Zero Rss

The Market Is Carrying More Length & More Leverage: Goldman Flows Guru Warns... Expect More Volatilit

The biggest discussion that top Goldman Sachs trader (and flows guru), Lee Coppersmith, had with clients this week wasn’t whether AI is over - it wasn’t.

The debate has shifted to how investors should own it from here.

If anything, the secular backdrop across both the US and Asia continues to strengthen. Capex expectations remain robust, earnings revisions continue to move higher, and we saw another week of significant inflows into US technology.

Prime Brokerage data tells the same story - Semis are on pace to finish as the most net bought global subsector for a second straight year, with net allocations now at record highs.

What’s changing isn’t the fundamental story - it’s the market structure. leverage continues to build, and volatility across large-cap Tech continues to expand relative to the broader market even as prices move higher.

At the same time, global HF net leverage has climbed to 4-year highs and this is one of the sharpest increases over a 4-week period in the past 5 years, driven by significant net buying activity and mark-to-market … Here’s our full PB rundown.

We’re also seeing some signs of broadening despite a pickup in that debate at the end of the week. Flows have expanded into Financials, cyclicals and parts of Europe and Asia, but not at the expense of AI. In fact, while overall US Tech exposure has risen toward 5-year highs, Mag 7 gross and net exposure has fallen to 1-year lows as investors rotate deeper into the AI ecosystem - particularly Semis and Asian chipmakers - rather than simply adding more mega-cap exposure.

The other major takeaway from June is that macro is back. The Iran deal serves to remove one inflation risk and Brent gave back much of its geopolitical premium, only for the Fed to replace it with renewed policy uncertainty. Front-end rates repriced higher following a hawkish FOMC, and markets should now recalibrate event volatility premium more carefully (see NFP day and FOMC day as prime examples).

One interesting observation has been how quickly investors have faded geopolitical risk. Brent has retraced most of its war premium, Managed Money has sold nearly $25bn of crude over the past seven weeks, outright shorts have reached new highs after a record build this past week, and net length now sits below pre-war levels (h/t Rob Quinn). Investors have been remarkably quick to close the book on oil and shift their attention back toward rates and Fed policy.

Brent Managed Money Shorts – weekly change

Finally, systematic flows remain an important amplifier. Dealer gamma from leveraged ETFs - particularly in markets like Korea - continues to reinforce both upside momentum and downside moves, adding another source of volatility beneath the surface. One stat that stood out to me: leveraged ETF dealer gamma rebalancing can exceed 20% of Korea's market ADV on large-move days.

Our takeaway hasn’t changed - AI remains the highest-conviction secular story we hear from clients and continues to attract capital globally.

But June has been a reminder that even the strongest secular themes don’t trade in a vacuum.

The market is carrying more length, more leverage and, as a result, more volatility.

Professional subscribers can read all the links above from Goldman's Sales & Trading team here at our new Marketdesk.ai portal

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 16:55

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer Expected To Resign On Monday: Report

Keir Starmer's premiership appears to have entered its final act. Just over a week after Andy Burnham stormed back into Parliament with a crushing by-election win, the Prime Minister is - according to senior Labour figures cited by The Observer - preparing to set out a timetable for his own departure, with a "clear statement" possible as early as Monday.

Peter Macdiarmid/Pool via REUTERS

It would be a remarkable collapse. Starmer led Labour to a landslide less than two years ago. He now looks unable to command the confidence of his own benches for much longer, with cabinet ministers, union leaders and donors reportedly among those who have been involved in the conversations about his future.

Burnham, the outgoing Greater Manchester mayor, did not just win Makerfield - he buried it. Official figures show him taking 24,927 votes, 54.8% of the total, beating Reform UK's Rob Kenyon by a 9,231-vote margin in a seat where Nigel Farage's party had been threatening to turn Labour's crisis into a rout. The result gives Burnham the Commons seat he needs, clears his path to a leadership challenge, and leaves Starmer's position looking terminal.

Also, Starmer's former Chief of Staff - Morgan McSweeney - was the sacrificial lamb in the Mandelson scandal (recall that Starmer appointed Jeffery Epstein pal Peter Mandelson as the UK's ambassador to the US). McSweeney also targeted Zerohedge, The Federalist and Breitbart in a clandestine campaign against alternative-media outlets. He resigned in February, two weeks before Mandelson was arrested on suspicion of passing insider info to Jeffrey Epstein in 2009, when he was serving as Business Secretary.

Meanwhile - he just... tweeted it out:

BREAKING: President Trump confirms Keir Starmer is resigning as Prime Minister… before Starmer has confirmed it himself. The final humiliation. pic.twitter.com/yz33xD4rPt

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) June 21, 2026 Markets Eye The Monday Open

The political risk did not go unnoticed by bond traders. UK 10-year gilt yields climbed to 4.84% on Friday, up roughly 0.09 percentage points on the session, as markets weighed Burnham's victory, domestic political uncertainty, and the possible fiscal implications of a future leadership bid.

With markets shut over the weekend, the next read comes at Monday's open, and any Starmer statement setting out an exit timetable will land straight into it.

//--> //--> //--> Starmer out by June 22, 2026?
Yes 63% · No 37%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

Burnham is due to be sworn in as an MP on Monday and to meet Starmer early in the week, with a cabinet meeting scheduled for Tuesday. Senior Labour figures expect a "deliberate slow march in good order" - most likely a September handover timed to the party conference - rather than an immediate vacuum.

According to the report, Burnham's supporters claim he has secured backing from more than 201 Labour MPs if Starmer refuses to step down voluntarily. The Observer framed that as a critical number because it would represent more than half the Parliamentary Labour party and would make it increasingly difficult for Starmer to argue that he still commands the confidence of his own side.

A formal challenge requires far fewer names. Under Labour's rules, any challenger needs nominations from 20% of Labour MPs - currently 81 - plus the required support from local parties and affiliates. On every count, the door is open.

Starmer Digging In?

For now, at least in public, Starmer is not going quietly. On Friday he congratulated Burnham on X - framing the result as a win for "Labour's campaign of hope and optimism over division and hate" - while insisting he would stand in any leadership contest and still had "more to do."

Congratulations, @AndyBurnhamGM, Labour's new MP for Makerfield.

Voters chose Labour's campaign of hope and optimism over division and hate.

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) June 19, 2026

By Saturday the mood music had shifted. The Observer reports that Starmer was spending the weekend at Chequers with his wife, Victoria, weighing his future after a round of conversations with cabinet ministers, advisers, union bosses and donors.

One Labour peer close to the Prime Minister told the paper that Starmer would not "walk away" from No. 10 creating a vacuum, but would instead "arrange a deliberate slow march in good order, as a matter of duty and dignity." Another Labour grandee said the Prime Minister now appeared "resigned" to stepping down after coming "hard against the reality that the support isn't there."

The establishment knives are out. Lord Falconer - Starmer's own former shadow attorney general - told the BBC that the Prime Minister had "absolutely no authority left because everybody assumes Andy Burnham is about to challenge for the leadership and everybody assumes he's going to win."

Former Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who remains the obvious alternative pole of opposition inside the party, publicly hailed Burnham's result even as allies insisted he still intends to stand in any contest.

Huge congratulations to @AndyBurnhamGM on an astonishing victory in Makerfield, where Labour lost badly only weeks ago.

It gives us all hope that Labour can still win, but Andy's campaign is proof that to do so we need to change.

Enormous thanks to everyone involved.

— Wes Streeting (@wesstreeting) June 19, 2026

Even the money is moving. Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said "obviously Starmer needs to go," calling for an orderly transition on a clear timetable and a conversation about Labour's policy priorities.

Streeting's allies, meanwhile, are still talking as though the fight is alive. The Observer reported he has taken out a contract on an office for 40 members of staff as campaign headquarters and has received two £50,000 donations from Fran Perrin, one of Labour's most generous supporters. But some senior Labour figures now believe Streeting may ultimately do a deal with Burnham rather than stand in the way of the momentum.

"A Final Chance To Change"

Burnham's victory speech left no doubt about the scale of his ambition, even if he stopped short of formally launching the challenge. "Tonight could - just could - be the turning point," he told supporters, warning Labour it had a "final chance to change" with "no second chance."

There was also some weirdness: animal-rights campaigner Robert Pownall, who ran as an independent, and Count Binface, the bin-headed "intergalactic space warrior," who took 95 votes.

"I swear I'll move to Makerfield if I win."

Count Binface talks to Sky's @joncraig at the vote count at the Makerfield by-election. https://t.co/cjPB04D pic.twitter.com/skyclip

— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 19, 2026 Mandlelson & Epstein

Burnham's win was the trigger, but the charge had been laid months earlier. The slow detonation of Starmer's authority traces back to his decision, in December 2024, to hand the plum Washington ambassadorship to Peter Mandelson despite Mandelson's long-public friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Mandelson was sacked as ambassador in September 2025 after released material appeared to show a closer relationship with Epstein than had been acknowledged at the time of appointment. He was later arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office over allegations that sensitive government information had been passed to Epstein during the 2008-2010 financial crisis. Mandelson has denied wrongdoing, has not been charged, and the police investigation is ongoing.

'Where does this leave the tattered reputation of our Prime Minister?'

@MartinDaubney discusses the first tranche of the Mandelson files revealing that Sir Keir Starmer was warned that the former ambassador, Lord Mandelson, brought a 'reputational risk'. pic.twitter.com/84vWC3jmhe

— GB News (@GBNEWS) March 11, 2026

Starmer claimed Mandelson had lied throughout the appointment process - however it later emerged that he knew full well of the friendship.

🚨 Wow.

The Mandelson files are up.

They prove Starmer WAS advised and warned about Mandelson's appalling friendship with Epstein.

Starmer appointed him anyway.

Starmer lied.

Starmer must resign. pic.twitter.com/1yjYioVJhK

— Zia Yusuf (@ZiaYusufUK) March 11, 2026

By then the damage was structural: his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney had resigned over the affair, a top Foreign Office mandarin was on the way out, and the government had spent months bleeding credibility through document dumps, a vetting row, sleaze-inquiry pressure and a steady drip of resignations.

No. 10 is still batting the resignation talk away as "speculation," and Starmer's team insists he will fight any challenge. On Friday, the Prime Minister told staff the party had to "pull together" and "take the fight" to Reform.

But the shape of the problem is brutal: Burnham has the seat, his allies claim the numbers, cabinet ministers are turning, the unions are turning, and Reform UK remains the threat Labour MPs increasingly believe only Burnham can blunt.

If Starmer steps to a podium on Monday and sets out an exit timetable, it will cap an extraordinary fall - from landslide to forced retreat in under two years - and crack open the door for the man they call the "King of the North" to walk through it.

Maybe if Starmer had addressed unchecked migration, England's woke police, or the rape gangs his CoS tried to get us demonetized for reporting on... 

💥NEW: How PM Keir Starmer's Machine Quietly Moved to Cripple Breitbart, The Federalist, ZeroHedge, and Left Independent Outlets

On Breaking Points, Ryan introduces Drop Site's latest investigation, adapted from Paul Holden's book, exposing how Keir Starmer and his chief of… pic.twitter.com/NVPDm7aWmw

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) December 4, 2025

 

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 16:35

Wisconsin Supreme Court Strikes Down Race-Based Scholarships As Unconstitutional

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down a state-funded scholarship program that awarded financial aid based on the race of college students. The Democrat-controlled court followed the precedent laid out by the United States Supreme Court in finding that Gov. Tony Evers and the state were violating the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution.

Two of the most liberal justices, however, wrote a concurrence denouncing the bar on the use of race for such scholarships.

If Democrats are able to pack the Supreme Court as demanded by many party leaders, this concurrence is an example of the likely changes that a packed court will bring in reversing anti-discrimination and other rulings.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty represented the taxpayers in this successful challenge of the Wisconsin Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant Program.

That program administered taxpayer-funded grants of up to $2,500 per academic year to eligible students of Black American, American Indian, Hispanic, or certain Southeast Asian backgrounds.

The state paid out roughly half a million dollars in scholarships, now found to be racially discriminatory.

Citing the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the Court reaffirmed that “The Constitution requires that every person ‘must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race.’”

While many have heralded the new bright line against racial discrimination in higher education, two of the most liberal justices, Chief Justice Jill Karofsky and Susan Crawford, lamented the loss of racially discriminatory programs.

In her concurrence, Chief Justice Karofsky captured the sweeping, open-ended rationales used for such programs:

“Why have we not learned from our past? Why are we not willing to recognize the harms this country has caused to those who are marginalized, disempowered, or disenfranchised? Why, instead of wielding the Equal Protection Clause as a sword against racism, do we employ it to shield against the promise of equality for all? The answer appears to be because we have failed to fully recognize how societal and governmental practices have long continued to enforce a preference for White Americans and to burden Black Americans and those of other disadvantaged races or backgrounds.”

These justices would continue race-based programs indefinitely under the claim that there is a “preference for White Americans” in programs that focus purely on academic achievement or specific non-racial criteria.

The two justices quote from the dissent of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that requiring race-neutral rules is just more “let-them-eat-cake obliviousness” by a white privileged society.

She added, “I fully recognize and acknowledge that I am bound by the precedent set forth in SFFA and other cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court…However, I also choose to write separately. I do so because I find it impossible to ignore the truths that Justice Jackson identifies.”

Notably, those “truths” from the Jackson dissent have been challenged as containing glaring false claims.

