"Chuds" Rejoice As Woke Video Game Studio Bethesda Crushed By Mass Layoffs

From around 2014 through 2023 nearly every aspect of western pop culture from movies to television to comic books to video games to marketing was invaded by what seemed like a highly coordinated horde of far-left activists.  This subversive coup in entertainment launched what many now refer to as the "woke era" in western politics, giving birth to the infamous concepts of "cancel culture" and "DEI".  

The movement was incredibly well supported with billions in funding through ESG lending and government subsidies.  Politicians protected them from legal consequences and helped to censor their opponents.  Mainstream journalists lavished them with praise and ran propaganda to tear down critics. 

NGOs funneled easy cash into any organization that declared its fealty to the progressive multicultural agenda.  True beleivers were planted into every level of every media industry.  Those companies that did not immediately comply were extorted into conformity with threats of mob harassment, accusations of "bigotry" and potential boycotts. 

    

Numerous corporations fully embraced and enabled the spread of the woke mind virus.  Even though the political left often claims they are "fighting against the elitist class", their entire movement owes its existence to corporate and government support.

The battle against the woke takeover had been bubbling under the surface for many years as a rebellion was waged by a small but scrappy alternative media.  However, at that time, the public was largely unaware of the psy-op that was targeting them.  There was nowhere near enough popular momentum to stop the coup.  All the political left had to do was deny that any such an agenda existed.  It was "all in people's heads" and a product of "conspiracy theory." 

Then, leftist activists hijacked video games and video game journalism, injected the industry with woke messaging and pissing off millions of gamers.  After that, everything changed. 

"Gamergate" was born and the anti-feminist, anti-DEI movement exploded like wildfire.  What Gamergate accomplished, mainly, was forcing the issue into the mainstream and forcing the establishment media to acknowledge that a coordinated invasion was taking place.  Journalists went from denying the existence of the agenda to openly defending the agenda as a good thing. 

One game development studio that stood at the forefront of the woke mob and aggressively engaged in the culture war against traditional western storytelling was Bethesda Softworks, a subsidiary of Microsoft.  Once a legendary studio famous for the "Fallout" franchise, the company ultimately reveled in the subversion of their largely straight, male audience and sought to "teach the Chuds a lesson" by destroying everything they held dear. 

Asmongold reacts to Bethesda employees being forced to tear down a memorial for laid off coworkers

"Yesterday's layoffs at Bethesda cut 14 layers of management, we lost dozens of programmers, artists, designers and testers, many of whom worked on BGS for decades"

"Apparently… pic.twitter.com/Df7iygAMXF

— Asmongold Daily (@Asmongold_Daily) July 10, 2026

Simultaneously, Bethesda was engaging in political support for activist projects like Black Lives Matter and LGBT pride.  The virtue signaling was off the charts.  The fight with the studio hit a crescendo with the release of "Starfield", an open world sci-fi game that seemed to focus more on DEI and pronouns than creative storytelling.  The game was meant to be Bethesda's crowing achievement, but it failed due to gamer boycotts.

Starfield, which cost around $400 million to produce, was met with a mediocre reception and within a few months player numbers crashed by 90%.  Evidence suggests the game never actually made a profit.  The ongoing failures of Bethesda contributed to the wider cuts by Microsoft/X Box and studio was hit particularly hard. 

In 2026, the Chuds are rejoicing over the collapse of studios like Bethesda, and rightly so.  Gamers tried to warn them but they refused to listen.   

Last month, Microsoft announced a financial "reset" which led to structural layoffs.  As a result, Bethesda has now fired an estimated 30%-40% of employees with a large number of developers being kicked to the curb.  It should come as no surprise that most of these employees look exactly as you might expect: A gaggle of socialist circus freaks.    

Seeing these former employees all together in one place makes it perfectly clear what caused Bethesda to implode.

Some analysts theorize that the Microsoft culling is actually meant to rectify mistakes from the woke era and purge activist troublemakers from their payroll.  A large number of corporations have been doing the same thing in recent years after realizing there is no market for DEI in media.  Having the faintest smell of social justice propaganda in their products leads to collapsing sales. 

By extension, woke activist employees are notorious for creating problems from thin air and litigating against their employers.  There's really no downside to firing them.    

The delusion these former developers suffer from is embarrassing.  They seem convinced that their projects were financially successful, but if that was the case they would not be losing their jobs en masse.  The event is yet another example of the entitlement mentality that has infected corporate employees today; they treat any firing as if it is a violation of someone's civil rights.  If a worker believes that a company is supposed to value their livelihood above making a profit, that person is not mentally equipped to function in the real world.

Remaining workers at the company staged a mock memorial for their fired comrades, as if they had died in the line of duty.  It's more evidence for why their hands should never come near media content ever again. They should be serving overpriced coffee at Starbucks, not influencing $400 million media projects.

For the conservatives who still don't understand the importance of pop media and video games when it comes to the greater political conflict in the west, just know that it doesn't matter if you don't get it; just know that the political left does get it.  They almost successfully pirated the entire western world by taking control of entertainment media and saturating it with woke indoctrination. 

If it's important to them, it should damn well be important to you.  

Politics is downstream from culture.  Win the culture war, win the west.  It's that simple.  Video games represent the biggest slice of the media industry by far and this is where younger generations are going to congregate and form their collective views.  Luckily, they saw the takeover coming and moved to intercept before it was too late. 

At least greater populist movements are more aligned with the importance of the culture war and what it represents in recent years.  There are still numerous problems with getting everyone on the same page, but compared to a decade ago, the improvement has been dramatic.  The fact that "Get Woke, Go Broke" has become a rule rather than a mantra is a bit of a miracle.    

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/10/2026 - 05:45

He Just Bought It From A Shop...

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

A young British man walked out of a Manchester shop with a brand new baseball bat still sealed in its factory plastic packaging. Within moments, multiple police officers were on him, treating the purchase as a weapon and detaining him in full view of the street.

The footage, which spread rapidly on Sunday, captures the absolute state of policing in modern Britain. Officers challenge the lad, physical contact follows, backup including motorbike units arrives, and he ends up in a police van.

The bat's plastic covering remains clearly visible throughout. No claim has emerged that he brandished it, threatened anyone, or used it for anything other than carrying it home after a legitimate purchase.

Meanwhile in Manchester ??

A British lad just bought a brand new baseball bat from a shop and is POUNCED upon by MULTIPLE police officers immediately after leaving the store.

The officers accuse him of "carrying a weapon" even though the bat was clearly brand new and just... pic.twitter.com/FNZGRQnYy5

— BRITAIN IS BROKEN ?? (@BROKENBRITAIN0) August 9, 2026

Under the Prevention of Crime Act 1953, officers can stop and check items that could be used as offensive weapons in public if there is no clear reasonable excuse. A brand-new bat still in its shop packaging, purchased moments earlier, is the definition of a reasonable excuse for any ordinary person. Yet the response was immediate and multi-officer.

This incident does not stand alone. It fits a documented pattern that has played out repeatedly under the current climate of policing.

In early July, footage from Birmingham showed a white teenager who had just been attacked by a group of black males. A female officer moved in, shielded the aggressors, and directed force at the victim.

Multiple officers then swarmed the white lad, used foul language including "You're going to walk to the car you fucking dick," forced him into a police car the wrong way, and dragged him back out.

A bystander trying to explain that the white teenager was the victim was ignored. The attackers left without consequence. West Midlands Police were reported to have discouraged further sharing of the footage rather than addressing the conduct on camera.

That same period produced further examples. South Yorkshire Police officers were filmed shoving, baton-wielding and pointing Tasers at teenage girls during a dispersal in Rotherham. The force itself described the short clip as appearing "nothing short of shocking."

Rotherham, of course, remains the site of the long-running grooming gangs scandal in which authorities failed for years to protect native British girls. Officers have also been captured manhandling a five-year-old boy, slamming a man's head into a metal bollard, and using heavy force against a military veteran simply sitting on a wall filming while stating he was doing nothing wrong.

The following days brought another layer of absurdity. Officers were filmed confronting people for standing around in public squares doing nothing, threatening arrest for filming in public on the grounds that presence "might" wind someone up and lead to a breach of the peace, and even entering a pub to warn a man over a critical tweet about a local councillor.

One Merseyside officer was caught calling a man legally filming a "nonce." Resources that should have been directed at actual violence were instead spent inventing pre-crime justifications against ordinary citizens exercising basic rights.

