Zero Rss

Trump-Backed Colombian President-Elect Gives Guerrillas "One Month To Surrender" As Socialist Era Ends

Colombia's president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella gave drug cartels and guerrilla groups one month to surrender, marking a massive U-turn from the soft-on-crime policies of the socialist regime under incumbent President Gustavo Petro.

"To all those acting outside the law, you have one month to arrange your submission," Trump-Backed Espriella said in his first speech since official results confirmed his electoral win on Sunday.

Colombia's President-Elect Abelardo de la Espriella:

To those who are outside the law, I have a categorical message: You have one month to come to your senses and organize your submission to the rule of law.

Under my government there will be no generous offers or unacceptable… pic.twitter.com/G94Pep8rcg

— Clash Report (@clashreport) June 25, 2026

"In my administration, there will be no generous offers or unacceptable concessions like those they received from the regime that is coming to an end," Espriella added, in reference to the outgoing socialists who favored kind words with narcoterrorists.

Under Petro, a new United Nations report showed that Colombian coca cultivation hit a record high in 2024, with planted acreage rising 3.5% to 261,000 hectares, or about 645,000 acres.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime did not publish its usual estimate for potential cocaine output, although the previous year's coca crop was enough to produce more than 2,600 tons of the drug, according to Bloomberg.

The surge in production under the socialist regime has fueled Colombia's worsening security crisis.

Across Latin America, there has been a massive shift in politics after years of failed socialism sent the continent into an era marked by surging violent crime, economic stagnation, debt traps, currency declines, and collapsing public confidence.

Now, the shift is toward right-wing leaders who support law and order and capitalism.

As socialism and Marxism are eradicated like cockroaches across Latin America, a troubling rise of left-wing revolutionaries in New York City has finally alarmed the mainstream Democratic Party.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 20:30

How To Push Back Against The 'Advancing Beast' System

Authored by Leo Hohmann via substack,

The big-picture lesson from the Covid era should have been obvious. It should have screamed loud and clear to every freedom-loving American: The power elites who run things at the local, state and federal levels want to tag and track our movement, but not just our movement. They want to track our diet, our healthcare, our purchasing habits, our use of energy, our online comment history, our very thoughts.

They want all of it. And if they get their way, you will own nothing. Literally nothing. Even if you technically own an asset, you will not control it, so do you really own it?

Your bank account will be theirs, programmed to be switched on or off at their pleasure, based on your compliance with the dictates of the surveillance state. Your car will be theirs, able to monitor your eye movements, your posture and who knows what else in real time, and be remotely disabled at their pleasure, thanks to Joe Biden’s remote vehicle kill switch law. Your ability to eat healthy food will be gone, thanks to Donald Trump’s granting of legal immunity to Bayer/Monsanto, protecting it from lawsuits based on the harmful effects of bioengineered food laced with chemicals. Same for your healthcare. Your online speech. Even your thoughts. They will own it all if they succeed in bringing in the long-planned AI-powered digital control grid that is currently under construction in the form of 6G wireless networks along with thousands of AI data centers, Flock cameras and other devices.

Flock Safety, the online security company based in Atlanta, has more than 89,000 vertically integrated and fully internet-connected cameras stationed in more than 5,000 communities nationwide and growing. The invasiveness of their cameras is also growing, with the ability to not only see but to hear everything going on for miles through its Raven Audio Detection Program. Flock is also now selling mobile cameras to law-enforcement agencies that will serve as “first responders” based on suspicious activity picked up under the company’s Falcon Drone Program.

Watch the first 6 minutes of the video below and ask yourself, have you been Flocked? Is it really making you safer?

Cities and states, and specifically law enforcement agencies, will have all of your data and the ability to use it however they want, sharing it with whoever they want including the federal government, and you can bet that kind of power will lead to a totalitarian system.

But, apparently, most folks didn’t get the memo after Covid. Totalitarianism is the goal.

Instead of taking this sweeping big-picture lesson from the Covid era, they filed away much smaller lessons, if they received any lesson at all. Something along the lines of, don’t trust vaccines, or perhaps on a slightly bigger scale something like don’t trust the government in a time of emergency.

These are good lessons, but they stop short of the big lesson that was out there staring us in the face and begging to be learned.

They want to own you. They want to crush your human agency and replace it with an AI-powered control system that is their fraudulent version of God. And if we allow a system like that to be placed in a position of authority over us, a place reserved for God, we will live to regret it, because this system is not designed to respect human sovereignty, human dignity, or free will. All totalitarian systems, whether communist, fascist, Islamist, Christian nationalist, or technocratic in nature, are based on the presumption that they know better, and they have the right to crush our free will.

As a result of so many people missing the loud-and-clear message delivered by the ruling elites during the beta-test for tyranny known as Covid, we are destined to live through a period of further testing. As long as we as a society keep failing the tests, we keep moving closer to the New World Order, which is a technocratic dystopia marked by the death of privacy, the death of anonymity, and the death of representative democracy as we know it.

If they succeed, and they’re getting close, every action and function of life will come under regulation by nameless, faceless overlords. Voting, traveling, moving about locally, logging onto the internet, shopping for various goods and services, and everything you consume, including food and water, will require you to “verify your identity.” And the only way to verify your identity will be through the digital beast system. Show us your QR code, or some other imprint tied to your individual biometric data.

This transformation is already well underway. You can’t board a plane without allowing the authorities to scan your facial features and enter your likeness into their centralized database. You can’t get a federally approved driver’s license without doing the same. Soon you won’t be able to have a bank account or even log onto the internet without fulfilling such digital ID requirements.

The globalists have already put the chairs in the order needed to start demanding biometric digital ID for practically every service people need to function in modern society. You want to vote? Show your digital ID. You want secure borders? Show us your digital ID so we know if you’re legal or illegal before you get that job you’ve applied for, or that college enrollment you’re applying for. Or that apartment you want to live in. You want healthcare? You want Social Security? Confirm your digital ID. You want to drive? You want to travel? You want to eat?

It’s all coming folks, and it pretty much all hinges on them getting the AI data centers they want up and running. Are you OK with that?

If so, then sit back and do nothing. Just relax and trust the government.

If you’re not, it’s time to start saying “no” and fight back against the data centers, the Flock cameras and the digitization of our human identities. It will cost you some of the modern conveniences, but if you wait to register your resistance, it might cost you much more.

The first order of business in any resistance is to say no.

If you are asked to produce a QR code, say no. A face scan? No. An iris scan? No. A palm scan? No. This is called non-compliance. Dissidents do not comply.