I have previously discussed my disagreements with Jackson and her jurisprudence, including her dissent in the SFFA case. However, this concurrence vividly shows the jurists whom the Democrats could call upon to pack the Supreme Court to reverse decisions like the one in SFFA.

With various Democratic leaders now openly pledging to pack the Court to reverse such decisions, the 2028 election is becoming a referendum on the future of an institution that has proven key to maintaining this Republic for 250 years.

Democratic politicians and pundits have made clear that they need the immediate control of the Supreme Court to carry out an agenda that would be struck down as unconstitutional. That includes reversing core constitutional rulings. The Karofsky concurrence offers a glimpse into our future if we allow the Court to be the object of a political hostile takeover.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 16:20

Feminists Are Increasingly Joining "Witchcraft Communes" To Fill The Spiritual Void

In the past 70 years, the subject of the Salem Witch Trials has been hijacked by the political left as a historic example of the authoritarian nature of the "patriarchy".  Arthur Miller used the trials as an allegory for "anti-communist hysteria" in his famous 1953 play, The Crucible.  As we now know, however, Joseph McCarthy was mostly right when he warned about an insidious and organized Marxist takeover of America's social and educational institutions. 

A more nuanced historic analysis shows that witchcraft was indeed a problem in the colonies just as it was a problem in Europe.  Not so much because of "black magic" or dark curses, but because "witches" were often early representations of social malcontents causing problems in Christian communities just as they cause problems in the western world today.

There were false accusations, there's no doubt.  But the narrative that most or all witch burnings were unjustified is simply false.

The reason women (and some men) were accused of being witches and burned at the stake was because they willfully engaged in highly destructive anti-social behaviors.  The local witch was often the village abortionist, a seller of poisons, and the town prostitute or harlot plying her "trade" at a time when there was zero tolerance for this kind of behavior.

It should be noted that the practice of casting out or executing sociopaths, psychopaths and other people with destructive social tendencies (considered black magic) is common among religious groups around the world, not just in Puritan towns and Christian society.  This includes Native American tribes that feminists tend to idolize.  

When human beings lived in small villages, broken and dangerous people were much easier to identify and remove before they did significant damage.  In the new era of metropolitan isolation within mass population centers, they easily blend into the crowd.  Sometimes they are even celebrated as "visionaries" by Hollywood and the media.       

Modern feminists proudly draw connections to the subversive world of witches because they tend toward delusional fantasies of dominance.  Women, by their biological nature, lack any real ability to project power, so they fabricate notions of magical influence in their minds.  Some of the most popular women's trends today revolve around concepts of New Age "manifestation", which is just a modern way of believing in magic.

It's not surprising that feminists in the US in 2026 are flocking to "witchcraft communes", an idea recently applauded in a expose by The Guardian.  The outlet notes:

"Witchcraft retreats...have proliferated across the US and Europe over the last decade. The practice they’re built around resists easy definition. Equal parts ancient folk magic, herbal remedies and self-soothing rituals, it encompasses everything from the spellcasting done by self-directed pagans to solitary practitioners who scatter protective salts around their homes. If you buy a crystal, that’s witchcraft. If you practice manifestation, that’s witchcraft..."

"The retreat boom was foreshadowed by an interest in witchcraft that has grown since the counterculture movement in the 1960s, says Helen Berger, a Harvard Divinity School-based sociologist of religion and one of the leading scholars of contemporary paganism. While it’s hard to really identify a single catalyst driving women to witchcraft, Berger sees a pattern: spikes in alternative spirituality tend to coincide with spikes in anti-authoritarianism. In 1968, for example, several feminist groups co-opted occult imagery, adopted the acronym Witch..."

The reason witchcraft appeals so much to women on the political left is because leftist movements operate on the same value system - Meaning, they have no values.  The problem is, Atheism leaves an emotional and spiritual void, leaving people desperate for answers to questions that scientific explanation does not satisfy.  The occult promises people answers, but without all those nasty rules and responsibilities commonly attached to Christianity.

    

In other words, witchcraft is a religion for people who think they are above moral obligation.  People who think they can revolt against the natural order.  In this way, witchcraft and feminism are fundamentally the same thing.  The Guardian continues:

"Clauré hosts at least two witchcraft retreats a year, in Savannah, Georgia and Salem, Massachusetts; prices run anywhere from $2,700 to $5,200 to attend. She says women are searching for something beyond the slumber party Ouija board rituals that loosely inspired her retreats in the first place.  “The patriarchy is not good for anybody, men or women,” Clauré says. “Women have been inherently drawn to [witchcraft spaces] after being demonized or called hysterical or stigmatized. We’re so fucking sick of it that we’re gonna do things our way, whether you call it crazy or not.”..."  

"“If you look at the larger social gestalt right now, in which power is being systematically taken away from women and queer people, the traditional witch is the opposite of ‘right’ society,” says Sabina Magliocco, a professor of anthropology and religion at the University of British Columbia and a former Guggenheim fellow. “But if ‘right’ society is depriving women of rights, is excluding women, is saying that it is perfectly fine to sexually abuse women, that there aren’t going to be any consequences, then maybe being the opposite of right society is aligning with the forces of justice.”"

It's impossible to distinguish between the political rhetoric of modern witchcraft and feminists; they are symbiotic.  Fantasies of victimhood usually coincide with societal expectations.  Liberal women see basic laws, social norms and meritocracy as "oppressive".  But really, they are narcissists who refuse to accept that the entire world does not revolve around them and their wishes.  This is who witchcraft appeals to. 

The wider implications are serious, and not because these women have any real magical powers.  Rather, feminism and similar movements are a psychological plague that spreads, rotting nations from within.  If they face backlash it's not because they are female or queer, it's because they deliberately engineer disruption and encourage degeneracy that breaks society down.  They revel in chaos. 

The witches of old were burned at the stake for such behavior; behaviors which the "Patriarchy" kept in check before they infested the greater community.  Feminists are lucky that they're only mocked or shunned in modern times.         

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 15:45

With Just 2 Weeks To Go Until 250th July 4th Celebration, How Much Higher Will Trump Pump Stocks

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

Getting Ready for the Most Beautiful HUGE Long Weekend Ever

I hope you are all enjoying the Juneteenth long weekend and Father’s Day. It seems like we just had a long weekend (because we did) and that another long weekend is almost upon us (because it is). While the 4th of July is always special, this being the 250th celebration of Independence is a big deal. I think the President will do everything in his power to make it a big deal. More on that in a moment.

The Deal, or Extended Ceasefire, or MOU

Academy’s Geopolitical Intelligence Group weighed in on the Iran deal on Thursday in the Signing of the MOU. That followed up on the Academy Podcast (which can also be found on iTunes and Spotify), recorded before details of the MOU were known, but covered much of what happened. A good listen if you are driving anywhere today! I’m sure the kids in the back seat would appreciate it.         

Over the weekend, the fragility of the deal is there for everyone to see! If this seems even more like a band-aid solution to get oil flowing while deciding how serious Iran is to committing to terms we want, while we determine if we are willing to re-escalate, then that is probably what it is! Academy will be keeping a close eye on developments. 

The Fed and Rates 

As discussed in our post-FOMC report The Warsh Task Forces, I think he did an excellent job at his first meeting. Rather than coming across as dovish and risking losing control of the long end of the yield curve, he not only hammered home on inflation (squarely placing the blame on prior decisions by the Fed, amongst other things), but he also created task forces, that by and large made sense. If I could get picked to go on any task force, I would beg and plead to be allowed to be part of the Data Sources task force. As anyone who has read the T-Report for a long time (it has to be approaching 15 years) knows, we consistently argue about Garbage In, Garbage Out. That we make so many important decisions on data that seems jumbled together at best, and outright wrong at worst. My favorite targets are: 

• The entire collection process for the NFP data. Surveys? Really? Can’t we offer some reduction on payroll tax in return for providing timely payroll information? It wouldn’t be perfect, but would create a lot less noise around a large percentage of the work force. 
  • The Household Survey is deemed so wildly inaccurate that they don’t even highlight the job changes in that survey, but they use it for calculating the Unemployment Rate?
  • The birth/death model. We have argued again and again that this is a source of so many revisions because it does not capture what EIN (Employment Identification Number) requests mean in a “gig” or “side hustle” economy! 
• CPI, starting with Owners’ Equivalent Rent. It has built in lags that only sample a fraction each month. It is still based on single family homes, rather than apartments. It is an estimate of what a homeowner could get if they rented. With so many indices out there showing real-time rent (including one the Cleveland Fed developed) it is time to ditch this. Though, since it is in CPI, it requires an act of Congress to change, since it impacts Social Security. Seems like a no-brainer to me, but wouldn’t bet on this no-brainer being fixed any time soon.
  • According to the CPI data Urban Medical Health Insurance costs the same today as it did back in 2019. I couldn’t say that with a straight face, yet it is part of CPI. If you wonder why many argue that the inflation numbers don’t match the real world, this would be pretty high on my list. My gut feel is that for most people (and corporations) health insurance premiums have gone up at least 25% (according to Grok) and that still seems low.
  • While Truflation has its own set of potential flaws, it does offer some useful insights and seems like just one of many alternative sources the government should look at.

At the risk of burying the lede, as we published on Wednesday after the meeting, we are moving to neutral on rates, rather than being bearish. Warsh removed some near-term tail risk to the long end.

Reducing the tail risk is significant and the MOVE index (a measure of implied volatility in the bond market) dropped to pre-Iran levels (the MOU helped as well, but the steep drop Thursday can likely be more attributed to Warsh than Iran).

Space and AI

If you missed last weekend’s report on the AI Revolution and Space – The NOW Frontier, it is a great time to catch up.

The topic generated a lot of discussion, with a good mix of people hating on the AI Revolution assessment – almost equal numbers of those who argued I was too pessimistic mixed with those arguing I was too optimistic

The 250th 4th of July Celebration

Why did we use “beautiful” and “HUGE” in the title? Because those are words the President likes to use when pumping something up. Whether we are talking about the ball room, or the reflecting pool, the President has been doing and saying things to spruce up D.C. We can argue (or choose not to argue) about hosting a “sporting” event on the White House Lawn. But this President is a showman, who likes a spectacle and the 250th anniversary is real, important, and is highly likely something that the President wants to go down in history for.

The reality is that the President by almost every poll is near or at the bottom of his approval ratings. I tried to use some of the Nate Silver polling info, but it was not conducive to cut and paste so I went with the Real Clear Politics one (not because I know much about it, but it was readily available on Bloomberg).

What do we know, with a high degree of certainty, about President Trump?

• He likes winning! We all like winning, but he revels in it! He still wins club championship after club championship with a swing no one would try to mimic. He loves winning! The bigger and more beautiful the win, the better!
  • Current polls don’t show him as “winning.”
• His attention and focus have been on Iran, but he can now shift his attention elsewhere.
  • Trump 2.0 delegates better than Trump 1.0, but nothing gets done as quickly as when he shifts his attention and focus to it. With the Iran war more or less behind us (or behind him, for now), look for him to focus on the Domestic Economy and things he can do to get his numbers higher!
  • I am going to mention Intel. From ProSec 2026 we published an entire paragraph on INTC (which is unusual for the T-Report, but was important enough that we did it). Here is the line that I want to highlight on why we were so bullish on this stock:
    • I find it difficult to see a world where the government doesn’t try to support the taxpayers’ investment in this company.
  • My thesis went well beyond that, but that is the part that we wanted to highlight! I strongly believed that the admin would support the taxpayers’ investment. On Thursday, the President put out a Truth Social post linking Apple to using Intel more. I am not sure either company confirmed it, but with only 2 weeks to go before the 250th anniversary, maybe this sort of “pump” by the President is going to be the norm?
  • We mention other companies and industries in that report (far more tickers than usual). I think we should revisit all of those tickers and a renewed focus and emphasis from D.C. on ProSec.

ProSec is going global. Europe is nearing a “Whatever it Takes” moment. Initially they started that march to the precipice kicking and screaming, while being pushed by the President and geopolitical risk. Europe is still by and large being pushed in this direction, with less kicking and screaming. There is increasing evidence that there are finally elements of leadership pulling them in that direction! (This applies to Canada too).

Bottom Line

The outlook for rates is more benign than at any time in the past few months. I’m not yet bullish, but certainly not bearish here. Look for the President to make announcements and pronouncements (I think there is a subtle difference) in the coming days as he almost certainly wants stocks to be at an all-time high and his ratings to be higher, as we celebrate America’s 250th anniversary of winning Independence!

Hope you are enjoying this long weekend and Father’s Day and now the U.S. just needs to figure out a way to wedge in a long weekend in August! We could get used to monthly long weekends.

And once again, thanks for all of your support and thoughtful feedback as the world is evolving rapidly and Academy, with its Geopolitical Intelligence Group, is positioned to help navigate that evolution sectors and focus again on what areas will do well with

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 15:10

Financial Times Hypes SpaceX's Dismal ESG Rating By MSCI, But Really Nobody Cares

The Financial Times appears eager to frame MSCI's decision to assign SpaceX the "lowest possible ESG rating" as a major reputational blow. However, the real story is that the entire ESG movement on Wall Street has imploded, and anyone grounded in reality and common sense has increasingly viewed the whole woke era as counterproductive.

"The triple C assessment means SpaceX has the same score as that awarded to the Russian state on MSCI's ESG government rating scale in the wake of its 2022 invasion of Ukraine," FT journalist Ramsay Hodgson wrote. 

