Individual Economists

IPO Market For AI Freezes Up While The Nuclear SPAC Market Runs Hot 

Zero Hedge -

IPO Market For AI Freezes Up While The Nuclear SPAC Market Runs Hot 

While it looks like OpenAI's IPO has been put on ice as they try to paint SpaceX as the scapegoat, there's still one sector that simply can't launch the IPOs and SPACs fast enough. 

After an announcement earlier this year that saw nuclear industrial company Holtec file privately for an IPO, one of the leading reactor developers X-energy debuted on the public market at an almost $10 billion valuation.

Since then, microreactor developer Hadron Energy has completed their SPAC merger and has subsequently been digging itself deeper into a hole every passing day…

There's now another reactor developer, NuCube, finding its way to the public market through a SPAC merger. This follows a similar announcement from European reactor developer newcleo that we detailed last month.

The company is joining a rapidly growing pool of startups looking to capitalize on the national energy security theme, with the added bonus of the AI revolution demanding a nuclear renaissance. Adding NuCube to the list, the number of public reactor development companies has now reached double digits:

  • SMR - NuScale Power
  • OKLO - Oklo Inc
  • NNE - NANO Nuclear Energy 
  • IMSR - Terrestrial Energy
  • NKLR - Terra Innovatum
  • HDRN - Hadron Energy
  • XE - X-energy
  • FISN - Deep Fission
  • NHIC (NWCL) - Newcleo
  • LPBB (tbd) - NuCube Energy

In the press release, the company highlights their current relationship with Halliburton as cause for differentiation from other reactor developers still working on their supply chain. Outside of recent acceptance for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad program, the company doesn't appear to have any MOUs or LOIs lined up with potential off-takers. 

The reactor design is unique, but shares similarities with designs from Westinghouse and Antares. Their “solid-state microreactors” are not designed to utilize traditional coolants or pumps, but instead will rely on advanced heat wicking methods similar to what's used in electronics. 

With respect to historical precedence, this type of reactor design has some of the least operational experience in the nuclear industry's history. 

Some of the nuclear names have found themselves trading well above their entry price from going public, including Oklo and NANO Nuclear. But some of the other names have fared far more miserably…
 

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 08:45

IPO Market For AI Freezes Up While The Nuclear SPAC Market Runs Hot 

Zero Hedge -

IPO Market For AI Freezes Up While The Nuclear SPAC Market Runs Hot 

While it looks like OpenAI's IPO has been put on ice as they try to paint SpaceX as the scapegoat, there's still one sector that simply can't launch the IPOs and SPACs fast enough. 

After an announcement earlier this year that saw nuclear industrial company Holtec file privately for an IPO, one of the leading reactor developers X-energy debuted on the public market at an almost $10 billion valuation.

Since then, microreactor developer Hadron Energy has completed their SPAC merger and has subsequently been digging itself deeper into a hole every passing day…

There's now another reactor developer, NuCube, finding its way to the public market through a SPAC merger. This follows a similar announcement from European reactor developer newcleo that we detailed last month.

The company is joining a rapidly growing pool of startups looking to capitalize on the national energy security theme, with the added bonus of the AI revolution demanding a nuclear renaissance. Adding NuCube to the list, the number of public reactor development companies has now reached double digits:

  • SMR - NuScale Power
  • OKLO - Oklo Inc
  • NNE - NANO Nuclear Energy 
  • IMSR - Terrestrial Energy
  • NKLR - Terra Innovatum
  • HDRN - Hadron Energy
  • XE - X-energy
  • FISN - Deep Fission
  • NHIC (NWCL) - Newcleo
  • LPBB (tbd) - NuCube Energy

In the press release, the company highlights their current relationship with Halliburton as cause for differentiation from other reactor developers still working on their supply chain. Outside of recent acceptance for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad program, the company doesn't appear to have any MOUs or LOIs lined up with potential off-takers. 

The reactor design is unique, but shares similarities with designs from Westinghouse and Antares. Their “solid-state microreactors” are not designed to utilize traditional coolants or pumps, but instead will rely on advanced heat wicking methods similar to what's used in electronics. 

With respect to historical precedence, this type of reactor design has some of the least operational experience in the nuclear industry's history. 

Some of the nuclear names have found themselves trading well above their entry price from going public, including Oklo and NANO Nuclear. But some of the other names have fared far more miserably…
 

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 08:45

Even Einstein Admitted He Was Wrong... We Apparently Can't Expect As Much From Al Gore

Zero Hedge -

Even Einstein Admitted He Was Wrong... We Apparently Can't Expect As Much From Al Gore

Authored by Gary Abernathy via The Empowerment Alliance,

When it comes to scientific theories, even some of history's most respected and renowned people and institutions have graciously admitted when they were wrong when confronted with irrefutable evidence.

It took 359 years, but eventually the Catholic Church conceded in 1992 that the church was wrong and Galileo Galilei was right - the Earth revolves around the sun.

Throughout the 18th century, chemists widely believed that a substance called phlogiston was released when materials were burned. But when Antoine Lavoisier demonstrated that many metals often became heavier when burned - the opposite of the phlogiston theory - his contemporaries humbly admitted their error and praised his experiments.

And when scientists, including Edwin Hubble in 1929, demonstrated that the universe is expanding rather than remaining static, as Albert Einstein had theorized, even the revered Einstein readily admitted he was wrong, calling it "my biggest blunder."

Twenty years ago, in 2006, former Vice President Al Gore released his film, "An Inconvenient Truth," which included ominous and even hysterical warnings about a coming climate apocalypse if mankind did not dramatically change its ways. In the two decades since its release, the film's most dire warnings have proven to be inaccurate.

Examining Gore's film on the anniversary of its release, several writers have pointed out its most glaring errors. For instance, writing for Newsweek, Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus, notes several calamitous predictions in the film that time has proven wrong: deaths from climate-related disasters have actually plummeted; hurricane frequency and intensity have declined; globally, areas burned by wildfires have decreased over the past quarter century; and the supposedly endangered polar bear population - a memorable visual from the Gore film - has more than doubled from the 1960s to today.

"Gore's apocalyptic climate predictions have aged poorly," Lomborg concludes.

Over the years, countless critics have pointed out the errors both in Gore's film and in his ensuing personal crusade as, like Don Quixote, he continues tilting at windmills (while ironically advocating for their proliferation).

Faced with the overwhelming preponderance of evidence refuting his original hypotheses, one might assume that Gore - like the Catholic Church, the chemists of the 18 th century, and even the great Albert Einstein - would humbly concede his mistakes.

One would be wrong.

In a recent interview marking the anniversary of "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore found an uncritical partner in the form of ABC News meteorologist Ginger Zee, who couldn't have presented the former vice president in a more heartwarming light if she had somehow commissioned the late Norman Rockwell to paint his portrait.

Despite the obvious numerous mistakes and shortcomings in his film, Gore insisted that he and the scientists he relied upon have been right all along - while simultaneously demonstrating that his penchant for hyperbole remains unabated.

"The scientists were dead right on all the important elements of it," Gore insisted, adding that "it really is insane that we are continuing to use the sky as an open sewer and we're trapping so much heat every day it's equal to the amount that would be released by 800,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every day on the earth."

Huh? Would you repeat that please?

It's "equal to the amount that would be released by 800,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every day on the earth."

Thanks.

It is little wonder that Gore finds himself so easily mocked. Gore's atomic bomb analogy originated from climate alarmists who have been using it for years, adding a few hundred thousand to the estimate of bombs every so often.

But for anyone remotely familiar with history, the claim conjures images of people dropping like flies every day because of global warming, since the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 instantly killed more than 100,000 people. Such over-the-top depictions are why so many find it so hard to take seriously the kind of climate change threats that come from the radical left.

Unfortunately for the average citizen - both in the U.S. and worldwide - the far-left (formerly mainstream) media's enthusiasm for propping up Gore and the climate craze have real-world consequences. Despite mountains of conflicting evidence, the media provides cover for leftwing government types who, when in power, throw billions of dollars toward scientifically unsupported efforts to replace our most affordable and reliable energy resources with defective "alternatives" made feasible only because of taxpayer subsidies.

That's why Americans deserve the Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security Act either passed into law by Congress, put into effect by presidential executive order, or at the very least embedded into policy by agency rule. While some states are enacting their own versions of ARC-ES, U.S. citizens from coast to coast deserve to be protected from the whims of the climate cult and their self-styled prophets.

We apparently can't expect Al Gore to show the class of Albert Einstein and admit he was wrong. But it's entirely realistic to expect our government to protect us from ever again implementing energy policies based on his mistakes. Doing so has already cost us far too much.

Gary Abernathy is a longtime newspaper editor, reporter and columnist. He was a contributing columnist for the Washington Post from 2017-2023 and a frequent guest analyst across numerous media platforms. He is a contributing opinion columnist for The Empowerment Alliance, which advocates for realistic approaches to energy consumption and environmental conservation.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 08:10

Even Einstein Admitted He Was Wrong... We Apparently Can't Expect As Much From Al Gore

Zero Hedge -

Even Einstein Admitted He Was Wrong... We Apparently Can't Expect As Much From Al Gore

Authored by Gary Abernathy via The Empowerment Alliance,

When it comes to scientific theories, even some of history's most respected and renowned people and institutions have graciously admitted when they were wrong when confronted with irrefutable evidence.

