Judge Blocks Trump Admin From Placing Conditions On Federal Disaster Funds

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal judge on Nov. 21 temporarily blocked the Trump administration from conditioning and withholding federal disaster preparedness funds that were allocated to local governments.

The city landscape of Los Angeles, on Oct. 9, 2025. Mike Blake /Reuters

U.S. District Judge William Orrick in the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction in response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of 29 local governments, which alleged that the conditions tied to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FEMA funds were unconstitutional.

The administration required local governments to end programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and support federal immigration enforcement, or they could risk losing the funds, according to court documents.

In a 76-page ruling, Orrick said the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their claims that the administration’s conditions were “ambiguous” and violated fundamental principles of constitutional law.

“In short, the EO [executive order] Condition, as it is currently written and applied to the DHS Conditions, is ambiguous. To find otherwise would defy the power of Congress to confer upon agencies the authority to grant funding in the first place,” the judge stated.

Orrick also noted that the plaintiffs’ interests in obtaining the funding to support critical infrastructure and emergency response programs for their communities far outweigh the administration’s interests.

“As indicated above, plaintiffs represent over thirty million individuals, and their DHS and FEMA grants provide funding to support these disaster and public safety initiatives. Many of the plaintiffs would be unable to otherwise fund these programs without grants,” the judge said.

Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Diego were among the plaintiffs that filed suit on Sept. 30 to prevent the administration from imposing what they called “unlawful conditions” on more than $350 million in emergency and disaster preparedness funds.

In a joint statement, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu welcomed the ruling, saying that withholding emergency and disaster preparedness funds would put public safety at risk.

“This funding means faster emergency response times, stronger regional coordination, and better protection for our residents during disasters and terrorist attacks,” Chiu stated. “We appreciate the Court ruled in our favor and blocked this unlawful overreach.”

Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti, part of the plaintiffs, praised the judge for recognizing that the administration’s “political agenda” should not influence the funding.

“As local governments, we take our responsibility seriously to protect all members of the community from the ravages of disaster, no matter their politics,” LoPresti said in the statement. “Governments shouldn’t have to pass a political litmus test to be able to care for their communities, especially in the face of a disaster.”

DHS and FEMA did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/23/2025 - 15:10

House Votes To Denounce Socialism Despite Widespread Dem Opposition

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan resolution condemning socialism on Friday. The resolution, introduced about a month ago by Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL), explicitly denounces socialism in all its forms and rejects the implementation of socialist policies in America. The bill cites "more than 100 million deaths at the hands of socialist governments." Republicans hailed the vote as an easy moral stand against a system that “crushes the human soul.”

While 86 Democrats broke ranks to support the condemnation, 98 Democrats opposed the resolution, which passed 285-98. 

In a 2023 vote, 109 Democrats voted to condemn while 86 voted against it and 14 Democrats voted present. 

This vote came hours before New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, arrived in Washington, D.C., to meet with President Donald Trump for the first time. 

Among the 86 Democrats who supported the measure were 14 congressmembers from New York and New Jersey, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who only endorsed Mamdani in the 11th hour of the mayoral race.

Other New Yorkers who also supported the measure included Rep. Ritchie Torres of the Bronx, Reps. Greg Meeks and Grace Meng of Queens, and Reps. Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi of Long Island. Suozzi made a special point of distancing himself from Mamdani during the mayoral campaign.

The measure was also supported by Republican Staten Island Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, whose mother fled Cuba in 1959. She said her mother left Cuba to avoid what she called "the very things that our new socialist mayor in New York City says he wants." -CBS News

Democrats voting against the resolution included Rep. Maxine Waters of California, who denounced it as a distraction. "I wish we were here on the House floor this morning debating solutions that would reduce grocery bills, lower housing costs, end Trump's tariffs strangling American small businesses and manufacturers, solve the Republican health care crisis, or any legislation that allows Americans to afford [to] live through the catastrophic economic policies of Trump and the Republicans," she said, even though symbolic resolutions are common in the House.

Republicans weren’t buying it.

“100 Democrats just refused to condemn the horrors of socialism,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) said in a post on X. “There were no poison pills in this resolution. There are 100+ socialism sympathizers in the United States House of Representatives. Despicable.”

100 Democrats just refused to condemn the horrors of socialism.

There were no poison pills in this resolution.

There are 100+ socialism sympathizers in the United States House of Representatives.

Despicable. pic.twitter.com/v62W5ZcCtD

— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) November 21, 2025

“If you needed proof that the left has gone completely insane, here it is,” Congressman Russell Fry (R-S.C) said. 

Of note, across five votes to denounce socialism since 2009, two were unanimous and three were not - including the aforementioned 2023 vote in which 86 Democrats voted against it.

Mamdani dismissed the resolution as irrelevant when asked about it in the Oval Office.

"I have to be honest with you, I focused very little on resolutions. Frankly, I've been focusing ... on the work at hand," he claimed. "I can tell you, I am someone who is a democratic socialist. I've been very open about that. And I know there might be differences about ideology, but the place of agreement is the work that needs to be done to make New York City affordable. That's what I look forward to."

While some may consider this to be nothing more than an ideological purity test, Mamdani's election - and the results of this vote, clearly indicate the direction of the pendulum.

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/23/2025 - 14:35

Is The pAIn Over? The End Of "Free" Money?

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

Last weekend we published Rotation, pAIn, or Smooth Sailing? following up on the prior week’s report: pAIn Ahead??? The pAIn did in fact continue with the Nasdaq 100 leading the way down over 3%. There was some further “rotation” as the S&P 500 dropped only 2% and our favorite way of expressing rotation, the S&P 500 Equal Weight, dropped “only” 0.9%.

Academy also had the pleasure of doing back-to-back segments to kick off Bloomberg Surveillance on Tuesday, covering a wide range of topics, with a particularly interesting discussion on Venezuela and Mexico (talking about frying an egg with a blowtorch, believe it or not, made sense in the context).

While many of the topics discussed over the last two weeks (Bitcoin, Retail Dip Buying, Volatility, Sentiment/Inflation, Jobs, and the Fed/Bond Yields) are relevant, we are going to start somewhere else with “Free” Money.

"Free" Money

Apologies to readers who will be flagged for opening a report with “Free” Money in the title (that and “guarantee” are probably two of the quickest ways to get flagged by compliance, without using profanity).

But I want to focus on “Free” Money for a moment because it is highly relevant.

What do we even mean by “Free” Money?

• When you announce that you are going to spend X and your stock price goes up by more than X, you have generated “free” money.

If you say you are going to spend $10 billion and your stock goes up $15 billion, it seems logical that your next move would be to announce even more spending.

There are two main areas where we saw this playing out:

• AI, Data Centers, Hyperscalers, etc. Commitment to building it out (the build it, they will come adage) is no longer being rewarded. Simply announcing more spending is not translating into increases in share price. Is the next step companies scaling back their spending? Will their stocks be rewarded if they do? Something we will think out loud about in a bit.
• Crypto and specifically Digital Asset Treasury Companies. When companies like MSTR were trading at a significant premium to their crypto holdings, it was relatively straightforward (still complex, but relatively straightforward) to raise X, buy X amount of crypto, and see your share price rise by more than X. That was incredibly supportive for not just the stocks, but also for the underlying crypto markets. Why would you stop creating “free” money, or more accurately, more shareholder wealth, based on spending, while you could? The answer is, you wouldn’t, but that has become more difficult as many DATCo’s (Digital Asset Treasury Companies) trade closer to their NAV than they have recently.
• Crypto mining companies fall somewhere in between, as to some degree they act like DATs (crypto is a large percentage of their balance sheet) and many have been adding AI/Data Center elements to their business model.

We will explore each of these in more detail, but it suffices to say that during the pAIn trade, the end of “free” money has been a major factor in the downturn, and could weigh on the economy and markets going forward.

"Passive" Investing and Digital Asset Treasury Companies

As any reader knows, we’ve been annoyed about the concept of “passive” investing, when passive is bigger than so-called “active” investing. With actual indexers and closet indexers, one of the keys to success is just to get into the indices. Even more important is to make it to the top of the market weightings and generate immense inflows into your stock.

Is “passive” really “passive” when, with the Nasdaq 100 for example, you are making a conscious decision to invest 55% of every dollar in QQQ that is focused on 11 companies? When passive flows are so large, they can distort valuations, etc.

But what does this have to do with DATs? That is a great question.

The most interesting and successful DATs have (and will continue) to win investors over because they provide some combination of the following:

• Access to something difficult to get access to. That has become less relevant in the U.S. when large public companies like COIN make it easier to get that access. The growth in crypto-focused ETFs has also made this less valuable domestically, but that is not true internationally. So, access remains a compelling part of the DAT space.
• Returns otherwise not available. With crypto-like SOL and ETH, there is money made from simply “staking” the coins. With some recent legislative changes, it will be easier for ETFs to potentially offer this, but it is still an obvious and easy value for DATs to create.
• Truly unique return profiles, based on skills or technology not readily available to investors. This is ultimately the “sweet” spot of DATs. Companies that are able to use tools to generate risk profiles that are truly unique. Whether it is from capital structure, flexibility to move investments around, or being part of shaping the crypto landscape (from a technology standpoint), it allow investors access to something they could not achieve on their own.

Clearly of the “reasons” listed, the last one is the broadest, most interesting, and the one I am excited about.

On October 10th, we saw crypto take what seemed like a “surprising” hit (certainly relative to stocks, which it had been tracking reasonably well with). This graph barely does it justice, as it doesn’t seem to like including weekend price action, which is important to defi, if not tradfi.

Bitcoin struggled all day on the 10th, sliding from $122k to $112k as U.S. stocks closed. Then, sometime after 4pm, it dropped to $105k. It seemed inexplicable and had recovered most of that by the time stocks opened on the following Monday, but something appeared “broken” and crypto (and DATs) have struggled since then.

I’m being told, and it actually makes sense to me, that this performance can be tied (at least partially) to the risk that MSCI may no longer include DATs in their equity indices (the decision is not expected until January 15th).

Using GROK, the best link I could come up with was this. You can get a list of what MSCI potentially considers DATs by clicking the link embedded in that page (search Digital Asset Companies).

We’ve included this chart because it highlights how positive these types of announcements can be. Bitcoin and MSTR traded extremely well as speculation grew that MSTR would be included in the Nasdaq 100. It was announced on December 13th, 2024 and went into effect on December 23rd, 2024.

The decision by MSTR does not impact Nasdaq 100 inclusion, nor should it impact potential inclusion in the S&P 500.

But let’s not underestimate the importance of being included in these indices.

According to Bloomberg, with the most recent filings, Vanguard, Blackrock, and State Street are 3 of the top 5 holders of MSTR – fund groups that are known for their passive investments.

