Zero Rss

Saudi Aramco Helicopter Crash Kills 14 In Ras Tanura , Cause Unknown

One week after a mysterious explosion - attributed to a "technical incident" - at Qatar's massive Ras Laffan industrial city killed dozens and set back restoration and recovery efforts at the giant LNG production facility by weeks if not months, a helicopter belonging to Saudi ​oil giant Aramco crashed on Sunday ‌in Ras Tanura on Saudi Arabia's eastern coast on the Gulf, west of the Strait of ​Hormuz, killing 14 nationals, the state ​news agency reported, adding that the ⁠cause was unknown.

Aramco had resumed crude oil loadings ​on Friday at its Ras Tanura terminal ​in the Gulf after they were halted for nearly four months.

"The relevant authorities have launched a ​full investigation to determine the cause ​of the crash," the state news agency added.

Aramco did ‌not ⁠respond immediately to an emailed request for comment.

Reuters: Helicopter belonging to Saudi oil giant Aramco, crashed on Sunday in Ras ‌Tanura on Saudi Arabia's eastern coast west of the Strait of Hormuz, ​killing 14 nationals#SaudiArabia #SaudiAramco #BreakingNews #HelicopterCrash #RasTanura #StraitOfHormuz #Aviation #NewsAlert pic.twitter.com/DxHTtsigXt

— VIRAL VOLT (@ViralVolT1) June 28, 2026

The incident took place at 6 a.m. local time (0300 GMT), the state agency ​said, without providing ​further ⁠details.

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, had joined a rush ​to move cargoes after Middle ​East ⁠producers ramped up oil and gas output and exports ahead of an interim deal ⁠to ​halt the war between the ​United States and Iran.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 10:30

Tehran Retaliates Against Bahrain, Kuwait After US Bombing Campaign Along Iranian Coast

Update(2300ET): Earlier the IRGC warned: "If any aggression is repeated, the response will be broader." That broader response has come in the overnight into Sunday hours: Tehran attacks Bahrain, Kuwait after US bombs Iranian coast, Al Jazeera reports:

Air raid sirens blare in Bahrain as Kuwait’s military says its air defenses are responding to "hostile missile and drone threats."

Iranian state media is also confirming the fresh 'retaliation' for limited US airstrikes over the last two days, triggered initially by the Iranians seeking to enforce 'control' of the Strait of Hormuz, by attacking no less than two foreign vessels in as many days.

Latest via the same publication:

• The US has bombed Iran for a second day, hitting the city of Sirik, Bandar-e Lengeh and Qeshm Island, following a drone attack on a commercial vessel near the Strait of Hormuz.
• Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, killing at least one person, a day after signing a framework agreement with the Lebanese government to end hostilities.
• Lebanese President Joseph Aoun asks Trump to help prevent Israeli violations, as Hezbollah rejects the agreement with Israel, describing it as “a surrender of sovereignty”.

Some unconfirmed emerging video showing some of the latest US action along Iran's coast, in a widening tit-for-tat:

US launched a fresh wave of attack against IRGC targets in Iran after Iran attacked Bahrain

A massive explosion struck Shahid Rajaee port in Bandar Abbas, southern Iran, shaking the ground and echoing through nearby towns. pic.twitter.com/RaPdGkVSsi

— IRGC NEWS (@IRGC_IRAN_News) June 28, 2026

Iran is threatening to walk away from the peace deal if the bombings continue: 

The IRGC is saying that the enemy – the United States – should know that violating the ceasefire is against the first clause of the MoU and will lead to a complete halt to the process.

It is clearly warning the United States that if these attacks continue, the MoU and the ongoing negotiations are going to come to a halt.

CENTCOM released footage from its earlier Saturday wave of attacks on Iran:

U.S. Navy and Air Force fighter jets conducted strikes tonight on 10 Iranian military targets at multiple locations in and near the Strait of Hormuz for Iran's drone attack on M/T Kiku. pic.twitter.com/Z0TLZRqmF6

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) June 28, 2026

*  *  *

Update1930ET): The Pentagon has sought to level the score once again, after Iran had attacked a second commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz in under 48 hours on Saturday.

Late in the day, the US military conducted more air strikes against "multiple targets in Iran". According to a fresh CENTCOM statement:

After yesterday’s U.S. strikes in response to the Iranian attack on M/V Ever Lovely, Iran was given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement but elected not to when its forces launched a one-way attack drone that hit M/T Kiku this morning at 4:30 a.m. ET. The Panama-flagged tanker was transiting near the Strait of Hormuz with more than two-million barrels of crude oil.

CENTCOM forces launched strikes today in direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping. U.S. military aircraft targeted Iranian military surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities, and minelayer capabilities.

Commercial vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz continue. U.S. forces remain vigilant, lethal, and ready.

While each side has accused the other of violating the ceasefire, neither has yet shown itself ready to just walk away from the signed US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding - even if commitments are slipping.

*  *  *

A lot of escalation has ensued in the last 48 hours, starting when Thursday Tehran struck a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz, after which by the end of Friday US CENTCOM confirmed a series of fresh attacks on Iranian missile and drone storage sites as well as coastal radar installations, reportedly on Sirik Island located near the Strait of Hormuz.

Referring to Thursday's attack on a vessel off Oman, the Pentagon called it a "powerful response to yesterday’s attack," in the Friday statement. By early Saturday, Iran had re-retaliated and launched a fresh drone attack on Bahrain. Additionally, another ship in the Strait of Hormuz separately came under attack Saturday.

The Ever Lovely, via Marine Traffic

The Associated Press points to the obvious potential US-Iran deal (MoU) unraveling: "The attacks across the Persian Gulf show the danger of the Iran war again spinning out of control, even after Iran and the U.S. reached an interim deal to try and agree on a final accord to end the conflict" - though neither side has as yet indicated they are walking away from the deal at this point.

According to more details from the Saturday developments:

• Bahrain said it was targeted by "a number" of Iranian drones on Saturday, accusing Tehran of "undermining peace efforts" in the region. In a statement, the country's foreign ministry said it expressed "Bahrain’s condemnation in the strongest terms of the targeting of its territory at dawn today," adding that the attacks were a "blatant threat to the security of citizens and residents".
• US Central Command announced that American aircraft had hit Iranian missile and drone storage locations as well as coastal radar sites in response to Iran striking the M/V Ever Lovely ship with a one-way attack drone as it navigated the Strait of Hormuz.
• "The Singapore-flagged cargo ship was exiting the Strait of Hormuz along the Omani coast at the time of Iran’s attack," CENTCOM said, adding that Iranian forces had "clearly violated" the ceasefire agreement.

But it remains that Iran is now firing warning shots at ships that haven't cleared permits to transit the Strait of Hormuz under Iran's own protocol, which highlights that deep divisions remain over each side's interpretation of the terms. The latest via Reuters:

• IRAN WEIGHS WALKING AWAY FROM SWISS TALKS AFTER US STRIKE
• IRAN MAY HALT SWISS TALKS AFTER US STRIKE ON SIRIK

Gulf states have newly condemned "in the strongest terms the treacherous Iranian attacks" on Bahrain, after drones hit the country's territory. The GCC statement further alleged that the Iranians targeted "civilian infrastructure and properties".

Other nations weighed in separately, with for example Kuwait's foreign ministry saying "The continuation of these aggressions, amid regional and international efforts aimed at de-escalation and reducing tensions, represents a dangerous undermining of efforts for peace and stability and a threat to the security and stability of the region," on X.

Amid all the tit-for-tat, Iran's IRGC is blaming the US for breaking it commitments under the signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). A Saturday statement described:

According to Article Five of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, arrangements for monitoring maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz are carried out in coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

However, according to the statement, the United States sought to violate this commitment through various movements and received an appropriate response, and the same will apply in the future. If any aggression is repeated, the response will be broader."

Laden Panama-flagged VLCC KIKU (IMO: 9329796) carrying Qatar Energy oil was struck during outbound transit of the Strait of Hormuz.

This is the second vessel struck by Iran since Thursday after the PGSA reiterated that the SoH is closed to those ships that do not have… pic.twitter.com/tWqPbTswaD

— Martin Kelly (@_MartinKelly_) June 27, 2026

Al Jazeera has meanwhile reported Saturday that that IRGC ‘targets’ US military sites in region after attacks - and so the response could be ongoing.

Independent journalist and pundit Michael Tracey points out sarcastically but aptly that Indefinitely bombing Iran sounds a lot like what you might call "endless war". And so the weekly tit-for-tat escalation might grow more regular until there simply is no more MoU deal to reference back to at all.

Ironically this comes just as Israel, Lebanon, and Israel hailed the signing of a 'trilateral peace framework' in Washington - and as Hezbollah is being pushed out of a political solution in south Lebanon, while the IDF occupation of significant territory remains.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 10:15

Why Are Europeans Leaving Their Own Countries?

While immigration often dominates discussions about Europe’s changing population, another migration trend receives far less attention: many countries are also losing their own native-born citizens.

This visualization, created by DataPulse using Eurostat data via Visual Capitalist, ranks selected European countries by the net migration of native-born residents in 2024. Only Lithuania and Bulgaria recorded net gains, while Germany, Italy, Sweden, and several other major economies saw more locally born citizens leave than return.

The pattern reflects a mix of economic opportunity, housing affordability, demographic change, and labor mobility within Europe, all of which are reshaping where people choose to build their careers and lives.

The Countries Seeing the Biggest Losses

The table below shows net migration of native-born citizens per 1,000 inhabitants across selected European countries.

Lithuania stands out with a positive rate of 2.67 per 1,000 inhabitants, while Bulgaria also records a modest gain. At the opposite end, Luxembourg posted the largest net loss, followed by Belgium, Sweden, Estonia, and Romania.

Notably, several of Europe’s largest economies, including Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, also show negative balances, indicating that more native-born residents are leaving than returning.

Why Are Native Europeans Leaving?

For many workers, especially younger and highly educated professionals, migration is driven by the search for better wages, stronger career prospects, and improved quality of life. Countries in Eastern and Southern Europe have long experienced outward migration toward larger labor markets in Western Europe.

At the same time, rising housing costs, labor shortages, and demographic pressures are encouraging some workers to look beyond their home countries. Similar dynamics can be seen globally, where migration increasingly plays a role in population growth and workforce sustainability.

A Growing Demographic Challenge

Population researchers increasingly warn that migration alone cannot fully offset Europe’s broader demographic headwinds. Fertility rates remain below replacement levels across much of the continent, while populations continue to age.

