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Lavrov To Challenge Germany's Bid For French Nuclear Shield In Rubio Talks

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio are expected to hold an important, rare meeting on Thursday to address shaky bilateral relations in the context of the Ukraine war, as well as recent nuclear rhetoric out of European NATO countries.

The Kremlin is especially alarmed at the German government's intent to gain access to nuclear weapons, based on new defense agreements with France and its 'nuclear umbrella'. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz unveiled late last week: "Alongside this work on a shared doctrine, German conventional forces will this year take part in a nuclear exercise of the French military."

The Russian FM has newly responded just the day prior to the Rubio meeting: "And this is truly alarming, considering that, for example, the US nuclear program was largely created by people who fled Germany and were taken there. That memory does not fade."

via Associated Press

Lavrov in the remarks to the press previewing the top level dialogue warned that ongoing US aggression in places like Iran and the Middle East could push an array of non-nuclear sakes to quickly seek atomic weapons, on fears of attack from Washington or its allies.

The meeting with Rubio will be "useful in any case" Lavrov stated, underscoring that Moscow has many open, pressing questions for the Trump administration concerning its current policies. "It's better to ask questions directly and receive answers," Lavrov noted.

Lavrov seized on some of President Trump's recent comments on forging peace in Ukraine, at a moment the air war has clearly been ramping up, especially given that Ukrainian drone strikes have increasingly penetrated into the Moscow region. "Regarding Trump's prediction of an imminent settlement, I will ask Marco Rubio tomorrow," Lavrov said according to TASS.

He also said that Russia continues to adhere to principles put forward at the Putin-Trump Alaska summit in Anchorage, in August 2025. "We assume that, at least for now, our American colleagues have not revoked their own proposals, which were voiced in Anchorage and which are now well known to everyone," Lavrov stated.

But he also previewed that he'll raise the issue of deepening US involvement with Ukrainian intelligence and the military, per TASS:

The US is not simply assisting, but directly participating in, the targeting of Ukrainian weapons at facilities in Russia, including civilian ones:

"But of all people, the Americans, through arms supplies funded by the European Union and through the provision of intelligence - the Starlink system and much more - are not simply assisting, but directly participating in the targeting of Ukrainian weapons at facilities, including civilian ones, on Russian territory."

Concerning the ongoing tit-for-tat attacks on Black Sea shipping, as well as the question of a safe energy corridor, the top Russian diplomat said, "When asked about the Black Sea Initiative, the answer is short: there were no proposals."

Lavrov also said to reporters that recent claims out of Eastern European and Baltic leaders that Russia is preparing some kind of attack or sabotage inside the EU is a fabrication and born out of sensationalism and propaganda. 

"Vladimir Putin was asked about the EU's preparations for war, and he very clearly answered that we have no intention of attacking anyone, but if they, having once again gathered all of Europe under certain banners, try to attack us, it will no longer be a conventional war. It will be a different kind of war," Lavrov warned

Germany's Chancellor Merz:

For the first time, I have accepted the offer made by the French President to jointly think about nuclear deterrence.

Historically speaking, General Charles de Gaulle had already offered the Federal Republic of Germany a French nuclear umbrella many… pic.twitter.com/lIug2JjqVB

— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 17, 2026

Lavrov also highlighted the persisting Iran conflict in the pre-Rubio meeting remarks, saying it's hard to speculate, but "I have the feeling that continuing hostilities is not in the interests of either the United States or Iran."

Russia wants the Hormuz crisis to quickly end, Lavrov said. He also batted down allegations that Russia is weaponizing the Iranian side and helping fuel the war, saying this is "embarrassing to hear" and that ultimately "We want this to stop. It affects the global economy, and Russia is part of the global economy."

Currently, the Russian military seems bent on 'punishing' Ukraine for its long-range strikes deep inside Russian territory, which has hit oil depots and key energy sites in particular. This has included huge ballistic missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital. These salvos have been getting bigger and bigger of late.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 23:00

The Great Menopause Grift

Authored by Alan Cassels via The Brownstone Institute,

Well, well, look here. In its June 2026 update the venerated OED or Oxford English Dictionary, finally added the 'new' word, fearmonging. It explains fearmongering as "the action or an act of spreading fear or alarm among the public, esp. by exaggerating the dangers associated with a political, social, or economic issue; alarmism."

Thank goodness, the dictionary has caught up to our society's most pernicious habit; that is, using fear to sell anything. Especially when it comes to our health.

Here we find the most destructive aspect of fearmongering, ie: trying to convince normal, healthy people we are "abnormal" or "sick," and fundamentally changing the way we think about ourselves. The marketing of fear often drives people to their doctors, and to the inevitable prescription pad, with predictable results: people getting unnecessary, sometimes harmful drugs for natural, normal phases of life.

The grift goes wide and deep. Many influencers and physician-educators have financial ties through sponsored content or brand partnerships, sometimes pushing lines of supplements, telehealth services, books, or their appearances on the speaking circuit. Sadly, information about who funds them to say what they say is not always straightforward and the top social media posts about certain drugs or therapies often obscure their potential conflicts of interest (e.g., selling related products/services).

We know that many of these campaigns are backed by medical specialists or social media influencers, wedded to their theories and pushing whatever to cash in on all the fear. Those campaigns are about 'moving product' by subtly convincing millions of healthy people that their bodies are broken, dysfunctional, deficient, and decaying. I've written these words before but they are worth repeating: fearmongering is an assault on our collective soul and the theft of wellness for which we all pay a high price.

Full-On Menopause Mongering

We can see fearmongering everywhere, but the most brazen current example is the full-frontal assault on menopause. If you've read a newspaper or scrolled through social media lately you might be asking yourself: Why the heck is everyone getting worked up about menopause? Are hot flashes taking over the planet? Are women really as angry as the media portrays them to be? And the drugs: who do you believe about whether the drugs will help or harm you?

These are good questions, focusing on a condition that every woman - our mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers and so on - went through, back to the dawn of time. The fearmongering today bypasses the fact that most women who arrive at the end of their periods get through this phase without serious discomfort or suffering. For some, it's a big "meh." Others might be helped by what's on offer but they have to swim through a sea of corporate-sponsored fearmongering messages to get there.

The key theme in most of the media stories is that women's needs are unmet, many of them are deeply suffering and they all need to be considering MHT (Menopausal Hormone Therapy) in order to live their best lives. By the way, MHT is the new way hormones are branded, which used to be called HRT (hormone replacement therapy). Same stuff, different wrapping, carrying less baggage of the HRT horrors of the past.

In the mainstream media you'll find oodles of journalists in love with a story like this, featuring female suffering, emancipation, and empowerment in one tight little bundle with enough frilly gift wrapping to hide pharma's fingerprints. The dangers of hormones haven't changed, only the marketing of those dangers has.

This might have been kicked off by a story, "Women Have Been Misled About Menopause" in the New York Times Magazine, (Feb 1, 2023) a long-form essay which barely camouflages a shameless bit of salesmanship, setting the tone for so many other media outlets to follow. It aims to correct those who are still being 'misled' by outdated ideas about the dangers of hormone therapy, mainly breast cancer, also asserting that there are more "updated" interpretations of the alleged dangers of these drugs.

A newer New York Times article from last month (June 15, 2026) claims "Millions of Women are Left Out of Menopause's Moment" and further cements the hormone marketing by telling the sorry tale of those women who are totally FOMO because they are at a higher risk of breast cancer and therefore shouldn't dip their toes into the hormone pool.

Menopause mongering got a huge bump a while back when the US FDA reversed a 20-year-old black box warning of the dangers of hormone therapy and many media outlets (NPR, Slate, Nature,) jumped on the bandwagon and leapt into covering the issues related to the removal of black-box warnings on HRT. Note to file: Black boxes are the most serious warnings applied to approved pharmaceuticals. The manufacturers fight like hell not to get a black box on their products, and when there is one there, they fight like hell to have it removed, regardless of whether their arguments are warranted. In this case, they won.

The official FDA/HHS announcement was titled: "HHS Advances Women's Health, Removes Misleading FDA Warnings on Hormone Replacement Therapy."

Pure unadulterated marketing. The science behind why those black box warnings of blood clots, cancers, and strokes didn't change, so why remove the black box? Yet here you have a senior FDA official saying: "The removal of the black box warning, based on the best science and data, is an incredible step forward to empower millions of women to live longer, healthier lives."

You can read about how disempowering it is to bamboozle women about the dangers of hormones in my last Brownstone article on this issue, where I report that the sudden stopping of hormone replacement therapy 20 years ago resulted in the biggest drop in breast cancer rates in the US ever.

But. But. But....Didn't you hear that there is a huge "unmet need" that has to be fulfilled? That essentially is the thrust of the media's take over the last two years on this very topic.

A sample of this includes Nature's January 2025 article: "The new science of menopause: these emerging therapies could change women's health" and Slate's November 2025 Article "How Did Perimenopause Get So Popular?" This article made lots of hay out of the little sister of menopause, "perimenopause" which cranks up the fearmongering while aiming it at younger and younger women. In the words of the marketers (and Kramer from Seinfeld), you don't sell the steak, you sell the sizzle. And there's nothing better to seed a market than to tell younger and younger cohorts of women what kind of special hell will await them when their periods are over. That'll get them positively tripping over each other to get to their doctors for their hormone prescriptions.

One of the brighter stars among the media stories of menopause was a piece this January in STAT News "How the perimenopause movement is hurting women," which is, as far as I can tell, one of the only stories bothering to delve into the real harms of hormone therapy. Today women are being more and more exposed to promotional messages and downplaying the harm of a product we know increases risks of breast cancer, regardless of patients' age or the formulation.

Added to this collection are pieces in Time, Forbes, Vogue, The Atlantic, focusing on the "Menopause Industry Boom" and the way celebrities are onboard with selling the idea of menopause as a "wellness opportunity" rather than just a medical event.

Here you see fear being sold in almost every conceivable space in the world of menopause. There is the fear of missing out, the fear of the drugs, the fear of the suffering, and the fear of the alternatives. There is the fear that doctors won't take a woman's hot flashes and night sweats seriously, there is the fear of consequences in the workplace and women fearing career discrimination because of what menopause is doing to them, and there is the fear of their bodies not being attractive or sexual in a way they are used to. Fear everywhere.

Women might feel that they are being betrayed by their ovaries, while also being shoveled hefty amounts of psychology, and "wellness" products including the pills, creams, and pricey interventions like it's the end of femininity.

There is a price tag to all of this, not just in the vertigo women might feel in the menopause marketplace, but in what it might cost them. Estimates are that the global menopause market is worth around $16-18 billion per year, but that is projected to grow to $24+ billion by 2030-2033. Suffice to say there is a lot of grift to be found in the medicalizing and medicating of menopause.

Pharma's influence is pernicious and ubiquitous, even if it doesn't seem that obvious to the casual observer. Drug companies have their hands in medical societies, research organizations, and educational/ marketing campaigns that shape narratives. Many of us would assert that the current pro-HRT renaissance (emphasizing a hormone's benefits while downplaying the known and serious harms) is partly driven by industry-friendly messaging, even if direct-to-consumer ads for hormones are rare.

Except for patented alternatives. Here's the fearmongering again, this time to subtly promote "non-hormonal" menopausal drugs. On February 11, 2024, Astella's newly approved menopausal drug, Veozah was advertised on the biggest billboard in the world, at Super Bowl LVIII. Astellas aired a 60-second commercial for Veozah just before kickoff, featuring a tagline "Fewer Hot Flashes, More Not Flashes."

Pushing Veozah (fezolinetant) as a non-hormonal treatment might seem clever, but it acts to further medicalize hot flashes, which for many women are trivial and are often dealt with quite effectively without drugs. The worrisome side effect profile of Veozah would make one think twice about this medication costing between $500 to $700 a month. In a year-long trial, the most common adverse reactions were pain, diarrhea, insomnia, back pain, and hot flashes. Go figure. Drug-induced liver injury is the real worry, and the elevation in liver enzymes means that women need to have baseline liver tests repeated at 3, 6, and 9 months. All this for some mild symptom relief. Hope the risk of liver failure was worth it.

Everyone's Talking Empowerment (But Nobody's Doing It)

Thankfully we no longer refer to menopause as an "estrogen deficiency disease," a corporate-sponsored tagline if there ever was one. But we still have a long way to go.

Much of the commentary and media reports today focus on how to deal with the symptoms of menopause, which assert that doctors are basically missing in action when it comes to menopause, and that patients need, more than anything, "empowerment."

What an old-fashioned thought that is: you mean women should ignore all the junk science, pharma marketing, and menopausal grifters out there and just follow their own intuition? Sounds like what Grandma would have done.

There are no glib and easy answers to all the menopausal marketing surrounding us, but perhaps the least offensive summary I've seen was a March 2024 article published in the medical journal, the Lancet, called "An empowerment model for managing menopause."

While obnoxiously heavy on the "hormonal remake" theme, there are some key points worth noting. Particularly, menopause isn't a disease; it's a life phase for women who live long enough. The symptoms often come in miserable bundles - hot flashes, ruined sleep, low mood. Patients face it and doctors have to deal with it and they should do so beyond the default reflex which is a script for hormones and a pamphlet.

While no one can argue against respecting the clichés of "evidence-based" options and "shared decision-making," we can't forget that "evidence-based" often means whatever specialists push and what's easiest to prescribe. In this case, hormones, or MHT as they've rebranded it. For those who say menopause is a normal life stage rather than a pharmaceutical marketing opportunity, the menopause salespeople and other grifters are singing loudly, "Don't be Cruel."

The Lancet, similar to most vocal menopause specialists, insists that MHT is the only thing that fixes both hot flashes and genitourinary symptoms (while providing some small level of reduced fractures). No doubt the pills are convenient, especially for the industries and guidelines which favor a one-stop pill solution.

At the end of the day if "true empowerment" is possible, the experience of menopause for many women could be better. They don't need more pills or lotions, though some may be helped by these. They need good information, respect, and above all, agency.

Qualitative work done in the UK shows menopause is "simultaneously normal, devastating, identity-shifting, and liberating," which is to say, all over the map. Something this complex cannot be solved with clinical one-liners and fancy treatment algorithms. At the same time misinforming women as to the actual benefits and long-term harms of hormones is not cool, especially when that advice is delivered with a big dose of white-coated confidence, amnesia, and hubris.

The Lancet article manages to get to the heart of the issue: helping women manage symptoms is important, but medicalizing every aspect of menopause can be downright harmful.

Thankfully the Lancet does give a shout-out to a practical way for women to regain the kind of agency many of them want: CBT or cognitive behavioural therapy has shown some level of benefit. It reports that "for symptom clusters such as hot flashes, disturbed sleep, and depressed mood, RCTs show that CBT is effective."

How? Well, this makes me recall the work of the philosopher Viktor Frankl, who wrote Man's Search for Meaning. His main message is that although you can't always change your circumstances, you can choose your attitude toward them. That's a helpful perspective to adopt when facing many of life's challenges. If CBT helps women learn about their symptoms, accept them, and help them develop ways to cope with them, that might go a lot further than the flotsam washing in on a tidal wave of fearmongering.

Back to Frankl for a second. He wrote that finding meaning in life is the primary human motivational force. The ability to find meaning through work, love, and suffering could always be seen as a way forward. Many women seeking some kind of help for this particular transition in their lives have both time and options on their hands. They can, if they choose, go forward and demand to be taken seriously, without succumbing to the sharp end of the menopausal marketing machine.

Let's sing an ode to menopause, wrapped up in a little rhyme.
Or hum a wistful song for wombs that've clearly done their time.
Let's make a plea for all life's stages, as all things must finally pass,
And let's expose the grifters' motives, with a bit of snarky sass.

Let's not forget the lying, their fearmongering shrill notes,
Let's ask the specialists why we should trust their clean white coats.
Let's put the lie to cringy brags of pharma's innovative growth,
Let's look at how we trampled the sacred Hippocratic oath.