If you are asked to electronically apply online for something or “check in” for an appointment, such as your next doctor’s visit, don’t respond through their preferred method. Make them call you on the telephone if they are so dead set on knowing if you are going to show up for the appointment that you already scheduled. If there is just one human working the cashier at your grocery store, resist the temptation to go through the self-checkout and save a few minutes of time. You’ll be saving someone’s job while sending a message to the corporate owners. Same for your banking relationship, go for the human teller rather than the machine.

Start reading the labels on the food you buy. Look for non-GMO food, stop taking the easier route and buying prepackaged ultra-processed foods that make you sluggish, sick and submissive. Buy organic non-GMO whenever possible and avoid bioengineered food at all cost.

And this is just the first layer of a multilayered approach to non-compliance.

The other layers are more aggressive and involve getting in the faces of your local elected leaders when they go to invite the Flock cameras and data centers into your community. This will involve organizing a citizens’ group and possibly filing a lawsuit. It’s long overdue for us to take ownership of our situation and stop assuming that any politician or political party is on our side or in any way looking out for us or our interests.

I didn’t say it would be easy. Or cheap. Nothing worthwhile ever is.

We can’t afford to have anymore lessons missed, because each lesson missed paves the road smoother to the New World Order.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 20:05

Debt Tsunami: The Alan Greenspan Legacy

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Alan Greenspan, Fed chair from 1987 to 2006, embodies a striking ideological shift from gold-standard advocate to architect of the modern easy-money, debt-fueled financial system. He has now died at the age of 100, and this marks a good time to assess his legacy and explain why it matters.

In the 1960s, as a young economist influenced by Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Greenspan strongly supported the gold standard. In his 1966 essay “Gold and Economic Freedom,” he argued that gold-backed money was essential for laissez-faire capitalism. It restrained governments from inflating the currency to fund welfare states or deficits, preventing the erosion of savings and the boom-bust cycles caused by fiat money manipulation. He viewed central banking and unbacked currency as tools for hidden wealth confiscation through inflation.

This essay is what endeared him to Rand personally. He became a valued member of her inner circle at a time when such circles of influence dominated the Manhattan scene. He won her confidence while his consulting firm was growing in influence. His clients were among the biggest players on Wall Street. His closeness to Rand and her circle contributed to the sense that they had at the time that Rand’s ideas were in ascendance, as her book sales only grew.

Once in power, however, Greenspan operated within the fiat system that he once criticized. He became known for discretionary, flexible monetary policy that prioritized short-term economic stability and growth over rigid rules.

Key elements included the “Greenspan Put.”

Markets came to expect the Fed to cut interest rates and inject liquidity during crises to cushion asset price declines. This started with the 1987 stock market crash (Black Monday), during which Greenspan quickly affirmed the Fed’s readiness to provide liquidity.

This was the beginning of what later became known as Quantitative Easing, or money printing, as the method to deal with market upheavals. It represented a wholesale repudiation of the policies of Paul Volcker from 1979 to 1982, the last time this country permitted an economic downturn to take its normal course rather than use artificial methods of stimulating demand. It was a test of the theory of the Austrian School, which argued that recessions serve a purpose of cleaning out malinvestments to prepare the ground for new prosperity.

The test worked to create the conditions of the 1980s boom. And yet at the same time, we saw measures of finance and banking deregulation that would empower new forms of credit finance that blurred the old distinctions between savings and checkable (liquid) deposits. It was this change that would end up fundamentally changing the operations of capitalism.

With sound money and a free market, the interest rate was a reflection of the savings rate. Investors would only borrow what was available, while savers were rewarded for their thrift with high interest rates. The rate of return for financial capital would tend toward an equilibrium identical to industrial output levels. That means that you are always better off saving than taking risks unless you have an eye toward entrepreneurial speculation. That was the balance: save, invest, grow.

Greenspan’s efforts turned the table over. The Fed embarked on a new experiment that would reward debt more than saving through one simple trick. He would push down rates to the point that saving paid less than investing in stocks, such that anyone could go into serviceable debt and invest and make more money with financial markets. Thus began what is called financialization. It overthrew the traditional workings of capitalism for a new calculation that stopped rewarding thrift and started rewarding leverage above all else.

Quite the achievement for a man who decades earlier had condemned this very system!

This strategy was repeated with responses to the 1998 LTCM/Russia crisis, the dot-com bust (2000–2001), and post-9/11. Investors priced in this implicit downside protection—like a put option—encouraging greater risk-taking, leverage, debt service, and wild speculation.

After the dot-com bubble burst and 9/11, the Fed under Greenspan cut the federal funds rate to a then-record low of roughly 1 percent in 2003–2004 and held it there. This created very cheap credit, fueling borrowing, leverage, and rising asset prices (especially housing). This directly inflated the mid-2000s housing bubble by making mortgages extraordinarily affordable and encouraging subprime lending.

The result was moral hazard and a wild culture of risk-taking at the expense of financial prudence. The combination of bailouts for markets (not necessarily individual firms) and low rates fostered the belief that the Fed would always “clean up” after bubbles.

This reduced the perceived downside of speculation, leading to higher leverage in finance, exotic mortgages, and a broader “debt finance” era in which credit expansion outpaced productive growth. Greenspan himself spoke of “irrational exuberance” in 1996 but didn’t act decisively to prick bubbles.

Greenspan’s tenure coincided with (and helped enable) a structural shift toward higher public–private debt levels, financialization of the economy, and repeated asset bubbles. The housing bubble and 2008 crisis are the clearest examples—easy money post-dot-com contributed to over-leveraged households and banks. While he defended his actions (arguing that bubbles are hard to identify in real time and that low rates didn’t solely cause the housing issues), his policies masked rising systemic risks and set the United States on the course toward disaster.

In later years, Greenspan reflected on gold favorably (e.g., calling it the premier global currency and admitting in conversations with Ron Paul that the Fed tried to mimic gold-standard signals). He acknowledged the welfare state’s incompatibility with hard money but pragmatically worked within the system.

Fine talk, but look at how he walked. Greenspan’s successors at the Fed only intensified his apostasy, especially Ben Bernanke, who went one better and slammed rates to zero while protecting against inflationary consequences by filling up bank vaults with fake money. This created innumerable zombie institutions, even as the Fed held the overvalued fake assets on its books. It still does.

Bernanke was succeeded by Janet Yellen, who sought to dampen inflation worries in early 2021, just before depreciation sliced off one-third of the dollar’s purchasing power. This is not a stellar record for which Greenspan set the precedent.

The young Greenspan saw gold as a check on government and banker overreach. The elder Greenspan, wielding immense power at the Fed, used that power to smooth cycles, successfully for a while (low inflation, steady growth in the 1990s)—but at the cost of building a more fragile, debt-dependent financial architecture.

This “Greenspan era” mindset of activist central banking influenced successors like Bernanke (QE) and continues to shape today’s environment of high debt and low rates (until recently) and expectations of Fed rescues. It marked a decisive move away from sound-money principles toward managed fiat credit cycles.