When highly skilled workers leave and do not return, the effects can extend beyond population figures. Regions may face slower economic growth, labor shortages, and reduced innovation capacity. As Europe navigates demographic decline, retaining talent may become just as important as attracting newcomers.

Migration patterns continue to reshape economies and societies around the world. Explore Visualizing the World’s Busiest Migration Corridors on the Voronoi app to see how people move between countries at a global scale.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 09:55

IPO Market For AI Freezes Up While The Nuclear SPAC Market Runs Hot 

While it looks like OpenAI's IPO has been put on ice as they try to paint SpaceX as the scapegoat, there's still one sector that simply can't launch the IPOs and SPACs fast enough. 

After an announcement earlier this year that saw nuclear industrial company Holtec file privately for an IPO, one of the leading reactor developers X-energy debuted on the public market at an almost $10 billion valuation.

Since then, microreactor developer Hadron Energy has completed their SPAC merger and has subsequently been digging itself deeper into a hole every passing day…

There's now another reactor developer, NuCube, finding its way to the public market through a SPAC merger. This follows a similar announcement from European reactor developer newcleo that we detailed last month.

The company is joining a rapidly growing pool of startups looking to capitalize on the national energy security theme, with the added bonus of the AI revolution demanding a nuclear renaissance. Adding NuCube to the list, the number of public reactor development companies has now reached double digits:

• SMR - NuScale Power
• OKLO - Oklo Inc
• NNE - NANO Nuclear Energy 
• IMSR - Terrestrial Energy
• NKLR - Terra Innovatum
• HDRN - Hadron Energy
• XE - X-energy
• FISN - Deep Fission
• NHIC (NWCL) - Newcleo
• LPBB (tbd) - NuCube Energy

In the press release, the company highlights their current relationship with Halliburton as cause for differentiation from other reactor developers still working on their supply chain. Outside of recent acceptance for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad program, the company doesn't appear to have any MOUs or LOIs lined up with potential off-takers. 

The reactor design is unique, but shares similarities with designs from Westinghouse and Antares. Their “solid-state microreactors” are not designed to utilize traditional coolants or pumps, but instead will rely on advanced heat wicking methods similar to what's used in electronics. 

With respect to historical precedence, this type of reactor design has some of the least operational experience in the nuclear industry's history. 

Some of the nuclear names have found themselves trading well above their entry price from going public, including Oklo and NANO Nuclear. But some of the other names have fared far more miserably…
 

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 08:45

Even Einstein Admitted He Was Wrong... We Apparently Can't Expect As Much From Al Gore

Authored by Gary Abernathy via The Empowerment Alliance,

When it comes to scientific theories, even some of history's most respected and renowned people and institutions have graciously admitted when they were wrong when confronted with irrefutable evidence.

It took 359 years, but eventually the Catholic Church conceded in 1992 that the church was wrong and Galileo Galilei was right - the Earth revolves around the sun.

Throughout the 18th century, chemists widely believed that a substance called phlogiston was released when materials were burned. But when Antoine Lavoisier demonstrated that many metals often became heavier when burned - the opposite of the phlogiston theory - his contemporaries humbly admitted their error and praised his experiments.

And when scientists, including Edwin Hubble in 1929, demonstrated that the universe is expanding rather than remaining static, as Albert Einstein had theorized, even the revered Einstein readily admitted he was wrong, calling it "my biggest blunder."

Twenty years ago, in 2006, former Vice President Al Gore released his film, "An Inconvenient Truth," which included ominous and even hysterical warnings about a coming climate apocalypse if mankind did not dramatically change its ways. In the two decades since its release, the film's most dire warnings have proven to be inaccurate.

Examining Gore's film on the anniversary of its release, several writers have pointed out its most glaring errors. For instance, writing for Newsweek, Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus, notes several calamitous predictions in the film that time has proven wrong: deaths from climate-related disasters have actually plummeted; hurricane frequency and intensity have declined; globally, areas burned by wildfires have decreased over the past quarter century; and the supposedly endangered polar bear population - a memorable visual from the Gore film - has more than doubled from the 1960s to today.

"Gore's apocalyptic climate predictions have aged poorly," Lomborg concludes.

Over the years, countless critics have pointed out the errors both in Gore's film and in his ensuing personal crusade as, like Don Quixote, he continues tilting at windmills (while ironically advocating for their proliferation).

Faced with the overwhelming preponderance of evidence refuting his original hypotheses, one might assume that Gore - like the Catholic Church, the chemists of the 18 th century, and even the great Albert Einstein - would humbly concede his mistakes.

One would be wrong.

In a recent interview marking the anniversary of "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore found an uncritical partner in the form of ABC News meteorologist Ginger Zee, who couldn't have presented the former vice president in a more heartwarming light if she had somehow commissioned the late Norman Rockwell to paint his portrait.

Despite the obvious numerous mistakes and shortcomings in his film, Gore insisted that he and the scientists he relied upon have been right all along - while simultaneously demonstrating that his penchant for hyperbole remains unabated.

"The scientists were dead right on all the important elements of it," Gore insisted, adding that "it really is insane that we are continuing to use the sky as an open sewer and we're trapping so much heat every day it's equal to the amount that would be released by 800,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every day on the earth."

Huh? Would you repeat that please?

It's "equal to the amount that would be released by 800,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every day on the earth."

Thanks.

It is little wonder that Gore finds himself so easily mocked. Gore's atomic bomb analogy originated from climate alarmists who have been using it for years, adding a few hundred thousand to the estimate of bombs every so often.

But for anyone remotely familiar with history, the claim conjures images of people dropping like flies every day because of global warming, since the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 instantly killed more than 100,000 people. Such over-the-top depictions are why so many find it so hard to take seriously the kind of climate change threats that come from the radical left.

Unfortunately for the average citizen - both in the U.S. and worldwide - the far-left (formerly mainstream) media's enthusiasm for propping up Gore and the climate craze have real-world consequences. Despite mountains of conflicting evidence, the media provides cover for leftwing government types who, when in power, throw billions of dollars toward scientifically unsupported efforts to replace our most affordable and reliable energy resources with defective "alternatives" made feasible only because of taxpayer subsidies.

That's why Americans deserve the Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security Act either passed into law by Congress, put into effect by presidential executive order, or at the very least embedded into policy by agency rule. While some states are enacting their own versions of ARC-ES, U.S. citizens from coast to coast deserve to be protected from the whims of the climate cult and their self-styled prophets.

We apparently can't expect Al Gore to show the class of Albert Einstein and admit he was wrong. But it's entirely realistic to expect our government to protect us from ever again implementing energy policies based on his mistakes. Doing so has already cost us far too much.

Gary Abernathy is a longtime newspaper editor, reporter and columnist. He was a contributing columnist for the Washington Post from 2017-2023 and a frequent guest analyst across numerous media platforms. He is a contributing opinion columnist for The Empowerment Alliance, which advocates for realistic approaches to energy consumption and environmental conservation.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 08:10

These Are The Car Brands With The Fewest Problems In 2026

Drivers reported more vehicle problems this year than ever before, but some automakers continue to stand out for reliability.

This graphic, created by Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, ranks the car brands with the fewest reported problems in 2026 based on J.D. Power’s Problems Per 100 Vehicles (PP100) metric. Lower scores indicate fewer owner-reported issues and better long-term dependability.

The data comes from the J.D. Power 2026 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study, which measures problems experienced by original owners of three-year-old vehicles.

While Lexus once again topped the rankings, the broader industry moved in the opposite direction. Owners reported a record 204 problems per 100 vehicles on average, driven largely by infotainment, smartphone connectivity, and software-related issues.

Lexus Extends Its Reliability Lead

Lexus ranked first for the fourth consecutive year, recording just 151 problems per 100 vehicles.

Buick placed second at 160 PP100, while MINI rounded out the top three with 168.

Several Japanese automakers performed well throughout the rankings.

Subaru, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and Mazda all finished above the industry average, reinforcing Japan’s long-standing reputation for dependable vehicle manufacturing.

Luxury brands also demonstrated strong reliability. Cadillac, Porsche, BMW, and Genesis all ranked in the upper half of the study.

Software Problems Are Becoming the Biggest Headache

Although mechanical reliability has improved in many areas, technology-related issues continue to worsen.

J.D. Power found that infotainment systems were the most problematic of the nine categories measured, making software a larger concern than traditional mechanical components.

Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity problems remained the industry’s single most-reported issue for a third consecutive year.

Powertrain Differences Continue to Emerge

The study also highlighted significant differences between vehicle powertrains.

Plug-in hybrid vehicles were the least dependable category, recording 281 problems per 100 vehicles, a sharp increase from the previous year.

By contrast, gasoline-powered vehicles were the only powertrain type to show improvement, averaging 198 PP100.

At the bottom of the rankings, Volkswagen, Volvo, and Land Rover recorded the highest problem rates. Volkswagen posted 301 PP100.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out One in Four Cars Sold in 2025 Was Electric on Voronoi.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 07:35

UK Parents Face Five-Year Jail Terms For Questioning Their Child's Gender 'Transition'

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

While schools have been given the green light to socially transition four-year-olds and exam boards slip pro-trans propaganda into Spanish GCSE materials, the government has published a draft bill that threatens parents, teachers and doctors with up to five years in prison for so-called conversion practices.

The new legislation, unveiled by Equalities Minister Olivia Bailey, targets efforts to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.

Penalties include unlimited fines, five-year prison sentences, or both. The government frames it as protection against abuse, citing reports of beatings, rape, threats, manipulation and even exorcisms.

Parents, teachers and doctors risk up to five years in jail if they try to talk their children out of irreversible trans treatments under a "dangerous" new law, campaigners have warned. https://t.co/ENCm6forXg

— Toby Young (@toadmeister) June 25, 2026

Bailey stated: "Conversion practices are driven by the false belief that being LGBT+ is shameful and can be forcibly changed. No-one should face abuse just because of who they are. That's why we are delivering on our manifesto commitment to ban abusive conversion practices. Legal loopholes have left LGBT+ people vulnerable to these harmful acts which is why we must legislate."

?Unbelievable! British Parliament is currently drafting a bill that would criminalize any parents interfering in the gender transitioning of their own child.

The bill would make the offense punishable with fines and up to 5 years in prison.

The bill includes the key quote... pic.twitter.com/SSlONX3gpd

— Don Keith (@RealDonKeith) June 26, 2026

Critics warn the wording is dangerously vague. Normal parental concern, exploratory conversations, or even citing the weak evidence base for youth transitions could be twisted into criminal "conversion practices."

WARNING UK ??

The UK Government has brought in new laws for child gender transition ?