Let's not forget the central thing, the one essential theme,
That flies far further than the mongers' wicked meme.
That within a single woman her fate is hers and hers alone.
And she needs freedom's will to act on what is felt and known.

Alan Cassels is a Brownstone Fellow and a drug policy researcher and author who has written extensively about disease mongering. He is the author of four books, including The ABCs of Disease Mongering: An Epidemic in 26 Letters.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 22:35

Taco Bell Getting Desperate With This Shockingly Cheap Offer Amid "Explosive Diarrhea" Parasite Blowback

Taco Bell is betting a buck can buy back your love.

The fast-food giant rolled out $1 lettuce-free enchiritos - "for the ones who've been riding with us," as the company put it - a peace offering to customers who bolted after a cyclospora outbreak was traced to lettuce served at its restaurants, the New York Post reports. The enchiritos normally run $4.29. Regular nacho fries, usually $2.89, also went to a dollar for orders placed through the company's app.

The deal ran for one day.

The chain, never one to skip a chance at cheeky marketing, hyped it on social media alongside gushing customer testimonials. The dollar deal is "just to show how much we appreciate you," the company cooed on its website.

The promotion arrived the day after CEO Sean Tresvant went on LinkedIn to make a rather different kind of appeal. "We aren't entitled to your loyalty," he wrote Tuesday. "We earn it one meal at a time." He pledged to "be transparent about what we know and what we are doing next." Twenty-four hours later, the company earned it at 77% off.

The Numbers Behind The Discount

Behind the warm and fuzzy promo is a brand in serious trouble.

Foot traffic at Taco Bell's U.S. restaurants fell 20% below its daily average for the year on July 16, according to nationwide data from Placer.ai cited by CNN - before federal officials had said anything publicly. On July 17, when investigators named the chain as part of the probe, it dropped nearly 31%. The next day it was down 30%.

The damage is almost entirely Taco Bell's. Fast-casual and quick-service restaurants as a whole declined just 1.1% and 1.9% respectively on July 17. Chipotle told CNN it is following the investigation closely and does not believe its own sourcing is involved. Shares of parent company Yum! Brands are down roughly 9% from a week ago.

Polling by Morning Consult found the share of diners saying they trust the brand "not much" or "not at all" climbing after the news broke. For a chain that has spent years as the best performer in Yum's portfolio, that is the expensive part - foot traffic returns when the news cycle moves on, and trust does not.

To its credit, Taco Bell moved before it had to. The company pulled all affected Taylor Farms lettuce from its restaurants, with some locations acting before public-health authorities identified the supplier at all.

What The Parasite Actually Does

The bug in question, Cyclospora cayetanensis, is a microscopic parasite that spreads through contaminated fresh produce and unleashes days of misery: severe watery diarrhea, cramps, vomiting, nausea, fatigue and fever.

Just ask Cristy Cooper, who was laid up in a hospital bed after getting sick on June 25.

"This is worse than any flu I have ever gotten. It is just so miserable," she told the Post. "I am worn out from it. I really am."

How Much Of This Is Actually Taco Bell's

Less than the headlines suggest, and that distinction matters.

The outbreak investigators traced to iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell locations covers five states - Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia - and roughly 1,644 reported illnesses.

The national picture is far larger and not one outbreak. The CDC has logged 4,173 lab-confirmed infections since May 1 plus more than 7,400 unconfirmed cases still under review, across 41 states, with 308 hospitalized. Michigan leads in case counts, with Ohio close behind. The agency says it is investigating multiple separate clusters, of which the lettuce outbreak is one, and no source has been established for the rest. Cyclosporiasis cases appear every summer. The CDC's season runs through August 31.

The CDC also excludes "probable" cases from its official tally, which is one reason its numbers lag some states' counts.

The Test That Wasn't

The outbreak drama took a messier turn over the weekend, when the FDA acknowledged that a test appearing to link the outbreak to supplier Taylor Farms was a false positive - and that the batch in question was not even part of the current recall.

Taylor Farms claimed the feds "apologized," a characterization FDA officials flatly rejected while continuing to point at the Mexican supplier as the likely culprit. The agency says there remains "overwhelming epidemiological data supporting the current voluntary recall." Taylor Farms has recalled product distributed to 27 states.

Which leaves a peculiar standoff: a recall with no positive laboratory test behind it, a supplier disputing the terms of its own vindication, and a restaurant chain absorbing the reputational cost of an outbreak most of which has not been traced to anyone. For one day, that cost was priced at three dollars and twenty-nine cents.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 22:10

House Passes Defense Policy Bill That Attaches SAVE America Act

Authored by Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times,

The House of Representatives on July 22 passed a $1.15 trillion defense policy bill that attaches a key election integrity bill championed by President Donald Trump.

The tally for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was 216–212.

Six Democrats crossed the aisle to back passage of the bill, while six Republicans - among them Reps. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) - opposed the bill.

Amendments introduced by Republicans were voted on late on July 21; some of them passed and some were rejected. One amendment that passed was cutting the defense budget by 0.5 percent if the Pentagon fails an audit. The amendment, which passed by voice vote, cut funding that would go to the Treasury Department. Exempted from the amendment are military personnel, reserve personnel, National Guard troops, and Defense Health Program accounts. The Pentagon failed its eighth consecutive audit in 2025.

With the final vote, Republicans agreed to attach their election integrity bill, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, to the defense measure following its passage. House Republicans have attached the SAVE America Act to other major bills passed this month by the lower congressional chamber and forwarded to the Senate.

The House passage comes a week after Senate Democrats blocked a procedural vote to advance the NDAA in the upper congressional chamber. The tally was 50–46, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) switched his vote from yes to no so that he could again bring up the motion to invoke cloture, which requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

The Senate Armed Services Committee advanced the bill to the Senate floor on June 11 in a bipartisan 18–9 vote.

However, Republicans and Democrats failed to agree on top-line defense and non-defense spending levels, creating tension between the two sides.

Democrats cited the resumption of the war in Iran as a reason for their opposition to the procedural vote.

“Now the White House has formally notified Congress that hostilities have resumed, that American strikes are underway again and our forces remain positioned for more,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the floor before the vote.

“Yet Republicans want the Senate to take up the NDAA, the defense bill, as though none of this is happening.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said the vote was unprecedented.

“It’s unprecedented not to pass the motion to proceed on the NDAA, and it reflects a decision and a mindset on the part of ... Schumer not to cooperate at all because so much of this has been done on a bipartisan basis,” he said.

“It really is a new low.”

The $1.15 trillion measure would allocate almost $1.1 trillion to the Department of War, more than $41.14 billion to the Energy Department to manage the nation’s nuclear arsenal, and $11 billion to other defense-related activities.

The NDAA includes a 3.6 percent pay raise for all military members.

It would also fund educational agencies affected by the enrollment of military and Department of War civilian dependents.

Many House conservatives have for weeks pushed for House leaders to put pressure on the Senate to pass the SAVE America Act.

The legislation is highly favored by President Donald Trump, who has called it a “common sense” measure to require photo ID to register to vote and ensure that only eligible voters cast ballots.

Critics of the bill say that it would make it harder to vote, imposing strict requirements that would require most Americans to have either a U.S. passport or a copy of their birth certificate to vote.

Democrats in the Senate have vowed to oppose the bill, and its prospects with the upper chamber’s Republicans are unclear.

In view of these difficulties, Republicans are also pursuing passage of a grant-style program that would provide rewards for states that pursue programs similar to the SAVE America Act.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 21:45

Deutsche Bank: Humanoid Robot Market Accelerates Globally As China Ramps Production

The latest "Humanoid Robot Pulse" report from Deutsche Bank states that the global humanoid robot market is accelerating, with China, unsurprisingly, leading the race.

"The humanoid robot market is accelerating globally. China is leading in production, with government officials estimating 100,000 units of humanoid robot production in 2026, significantly higher than our expectation of ~40,000 units," analyst Iris Zheng wrote in the report.

The Hong Kong-based Deutsche Bank analyst specializes in Asia-Pacific automation and industrials, providing clients with key updates across the industry:

1. Activities in the US stepping up: Agility going public through SPAC by 4Q26; Meta acquiring an embodied AI model startup; OpenAI recruiting robotics engineers; and NVIDIA expanding its robotics team in China.
2. Continuing developments in China: AGIBOT accelerating production; updates from BYD and Li Auto on robotics; Alibaba unveiling robotic models; and Kepler undergoing acquisition.
3. Policy updates: China to produce 100,000 humanoids in 2026; Shanghai to deploy 100,000 humanoids by 2030; the US could restrict Chinese robotics; and Japan to deploy 10mn AI robots by 2040.
4. Use case: Livestreaming of humanoids working in factories and warehouses by AGIBOT and Figure.
5. Emotional companion: Bionic humanoids from UBTECH and DOBOT.

More color here:

In the US, Agility Robotics utilizes a 75% locally sourced supply chain and aims to reduce the bill of materials (BOM) cost from US$125k currently to US$30k.

AGIBOT and Figure AI have livestreamed their humanoid robots working in factories and warehouses, demonstrating commercial viability.

How to profit:

This rapidly developing market indicates growing component demand, which bodes well for component manufacturers. Within our APAC Industrials coverage, we prefer Hengli (Buy, closing price RMB110.58), Shuanghuan (Buy, closing price RMB42.39), Harmonic Drive (Buy, closing price ¥7,430), and Yaskawa (Buy, closing price ¥5,490). We also highlight Tesla (Buy, closing price US$394.46) and Mobileye (Buy, closing price US$9.43) (through Mentee Robotics) as humanoid robotic OEMs in the US.

The rise of physical AI has prompted Blackstone, the world's largest alternative asset manager, to place a major bet on Futronic, an automotive supplier that has adapted its motion-control technology for use in actuators for humanoid robots.

Related:

• Automakers Race Into Humanoid Robots As Timeline For Blue-Collar Job Disruption Emerges

Professional subscribers can read a lot more on humanoid robots at our new Marketdesk.ai portal. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 21:20

Supreme Court To Decide If Plane Can Be Seized Over 6-Pack Of Beer

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Supreme Court on July 20 agreed to hear the appeal of an Alaska pilot whose small airplane was seized for attempting to haul beer into a so-called dry jurisdiction where alcohol is banned.

The court’s decision in Jouppi v. Alaska took the form of an unsigned order. No justices dissented. The court did not explain its decision.

The aircraft was subject to a legal process known as civil asset forfeiture, under which property, including a vehicle, that was used to commit a crime is deemed an instrument of the crime and can be seized.

Civil libertarians and those subject to asset forfeitures arising from criminal convictions—in addition to cases in which a person is merely suspected of a crime—have long complained that the practice can be arbitrary and excessive.

The petitioner, bush pilot Ken Jouppi, argues that Alaska’s plan to forfeit his 1969 Cessna after he unknowingly in 2012 carried beer stowed in a passenger’s luggage to Beaver, a village that bans beverage alcohol, violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against excessive fines. The state temporarily seized the plane, valued at about $95,000, but it was later returned to him pending the final disposition of the case.

Jouppi said he was familiar with Alaska’s dry village system and that he would not intentionally carry alcohol illegally, but that he does not search passengers’ luggage to look for alcohol. No law required such a search, and besides, doing so would be “invasive and demeaning,” his attorneys at the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, said in his petition.

The passenger was carrying Budweiser and Bud Light to give to her husband, who worked in Beaver. As Jouppi loaded the aircraft, state troopers searched it and discovered the beer, saying that at least a six-pack of Budweiser could be seen in a shopping bag.

The state filed charges against Jouppi, his company, and the passenger for the misdemeanor of knowingly carrying alcohol into a dry community. The passenger pled guilty. Jouppi and his company went to trial and were convicted by a state jury. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail with 177 days suspended, along with a $3,000 fine with $1,500 of it suspended, and a term of three years of probation, according to the petition.

The trial court first ruled that the forfeiture of the plane was not allowed under state law because at the time of the offense it hadn’t arrived in Beaver, so the alcohol could not be considered to have been transported there. The Alaska Court of Appeals reversed, finding that the state law required forfeiture “regardless of whether the alcoholic beverages are actually transported toward their destination.”

The case returned to the trial court, which then ruled that the forfeiture constituted an unconstitutionally excessive fine. The state appealed, and the appeals court reversed. Then the Alaska Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the forfeiture was constitutional “as a matter of law.”

The state’s dry-community law was enacted to combat alcohol abuse statewide, and the Alaska Legislature “determined that the harm from even a six-pack of beer knowingly imported into a dry village is severe enough to warrant forfeiture of an aircraft,” the Alaska Supreme Court held.

The forfeiture of the plane was “not grossly disproportional to the gravity of the offense for which [Jouppi] has been convicted and, therefore, the forfeiture does not violate” the Eighth Amendment, that court ruled.

Jouppi’s lawyers urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case, saying the Alaska Supreme Court incorrectly emphasized the gravity of the offense, as opposed to the actual conduct of the defendant. The state high court’s standard is also at odds with precedents in its home federal circuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the petition said.

By contrast, Alaska urged the nation’s highest court not to take up the case.

The Alaska Supreme Court’s decision was correct and adhered to existing precedent, the state said in a brief.

That court found that Jouppi saw the alcohol in the cargo and that his “general policy of willful blindness weighs against him,” and also that he failed to show that forfeiture would be “unconstitutionally excessive.”

In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found that a constitutional ban on excessive fines, which Indiana had argued applies only to the federal government, applies to all U.S. states.

The decision overturned a ruling by the Indiana Supreme Court that the state was entitled to keep a 2012 Land Rover LR2 valued at $42,000 that was confiscated from Tyson Timbs.

Timbs had used the vehicle when selling a total of $385 worth of heroin to undercover police, a crime for which he was convicted. He entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to a year of house arrest and five years of probation, but no prison time.

The new case is expected to be heard in the Supreme Court’s term that begins in October. A decision is likely to follow by June or July 2027.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 20:55

AI Is Quietly Transforming Healthcare And Might Just Save Your Life

Amid the broader debate over artificial intelligence's economic disruptions, the healthcare sector is quietly demonstrating some of the technology's most concrete applications. Rather than the job losses feared in other industries, hospitals report AI augmenting physicians, streamlining routine tasks and accelerating innovation in ways that could improve outcomes while controlling costs.

At the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, roughly 150 AI models are now in use. A tool called Record Time helps internists distill hundreds of pages of external medical records into searchable summaries, saving five to 30 minutes per patient, according to CNN.

"AI can step in and do a lot of the tedious work that very specialized doctors or medical professionals do to speed up that process - get to more accurate diagnoses, faster so you can treat more people," Jason Droege, CEO of Scale AI, said.

Mayo is also testing AI for early pancreatic-cancer detection, potentially years ahead of conventional diagnosis, and for identifying atrial-fibrillation risks that could prevent strokes. The clinic partners with Microsoft and other firms to train models on its vast trove of patient data.

Radiology, once predicted to be AI's first casualty, tells a similar story of augmentation rather than obsolescence - though the most-cited evidence comes from an interested party. A report from Build American AI - a nonprofit advocacy arm of Leading the Future, the $100 million pro-AI super PAC backed by Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI executives - finds the U.S. radiologist workforce in Medicare-affiliated practices grew 17.3% between 2014 and 2023. At Mayo itself, the group says, the number of radiologists expanded 55% since 2016. The organization does not disclose its donors and lobbies for federal preemption of state AI rules, so the figures warrant independent checking against Medicare provider data.

Utah recently became the first state to allow an AI system from Doctronic to renew prescriptions for chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. In the pilot's first five months, the AI recommended approval in 72% of cases, with physicians concurring 91% of the time; it escalated the rest when complications appeared, Forbes reports. The program targets established medications, maintains human oversight and bars controlled substances.

* * * Check out the Build American AI report

Tampa General Hospital estimates that an AI-enabled sepsis-detection system it built with Palantir has helped save 886 lives since August 2022, cutting early sepsis deaths by 68%. The figure is the hospital's own assessment of a system developed with a commercial partner.