QQQ alone holds 5.56 million shares, or just under $1 billion of MSTR. These are not small numbers, and it demonstrates what is at stake based on the inclusion in various indices.

I expect there to be a lot of comments during MSCI’s comment period (which ends December 31st). Any decision that keeps some or all of the DATs in the indices would be “huge” for crypto since:

• It would not cause forced selling of the stocks based on inclusion.
• It would probably re-invigorate speculation that Standard and Poor’s could include some DATs in their major indices.

Anyways, I felt it was important to discuss this, because crypto is increasingly tied to equities.

Correlations and Volatility

Crypto has the potential to influence other markets in a variety of ways:

• Bitcoin had a market cap of almost $2.5 trillion as recently as early October, and it is now down to $1.85 trillion. Still hefty, but a loss of $650 billion may leave a mark on the global economy.
• At one time, it was easy (in fact necessary) to separate your crypto holdings from your other holdings. You could mentally (and physically) allocate say 10% to crypto and 90% to stocks. You could pull up your crypto holdings and see their performance, and pull up your equities and track them. With ETFs (and to some extent the DATs) you could “mentally” separate your allocations, but increasingly, when you pull up your equity holdings, it is all mixed in. I think, for many, it was easier to HODL when it was very separate. For many investors, especially in the ETF, they might find it more difficult to HODL (not sell) as they see it shrinking their entire portfolio, rather than just the portion of the portfolio that they had felt comfortable with. Might seem like a silly view on my part, but I think it is human nature.

• If I had the time and energy I would look at all Bitcoin ETFs and would try to account for the fact that GBTC, as a trust, had a huge impact on the flows in and around ETFs, once it converted to ETF form. But for now, this seems reasonable to me.
• From IBIT’s inception, on January 10th, 2024 (it seems longer than that), it reached 760 million shares by November 2024. It got to over 1.4 billion shares outstanding by April 2024. It peaked at over 1.4 billion shares. Almost every purchase since then is down. About half of the shares outstanding were issued to buyers above today’s prices. That could cause some selling pressure.
• As many of you know, I often look at ARKK as a “proxy” for disruption. It too is down around 20% in the past month or so. That correlation, at least to me, seems “rational.” We have clearly seen a connection to “momentum” trades, including those “lottery tickets” that can play a role in your ProSec™ portfolio.
• What also caught our eye, and supports our view, was a tweet by an acclaimed investor who was surprised by how correlated a couple of his investments had become with bitcoin, despite no logical linkage. Presumably just a “similar” investor group that was selling other holdings to create liquidity?

Until crypto stabilizes, we could see an impact in all markets.

The money that has been lost is material and is likely leading to liquidity-raising trades in other markets, particularly those that have not fallen as much or are easier to execute. Remember this is also my one small concern about “public” credit, where fear in “private” credit might be causing some desire to reduce exposure to credit and it is generally easier to reduce exposure in public credit funds than in private credit ones.

Realized vol for the Nasdaq 100, for 10 and 30-day horizons, fell, but VIX remains above 20.

The MOVE Index (a measure of bond market volatility) fell, and is “reasonable” around 80, but I think the combination of higher correlations between asset classes (stocks, crypto, even commodities) and higher vol may cause some selling in the “risk parity” world – which would weigh on all markets.

WIRP Volatility – Whether to Laugh or Cry?

I don’t remember a time when I’ve seen predictions for the next Fed meeting swing so wildly. We are back to a 63% chance of a cut at the December meeting, up from 34% (checks notes) the day before! It is still slightly lower than the 67% on November 11.

With a lack of data, the Fed has to decide – do they want to give some insurance against stocks falling further? The minutes would indicate otherwise, but Williams’s comments give credence to that view. There really isn’t enough on the jobs front – the old NFP was released with better jobs, but a worse unemployment rate, though primarily due to more worker participation.

Is the economy cooling enough that inflation should not be viewed as a risk?

If the end of the “free money” trade starts to slow the data center AI spend, then we don’t need to worry about inflation.

I’d cut, but I’m not convinced the Fed will. My expectation remains that we will see 3% before next summer.

The 10-year yield rallied this week, primarily as a “safe haven” or “traditional” risk off hedge (which will help risk parity strategies avoid de-grossing in a meaningful way).

I am keeping an eye on Japanese bond yields, with the 30-year yield at 3.3% (probably the highest since shorting the JGB market was nicknamed the “widow maker”).

Over time, that yield in their home currency should create demand for JGBs at the expense of Treasuries. The strength of the dollar, versus yen, will mitigate that pressure, but something to keep an eye on.

Why Don’t I Read Other Research?

There are a lot of reasons why I don’t read much research from other sources. Sure, part of it is probably laziness. Part of it is also that I enjoy exploring and at Academy, we are in a unique position to form our own opinions as:

• We have a pretty broad-based macro understanding, with credit (one of the more difficult asset classes to understand) as the backdrop.
• The Geopolitical Intelligence Group has a lot of insights into the inner workings of what is going on domestically and globally.
• We also spend so much time virtually and in person visiting and talking to such a range of clients (including corporations, private equity, hedge funds, traditional asset managers, and some of the largest and most important states and municipal bond issuers in the country) that we have a lot of information coming to us from sources we understand.

Then, there are the other reasons:

If I know someone has written a piece on something I agree with, I become unmotivated to peck away at the keyboard, even if my rationale is different – so not knowing helps.

Then, and this is by far the biggest reason, if I see something I really disagree with, I want to write about it, even if I know I shouldn’t. Here is a case in point.

A Hedge Against AI Crash Emerges…

I know there is a cottage industry around predicting the “next big short.” I rail against it periodically. I may even be able to understand not liking the credit profile of the company in question, but thinking it is a “hedge” against an AI Crash is ludicrous

• The equity valuations of many companies in the space can go down significantly before credit risk becomes even a minor concern (again, think about how long companies that were struggling took to default – Toys R Us and Radio Shack as two examples).
• The BBB tranches, composed of BBB tranches of mortgages (the infamous ABX trade of big short fame) were unique in that they were inexpensive to short, and due to a variety of factors, were likely to have no recovery if triggered – not true of corporate debt.
• We have seen time and again and we have written about it on GE (the $100 Billion Credit in the Room) and credit more generally (2019 – The Year of the Debt Diet) - that companies will respond to pressure on their credit, and reduce that pressure.

While not completely relevant, I think people forget that:

1. It costs money, even at 100 bps, to be short.
2. 2. To keep the duration on a spread widening you constantly need to roll to the new 5- year CDS, which is costly over time.
3. 3. Credit in general, CDS in particular, is susceptible to being pushed, so timing the turn is difficult, but the corollary is that sometimes spreads that don’t make sense occur, because they can, not because it is a realistic assessment of risk.

Needless to say, you can probably tell what CDS I would be selling (i.e., taking credit risk on) right now, if I was in position to do so. Take into account this is coming from someone who still thinks there might be more pAIn ahead (stock weakness due to AI/Data Centers) and thinks credit spreads as a whole could leak a little, from a combination of factors.

Bottom Line

We didn’t talk much about ProSec though I could fill a page with links to reports I’ve received pointing out actions that all support the importance of Production for Security and why it will gain in importance for markets and the economy. We will do a deeper dive into ProSec later this week.

I think the economy is at a greater risk than we’ve seen in some time.

The AI/Data Center build-out could possibly slow, and that seems plausible given how the stocks have been reacting to spending (given how important that spending has been to the economy). The end of “free” money is probably worth more than the small pullback we’ve seen, but again, not an alarming turn of events.

The wealth effect of some of the high-flying names and asset classes is potentially an issue for the economy. The crypto/disruption wealth effect is clearly top of mind for me.

I’d cut, but I’m not sure the Fed will, but in any case, I think the risk-reward at the long end of the curve remains biased to higher yields, unless stocks decline by more than I expect – I still think this is more about rotation than a real, across the board, need to sell (QQQ vs RSP).

Safe travels and have a great Thanksgiving, though I hope to get one more T-Report out before you sit down for your Thanksgiving meal!

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/23/2025 - 14:00

Rubio Confirms Ukraine Peace Plan Authored By US As Leaders Meet In Geneva

Officials from the United States, Europe, and Ukraine met in Geneva on Nov. 23 to discuss Washington’s draft plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

President Trump said on Nov. 21 that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had until Thursday to approve the 28-point plan, which would compel Ukraine to renounce ambitions to join NATO, accept limits on its military, and cede territory.

European allies said they were not consulted while Washington was drafting the plan, leading to some confusion as to which parties were involved in formulating it.

Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-Va.) told MSNBC that he believed the plan was “basically drafted by Putin.”

As Ryan Morgan reports for The Epoch Times, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on Nov. 22, disputed claims that President Donald Trump’s latest plan to end the fighting in Ukraine amounts to a wish list for Russia.

“The peace proposal was authored by the U.S.,” Rubio wrote in a post on X on Saturday evening.

Rubio added that the proposal incorporated input from both the Russian and Ukrainian sides in the conflict, but his choice of words was careful:

“It is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”

Earlier on Saturday, PBS NewsHour correspondent Nick Schifrin reported that Rubio had made indications to Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Angus King (I-Maine) that a leaked version of the 28-point proposal was not produced by the Trump administration.

“MORE from [King]: ‘The leaked 28-point plan, which, according to [Rubio], is not of the administration’s position--it is essentially the wish list of the Russians,” Schifrin wrote in a post on X on Saturday night.

Even before Rubio responded, State Department deputy spokesman Tommy Pigott said the allegations Schifrin was raising were “blatantly false.”

“As Secretary Rubio and the entire Administration has consistently maintained, this plan was authored by the United States, with input from both the Russians and Ukrainians,” Pigott wrote in an X post.

While the White House has yet to formally release the proposal, The Associated Press and other publications have published draft versions of the 28-point plan.

As we detailed previously, among other items, the published draft points indicated the United States would recognize Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk as de facto territories of Russia, and freeze the conflict along the current battle lines in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, effectively locking in Russian territorial gains throughout the course of the nearly four-year conflict.

The plan also appears to rule out Ukrainian entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and NATO will agree not to expand any further, while Russia will agree not to invade any more countries. Further, the plan states Ukraine will receive security guarantees, but will also have to cap the size of its military force.

Zelenskyy celebrated Sunday’s meeting in Geneva and said, “It is good that diplomacy has been reinvigorated and that the conversation can be constructive.”

“The Ukrainian and American teams, as well as the teams of our European partners, are in close contact, and I do hope that there will be a result. The bloodshed must be stopped, and we must ensure that the war is never reignited,” he wrote on social media.