Meanwhile the daily reality on Britain's streets continues without pause. People are being stabbed and assaulted hour after hour, day after day. The endless stream of reports is dominated by migrants and feral gangs.

Knives, machetes and random street attacks fill the crime logs and the local news. Strangely, the videos of white British lads roaming around smashing people with baseball bats remain vanishingly rare.

The cameras and the officers somehow never seem to catch that particular threat in action. Yet a sealed bat bought from a shop is enough to trigger an immediate multi-officer response.

The common thread is selective aggression. Native British people going about lawful business - buying sports equipment, filming in public, standing still, or simply existing as the victim of an assault - face rapid, multi-officer responses.

Patterns of violence involving other demographics frequently receive a lighter touch or none at all. The Henry Nowak case remains the most egregious recent illustration: the white student handcuffed while dying after his killer falsely claimed racial abuse, while the actual attacker was not restrained in the same way.

Police chiefs have denied the existence of two-tier policing while acknowledging that the public perception is widespread. Anti-racism guidance that instructed officers not to treat everyone "the same" has been under review precisely because of the damage it has done to trust. The result on the ground is what the Manchester bat video shows: a young man treated as a threat for carrying a sealed item out of a shop.

Equal treatment under the law is not optional. When officers prioritise optics, ideology, or fear of certain accusations over consistent application of the rules, public confidence collapses.

A brand-new baseball bat in plastic is not a public order crisis. Treating it as one while real threats are managed with kid gloves is the crisis. Britons are watching these clips in growing numbers. The pattern is no longer deniable.

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 Mon, 08/10/2026 - 05:00

Trump Says "We Are Low Keying It" With Iran As Options For Walking Away Have Drastically Narrowed

Iran's IRGC is holding the line, reiterating that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen to international shipping only after the United States accepts all of its conditions, which we outlined previously. Also, on Saturday Iran's army spokesman Amir Akraminia stated that Iran's new protocols in the Strait of Hormuz are "irreversible" and shall not be thwarted by the US. "The United States has no choice but to accept the existing situation; otherwise, it will incur costs far greater than those it has faced in the past," Akraminia said. 

On Sunday, a fresh report in The Wall Street Journal states the obvious - that President Trump has fewer and fewer options and is being squeezed, with any opportunity to declare 'victory' and make swift exit more elusive than ever, given Washington would have to make huge compromises, including lifting sanctions and paying war compensation to Tehran. Nearly six months ago when the war started, many non-interventionist critics accurately predicted the quagmire and catch-22 the US now finds itself in. 

"For weeks, President Trump had been laying the groundwork to declare victory in the Iran war should Tehran fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even floating the idea privately to senior aides that he’s willing to walk away without a nuclear deal, U.S. officials said," WSJ writes.

AFP/Getty Images

"But that scaled-back objective became more difficult when Iran insisted Saturday on its highest price yet for permitting the free flow of traffic in the waterway, seeking billions of dollars in U.S. payments, the removal of American troops from the region and an end of the U.S. naval blockade, among other things," the report adds.

In a parallel vein to this scaled-back, lower grade conflict, President Trump has freshly told Axios in a brief interview that "We are low keying it" in the Persian Gulf. This comes after a week ago he called off 'planned' 'harder' attacks on Iran, which may have been just a bluff all along. Tehran didn't blink, and it continues to press for maximal demands - as if to put 'maximum pressure' right back on Washington.

"We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money," Trump claimed. According to more from Axios:

• He stressed that Iran "is in very bad shape" economically and has no money to pay its troops. The U.S. naval blockade has exacerbated the Iranian regime's economic crisis, Trump said.
• At the same time, Trump said that with oil down to slightly over $75 a barrel, U.S. consumers are feeling less pain from the war.

Ironically, this is simply a return to administration talking points which defended the early days and weeks of a war that officials constantly touted would be 'swift' and limited.

The US hope was that Iran and its economy would just collapse from within, the masses would take to the streets, and the government of the Ayatollah would be overthrown. This has proven delusional time and again.

Instead, what we see happening is Washington being forced to move its bases back from front line areas in the Gulf, and officials including Trump himself constantly retreating from stated goals, objectives, and red lines. This is on display once again in the Sunday Axios interview:

Axios acknowledges that the new list of Iranian demands have gone from being the prerequisite for a nuclear deal to a prerequisite to opening the Strait. Trump now says the US is “low keying it” and focusing on economic pressure. In other words: the Strait will not be opening. https://t.co/AweQabOB8W pic.twitter.com/3TMsxXcfh7

— barry with the NED (@bonzerbarry) August 9, 2026

In the meantime, there have been various op-ed moments throughout the conflict where The Wall Street Journal has cheer-led Operation Epic Fury. But now that political desperation has set in, and the Iranians smell blood in the water - knowing they can play hardball and extract a bigger cost from the US - even the WSJ has been forced to drastically change its tune:

Iran’s ability to essentially choke off the waterway through sporadic missile and drone attacks has proven to be powerful leverage for the country, stalling commercial traffic and roiling global oil markets. Trump has declared repeatedly in recent weeks that the Strait of Hormuz was already fully open, but each of those promises has proven premature.

Now, with less than three months until the midterm elections and the price of gasoline still much higher than it was before the war started in late February, Trump has been looking for ways to tell the American public that the war is won.

It will be quite the spectacle if eventually a desperate Trump White House is forced to lift sanctions and hand over some form of war compensation. WSJ notes further, "One major complication for the Trump administration is money."

"Iran is seeking billions of dollars in war reparations in addition to an agreement to unfreeze the country’s assets around the world," the report adds. "Trump has said the White House wouldn’t allow any taxpayer money to go to Iran, although a deal appears unlikely without the U.S. unfreezing some assets, possibly with conditions attached."

Trump should have listened to the non-interventionists and he wouldn't have put himself and the American people in this mess. American troops would not have been caught so flat-footed and directly in harm's way (given what was clearly lack of proper US military planning and preparedness for Iran to fight back as fiercely as it did), and hundreds of Iranian civilian lives - including massacred schoolgirls - would have been sparred.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/10/2026 - 04:55

Sensitive Information Keeps Going To 'No Reply' Emails, And One Man Gets It All

A couple of security researchers have discovered that one of the internet’s most boring conventions, the fake “no reply” email address, can accidentally become a massive pipeline for private information, according to Wired.

Wired writes that security researcher Cory Solovewicz owns the domains noreply.net and noreply.us. Instead of being digital dead ends, the domains have been flooded with emails that companies apparently assumed nobody would ever receive. Since late 2024, noreply.net alone has collected roughly 400,000 messages, including more than 28,000 with attachments.

And this isn't ordinary spam. Solovewicz has received everything from government injury reports and repair orders to school account information and login credentials. In some cases, companies appear to be sending automated messages to addresses such as companyname@noreply.net under the assumption that the messages simply disappear.

“I created an accidental honeypot,” Solovewicz said. What began as a personal email experiment eventually turned into an effort to warn organizations that their own systems were leaking information. He has avoided publicly identifying the affected companies and has been contacting them about the problem.

Another researcher, Mike Sheward, stumbled onto essentially the same problem after spending about $15 on deleteduser.com. Within an hour, emails from three different organizations had already arrived. Since then, messages from at least 100 organizations have landed in domains he controls, including hotel reservations containing customers' names, vacation approval requests, Zoom invitations from a UK government agency and even information about Viagra orders.

One particularly troubling example involved an AI company that monitors industrial workers in the Middle East. Sheward says its systems mistakenly sent him thousands of CCTV images. The obvious concern is that researchers aren't the only people capable of buying these domains. Criminals, extortionists or foreign intelligence services could do exactly the same thing.

The two researchers have now purchased more than 30 domains in an effort to keep them away from malicious actors. Solovewicz also tested more than 7,000 potential placeholder domains and found 328 configured with catch-all inboxes, suggesting the problem could extend far beyond what they've already uncovered.

The frustrating part is that the problem is largely avoidable. Companies can use internal addresses or domains specifically designed not to resolve rather than assuming a random “noreply” or “deleted user” address goes nowhere.

As Solovewicz put it, companies need to stop assuming these domains are unmonitored: “You guys need to fix your systems.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/10/2026 - 04:15

Poland's Conservatives Propose Deporting Unemployed Ukrainian Men Of Military Age

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

Poland’s opposition Law and Justice party (PiS) has proposed deporting Ukrainian men of military age who are living in the country without legal employment.