Parents that deny transgenderism, tell their child that they do not have a transgender identity or try to stop their child from transitioning gender could face 5 years jail in the UK.

So,... pic.twitter.com/bRCB3ED1Og

— Lozzy B ??? (@TruthFairy131) June 26, 2026

Recent approval of an NHS puberty blocker trial for children under 16 has only heightened fears that the bill arrives amid a broader push to lock in affirmation-only approaches.

9,000 children were treated by GIDS. NHS Gender Clinics have consistently refused to provide data about their outcomes.

On @GBNEWS asking why we're starting yet another puberty blocker trial, with no information about what happened to previous children on the drugs? pic.twitter.com/dQSc2b5tcY

— Lara Brown (@lara_e_brown) June 25, 2026

Official guidance for schools makes clear that primary-age children, including those as young as four, can socially transition at school by changing pronouns and names.

The document claims such steps "should happen very rarely" and that parents should be involved in the "vast majority" of cases. In practice, campaigners say activist influence on teachers has already created a culture where affirmation is the default and caution is suspect.

Helen Joyce of Sex Matters described schools as having "indoctrinated children" for a decade under pressure from groups like Stonewall and Mermaids. She said the government "has started a de-radicalisation programme but we actually need to de-radicalise a whole generation of teachers" and that "only total clarity will stop it."

Maya Forstater, chief executive of Sex Matters, called the notion that a child can start school as a girl and graduate as a boy "a dangerous fairytale." This guidance persists even after the Cass Review found the evidence for puberty blockers and medical pathways "remarkably weak" and led to restrictions on routine use for under-18s.

In a related revelation, campaigners have exposed how Pearson's GCSE Spanish revision guide inserts pro-trans messaging into language learning.

Students are taught phrases expressing that they "follow/admire" someone who "fights/fought" for transgender causes, turning vocabulary exercises into vehicles for ideological approval.

Pro-trans messaging shoehorned into GCSE Spanish lessons.

Gift token https://t.co/bs4oRuirLL

— ? ? Dr Lesley (Ancient Dyke) Semmens KPSS ? (@LesleySemmens) June 27, 2026

The exam board's own specification adds vocabulary for "trans" and "non-binary," instructs assessors to recognise gender-neutral pronouns and invented adjectival endings, and effectively rewards ideological conformity in speaking and writing tasks.

Parents and campaigners argue this is not language education. It is political indoctrination delivered through compulsory schooling, normalising contested ideas about identity while children are still mastering basic grammar.

As we have previously highlighted, more than 650 families represented by the Bayswater Support Group have complained to Ofcom about the BBC's systematic promotion of transgender ideology in children's output over nearly a decade.

Shows aimed at pre-schoolers and primary ages have featured non-binary characters, storylines presenting young children as transgender based on stereotypical play, and uncritical portrayals of medical transition.

A Bayswater Support Group spokesman said: "For the past decade, the constant stream of propaganda about gender and trans activism the BBC has transmitted has played a significant role in creating a dangerous culture for children. Specifically, non-conforming children who have been led to believe simplistic identity labels and extreme medical interventions can resolve complex feelings of adolescent and neurodevelopmental distress. The end result of this is a generation of teens and young adults who have come to severe harm, frequently self-diagnosed and self-medicated, estranged from families."

The group accused the BBC of breaching Ofcom rules on impartiality, accuracy and child protection, and of smearing concerned parents rather than examining its own output.

Meanwhile, children's poet and author Rachel Rooney saw her career destroyed after publishing My Body is Me!, a short book encouraging young children to accept their natural bodies. Trans activists branded it "terrorist propaganda" and "transphobic." She faced death threats, professional blacklisting, publisher distancing and event cancellations.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Rooney said: "This is the book that ended my career." She added: "You can't tell a child their body is wonderful while also encouraging them to believe they are the opposite sex. It's not rocket science." Rooney noted she expected activist attacks but was shocked by the response from industry colleagues who suddenly blocked her or apologised internally for her views. She has since announced she has given up writing children's books.

Her experience illustrates the chilling effect on anyone who states the obvious: no child can change sex.

In April 2025 the UK Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the terms "woman" and "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological women and biological sex. Delivering the judgment, Lord Hodge stated: "The terms 'woman' and 'sex' refer to a biological woman and biological sex in the Equality Act 2010."

The case, brought by For Women Scotland, clarified that individuals holding Gender Recognition Certificates are not legally women for the purposes of single-sex protections, quotas or spaces. J.K. Rowling praised the "three extraordinary, tenacious Scottish women" who secured the victory, noting they had "protected the rights of women and girls across the UK."

That clear legal affirmation of biological reality has not slowed the institutional drive to embed gender ideology in schools, media, exam materials and now criminal law.

The through-line is unmistakable. While evidence of harm from social and medical transition of minors mounts, while the highest court has reaffirmed biological sex, and while ordinary parents simply want to protect their children from experimental pathways, the state is preparing to criminalise resistance. Exploratory talk or even polite disagreement risks being recast as abuse punishable by years behind bars.

Parents have the primary duty and right to safeguard their children's bodies and minds. Biology is not bigotry. Dissent is not conversion therapy. The government's approach inverts reality: it threatens jail for those defending children while actively enabling the spread of contested ideology to the youngest ages. That is not protection. It is state-backed ideological enforcement.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2026 - 07:00

The Shooting In The Strait Ain't Over, But...

Authored by Larry Johnson via Sonar21.com

A little over a week since the US and Iran signed the MoU, some ships that had been trapped in the Persian rushed to travel through the corridor, with many trying to use an alternative route on the southern side of the Strait along the Omani coast. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) had coordinated this alternative routing with Oman - hugging the UAE and Musandam Peninsula coastline, avoiding the central passage that Iran had mined. This route was significant because it bypassed Iran’s designated corridor entirely, which ran closer to Iranian territorial waters.

However, Iran and Oman agreed on a new framework (joint working group) for the future administration of the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, June 24, 2026. The two countries agreed to establish a joint working group between their foreign ministries to discuss:

• Future navigation rules and administration of the strait.
• Services provided (e.g., safety, pilotage).
• Associated costs (in accordance with international standards).

Both emphasized their sovereignty over their territorial waters in the strait.

The naval arm of the Revolutionary Guard issued a warning Thursday against using the new route. In a statement carried by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, naval officials said the route was established without notice or coordination with Iran, calling it “unacceptable and completely dangerous.” According to the IRGC:

The only authorized route for passing through the Strait of Hormuz is the one declared by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Vessel traffic outside these routes is extremely dangerous and prohibited. Violators will be dealt with.”

The day before, the Guard had threatened one tanker over the radio, with a soldier warning “You are in range of my missiles and maybe (I) fire on you,” according to the private security firm Ambrey.

Iranian military, file image

On Thursday the Ever Lovely, a Singapore-flagged ship operating in the fleet of Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine, attempted to transit the strait using a narrow channel near the coast of Oman in accordance with a route organized by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) security monitor. The Ever Lovely was struck by a drone belonging to Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran allegedly shot at least four drones at ships traveling through the Strait on Thursday. One of those hit the upper deck of the Ever Lovely.

On Friday, the US attacked Iran in ‘response’ to strikes on the commercial vessel in Strait of Hormuz a day earlier:

Iran’s IRIB reported that an explosion was heard at 11:15 pm at the Taheroui pier in Sirik. A military source said the blasts were caused by a projectile hitting the pier area, adding that around five hours earlier, several warning shots had been fired from Sirik toward violating vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Reports also indicated that two warning missiles were fired earlier from around Karpan toward the strait.

US Central Command said its forces carried out strikes against Iran on 26 June in response to Iran’s attack the previous day on the Singapore-flagged cargo ship M/V Ever Lovely as it exited the Strait of Hormuz along the Omani coast. CENTCOM said US aircraft targeted Iranian missile and drone storage sites and coastal radar positions after the vessel was hit by a one-way attack drone.

Although CENTCOM presented this as a powerful strike on Iran, and the US media trumpeted it as an act of major retaliation, the US response inflicted little damage and could reasonably be interpreted as a symbolic gesture rather than a punishing attack.

The IRGC Public Relations department issued the following statement:

Following the Israeli regime’s violation of the ceasefire in southern Lebanon, the treaty-breaking US regime also violated its commitments once again. Under various pretexts, including the transit of a vessel accused of navigating through an unauthorized route in the Strait of Hormuz, the US launched an airstrike against the coasts of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In response to this aggression, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy struck positions where the US terrorist military is stationed in the region. Under Article 5 of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, responsibility for regulating navigation through the Strait of Hormuz rests with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

However, the United States sought to violate this commitment by encouraging various parties to defy it. It received the necessary response, and the same will apply in the future. If the aggression is repeated, Iran’s response will be broader than this.

Instead of marking a return to war, this exchange of fire can best be categorize as military political theater. I believe that Iran, thanks to intel from the Russians or the Chinese, has learned that the US has issued orders that will initiate the return to CONUS of the aircraft, vehicles and troops that had been deployed to the region in preparation for the February 28 attack. Because of the limited damage inflicted by the US attack, I believe that Iran chose to respond in a limited fashion rather than escalate and run the risk of the US cancelling the redeployment order.

For now, Iran remains in control of the Strait of Hormuz and ships wanting to transit the Strait are adhering to Iran's new policy.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 23:20

Young Americans Expect To Buy A Home Later In Life (Or Not At All)

For decades, homeownership has been a key milestone of adulthood in the United States.

In recent years, however, the middle-class ideal of homeownership and suburban comfort, once an embodiment of the American Dream, has gotten out of reach for many families, as elevated home prices, high mortgage rates and a period of stagnant real wages have left many families unable to even consider it.

As Statista's Felix Richter shows below, only 25 percent of non-homeowners expect to buy a house in the next five years, according to Gallup – the lowest share since the question was first asked in 2013.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Among those aged 18 to 34, a key group of prospective buyers, intentions have also fallen sharply.

The share expecting to buy in the next five years dropped from 57 percent in 2013/2015 to 29 percent in 2025/2026.

At the same time, the share of non-owners who don’t see themselves buying a home in the foreseeable future has increased from 13 to 30 percent.

The rest expects to wait longer before buying a home, either to build up savings for a down payment or in hopes that prices and mortgage rates will come down from their current levels.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 22:45

Beijing's Trojan Horse Rolls Into Canada: National Security Expert Warns Carney's Chinese EV Deals Embeds Sabotage Risk

Submitted by The Bureau's Sam Cooper (emphasis our own), 

China keeps finding inventive ways to burrow into the West, and Canada's new appetite for Chinese electric vehicles may be the most consequential opening yet.