We are still paying a huge price for this mismanagement. Greenspan is the perfect embodiment of the principle that your talk and your walk need to match, lest you become an instrument of hypocrisy and eventual disaster that undermines every intellectual conviction you once embraced.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 19:15

Culture Of Grievance

Authored by George Brooks via AmericanThinker.com,

Every civilization develops a moral language - a set of virtues that it celebrates and vices that it condemns. For much of human history, societies lauded courage, resilience, self-sacrifice, duty, honor, and perseverance. The individual who overcame adversity was admired. The citizen who contributed more than he consumed was esteemed. To endure hardship without surrendering one’s dignity was considered noble.

Increasingly, however, modern Western society appears to have inverted this hierarchy.

Today, victimhood often functions as a form of social capital.

To claim injury is to acquire moral authority.

To assert oppression is frequently to gain status. Public discourse, particularly within academia, media, politics, and social media, often rewards not those who demonstrate resilience, but those who can most persuasively locate themselves within narratives of historical or contemporary disadvantage.

This is not to suggest that oppression does not exist. It plainly does. Human beings have always oppressed one another. History is replete with examples of slavery, discrimination, persecution, exploitation, and injustice. Serious societies acknowledge these realities honestly.

Yet acknowledging injustice and organizing one’s entire social order around grievance are two very different enterprises.

The modern culture of grievance is distinguished not merely by its concern for injustice, but by its tendency to elevate grievance itself into an identity.

In such a framework, suffering confers legitimacy. Personal agency is often deemphasized in favor of structural explanations. Individual responsibility, once considered indispensable to human flourishing, is increasingly treated as secondary to historical narratives of power and oppression.

Why?

Part of the answer lies in incentives.

Human beings respond to incentives whether they exist in economics, politics, or culture. If a society rewards certain forms of behavior with status, attention, influence, institutional support, or financial gain, those behaviors predictably proliferate.

Social media has accelerated this process dramatically.

Platforms built upon visibility and engagement naturally privilege outrage, conflict, and emotional intensity. Claims of victimization generate attention. Attention generates followers. Followers generate influence. Influence often generates money, prestige, and institutional power.

Grievance, in the digital age, has become monetizable.

The entrepreneur of outrage need not solve problems; indeed, solving problems may threaten his relevance. A permanent sense of crisis sustains audiences, donations, speaking engagements, media appearances, and political mobilization. The incentive, therefore, is often not reconciliation but perpetuation.

A grievance resolved is a constituency diminished.

This dynamic extends beyond social media influencers. Entire political movements, activist organizations, and institutional bureaucracies can become dependent upon the continued existence—or perceived existence—of oppression. The maintenance of moral urgency becomes essential to organizational survival.

Consequently, there exists a temptation to expand definitions continually, to discover ever more subtle forms of harm, and to reinterpret ordinary human conflicts through increasingly elaborate frameworks of oppression.

Disagreement becomes violence.

Words become trauma.

Discomfort becomes harm.

Failure becomes victimization.

Ordinary interpersonal conflict becomes evidence of systemic injustice.

The danger is not merely conceptual confusion. The danger is cultural infantilization.

Human flourishing requires the cultivation of resilience. Every person encounters disappointment, rejection, unfairness, betrayal, and suffering. These experiences, while painful, are intrinsic to the human condition. A society that teaches individuals to interpret every adversity primarily through the lens of oppression risks producing citizens less capable of confronting life’s inevitable hardships.

Stoic philosophers understood this long ago. We possess limited control over external events but considerable influence over our responses to them. While circumstances matter, human beings are not merely passive products of circumstance.

Agency matters.

Responsibility matters.

Character matters.

Indeed, one of the greatest achievements of liberal democracy has been its insistence that individuals cannot be reduced solely to categories of race, sex, class, religion, or ancestry. The individual person possesses moral dignity independent of group identity.

Identity politics, by contrast, often risks reversing this principle. Individuals increasingly come to be understood primarily as representatives of groups rather than as unique persons. Social and political questions are filtered through collective identities, historical grievances, and competing claims of disadvantage.

Such a framework can foster tribalism rather than solidarity.

Citizens cease to view one another primarily as neighbors, fellow countrymen, or participants in a shared civic enterprise. Instead, society fragments into competing constituencies, each seeking recognition, resources, status, or moral legitimacy.

The social fabric frays.

This does not mean historical injustices should be ignored. Quite the contrary. Mature societies remember their histories precisely so they may avoid repeating them. But memory should serve wisdom, not resentment. Justice should seek restoration where possible, not the perpetual cultivation of grievance.

A healthy society balances compassion with responsibility.

It extends assistance to those genuinely in need while simultaneously affirming human agency. It recognizes injustice without encouraging dependency upon victimhood as an identity. It acknowledges suffering while celebrating resilience.

Most importantly, it teaches that adversity, though often unfair, need not define a life.

The culture of grievance offers a seductive promise: that our struggles can be explained entirely by external forces and that moral virtue inheres in suffering itself. But this promise ultimately diminishes human beings. It encourages people to locate power everywhere except within themselves.

Civilizations do not thrive when victimhood becomes aspirational.

They thrive when individuals are encouraged to confront hardship with courage, responsibility, discipline, and hope.

The task of a free society is not to deny suffering.

It is to produce citizens capable of transcending it.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 18:25

America's Data-Center Revolt Goes Local - And Bipartisan - As Towns Slam The Brakes

The pitchforks are out over the AI buildout - as drama unfolds in county commission chambers, where the people who will actually live next to the substations and cooling plants are starting to win.

Saline, Michigan, December 1, 2025. Rural Michigan residents rally against the $7 billion Stargate data center planned on southeast Michigan farm land.  (Photo by: Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Over the last week, local governments in at least three states have independently moved to pause hyperscale data center development - amid local revolts driven by the same three anxieties: water, electricity rates, and the suspicion that the deals were wired before anyone in town got a vote. One thing is clear; residents are pissed, and this pushback is bipartisan. 

As we've previously noted, this revolt has been building all year - and it has already produced the first statewide moratorium, passed by New York's legislature this month. What follows is the local front of the same war, fought four counties at a time.

Florida: a unanimous pause, a preemptive one, and a lawfare wrinkle

In DeSoto County, commissioners sat through nearly three hours of public comment on Tuesday before voting unanimously (with one recusal) to direct the county attorney to draft a one-year moratorium on new data center applications. Not one resident spoke in favor of the pending project or against the pause.