The measure was presented by PiS MEP Tobiasz Bocheński during the party’s “Towards a New Government” policy conference and would be pursued if PiS returned to power.

“It is not about deporting everyone, only those who are here, do not work legally and are of military age,” party chairman Jarosław Kaczyński told journalists, as cited by Do Rzcezy.

PiS has defended the policy by arguing that men who are not working legally in Poland should return to Ukraine, where they could contribute to the country’s defense and ease pressure on its armed forces.

“This is helping Ukraine in terms of mobilization,” Kaczyński said, claiming Kyiv faces a serious shortage of military personnel, and should Russia seek to mobilize further after legislative elections in September, Ukraine must be prepared.

PiS spokesman Rafał Bochenek said similar proposals were being discussed elsewhere in Western Europe.

“Men who don’t work in our country should work and be active on the front lines, because that’s where their homeland is,” Bochenek said.

“It’s not Poles or other nationalities who should be sent to the front lines, but Ukrainians who should defend their homeland.”

Relations between Poland and Ukraine have deteriorated over Kyiv’s commemoration of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and nationalist figures linked to the massacres of Poles in Volhynia during World War II.

In June, Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, of the Order of the White Eagle after Ukraine named a military unit in honor of the “heroes of the UPA.”

Zelensky later announced plans for a National Pantheon that could include Ukrainian nationalist figures connected to the Volhynia massacres.

Ukraine’s parliament subsequently backed draft legislation supporting the project.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/10/2026 - 03:30

Megacities Are Booming

The number of people living in megacities has been growing significantly for decades, rising from 2.5 percent in 1950 to 16.4 percent of city dwellers in 2020.

As Statista's Katharina Buchholz details below, according to UN projections, this figure will continue to rise slightly before stabilizing at around the current level by 2050.

You will find more infographics at Statista

At the same time, living in smaller cities is becoming less widespread.

The share of the urban population living in places with between 50,000 and 500,000 inhabitants fell from 50.8 percent to 38.6 percent during the same period.

This development reflects the global trend of urbanization.

Economic opportunities, better infrastructure and in some cases political instability in the countryside have been driving the growth of large metropolitan areas.

However, this increasing concentration has also been exacerbating challenges that are typical for urban centers, for example housing shortages, overcrowded transport and an increased strain on the environment.

Another challenge for city planners are so-called heat islands, where urban concrete jungles act as heat reservoirs and exhibit much higher temperatures than less dense areas with more vegetation and other natural features. The prevalence of tall buildings and narrow streets can also reduce wind speeds, meaning it takes longer for accumulated heat to dissipate. This additional heat stress, combined with the higher levels of air pollution observed in many cities, compounds negative impacts on human health.

However, the UN anticipates that the growth of the largest cities will slow down in the future. While the share of city dwellers living in megacities is expected to rise to 17 percent by 2030, it is then projected to stagnate and decline slightly by 2050 to 16.3 percent. At the same time, the development of medium-sized cities – those with populations of 5 to 10 million – is expected to speed up, hosting a share of 10.6 percent of city inhabitants by 2050.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/10/2026 - 02:45

Arizona, California Score Separate Court Wins Over Election Rules

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times,

Election officials in Arizona and California won separate court victories Friday in disputes over voting rules, with a federal appeals court upholding key provisions of an Arizona voter-registration law and a California judge temporarily blocking a local election overhaul.

Arizona Voter Registration Law

In Arizona, an 11-judge en banc panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously ruled that voting rights organizations lacked standing to challenge two provisions that dictate how counties should maintain their voter rolls.

The Arizona law, enacted in 2022 as Senate Bill 1260, requires county recorders to cancel a voter’s registration after receiving confirmation from another county that the person has moved and registered there. Another provision makes it a felony to knowingly provide a “mechanism for voting” to someone registered in another state.

The Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans, Voto Latino, and Priorities USA sued the Arizona attorney general, secretary of state, and the state’s 15 county recorders in 2022, arguing that portions of the law violated federal voting law and constitutional protections.

The groups argued, among other things, that the cancellation provision could improperly remove eligible voters from the rolls and that the felony provision was vague enough to expose organizations conducting voter registration and education activities to prosecution.

A federal district court initially issued a preliminary injunction blocking the cancellation and felony provisions. A three-judge Ninth Circuit panel later reversed that order, finding that the organizations lacked standing to challenge the cancellation provision and were unlikely to prevail in their challenge to the felony provision.

The plaintiffs successfully sought review by the full court, but Friday’s en banc ruling reached the same conclusion.

The groups argued that they were forced to spend extra time and resources educating voters about the law and helping them cancel prior registrations. The court, however, concluded that this did not count as a concrete injury needed to prove standing.

“Because the organizations have not clearly shown that the cancellation provision affects or interferes with their voter-registration and voter-education efforts, they have not established an injury-in-fact,” U.S. Circuit Judge Anthony D. Johnstone wrote for the court.

The court also rejected the organizations’ request to block the felony provision pending the litigation.

“Although the stand-alone phrase ‘mechanism for voting’ arguably encompasses voter registration and education, the full text and statutory context of the Felony Provision show that it likely does not criminalize those activities,” Johnstone wrote.

California Court Blocks County Measure

Also on Friday, a California judge temporarily blocked Shasta County from implementing a voter-approved measure that would dramatically change how elections are conducted in the Northern California county.

Measure B, approved by about 56 percent of voters in June, would require government-issued photo identification for voter registration and in-person voting, restrict vote-by-mail and early voting, require ballots to be counted by hand, and establish a county voter-registration system separate from California’s statewide system.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber sued to block the measure, arguing that Shasta County’s status as a charter county does not mean it can adopt its own election rules conflicting with those of the state.

State officials had sought an expedited ruling, since election preparations were already underway for November and the county’s 116,000 registered voters needed certainty about how they would cast their ballots.

On Friday, Shasta County Superior Court Judge Benjamin Hanna sided with the state in granting the preliminary injunction, meaning the county will conduct the Nov. 3 general election under existing California election laws while the lawsuit proceeds.

A Shasta County official confirmed that the measure’s provisions would not be implemented unless the court issues another order.

“Following a preliminary injunction by the Shasta County Superior Court regarding a proposed amendment to the Shasta County Charter titled, Measure B, Voter ID, Hand-Counted Ballots, and Absentee Voting Limits Initiative, the election and voting policies described in Measure B will not be implemented for the November 3, 2026, General Election, unless further order of the court,” the county said in a statement.

Bonta welcomed the decision, saying it would provide clarity for voters ahead of the election.

“Today’s ruling prevents Measure B from taking effect while our litigation proceeds, providing certainty that the November election will be conducted under California’s established election laws,” he said. “We will continue fighting to permanently strike down the measure.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 21:00

Your Tax Dollars At Work: 20 Port Authority Workers, 17 Cops, Make Over $400,000

Apparently, one of the best ways to make $400,000 a year in the New York area is to work for the Port Authority, according to the NY Post.

Twenty Port Authority employees, including 17 cops, cleared $400,000 in total compensation last year as the agency's payroll sailed past $1.2 billion. And much of the magic came from everyone's favorite government money fountain: overtime.

According to payroll data obtained by the Empire Center for Public Policy, 323 employees collected at least $100,000 in overtime alone. Of those, 189 were Port Authority cops. Eight top earners managed to rack up more than $200,000 each in OT. Police Lt. Nicholas Federico won the unofficial jackpot. His $180,691 base salary came with another $215,717 in overtime, helping push his total compensation, including benefits, to $466,775.

Detective sergeants Dewan Maharaj and Robert Zafonte Jr. weren't exactly eating ramen either. Both finished around $448,600, with Maharaj collecting nearly $148,000 in overtime and Zafonte adding about $139,000. The NY Post writes that the overtime crown belonged to chief maintenance supervisor Reginald Bowers, who piled up $231,916 in OT and finished with $421,041 in total compensation.

Chart: New York Post

And this wasn't just a few employees discovering the cheat code.

Of the Port Authority's 8,356 workers, 5,711 received overtime last year. That's 68% of the workforce. Altogether, overtime cost the agency $196 million, representing about 16% of its entire payroll.

Port Authority police accounted for $85 million of that OT bill. The agency's 1,968 cops averaged $184,949 in pay, while 68 of its 100 highest-paid employees worked in the Police Department.