That is the warning at the center of a report published this week by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and written by Brenda Shaffer, an energy and national-security specialist who teaches at the United States Naval Postgraduate School.

China, she writes, "continues to find creative ways to infiltrate and influence the West," embedding in its exports the capacity to surveil citizens, disrupt transportation and ports, and trigger blackouts and grid damage.

Shaffer situates the electric-vehicle question inside a wider argument about hybrid warfare. China, Russia and Iran, she notes, have each written attacks on Western domestic energy infrastructure into their war doctrines, erasing the old line between the home front and the battlefield. Even brief disruptions to electricity or transit, she argues, could spread public panic and erode support for a distant conflict — the defense of Taiwan being the obvious test.

The cars began arriving in June, the product of a strategic partnership Prime Minister Mark Carney signed in Beijing in January. Ottawa cut its tariff on Chinese electric vehicles from 100 percent to 6.1 percent, opening an initial quota of roughly 49,000 vehicles in the first year. Carney has cast the imports as a low-cost route for Canadians switching to electric, and analysts cited by Shaffer expect Chinese brands to capture a fifth of the Canadian market.

Shaffer leans on an internal Public Safety Canada memo, obtained under access-to-information law, warning that opening the market to "high-risk vendors" invites connected cars that "collect significant amounts of data on Canadians, which can have intelligence value." Her account of the official response is withering. Asked how Canada would protect drivers, the chief of the defense staff, General Jennie Carignan, told reporters only that "we don't have a lot of Chinese vehicles so far," and Defense Minister David McGuinty said he would raise the question with base commanders.

The danger, in her telling, runs well past cars.

A congressional probe found hidden communications equipment inside Chinese-made cranes at major American ports; the same cranes are common in Canadian harbors, where Transport Canada began assessing the risk in 2023. More worrying still are solar power inverters — the devices that feed renewable energy into the grid — of which China supplies about 70 percent worldwide. American investigators have identified undeclared communication components inside some Chinese inverters that experts warn could be used to switch them off remotely and destabilize power grids.

Lithuania has banned Chinese inverters outright and the European Union has moved to bar them from public funding, while Canada, Shaffer writes, has imposed no comparable limits — even as the January partnership commits Ottawa and Beijing to deepen cooperation on solar, wind and battery storage.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's auto policy would prohibit Chinese-made vehicles from proximity to Canadian Forces bases and other sensitive or strategic infrastructure.

In Washington, where opposition to Chinese electric vehicles is one of the few genuinely bipartisan positions, President Donald Trump has called the deal a disaster for Canada, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Canada would live to regret it, and the U.S. ambassador, Peter Hoekstra, vowed the cars would never reach American roads: "We're not going to open the floodgates to have Chinese cars coming into the US from Canada."

Shaffer's alarm is echoed, from a different vantage, by Michael Kovrig, the former Canadian diplomat held in China for more than 1,000 days. In testimony to Parliament this spring, Kovrig described the deal as a "trifecta of risks" — structural dependence, unfair competition that erodes industrial capacity, and systemic pressure on government policy — and warned that the People's Republic "weaponizes technology, supply chains and market access" to force acquiescence to its agenda.

Commenting this week on his own testimony, Kovrig wrote on social media that opening Canada's market to Chinese electric vehicles "should be assessed not as a normal trade agreement, but as a tactical gamble that risks deep entanglement." The Chinese Communist Party, he wrote, "pours enormous resources into the sector to build scale and sustain overcapacity." He went on: "The pattern is to flood, consolidate and weaponize. We've seen China do this before with solar panels, steel, ships and drones, and EVs are now moving through the same stages in global markets."

The warnings have not slowed Carney's government, which is pressing ahead at full speed. Industry Minister Mélanie Joly spent much of last week in China, courting BYD, Chery, Geely and Shanghai Launch Automotive Technology to build electric vehicles on Canadian soil, and confirmed that the import quota will keep climbing — rising by 6.5 percent a year from 49,000 vehicles in 2026 to roughly 67,000 annually by 2031. Carney, caught on a hot microphone with Trump at the Group of Seven summit in France, defended the arrangement as "less than 3 per cent of our market, 49,000 cars," telling the president, "It's a cap, we capped, a hard line."

Beijing is pleased.

Geely Holding Group's Lotus-brand electric vehicles will reach Canada next month — the first such models sold under the 49,000-vehicle quota — China's ambassador to Canada, Wang Di, told Reuters on Friday. The cars would arrive, he said, "and they will be holding a ceremony when the cars are delivered in Montreal," a milestone in the trade pivot Carney has pursued to move Canada away from dependence on the United States.

On June 26, the Chinese Communist Party's state-run China Daily approvingly reported Canada's pledge to lift its exports to China by 50 percent by 2030. At a Canada Day reception at the Canadian embassy in Beijing, the mission's chargé d'affaires, Mark Richardson, called Canada "a stable, reliable partner — a partner that builds and values relationships for the long term," adding, "That includes with China." Of Carney's January visit, he said: "To say this has been a significant year for Canada–China relations would be an understatement. In many ways, it has been a turning point."

He noted that Canada had become a major energy exporter to China and observed that "the first shipment of Chinese-made electric vehicles has arrived in Canada under a new quota that was agreed in January."

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 22:10

Newsom Scrubs '$100 Million' Slippery Slope From National 'Billionaire Tax' Pitch - And He's Coming After Inheritance Too

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday called for a national tax on billionaires. Except, in the original version, it was anyone with a net worth of at least $100 million - as quoted by multiple outlets, citing a post from Newsom's Substack account. 

As originally reported by Politico:

His plan to address the country’s yawning wealth gap includes “a true minimum tax on billionaires and those with a net worth of $100 million” and creating a national public equity fund to give all Americans a stake in the economic gains created by artificial intelligence companies. 

The post now reads:

"So here is what I support: A national billionaires’ tax. A true minimum tax on billionaires — a modern Buffett Rule — that ensures the people at the very top pay at least the tax rate their own workers pay."

Bitch please. 

Newsom also wants to tax inheritance - writing "We also need to rewrite our inheritance rules. Over the next twenty years, this country will live through the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in human history, with roughly $124 trillion changing hands. If we do not act, that transfer of wealth among the ultra-wealthy will lock in a permanent American aristocracy of inherited wealth, with all the political consequences the founders warned us about."

Notice he cites the massive wealth transfer, but not the level of inheritance he's targeting - as most slippery slopes begin.

Newsom's proposals come after he failed to stop California's legislation from with placing a state-level wealth tax on the November ballot. 

Newsom’s proposal follows a failed attempt by the governor, billionaires and progressive groups of persuading the union behind the California tax, SEIU-UHW, to withdraw the measure before Thursday evening’s deadline. Newsom had even privately expressed assurances about an agreement, telling a wealthy donor he expected to negotiate the measure off the ballot, Bloomberg News previously reported. -Bloomberg

"For Newsom, it’s the worst of all worlds, because it puts him squarely in the middle of a national Democratic debate about equity, taxation and affordability," said Steven Maviglio, a veteran Democratic strategist in the state. "His announcement might deflect from that a bit."

Newsom also suggests creating a public equity (slush) fund that would 'take a stake in the artificial intelligence economy.'

Anti-Billionaire-Tax-Billionaires

Shockingly, California's billionaires aren't exactly excited about all this tax malarkey. In fact, while the anti-tax coalition has been most prominently linked to billionaire Sergey Brin (who's funding other ballot measures that could nullify a wealth tax), Planned Parenthood of California and several labor unions are weirdly also against taxing billionaires - arguing that the proceeds from the tax would benefit select groups, while potentially damaging the entire state's budget because wealthy residents will flee. 

Even they know it's just a slush fund. 

"We are ready to defeat this convoluted nightmare of a measure in November," a spokesperson for Golden State Promise, a group backed by billionaire Chris Larsen, told Bloomberg, while a different coalition linked to doctors and school boards called California's proposal a threat to "vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects."

Either way, Democrats continue to actively scheme for ways to extract more money from capitalists. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 21:35

DOJ Asks Supreme Court To Approve No-Bond Immigration Detention Policy

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to approve its policy of detaining illegal immigrants who have been in the country for years without releasing them on bond.

D. John Sauer, then the U.S. solicitor general nominee, testifies during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Feb. 26, 2025. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The petition in Raycraft v. Lopez-Campos was docketed on June 24, but at time of publication did not appear on the court's website because of a sensitive-filings rule. The court's public information office provided The Epoch Times with a copy of the filed petition on June 26.

Adopted last year, the policy represents a change from how previous administrations interpreted a specific provision of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). It also led to a flood of lawsuits from immigrants challenging detention.

Legal experts previously told The Epoch Times they expected that the justices would at some point intervene after several appeals courts issued conflicting interpretations of the law's detention provisions.

Three federal courts of appeals have rejected the policy, while two have upheld it. The result has been uneven enforcement across the country, raising questions about how millions of illegal immigrants would be detained.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which amended the INA, required detention without bond for illegal immigrants seeking entry into the country.

The provision at issue, Section 1225 of the INA, says individuals seeking admission "shall be detained" if an immigration officer determines they are "not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted."

In President Donald Trump's second administration, the government said this detention mandate applied to individuals who had already entered the United States. Multiple illegal immigrants have argued that portion of the INA didn't apply to them because they were already in the country and therefore no longer seeking admission or undergoing a formal admissions process.

Instead, they said another provision of the INA - Section 1226 - applied and allowed them to receive bond hearings.

Trump's interpretation introduced a dramatic change in federal policy, David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, previously told The Epoch Times.

The position that illegal immigrants apprehended in the interior of the United States may be held without bond "has not been the policy of any prior administration, including the first Trump administration," Super said.

The policy is part of the administration's broader immigration strategy, which includes ending so-called catch-and-release efforts, or releasing migrants as they await hearings after being apprehended at the border.

In the new petition, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer states that the case is about "eleven aliens who entered the United States illegally and are now present in the country without having been admitted."

The respondents, who were apprehended between June and September 2025, were put into removal proceedings and charged with being inadmissible and being present in the United States without being admitted or paroled. To be paroled is to be allowed into the country subject to a later decision on immigration status.

Several of the respondents were also charged with not possessing valid immigration documents.

Sauer said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ruled that the respondents should be detained under Section 1225 for the duration of their removal proceedings. Several respondents asked for bond hearings before an immigration judge. The immigration judges eventually found that Section 1225 deprived them of authority to grant bond.

The respondents filed habeas petitions with federal district courts in Michigan seeking release. All the release requests were granted. In three of the four cases, the district court also found that detaining respondents without conducting a bond hearing violated their due process rights.

