Zero Hedge

If Abortion Is Healthcare, Why Is Abortion Data Going Unreported?

If Abortion Is Healthcare, Why Is Abortion Data Going Unreported?

Authored by Samantha Flom via RealClear Politics (emphasis ours),

We were told mifepristone is "safer than Tylenol" by pro-abortion activists. Now women are discovering how lethal that lie really is.

"Abortion care is healthcare!"

The oft-repeated claim of the abortion lobby emerges whenever someone dares to question whether an elective procedure with the goal of ending a human being’s life really qualifies as medical "care."

But with explosive new research by the Foundation for the Restoration of America exposing that more than one in 10 women who have a chemical abortion experience serious adverse side effects – including death – the time has come to revisit that argument.

If chemical abortion is healthcare, why do the women who choose that path suffer at an alarming rate, and why have we never heard this before?

The short answer: Medical providers have no federal obligation to tell us.

While most states enforce some form of mandatory abortion reporting, there is no national requirement that they report that data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And as states set their own reporting standards, what little information that gets voluntarily provided to the CDC amounts to a jumbled mix of demographics with too many holes to paint a clear picture.

The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reports that just 28 states require public health reporting on any complications that arise from abortions. In the case of mifepristone, the first pill in the two-drug chemical abortion regimen, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledges that those complications could include such life-threatening conditions as sepsis, hemorrhage, uterine rupture, ruptured ectopic pregnancy, and even death.

Despite those known risks, chemical abortion has become the most popular method for pregnancy termination in the United States, accounting for 63% of all abortions – or about 642,700 abortions – in 2023, according to Guttmacher.

Yet the Foundation for the Restoration of America’s review of insurance claims data for 2017 through 2023 revealed an average adverse event rate of 10.9% for every chemical abortion – a risk rate 22 times higher than the FDA admits.

That means more than 70,000 women likely experienced at least one serious adverse health event from a chemical abortion in 2023.

Suddenly, ProPublica’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting last year on the supposed dangers of restricting abortion seems woefully incomplete… and dangerously misleading.

The outlet framed the 2022 deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman, 28, and Candi Miller, 41, as the result of delayed care due to Georgia’s ban on most abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy.

In Thurman’s case, her symptoms reportedly progressed from typical cramping to severe bleeding that worsened over the course of several days. Five days after taking the first pill, she vomited blood and passed out. It was only because her boyfriend found her and called 911 that she even made it to the hospital, where doctors eventually diagnosed her with acute severe sepsis.

While the doctors undeniably waited too long to perform the dilation and curettage procedure necessary to remove the remaining tissue from Thurman’s uterus and save her life, there is no evidence to suggest Georgia’s abortion law played a role in that decision. In fact, the law includes an exception for procedures performed to save the life of a mother, and Thurman’s life was clearly at risk.

The truth is, even if her doctors were hesitant to intervene, it wouldn’t change the source of Thurman’s deteriorating health: the abortion pills.

Miller, like Thurman, suffered an incomplete abortion and neglected to seek emergency care as her symptoms grew increasingly severe. After spending several days moaning in agony, she was found unresponsive in her bed.

An autopsy later revealed that Miller still had fetal tissue in her uterus and a lethal combination of painkillers in her system, including fentanyl. But would she have taken the painkillers if the abortion pills had worked as intended? Probably not.

ProPublica downplayed the complications both women experienced as "rare" side effects of the chemical abortion regimen. But as the latest evidence suggests, they are anything but rare.

Planned Parenthood and its media defenders claim that chemical abortion is "safer than … Tylenol."

Let's put that claim to the test with federal reporting requirements.

If abortion in general is truly as safe and effective as the procedure’s advocates claim, they should have no problem with medical providers collecting and reporting the data to prove it.

Women have a right to know the risks of any medication they might consider taking. Setting aside the cavernous divide on the morality of killing an unborn child, one would hope we can at least all agree that women deserve better from the pharmaceutical industry than a one-in-10 chance of ending their own lives, too.

Samantha Flom is a senior investigative researcher for Restoration News. Her work has also appeared in The Epoch Times and on the Right Side Broadcasting Network website.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 22:10

Kroger Overcharging Customers On Sale Items, Consumer Reports Investigation Finds

Kroger Overcharging Customers On Sale Items, Consumer Reports Investigation Finds

You know times are getting tough when grocery stores resort to good ole' fashion ripping off customers via mispricing.

Shoppers at Kroger-owned stores may be unknowingly paying more at checkout due to pricing errors, according to a Consumer Reports investigation with The Guardian and the Food and Environment Reporting Network.

Even if you don’t shop at Kroger, similar issues have been found at other retailers, according to Consumer Reports and NBC affiliate KCRA.

Investigators found expired sale tags on over 150 grocery items, leading to overcharges on products like beef, salmon, coffee, juice, vegetables, cough medicine, and dog food. “Imagine picking up an item on sale only to be charged full price at checkout. That's exactly what Consumer Reports says is happening at Kroger-owned stores across the country.”

The investigation began after Kroger workers in Colorado, currently in union talks, reported widespread pricing problems. CR recruited shoppers to check 26 Kroger-owned stores in 14 states and D.C., finding overcharges averaging $1.70 per sale item, or 18.4% more. Workers blamed staffing cuts and reduced hours, saying it’s impossible to keep up with thousands of discount tags.

The KCRA report says that Kroger is testing digital price tags, promising “better accuracy,” and says its “Make it Right” policy lets employees fix mistakes immediately. In a statement, Kroger said it is “committed to affordable and accurate pricing” and conducts weekly price checks reviewing “millions of items.”

Kroger isn’t alone. In 2022, a Walmart shopper sued over 15% overcharges, and last October, Safeway, Albertsons, and Vons paid nearly $4 million to settle a similar lawsuit.

Consumer Reports advises shoppers to take photos of sale tags, check receipts before leaving, and demand refunds if prices don’t match. An internal Kroger audit found nearly 6% of items had wrong tags—far above its 1% error policy.

“Kroger is committed to affordable and accurate pricing, and we conduct robust price check processes that reviews millions of items weekly to ensure our shelf prices are accurate. The complaint noted by Consumer Reports included a few dozen examples across several years out of billions of customer transactions annually. While any error is unacceptable, the characterization of widespread pricing concerns is patently false," Kroger said in its response.

The company continued:

Kroger’s “Make It Right” policy ensures associates can create a customer experience and addresses any situation when we unintentionally fall short of a customer’s expectations. Connecting regular technology upgrades and our “Make It Right” policy to price accuracy is incorrect.

It is also inaccurate to say the company reduced standards or labor hours. We have not done so, and in fact, the standards we set in 2017 remain the same today.

We intentionally staff our stores to keep them running smoothly while creating an enjoyable place to shop. Our staffing decisions are data-driven to balance workload and schedules.

For nearly two decades, Kroger’s business model has been rooted in bringing down prices to attract more customers to our stores – and this is not changing. We respect our associates and our customers, and we conduct our business accordingly.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 21:35

Two Dead After Mexican Navy Smashes Into Brooklyn Bridge

Two Dead After Mexican Navy Smashes Into Brooklyn Bridge

Update (1102ET): Two people were killed in last night's collision between a Mexican navy ship carrying 277 people on board and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Nelson Slinkard/X

Mayor Eric Adams confirmed that two out of the 19 injured died. Police believe a "mechanical malfunction" and power cut had caused the collision.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she was deeply saddened by the loss of the crew members.

The Cuauhtémoc, which measures 297 feet long and 40 feet wide, sailed for the first time in 1982. The ship's masts were 158ft tall, while the Brooklyn Bridge has a 135 foot clearance.

*  *  *

Approximately 20 people were injured when a Mexican navy ship carrying at least 200 people collided with the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday night, snapping its three masts and sending crew members flying through the air - with some left swinging in harnesses for 'at least like 15 minutes' according to an eyewitness.

The vessel, the Cuauhtémoc, is a sail training vessel that was about to leave New York for a goodwill tour to Iceland when the incident occurred. Video showed heavy traffic on the bridge during the collision.

On the scene was 23-year-old Nick Corso, who whipped his phone out to capture the action - telling AP it sounded like a "big twig" had snapped, and that the scene was "pandemonium."

"I didn’t know what to think, I was like, is this a movie?" he told the outlet.

The ship was secured by a tugboat between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges following the collision.

At least 19 people were injured, including four with "serious" injuries, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams - while the Mexican navy puts the count at 22 injured, 19 of whom needed medical treatment.

"We saw someone dangling, and I couldn’t tell if it was just blurry or my eyes, and we were able to zoom in on our phone and there was someone dangling from the harness from the top for like at least like 15 minutes before they were able to rescue them," a bystander, Lily Katz, told AP.

Opened in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge has a main span of nearly 1,600 feet, supported by two masonry towers. Over 100,000 vehicles and an estimated 32,000 pedestrians use the bridge every day, according to the city's transportation department.

 

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 14:02

The Great Simmering In The West

The Great Simmering In The West

Authored by J.B.Shurk via AmericanThinker.com,

People all over the world are worried about the future.  While regional wars continue to fester, the prospect of global war weighs heavily on many.  However, likely belligerents are not all foreign aggressors.  Nearly a century of globalization has erected a web of clunky international institutions that wield tremendous power while disregarding sovereign borders.  Concomitantly, mass immigration has transformed once-homogenous national populations into stews of many competing cultures and religions.  Battle lines forming inside nations are more serious than those forming among them.