Perhaps the funniest comparison is at the top. Richard Cotton, who was actually running the Port Authority before retiring in January, earned $327,918. Ninety-four people working underneath him made more.

The Empire Center says taxpayers may get the privilege of paying for all of this more than once.

“Taxpayers are getting fleeced twice,” President Zilvinas Silenas said, arguing that taxpayers first fund the salaries and overtime and can later get stuck with pension costs influenced by those earnings. He also warned that rising payroll expenses could eventually show up in higher tolls and fees.

Which would be particularly charming considering those are already going up. The Port Authority raised bridge and tunnel tolls 3% in January while eliminating some off-peak E-ZPass discounts. PATH fares have also increased, with more hikes scheduled in the coming years.

The agency says the compensation reflects the enormous security demands involved in protecting airports, bridges, tunnels, rail systems and other critical infrastructure.

“Keeping the people we serve safe is non-negotiable and our highest priority,” spokesman Seth Stein said, noting that many Port Authority facilities remain potential terrorism targets. The agency also pointed out that it has added hundreds of police officers in recent years and said average police overtime actually declined 9% between 2024 and 2025.

So yes, overtime is apparently improving. It just happens to be improving at a place where hundreds of employees are still making six figures in overtime and 20 workers are clearing $400,000. Progress.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 20:25

No Hikes For You

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

Much of the country is facing extreme heat and humidity this weekend. It makes it difficult to read and get ready for the week, let alone write something for this week, so we will keep this one short and focus on charts.

The markets started and ended the week with a bang. We continue to keep a close eye on the stocks and sectors most affected by Situational UnAwareness (last weekend’s T-Report). The Nasdaq 100 had an insanely strong Tuesday, gave up some gains Wednesday and Thursday, only to claw back those gains on Friday, primarily after the weak employment report hit the tape (Houston We Have a Data Problem). At what point will we spend the money to totally revamp how we collect and process data? “Surveys” seem incredibly “old school” when so much real-time information is available. We will see if the worst is behind us on the AI spend story.

• We continue to like buying the bonds being issued to fund data centers and AI. We’ve been writing about this with increasing frequency. It was almost amazing to see Alphabet do such a massive bond deal on a Thursday in August. The size of the order book is indicative of how prepared the market is to absorb the expected supply, which is why I think the surprise will be for a rapid move tighter than ongoing weakness (all we need is one company to discuss potentially slowing their spend given all the hurdles we have been writing about for the past few weeks).

We touched on a lot of these issues on Bloomberg TV on Thursday, in case you prefer to watch/listen, rather than read (our segment starts at the 1 hour 43 minute mark).

No Hikes For You

According to the Bloomberg WIRP function, the market went from pricing in a full hike in September, as recently as July 24th, and is now back below a 50% chance (which I think is still too high).

• JOLTS was mixed. The employment component of ISM Services was below 50. ADP was better than NFP but left a lot to be desired (44k jobs). It is reasonable for the Fed to question the strength of the job market.
• Inflation. Let’s examine Truflation a bit more closely.

We include “frozen” which is the time series as originally published with no attempt to revise it as more information is available. The “unfrozen” version is effectively a “revised” time series.

The pink line is 2.49%, because 2.49% rounds down to 2% if we are using only whole numbers (that may seem like “cheating” but I think Warsh, in particular, thinks more “in the vicinity” of 2% rather than 2.0%).

The beauty of this data is that it makes sense to me. Just a quick glance at this data seems to “jive” with what we’ve been experiencing (and notice it is all below 2.49%).

In this chart we explore the difference between Truflation and CPI.

Truflation was much higher for 2021 and 2022 than CPI. Honestly, that seems correct! While the barbaric way in which shelter is calculated for CPI played a big part, it is not entirely to blame. Now CPI is higher than Truflation. Why? Because maybe it is just catching up? Imagine if the Fed was focused on Truflation rather than CPI in 2021 and 2022. Would they have hiked sooner? Would they have continued with QE as long as they did? We will never know, but treating CPI as a “gold” standard and dismissing metrics like Truflation seems nonsensical to me.

This is also why I’d argue that we have an “affordability” issue more than an “inflation” issue. The problem isn’t so much in today’s price moves, it is that the price moves we were hit with back in 2021 and 2022 were not properly reflected in the data! (Yes, this is a hill I’m prepared to defend). Not saying Truflation is perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it is pretty easy to see a policy path that is very different than the one we’ve taken if they looked at more types of data.

I’ve always thought the Fed liked core PCE as their favorite metric, because it was almost always below 2%! It was “convenient” that their “preferred” metric was never above 2%. Literally, from 2008 to 2020 it was almost never above 2%. Maybe I’m being a bit too cynical, but I think the Fed liked to point to this measure because it gave them the flexibility to be more dovish, rather than because it was so much more useful, relevant, and accurate than other bits of inflation data we get.

If you can agree that other data might tell a good story and that this pedestal that Core PCE has been set upon doesn’t make sense, then maybe we should be cutting? It isn’t like Truflation Core is “always” below PCE (which is why we put in the nice green oval), but it is certainly much lower now! And the rate of decline (inflation) actually makes more sense to me than the PCE numbers. The large price shocks are behind us in the real world, but unfortunately they are still appearing in the data world the “old Fed” looked at. I am pretty sure I still have a HP-12C lying around (anyone on Wall Street from the last century knows how ubiquitous they were on trading desks), but I cannot remember the last time I thought about using it!

Warsh was basically put in charge to cut. He will deal with the hand he has been dealt (the renewed conflict in Iran isn’t helping), but his bias is to cut, not hike.

While it is unclear where we stand in Iran at the moment, it seems like we are on the verge of getting some sort of agreement between Oman and Iran to re-open the Strait in some capacity. It seems as though they are negotiating something that will be agreed to by the U.S.? It all seems a bit weird, and goes against the military successes, but it seems to be headed in that direction. If the Strait is opened AND the US encourages Iranian oil sales (like we did at the start of the MOU) then Warsh’s job of steering the Fed to a cut gets a lot easier (and the hawks may have to change their tune rapidly).

Bottom Line

The long end of the yield curve is likely to remain under some pressure as the global supply of sovereign and corporate debt continues to soar.

The front end will start pricing out fewer hikes. Probably far too early to price in cuts, but the hiking story is crowded, and I think wrong. It will require more people to break years of tradition and base decisions on the same set of data, regardless of being aware of the inherent flaws in the data!

Credit spreads should do well, though I like the AI/Data Center plays even more on an all-in yield basis than just spread. It is cheap and positioning has corrected itself to where the move to tighter spreads/lower yields seems to be the more likely path.

With chatter of investors looking to put money into the hands of the fund manager that ran Situational Awareness, those sectors could do well. I’m neutral there, as I think there is another round of AI “doubt” creeping into the narrative which will hurt valuations (while supporting the credit side of the story).

On the rest of the equity markets, I’m biased towards ProSec globally. Across the globe, energy, electricity production, smelting, processing, and refining will do well. I’m both surprised and happy that Australia committed to its first new refinery in 60 years! Each country (or region) will need to prioritize their efforts, but we see this happening.

• Look for the government wallet to be used to direct these developments and projects. Not just by direct involvement in projects (which will happen) but also by putting conditions on what the government will buy, to the extent that it makes projects economical, where they otherwise wouldn’t be. Low cost is taking a back seat to National Security – globally!
• The ProSec Hierarchy will vary across the globe. Some regions will need to focus on food and water. Others (Europe) will need to focus on military production. (I’d create an Airbus for Drones if I were Europe). Chips, AI, and compute will need to be prioritized. (I’m increasingly concerned that there is a danger of Cheap China Compute hitting us far sooner and harder than we’d previously thought!).
  • The President “kicked the hornet’s nest” on global supply chains. The intention was clearly to grow U.S. exports. That can happen, but increasingly, there is a “domestic” intent globally, providing a real opportunity in other markets that embrace that mantra!

With weather forecasts sounding right up Adrian Cronauer’s alley, it seems like a good time to conclude with the most useful advice I can give - Stay Cool My Friends!

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 19:50

Watch: 'Privileged Idiot' DSA Co-Chair Has Absolute Porridge For Brains

The Democrat party has been freaking out about the Democratic Socialists of late - despite striking similarities between their policies - because while Democrats are happy to sweet talk voters into socialist ideas that signal maximum virtue, they don't actually want to enact policies that would make blue-city budgets even more dire than they are. 

