to assess. ConocoPhillips’ Ryan Lance said the system needs major restructuring first; both firms had their assets expropriated under Chávez, and by 30 January both Exxon and Chevron said they had no plans to raise Venezuela spending that year. The figures put before that meeting matched Miller’s: Rystad estimated roughly $110 billion merely to double output by 2030, and closer to $185 billion to climb back toward 2000-era levels.

Also, Paul Saladino: "We have to deal with all the issues of collapsed infrastructure and a failed state."

The one enthusiast underscores the point. Chevron — the sole US major already producing there, at nearly 250,000 b/d under a special license — says it could raise flows about 50% in under two years, but even that lifts Venezuela’s total only to just above 1.1 million b/d, against a peak near 4 million. Smaller entrants like Hunt Oil and SLB signed the first fresh PDVSA deals in August, but the supermajors best equipped to finance a rebuild are, on the record, declining to write the checks. When the people holding the capital call a resource uninvestable, it is not a near-term supply solution.

Venezuela is a long-duration heavy-crude redevelopment option, not an emergency supply source — and specifically not a fuel solution. Existing cargoes can be rerouted, but that changes trade maps without adding a net barrel or a finished gallon; meaningful new production is years and well over a hundred billion dollars away, and the firms who would fund it have said so out loud. Whatever the “biggest oil deal in world history” is worth over a decade, it will not lower the price of diesel or jet fuel this year. The distillate shortage will not be solved in Caracas.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 22:35

"Rich Dad Poor Dad" Author Robert Kiyosaki Claims He’s In $1.2 Billion In Debt

Zero Hedge -

"Rich Dad Poor Dad" Author Robert Kiyosaki Claims He’s In $1.2 Billion In Debt

Best-selling Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki said he owes a whopping $1.2 billion tied to his extensive real estate holdings, the New York Post reported.

Kiyosaki made the admission during a wide-ranging interview on the "Get Rich Education" podcast.

"So, I'm a billion two in debt," he said. "But I studied it since 1974... If you're going to learn to use debt, you'd better take some education."

However, Kim Kiyosaki, the financial self-help guru's former wife, told Vanity Fair the figure was blown out of proportion.

"We have a lot of apartment houses with our partners," Kim Kiyosaki said. "So technically, yes, we have all this debt."

"He loves to say things that shock," she added.

Vanity Fair reported that the pair's individual investments are held in separate limited liability companies, insulating them from one another if one runs into trouble.

Robert Kiyosaki told the magazine the same structure is used to keep those investments apart.

"If it all comes to hell, you can talk to my attorney," he said. "Firewalls - that's the way the rich play the game."

John Poole, who runs JPTD Partners, an acquisition consulting firm, told the Post that Kiyosaki's strategy is far more risky than the best-selling author is leading on.

"I think there's good debt and there's bad debt, and then there's $1.2 billion of debt, which you better know exactly what in the world you're doing," Poole explained. "Leverage works beautifully on the way up, and if it's not continuing on that way up, then it's like a chainsaw financially coming down."

"It doesn't go on forever. There has to be a payday, and be prepared for that payday, irrespective of the size," he added. "[Kiyosaki] may call this the 'Rich Dad debt,' but for the average investor, it could turn out to be 'Poor Dad bankruptcy' really quickly."

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 22:10

Solar Overtakes Coal As China's Largest Power Source

Zero Hedge -

Solar Overtakes Coal As China's Largest Power Source

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

Solar power has just become the single largest electricity capacity source in China, toppling coal in a landmark achievement of the Chinese renewable energy rollout.

Solar power capacity in China stood at 1,286 gigawatts (GW) at the end of July, Chinese media cited the country's National Energy Administration as saying on Tuesday.

Thus, solar capacity accounted for 31.5% of total installed power generation in China as of July 31.

In July, Chinese authorities said that China would have more installed solar power capacity than coal-fired generation capacity as early as this quarter.

As of the end of June, solar power capacity stood at 1,274 GW, just below the total coal-fired installed capacity of 1,275 GW.

The solar capacity has now risen to 1,286 GW, exceeding coal as the single biggest electricity capacity.

Official Chinese data showed earlier in July that the share of coal in China's electricity output fell in the first half of 2026 to below 50% for the first time on record, in a landmark achievement of the Chinese policy to boost non-fossil power sources.

The share of coal averaged 49.7% of China's total electricity output in the first half of this year, official data showed.

As the share of coal slipped, electricity generation from renewable energy rose by about 9% from a year earlier, according to the data from China's National Energy Administration (NEA).

Renewable energy accounted for 41.2% of China's total electricity generation in the first half of 2026, with wind and solar combined generating almost 25% of the total power output.

Despite the milestone of reducing coal power output to below 50% of total generation for the first time ever, China continues to rely on coal for power for industry and to maintain the reliability of the power grids.

Moreover, the renewable energy boom has slowed in recent months amid policy changes, while grid constraints and rising coal-fired generation have led to soaring curtailment rates of solar and wind power generation.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 21:45

California Let 400,000 Voters Register Without Providing Any ID

Zero Hedge -

California Let 400,000 Voters Register Without Providing Any ID

On Monday, the Trump administration's top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles revealed that California's voter ID rules are so lax that nobody was checking whether voters were American citizens, with what he says is at least half a million voters on the rolls who never provided documentary proof of identification.

The prosecutor, Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, made the case in an interview with Bill Melugin on Fox News. He said the state runs voter registration on the honor system, with no one in government confirming citizenship and the state accepting an applicant's word instead. Essayli's interview came in the wake of the arrest of Darwin Rivera Flores, a Honduran national, on charges of illegally registering to vote in California.

Fox News co-anchor Bill Melugin walked through the case with Essayli. Rivera is a noncitizen born in Honduras, and prosecutors at the Department of Justice obtained the voter registration form he filed last year. On it, Rivera checked the box attesting he was a U.S. citizen born in the United States. He signed the form under penalty of perjury.

Prosecutors say Rivera never actually cast a ballot; the registration itself, and the citizenship attestation on it, are the charged crimes.

"There's no one checking this, right? It's entirely the honor system, unless the Feds check it," Melugin asked.

"This case really highlights the vulnerability in California's voter rolls," Essayli said. "They basically allow anybody to register to vote on the honor system. There's nobody in government that is checking to confirm you're a citizen, and in fact, in this case, he, on the form, [put] down a California driver's license and a Social Security [number], which he had, because he has a visa, [but] that does not prove you're a citizen. And according to the Secretary of State, they say at least half a million people don't even provide that information when they register to vote."

In a post on X, he put the exact number at 400,000 California voters who registered without providing any identifying information at all.

According to Newsweek, 36 states require some form of identification at the polls, whereas 14 states and Washington, D.C. verify voter identity by other means. The requirements range from strict rules on photo IDs to alternative methods, such as signed affidavits or election officials verifying the information. In California, no proof of citizenship is required, no passport is needed, and no birth certificate is necessary in order to register to vote. People applying for the right to vote must provide their California driver's license or state ID number, or the last four digits of their Social Security number. A unique identifier is given to anyone who provides neither of these. Immigration status is not included in the process.

The registration process leaves little room for scrutiny. An applicant can list a fake address, check a box stating they have no ID, check another stating they have no Social Security number, and the state processes the form regardless.

A driver's license or Social Security number might sound like sufficient proof. Rivera had both. He obtained them through a visa, and neither document establishes citizenship. The documentation the state accepts does not answer the question the state is supposed to be asking.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta fired back, accusing Essayli of ignoring election-interference accusations aimed at his own boss.