Self-described “futurists” such as Bill Gates and Yuval Harari believe that artificial intelligence will soon replace most humans in the workforce and that a small cadre of global “elites” must centrally manage humanity’s transition to general “uselessness.”  With A.I. entities independently running machines and becoming exponentially smarter and more competent in their tasks, entire industries will transition from human to synthetic labor until all industry surrenders to A.I.  

As emerging robotics programs have demonstrated, no profession will be immune to the next generations of A.I.-equipped machines.  Robots will pick the fields, police the streets, and perform complex medical surgeries.  A.I. can already write legal briefs that pass muster and screenplays that are at least as interesting as anything Hollywood produces these days.  Engineers, architects, and chemists are competing against machines that can process a thousand lifetimes of computations before their human counterparts finish morning coffee.

Men such as Gates and Harari see this future galloping toward us and view its implications as self-evident.  As human producers are replaced, human “value” will dwindle.  

No longer sustaining even a fraction of their cost through their own labor, human beings will become extraneous to the creation of wealth and permanent drains on the global State.  

The task of the global State, in turn, will be to construct a system capable of selecting a small number of “elites” to oversee the system from one generation to the next, while maintaining control over a rump of “useless eaters” permitted to live in State-designed shelters and survive on State-allocated rations.  For those parts of the population not chosen to live as wards of the State, life will be hard.  War, famine, and disease will make survival difficult.  Those struggles, combined with global programs discouraging childbirth and exacerbating infertility, will induce a Malthusian “solution,” in which much of the world simply dies off.

This is a dark vision.  No matter how much globalist “elites” paint this future as “progress,” it is nothing less than a carefully planned planetary genocide.  As with all terrible genocides, it targets not just the human body, but also the human mind and soul.  It means to wear down the “useless eaters” until they hate themselves and pity their tormentors for having to put up with them.  

Have you read about any of the heartbreaking stories involving vulnerable individuals who have been encouraged to commit suicide by taking advantage of Canada’s legalized “Medical Assistance in Dying”?  Often patients’ only ailments are loneliness and depression.  Before they die, many apologize for being burdens on society.  The Canadian government has the gall to applaud victims for their selflessness!  Eighty years after the Nazis summarily executed the physically and mentally disabled for being “drains” on the State, the Canadian government lacks the requisite historical literacy to feel shame!

Yet the Canadian government is hardly alone in embracing policies that deny the innate value of human life.  All Western nations have been busy cultivating a culture of death.  Abortion, once considered the unlawful taking of a life and morally condemnable, is celebrated as some kind of twisted civil right that empowers the strong to kill the weak.  Transgenderism, a mental illness that indulges self-hatred, has mutated from a rare psychological condition into a euphoric movement with fashionable promoters intent on silencing worried parents, hypnotizing medical professionals, and grooming children toward a depressing future involving castration and bodily mutilation.  Young people — particularly women — are encouraged to forgo families and concentrate on professional careers.  

Marriage is demeaned as a “patriarchal” and “homophobic” institution of the past.  Monogamy is ridiculed as unnatural, while promiscuity is encouraged.  Having children is criticized as a “selfish” act that will only exacerbate man-made (i.e., fake) “climate change.”  Central bank–engineered inflation has made the cost of rearing a child so exorbitant that even healthy married couples often put off parenthood until it’s too late.

Under the mutually reinforcing guises of protecting civil rights, advancing feminism, protecting the environment, and dismantling forms of oppression, the West has ushered in a disorienting era in which biological reality, marriage, motherhood, parenthood, and the family unit are under sustained attack.

The devastating results of such policies were entirely predictable.  Birth rates have plummeted.  The Sexual Revolution fundamentally reoriented Western culture away from values that promote and cherish life.  Government welfare programs are now insolvent and headed toward total financial ruin because the youngest generations are too small to support the oldest.  If planetary depopulation was the goal, post-WWII Western globalists mostly succeeded in crippling their own nations.

A century-long experiment that has undermined family values and extolled a hedonistic culture of death has made Western nations much weaker today.  Rather than admit failure, the same Western globalists have chosen to flood their nations with millions of foreigners to make up for crushing population loss.  In order to “fix” one colossal mess of their own making, they have simply created another.

Even so-called “conservatives” have spent the last several decades ignoring immigration laws and defending the resettlement of tens of millions of foreigners.  A number of years back, George Will caught my attention during a segment on Fox News when he scolded Americans who are fed up with illegal immigration by warning them that their Social Security retirement checks would dry up unless the government aided and abetted criminal aliens on a massive scale. 

The moral vacuity of Will’s argument was astonishing.  Since the days of FDR’s dramatic expansion of the welfare state, freedom-minded Americans have long resisted government entitlement programs that tax personal income and redistribute those taxes to other citizens.  Such programs have pushed America toward a form of soft socialism and prevented workers from keeping their own hard earned money to spend or invest as they see fit.  Decades of higher taxes have left most Americans dependent on some form of government welfare.  

Will effectively told conservatives that if they ever wanted to see a dime from all the earned income confiscated in the form of entitlement taxes over their lifetimes, their only answer is to welcome illegal aliens with open arms.  In other words, to save socialism, we must destroy America with open borders!  No wonder freedom-minded Americans no longer listen to George Will. 

For much of the last century, this noxious brand of Establishment “conservatism” has infected Western politics.  Whatever monstrosity the political left constructs today, “ruling class conservatives” work breathlessly to conserve tomorrow.  The West’s collapse has been a bipartisan effort.  That’s why lowly citizens in America, Britain, Holland, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere no longer see competing political parties.  They recognize one Establishment Uniparty working against them.

That’s bad news for Western “elites.”  They have built a miserable world in which pornography, social media voyeurism, and online “likes” have replaced individual purpose, real relationships, and growing families.  National pride and cultural traditions have given way to open borders and contradictory multiculturalism.  Despite decades of technological abundance, the future still looks bleak and dangerous.  “Art” is all the same because “artists” and “intellectuals” have been conditioned to think and say the same things.

In this great simmering throughout the West, most citizens have no interest in fighting foreign wars.  Their bubbling anger faces one direction: toward domineering, destructive, and unrepentant “elites.”

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 14:00

Did The Biden Admin Fudge Jobs Numbers Into Election? Labor Dept Report Raises Questions

Did The Biden Admin Fudge Jobs Numbers Into Election? Labor Dept Report Raises Questions

Via American Greatness,

The former Biden administration’s claim to have added nearly 400,000 jobs from July to September of 2024, is being scrutinized after new data released by the Labor Department suggests that none of those jobs ever existed.

Bean counters under the former Biden administration published optimistic estimates for everything from job growth to the size of the economy, only to quietly walk those numbers back and revise them down to more realistic results afterward.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) calculates monthly the estimated number of non-farm payrolls as well as making revisions for its last two months’ estimates.

Townhall reports that, under the Biden administration, the revisions were typically abnormal in magnitude and direction and required significant revision downward.

During the third quarter of 2024, the monthly job reports showed an increase of 399,000 jobs.

But with more comprehensive quarterly data being released by the Business Employment Dynamics (BED) survey, the new numbers had to be revised to show a 1,000 job decline during that same period.

The more comprehensive quarterly reports are used to create an annual benchmark figure which adjusts 12 months of jobs data to make the report as accurate as possible.

The annual benchmark figures are published each March and this year’s annual benchmark figures for the period between March 2023 and March 2024 showed a staggering loss of 598,000 non-farm payroll jobs.

Those downward revisions are expected to continue as more of the Biden-era jobs data is released.

From March through June of 2024, the economy supposedly added 398,000 nonfarm payrolls, according to the monthly job reports.

However, the BED data shows a net loss of 163,000 private sector jobs during that time period.

Instead of adding nearly 800,000 jobs during the middle of last year, the economy likely lost 160,000 of them instead.

The Democrats were insistent that the economy was doing great under Biden, but the voters refused to be gaslit about the economic pain they’ve been feeling and voted accordingly.

Check out this ReadyWise go-bag... 25-year shelf life!

Click pic, grab one for each car. Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 12:50

Houthis Again Target Israel's International Airport With Ballistic Missile

Houthis Again Target Israel's International Airport With Ballistic Missile

The Houthis have responded to Israel's major Friday airstrikes on sites across Yemen by launching two ballistic missiles at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv.

The Israeli military announced Sunday morning the intercept of at least one inbound ballistic missile, saying there were no injuries or casualties from the attack, only light injuries of people clamoring into bomb shelters.

"Sirens had sounded across central Israel, including in Tel Aviv, and the Shfela and Sharon regions, sending nearly a million residents scrambling to bomb shelters," Times of Israel reports.

Prior launch in 2024, via Houthi Media Center

"Preceding the sirens by some five minutes, an early warning was issued to residents, alerting civilians of the long-range missile attack via a push notification on their phones," the report continues.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree later confirmed in a statement the group's intent to strike Ben Gurion international airport again, after earlier this month scoring a direct hit. 

Crucially, he warned that Ansarallah (the Houthis) will keep up these attacks until the "siege is lifted" - in reference to Gaza. Already, the United States military has withdrawn from engaging the Houthis, after President Trump said a ceasefire had been agreed to.