In drug development, AI's impact may prove most transformative. A TD Cowen survey of biopharma leaders found executives expect the technology to compress preclinical costs and timelines by as much as 70%, powering in-silico modeling that simulates thousands of experiments rapidly, Axios reports. Respondents expect new drug programs to expand more than 10% in the coming years.

Yet inside the very institutions championing AI, opposition is already brewing.

Mayo Clinic's former Director of Research Operations Traci Tamiko Eto sued the hospital earlier this month, alleging she was retaliated against for raising privacy and oversight concerns around some Mayo AI systems. Mayo Clinic spokesperson Andrea Kalmanovitz said the hospital doesn't comment on ongoing litigation but underscored that it is "committed to the responsible development and deployment of AI, with privacy, security, transparency and compliance embedded throughout our processes."

"Our research and clinical innovation are conducted in accordance with applicable laws and regulations and we remain steadfast in upholding the trust patients place in us and respecting their privacy," Kalmanovitz said in a statement.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 20:30

Poo-Demic: As Cases Spread To 41 States, FDA Suddenly Can't Find Parasite In Recalled Lettuce

A stomach parasite spread by feces on fresh produce has now sickened people in 41 states, federal health officials said - five days after the FDA pulled back the only lab test linking the outbreak to the lettuce it recalled.

Cyclospora cayetanensis oocysts in a stool sample, in an undated file image. CDC via The Epoch Times

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said July 21 it has confirmed 4,173 domestic cases of cyclosporiasis since May 1 and is tracking more than 7,400 additional reported cases that labs have not yet confirmed. Many of those came from Michigan and Ohio. The agency has moved to weekly surveillance updates this year because of the increase over the same period in 2025.

The confirmed total is nearly four times the 1,180 cases the agency recorded during all of last season.

Forty-one states have reported cases, up from 34 four days earlier. Alabama, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Wyoming reported their first cases of the summer this week.

Those cases are not all one outbreak. The CDC says it is investigating multiple separate clusters this summer. The lettuce investigation is one of them, and it covers five states.

Of the confirmed patients nationally, 308 have been hospitalized and none have died. They ranged in age from 2 to 95. Fifty-six percent were female, and the median date of illness onset was June 26.

Taylor Farms, a California-based supplier, recalled iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico on July 17 after investigators tied it to illnesses in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia. The lettuce was served at some Taco Bell locations. That cluster accounts for 1,644 reported illnesses and 94 hospitalizations.

Lettuce See About That

Two days after the recall, the FDA said a lettuce sample it had announced as testing positive for the parasite had not actually tested positive.

"During a quality check by our laboratory personnel, we did detect the false positive, and we did issue a correction," Donald Prater, the agency's acting deputy commissioner for food, told reporters on a call.

Prater said the recall stands.

"It's important to note that the re-evaluation of the sample does not alter the data supporting the outbreak advisory that prompted the current voluntary recall," he said. "FDA's traceback investigation and the outbreak data continue to converge on shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms location in central Mexico."

The case against the lettuce now rests on shipping records and patient interviews. The CDC says 90 percent of the patients it interviewed in the five-state cluster reported eating iceberg lettuce. No sample of the recalled product has tested positive for the parasite.

That last point is less damning than it sounds. Cyclospora is among the hardest foodborne pathogens to catch in a sample. It cannot be grown in a laboratory - the parasite needs a human host to reproduce - so investigators cannot culture a suspected find to confirm it. It occurs in very small numbers, meaning samples must be enormous to detect anything. Its oocysts lodge in surface crevices that resist washing. Positive product samples are rare in Cyclospora investigations even when the source is eventually established.

Taylor Farms said July 20 that no Taylor Farms-branded products are involved in the recall, that it will not source iceberg lettuce from central Mexico "for the remainder of the growing season," and that it is working with health officials.

State health departments are reporting far higher numbers than the CDC. Michigan counted 6,571 cases and 102 hospitalizations as of Monday. The Toledo-Lucas County Health Department in Ohio counted 2,149. The CDC does not include probable cases in its updates; many states do.

The federal count is also climbing on both sides of the ledger. A week ago the agency listed 1,645 confirmed cases and more than 5,100 awaiting analysis. The confirmed number rose by about 2,500. The unconfirmed number rose by about 2,300.

Cyclosporiasis symptoms include watery diarrhea, cramping, loss of appetite and fatigue. Symptoms typically begin about a week after exposure. The illness is treated with antibiotics.

Cases appear every summer. The CDC's season runs through August 31.

Federal investigators have pulled a product off the shelves that no laboratory test has implicated, on the strength of shipping records and what sick people remember eating. With this parasite that may be the only call available. It also means that when the season closes on August 31, the case against the lettuce will rest roughly where it rests today - and the thousands of cases outside those five states will still be looking for a source.

A shitty situation all around...

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 19:40

RFK Jr. Says Government Pausing More Than $1 Billion In Medicaid Payments To California, Minnesota

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The federal government is pausing more than $1 billion in Medicaid payments to two states, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is withholding more than $867 million from California and more than $200 million from Minnesota.

Advanced analytics, identified through financial investigation and artificial intelligence, identified suspicious activity and potential fraud, officials said.

“Every dollar the federal government allows to be lost to fraud, waste, and abuse is a dollar stolen from American patients and the American taxpayer. That’s money that should be going to legitimate health care,” Kennedy told a press conference in Washington.

He added later, “If those states want that money, they need to provide documentation that these payments are legitimate.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, told The Epoch Times via email, “The Trump Administration is cutting more money in healthcare than they’ve prosecuted for fraud. The math doesn’t add up. They’re not punishing fraudsters, they’re punishing children, seniors, working families, and people with disabilities. This is about cutting healthcare for people they don’t care about in their campaign of retribution against Minnesota.”

Walz’s office said that he has been combating Medicaid fraud, including halting 745 payments since January.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on X that California was being targeted for political reasons.

“We hate fraud. That’s not what this is. And we stand ready to collaborate with CMS in good faith efforts to combat fraud,” he wrote.

Medicaid is a federal health program. About 67 million Americans were enrolled in Medicaid as of March. Medicaid is administered by states, which must follow federal requirements, and is funded by both the federal government and states.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the CMS administrator, told reporters on Tuesday that officials want the states to help the federal government make sure the funds are going to “real people with real problems getting real care.”

Among the problems identified, he said, was the federal government being charged for providers providing care for deceased people and providers billing for services provided more than a year prior.

He also said that California’s spending on support services for people at their homes increased 24 percent in recent years, which was about twice the average across the other states.

“If it smells like fraud, we’re not paying for it anymore,” Oz said.

Dan Brillman, director of Medicaid, said during the briefing that the Trump administration is still withholding an additional $259 million from Minnesota and $1.3 billion from California that officials said they were pausing earlier in the year.

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson, vice chairman of the White House’s Anti-Fraud Task Force, said on Tuesday that the administration is also focused on sending people who commit fraud to jail, pointing to how federal prosecutors in June said they’ve charged 455 people, including 90 doctors and other medical professionals with licenses, with participating in health care fraud and opioid abuse operations.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 19:15

House Panel Subpoenas Far-Left Groups Linked To China-Based Marxist Financier Neville Singham

The House Ways and Means Committee has subpoenaed the People's Forum, a New York-based far-left NGO; BreakThrough News, a far-left propaganda media outlet; and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, which can be described as anchored in "national liberation Marxism."

These organizations are part of a broader investigation into more than $39 million in funding linked to Marxist China-based tech financier Neville Roy Singham, who has pushed for revolution in America.

Here are some sights and sounds from today’s “Hands Off Iran” protest in New York City.

This is the product of a well-developed protest infrastructure coordinated by the ANSWER Coalition and run through allied groups like The People’s Forum, NIAC, Palestinian Youth Movement,… pic.twitter.com/KnsL2wDddb

— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) March 7, 2026

Fox News first obtained letters showing that the Republican-led panel ordered the People's Forum, BreakThrough News, and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research to produce financial records by Aug. 7.

The committee is examining whether Singham routed money through shell companies and donor-advised funds in ways that obscured its origins, as well as whether U.S. tax-exemption laws adequately protect nonprofit organizations from foreign influence.

Fox News reporter Asra Nomani has reported that Singham-linked funding included $22.4 million for the People's Forum, $16.8 million for Tricontinental, and about $1.1 million for BreakThrough's parent organization.

🚨 Neville Roy Singham’s Billionaire Money Is Fine If It Funds the Revolution

This is Madeline Pendleton, who went on the Cuba convoy with The People’s Forum youth brigade, casually explaining the new rules.

Singham funding this ecosystem?

“He does fund some stuff… and also,… pic.twitter.com/TRWJ0f9VpO

— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) March 29, 2026

The committee, led by Chairman Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican, said the Singham network has yet to produce a single document despite earlier requests for information.

Attorneys for the nonprofits have challenged the committee's jurisdiction and legislative purpose, raising First Amendment and press freedom concerns. The panel said its inquiry is focused on financial arrangements and organizational structures rather than the groups' political views.

An earlier report by Nomani's team said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York, with authorization from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is examining whether Singham, the nonprofits he funded, or their leaders committed wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering, or other financial crimes. No charges have been announced.

FIRST ON FOX: A federal grand jury is investigating China-based tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham over alleged financial improprieties involving $278 million that investigators say moved through his financial network over the past decade.

Federal investigators are examining… pic.twitter.com/cqqt9QthU6

— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 29, 2026

Nomani's team reported that Singham routed $285 million through a Goldman Sachs donor-advised fund and shell entities before the money flowed into U.S. nonprofits. A broader review found that $591 million moved across five continents from 2017 through 2025.

Related:

• Hasan Piker Says Quiet Part Out Loud, Maps Radical Left NGO Network To China-Based Marxist Financier

🚨 Hasan Names Singham, PSL, ANSWER, and Code Pink in One Breath

On stream today, Hasan Piker discussed the reported Treasury scrutiny and said the broader target is “probably Singham” and “his operation,” naming PSL (Party for Socialism and Liberation), ANSWER Coalition, Code… pic.twitter.com/0zpYhJbPV2

— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) May 25, 2026

Nomani's report also said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently met with Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon to discuss the bank's philanthropic arm and its role in this mess.

Bessent has focused on the fiscal-sponsorship loophole. Under these arrangements, a nonprofit can sponsor another organization, allowing the sponsored group to operate without obtaining tax-exempt status or publicly disclosing its finances. This structure creates a black box that conceals the funding map of far-left NGOs that seek to destroy the West.

The Treasury Department could address the issue by revising Form 990 disclosure requirements and directing the Internal Revenue Service to hold organizations accountable for any violations.

The House Ways and Means Committee is now moving to support that effort and close the fiscal-sponsorship loophole.

The concern is that networks aligned with hostile foreign governments can use donor-advised funds administered by major financial institutions to obscure the original donor's identity. The money can then flow through established nonprofits to fiscally sponsored activist groups involved in anti-Western demonstrations and unrest across the country.

Last Thursday, at the State Department's "Rise of Far-Left Terrorism" meeting with delegations from 65 nations, Bessent discussed Treasury investigations into illicit nonprofit funding allegedly used to support political violence and advance Marxist revolutionary movements across the West.

At President Trump’s direction, @USTreasury is bringing the full weight of our authorities to defend the integrity of the U.S. and global financial systems.

We will identify illicit funding, however artfully it is concealed. We will dismantle the networks that sustain political… pic.twitter.com/oS1ri4kZeX

— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) July 16, 2026

Separately, the State Department released a report Monday claiming that Cuban influence networks are fueling far-left violence in the US and abroad.

For more than six decades, the Cuban regime has been the leading sponsor of radical leftism and Third Worldism in the United States.

The State Department is exposing the full history of Cuban espionage and subversion in our country.

The American people deserve to know.…

— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) July 20, 2026

The broader takeaway is that the Trump administration and allied governments are coordinating efforts to disrupt nonprofit funding networks allegedly connected to far-left violence.

The crackdown comes as establishment Democrats freak out that anti-American socialists are hijacking their party:

• Bill Clinton Insider Warns Of Socialist Takeover, Calls For Probe Into Possible DSA Foreign Ties
• "I'm A Lifelong Democrat": Another Clinton Insider Sounds Alarm Over DSA's Far-Left Hijack Of Party
• "I'm Not Living In Communist America": Bill Maher Blasts Marxist DSA Democrats, Says He May Vote For JD Vance

Bill Maher on ABC: 

Bill Maher: “I’m not living in Communist America… I’ve read the quotes from the DSA platform, from their own mouths. Don’t tell me I’m not seeing what I am seeing.” pic.twitter.com/grWslcyxD9

— America (@america) July 19, 2026

The American people are beginning to piece together the puzzle and understand that the past decade of riots, burned streets and businesses, toppled statues, and attacks on America's cultural heritage ...

... was nothing less than a cultural Marxist revolution, culminating in members of the Democratic Socialists of America preparing to "destroy America from within."

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 18:50

Biden Bucks: Climate Change Funds A Bonanza For State Outfits

Authored by James Varney via RealClearInvestigations,

For much of its five-decade history, the Colorado Energy Office was a small department with a handful of employees who supported practical, cost-saving energy conservation measures. From 2010 to 2022, records show, the office received an average of $7 million per year from the U.S. Department of Energy.

All that changed after the Biden administration and Congress approved hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending to provide "a more equitable, low-carbon, and clean energy economy." In fiscal year 2024, Colorado's state energy office was slated to receive $157.5 million from the energy department, along with another $156 million from the Environmental Protection Agency. The Biden team's defeat in the 2024 election didn't stop the gusher, either, as an additional $60 million in funding was allocated after voters elected Trump and his promise to halt the spending.

A RealClearInvestigations search of government data shows that the Colorado Energy Office was just one of many agencies and groups across the country that received exponential increases in federal grants during Biden's last two years as part of the unprecedented attempt to refashion federal agencies into the finance engines that would transform the U.S. energy sector to a renewable, Net Zero future.

The Treasury Department's database suggests that after Congress passed the unprecedented funding to fight climate change, it looked for outfits that could disperse that money at the state and local level. In response, it turned to many organizations in the public and private sector with no track record for handling such vast sums, as well as state energy offices and agencies.

"Biden-era climate policy sometimes prioritized sending money out the door first, and worrying about logistics and oversight second," said Jeremy Portnoy, an investigator with OpenTheBooks who seeks to make all government spending public. "Money went to groups that were receiving grants larger than they had the capability to manage."

Although they represent only a sliver of Biden-era spending on green energy, the sudden promise of $9.5 billion in awards to state and county energy programs beginning in FY2024 and the Trump administration efforts to claw back some of that money highlight how shifts in White House policies can make long-term planning hard, especially regarding partisan policy issues.

In response to Trump's efforts to halt much of the spending, a coalition of 13 Democratic state attorneys general filed suit in February seeking to have all the approved grant money dispensed. They argued the Trump administration unfairly targeted states controlled by Democrats, and that without the money those states' "ambitious climate goals" may not be reached.

"Since the first day of President Donald J. Trump's second term, his Administration set out to reverse and undermine the historic energy and infrastructure funding measures enacted by Congress in the preceding years," according to the lawsuit. "Its true purpose was to give the Administration thin bureaucratic cover to eliminate congressionally established energy and infrastructure programs and rescind their funding, for no other reason than a fundamental disagreement with the programs' policy underpinnings."

The legal challenges have scored some successes; last month the Energy Department agreed to reinstate 11 grants, although the largest of them remain in limbo.

Three Huge Beneficiaries

While most states received some portion of the climate splurge, RCI's analysis focused on three of the biggest beneficiaries: Colorado, California, and New York, which were poised to receive more than $1 billion.