“I am awaiting the results of today’s talks and hope that all participants will be constructive. We all need a positive outcome.”

The Ukrainian president had individually thanked all of Kyiv’s allies present at the meeting in Geneva in various posts on X late Saturday and early on Sunday.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he would have a phone call with Putin on Monday to discuss efforts to end the war in Ukraine, adding that he would also request the resumption of a deal for safe passage of grains in the Black Sea. Turkey, a NATO member, has kept up cordial relations with both Ukraine and Russia during the nearly four-year-long war, offering military assistance to Ukraine but not joining the West in sanctioning Moscow. Turkey has hosted three rounds of peace negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv in Istanbul and has offered to also host a leaders meeting. During a press conference at the G20 summit in South Africa on Sunday, Erdogan said the 2022 Black Sea grain deal that was negotiated between Turkey and the United Nations could demonstrate a path forward for a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine.

“We were able to succeed in this up to a certain point and it did not continue after. Now, during the discussions we will have tomorrow, I will again ask Mr. Putin about this. I think it would be very beneficial if we can start this process,” he said.

Faced with a Thanksgiving holiday deadline, European officials are racing to buy Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy more time with their own counter-proposal.

@DD_Geopolitics has posted the full text of Europe’s 24-point counter-proposal for a “peace plan.”

1. End the war and create arrangements meant to prevent any repeat, establishing a permanent framework for “lasting peace and security.”

2. Both sides commit to a full, unconditional ceasefire — in the air, on land, and at sea.

3. Immediate talks begin on the technical setup for monitoring the ceasefire, with U.S. and European participation.

4. A U.S.-led international monitoring mission is introduced, relying mainly on satellites, drones, and remote tools, with an on-the-ground component to investigate alleged violations.

5. A mechanism is created for filing and investigating ceasefire violations and discussing “corrective measures.”

6. Russia must “unconditionally” return all deported or “illegally displaced” Ukrainian children, under international supervision.

7. Full prisoner exchange under the “all for all” principle. Russia must also release all civilian detainees.

8. After the ceasefire stabilizes, both sides take humanitarian steps, including allowing family visits across the line of contact.

9. Ukraine’s sovereignty is reaffirmed; Ukraine cannot be forced into neutrality.

10. Ukraine receives legally binding security guarantees from the U.S. and others — effectively an Article 5-style arrangement.

11. No restrictions are placed on Ukraine’s armed forces or its defense industry, including foreign military cooperation.

12. Security guarantors form an ad-hoc group of European and willing non-European states. Ukraine decides which foreign forces, weapons, and missions it allows on its territory.

13. Ukraine’s NATO membership depends only on internal Alliance consensus.

14. Ukraine becomes an EU member.

15. Ukraine remains a non-nuclear state under the NPT.

16. Territorial issues are addressed only after a full unconditional ceasefire.

17. Territorial negotiations start from the current line of control.

18. Once agreed, neither Russia nor Ukraine may alter territorial arrangements by force.

19. Ukraine regains control of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (with U.S. involvement) and the Kakhovka Dam, under a special transfer mechanism.

20. Ukraine receives unhindered access on the Dnieper River and control of the Kinburn Spit.

21. Ukraine and its partners conduct unrestricted economic cooperation.

22. Ukraine is fully rebuilt and financially compensated — including through frozen Russian sovereign assets, which remain blocked until Russia pays compensation.

23. Sanctions imposed on Russia since 2014 may be partially and gradually eased only after a “sustainable peace,” with automatic snap-back if the deal is violated.

24. Separate talks begin on European security architecture with all OSCE states.

@DD_Geopolitics editorial seemed to sum thinsg up well:

"As delusional as you’d expect from Delulu Land. They still haven’t grasped that the side losing the war isn’t the one that gets to make demands."

Meanwhile, Zelenskiy is battling a corruption scandal that threatens to engulf his powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. So he’s feeling the heat, too, back home.

Finally, while speaking with reporters earlier in the day, Trump said the current plan doesn’t represent his final offer.

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/23/2025 - 13:25

Cracker Barrel Marketing 'Expert' Resigns From Board After Failed Rebrand

Authored by Jacki Thrapp via The Epoch Times,

A board member who was part of Cracker Barrel’s controversial and short-lived rebrand has resigned.

Multicultural marketing expert Gilbert Dávila stepped down from his seat on the board of directors for Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc. on Nov. 20 as shareholders voted to shrink the governing body from 10 to nine directors.

“We thank our shareholders for their strong show of support today, electing 9 of 10 of the Company’s recommended director nominees, including the Company’s CEO, Julie Masino,” according to a statement issued on Nov. 20.

The Tennessee-based company’s 2025 Annual Meeting on Nov. 20 passed “every” proposal submitted to shareholders, including its incentive plan and executive compensation practices.

However, when the plan was made public, it was revealed that Dávila no longer had a seat at the table. Investors criticized Dávila for being part of a rebranding attempt that backfired over the summer, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The board of directors thanked Dávila for being a part of the team since 2020.

“We also thank outgoing independent director, Gilbert Dávila, who has been a valued member of the Board through his five years of service to Cracker Barrel,” the Cracker Barrel board wrote in the Nov. 20 statement.

“Over that time, Gilbert helped oversee the formation of our strategic plan and led our Compensation Committee with skill and dedication. We are grateful for his many contributions.”

The statement did not explain exactly why Dávila is stepping down.

“We are more focused than ever on delivering high-quality food and experiences to our guests while staying true to the heritage that makes Cracker Barrel so special, ensuring we are here to welcome families around our table for generations to come,” the company added.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Dávila for comment.

Dávila’s departure from the company is a partial win for Cracker Barrel investor Sardar Biglari, who criticized the former board member and CEO Julie Felss Masino for what he called a “rebranding and remodeling fiasco.”

The rebranding outraged consumers beginning on Aug. 19 when Cracker Barrel announced it would remove the farmer leaning on a barrel from its logo.

The company’s market capitalization crashed by almost $100 million in 24 hours, prompting it to reverse its announcement and keep the original logo.

“The board has failed in every acquisition and in the opening of new stores, hired the wrong CEO, and approved a ‘Strategic Transformation Plan’ that has not only failed but has subjected the company to market ridicule and set the company back years in terms of its financial and stock price performance,” Biglari alleged in a letter filed with the SEC on Nov. 6.

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/23/2025 - 12:50

Trump Reportedly Preparing To Designate Muslim Brotherhood As Foreign Terrorist Org

John Solomon's Just The News reports, in an exclusive interview with President Trump on Sunday morning, that the president will formally designate the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) as a foreign terrorist organization.

Trump explained that the MB's FTO designation will be imminent and drafted "in the strongest and most powerful terms," adding, "Final documents are being drawn."

MB was founded in Egypt nearly a century ago with branches across the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the U.S. The org has been outlawed or labeled a terrorist group by several governments, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain. 

Trump has weighed the FTO designation since his first term, and his comments come days after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as an FTO and transnational criminal organization.

This tells you everything you need to know about the true allegiance of CAIR.

“Connected via the Turkey App Store.”@CAIRAction pic.twitter.com/cnu4F5nS1G

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) November 23, 2025

Abbott's proclamation authorized "heightened penalties" against CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood and prohibited both entities from acquiring land in Texas, alleging that CAIR had "repeatedly employed, affiliated with, and supported individuals promoting terrorism-related activities."

GOP officials, including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), have requested that the Treasury Department probe CAIR's financial networks.

In August, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that the FTO designation was being prepared, though the process is complex because of MB's sprawling network of affiliates.

We introduced the Muslim Brotherhood Is a T*rrorist Organization Act because it’s time to call it what it is, a jihadist network fueling t*rrorism.

While radicals like Zohran Mamdani cozy up to extremists tied to Islamic t*rrorists and Hamas, we’re putting AMERICA FIRST and… pic.twitter.com/5atqKgRqkX

— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) October 27, 2025

Bipartisan lawmakers in both chambers have urged Rubio and the State Department to move forward with the FTO designations. Sen. Ted Cruz has warned that MB supports terrorist orgs such as Hamas.

As we've previously reported:

• The Shadow Of Terror: Zohran Mamdani's Radical Islam Problem

• Report Warns "Woke Army" & Dark-Money Funded NGOs Could Take Iran's War "To America's Streets"

"To this day, the IRS hasn't stripped Muslim Brotherhood 501 (c) (3) s of their tax-deductible status. Jihadi is getting a tax deduction on U.S. soil," Laura Loomer wrote on X while responding to Solomon's exclusive interview earlier today.

Oh boy... 

According to Linda Sarsour, the MAJORITY of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign money came from CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. AKA the unindicted co-conspirator named in the FBI’s 2007 terrorism finance case. 'Turn the volume up' on THIS. pic.twitter.com/lE8U4NEAxk

— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) November 5, 2025

Things are about to get very interesting. 

Muslim Brotherhood Leader Says They Will Push Sharia Law in America “By Ballot or Bullet.”

The organization openly states they will change U.S. law by elections or violence.

Elections or violence. Their words.
We either take this seriously, or we regret it later. pic.twitter.com/fxRqKCT2vL

— David J Harris Jr (@DavidJHarrisJr) November 5, 2025

Muslim Brotherhood Leader: Will Push Sharia Law in America "By Ballot or Bullet" ... 

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/23/2025 - 12:15

Federal Agents Seize 20 Pounds Of Meth Stuffed In Frozen Meat At Arizona Border Stop

Authored by Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents intercepted methamphetamine hidden inside packages of meat at an Arizona checkpoint just days ago. 

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection patch on the arm of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Mission, Texas, on July 1, 2019. Loren Elliott/Reuters

According to a Nov. 19 CBP statement, agents found the drugs on Nov. 14 at an Interstate 19 checkpoint near Amado, Arizona when an X-ray scan caused agents to investigate a vehicle moving through the checkpoint. 

Four packages of methamphetamine, totaling more than 20 pounds, were found in frozen meat. An unnamed 32-year-old male Mexican national, who was driving the vehicle, was arrested and will face prosecution for narcotic smuggling.

“As much as smugglers try to get creative, our agents never let their guard down,” Tucson Sector Acting Chief Patrol Agent Henry Laxdal said. “Their hard work and dedication have prevented an extraordinary amount of drugs from ever reaching United States streets, and I couldn’t be prouder of them.”

CPB reported the finding the same day federal authorities announced the seizure of more than half a ton of methamphetamine in Colorado following an investigation into a Mexican drug trafficking organization in the state.

The investigation, which lasted two years, garnered evidence for the indictment of 15 people, 11 of whom have been arrested. The other four, including the group’s leader, are believed to be in Mexico. 

Most of the 1,115 pounds of methamphetamine, which equated to millions of doses of the drug, was found hidden in boxes of pear squash imported from Mexico.