It took 359 years, but eventually the Catholic Church conceded in 1992 that the church was wrong and Galileo Galilei was right - the Earth revolves around the sun.

Throughout the 18th century, chemists widely believed that a substance called phlogiston was released when materials were burned. But when Antoine Lavoisier demonstrated that many metals often became heavier when burned - the opposite of the phlogiston theory - his contemporaries humbly admitted their error and praised his experiments.

And when scientists, including Edwin Hubble in 1929, demonstrated that the universe is expanding rather than remaining static, as Albert Einstein had theorized, even the revered Einstein readily admitted he was wrong, calling it "my biggest blunder."

Twenty years ago, in 2006, former Vice President Al Gore released his film, "An Inconvenient Truth," which included ominous and even hysterical warnings about a coming climate apocalypse if mankind did not dramatically change its ways. In the two decades since its release, the film's most dire warnings have proven to be inaccurate.

Examining Gore's film on the anniversary of its release, several writers have pointed out its most glaring errors. For instance, writing for Newsweek, Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus, notes several calamitous predictions in the film that time has proven wrong: deaths from climate-related disasters have actually plummeted; hurricane frequency and intensity have declined; globally, areas burned by wildfires have decreased over the past quarter century; and the supposedly endangered polar bear population - a memorable visual from the Gore film - has more than doubled from the 1960s to today.

"Gore's apocalyptic climate predictions have aged poorly," Lomborg concludes.

Over the years, countless critics have pointed out the errors both in Gore's film and in his ensuing personal crusade as, like Don Quixote, he continues tilting at windmills (while ironically advocating for their proliferation).

Faced with the overwhelming preponderance of evidence refuting his original hypotheses, one might assume that Gore - like the Catholic Church, the chemists of the 18 th century, and even the great Albert Einstein - would humbly concede his mistakes.

One would be wrong.

In a recent interview marking the anniversary of "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore found an uncritical partner in the form of ABC News meteorologist Ginger Zee, who couldn't have presented the former vice president in a more heartwarming light if she had somehow commissioned the late Norman Rockwell to paint his portrait.

Despite the obvious numerous mistakes and shortcomings in his film, Gore insisted that he and the scientists he relied upon have been right all along - while simultaneously demonstrating that his penchant for hyperbole remains unabated.

"The scientists were dead right on all the important elements of it," Gore insisted, adding that "it really is insane that we are continuing to use the sky as an open sewer and we're trapping so much heat every day it's equal to the amount that would be released by 800,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every day on the earth."

Huh? Would you repeat that please?

It's "equal to the amount that would be released by 800,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every day on the earth."

Thanks.

It is little wonder that Gore finds himself so easily mocked. Gore's atomic bomb analogy originated from climate alarmists who have been using it for years, adding a few hundred thousand to the estimate of bombs every so often.

But for anyone remotely familiar with history, the claim conjures images of people dropping like flies every day because of global warming, since the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 instantly killed more than 100,000 people. Such over-the-top depictions are why so many find it so hard to take seriously the kind of climate change threats that come from the radical left.

Unfortunately for the average citizen - both in the U.S. and worldwide - the far-left (formerly mainstream) media's enthusiasm for propping up Gore and the climate craze have real-world consequences. Despite mountains of conflicting evidence, the media provides cover for leftwing government types who, when in power, throw billions of dollars toward scientifically unsupported efforts to replace our most affordable and reliable energy resources with defective "alternatives" made feasible only because of taxpayer subsidies.

That's why Americans deserve the Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security Act either passed into law by Congress, put into effect by presidential executive order, or at the very least embedded into policy by agency rule. While some states are enacting their own versions of ARC-ES, U.S. citizens from coast to coast deserve to be protected from the whims of the climate cult and their self-styled prophets.

We apparently can't expect Al Gore to show the class of Albert Einstein and admit he was wrong. But it's entirely realistic to expect our government to protect us from ever again implementing energy policies based on his mistakes. Doing so has already cost us far too much.

Gary Abernathy is a longtime newspaper editor, reporter and columnist. He was a contributing columnist for the Washington Post from 2017-2023 and a frequent guest analyst across numerous media platforms. He is a contributing opinion columnist for The Empowerment Alliance, which advocates for realistic approaches to energy consumption and environmental conservation.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 08:10

These Are The Car Brands With The Fewest Problems In 2026

Zero Hedge -

These Are The Car Brands With The Fewest Problems In 2026

Drivers reported more vehicle problems this year than ever before, but some automakers continue to stand out for reliability.

This graphic, created by Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, ranks the car brands with the fewest reported problems in 2026 based on J.D. Power’s Problems Per 100 Vehicles (PP100) metric. Lower scores indicate fewer owner-reported issues and better long-term dependability.

The data comes from the J.D. Power 2026 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study, which measures problems experienced by original owners of three-year-old vehicles.

While Lexus once again topped the rankings, the broader industry moved in the opposite direction. Owners reported a record 204 problems per 100 vehicles on average, driven largely by infotainment, smartphone connectivity, and software-related issues.

Lexus Extends Its Reliability Lead

Lexus ranked first for the fourth consecutive year, recording just 151 problems per 100 vehicles.

Buick placed second at 160 PP100, while MINI rounded out the top three with 168.

Several Japanese automakers performed well throughout the rankings.

Subaru, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and Mazda all finished above the industry average, reinforcing Japan’s long-standing reputation for dependable vehicle manufacturing.

Luxury brands also demonstrated strong reliability. Cadillac, Porsche, BMW, and Genesis all ranked in the upper half of the study.

Software Problems Are Becoming the Biggest Headache

Although mechanical reliability has improved in many areas, technology-related issues continue to worsen.

J.D. Power found that infotainment systems were the most problematic of the nine categories measured, making software a larger concern than traditional mechanical components.

Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity problems remained the industry’s single most-reported issue for a third consecutive year.

Powertrain Differences Continue to Emerge

The study also highlighted significant differences between vehicle powertrains.

Plug-in hybrid vehicles were the least dependable category, recording 281 problems per 100 vehicles, a sharp increase from the previous year.

By contrast, gasoline-powered vehicles were the only powertrain type to show improvement, averaging 198 PP100.

At the bottom of the rankings, Volkswagen, Volvo, and Land Rover recorded the highest problem rates. Volkswagen posted 301 PP100.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out One in Four Cars Sold in 2025 Was Electric on Voronoi.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 07:35

These Are The Car Brands With The Fewest Problems In 2026

Zero Hedge -

These Are The Car Brands With The Fewest Problems In 2026

Drivers reported more vehicle problems this year than ever before, but some automakers continue to stand out for reliability.

This graphic, created by Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, ranks the car brands with the fewest reported problems in 2026 based on J.D. Power’s Problems Per 100 Vehicles (PP100) metric. Lower scores indicate fewer owner-reported issues and better long-term dependability.

The data comes from the J.D. Power 2026 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study, which measures problems experienced by original owners of three-year-old vehicles.

While Lexus once again topped the rankings, the broader industry moved in the opposite direction. Owners reported a record 204 problems per 100 vehicles on average, driven largely by infotainment, smartphone connectivity, and software-related issues.

Lexus Extends Its Reliability Lead

Lexus ranked first for the fourth consecutive year, recording just 151 problems per 100 vehicles.

Buick placed second at 160 PP100, while MINI rounded out the top three with 168.

Several Japanese automakers performed well throughout the rankings.

Subaru, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and Mazda all finished above the industry average, reinforcing Japan’s long-standing reputation for dependable vehicle manufacturing.

Luxury brands also demonstrated strong reliability. Cadillac, Porsche, BMW, and Genesis all ranked in the upper half of the study.

Software Problems Are Becoming the Biggest Headache

Although mechanical reliability has improved in many areas, technology-related issues continue to worsen.

J.D. Power found that infotainment systems were the most problematic of the nine categories measured, making software a larger concern than traditional mechanical components.

Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity problems remained the industry’s single most-reported issue for a third consecutive year.

Powertrain Differences Continue to Emerge

The study also highlighted significant differences between vehicle powertrains.

Plug-in hybrid vehicles were the least dependable category, recording 281 problems per 100 vehicles, a sharp increase from the previous year.

By contrast, gasoline-powered vehicles were the only powertrain type to show improvement, averaging 198 PP100.

At the bottom of the rankings, Volkswagen, Volvo, and Land Rover recorded the highest problem rates. Volkswagen posted 301 PP100.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out One in Four Cars Sold in 2025 Was Electric on Voronoi.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 07:35

UK Parents Face Five-Year Jail Terms For Questioning Their Child's Gender 'Transition'

Zero Hedge -

UK Parents Face Five-Year Jail Terms For Questioning Their Child's Gender 'Transition'

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

While schools have been given the green light to socially transition four-year-olds and exam boards slip pro-trans propaganda into Spanish GCSE materials, the government has published a draft bill that threatens parents, teachers and doctors with up to five years in prison for so-called conversion practices.

The new legislation, unveiled by Equalities Minister Olivia Bailey, targets efforts to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.