Like the Colorado Energy Office, the New York Energy Research and Development Institute and the California Energy Commission were started as energy conservation initiatives in the 1970s when the U.S. was reeling from the oil embargo shock, and the economy's blood seemed dependent on the wills of foreign actors. In more recent decades, all three have also focused on renewable energy, with a special emphasis on social justice equity. Today, the New York institute has nearly 500 employees with an average salary of $127,220, while the California Commission enjoys regulatory powers over siting energy plants and sets state energy policies.

In addition to state funding and, in New York and California, money from ratepayers, these three state agencies routinely received federal grants for relatively small amounts, according to the Treasury Department's usaspending.gov.

But then Biden's Investment Infrastructure and Jobs Act and his Inflation Reduction Act kicked in, and the Energy Department began to approve enormous sums for the state agencies. The grant bonanza went on for roughly 18 months beginning in 2023 and was capped by a post-election frenzy in December 2024 and January 2025, records show. Suddenly, the three Democratic state agencies were receiving grants 10 or more times bigger than anything they had gotten previously.

An RCI review of the FY2024 data showed both the unprecedented size of the grants and the rapidity with which they were greenlit:

• The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority got an average of $5.2 million a year in Energy Department grants from 2015 to 2021. In 2024, however, it was slated to receive $335.38 million. Even after Trump's 2024 election, $30 million was approved in three grants.
• The Colorado Energy Office averaged $6.7 million from 2015 to 2021. Its 2024 grant haul was on top of almost $60 million in fiscal year 2023, and post-2024 election grants to the office were for nearly another $60 million.
• The California Energy Commission averaged $3.1 million for the seven years between 2015 and 2021, a figure that increased by more than a hundred-fold in 2024. After the 2024 election, another $630.5 million grant was approved, one of seven post-election grants.

And the grants came in rapid procession, records show. In California's case, there were four grants totaling $1.4 billion in the last six months of the 2024 calendar year, while the Energy Department and the EPA combined to greenlight more than $400 million in July and August of that year.

The Treasury Department has rarely disbursed these grants in full. Unlocking that money is the main goal of a February lawsuit brought by the attorneys general. And, as RCI previously reported, totals on usaspending.gov do not always match those from other agencies, reflecting the complexity and scale of federal spending.

But the extraordinary amounts and compressed timeline reflect a blizzard of approved spending that the inspectors general of the respective federal agencies warned would make effective oversight of the money nearly impossible.

Nebulous & Questionable

The grants were designed to pay for tasks such as improving the resilience of the grid in the face of disasters or the integration of renewable energy into the grid, or for reducing methane emissions. Yet another purpose was for programs such as home weatherization, a federal operation dogged by allegations of fraud and shoddy work, as RCI reported in 2022.

Some of the biggest grants were for nebulous-sounding work. For example, the Inflation Reduction Act was the source of funding "to provide initial guidance for the planning, administration or technical assistance for future distributions of formula awards through the home energy rebate programs."

Such "initial guidance" would not come cheaply. The Colorado Energy Office was set to get two separate $70 million awards for such work, records show, while the California Energy Commission would get $580 million for the same task and the New York energy institute more than $310 million.

The weatherization of low-income households began with the Obama administration's 2009 spending bill, and it got a big boost under President Biden. For example, two grants, for $70 million each, were earmarked for the Colorado Energy Office's weatherization projects in fiscal year 2024, records show.

As with other stories RCI has done on Biden's climate change spending, the Department of Energy did not respond to requests for comment. But current White House officials maintain that the grant binge ended during President Trump's second term.

"While the Biden administration threw taxpayer dollars at Green New Scam ideological pet projects, the Trump administration is focused on reshoring critical supply chains and safeguarding our national and economic security - all while ensuring the best bargain for taxpayers in every deal," White House spokesman Kush Desai told RCI.

The Colorado Energy Office declined comment, and NYSERDA did not respond to RCI's questions about the grants.

The California Energy Commission, on the other hand, said much of the grant money was tied to formula spending, such as "clean energy retrofits" in residential homes.

"California is meeting growing electricity demand by rapidly building out affordable clean energy infrastructure, increasing grid resilience and transmission capacity, and electrifying new and existing buildings with energy efficient appliances that help lower energy bills," a Commission spokesperson told RCI. "Federal grant funding is critical for California and other states to quickly meet growing energy demand and to do it in the smartest way possible - with clean renewable electricity."

There was one FY2024 grant to the CEC specifically labeled as "formula;" however, an $11.7 million grant was fully disbursed by Treasury.

New Priorities

In the grand scheme of federal spending, the amounts may not seem huge. They are dwarfed, for instance, in comparison to the grants Washington has made for interstate highways.

"Biden wanted to jumpstart the green energy economy so it's not surprising to me a couple of billion dollars were spent," said John Joseph Wallis, an economics professor at the University of Maryland who specializes in public finance. "They just decided to make that a priority, and there are hundreds of examples of that kind of thing over the last century."

But as the renewable energy grants began to flow, inspectors general at the Energy Department and the EPA warned the unprecedented amounts would make oversight next to impossible.

"The EPA's inspector general Sean O'Donnell warned Congress that money would be lost to fraud and waste if the EPA went ahead with its plan to spend billions in Inflation Reduction Act funds in a short timeframe, but the money was funneled out anyway," Portnoy said.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright has made several moves to reorient the Department toward Trump's policy goal of increasing affordable and abundant energy, a shift the administration in a first-day executive order labeled "unleashing American energy," and Wright's Department calls the "Energy Dominance Financing Program."

Over the past year and a half, the administration has slashed away at what it considers Biden's fanciful push toward a Net Zero future. Within two months it had put together a so-called "kill list" of recent renewable energy initiatives, and last October, the administration canceled $7.6 billion in Biden-era energy grants, with White House budget director Russell Vought saying the money had been designed to "fuel the Left's climate agenda."

Wright told a House committee last month that politics were not behind cuts at Energy, but the February lawsuit insists that they were, pointing to the hit list drawn up by the Department in 2025. "The list was intended to further the Administration's goal of eliminating renewable-energy programs created by Congress through the duly-enacted 2021 IIJA and the 2022 IRA - programs the Administration derisively calls the 'Green New Scam,'" the lawsuit alleged. It's not clear how many of the grants that were approved in Biden's final year are tied to that lawsuit, although the California Energy Commission said its major grants are not.

The suit makes various arguments as to why this money should still be spent. Chief among them is that the money flows out of statutes duly passed by Congress and signed by the president. And in some cases it also says that without these huge infusions of federal funds, some states will not be able to hit ambitious targets they set to combat global warming.

Leftist environmental groups have calculated the difference between the closure of renewable energy projects in the Biden and Trump administrations, according to a New York Times column in May. Their figures show Biden "canceled, closed or downsized" 25 such projects worth $3.5 billion in 2023 and 2024, while last year, Trump's first back in office, saw 61 such projects crimped or shuttered with a value of $34.76 billion.

But Larry Behrens, spokesman for the conservative Power The Future energy advocacy group, said there is no reason taxpayers should finance coastal states' efforts to shift their economies from traditional energy sources to renewables.

"Working families in Louisiana, Florida, or Ohio should not be forced to bankroll the out-of-touch climate goals for politicians in New York, California, or Illinois," he said. "Every one of these grants should be scrutinized for fraud so taxpayers will stop being treated like an unlimited ATM for the green agenda."

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 18:25

Secret Service Official Sounds Alarm: "Threat Environment Highest Ever" As Assassination Attempts Explode

The threat environment facing individuals under U.S. Secret Service protection, including President Trump, is the highest the agency has ever recorded, a senior official said during a background briefing with reporters, according to CNBC.

Getty Images

"What we're seeing now is something I've never seen before," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of a public briefing.

The Secret Service has logged roughly 10,000 cases involving threats against government officials, including Supreme Court justices, so far in 2026 - a 40% increase from the same period a year earlier.

"They're increasing in volume and complexity," the official warned. The agency has also recorded a tenfold increase in mental-health commitments of individuals suspected of threatening protectees.

The remarks landed a week after Justice Amy Coney Barrett told a House subcommittee that threats against her and her colleagues on the Court have risen sharply.

Why They're Briefing Now

The timing is not incidental. The briefing came ahead of Friday's rescheduled White House Correspondents' Association dinner at the Waldorf Astoria, which Trump is expected to attend.

It needed rescheduling because of what happened at the last one. In April, a man carrying a shotgun, a handgun and knives stormed a security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton during the dinner, with the president in attendance, before being apprehended. Cole Tomas Allen now faces charges of attempting to assassinate the president.

That was not an isolated event. On May 4, a man was wounded in a firefight with Secret Service personnel near the Washington Monument. Three weeks later, on May 23, a gunman approached the White House while Trump was inside the residence, drew a firearm and discharged multiple rounds before being fatally shot by agents. In February, Secret Service and local police shot and killed a man armed with a shotgun who had breached a secure perimeter at Mar-a-Lago.

Four incidents in six months, at four separate protected sites. That is the ledger behind the 40% figure.

The Butler Problem

The current alarm builds on two assassination attempts in 2024. On July 13 of that year, gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing attendee Corey Comperatore and seriously wounding two others.

An Office of Inspector General report found that the Secret Service missed more than 100 radio transmissions from local law enforcement about a suspicious individual - now believed to be Crooks - armed with a rangefinder and rifle. Agents failed to relay critical warnings, establish proper joint communications, or secure the rooftop vantage point.

Those findings describe a catastrophic operational breakdown. They do not describe complicity, and the OIG made no such finding. But for the family of the man who died there, the distinction has offered cold comfort.

Comperatore's widow, Helen Comperatore, made headlines last week when she suggested the attempt on Trump's life was "an inside job."

"I believe he was working with somebody," she told NewsNation. "I believe it was an inside job, inside the government somewhere." No investigation has produced evidence supporting that claim, and the agency has attributed the failures to breakdowns in communication and planning.

Two months after Butler, a Secret Service officer fired at another gunman, Ryan Routh, who had concealed himself in shrubbery near the perimeter of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Routh was convicted in Florida federal court last September of attempting to assassinate the president, among other charges, and is serving a life sentence.

The Problem Above The Perimeter

The concern growing fastest inside the agency is one that walks past every countermeasure it has spent a century building. Drones approach from outside conventional security perimeters and cannot be screened, wanded, or turned away at a checkpoint.

The scale is no longer theoretical. The FBI said this week it seized more than 700 illegal drones and detected roughly 1,600 in total across the eleven U.S. stadiums hosting World Cup matches - venues holding tens of thousands of people at a time.

Secret Service Director Sean Curran has said the agency is examining "kinetic solutions - something that we haven't done before," and has pushed its technology division to move faster. The OIG's Butler review separately faulted the agency's counter-drone training and preparedness, a gap it has since worked to close.

The Foreign File

More recently, Israel shared intelligence with the U.S. indicating a fresh Iranian plot to assassinate Trump, according to the Wall Street Journal. Iran has for years publicly vowed retaliation for the 2020 killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qassem Soleimani, and the ongoing war has sharpened concern about foreign actors targeting the president.

U.S. Secret Service Director Sean Curran testifies during the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing in the Rayburn building in Washington, April 16, 2026. Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Image Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 18:00

DARPA's 'ECHO' Project: A Computer System That Declares You A Bio Threat - With No Physical Evidence

Authored by Jon Fleetwood via JonFleetwood.com,

In 2018, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) proposed building a portable computer system allegedly capable of determining whether a person had been exposed to biological or chemical threats - including weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their precursors.

Even with no physical evidence.

DARPA outlined the proposal in Broad Agency Announcement HR001118S0023 for a program known as ECHO (Epigenetic CHaracterization and Observation).

DARPA proposed accomplishing this by comparing purported changes inside the person's own biology against a government-built reference library and algorithmically identifying both the alleged threat and when the exposure supposedly occurred.

Viewed alongside DARPA's broader pandemic-era research portfolio, the proposal also raises a larger question explored by this publication's In Silico Theory: as governments increasingly replace direct observation with computational models, reference libraries, and algorithmic determinations, where does objective evidence end and computer-generated conclusions begin?

It also raises an immediate practical question.

If an algorithm operating on a government-controlled reference library determines that someone was exposed to a dangerous biological or chemical threat without physical evidence, what meaningful mechanism exists for independently verifying - or successfully challenging - that determination?

SAM.gov search results associated with DARPA solicitation HR001118S0023 identify at least $53.8 million in awards, including a $49.2 million contract awarded to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a $4.5 million contract awarded to Arizona State University.

The Core Capability

Rather than searching for the biological or chemical agent itself, ECHO proposed "identifying" alleged long-lasting biological signatures left behind after an exposure.

DARPA described the objective:

"utilize an individual's epigenome to reveal their history of exposure to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and WMD precursors."

The solicitation explains why DARPA believed this was possible:

"the epigenome is persistent and detectable even when physical evidence has been erased."

That sentence is arguably the centerpiece of the entire program.

The proposed system was designed to continue generating exposure determinations long after the original biological or chemical material was no longer available for direct examination.

Epigenetics is the study of purported chemical modifications associated with DNA that researchers say can change in response to biological and environmental influences without altering a person's genetic code.

A Government-Built Exposure Library

To accomplish that objective, DARPA instructed performers to create what it called the ECHO Signature Panel (ESP) - a centralized library containing purported epigenetic signatures associated with specific exposures.

Contractors were required to generate signatures for a minimum of 21 exposure conditions, including mandatory biological threat agents and additional chemical, radiological, explosive, and related materials.

Future unknown samples would then be compared against that growing reference panel.

DARPA explained the process:

"The developed algorithms will need to compare an unknown exposure against the ESP to identify the specific exposure, and when the individual was exposed."

In other words, the proposed system would not simply measure biology.

It would compare an individual's biological patterns against a government-built reference library and output a determination regarding both the nature and timing of an alleged exposure.

The Computer Makes The Determination

The solicitation envisioned an almost completely automated process.

DARPA required:

"no human intervention between the time the sample is introduced and results pertinent to exposure and timing is provided."

Insert the sample.

Run the algorithms.

Receive the determination.

The individual would not be interpreting raw laboratory findings.

The system itself would produce the conclusion.

When The Person Becomes The Evidence

Traditional forensic investigations often rely on recovering the biological or chemical agent itself.

ECHO proposed something different.

According to the solicitation, the system was intended to continue identifying exposure after the physical evidence had been erased by relying instead on computational comparison against stored biological signatures.

That architecture raises an obvious question.

If the original biological or chemical material no longer exists, and the determination instead comes from an algorithm comparing an individual's biology against a government-controlled reference library, how would an ordinary person independently verify - or meaningfully challenge - that conclusion?

Could the system be weaponized or used fraudulently?

The document itself does not answer that question.

Instead, it focuses on improving the speed, automation, and reliability of the computational determination.

DARPA Anticipated Attempts To Defeat The System

One small line buried within the solicitation is especially revealing.

Among the categories requiring special handling, DARPA listed:

"Potential procedure to evade ECHO Signature Panel identification."

The agency was not merely interested in creating exposure signatures.

It was already contemplating how those signatures - and the identification system built around them - might be circumvented.

Bottom Line

Much of the discussion surrounding ECHO focuses on epigenetics.

That risks obscuring what the solicitation actually proposed.

At its core, ECHO described a government-built computational system designed to determine whether an individual had been exposed to specified biological or chemical threats by comparing representations of that person's biology against a centralized signature library - even after the underlying physical evidence was gone.

Whether such a system could perform as intended is a separate scientific question.

The more immediate journalistic question is what follows if such algorithmic determinations are relied upon in military, intelligence, public-health, or legal settings.

When there is no physical evidence and the conclusion rests on a proprietary reference library and algorithmic comparison, what avenues exist for independent verification or meaningful challenge?

What happens to the person after the algorithm determines they've been exposed?

And if those algorithmic determinations are ever used to justify quarantine, criminal investigation, military action, employment decisions, travel restrictions, or other government action, what protections exist for the person the computer has already declared was exposed?