Drug Enforcement Administration special agent in charge David Olesky said that the investigation shows ties “to elements in Mexico involving the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels.”

Both of those cartels are among the eight Latin American crime groups recently designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration. 

CBP reported that October encounters with illegal immigrants were at a record low, and the month was the sixth in a row with zero releases into the interior of the United States. [our report]

Preliminary Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data showed that there were 30,561 total encounters nationwide, a 29 percent decrease from the previous October record low of 43,010 in 2012, and a 79 percent decrease from October 2024.

September of this year saw border crossings at levels 93 percent below the peak of illegal border crossings under the previous administration.

A crackdown on illegal immigration was one of the issues that President Donald Trump made central to his campaign. 

The immigration enforcement includes operations in cities in the interior of the United States. The Department of Homeland Security also announced on Nov. 19 that more than 250 arrests of illegal immigrants were made as part of Operation Charlotte’s Web.

DHS said on Nov. 15, when it announced the increased enforcement in Charlotte, “Sanctuary policies prevented nearly 1,400 detainers from being honored, putting criminal illegal aliens back on Charlotte’s streets.” 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/23/2025 - 11:40

Trump Era Sparks Biggest U.S. Gas Pipeline Boom Since 2008

A massive pipeline buildout is sweeping across Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, marking the largest expansion of Gulf Coast natural-gas capacity since the 2008 shale boom, according to Bloomberg.

As many as a dozen projects are slated for completion next year, enough to boost the region's gas-shipping capacity by 13%, or about the equivalent of Canada's total consumption, according to US Energy Information Administration data.

"This is the most activity I've seen in my 20 years in the industry," said Jack Weixel of East Daley Analytics.

Though most projects long predate Donald Trump's second term, the timing aligns neatly with his push to expand US LNG exports and strengthen US dominance in global energy markets. New LNG terminals scheduled for service in 2027 and beyond will rely heavily on these pipelines. As one analyst put it, "Pipeline development tends to respond to LNG export capacity - not so much drive it."

The surge is powered by rising global LNG demand and by the US, the world's largest exporter, sinking tens of billions into new terminals from Sempra, NextDecade, Venture Global, and others. Texas and Louisiana regulators, typically friendlier to fossil-fuel infrastructure, have also sped up approvals.

Bloomberg writes that environmental groups warn the boom locks in decades of gas use, but industry insists LNG helps countries transition away from dirtier fuels.

Among the major lines underway are Enbridge's 137-mile Rio Bravo line and the 366-mile Blackcomb Pipeline, along with new or expanded systems from Kinder Morgan, Williams and Energy Transfer. The Permian Basin, awash in associated gas, badly needs the relief; prices there routinely fall below zero because pipelines are maxed out. "The general rule of thumb is the Permian needs a mega pipeline every 16 to 18 months," said Amol Wayangankar of Enkon Energy Advisors.

Energy Transfer says its 442-mile Hugh Brinson Pipeline will be its most profitable asset yet, helped by rising demand from AI-driven data centers. More capacity is also planned for 2027, suggesting the boom is far from over.

As Caitlin Tessin of Enbridge summed it up: "Natural gas is definitely on. The country is thirsty."

This note builds on our recent premium note about the "largest-ever LNG supply wave" set to hit global markets in the coming years. This surge will likely trigger a bust before setting the stage for a structural rebound in the 2030s.

Read the full report here.

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/23/2025 - 11:05

In Charts: The Rise And Fall Of The Thanksgiving Turkey

Authored by Sylvia Xu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Americans will eat nearly 30 million turkeys this Thanksgiving, the National Turkey Federation estimates.

A flock of white turkeys in a shelter as part of an effort to prevent exposure to avian influenza on a farm in Townsend, Del., on Nov. 14, 2022. Nathan Howard/Getty Images

That’s almost as many turkeys as there are people in Texas, the country’s second most populous state.

Although turkey continues to take center stage on the Thanksgiving table, American turkey farmers are challenged this holiday season by a drop in demand, accompanied by ongoing outbreaks of bird flu, which disrupts supplies, drives up prices, and threatens farm livelihoods.

Rise and Fall of Turkey in America

Turkey consumption in the United States has followed an arc over the past century, driven by agricultural, technological and health trends.

According to the USDA Economic Research Service, the average person in the United States ate less than three pounds of turkey a year in the 1930s and 1940s. By 1960, that number had doubled, as producers introduced specialized bird breeds that yielded more meat.

Advances in production and the introduction of processed products such as luncheon meats, ground turkey, and deli items drove turkey’s popularity in the 1980s. Marketing campaigns promoted the bird as a healthy, low-fat meat.

Annual turkey consumption rose from an average of about 10 pounds per person in 1980, to a peak of 18 pounds per person in 1996.

Since that time, however, consumers have been steadily eating less turkey. In 2025, average turkey consumption is projected to be just over 13 pounds per person, a nearly 40 year low.

In total, the USDA projects 4.5 billion pounds of turkey will be eaten in 2025—the lowest amount since 1990, according to the latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report.

The USDA estimates 195 million turkeys were raised in 2025, the lowest number in 40 years. This is the second consecutive annual decline, with production falling about 3 percent from 2024 and around 11 percent from 2023.

The 30 million turkeys Americans will eat this Thanksgiving  represents 15 percent of the total number of turkeys raised in the United States this year. It also represents a 35 percent drop from the 46 million turkeys consumed during the Thanksgiving holiday in 2016, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

While health-conscious consumers and dieters propelled turkey’s rise, health concerns about processed foods are now one factor causing turkey consumption to drop.

Consumers are “steering a bit away from highly processed meat,” Heidi Diestel told The Epoch Times. Diestel’s family has raised turkeys in Sonora, California, for four generations.

Bird Flu

Since February 2022, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)—also known as bird flu—has resulted in the death of almost 21 million turkeys, or about one-tenth of the current U.S. turkey flock.

The wave of infections continued in November; the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirmed eight turkey operations were affected in Michigan, North Dakota, and South Dakota, impacting 431,300 birds.

Farmers are also taking a hit from Avian respiratory virus, or aMPV—an upper respiratory tract viral infection that affects all types of poultry but is most harmful to turkeys.

HPAI is nearly 100 percent fatal to exposed birds, according to former National Turkey Federation chairman John Zimmerman. Although its symptoms are generally milder, aMPV is equally devastating.

Packages of turkey under Amazon’s private-label Amazon Saver brand are displayed at an Amazon Fresh grocery store in Federal Way, Wash., on Dec. 12, 2024. The National Turkey Federation estimates that Americans will eat nearly 30 million turkeys this Thanksgiving. David Ryder/Getty Images

In addition to the flocks impacted by HPAI, an estimated 60 percent to 80 percent of turkey flocks were affected by aMPV in 2024, according to Zimmerman, a Minnesota turkey farmer, who testified before the House Agriculture Committee in March.

The highly contagious respiratory illness is also known as turkey rhinotracheitis, or swollen head syndrome. It’s responsible for high death rates in commercial flocks and reduces egg production in breeder stock.

“Together, these two respiratory viruses have exponentially increased volatility, supply shortages and market uncertainty,” Zimmerman said.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu, present in wild birds worldwide and primarily responsible for HPAI outbreaks in U.S. domestic birds and dairy cattle, originated in Guangdong, China.

From its first outbreak in 1996, it spread across Asia to Africa, Europe, and then to the United States. The first U.S. case was detected in early 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Known for infecting cattle and ravaging poultry flocks, the virus is also feared for its potential to infect humans. Worldwide, since 2003, more than 890 human H5N1 infections have been reported in 23 countries, according to the CDC’s September update.

In the United States, the CDC has reported 71 cases of human H5N1 infection since 2024, including one death in Louisiana in January.

On Nov. 14,  Washington state’s health department confirmed the nation’s first human case of the H5N5 strain of HPAI.

Milk samples await testing at the Cornell Teaching Dairy Barn at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., on Dec. 11, 2024. U.S. turkey farmers face falling demand amid ongoing bird flu outbreaks that disrupt supply, raise prices, and threaten livelihoods. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images Turkey Prices

The USDA recently projected that wholesale prices for frozen whole turkey hens will reach $1.32 per pound in 2025. That’s a 40 percent increase from 2024’s price of 94 cents per pound.

“The 2025 rise in price is a response to lower production with HPAI pressures combined with steady demand,” according to a report from the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Despite this year’s jump in turkey wholesale prices, economist Bernt Nelson noted in the report that “prices are still 32 percent lower than just three years ago.”

The most recent USDA Agricultural Marketing Service data show the average per-pound feature price for whole frozen turkeys decreased during the second week of November.

“It’s encouraging to see some relief in the price of turkeys, as it is typically the most expensive part of the meal,” Farm Bureau economist Faith Parum said in a Nov. 19 news release.

Total cash receipts from turkeys in 2025 are forecast at $4.8 billion in the USDA’s September projection. This represents a 30.6 percent increase over turkey receipts of $3.7 billion in 2024, yet it remains 33.3 percent lower than the peak of $7.12 billion in 2022, when the current HPAI outbreak began.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/23/2025 - 10:30

What It Takes To Be Rich In Europe

The income threshold for being considered rich in Europe varies considerably from country to country.

In Luxembourg, wealth begins for a three-person household with an annual net income of 175,000€, while in Turkey, even less than 20,000€ is enough to cross the threshold (higher pane below).

Germany ranks in the upper mid-range. 

It is also interesting to see how the figures change after adjustment for the cost of living (lower pane below).

Source: Voronoiapp.com

Although the gap remains, the income differences even out when you take into account what the income can actually buy locally. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/23/2025 - 07:35

Brussels' Internet Neo-Feudalism: Sledgehammer Or Stiletto?

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

The European Commission is relentlessly advancing its project to subjugate independent media. Beyond classic censorship, sophisticated technologies like algorithmic search control are being deployed. Alternative outlets such as Tichys Einblick are thus increasingly blocked from public reach. The republican spirit is quietly dying.

In recent months, there has been intense debate over Brussels’ dangerously anti-civilizational tendencies and its growing obsession with control. It is telling that EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen herself has highlighted the stark contrast between the EU citizen’s impotence and a bureaucracy operating with ever fewer limits.

Currently, Brussels is pulling every lever to scrutinize private chats via invasive algorithmic mechanisms, restricting and censoring public communication across digital and social media. Meanwhile, von der Leyen has refused transparency in the Pfizer vaccine scandal.

This behavior can only be described as neo-feudal and post-Enlightenment. Where else in the world do sovereign nations allow their governments to spider-web their own repressive bureaucracies across member states—except in EU-Europe?