"While ICE Homeland Security Investigations is not able to comment on any active investigations, HSI is actively rooting out and investigating election fraud wherever it can be found," a DHS spokesperson told Newsweek. "We have repeatedly demonstrated that illegal aliens can and do vote in our elections. Under President Trump, HSI is committed to restoring integrity to our election systems and ensuring that American citizens and only American citizens are electing American leaders."

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 21:20

Hydrogen: Energy's Version Of Waiting For Godot

Zero Hedge -

Hydrogen: Energy's Version Of Waiting For Godot

Authored by James Varney via RealClearInvestigations,

Elon Musk may consider hydrogen "mind-bogglingly stupid" as a power source for cars, but the derision of the world's most successful electric vehicle manufacturer has not stopped Washington from nursing dreams that hydrogen might become a big part of an envisioned clean new energy future.

That dream came into focus three years ago at a time when the "climate crisis" dominated Washington's thinking. Praising the role hydrogen could play in a brave new energy world that was "sustainable and equitable," the United States had a plan and the money in place to set off something more than a mushroom cloud with the world's most plentiful element.

The National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap, released in June 2023, claimed the planned $9.5 billion in spending on various hydrogen projects would result in 100,000 jobs by 2030, while also reducing the economy's emissions by 10% by 2050.

Now, however, the vision appears dormant in the Trump administration. The national plan may not be a flaming skeleton like the most infamous hydrogen project of the last century, the Hindenburg - a different administration could resurrect it - but its single biggest item, $3 billion to two West Coast "hydrogen hubs," is halted and in litigation.

Although cheap, abundant hydrogen energy remains an aspiration rather than a reality, experts say debates around it highlight significant issues regarding American energy and national security, including the U.S. competitive position with other big economies - especially China. The contrasting goals of the Biden and Trump administrations highlight the uncertainty states and businesses face as the federal government capriciously offers or withholds support, and raise questions about whether the government should spend billions to create a market the private sector has largely ignored.

Supporters see it as something more than another tool in the anti-global warming chest. "The need for this industry is sound, there is a sense of global competitiveness and a need for action," said Frank Wolak, the executive director of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association. "As far as the U.S., we need to ask how are we going to use our resources to respond to this global activity?"

Detractors argue most "clean hydrogen" projects are strategies to combat a global warming catastrophe that even the U.N. acknowledged in May is implausible. "It never made sense economically, it only makes sense if you really believe humanity was destroying the earth," said H. Sterling Burnett of the Heartland Institute, a conservative group opposed to most government funding of green energy.

Pipe Dream or Pipeline?

Thus far, the Trump administration has sided with the detractors, casting a jaundiced eye at most of the proposed hydrogen spending. Their review of the proposed projects showed that many of them involved fledgling enterprises with unproven staying power - or in some cases were projects launched simply to suck up money the Biden administration had promised.

"We want to make sure that we support applications with a pathway to commercial viability," an Energy Department official told RealClearInvestigations. "There might come a day when the technology changes and the math makes sense; we're not closing the doors on hydrogen forever."

Experts told RCI that the tepid hydrogen market can be seen as either the reason federal muscle and wallets will be needed on this frontier, or as exactly why taxpayers should not be trying to move a fringe needle.

One rationale for moving ahead is international and strategic, in that China's technology on the hydrogen front has raced ahead and the U.S. should remain competitive. While scientists at the National Laboratory of the Rockies, which heads the Energy Department's HydroGEN Consortium, declined comment, several of their colleagues said hydrogen needs the kind of government support China is providing and that the investment will pay off by giving the U.S. more arrows in its energy quiver.

Thus far, Americans have largely ignored the implications of falling behind in hydrogen production and use, especially in heavy industry and transportation, said Laima Eicke of the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) in Potsdam, Germany. Eicke acknowledged that Trump's reelection has led to "policy uncertainty surrounding the future of the U.S. hydrogen sector."

But "the international dimension of the U.S. hydrogen strategy has received much less attention in the U.S. policy debate and is less defined," Eicke told RCI.

Those arguments have failed to sway Trump's team.

"They say the same thing about wind and solar, that we're 'falling behind China,'" an administration official told RCI. "It's true China makes a lot of solar panels, but they sell those to other countries while they build new coal plants."

Hydrogen Falters

Hydrogen has been eyed as a potential fuel at least since 1952 when the U.S. exploded the world's first full thermonuclear bomb over the South Pacific. While the destructive might of the hydrogen bomb was fearsome, environmentalists saw a potentially abundant and clean source of energy from a common element that emits water vapor rather than carbon when burned.

As with cold fusion, however, the main obstacle has been that it takes more energy to harvest hydrogen - by extracting the molecules from water - than the process produces. It takes about 3.5 tons of fossil fuel to produce 1 ton of usable hydrogen. What's more, the U.S. infrastructure that delivers energy to users is designed for petroleum and natural gas, and as with wind and solar, new pipeline and grid infrastructure, at staggering cost, would be needed. Ironically, given its environmental appeal, about 90% of the 10-14 million metric tons of hydrogen gas the U.S. uses annually is burned durig the complicated process of refining fossil fuels and the fertilizer industry - which needs hydrogen to make ammonia.

That was the situation Biden officials hoped to change by financing emerging companies that make "green" hydrogen gas with renewable energy or hydroelectric power rather than fossil fuels. But the colossal effort was fanning a small flame, and the hydrogen market is limping.

In its 2025 global hydrogen review, the International Energy Agency noted "that growth has not met all of the expectations raised at the start of the decade and remains uneven. Uncertainties about costs, infrastructure readiness and evolving regulatory frameworks all present barriers to faster deployment."

While the output of green hydrogen has increased, it has barely made a dent in overall supply, and the increases in demand remain almost exclusively in the refining and fertilizing fields, the IEA concluded.

"Demand from new applications accounted for less than 1% of the total and was almost entirely concentrated in biofuels production," the report said, while the clean sort of "low-emission hydrogen" the U.S. plan stressed, "still accounts for less than 1 percent of global production."

The "Hydrogen Shot"

Washington had made some moves on the hydrogen front before Biden unveiled his plan in 2023, but most came with little fanfare. In 2016, the Department of Energy and its laboratories launched an "H2@Scale" project to boost hydrogen production, and in 2020 the department unveiled a "hydrogen program" plan. That was followed by what was called a "Hydrogen Shot" in 2021, thus comparing the creation and acceleration of hydrogen as an energy source with putting a man on the moon. All of these were part of an attempt to transform the U.S. into a "NetZero" economy by 2050.

The White House pitched the "National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap" primarily as a move toward a NetZero future that also tracked with the administration's overall "Bidenomics."

"The 2020s is a decisive decade for the world to confront climate change and avoid the worst and irreversible impacts of the crisis by keeping the goal of a 1.5-degree Celsius limit on global average temperature rise within reach," the study said.

The roadmap ticked a lot of liberal political boxes, too. It would boost union jobs and, as the policy stressed repeatedly, would be part of Biden's "Justice40" initiative, which put race at the center of every federal activity and required 40% of the spending and its presumed benefits to be targeted at disadvantaged communities.

In other words, hydrogen could deliver more than rosier climate computer models.

The policy called on more than a dozen federal departments and agencies to draw up hydrogen plans, keeping in mind the union jobs and DEI requirements. RCI reached out to all of them; most did not respond to requests for comment.