This same ESG ratings regime gives triple-A ratings to oil majors and major defense companies, while giving one of America's most important rocket and space companies a bottom-tier grade. That only suggests there are major flaws in the ESG scoring model.

Here are the publicly visible MSCI ESG ratings: 

Oil/Gas

Defense

"Exxon is rated top ten best in world for environment, social & governance (ESG) by S&P 500, while Tesla didn't make the list!" Musk wrote on X several years ago. 

Musk is right... 

• Companies With Good ESG Scores Pollute Just As Much As Those With Low Ones, New Analysis Finds

Here's what X users are saying:

Just checked. MSCI has handed Lockheed Martin the exemplary AA rating. They want you to believe the arms manufacturer has a more ethical and sustainable business model than a space exploration venture. Twisted.

— Ejder Memis (@_sHx_) June 21, 2026

None gives a flying fuck about ESG except people who want the west to fail.

— Packet (@PacketGroove) June 21, 2026

Elon Musk will never again be in the cool kids club and this is just another example of that. ESG is just another clique with its set of rules designed to welcome those firms that shackle themselves with silly rules.

It is great that Musk and Luckey as well, refuse to bend…

— Ken Hannig (@FlushingKenny) June 21, 2026

Its Time to permanently excise the term ESG from polite conversation, and ridicule those who use it.

— JayBlake (@punishedMTL) June 21, 2026

Right back at you MSCI pic.twitter.com/8tDnWjcmXt

— boog (@steevwithv) June 21, 2026

Proves to me that ESG is a f-ing joke.

— Matt (@grghost) June 21, 2026

Musk added, "ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phone social justice warriors."

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 14:35

Trump Is Furious With Senate GOP, Puts Thune In His Crosshairs

Donald Trump does not like the word "no." He likes it even less when it comes from John Thune, the Senate majority leader whose job description apparently does not include telling the president what he wants to hear. That dynamic has now spilled into public view, and the fallout says as much about the state of the Republican Party as it does about any single piece of legislation.

The flashpoint is the SAVE America Act. The House passed it back in February, but it remains stalled in the Senate due to the Democrats’ filibuster.

The SAVE America Act would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, mandate voter ID at polling places, and sharply curtail mail-in voting. For Trump and a sizable chunk of the conservative base, this is common-sense election integrity; polls show tremendous bipartisan support for it.

Trump has grown tired of waiting. Last week, he tied the SAVE America Act to FISA Section 702 reauthorization, the surveillance authority that lets intelligence agencies monitor foreign nationals without a warrant. Congress let that authority lapse for the first time since 2008, and Trump made clear he intends to use it as leverage. "I will not approve FISA without THE SAVE AMERICA ACT going along with it," he posted on Truth Social. That is not a man asking nicely.

Thune was unmoved.

"The president has his own mind, makes his own decisions," he said. "So do we."

Read that as you like, but it does not sound like a man rushing to fall in line.

According to a person close to Trump who spoke with The Wall Street Journal, the president's frustration stems from being told “no” rather than "no, let me try." 

A Thune ally pushed back on the Journal's reporting, arguing the majority leader is not the real obstacle here. Trump simply does not have the votes. That is a fair point, and it gets at something deeper than personal chemistry: the SAVE America Act faces a math problem before it faces a Thune problem.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told the Journal that Thune is "telling the president the truth" and that "the problem is the president doesn't like hearing that when it frustrates what he wants to do." Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) offered a gentler diagnosis, describing the clash as one of temperament rather than substance. Trump's "skill set is to vocalize everything," she said, while Thune's is "more quietly engaging." She added, "I don't think they're mutually exclusive." Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) never one to pass up a colorful comparison, likened Trump to the ruthless sales trainer from Glengarry Glen Ross during a closed-door GOP lunch, according to Punchbowl News. On the Senate math itself, Kennedy was characteristically blunt with the Journal: "I mean, I want a Porsche for my birthday. I'm not going to get it."

Trump has not limited himself to public jabs, either. He summoned House Speaker Mike Johnson to the White House to discuss personnel disputes and the lapsed FISA law, conspicuously leaving Thune out of the conversation. He has also been quietly polling Republican senators on their views of Thune's leadership, a clear signal that his patience with the majority leader is running thin.

Sources also told The Daily Caller that Thune privately admitted to GOP senators during a closed-door lunch on Wednesday that some Republicans simply will not back the SAVE Act because they cannot stand Trump, regardless of the bill's merits.

The admission reportedly set off a heated exchange between Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the bill's chief sponsor, and colleagues, including Cornyn, who challenged Lee's push alongside Thune.

"Yeah, that totally happened," one source familiar with the meeting told The Daily Caller. Thune's office denied the account outright, calling it "a baseless claim" that is "unequivocally untrue."

A president quietly canvassing his own party and questioning the Senate majority leader’s leadership is a power struggle over who actually runs the Republican agenda. Trump clearly sees Thune as a roadblock he's preparing to remove.

 

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 13:25

California Declares State Of Emergency Over Los Angeles Warehouse Fire, Smoke

Authored by Melanie Sun via The Epoch Times,

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Saturday after the Los Angeles mayor asked for state disaster support in the wake of an ongoing warehouse fire that continues to burn more than three days after it started on June 17.

“California is mobilizing to support Los Angeles as firefighters and emergency personnel continue their work to contain this fire and protect surrounding communities,” Newsom said in a statement.

The state has predeployed public health and emergency resources to the city, including 5.5 million N95 masks and commercial-grade air purifiers for community facilities.

“We are coordinating closely with our local partners, deploying specialized expertise, and pre-positioning critical supplies so communities have the support they need both now and throughout recovery,” Newsom said.

Caroline Thomas Jacobs, director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), said in a statement that her agency is “working side-by-side with the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Emergency Management Department, Los Angeles Fire Department, and our regional partners to ensure they have the resources, information, and support necessary to respond to this incident.”

“The State of Emergency allows us to further streamline coordination efforts and leverage additional state capabilities as needed,” she added. “Our focus remains on protecting communities and supporting locally led response operations.”

The state is also assisting with “enhanced air quality monitoring and technical support resources,” Newsom’s office said.

Smoke is still emanating from the fire at the warehouse, which first responders are struggling to completely extinguish due to a lack of visibility inside the massive cold-storage facility in Boyle Heights—located just five miles southeast of downtown LA.

According to an update earlier Saturday from Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore, the risk from hazardous materials at the warehouse has been contained.

The damaged facility connects food products to approximately 10 million people, said Lineage Logistics, the private owner of the supply chain hub.

Local news stations showed smoke billowing from the burning roof of the 491,000-square-foot warehouse, where it is believed to have started around 2:30 p.m. on June 17. The roof of the facility is covered in solar panels.

The roof fire was extinguished within six hours, but firefighters are still struggling to gain entry to parts of the interior due to a buildup of thick smoke.

“We have 85 million pounds of frozen food inside of this facility and the way the building has been laid out, it’s very difficult for us to get in there because there’s zero visibility inside,” Moore said

“Our firefighters are not able to just go in there and start moving pallets.”

Earlier Saturday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the city needed state assistance to safely dispose of the millions of pounds of spoiling biowaste in a way that will avert a major environmental disaster.

Lineage said Saturday that the cause of the fire has still “not been determined.”

“We are working closely with local officials to assist in all investigations and remediations of the fire and will continue to do so as we cleanup once the site is safe for entry,” its statement read.

No workers at the warehouse were injured during the fire.

A firefighter walks down the street as a massive warehouse fire at a cold storage facility continues to burn and spread smoke around Los Angeles city on June 20, 2026. Mario Tama/Getty Images

A Complex Incident

The Los Angeles Fire Department said in its latest update at 8 p.m. Saturday that water dumps from the air have concluded for the night, and that ground crews will remain remain actively engaged in suppressing the fire with the assistance of the department’s structural firefighting robot.

The department said that due to the large volumes of water dropped on the warehouse, firefighters have observed “areas of wall instability” at the warehouse, and the fire continues to produce significant smoke.

“This remains a complex, long-duration incident that will require sustained operations,” it concluded.

Earlier in the day on Saturday, the department said that over the last three days, with the changing wind, the smell of smoke from the fire had spread to most of the city. Residents, particularly individuals with sensitivity to smoke, have been encouraged to limit their exposure.

Shelter-in-place notices were issued on Wednesday for neighborhoods immediately surrounding the fire due to the hazardous burn and heavy black smoke. That was lifted later in the evening after the initial roof fire containment, only to be reinstated on Thursday after the fire flared up with a change in wind direction.

It was lifted again on Friday morning, although a smoke advisory remains in place for particle pollution from the drifting plume.

“As firefighting efforts progress, smoke may continue to affect air quality throughout the region,” the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) said in a Saturday midday update. “PM2.5 levels may increase overnight as winds die down. On Sunday morning, a change in wind direction may push smoke towards Southeast LA County. If the fire is still producing a significant amount of smoke on Sunday afternoon, it will continue to impact Central and East Los Angeles.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 12:50

Feeling Emboldened After Attacks On Moscow, Zelensky Threatens Belarus With Military Action

Ukraine is feeling more confident of late as its long-range drones have made the Moscow area - as well as dozens of oil refineries across the country burn.

Zelensky if seeking to flex yet again in recent days by issuing an ultimatum to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, threatening that close Russian ally and 'Union State' Belarus could face attacks out of Ukraine if it fails to dismantle the air defense radar array along its southern border.

The Ukrainian leader even issued a timeline and deadline, in a social media post on Friday night telling Lukashenko to "remove that equipment."

Reuters/Sky News

"I think a week is enough for him to do that… If he doesn’t do it, we will," Zelensky threatened. Zelensky added that "Russia will keep pushing him further into this war" - but that Lukashenko now "understands that Ukraine will respond."

Belarus has been involved in Russia's 'special military operation' from the beginning, having played the role of staging area and logistical hub for the initial invasion and some subsequent attacks.

Importantly it is also hosting Russian tactical nukes, which is clearly a loud warning and threat to NATO.

Addressing these factors, Zelensky also alleged that the Belarusian army "adjusts fire on our people." He stressed in the statement that "today, Belarus is one of the key suppliers for the Russian army."

A major incident just unfolded due to a Ukrainian drone strike on Belarusian civilians, which Lukashenko dubbed an act of terrorism:

The Belarusian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it summoned a senior Ukrainian diplomat to protest a deadly drone strike on a bus carrying a Belarusian youth soccer team.

Belarusian and Russian authorities accused Ukraine’s military of targeting the vehicle as it traveled through Russia’s western border region of Bryansk on Wednesday. A woman accompanying the team was killed, and six others, including four teenagers, were wounded.

Following the incident, federal investigators in Russia launched a terrorism probe. Russia’s Foreign Ministry denounced the attack as “another monstrous crime.”

Ukraine, for its part, has rejected that its forces were behind the attack, dismissing the whole incident as a "provocation" and suggesting a false flag or manufactured event.

Attack on Belarusian bus. MAX/Moscow Times

Days ago Lukashenko demanded answers for the bus attack, accusing Ukraine of seeking to drag his nation into the conflict and that it "will have to pay dearly for that."

Throughout the war there's actually been surprisingly little in the way of direct Ukraine-Belarus fighting and confrontation, but this could change. Officials fear this would catapult the over four-year long conflict into a bigger regional war.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 12:15

Billionaire Tax Officially Heads To Nov. 3 Ballot

Authored by Madeline Shannon via The Center Square,

The controversial union-backed billionaire tax in California is officially heading to the Nov. 3 ballot.

Secretary of State Shirley Weber announced the California Billionaire Tax Act exceeded the number of signatures it needed to qualify for the general election.

The initiative aims to impose a one-time 5% wealth tax on the Golden State’s billionaires to generate $100 billion in revenue. The tax would apply to assets like art, stocks and bonds. That money would be used to help backfill reductions in federal funding to K-12 schools, health services provided by Medi-Cal and aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as CalFresh in California, according to previous reporting by The Center Square.

Representatives from the advocacy group Billionaire Tax Now and the union backing the tax, Service Employees International Union – United Healthcare Workers West, did not respond to The Center Square before publication time.

However, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle spoke to The Center Square on Thursday about the tax measure advancing to the midterm election ballot in November.

“If you want a budget deficit in perpetuity, pass this,” Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach, told The Center Square. “What happens is, these folks are now going to Florida and everywhere else, and not only are they leaving, but they are the ones investing in a lot of these jobs. Those jobs now are fleeing California, and we’re going to lose them, dramatically, going forward.”

The Golden State’s billionaires will take their billions and create jobs in other parts of the country – not in California, Strickland added.

“The minute this passed, we would be in a budget deficit in perpetuity,” Strickland said. “If you care about funding education, if you care about funding health care, if you care about funding transportation infrastructure, you’ll vote no on this initiative, because we won’t be able to fund essential services in California.”

California’s ongoing budget deficit, which the Legislative Analyst’s Office recently projected would amount to $16.9 billion, is largely due to expenditures exceeding revenues under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s most recent budget proposal. That was in spite of the fact that Newsom attempted to solve the state’s budget deficit through 2028, according to previous reporting by The Center Square.

While some, like Strickland, see the potential passage of the billionaire tax making the state’s budget woes worse, there is still support for the measure.

“I agree with the proposal overall,” Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, D-Pasadena, told The Center Square. “I agree overall with the idea that billionaires and corporations need to pay their fair share. We’ve seen inequality grow in an alarming way, and frankly, I think most Californians are sick of it.”