DeSoto County residents packed a county commission meeting on June 23 to speak in favor of a moratorium on data centers. (Photo by Alice Herman, Suncoast Searchlight)

The catch: the moratorium, once drafted and passed, wouldn't touch projects already in the pipeline. And there's a big one. DCIP Group is pushing a gas-powered hyperscale complex that a second rezoning application would expand past 800 acres - with longer-term maps reportedly sketching as many as 1,300 acres and more than a dozen facilities. The county had been fast-tracking it under a "Rapid Response" economic-development pilot; records obtained by Suncoast Searchlight show officials moving to prioritize the application.

Pressed on specifics, the developer couldn't supply them. Asked how much water the complex would draw, DCIP's CEO allowed it could be anywhere from zero to 3 million gallons a day - a range wide enough to drive a turbine through. The company points to "closed-loop" cooling and reclaimed water as mitigations (claims, not yet verified by the county). Commissioners bristled at the suggestion they'd been captured, with one insisting they were "not a bunch of bought and paid for puppets."

Central Florida's Lake County went a step further - a preemptive pause. By the county's own account it has no data centers and no pending applications, yet commissioners reached consensus on June 23 to have staff draft a moratorium, with a vote set for July 14 that Commissioner Anthony Sabatini expects to pass unanimously. He says he isn't seeking "an outright ban" because Florida's SB 180 - signed by Gov. DeSantis after the 2025 session and sold as hurricane-rebuild relief - has been read to bar local governments from tightening development rules at all, and to hand developers a tool to sue counties that reject rezonings. The law sunsets October 1, 2027, so a moratorium is the workaround until it does. Sabatini said 12 applications for "large data centers" have been filed statewide in the past year, and pointed to Citrus, Nassau and Pasco counties as having already imposed some form of pause.

The contrast is right next door. In neighboring Orange County, CoreSite - a subsidiary of publicly traded American Tower (AMT) - has filed plans for a second data-center building at its Orlando campus, adding roughly 76,000 square feet to an existing 129,000-plus-square-foot facility. The moratorium map and the buildout map are being drawn at the same time.

Pennsylvania: from coal country to the statehouse

In Brookville, a borough in western Jefferson County, PA, council members unanimously passed a 180-day moratorium last week, giving themselves until roughly December to write rules. The trigger was water. Council vice-president Randy Bartley said the borough was unofficially told that two data centers were eyeing the area, together capable of drawing about 2.4 million gallons a day from Brookville's supply - a massive amount for such a small borough. Bartley says their job is to "be sure when they turn on the tap, they have water."

Brookville is a borough in western Jefferson County, Pa. Council members recently passed a 180-day moratorium on data center development in the area to give them more time to consider what kind of regulations to pass. (Photo courtesy of WPSU’s Our Town)

Days earlier, the Pennsylvania House moved a package of data-center bills, including a 197-5 vote to repeal a sales-tax exemption on data-center equipment - a break projected to cost the commonwealth roughly $517 million a year by 2030 - and a 201-1 vote codifying Gov. Shapiro's certification-based "GRID Standards." Those standards only bind developers who want state tax perks, covering water use, noise and air pollution, and local energy affordability. The quiet part, said out loud by a bill sponsor: the breaks were flowing to companies clearing nine figures of net income a year.

Missouri: protests, secrecy, and a definition nobody wrote down

In Springfield, Missouri, some 60 residents rallied outside Plaza Towers on Tuesday ahead of a special City Council vote, set for this coming Monday, on a 120-day moratorium. Inside the building, a business panel on data centers featured Trent Overhue - Plaza Towers' owner and the developer of a contested small-scale data center going up near Marshfield - while the protest against projects like his played out on the sidewalk.

Kenny Gott, of Springfield observed “We can’t stop progress, but we can regulate it and that’s what needs to happen.” (Photo by Jym Wilson)

Then there's the secrecy... In nearby Webster County, residents say a developer quietly broke ground on a small AI data center in Marshfield before any public process - there's no county planning and zoning commission - and the county has since retained outside counsel to figure out its options. One Marshfield resident's summary: "no meetings, no transparency at all." Second, Springfield's city manager admits the city code contains no definition of "data center" at all - which is how a developer's pitch for a mixed-use building on South National Avenue, with a basement use the city gingerly calls "like a cousin to a data center," is becoming a fight. The 120 days would buy the city time to define the term and study impacts on water, wastewater and the grid.

The local anxiety is, again, about who pays. One self-described tenant leader warned that utility costs would climb for working-class residents if a data center lands - the same ratepayer-socialization fear driving the Pennsylvania votes. For scale, residents need only look up the road to the 2-million-square-foot "AI factory" rising in Independence. Meanwhile, the state is trying to get a grip on the situation: a Missouri House committee has set a September hearing on data-center rules, even as one lawmaker presses the governor for a special session that leadership has so far waved off.

Remember folks, AI-capex bulls assume that land, water, and power show up on schedule - and hyperscalers will have a hard time lobbying their way out of these local entanglements. The political economy is the story: the compute is centralized and the profits accrue to AMZN, MSFT, GOOGL and META (and, via CoreSite, to AMT), but the water draw, the grid strain, and the rate increases land on residents who increasingly get a vote before the concrete is poured. The Florida SB 180 angle adds a delicious contradiction - a "property rights" statute now functioning as a developer's shield against local democracy.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 18:00

Katz Says US Hasn't Asked Israel To Withdraw From Lebanon - Wouldn't Do It Anyway

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that the US hasn't asked Israel to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon despite Iran maintaining that a withdrawal is necessary to implement the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding, which calls for an end to Israel's war.

"We have announced that in any case we are not withdrawing and, as of this moment – and this is a diplomatic achievement – there is no American demand for Israel to withdraw from Lebanon," Katz said.

Pool/AP

The Israeli minister vowed that Israel would stay in Lebanon "even if there is an American demand" and that Lebanese civilians would not be able to return to the IDF-occupied areas.

"There will be no civilians and no terrorists. Why? Because what happened in the past in security zones where there was also a civilian population was that there were explosives and attacks against soldiers, and therefore, we do not allow that," Katz said, according to Haaretz.

"Soldiers in, residents out. The infrastructure is destroyed, the houses are dangerous and ruined. We are not withdrawing," he added.

Also on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he wouldn’t withdraw from Lebanon as long as he remains in power, which could be just a few more months, as Israel is set to hold elections in October, or potentially even earlier.

"As long as I am prime minister, we will maintain the security zone in southern Lebanon," Netanyahu said. "We will be the first in the world to solve the explosive drones problem."

While both President Trump and Vice President Vance have criticized some of Israel’s conduct in Lebanon, neither has publicly called for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, and there’s no sign the administration is considering cutting off military aid to either pressure Israel to end the war or leave Israel on its own.

While Israeli attacks in Lebanon have subsided since the weekend, they haven’t stopped, and at least three people were killed by IDF strikes on Wednesday.