The Environmental Protection Agency said its Office of Transportation and Air Quality has "made hydrogen an eligible option" in its initiatives for clean ports and cleaner heavy-duty vehicles. On the former, the EPA has approved $3 billion in grants, while Biden's Inflation Reduction Act approved $400 million for the latter, although only a portion involves hydrogen, and the agency noted the awards there "are in the early stages of their work plans."

Similarly, in its response to RCI, the Department of Transportation said it "is not currently implementing strategies from the 2023 roadmap."

There's No Action

There were three additional planks in the hydrogen blueprint unveiled as part of Biden's $1 trillion in climate spending. One of them, funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, had federal taxpayers contributing $8 billion to regional hydrogen hubs, or H2Hubs. In 2024, the Department of Energy approved two $1.5 billion grants, one to the proposed hydrogen hub in California, which is known as ARCHES, and the other to a hub in the Pacific Northwest.

There does not appear to be any current activity with those hubs, however, and neither the California ARCHES nor the Pacific Northwest hub responded to RCI's requests for comment. The former's website notes the state has "paused activities" at ARCHES; the website for the Pacific Northwest reflects the Trump administration's pause in funding.

As RCI previously reported on other planned spending by the Energy and other departments tied to green energy, Democratic attorneys general in 13 states filed a lawsuit in February, seeking to force the government to spend the money appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub was created with the expectation that the Biden administration would open the federal purse to finance such projects, according to Washington state's attorney general's office, a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Now, while the winds of change may have blown through federal corridors with a new Trump administration, the ambitious climate goals some state legislatures enacted remain, and hitting those goals will require huge infusions of federal cash.

"The Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Association was created by the Washington State Legislature to apply for IIJA funding," said Mike Faulk, deputy communications director for the Washington attorney general. "The loss of federal funding for PNWH2 reduces the tools available to help Washington affordably meet its climate goals."

The Trump administration hit a partial pause button on the hubs, with administration officials telling RCI the West Coast hubs smacked of California's notorious high-speed rail project, which has absorbed ever more billions of dollars without producing a single mile of usable track. Five other hydrogen hubs, from the Gulf Coast/Texas to Mid-Atlantic, have been "retained or modified."

The other planks in Biden's hydrogen plan included $1 billion for a "Clean Hydrogen electrolysis" program, to increase the hydrogen supply through processes that don't use large amounts of fossil fuel, along with money for "hydrogen fuel and cell technologies," and various hydrogen-linked tax rebates in the Inflation Reduction Act. Like the strategy and hubs, these programs are more inactive than killed, federal officials told RCI.

Stalled Cars

Hydrogen flares have gone up on the private front from time to time over the past decade. Since 2016, when leasing one cost $500 a month, the New York Times has published periodic stories about hydrogen cars in California, where the state had spent millions to build a market. The boom seemed right around the corner each time, but it has yet to arrive. RCI reached out to the world's biggest makers of hydrogen vehicles - Toyota, Honda, Hyundai - and asked if sales had matched predicted estimates since 2016, but only Hyundai responded.

While Hyundai does not currently offer a hydrogen car on the U.S. market, senior brand manager at Hyundai USA Derek Joyce acknowledged that, "the hydrogen fuel cell fueling infrastructure has not grown as rapidly as the industry would have hoped due to a variety of larger global issues."

Nor is the boom expected in the near future. The California Air Resources Board in December 2025 noted that "auto manufacturers are looking for market signals and state support to boost sales confidence," and that the capacity of the state's "hydrogen fueling stations is expected to exceed demand through the end of the decade."

And the idea that hydrogen should play a much bigger part on America's energy scene doesn't enjoy widespread support. Musk has repeatedly voiced his thinking that hydrogen as a fuel source for personal vehicles is "a silly idea," and some scientists see it as more valuable in outer space than on Earth, where a hydrogen-powered needle car recently set a new land speed record in the Utah salt flats.

"It's great for rockets, but I'm not sure about everyday use," said Mark Mills, the executive director of the National Center for Energy Analytics.

Here, as with other green initiatives that have been whipsawed by changes in White House policy, the sector should rely on private marketplace tests rather than federal taxpayers.

"If hydrogen has potential, then the market will respond accordingly. Regardless, subsidization, especially major government subsidization, is unreasonable and unjustified," said Paige Lambermont, a research fellow at the free market-oriented Competitive Enterprise Institute.

"The technology either has the merits to stand on its own or it does not, but as it stands it is destined for the permanent subsidies we've seen for other technologies in the past," Lambermont added.

That lack of merit lies behind hydrogen's tiny slice of the energy market today, according to Sterling Burnett and other free market champions.

"It's a big grift," he said, noting these mammoth proposals often have the support of congress members eager for their state to get a share of the billions. "But the market hasn't created it. Someone, let's call him 'Belon Tush,' would be making a hydrogen car if everyone was going to drive one. But Belon doesn't exist. They can't compete."

Thinking big may be part of the problem; Biden's ambitious program suffered because it was suffused with climate hysteria, Wolak told RCI. Rather than trying to supercharge an element that might provide fractional differences in global warming, a smaller hydrogen plan that targets specific industries still makes sense, and he said the Trump administration has sent signals that "it might be willing to listen" to some proposals.

"You can't just say, 'I don't like it,' we have to find an American way and I think that's gotten lost," Wolak said. "The government's piece is very important, and I think the Trump administration should be looking at 'what are the best pieces of this?' and 'what can we take credit for?'"

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 20:55

Chinese Student Charged With Lying To Border Agents Over Alleged Airport Photo Assignments From Beijing

Zero Hedge -

Chinese Student Charged With Lying To Border Agents Over Alleged Airport Photo Assignments From Beijing

Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times,

A Chinese national studying at a Canadian university has been charged with lying to American officials to conceal that he took photographs at a Chicago airport cargo facility at the direction of a suspected Chinese official, according to a federal complaint filed in Detroit on Aug. 26.

The U.S. Department of Justice in Washington on Jan. 6, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

Zeng Weiheng, born in 2004, is charged with making false statements in a matter under federal jurisdiction. An undergraduate student at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, Zeng was issued a B1/B2 visitor visa in October 2022 and has entered the United States 24 times since then, according to an affidavit filed with the complaint by an FBI agent.

He was arrested on Aug. 26.

Authorities stopped Zeng for an initial screening on Aug. 23 at the Ambassador Bridge border crossing in Detroit, after linking his vehicle to a security incident at a FedEx cargo facility at Chicago O'Hare International Airport on April 21.

That day, FedEx employees saw an Asian male spending roughly 20 minutes at the facility. Surveillance footage showed the man climbing onto a construction forklift to take photographs and attempting to open a parked delivery truck and shipping trailer before driving off in a minivan bearing an Ontario license plate.

Zeng underwent three interviews with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials during secondary screening, during which his account of his April trip changed. according to court documents.

In his first interview, Zeng claimed that he had visited tourist sites during his April trip, and the photos of planes in his phone were "pictures of model aircraft being tracked for a flight radar website," authorities said. When pressed in a second interview, Zeng allegedly admitted going to the FedEx facility to take photos of planes and revealed that he had also trespassed at a FedEx facility at Toronto Pierson Airport in 2025.

By the third interview, Zeng revealed that a contact in China had "assigned him specific planes and their tail numbers to photograph" and he was paid $20 to $30 per photograph, the court documents allege.

In his subsequent interview with the FBI, Zeng admitted that the aircraft photography was a cover story devised by his handler, and the "true task was to obtain interior photographs of the FedEx facility," according to the affidavit.

His Chinese contact "was primarily interested in information on transportation and logistics in the United States" and "asked for information of flight freight logistics, bus routes, and trains routes and schedules," the affidavit said.