No one was available from Billionaire Tax Now or Service Employees International Union – United Healthcare Workers West to answer questions about the ballot measure’s progress. When asked if anyone was available to answer questions, a representative from Billionaire Tax Now sent a press release via email.

According to previous reporting by The Center Square, even the potential passage of the tax has sent some billionaires packing who previously called California home. Earlier this year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg bought a mansion in Florida. Other billionaires also relocated to other states, including Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Palantir Technologies and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and venture capitalist David Sacks.

A February 2026 report from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation found that the mere proposal of the wealth tax could be costing the state $1 trillion in revenue with the departure of multiple billionaires already. One economist predicted that passage of the tax could eventually cost the state $25 billion in revenue, The Center Square previously reported.

However, a healthcare worker who advocate for the measure previously told The Center Square that if billionaires leave the state, they are only showing their own greed.

“We need to put humanity first over greed,” Debru Carthan, a radiologic technologist for Kaiser, told The Center Square in March. “This is about being our brothers’ keeper. Those who leave California – they are showing their greed. They’re showing their selfishness. And the very patients who will die are the ones who helped them make the billions that they have now.”

According to Business Insider, there are more than 200 billionaires who live in California.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 11:40

Betting Against Ourselves: The Casino-ization Of America

Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance

Last month I wrote about something that had been building in my mind for years: the realization that active trading was doing more harm than good in my life.

I wrote about how I had finally put systems in place to turn my trading and account management over to trusted parties who are far better and more disciplined at it than I am. I had to separate the fact that I feel great about often being an accurate prognosticator on my blog about market trends, but that executing the corresponding trades was simply something I wasn’t good at.

Now, thirty days since my last trade, I couldn’t be happier that I made the decision. Admittedly, it hasn’t been incredibly easy, especially because I can’t remove all of my triggers and simply ignore the news, world and current events. I’ve been chugging coffee, reading headlines and trading every morning for the last 20 years. So I don’t expect it to be an easy habit to break.

But it’s getting easier, and I’m stepping away from reading every headline, every day, toward putting the phone down and living in the present moment once my work is done and my column is written each morning.

And I can’t imagine a better time to undertake this exercise. “The market” was once a symbol of integrity and serious business run by old f*cks in bowties and suits, like the Duke brothers.

Now it has become less a mechanism for allocating capital and more a 24-hour Las Vegas freak show carnival of increasingly exotic wagers. Our market has become the pro boxing equivalent of when Screech from Saved by the Bell fought Horshack on Celebrity Boxing.

Back in year like 1980, a company had stock. Simple enough. Today you can trade options on the stock, leveraged ETFs tracking the stock, tokenized versions of the stock at 2 a.m., and prediction-market contracts on whether or not Joe Kernen is wearing a toupee when he reports on the stock.

Wall Street and Las Vegas used to be different places. Those days are over. And new reporting from The Wall Street Journal confirms it. They reported this week that Charles Schwab is preparing to enter the prediction market business through a partnership with Cboe. According to the report, Schwab customers will soon be able to trade binary-style contracts tied to the performance of the S&P 500. The contracts function much like prediction market wagers: traders make a yes-or-no bet on whether an index finishes above or below a certain level and receive either a fixed payout or nothing at all.

In other words, one of the largest and most respected brokerages in America is moving further down the path of turning market outcomes into wager-like products.

To be clear, this is not simply a Schwab story, it is a sign of where the entire financial industry is heading. The distinction between investing and gambling is becoming harder and harder to identify.

Prediction markets have exploded over the last several years. Sports betting has become ubiquitous. Options volumes continue to reach extraordinary levels. Crypto exchanges offer leverage that would have seemed insane a decade ago. Every event, every opinion, every outcome increasingly becomes something that can be traded. Sometimes it’s tough to remember there’s actual company equity at the bottom of the pile of all this speculative shit somewhere.

Last month I wrote: “Every event is now a market. Every opinion is now a wager. Every moment of boredom can be monetized by putting money at risk on your phone.”

If anything, I understated the trend. The financial industry sees demand and it is responding exactly the way industries always do: by supplying more product. The problem is that the costs aren’t limited to individual traders. Most discussions about gambling focus on personal responsibility, addiction, and financial hardship. Those concerns are real. We already see rising stories of people using credit cards, personal loans, margin debt, and other borrowed money to fund speculative activity. The American consumer is tapped out, as I detailed a couple weeks ago.

Source: Zero Hedge

We’ve seen countless examples in crypto, options, sports betting, and meme stocks where people become trapped in cycles of chasing losses and doubling down on increasingly risky positions. But the risks do not stop at the individual level.

When enough leverage accumulates inside a system, personal mistakes become market problems. Speculation funded by borrowed money creates fragility. Fragility creates forced selling. Forced selling creates liquidity events. Liquidity events create contagion. The history of financial markets is filled with examples of this dynamic.

And as savings dwindles, margin debt as a percentage of GDP is consistently rising. In other words, we’re taking more risk. Gambling more. Investing less.

But leverage doesn’t look dangerous during a boom. It looks efficient. It looks sophisticated. It looks profitable.

Then something breaks, and when everyone is crowded into the same trades using borrowed money, small problems become trapdoors. And when market dynamics create multi-trillion dolllar trapdoors that are force fed into the indices, mutual funds and the average American’s retirement fund right before this happens, that’s when questions about systemic issues arise.

Crypto has already provided multiple examples of this on a relatively small scale. We have watched cascades of liquidations wipe out billions of dollars in value within hours. We have watched exchanges fail, lenders collapse, and leveraged traders evaporate seemingly overnight. This can, and will, happen in equity markets, prediction markets and option markets going forward.

And the world we are heading towards is one where prediction markets, binary options, leveraged crypto products, sports betting, and traditional brokerage accounts increasingly overlap and compete for the same attention.

I don’t think we fully appreciate the psychological consequences of where we are heading. Twenty-four-hour prediction markets are inherently unhealthy for many people. Human beings were not designed to live inside a perpetual casino. Anyone who has ever been to Vegas for more than 2 days understands this. You arrive healthy, in shape, sober, excited to see friends and maybe place a couple bets on the NFL game, and you leave destitute, broke, 10 pounds heavier, smelling like cigarette smoke and trying to figure out which stripper stole your credit card number (this is a purely hypothetical example, I swear).

These platforms don’t just compete for your money. They compete for your attention, your focus, your relationships, your sleep, your peace of mind, and your ability to be present. They monetize uncertainty itself. They thrive off of your loneliness and boredom.

The more events become tradable, the more incentive there is to constantly monitor outcomes. The result is a culture where people never disconnect. Every election becomes a market. Every earnings report becomes a wager. Every sporting event becomes an opportunity to speculate. Every idle moment becomes an invitation to check prices, odds, probabilities, and positions. The smartphone becomes both casino and brokerage account.

And the “markets” are not regulated at all and are susceptible to massive corruption. You thought a questionable pass interference penalty at the of a playoff NFL game was bad? How about when Coinbase’s imbecilic CEO ended a company conference call by spouting off random words to cash bets for god-knows-who in the prediction markets? He said live on the call: “I was a little distracted because I was tracking the prediction market about what Coinbase will say on their next earnings call. I just want to add here the words Bitcoin, Ethereum, blockchain, staking, and Web3 — to make sure we get those in before the end of the call.”

As I noted last month, I’ve seen people trading crypto between rounds at the gym. I’ve seen friends checking futures markets during dinner. I’ve seen twenty-somethings betting every pitch of a baseball game while sitting at a bar. And I’ve been all of those people myself.

🔥 50% OFF FOR LIFE: Using this coupon entitles you to 50% off an annual subscription to Fringe Finance for life: Get 50% off forever

When I step back and look at the bigger picture, I can’t help but wonder whether all of this is symptomatic of something much larger. A society doesn’t become stronger by turning every aspect of life into a wager.

A society becomes stronger by rewarding patience, discipline, craftsmanship, productivity, delayed gratification, and long-term thinking. Those are the traits that build companies, families, institutions, communities, and civilizations.

What worries me is that we’ve spent years moving in the opposite direction.

We have normalized endless money printing and financial engineering instead of productive growth. We have rewarded speculation over investment. We have encouraged debt over savings. We have elevated influencers over experts, virality over wisdom, and instant gratification over patience. We’ve built social media platforms designed to monetize outrage, political systems incapable of long-term planning, and financial products that increasingly resemble casino games.

And now we’re building twenty-four-hour prediction markets on top of all of it. It’s bad enough bullshit shows like Flavor of Love and The Golden Bachelor exist. It’s toxicity squared when we can bet on the outcome. At some point you have to ask whether we’re creating anything of lasting value or simply inventing new ways to distract ourselves.

The frightening part is that every one of these products is marketed as empowerment, democratization and opportunity…but many of them are really just mechanisms for harvesting attention.

And the commodity being extracted isn’t just money, it’s your time, focus, peace of mind and energy. To quote Morpheus from The Matrix, it is “…a computer generated dream world, built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this.”

The irony is that the technology that promised to make us smarter often seems to be making us less capable of sitting still, thinking independently, or focusing on what actually matters.

That is precisely why I’m grateful for the decision I made last month to stop trading. It was about recognizing that the environment is becoming increasingly engineered to encourage constant participation. And I want no part of it.

As I said then, the older I get, the less interested I become in chasing every opportunity and the more interested I become in protecting my time, my health, my relationships, and my peace of mind. The irony is that the more speculation becomes available, the more valuable restraint becomes.

The easier it becomes to trade, gamble, wager, predict, hedge, leverage, and speculate on everything, the more important it becomes to simply step back. Because if the trajectory we’re on continues, speculation won’t be confined to casinos, crypto exchanges, or niche prediction market platforms. It’s going to be everywhere.

And that’s exactly why I’m thankful I already started walking away.

--

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author.

This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. I may or may not own names I write about and are watching. Sometimes I’m bullish without owning things, sometimes I’m bearish and do own things. Just assume my positions could be exactly the opposite of what you think they are just in case. If I’m long I could quickly be short and vice versa. I won’t update my positions.

As of May 20, 2026 I personally no longer actively trade (read my story here). My investing/saving is done by recurring contributions mostly to sector ETFs and a few select equities, trusted third parties who oversee my accounts, and advisors. Such advisors or funds, through individual equities, options, index funds, mutual funds, ETFs, or other securities, may have positions in, exposure to, or holdings of names mentioned herein that I know nothing about. Basically, via index funds, ETFs and individual equities it is possible I could own, have exposure to, or not own anything at any point. As of the same date, May 20, 2026, in an attempt to lead a healthier lifestyle, I’ve also excluded myself from fantasy sports, sports betting, online and in-person casinos and prediction markets.

And all positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice and at any point I can be long, short or neutral on any position. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. If you see numbers and calculations of any sort, assume they are wrong and double check them. I failed Algebra in 8th grade and topped off my high school math accolades by getting a D- in remedial Calculus my senior year, before becoming an English major in college so I could bullshit my way through things easier.

The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

 

 

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 10:30

Kremlin Skeptical That US-Iran Peace Can Be Achieved: 'Rash'

If there's a 'good cop, bad cop' routine happening at the Kremlin, mostly assuredly the role of bad cop always falls to Russia's former president, Dmitry Medvedev. In his maximalist and hyperbolic threats, he can be seen as the "John Bolton of the Kremlin". 

With Trump's decision to wage war on Iran, Medvedev's negativity and skepticism has proven right more often than wrong. He is the latest Kremlin top official to weigh in on the bad position Washington once again finds itself embroiled in - and by it's own 'choice' - in the Middle East.

Medvedev, who has for the last several years been Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman, says an agreement between the US and Iran could easily be derailed by new provocations, and he took the opportunity to lash out at Israel, America's so-called indispensable ally.

via AP

He has said, within mere days of Iran and Washington signing their big Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) - which may or may not hold given ongoing fighting between Israel and Hezbollah - that expecting peace is "rash".

He has stated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is "sustained by war" - which is a bit of rare high level moment of the Kremlin lashing out at Israel.

"An unstable agreement easily explodes with new strikes on Lebanon or other provocations. And that’s exactly what the Netanyahu cabinet, which is sustained by war, needs. So, expecting peace is rash," Medvedev stated Saturday on the Russian social media platform Max.

Al Jazeera has reviewed:

Russia has deepened its existing ties with Iran since the start of the Ukraine war, with Moscow and Tehran expanding military and economic cooperation – though the partnership has shown limits, with Russia offering largely rhetorical support during Iran’s recent conflict with the US and Israel.

Israel and Russia were largely at odds during the entirety of the Syrian proxy war, with Israeli aerial aggression in Syria having at times resulted in Russian losses. 

For example, in September 2018, there was this serious incident when Syrian anti-air missiles sought to fire on inbound Israeli jets. Instead, a Russian reconnaissance plane went down:

The leaders of Russia and Israel have sought to defuse tension after a Russian plane was shot down by Syrian forces amid an Israeli air raid.

In a call to Vladimir Putin, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu expressed regret at the loss of 15 Russian personnel, but stressed again that Syria was to blame.

Mr Putin had earlier called the incident "a chain of tragic accidental circumstances". The Il-20 plane was downed over the Mediterranean Sea on Monday evening.