BREAKING: Israeli forces have withdrawn from part of its buffer zone in southern Lebanon as an act of "good faith" towards Lebanon's government, a U.S. state department official says, according to Reuters.

The official said that the Lebanese Armed Forces will now move into the…

— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) June 25, 2026

Lebanese and Israeli officials held talks in Washington on Tuesday, and before the negotiations, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said that Beirut would accept "nothing less than an end to the Israeli occupation."

According to Al Monitor, the two sides are discussing a potential US-backed proposal for the IDF to hand over some territory to the Lebanese military, and that the US would "vet" the soldiers for ties to Hezbollah, though the plan would allow Israel to stay in parts of Lebanon near the border in what’s being called a "buffer zone."

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 17:40

Small Plane Hits Beijing's Tallest Tower; Was Someone Sending China A Message?

A serious airspace breach occurred in Beijing's Central Business District earlier Friday, when a Sunward SA60L Aurora light aircraft crashed into the 1,700-foot-tall CITIC Tower.

The incident is a major wake-up call for Beijing's airspace defenses, not only in the financial district but also around CITIC Group, one of China's major state-owned financial and investment conglomerates.

The crash has already sparked speculation among some observers that there may be a lot more to the story.

A single-engine Sunward SA-60L Aurora aircraft with registration B-12PP, flown by a lone pilot struck the CITIC tower in Beijing, reportedly around the mid-levels, around 65th floor area today.

The aircraft was completely damaged on impact, also made a visible hole in the glass… pic.twitter.com/ffgTdTffmE

— FL360aero (@fl360aero) June 26, 2026

X user Guo Shen reported that the Sunward SA60L Aurora light aircraft departed from Shifosi Airport in eastern Beijing and was expected to return for an approach to Runway 18 before turning westbound toward the Guomao Central Business District. It then struck the 528-meter CITIC Tower.

Shen said the plane was an ultralight aircraft - not a high-speed military - making the incident less about kinetic capability and more about airspace control. The failure to prevent a low-and-slow altitude aircraft exposes massive security failures by Beijing.

She explained further:

• A general-aviation training plane breached airspace over one of China's most tightly controlled cities and struck a 528-meter skyscraper in the heart of Beijing.
• Airspace near Beijing's CBD is normally restricted for this class of aircraft, meaning the restriction regime failed to prevent the breach.
• The pilot is presumed dead. It was a solo flight, and light-sport aircraft do not have ejection systems.
• Flight-path data reportedly shows the aircraft maintained a constant 270-degree heading after skipping the planned approach turn, raising questions about whether this was a simple navigation error.

• Videos of the impact, falling debris, and façade damage circulated on X within minutes, narrowing Beijing's censorship window before authorities could shape the official narrative.

He continued:

They're NOT showing you the operational question underneath it — that the world's most surveilled, most controlled, most restricted urban airspace just failed to stop a two-seater training plane from reaching the upper floors of a landmark skyscraper in the middle of the afternoon.

You don't build the most extensive airspace restriction system in the world and then explain a 270° constant heading into the CBD as a navigation malfunction. You don't evacuate 109 floors and cordon the Guomao district and release zero official statements unless the answer to "how did this happen" is one you are not ready to give.

Process that.

The plane that just hit Beijing's tallest building wasn't a missile.

It was a two-seater training aircraft.

And nobody is talking about what that actually means.

🚨 🚨 🚨 A SUNWARD SA60L "AURORA" LIGHT SPORT PLANE JUST PUNCHED A HOLE INTO CITIC TOWER — 109 STORIES UP — IN THE… pic.twitter.com/LlzKZYGbOF

— 🇨🇳 Guo Shen 郭深 (@GuoShenCN7) June 26, 2026

X user Flight Emergency posted what appears to be the Sunward SA60L Aurora's flight path, showing the aircraft maintaining a steady track with no obvious attempt to turn back before impact.

The flight path raises the question: was this simply a general-aviation mishap, or was the aircraft being flown, or commanded, with a specific target in mind?

A Sunward SA60L Aurora (registration B-12PP) was involved in a fatal crash after striking Beijing's CITIC Tower today, June 26, 2026. @AirNavRadar

AirNav Radar ADS-B data shows the aircraft's last available transmissions ending before the impact, with no further position… pic.twitter.com/483bY6GTje

— Flight Emergency (@FlightEmergency) June 26, 2026

If Beijing cannot defend skyscrapers in its financial district from a light-sport aircraft moving at speeds comparable to a Shahed-style drone, then the question becomes unavoidable: was this merely an aviation failure, or was someone sending a message to the CCP?

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 17:20

DOJ Finds USDA Preferences For 'Socially Disadvantaged' Farmers Discriminatory

Authored by Bryan Hyde via American Greatness,

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has concluded that the U.S. Agriculture Department’s (USDA) favors for “socially disadvantaged” groups unconstitutionally discriminate based on race and sex.

Just the News reports that the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has determined conservation‑planning programs that authorized USDA to waive user fees for “socially disadvantaged” farmers as defined by race‑ and sex‑based criteria, violated the Constitution’s equal-protection guarantee.

🔥Hot off the presses: @TheJusticeDept explains that the @USDA cannot give benefits only to certain "socially disadvantaged" groups. But there's more to this one than you may pick up at first glance 👀 pic.twitter.com/3otuh4FWwl

— Eric W. (@EWess92) June 23, 2026

The DOJ defines “socially disadvantaged” farmers as any “whose members have been subjected to racial, ethnic, or gender prejudice,” including women and African American, Hispanic, and Asian people.

The agency found that billions of dollars distributed in fiscal 2025 illegally favored non-Caucasians.

Of 36 programs reviewed, the DOJ declared that most were unlawful, and that the USDA must provide assistance via “constitutionally permissible means.” Five programs, which can be “administered in a race- and sex-neutral manner,” will be retained.

In a Monday press release, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said, “Racial discrimination is illegal, and the government cannot show preference to certain groups when awarding special benefits without a compelling reason to justify the classification.”

Blanche added, “This Department of Justice is committed to ending illegal DEI initiatives across the federal government that violate our Constitution and laws.”

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins affirmed, “All persons served by this Department will, without question, be treated equally.”

Rollins said, “Today’s opinion affirms discrimination based on race and sex is unconstitutional and no program at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including those in the Farm Production and Conservation mission area, will act otherwise.”

The USDA may continue to provide technical assistance, financial support, and outreach to farmers and ranchers through constitutionally permissible means.

The Trump administration has spearheaded a DEI crackdown across federal agencies and education.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 17:00

FIFA Folds, Allows Rainbow Flags To Fly In Seattle Stadium Despite Objections From Iran, Eqypt

Rainbow flags will be allowed inside the stadium in Seattle, where the FIFA World Cup group game between Iran and Egypt is being held on June 26, despite both countries objecting to the standards associated with the LGBT community.