Sauer said the government released the respondents without holding a bond hearing and appealed to a panel of the Cincinnati, Ohio-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In a divided opinion, the appeals court affirmed.

The panel found Section 1225 does not apply to noncitizens already present in the country because they are not "seeking admission." The panel also determined that the detention of the respondents without bond hearings violated their due process rights.

Sauer urged the Supreme Court to accept the government's appeal.

The legal question is "whether aliens present in the United States after an illegal entry must be detained while their removal proceedings unfold.

"The correct answer is yes: 8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(2)(A) mandates detention for such aliens pending their removal proceedings, and there is no due-process problem with that result," he said.

The Sixth Circuit's holdings are "incorrect," he said, and given the 3-2 split among appeals courts, there is now "an unworkable patchwork of inconsistent immigration enforcement, where aliens present without admission are subject to mandatory detention in some circuits but are entitled to bond hearings and often released in others."

"Immigration enforcement should not depend on geographical happenstance," he said.

It is unclear when the Supreme Court will take up the petition.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 21:00

Military Depoliticization, Hegseth, And DEI

Authored by 'Cynical Publius' via American Greatness,

As I read and hear the usual cavalcade of woke, retired Democrat generals and admirals like McRaven, McCaffrey, Franken, and others falsely claiming that Pete Hegseth is “politicizing” the senior ranks of the U.S. military, inside my head, I am screaming in rage at the impunity with which they spread this pernicious and wholly inaccurate falsehood.

Hegseth is doing EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE as he depoliticizes our military’s ranks by eradicating the very most political doctrine to ever infect the U.S. military since the U.S. Civil War: so-called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” or “DEI.”

DEI is an expression of Marxism by way of the Frankfurt School. Instead of building Marxist systems based on economic class, the Frankfurt School’s teachings build systems based on grievance classes. Known also as “critical theory,” DEI espouses the concept that there is no such thing as objective truth, that all truth is instead subjective, and that such truth is subjectively decided by whoever is in power at the moment.

This philosophy is in stark contrast to the Constitution, which stands on the shoulders of natural law—the idea that profound truth is objective, ordained by God, and that all men are created equal, with certain unalienable rights.

DEI instead claims that there is an inherent imbalance in society driven by race, ethnicity, religion, sex, and sexual preference. Since “truth” is what you make of it via power, DEI uses force and power to strip individuals of autonomy and individuality in favor of their skin color or what is between their legs. DEI is a form of Marxism, and it is the ultimate expression of bigotry in modern society.

(By the way, given the manner in which DEI seeks to destroy the natural law principles underpinning the Constitution, it effectively sits in defiance of the sacred oath of U.S. service members to “support and defend the Constitution.”)

The U.S. military long had rudimentary forms of DEI in its promotion systems, with promotion board results constantly reworked to reflect the “correct” racial and gender balances. However, with the advent of DEI as a more formal, society-altering structure, under the Obama and Biden administrations, the wholly political DEI doctrine was massively forced on the military like a dog shoved into a car on its way to the veterinarian’s office for neutering.

White service members were told they are inherently evil based solely on their skin color. Combat arms professions were opened to women who, on average, were manifestly physically unqualified to perform required duties. Pressure mounted for 18-year-old females in the barracks to be forced to live with biological men play-acting as women. “Pride” celebrations were rampant. Racist DEI books became mandatory professional reading for officers and senior NCOs. The United States Air Force decided skin color was the basis for being an Air Force officer.

It went so far that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (“CJCS”), Mark Milley, said before Congress, “I want to understand white rage. And I’m white. And I want to understand it.” In doing so, he racially slandered every white troop under his command (yes, I know CJCS is not a command position, but you get my drift), and the political Left and the other woke generals rejoiced.

Where we once only saw red, white, and blue and the color of our uniforms, suddenly, the only color we were allowed to see was the color of human skin.

In the field and afloat, white male commanders learned to be very circumspect in disciplining wayward black, female, or gay troops, because it was just too easy to be labeled a “racist” or a “misogynist” or a “homophobe” in career-ending fashion.

Good order and discipline broke down.

Combat effectiveness declined as a result.

All thanks to politics—the politics of DEI.

And the retired admirals and generals you hear moaning today to Goebbelsesque propaganda rags like The Atlantic? Not only did they not object, they embraced it because that is how these wholly political officers were able to advance. Now that Pete Hegseth is purging our hallowed military halls of the diseased, racist, misandrist, bigoted, hate-mongering, Christophobic, intolerant, diversity-destroying, inequitable, exclusionary, expressly political doctrines of DEI, these political animals are OUTRAGED. They see their Brutalist, Marxist spiritual edifice in tatters, and they don’t much like it, so they lie and say it’s all “political.”

DEI is the worst thing that has happened to the U.S. military in any of our lifetimes. It was the ultimate expression of a political acid test shoved down the throats of everyone serving in a U.S. uniform. It was Marxism on a massive scale, specifically designed to polarize the ranks and make our military less combat effective.

DEI was and is an abomination.

And Pete Hegseth has unraveled this monster in a mere two years. We are rebuilding our military on top of the ruins of the failed DEI experiment.

In all of U.S. history, no one has done more to DEPOLITICIZE the U.S. military than Pete Hegseth.

So, when you see the legacy media and the usual generals and admirals who would not take Douglas MacArthur’s advice to just “fade away” screeching that Hegseth is “politicizing” the military, know that they are angry only because he is doing exactly the opposite. The star-laden critical theorists are losing, and they will not go down without a fight.

But losing they are, and so long as the 2026 and 2028 elections stay the course, they have already lost.

Do not buy the fabulistic “Hegseth is politicizing the military’s senior ranks” narrative. Exactly the opposite is true.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 20:25

California's $20 Million Attempt To Silence Medical Speech

Authored by Danielle White via RealClearPolitics,

In a trial set to begin June 24, California's Attorney General Rob Bonta is asking a court to do something that should alarm every American, regardless of where they stand on abortion: punish nonprofit organizations with ruinous fines for speaking about a lawful medical treatment.

The target is not fraud. These charities offer their services for free.

It is not patient harm. There is no evidence of any patient being harmed.

It is not even illegal conduct. The underlying treatment remains perfectly legal.

The target is speech.

Heartbeat International and Real Options are pro-life nonprofits that provide information and care to women who first take the abortion drug but regret that choice and want to continue their pregnancies. California wants to impose penalties approaching $20 million because these charities have dared to tell women that another option may exist.

Twenty million dollars. That number alone should tell us what this case is really about.

No reasonable observer can believe that bankrupting charities is a proportionate response to truthful and non-misleading statements about a free service designed to help a woman exercise her constitutional right to continue her pregnancy. This is not consumer protection. It is political warfare conducted through the machinery of a government that wishes to silence speech it does not like.

What's most remarkable is what California cannot prove.

After years of investigation, subpoenas, discovery, and litigation, the attorney general has failed to identify a single woman harmed by APR treatment. Not one. No parade of victims. No evidence of widespread deception. He set up a website practically begging for complaints and still could not muster a single woman claiming she was misled or harmed.

Instead, seven women have publicly shared the stories of how Heartbeat International and Real Options helped them successfully reverse their abortions. Three mothers are slated to testify from the stand about their joy at reversing their unwanted abortions.

Still, the state asks the court to punish the very charities who helped these women continue their wanted pregnancies simply because government lawyers disagree with their viewpoint on the scientific evidence regarding APR.

That is a dangerous precedent.

Scientific disagreement is not fraud. If it were, much of modern medicine would not exist. Medical consensus is not handed down from on high. It evolves. Researchers debate. Physicians challenge prevailing views. Studies are published, criticized, replicated, and revised.

The proper response to disputed science is more debate, more research, and more evidence - not government censorship backed by eight-figure penalties.

Yet that is precisely what California seeks.

The state is asking the court to declare that one side of a scientific debate may speak freely while the other side risks financial destruction. Today, the target happens to be pro-life organizations. Tomorrow, it could be anyone whose views fall out of favor with those holding political power or anyone who dares to innovate in the medical field.

And make no mistake: This lawsuit did not emerge in a vacuum.

Since the Dobbs decision, officials across the country have openly pledged to target pregnancy centers and pro-life organizations. California's attorney general has repeatedly attacked what he calls "crisis pregnancy centers." Against that backdrop, it is fanciful to view this lawsuit as a neutral effort to protect consumers. It looks exactly like an attempt to silence disfavored viewpoints through the coercive power of the state.

The irony is impossible to miss. Politicians who routinely invoke the language of "choice" now seek to suppress information that women are seeking in order to exercise their choice to withdraw their consent to their in-progress abortions and continue their wanted pregnancies.

This lawsuit demonstrates that AG Bonta does not stand for reproductive choice. He stands for abortions - wanted or unwanted.

In fact, according to AG Bonta in his trial brief filed last week, "That Defendants [Heartbeat International and Real Options] provided hope to these individuals only underscores the seriousness of their misconduct." California argues that merely providing hope to women who wish to continue their pregnancies after they start an unwanted abortion is damaging.

A government confident in its position does not need censorship. It does not need speech codes. It does not need multi-million-dollar penalties for those who hold different views. It does not ask a court to issue a financial death penalty for charities whose mission is to provide free services and preserve life.

California has chosen suppression over science and punishment over persuasion.

The court should reject that effort. Not merely to protect Heartbeat International and Real Options, but to protect the principle that government officials do not get to decide which side of a scientific or moral debate is allowed to speak.

Especially when a woman's right to continue her pregnancy and her unborn child's life hang in the balance.

Danielle White, Esq., is general counsel for Heartbeat International.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 19:50

Trump Signs Regenerative Agriculture Order To Boost Food Supply

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on June 25 to promote regenerative agriculture practices in an effort to support farmers and boost the nation's food supply security.

President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a Rose Garden Club dinner with American farmers at the White House on June 25, 2026. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Regenerative agriculture is a holistic farming approach designed to restore degraded soils.

Trump said in his order that such practices can "strengthen soil health, lower input costs, improve chemical efficiency to reduce overall use, improve farm profitability, maintain yields, increase market value, expand access to new markets, and strengthen rural economies."

The order directs the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Health and Human Services Department, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to research the effect of cumulative exposure of chemicals in the food supply.

It also instructs USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins to expand the reach of the Regenerative Agriculture Pilot Program, share its results with stakeholders, and build public-private partnerships to support farmers seeking to adopt regenerative practices.

Trump also directed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to prioritize the registration of alternative crop protection tools and review data on pre-harvest desiccation uses to ensure they meet safety and labeling standards, according to a White House fact sheet.