As for the new missile attack, the IDF said its air defenses shot down the missile at around 2am. The second Houthis missile is believed to have likely fallen far short of its target, perhaps landing in the desert. Iranian state media had described it as a 'hypersonic missile' launch - though this seems dubious.

All of this means there will likely be more Israeli attacks on Yemen to come. "The IDF now struck and severely damaged the ports in Yemen that are under the control of the Houthi terror group. The airport in Sanaa also remains destroyed," Israeli Defense Minister Katz said Friday.

"As we said, if the Houthis continue to fire missiles on Israel, they will suffer painful blows, and we will also strike the heads of terror just as we did to Deif and the Sinwars in Gaza, to Nasrallah in Beirut and Haniyeh in Tehran," he added.

And so it looks as if each side will continue trading tit-for-tat blows, but civilians will continue to suffer - and civilian aviation in the whole region could be impacted.

Israel has vowed to decapitate Houthi leadership, saying it will hunt down and eliminate Abdul-Malik al-Houthi in Yemen, along with his top military officials.

But short of an actual ground war, which Israel doesn't have the stomach for - also given ongoing Gaza operations - taking out Houthi leadership and infrastructure will be easier said than done.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 12:15

Vance & Zelensky Repair Relationship In 'Good' Vatican Meeting

Vance & Zelensky Repair Relationship In 'Good' Vatican Meeting

Amid ongoing efforts to reset the relationship between Washington and Kiev, US Vice President JD Vance met with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top aides in Rome on Sunday.

Crucially, this is the first time Zelensky and Vance have met since their blow-up in the White House in February. The pointed exchange had even led to Trump very briefly suspending weapons deliveries and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine.

Via FT/X

But both of them this weekend were in Rome for the newly installed Pope Leo XIV's inauguration mass at the Vatican. Zelensky had also met with the Pope after the Sunday service at St. Peter's.

As for the Zelensky-Vance encounter, the Ukrainian leader hailed that it was a "good meeting". US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was also present.

"We discussed the negotiations in Istanbul, where the Russians sent a low-level delegation with no decision-making authority," Zelensky said.

"I reaffirmed Ukraine’s readiness for real diplomacy and stressed the importance of a full and unconditional ceasefire as soon as possible," he added.

"We also touched on the need for sanctions against Russia, bilateral trade, defense cooperation, the situation on the battlefield, and the future exchange of prisoners. Pressure on Russia must continue until it is ready to stop the war," Zelensky's description of the meeting continued. "And, of course, we discussed our joint steps to achieve a just and sustainable peace."

The Trump White House has indeed been dangling the prospect of more anti-Moscow sanctions, in the scenario that the US deems Putin's engagement in peace negotiations insufficient. 

So far, Zelensky is trying to make the case that the Kremlin is just stringing Trump along, playing the peace game just enough to buy more time as it makes slow gains on the battlefield.

Via FT/X

The Pope himself has meanwhile been urgently calling for peace in Ukraine, among other global hotspots. Interestingly, Washington could be eyeing Rome as a venue for more talks to achieve peace:

A day before the event, Rubio said that the Vatican could serve as a neutral venue for future peace negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow.

Speaking in Rome before his meeting with Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the Vatican's envoy on Ukraine, Rubio noted that "both sides would be comfortable" holding talks there.

Below: most analysts agree that the Istanbul talks resulted in no breakthrough, and that the process is still largely at a 'stalled' point.

The pope last week appeared to be very open to this, telling an audience in some of his first public words since becoming Pontiff that he carries the "suffering of the beloved people of Ukraine" in his heart and called for an "authentic and lasting peace."

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 11:05

Schiff On Metals & Miners: Dollar Bubble Burst Will Humble The Economy

Schiff On Metals & Miners: Dollar Bubble Burst Will Humble The Economy

Via SchiffGold.com,

Peter recently joined Metals and Miners host Gary Gohm to discuss a range of economic topics, from consumer debt to the fragility of the U.S. dollar and the shifting global reserve landscape. He explains how reckless borrowing—by both consumers and governments—ties into the bigger story of unsustainable dollar dominance and its consequences for economic security, inflation, and the gold market. 

Peter opens with a candid take on the psychology of U.S. consumers facing mounting financial strain. He notes that for many deeply in debt, there’s little incentive to curb borrowing when bankruptcy feels inevitable:

And I think that the people who are trying to borrow more money out of desperation, they probably don’t even care that they can’t pay the money back. 

They just want to borrow more. And in fact, once you’ve already borrowed more than you can possibly repay, and you know it’s just a matter of time before you file for bankruptcy, you may as well go out with a real bang. I mean, so you might as well just take out as much additional credit.

So the consumer has no qualms about refinancing a house that is going to go into foreclosure anyway, or maxing out a credit card that he has no intention of paying, or signing up for buy now, pay later, when in his mind it’s ‘buy now, pay never.’

Steering the conversation to the foundation of this unchecked borrowing, Peter highlights the even larger bubble inflating quietly in the background: the U.S. dollar and Treasury markets. He argues that it’s this inflation that fuels trade imbalances and the erosion of American manufacturing—not foreign “cheating” or tariffs as some officials claim:

Well, first of all, the biggest bubble of them all is the one in the US dollar and in US treasuries. 

And that’s what’s been enabling these massive trade deficits that Secretary Bessent said are responsible for hollowing out our industrial base, decimating our supply chains, sacrificing our economic security. 

All that stuff is true as to what’s happened, but he’s got the cause wrong. He’s blaming all these problems on foreigners cheating through tariffs and non-tariff barriers. But that’s got nothing to do with it.

Peter then zeroes in on a risk most policymakers won’t acknowledge: the vulnerability of American banks if confronted with a stagflation scenario. He explains that stress tests run by the Federal Reserve ignore the one scenario that could truly expose the banking system’s weaknesses:

Well, it’s extremely exposed. And in fact, you know, stagflation, a combination of a weak economy and rising interest rates, is the one scenario that the Fed never stress tested any of the banks for. 

The Federal Reserve, in its most worst case adverse scenario, where there is a massive recession with high unemployment, they assume that interest rates go back down to zero, and that treasury bonds yields collapse. 

They did not run a stress test where you have a recession with high unemployment, but inflation and interest rates go up, not down. … They’d all fail under a really adverse scenario.

Shifting the focus to where big players are moving their assets, Peter notes that central banks are already well into the process of selling dollars and U.S. government debt in favor of gold. He argues that this transition is still in its early stages, with gold’s price set to climb much higher as a result:

We’re just headed higher to 4,000 and beyond. But gold is what central banks are buying as they are selling dollars. 

They are moving reserves from dollars to gold, which means they’re not buying treasuries either or mortgage backed securities. 

And we’re still early in that process. It’s been going on for a couple of years, but it’s still got a long way to go.

Peter ties his argument together by recalling how the U.S. has used the dollar’s global reserve currency status as a crutch to maintain lifestyles that outstrip domestic production and savings. As the world moves away from the dollar, he warns, Americans will be forced to return to more sustainable habits—producing and saving rather than consuming and borrowing:

The changes that I am referring to have to do with the fact that we’ve been able to get a free ride on the global gravy train. 

We’ve been able to exploit the reserve status of the US dollar to live beyond our means. We’re able to consume as a nation more than we collectively produce, and we’re able to borrow a lot more than we collectively save. 

And so our standard of living, right, our ability to buy stuff, has been enhanced by taking advantage of the dollar’s role. Without the dollar as a reserve currency, we’d have to produce more, which means we’d have to save more.

For more of Peter’s insight, check out his other recent interview on the Mining Network!

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 10:30

Hamas Planned Oct. 7 To Prevent Israel-Saudi Normalization, Documents Confirm

Hamas Planned Oct. 7 To Prevent Israel-Saudi Normalization, Documents Confirm

Newly uncovered internal Hamas documents confirm a longtime theory explaining the motives behind the Oct.7, 2023 terror attack which kicked off the bloody and grinding Gaza war, which still shows no signs of abating and has resulted in unprecedented death and destruction in the Gaza Strip.

The documents, published by The Wall Street Journal, demonstrate that Hamas leaders had a specific aim of preventing a potential peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia based on the US-backed Abraham Accords. This was speculated about soon after the horrific attacks that also kicked off the hostage crisis.

Yahya Sinwar signaling 'victory' at a 2021 rally, via Shutterstock.

This is according to minutes from a high-level meeting which cite now slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and which were reportedly discovered by Israeli forces in Gaza tunnels. Sinwar was quoted in the internal papers, which are dated Oct. 2, 2023 - as saying, "There is no doubt that the Saudi-Zionist normalization agreement is progressing significantly."

He expressed alarm that a deal would "open the door for the majority of Arab and Islamic countries to follow the same path." 

Indeed the Palestinians have long feared that broad acceptance of the Abraham Accords in the region would leave the cause of a statehood permanently forgotten and sidelined. It would allow for Israeli expansion with impunity, and with no powerful Arab block to resist or raise a voice. It would also likely dry up any funding or weapons support for armed groups like Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

The Wall Street Journal presents the following, quoting notes from the meeting further:

For Sinwar and Hamas, who have called for total destruction of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, this was unacceptable. Sinwar said it was time to unleash an attack that had been in the planning stages for two years.