Both countries are predominantly Muslim, and homosexuality is illegal in Iran and criminalized in Egypt, but Hana Tadesse, a spokesperson for Seattle’s World Cup organizing committee, said on June 24 that FIFA considers the rainbow flag a statement of human rights and will allow fans to wave it inside Lumen Field.

In December 2025, the soccer federations of both Iran and Egypt complained after it became clear that Seattle’s World Cup organizing committee wanted to use the match as a “once-in-a-lifetime moment to showcase and celebrate LGBTQIA+ communities in Washington.”

As Chris Summers reports for Epoch Times, under FIFA’s World Cup stadium policy, it is prohibited for fans to bring in certain controversial political items.

“Any materials, including but not limited to banners, flags, flyers, apparel, and other paraphernalia that are of a political, offensive, and/or discriminatory nature, containing wording, symbols, or any other attributes aimed at discrimination of any kind against a country, private person, or group on account of race, skin color, ethnicity, national or social origin, gender, disability, language, religion, political or any other opinion, birth, wealth or any other status, sexual orientation, or any other grounds,” according to the policy.

When Iran played its first game, against New Zealand in Inglewood, California, on June 15, The Epoch Times reported that FIFA had banned Iranian fans who opposed the regime in Tehran from flying the country’s pre-1979 flag—which bears a lion-and-sun standard—inside the stadium.

On June 25, before the Iranian soccer team held a news conference in Seattle, Daniel Marin, FIFA’s executive director of public relations, read a statement on behalf of the Iranian team.

“This Islamic Republic of the Iran Football Federation has asked us to inform the media that they are only willing to answer questions in relation to the game,” Marin said.

“We fully respect the right of all journalists to ask questions. In this case, we ask you respect the rights of the federation here today to only answer questions in relation to the team, the tactics, the match, and so on.”

Iran goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand makes a save against Belgium during their soccer World Cup match in Inglewood, Calif., on June 21, 2026. Mark J. Terrill/AP

But Iran’s coach, Amir Ghalenoei, was still asked a barrage of questions about the issue by journalists, which he declined to answer.

If Iran wins, they will advance to the knockout stage of the World Cup for the first time.

“I said to you earlier we are here to play football. For nothing else,” Ghalenoei said.

“Our entire focus is going to be on tomorrow’s game, on succeeding in tomorrow’s game. And, anything else that is banned ... we don’t want to speak about it.”

Soccer Is the ‘Beautiful Game’

“We are only going to speak about football, what a beautiful game it is, and how enjoyable it’s going to be,” Ghalenoei said.

Egypt’s players and coach Hossam Hassan also declined to answer questions on the issues during a news conference at Husky Soccer Stadium in Seattle.

“We are all focused on football,” Hassan, speaking through a translator, said. “This is all that we think about.”

The wearing of rainbow armbands became a controversy in 2024, when several English Premier League soccer players objected to wearing them as part of an “LGBTQ+ inclusion initiative” because of their religious beliefs.

Marc Guehi, who is currently playing for England in the World Cup, chose to write over the armband the message, “Jesus loves you.”

Sam Morsy, a practicing Muslim who captained Ipswich Town, chose not to wear the symbol on his jersey when he led his team to a draw against Manchester United in December 2024. Morsy played nine times for Egypt—where his father is from—but was not included in their World Cup squad.

The Epoch Times reached out to FIFA for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 16:40

The Party Of Algae And 'Our Democracy'

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

“. . .a political party doesn’t lose 95 percent of a registration advantage because voters are kinda annoyed. Something much, much deeper is going on.”

- Richard Landwirth

Okay, convince me that gay-Islamic-race-communism is a “progressive” political program America is going to buy like corn flakes.

The Lefty-left wants to think so, as it lurches from one peak of mental illness to an even greater one in the 130 days to the midterms.

Look how successful they’ve been with open borders, defunding the police, men in the girl’s swim lane, no cash bail, sex-change surgery for kids, free-for-all elections, hatin’ on white people, and open Medicare fraud. The new re-branding strategy as “Democratic Socialism” only tells you that reality has ceased to interest them.

No, winning electoral districts stuffed with illegal aliens in bright blue cities with tiny overall voter turnouts won’t sweep the nation like love. More likely it’s a harbinger of the party’s approaching death, like the Whigs going down the drain in 1852, gurgle-gurgle. Advocating to destroy American society is a poor sales pitch. The party’s old-line leadership frantically seeks some way to neutralize the rising influence of Zohran Mamdani and his disciples, but so far nothing works. An odor of desperation fills the air.

One thing you can say about the gay-Islamic-race-communists is that they are well-organized, which is understandable since their political program resembles an ant farm, a dis-individuated collective with insectile characteristics, workers and soldiers toiling in mindless solidarity to occupy more electoral territory so as to vanquish their “oppressors,” Trump and the big feet of his capitalist minions.

Meanwhile, though, the money flows dry up as the old Big Donor Dawgs freak-out at the prospect of having their fortunes confiscated, eaten by this advancing ant-swarm, while Scott Bessent and Todd Blanche work to disassemble the giant, hive-like matrix of NGOs that, for years, laundered US taxpayer dollars through the Democratic Party’s patronage system. In New York City, Philly, LA, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Portland, the NGOs furnished comfortable salaries for young activists churned out remorselessly by Higher Ed, but all that’s starting to look like a bygone Shangri-la, a lost world.

“Many Democratic primary voters, however, are in no mood for defensiveness. As they see it, they’ve been failed by a cautious, compromising establishment, and they’re going to overthrow it.”

- Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times

Of course, the loss of those cushy jobs and perqs has pitched that young demographic into a yet greater rage, prompting them to wreak vengeance and havoc on the system that took their “entitlements” away. Activists want to do activism, which is not necessarily the same as working for a living. It’s working for an ideal, a cause — to abolish the very society based on working for a living and replace it with a parent-like, hovering, all-powerful government that provides your every need by “seizing the means of production.”

The trouble is, this has been tried before, many times in the previous century, and the track-record is discouraging, exhibit-A being the old Soviet Union, the experiment that failed. Why? Because after seizing the means of production, the state bureaucracy lacks the skills, the spirit, and the creative juice to produce much of anything, and especially to do it well. All it can actually contribute to the process is its intrinsic bureaucratic entropy and, to put it ultra-simply, entropy is just not a force for good in this world.

The Republican Party is laboring through its own parallel, but rather different sort of crack-up, a breach based more on pure enmity to President Trump’s personality than necessarily to ideas or policy.