Penalties include unlimited fines, five-year prison sentences, or both. The government frames it as protection against abuse, citing reports of beatings, rape, threats, manipulation and even exorcisms.

Bailey stated: "Conversion practices are driven by the false belief that being LGBT+ is shameful and can be forcibly changed. No-one should face abuse just because of who they are. That's why we are delivering on our manifesto commitment to ban abusive conversion practices. Legal loopholes have left LGBT+ people vulnerable to these harmful acts which is why we must legislate."

Critics warn the wording is dangerously vague. Normal parental concern, exploratory conversations, or even citing the weak evidence base for youth transitions could be twisted into criminal "conversion practices."

Recent approval of an NHS puberty blocker trial for children under 16 has only heightened fears that the bill arrives amid a broader push to lock in affirmation-only approaches.

Official guidance for schools makes clear that primary-age children, including those as young as four, can socially transition at school by changing pronouns and names.

The document claims such steps "should happen very rarely" and that parents should be involved in the "vast majority" of cases. In practice, campaigners say activist influence on teachers has already created a culture where affirmation is the default and caution is suspect.

Helen Joyce of Sex Matters described schools as having "indoctrinated children" for a decade under pressure from groups like Stonewall and Mermaids. She said the government "has started a de-radicalisation programme but we actually need to de-radicalise a whole generation of teachers" and that "only total clarity will stop it."

Maya Forstater, chief executive of Sex Matters, called the notion that a child can start school as a girl and graduate as a boy "a dangerous fairytale." This guidance persists even after the Cass Review found the evidence for puberty blockers and medical pathways "remarkably weak" and led to restrictions on routine use for under-18s.

In a related revelation, campaigners have exposed how Pearson's GCSE Spanish revision guide inserts pro-trans messaging into language learning.

Students are taught phrases expressing that they "follow/admire" someone who "fights/fought" for transgender causes, turning vocabulary exercises into vehicles for ideological approval.

The exam board's own specification adds vocabulary for "trans" and "non-binary," instructs assessors to recognise gender-neutral pronouns and invented adjectival endings, and effectively rewards ideological conformity in speaking and writing tasks.

Parents and campaigners argue this is not language education. It is political indoctrination delivered through compulsory schooling, normalising contested ideas about identity while children are still mastering basic grammar.

As we have previously highlighted, more than 650 families represented by the Bayswater Support Group have complained to Ofcom about the BBC's systematic promotion of transgender ideology in children's output over nearly a decade.

Shows aimed at pre-schoolers and primary ages have featured non-binary characters, storylines presenting young children as transgender based on stereotypical play, and uncritical portrayals of medical transition.

A Bayswater Support Group spokesman said: "For the past decade, the constant stream of propaganda about gender and trans activism the BBC has transmitted has played a significant role in creating a dangerous culture for children. Specifically, non-conforming children who have been led to believe simplistic identity labels and extreme medical interventions can resolve complex feelings of adolescent and neurodevelopmental distress. The end result of this is a generation of teens and young adults who have come to severe harm, frequently self-diagnosed and self-medicated, estranged from families."

The group accused the BBC of breaching Ofcom rules on impartiality, accuracy and child protection, and of smearing concerned parents rather than examining its own output.

Meanwhile, children's poet and author Rachel Rooney saw her career destroyed after publishing My Body is Me!, a short book encouraging young children to accept their natural bodies. Trans activists branded it "terrorist propaganda" and "transphobic." She faced death threats, professional blacklisting, publisher distancing and event cancellations.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Rooney said: "This is the book that ended my career." She added: "You can't tell a child their body is wonderful while also encouraging them to believe they are the opposite sex. It's not rocket science." Rooney noted she expected activist attacks but was shocked by the response from industry colleagues who suddenly blocked her or apologised internally for her views. She has since announced she has given up writing children's books.

Her experience illustrates the chilling effect on anyone who states the obvious: no child can change sex.

In April 2025 the UK Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the terms "woman" and "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological women and biological sex. Delivering the judgment, Lord Hodge stated: "The terms 'woman' and 'sex' refer to a biological woman and biological sex in the Equality Act 2010."

The case, brought by For Women Scotland, clarified that individuals holding Gender Recognition Certificates are not legally women for the purposes of single-sex protections, quotas or spaces. J.K. Rowling praised the "three extraordinary, tenacious Scottish women" who secured the victory, noting they had "protected the rights of women and girls across the UK."

That clear legal affirmation of biological reality has not slowed the institutional drive to embed gender ideology in schools, media, exam materials and now criminal law.

The through-line is unmistakable. While evidence of harm from social and medical transition of minors mounts, while the highest court has reaffirmed biological sex, and while ordinary parents simply want to protect their children from experimental pathways, the state is preparing to criminalise resistance. Exploratory talk or even polite disagreement risks being recast as abuse punishable by years behind bars.

Parents have the primary duty and right to safeguard their children's bodies and minds. Biology is not bigotry. Dissent is not conversion therapy. The government's approach inverts reality: it threatens jail for those defending children while actively enabling the spread of contested ideology to the youngest ages. That is not protection. It is state-backed ideological enforcement.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 07:00

UK Parents Face Five-Year Jail Terms For Questioning Their Child's Gender 'Transition'

Zero Hedge -

UK Parents Face Five-Year Jail Terms For Questioning Their Child's Gender 'Transition'

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

While schools have been given the green light to socially transition four-year-olds and exam boards slip pro-trans propaganda into Spanish GCSE materials, the government has published a draft bill that threatens parents, teachers and doctors with up to five years in prison for so-called conversion practices.

The new legislation, unveiled by Equalities Minister Olivia Bailey, targets efforts to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.

Penalties include unlimited fines, five-year prison sentences, or both. The government frames it as protection against abuse, citing reports of beatings, rape, threats, manipulation and even exorcisms.

Bailey stated: "Conversion practices are driven by the false belief that being LGBT+ is shameful and can be forcibly changed. No-one should face abuse just because of who they are. That's why we are delivering on our manifesto commitment to ban abusive conversion practices. Legal loopholes have left LGBT+ people vulnerable to these harmful acts which is why we must legislate."

Critics warn the wording is dangerously vague. Normal parental concern, exploratory conversations, or even citing the weak evidence base for youth transitions could be twisted into criminal "conversion practices."

Recent approval of an NHS puberty blocker trial for children under 16 has only heightened fears that the bill arrives amid a broader push to lock in affirmation-only approaches.

Official guidance for schools makes clear that primary-age children, including those as young as four, can socially transition at school by changing pronouns and names.

The document claims such steps "should happen very rarely" and that parents should be involved in the "vast majority" of cases. In practice, campaigners say activist influence on teachers has already created a culture where affirmation is the default and caution is suspect.

Helen Joyce of Sex Matters described schools as having "indoctrinated children" for a decade under pressure from groups like Stonewall and Mermaids. She said the government "has started a de-radicalisation programme but we actually need to de-radicalise a whole generation of teachers" and that "only total clarity will stop it."

Maya Forstater, chief executive of Sex Matters, called the notion that a child can start school as a girl and graduate as a boy "a dangerous fairytale." This guidance persists even after the Cass Review found the evidence for puberty blockers and medical pathways "remarkably weak" and led to restrictions on routine use for under-18s.

In a related revelation, campaigners have exposed how Pearson's GCSE Spanish revision guide inserts pro-trans messaging into language learning.

Students are taught phrases expressing that they "follow/admire" someone who "fights/fought" for transgender causes, turning vocabulary exercises into vehicles for ideological approval.

The exam board's own specification adds vocabulary for "trans" and "non-binary," instructs assessors to recognise gender-neutral pronouns and invented adjectival endings, and effectively rewards ideological conformity in speaking and writing tasks.

Parents and campaigners argue this is not language education. It is political indoctrination delivered through compulsory schooling, normalising contested ideas about identity while children are still mastering basic grammar.

As we have previously highlighted, more than 650 families represented by the Bayswater Support Group have complained to Ofcom about the BBC's systematic promotion of transgender ideology in children's output over nearly a decade.

Shows aimed at pre-schoolers and primary ages have featured non-binary characters, storylines presenting young children as transgender based on stereotypical play, and uncritical portrayals of medical transition.

A Bayswater Support Group spokesman said: "For the past decade, the constant stream of propaganda about gender and trans activism the BBC has transmitted has played a significant role in creating a dangerous culture for children. Specifically, non-conforming children who have been led to believe simplistic identity labels and extreme medical interventions can resolve complex feelings of adolescent and neurodevelopmental distress. The end result of this is a generation of teens and young adults who have come to severe harm, frequently self-diagnosed and self-medicated, estranged from families."

The group accused the BBC of breaching Ofcom rules on impartiality, accuracy and child protection, and of smearing concerned parents rather than examining its own output.

Meanwhile, children's poet and author Rachel Rooney saw her career destroyed after publishing My Body is Me!, a short book encouraging young children to accept their natural bodies. Trans activists branded it "terrorist propaganda" and "transphobic." She faced death threats, professional blacklisting, publisher distancing and event cancellations.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Rooney said: "This is the book that ended my career." She added: "You can't tell a child their body is wonderful while also encouraging them to believe they are the opposite sex. It's not rocket science." Rooney noted she expected activist attacks but was shocked by the response from industry colleagues who suddenly blocked her or apologised internally for her views. She has since announced she has given up writing children's books.