🗣️ 'This fragile agreement is easily blown apart by new strikes on Lebanon or other provocations. And that is precisely what Netanyahu's Cabinet, which clings to power through war, needs'

🇷🇺 Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev warns that Israel is… pic.twitter.com/6A6ChsBgQU

— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) June 20, 2026

Russia had throughout the Syria war sought to carefully avoid a direct conflict with Israel, and after Assad's overthrow its forces have of necessity been in retreat from the Middle East.

Russia's military still has assets along Syria's coast, but the future of its presence remains very uncertain, having largely resorted to 'humanitarian' missions will seeking to open diplomacy with the new Sharaa government. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 09:55

Swiss Government Discusses Revoking Protections, Benefits For Military-Aged Ukrainians

During the opening years of the Russia-Ukraine war European states were quite welcoming to Ukrainian refugees and anyone fleeing the carnage and chaos, but now in the conflict's fifth year the general sentiment among EU populations and governments is changing.

Switzerland, once hailed as Europe's most neutral state - and among the most 'welcoming' countries for asylum seekers - is mulling a policy change which would exclude Ukrainian men of military age from protections granted to refugees.

The Swiss Federal Council announced in a statement Friday that it has begun consultations over the legal status of some 66,000 Ukrainian nationals who fled to Switzerland after the conflict erupted.

Image: Keystone-SDA

Welfare assistance and refugee protections are quite good in Switzerland, given individuals receive basic living items as well as government payouts, and can even freely travel in and out of the country.

For now, protections are expected to extend to Ukrainians in the country, but there's new talk of revoking this status for men of military age at a moment the Ukrainian military continues to face a severe manpower shortage:

The government announced on Friday that, at a national asylum conference in November 2025, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), the cantons, cities and municipalities had been tasked with drawing up clear regulations for the future of S protection status.

The results of this deliberation are now set out in a concept paper entitled “The Future of S Status”. According to the government, it serves to prepare for three possible scenarios: the continuation of S status; its abolition in the event of a stable ceasefire; and a phasing out of S status in the event of a protracted conflict.

Specifically pertaining to men of fighting age, the government is considering "a possible future restriction for Ukrainian men subject to conscription," a new statement reads.

"This is because the EU is currently considering an extension of temporary protection with a possible restriction for these men," the country's Federal Council has explained. A final decision could come by the end of the summer, but political pushback is said to be growing.

It should be remembered revocation of protected status is something the Zelensky government itself has long asked Western allies to do. It wants the rapid return of military-aged men, at a moment Ukrainian recruiters have resorted to harsh tactics cracking down on what are seen as draft dodgers.

EU Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner has also confirmed "This is also what the Ukrainians are asking us to do" - commenting on the question of no longer extending protections to Ukrainian men in EU states.

For now, no major policy shifts are expected, but as the war goes on and on, the tone of the conversation has shifted among many European officials. Washington in particular has emphasized that Ukraine's populace must stand up for itself, and has even leaned heavily on Kiev to make the mandatory conscription age younger.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 09:45

Windward Says "Zero AIS Transits" On Hormuz Chokepoint

US-Iran technical talks are underway on Sunday, with Qatari mediators involved. Ahead of the talks, likely focused on Iran's nuclear program, Tehran attempted to reassert leverage over the Strait of Hormuz following renewed Israel-Hezbollah fighting in Lebanon.

Iran announced the closure of the strait on Saturday, framing the move as retaliation for alleged violations of the US-Iran interim peace deal. 

Early Sunday, maritime intelligence and risk analytics firm Windward wrote on X, "Hours after the IRGC's closure announcement, AIS traffic through the Strait of Hormuz suggested business as usual."

Hours after the IRGC's closure announcement, AIS traffic through the Strait of Hormuz suggested business as usual.

But overnight, the picture shifted: zero AIS transits were recorded through the strait, and only two non-Iranian commercial vessels were AIS-visible this morning.… pic.twitter.com/F4djrrT38m

— Windward (@WindwardAI) June 21, 2026

"But overnight, the picture shifted: zero AIS transits were recorded through the strait, and only two non-Iranian commercial vessels were AIS-visible this morning. Hesitation is back in an already unpredictable corridor," Windward continued.

Related:

• Vance 'Skeptical' That Iran Closed Hormuz Strait Again, Pentagon Declares Safe Passage Remains 'Intact Today'

However, Bloomberg data show that after vessel transits through the strait spiked to 23 on Thursday, shortly after the interim peace deal was signed and one day before the Hormuz chokepoint reopened, the transit count is now 9 today.

There are reports that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned vessels not to approach the critical waterway, citing Israeli actions in Lebanon and alleged US violations of ceasefire commitments. It remains unclear whether Iran has actually enforced the closure.

President Trump insisted on Saturday that "NO TOLLS" would be charged on ships transiting Hormuz during or after the 60-day interim ceasefire. But he noted, "unless they are imposed by and for the United States of America, should the deal not be completed, for services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East for purposes of both past, present, and future reimbursement of costs."

Brent crude closed around $80 a barrel last week after the US and Iran reached an interim deal to lift the US blockade and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, easing fears of a prolonged Gulf supply shock.

This prompted Goldman analyst Daan Struyven to forecast on Wednesday that crude prices would normalize to pre-war levels by the end of July and that regional crude production would recover by October.

Struyven estimates that Hormuz flows would need to rise by about 13 million barrels a day from current levels to reach roughly 70% of pre-war volumes.

The problem with Hormuz is that Tehran is now using the narrow, critical waterway as leverage for technical talks. That suggests Iran could continue to spark uncertainty during today's negotiating window, then signal a reopening if talks make progress before NYMEX WTI futures open later this evening. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 09:20

Gabbard Drops Fauci COVID-19 Receipts On Last Day: He Funded The Research, Cooked The Cover Story, Then Lied To Congress

Newly declassified documents released Thursday by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard show that a U.S. national laboratory assessed the COVID-19 lab-origin hypothesis as a serious possibility as early as May 2020, as well as evidence of U.S.-funded coronavirus research that included planning for spike-protein modifications, receptor-adaptation experiments, and testing in humanized mice in collaboration with researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The documents also prove that Anthony Fauci lied under oath. 

Today, on my final day as Director of National Intelligence, I’m releasing never-before-seen communications and documents exposing how Dr. Fauci provided millions in US taxpayer dollars to fund dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, worked with politicized elements… pic.twitter.com/ZMdliW4zyS

— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) June 19, 2026

The release, issued on Gabbard’s last day on the job, includes an eight-page May 27, 2020, assessment from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Z Program. That assessment concluded that “all of the necessary conditions for an accidental release of a laboratory-modified coronavirus - specifically a coronavirus adapted to recognize human cell receptors - were present at the Chinese Wuhan Institute of Virology in mid-to-late 2019.” It assigned equal weight to a laboratory-modification hypothesis and a natural-origin scenario.

Screenshot, ODNI release

Meanwhile, Recall that while the government was locking us down, Dr. Anthony Fauci and those in his orbit were actively fabricating a 'wet market' narrative that would conceal US research as a possible origin - despite his own advisors initially insisting that COVID-19 looked manmade.

In his January 2024 transcribed interview, Fauci was asked about conversations concerning the same three topics - COVID origins, WIV, and EcoHealth. When asked about the CIA, he answered yes: he said he was briefed “once or twice” in a secure NIH facility and also recalled a briefing in a White House situation room.

The newly released documents then show a June 4, 2021 briefing involving CIA/WCP personnel, NSC officials, and Fauci, during which Fauci offered views on pangolin research, sick WIV researchers, single-lineage vs. multi-lineage evidence, and recommended scientists for the IC to contact. A separate CIA-context email says that same 40-minute secure video teleconfrenece involved CIA/WCPMC officials and that Fauci gave thoughts on the 4 May 2021 COVID-origin briefing and recommended U.S. scientists to consult.

So, he lied. 

According to a statement released with the files, "Fauci worked with politicized career leadership in the Intelligence Community (IC) to suppress the truth about his actions, the virus’ lab-leak origins, and his role in directing U.S. funding for this dangerous research that caused immeasurable harm and countless lost lives. These documents expose Fauci’s direct role in influencing and manipulating IC assessments on COVID-19, and how Fauci lied to Congress in 2024, when under oath he denied knowledge of or participation in discussions with intelligence officials about viral research."

U.S.-Funded Research and Planning for Coronavirus Manipulation

The files include the Year 5 progress report for EcoHealth Alliance’s NIH grant 5R01AI110964-05. Under Specific Aim 3, the project outlined plans to:

• Sequence spike genes from bat coronaviruses.
• Create mutants to assess how much further evolution would be needed for efficient use of human ACE2 or other receptors.
• Conduct receptor-mutant pseudovirus binding assays.
• Perform infection experiments in cell lines and humanized mice.

This research track overlaps with work described in the 2018 DEFUSE proposal, which involved EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina, and Shi Zhengli’s team at WIV. The proposal sought to create chimeric bat coronaviruses with enhanced human infectivity, including consideration of furin cleavage site insertion to improve lung-cell entry, and to test the resulting viruses in humanized mice originally developed in Baric’s lab.

A 2016 WIV paper included in the release describes a synthetic shuttle vector system for assembling large DNA fragments, with demonstrated capability up to 31 kilobases. The authors presented the method as a tool for “genome-scale DNA reconstruction,” a technique relevant to synthetic biology and virus engineering.

Surveillance work under the same NIH grant reported that 9 of 1,497 rural residents in southern China (0.6%) were seropositive for bat SARS-related or HKU10 coronaviruses.

And from leaked emails three years ago:

Among other things, the NIH helped fund experiments at WIV that infected genetically engineered mice with “chimeric” hybrids of SARS-related bat coronaviruses in what some scientists have described as unacceptably risky research. 

...

Andersen laid them out plainly in an email to Fauci that same evening. “The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome (<0.1%) so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered,” Andersen wrote in the email. “I should mention,” he added, “that after discussions earlier today, Eddie, Bob, Mike and myself all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory. But we have to look at this much more closely and there are still further analyses to be done, so those opinions could still change.” -The Intercept

Internal Discussions and Awareness of Manipulation Research

A June 8, 2021, internal email in the release references a 2016 New York Academy of Medicine meeting at which Peter Daszak reportedly discussed colleagues in China “manipulating the spike protein on coronavirus to make them more virulent.”

Other 2020–2021 emails show officials debating technical concerns, including references to a DOD report on a “suspicious added furin-site” and FBI reporting containing unusual genetic descriptions. One analyst noted the risk that non-experts could misinterpret technical data while still calling for scrutiny. Another observed that “the IC took direction straight from NIH… the people that funded the Wuhan Lab” and referenced “a complex web of money and politics influencing analysis.”

Picking Their Reviewer

July 2021 emails concerning the selection of outside reviewers for COVID-origin assessments show officials rejecting several candidates for political sensitivity or conflict-of-interest reasons:

• James Clapper was viewed as too politically “hot.”
• Anthony Fauci was flagged due to his position as a “customer” of the assessment through NIH funding ties.
• Michael Morell was considered “too public.”
• Sue Gordon and another individual identified only as “Beth” were also set aside.

And so... 

These materials provide primary-source documentation that a U.S. national laboratory assessed a laboratory origin as equally plausible to natural emergence at a time when prominent scientific publications were publicly emphasizing a natural zoonotic source and characterizing alternative hypotheses as conspiracy theories. This includes the February 2020 Lancet letter and the March 2020 Nature Medicine paper “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2”, along with subsequent amplification by NIH leadership.

The research details in the declassified grant reports and proposals involved techniques and modifications - spike-protein engineering, receptor adaptation, humanized-mouse testing, and consideration of furin cleavage sites - that later featured prominently in scientific debate over SARS-CoV-2’s characteristics.

Shi and Daszak clinking glasses, undoubtedly after lots of humanized mice successfully died horrible COVID deaths. Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 08:35

BBC Flagship Soap Being Used To Push Pro-Migrant Propaganda By Activist Infiltrators

Authored by Steve Watson via modernity,

A campaigner for "migration and racial justice" has been employed to shape storylines for EastEnders - Britain's long-running BBC flagship soap opera set in London's East End - featuring plots about exploited African migrants and racially motivated murders, it has been revealed.

It is clear evidence of such activists operating inside the UK's national broadcaster.

The revelation also fits a deepening pattern where institutions, from the BBC to schools to shadowy government units, work to reframe mass immigration as an unquestionable good while suppressing public concerns over its costs.

BBC faces fresh migration row as EastEnders hires 'racial justice' influencer tied to activist groups https://t.co/h8ODu405Xj

- GB News (@GBNEWS) June 19, 2026

EastEnders, the BBC's flagship soap opera that has aired for decades and draws millions of UK viewers, has run plots about an autistic Ghanaian repeatedly exploited and the racist murder of another African immigrant since the hiring of campaigner Ade Lamuye in 2022.

Lamuye also serves on the advisory board of the Power of Pop Fund, launched by Comic Relief. The fund has directed almost £5 million to narrative change organisations seeking to use media to reframe the debate on migration.

She has confirmed her role in her own writing and stated that "entertainment and media holds influence and power to make real change".

She has additionally acted as a facilitator for Media Movers, a migration messaging group run by the charity Heard.

Heard has received funding from the Power of Pop scheme and previously lobbied producers of a BBC children's show to "impact the framing of migration".

A BBC spokesman said the corporation "has full editorial control over all its content" and that "engaging with charities for research purposes is standard industry practice".

The spokesman added that "the corporation maintains strict guidelines ensuring impartiality and editorial independence."

This EastEnders episode forms part of a coordinated infrastructure that has pivoted from COVID-era compliance tactics to shielding open borders policies from scrutiny.