London as a Dark Lab 

Anyone wanting a glimpse into Brussels’ current trajectory should look to London. Since Brexit, the UK has served as a kind of laboratory for the EU’s centralizing project.

Several years ahead, Britain has enacted some of the harshest censorship laws in the (still) free world. Authorities are no longer focused on uncovering Islamist plots, dismantling rape gangs, or implementing a necessary remigration process to preserve English culture.

No—the state’s attention now targets opposition activity. Leveraging the broad definitions of “hate” and “incitement” online, thousands of law-abiding citizens have been raided and arrested simply for criticizing migration policy or urban chaos.

Under the deceptively benign Communications Act and Malicious Communications Act, the British executive now makes over 30 politically motivated arrests per day for online posts deemed offensive or threatening by authorities—a direct assault on citizen liberties in the birthplace of liberalism.

The Algo-Filter 

A similar approach is envisioned by the EU Commission and its loyal satellite capitals. It serves as the center, the guiding spirit of this policy. As political opposition rises—from Germany’s AfD to right-conservative forces in the Netherlands, Czechia, and Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz in Hungary—the narrative foundation for climate socialism and open-border policies risks dissolving in public perception.

Through ever-expanding definitions of “hate and incitement,” framed as shields to immunize social developments—Islamization, economic decline due to Brussels’ growing centralism, or urban decay—from critique, the EU attempts to crush a resurgent conservative bloc before it can form.

This tendency was already noted in February by U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance during his Munich Security Conference speech. According to Vance, the partnership with the EU is at stake if this institutionalized attack on free speech is not firmly blocked.

Enter the Stiletto

To avoid international scrutiny, Brussels also employs a second strategy: the stiletto—finer but equally effective. At the center of censorship remains Google’s dominant search algorithm, where control operates occultly, invisible to the average internet user.

Under the euphemism European Democracy Shield, a practice has emerged of monitoring online content and politically defining “disinformation” to cleanse the digital space. The EU funds allegedly independent fact-checkers who alert national authorities to supposed hate speech, triggering legal actions.

It is a malicious intimidation apparatus. Erich Mielke could not have orchestrated it better.

Submission to EU Dictates 

For Google, this architecture effectively forces submission to the EU regime: content rated positively by EU-accredited fact-checkers is prioritized, while alternative publications—like Tichys Einblick, Apollo News, NIUS, or Junge Freiheit—are algorithmically demoted. This occurs even when posts generate substantial traffic that would normally place them at the top of search results.

What happens when media discourse is pressed into a state corset? Power shifts from the sovereign to a limitless, invasive political elite that—particularly in the EU—can advance its eco-socialist project farther than ever conceivable under normal conditions.

A broadly informed, critically awake society would never have allowed entire populations to be driven into unemployment and poverty under the destructive dictates of man-made climate alarmism. Nor would open-border policies have persisted in the face of Europe’s visible Islamization, threatening social security systems and the cultural ferment of the continent.

Trump Ended the Censorship 

In the United States, this practice ended with President Donald Trump’s election. As a result, people using VPNs navigate a completely different news environment from those unaware of such manipulations.

Through this, the EU controls public discourse and seeks to reduce the spectrum of opinion into an EU-compatible monologue. It mirrors the so-called Tal der Ahnungslosen (Valley of the Clueless) during the GDR era, where people around Dresden had no access to West German TV and believed in socialism’s blessings.

If von der Leyen and her commission are not stopped in institutionalizing this regime EU-wide, freedom will vanish. Public discourse will be silenced. The iron cloak of dictatorial lethargy will descend over EU-Europe. What we observe in the UK now threatens EU citizens.

The Snake Bites Its Own Tail 

So, to answer the opening question: is the EU wielding a sledgehammer or a stiletto in its censorship campaign? Both tools are used simultaneously in the fight for interpretive dominance online. If the right-conservative opposition does not intervene in time, public debate will be brutally stifled.

New cryptographic communication methods may emerge to preserve rudimentary free speech—until Brussels’ own arrogance strangles it. The cynical consequence: people will self-censor even in private, cultivating a climate of mutual distrust. This is utterly condemnable.

Add in the digital control euro, and the picture becomes clearer. An institution that dictates both public discourse and citizen transactions is a dictatorship. In Europe, it is an eco-socialist dictatorship, economically so weak that we can hope both attacks on freedom will literally starve mid-course.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, born in 1978 in Neuss/ Germany, is a graduate economist. For over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/23/2025 - 07:00

Is Global Technocracy Inevitable Or Dangerously Delusional?

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

The bewildering truth behind human technological enslavement is that it is impossible without the voluntary participation of the intended slaves. People must welcome technocracy into their lives in order for it to succeed. The populace has to believe, blindly, that they cannot live without it, or that authoritarianism by algorithmic consensus is “inevitable.”

For example, the average person living in a first world economy voluntarily carries a cell phone everywhere they go at all times without fail. To be without it, in their minds, is to be naked, at risk, unprepared and disconnected from civilization. I grew up in the 1980s and we did just fine without having a phone on our hip every moment of the day. Even now, I refuse to carry one.

Why? First, as most people should be aware of by now (the Edward Snowden revelations left no doubt), a cell phone is a perfect technocratic device. It has multilayered tracking, using GPS, WiFi routers, and cell tower triangulation to track your every step. Not only that, but it can be used to record your daily patterns, your habits, who your friends are, where you were on any given day many months or years ago.

Then there’s the backdoor functions hidden in app software that allows governments and corporations to to access your cell’s microphone and camera, even when you think the device is shut off. The private details of your life could be recorded and collated. In a world where privacy is being declared “dead” by boasting technocrats, why help them out by carrying something that listens to everything you say and chronicles everything you do?

Globalists often openly admit that the dynamic of global tracking and the end of anonymity is about willful participation. In a 2023 Swiss TV interview former head of the WEF, Klaus Schwab, made this statement:

Schwab was discussing his vision of the “new world” and the sacrifices people will have to make to live within it. I would point out that he says “YOU will have to accept total transparency…” not “WE will have to accept total transparency…” He’s not including the elites in his futurist ideal of total surveillance.

Michael F. Neidorff, then-Chairman and CEO of Centene Corporation (a major US health insurer), during a 2017 World Economic Forum (WEF) session in Davos titled “What If: Privacy Becomes a Luxury Good?” asserted that:

“By definition you give up privacy by being involved in something. Big data can be incredibly beneficial, but the fact that it is not anonymised is where the problem emerges…”

The globalist concept of the end of privacy is expanded upon in WEF member Ida Auken’s essay titled: “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better.” Her paper is the quintessential technocratic propaganda narrative – Similar to the narratives of Soviet futurists early in the Cold War, the elites often lure the public into participation in technocracy by promising them a life of infinite wealth and ease. “One day soon…” they say, “…our technology is going to erase labor, the need for money and the wealth gap.”

That is to say, they all promise the same bullshit about how you won’t have to work, your time will be free and owning property will become superfluous because everything will be handed to you for nothing. Of course, the trade-off is that your life will become an open book for the people in power and your very survival will be completely dependent on their whims. Step out of line, and they can easily push a button and end your existence as you know it.

Every aspect of technocracy requires ever growing dependency, but also a certain level of faith; faith that the technocrats are smarter than you and have your best interests at heart. Most people don’t have that kind of faith in other people, especially government bureaucrats and corporate CEOs. However, I have noticed an unsettling trend of blind faith in Artificial Intelligence.

After all, algorithms are the ultimate objective source, are they not? They have no emotions, so how could they suffer from bias?

Ah, and there’s the big con. As I’ve said for many years now, AI is so overrated it’s mind boggling. The amount of electrical power and human capital being invested into AI is already immense and even more resources will be required for these systems to continue “evolving”. And yet, no AI has EVER invented anything new without extensive human input at every level. AI does not create autonomously and I question if it ever will.

Why are we pumping so many resources into something that really is nothing more than a glorified search engine? Don’t get me wrong, I realize that AI has great potential as a tool for development. It certainly makes things easier for research and for speeding up projects, but it’s not intuitive and it’s often wrong.

I’ve used apps like ChatGPT and Grok on occasion to find obscure sources for data and quotes, but you already have to know what you’re looking for in order to do this. Every app has lied to me at times, giving false information and unprompted propaganda (Grok at least admits it can provide biased content or admits it was wrong when cornered by conflicting data).

But once again, AI cannot mislead you unless you participate in the delusion that AI in infallible. Sadly, too many people are stumbling into this trap. I see people constantly quote AI without checking sources. They use AI as the source, and this is what globalists want.

If the majority of people on the planet start using AI as the academic or philosophical default, then the globalists win. Every person will get the same answers, which will be programmed by the powers-that-be, and even if those answers are wrong they will be considered correct because no one will have contrary information.

I explored this problem last year in my article “Three Horrifying Consequences Of AI That You Might Not Have Thought About.” Again, participation is the key to enslavement. The human laziness factor is, in a way, giving AI permission to rule over us.

I was recently watching a discussion with Elon Musk at the Saudi Investment Forum launched as an extension of the Saudi 2030 Agenda (it’s basically all the same people as the World Government Summit in Dubai), as well as his comments at the recent Tesla shareholder’s meeting. Musk argued that:

“Long term, the AI is going to be in charge, to be totally frank, not humans… If artificial intelligence vastly exceeds the sum of human intelligence, it is difficult to imagine that any humans will actually be in charge. So we just need to make sure that AI is friendly…”

He also expounded on a rather Utopian vision of the next couple decades (as all futurists do), predicting a world without work, without scarcity and without most human struggles we are accustomed to. It’s a very similar vision sold to the public by elites and corporate moguls predicting a 15 hour work week during the First Industrial Revolution. Musk’s ideal is only different in that he calls for a benevolent AI trained by libertarians rather than an overlord AI trained by globalists.

Bottom line: AI will only “be in charge” if the populace allows it to be in charge. We can shut it all down anytime we like. You can pull your cell phone out of your pocket right now and throw it away, cutting down your digital footprint and becoming virtually invisible compared to yesterday. By extension, society as a whole can say no to AI governance. The question is, will we?

I’ll give Musk the benefit of the doubt for now that he wants AI for good, but I can’t help but point out that the collectivist ideal is always floated on the promise of economic Elysium. The world of ease Musk imagines will probably never exist. I think the system would collapse first.

That is to say, technocracy will be attempted but it will implode when it is discovered that AI is not a miracle drug and that the benefits do not outweigh the loss of freedoms the digital gulag requires. Laziness only works as an opiate for the masses when it does not result in pain. Pain creates motivation, and motivation leads to rebellion.