Her experience illustrates the chilling effect on anyone who states the obvious: no child can change sex.

In April 2025 the UK Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the terms "woman" and "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological women and biological sex. Delivering the judgment, Lord Hodge stated: "The terms 'woman' and 'sex' refer to a biological woman and biological sex in the Equality Act 2010."

The case, brought by For Women Scotland, clarified that individuals holding Gender Recognition Certificates are not legally women for the purposes of single-sex protections, quotas or spaces. J.K. Rowling praised the "three extraordinary, tenacious Scottish women" who secured the victory, noting they had "protected the rights of women and girls across the UK."

That clear legal affirmation of biological reality has not slowed the institutional drive to embed gender ideology in schools, media, exam materials and now criminal law.

The through-line is unmistakable. While evidence of harm from social and medical transition of minors mounts, while the highest court has reaffirmed biological sex, and while ordinary parents simply want to protect their children from experimental pathways, the state is preparing to criminalise resistance. Exploratory talk or even polite disagreement risks being recast as abuse punishable by years behind bars.

Parents have the primary duty and right to safeguard their children's bodies and minds. Biology is not bigotry. Dissent is not conversion therapy. The government's approach inverts reality: it threatens jail for those defending children while actively enabling the spread of contested ideology to the youngest ages. That is not protection. It is state-backed ideological enforcement.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 07:00

10 Sunday Reads

The Big Picture -

Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:

The deadliest branch of al-Qaeda on earth runs the ground the United States walked away from. You’ve probably never heard its name: JAMA’AT NUSRAT AL-ISLAM WAL-MUSLIMIN A detailed open-source profile of the Sahel’s most potent jihadist coalition. Niche, sober, and a useful primer on a conflict that rarely makes the front page. ( (The Omission)

A Generational Collapse in Reading: Reading in America has become deeply polarized. Most books are now read by a small minority of heavy readers, while a large share of Americans reads none at all. Neil Howe’s shop charts the steady disappearance of the habit. Pairs grimly with everything else competing for our attention spans. (Demography Unplugged)

They Looked Like They Were Getting Rich on Polymarket—but None of It Was Real. WSJ on the influencer ecosystem fabricating Polymarket P&L screenshots to sell betting subscriptions. The Polymarket-content economy is its own scam category now. The prediction market has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation (Wall Street Journal)

Visa and Mastercard: The Original Gangsters of Electronic Collusion: A pointed antitrust argument against the payments duopoly that taxes every swipe. The swipe-fee fight, made readable. Pending legislation would force Visa and Mastercard to compete for merchant business and crack the cartel they’ve formed with banks. (The Sling)

The Deadly Rise of Giant Trucks and S.U.V.s. In the early 2000s, more than half of the passenger vehicles on American roads were traditional cars like sedans. Their hoods were low to the ground. NYT’s interactive on the pedestrian-fatality consequence of the ever-larger U.S. light-truck fleet. The visualizations do the heavy lifting. (New York Times)

Tulsi Gabbard, her guru and the mysterious messages that helped shape her political career: I obtained hundreds of confidential memos detailing politics and policy guidance for Gabbard from her years in Congress, then embarked on a quest to identify who was behind them. (Washington Post)

A Citizen’s Guide to Ken Paxton: Paxton’s victory was even more impressive considering the ethical controversies that have plagued his tenure as an elected official. As Attorney General, Paxton has been indicted on felony securities fraud charges, investigated by the SEC, impeached by the Texas House, and sued by the State Bar of Texas for professional misconduct. He was repeatedly accused of using his government position for personal gain — including by members of his staff. Judd Legum assembles the rap sheet on the Texas AG turned Senate hopeful. Dense, sourced, and the kind of accountability reporting that travels. (Popular Information)

A Definitive History of Tucker Carlson’s Shapeshifting Politics: Carlson’s latest anti-Israel pivot is born out of a three-decades-long track record of shapeshifting and lying in accordance with one highest purpose: doing what is best for Tucker Carlson. From bow-tied pundit to populist firebrand, charted in full. A useful map of a man who has been many things to many audiences. Carlson’s latest anti-Israel pivot is born out of a three-decades-long track record of shapeshifting and lying in accordance with one highest purpose: doing what is best for Tucker Carlson. (Talking Points Memo)

Supreme Court rules against Rastafarian man over religious rights claim against prison officials: Officials at a Louisiana prison cut off Damon Landor’s dreadlocks in violation of his religious beliefs. The case centered on whether he could seek damages. Guards shaved his dreadlocks; the Court narrowed his path to damages. A quietly consequential religious-liberty ruling that didn’t get the coverage it deserved. Officials at a Louisiana prison cut off Damon Landor’s dreadlocks in violation of his religious beliefs. The case centered on whether he could seek damages. SCOTUS supports religion, just so long as it’s THEIR religion… (NBC News)

Video of the day: What We Know About Billionaire Peter Thiel’s Secret ‘Dialog’ Society

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Carl Richards, a financial advisor who is also the creator of the Sketch Guy column, which ran weekly in New York Times for a decade. He hosts Behavior Gap Radio (1,300+ episodes) He co-hosts “Kitces & Carl — Real Talk for Real Financial Advisors” with Michael Kitces.” Richards latest book is Your Money: Reimagining Wealth in 101 Simple Sketches.”

 

 

The media business favors content provoking outrage, anger and/or fear, giving the audience a disproportionate sense of risk and reality

Source: Bruce Mehlman’s Age of Disruption

 