The Right still uniformly subscribes to personal liberty and economic enterprise, but factions on the right have a long-running investment in the Deep State apparatus and its protection against Mr. Trump’s impending prosecution of the so-called “grand conspiracy” (the ongoing seditious coup), as well as his dismantling of the money-flow architecture that keeps Beltway types rolling in dough.

Former AG Bill Barr is exhibit-A for that faction, as when he concealed the FBI’s possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop through Trump Impeachment No. 1, when he refused to investigate ballot fraud after the 2020 election, and when he managed to let Jeffrey Epstein off himself in the Manhattan federal lockup.

Then there is Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the emptiest suit to ever occupy that job, who refuses to explain his aversion to common-sense election reform or his failure to allow confirmation of the president’s nominees to important federal posts. He is so committed to doing nothing that he makes “Joe Biden” look like a prodigy of action. They say Sen. Thune represents the old-school “country club” Republicans, but he looks too dim to even tote up an 18-hole golf card.

There are also Tucker, and Candace, and Nick Fuentes, and MTG, and other pouting and shouting former MAGA superstars throwing down against the president and his program.

It has all become rather unappetizing, though rumors swirl of Tucker seeking to build a whole new party to replace the GOP and MAGA. As Homey de Clown might put it: I don’t think so. . . .

I doubt that any of them will succeed in destroying MAGA, but they’re making the movement uncomfortable. Let’s face it: they’re embarrassing.

On the other hand, the Party of Algae and “Our Democracy” is incapable of being embarrassed, and that has been obvious for a long time based on the absurdities they attempt to foist upon our country.

The Iran War seems to be fading in the rear-view mirror now, despite all their yelling about how we lost it.

Oil is hovering just below $70-a-barrel as I write.

Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are reduced to a pitiful vaudeville act in the face of Mamdani-ism.

Bernie Sanders is lost in a rain-dance for Utopia.

And James Carville is on-track for a three-week vacation in the Rubber Room.

Don’t bother praying for them. Just wait for gurgle.

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

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 16:20

Tanker Rates Nearly Halve As Hormuz Shipping Normalizes

The recent spike in the cost to hire a supertanker carrying 2 million barrels of crude from Saudi Arabia to China is now being sharply reversed, as more shippers send vessels through the Strait of Hormuz and normalization trends continue to improve.

Bloomberg reports that tanker rates for the Saudi Arabia-to-China route tumbled to about $287K on Friday, down 44% from more than $514K on Tuesday. That data came from the Baltic Exchange.

Rates remain elevated and still highly profitable for owners, but the sharp drop late in the week suggests the market is beginning to normalize after an interim U.S.-Iran peace deal reduced the war risk premium around the Hormuz chokepoint. Early movers certainly capitalized on lofty rates last week.

According to Bloomberg data, 48 vessels have transited the narrow waterway on Friday, though that does not include ships that switched off their transponders.

By the end of the week, Brent crude fell below $72 per barrel, while WTI traded around $69, hovering near pre-war levels.

A late Thursday note from Arrow Shipping & Energy said that 75 million barrels of crude have flowed out of the Persian Gulf via tankers since the U.S. and Iran signed an interim peace deal. Persian Gulf exports are now at about 75% of pre-war levels, according to Bloomberg estimates.

Related:

• Asian Refiners Swamped, Brace For Over 60 Million Barrels Of Oil Ready To Exit Hormuz

Tanker loadings are now resuming at Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura terminal, yet another sign exports from allied Gulf countries are ramping up.

"Crude remains under significant pressure as the bearish narrative continues to center on improving flows through the Strait of Hormuz," said Rebecca Babin, senior energy trader at CIBC Private Wealth Group. "While transit numbers appear somewhat lower following yesterday's attack on a vessel, traffic has not stopped entirely."

HSBC analyst Kim Fustier said the reopening of the Hormuz waterway has created a "near-term supply overhang; Gulf exports rebound faster than the market can absorb them."

Fustier noted, "China remains key swing buyer," but said the "next inflection point when backlog of stranded vessels runs out and SPR releases end in July," may shift Brent back towards $80/bbl.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 15:40

Michael Saylor Responds To Scrutiny As Strategy Shares & STRC Hit 52-Week Lows

Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com,

Michael Saylor responded to the deepening selloff in Strategy’s stock and preferred shares Friday with a statement on X.

“Volatility tests every capital structure,” Saylor wrote.

“Strategy remains focused on Bitcoin, disciplined capital allocation, credit quality, and long-term value creation.

We appreciate our investors and will continue to execute with transparency and resolve. $MSTR”.

The tweet landed as MSTR shares and STRC, Strategy’s variable-rate perpetual preferred, both hit 52-week lows. MSTR has shed more than 80% from its all-time peak. STRC, which carries a par value of $100, traded near $74 — a 26% discount.

When preferred shares trade below par, the mechanism that funds bitcoin purchases through preferred issuance breaks down: the company cannot raise capital on favorable terms on instruments trading at a discount.

Bitcoin broke to $58,000 Wednesday for the first time since October 2024, pushing Strategy’s paper losses above $14 billion. The company holds 847,363 bitcoin at an average purchase price of $75,680 per coin — a gap of more than $17,000 per coin at current prices.

MSTR shares, which had shed around 25% over five trading days going into Friday, extended that decline somewhat in pre-market trading as bitcoin’s slide appeared to stagnate. The stock trades at an mNAV below 1.0, meaning the market values Strategy’s shares at a discount to the bitcoin on its balance sheet.

That matters because the company’s model depends on a premium: Strategy issues stock or preferred instruments above NAV, deploys proceeds into bitcoin, and lifts NAV per share in the process. With the premium gone, both capital taps are constrained at the same time.

Strategy’s cash strain deepens further

The pressure on the capital structure extends past bitcoin’s price.

Annual dividend obligations on Strategy’s preferred instruments — STRC, STRK, STRF, STRD, and STRE — have risen from $300 million at the start of 2026 to $1.2 billion, a fourfold increase in six months.

Cash reserves have fallen 38% this year. Dividend coverage, once above seven years, has compressed to about 14 months.

A Bloomberg report Thursday described investor scrutiny of Saylor’s funding model as the most intense the company has faced. CryptoQuant issued a note this week calling on Strategy to halt bitcoin purchases and rebuild cash to $2.8 billion before resuming accumulation.

Strategy made its first bitcoin sale in four years in early June, offloading 32 BTC at an average of $77,135 per coin. Saylor framed the move as proof the company could cover dividend obligations through asset liquidation. The market’s reaction suggests that framing did not hold.

Last week, Strategy bought 520 bitcoin — a fraction of its prior pace — and put $300 million of a $335.5 million equity raise into cash rather than bitcoin.

Saylor has not elaborated on the tweet beyond the statement posted to X.