Follow Jon Fleetwood on Instagram and X, and subscribe at JonFleetwood.com. (h/t Modernity.news)

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 17:40

Overeducated Liberals With Worthless Degrees Are DSA's "Sweet Spot" Voter

Nate Silver identifies lower-income, highly educated voters as the core demographic of the Democratic Socialists of America, revealing a striking breakdown in the traditional relationship between education and higher income.

"Income and education are usually positively correlated. But sometimes the relationship breaks down. What's the most Democratic voting group in America? People with post-graduate degrees but lower-to-middle incomes," Silver wrote on X.

In today's newsletter, I argue this is the sweet spot for the DSA. DSA members are *very* college-educated (80% BA+) but *not* particularly well-off (45% HHI incomes below $60K). Their class status is ambiguous. But they tend to be very liberal on culture as well as economics. pic.twitter.com/yXAW5pVczi

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 21, 2026

One explanation: newly minted graduates burdened by student debt, holding low-value liberal arts and other worthless woke degrees, and working multiple service-sector jobs. The result is a cohort driven by progressive ideology but denied the prosperity they were promised, creating fertile recruiting ground for far-left movements.

Typical socialist voter...

Oh my lord. 🫪

A student went off the rails because a police officer used the “wrong pronouns.”

Officer: “He’s having a breakdown.”

Student: “SHE!!!!! SHE!!!!!! JUST SAY THE RIGHT PRONOUN!” (screaming like a lunatic)

We have a serious mental health crisis in this country, and… pic.twitter.com/kMF5GXfWB5

— Gina Milan (@ginamilan_) July 18, 2026

Some of these movements, including ones pushed by the DSA, aim to collapse the nation from within.

Whether intentional or not, an education system increasingly influenced by Marxism is producing politically radical graduates with insurmountable debt, primed to demand sweeping economic change. It's like the kids are being set up for failure even before stepping into a job.

By contrast, voters with high school or partial college educations who secure well-paying, goods-producing jobs tend to lean more Republican. These folks don't go through four to six years of woke indoctrination camps.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp on Zohran Mandani recently said it best about educated socialist voters:

The average Ivy League grad voting for this mayor is annoyed their education is not that valuable—and that the person who knows how to drill for oil has a more valuable profession. That annoys the f*ck out of these people.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp on Zohran Mandani voters:

“The average Ivy League grad voting for this mayor is annoyed their education is not that valuable—and that the person who knows how to drill for oil has a more valuable profession.”

“That annoys the fuck out of these people.” https://t.co/46r7RJLD9U pic.twitter.com/GG689vn4rk

— Jawwwn (@jawwwn_) July 21, 2026

The education system run by the left wing has massively failed young people. It is instead transforming them into Marxist activists intent on overthrowing America and capitalism - a trend evident in the rise of the DSA.

There is good news: Nancy Lazar, Piper Sandler's chief global economist and head of the firm's economics research team, recently published a note stating that goods-producing jobs are returning due to reshoring and data center buildouts.

For parents focused on positioning their children to thrive, the traditional college pathway can no longer be treated as the default. Unless a degree provides a clear return on investment, technical training, skilled trades or direct entry into goods-producing industries may offer a stronger path to financial independence.

Otherwise, why subject your kids to a four-year Marxist indoctrination camp, only for them to dye their hair purple, become weekend No Kings activists and work two jobs, one at Starbucks and the other as a cat walker?

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 17:20

Google Tumbles After Boosting 2026 Capex Guidance Again

Update (5:00pm ET): It took just a few minutes into the call for management to get to the elephant in the room, namely the relentless spending on overpriced commodity chips, and just like last quarter when GOOGL guided to a much higher capex for the current year, it did so again (if to a slightly lesser extent). The stock promptly slumped 3% to new session lows.

• *ALPHABET SEES FY CAPEX $195B TO $205B, SAW $180B TO $190B

And then:

• *GOOGLE STILL SEES FY27 CAPEX INCREASING 'SIGNIFICANTLY'

There was more:

• *GOOGLE TO EXPAND USE OF THIRD PARTY AI CAPACITY IN Q3
• *ALPHABET: SEES MODEST MARGIN PRESSURE FROM THIRD PARTY CAPACITY

In kneejerk reaction the stock promptly slumped 4% in AH trading to new session lows.

* * * 

Earlier:

As we wrote in our GOOGL preview, according to UBS and JPM analysts, the market would be watching two things above all else when Alphabet became the first hyperscaler to report earnings after the close today: capex guidance and monetization language, as "the debate has shifted from "how big is capex" to "who proves monetization and returns." And yet, in light of the massive expectations for capex growth, the company was facing "downside risk" it it disappointed the buyside bars which were $100BN higher ($350-$375BN) than the median sellside estimate of $250BN. 

So what did GOOGL just report for fiscal second quarter moments ago? Well, Alphabet reported Q2 cloud revenues that surpassed Wall Street’s expectations but slightly missed on sales tied to its search-engine business, threatening to fuel concerns about its heavy spending on artificial intelligence. 

The Google parent also said cloud sales totaled $24.77 billion for the quarter ended June 30, a jump of 82% over the same period last year. That was better than the $22.46 billion that analysts expected, but well short of some buyside whisper bogeys. Sales from search advertising generated $63.27 billion, just below estimates for $63.28 billion. 

Here are the details: 

• Revenue ex-TAC $103.62 billion, +27% y/y, beating estimate $101.07 billion 
• Revenue $119.80 billion, +24% y/y, beating estimate $117.02 billion
  • Google Services revenue $94.54 billion, +15% y/y, beating estimate $94.32 billion
  • Google advertising revenue $81.63 billion, +14% y/y, beating estimate $81.12 billion
  • Google Search & Other Revenue $63.27 billion, +17% y/y, missing estimate $63.28 billion, and in line with the buyside bar of 17% growth. 
  • YouTube ads revenue $11.06 billion, +13% y/y, beating estimate $10.81 billion
  • Google Network Revenue $7.30 billion, -0.7% y/y, beating estimate $7.13 billion
  • Google Subscriptions, Platforms and Devices Revenue $12.91 billion, +15% y/y, missing estimate $13.06 billion
  • Google Cloud revenue $24.77 billion, +82% y/y, beating estimate $22.46 billion
  • Other Bets revenue $382 million, +2.4% y/y, missing estimate $402.2 million
  • Hedging gains $106 million, beating estimate $75.7 million
     
• Total TAC $16.18 billion, +10% y/y, higher than estimate $16.24 billion
• Operating income $40.77 billion, +30% y/y, beating estimate $40.55 billion
  • Google Services operating income $39.54 billion, +20% y/y, missing estimate $40.23 billion
  • Google Cloud operating income $8.81 billion vs. $2.83 billion y/y, beating estimate $6.91 billion
  • Other Bets operating loss $1.80 billion vs. loss $1.25 billion y/y, beating estimate loss $1.72 billion
  • Alphabet-level activities operating loss $5.79 billion vs. loss $3.37 billion y/y, estimate loss $4.81 billion
• Operating margin 34% vs. 32% y/y, estimate 34.7%
• Capital expenditure $44.92 billion vs. $22.45 billion y/y, just a bit higher than the estimate $44.15 billion; the real question is what will the company hint at 2027 capex. 

Here is what the company's explosively growing capex looks like now:

Some other notable highlights from the report: 

• Number of employees 198,933, +6.3% y/y, estimate 195,527
• Gemini App MAUs 950 million
• Google Cloud backlog $514 billion
• Gain on equity securities of $99.03 billion

Commenting on the quarter, CEO Sundar Pichai said that “our popular AI features are driving Search query growth” although many would counter that GOOGL's popular AI features were popular 9 months ago and users havelong since moved on to other platforms. He added that “Google Cloud saw a meaningful acceleration in growth as revenues increased 82% to $24.8 billion, led by an increase in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) across enterprise AI Solutions and enterprise AI Infrastructure, as well as core GCP services.”

The company also said that Gemini models now process 22 billion API tokens per minute: “We are seeing strong demand for our security solutions, and our new Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber delivers highly cost- efficient performance at the frontier.”

Amusingly, the company said that it still hasn’t sold any shares under ATM program, a program which otherwise would be reserved to C-grade meme stonks desperate for liquidity. Come to think of it, if GOOGL plans on unveiling some insane capex number like $400BN or so for 2027, it will absolutely be desperate for liquidity in just a few months. 

Alphabet is the first major US hyperscaler to report earnings this season, offering an early glimpse of what’s to come. The tech sector has committed hundreds of billions of dollars to data centers and other AI offerings, but has yet to show any measurable returns for the trillions it plans on spending on commodities like GPUs and extremely overpriced memory chips. Google is set to spend more than ever on capital expenditures this year to compete in the AI race, and investors have been waiting to see whether that spending is driving new growth or ultimately weighing on profitability. And it appears that investors are starting to get cold feet waiting for the ROI and margin inflection point (which according to Goldman's agentic propaganda report was supposed to take place this past quarter... it didn't).

The lukewarm results threaten to intensify investor scrutiny of Alphabet’s AI spending, which is projected to reach record highs in 2026. Wall Street has been scouring for evidence that the company’s massive investments are generating new growth rather than weighing on profits. As the first major US technology company to report earnings this season, Alphabet’s results also stand to shape expectations for a sector that has collectively committed hundreds of billions of dollars to AI infrastructure. 

Alphabet shares slipped about 1% in after-hours trading Wednesday, after earlier swining to wider losses and modest gains. The stock closed at $342.09 per share in New York, and is essentially unchanged since early February.

The tepid share reaction despite the cloud beat, which offsets the search miss, reflects concerns over what the company will say about future capex and into 2027. During its last earnings call, management said they expect it to “significantly increase” over 2026; if they do the same this time, the market may not be very pleased as the ROI is still lacking. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 17:10

We Watched 'The Odyssey' So You Don't Have To!

Submitted by blueapples on X via ashesofacacia.substack.com,

After watching The Odyssey (don't worry, I pirated it), all I can say is that the hatred it fomented was ultimately to its benefit. It caused a reactionary response that amplified the hype surrounding the movie, with the hate-posting ultimately serving as free publicity. It needed it because the movie was extraordinarily mediocre. A solid 4/10, and that's only largely because the source material innately provides such a compelling story.

As someone whose heritage is Greek, I completely understood that outrage. Hearing people complain about "cultural appropriation" when the foundation of Western civilization is built on my own culture always comes across as absurdly ironic to me. Every time I hear some liberal NPC bitching about cultural appropriation, I always wait for them to bring up voting to ask them how engaging in democracy isn't an act of cultural appropriation, which they of course just respond to by defaulting to some empty platitude they've been programmed to say.

Nevertheless, the rage-posting over the movie became really tiresome to me. It's Hollywood. What would you expect? If you're going to look at a commercially driven film from Christopher Nolan as if it should be the paragon of artistic integrity, then you really only have yourself to blame. There is an abundance of amazing film out there, past, present, and future. Art, whether it's film, music, or any other medium, needs to be something that is a catalyst for self-exploration; it should be sought out by an audience, not served to them. Depending on an industry to curate that experience is about as rational as depending on CNN or Fox News to deliver you the truth in their news coverage. All the same people complaining about "woke" movies are ultimately assimilating into the paradigm that promotes them. They'll be the first to watch Citizen Vigilante or some empty movie marketed to the right wing for the same commercial motives and laud it despite it being awful and the only value of the film triggering their confirmation bias.

Having said that, people critical of the casting in Nolan's The Odyssey were entirely merited in their vitriol. The virtual signaling done by the casting decisions is made clearer as the film plays out. Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra are really just used to show off Lupita Nyong'o being black. It's clear their characters weren't sought out by Nolan to play a particularly important part rather than being plot devices, which makes it hard to believe there was any real imperative to casting her on the basis of her ability as an actress. What makes that even more obvious is that each of those characters play incredibly important and compelling roles in Homer's epic poem, with much more focus being on Helen, of course. Helen is minimized far more than Clytemnestra, which is incredible considering she's the impetus of the Trojan War itself.

Then there's Elliot Page as Sinon. This is perhaps the most obvious example of forced casting, as Sinon is not a character in Homer's epic poem. Instead, Sinon is depicted as the Greek spy who tricks the Trojans into bringing the Trojan Horse into the city of Troy in Virgil's The Aeneid. There was really no reason to have Sinon other than for the plot device Nolan utilizes him as later in the film. The addition of Sinon is the second biggest departure from the source material as far as the plot of the story is concerned, other than the ending which Nolan rewrites to name Telemachus as king and have Odysseus and Penelope exiled from Ithaca for breaking the Greek law of xenia, or hospitality, which is for some reason called the Law of Zeus rather than the Law of Hestia, but I digress. Nolan has worked with Page in the past, when she was the secondary lead in the woefully awful 2010 science fiction movie Inception, so there is an element of familiarity behind the casting, but the publicity behind casting someone transgender comes across as the motive behind the casting more than anything else.

La escena de Elliot Page que me quedé esperando de La Odisea pic.twitter.com/xR7p6S3Z9h

— Njord (@VikingoArtico) July 18, 2026

The flaws in the casting don't just have to do with the apparent DEI initiative behind many of the choices, though. The acting was woeful other than Anne Hathaway and John Leguizamo. Even their contributions to the film aren't acted out with any sense of nuance. Their performances are largely just amplified by being juxtaposed against very stunted and hollow acting displayed by the rest of the cast.

That sense of emptiness isn't exclusive to the acting. As is the case in all Christopher Nolan films, there was an overarching sterility behind the whole thing that made it very hard to invest in any of the characters or storylines, which says a lot considering it's The Odyssey. Odysseus bidding farewell to Argos is one of the most heartbreaking scenes in any work of literature ever, yet it came across as obligatory and, due to the gravity it plays in the plot, made for a very anticlimactic ending.

The special effects have been lauded, and I really have no idea why. I get why not defaulting to CGI is something people admire, but it comes across as performative when the practical effects aren't great. That is kind of a perfect distillation of the movie. Again — all hype, no substance.

One thing I was particularly interested in was how the gods were going to be handled. Their role in the Homeric epics was entirely absent from the 2004 Wolfgang Petersen film Troy, which I would recommend watching the director's cut of instead of this trash from Nolan.

Athena is the focal point of the gods' role in The Odyssey, but there's no real sense of mystique behind how Nolan presents that. Matt Damon just talks to Zendaya, and then there's a pan or cut, and it's like, "Whoa, she's gone!!!!" Only he can see her!!!! Crazy!!!!" which really is a sham considering how integrating the gods with natural phenomena would have been a great way to exercise special or practical effects. The absence of that is especially apparent when Odysseus finally returns home to Ithaca. In Homer's epic, Athena clouds the island in a mist so that Odysseus can be hidden from his enemies. In the scene from the Nolan movie, there is a mist on the shores, but there's very little done to illustrate the role Athena plays in creating it, other than her just being there. She doesn't manifest from the mist, disappear into it, or have any connection that would connect her divinity to it. It's ultimately just a perfect summation of how Zendaya plays the part of the goddess: she's just there.

Odysseus' long-awaited return to Ithaca in Book 13 of The Odyssey is also when Homer describes one of the most esoteric and mystical elements of the epic poem: the Cave of the Nymphs (no, not the one Jeffrey Epstein's brother named his property management company after). The symbolism of the Cave of the Nymphs in The Odyssey is the perfect illustration of the scale of the poem and what it and Homer mean to Greek culture. Homer was far beyond a poet; he was viewed as a completely transcendent figure bordering on divinity himself. His followers viewed his works as much as works of theology as they were poetry.

This is made apparent by the exegetical treatise of lines 102 to 112 in Book 13 of The Odyssey, in which Homer describes the cave, On the Cave of the Nymphs, written by the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry (who inspired the imagery of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life). In his treatise, Porphyry navigates the symbolism and metaphysical significance of the cave, penning one of the most profound and longest-lasting analyses of The Odyssey ever written. While it would be too much to expect Nolan to echo the wisdom of Porphyry, the oversight of that opportunity just goes to show how surface level his understanding of the story is and how much that comes across on screen.