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

~~~

To learn how these reads are assembled each day, please see this.

 

The post 10 Sunday Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

The Shooting In The Strait Ain't Over, But...

Zero Hedge -

The Shooting In The Strait Ain't Over, But...

Authored by Larry Johnson via Sonar21.com

A little over a week since the US and Iran signed the MoU, some ships that had been trapped in the Persian rushed to travel through the corridor, with many trying to use an alternative route on the southern side of the Strait along the Omani coast. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) had coordinated this alternative routing with Oman - hugging the UAE and Musandam Peninsula coastline, avoiding the central passage that Iran had mined. This route was significant because it bypassed Iran’s designated corridor entirely, which ran closer to Iranian territorial waters.

However, Iran and Oman agreed on a new framework (joint working group) for the future administration of the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, June 24, 2026. The two countries agreed to establish a joint working group between their foreign ministries to discuss:

  • Future navigation rules and administration of the strait.
  • Services provided (e.g., safety, pilotage).
  • Associated costs (in accordance with international standards).

Both emphasized their sovereignty over their territorial waters in the strait.

The naval arm of the Revolutionary Guard issued a warning Thursday against using the new route. In a statement carried by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, naval officials said the route was established without notice or coordination with Iran, calling it “unacceptable and completely dangerous.” According to the IRGC:

The only authorized route for passing through the Strait of Hormuz is the one declared by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Vessel traffic outside these routes is extremely dangerous and prohibited. Violators will be dealt with.”

The day before, the Guard had threatened one tanker over the radio, with a soldier warning “You are in range of my missiles and maybe (I) fire on you,” according to the private security firm Ambrey.

Iranian military, file image

On Thursday the Ever Lovely, a Singapore-flagged ship operating in the fleet of Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine, attempted to transit the strait using a narrow channel near the coast of Oman in accordance with a route organized by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) security monitor. The Ever Lovely was struck by a drone belonging to Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran allegedly shot at least four drones at ships traveling through the Strait on Thursday. One of those hit the upper deck of the Ever Lovely.

On Friday, the US attacked Iran in ‘response’ to strikes on the commercial vessel in Strait of Hormuz a day earlier:

Iran’s IRIB reported that an explosion was heard at 11:15 pm at the Taheroui pier in Sirik. A military source said the blasts were caused by a projectile hitting the pier area, adding that around five hours earlier, several warning shots had been fired from Sirik toward violating vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Reports also indicated that two warning missiles were fired earlier from around Karpan toward the strait.

US Central Command said its forces carried out strikes against Iran on 26 June in response to Iran’s attack the previous day on the Singapore-flagged cargo ship M/V Ever Lovely as it exited the Strait of Hormuz along the Omani coast. CENTCOM said US aircraft targeted Iranian missile and drone storage sites and coastal radar positions after the vessel was hit by a one-way attack drone.

Although CENTCOM presented this as a powerful strike on Iran, and the US media trumpeted it as an act of major retaliation, the US response inflicted little damage and could reasonably be interpreted as a symbolic gesture rather than a punishing attack.

The IRGC Public Relations department issued the following statement:

Following the Israeli regime’s violation of the ceasefire in southern Lebanon, the treaty-breaking US regime also violated its commitments once again. Under various pretexts, including the transit of a vessel accused of navigating through an unauthorized route in the Strait of Hormuz, the US launched an airstrike against the coasts of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In response to this aggression, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy struck positions where the US terrorist military is stationed in the region. Under Article 5 of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, responsibility for regulating navigation through the Strait of Hormuz rests with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

However, the United States sought to violate this commitment by encouraging various parties to defy it. It received the necessary response, and the same will apply in the future. If the aggression is repeated, Iran’s response will be broader than this.

Instead of marking a return to war, this exchange of fire can best be categorize as military political theater. I believe that Iran, thanks to intel from the Russians or the Chinese, has learned that the US has issued orders that will initiate the return to CONUS of the aircraft, vehicles and troops that had been deployed to the region in preparation for the February 28 attack. Because of the limited damage inflicted by the US attack, I believe that Iran chose to respond in a limited fashion rather than escalate and run the risk of the US cancelling the redeployment order.

For now, Iran remains in control of the Strait of Hormuz and ships wanting to transit the Strait are adhering to Iran's new policy.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 23:20

The Shooting In The Strait Ain't Over, But...

Zero Hedge -

The Shooting In The Strait Ain't Over, But...

Authored by Larry Johnson via Sonar21.com

A little over a week since the US and Iran signed the MoU, some ships that had been trapped in the Persian rushed to travel through the corridor, with many trying to use an alternative route on the southern side of the Strait along the Omani coast. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) had coordinated this alternative routing with Oman - hugging the UAE and Musandam Peninsula coastline, avoiding the central passage that Iran had mined. This route was significant because it bypassed Iran’s designated corridor entirely, which ran closer to Iranian territorial waters.

However, Iran and Oman agreed on a new framework (joint working group) for the future administration of the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, June 24, 2026. The two countries agreed to establish a joint working group between their foreign ministries to discuss:

  • Future navigation rules and administration of the strait.
  • Services provided (e.g., safety, pilotage).
  • Associated costs (in accordance with international standards).

Both emphasized their sovereignty over their territorial waters in the strait.

The naval arm of the Revolutionary Guard issued a warning Thursday against using the new route. In a statement carried by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, naval officials said the route was established without notice or coordination with Iran, calling it “unacceptable and completely dangerous.” According to the IRGC:

The only authorized route for passing through the Strait of Hormuz is the one declared by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Vessel traffic outside these routes is extremely dangerous and prohibited. Violators will be dealt with.”

The day before, the Guard had threatened one tanker over the radio, with a soldier warning “You are in range of my missiles and maybe (I) fire on you,” according to the private security firm Ambrey.

Iranian military, file image

On Thursday the Ever Lovely, a Singapore-flagged ship operating in the fleet of Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine, attempted to transit the strait using a narrow channel near the coast of Oman in accordance with a route organized by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) security monitor. The Ever Lovely was struck by a drone belonging to Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran allegedly shot at least four drones at ships traveling through the Strait on Thursday. One of those hit the upper deck of the Ever Lovely.

On Friday, the US attacked Iran in ‘response’ to strikes on the commercial vessel in Strait of Hormuz a day earlier:

Iran’s IRIB reported that an explosion was heard at 11:15 pm at the Taheroui pier in Sirik. A military source said the blasts were caused by a projectile hitting the pier area, adding that around five hours earlier, several warning shots had been fired from Sirik toward violating vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Reports also indicated that two warning missiles were fired earlier from around Karpan toward the strait.

US Central Command said its forces carried out strikes against Iran on 26 June in response to Iran’s attack the previous day on the Singapore-flagged cargo ship M/V Ever Lovely as it exited the Strait of Hormuz along the Omani coast. CENTCOM said US aircraft targeted Iranian missile and drone storage sites and coastal radar positions after the vessel was hit by a one-way attack drone.

Although CENTCOM presented this as a powerful strike on Iran, and the US media trumpeted it as an act of major retaliation, the US response inflicted little damage and could reasonably be interpreted as a symbolic gesture rather than a punishing attack.

The IRGC Public Relations department issued the following statement:

Following the Israeli regime’s violation of the ceasefire in southern Lebanon, the treaty-breaking US regime also violated its commitments once again. Under various pretexts, including the transit of a vessel accused of navigating through an unauthorized route in the Strait of Hormuz, the US launched an airstrike against the coasts of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In response to this aggression, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy struck positions where the US terrorist military is stationed in the region. Under Article 5 of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, responsibility for regulating navigation through the Strait of Hormuz rests with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

However, the United States sought to violate this commitment by encouraging various parties to defy it. It received the necessary response, and the same will apply in the future. If the aggression is repeated, Iran’s response will be broader than this.

Instead of marking a return to war, this exchange of fire can best be categorize as military political theater. I believe that Iran, thanks to intel from the Russians or the Chinese, has learned that the US has issued orders that will initiate the return to CONUS of the aircraft, vehicles and troops that had been deployed to the region in preparation for the February 28 attack. Because of the limited damage inflicted by the US attack, I believe that Iran chose to respond in a limited fashion rather than escalate and run the risk of the US cancelling the redeployment order.

For now, Iran remains in control of the Strait of Hormuz and ships wanting to transit the Strait are adhering to Iran's new policy.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 23:20

Young Americans Expect To Buy A Home Later In Life (Or Not At All)

Zero Hedge -

Young Americans Expect To Buy A Home Later In Life (Or Not At All)

For decades, homeownership has been a key milestone of adulthood in the United States.

In recent years, however, the middle-class ideal of homeownership and suburban comfort, once an embodiment of the American Dream, has gotten out of reach for many families, as elevated home prices, high mortgage rates and a period of stagnant real wages have left many families unable to even consider it.

As Statista's Felix Richter shows below, only 25 percent of non-homeowners expect to buy a house in the next five years, according to Gallup – the lowest share since the question was first asked in 2013.

 Young Americans Expect to Buy a Home Later or Not at All | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

Among those aged 18 to 34, a key group of prospective buyers, intentions have also fallen sharply.

The share expecting to buy in the next five years dropped from 57 percent in 2013/2015 to 29 percent in 2025/2026.

At the same time, the share of non-owners who don’t see themselves buying a home in the foreseeable future has increased from 13 to 30 percent.

The rest expects to wait longer before buying a home, either to build up savings for a down payment or in hopes that prices and mortgage rates will come down from their current levels.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 22:45

Young Americans Expect To Buy A Home Later In Life (Or Not At All)

Zero Hedge -

Young Americans Expect To Buy A Home Later In Life (Or Not At All)

For decades, homeownership has been a key milestone of adulthood in the United States.