In short, the party is panicking because the voters they radicalized are electing radicals... 

So what better way to let progressives see what they're voting for? Trot out a co-chair of the DSA with maybe two brain cells to rub together, ask her simple questions, and watch her implode. 

Megan Rromer 'Velociraptor Claw', Screenshot via Stephen Miller 

To wit: co-chair Megan Romer was given a softball interview by New Yorker editor David Remnick, in which he asked Romer "What does ‘taxing the hell out of them’ mean?" in regards to a core DSA position of 'taxing the rich.'

Romer stumbled hard... 

Romer: Uh, yeah, you know, again, I don’t have like a solid…

Remnick: But shouldn’t you? If you’re the co-chair of the DSA, shouldn’t you be more specific than ‘taxing the hell’ out of something? What exactly do you mean?

Romer: Um, that’s a good question. "So again, it’s democracy, right? And we have to look at what we have to spend and what we need. We don’t want to depend on the existence of millionaires because that means people are still getting exploited."

Watch:

DSA Co-Chair Megan Romer says "We believe in taxing the hell out of millionaires."

She then struggles to explain what that actually means:

Remnick: "What does 'taxing the hell out of them' mean?"

Romer: "Yeah. You know, again, I don't have, like, a solid…"

Remnick: "But… pic.twitter.com/JMKW1egLM9

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) August 7, 2026

"They went to campus and had their heads filled with junk and have never been challenged on any of this for their entire life, by anyone," said commentator Stephen Miller, adding "An entire generation of privileged idiots."

Going to be using this one a lot pic.twitter.com/9hSxZP7CYc

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) August 8, 2026

Romer was then asked about open borders - and once again, cogent answers left the chat...

DSA Co-Chair Megan Romer is asked to explain the DSA position on 'open borders.'

The slightest ask for explanation or scrutiny placed on these nonsensical positions results in this rhetorical gobbledygook:

"They're all part of this long term goal where we are putting huge… pic.twitter.com/RpLmWdcfed

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) August 8, 2026

She was also asked the very loaded question about whether DSA believes Israel 'has a right to exist.' 

And instead of something about how Palestinians also have a right to exist, asymmetric warfare, or Israel using the US to fight a proxy war in Iran based on decades of being 'two weeks away' from a nuke - Romer once again failed to formulate anything resembling a response one might expect from a DSA honcho (or not, nevermind). 

The New Yorker’s David Remnick asks DSA co-chair Megan Romer whether “Israel has a right to defend itself.” pic.twitter.com/UFNgcRiODN

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) August 7, 2026

Just wow...

I cannot get over the constant miming with her velociraptor claw.

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) August 9, 2026

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 19:15

Don Lemon Seeks Dismissal Of Federal Charges Over Minnesota Church Protest

Authored by Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times,

Former CNN host Don Lemon has asked a federal judge to dismiss the charges brought against him in connection with an anti-immigration enforcement protest at a Minnesota church.

The January protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations interrupted a worship service at the church. Lemon, who was charged with violating federal civil rights laws, argued that he was not participating in the protest but was there only to document the events.

Lemon’s attorneys filed a motion on Aug. 7 claiming the indictment against their client was the result of “vindictive prosecution.” The filing called the charges “flagrant and blatant efforts to punish a journalist for his protected conduct warrant further discovery into the government’s motive and an evidentiary hearing.”

They cited President Donald Trump’s previous negative comments about Lemon as evidence of bias.

On Jan. 18, Lemon attended a protest at Minneapolis Cities Church at the height of ICE action in Minneapolis. He was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles on Jan. 29.

He and eight other defendants were charged with one count of “conspiracy against the right of religious freedom at a place of worship” under 18 U.S. Code § 241 in February of this year.

The defendants are also charged with one count of injuring, intimidating, or interfering with the right of religious freedom at a place of worship under 18 USC § 248.

Together, the charges carry a fine of up to $20,000 and a maximum of 10 1/2 years in prison.

Lemon pled not guilty in February, denying any wrongdoing. The YouTube creator argued that the protests were an exercise of the demonstrators’ federally protected rights and were not in violation of any laws.

Federal prosecutors announced in early June that dozens of anti-immigration enforcement protesters who interrupted the Minnesota church service will not face state criminal charges.

However, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is continuing to pursue criminal civil rights charges against 39 people, including Lemon.

Footage of the event shows demonstrators in the aisles, chanting anti-ICE slogans, and the indictment alleges they hindered those in the church from exiting, even allegedly harassing children.

Demonstrators were seen chanting “Justice for Renee Good,” referring to a woman fatally shot by federal agents in connection with anti-ICE protests.

The DOJ eventually charged dozens in connection with the church protest. St. Paul City Attorney Irene Kao commented on the decision not to charge some of the protesters, saying a review of the footage and other evidence available to criminal prosecutors caused her office to determine that not all those involved should be prosecuted under Minnesota statutes.

“Current evidence is insufficient to meet that standard for criminal charges under Minnesota state statutes,” Kao said, adding that the decision not to prosecute “should not be interpreted as an endorsement of unlawful behavior or public disorder.”

The decision not to charge some of the protesters was criticized by one of the pastors of the church where the protest took place.

“According to the St. Paul City Attorney’s logic, it is perfectly fine for agitators to invade a mosque, a cathedral, or a temple, intimidate the families and children inside, and shut down their religious gathering. Just call it a ‘protest,’” Cities Church lead pastor Jonathan Parnell said in a statement.

Lemon’s livestream was at the center of the investigation, and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon responded to the video on X, quoting Lemon, saying that a house of worship isn’t a forum for public protest.

“It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws!” Dhillon, who leads the Office of Civil Rights, said in a Jan. 18 post. “You are on notice!”

The DOJ did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 18:40

Harris Renews Calls To Pack The Court Despite Poll Showing Most Americans Agree With Its Decisions

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Kamala Harris is again promising the radical wing of her party that she will pack the Supreme Court. Pete Buttigieg and others have done the same to pander to the extreme left. These calls are increasing among Democratic leaders despite a recent poll showing that the Court remains the more popular institution vis-à-vis Congress, and that the majority of Americans agree with its major decisions.

The Marquette Law School poll shows that the Court remains slightly underwater in popularity (47% favor, 53% disfavor), but it is still much more popular than Congress or the two political parties. Moreover, that popularity is increasing, not decreasing, as a result of recent decisions. It was at 44% in 2025.

The mantra to pack the Court is premised on the false claim that the Court is ideologically robotic and partisan. That claim has always been disconnected from the actual voting record of the Court. Forty-four percent of cases are decided unanimously by the Supreme Court. When nearly unanimous cases (8-1 and 7-2) are included, that figure jumps to over 60 percent.

The liberal justices themselves have pushed back on the Democratic narrative. Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor have all contradicted these claims. Justice Kagan recently spoke publicly on these claims, “rejecting claims that the high court’s conservative majority is in President Donald Trump’s corner.”

The most recent poll shows that Americans agree with most of the major decisions in the last year.

The poll highlights a disconnect with the logic of court packers.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) has called for packing the Court because it does not follow her views and those of “widely held public opinion.”

I have pushed back on that rationale given the Court’s function to be a countermajoritarian institution. However, this poll even challenges the flawed rationale for court packing.

Even the most controversial decisions break at around fifty percent.

Notably, the opinion that Harris repeatedly denounces as an attack on democracy (barring racial gerrymandering) is supported by a majority of the country.

Yet, Democratic leaders and the far left continue the false claim that the Court is out-of-step with America and captured by the Administration. The reason is simple. The DSA and far left are threatening establishment candidates. They are throwing institutions such as the Supreme Court to the mob in an attempt to use them to regain power. It is not just tragic but pathetic. These establishment figures are unlikely to be safe from the mob. Hakeem Jeffries can call the Supreme Court “illegitimate” and brandish a baseball bat on social media, but the mob is still chanting “you’re next” when he appears on the screens at rallies.

For its part, the far left knows that the full agenda of changes that it wants to make to our constitutional system cannot occur without control of the Supreme Court. Law professors and deans are joining them in calling for the trashing of our Constitution and “radical changes” to our system. They will need control of the Court to achieve many of those changes.

So the American people may support the Court and favor its decisions, but it still needs to be packed with a liberal majority.