The goal, he said, is "to bring about a major move or a strategic shift in the paths and balances of the region with regard to the Palestinian cause." He expected to get help from the other Iranian-backed forces of the so-called axis of resistance to Israel.

He called for an "extraordinary act" in order to halt the move toward Israeli-Saudi normalization.

WSJ: "The Israeli military says it found minutes from an Oct. 2, 2023 meeting of Hamas leadership where Yahya Sinwar said an 'extraordinary act' was needed to confront Israeli-Saudi normalization."

Hamas has not commented on the documents' authenticity, but again, their contents appear fully consistent with concerns voiced by some Palestinian officials long prior to Oct. 7 - that the Palestinian cause would suffocate and die if the Arab Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, achieve full diplomatic normalization with Israel.

One year ago, at the tail-end of the Biden administration, the US was still trying to entice the Saudis to sign a deal - even offering help with developing a civilian nuclear program and fewer restrictions on arms purchases in exchange for normalizing ties with Israel.

The US position has long been that a Palestinian state must be born out direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, and not accomplished superficially within an external forum like the UN. But powerful Arab states like Saudi Arabia would theoretically apply immense pressure on the Palestinian side.

Israel for its part has clearly rejected that it will allow for a Palestinian state so long as Hamas still exists, and PM Netanyahu has even linked the more secular-leaning Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to 'terrorism'. He has also rejected a prior US call to allow the PA to take over and administer the Gaza Strip. The reality is that the current Gaza war makes the prospect of achieving a Palestinian state more distant than ever.

Israeli military in Hamas tunnels and commander bunkers under Gaza, via IDF.

And the prospect of Palestinian statehood resulting from some kind of Israel-Saudi normalization agreement based on Trump's Abraham Accords (conceived during his first administration) - which US media reports previously hailed as 'deal of the century' - also clearly seems a pipe dream at this point.

In this regard at least, Sinyar's 'extraordinary act' served its purpose, but the bloody aftermath is thousands of Israelis killed, many tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and wounded, and a region on fire.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 09:55

From Debanking To Banking Arms-Race - The Rise Of Stablecoins

From Debanking To Banking Arms-Race - The Rise Of Stablecoins

Authored by Megan Knab via CoinTelegraph.com,

There are few historical examples of such a massive about-face for an industry, from banks debanking crypto businesses to now embracing stablecoins. If you talk to most crypto startup founders or companies with crypto on the balance sheet, they will all have war stories about finding, applying for and maintaining bank accounts. 

Over the past three years, over half of debanking complaints have been lodged against four American banks — Bank of America, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Citibank. Now, as the policies that discriminated against the crypto industry, like “Operation Chokepoint 2.0” and the recision of controversial accounting rule SAB 121, have been repealed, a new openness to blockchain technology from the finance sector is possible. 

It is imperative that the banking industry stop shunning crypto and start — at least understanding it — to stay competitive. How stablecoins are deployed will separate the banking winners and losers. 

From debanking to stablecoins 

Of course, stablecoins are not a new concept. For years, large institutions like JPMorgan and Santander have experimented with stablecoins and blockchains. Those experiments were around small functions like internal treasury reconciliation and interbank settlement. Much of this was also on private blockchains created by those banks. Implementing digital dollars on private chains, however, misses out on the core innovation of stablecoins.

While the use case of stablecoins for international remittances is clear, we are just scratching the surface of the power of stablecoins on public networks. For example, stablecoins eradicate unauthorized payment disputes and enable far faster pay cycles. 

Payroll payments are also complex. Payday is a web of thousands of automated clearing houses, wires, comma-separated values and PDFs. The programmability of stablecoins enables companies to create efficiency among all these data structures, processing times, reconciliations and paycheck reporting. 

Many smaller banks are just now waking up to the opportunity to incorporate permissionless, public network stablecoins into their workflows. Similar to how many businesses started to investigate how AI might change their businesses with the 2022 release of ChatGPT, so too are banks needing to look at how stablecoins will upend money movement.

 Recently, Custodia Bank issued its own stablecoin, Avit, on Ethereum. Custodia’s users can access quick, cheap banking services that are hard to beat. This is an excellent example of implementation for other financial institutions to follow.

Stablecoin adoption is increasing as the tech keeps improving

Active stablecoin wallets increased from 19.6 million in February 2024 to over 30 million in February 2025, according to Artemis and Dune. US President Donald Trump hopes to have stablecoin legislation on his desk by August 2025. Wyoming already did so in late March 2025.

Stablecoin infrastructure has improved significantly, and there is increased confidence in the security of stablecoins. 91% of the supply of stablecoins is fiat-backed, and only 8.5% are backed by collateralized crypto assets. Riskier algorithmic stablecoins have gone out of vogue.

Incremental changes also make it easier for non-crypto businesses to use stablecoins. There are now simple solutions for many of the original UX problems with stablecoins.

Additionally, more assets are moving onchain. Using stablecoins on public networks like Ethereum, payment companies will be better prepared to serve the future financial system. It’s not just stablecoins that are updating the financial system, either. Earlier this year, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said on Squawk Box he wants the SEC to “rapidly approve the tokenization of bonds and stocks.”

For banks looking for a competitive advantage in a world of powerful fintechs, shifting interest rates and lower consumer savings, using the power of stablecoins to improve their products and their internal operations might be the most powerful decision they make. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 09:20

EU Establishment Fumes As "Far Right" Romanian Candidate Closes In On Presidential Win

EU Establishment Fumes As "Far Right" Romanian Candidate Closes In On Presidential Win

When EU backed officials in Romania fabricated the accusation that right leaning presidential candidate Calin Georgescu was only popular because of a Russian disinformation operation on social media, the most common assumption was that this was purely a political stunt to draw voters away from his campaign.  Instead, the establishment surprised many around the world with Georgescu's arrest and eventual disqualification from the race. 

To this day there is still no concrete evidence that Russia had any hand in the candidate's campaign or made any measurable effort to sway the election in his favor.

At bottom, Georgescu was the clear favorite to win exactly because he was a populist, nationalist and wanted to keep Romania out of the Ukraine conflict. This is what the Romanian people want.  However, the qualities that endeared him to the public were also the qualities that made him a target for removal.  The strategy has only resulted in even greater defiance by the voters and given a clear boost to George Simion, the conservative alternative. 

Georgescu has thrown his support behind Simion, a self proclaimed fan of MAGA and a staunch opponent of Romanian involvement in Ukraine.  Simion recently crushed the existing government coalition in the do-over elections, causing Romania's Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu to resign.  The final election, slated for this Sunday, will finally end the chaos of the uncertain election process.

As critics of the action to stifle the populist movement point out, the government only seems to have made voters more galvanized against the status quo.  It's clear that the progressive multiculturalist seat of power in Europe is fading, and they are willing to use any authoritarian means necessary to "save democracy".  

The problem is that the more the European Union squeezes their fist around member nations, the more countries end up slipping through their fingers.  Simion's odds of winning the election are high.  High enough, in fact, that the progressive media has unleashed a rancid flood of swampy propaganda attacking the candidate in preparation of his likely victory. 

Within the past two days we have seen some incredibly biased and manipulative headlines.  

The Guardian says‘Between a mathematician and a Trump-loving hooligan’: Romania’s stark presidential choice

From the Washington PostA Russian-stoked protest movement lifts a MAGA-like populist in Romania

From PoliticoRomania’s Simion wants a broad coalition. Good luck with that.

From The New York Times (in reference to Simion's possible win):  Romania Is About to Experience Disaster

From Foreign PolicyRomania’s Far Right Is More Extreme Than You Think

This is not journalism, this is agit-prop for the globalist oligarchy.  CNN only referred to Simion as "A MAGA Courting Populist", which is generally true, but in their tiny leftist minds this accusation alone is a kind irredeemable condemnation. 

The reaction from the corporate media in the west reveals how valuable Romania is for the future plans of NATO and the EU.  Sitting directly on Ukraine's southwest border with access to the Black Sea, Romania would be a key strategic position in a future war with Russia should Europe be insane enough to pursue a conflict.  There is also the matter of the European population becoming increasingly disenchanted with the progressive elites in power.  Their open border policies and carbon controls have nearly destroyed most of the union and left it in third world shambles.

A win for populists in Romania could herald even greater wins by other nationalist parties across the continent in the next few years.        

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 08:45

The Latest Hungarian-Ukrainian Tensions Are Troubling

The Latest Hungarian-Ukrainian Tensions Are Troubling

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban revealed after a meeting with the Defense Council that Ukraine is meddling in the ongoing Hungarian referendum over whether to support Ukraine’s EU membership plans

He also accused the opposition of unprecedentedly colluding with them. 

This coincided with Hungary reportedly downing a Ukrainian drone, which followed tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions after Ukraine accused Hungary of spying on it and Hungary accused Ukraine of pushing hostile propaganda.

The larger context concerns Hungary’s principled refusal to send arms to Ukraine or allow its territory to be used by others to that end due to its pro-peace policy. As can be evinced above, it’s also against Ukraine joining the EU, the reason being that Ukraine discriminates against the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia/Transcarpathia. Even though Orban has repeatedly explained how the aforesaid policies align with Hungarian national interests, Zelensky and many in the West accuse him of being Putin’s puppet.