One of my favorite YouTube Channels, Let's Talk Religion, recently did an incredible examination of the allegory of the Cave of the Nymphs from The Odyssey that is worth a watch much more than Nolan's movie.

In the end, it's Christopher Nolan. He's a movie maker, not a film maker (sans maybe Memento). He's what a friend of mine calls "a cable movie director." You get a blockbuster that plays to the greatest common denominator of people; that obviously was done by someone who is technically apt and very experienced when it comes to directing. What his interpretation of The Odyssey lacks is the emotional resonance that can only be achieved when a movie is able to communicate its heart and soul to an audience. That shortcoming is the perfect way to describe the movie given how its production completely disregarded the cultural and spiritual gravity that the epic poem has to the Hellenic people.

While I think much of that was purposeful and worth maligning the film for, I also question whether someone like Christopher Nolan has the capacity to have that kind of empathy enough to actually follow through on it. Nolan has described himself as being the most important person on the set of his productions because he serves as "the representative of the audience," a completely disingenuous display of humility meant to serve as a vehicle for self-aggrandizement. In the end, that is his undoing in terms of how his vision falls short of directors who are rightfully revered as auteurs. Nolan's vision is one of pragmatism, viewed through the lens of the masses but put in the hands of a director who can achieve it. It is his vision, but that perspective makes him fall very short of being a visionary. While filmmakers bring their pictures to life, he brings his to the market, which is why the box office is what his legacy rests upon. The Odyssey is just another chapter in the annals of his filmography that will be remembered for quantitative achievements like its box office receipts rather than anything qualitative that is rooted in artistic merit.

TL;DR: The Odyssey gets a 4/10 from me. It wasn't bad, but in some ways, the worst thing you can say about a film is that it's "meh."

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 17:00

House Narrowly Passes $1.15 Trillion Defense Bill That Integrates US Military Tech & Supply Chains With Israel

The House passed the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday by a 216-212 vote, sending the $1.15 trillion measure to the Senate after one of the most partisan House votes in the must-pass bill's recent history. Only six Democrats supported it, while seven Republicans voted no.

🚨 JUST IN: The US House has just PASSED the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — with the SAVE AMERICA ACT ATTACHED — sending it to the Senate before it heads to President Trump's desk

Final vote: 216-212

7 Republican NAYs, while 6 Democrats voted YEA pic.twitter.com/LrNfKVGBZL

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 22, 2026

Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers praised a topline that he said finally "accounts for the true cost of American deterrence." The authorization is a centerpiece of President Trump's push to raise total defense spending to $1.5 trillion in fiscal 2027. Democrats opposed the measure over the unauthorized war with Iran - which has flared again since the collapse of a memorandum of understanding intended to open peace talks - as well as the attachment of the SAVE America Act's mail-voting restrictions and voter-ID requirements. They also objected to a price tag they argue would be financed through cuts to domestic programs.

The amendment votes exposed the chamber's other fault lines. Rep. Eli Crane's proposal to halt nearly all military aid to Ukraine was defeated 76-350, while Rep. Lauren Boebert's attempt to codify the ban on transgender military service failed 212-217. The House nevertheless adopted two amendments from Rep. Nancy Mace restricting gender-related care through the military's TRICARE health system and barring transgender athletes from girls' sports at Defense Department-run schools.

Opposition also came from lawmakers objecting to the bill's US-Israel defense-industrial integration provisions. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among the Democrats who cited Section 219, while Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna had announced that they would oppose final passage on the same grounds. The provision remained intact after the Rules Committee declined to permit a floor vote on their amendment to remove it.

The bill now heads to the Senate, where the companion measure, S. 4784, is already stalled. On July 14, the Senate rejected cloture on the motion to proceed, 50-46, after Democrats opposed advancing the bill in protest of the Iran war. With the House scheduled to leave Friday for a recess lasting through the end of August, any eventual conference negotiations are likely to be pushed into the fall.

A separate party-line effort to authorize $60 billion in new war-related spending also remains far short of the $350 billion the Pentagon originally sought.

* * *

The House of Representatives will vote today on final passage of the $1.15 trillion National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027 (H.R. 8800) - and with it, Section 219, the United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative, a provision directing the Pentagon to expand and accelerate the integration of US and Israeli military technology, supply chains, and defense industrial capacity.

On paper, it is one section among hundreds in a sprawling must-pass bill. In practice, it has become the single most watched line item in the entire package - partly because of what it does, and partly because House leadership just made sure nobody gets to vote on it by itself.

What Section 219 Actually Does

Section 219 - numbered Section 224 in earlier drafts - directs the Secretary of Defense to designate an "executive agent" inside the Department of Defense whose mandate is to expand and accelerate joint research, development, co-production, and industrial integration with Israel across next-gen warfare domains: missile and air defense, counter-drone systems, cyber and electronic warfare, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, quantum technologies, directed energy, biotechnology, and defense manufacturing - with explicit pathways for moving Israeli-origin and jointly developed technology into US programs of record.

House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL), who introduced the bill on May 13, has pushed back on the "merger" framing, saying the section simply designates a single senior official to coordinate cooperation that already exists, but critics say that's exactly the point. 

Executive agents are permanent bureaucratic machinery - they outlive administrations, and a statutory mandate to "expand and accelerate" only runs in one direction. The Quincy Institute, in a June analysis titled Cooperation without Oversight, argued the executive-agent authority makes the provision "significantly different" from America's existing defense technology arrangements with any other allied nation. Once two industrial bases are physically intertwined - shared components, co-production lines, joint classified programs - no future Congress unwinds that with a floor amendment.

What "Executive Agent" Means

A June policy note by the Quincy Institute's Steven Simon starts from an inconvenient fact for both sides of this fight: the United States does not need Section 219 to buy, co-develop, or field Israeli defense technology. Iron Dome, the Trophy active-protection system, and Barak missiles were all acquired under existing law - cooperative R&D authority under 22 U.S.C. § 2767(j)(1), plus standard Foreign Military Sales and Direct Commercial Sales channels under the Arms Export Control Act. Whatever the initiative is for, it is not access. Its real impact is structural.

The structure is the executive agent. Under DoD Directive 5101.01, an executive agent's authority takes precedence over other Defense Department component heads within its assigned scope - meaning the Israel-cooperation agent could overrule determinations by offices like the Defense Technology Security Administration, the Pentagon body that manages the risks of transferring defense technology and critical information abroad. Pair that precedence with a statutory mandate to "expand and accelerate," and the note's conclusion follows: wherever an internal office pushes back on a transfer or an integration step, the agent exists to push it through. State Department export-control channels would still operate independently, and programs must comply with existing law - but inside the Pentagon, the tie would go to integration.

No other US ally has anything like this. Defense cooperation with the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, and NATO runs through the standard architecture - the under secretary of defense for policy and the Defense Security Cooperation Agency - with no dedicated agent holding precedence authority to promote one country's participation in sensitive US programs. Proponents read the same structure as streamlining: one accountable senior official instead of a dozen scattered offices. Quincy reads it as handing Israeli defense firms "their own promoter in the Pentagon" - and recommends Congress strip the provision outright.

The note also supplies the missing context for why this is happening now. Section 219 is one piece of a broader, publicly acknowledged shift from aid to integration. The FY2026 NDAA already ordered a working group to study folding Israel into the National Technology and Industrial Base. A draft Senate intelligence authorization provision would mandate expanded intelligence sharing with Israel while limiting the president's power to curtail it. And the endgame is not hidden: the Washington Post reported in June that Netanyahu himself backs the GOP effort to wind down the $3.3 billion in annual direct military aid in favor of integration and purchases, and House Resolution 1339 frames the transition, in its own title, as "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Initiative." The concern Quincy raises is the one every aid critic should sit with: a $3.3 billion check is at least a number - published, debated, and voted on every year. Integrated supply chains carry no price tag and come up for no annual vote.

The entrenchment aspect is serious:the F-35 program already ran this experiment, and it is worth being precise about who paid for it. When Turkey was expelled from the program in 2019 over its purchase of a Russian air-defense system, Turkish industry was building roughly 1,000 parts in the global supply chain - and the costs of cutting it loose landed on both sides. Turkey lost its planned jets and its production share. But the United States - the party doing the expelling - did not walk away clean: late parts deliveries spiked, finished-jet deliveries went delinquent, and the already-delayed program slid further behind schedule, all documented by the Government Accountability Office. Fuse two defense industrial bases deeply enough, and the option of changing course quietly disappears - whatever the next decade brings.

Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich warns that Section 219 of the NDAA is a complete, well-planned takeover of the United States military by Benjamin Netanyahu.

He says the bill will give Netanyahu the ability to direct the U.S. military.

"But the truth is that it is laying the… pic.twitter.com/kmVpRaDdzc

— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) July 22, 2026 Speedrunning it... 

On June 15, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) filed a bipartisan amendment to strike Section 219 outright. The Rules Committee refused to make it in order - no debate, no vote. Then the process blew up on its own: on June 30, the rule governing the NDAA failed on the House floor, 198-224, after thirteen Republicans revolted - not over Israel, but over Speaker Mike Johnson's decision to staple a contested voter-ID bill to the defense package. Johnson canceled the rest of the week and sent members home.

Opponents of Section 219 hoped the do-over would finally produce a clean vote. Instead, the Rules Committee reported a reworked rule, H. Res. 1438, on a party-line 8-4 vote Monday night - once again leaving the Massie-Khanna amendment off the approved list. The full House adopted the rule Tuesday, 214-211, a three-vote margin. The resolution sweeps six separate measures to the floor at once, puts the NDAA under a structured rule limiting amendments to a leadership-approved list, and closes off the other five bills entirely, according to a Capitol Wire analysis of the rule.

Massie posted minutes after the floor vote, saying "No debate or vote was allowed on section 219, integration of US military technology and supply chains with Israel's." 

Unfortunately the Rule passed just now and no debate or vote was allowed on section 219, integration of US military technology and supply chains with Israel's.

The NDAA will receive a recorded vote tomorrow with section 219 in it. I'll vote no.

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) July 21, 2026

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene - out of Congress since January but still commanding one of the largest audiences in Republican politics - amplified him within hours, in considerably hotter language:

This will be the most watched recorded vote in modern times.
It will give a list of names of every Member of Congress who betrayed America, committed treason, and sold out the American people to a foreign country.

— Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@FmrRepMTG) July 21, 2026

She's not wrong - this roll call will be screenshotted, sorted into lists, and campaigned on for years - which is what happens when leadership denies members a clean vote and forces every position into a single up-or-down proxy.

Khanna, for his part, is already looking past Wednesday. "Thomas Massie and I have been fighting to stop the integration between our military and the Israeli military. It's shocking that this even has to be explained. It's about American sovereignty," he said Tuesday, vowing to fight the provision in conference negotiations with the Senate. Civil liberties groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, had backed the strike amendment on the narrower ground that a change this significant deserved a direct vote.

The Alliance Is Already The Deepest On The Books

To understand what Section 219 accelerates, consider this: the US-Israel defense relationship is already the most extensive technology partnership Washington maintains with any nation it holds no mutual defense treaty with.

Under the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding, the United States committed $38 billion over ten years - $3.3 billion annually in foreign military financing plus $500 million a year for missile defense - the largest such pledge ever made to any country. Israel has been a designated Major Non-NATO Ally since 1987 and was elevated to "major strategic partner" by statute in 2014.

The hardware already flows both ways. Iron Dome is co-produced by Israel's Rafael and America's RTX; the US Army bought two batteries of its own, and the Marine Corps fields an interceptor derived from it. David's Sling and the Arrow interceptor family were co-developed with US funding and US primes. Israeli Trophy active-protection systems ride on American Abrams tanks. Israel was the first foreign air force to fly the F-35 in combat, and Israeli industry builds wing sets for the global F-35 program. The United States has pre-positioned a war reserve stockpile on Israeli soil for decades and has drawn it down repeatedly when inventories ran short elsewhere.

Congress has spent years bolting on the machinery - binational R&D foundations, working groups, counter-drone cooperation mandates. Section 219 does not start this trajectory. It codifies it, staffs it, and hands it a permanent owner. 

So what would America be giving up when its defense industrial base is formally fused with a foreign state's?

• Strategic autonomy. Leverage runs both ways. When supply chains are integrated, every future policy disagreement - over war aims, over strikes, over settlements - collides with America's own production dependencies. Creating daylight, conditioning aid, or simply saying no becomes materially harder, by design. The legislative tracker A New Policy argues the initiative would entrench Israeli technology inside the US defense supply chain in a way that shields the relationship from the annual appropriations process - insulating it from Congress's power of the purse just as public support for unconditional aid is eroding.
• Escalation coupling. This is not hypothetical in July 2026. The United States is in an ongoing war with Iran; the Strait of Hormuz was shut to tanker traffic; the regional escalation ladder has been climbed in public. Critics ask the obvious question: when the industrial bases are fused, does the next conflict automatically become an American production commitment - before Congress votes on anything?
• The constitutional shortcut. Commitments of treaty-like depth and permanence are being created by simple majority, inside a must-pass bill, under a rule that forbids amendment. The Founders put a two-thirds Senate threshold on entangling alliances for a reason. 
• Industrial priorities. With shipyards behind schedule, solid-rocket-motor bottlenecks, and munitions lines still scaling, the America First argument holds that marginal dollars and engineering talent should rebuild the domestic base before deepening integration offshore with anyone.
• Concentration risk. Any deep technology-sharing arrangement, with any partner, raises export-control, counterintelligence, and single-point-of-failure questions. Those questions were asked loudly and publicly about AUKUS. Here, the rule ensured they would not even be asked on the floor.

As Antiwar.com notes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the integration plan as his own idea - begging the question of whose priorities a permanent Pentagon office would be built to serve.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 16:59

Despite Big Bounce In Revenues, TSLA Shares Drop After Disappointing Earnings

After a dismal two years of weakening demand, falling sales, and damage to its brand by Elon Musk’s political activities, Tesla’s road to recovery remains mixed on the heels of an impressive delivery report.

While earnings fell 18% compared to Q2 2025 to 33c a share (well below expectations of 51c) with higher AI spending and R&D weighing on profitability; the silver lining was that Revenue came in at $28.2 billion, which was 28% higher than last year (well above expectations of $26.4 billion).

The company said it hit $100 billion in trailing twelve-month revenue for the first time in history in the second quarter, and earned $1.11 billion in net income in the quarter.

The company said its first-generation production lines for Optimus Bot are being installed in anticipation of production in 2026, with the company saying production will happen "soon."

The Cybercab is listed as in production, an improvement from the company saying it expected volume production "this year" last quarter.

Tesla said the vehicle began production in the quarter.

The Tesla Semi is listed as "commissioning" and the company said it remains on track for volume production this year.

"We are focused on maximum capacity utilization at our factories," the company said.

Despite the glorious robotic (and Robotaxi and AI compute) future ahead, Tesla remains a car company. And in the second quarter, it sold an impressive 480,126 vehicles, about a 25 percent increase compared to the second quarter of 2025.

Tesla's automotive gross margins were 16.3% in the second quarter, up from 15% in Q2 2025, but down from 19.2% in Q1 of this year.

Active FSD subscriptions hit 1.48 million in the second quarter, up 56% year-over-year and up from the 1.28 million reported in the first quarter.

Additionally, Tesla said that they have more than doubled their onsite compute in Texas (in terms of MW of compute) during the first half of 2026. Cortex 2 supports the development of both vehicle and humanoid robot autonomy software and will ramp further over the rest of the year to ensure we have sufficient compute resources.

Tesla spent $5.8 billion in capital expenditures in the second quarter, bringing the first half’s total to about $8.28 billion. Though capex ramped over the past three months, it’s still not on track to meet the $25 billion in 2026 outlays Musk forecast in April.

Energy storage returned to being a revenue driver, with revenue increasing 13% year-over-year after slipping in the first quarter.