As we highlighted last week, a secretive Home Office propaganda outfit founded by a former MI6 officer is actively working to control narratives around incidents involving migrants and rising tensions.

The Research, Information and Communications Unit, or RICU, has been exposed advising police on how to portray protesters and intervening in the aftermath of brutal attacks by migrants to prevent statements that might inflame public anger over mass immigration failures. Its methods include planting media stories, deploying undercover operatives, and shaping online conversations in targeted communities.

The same infrastructure that once deployed propagandistic fear tactics to drive mass compliance during the COVID period has been repurposed.

What began as emergency messaging around a virus has evolved into tools for managing public reaction to the consequences of sustained high immigration and associated crime.

Government narrative management operations have multiplied. Teams monitor "concerning narratives" on social media and flag material to platforms for removal, particularly content critical of migration policy during periods of unrest.

British soaps have been repeatedly deployed for underhanded social engineering. Government documents and investigations have shown how UK authorities secretly used BBC and ITV soaps to shape public opinion on vaccines and coerce compliance. The same approach now targets attitudes to mass migration.

Narrative change campaigners openly boast about using entertainment to "make real change" on migration and racial justice. This is not organic storytelling. It is deliberate reframing executed by activists embedded in production roles.

The pattern extends to schools pushing books telling kids there is "plenty of room" for small boat migrants.

The Green Party has pushed similar extreme content proposals on children.

Government guidance urges schools to snitch on "anti-Muslim hostility" in an Orwellian crackdown.

A UK government video game warns kids they are terrorists for questioning mass migration.

Counter-terror police ads warn teens that sharing funny content could be terrorism.

The same networks extend their influence beyond soaps. Pro-migrant campaigners have placed Channel migrants on BBC Question Time with prepared statements to test messaging.

'Extraordinary for the CEO of the charity to say there is no distinction between legal and illegal migration.'

Kwasi Kwarteng and Geoff Hoon react to a pro-migrant charity that 'planted' two migrants at a BBC Question Time debate with prepared statements. pic.twitter.com/nBcxzgessO

- GB News (@GBNEWS) June 17, 2026

The charity Imix arranged for two small-boat migrants to appear, with its chief executive describing the programme as an opportunity to test messaging directly.

Campaigners have also influenced sympathetic asylum seeker characters in other soaps such as Coronation Street.

BBC under fire after Channel migrants placed on Question Time by refugee campaigners https://t.co/ZGzagGcsVw

- GB News (@GBNEWS) June 17, 2026

Publicly funded broadcasters and government units are not neutral arbiters. They are active participants in a campaign to normalise policies that have transformed communities, strained services, and eroded social cohesion - all while branding legitimate concerns as bigotry.

The hiring of activists to write the scripts, the funding of narrative change through entertainment vehicles, and the deployment of "thought police" units to manage fallout reveal a system that fears open debate.

Britain's sovereignty and the right of its citizens to honest information are under sustained assault from within its own institutions.

The public deserves better than scripted emotional manipulation dressed up as drama. Real change begins with refusing to let activists and unaccountable units write the national story.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 08:10

Poland Revokes Top Award From Zelensky As Row Over Nazi Symbolism Deepens

Poland and Ukraine's ties continue to fray, worsening an ongoing diplomatic crisis - despite Warsaw being an 'eastern flank' key NATO ally in the broader Western campaign against Russia. 

President ​Karol Nawrocki has just announced the country's highest state honor previously awarded to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been revoked. 

"In light of President Volodymyr Zelensky's consent to name one of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine 'Heroes of the UPA,"... I have decided to revoke the Order ⁠of ⁠the White Eagle from the President of Ukraine," Nawrocki said in a statement. According to more of the statement:

Polish President Karol Nawrocki branded Ukraine's decision late last month to name the unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) "outrageous", "incomprehensible" and "deeply disappointing".

For Warsaw, uplifting this name is tantamount to backing a Nazi-orchestrated genocide against the Polish people:

For Poland, the UPA, or the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, is responsible for a campaign of genocidal ethnic cleansing in the 1940s that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 100,000 Polish civilians in Volhynia (known as Volyn in Ukrainian and Wołyń in Polish), a historic region with deep Polish and Ukrainian roots. This violence also systematically targeted Jewish survivors who had escaped the Holocaust.

Amid the diplomatic dispute sparked by the renaming, the Polish government is still promising not to let the issue steer its thinking on Ukraine's aspirations to join the European Union. It is pledging to remain objective related to examining Ukraine's status.

Ironically this highly symbolic diplomatic slap in the face aimed at Kiev comes ahead of a conference on Ukraine's reconstruction in the Polish city of Gdansk.

That Poland is still hosting this high-level conference suggests that Poland is not willing to cut off its overall diplomatic and military support to Ukraine amid the war with Russia - but it is perhaps an early sign that things are headed in this eventual direction. 

Ukrainian Foreign ​Minister Andrii Sybiha has made his country's outrage known - though is still trying to make nice given it needs the military support - responding to the Polish presidency by saying Warsaw committed ​a "strategic error" in revoking the state award.

President of the Republic of Poland Karol Nawrocki's decision regarding the stripping of the Order of the White Eagle from President Zelensky:

Decyzja Prezydenta RP Karola Nawrockiego w sprawie odebrania Orderu Orła Białego Prezydentowi Ukrainy Wołodymyrowi Zełenskiemu. pic.twitter.com/8gr1iRhM3y

— Kancelaria Prezydenta RP (@prezydentpl) June 19, 2026

"The decision to strip the president of Ukraine ⁠of the Order of the White ​Eagle is a ​strategic ⁠error ‌by ‌the President ⁠of Poland ‌that ​only benefits ⁠Moscow," ⁠Sybiha wrote ⁠on ​Facebook.

Poland also has other pressing concerns, not the least of which is the immigration and war refugee issue. Poland has throughout over four years of the Ukraine war had to absorb hundreds of thousands of refugees and war-displaced families.

A future where Ukraine could become part of the EU might prove a major drain on Poland's own struggling economy and resources.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 07:35

Britain's Greatest Betrayal: The Rape Gang Inquiry Report

Authored by Celina via American Greatness,

Rupert Lowe’s Rape Gang Inquiry Report opens with two quotations before a single piece of evidence is presented.

The first is Albert Einstein’s observation:

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

Human history has always contained violent and predatory men, every society has had to confront them, punish them, and do its best to protect the innocent from them. That is a perennial feature of the human condition. Yet the significance of Einstein’s quote is that it shifts our attention away from the perpetrators alone and towards those who witnessed wrongdoing and failed to stop it. This report is so horrific because it illustrates how people who were supposed to protect vulnerable children failed to act. The report argues that those crimes became possible on such a scale because too many others looked away.

The second quotation is from Friedrich Nietzsche:

Man is the cruelest animal.

Nietzsche explains the existence of the perpetrators, Einstein explains the existence of the scandal. Throughout the report, readers encounter testimony describing acts so degrading and sadistic that they transcend ordinary criminality. This article will start with one such story.

At 12 years of age, a girl identified in official records only as Chloe was abducted by an adult male who drove her to a secluded, darkened graveyard. Once there, he supplied the child with an entire bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. He then forced himself upon her, pinning her down in the darkness and raping her. Withdrawing just before ejaculation, the man picked up the emptied glass whiskey bottle and violently forced it up inside the 12-year-old child’s body until it shattered.

When Chloe eventually arrived at a local Accident and Emergency department, bleeding and in a state of unfathomable physical and psychological shock, the medical staff attended to the immediate anatomical emergency. They placed her on a table, removed the shards of shattered glass from deep inside her body, and then, according to the official records, they simply discharged her. No probing questions were asked, no police officers were summoned to the hospital ward to take a statement, no urgent safeguarding referrals were initiated to remove her from harm. A child had presented with injuries unmistakably consistent with extreme, sadistic sexual torture, and the institution specifically tasked with her care patched her up and sent her back out into the night.

Elsewhere in the country, a young victim named Michelle endured a reality of comparable horror. Michelle was subjected to an industrial scale of violence, repeatedly gang-raped in local bin sheds and threatened into terrified submission with a knife and forced into sex with multiple men waiting in cars. She was drugged, beaten, burned with cigarettes, locked in rooms, and passed between men. Of her abusers, she states: “98 percent of them were Pakistani Muslim. If not, they were Iraqi Muslim or Kurdish.” One of the most chilling details of Michelle’s ordeal occurred inside a police station. When the authorities finally became involved, the system failed her with such spectacular absurdity that police officers permitted one of the very men who had been violently abusing her to sit beside her during proceedings, officially accepting her rapist as her designated “appropriate adult,” a legal role exclusively designed to protect the welfare of vulnerable minors.

What Actually Happened

The history of group-based child sexual exploitation in the United Kingdom stretches back generations. While Alexis Jay, the independent chair of the Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection, previously identified the 1970s as the era when immigrant rape gangs first began operating in Britain, the Inquiry traces the first recorded case of a specifically Pakistani rape gang back to 1955 in Bradford, shortly after the British Nationality Act of 1948 altered the nation’s demographic makeup. However, the report highlights that the scale of these crimes expanded exponentially from the late 1990s onward, mutating from isolated local incidents into an industrialized, nationwide criminal enterprise.

What emerges from the Inquiry’s findings is the standardization of the abuse. The report confirms that these networks operate, or have operated, in at least 149 local authority districts, representing nearly 40 percent of all such districts across the United Kingdom. Britain quite literally faced a single, cohesive national model of modern-day child sex slavery.

The Victims

Reading the Rape Gang Inquiry Report is to descend into an abyss of human suffering. The abstract statistics of 250,000 victims, 149 districts, decades of cover-ups cannot adequately convey the reality of the crimes. The emotional and moral heart of the report is truly in the testimonies of the survivors, who detailed the complete annihilation of their childhoods and the lifelong shadows cast by their exploitation.

Fiona: The Care Home Pipeline

Emerging from a household marred by domestic violence and her mother’s repeated suicide attempts, Fiona was placed into state care. Tragically, this environment functioned as a heavily stocked hunting ground for the ethnic gangs. Fiona was trafficked across multiple UK cities. The networks utilized extreme violence to ensure total compliance. Fiona was forced not only to endure sexual torture but to act as a courier for drugs and to clean up the blood and knives from the scenes of fatal stabbings. The abusers bragged to her about hiding dead bodies in specific locations, facts that Fiona later saw corroborated by local news reports of recovered corpses.

At 14, Fiona fell into the hands of a man known as “Rambo,” an illegal immigrant who had reportedly been castrated in Pakistan as a punishment for child abuse before fleeing to the Philippines, where he allegedly attacked women and children with a machete, eventually arriving in Britain. Rambo locked Fiona and another girl in a room, subjecting them to extreme sexual torture that, according to the Inquiry, illustrated how the abuse was often driven more by sadism, racial humiliation, and absolute control than by just sexual gratification.

At 15, while living in a mixed-sex state care home, Fiona became pregnant. The state removed her infant son for adoption, citing the “ongoing exploitation risks” present in her life, yet deemed it acceptable to leave the 15-year-old mother behind in the exact same care home, fully exposed to the gang that had impregnated her. She estimates she was abused by between 50 and 100 men, all but two of whom were of Pakistani origin, before the abuse ceased only when she aged out of the system at 18, leaving her with chronic physical injuries, substance dependency, and complex PTSD.

Michelle: Industrial Scale of Violence

The report contains a litany of similar horrors, but the testimony of Michelle highlights the industrial scale of the abuse and the collapse of authority. Michelle detailed a relentless pattern of violence, describing how she was routinely gang-raped in local bin sheds, threatened with knives, and forced into compliance through physical terror.

The volume of perpetrators she was forced to endure resulted in repeated pregnancies, transforming her body into a site of continuous trauma and medical intervention.

Yet, the defining tragedy of Michelle’s account is in the absolute inability, or refusal, of the authorities to intervene on her behalf. When Michelle was finally brought into contact with law enforcement, the system failed her so profoundly that it could be described as complicity. While in police custody, the authorities permitted one of the very men who had been violently abusing her to accompany her, officially accepting her rapist as her “appropriate adult.” This legal role, designed to safeguard the rights and welfare of vulnerable minors during police interviews, was handed to the architect of her suffering. The authorities had essentially outsourced their safeguarding duties to the predator.

These testimonies confirm that the trauma inflicted by the perpetrators was endlessly compounded by the very institutions established to prevent it. The girls were not just victims of the gangs; they were victims of the state.

The Failure of the State

The central thesis of the Rape Gang Inquiry Report is unequivocal: the estimated 250,000 victims were the victims of a deliberate collapse of the British state’s safeguarding architecture. Across every crucial sector, the state chose institutional convenience over the lives of children.

The Police: Criminalization and Complicity

The Inquiry documents how officers frequently arrived hours late to missing persons reports, actively discouraged parents from filing complaints, and routinely closed cases without conducting basic forensic or digital examinations.

The most pervasive failure was the ideological decision to view the victims as willing participants in their own destruction. Children like Chloe, found highly intoxicated in the cars of adult men, were labeled “prostitutes,” making “lifestyle choices.” By framing the organised rape of children as consensual sex work, the police absolved themselves of the legal requirement to launch resource-heavy investigations into organised crime syndicates.