This was the tacit pretext upon which Ukraine let a gas deal with Russia lapse at the start of the year to the detriment of downstream customers like Hungary and Slovakia, the second of which began following in Budapest’s geopolitical footsteps after Prime Minister Roberto Fico’s return to power in late 2023. Ukraine’s move was therefore clearly meant to punish them for their pro-peace policies, which Ukraine believes undermine European unity towards the conflict and could one day obstruct EU financial aid.

The latest tensions are more troubling than any of the aforesaid since they concern security issues. Mutual mistrust was boiling for a while as detailed above but it’s now taking on a new dimension. Given their deteriorating ties since 2022, it was to be expected that they’d spy on each other, but few could have expected Ukraine’s innuendo that Hungary might be preparing an invasion and Hungary’s innuendo that Ukraine might try to orchestrate a Color Revolution. These claims deserve to be scrutinized.

Ukraine’s build upon smears that Hungary is a Russian proxy and might therefore be ordered to open a “second front” sometime in the future on the pretext of protecting its co-ethnics. While they’re indeed being discriminated against, the costs of a Hungarian military intervention in their support far outweigh the benefits. Hungary would ostracize itself from the West, open itself up to crippling sanctions and possibly even allied attack, and have to incorporate or forcibly expel Zakarpattia’s Ukrainian population.

Hungary’s claims are more believable since Ukraine already behaves as a Western proxy. Former Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov boasted in January 2023 that “We’re carrying out NATO’s mission today, without shedding their blood.” The Wall Street Journal then reported in March 2024 that Ukraine was fighting Russia in Sudan, while last summer, a GUR official claimed credit for a deadly Tuareg attack on Wagner in Mali. It thus wouldn’t be surprising if Ukraine is helping the West undermine Russian-friendly Orban.

With this insight in mind, Ukraine is much more of a credible threat to Hungary than the inverse.

In fact, Ukraine might exploit the latest tensions as the pretext for ramping up pressure on Hungary, which could in turn prompt more European countries to do the same. 

Any legal action against the Hungarian opposition for their collusion with the Ukrainian special services might also lead to serious EU sanctions. Hungary must therefore brace itself for major meddling ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 07:00

Is Christian Nationalism The Solution To The Frailty Of Liberalism?

Is Christian Nationalism The Solution To The Frailty Of Liberalism?

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

Conservative movements are often depicted as unyielding and uncompromising; dangerously incapable of adaptation when new ideas come to light. This image of the political right is rooted in a number of misconceptions. In reality, modern conservatives are often far too compromising – Far too willing to go along to get along. None of us wants to be seen as a dictator.

Perhaps the most important and defining characteristic of conservatives (at least in the US) is a regard for freedom, but ONLY freedom that is tempered by responsibility. When leftists (or libertarians) scrutinize the conservative ideal they usually reach back around 50 years to the days of evangelical censorship – The attempts to shut down the porn industry, temper the gay agenda in media, warn about satanic references in movies and violence in video games.

This was the era of the Christian “busybody” and a lot of people made fun of them for it. To be clear, they were wrong in some instances, but as our current predicament in the west proves, they were right about many things, too.

The supposed balance to the evangelicals was Liberalism. Most liberals today are certainly not the staunchly individualist and freedom minded people they once were. In fact, the majority of them joined woke activists without question or kept their mouths shut while the far-left pulled a speed run into Orwell’s 1984.

Perhaps in a desperate attempt to save their ideology from losing all relevancy, some liberals slipped over to the center and criticized the woke mob. Most of them didn’t have the balls to jump into the culture war until a few years ago. Those of us in the conservative sphere had already been exposing the existential dangers of post-modernism, futurism and luciferianism for decades.

Centrist liberals say they want to temper the political left’s addiction to Marxism and Communism. As recent events have proven, they are simply not up to the task of controlling their political cousins. The woke movement spread like a cancer throughout the entire liberal body and they bowed in fealty. The only thing that stopped the rot was the right wing finally taking a stand and going on the offensive.

With conservative principles currently gaining momentum there is a chance that America could actually turn back the clock on mores and social cohesion to a time when traditional values were held in much higher regard. This can only be a good thing in my opinion, but it requires a reconsideration of our concept of personal liberty. Maybe some behavior needs to be reined in? Maybe total unchecked chaos and limitless individualism is a bad thing?

Liberals warn that conservatives are gaining too much power after the success of MAGA in last year’s elections and therefore we must be kept in check. Their argument? The woke left is beaten, but now the world must put a leash on the “woke right”.

The “woke right” label in itself is a rather remedial and silly attempt to divert popular discussion away from traditional values (a development that hasn’t taken place in the US in a long time). Morals, nobility and responsibility might become “cool” again, and liberals simply can’t have that.

They argue that their way (a continued idealization of individualism without taking inherent narcissism, psychopathy and the mentality of mobs into account) is the best way. However, we have seen where liberalism without boundaries ends. The cult of chaos (wokeness) is simply a natural extension of the liberal ideal. They demand an end to ALL restrictions, even the restrictions of objective truth.

They want total open multicultural expansion, unfettered freedom to interpret biology and morality according to subjective preference, unchecked sexual deviancy, no consequences whatsoever for their actions. Liberals are not as far from this end of the spectrum as they pretend. They don’t like cultural structures and rules either. They don’t like collective limitations (unless they control those limitations). They don’t even believe in evil; they only believe in circumstances.

Conservatives now stand atop the fray of the culture war and many of us are suggesting that, in order to prevent the nightmare of wokeness (or something even worse) from ever happening again, we might need to instill some enduring rules of social conduct. The liberals in turn are freaking out. They especially seem to despise Christian Nationalists who want to bring America back to an era of carefully defined moral order.

A decade ago I might have agreed with this concern, at least in part. I’m not fond of the idea of a theocracy in which the church rules the state. I also agree that most people have a conscience outside of biblical teaching (If we didn’t then humanity would have gone extinct long ago).

That said, Christian Nationalism does not require theocracy, and if you do have a conscience then you should already be in agreement with most Christian fundamentals anyway. Living in a society where Christianity is more widely embraced wouldn’t make any difference for you. It would only be incompatible if a person harbors post-modern delusions that view Christianity as the enemy. If that’s the case, you shouldn’t be living in America anyway. All you have to do is go elsewhere.

I think liberals need to acknowledge that they are a product of a very narrow moment in time and that time is fading. For most of American history Christianity was the preeminent cultural compass. The US was always Christian and nearly all of our leaders were Christian. America has in fact always been a Christian nation and Christian Nationalism was the norm. Christians are still the majority today (62%) despite the endless negative campaign to shut them down.

As recently as the 1990s, over 90% of all Americans identified as Christian. Things have only changed in the past 30 years, and they have done so dramatically to the negative.

In light of the unfettered horrors of wokism I’m increasingly convinced that Christian doctrine is a necessary firewall designed to filter out otherwise malicious ideological malware. If the progressives (and their liberal counterparts) are not kept in check by someone, then the woke march could repeat by the next generation.

So, what is to be done?

The underlying debate is this – Should one group define western culture above all others and defend it against existential threats. Are Christian Nationalists that group? I would say yes to both questions, because of America’s spiritual history and the fact that there’s no other viable alternative. Do we continue to allow liberals to anoint themselves the arbiters of American culture? Or, do we try something different?

Is this hard-right position also “woke right”? The term “woke right” is often linked back to Kevin DeYoung’s 2022 review of Stephen Wolfe’s book The Case for Christian Nationalism. In his article entitled “The Rise of Right-Wing Wokeism” he argues that:

Besides trafficking in sweeping and unsubstantiated claims about the totalizing control of the Globalist American Empire and the gynocracy, Wolfe’s apocalyptic vision—for all of its vitriol toward the secular elites—borrows liberally from the playbook of the left.

He not only redefines the nature of oppression as psychological oppression (making it easier to justify extreme measures and harder to argue things aren’t as bad as they seem), he also rallies the troops (figuratively, but perhaps also literally?) by reminding them they’re victims. “The world is out to get you, and people out there hate you” is not a message that will ultimately help white men or any other group that considers themselves oppressed…”

…If critical race theory teaches that America has failed, that the existing order is irredeemable, that Western liberalism was a mistake from the beginning, that the current system is rigged against our tribe, and that we ought to make ethnic consciousness more important—it seems to me that Wolfe’s project is the right-wing version of these same impulses.”

While DeYoung’s analysis seems to be coming from a sincere place and he does defend Christian culture as an important part of American life, his analysis requires a certain level of ignorance to stay afloat. Liberals and left leaning Christians refuse to consider one important factor:

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

The entire premise behind the notion of the “woke right” requires that none of the threats above prove to be real. That there is no globalist conspiracy to destroy the west and Christianity. That the subversion of conservative principles is imagined. That there is no white replacement in the US and Europe. That conservatives are not being oppressed and that tribal organization against our attackers is unwarranted or impractical.

DeYoung (and most liberals) prefer passive Christianity. If Christians had thought like DeYoung in the Middle Ages, the entire west would have been wiped off the face of the Earth by Muslim invaders centuries ago. Instead, they took direct action to save themselves. The issue is not even particularly nationalist in origin, it’s only that nations are the easiest barrier to rally and defend. At bottom, Christians must at times act to prevent their own erasure.

Wokeness is largely about false witness – Leftists claim they are being oppressed when they are provably not. The political right cannot be woke because the western world and Christianity are indeed under constant attack. This is not debatable.