Zeng also told the FBI that he suspected his Chinese contact was a Chinese regime official working for one of China's security departments, in part because the contact had provided him with "videos of scenes that only security officials would have access to."

For his communication with the Chinese contact, Zeng said he was mailed SIM cards from China's state-run China Telecom, which allowed him to "by-pass Canadian cellular network and connect directly with the Chinese provider network" to send text messages, according to the affidavit.

Zeng was instructed to use the SIM cards only in a Huawei-made phone, swapping in a new card every few months and destroying the old one. He was also told never to bring the phone with him on trips to the United States.

The United States has blacklisted Chinese tech company Huawei over security concerns and banned it from doing business with American suppliers, selling new network or consumer hardware in the country, or providing its equipment to U.S. telecom networks.

Zeng also told the FBI that the Chinese contact wanted him to travel to Orlando, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles "to obtain photographs of specific locations surrounding airports." Zeng said he declined, but completed "two taskings" and received a total of 500 yuan (about $74) for the photographs he took in Toronto Pearson International Airport and O'Hare International Airport.

As for his motivation, Zeng told the FBI that he thought it would be "cool" and wanted "to have the opportunity to work with someone like [agents] at the FBI," according to the affidavit.

The Epoch Times was unable to contact Zeng's lawyer for comment.

In a separate case, a Chinese exchange student was sentenced in 2019 to a year in federal prison after pleading guilty to photographing defense installations at the U.S. Naval Air Station Key West in Florida.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 20:05

Chevron Nears Deal To Expand Venezuela Oil Operations

Zero Hedge -

Chevron Nears Deal To Expand Venezuela Oil Operations

Venezuela could soon become a much bigger part of Chevron’s global oil business, according to Bloomberg.

The company is reportedly nearing an agreement to take control of operations at two large crude-producing areas in the country’s Carabobo region, adding access to substantial heavy-oil resources.

The potential expansion comes as Washington seeks to attract more American capital to Venezuela’s energy sector and boost the country’s output. Chevron already has an established presence there through a partnership with state oil company PDVSA, making it the only major US producer currently active in Venezuela.

Bloomberg reported that Chevron has also been discussing investment conditions with the government of acting President Delcy Rodríguez. Any new arrangement could improve the economics of committing additional capital to Venezuelan production.

The expected deal is unrelated to separate talks involving possible direct US government participation in Venezuelan oil assets. Chevron has not publicly commented on the negotiations.

The development marks a major shift in the US-Venezuela relationship after years of hostility. Washington imposed sweeping sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry during Nicolás Maduro’s rule, sharply limiting the country’s access to US markets and restricting American companies’ ability to operate there. Chevron remained a notable exception, continuing limited activities under US government authorization.

Relations entered a new phase following Maduro’s capture by US forces. The Trump administration has since sought greater influence over Venezuela’s energy sector, viewing the country’s enormous petroleum reserves as both an economic opportunity and a strategic asset.

For Venezuela, renewed US involvement could bring badly needed investment and technical expertise to an oil industry weakened by years of underinvestment, sanctions and deteriorating infrastructure. For Washington, expanding American participation could help increase Venezuelan production while giving the US greater influence over how the country’s oil resources are developed and sold.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 19:40

The State Is Coming For Your Roomba

Zero Hedge -

The State Is Coming For Your Roomba

Authored by Thiago V. S. Coelho via The Mises Institute,

The federal government has discovered another menace to the republic: the vacuum cleaner.

In July, the Federal Communications Commission added foreign-produced "advanced robotic devices" to its Covered List, generally preventing new models from receiving the authorization needed to be imported, marketed, or sold in the United States. Although early headlines emphasized Chinese humanoid robots and mechanical dogs, Sean Hollister reported in The Verge that the rule also encompasses robotic vacuums, lawnmowers, delivery machines, and many warehouse robots. It potentially applies to almost any wireless, software-controlled ground robot weighing more than 4.4 pounds and capable of perceiving its surroundings.

This is not yet a confiscation campaign. Americans may continue using their existing vacuums, and retailers may sell models that were previously authorized. The prohibition falls principally on future foreign-produced models unless their manufacturers secure conditional approval. Yet the distinction makes the policy more absurd, not less. According to the Federal Communications Commission's own fact sheet, the supposed security danger is serious enough to exclude new household products but not serious enough to affect previously purchased machines - or even purchases and use by federal agencies.

The security concerns are not imaginary. Sean Hollister himself had documented in an earlier The Verge article in February how a vulnerability in DJI Romo robotic vacuums allowed a researcher to obtain information from roughly 7,000 devices, including room maps, location data, and, in some circumstances, camera access and remote control. A machine carrying sensors through every room can plainly become an instrument of surveillance when its manufacturer handles data irresponsibly.

But a real problem does not vindicate every coercive response proposed in its name. The FCC's rule does not primarily distinguish secure robots from insecure ones. It distinguishes foreign production from domestic production. Jennifer Pattison Tuohy observes in "The Ban on Robot Vacuums Won't Make Them Safer, Only Worse" that a vacuum assembled in Massachusetts is not automatically more secure than one assembled in Shenzhen. The government is restricting where machines are made without demonstrating that domestic manufacture guarantees encrypted storage, responsible data retention, local processing, independent auditing, or competent software maintenance.

From a libertarian standpoint, the first question is not whether officials can imagine a danger. They can always imagine one. The question is whether the government may forcibly prevent peaceful adults from purchasing a product because bureaucrats believe that they have evaluated its risks better than the buyer has. A person owns his home, his money, and his network. He may sensibly refuse to place an internet-connected camera on his floor. He may instead purchase one after reading disclosures, disabling cloud functions, installing firewall rules, or deciding that the convenience exceeds the risk. That judgment belongs to the property owner, not to a federal licensing authority.

The Austrian case against the ban begins with consumer choice. In his explanation of the concept of consumer sovereignty, Robert P. Murphy explains that Ludwig von Mises regarded consumer spending as a continuing plebiscite directing entrepreneurs toward the goods people value. In a market, producers retain their position only by persuading customers. The FCC reverses that relationship. Consumers may vote for inexpensive Chinese vacuums, privacy-oriented American machines, offline models, or no robot at all - but only after Washington has removed the candidates it dislikes.

Ludwig von Mises described this mechanism precisely in chapter 39 of Human Action. Restrictive intervention forbids or makes more expensive particular methods of production, transportation, and distribution. It thereby eliminates means that people could have used to satisfy their wants. Government may redirect production, but it cannot conjure the factories, skilled labor, components, logistical networks, and accumulated knowledge that its decree assumes into existence. It can force robotic production away from locations selected through market calculation; it cannot guarantee that the replacement arrangement will be equally productive.

The consequences will appear as higher prices, fewer models, delayed innovations, and machines that remain on the market longer because potential replacements cannot obtain authorization. These losses will be dispersed among millions of households, laboratories, startups, warehouses, and small businesses. The political gains, meanwhile, will be concentrated among domestic manufacturers and contractors seeking insulation from foreign competition.

That pattern is the essence of protectionism. In Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt warned that trade barriers encourage observers to notice the immediate benefit bestowed upon a protected industry while ignoring the long-run costs imposed upon consumers and other producers. A ban is merely a prohibitive tariff: instead of making the foreign product somewhat dearer, it attempts to make the next generation unavailable. The visible result may be a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a subsidized factory. The unseen result will be every purchase forgone and every business plan rendered uneconomic by costlier machinery.