In recent years, however, the middle-class ideal of homeownership and suburban comfort, once an embodiment of the American Dream, has gotten out of reach for many families, as elevated home prices, high mortgage rates and a period of stagnant real wages have left many families unable to even consider it.

As Statista's Felix Richter shows below, only 25 percent of non-homeowners expect to buy a house in the next five years, according to Gallup – the lowest share since the question was first asked in 2013.

 Young Americans Expect to Buy a Home Later or Not at All | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

Among those aged 18 to 34, a key group of prospective buyers, intentions have also fallen sharply.

The share expecting to buy in the next five years dropped from 57 percent in 2013/2015 to 29 percent in 2025/2026.

At the same time, the share of non-owners who don’t see themselves buying a home in the foreseeable future has increased from 13 to 30 percent.

The rest expects to wait longer before buying a home, either to build up savings for a down payment or in hopes that prices and mortgage rates will come down from their current levels.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 22:45

Beijing's Trojan Horse Rolls Into Canada: National Security Expert Warns Carney's Chinese EV Deals Embeds Sabotage Risk

Zero Hedge -

Beijing's Trojan Horse Rolls Into Canada: National Security Expert Warns Carney's Chinese EV Deals Embeds Sabotage Risk

Submitted by The Bureau's Sam Cooper (emphasis our own), 

China keeps finding inventive ways to burrow into the West, and Canada's new appetite for Chinese electric vehicles may be the most consequential opening yet.

That is the warning at the center of a report published this week by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and written by Brenda Shaffer, an energy and national-security specialist who teaches at the United States Naval Postgraduate School.

China, she writes, "continues to find creative ways to infiltrate and influence the West," embedding in its exports the capacity to surveil citizens, disrupt transportation and ports, and trigger blackouts and grid damage.

Shaffer situates the electric-vehicle question inside a wider argument about hybrid warfare. China, Russia and Iran, she notes, have each written attacks on Western domestic energy infrastructure into their war doctrines, erasing the old line between the home front and the battlefield. Even brief disruptions to electricity or transit, she argues, could spread public panic and erode support for a distant conflict — the defense of Taiwan being the obvious test.

The cars began arriving in June, the product of a strategic partnership Prime Minister Mark Carney signed in Beijing in January. Ottawa cut its tariff on Chinese electric vehicles from 100 percent to 6.1 percent, opening an initial quota of roughly 49,000 vehicles in the first year. Carney has cast the imports as a low-cost route for Canadians switching to electric, and analysts cited by Shaffer expect Chinese brands to capture a fifth of the Canadian market.

Shaffer leans on an internal Public Safety Canada memo, obtained under access-to-information law, warning that opening the market to "high-risk vendors" invites connected cars that "collect significant amounts of data on Canadians, which can have intelligence value." Her account of the official response is withering. Asked how Canada would protect drivers, the chief of the defense staff, General Jennie Carignan, told reporters only that "we don't have a lot of Chinese vehicles so far," and Defense Minister David McGuinty said he would raise the question with base commanders.

The danger, in her telling, runs well past cars.

A congressional probe found hidden communications equipment inside Chinese-made cranes at major American ports; the same cranes are common in Canadian harbors, where Transport Canada began assessing the risk in 2023. More worrying still are solar power inverters — the devices that feed renewable energy into the grid — of which China supplies about 70 percent worldwide. American investigators have identified undeclared communication components inside some Chinese inverters that experts warn could be used to switch them off remotely and destabilize power grids.

Lithuania has banned Chinese inverters outright and the European Union has moved to bar them from public funding, while Canada, Shaffer writes, has imposed no comparable limits — even as the January partnership commits Ottawa and Beijing to deepen cooperation on solar, wind and battery storage.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's auto policy would prohibit Chinese-made vehicles from proximity to Canadian Forces bases and other sensitive or strategic infrastructure.

In Washington, where opposition to Chinese electric vehicles is one of the few genuinely bipartisan positions, President Donald Trump has called the deal a disaster for Canada, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Canada would live to regret it, and the U.S. ambassador, Peter Hoekstra, vowed the cars would never reach American roads: "We're not going to open the floodgates to have Chinese cars coming into the US from Canada."

Shaffer's alarm is echoed, from a different vantage, by Michael Kovrig, the former Canadian diplomat held in China for more than 1,000 days. In testimony to Parliament this spring, Kovrig described the deal as a "trifecta of risks" — structural dependence, unfair competition that erodes industrial capacity, and systemic pressure on government policy — and warned that the People's Republic "weaponizes technology, supply chains and market access" to force acquiescence to its agenda.

Commenting this week on his own testimony, Kovrig wrote on social media that opening Canada's market to Chinese electric vehicles "should be assessed not as a normal trade agreement, but as a tactical gamble that risks deep entanglement." The Chinese Communist Party, he wrote, "pours enormous resources into the sector to build scale and sustain overcapacity." He went on: "The pattern is to flood, consolidate and weaponize. We've seen China do this before with solar panels, steel, ships and drones, and EVs are now moving through the same stages in global markets."

The warnings have not slowed Carney's government, which is pressing ahead at full speed. Industry Minister Mélanie Joly spent much of last week in China, courting BYD, Chery, Geely and Shanghai Launch Automotive Technology to build electric vehicles on Canadian soil, and confirmed that the import quota will keep climbing — rising by 6.5 percent a year from 49,000 vehicles in 2026 to roughly 67,000 annually by 2031. Carney, caught on a hot microphone with Trump at the Group of Seven summit in France, defended the arrangement as "less than 3 per cent of our market, 49,000 cars," telling the president, "It's a cap, we capped, a hard line."

Beijing is pleased.

Geely Holding Group's Lotus-brand electric vehicles will reach Canada next month — the first such models sold under the 49,000-vehicle quota — China's ambassador to Canada, Wang Di, told Reuters on Friday. The cars would arrive, he said, "and they will be holding a ceremony when the cars are delivered in Montreal," a milestone in the trade pivot Carney has pursued to move Canada away from dependence on the United States.

On June 26, the Chinese Communist Party's state-run China Daily approvingly reported Canada's pledge to lift its exports to China by 50 percent by 2030. At a Canada Day reception at the Canadian embassy in Beijing, the mission's chargé d'affaires, Mark Richardson, called Canada "a stable, reliable partner — a partner that builds and values relationships for the long term," adding, "That includes with China." Of Carney's January visit, he said: "To say this has been a significant year for Canada–China relations would be an understatement. In many ways, it has been a turning point."

He noted that Canada had become a major energy exporter to China and observed that "the first shipment of Chinese-made electric vehicles has arrived in Canada under a new quota that was agreed in January."

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 22:10

Beijing's Trojan Horse Rolls Into Canada: National Security Expert Warns Carney's Chinese EV Deals Embeds Sabotage Risk

Zero Hedge -

Beijing's Trojan Horse Rolls Into Canada: National Security Expert Warns Carney's Chinese EV Deals Embeds Sabotage Risk

Submitted by The Bureau's Sam Cooper (emphasis our own), 

China keeps finding inventive ways to burrow into the West, and Canada's new appetite for Chinese electric vehicles may be the most consequential opening yet.

That is the warning at the center of a report published this week by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and written by Brenda Shaffer, an energy and national-security specialist who teaches at the United States Naval Postgraduate School.

China, she writes, "continues to find creative ways to infiltrate and influence the West," embedding in its exports the capacity to surveil citizens, disrupt transportation and ports, and trigger blackouts and grid damage.

Shaffer situates the electric-vehicle question inside a wider argument about hybrid warfare. China, Russia and Iran, she notes, have each written attacks on Western domestic energy infrastructure into their war doctrines, erasing the old line between the home front and the battlefield. Even brief disruptions to electricity or transit, she argues, could spread public panic and erode support for a distant conflict — the defense of Taiwan being the obvious test.

The cars began arriving in June, the product of a strategic partnership Prime Minister Mark Carney signed in Beijing in January. Ottawa cut its tariff on Chinese electric vehicles from 100 percent to 6.1 percent, opening an initial quota of roughly 49,000 vehicles in the first year. Carney has cast the imports as a low-cost route for Canadians switching to electric, and analysts cited by Shaffer expect Chinese brands to capture a fifth of the Canadian market.

Shaffer leans on an internal Public Safety Canada memo, obtained under access-to-information law, warning that opening the market to "high-risk vendors" invites connected cars that "collect significant amounts of data on Canadians, which can have intelligence value." Her account of the official response is withering. Asked how Canada would protect drivers, the chief of the defense staff, General Jennie Carignan, told reporters only that "we don't have a lot of Chinese vehicles so far," and Defense Minister David McGuinty said he would raise the question with base commanders.

The danger, in her telling, runs well past cars.

A congressional probe found hidden communications equipment inside Chinese-made cranes at major American ports; the same cranes are common in Canadian harbors, where Transport Canada began assessing the risk in 2023. More worrying still are solar power inverters — the devices that feed renewable energy into the grid — of which China supplies about 70 percent worldwide. American investigators have identified undeclared communication components inside some Chinese inverters that experts warn could be used to switch them off remotely and destabilize power grids.

Lithuania has banned Chinese inverters outright and the European Union has moved to bar them from public funding, while Canada, Shaffer writes, has imposed no comparable limits — even as the January partnership commits Ottawa and Beijing to deepen cooperation on solar, wind and battery storage.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's auto policy would prohibit Chinese-made vehicles from proximity to Canadian Forces bases and other sensitive or strategic infrastructure.

In Washington, where opposition to Chinese electric vehicles is one of the few genuinely bipartisan positions, President Donald Trump has called the deal a disaster for Canada, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Canada would live to regret it, and the U.S. ambassador, Peter Hoekstra, vowed the cars would never reach American roads: "We're not going to open the floodgates to have Chinese cars coming into the US from Canada."

Shaffer's alarm is echoed, from a different vantage, by Michael Kovrig, the former Canadian diplomat held in China for more than 1,000 days. In testimony to Parliament this spring, Kovrig described the deal as a "trifecta of risks" — structural dependence, unfair competition that erodes industrial capacity, and systemic pressure on government policy — and warned that the People's Republic "weaponizes technology, supply chains and market access" to force acquiescence to its agenda.

Commenting this week on his own testimony, Kovrig wrote on social media that opening Canada's market to Chinese electric vehicles "should be assessed not as a normal trade agreement, but as a tactical gamble that risks deep entanglement." The Chinese Communist Party, he wrote, "pours enormous resources into the sector to build scale and sustain overcapacity." He went on: "The pattern is to flood, consolidate and weaponize. We've seen China do this before with solar panels, steel, ships and drones, and EVs are now moving through the same stages in global markets."