In Europe today, the war on Christians and conservatives (or populists) is evident and it is undeniably systemic. Europeans have been under siege by engineered mass immigration from the third-world. Most of the migrants come from places (Islamic) that despise Christianity and view personal liberty as an aberration or heresy. The governments of France, Germany, England and Romania are actively imprisoning right leaning political opponents and silencing them online, all in the name of liberal democracy.

In the US, woke zealots and the global elites have used everything from mass censorship to medical tyranny to mob violence to shut down and terrorize the political right. The Biden Administration made multiple public proclamations declaring conservatives a domestic threat to democracy. We were accused of being insurrectionists. We were painted as terrorists, and all we did was ask questions and demand truthful answers. This isn’t an exaggerated tale of victimhood conjured up for sympathy, it’s just the facts.

The debate over Christians and conservatives taking direct action instead of waiting around for the next crisis reminds me of a fascinating film directed by Bill Paxton called ‘Frailty’. If you haven’t seen it then I recommend doing so before I spoil it for you here.

In the movie, Bill Paxton plays a father with two sons living a relatively normal life as a devout man with a good heart. One day, he approaches his sons with a terrifying tale: He was visited by an angel from heaven that told him he has been chosen for a mission to destroy evil. The evil, he says, is enacted by demons that take the form of human beings. He claims that God has demanded that he and his sons remove these demons before they do anymore harm.

The youngest son believes his father without question and in full faith. The older son does not and asserts that the man might be going dangerously insane.

What follows is an escalating conflict between father and son as Bill Paxton begins to kill the people he believes are demonic. When he touches them, he says he can see the crimes they’ve committed. The older son refuses to participate in the murders and tries to sabotage Paxton’s efforts. Finally, Paxton accuses his oldest of being a demon as well. The boy eventually kills his father in order to stop the murders.

Plot Twist: Bill Paxton really did receive a vision from God. He really was killing demons, and his eldest son was also a demon the whole time.

Liberals who perpetuate the woke right narrative remind me of the oldest son in Frailty.

They play at being even handed, fighting to keep the scales of power from tipping in either direction. In truth, they are blinded by their own self righteousness and their belief that there is no such thing as evil. The rest of us see it, but if we try to do something about it these same people obstruct and sabotage and accuse us of “becoming monsters to defeat the monsters”. They allow the sparks of woke chaos to survive.

Should western civilization be allowed to discriminate? Should we be able to refuse to associate? Should we have the right to be tribal (like everyone else) and deny entry to malicious cultures and ideologies? Is our heritage valid and enduring? Is Christian Nationalism the solution to the woke luciferian agenda? It seems to me that the elites want conservatism dead so badly that it must be a threat to them.

We ARE fighting demons, and a culture without a spiritual consensus is a dying culture. Christian Nationalism was the natural default of American society for centuries. Many people who are not Christians are still perfectly capable of living and thriving within such a society as long as they don’t try to tear it down. The Overton Window has merely been rigged so far to the left that any return to the old standard sounds like madness; it is in fact the most sane thing we could possibly do to save our country.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/17/2025 - 23:20

Desperate San Francisco Pins Business Hopes On Nintendo Flagship Store

Desperate San Francisco Pins Business Hopes On Nintendo Flagship Store

Essentially all of America's major cities on the west coast are experiencing a period of steep economic decline.  The reason for the financial squeeze and the exodus of major business chains is obvious - Democrat run cities enforce progressive criminal policies and progressive tax policies.  The two elements combined make it nearly impossible for most companies to function and turn a profit.  Even worse, businesses are finding it difficult to ensure their employees stay safe.

The theft issue is astronomical, even after the California State Government (and city governments) reversed a law which made prosecution of anyone stealing under $950 in goods almost impossible.  Criminal residents took full advantage of the lack of enforcement and gutted numerous retail outlets, forcing them to lock up their stock behind plastic and chains.  The elimination of the law might lesson the incentive to steal, but too many criminals know they are still unlikely to be caught or have their cases pursued by the city. 

Denny's, Walgreens, Michael Kors and others have shuttered San Francisco locations. So far in 2025, the San Francisco Police Department has recorded more than 8,100 crime reports, including 530 robberies and over 4,600 instances of larceny theft.

In San Francisco's once bustling Union Square shopping district, some of the largest retailers are running for the hills.  Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Uniqlo, Adidas, American Eagle, J. Crew, Madewell, Aldo, L'Occitane, as well as Psycho Bunny, Sunglass Hut, and Razer have all closed stores in the area or are in the process of leaving. 

However, the city is placing hope in the arrival of a brand new Nintendo flagship store in Union Square, which they think will help rejuvenate shopping activity.  The store is one of only two in existence outside of Japan.

It probably doesn't need to be spelled out, but the desperation and delusion are palpable here.  The store is a unique item to the US, but not enough to draw in a shopping revival in the already hollow Union Square.  San Francisco's reputation as a tourist destination is undeniably sullied.  A single successful store is also not going to drive other businesses to take a chance in a market they already escaped. 

Why Nintendo would choose to establish a flagship operation in the area is a mystery, but the city government has recently created a "Downtown Revitalization Program" (including something called the "San Francisco New Deal") which offers a number of financial incentives, grants, low interest loans and rewards for "beautification". Nintendo may have gathered enough taxpayer cash already to pay for their first year of operations. 

In other words, no company is going to put down roots in San Francisco unless the local government pays them to do so.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/17/2025 - 21:35

Syrian President Skips Arab League Summit In Baghdad After Outcry Over ISIS Background

Syrian President Skips Arab League Summit In Baghdad After Outcry Over ISIS Background

Via Middle East Eye

A summit of the Arab League began in Baghdad on Saturday, with Syria's president absent following Iraqi outcry. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas was the first Arab leader to arrive in Baghdad on Friday, followed by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on Saturday.

However, a diplomatic source told AFP that most Gulf leaders would not be attending. Other figures present in Baghdad on Saturday include United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein (right) walks with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani (left) upon his arrival in Baghdad for the 34th Arab League summit on 17 May 2025

The summit is expected to discuss the numerous crises afflicting the region, including Israel's ongoing attack on the Gaza Strip.

US President Donald Trump, who has been touring the Gulf states, sparked outrage in the Arab world earlier this year when he declared his country would take control of Gaza and turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East".

In response, Arab leaders announced the development of a post-war plan at the previous summit in Cairo in March to rebuild the territory.

The Iraqi government has said this month's summit would endorse the plan, which calls for a $53bn fund to finance Gaza's reconstruction over five years. Under the proposal, the territory would be administered during a transitional period by a committee of Palestinian technocrats, before the PA regains control.

"We are not just rebuilding Iraq, we are also reshaping the Middle East through a balanced foreign policy, wise leadership, development initiatives, and strategic partnerships," Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani wrote in an opinion piece earlier this month.

Syrian al-Qaeda founder

Iraq is still trying to stabilize after years of violence sparked off by the US-led invasion in 2003 that overthrew long-time ruler Saddam Hussein.

Controversy had swirled around an invitation extended by Sudani to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who came to power after overthrowing Bashar al-Assad in December. Numerous Iraqi politicians had called for him to be blocked from attending over his past membership in al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iraqis during the 2000s through often indiscriminate and sectarian attacks.

On Saturday, it was reported that Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani, who was also a member of Syria's al-Qaeda wing alongside Sharaa, would be attending the summit rather than the president.

Iraqi media reported last month that at least 50 MPs from Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataeb Hezbollah - two Iran-backed armed political factions that provided military support to Assad against Sharaa and other Syrian opposition groups - had filed criminal complaints in Iraqi courts against the Syrian president.

The Islamic Dawa Party, which held the prime ministership during the bulk of the al-Qaeda insurgency, also warned against inviting Sharaa to Iraq. Though they did not mention the prime minister by name, they said that anyone invited to the Arab League conference should have a "spotless" legal record, both at home and abroad.

However, Sudani - like several other Arab leaders - has been keen to normalize ties with Syria following 13 years of civil [proxy war for regime change] war that have destabilized the wider region, including fueling the rise of the Islamic State group in Iraq.

The summit also comes shortly after Sharaa met with Trump, who announced the lifting of sanctions imposed on Syria during the Assad era. Still, not everyone has been so open to mending relations with Iraq's western neighbor.

Safaa Rashid, a Baghdad resident who lost three cousins in al-Qaeda blasts in 2005, told Middle East Eye last month that he was appalled by Sudani's decision to invite Sharaa.

"[Sharaa] is the face of terrorism," he said. "He must be held accountable. I lost three cousins to his group’s violence... How can someone like this be welcomed as if he were an honored guest?"

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/17/2025 - 21:00

"I Don't Know What To Do!": Borrowers Report Credit-Score Carnage As Student Loans Hit Reports

"I Don't Know What To Do!": Borrowers Report Credit-Score Carnage As Student Loans Hit Reports

Last week we noted new report from the New York Federal Reserve, which showed that while Americans' credit card debt is falling, credit scores are starting to decline due to an uptick in student loan delinquencies. 

The NY Fed's Center for Macroeconomic Data's quarterly report reveals that overall household debt rose by $167 billion - with credit card debt declining by $29 billion. Yet, the delinquency rate for student loans surged from below 1% to nearly 7.7% after a pandemic-era pause on student loan payments was lifted in September 2023.