Murray N. Rothbard's analysis is even less forgiving. In his analysis of production restrictions in Power and Market, Rothbard identifies licenses, government-defined quality standards, tariffs, and geographical penalties on competitors as forms of monopolistic privilege. The robotic-device ban combines several of them. Foreign firms are excluded by default, domestic firms must satisfy political tests, and officials become gatekeepers empowered to dispense exceptions. Competition shifts from satisfying customers to securing waivers.

This will not necessarily rebuild American industry. It may instead produce an American robotics sector increasingly skilled at lobbying and progressively less skilled at competing. Entrepreneurs learn from rival products, international suppliers, consumer complaints, falling component prices, and failed experiments. Prohibition severs those feedback mechanisms. Even American startups that use foreign sensors, motors, batteries, docks, or contract manufacturing may find themselves caught by domestic-content requirements. The state is not nurturing an infant industry; it is placing the infant in an isolation chamber.

Americans have seen this paternalistic method before. Jeffrey A. Tucker recounts in "The Relentless Misery of 1.6 Gallons" how federal law limited new toilets to 1.6 gallons per flush, displacing conventional models that commonly used between 3.5 and five gallons. The mandate was advertised as enlightened conservation. Consumers experienced clogs, plungers, repeated flushing, dirtier facilities, and a reduced standard of sanitation. In that case, as now, government outlawed a proven convenience and forced the public to accommodate the resulting deterioration. The situation was famously featured in a King of the Hill episode, where Hank Hill was able to repeal the restriction of high-flow toilets, but in real life, it is still standing.

Today, the prohibited convenience rolls across the floor rather than sitting in the bathroom, but the governing conceit is identical. Officials identify one social objective - water conservation then, national security now - and suppress the multitude of tradeoffs that individuals make in real life. Performance, price, privacy, repairability, accessibility, time savings, and personal circumstances are compressed into a single command.

A free society has better answers to insecure machines. Manufacturers can offer offline operation and local data storage. Independent laboratories can test security. Insurers, retailers, reviewers, and consumer organizations can demand audits and publish ratings. Customers can contract for privacy guarantees. Companies that misrepresent their practices can face fraud claims, liability, reputational ruin, and market abandonment. None of this requires Washington to presume that every foreign vacuum is hostile and every domestic vacuum trustworthy.

The Roomba ban should therefore be repealed before it hardens into another permanent reduction in ordinary life.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 19:15

Trump Mentions Tapping The 'Older Stuff' While Dismissing Reports Of Missile Shortages

Zero Hedge -

Trump Mentions Tapping The 'Older Stuff' While Dismissing Reports Of Missile Shortages

The below Trump exchange with reporters in the Oval Office on Monday seems a tacit admission from the Commander-in-Chief that yes, the United States is running out of standoff munitions...

Q: Several military leaders have reportedly told Hegseth that a prolonged, large-scale operation in Iran weakens our ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the homeland. Have you heard that?

TRUMP: We're very respected. Nobody else would be crazy enough to do it... We have unlimited amounts of... older stuff.

The suggestion here is that the "older stuff" will of necessity be tapped in order to both support allies abroad and keep the 'homeland' safe from external threats.

The White House has at this point been dealing with similar media inquiries for months. It has batted down such claims as a dwindling Pentagon missile arsenal, due to the simultaneous and costly Iran and Ukraine wars.

For example, Trump himself in an August 6 Truth Social post asserted: "The U.S. has massive amounts of 'munitions,' especially of certain types." He had added at the time: "Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the US as needed."

Perhaps the Iran conflict hitting the six-month mark made the White House realize that if sporadic military tit-for-tat continues on the current track, then missile stores are in serious trouble, and the 'old stuff' must be increasingly relied upon.

While the full exchange involved Trump seeking to reassure that in his view there's no problem with American stockpiles, the reference to 'mid-grade' and 'older stuff' has some analysts worried - and also given the somewhat defensive reference of blaming Ukraine:

REPORTER: And back on Iran, several military leaders have reportedly told Secretary Hegseth that a prolonged, large-scale operation there weakens our ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the homeland. Have you heard those?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, number one, we have nothing else in mind. Number two, we're very respected. Nobody else would be crazy enough to do it. Number three, we have so much ammunition and munitions, as they like to call it, all over the world that we can always take from if we want.

And this is a relatively little war for us. This is not a big war. You know where the money went was Ukraine. The money was really taken out - the ammunition, if you talk about low, we have tremendous amounts, unlimited amounts of mid-grade and older stuff that's also very powerful. Unlimited amounts.

We're only talking about what we call the elite - the elite stuff - and even that, we're in very good shape. But we can always take from other sources. But I don't think we're going to need it because nobody's going to mess with us.

Trump is meanwhile said to be considering a Hegseth-backed CENTCOM plan for periodic strikes on Iranian radar, air-defense and anti-ship missile sites - particularly in and around the Strait of Hormuz.

A little Russian media trolling...

One official told Axios this would be akin to "mowing the grass" from time to time (borrowing Israel's disturbing phrase related to Gaza) - but clearly this is on an indefinite timeline, setting up for potential 'forever war'. And this is where the missile arsenal would likely come up short, according to some estimates.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 18:50

Federal Judge Blocks New York From Enforcing $75 Billion Climate Superfund Law

Zero Hedge -

Federal Judge Blocks New York From Enforcing $75 Billion Climate Superfund Law

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge ruled on Monday that New York cannot enforce a 2024 state law that sought to impose an estimated $75 billion in charges on carbon-emitting companies for allegedly causing climate damage between 2000 and 2018.

Chief U.S. District Judge Brenda Sannes in Syracuse, New York, sided with 22 Republican state attorneys general, as well as industry groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in finding the state measure preempted by federal law. The judge said the Clean Air Act, which gave the federal Environmental Protection Agency authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, did not authorize states to adopt emissions compensation schemes.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Climate Change Superfund Act into law in December 2024. It required about three dozen covered fossil-fuel companies to pay a combined $3 billion annually for 25 years, or $75 billion in total. The funds would have been earmarked for infrastructure work, including coastal wetlands, stormwater systems, roads, bridges, and responses to extreme weather.

Sannes said enforcing the law risked upsetting the balance of protecting the environment, "a project that necessarily requires national standards and global participation," and promoting economic growth, energy production, foreign policy interests, and national security.

West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey led the coalition of states challenging the legislation in a February 2025 lawsuit. The attorneys general said at the time that New York's law was politically motivated "overreach" that punished traditional energy companies, including West Virginia-based coal and natural gas companies, that now comply with applicable laws. They said payouts from coal, oil, and natural gas producers could wipe out thousands of jobs if the producers were forced to shut down.

"We were the first to challenge this law because we saw it for what it was - a money grab by the elites in New York, who want to punish West Virginians for doing the jobs that enable them to heat their homes and build their cities," McCuskey said in an Aug. 31 statement.

Hochul's office is reviewing the decision to determine possible next steps, spokesperson Ken Lovett said.

"Taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for damages caused by polluters," he said.

New York was the second U.S. state to establish a superfund requiring major fossil-fuel companies to help finance infrastructure projects such as flood mitigation and coastal protection.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute sued Vermont on Dec. 30 to block that state's superfund. That case remains pending.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson from the Justice Department's Energy and Natural Resources Division welcomed Monday's decision.

"New York's law would have expropriated $75 billion from energy companies around the world during an energy emergency and in direct defiance of American foreign policy and federal law," Gustafson said. "We will continue to fight for affordable, reliable energy for all Americans."