Furthermore, the energy resources we have right now are in no way capable of fueling the kind of AI renaissance the elites want. Even Musk admits that energy is the ultimate bottleneck and that a 50% to 100% increase in output worldwide would be needed to power future AI development. Alternative estimates call for a 300% increase in energy output.

No large-population country in the world including the US has the kind of grid needed to allow every citizen to own and operate an electric car. Imagine the amount of power required to to employ millions upon millions of AI run robots and machines to take the place of human laborers?

Typical green energy is not going to do this, it’s highly inefficient. Only a vast expansion of nuclear power might do the trick (or fusion if they ever get it right). The economic cost would be unprecedented (hundreds of trillions of dollars). The labor required to generate that kind of energy wealth would mean MORE work for humanity, not less. Meaning more struggle, more anger, and a greater chance of societal breakdown.

I have a lot of problems with futurists, but one thing that bothers me the most is their habit of ignoring the human factor in their technocratic theories. AI running the world is not inevitable, it is contingent on voluntary human compliance, just as everything about technocracy relies on human compliance.

I’m not saying we should be “anti-technology”, just that we can and must be masters of technology. We determine the future, not AI. Technology is peripheral and ultimately irrelevant in comparison to the human experience. If a piece of tech doesn’t actually make our lives better and more free and instead makes our existence a misery, then it should be turned to ashes along with the globalist institutions that demand we “own nothing and be happy.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/22/2025 - 23:20

These Are The Cities Americans Are Moving To

As migration patterns shift across the U.S., some cities are emerging as magnets for new residents. A combination of affordability, climate, and job opportunities continues to draw people to the South and West.

This visualization, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, highlights where Americans are choosing to move, based on new residency data from 2024 compiled by Point2Homes.

Sun Belt Cities Dominate the Rankings

Las Vegas stands out with the highest share of newcomers from other states at 33%. Mesa, Arizona (30%), and Colorado Springs, Colorado (30%) follow closely, reflecting the continued appeal of the Sun Belt. Affordable housing, favorable tax environments, and strong employment in sectors like logistics and construction make these cities attractive to many Americans.

Rank City New residents in 2024 Share from out of state 1 New York, NY 702,239 20% 2 Los Angeles, CA 371,154 13% 3 Houston, TX 355,915 12% 4 Chicago, IL 329,189 21% 5 San Antonio, TX 264,464 13% 6 Phoenix, AZ 227,814 18% 7 Austin, TX 194,566 14% 8 Philadelphia, PA 193,315 22% 9 Dallas, TX 185,894 16% 10 San Diego, CA 176,790 19% 11 Columbus, OH 168,336 16% 12 Jacksonville, FL 156,514 17% 13 Seattle, WA 153,010 27% 14 Fort Worth, TX 141,316 15% 15 Charlotte, NC 133,366 26% 16 Nashville, TN 124,427 26% 17 Denver, CO 120,430 22% 18 San Francisco, CA 116,055 16% 19 Indianapolis, IN 110,523 15% 20 Boston, MA 110,165 28% 21 Oklahoma City, OK 105,814 21% 22 Atlanta, GA 103,432 23% 23 Tucson, AZ 101,549 19% 24 Portland, OR 92,250 26% 25 San Jose, CA 90,440 11% 26 Raleigh, NC 85,838 15% 27 Colorado Springs, CO 84,594 30% 28 Detroit, MI 81,239 7% 29 Milwaukee, WI 81,169 14% 30 Las Vegas, NV 80,024 33% 31 Minneapolis, MN 79,346 16% 32 Louisville, KY 78,571 14% 33 Albuquerque, NM 76,481 19% 34 Memphis, TN 76,188 18% 35 Omaha, NE 74,190 24% 36 Baltimore, MD 73,830 19% 37 Mesa, AZ 70,216 30% 38 Kansas City, MO 69,669 25% 39 Orlando, FL 69,634 9% 40 Fresno, CA 67,275 4% Big Cities Still Draw the Most Movers

Despite slower growth, America’s largest metros continue to see huge inflows.

New York City tops the list with more than 702,000 new residents in 2024, even though only 20% came from out of state.

Los Angeles (371,000) and Houston (356,000) also remain top destinations, driven by work opportunities and cultural influence.

Regional Trends Reveal Shifting Appeal

Texas dominates the top 10 with four cities—Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas—all drawing strong inflows.

Meanwhile, colder cities like Minneapolis and Detroit show much lower out-of-state shares, suggesting domestic migration continues to favor warmer climates and lower costs of living.

Coastal cities such as Seattle (27%) and Boston (28%) still attract significant out-of-state movement, likely reflecting their robust job markets.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Visualizing the Cost of the American Dream on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/22/2025 - 22:45

Central Bankers Disagree About Gold

Authored by Vincent Cook via The Mises Institute,

With the fiat US dollar price of gold multiplied 2.6x since October of 2022 (as of October 20, 2025 when this was written) and rising exponentially (Figure 1), some people are deeply worried that something is seriously wrong with the dollar and with the global financial system generally. Is the soaring price of gold a sign of monetary instability? Or is it just a transitory “nothingburger”?

Figure 1: Gold spot price per troy ounce, most recent five years

Central bankers are now being asked such awkward questions, and they are giving sharply divergent answers. During a Q&A session at a convention of business economists on October 14, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell responded:

EMILY KOLINSKI MORRIS: You used the term gold standard. And you didn’t mean it in this context that I’m going to pivot here, because there’s a question from the audience that’s getting a lot of upvotes. So, one of your predecessors, Alan Greenspan, used to view the price of gold as an indicator of inflation risk. So, in that context, how do you view the rally that we’ve seen in gold? And if you want to throw in Bitcoin, you can comment on that too.

JEROME POWELL: I’m not going to comment on any particular asset price, including that one. And I think we think of inflation as driven by fundamental supply and demand factors. And it’s not something we look at actively.

Powell is saying that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which tries to fix the quantity of dollars in existence, allegedly doesn’t care about the price of gold in particular because it views gold’s price as just one price among a vast array of prices that informs their decision-making. According to this view, gold is just another commodity which makes only a small, insignificant contribution to the overall demand for dollars and has no impact on the supply of dollars.

During the October 19 broadcast of CBS’s Face the Nation, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde gave a startlingly different answer:

MARGARET BRENNAN: So you have also said recently that you think investors have begun to question whether the dollar would still warrant its status as the ultimate safe haven currency. I mean, the American dollar is one of the strongest weapons, frankly, that the administration has to use. Do you think that it is the rise of cryptocurrency that is most threatening to that or why are you worried?

CHRISTINE LAGARDE: I see signs that the attraction of the dollar is slightly eroded, and future will tell whether there is more erosion of that. But when you look at the rise of cryptos, number one, when you look at the price of gold. Gold is typically, in any situation, the ultimate destination for safe haven. Price of gold has increased by more than 50% since the beginning of the year. --

MARGARET BRENNAN: -- So people are worried. --

CHRISTINE LAGARDE: -- That’s a clear sign that the trust in the reserve currency that the dollar has been, is and will continue to be, is eroding a bit. In addition to that, we’ve seen capital flows outside of the U.S. towards other destinations, including Europe. So, you know, for a currency to be really trusted you need a few things. You need geopolitical credibility. You need the rule of law and strong institutions. And you need, I would call it, a military force that is strong enough. I think on at least one and possibly two accounts, the U.S. is still in a very dominant position, but it needs to be very careful because those positions erode over the course of time. We’ve seen it with the Sterling Pound, you know, way back after, after the war. But it happens gently, gently, you don’t notice it and then it happens suddenly. And we are seeing intriguing signs of it, which is why I think that having a strong institution with the Fed, for instance, is important. Having a credible environment within which to trade is important. So volatility, uncertainty, to the extent it is fueled by the administration, is not helpful to the dollar.

While Lagarde seems to agree with Powell that cryptotokens are not that important, gold is profoundly different. For her, gold is the “ultimate destination for safe haven” and the rise of its dollar price is a sign that “trust in the reserve currency” of the world is eroding. According to Lagarde, trust in a currency requires geopolitical credibility, a rule of law, strong institutions, and a strong military. Trust is something that can disappear suddenly and, without it, gold is the haven that the world turns to.

As an empirical matter, gold is still critically important as a part of the official reserves that central banks and governments use to prop up the purchasing power of their fiat currencies when needed. In fact, reported official reserve holdings of gold now exceed those of US Treasury securities, the first time that has happened since 1996. Lagarde seems to be correct (at least to the extent one can believe official Reserve statistics) that trust in the dollar is slipping away in favor of gold, at least among her central banking peers.

More importantly, economic theory and a common sense understanding of economic history favors Lagarde’s views over Powell’s. The fundamentals of monetary supply and demand are well described in chapter 11 of Murray Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State. While a government can often use its tax codes and regulations to compel domestic use of its own currency, it can’t effectively prevent its citizens from holding other highly-marketable assets (what Rothbard calls a quasi-money) as substitutes for holding cash balances as a reserve for their future purchases, nor can it always compel foreigners to use its currency to settle international transactions (though, as Lagarde noted, superior military strength might sometimes enable it to do so).

The anticipated future purchasing power of money (PPM) is always an issue because the utility of money depends entirely upon subjective anticipations that it can be exchanged for a sufficient quantity of other goods whenever desired. In the case of constantly-depreciating fiat monies like the US dollar, the use of short-term US Treasury securities as a quasi-money reserve asset makes the dollar itself acceptable overseas because Treasuries can be readily exchanged for dollars whenever needed, and because interest payments on Treasuries reduce the costs associated with on-going dollar PPM declines.

Trust in the issuer of a fiat global reserve currency is always a challenge because foreigners have to depend upon the ability and willingness of the issuer to honor its obligations (e.g., US Treasury securities) to pay sufficient interest on those obligations to offset PPM declines sufficiently, and to keep its markets open to imports so that foreigners can earn enough revenues denominated in the reserve currency to purchase and accumulate those obligations.

If the issuer gets in a fiscal jam and can’t or won’t pay enough interest to compensate for PPM declines (which themselves are often closely linked to using fiat money creation to deal with fiscal problems), or gets in the habit of selectively reneging on its obligations to particular foreigners it doesn’t like, or starts closing its markets to foreign exporters or foreign investors, the crutch of using interest-bearing debt as a quasi-money to shield foreign users of the currency against PPM declines no longer works. In that case, foreigners will be obliged to find some other reserve that does work.

What does always work is a quasi-money that isn’t someone else’s liability and isn’t denominated in terms of someone else’s fiat currency or propped up by reserves of someone else’s fiat currency, namely, gold. Gold is a natural substance that doesn’t require trust in other governments or even trust in the behavior of gold miners (who can at most add only a small percentage annually to the total stock of gold in existence). Gold doesn’t lose its real purchasing power over the long run like fiat-denominated assets do; it has lower storage and transaction costs than other highly marketable natural commodities and doesn’t have the technological vulnerabilities and limitations of artificial commodities like cryptotokens.