When victims or their families did provide actionable evidence, it was routinely mishandled, ignored, or actively destroyed. Ross, the father of a survivor named Phoebe, testified that vital digital evidence handed over to the police was inexplicably deleted from the device while in police custody. When Grace’s abusers repeatedly breached their bail conditions and stalked her family, the police took no action, rendering protective non-molestation orders entirely meaningless.

The bureaucratic responses were often farcical. In some instances, the only formal action taken by police was issuing “harboring notices” to the men, pieces of paper warning them not to associate with the child. When the men inevitably ignored these notices, no further enforcement followed. Furthermore, the Inquiry uncovered a deeply entrenched “two-tier” policing system. While forces surrendered to the fear of disorder from certain communities, they aggressively targeted the victims and their families. Chloe was arrested in her pajamas after her mother called the police for help, kept in a cell until 2:00 AM, and released onto the streets without transportation, leading directly to her being picked up by a gang member and trafficked nationwide.

Most disturbingly, the report highlights allegations of direct police complicity, referencing whistleblower accounts of “cop nights” where officers were allegedly active participants in the trafficking and abuse of girls using police vehicles. The revelation that an abuser could be legally accepted as an “appropriate adult” for Michelle during police questioning underscores a force either dangerously incompetent or wilfully blind to the dynamics of coercive control.

Social Services: Abandonment and Retaliation

If the police failed to enforce the law, social services failed to enforce basic humanity. Across multiple districts, social care systems identified the precise markers of severe exploitation - truancy, self-harm, sudden wealth, STIs, missing episodes - and consistently chose to look away.

The Inquiry demonstrates that social workers frequently undermined protective parents, isolating children from their families and placing them in residential care homes and semi-independent units that functioned as drive-through delivery systems for the gangs. Children were centralized, making them easier targets.

Jane, a victim placed in semi-independent living at 16, was trafficked directly from her state-provided accommodation. When she disclosed the abuse and the exchange of money to the staff, she was told it did not constitute trafficking because she was over 16. The staff then blackmailed her, threatening to blame her for the exploitation if she complained further. Following a psychiatric hospitalization, Jane discovered that all statutory care records from her placement had been mysteriously “lost or destroyed,” legally obstructing any path to future accountability.

When internal whistleblowers attempted to expose the ongoing grooming, trafficking, and financial abuse of children in these units, they were met with severe retaliation. An unnamed social worker who acted as an Interim Co-Manager testified that after raising concerns about untreated exploitation risks and unlawful housing practices, she faced sudden suspensions, the removal of payments, fabricated allegations, and career-ending professional isolation orchestrated by senior leadership to protect the council’s reputation. Social services actively punished those who tried to protect children.

Schools

Teachers and school administrators observed older men waiting at the school gates to collect young girls in taxis. They noted sudden drops in attendance, drastic changes in behavior, and physical exhaustion.

Instead of recognising these as textbook indicators of exploitation, schools responded with punitive measures that pushed the children further to the margins. When Chloe’s trauma manifested as truancy, the school repeatedly placed her in isolation, compounding her emotional distress and alienation. When Jen was bullied to the point of wetting herself because a teacher refused her access to the toilet, the school ignored her subsequent self-harm and suicidal ideation, failing to initiate any safeguarding response.

In the most tragic instances, schools actively protected the abusers to avoid scandal. When Rachel’s autistic daughter disclosed that she had been orally raped by a peer, the school failed to effectively safeguard her, allowing the alleged perpetrator to remain on the premises. She was subjected to relentless physical and online bullying by students linked to the abuser, which was filmed and shared online. The intimidation escalated until the 12-year-old took a fatal overdose of colchicine, stating she “just wanted everything to stop.”

The National Health Service

The National Health Service (NHS) is uniquely positioned to identify physical and psychological trauma. Yet, the report highlights a staggering clinical detachment among healthcare providers, who repeatedly treated the biological symptoms of extreme violence without ever questioning the cause.

Victims repeatedly presented at A&E departments, sexual health clinics, and GP surgeries with injuries that could only be the result of severe abuse. Chloe’s arrival at the hospital with shattered glass in her vagina is the most visceral example; the medical staff treated the physical wound but entirely ignored the 12-year-old patient attached to it.

The NHS treated the collateral damage of the gangs, administering antibiotics for gonorrhea, managing pregnancies caused by rape, performing abortions on children, and stitching the physical wounds of suicide attempts, without ever triggering automatic safeguarding referrals. When Chloe was diagnosed with severe, multiple STIs at age 13, clinic staff just discussed contraception rather than contacting the police. When victims sought psychological help, they were frequently dismissed. One survivor requested antidepressants to cope with the trauma of multiple STIs and a miscarriage between the ages of 13 and 15, only to be told by a doctor that she was “too young” to warrant the medication.

The Ethnic Dimension of the Crimes

According to the official data cited in the report, including independent analyses of conviction records from the late 1990s onward, approximately 87 percent of those convicted in group-based child sexual exploitation cases bore distinctively Muslim names. However, the Inquiry notes that because the vast majority of perpetrators were never prosecuted or convicted, the true demographic concentration is believed to be even higher. The report cites Dr. Taj Hargey, an imam with the Oxford Islamic Congregation, who estimates that 95 percent of the men involved in these specific gang networks are of Muslim heritage, a figure that vastly exceeds the Muslim share of the overall United Kingdom population, which stands at roughly 6 percent.

The Inquiry found that the overwhelming majority of these networks consisted of men from Pakistani backgrounds, though smaller factions of Somali, Iranian, Syrian, Turkish, and Iraqi Kurdish men were also identified.

The report concludes that the perpetrators operated under a clannish, honor-, and shame-based cultural code that viewed non-Muslim girls, specifically white, working-class girls, as subhuman property available for sexual consumption. This cultural worldview, the Inquiry argues, was reinforced by specific interpretations of religious texts. The report outlines eight theological and legal aspects of Islam that were allegedly filtered through immigrant sub-cultures to provide a framework of religious justification for the atrocities.

The abuse was explicitly racialized and religiously motivated.

Victims were routinely demeaned for their race and faith. Perpetrators referred to the girls as gora (a derogatory term for white people), “white trash,” “easy meat,” and “kuffar bitches.” Kate, a survivor of extreme trafficking, testified that her abusers mocked her for wearing a Christian cross, telling her that her God had abandoned her and that her Christian faith offered her no protection.

The gangs drew strict moral boundaries based on ethno-religious lines. Survivor testimony highlighted that white girls and Christian girls were viewed as having degraded moral character and were thus fair game for torture, while Muslim girls within the community were seen as possessing dignity and higher moral standing. As Eleanor noted in her testimony: “I’d had friends that were Muslim, girlfriends, and this never happened to them . . . the men would treat them differently.”

Why Did Nobody Stop It?

If the crimes were known, the perpetrators visible, and the victims continuously presenting at hospitals, schools, and police stations, the central question of the Rape Gang Inquiry Report remains: Why did nobody stop it?

The answer is institutional incompetence, bureaucratic self-preservation, and an overriding fear of being accused of racism.

Across every agency, the fear of inflaming “community tensions” superseded the statutory duty to protect children. Police officers, social workers, and council leaders were terrified that identifying the perpetrators as predominantly Pakistani Muslim men would invite accusations of institutional racism or empower far-right political factions. When Fiona’s mother called the police to report her daughter missing and explicitly mentioned a history of abuse by Asian men, the police call handler reprimanded her, stating: “You can’t describe them as Asian men because that’s racist.”

The report reserves its harshest condemnation for the political class, identifying a nationwide abandonment of children driven by cynical electoral arithmetic.

The Labour Party is cited as bearing particular responsibility in many of the hardest-hit municipal areas. In towns like Rotherham, Rochdale, and Oxford, Labour-controlled councils and police forces repeatedly shelved investigations and threatened whistleblowers to protect their reliance on Muslim voting blocs. The inquiry documents that local politicians received direct briefings, sat in multi-agency meetings, and read internal intelligence, yet deliberately blocked inquiries to preserve community relations and retain power.

The scandal even touched the party’s own ranks, with figures like former Rotherham Labour councillor and peer Lord Nazir Ahmed convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl, and other councillors, such as Carol Clark, formally accused of tipping off pedophile relatives about impending police raids. The report also notes that during Sir Keir Starmer’s tenure as Director of Public Prosecutions, an estimated 13,000 suspected rape gang members and pedophiles were let off with mere warning letters rather than facing prosecution.

In London, identified by the report as the epicenter of institutional denial, Mayor Sadiq Khan repeatedly insisted that grooming gangs did not operate in the capital, describing whistleblower evidence as “malicious and politically motivated.” This denial persisted even as the Metropolitan Police held internal HM Inspectorate of Constabulary documents detailing exactly these patterns of offending occurring in London hotels, exposing a massive cover-up.

The Conservative Party, while in national government, is also heavily implicated for its inaction. Despite the damning revelations of the 2014 Jay Report in Rotherham, successive Conservative administrations failed to impose mandatory ethnicity recording for these crimes or launch a full statutory national inquiry. The report cites former Conservative minister Rory Stewart, who publicly downplayed the phenomenon as a “small problem” confined to the north of England, a statement reflecting a broader political reluctance to confront the national reality of the abuse.

When individuals within the system did attempt to halt the abuse, they were crushed. Campaigners like Caven Vines in Rotherham compiled multi-agency records proving that police and councils knew about the organised grooming, only to be ignored. Former detective constable Maggie Oliver exposed the catastrophic failures in Rochdale and Manchester, pointing out that senior figures blocked reviewers from accessing vital documents. The institutions of the state did not fail due to a lack of resources or intelligence. They failed because they calculated that the lives of working-class white girls were an acceptable price to pay to maintain the illusion of multicultural harmony and organizational self-preservation.

The Scale of the Damage

For the estimated 250,000 victims, the end of the abuse rarely marked the end of the suffering. The focus of the report’s conclusion is deliberately stripped of politics, returning entirely to the human cost borne by those who survived.

Survivors live with chronic pain, severe internal injuries, and reproductive destruction resulting from years of sexual violence. Jane developed endometriosis that was so severe it required the surgical removal of half her uterus. Chloe’s reproductive system was so damaged that her child was born with failing organs, including a defective kidney. Other children endured multiple pregnancies, suffering trauma-induced miscarriages or forced backstreet abortions arranged by the gangs to hide the evidence of their crimes. Leanne, held captive and beaten while pregnant at 15, miscarried and now suffers from chronic fibromyalgia.

Psychologically, the survivors carry the heavy burden of complex PTSD, dissociation, and severe substance addictions that were originally forced upon them by the gangs as mechanisms of control. The report details a tragic trail of suicide attempts, with victims like Rachel’s 12-year-old daughter ultimately taking their own lives simply to make the relentless abuse and intimidation stop.

Furthermore, the state’s habit of removing children born of rape, adopting them out or placing them into the care system while simultaneously leaving the young mothers in the hands of the abusers, has institutionalized a cycle of intergenerational trauma. Survivors find themselves navigating a bleak adulthood, haunted by criminal records acquired under duress, devoid of educational qualifications due to years of truancy and school exclusions, alienated from their families, and permanently terrified of the networks that still operate freely in their hometowns. They mourn lost childhoods that can never be returned.

Conclusion

The testimonies of Chloe, Fiona, Michelle, and countless others stand as an indelible public record of unimaginable cruelty. They document a world where girls as young as 11 were hunted, drugged, mutilated, and passed around like commodities, while the adults paid by the state to protect them simply averted their eyes.

How could industrial-scale child torture continue for half a century across 149 local authorities despite repeated, glaring warnings? It continued because the modern British state permitted it. From the police officer who deleted the evidence, to the social worker who ferried a child to an STI clinic in silence, to the school that punished the victim, to the hospital physician who pulled shattered glass from a girl’s vagina without asking why, every safety net was intentionally dismantled by cowardice and political calculation.

Until the nation stops prioritizing the political sensitivities of the abusers over the survival of its children, the ghosts of these hundreds of thousands of girls will remain chained to the very institutions that betrayed them.

Download the Full Report.

This article was first published on June 17, 2026, on Substack. Celina is a young Australian writer who focuses primarily on history, culture, and politics. She publishes on Substack at Celina101.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 07:00

Vance 'Skeptical' That Iran Closed Hormuz Strait Again, Pentagon Declares Safe Passage Remains 'Intact Today' Summary

• Vance & CENTCOM push back against reports of Hormuz 'closure' by Iranians. 
• Iran's Ghalibaf, Araghchi en route to US Talks in Switzerland, IRIB reports. Also Witkoff-headed US delegation still expected.
• Iran declares Strait 'closed' again over US failing to reign in Israeli action in Lebanon.
• Rising death toll in Lebanon, after over 50 new rockets fired on Israeli positions by Hezbollah. 

//--> //--> //--> Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by end of June?
Yes 8% · No 93%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

*  *  *

Iran Closes Strait Again? Vance & CENTCOM Address the Claims

Vice President JD Vance has newly told Fox News that he's 'skeptical' of the morning reports and claims that the Iranians once again 'closed' the Strait of Hormuz. Watch:

FOX & FRIENDS: The Journal is reporting that the remnants of the Iranian navy are turning ships back in the Strait of Hormuz. Is that a violation of the MOU?

JD VANCE: I'm skeptical of that reporting, or at least of some of the conclusions that could drawn from it. We're not… pic.twitter.com/D4iWxq769p

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 20, 2026

US Central Command is also trying to portray that all is well. It issued this statement after the Iranians announced it closed the vital oil transit waterway:

Commercial ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz increased June 20 as U.S. forces continued operating in the general area to support freedom of navigation. Safe passage through the international waterway remained intact today as 55 merchant ships transited, moving large amounts of cargo and more than 17 million barrels of oil to global markets.