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 18:25

"State Terrorism": Putin Blasts Zelensky After Wild Threat Of Drone Attacks To 'De Facto Close' Russian Airspace

Zero Hedge -

"State Terrorism": Putin Blasts Zelensky After Wild Threat Of Drone Attacks To 'De Facto Close' Russian Airspace

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky just issued a crazy and unexpected threat which portends a major escalation in the war. Certainly it will provoke the Kremlin into even more uncontrolled escalation and massive strikes, such as has been (somewhat unusually) happening on Odesa port as well as the capital city of late.

He has vowed moving forward to de facto close Russia's skies, and has put Russian airlines, insurers, and foreign governments on notice. Zelensky is in effect warning that airlines could be shot out of the sky - though he stopped short of voicing this directly.

"Today we want to warn every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer, everyone who still uses key Russian airports - Russian skies are becoming completely dangerous,"Zelensky stated.

Via Facebook/Sheremetyevo International Airport

"Although the Russian authorities do not report this as it should, the Russian sky will de facto be closed," he added.

As justification for the alarming announcement and threat, the Ukrainian leader pointed to the last several days of Moscow's heightened aerial assault on Ukraine which has left dozens of casualties. On Tuesday alone at least 12 were killed and another 21 injured in Ukraine's capital due to Russian missile and drone attacks.

"This is purely Russian terror against civilians. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia has tried to block our ports, and due to Russian strikes on Ukraine, our skies are closed to civilian aviation," he added.

Though he emphasized that Russian airspace "will be de facto closed" because of Ukrainian drones, and that foreign governments and insurers must take this into account, Zelensky still sought to highlight that this does not constitute a threat to civilian aviation.

He also tried to present Western calls for restraint as folly, which he apparently will not listen to anymore, saying additionally:

"When the United States contacted us, asking us not to strike Moscow and St. Petersburg, we paused, and then we were attacked. When our partners contact us for negotiations, we are ready to ensure a period of calm in the Russian airspace. However, for the duration of the war, the Russian airspace is currently for Ukrainian drones, not for civilian aviation."

Invoking Russia's two largest cities, which are also major international travel hubs, is sure to get Kremlin leaders' attention. Both have come under increasingly drone attacks in the last several months. Dozens of airports across Russia have many times suffered forced closures, or else severe flight delays, due to the long-running drone war.

Russian President Putin just responded to Zelensky's wild threat, accusing Ukraine's leader of declaring "state terrorism" for warning airlines that Kyiv's drone offensive against Russia made that country's airspace unsafe.

"If this was said out loud, then it is simply a declaration of state terrorism," Putin said in a televised news conference.

"They are asking us to resume negotiations... but you don't negotiate with terrorists."

Interestingly, Zelensky also suggested he had paused such attacks for the sake of CIA Director John Ratcliffe's August 25 'secretive' trip to Moscow.

"Therefore, for the sake of diplomacy, for the sake of negotiations — when our partners turn to us about this — we will ensure that the Russian sky is cleared of drones for certain periods of time and in certain directions," he noted.

In the past, President Putin has not shown a willingness to back down in the face of such threats - instead he has often escalated in turn. The war is likely to get a lot worse before it gets better at this stage, with not even a hint of peace talks anywhere on the horizon.

Meanwhile, via Newsquawk late Tuesday, a new Putin warning: "Russian President Putin says Russia has blocked a large enemy force in eastern Ukraine and it keeps striking Ukrainian ports and energy facilities; is preparing massive strikes on Ukraine's energy targets."

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 18:00

Netanyahu Boasts Of Years-Long Effort To Convince US To Launch War Against Iran

Zero Hedge -

Netanyahu Boasts Of Years-Long Effort To Convince US To Launch War Against Iran

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has boasted of his efforts to convince the US to launch a war against Iran, crediting his frequent appearances on US television networks and his "intimate knowledge" of US leaders.

Netanyahu made the comments Sunday night on Israel’s Channel 14, and a clip of his appearance was posted on X by the account Clash Report, which Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later shared.

via Associated Press

The Israeli leader said that he had been against Iran for "nearly 40 years" and that it took him a long time to get the Israeli security establishment and the US on board.

"It took a long time to bring the US in," he said, according to Channel 14. "I was able to do this because I had close to a thousand hours on American television, influence in the United States, and intimate knowledge of all its leaders – both those who support us and those who do not."

The New York Times reported in April that 17 days before the US and Israel launched the war on February 28, Netanyahu presented President Trump with an intelligence briefing at the White House and made a "hard sell" for the war.

The report said that Netanyahu had been "pressing for months" for the US to agree to a major attack on the Islamic Republic.

Sources told the Times that during the briefing, Netanyahu made a series of predictions about the potential war that proved to be wrong, including the idea that Iran was ripe for regime change, that its ballistic missile program could be destroyed within weeks, that it would be too weak to close the Strait of Hormuz, and that Iran’s missile strikes on US interests in regional countries would be minimal.

Responding to Netanyahu’s comments about his influence on the US, Aragchi said that the Israeli leader was openly bragging about how he "suckered" the US into the war.

Greenwald: the US once covertly sold missiles to the Iranians...

"In Hebrew, Netanyahu openly crows that he suckered the US Administration into a war on Iran on behalf of Israel."

"Netanyahu explicitly laughs about how he 'influenced' America through 1,000 hours of airtime on US networks," the Iranian diplomat wrote on X. “In English, he praises POTUS’ leadership. Serpent.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 17:40

Iran Targets Marine Barracks In Jordan, Sends Drones On Bahrain & Kuwait, After Trump's New Strikes

Zero Hedge -

Iran Targets Marine Barracks In Jordan, Sends Drones On Bahrain & Kuwait, After Trump's New Strikes Summary
  • Explosions in Jordan reported amid initial Iranian retaliation, drones on Bahrain.
  • Reports of fresh US strike wave on southern Iran, oil soars
  • Bessent Says Hormuz Will Be "Worthless Piece of Water" In Two Years
  • Iran offers conditional ceasefire: Pezeshkian says Iran will return to talks if the US honors prior commitments, which Tehran says it has violated.
  • Tankers hit in Strait of Hormuz: Two supertankers struck exiting Hormuz, escalating energy-market risks.
  • Oil prices surge: Brent crude rose above $92/barrel.
  • Diesel supply squeezed: Refinery disruptions are driving diesel prices and margins sharply higher.
//--> //--> Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by October 31?
Yes 12% · No 89%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

*  *  *

Iran Targets Marine Barracks in Jordan, Drones Sent on Bahrain, Kuwait

Iranian state media is saying that the military retaliation is ongoing, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force announcing that it launched a heavy ballistic missile attack targeting the US Marine barracks at Camp Titin, located near the Gulf of Aqaba in Jordan - which is at a significant distance, in the country's far southwest corner. State media sources further detail:

According to the IRGC, the strike destroyed multiple military installations and attack helicopters, inflicting heavy casualties on U.S. forces. The operation was executed as the second wave of retaliatory actions under the code name “Ya Rasul Allah.”

And more via state WANA News Agency: "The IRGC stated that the action was carried out in retaliation for a U.S. strike on a residential home during a wedding ceremony in Sirik, which resulted in nearly 50 civilians killed or injured, including children." Iranian claims of US casualties will as usual be hard to verify, but CENTCOM has said no casualties have resulted, per news wires:

US officials says no US casualties from Iranian attack on facilities in Jordan so far

In the wake of the US CENTCOM campaign, which may still be ongoing, Iran's Hormozgan grid is under blackout. Further damage is likely to be assessed and publicized in the coming hours. Bahrain, Kuwait also targeted:

  • Iran's army launched drone attacks on the US base in Bahrain, according to Fars News Agency
  • Kuwait Army says air defenses are confronting attacks by hostile drones
  • Jordan intercepts 10 ballistic missiles from Iran, three fell in remote areas: army

Initial unconfirmed footage now widely circulating of alleged IRGC attack on Jordan base...