While the payments were resumed, policymakers extended a one-year ramp-up period that shielded borrowers' missed payments from being reported to credit bureaus. This extension expired in October 2024, with delinquencies starting to hit the first quarter of 2025. 

Needless to say, it's total carnage among borrowers, as one can see from Reddit's 'StudentLoans' forum.

"My credit score dropped 240+ points. i dont know what to do!!" said one Redditor, who says she can't pay her bills because she doesn't have a job after graduating in 2024.

"My score was in the high 700s and dropped to about 480," said another Redditor, who said they were notified by reporting agency Experian that their credit "took a massive hit."

"My transunion and equifax scores took a -100 hit due to my loans "just being recognized this January,"" reported another borrower.

"My credit dropped from a 720 to a 550," said yet another - who reported having "6 total loans from school" that have been "deferred for a while."

"Credit Got Torched" reads a Friday post. "i am unfortunately 1 of the 9 million people who received delinquency marks on my credit report from the dept of education for student loans, which decreased my credit score by 118 points."

Interestingly, several redditors said their scores tanked from loans taken out in their names that they were unaware of - including the first example, who said "I have 10 student loans overall, 5 sub, 5 unsub, and have never had anything else on my credit or anything, no cards or loans, etc. I did get my identity stolen, but I disputed the loans that were taken out fraudulently, and my score was barely affected at all from it."

According to the NY Fed report, while over half of the newly delinquent borrowers already have subprime credit scores, around 2.4 million borrowers who entered delinquency this year had scores over 620 - which could have allowed them to qualify for auto loans, mortgages, and credit cards, prior to the delinquency being reported. 3.2 million borrowers whose scores were under 620 (56.6% of the newly delinquent population) saw their scores decline by an average of 74 points.

Another 2 million borrowers with scores between 620 - 719 (35.9% of new delinquencies) saw their credit scores fall by an average of 140 points - while there were 400,000 borrowers whose scores were above 720 (7.2% of new delinquencies) that saw their scores fall by over 100 points.

Over 1 million borrowers saw drops of at least 150 points. 

The report found that seven states have a conditional student loan delinquency rate — which excludes borrowers who don't have a payment due — above 30%, including Mississippi (44.6%), Alabama (34.1%), West Virginia (34%), Kentucky (33.6%), Oklahoma (33.6%), Arkansas (33.5%) and Louisiana (31.8%).

At the end of the first quarter, over 20 million federal student loan borrowers weren't in repayment and five million had a zero-dollar monthly payment. -Fox News

"After a five-year hiatus, student loan delinquency has returned to the pre-pandemic 'normal' with more than 10 percent of balances and roughly six million borrowers either past due or in default," according to the NY Fed report, which noted that the collections process that resumed in May includes the "garnishment of wages, tax returns, and Social Security payments."

"Additionally, millions of borrowers face steep declines in their credit standing which will increase borrowing costs or seriously limit their access to credit like mortgages and auto loans."

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/17/2025 - 20:25

Los Angeles County Targets Retail Theft With New Warning Program

Los Angeles County Targets Retail Theft With New Warning Program

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

Los Angeles County is launching a new program to warn criminals and deter retail theft, according to District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who says local businesses have lost millions of dollars to theft since January.

Retailers can contact local law enforcement to obtain one of 10,000 yellow warning decals to post at their business and inform the public that thefts will be prosecuted by the regional retail theft task force.

The sticker also has a QR code for the public to use to report any crimes.

According to the National Retail Federation, the Los Angeles area is the worst in the nation for organized retail crime.

At a press conference on May 14 in front of a 7-Eleven convenience store in West Los Angeles, Hochman said ending the cycle of catch-and-release in recent years that sent serial retail thieves back on the streets to reoffend is a top priority.

“Small businesses, stores, and even big-box retailers constitute the lifeline of our communities, and the lifeblood of our communities are under attack,” Hochman said.

“They’ve had to deal over the last several years with criminals who had the mistaken belief that you can come into a 7-Eleven, for instance, take whatever you want, leave, and nothing would happen.

“We are here today to explain to them the exact opposite,” he said. “You will be held accountable, you will be arrested, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

The district attorney said he intended to use new authority afforded by Proposition 36, passed by state voters last year, to prosecute thieves and repeat offenders.

The proposition—also known as the “Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act,” went into effect on Dec. 18, 2024.

The new law increased penalties for certain drug and theft crimes, and reclassified some misdemeanors as felonies for repeat offenders. The penalties can include sentences of up to three years in jail or prison if the defendant has already been convicted for certain thefts.

Since December, the county has filed over 1,000 Prop. 36 felony theft charges against repeat offenders, according to Hochman.

“We are armed with an additional set of laws under Prop. 36,” Hochman said.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said 10,000 warning decals will be available for local stores beginning May 16, 2025. Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office

Before Prop. 36 went into effect, petty thefts under $950 were classified as misdemeanors, and thefts could not be aggregated to meet the felony threshold, creating a “culture of impunity,” Hochman’s office stated.

One of the felony arrests made since the new law took effect was of Corry Summerville, 38, who was allegedly a serial shoplifter at the 7-Eleven featured in the news conference.

Summerville has been charged with 12 felony charges and one count of robbery related to alleged thefts at the convenience store owned by franchisee Jawad Ursani between January and March.

Four employees resigned, allegedly out of fear of continued encounters with Summerville, according to the Los Angeles Police Department Commanding Officer Capt. Richard Gabaldon.

One of the employees was allegedly violently assaulted when he asked Summerville to pay for items.

“We commend the victim for ultimately coming forward,” Gabaldon said at the news conference.

Los Angeles Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky, who represents the district where the 7-Eleven is located, said her family often frequented the store.

“When a store is repeatedly targeted or a theft turns violent, it does more than hurt the business,” Yaroslavsky said at the event. “It makes you wonder if it’s safe to send your kids in. It makes you worry that someone could get caught in the middle. And it makes you feel like no one is in charge.”

The district attorney is also partnering with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute organized retail crime. Investigators are targeting serial shoplifters, smash-and-grab mobs, and large-scale criminal enterprises.

“This is a warning to all the criminals out there, if you come to these stores and think you’re going to come here and commit a crime, we’re going to arrest you and present a good case to the D.A., and you will go to jail for that,” said LAPD Capt. Francis Boateng, commanding officer of the department’s commercial crimes division.

Convenience store owner Ursani, who has operated the 7-Eleven featured at the news conference for more than 25 years, said he was grateful for the support from Hochman and the law enforcement communities.

“My store was targeted not once, but twice, by a smash-and-grab of about over 50 teenagers and a repeat [alleged] shoplifter who is now detained and will be held accountable by this D.A.’s office as we speak,” Ursani said. “Each incident costs us in stolen goods, broken equipment, staff morale, and personal safety.”

Ursani said he has had to spend thousands of dollars on protection for the store, instead of spending the money on inventory and community investments.

“It’s not just about theft, it’s about fear and instability it brings to everyone who depends on this store and our entire community,” Ursani added.

Prop. 36 has given law enforcement more tools to target operations that harm communities, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Detective Division Chief Joe Mendoza.

“While Proposition 36 promotes necessary criminal justice reform, it also allows us to focus resources on serious, organized theft operations that harm our communities,” Mendoza said.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/17/2025 - 19:50

"Black Fatigue" Goes Viral: Everyone Including Blacks Is Tired Of Ghetto Behavior

"Black Fatigue" Goes Viral: Everyone Including Blacks Is Tired Of Ghetto Behavior

The progressive ideal is largely to blame for the monstrous creation that is ghetto culture.  The idea that racial narcissism among blacks should not only be tolerated but celebrated has led to a surge in open animosity for societal rules and standards within the US.  Far more than any other group, the black community makes up the largest share of physical crime according to their percentage of the population. This includes robbery, aggravated assault, and homicides.

For example, black Americans make up only 13% of the population but commit around 52% of all homicides according to FBI statistics.  The recent case of Karmelo Anthony comes to mind, a black teen who admitted to stabbing a white teen and killing him because the white teen allegedly "pushed him" (which he argues was a threat that made deadly force justifiable). 

The concept of "disrespect" as an offense that justifies murder is only one problem.  There is an identifiable trend of theatrical sociopathy within the black community that goes far beyond the norm.  The prevailing theory is that this is predominantly cultural - Black Americans have the highest rate of single parent households in the country (50% of black homes compared to 20% of white homes in 2023). Most of these households are run by single mothers.  Single mother homes are a notorious indicator of future criminality among juveniles.  

Then there is the problem of racial victim culture; the false idea that black Americans are being "oppressed" in the US by a systemic conspiracy of white patriarchs.  In reality, white Americans have been exponentially tolerant and have provided special privileges for blacks (affirmative action and DEI), largely because progressive society demands that reparations be made for slavery 150 years ago and segregation 60 years ago.  The form of those reparations has more or less been white guilt and a quiet passiveness in the face of increasing antagonism.   

Leftists claim white people should take it because historically they deserve it.  Ignore the fact that every culture on Earth had institutional slavery and all the slaves sent to the Americas were purchased from African tribes that enslaved other African tribes. 