The order was announced the same day Trump hosted a dinner for farmers in the White House Rose Garden, during which the president revealed that he had asked Congress to approve a supplemental funding bill with $11 billion in relief payments for farmers.

"It was my honor to sign an executive order directing federal agencies to accelerate agricultural innovations that give farmers and ranchers the necessary resources to ensure American crops are the healthiest, and the most abundant, and the most affordable," Trump said at the dinner. "And we're always working for the farmer. We want to make it better and easier for you."

Shortly after the order was issued, the USDA released its final Regenerative Feedstock Rule designed to help farmers generate new value from regenerative agricultural practices through biofuel markets.

Rollins said the rule creates a framework connecting regenerative agriculture practices to new markets within the biofuel supply chain for corn, soybeans, sorghum, and spring canola.

"Instead of mandates, we're creating market opportunities. Farmers who choose to implement regenerative practices will have new opportunities to earn premium prices, lower their input costs, improve soil health, and strengthen the long-term profitability of their operations," Rollins said in a statement.

The Regenerative Pilot Program, a $700 million initiative launched by the USDA last year, has completed more than 67,000 whole-farm conservation plans covering more than 49 million acres and over 1,500 conservation contracts valued at more than $200 million, according to the USDA.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 18:40

A Civil War May Be Brewing In The Democratic Party

Tuesday's primary results weren't just a bad night for the Democratic establishment. They were a warning shot that the party's socialist insurgency has arrived, is organized, and intends to win. And the problem for them is that they have no idea what to do about it, which could spark a civil war within the party.

On election morning, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani joins former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander as he campaigns for Congress outside of an election polling center, June 23, 2026 in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. (Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)

The Democratic Socialists of America have been running their own long game inside the Democratic Party for years. Now DSA NYC co-chair Gustavo Gordillo is willing to say the quiet part out loud. The DSA runs candidates on the Democratic ballot line, wins primaries, and places members inside Democratic caucuses. The difference is that they don't answer to the party apparatus or its donor class.

"Our candidates run as Democrats," Gordillo said. "We're on the Democratic Party ballot line. We contest the primaries, and when they're in the legislature, they're part of the Democratic Party caucus. But we don't agree with the way the Democratic Party establishment organizes or runs its party apparatus."

Gordillo identified a contradiction at the core of the party's identity. "There's a problem in the Democratic Party where they are funded by billionaire donors and at the same time they're trying to represent the working class," he said. "And in our opinion you have to choose between the billionaire class and the working class. It's just impossible to satisfy all of them."

This is the DSA co-chair. Let me summarize what he says in this video: We're using the Democratic Party as a ballot-access vehicle, not because we share its goals. We build our own organization, get elected under the Democratic label, caucus with Democrats when it's useful, pic.twitter.com/zYwsv4J8Bt

— The Undercurrent (@NotTheirScript) June 24, 2026

Establishment Democrats aren't happy about this. "If you hate the Democratic Party, then please don't run for our nomination," former DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a post on X. "Don't use our resources. Don't rely on our volunteers. Don't use our infrastructure. Don't ask Democrats to invest their time, money, and energy in your campaign."

Harrison argued that the Democratic Socialists of America should focus on "building the party you actually support."

Others are clearly concerned that the rise of DSA-linked candidates will hurt the Democratic Party.

"All of us are a little frustrated with the Democratic Party. But you don't blow it up," New York Attorney General Letitia James said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, both of whom represent New York, were unable to stop what happened, and now both are in serious political trouble. Jeffries was lucky in that Mamdani steered the DSA away from running a primary challenger against him. However, he may not be spared in a future election. Supporters of Tuesday's victorious socialist candidates made the long-term stakes clear, chanting "you're next" in reference to Jeffries after Tuesday's victories.

Even moderates within the party are running out of patience and pinning the blame on the party leadership. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), considered a more moderate Democrat, suggested Thursday that both Jeffries and Schumer may need to step aside, framing the problem in terms that should embarrass both men. "To me, the lesson was simple. Democrats had too many priorities. They tried to make everyone happy and answer every question. When you prioritize everything, no one knows what you actually stand for," Slotkin told Stephen A. Smith on SiriusXM's "Straight Shooter with Stephen A."

She contrasted that with Donald Trump's 2024 approach. "He said, 'I'm going to make your life more affordable. I'm going to put more money in your pocket.' ... He won because he kept his message simple and focused on the issue Americans cared most about."

A year and a half after the 2024 election, the party still hasn't settled on a direction. "That's why I believe we need significant new leadership," Slotkin said. "The old models are no longer working, and that includes the Democratic Party."

Sure enough, Politico reports that moderate Democrats are "sounding the alarm after massive losses in New York's primaries."

The far left is eyeing even bigger targets in key battleground primaries that will determine control of Congress as well as governorships in crucial swing states. Most immediately, moderates fear that a progressive primary sweep could imperil the party's hopes of beating Republicans this fall.

They also have a more fundamental fear: that progressives are becoming more mainstream as they keep winning - reshaping the Democratic Party.

The socialists are winning this civil war, and they're just getting started. Colorado Democrats head into their own primaries carrying the same internal contradictions. Democratic Socialist Melat Kiros is challenging longtime incumbent Diana DeGette in a district the establishment considers safely theirs. In the 8th District, progressive-aligned Manny Rutinel faces establishment-backed Shannon Bird, with the winner eventually squaring off against freshman Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.).

The progressive candidates may not sweep those races, but the political damage lands either way. Republicans will link centrist Democrats to the party's most radical voices regardless of who holds which seat. Policy ideas like defunding the police or abolishing prisons entirely energize the activist base and repel competitive-district voters in equal measure. GOP candidates will make sure general election voters in Colorado know exactly what the rest of the Democratic coalition is demanding.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 18:05

US SNAP Payment-Error-Rate Hits High Of 10.62%

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The national payment error rate for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) hit 10.62 percent for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025, far exceeding the 6 percent threshold set by Congress.

“While this is a modest decrease from FY 2024, the FY 2025 rate still shows significant waste at the state level,“ the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in a June 24 statement.

”Including both overpayments and underpayments, this year’s rate represents a collective $10.1 billion in improper payments nationwide.”

The payment error rate measures how accurately states calculate SNAP eligibility and the amounts that beneficiaries receive.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump last year, established a State Quality Control Incentive provision under which states must pay a percentage of SNAP program bills if their payment error rate exceeds a certain limit.

A state with an error rate of 6 percent to 8 percent will be required to fund 5 percent of the benefits. This scales up as error rates get higher. States with error rates of 10 percent or more must fund 15 percent of benefits.

“[This has instituted] real financial consequences for states that mismanage taxpayer dollars,” the USDA stated, noting that these rules could come into effect as soon as Oct. 1, 2027.

States with error rates exceeding 6 percent are also required to submit a Corrective Action Plan to the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, explaining how they intend to address the root causes of the high error rates. Some states may end up getting financially penalized.

“These payment error rates are further proof that state accountability is severely lacking in SNAP,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said.

“USDA has taken historic action to help interested states curb SNAP waste, and I hope other states, regardless of political leadership, prioritize needy families and the American taxpayer over politics.”

Tackling Error Rates

A June report from the American Public Human Services Association detailed the results of a survey conducted among all 50 state SNAP agencies between May 19 and June 5, which was aimed at understanding how the agencies planned to improve their payment accuracy.

Out of the 39 states that responded to questions on state capacity and operational readiness, 92 percent said they had already completed a root cause analysis of the error rates or that such an effort was underway.

“States reported that payment errors stem from both participant and administrative factors, with responses suggesting errors are roughly evenly distributed between the two,” the report reads.

Many states have increased or are considering boosting their workforce, expanding training, adopting new technologies, and strengthening quality assurance functions to identify and avoid errors.

Commenting on the FY 2025 SNAP payment error rates, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Chairman Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) said efforts must be taken to ensure that the program is administered in a fair, accurate, and responsible manner, according to a June 24 statement from the committee.

“It is clear that improvements were needed to ensure SNAP is administered as intended to support those truly in need while protecting taxpayer dollars,” Boozman said.

“I applaud the states that are implementing innovative solutions to decrease error rates and be good stewards of federal funds. The reforms included in the Working Families Tax Cuts were designed to promote accountability for significant mismanagement.”

Working Families Tax Cuts refer to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

SNAP Changes

States and federal officials are making SNAP food purchase rules more stringent to direct beneficiaries toward healthier choices.

Beginning this fall, SNAP-authorized retailers are required to stock more nutritious items across four food categories—produce, protein, dairy, and grains.

Almost a dozen states also plan to ban beneficiaries from buying energy drinks, candy, and soda using SNAP coupons over the coming months.

However, on June 22, a federal judge blocked the USDA from restricting SNAP beneficiaries in five states from buying sugary foods or drinks.

The states—Colorado, Iowa, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Nebraska—had previously received USDA approval to impose such restrictions. The judge ruled that the department lacked the authority to approve these food restriction waivers.

A USDA spokesperson defended the department’s actions.

“The idea that taxpayer funds should not be used to purchase junk food should not be controversial,” the spokesperson said.

“USDA will not be backing down from the fight to Make America Healthy Again, including for ​families and communities reliant on ​SNAP.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 17:30

"Iran Is Not Really A Threat To The US"; Curt Mills On Pulling The Chips Off The Table Re:Hormuz

President Trump's Iran agreement remains under pressure after a fresh round of retaliatory strikes by the U.S. in and around the Strait of Hormuz. Iran allegedly targeted a commercial cargo ship with attack drones, U.S. forces responded by striking Iranian missile, drone, and radar sites.

So the ceasefire is shaky but it seems …..

Against that backdrop, last night, American Conservative executive director Curt Mills and Will Chamberlain of the Article III Project joined prolific author Michael Malice to debate whether Trump struck the right deal, whether preserving stability in the Strait of Hormuz justifies the concessions to Tehran, and what the agreement means for the factional battle within the Republican party… also Israel :)

Below were the highlights for those short on time:

Voting Dems over Neocons in ‘28

The Iran war (and how a deal pans out) will have an effect on the future of the Republican Party, but the old guard retaking power could simply leave millions done with voting…

Mills said he supported Trump because he represented "a different type of conservatism," warning that if the GOP simply reverts to "Jeb Bushism, Scott Walkerism, Mitt Romneyism," then "I'm just not that interested in the project."