Iranian Retaliation on regional Bases Begins

Iran is already hitting back, according to some early reports of what looks to be their latest retaliation, despite President Trump having earlier warned the Islamic Republic will be hit harder if it responds.

"If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!" he stated earlier.

The White House indicated it is focused on taking out IRGC targets. But this has triggered the expected reaction:

  • Fars: Some Arab sources report that an explosion was heard in Jordan; several explosions were heard from American bases in Jordan
  • IRGC says US attacks will tighten the lock on the Strait of Hormuz
  • Explosion heard in Erbil, Iraq, reports Fars

The last tit-for-tat instances also saw US bases in Jordan targeted.

One Atlantic Council analyst points out the obvious - today's action is yet another indication that the administration still does not understand how the Iranian government and leadership thinks (unless the intent is actual runaway escalation). Danny Citrinowicz writes:

Threatening Tehran with even more devastating strikes if it retaliates is unlikely to prevent an Iranian response. In fact, it may do the opposite. From Tehran’s perspective, failing to respond to a direct U.S. attack would undermine the very deterrence equation Iran has spent months trying to establish. The Iranian leadership believes it must demonstrate that American military action carries a price. That means Iran is likely to retaliate and it may even conclude that a broader or more painful response is necessary precisely to rebuild deterrence against future U.S. attacks.

This is the fundamental problem with Washington’s approach: it assumes that sufficiently strong threats will convince Iran to back down. But Tehran may draw exactly the opposite conclusion, meaning that backing down under threat would invite additional American strikes. Threats will not solve this problem. If Washington wants to prevent another cycle of retaliation and counter-retaliation, it needs a political strategy for ending the confrontation. Otherwise, each side will continue using force to restore deterrence after the previous round — creating an escalation cycle that becomes increasingly difficult to control.

The latest Pentagon leaks to the Washington Post happened days ago, and now this:

More latest via AJ:

  • The United States military says it is striking targets in Iran over attempted attacks on shipping as Iranian media reports explosions in Asaluyeh, Jiroft, Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, Konarak, Chabahar, Jask, Sirik and Lavan.
  • Iran’s army and IRGC promise the US will regret and face “severe punishment” for the aggression.
  • US President Donald Trump says “if the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level”.
Trump: 'Large & Powerful Strikes' in 'Retaliation' For Mining Hormuz Strait

Confirmation from the President, describing these new airstrikes as ongoing and "large and powerful"... He added that this is retaliation for the Iranians mining the Strait of Hormuz. The full Truth Social post:

Notably he is warning the Iranians will get hit again "much harder" if they don't cooperate with Washington demands.

Early reports of US Strikes on Southern Iran Send Oil Soaring

Rare US strikes against Iran in the middle of US trading hours? Bold move if so. Some breaking headlines:

  • REPORTS OF BLASTS ACROSS IRAN'S SOUTHERN REGIONS: STATE TV
  • PENTAGON UNLEASHES FRESH ATTACKS On SOUTHERN IRAN
  • Al Arabiya: ‘DEFENSIVE’ BOMBING — source to Faytuks
  • EXPLOSIONS REPORTED IN KONARAK IN SOUTHEASTERN IRAN: FARS
    US FORCES BEGAN STRIKING IRGC TARGETS IN IRAN AT 12PM ET TODAY

And from Al Hadath: "Explosions heard east of Bandar Abbas and Qeshm Island; Five explosions heard in Qeshm and four near the Strait of Hormuz." CENTCOM has confirmed:

Today at 12 p.m. ET, U.S. forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran. The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.

Confirmation of the attacks also from the Iranians:

The Deputy Governor for Security and Law Enforcement of Sistan and Baluchestan Province says four projectiles hit the counties of Chabahar and Konarak, Iranian news agency, IRNA, reports.

General Ali Khalil Abadi confirmed the attacks stating: “Expert investigations are underway to determine the details of the incident, potential damages, and further information.”

Oil prices shooting up on the new apparent 'shoot-up', which has been previewed in various reports this week. Trump is now pulling the trigger on Hegseth's plan, it seems:

WTI nears $90...

US attacks on Iran have almost always come in nighttime and overnight hours - and typically only after US market hours close, so a daytime attack is very rare indeed...

Bessent Says Hormuz Will Be "Worthless Piece of Water" In Two Years

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the audience at the Group of 20 finance ministers' meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, that Iran's ability to weaponize the Strait of Hormuz will be reduced to zero because "oil will be going through pipelines across the land."

"Iranians are trying to use the Strait of Hormuz as a chokepoint. It's not a chokepoint for the US, but it is for many other countries. That will be bypassed in 2 years. In 2 years, the Strait of Hormuz will be a worthless piece of water. The oil will be going through pipelines across the land," Bessent said.

Bessent's comments this morning should come as no surprise to readers, since we've detailed the existing pipelines that bypass Hormuz and the new pipeline projects planned by allied Gulf producers.

However, these new 'alternative energy route' initiatives are wrought with an array of unknowns - especially in terms of security and infrastructure/construction protection in an obviously volatile region, cooperation among transit states (in overland routes), as well as immense cost notwithstanding. For but one recent headline example:

Iraq-Syria Pipeline To 'Bypass' Hormuz Likely To Take Four Years, $15BN To Build

And with both these named countries coming out of recent decades-long 'forever wars', and with especially Syria still being largely destroyed and fragmented, efforts to bring to fruition Bessent's anticipated bypass system "across the land" - as he says - will more likely be something that drags on far longer than the Trump administration itself is in power. 

Read the full note here.

Also read Goldman's latest energy flow data through the Hormuz (here).  

Pezeshkian: We'll Return to Ceasefire if US Does

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday reiterated his country's willingness to return to talks with the US, but made clear that Washington must return to its prior commitments made.

"I state explicitly that if the United States returns to its commitments under the ... memorandum of understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately take reciprocal action," Pezeshkian said on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. 

It is significant that he's there at the Kyrgyzstan-hosted summit in person, receiving a welcome from the likes of Putin, Xi, Erdogan, the UN's Guterres, and others.

Pezeshkian still blasted the US for "reneging on its commitments" under the agreement, which unraveled in June - leading to various weeks of sporadic tit-for-tat attacks - the latest which occurred just at the start of this week.

President Trump yesterday told reporters in the Oval Office that there will be a "response" to the Iranian attacks, but also cautioned that this would not mean a return to full-scale war.

US officials have talked about "mowing the grass" with a series of indefinite strikes, while ironically having an aversion to anyone applying the label "forever war". 

Two Supertankers Hit

Two oil supertankers were struck by unknown projectiles while transiting the Strait of Hormuz early Tuesday, signaling yet another sharp escalation in hostilities along the world's most critical energy chokepoint.

The attacks follow President Trump's warning Monday that additional strikes against Iran remain possible. Traders are pricing in a further war risk premium, pushing Brent crude futures above $92 a barrel, while US diesel crack spreads have breached the critical $100-a-barrel threshold.

Maritime security consultant Marisks reports that Saudi shipping giant Bahri's VLCC Sidr was hit northeast of Khasab, Oman. The Sinokor-operated Senegal Prosperity was reportedly struck by three projectiles farther east. Both tankers were exiting the maritime chokepoint. 