Harris and Buttigieg consider trashing the Supreme Court to be a small price to pay for their own election.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 17:30

"Lie To People Who Want To Be Lied To": How To Make A Political Fortune As A Far-Left Democrat

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

A financial journalist once offered simple advice: “Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich…Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.”

That axiom appears to have been taken to heart by radical Democratic candidates who this week issued transparent denials of past outrageous comments. Their calculus is clearly that the last thing that voters want to hear is the truth about their past views.

Certain cultural touchstones are considered inviolate in some states, such as beef in Texas.

In 2022, Talarico said he was reducing his meat consumption as part of climate-related efforts.

Texas Democratic Senatorial candidate James Talarico was roasted after a video surfaced of his calling to reduce meat consumption and “I am proud to say that our campaign has officially become a non-meat campaign. We are only buying vegan products from our local vegan businesses.”

The backlash was so great that Talarico has been eating whole cows to prove that he is not all-hat and no cattle.

Obviously, lying about your positions is hardly a phenonmon confirmed to the far left.

Many Republican candidates have also made painfully transparent pivots. However, the spins this week threaten to knock the planet off its axis.

In Wisconsin, Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong seems to be coasting to a primary win despite radical views such as defunding police.

In an episode of “Pod Save America,” Hong was asked about her 2020 statements declaring “police exist to uphold white supremacy” and “I support defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police.”

Hong responded with a convoluted spin: 

“My views have only become stronger in that I’m serious about public safety and I will not abolish the police.”

Hong’s views on Thanksgiving takes the axiom to a whole new level. Hong previously stated:

“Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621. If it takes a worldwide pandemic for us to realize we should stop celebrating colonialism and the original superspreader event that killed Indigenous folx and women so be it.”

That did not go over well in Wisconsin, only slightly better than coming out against cheese.

Hong did not deny her 2021 statement for weeks, including when confronted on CNN by host Kaitlan Collins. Asked directly if she still hated Thanksgiving, Hong seemed to morph into Chauncy Gardner from Being There with her now much-ridiculed “I’m a chef” response, stating that, as a chef, she works to “bring more people to the table.”

Hong seemed to morph into Chauncey Gardner from Being There in offering non-sequiturs of being a “very serious gardener.”

When that interview fell flat, Hong decided to lie and claim that she was just joking in 2021 and “loves” Thanksgiving, her now “favorite holiday.”

No one reading her quote or her later interviews would believe that it was a joke. It was not a joke for weeks until her responses became a joke.

Abdul El-Sayed skipped the transitional period and went straight to the lie in his controversy this week when a video surfaced of his saying how he hates the iconic Mackinac Island. 

Growing up in Chicago, one of my favorite things was to go with my family to the island, which is the quintessential small American town. I actually have never met anyone who hated Mackinac Island…until now.

In the video, El-Sayed states “I hate Mackinac so much. It’s funny cause, like, if we win, this is gonna be, like, the summer home. Every time I’ve ever come here I’ve hated it.”

El-Sayed was clearly informed that declaring that you despise the most popular tourist location in Michigan is not a vote getter. So, El-Sayed simply told his supporters what they wanted to hear: you cannot believe your lying eyes and ears.

His campaign issued a bizarre statement that sought to turn the controversial into his being opposed to the elite and privileged class, saying that he was actually Mackinac Policy Conference which is simply an annual nonpartisan forum for public policy discussions.

El-Sayed claims that he was referring to conference as being like a summer home for governors. He maintains that he was referring to a conference as the entire island.

El-Sayed knows that it does not matter. He could have claimed that he was referring to hating Mackinac Island Pizza Company. It does not matter. His supporters do not want the baggage and he simply needed to unload it

With the election in November, the next predictable step will be for Hong to join El-Sayed on Mackinac Island for a public Thanksgiving dinner. Talarico will be on hand to carve the bird with enthusiasm.

The real problem is that these individuals spent years throwing red meat (or, in the case of Talarico, tofu) to the far left. These statements were not considered extreme or controversial until they found themselves speaking to a wider audience. Then they sounded just crazy.

Moreover, some lies are unlikely to register with voters who may prefer to live in delusion. The fact that the Mamdani markets will ultimately sell the most expensive produce in New York is an inconvenient fact that is best ignored.

The model for far-left politicians appears to be Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger who ran as a moderate and then governed from the far left. Spanberger, for example, pledged not to gerrymander districts to eliminate all Republican districts and then immediately moved to do so. Many voters likely did not believe her on gerrymandering, taxes, or other broken pledges before the election. They just needed her to say it. So, you might have to visit Mackinac or feign enjoyment at Thanksgiving or barbeques for a few weeks. Then you can do a Spanberger.

Abraham Lincoln may have said “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

However, the fact is that you do not have to fool all of the people all of the time, just enough to win over the course of a few weeks.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 16:20

Seattle Mayor Targets 'Surveillance Pricing' At Grocery Stores

Seattle leaders are moving forward with a first-of-its-kind proposal aimed at preventing grocery retailers from using consumers' personal data to charge different prices for the same products.

The ordinance, backed by Mayor Katie Wilson and City Councilmembers Alexis Mercedes Rinck and Dionne Foster, would prohibit large grocery chains from using information such as browsing history, social media activity, employment status, race, gender, or chatbot interactions to personalize prices, according to Wilson's website. 

Instead, retailers would be required to publicly display uniform prices while still allowing traditional discounts for seniors, veterans, loyalty programs, and other transparent promotions.

"This policy stops corporations from using personal data to squeeze more money out of shoppers," Wilson said. "The same product, in the same store, should cost the same no matter who's pushing the cart."

The announcement on Wilson's site says that the measure is designed to curb AI-driven price discrimination as grocery costs continue to rise. The proposal follows a Consumer Reports investigation that found Instacart tested AI pricing systems that charged different customers different prices for identical grocery items. It also comes after Washington's attorney general sued Albertsons over allegedly misleading "buy one, get one" promotions that did not actually reduce prices.

Councilmember Rinck argued the legislation would establish "guardrails" around how retailers use customer data, particularly as many households face higher food costs and reduced SNAP benefits. Foster added that consumers "shouldn't have to wonder whether they're being charged extra because of an algorithm."

Labor and privacy advocates also praised the proposal. UFCW 3000 President Faye Guenther accused grocery companies of pursuing "AI-powered surveillance pricing tech" to create "fake discounts," while privacy advocates said the ordinance would help prevent algorithmic price discrimination before the practice becomes widespread.

If approved, Seattle would become the first U.S. city to adopt rules specifically banning the use of sensitive personal data to set individualized grocery prices.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 13:25

UK Police Literally Have An 'Elite Squad' To Flag Spicy Social Media Posts...

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Britain's latest free speech assault is underway.

An elite police unit set up by the Labour government has already flagged more than 100 social media posts to local forces, monitoring online "protest related activity" in a move critics brand a sinister step toward state control of speech.

The National Internet Intelligence Investigations team, created in the wake of the 2024 Southport riots, began operations in February. Freedom of Information figures obtained by the Telegraph and reported today show it has made 106 referrals of "suspicious" posts to forces across the country.

An elite police squad which was set up to monitor social media in the wake of the Southport riots has flagged more than 100 posts to local forces.

Political opponents have described the squad as "sinister" and said it represents a further erosion of free speech and civil... pic.twitter.com/g8YGewbIVn

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) August 8, 2026

In June alone, 50 of those referrals came as public anger boiled over in Southampton after police bodycam footage exposed officers handcuffing dying teenage murder victim Henry Nowak while accepting a false complaint of 'racism' from his Sikh killer.

When the unit was first announced, then policing minister Dame Diana Johnson described it as "a dedicated function at a national level for exploiting internet intelligence to help local forces manage public safety threats and risks."

New elite unit flags more than 100 social media posts to police forces as free speech fears grow https://t.co/DB5IhBmZVu

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) August 8, 2026

The National Police Coordination Centre claims the squad "supports policing's understanding of protest-related activity in the online environment by developing a broader picture of emerging, potential risks."

Its remit, officials say, focuses on "providing strategic insight and improving awareness of protest-related developments that may have relevance to policing."

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage commented "This is the beginning of the state controlling free speech. It is sinister, dangerous and must be fought."

Police have refused to disclose which posts were flagged, citing exemptions around crime prevention. The pattern is clear enough. The unit was born from the Southport disorder that followed the murders of three girls by Axel Rudakubana.