Tesla deployed 13.5 gigawatt hours of storage in 2Q, up more than 50% from the prior three months (as data centers are driving demand for batteries, which can help regulate power flows and speed up connections to the grid).

David Wagner, portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors, said:

“Tesla’s earnings tonight highlight a core tension between short-term financial realities and an ambitious long-term AI vision. While recent delivery rebounds demonstrate steady vehicle volume, heavy margin pressure from global price cuts and massive capital expenditure - projected at over $25 billion this year for AI compute, chips, and infrastructure - are squeezing free cash flow.”

“Ultimately, Tesla is asking investors to fund an aggressive infrastructure cycle: if its pivot into autonomous fleets and physical AI succeeds, the long-term upside is massive, but any regulatory or technological delays leave the stock vulnerable if judged solely on its core automotive margins.”

Nevertheless, the earnings miss is weighing on Tesla shares after hours, testing three-month lows ahead of the Tesla earnings conference call, with Musk at the helm, set to start about 1730ET.

Investor focus likely will be on robotaxis, Optimus robots, capital spending and CEO Elon Musk.

The company said it has "never been more optimistic about the future."

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 16:45

IRGC To Trump: Strike Iran's Infrastructure, We'll Shut Off The Gulf's Power Summary

• More Tanker Attacks: Iran-backed Houthi militants said they targeted two Saudi Arabian tankers in the Red Sea

• Trump ultimatum: Trump vowed the US will strike an Iranian bridge or power plant after every Iranian attack on shipping.

• Iran responds: The IRGC threatened to hit Gulf energy infrastructure if Iranian infrastructure is attacked, saying it will cut off electricity among US allies.

• Latest Gulf missile attacks: Iran claimed attacks on US-linked targets in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.

• Nuclear tensions: Iran denied nuclear activity at Pickaxe Mountain, calling US claims a 'fabricated pretext' for attack.

• Oil climbs: Renewed Gulf attacks and shipping threats continued to lift oil prices.

//--> //--> //--> Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by August 31?
Yes 14% · No 86%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

*  *  *

Oil Climbs After Houthis Attack Two Saudi Tankers in Red Sea

Oil gained after Iran-backed Houthi militants said they targeted two Saudi Arabian tankers in the Red Sea, escalating the Middle East conflict and threatening deeper supply disruptions.

Brent spiked above $95 in post-settlement trading.

The Houthis attacked the two vessels with missiles and drones for violating a blockade imposed in the Red Sea, identifying the tankers as Encelia and Layla, the rebel group said.

UK Maritime Trade Operations said a vessel was hit southwest of Saudi Arabia’s Al Shuqaiq, causing a fire on board.

UKMTO didn’t identify the ship.

The first attacks on tankers in the Red Sea opens up a new front in the Middle East conflict, which has snarled traffic through the Strait of Hormuz following a flare-up in violence.

Iran Responds to Trump Ultimatum: We'll Turn The Lights Off In Gulf

A top IRGC official has responded to Trump's Bridge attack for each shipping attack ultimatum (see below). Iranian IRGC Aerospace Commander Mousavi has threatened that Iran will cut off electricity to America's Gulf Allies if Iranian bridges or power plants are attacked, Tasnim News Agency.

"If the Americans target an Iranian bridge or power plant, Iran will respond by striking infrastructure and bridges across the region, including energy facilities in which the United States has interests,” the official said according semi-official news agency Tasnim.

"The Americans should by now, after these past ten days, be fully convinced that Iran strikes wherever it decides to strike. Therefore, any such gamble by Trump will once again end in his embarrassment," the IRGC commander added.

Separately, Iran’s deputy foreign minister briefed 25 European ambassadors and charges d’affaires in Tehran on the status of the conflict. "I reminded them that in the 40-day war, we imposed a severe defeat on the aggressors. In this new round of military aggression as well, we will resolutely defend our homeland and national interests," Kazem Gharibabadi posted on X.

"These wars have created no strategic gains for America and only endanger regional and global peace and security. I also said that Europe is expected to safeguard the United Nations Charter and international law and to condemn aggression,” he added.

Iran has continued to sound an "eye for an eye" theme, and has not backed down in the face of Trump's fresh threats...

Meanwhile, Iran is touting that it still possesses a very significant missile stockpile, as it is still producing even as US bombs fall:

⚡️BREAKING: Iran's top Military Spokesman confirms that Missiles and Drones are still being Produced

"Our production never Stopped and we continue to Replenish our Stockpiles" pic.twitter.com/I5ZWuMuWeU

— Iran Observer (@IranObserver0) July 22, 2026 Trump: US Will Destroy A Bridge Or Power Plant For Each Iranian Attack On Shipping

More telegraphing of intent from President Trump in the below Truth Social Post... he said the US military will "bomb and destroy" one bridge or power plant - including in Tehran - each time the Iranian military shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. This comes a day after he unveiled the US military plans to conduct a large bombing of Iran's Pickaxe Mountain nuclear complex, which is heavily fortified.

But the Iranians have already long demonstrated they won't alter course in the face of such threats, especially bluster from Trump over social media, and so this unlikely to be any kind of fix for Washington, as Tehran has vowed to keep control of Hormuz at all costs. The Pentagon has argued that things like bridges are 'dual use' as the Iranian military uses them to get supplies from one region to another, while international monitors have highlighted the potential for war crimes. The Iranians have in turn widened attacks on Gulf states to include key civic infrastructure, like water desalination plants (in Kuwait) - each time their own infrastructure gets hit.

Iran: Pickaxe Mountain Rhetoric is 'Fabricated Pretext'

Amid continued fighting which has included explosions heard in Tehran overnight and in the south, Iran's leadership has condemned the Trump administration's "obsessive focus on Kolang Kouh where no nuclear activity is taking place is nothing more than a fabricated pretext for aggression, destruction, and sabotage," according to Foreign Minister spokesman Esmail Baghaei in a post on X, referring to Pickaxe Mountain.

He pointed out that all of Iran's nuclear activity has long been fully declared to the IAEA, and so the repeat threats out of Washington to mount a major attack on it is a "flagrant violation" of UN charter and international law. Trump had said the day prior that the US military will be hitting Pickaxe mountain "pretty soon very heavily and there is nothing they can do about it."

IRIB via AFP/Getty Images

Even some supporters have quested why the US Commander-in-Chief would so casually telegraph his intentions, saying the Pentagon loses an operational edge in revealing such plans.

There's been a lot of sudden focus on Pickaxe Mountain, though it had largely been absent from all prior media coverage of the war, due to Israeli intelligence feeding it to US mainstream press. "Israeli intelligence believes Iran moved thousands of uranium-enrichment centrifuges into tunnels deep inside a mountain last fall, Israeli and U.S. officials say, a development that would heighten concerns that Tehran could reconstitute its nuclear program," The Wall Street Journal wrote Tuesday.

"Israel passed along the intelligence findings to the U.S., saying the centrifuges were transferred to the Pickaxe Mountain site last fall after the 12-day war in June when American and Israeli strikes pummeled Iran’s three main nuclear sites," it added.

US Bases in Gulf Under Renewed Attack

And now, by all accounts, more aircraft, refueling planes, and heavy military hardware continue to be transferred from Europe and into the Central Command area of responsibility.

The Iranians might view this as more simply extra targets to be taken out, however, as Gulf countries continue to see inbound attacks. Missile alerts have been sounding Wednesday in Saudi Arabia, and again in Bahrain. ISNA reports (via Newsquawk): Drone and missile attacks on Bahrain and Saudi Arabia; US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and US base in Saudi Arabia targeted:

• Bahrain has faced almost daily bombardment recently due to hosting the US Fifth Fleet headquarters.
• Saudi Arabia has been pulled into the firing line after the collapse of a previous multi-year ceasefire with Iranian-backed factions.

US Troops Under Iranian Missiles in Jordan

Soldiers in Jordan seem to be prime targets of Iranian ballistic missiles, in an extremely dangerous situation, after several American soldiers already died there in the past week:

Footage filmed by a U.S. soldier in Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, in Jordan, during an Iranian Ballistic Missile attack. pic.twitter.com/0OHle3she8

— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) July 22, 2026

Jordan too continues to see significant inbound projectiles from Iran. Iranian state media has newly announced that F-15 warplanes, drone preparation infrastructure and a helicopter storage facility at Prince Hassan and King Faisal bases were targeted in recent ballistic missile launches.

IRNA news agency claimed that eight new American MQ-9 drones were destroyed and two others "severely damaged" in the attack, and in addition two helicopters were damaged.

The fresh Wednesday morning initial reports of potential further inbound missile on Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have pushed oil prices higher.

Rubio on Iran-Led Axis of 'Troublemakers'

Meanwhile Secretary of State Marco says the US is in contact with Saudi officials over the ongoing threat by Yemen's Houthis to attack commercial vessels and disrupt Saudi shipping in the vital Bab al-Mandeb waterway in the Red Sea. This is squeezing global oil further.

"We’ve been engaged with the Saudis a number of times over the last week in regards to that threat. It’s not a new threat, but it’s one that’s manifested itself in the past," he told reporters in his latest remarks.

More evidence of serious damage and destruction at American military outposts in Jordan:

Source sends footage of Tower 22 dorms after getting struck by Iran in Jordan. The sense among servicemembers is that Iran focused previously on destroying infrastructure but is now targeting soldiers.

The base has been evacuated. pic.twitter.com/Jyegdltsgr

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) July 21, 2026

In words which Tehran officials will surely not find terrifying or overly threatening, Rubio continued: "At the gist of that issue is the fact Iran is in the middle of it. Talking about the troublemaker of the region, it’s Iran."

"It’s just another example: the Houthis, Hezbollah, the militias in Iraq, Hamas – this is what Iran spends its money on, not on its people, on supporting terrorist organizations and destabilizing actors in the region," he added in Washington's characteristic 'axis-speak' of 'rogue actors'.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 16:25

Jim Quinn Warns "We've Already Entered This Fourth Turning's Global War..."

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Bruning Platform blog,

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” – Thomas Paine – The American Crisis

“At worst, should at least one desperate country resort to WMDs, the outcome of a great-power war could prove to be even more devastating than that of a civil war. The toll could be almost unimaginable – with multiple cities destroyed, many millions killed, and many tens of millions displaced – all perhaps triggered by some ill-fated combination of the wrong leader making the wrong choice at the wrong time.” – Neil Howe – The Fourth Turning Is Here

My previous two articles about this Fourth Turning: Prophets, Nomads and a Fourth Turning Accelerating Towards a Bloody Climax in April 2025 and War Phase of This Fourth Turning Has Arrived in July 2025 were progressively more pessimistic about the course of coming events, and things have proceeded along a precarious path towards our own rendezvous with destiny/tragedy. We are closing in on the 18th anniversary of the start of this Crisis epoch in September. The previous Great Depression/WWII Fourth Turning came to its climactic bloody conclusion after seventeen years, but this period of upheaval and disorder looks like it will extend into the early 2030s, just as Strauss & Howe predicted.

After rereading the prior two articles, I was shocked at how drastically the world has transformed in the space of one year and how the chief facilitator for driving events – Donald Trump – has hugely reversed his stated positions from the outset of his presidency. During the first 18 months of his 2nd term in office, Trump has done the exact opposite of what he promised and gone to war with the people most responsible for getting him elected: Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, among others. The question is whether this was always his plan, or has he been coerced/bribed by Israel using Epstein file revelations.

At first, I was cautiously optimistic Trump had learned some hard lessons from his first term personnel debacles and the Deep State conspiracy to derail his presidency, along with the provable stealing of the 2020 election through mail-in ballot fraud, rigged voting machines, and judicial interference, resulting in the insertion of a dementia ridden basement dummy as a Potemkin president.

Trump staffed his new administration with what appeared to be loyalists, committed to revealing the truth about the Russiagate conspiracy, the 2020 stolen election, the Epstein files, FBI/CIA coup participants, the Soros/Biden/Clinton/Obama purposeful initiation and funding of the 3rd world invasion of our country to steal elections and initiate economic collapse, USAID as the funder of NGOs committed to destroying our society, the J6 Committee malfeasance, and the massive government fraud in all welfare programs at the Federal and State levels.

With Musk’s DOGE revelations and promises of $2 trillion in savings, the early months of Trump’s presidency seemed promising. He fulfilled his guarantee to shut the border and stopped the hordes of low IQ 3rd world dirtbags from invading our country and overwhelming our social welfare system. With much fanfare (and TV commercials), Kristi Noem began deporting thousands of illegals on a daily basis. Pam Bondi and Kash Patel declared they had all the Epstein files and would be releasing them in their criminal entirety.

But right-wing influencers were given binders with no new Epstein revelations in a February White House PR event. Something started to smell fishy. Trump acted like a Middle East peacemaker, with rhetoric about ending the Gaza genocide and turning it into resort for his wealthy cronies. He held multiple talks with Putin and Zelensky. It looked like ending the Ukraine war and delivering peace on earth might be his legacy.

By June, Trump’s presidency began to unravel, and he started reneging on his promises, having a major falling out with Musk over his Big Beautiful Bloated Bill, and began his infatuation with his Boss Bibi, who told him what to do and when to do it. Trump’s bombast about reducing the national debt and balancing the budget was put to the test with his first budget bill.

In my previous article I had stated it would require tremendous courage on the part of Trump and his congressional majority to institute the billions in DOGE cuts, as it is only government waste, Fed debt creation, and consumers spending money they don’t have on shit they don’t need at 20% interest provided by the Wall Street cabal, that keeps this U.S. Titanic of debt economy afloat. Cutting government spending would guarantee a recession. As expected, cowardly politicians, bought off by special interests, and driven by re-election desires, had no interest in cutting a dime of government spending.

Trump made no effort to reduce the spending earmarked in the Big Beautiful Bill, going along with the continued death march of debt creation. Prior to the bill, the 10-Year CBO forecast was for the national debt to increase by $21 trillion, so essentially accelerating towards fiscal disaster. Trump’s BBB added another $5 trillion to that farcical figure, not exactly “cutting” the budget. The national debt has gone from $36.2 trillion to $39.5 trillion in the first 1.5 years of Trump’s reign of debt.

With the uniparty in agreement, $2 trillion annual deficits are locked in until the debt Ponzi implodes. The MAGA army of maff challenged NPCs obediently applauded for Trump’s 5D chess genius. Musk realized his entire DOGE effort was nothing more than window dressing for Trump to get elected. They had a very public clash, with nasty personal attacks, and a miffed and misled Musk revealed why Trump was not allowing the Epstein files to be released.

This was the first crack in the MAGA narrative dam, while setting in motion the future of full catastrophic collapse over the remainder of his term. His fiscal promises of $2,000 DOGE rebates, $2,000 Tariff rebates, lower inflation, and manufacturing plants and jobs returning to America (we’ve lost 75,000 manufacturing jobs since Trump’s inauguration), have proven to be fake news. After ICE killed a couple of protestors, Trump basically threw in the towel and said he wasn’t going to deport the millions of illegal immigrant criminals. Somebody has to pick the lettuce and do the housework of the Epstein class.

But at least we are getting hundreds of electricity and water sucking surveillance centers disguised as data centers, along with hundreds of thousands of flock cameras, violating our 4th Amendment rights 24 hours a day on behalf of the surveillance state. All of Trump’s treachery since June of 2025 appears to be related to the Epstein files and Israel controlling Trump through blackmail, related to his appearance in those files. After railing for years about the Epstein files cover-up, Trump suddenly had no interest in releasing anything. It was suddenly a Democratic hoax. Only a guilty person would make such a dramatic turnabout.

The stonewalling was overcome by Thomas Massie’s Epstein Files Transparency Act, introduced in July 2025, requiring un-redacted files by the FBI to be released. Trump immediately went to war against Massie, utilizing his Israeli billionaire donors, led by Miriam Adelson, to spend over $30 million to defeat him in his primary. Not supporting Zionist genocides, undeclared wars on behalf of Israel and the military industrial complex, $2 trillion deficits, the surveillance state, and child raping billionaires, make you an enemy of the Trump controlled state. After declaring no new wars during his campaign, Trump allowed Bibi to lure him into spending billions to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities during their 12-day war in June 2025.