UK Maritime Trade Operations separately confirmed that a tanker completing an outbound transit of Hormuz reported three projectile strikes but did not identify the vessel.

Brent crude futures ripped higher during Asian and European trading on the news, with the benchmark firmly above $92 as of 0600 ET.

More US Strikes on Table, Trump Warns

"President Donald Trump warned Monday that further strikes are possible, pushing Brent back above $91/bbl and driving another bear-steepening move across global bond markets," UBS analyst George Redman wrote earlier. 

US diesel crack spreads were above $100 as of 0600 ET.

As we've extensively detailed, the energy crisis is not necessarily in crude itself but in refined products. Gulf diesel and gasoline shipments have declined amid disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, while damage to Russian energy infrastructure from Ukrainian one-way attack drones has created a perfect storm in global refining markets in late summer.

'Diesel at Epicenter of Supply Squeeze'

Goldman's energy expert Daan Struyven warned in his most recent note that "diesel is at the epicenter of the supply squeeze."

"Rising strikes on refineries in the Middle East and Russia have further constrained already-stretched global refining capacity, pushing refined-products margins to new highs," Struyven and Yulia Zhestkova Grigsby wrote in the note, adding, "Diesel remains at the epicenter of the rally."

Struyven and his team estimate that global refinery runs are down 7 million barrels per day from last year and have averaged nearly 6 million barrels per day below seasonal norms since March, around the time the US launched Operation Epic Fury and Ukraine ramped up one-way drone attacks against Russia's energy infrastructure.

Meanwhile, there may be some diplomatic traction in the Gulf area, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian saying on state TV: "I state unequivocally that should the US return to its commitments under the aforementioned Memorandum of Understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will also take reciprocal action immediately."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's "Operation Economic Outcast" is also ramping up as the Trump administration deploys sanctions to pressure Tehran into submission.

More Latest Developments

via Newsquawk...

  • Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Baghaei said Europe cannot claim strategic autonomy while following Washington's orders, stressing that true autonomy means making independent decisions.
  • Pakistan's Deputy PM and Foreign Minister met with Iran's Foreign Minister Araghchi in an informal manner in Bishek at the holding room of the SCO Council of Head of States, according to journalist Anas Mallick.
  • Gulf Corporation Council condemned Iran's attacks on Jordan, saying they pose a direct threat to the security and stability of the region, according to Al Jazeera.
  • Yemeni armed forces targeted early on Tuesday the bases of Saudi and Emirati mercenaries in Al Makha and Al Khuwakh located in the southwest of the country, according to IRIB.
  • Hapag-Lloyd's (HLAG GY) CEO said it is reasonable to expect the Strait of Hormuz will remain blocked for the foreseeable future.
Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 17:30

'Daddy's Savings Account': Two More NYC-DSA Leaders Caught Living The Capitalist Dream

Zero Hedge -

'Daddy's Savings Account': Two More NYC-DSA Leaders Caught Living The Capitalist Dream

A pair of New York City's leading Democratic Socialists live in Brooklyn apartments that would be pure fantasy for the working-class Americans they claim to champion, according to the New York Post, the latest installment in a running audit of the personal real estate of the organization that put Zohran Mamdani in Gracie Mansion.

The report lands less than two weeks after the Post revealed that NYC-DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo, a Yale-trained sculptor who has billed himself as a "union electrician," lives in a $1.5 million Bed-Stuy townhouse bought and renovated by his parents' LLC, a disclosure that has since earned the property a Department of Buildings stop-work order and a $2,500 fine for permitless renovations. That makes it three for three among the group's top brass.

First is Julie Swoope, who chairs the far-left group's steering committee and in 2021 purchased a one-bedroom co-op outright, just blocks from Prospect Park, for $510,000. The listing touted skyline views and "great closet space."

Julie Swoope owns a $500,000 apartment in Brooklyn. canarymission.org

Swoope's family background does little to reinforce a working-class narrative. Her mother, artist Gail Cunningham Swoope, spent three years traveling aboard a live-aboard sailboat and belonged to the New Smyrna Beach Boat and Ski Club, according to an obituary reviewed by the Post.

Next up is Olivia Gonzalez Killingsworth, the group's labor coordinator, elected in 2025, who runs her own bookkeeping business and is also an actor and singer, according to her website. Killingsworth sold an Upper West Side triplex in a brownstone building on September 12, 2022, for $2.4 million. The two-bedroom, three-bathroom unit sits a block from Central Park.

DSA labor coordinator Olivia Killingsworth sold a $2.4 million triplex in 2022. bluesky / olivekilworth

Killingsworth did not buy that property on the open market. Akin to many champagne socialists, she inherited the unit from her aunt Elizabeth, who died in 2018, and sold it alongside relatives.

Just two days later, on September 14, 2022, Killingsworth closed on a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn for $521,000, completing a sequence in which an inherited brownstone near Central Park was liquidated for millions and replaced, almost immediately, with another New York apartment.

For context, the DSA's own platform holds that housing policy should involve "a redistribution of land from the landowners to the landless," with property expropriated from capitalists and delivered to the working class.

"Once again we're finding out why DSA actually stands for Daddy's Savings Account. Selling a multimillion-dollar Manhattan Triplex to go play pretend bohemian with your rich comrades in Brooklyn is a luxury working-class New Yorkers will never have," New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (R-Queens) said in a statement to the Post.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 17:20

Top US General Says No Plans To Deploy Troops To Polling Sites In November

Zero Hedge -

Top US General Says No Plans To Deploy Troops To Polling Sites In November

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. military has no plans to send troops or other personnel to polling places during November's midterm elections, the top U.S. general has said.

Gen. Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was responding to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who had asked him and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth in an Aug. 18 letter to confirm they won't send troops to polls.

Caine wrote in response that state and local officials retain responsibility for overseeing election administration and security.

"The Joint Force has no plans to send Federal military personnel or Federalized members of the National Guard to polling places during the 2026 elections," Caine wrote.

"Likewise, the Joint Force has no plans to use such personnel to seize ballots, voting machines, or other election-related material."

Caine also said that he had not received, nor did he expect to receive, "any unlawful order" concerning the role of the Joint Force in the November midterm elections.

In 2020, Gen. Mark Milley, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded to a similar letter from Slotkin, then a congresswoman.

"I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military," Milley wrote. "In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military."

The United States is set to hold midterm elections in November, which will decide which party controls Congress for the next two years, with all 435 House seats and one-third of Senate seats up for election.

Earlier this year, then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Donald Trump had not discussed any "formal plans" to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at polling places during the midterm elections, but declined to rule out the presence of federal agents near voting sites.

Federal law prohibits the government from deploying troops at locations holding general or special elections "unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States," according to 18 U.S. Code § 592, and bars any sort of interference in elections by armed forces. ICE agents are civilian law-enforcement officers and are not covered by the same prohibitions that apply to the armed forces, although other laws still limit intimidation or interference at polling places.

"I can't guarantee that an ICE agent won't be around a polling location in November," Leavitt told reporters on Feb. 5. "But what I can tell you is I haven't heard the president discuss any formal plans to put ICE outside of polling locations. It's a disingenuous question."

Leavitt stepped down from her role in late August, citing the need to focus on her family following the birth of her second child.

Slotkin introduced legislation on June 18 to prevent the deployment of military forces and federal agents at polling places during the midterm elections.

The bill would require the president to provide Congress with "intel, legal justification, and evidence" showing that state or local authorities are not capable of handling a threat on their own at least 48 hours before sending federal forces to polling sites, according to a statement from Slotkin's office.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 17:00

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