The warnings have not slowed Carney's government, which is pressing ahead at full speed. Industry Minister Mélanie Joly spent much of last week in China, courting BYD, Chery, Geely and Shanghai Launch Automotive Technology to build electric vehicles on Canadian soil, and confirmed that the import quota will keep climbing — rising by 6.5 percent a year from 49,000 vehicles in 2026 to roughly 67,000 annually by 2031. Carney, caught on a hot microphone with Trump at the Group of Seven summit in France, defended the arrangement as "less than 3 per cent of our market, 49,000 cars," telling the president, "It's a cap, we capped, a hard line."

Beijing is pleased.

Geely Holding Group's Lotus-brand electric vehicles will reach Canada next month — the first such models sold under the 49,000-vehicle quota — China's ambassador to Canada, Wang Di, told Reuters on Friday. The cars would arrive, he said, "and they will be holding a ceremony when the cars are delivered in Montreal," a milestone in the trade pivot Carney has pursued to move Canada away from dependence on the United States.

On June 26, the Chinese Communist Party's state-run China Daily approvingly reported Canada's pledge to lift its exports to China by 50 percent by 2030. At a Canada Day reception at the Canadian embassy in Beijing, the mission's chargé d'affaires, Mark Richardson, called Canada "a stable, reliable partner — a partner that builds and values relationships for the long term," adding, "That includes with China." Of Carney's January visit, he said: "To say this has been a significant year for Canada–China relations would be an understatement. In many ways, it has been a turning point."

He noted that Canada had become a major energy exporter to China and observed that "the first shipment of Chinese-made electric vehicles has arrived in Canada under a new quota that was agreed in January."

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 22:10

Newsom Scrubs '$100 Million' Slippery Slope From National 'Billionaire Tax' Pitch - And He's Coming After Inheritance Too

Zero Hedge -

Newsom Scrubs '$100 Million' Slippery Slope From National 'Billionaire Tax' Pitch - And He's Coming After Inheritance Too

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday called for a national tax on billionaires. Except, in the original version, it was anyone with a net worth of at least $100 million - as quoted by multiple outlets, citing a post from Newsom's Substack account. 

As originally reported by Politico:

His plan to address the country’s yawning wealth gap includes “a true minimum tax on billionaires and those with a net worth of $100 million” and creating a national public equity fund to give all Americans a stake in the economic gains created by artificial intelligence companies. 

The post now reads:

"So here is what I support: A national billionaires’ tax. A true minimum tax on billionaires — a modern Buffett Rule — that ensures the people at the very top pay at least the tax rate their own workers pay."

Bitch please. 

Newsom also wants to tax inheritance - writing "We also need to rewrite our inheritance rules. Over the next twenty years, this country will live through the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in human history, with roughly $124 trillion changing hands. If we do not act, that transfer of wealth among the ultra-wealthy will lock in a permanent American aristocracy of inherited wealth, with all the political consequences the founders warned us about."

Notice he cites the massive wealth transfer, but not the level of inheritance he's targeting - as most slippery slopes begin.

Newsom's proposals come after he failed to stop California's legislation from with placing a state-level wealth tax on the November ballot. 

Newsom’s proposal follows a failed attempt by the governor, billionaires and progressive groups of persuading the union behind the California tax, SEIU-UHW, to withdraw the measure before Thursday evening’s deadline. Newsom had even privately expressed assurances about an agreement, telling a wealthy donor he expected to negotiate the measure off the ballot, Bloomberg News previously reported. -Bloomberg

"For Newsom, it’s the worst of all worlds, because it puts him squarely in the middle of a national Democratic debate about equity, taxation and affordability," said Steven Maviglio, a veteran Democratic strategist in the state. "His announcement might deflect from that a bit."

Newsom also suggests creating a public equity (slush) fund that would 'take a stake in the artificial intelligence economy.'

Anti-Billionaire-Tax-Billionaires

Shockingly, California's billionaires aren't exactly excited about all this tax malarkey. In fact, while the anti-tax coalition has been most prominently linked to billionaire Sergey Brin (who's funding other ballot measures that could nullify a wealth tax), Planned Parenthood of California and several labor unions are weirdly also against taxing billionaires - arguing that the proceeds from the tax would benefit select groups, while potentially damaging the entire state's budget because wealthy residents will flee

Even they know it's just a slush fund. 

"We are ready to defeat this convoluted nightmare of a measure in November," a spokesperson for Golden State Promise, a group backed by billionaire Chris Larsen, told Bloomberg, while a different coalition linked to doctors and school boards called California's proposal a threat to "vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects."

Either way, Democrats continue to actively scheme for ways to extract more money from capitalists. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 21:35

Newsom Scrubs '$100 Million' Slippery Slope From National 'Billionaire Tax' Pitch - And He's Coming After Inheritance Too

Zero Hedge -

Newsom Scrubs '$100 Million' Slippery Slope From National 'Billionaire Tax' Pitch - And He's Coming After Inheritance Too

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday called for a national tax on billionaires. Except, in the original version, it was anyone with a net worth of at least $100 million - as quoted by multiple outlets, citing a post from Newsom's Substack account. 

As originally reported by Politico:

His plan to address the country’s yawning wealth gap includes “a true minimum tax on billionaires and those with a net worth of $100 million” and creating a national public equity fund to give all Americans a stake in the economic gains created by artificial intelligence companies. 

The post now reads:

"So here is what I support: A national billionaires’ tax. A true minimum tax on billionaires — a modern Buffett Rule — that ensures the people at the very top pay at least the tax rate their own workers pay."

Bitch please. 

Newsom also wants to tax inheritance - writing "We also need to rewrite our inheritance rules. Over the next twenty years, this country will live through the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in human history, with roughly $124 trillion changing hands. If we do not act, that transfer of wealth among the ultra-wealthy will lock in a permanent American aristocracy of inherited wealth, with all the political consequences the founders warned us about."

Notice he cites the massive wealth transfer, but not the level of inheritance he's targeting - as most slippery slopes begin.

Newsom's proposals come after he failed to stop California's legislation from with placing a state-level wealth tax on the November ballot. 

Newsom’s proposal follows a failed attempt by the governor, billionaires and progressive groups of persuading the union behind the California tax, SEIU-UHW, to withdraw the measure before Thursday evening’s deadline. Newsom had even privately expressed assurances about an agreement, telling a wealthy donor he expected to negotiate the measure off the ballot, Bloomberg News previously reported. -Bloomberg

"For Newsom, it’s the worst of all worlds, because it puts him squarely in the middle of a national Democratic debate about equity, taxation and affordability," said Steven Maviglio, a veteran Democratic strategist in the state. "His announcement might deflect from that a bit."

Newsom also suggests creating a public equity (slush) fund that would 'take a stake in the artificial intelligence economy.'

Anti-Billionaire-Tax-Billionaires

Shockingly, California's billionaires aren't exactly excited about all this tax malarkey. In fact, while the anti-tax coalition has been most prominently linked to billionaire Sergey Brin (who's funding other ballot measures that could nullify a wealth tax), Planned Parenthood of California and several labor unions are weirdly also against taxing billionaires - arguing that the proceeds from the tax would benefit select groups, while potentially damaging the entire state's budget because wealthy residents will flee

Even they know it's just a slush fund. 

"We are ready to defeat this convoluted nightmare of a measure in November," a spokesperson for Golden State Promise, a group backed by billionaire Chris Larsen, told Bloomberg, while a different coalition linked to doctors and school boards called California's proposal a threat to "vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects."

Either way, Democrats continue to actively scheme for ways to extract more money from capitalists. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 21:35

DOJ Asks Supreme Court To Approve No-Bond Immigration Detention Policy

Zero Hedge -

DOJ Asks Supreme Court To Approve No-Bond Immigration Detention Policy

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to approve its policy of detaining illegal immigrants who have been in the country for years without releasing them on bond.

D. John Sauer, then the U.S. solicitor general nominee, testifies during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Feb. 26, 2025. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The petition in Raycraft v. Lopez-Campos was docketed on June 24, but at time of publication did not appear on the court's website because of a sensitive-filings rule. The court's public information office provided The Epoch Times with a copy of the filed petition on June 26.

Adopted last year, the policy represents a change from how previous administrations interpreted a specific provision of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). It also led to a flood of lawsuits from immigrants challenging detention.

Legal experts previously told The Epoch Times they expected that the justices would at some point intervene after several appeals courts issued conflicting interpretations of the law's detention provisions.

Three federal courts of appeals have rejected the policy, while two have upheld it. The result has been uneven enforcement across the country, raising questions about how millions of illegal immigrants would be detained.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which amended the INA, required detention without bond for illegal immigrants seeking entry into the country.

The provision at issue, Section 1225 of the INA, says individuals seeking admission "shall be detained" if an immigration officer determines they are "not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted."

In President Donald Trump's second administration, the government said this detention mandate applied to individuals who had already entered the United States. Multiple illegal immigrants have argued that portion of the INA didn't apply to them because they were already in the country and therefore no longer seeking admission or undergoing a formal admissions process.

Instead, they said another provision of the INA - Section 1226 - applied and allowed them to receive bond hearings.

Trump's interpretation introduced a dramatic change in federal policy, David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, previously told The Epoch Times.

The position that illegal immigrants apprehended in the interior of the United States may be held without bond "has not been the policy of any prior administration, including the first Trump administration," Super said.

The policy is part of the administration's broader immigration strategy, which includes ending so-called catch-and-release efforts, or releasing migrants as they await hearings after being apprehended at the border.

In the new petition, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer states that the case is about "eleven aliens who entered the United States illegally and are now present in the country without having been admitted."

The respondents, who were apprehended between June and September 2025, were put into removal proceedings and charged with being inadmissible and being present in the United States without being admitted or paroled. To be paroled is to be allowed into the country subject to a later decision on immigration status.

Several of the respondents were also charged with not possessing valid immigration documents.

Sauer said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ruled that the respondents should be detained under Section 1225 for the duration of their removal proceedings. Several respondents asked for bond hearings before an immigration judge. The immigration judges eventually found that Section 1225 deprived them of authority to grant bond.