In the information vacuum, online discussion of the attacker's background and wider immigration failures was blamed for fanning unrest. Now the same apparatus is trained on any online activity that might signal public discontent with official narratives.

This new monitoring squad slots neatly alongside the Home Office's long-running Research, Information and Communications Unit - RICU - a shadowy "thought police" operation exposed for controlling the mass migration narrative. That unit has intervened after migrant attacks, including the Henry Nowak murder, to shape family statements, briefed police to portray protesters as unsympathetic thugs rather than citizens with grievances, and treated online criticism of immigration policy as a threat requiring behavioural change.

It also sits on top of a growing machinery of digital control that has already turned Britain into a global outlier for speech arrests.

In 2024 alone, nearly 10,000 people were arrested for "grossly offensive" social media posts under communications laws - an average of 30 arrests a day. Some forces clocked rates 20 times higher than others.

Violent offenders were released early to free up cells for those jailed over online comments.

The machinery has been building for years. In 2024, a man was arrested simply for posting "anti-establishment rhetoric" after the riots. Authorities prioritised thought crime over street crime, even as prisons filled with people whose only offence was typing the wrong words.

The Online Safety Act handed regulators sweeping powers to force platforms to remove "harmful" content under threat of massive fines.

Critics called it a censor's charter from the start. Government units that once hunted lockdown dissenters pivoted to monitoring mass migration critics.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan openly called for a dedicated government social media disinformation unit.

The trajectory is consistent: expand the definition of threat, then expand the surveillance.

Layer on mandatory digital ID and biometric tracking, age verification systems that end online anonymity, and proposals that treat social media access itself as a privilege granted by the state.

What begins as "protecting the public from protest risks" becomes a permanent apparatus for mapping, flagging, and suppressing dissent.

Authoritarianism does not need tanks in the streets. It arrives with a login and a national internet intelligence team.

The 106 flagged posts are not the end. They are the proof of concept. An elite unit now sits at the centre of British policing with a mandate to scan the public conversation for signs of discontent and feed those findings to local forces.

The official language is careful. The practical effect is a standing capability to treat online speech as a public order threat.

Free expression does not survive that environment for long.

The only question left is how many more posts, how many more referrals, and how many more arrests will be required before the public refuses to accept the new normal.

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, 08/09/2026 - 12:50

Lake Mead Hits Lowest Level On Record Amid Decade-Long Western Drought

Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir by storage capacity, has fallen to its lowest level on record as a drought throughout western states continues.

Bureau of Reclamation data indicate that the reservoir’s surface elevation rose to 1,040.50 feet above sea level on Thursday, below the previous low of 1,040.58 feet set in July 2022, when the lake first fell to a low following years of drought.

Hoover Dam forms Lake Mead along the Colorado River on the Nevada-Arizona border, and holds water for approximately 40 million people in seven Western states, as well as parts of Mexico. In addition, Lake Mead generates hydropower for customers in California, Arizona, and Nevada, which is threatened by the falling water levels.

As Kimberley Hayek reports for The Epoch Times, the Colorado River Basin has been in a so-called megadrought for more than 20 years.

In 1999, Lake Mead was near capacity, but by 2022 its surface had fallen by nearly 176 feet after a period that is the driest on record throughout many parts of the West.

Southern Nevada gets nearly 90 percent of its water from Lake Mead, and the Southern Nevada Water Authority has long viewed the Colorado River allotment as its largest and most critical resource, leading to conservation efforts over the years that have slashed per-person use going back to the early 2000s, and nearly all indoor water is recycled.

When Lake Mead first fell below 1,075 feet in 2021, federal officials declared a Level 1 shortage, and further declines prompted deeper cuts. Nevada’s share of the river has fallen by billions of gallons over the course of several years.

Hoover Dam also produces thousands of gigawatt-hours of electricity annually.

At Glen Canyon Dam on Lake Powell, Lake Mead’s companion reservoir, the level was 3,521 feet on Thursday, down nearly 33 feet from a year ago.

Electricity production becomes infeasible once the surface falls to 3,490 feet and below.

Both lakes still operate despite being well below the elevation levels needed for reliable power and storage.

Population growth has also added to the pressure.

Nevada ranked near the top of states for growth in recent years, and Southern Nevada is home to approximately 70 percent of the state’s residents.

Lake Mead National Recreation Area attracts millions of visitors each year for a range of activities, including boating, fishing and hiking.

Low water has exposed once submerged features, such as the ruins of the town of St. Thomas. There is also a World War II-era B-29 bomber that was submerged in the lake after crashing almost 70 years ago.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 12:15

The Democrat Embrace Of Islamo-Socialism Is Party Suicide

Authored by David Sultzer via AmericanThinker.com,

The Democrat party leadership—sensing its mortal danger from a very well-organized and radicalized Islamo-socialist movement—is trying to stay afloat, claiming that the Democrat Party is a “big tent” where the socialists can find a welcome home:

Senator Chuck Schumer thinks Democrat Socialists — who want to oust him as Leader — make the Democrat party stronger.

REPORTER: “Is the rise of the DSA good for your party?"

SCHUMER: “Being a big tent party is a strength not a weakness.” pic.twitter.com/17hSbCbtMx

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 4, 2026

But ironically, as the “big tent” expands, the number of constituencies inside the tent shrinks.

The traditional power bases of the Democrat party, the working class and minorities, are not part of the Islamo-socialist movement. Instead, the “socialist” part is comprised almost uniformly of downwardly mobile, white college-credentialed losers.

CNN: Abdul El-Sayed won 0 of the 15 counties with the lowest share of adults with college degrees, but 13 of the 15 counties with the highest share.

"El-Sayed's support came dramatically from those areas... More from elite circles than from the working class circles." pic.twitter.com/rY2VqhRixN

— Bobby LaValley (@Bobby_LaVallley) August 6, 2026

All members of the Democrat leadership, without exception, can see the danger to them from the Islamo-socialist movement, as well as the danger to their traditional constituencies—and, for that matter, to our constitutional experiment now 250 years old. Most, as epitomized by Chuck Schumer, are willing to sacrifice the country and appease the Islamo-socialist crocodile, hoping it will eat them last.

Others, such as Julian Epstein, writing today at the NY Post, are sounding all the alarm bells, namely, that such appeasement is not merely “a recipe for moral decay,” but “for political suicide” as well:

Democrats aren’t coddling Scandinavian-style socialists; they’re getting into bed with a nihilistic, deconstructionist brand of third-worldism.

It’s an ideology that seeks the elimination of prisons, policing, borders, the Senate, the presidency, the Supreme Court and democratic free markets.

A worldview that aligns with genocidal jihadist movements like Hamas.

This is, Epstein says, fracturing the party “as working-class voters flee an increasingly toxic Democratic brand [and] the party’s newfound embrace of anti-American extremists is likely to produce big losses nationally...”

Moreover, as to the socialist dreams of Bernie Sanders, Epstein criticizes it as a “delusion that attaches no importance to generating wealth—and only cares about redistributing it.”

Epstein ultimately opines that the rise of the Islamo-socialist movement is part of a bigger problem for Democrats:

[T]hat post-modern liberalism is failing. The more we spend on the welfare state, it seems, the worse the outcomes.

It is a fascinating essay, well worth the read. And as Epstein concludes.

“Democrats can’t run from this lunacy in November.”

And naturally, Victor Davis Hanson gets it:

Victor Davis Hanson: The Unintelligent, Arrogant Democratic Socialists Are About to Receive a Reality Check: National Elections

Michigan's Democratic Senate primary became the most expensive Senate primary in the state's history.

Haley Stevens' loss to Abdul El-Sayed says a… pic.twitter.com/9A8W2qACIR

— Daily Signal (@DailySignal) August 7, 2026

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 11:40

Apple Tests Chinese Memory Chips As Supply Crunch Pushes PC Giants Toward CXMT

After months of lobbying the Trump administration for clearance to purchase Chinese memory chips, Apple appears to be nearing the point where it can tap China's domestic chip market. The push follows what the iPhone maker has described as "unsustainable" pricing from the memory "cartel," namely SK Hynix, Samsung, Micron, and SanDisk, whose production has been soaked up by unprecedented demand from hyperscalers. 

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday morning that Apple is closer than ever to using memory chips from CXMT, a Chinese company that the Pentagon has put on a blacklist because of alleged connections to the People's Liberation Army.

Apple is currently testing CXMT memory chips across its product portfolio, including iPhones and MacBooks, according to the report.