The bloviator in chief, and his low IQ Fox News Secretary of Defense declared Iran’s nuclear bomb ambitions dead. The White House website was unequivocal in declaring complete and total obliteration of Iran’s supposed nuclear bomb ambitions. Trump saved the world from the imminent nuclear attack on Israel by Iran, just as Bibi had been warning for the last 20 years. This declaration of obliteration happened just over a year ago. What happened between June of 2025 and February of 2026 to change the narrative back to Iran weeks away from having a nuclear bomb? Was Trump lying in June or in February? Since 75% of everything he says is lies, it’s a tough nut to crack.

Despite Trump’s obvious abandonment of his MAGA campaign pledges within several months of ascending to power, CPI was 2.7% by December 2025, GDP was 2% for 2025 despite a government shutdown, mortgage rates had dropped to 6%, oil was $57 a barrel and most people were paying less than $3 a gallon for gas, Trump and Putin met in Alaska and it looked like the Ukraine War might wind down, but this proved to just be a phony interlude in this Fourth Turning Crisis cycle of catastrophe. As soon as the calendar flipped the page to 2026, Trump decided to light the fuse on this global tinderbox of regional animosity, religious hatred, and battle for currency dominance, military supremacy, and control of global oil supplies.

After blowing up dozens of speedboats, 1,300 miles from the U.S. mainland, supposedly trafficking drugs from Venezuela, Trump decided to kidnap the sitting president of Venezuela on January 3, based on laughable drug trafficking charges, considering the CIA has trafficked more drugs into the U.S. than any organization in history. Trump openly admitted he was taking control of Venezuela’s oil. There are a lot of bad dictators/presidents in the world, but you will only be taken out if you don’t have nukes and you are sitting on top of the world’s largest oil reserve. Trump was promising $2 a gallon gasoline, now that he controlled Venezuela as a vassal state.

The best laid plans don’t always pan out, as oil rose from $57 per barrel on January 3 to $67 per barrel on February 27, the day before Trump launched a shameful decapitation surprise attack on Iran while Bibi’s two Israeli agent envoys (Witkoff, Kushner) pretended to be negotiating a deal, taking out most of their political and military leadership. He actually thought he could pull off another Maduro three day conflict, but stated publicly on March 1 it would last 4 or 5 weeks. I wonder if he ever watched Get Smart in his younger days, because his estimate has proven to be slightly optimistic as we approach month 5 of a conflict showing only signs of growing wider and more deadly.

As we slog through this increasingly chaotic Fourth Turning, I’m always aware of Strauss and Howe’s warning about what could befall the world during this crisis.

“The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, a total war. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind’s willingness to use it.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

In case you haven’t noticed, Trump’s promise of $2 a gallon gas might be a little optimistic. By mid-April oil reached $119 per barrel, over 100% more than at the start of the year. Here in PA. I paid $2.89 per gallon on the day before Trump’s war of choice on behalf of Israel, and within two months was paying $4.79 per gallon. Through a combination of draining our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a 43 year low, Scott Bessent and his Wall Street cronies manipulating the derivatives market to suppress the price of oil, Trump making false statements on Truth Social about imminent agreements, and the fake MOU which would never be honored, they were able to maneuver the price of oil back to $68 per barrel, despite the 20% ongoing reduction in global oil flow.

The MOU was never going to be honored by the U.S. The purpose was to buy time to re-arm and move more troops to the Middle East. Smoke, mirrors, and draining our “emergency” reserves in order to preserve the appearance of normality and strength is a pitiful way to run an empire. Trump’s true measure of success is how rich he can make his billionaire cronies by driving the stock market to new heights, no matter the impact on average “non-billionaire” Americans.

Front running his own Truth Social posts and stock purchases is just icing on the cake for the most corrupt president in U.S. history. He and his family reaped (pillaged?) billions peddling worthless meme coins, while the fleeced MAGA NPCs lost 99% of their “investments”. It was readily apparent Trump insiders were using insider knowledge to bet on polymarket or derivatives market to either go long or short in the oil and stock markets based on his future Truth Social posts, making billions in the process.

Shockingly, no one has been investigated or arrested. How does Trump find time to do president stuff when he is making 58 stock trades per day? Mussolini was the modern-day representative of merging the state with business to form a fascist ruling structure. Trump makes Benito looks like a minor leaguer, sinking $27 billion of our tax dollars into public corporations, while his sons create companies which are awarded billions in government contracts. Trump has personally invested in at least 20 public companies and then made positive Truth Social posts about them, driving their stock prices higher. This is blatant corruption and stock market manipulation, but the willfully ignorant masses are too distracted by electronic bread and circuses to be bothered. Free market capitalism is dead, but crony corporate fascism is alive and thriving. It’s good to be in the top .01%, or friends and family of Trump.

Everyone knows Iran was not close to producing a nuclear bomb, as seventeen government agencies told Trump prior to his surprise attack on Iran, at the behest of Bibi. The bullshit narrative about the Iranian government murdering 30,000, then 40,000, then 100,000, and now 52,000 protestors was also provably false. Trump admitted the protests were enabled by Mossad and the CIA. Netanyahu has been declaring Iran two weeks away from a nuclear bomb for thirty years. If we had really obliterated their secret nuclear sites in June 2025, like Trump and Hegseth declared, how could they again be two weeks away from a nuclear bomb?

Everything about this war on Iran is based on lies, mistruths, and propaganda, as the true motive is to further Netanyahu’s Greater Israel project of taking Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, while defanging Iran and Turkey. Netanyahu convinced Trump it would be a cakewalk, or more likely, threatened Trump with revelations from the Epstein files. The assassination of Charlie Kirk for beginning to reveal the truth about Israeli control of the U.S. government and genocide in Gaza was also a warning shot across Trump’s bow. Now Bibi is declaring Turkey a threat to Israel’s grand plan. If there is a more despicable human being on the planet than Netanyahu, I can’t think of one.

When you are in a $39 trillion hole and already digging $2 trillion deeper on an annual basis, maybe you shouldn’t start a war costing $1 billion per day, with a current price tag of over $100 billion. That doesn’t even scratch the surface of the long-term impact. Experts at Harvard University warn factoring in munitions replenishment, base repairs across the Middle East, and lifetime veterans’ care could push the long-term price tag well past $1 trillion. In addition, the drastic increase in fuel prices, overall inflation, and interest costs will total approximately $135 billion on an annual basis, or $1,000 per household.

According to Trump, it’s a small price to pay for Israel, since they control our president and congress. While you choose between food, fuel or medicine, trying to survive another month, at least Trump, his family of grifters, his billionaire child raping cronies, the Wall Street cabal, and the AIPAC funded multi-millionaires in congress, are doing just fine.

Despite being a bombastic, narcissistic, egomaniacal self-promoter, I can’t believe he was naïve enough to believe the bullshit about Iran being weeks away from attacking Israel with a nuclear weapon. He had already declared Iran’s nuclear facilities obliterated and promised his MAGA minions no new wars. So, it seems inexplicable for him to willingly start World War III, knowing it would reignite inflation and cause tremendous hardship upon the average Americans who voted for him. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is he started this conflagration unwillingly.

After Attorney General Pam Bondi released an initial batch of files in February 2025 showing Trump on flight logs, Trump began dismissing further file requests as a Democratic “hoax” and began stonewalling further releases. But his nemesis Thomas Massie embarrassed him by pushing through the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The pressure from survivor testimonials and bipartisan congressional coercion forced his hand and he signed the bill.

The partial release of heavily redacted files revealed horrific evidence of rape, torture, pedophilia, child sacrifice, trafficking, bribery, and an ultra-rich Epstein class of deviants running this world. Trump’s minions at the DOJ and FBI have since declared this case closed, with no arrests, no naming of any loathsome pedophiles, and most importantly no further Trump revelations.

Since Epstein, who didn’t kill himself, was a Mossad agent, there is a high likelihood any perverted or criminal behavior on the part of Trump throughout his playboy life is documented and captured on film, in the possession of Netanyahu. Trump has spent 2026 raging, pillaging, bombing, and performing on the world stage as a court jester in Netanyahu’s game of thrones. His actions and words grow more desperate and unhinged by the day.

As a Prophet generation leader, along with Putin, Xi, and Netanyahu, he will continue to be a catalyst for setting in motion events which will lead to much bloodshed, chaos, death, financial collapse, and end of the American empire. A toxic mixture of vanity, pomposity, privilege, anger, advanced age, and narcissistic personality disorder, is a bad combination in a world leader capable of blowing up the world. Desperate people do desperate things, and Trump’s recent pronouncements appear desperate.

The linear thinking dupes, who choose to not understand the cyclical nature of history, were lulled into think the MOU signed by Iran and Trump on June 17 would deescalate the war and lead to peace in our time. That is not how Fourth Turnings are resolved. They intensify until all-out war, with millions of deaths, decides the true winners and losers. There are no compromise solutions during a Fourth Turning.

The 14 points in the MOU were essentially the U.S. admitting strategic defeat, which is what has happened. Trump tried to spin it as an American victory, but only his most adoring MAGA NPCs (who probably believed the Q bullshit during his 1st term) believed his lies. The MOU wasn’t worth the paper it was written on, and full-scale war, with the Strait of Hormuz essentially closed, has been raging for the last ten days. Trump has trapped himself in an unwinnable war of attrition, with no accessible escape hatch.

On February 27 the Strait of Hormuz was open, oil was $67 per barrel, all U.S. bases in the Middle East were functional, inflation was trending lower, interest rates were trending lower, the global economy was functioning smoothly, the SPR had 415 million barrels of oil, we hadn’t spent $113 billion we don’t have, and Trump wasn’t Bibi’s bitch, yet.

Today, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, oil is $86 a barrel and heading higher, we’ve drained 110 million barrels of oil from the SPR (lowest level since 1983), every U.S. military base in the Gulf has been damaged or obliterated (tens of billions in damage), inflation hit 4%, the 10 year Treasury at 4.64% is the highest of Trump’s presidency, we continue to spend $1 billion per day on an unwinnable war (with a $1 trillion long-term price tag), the global economy is in shambles, with famine and economic depression now baked into the cake Trump has baked. Iran, with the help of Russia, China, Iraq, Yemen and other allies in the region are accurately targeting U.S. bases and troops, resulting in mass casualties, which Hegseth covers up. Satellite pictures don’t lie, unless the U.S. government coerces satellite companies to not show the truth.

“History offers no guarantees. Obviously, things could go horribly wrong – the possibilities ranging from a nuclear exchange to incurable plagues, from terrorist anarchy to high-tech dictatorship. We should not assume that Providence will always exempt our nation from the irreversible tragedies that have overtaken so many others: not just temporary hardship, but debasement and total ruin. Losing in the next Fourth Turning could mean something incomparably worse. It could mean a lasting defeat from which our national innocence – perhaps even our nation – might never recover.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

I have an uneasy feeling Strauss & Howe’s haunting warning from nearly forty years ago is currently playing out in real time. We are already in the midst of World War III, but the masses are too dumbed down by their government school indoctrination; too distracted by their Igadgets, betting apps, likes & followers on their social media, and going further into debt trying to appear successful; too brainwashed by propaganda; and too apathetic to care, as their country and the world accelerate towards debasement and total ruin.

Propping up this Potemkin empire by sinking $5 billion per day further into debt, while utilizing financial derivatives schemes to elevate the stock market and suppress the oil and gold markets, and initiating an AI surveillance gulag state through the construction of hundreds of surveillance centers and tracking our every movement through their Flock cameras, appears to be a desperate last ditch effort by the Deep State billionaire globalist Agenda 2030 overlords to retain their power, control, and wealth. If it takes World War III and the deaths of billions to achieve their goal, so be it, in their warped world view.

Most people are trapped in their normalcy bias, minimizing the threats steamrolling directly towards them, while delaying the necessary logical steps they should be taking to prepare. I’m reminded of the outbreak of World War II when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, with Great Britain and France declaring war on Germany two days later. Then virtually nothing happened for the next nine months. The people in London, Paris and Berlin acted as if life would go on normally, with no consequences from the declarations of war. People in the U.S. observed this odd European dispute from a distance, still trying to emerge from their Great Depression.

Their normalcy bias was shattered by a blitzkrieg, nightly bombings, Barbarossa, and Pearl Harbor. Over 65 million would die. I believe Matt Bracken’s observations about this being an energy world war, extending from Kiev to Hormuz, with a likelihood of it expanding into Europe, Turkey, and Taiwan, as the three numbskulls running France, Germany, and Britain are willing to go to war against Russia to distract their populace from their decisions to encourage hordes of 3rd world dreck to destroy their countries from within.

The Great Reset Epstein class see World War III as an opportunity, just as they saw the Covid Plandemic as an opportunity to further their new world order plan of depopulation, CBDCs, 15-minute gulags, 24-hour surveillance, and social credit scoring to keep the peasants controlled, subservient, and neutered. Freedom, liberty, and living without restrictions are not in their master plan. Thus far, Putin has acted the most statesmanlike among the Prophet generation world leaders, but with the EU/NATO/Trump increasingly deadly provocations in waging a proxy war on behalf of Zelensky, have pushed him to his limit.

Make no mistake, this proxy war would not be ongoing without U.S. munitions and satellite targeting. Putin is also being pressured by hawks within his country to take more drastic measures against the EU psychopaths in suits trying to destroy Russia. His attacks on Kiev have become more frequent and more deadly. If his NATO enemies push him too far, he may directly attack within the EU, then all hell would break loose.

Trump has increased attacks on Iran infrastructure and is being pushed by his lying neo-con Israeli handlers to nuke an underground mountain fortress where Israel claims Iran is reconstituting their nuclear program. More Israeli lies. If a nuke is utilized, then Russia and China may be forced to actively intervene on Iran’s side.

When someone starts acting as desperate and deranged as Trump has been behaving lately, the citizens of this country, and the world, should be fearful and worried what kind of reckless irrational act an 80-year-old vain egomaniac could make to set in motion worldwide destruction. It’s like the world is at the mercy of a crazed monkey trapped in a room full of dynamite, lighting matches. With a true psychopath like Netanyahu pulling his strings, expect an enormous false flag event to trigger the final phase of this Fourth Turning.

We have already entered this Fourth Turning’s global war, and the average American has no clue. As Thomas Paine declared, this is no time for summer soldiers and sunshine patriots. The apathetic, ignorant, dumbed down masses, who have been propagandized into believing their government and sedated with drugs, toxic foodstuff, and electronic baubles, will be violently shaken from their self-induced stupor, once their comfortable lives are shattered by economic, financial, and social collapse of a tyrannical system designed to enrich the few at the expense of the many.

There are evil men ruling this world. These oligarchal billionaire globalist psychopaths treat you like parasites that must be extinguished for their plans to succeed. They appear to be invincible, but they are few and we are many. As darkness descends upon our world, many trials and tribulations await, as there is no voting our way out of this crisis. It will require force of arms.

“The seasons of time offer no guarantees. For modern societies, no less than for all forms of life, transformative change is discontinuous. For what seems an eternity, history goes nowhere – and then it suddenly flings us forward across some vast chaos that defies any mortal effort to plan our way there. The Fourth Turning will try our souls – and the saecular rhythm tells us that much will depend on how we face up to that trial. The saeculum does not reveal whether the story will have a happy ending, but it does tell us how and when our choices will make a difference.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

King George and his empire seemed invincible in 1776 during the first American Fourth Turning, when Paine compared tyranny to hell. The remainder of this Fourth Turning will try our souls, but our fortitude and courage will matter, along with the choices we make.  Conquering tyranny will be bloody and require good men to do bad things, but will make our triumph glorious, on par with Washington’s victory over the British empire. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

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

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 16:20