The respondents filed habeas petitions with federal district courts in Michigan seeking release. All the release requests were granted. In three of the four cases, the district court also found that detaining respondents without conducting a bond hearing violated their due process rights.

Sauer said the government released the respondents without holding a bond hearing and appealed to a panel of the Cincinnati, Ohio-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In a divided opinion, the appeals court affirmed.

The panel found Section 1225 does not apply to noncitizens already present in the country because they are not "seeking admission." The panel also determined that the detention of the respondents without bond hearings violated their due process rights.

Sauer urged the Supreme Court to accept the government's appeal.

The legal question is "whether aliens present in the United States after an illegal entry must be detained while their removal proceedings unfold.

"The correct answer is yes: 8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(2)(A) mandates detention for such aliens pending their removal proceedings, and there is no due-process problem with that result," he said.

The Sixth Circuit's holdings are "incorrect," he said, and given the 3-2 split among appeals courts, there is now "an unworkable patchwork of inconsistent immigration enforcement, where aliens present without admission are subject to mandatory detention in some circuits but are entitled to bond hearings and often released in others."

"Immigration enforcement should not depend on geographical happenstance," he said.

It is unclear when the Supreme Court will take up the petition.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 21:00

DOJ Asks Supreme Court To Approve No-Bond Immigration Detention Policy

Zero Hedge -

DOJ Asks Supreme Court To Approve No-Bond Immigration Detention Policy

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to approve its policy of detaining illegal immigrants who have been in the country for years without releasing them on bond.

D. John Sauer, then the U.S. solicitor general nominee, testifies during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Feb. 26, 2025. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The petition in Raycraft v. Lopez-Campos was docketed on June 24, but at time of publication did not appear on the court's website because of a sensitive-filings rule. The court's public information office provided The Epoch Times with a copy of the filed petition on June 26.

Adopted last year, the policy represents a change from how previous administrations interpreted a specific provision of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). It also led to a flood of lawsuits from immigrants challenging detention.

Legal experts previously told The Epoch Times they expected that the justices would at some point intervene after several appeals courts issued conflicting interpretations of the law's detention provisions.

Three federal courts of appeals have rejected the policy, while two have upheld it. The result has been uneven enforcement across the country, raising questions about how millions of illegal immigrants would be detained.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which amended the INA, required detention without bond for illegal immigrants seeking entry into the country.

The provision at issue, Section 1225 of the INA, says individuals seeking admission "shall be detained" if an immigration officer determines they are "not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted."

In President Donald Trump's second administration, the government said this detention mandate applied to individuals who had already entered the United States. Multiple illegal immigrants have argued that portion of the INA didn't apply to them because they were already in the country and therefore no longer seeking admission or undergoing a formal admissions process.

Instead, they said another provision of the INA - Section 1226 - applied and allowed them to receive bond hearings.

Trump's interpretation introduced a dramatic change in federal policy, David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, previously told The Epoch Times.

The position that illegal immigrants apprehended in the interior of the United States may be held without bond "has not been the policy of any prior administration, including the first Trump administration," Super said.

The policy is part of the administration's broader immigration strategy, which includes ending so-called catch-and-release efforts, or releasing migrants as they await hearings after being apprehended at the border.

In the new petition, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer states that the case is about "eleven aliens who entered the United States illegally and are now present in the country without having been admitted."

The respondents, who were apprehended between June and September 2025, were put into removal proceedings and charged with being inadmissible and being present in the United States without being admitted or paroled. To be paroled is to be allowed into the country subject to a later decision on immigration status.

Several of the respondents were also charged with not possessing valid immigration documents.

Sauer said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ruled that the respondents should be detained under Section 1225 for the duration of their removal proceedings. Several respondents asked for bond hearings before an immigration judge. The immigration judges eventually found that Section 1225 deprived them of authority to grant bond.

The respondents filed habeas petitions with federal district courts in Michigan seeking release. All the release requests were granted. In three of the four cases, the district court also found that detaining respondents without conducting a bond hearing violated their due process rights.

Sauer said the government released the respondents without holding a bond hearing and appealed to a panel of the Cincinnati, Ohio-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In a divided opinion, the appeals court affirmed.

The panel found Section 1225 does not apply to noncitizens already present in the country because they are not "seeking admission." The panel also determined that the detention of the respondents without bond hearings violated their due process rights.

Sauer urged the Supreme Court to accept the government's appeal.

The legal question is "whether aliens present in the United States after an illegal entry must be detained while their removal proceedings unfold.

"The correct answer is yes: 8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(2)(A) mandates detention for such aliens pending their removal proceedings, and there is no due-process problem with that result," he said.

The Sixth Circuit's holdings are "incorrect," he said, and given the 3-2 split among appeals courts, there is now "an unworkable patchwork of inconsistent immigration enforcement, where aliens present without admission are subject to mandatory detention in some circuits but are entitled to bond hearings and often released in others."

"Immigration enforcement should not depend on geographical happenstance," he said.

It is unclear when the Supreme Court will take up the petition.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 21:00

Military Depoliticization, Hegseth, And DEI

Zero Hedge -

Military Depoliticization, Hegseth, And DEI

Authored by 'Cynical Publius' via American Greatness,

As I read and hear the usual cavalcade of woke, retired Democrat generals and admirals like McRavenMcCaffreyFranken, and others falsely claiming that Pete Hegseth is “politicizing” the senior ranks of the U.S. military, inside my head, I am screaming in rage at the impunity with which they spread this pernicious and wholly inaccurate falsehood.

Hegseth is doing EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE as he depoliticizes our military’s ranks by eradicating the very most political doctrine to ever infect the U.S. military since the U.S. Civil War: so-called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” or “DEI.”

DEI is an expression of Marxism by way of the Frankfurt School. Instead of building Marxist systems based on economic class, the Frankfurt School’s teachings build systems based on grievance classes. Known also as “critical theory,” DEI espouses the concept that there is no such thing as objective truth, that all truth is instead subjective, and that such truth is subjectively decided by whoever is in power at the moment.

This philosophy is in stark contrast to the Constitution, which stands on the shoulders of natural law—the idea that profound truth is objective, ordained by God, and that all men are created equal, with certain unalienable rights.

DEI instead claims that there is an inherent imbalance in society driven by race, ethnicity, religion, sex, and sexual preference. Since “truth” is what you make of it via power, DEI uses force and power to strip individuals of autonomy and individuality in favor of their skin color or what is between their legs. DEI is a form of Marxism, and it is the ultimate expression of bigotry in modern society.

(By the way, given the manner in which DEI seeks to destroy the natural law principles underpinning the Constitution, it effectively sits in defiance of the sacred oath of U.S. service members to “support and defend the Constitution.”)

The U.S. military long had rudimentary forms of DEI in its promotion systems, with promotion board results constantly reworked to reflect the “correct” racial and gender balances. However, with the advent of DEI as a more formal, society-altering structure, under the Obama and Biden administrations, the wholly political DEI doctrine was massively forced on the military like a dog shoved into a car on its way to the veterinarian’s office for neutering.

White service members were told they are inherently evil based solely on their skin color. Combat arms professions were opened to women who, on average, were manifestly physically unqualified to perform required duties. Pressure mounted for 18-year-old females in the barracks to be forced to live with biological men play-acting as women. “Pride” celebrations were rampant. Racist DEI books became mandatory professional reading for officers and senior NCOs. The United States Air Force decided skin color was the basis for being an Air Force officer.

It went so far that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (“CJCS”), Mark Milley, said before Congress, “I want to understand white rage. And I’m white. And I want to understand it.” In doing so, he racially slandered every white troop under his command (yes, I know CJCS is not a command position, but you get my drift), and the political Left and the other woke generals rejoiced.

Where we once only saw red, white, and blue and the color of our uniforms, suddenly, the only color we were allowed to see was the color of human skin.

In the field and afloat, white male commanders learned to be very circumspect in disciplining wayward black, female, or gay troops, because it was just too easy to be labeled a “racist” or a “misogynist” or a “homophobe” in career-ending fashion.

Good order and discipline broke down.

Combat effectiveness declined as a result.

All thanks to politics—the politics of DEI.

And the retired admirals and generals you hear moaning today to Goebbelsesque propaganda rags like The Atlantic? Not only did they not object, they embraced it because that is how these wholly political officers were able to advance. Now that Pete Hegseth is purging our hallowed military halls of the diseased, racist, misandrist, bigoted, hate-mongering, Christophobic, intolerant, diversity-destroying, inequitable, exclusionary, expressly political doctrines of DEI, these political animals are OUTRAGED. They see their Brutalist, Marxist spiritual edifice in tatters, and they don’t much like it, so they lie and say it’s all “political.”

DEI is the worst thing that has happened to the U.S. military in any of our lifetimes. It was the ultimate expression of a political acid test shoved down the throats of everyone serving in a U.S. uniform. It was Marxism on a massive scale, specifically designed to polarize the ranks and make our military less combat effective.

DEI was and is an abomination.

And Pete Hegseth has unraveled this monster in a mere two years. We are rebuilding our military on top of the ruins of the failed DEI experiment.

In all of U.S. history, no one has done more to DEPOLITICIZE the U.S. military than Pete Hegseth.

So, when you see the legacy media and the usual generals and admirals who would not take Douglas MacArthur’s advice to just “fade away” screeching that Hegseth is “politicizing” the military, know that they are angry only because he is doing exactly the opposite. The star-laden critical theorists are losing, and they will not go down without a fight.

But losing they are, and so long as the 2026 and 2028 elections stay the course, they have already lost.

Do not buy the fabulistic “Hegseth is politicizing the military’s senior ranks” narrative. Exactly the opposite is true.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 20:25

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