Chamberlain challenged Mills' past comments about voting for Ro Khanna over Marco Rubio, calling the idea "crazy" and accusing Mills of "enabling communists." Mills responded that if Republicans nominate "the absolute worst nominee for my interests," such as Rubio or Ted Cruz, while Democrats nominate "the only one that I feel like is responding and speaking plain English," then "yeah, I would consider it,” which Chamberlain deemed  “insane."

pic.twitter.com/OMmAQa0FH7

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) June 27, 2026 Side Debate: Deport Mehdi Hasan?

Chamberlain argued strongly for denaturalizing and deporting foreign born “commies,” namely Mehdi Hasan, Ilhan Omar, and the like.

Recently naturalized citizens who are hostile to the United States, he said, should lose their citizenship, saying, "Communism is where everything has its limit."

Hasan may suck, Mills countered, but he’s not a communist."Do you think Mehdi Hasan is a Marxist-Leninist... who has deep opinions about Trotsky versus Stalin?” Mills added that deporting legal residents over heated political disputes is a dangerous path and against the “American Spirit”.

Chamberlain still held that Hasan is "extraordinarily hostile to America and its interests... I think that he should be deported. He's a British Islamist." 

pic.twitter.com/DwsxHVHSUe

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) June 27, 2026

We highly recommend the full debate included below. Also feel free to watch on YouTube or listen on Spotify.

https://t.co/PgdhEZ2LUX

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 26, 2026 Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 16:55

Russiagate Prosecutor Calls Audible On 'Grand Conspiracy'

Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearWire,

Although Donald Trump's defenders describe the Russia hoax and other efforts to frame the president as a "grand conspiracy," RealClearInvestigations has learned that the man now leading the probe of that scandal is pursuing multiple conspiracy prosecutions that are smaller and more manageable, according to several sources with direct knowledge of the probe.

Since taking over the Justice Department's far-flung investigation in April, veteran prosecutor Joseph diGenova and his team quickly concluded that combining all of the alleged wrongdoing, which ranges from falsifying evidence and committing perjury to leaking classified information and obstructing justice, into one unified plot and trying them together as a single case would be unmanageable.

"You'd have 50 defendants in the courtroom," said a well-placed source familiar with diGenova's thinking.

Before diGenova took over the investigation two months ago, its contours were ill-defined as it lurched ahead in fits and starts for more than a year. But according to the sources, diGenova is tackling the case with a new, disciplined focus and in so doing is giving it the direction it's lacked.

But this is a change in tactics, not the theory of the case. The sources say his operating assumption is that Trump's enemies in the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign, the Obama and Biden administration, some Democrats in Congress, and their like-minded accomplices across several government agencies - including the CIA and the FBI - joined in one continuous conspiracy over almost a decade to deny Trump his civil rights, derail his political campaigns, and undermine his presidency.

Holistic Review

Where other investigators have looked at specific pieces of the effort Trump's defenders now call "Russiagate" after its original origins, diGenova is launching the first holistic look at the entire scandal. A well-placed source said it is looking at events from June 2015 when Trump first came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy through the 2022 FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago after he left office.

Insider sources provided RCI with an exclusive look into the specially assigned prosecutor's office and its recent legal maneuvers.

They said two separate grand juries in South Florida are now collecting and hearing evidence in what could become a series of conspiracy cases brought against people who served in the highest reaches of government, including former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former FBI Director James Comey.

Since much of the government's alleged corrupt anti-Trump activity took place in 2016, prosecuting the cases as conspiracies is the only way to get around the five-year federal statute of limitations.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche tapped diGenova, a longtime denizen of Washington, D.C., who was a U.S. attorney during the Reagan administration, to helm the sprawling investigation into what Blanche views as a series of baseless and seditious prosecutions and impeachments of Trump. The acting attorney general has created a special position for diGenova with the title "counselor to the attorney general."

DiGenova has moved into an office in Fort Pierce, Fla., where one federal grand jury is actively hearing evidence in the case. Another grand jury has been convened in Miami, where Jason Reding Quinones, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, is based. He is said to be working closely with diGenova.

DiGenova and his team are confident that the jury pool and judges in South Florida will give them a fair hearing, as opposed to Washington, D.C., where they are no longer utilizing a third grand jury.

"It's dead in D.C. Everything is in South Florida now," a red jurisdiction more sympathetic to Trump, said a senior U.S. official briefed on the matter.

As a former federal prosecutor and independent counsel, diGenova is known for using grand juries, which are comprised of 16 to 23 citizens who hear a prosecutor's case, to aggressively collect evidence by issuing subpoenas for documents and witnesses.

The sources say a fresh round of grand jury subpoenas is expected to go out in early July.

New Documents & Whistleblowers

These well-placed sources also say that diGenova has cultivated several new witnesses, including whistleblowers from the intelligence community and the FBI, and that his team has also uncovered significant new evidence, including a massive FBI document spanning several hundred pages that reportedly exposes new malfeasance in the bureau's probe of Trump's alleged ties to Russia, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane, which was begun before the 2016 election.

They note that diGenova traveled to D.C. earlier this month to meet with both Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel to discuss the newly discovered internal FBI document and map out new investigative leads as well as a new overall case strategy.

Led by former FBI chief Comey, Crossfire investigators targeted the 2016 Trump campaign for colluding with the Kremlin and illegally wiretapped at least one Trump adviser based on political opposition research from the Hillary Clinton campaign. After Trump won the election, the same now-debunked research, known as the Steele dossier, was used by Comey and then-CIA Director John Brennan in a U.S. intelligence report known as the "ICA" to recast his victory as the product of Kremlin espionage.

By laundering the dossier - the heart of the Russia collusion scheme - through the U.S. intelligence community, the outgoing Obama administration was able to give it a gloss of credibility. By design, this false information made its way into the media, which in turn prompted Congress to open inquiries and the DOJ to appoint Robert Mueller as special counsel to continue the investigation on a larger scale. DiGenova, sources say, is examining whether Mueller's team engaged in prosecutorial abuses against Trump officials and associates.

Comey and Brennan were subpoenaed earlier this year regarding their roles in the ICA and are key targets in the conspiracy investigation. Both have denied any wrongdoing, publicly and through their lawyers.

Now in command of the entire investigation, diGenova has his own budget and is rapidly "staffing up" office, including hiring a large team of deputy prosecutors, investigators, analysts, and researchers, said a DOJ official with eyes into his operation.

The Justice Department official told RCI that his Florida team will not move forward with indictments without confidence that they can prevail in a court of law.

"We're not going to bring indictments just to make ourselves feel good only to lose and give the bad guys a victory," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. "So it's a lot of work. But that's what we're doing."

Currently, no indictments are under seal, the official said.

Past Probes

The official said that diGenova's team now has "all the files" collected by Special Counsel John Durham, who conducted a multiyear criminal investigation of the FBI's Russia probe. These include long-sought notes from several hours of interviews with Brennan about his role in the ICA and Crossfire Hurricane.

One DOJ official told RCI that diGenova's investigation is necessary, in part, because Durham "took a dive." The official noted that Durham only secured a single conviction during his four-year probe - of former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, who pleaded guilty to a felony false-statement offense in connection with his admittedly falsifying government records in pursuit of a wiretap on former Trump adviser Carter Page.

Although Durham sought up to six months in prison, arguing that Clinesmith, a liberal Democrat, acted out of "political or personal bias" against Trump, D.C. District Judge Jeb Boasberg spared him any jail time and let him work off his probationary sentence by helping edit a D.C. homeless-advocacy journal he followed. The D.C. Bar reinstated his law license soon after.

Trump's supporters say Durham's record shows he did not pursue his investigation vigorously, while Trump's critics say his largely dead-end case proves the Russia probe was justified and done by the book.

"DiGenova has been appointed to investigate a made-up deep-state plot," said Harvard attorney and legal analyst Anna Bower.

While the legal strategy may have changed, diGenova and his team are still following the same theory of the case and pursuing potential charges under the same conspiracy statutes, the sources say - namely Sections 371 and 242 of the U.S. criminal code.

Weaponizing Justice

They believe high-ranking officials in the Obama and Biden administrations, acting under color of law, unlawfully weaponized the U.S. justice system and intelligence community against Trump and his advisers in a seditious plot to derail his candidacy and presidency and subvert the will of the American electorate.

Adding to the case's complexity is the FBI's disparate treatment of Hillary Clinton, who was personally exonerated by Comey in the bureau's investigation of her emails, codenamed Midyear Exam. The move cleared legal hurdles for her just weeks before her nomination at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. At the same time, recently declassified FBI documents reveal that Comey's deputy, Andrew McCabe, scuttled the FBI's Clinton Foundation probe and other investigations tied to Clinton.

Soon after letting Clinton off the hook, according to the operating theory of the case, they opened the Crossfire Hurricane espionage case on Trump as an alleged "insurance policy" in the unlikely event that Clinton lost the election, suggesting an illegal plan to abuse law enforcement to frame the Republican candidate. Recently declassified documents reveal Comey was aware of the Clinton plan to set up Trump as a Russian conspirator. Nonetheless, the FBI went after Trump based on a narrative they knew to be politically motivated and most likely bogus, which proved to be the case.

The sources confirmed that diGenova and his team are looking closely at the FBI's apparent double standard of justice employed during the 2016 campaign. And they have already found "fertile ground" there for possible conspiracy charges.

Another central focus of diGenova's team, according to an insider briefed on the matter, is the Obama-ordered ICA and the seeming political manufacturing of U.S. intelligence to frame the incoming president as a Kremlin puppet in early 2017.

The intelligence assessment's post-election conclusion that Russia interfered in the election to help Trump, which happened to be the key allegation of the Clinton-funded dossier, contradicted the intelligence community's own pre-election finding that Russia had not favored Trump and instead sought to sow discord in the American electoral process.

Comey and Brennan pushed for inclusion of the dossier in the ICA over the objections of career analysts.

In addition to Comey and Brennan, a Florida grand jury has subpoenaed McCabe's top aide, Lisa Page, and Peter Strzok, the counterintelligence official who led the Crossfire probe and who also interacted with the CIA during the drafting of the ICA. Both have maintained their innocence.

Also in the crosshairs, the sources say, is James Clapper, who spearheaded the ICA as former President Obama's intelligence czar and who has received a subpoena. So, too, is Lisa Monaco, who served as a top Obama aide in the White House before former President Biden appointed her deputy AG, where she oversaw the raid of Mar-a-Lago. Neither responded to requests for comment.