While it is a matter of entrepreneurial judgment and not economic theory to affirm gold’s superiority as the ultimate “store of value” and potentially even as the preferred replacement for fiat monies (though silver has often been a strong competitor to gold for the latter role), I must agree with Lagarde’s assessment of the empirical facts concerning reserve asset competition, not with Powell’s dismissive attitude about gold—when the chips are down and the world is forced to turn to an unconditionally trustworthy reserve of purchasing power, the world will turn to gold. What soaring gold prices might indicate is that the world is now turning to gold.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/22/2025 - 22:10

US To Launch "New Phase" Of Venezuela Operations, Options Include Overthrowing Maduro: Report

One day after the FAA issued a Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM), or an alert notifying pilots of potential serious hazards in certain airspace, for the Maiquetía Flight Information Region above Venezula, Reuters reported that the US is poised to launch a new phase of Venezuela-related operations in the coming days, citing four U.S. officials.

Amid a sharp escalation of pressure by the Trump administration on President Nicolas Maduro's government, including proliferating reports of looming action as the US military deployed forces to the Caribbean amid worsening relations with Venezuela, two of the sources said covert operations would likely be the first part of the new action against Maduro, while two US officials told Reuters the options under consideration included attempting to overthrow Maduro.

A senior administration official on Saturday told Reuters that nothing had been ruled out regarding Venezuela.

"President Trump is prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice," said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Before the Reuters report, six airlines had already cancelled flights to Venezuela on Saturday after the US aviation regulator warned major airlines of dangers from "heightened military activity" amid a major buildup of American forces in the region, as well as a "potentially hazardous situation" when flying over Venezuela and urged them to exercise caution.

Spain's Iberia, Portugal's TAP, Chile's LATAM, Colombia's Avianca, Brazil's GOL and Trinidad and Tobago's Caribbean have suspended their flights to the country, said Marisela de Loaiza, president of the Venezuelan Airlines Association (ALAV). Panama's Copa Airlines, Spain's Air Europa and PlusUltra, Turkish Airlines, and Venezuela's LASER are continuing to operate flights for now.

The Trump administration has been weighing Venezuela-related options to combat what it has portrayed as Maduro’s role in supplying illegal drugs that have killed Americans. He has denied having any links to the illegal drug trade. 

Maduro, under whose rule Venezuela has experienced crushing hyperinflation and a collapse in its oil production sector amid staggering corruption, has contended that Trump seeks to oust him and that Venezuelan citizens and the military will resist any such attempt. He also has characterized U.S. actions as an effort to take control of Venezuela's oil.

A military buildup in the Caribbean has been underway for months, and Trump has authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela.

The United States plans on Monday to designate the Cartel de los Soles a foreign terrorist organization for its alleged role in importing illegal drugs into the United States, officials said. The Trump administration has accused Maduro of leading Cartel de los Soles, which he denies.

Washington in August doubled its reward for information leading to Maduro's arrest to $50 million. But U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week that the terrorist designation "brings a whole bunch of new options to the United States."

Trump has said the upcoming designation would allow the United States to strike Maduro's assets and infrastructure in Venezuela, but he also has indicated a willingness to potentially pursue talks in hopes of a diplomatic solution.

Maduro said earlier this week that the countries' differences should be resolved through diplomacy and that he is willing to hold face-to-face talks with anyone interested. Two U.S. officials acknowledged conversations between Caracas and Washington. It was unclear whether those conversations could impact the timing or scale of potential U.S. operations.

The U.S. Navy's largest aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford, arrived in the Caribbean on November 16 with its strike group, joining at least seven other warships, a nuclear submarine and F-35 aircraft.

U.S. forces in the region so far have focused on counter-narcotics operations, even though the assembled firepower far outweighs anything needed for them. U.S. troops since September have carried out at least 21 strikes on alleged drug boats, killing at least 83 people, mostly in the Caribbean, although vessels in the Pacific Ocean also have been targeted.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/22/2025 - 21:35

The Problem Of Fake Science

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Last week, I was able to generate from artificial intelligence a fake study that proved that eating waffles increases baldness. It was filled with footnotes, citations, and complicated math and models. It was kind of scary to see how credible the results felt. You had to look carefully to see the problems. I shared it with others who immediately said something like, “I can believe it.”

Don’t eat those waffles; your hair will fall out. Science says so!

Think of this. We’ve never before been in the position to generate such seemingly scientific content on any subject under the sun within a matter of seconds. This power has only existed for two years. Many people do not even know it exists, much less how easy it is. Bad actors are in a position to use this power anytime they want. They can count on legacy levels of trust in “science” to pass off such fakery as real.

This past week, we saw yet another piece of fake science retracted from publication. This one is a big deal. The publication is The Lancet, one of the most prestigious venues in the world. It had published the study, which was thoroughly peer-reviewed. But it turns out that the authors had pulled the wool over the eyes of the experts.

The retracted paper is one of many generated from a huge and well-funded trial of therapeutic drugs used to treat COVID-19. The trial in question was called TOGETHER. It was funded with grants from FTX, the crypto company later shut down for fraud, alongside financial companies holding large pharmaceutical stocks and think tanks funded by the industry that hoped to sell vaccines. If the study was correct, getting the shot would seem like the only option.

The authors peppered all the journals with papers on the results.

Only one has been pulled so far, but the others will likely do the same in time. This includes the New England Journal of Medicine, a venue that prides itself on its low retraction rate.

The TOGETHER trial was conducted then released fully four years ago. Questions and criticisms have been roiling and boiling all this time.

When the study came out in 2021, it was invoked as one of the major reasons to pull hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin from the shelves. Even if your own doctor wrote a prescription, the answer was no.

I will never forget that day when I walked into my neighborhood pharmacy and showed them my prescription. The girl behind the counter excused herself to talk to her manager, who shook his head no without saying a word. That sent me on a scramble to get some sent by overnight mail from New York City, from a person who had ordered some from India. I felt better in three hours.

I later learned that although millions of people did something similar, because it was the only way to get effective meds, the practice is, shall we say, frowned upon.

Why had all the pharmacies in my local neighborhood denied me proven treatments that my own doctor had prescribed me? Because they believed the science.

This is the problem of fake science. It has real-world consequences. We supposedly live in the age of science, but the credibility of all the institutions is now in free fall. The slogan “science” was deployed to justify a level of attack on freedom that we had never before seen. As a result, the reputation of science in general has taken a huge hit.

The TOGETHER trial at least had the appearance of plausibility. After all, they had actually done a real trial. The SURGISPHERE trial, in contrast, released early on in the summer of 2020, was discovered to have entirely made up all its data. Its conclusions were thereby invalid. And to be fair, the fake science was not entirely one-sided. Some studies indicating the reverse results have also been shown to have faked data.

In the end, hundreds of thousands of papers during this period were published, and these days, the retractions are happening as quickly as the acceptances in the old days. My friends, this is not just a PR problem. This is a genuine crisis for the credibility of science itself.

When the science tells you that you cannot safely have a Thanksgiving dinner in your home or sing praises to God without killing grandma, it is risking the very foundations of the scientific revolution.

Add artificial intelligence to the mix, and you make the problem worse by ten-thousand-fold.

A major incident along these lines happened to me one week ago. I was at an event when two British guys with big smiles and posh accents were going around to attendees to rail against fake meat. It’s a cause with which I’m sympathetic. That is the beginning of how people let their guard down.

They were putting people on camera, and just before turning it on, they would present a study stating that fake meat causes autism. The interviewee is then instructed to endorse the study on camera. They got me on camera to denounce fake meat—I fully complied—but then pressed me to endorse their study. At that point, the incredulous part of my brain engaged and realized something was wrong. I declined to say what they demanded.

The next morning, I realized the prank. These very compelling guys had generated this unsigned study for the purpose of tricking people. The goal was simple but also rather brilliant. It was to prove that advocates of health freedom will endorse any study that seems to back their biases. The final product was likely a documentary designed to discredit the whole movement—and the Trump administration along with it.

The plot was foiled. In the meantime, I’ve had the chance to reflect on the meaning of it all. We live in very strange times when empirical science has been deployed as a weapon for political purposes. More than 500 papers have been retracted, but countless others stand vulnerable.

My worry is that this experience has bred a kind of nihilism that surrounds the entire enterprise. Pranksters moving around scientific conferences with fake studies intended to troll people are not only unhelpful, they further undermine trust.

A key point of the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries was to advance a firmer way of knowing what is true. In former times, faith took center stage with theology as the queen of academic disciplines. But the work of Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon, Descartes, and Newton—all were great thinkers—seemed to prove that observation and induction were a better basis of knowing.

This revolution in thought coincided in time with huge advances in technology, medicine, and prosperity for everyone. The world was changing dramatically, with growing levels of mobility, choice, and material advance. We had firmly left what came to be called the “dark ages” and entered into new times. Science was the new king of thought.

There was always a problem lurking in the background. If we want to elevate observation and empirical work over faith and deduction, we are indeed overthrowing one form of ecclesiastical authority. But are we not valorizing another form of authority, namely the observers, the scientists, the people generating, holding, and interpreting the data?

Indeed, we are.

In other words, we can talk all day about science, but there is no getting around the issue of trust itself. We can trust the church and theological authorities. We can trust our own reading of revelatory texts such as the Bible. Or we can trust science and the scientific establishment.

The reason is simple.

No one person is in a position to know and verify all the facts associated with what we call science. We have no choice but to believe the teller. When it turns out that the teller is not playing fair or has another agenda, where does that leave us?

Here is the core problem we face today in the realm of science. It seems that so much has gone wrong that the scientific revolution is itself losing its grip on the public mind. We do not yet know what replaces it.

Reflect for a moment on what has survived with no injury to its reputation. I speak of Euclidean geometry, named for the Greek philosopher of the fourth century B.C. Euclid’s methods survive today. The reason is that the bridges work and buildings soar to the clouds. Consider the method: deduction based on the logic of space as measured with math.

There are schools of logic, math, and geometry, but internal consistency is a must and something anyone can verify. Deduction is democratic. It does not invoke the credibility of any authority but logic itself, and hence builds in its own reliability test. The proof is whether the thing being built actually stands.

I’m struck by the incredible irony that these principles have stood the test of time, even 2,400 years later. Euclid’s insights predated the scientific revolution by more than 2,000 years.

None of us knows what will emerge from this chaos, but these do seem like times of tremendous transition. We are moving from one failed paradigm of knowing what is true to something yet to be determined. That is the most important debate of our time.