The report continued:

Apple has held early talks with CXMT about supplying components with the goal of using them in some devices sold in China, the people said. Apple hopes to win the White House's blessing to do business with the Chinese company.

Apple is raising prices on its products globally, blaming the rising cost of memory chips because of high demand from AI companies. Getting access to Chinese supplies could help the iPhone maker ease its crunch.

As we've covered, the iPhone maker has been waging a lobbying campaign to secure the White House's blessing in order to ease the financial pressure from soaring memory chip prices. A recent FT report said that Apple approached the Commerce Department earlier this summer about procuring Chinese memory chips. 

Apple is not barred from buying chips from China's DDR giant CXMT or from YMTC, another Chinese memory chipmaker that focuses on NAND memory. YMTC has been aggressively growing its market share, has caught up with SanDisk, and is set to become the world's third-largest maker of flash memory as soon as this quarter.

However, US rules prevent Apple from ordering customized chips from CXMT but permit it to purchase off-the-shelf components and negotiate prices. 

The WSJ noted that other device companies are seeking CXMT supplies:

Laptop makers HP and Acer have started using memory chips from CXMT in devices sold outside the U.S. to alleviate some of the memory supply strain, people familiar with the matter said.

We expanded on this last week:

• World's Largest PC Makers Start Using Memory Chips From China's CXMT

Any agreement Apple inks with CXMT would risk immediate political resistance in Washington, where policymakers fear U.S. orders could strengthen CXMT. Its chip tech trails that of Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron, while its production capacity is largely committed for this year.

However, CXMT is rapidly gaining ground. Its second-quarter revenue increased more than eightfold from the same quarter one year ago, lifting its global DRAM market share to 7%. CXMT completed a successful IPO last month (read note).

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 11:05

UN Sounds Alarm As Iran Steps Up Executions To Silence Dissent

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

The United Nations human rights chief has expressed alarm over a sharp increase in executions and death sentences in Iran, warning that authorities are using capital punishment to intimidate the population and suppress dissent.

“I am alarmed by the rise in executions and death sentences issued in Iran since March, and that capital punishment continues to be used to instill fear among the population and suppress dissent,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in an Aug. 5 statement. source

Türk said that since March 19, at least 56 people have been executed on national security-related charges, including 27 in cases connected to protests earlier this year.

More than 100 others face possible execution on similar charges, while executions for drug-related offenses are also continuing at what he described as an “alarming rate.”

He raised concerns about alleged torture, forced confessions, closed-door proceedings, and the rapid execution of some defendants following their arrests.

“Persistent lack of fair trial and due process guarantees are deeply troubling,” he said.

Confessions were allegedly obtained through torture and other forms of ill-treatment, while several executions were reportedly carried out in public. Some defendants were executed only weeks after being arrested, according to Türk.

In one case, 12 defendants were sentenced to death following a single closed-door hearing lasting three hours, he said.

Separately, an independent United Nations fact-finding mission in July urged Iran to halt the executions of 10 men who participated in protests in Isfahan. It also condemned the July 19 executions of two other men sentenced in the same case.

In a statement, the mission called on Iran “to immediately halt all executions, including those of individuals convicted in connection with the protests, and establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view to its abolition for all crimes.”

Protests and War

The increase in executions has unfolded since the United States and Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran in late February, following widespread anti-government protests in the country that began amid soaring inflation, economic hardship, and shortages.

The clampdown by the Iranian regime left thousands dead and thousands more detained, according to the United Nations, while Iranian authorities imposed an internet blackout that lasted for months.

Dr. Marjan Haghighi, an Iranian-Australian health professional and human rights advocate, said the increase appeared intended to discourage further opposition to the ruling regime in Iran in the wake of the January protests.

“Following those protests, I believe the authorities shifted from suppressing demonstrations in the streets to using executions to instill fear throughout society,” Haghighi told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

“Every new execution sends another message to society that dissent may carry the ultimate price,” she said.

Haghighi said Iran’s strict censorship makes independent reporting difficult and that many executions are never publicly announced.

“The true number of executions is significantly higher than what the world sees,” Haghighi said.

Iranian officials have previously rejected international criticism of the country’s human rights record while defending the use of capital punishment as lawful under Iranian law and necessary to protect public security.

Iran’s diplomatic mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

People wade in the water with cargo ships at anchor in the background, in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, on June 30, 2026. Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP

The surge in executions is taking place as the U.S.–Iran war is into its sixth month and Washington maintains military and economic pressure on Tehran.

President Donald Trump said on Aug. 6 that he believed the conflict would end soon, telling reporters that Iran could not sustain it much longer.

Trump said negotiations over reopening the Strait of Hormuz were progressing, although Iranian officials have denied that they are negotiating directly with Washington.

The United States has maintained its naval blockade of Iranian ports in order to compel Tehran to come to the table and agree to a negotiated settlement to the conflict.

Classicist and military historian Victor Davis Hanson said in recent commentary for The Epoch Times that Tehran appeared to be alternating between talks and attacks to delay a settlement and outlast the Trump administration politically.

Hanson opined that the shifting public negotiations obscured the mounting pressure inside Iran from the blockade, frozen assets, damaged infrastructure, and falling export revenue.

While critics contend that Washington risks becoming bogged down in a prolonged conflict, Hanson said the underlying conditions suggested that “Iran is running out of time.”

Trump has repeatedly said that months of U.S. strikes have decimated Iran’s military and that Tehran’s only remaining leverage is its ability to menace commercial shipping in Hormuz with naval mines and fast boats.

The U.S. president has threatened Iran with a vastly more intense and destructive wave of strikes if Tehran does not agree to a deal that would both reopen the strait and ensure that the regime never acquires nuclear weapons.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 10:30

Turkish FM Affirms Defense Pact With Pakistan, Saudi Arabia Is Same As NATO's Article 5

World leaders have been reacting to the Friday signing of a major defense agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan in the Saudi city of Makkah among their heads of state. It seeks to strengthen joint deterrence and expanding defense cooperation, the Saudi Press Agency said.

As we reported, it essentially a NATO-style agreement for the 'Muslim world' - given that it stipulates and formalizes that an armed attack on any of the countries will be treated as an attack against all of them.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has on Saturday affirmed this in very clear terms - in case there were any doubts among pundits - describing that is indeed technically the same as NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense agreement.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, via Reuters

He told state Anadolu news agency that a committee of ministers similar to that within NATO would be formed to undergird the new alliance, with the establishment of general secretariat based in Saudi Arabia. This will be the tripartite pact's version of Brussels, it seems.

What's more is that "Egypt could potentially join the pact once certain technical matters are resolved," Fidan added.

Some are already seeing in this a kind of 'counter-Abraham accords' but which goes much further, given the military implications.

Will Washington ultimately back it and give its blessing? 

Al Jazeera has provided the following commentary saying that the US will be okay with it so long as it does not become 'anti-Israeli' in its intent:

David Des Roches, an associate professor at the National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, has described the defence pact signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan as a good move that will be welcomed by the US.

“So long as it doesn’t metastasize into some sort of malign anti-Israel thing, which I think is a very remote possibility, I think it’s positive,” he told Al Jazeera.

The alliance would benefit from Turkiye and Pakistan’s robust defence industries, “a more advanced one in the case of Turkey, less advanced, more machine-age in the case of Pakistan”, he said.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, could help finance its two allies. “In both countries, the capacity exceeds their ability to pay for it, and they can’t really maintain national defence industries without a market,” said Des Roches.

The analyst added: "So there’s money, there’s markets, and there’s the possibility for advanced training and education. From an American perspective, if our partners have increased capacity, that's burden sharing. And that’s been the aim of successive American administrations since, really, the end of World War II."

But in the context of the US war on Iran, Iranian forces have attacked Saudi Arabia multiple times. If this happens again, would Pakistan and Turkey really directly intervene against Iran in an Article 5 fashion? 

This scenario is highly doubtful, and Turkey and Iran even share a border which has long been fraught with tensions of its own, especially related to the Kurdish issue.

The USA claims to have made the agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey, and considers it as it's own achievement. https://t.co/1Ga9txAwGe

— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) August 8, 2026

One thing is certain: this is definitely a Saudi move away from the Abraham Accords which Trump has long pushed for and not toward it. Turkey and Pakistan want to see a clearer divide between Israel and the Saudis and so are only too happy to present it that way.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 09:55