Persons of Interest

Key witnesses and subjects in the Florida-based grand jury investigations, the sources say, include: FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten, who was instrumental in several Trump-related investigations and rubber-stamped the dossier's use in applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants targeting Carter Page; Celeste Wallander, a top Obama White House aide and Russian analyst later appointed to the Pentagon by President Biden; former CIA analyst and Biden aide Eric Ciaramella, who secretly worked with then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on the first impeachment of Trump as the so-called "anonymous whistleblower;" former Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who worked with Ciaramella and Schiff to facilitate the first impeachment; former Clapper aide Vinh Nguyen, who helped craft the sections of the ICA dealing with Russian cyber threats; and former National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers, who clashed with Brennan and Clapper during the manufacturing of the ICA.

As a cooperating witness, Rogers has already told investigators some alarming new information, according to the sources. In April, ODNI issued criminal referrals to DOJ for both Ciaramella and Atkinson over their role in the first Trump impeachment concerning Ukraine in 2019.

DiGenova, who is licensed to practice law in D.C. but not Florida, won't likely argue any cases in court and will assume a supervisory role as cases are litigated. A Republican, diGenova got his start in Washington in the 1970s as a lawyer working on the Church Committee, a select Senate committee tasked with investigating CIA and FBI abuses. In the 1980s, he served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, where he supervised numerous public corruption and national security cases and earned a reputation as a results-oriented prosecutor.

In 1992, diGenova was appointed independent counsel to investigate the Bush administration's possibly illegal search of Bill Clinton's passport. After two years on the case, he brought no criminal charges. In 1996, he and his wife founded the diGenova & Toensing law firm in Washington.

At 81, the gravel-voiced, mustachioed diGenova still appears spry. Colleagues told RCI they are cautiously optimistic that he will get results.

"He is totally sharp and hard-charging," said DOJ Pardon Attorney Ed Martin, who until recently also ran the anti-weaponization task force at DOJ.

However, the clock is ticking. DiGenova will have to secure convictions or guilty pleas before January 2029, when a Democratic administration could take over the DOJ and quash any indictments and prosecutions.

The DOJ official close to diGenova's office said the appointment of a special prosecutor to ride herd on the wide-ranging investigation should have been done a year ago, but then-Attorney General Pam Bondi was reluctant to take such risks.

"She was frightened by the entire thing," he said. "She was way out of her depth."

RCI has reached out to Bondi for comment. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami did not respond to requests for a statement.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 16:20

Apple Wants To Buy Memory From China As Soaring Chip Prices Spark Inflation Shock

Last Thursday, in the aftermath of Apple's biggest one day plunge since Liberation Day, and second biggest single-day drop ever...

.... when the company lost over a quarter trillion dollars in market cap after the company's unprecedented price increase announcement  which for some products was as much as 50% as Apple decided to pass on soaring component costs to consumers, following similar moves from other consumer electronics companies....

...  and which Apple blamed on "unsustainable" prices by the memory cartel - namely SK Hynix, Samsung, Micron and Sandisk - who have been flooded with unprecedented demand from hyperscalers (freshly funded with hundreds of billions in newly-issued investment grade debt) we predicted that "China's memory makers are waiting by the phone" for a disgruntled Tim Cook to call, demanding bulk, cheaper RAM.

*APPLE SHARES CLOSE DOWN 6.1% IN BIGGEST DROP SINCE APRIL 2025

China's memory makers are waiting by the phone

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 25, 2026

To be sure, Apple wasn't alone: just hours later Microsoft also announced it was raising Xbox prices, in effect launching an avalanche of memory-driven price increases across the industry, now that it has been normalized to pass on soaring memory prices to consumers.

This, in turn, takes place following a series of reports - initially on this website almost a month ago which showed that the recent surge in core inflation is largely due to runaway chip/memory prices as Apple has since confirmed...

At what point does Trump start raging at soaring memory prices

PPI Electronic Components is pulling entire core index higher pic.twitter.com/v9ufHmx0gG

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 11, 2026

... followed last week by the WSJ also joining the chorus by reporting that "the Data-Center Boom is sparking a third wave of inflation."

Fast forward to this morning when with AI stocks tumbling as "check/capex payers", including AAPL, get crushed, while "check/capex receivers" soar...

Hyperscalers vs Chips pic.twitter.com/qtYEDM8lQ7

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 25, 2026

... the abovementioned Chinese memory makers did not have long to wait, and overnight the FT reported that Apple is lobbying the Trump administration for clearance to buy memory chips from CXMT, a Chinese company that the Pentagon as put on a blacklist because of alleged connections to the People’s Liberation Army. 

As we expected, the iPhone maker has been waging a lobbying campaign to get the White House’s blessing in order to ease the financial pressure of the rise in memory chip prices. A person told the FT that Apple approached the commerce department more than a month ago, but the tech company has been targeting other officials across the administration and allies in Washington.

Apple is not barred from buying chips from China's DDR giant CXMT, or YMTC, another Chinese memory chipmaker which focuses on NAND memory and has been growing its market share aggressively, having caught up to Sandisk, and set to become the world's 3rd largest maker of flash memory as soon as this quarter 

But the Pentagon has put both companies on its Chinese Military Company blacklist. The so-called 1260H list contains dozens of Chinese groups with alleged ties to the PLA that undermine US national security.

Securing CXMT as a memory supplier would help remedy a situation in which the tech giant is being squeezed by its own suppliers, a position in which Apple has never been before .

The lobbying campaign comes after President Donald Trump met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing last month. Ahead of the summit, and in the months ahead of their previous meeting in South Korea in October, the US has held back from introducing new technology-related export controls that would affect Chinese companies.

As the FT notes, the Pentagon’s 1260H list creates reputational risk for companies, but in most cases it has no legal ramifications. We said as much just hours earlier when we said that those "worried about Chinese memory roadblocks by the US govt to ease memory inflation forget Trump undid 40 years of Iranian sanctions to lower the price of oil." And now that oil price inflation is contained, Trump has memory-driven cost-push inflation to fix ahead of the midterms, and whether he wants to or not, the only option his Admin has - besides imposing a price ceiling on memory (which may still come) - is to agree with Apple's request.

Last year, when memory prices were far lower and domestic producers did not have their customers by the throat with record chip prices and chip inflation was not yet the biggest driver of core prices, the commerce department added CXMT to a package of Chinese groups it intended to place on a trade blacklist called the “Entity List”. But the White House told it to hold off on new export controls because the administration was in the middle of tough negotiations with China to try to reach a truce in the trade war.

In any case, the FT notes that it remains unclear if Apple would get any guarantee from the administration, especially a promise that the US would not later put CXMT on the Entity List. Trump last year agreed to let Nvidia sell advanced H200 chips to China, a move many of his officials opposed.

In February, the Pentagon updated the 1260H list before withdrawing it within an hour. Several people said it was removed because the White House was angry that someone at the Pentagon had taken CXMT and YMTC off the list. When the Pentagon re-released it this month, both of the Chinese memory chip manufacturers had been reinstated.

“Apple choosing to partner with a Chinese military company would be a grave mistake,” John Moolenaar, the Republican chair of the House China committee, told the FT. However, he expect that the Republican will rapidly change his tune once there is public outcry in a the next few weeks against soaring electronic component prices, which will ultimately be blamed on runaway memory costs. 

“Helping the [Chinese Communist Party] succeed in its plans to dominate critical supply chains will make our country’s tech industry and economy more dependent on China at a time when we must build secure tech supply chains with our allies,” Moolenaar said, seemingly unaware that by not using Chinese components, he is allowing South Korea's memory cartel dictate not only US inflation but also the country's monetary policy, now that even Fed officials are pointing to AI/memory prices as key inflation drivers.

• *KASHKARI: INFLATION DRIVEN BY SUPPLY ISSUES, INCLUDING AI-BUILD

Readers may recall that back in 2022 - when the world's faced another major surge in chip and component prices due to the logistical nightmare following covid - Apple faced a backlash when it considered buying memory chips from YMTC for iPhones to be sold in China. Marco Rubio, who was then the top Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, told the FT that “Apple was playing with fire”. Back then Rubio added that Apple would be “subject to scrutiny like it has never seen from the federal government” if it proceeded to procure YMTC chips. However, back in 2022, memory hadn't emerged as the biggest source of rising core inflation. It has now, and should Rubio refuse to pivot on his position, he would promptly become the target of public ire over surging consumer goods prices. 

Yet even with Tim Cook, and soon all other US consumer electronics products makers pushing hard for alternative memory sources, the memory lobby won't give up easily on the (temporary) oligopolistic position the commodity makers have achieved. “It makes no sense for the administration to decouple America’s reliance on critical minerals from China, only to approve new dependencies in a field as critical as AI,” said Michael Sobolik, a security expert at the Hudson Institute. 

One former official warned the US risked losing another industry by letting Apple buy memory from a group that receives Chinese subsidies. “Trump can show the courage to keep American memory alive for our security and our competitiveness or pour it down the drain so [Apple chief executive] Tim Cook can squeeze out a few more points of margin.”

It wouldn't surprise us if the "unnamed former official" is on South Korea's payroll because while China is still a modest actor in the memory space, the actual giants are all located in South Korea: Apple relies on US chipmaker Micron in addition to South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix for the DRAM memory used in its devices.

Meanwhile, in advance of a historic flood of orders that could send its market cap soaring, we reported that China's DRAM giant CXMT has received regulatory approval to list in Shanghai for the largest mainland IPO since 2022 as the Chinese national champion positions itself to challenge the DRam incumbents. The IPO of its domestic NAND peer, YMCT, is set to follow just weeks later 

Oh, and for those confused what happens when a commodity price surges, the post-covid case study should serve well: in 2023, DRAM prices because of a supply glut. This was a boon for buyers such as Apple, which was able to secure massive amounts of cheap inventory. 

But the AI boom of the past three years has seen a reversal in fortunes for the memory suppliers. As hyperscalers spent hundreds of billions of dollars for AI infrastructure, demand for advanced DRam — known as HBM — has led to a protracted shortage of traditional memory for consumer electronics. 

However, now that the market has shown it will no longer reward ridiculous amounts of hyperscaler capex spending - a U-turn from the market's reaction function for much of the past year - especially now that most of the big chip spenders no longer generatepositive cash flow and forced to issue billions in new debt for every incremental order of memory...

... in the end it won't be Trump that decides the fate of memory prices: it will be hyperscalers' own shareholders who will eagerly punish their management teams for incremental capex spending, forcing these companies to come up with new and creative ways to use and optimize existing Ram (likely in the form of many more Software-driven TurboQuant moments) to come up with more efficient and faster models.

In any case, after soaring into the stratosphere for the past year courtesy of all Hyperscaler free cash flow and hundreds of billions in on and off balance sheet debt, the party is finally ending and the memory bubble is about to burst. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2026 - 15:10