The Joint Maritime Information Center issued an advisory this week affirming safe passage for all vessels along a designated route that is free of arbitrary requirement claims or impediments.

The Pentagon says it is remaining vigilant with regional forces on high alert. Overall, it seems the White House is keep to at least see its delegation get in the same room with the Iranians in Switzerland. This will certainly be a real start in terms of face-to-face engagement, after the MoU was remotely signed by each side.

Iran says Hormuz Strait Closed Again

As has become the 'norm' after well over 100 days of war - which some pundits have been calling the "third Gulf war" - there are deeply conflicting headlines emerging Saturday. On the one hand, diplomacy based in Switzerland is said to be in motion, with a potential top level Trump delegation (led by Witkoff and to be joined later by Kushner reportedly/allegedly) - but fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in south Lebanon still rages, with the death toll climbing, and also with Hezbollah rockets still landing against IDF positions as well as in northern Israel.

Will the US and Iranian sides actually meet in Europe for the 'technical' side of further talks toward final peace? Saturday has seen reports of Iran having again 'closed' the Strait of Hormuz, citing Israeli aggression in Lebanon, after Tehran has insisted that the tenuous freshly signed MoU included a Lebanon ceasefire and peace. The latest newswires out of Iranian state media:

• IRAN SAYS HORMUZ TO CLOSE, CITING CEASEFIRE VIOLATION: TASNIM
• IRAN SAYS STRAIT OF HORMUZ HAS BEEN CLOSED: TASNIM
• IRAN'S IRGC NAVY SAYS HORMUZ STRAIT CLOSED TO ALL VESSELS: FARS
• *VESSELS WARNED TO AVOID STRAIT OF HORMUZ OVER SECURITY: FARS

VP Vance Expected in Switzerland, But He's Ambiguous in FOX Appearance

Vance expected in Switzerland, reports Axios on Saturday:

🇺🇸🇮🇷Trump envoys arrive in Switzerland for Iran talks planned for Sunday. Vice President Vance could travel to Switzerland today or tomorrow. My story on @axios https://t.co/suNH9rkVk9

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) June 20, 2026

And yet, some of the same state sources have been saying that an Iranian delegation will travel to Switzerland where it will seek to hold Washington to its commitments. 

“In Switzerland, we intend to press for the fulfilment of the other side’s commitments and clarify how they plan to act on their obligations,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said, according to Fars, also as cited in Al Jazeera.

Per the same report Saturday mid-morning (US time): "The delegation will leave for Switzerland in a few minutes, Mehr news agency also reported. The spokesperson also said that if the US refuses to implement its commitments, Iran will respond with necessary measures."

Vance non-committal in Saturday FOX interview:

FOX & FRIENDS: Do you have any immediate plans to join Jared and Steve?

JD VANCE: It's always a delicate coordination dance with the diplomatic protocols. I've gotta be honest with you -- I don't really understand these things pic.twitter.com/tFr2QZOjQC

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 20, 2026

So things remain very fluid, and could implode at any moment. The Wall Street Journal adds some fresh details as follows:

Iranian security officials said they had closed the Strait of Hormuz, citing what they said was the U.S. failure to stop the fighting in Lebanon as required under the agreement signed earlier this week by President Trump.

The announcement by Iran’s joint military command came as clashes between Israel and Hezbollah flared again in Lebanon on Saturday, just hours after the two sides agreed to a renewed ceasefire. It undid for now the main achievement of the deal, which was to set the stage for reopening a waterway vital to world energy markets.

Even before Iran’s announcement, however, the recovery of traffic through the strait had been halting. Iran had imposed new procedures, including a demand that ships register to cross two days in advance, and wary shipowners were monitoring the still uncertain environment in the waterway.

Widening Split Between US & Israel

Since the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding was signed days ago it's increasingly obvious there's been a widening split between Washington and it's closest Middle East ally Israel over the terms of the deal. The political interests between the Trump administration and Israel, which have been typically lock-step, have increasingly diverged on the question of the Iran peace and terms of reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Ground zero for this divergence has remained south Lebanon, where the overnight the death toll from fighting - and especially from Israeli air raids - have risen.

Lebanon's civil defense agency has announced that Israeli attacks on the southern Nabatieh district have killed 16 people and wounded 12 others. The significant death toll comes a mere day after the latest Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire was announced.

Still, Al Jazeera is on Saturday confirming that "the wheels of diplomacy" appear to be "back in motion" after the delay to the technical talks from Friday. "Pakistan and Qatar – mediators – are holding a series of meetings in Switzerland, Iran and Egypt and according to Al Jazeera’s team on the ground," the publication writes. Top American negotiators are reportedly on the way to Europe.

via Reuters

Iran too is optimistic, while calling out certain Israeli hardliner politicians for seeking to sabotage peace. State media is hitting this theme hard, and naturally Tehran is going to seek to drive a deep and permanent wedge between the Trump and Netanyahu administrations. 

Iran: 'Ready to Move Forward'

Iran's deputy foreign minister has said the Islamic Republic is "ready to move forward" on diplomacy with Washington, and the big elephant in the room is that "the United States must ensure Israel abides by the terms of the deal to end the war" - according to Al Jazeera.

As a reminder, President Trump appears in the mood to play nice with Iran while bringing the (very rare) pressure on Netanyahu. However, Trump himself is facing immense rising pressure from outraged pro-US hawks at home:

Donald ⁠Trump told NBC News ⁠in a phone ⁠interview that ​he spoke with Israel ⁠on Friday and asked them to ⁠agree to ​a ‌ceasefire ‌with Hezbollah.

“‘You just gotta calm down sometimes and use your head,’” Trump ‌was quoted as telling Israel.

Trump declined ​to specify ​whether ​he spoke ​with ‌Benjamin ​Netanyahu directly. A senior US official earlier confirmed the ceasefire to Reuters, though Israeli attacks continue across Lebanon.

Israeli Objections & Overnight Carnage in Lebanon

One of the key elements of the MoU the hawks vehemently object to is the creation of a $300 billion reconstruction plan for Iran. But in terms of the main aspect which could derail ongoing negotiations altogether is that the US committed that it and its allies (read: Israel and the Lebanese government) will initiate the "immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon." This is a major concession by the US to the Iranian side.

❗️FOUR IDF soldiers killed after Hezbollah struck IDF tank in southern Lebanon

Including 52nd Battalion Commander who assumed command only days earlier after his predecessor was seriously wounded

Hours later, five more wounded, including SERIOUSLY, in drone strike in same area pic.twitter.com/RQBjyKoxme

— RT (@RT_com) June 19, 2026

But Israel has much more than these things to complain about, as it continues to lose troops in recent Hezbollah attacks:

Israel immediately responded to that agreement by pounding Lebanon, killing at least 47 people on Friday, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. Four Israeli soldiers were also killed overnight [Friday] by the armed Lebanese group, Hezbollah, prompting Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to say that “all of Lebanon must burn”.

Vice President JD Vance's own recent remarks putting these Israeli officials in their place has been unprecedented spectacle to behold. The "special relationship" remains tenuous, at least in terms of weighing the current heated rhetoric and atmosphere.

But again, Israel can point to Hezbollah aggression, with Times of Israel (TOI) reporting the latest figures as follows:

The Israeli military says it is striking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response to overnight projectile launches at troops in south Lebanon by the Iran-backed terror group, despite a ceasefire announced a day earlier.

⚡️Consequences of an Israeli airstrike (3 bombs) on a building complex in Southern Lebanon

Multiple casualties. pic.twitter.com/CF4riEgu3E

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) June 20, 2026

"Overnight, the Hezbollah terrorist organization launched more than 50 projectiles at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. Following the attacks, the IDF has been striking Hezbollah terrorist targets in southern Lebanon," an Israeli military official said was cited in TOI as saying.

Meanwhile, CNN also confirms that diplomacy is in "motion", writing: "US envoy Steve Witkoff is traveling to Switzerland for technical talks with Iran, a US official said, with President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner also expected to join. Meanwhile, mediator Pakistan’s interior minister has arrived in Iran for talks with senior Iranian officials as part of efforts to encourage them to Switzerland."

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 05:44

Are iPhones Dialing Up The Birth Dearth?

Authored by Thaddeus G. McCotter via American Greatness,

When I call you up, your line’s engaged

I have had enough, so act your age

We have lost the time that was so hard to find

And I will lose my mind

If you won’t see me . . .

Time after time

You refuse to even listen

I wouldn’t mind

If I knew what I was missing

—The Beatles, “You Won’t See Me”

As one heads into senescence, the milestones begin to fade in the rearview mirror. Yet every now and again, something jars the memory to refocus your recognition of such milestones and on how time has truly flown.

Recently, I was reminded that nearly an entire generation of Americans has been born after the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. As a Gen Xer born before the introduction of the answering machine, I felt the weight of my sixty years, along with a gnawing anxiety about the future.

No, not because I won’t be around all that much longer. Despite the myths of the ubiquitous cult of youth promoted by our callow commercial culture, the increasing aches and pains accompanying my journey into old age are an insistent reminder that no one lives forever. Rather, my concern is how few Americans will be born to replace me and the other older members of our aging nation.

As reported by Elise Winland in Zeale News, a new study suggests the 2007 introduction of the iPhone has played a significant role in the declining U.S. fertility rate.

Written by Caitlin K. Myers and Ezekiel Hooper and issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the title of the working paper says it all: “Is the iPhone Birth Control? Causal Evidence from AT&T’s 2007–2011 Carrier Monopoly.”

The study’s methodology is straightforward, as are its implications for our nation. As succinctly explained by Ms. Winland: “The paper draws on a natural experiment created by Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T. When the iPhone launched in June 2007, it was available only on AT&T’s network until February 2011, giving researchers a way to compare areas with different levels of early iPhone access.”

While this deal was fortuitous for the researchers, the consequences were disastrous for the nation’s birth rate. According to Myers and Hooper:

The diffusion of the iPhone deepened the decline in births among women under 30 while suppressing the rise in births among older women. Overall, the diffusion of the iPhone explains 33–52% of the decline in the general fertility rate among women aged 15–44. National-survey evidence on time use and sexual behavior is consistent with the iPhone reducing in-person interactions, increasing pornography use, and reducing sexual frequency.

Importantly, Myers and Hooper are not asserting that the iPhone is the sole cause of the steep decline in America’s birth rate, which they cite as having dropped by 22 percent since 2007, again, the year of the iPhone’s introduction. For, as Winland notes, the researchers believe the nation’s record low birth rate of 53.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 “cannot be fully explained by the common explanations such as the Great Recession, increased access to contraception, rising housing and childcare costs, and delayed marriage.”

The researchers do argue that “studies imply that access to the iPhone reduced births by 4.5–8.0% at ages 15–19 and 3.2–6.6% at ages 20–24, with statistically significant but smaller declines among older cohorts.” (It is worth noting that the iPhone had a salubrious impact on reducing teen pregnancies; however, the enduring detrimental effects stemming from the loss of social interaction and its accompanying skills will be carried into the future by today’s teens.)

Anyone with a cursory acquaintance with Marshall McLuhan’s work will see his dictum, “the medium is the message,” at work here. Every new technology affects human beings, both in how they interact with that technology and in how they subsequently interact—or fail to interact—with other people by using it.

The math—specifically subtraction—is elementary: by spending more time in your virtual cocoon, you have less time for interacting with real human beings. One must therefore consider how much of the iPhone’s contribution to the birth dearth stems from the technology’s unconscious effects on its users. Indeed, unlike, say, birth control or a career choice, the iPhone is not being used deliberately to delay or prevent pregnancy. Rather, the birth dearth is exacerbated because the iPhone user is more rapt with the device and the stimulation it provides than by another person. After all, there are only so many hours in the day—and night.

Meanwhile, the birth rate continues its decline. It is an indicator of national health. An optimistic, future-oriented nation has at least a replacement birth rate, if not a growing one. A declining nation has a declining birth rate. In America today, the atomization of our citizenry and its accompanying anomie continue apace, as algorithmically personalized prison cells push us out of gen pop and into solitary confinement. Thus does the insidious, circular logic of the siren song of decline become the mantra: life is unfair, inequitable, and horrible, so it is better—in fact, virtuous—not to bring a new life into this morass of meaninglessness.

The result of this is the declining birth rate found in both the United States and Europe, where the apostles of postmodernism hold sway, filling the perceived vacuity of modernity with a creed that holds the most “tolerant” belief is to believe in nothing—including one’s inherited civilization. A postmodern generation taught to loathe itself does not care to procreate. For what better way to reject the meaningless future than by making sure there are no succeeding generations to perpetuate it?

While my bachelor’s degree is only in political science, and despite all the technological advances during my lifetime—including the internet, social media, AI, and the answering machine—I nonetheless feel confident in declaring, “You can only make a baby in the real world.”

A healthy nation prizes real life over a virtual world. It doesn’t have a birth dearth. And I’m inclined to believe it has more answering machines—or at least call waiting—and fewer smartphones.

I had to interrupt and stop this conversation

Your voice across the line gives me a strange sensation

I’d like to talk when I can show you my affection

Oh, I can’t control myself . . .

Don’t leave me hanging on the telephone

Hang up and run to me

Oh, hang up and run to me.

—Blondie, “Hanging on the Telephone”

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