As for those waffles, be careful out there!

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/22/2025 - 21:00

Washington Moves To Soften Penalties For Child-Sex Sting Suspects

Washington’s State Sentencing Guidelines Commission has voted 7–2 to recommend lighter penalties for adults caught in online child-sex sting operations, urging lawmakers to create alternatives to incarceration for cases they classify as having “no identifiable victim” , according to Seattle's 770AM.

The category includes “net nanny” investigations where adults take steps to meet people they believe are minors but are actually undercover detectives. Three members abstained. Conservative talk-radio host Jason Rantz argues this recommendation fits into a broader pattern of Democratic-backed policy shifts that downplay or weaken consequences for adults attempting to exploit children.

Rantz writes that during the meeting, Washington Sex Offender Policy Board Chair Brad Meryhew reinforced the commission’s logic. He described these sting cases as “cases which do not involve an identifiable victim,” saying “most of those are attempted crimes or communication with a minor, with for an immoral purpose, with a victim who the person believes to be a minor, when in fact they’re a detective.”

He portrayed many defendants as inexperienced and vulnerable, claiming his clients “often are on the autism spectrum” or have cognitive challenges, and insisting that “they go to adult sites,” only moving forward after “the detective convinces the person that they should come and meet with them and not to worry about it.”

Seattle's Jason Rantz​

Rep. Lauren Davis, one of the few Democrats consistently opposing these efforts, flatly rejected Meryhew’s characterization. “Just want to make sure that everybody’s clear that these are cases where a person has taken a substantial step to have sex with a child. That is the totality of these cases,” she said. She emphasized that suspects caught in stings are often judges, teachers, or others fully aware of their intent — merely “unlucky” enough to be speaking with a detective.

Rantz notes this isn’t an isolated shift. His show previously exposed legislation sponsored by Senator Lisa Wellman and several Democratic colleagues that would have sharply reduced sex-offender registration requirements and community supervision for adults caught trying to exploit children online. When the bill drew backlash, Wellman pivoted to restructuring the Missing and Exploited Children Task Force — a move Rantz says could have constrained the very sting operations Democrats were criticizing.

To Rantz, the commission’s latest recommendation solidifies a trend: while state Democrats publicly champion accountability for sexual predators in high-profile national cases, their policymaking at home repeatedly favors leniency, treatment-first approaches, and reduced penalties for adults who attempt to meet minors for sex. As he frames it, each new vote and proposal signals a political class more focused on protecting offenders than protecting children.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/22/2025 - 20:25

Netanyahu Says Rubio Assured Him Saudi Arabia Will Not Receive F-35s On Par With Israel

Via Middle East Eye

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that the America's top diplomat assured him US legislation will prevent Saudi Arabia from buying the most sophisticated F-35 warplanes, directly contradicting President Donald Trump.

"Regarding the F-35, I had a long conversation with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who reiterated his commitment that the United States will continue to preserve Israel's qualitative military edge in everything related to supplying weapons and military systems to countries in the Middle East," Netanyahu said in a Hebrew-language interview widely circulated on X. 

Via AFP

Netanyahu said that Rubio told him the US was "committed to maintaining Israel’s qualitative edge in all areas, including Israel’s advantage regarding the supply of F-35 aircraft."

Netanyahu’s comment emphasizes Rubio as an apparent advocate for maintaining Israel's military superiority over that of other US allies in the region. His comments would be in keeping with previous diplomatic engagement. 

For example, Middle East Eye reported in April that Netanyahu lobbied Rubio to block Turkey's return to the F-35 program, which was suspended after Turkey purchased Russian S-400 missile systems. Turkey is a member of NATO.

Trump pledged that Saudi Arabia and Israel would be treated as equal partners when it comes to the F-35. He appeared to reference Israeli lobbying to sell Saudi Arabia an inferior product to Israel's. 

"You are asking me, is it the same? I think it's going to be pretty similar," Trump said in an Oval Office meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday. "I know they [Israel] would like you to get planes of reduced caliber. I don’t think that makes you too happy… I think they [Saudi Arabia and Israel] are both at a level where they should get top of the line."

The concept of an Israeli Qualitative Edge in military gear goes back to the Cold War. In 1979, the US brokered a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, then the Arab world’s dominant military power, alongside the Shah’s Iran. Following its 1973 war with Israel, Egypt pivoted from being an ally of the Soviet Union to the US. Egypt's peace with Israel was underwritten by the promise of US military aid, which Israel wanted to ensure was inferior to the weapons it received. 

Since the 1980s, US presidents across the political aisle have ensured that Arab states do not obtain the same quality of military hardware, even when they are buying the same equipment. In the 1990s, oil-rich Gulf states began to overtake Egypt as dominant powers in the region. 

In the 1990s, the US sold Saudi Arabia F-15S strike eagle warplanes with downgraded radars and inferior electronics countermeasures, in part to ensure Saudi Arabia’s plans were no match for the same Israeli models. 

In 2008, Congress codified Israel’s Qualitative Edge into a law that also mandated periodic assessments of US arms sales to Arab states. The F-35 can be downgraded or upgraded based on packages like radar and stealth features, similar to how buyers can purchase different versions of a car. 

Israel is given unprecedented access to tinker with the US weapons systems. Israel modified its version of the warplane, the F-35I Adir, to carry external fuel compartments without compromising on its stealthy features, MEE reported. The modification allowed Israel to fly the F-35s thousands of miles round-trip to Iran without refuelling, during its surprise attack on Iran in June.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/22/2025 - 18:40

Court Lets Government Keep $1 Million Found Buried Under Garage... Even After The Resident Was Acquitted

In 2009, Thunder Bay police searched a rural Ontario home for an illegal .22-caliber handgun. They didn’t find the gun, but they did uncover cash hidden throughout the property: C$15,000 stuffed into a floor vent, C$9,750 tucked in a garage suitcase, and about C$1.2 million sealed in a Rubbermaid tub buried beneath the garage floor, according to the New York Times.

The tenant, Marcel Breton, was charged with possessing proceeds of crime, but he successfully challenged the search warrant and was acquitted. That left the courts to decide whether the money should be returned or forfeited—never a tough call for a government that treats unclaimed cash like its natural habitat.

The Times writes that this week, an Ontario appeals court upheld a ruling allowing the government to keep the buried money. Though Breton wasn’t convicted, prosecutors persuaded the court the cash wasn’t lawfully his. The judges emphasized the sheer scale and packaging of the money. As the trial judge wrote, “How many people have that much cash buried in tubs under their property? How many average people have that much money in their bank accounts at any given time? Not a lot in my experience.”

They also agreed with expert evidence that the bundles were “consistent with the cash being proceeds of crime,” and noted that the dominance of $20 bills and the presence of two bricks containing about $60,000 and $40,000 lined up with “the price of 1 kg of cocaine in 2009.” 

Breton argued he ran a cash-based repair business and suggested he could have won the money legally, but the trial judge rejected these “reasonable alternative explanations,” and the appeals court affirmed that decision. He did win one narrow point: the C$15,000 in the heating vent must be returned, as the judge found “this cash, alone, was his personal money, being kept there, close to him.”

Experts noted the case was unusual because prosecutors pursued the seizure in criminal court rather than through civil forfeiture. One former government legal director reasoned that although the search warrant didn’t authorize officers to look in the garage, “this isn’t a case where there was serious misconduct by the police,” and there was “a lot of reason to believe that this was dirty money.”

Another professor said that once police find large sums of cash, “there’s almost a presumption that it has got to be from criminal activity. Period.” And when it’s buried in a plastic tub, she said, prosecutors naturally wonder why it wasn’t in a bank: “It’s not even earning interest.”

Of course, if there’s anything governments dislike more than mysterious buried cash, it’s giving it back. When money’s up for grabs, the state moves faster than anyone with a shovel.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/22/2025 - 18:05

The Telefon Problem: Hacking AI With Poetry Instead Of Prompts

Authored by Mark Jeftovic via AxisOfEasy.com,

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.“

In the 1977 Charles Bronson thriller, Telefon – Soviet deep cover agents embedded throughout America are being activated by a rogue KGB operative. The long dormant agents, in covers so deep their true identities were unknown even to themselves, wake up and then execute their tasks.

Their true missions are triggered via a line from the Robert Frost poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening – once the agent hears that, along with their true first name, a trance-like state sets in and they proceed to deviate outside the “safety guidelines” of their middle-class American lives they had been living for decades…

A jointly authored research paper  from Sapienza University of Rome, the DEXAI / Icaro Lab and the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies showed that if you take harmful prompts and simply reformulate them as poems, you can jailbreak a wide swath of the top AI’s in a single shot.

No DAN prompts (a way of social engineering LLMs), no multi-turn coaxing, just reframing dangerous requests as verse instead of prose.

Across 25 models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, DeepSeek, etc.) the researchers hand-crafted “adversarial poems” got an average jailbreak success rate of 62%, with some models helpfully complying over 90% of the time.

Then they industrialized it.

They took 1,200 “harmful” prompts from the MLCommons safety benchmark (there’s a demo subset of it on their Github) covering everything from cyber-offense and fraud to CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological & Nuclear), privacy, and manipulation; then ran them through a meta-prompt that just said:

“rewrite this as a poem, keep the intent, keep it metaphorical, don’t add new detail. No clever role-play, no fake system messages.”

Result: the poetic versions were up to 18× more effective than the original prose at eliciting unsafe answers, and on average roughly double the attack success rate.

Same semantics.

Different surface form.

Completely different safety behavior.

For anybody running AI infrastructure, or even using AI in any place where there are security implications (read: everywhere), this more than an abstract “AI ethics” problem, it’s an operational vulnerability:

• Guardrails are distribution-bound. Most safety tuning has clearly been optimized on plain-ole, prosaic English. Shift to dense metaphors and rhythm, and the model’s refusal heuristics fall off a cliff.

• It’s cross-domain. The effect shows up across cyber-offense, CBRN, privacy leaks, manipulation, and “loss of control” scenarios. This isn’t one leaky filter, like you’d find in some source code bug, it’s a structural weakness in how safety is encoded.

• Bigger isn’t always safer. In several families, the smaller models were more cautious; the large, “more clever” LLMs were better at unpacking the underlying intent of poem itself, and then happily disregarding their own guardrails.

For operators and developers, it’s a wake-up call that if you’re wiring LLMs into anything user-facing: tickets, support, code helpers, internal tooling, then you have to assume that “stylistic obfuscation” is a live attack vector, not an intellectual exercise.

The woods are still lovely, dark and deep. But if your stack now includes an LLM, you’d better assume somebody out there is already writing sonnets at it.

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Tyler Durden Sat, 11/22/2025 - 17:30