However, it appears that the black community's precious supply of white guilt has finally run out and people are fed up.  The term "Black Fatigue" has gone viral this week on social media, sparking a much needed conversation among not just whites, but also blacks and other minorities.  The catalyst blamed for the trend is the now widely known "Shiloh Hendrix Incident" which has led to public support and an uproar among progressives who demand the woman be prosecuted for dropping an N-bomb. 

Perhaps white Americans finally speaking up instead of remaining silent is what was needed all along.  The fear has not been so much about black reprisal, but reprisal from the leftist mob, which until recently had weaponized cancel culture to destroy the lives of anyone speaking outside of prescribed leftist opinions.

The following clips illustrate Black Fatigue in the most symbolic way possible:  An arrogant desire to destroy what other groups build, no matter how meaningless and petty the situation might be.  Never helping, never cooperating, never trying to make things better.

And an egotistical need to display power over other groups (especially white people) by sabotaging them even though they have done nothing wrong and want to be left alone. Oversensitive reactions to every perceived slight, creating a psychology of persecution that leads blacks to lash out over everything.  These are habits not limited to individuals, but habits of the culture as a whole.  

Black fatigue is leading to a dangerous place and it's clear that at least some in the community see what is happening and they're trying to mitigate the damage.  Historically speaking, the next stage would be mass anger and retaliation for such behaviors. 

Hopefully it won't come to that.  If ghetto culture is abandoned and calmer minds prevail then it's likely most racial strife within the US today will disappear as quickly as it gestated.  But this would require that a large portion of black Americans accept the reality that they are not victims and that they are causing the problem.  How likely is it that this will happen given decades of woke indoctrination that says white people are always the  source of every conflict and trespass?    

 

*  *  *

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Click pic... buy seeds... take food supply into your own hands... Tyler Durden Sat, 05/17/2025 - 19:15

Nuclear Names Oklo And NuScale Move Forward With SMR Permitting, Plans

Nuclear Names Oklo And NuScale Move Forward With SMR Permitting, Plans

Sam Altman-backed Oklo says it is navigating what CEO Jacob DeWitte calls “good uncertainty” as potential Trump administration executive orders could accelerate Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing, expand military and Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear roles, and boost U.S. nuclear fuel supply chains, according to UtilityDive.

On Oklo’s Q1 2025 earnings call, DeWitte confirmed the company is engaged in a “pre-application readiness assessment” with the NRC, aiming to smooth its formal license submission for a newly upsized 75-MW reactor design in Q4 2025. The company still targets late 2027 or early 2028 for first power production at its Idaho National Laboratory (INL) site.

DeWitte noted the recent departure of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as Oklo board chair removes a potential conflict of interest should OpenAI become a future power customer. Oklo already holds about 14 GW in nonbinding agreements with data centers and industrial operators.

The White House is weighing four nuclear-related executive orders, including directives to overhaul NRC licensing with an 18-month deadline for new applications, reconsider radiation exposure limits, and authorize military and DOE property for reactor deployments—potentially bypassing standard NRC approvals.

These efforts aim to boost U.S. nuclear capacity to 400 GW by 2050, up from about 100 GW today. While the NRC is already implementing changes from last year’s ADVANCE Act, further reforms could shorten Oklo’s expected 24- to 30-month licensing timeline.

The UtilityDive report says that Oklo is also among eight companies eligible for the military’s Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations program, enabling on-base reactor deployments. It’s developing nuclear fuel fabrication facilities capable of reusing spent fuel that would otherwise sit in long-term storage.

Meanwhile, NuScale Power is actively pursuing contracts for its small modular reactor (SMR) technology, targeting a firm customer order by the end of 2025. CEO John Hopkins said the company could deliver an operational power plant by 2030 “if we get closure on a deal here soon.” NuScale is awaiting expected NRC approval in July for its uprated 77-MW design and has 12 modules in production through manufacturing partner Doosan, capable of delivering up to 20 per year.

Hopkins emphasized NuScale’s focus on finalizing real contracts rather than nonbinding agreements, stating, “We’re actually in the process of submitting and negotiating term sheets. We’ve got customers that [want] to … touch steel.” Potential buyers include data center operators, heavy industry, and utilities. CFO Ramsey Hamady added that a signed deal would likely involve multiple parties, including plant operators and tier-one data center or AI developers.

Unlike Oklo’s build-own-operate model, NuScale provides SMR technology and plant services, likening its role to “the chip in the Dell computer.” While NuScale has courted data center customers similar to Oklo, it also promotes its reactors for hydrogen production, desalination, carbon capture, and petrochemicals.

NuScale has about two years of financial runway but expects a committed project to significantly improve its outlook. “We’ll be in a great place if our biggest challenge is keeping up with orders,” Hamady said.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/17/2025 - 15:45

"We Study Fascism...We're Leaving The US": NYTimes Runs Video Of Yale Profs Fleeing To Canada

"We Study Fascism...We're Leaving The US": NYTimes Runs Video Of Yale Profs Fleeing To Canada

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The New York Times continues to work tirelessly to maintain the narrative that the United States is now a fascist regime. Earlier, the Times demonstrated its view of balanced analysis by running a collection of legal opinions titled “A Road Map to Trump’s Lawless Presidency.” Now, it is featuring three Yale professors fleeing fascism for the safety of Canada, making direct references to the rise of the Nazis. The video is titled “These Yale Professors Study Fascism.

All three professors are going permanently to Canada to teach at the University of Toronto. It appears that the systemic rollback of free speech for conservatives in Canada is not a deterrent for Yale professors longing to be free.

The seven-minute opinion video features the three scholars:  Yale philosophy Professor Jason Stanley and history professors Marci Shore and Timothy Snyder (who are married).

Shore insisted that the United States is now a fascist country replicating the Nazi takeover. Indeed, she mocks those of us who believe that our constitutional system has proven itself for centuries as a guarantor of civil liberties, including our system of checks and balances. Shore dismisses such assurances while suggesting that the American people are a virtual ship of fools in not recognizing the fascists all around them: “The lesson of 1933 is that you get out sooner rather than later.” She added that Americans are

“like people on the Titanic saying, ‘Our ship can’t sink.’ We’ve got the best ship. We’ve got the strongest ship. We’ve got the biggest ship. Our ship can’t sink,” she said. “And what you know as a historian is that there is no such thing as a ship that can’t sink.”

Professor Snyder declared that Americans are deluding themselves:

“If you think there is this thing out there called ‘America,’ and it’s exceptional, that means that you don’t have to do anything. Whatever is happening, it must be freedom. Soon, you are using the word freedom, what you are talking about is authoritarianism.”

The New York Times splices in ominous images of migrants being detained, children crying, and anti-Israel protesters being arrested. It also shows the image of Elon Musk’s alleged Nazi salute, a ridiculous claim fostered by the media.

Previously, Snyder did interviews claiming an oligarchic conspiracy led by Musk:

we’re shifting from a democracy, which had some pretty heavy oligarchical streaks running through it, toward something like an oligarchy, in which I think it’s fair to say that it’s not Trump who’s the most important person. It’s Musk. Trump has debts. Musk has money. Trump has debts specifically to Musk for getting him elected. And I think the burden of proof is actually on Trump to show that he has any room for maneuver in this system. And it’s going to be interesting to see how congressional Republicans react, because what this particular oligarch wants is to break the federal government. And whatever their views might be, not — many of them don’t actually want the United States of America to cease to exist so that oligarchs can pick up the pieces.”

That is who the New York Times featured in its latest apocalyptic diatribe. What is interesting about one interview is how Snyder predicts Trump will engage in censorship through litigation, noting that it will not involve direct censorship barred by the First Amendment. He entirely ignores the massive censorship system of conservatives fostered by the Biden Administration on social media. That was apparently not something that you would speak out against, let alone leave the country over.

Professor Stanley’s past contributions to the political debate include his condemnation of “the right-wing hateosphere” in a diatribe that he later reaffirmed:

I am really, truly, embarrassed by the fact that my mild comment ‘F[**]k those assholes’ is being spread. This wildly understates my actual sentiments towards homophobic religious proponents of evil like Richard Swinburne, who use their status as professional philosophers to oppress others with less power. I am SO SORRY for using such mild language.

In the New York Times video, Stanley clinically explains that “you know you’re living in a fascist society when you’re constantly going over in your head the reasons why you’re safe. What we want is a country where none of us have to feel that way.”

It is a curious statement. Most of us fight to preserve our civil liberties to maintain a country that remains the longest, most stable, and most successful constitutional system in history. We do not dramatically pick up our things and stomp out of the country in a self-aggrandizing huff.

Losing elections can certainly make some “feel that way,” but for the rest of the country, it seemed like democracy at work. In the meantime, our courts are sorting out challenges to Trump executive orders, with many judges, including Trump appointees, ruling against the Administration. Those are the pesky “checks and balances” that Professor Shore blissfully dismissed in the New York Times video.

What is truly striking is that even Yale (which has purged virtually all conservatives from its faculty ranks) is not sufficiently “safe” for these three academic émigrés. They are going to the University of Toronto and Ontario to feel truly safe.

Of course, Ontario is not viewed as a safe space for many conservatives or contrarians. It proved hardly protective for University of Toronto professor emeritus Jordon Peterson when he was ordered to take mandatory training classes to curb his controversial writings. That order was upheld by successive Canadian courts.

So now these three academics will relocate to Toronto to teach Canadian students about fascism. They may, however, want to tread lightly on the subject of free speech.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/17/2025 - 15:10

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