We give the last (someone testy) word to Saylor...

Watch Michael Saylor freak out when asked where his $MSTR money will come frompic.twitter.com/bW4qMOgSwW https://t.co/iOJJ8IFZaY

— Financelot (@FinanceLancelot) June 26, 2026 Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 15:20

'Historic' Ceasefire Deal Reached By Israel & Lebanon, But Fine Print Confirms Fragile Reality

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed the new agreement signed between Israel and Lebanon, hosted in Washington on Friday, as a major blow to Iran. He has said Israeli forces will remain in southern Lebanon so long as Hezbollah does not disarm: 

"I want to announce a great achievement for the State of Israel. The most important thing is that, first of all, Israel remains in the security zone in southern Lebanon. This is a great achievement, and we will maintain it as long as Hezbollah does not disarm, as long as there is a danger to the State of Israel."

Mideast regional media is also calling the 'trilateral framework agreement' (given it was also signed by the US) as likely the most significant agreement between the two enemy countries in decades.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated at the signing ceremony that it was aimed at achieving "lasting peace and security". The US top diplomat proclaimed, "Today is a good day in that we are happy to announce a framework agreement between the sovereign government of Lebanon and, of course, the government of Israel, with a mediation and support of the United States of America that begins to put in place a framework for lasting peace and security."

via Reuters

He added: "And that’s what these two nations deserve." Following on this, the State Department also said officially, "The two sides agreed with the guidance of the United States to swiftly advance the creation of pilot zones in which the Lebanese Armed Forces will take exclusive control of the territory to the exclusion of all non-state actors."

Ultimately, it shows a serious effort by the Trump administration to scramble behind the scenes and ensure events in Lebanon can't derail the fragile peace and ceasefire achieved with the MoU signing between the US and Iran earlier this month.

Iran has insisted that a broader peace deal bring Lebanon into it, after small Mediterranean country suffered relentless aerial attacks by Israel, which is seeking to eradicate Hezbollah while occupying more territory in the south.

But the hard reality is that without Hezbollah going along with this, it only remains symbolic. In the below is seen the crucial fine print:

The agreement, which came as a result of talks mediated by the United States, calls for the implementation of a ceasefire between the two nations.

That ceasefire is contingent on a complete cessation of fire by the paramilitary group Hezbollah and the evacuation of all Hezbollah operatives from the South Litani Sector, an area in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah was not a party to Friday’s agreement. It is not clear whether the group will abide by any ceasefire.

As for some of the key details, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will hand over control of two areas within its six-mile southern Lebanon buffer zone to Lebanese forces. Al Jazeera says this is a prelude to a full Israeli withdrawal later on.

Having already cleared Hezbollah infrastructure from these sectors, Israeli forces are prepared to step back. The prior clearance operations included leveling entire border villages - a move Israel defended by claiming Hezbollah used the civilian infrastructure as staging grounds for attacks.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the Israel-Lebanon peace framework: "It's the beginning of the beginning. There is a lot of work ahead." pic.twitter.com/djoFtFMeaQ

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) June 26, 2026

Prior agreements have come and gone though - given things usually devolve into sporadic exchange of fire to start, and then move to intensified conflict. But the Trump admin has high hopes that this one will stick, truly earning the 'historic' label that many officials are currently attaching to it.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 15:00

"Perfect Storm": Bond Traders "Stunned" At How Quickly SpaceX Bonds Are Selling Off

Media reports earlier this week about SpaceX's inaugural post-IPO investment-grade bond (and we mean inaugural, as the company rushed to tap the corporate bond market just days after going public with a low-IG rating of Baa1/BBB) which priced on Tuesday, had it as almost 4x oversubscribed, at roughly $90BN in orders for the $25 billion offering (upsized from $20 billion), signaling relentless demand for the paper. Alas, it took just 48 hours for the myth of sterling demand to crash and burn, with Bloomberg reporting today that the "blockbuster bond sale is weakening so quickly in the secondary market that traders say they can’t recall another recent deal that widened this sharply."

This is what we mean.

Confirming the TRACE data shown above for the company's bonds due 2056, Bloomberg says that a large dealer was quoting the SpaceX bonds at levels as much as 0.32 percentage point wider than the issue price of 1.75 percentage points above Treasuries.

Parallel selling across the entire SpaceX bond complex means that paper losses on the company's $25 billion offering have mounted since the debt broke for trading Wednesday and totaled roughly $400 million as of Friday, relative to Treasuries. The longest-dated SpaceX bonds, which drew more skepticism than those with shorter maturities, have erased all the tightening from underwriters that followed as orders swelled to nearly $90 billion.

So much for that oversubscription.

Traders who spoke to Bloomberg said the moves suggest fast-money accounts, rather than traditional buy-and-hold investors, piled into the deal looking to flip it for a quick profit. In other words, the momentum monkeys who have dominated stonks, decided to try their hand at flipping bonds. It didn't work out well: the selling pressure stands out even more because SpaceX shares have been largely stable since the bonds priced on Tuesday, after lurching 16% lower the day before, which it not say that the stock has been especially stable and it once again broke below its first day of trading price earlier today when it briefly dipped below $150.

Even if there are more technical reasons behind the selling - hedge funds covering or hedging short positions, for example - the unprecedented magnitude of the rapid selling points to SpaceX’s unique profile. The company, which at its peak this month had a $2.64 trillion market value, won investment grades despite expectations for years of negative cash flow and a dependence on Elon Musk that Fitch Ratings deemed a “key rating constraint.”

“We expected SpaceX to widen from issuance level, but not this much,” said Tony Trzcinka, a portfolio manager at Impax Asset Management. “That magnitude is likely a perfect storm of the stock shedding $600 billion+ since launch, weak technicals from the upsized supply, and investors still scratching their heads over how to price its unique risk profile.”

SpaceX's selling is a rare move compared with how other recent mega bond sales have traded in the secondary market.

Take Nvidia, which raised $25 billion in a seven-part high-grade offering this month. The spreads on its 5.55% bonds maturing in 2046 have widened by just 11 basis points since issuance, while the spreads on its 5.625% bonds maturing in 2056 are 12 basis points wider. The spread on Alphabet’s longer-dated bonds issued in February have broadly tightened.

Meanwhile, after weakening, SpaceX’s credit curve is now trading more in line with those of similarly rated Oracle, whose longer-dated bonds also widened soon after they were first sold. 

One way to track the SpaceX relative credit performance is through CDS, as Credit-default swaps tied to the company began actively trading after the company sold high-grade bonds this week for the first time, allowing investors to hedge against potential losses or to speculate on the creditworthiness of the firm. And yes, SPCX CDS has blown wider since breaking for trading, indicating the market is not as hopeful on the company's "otherworldly" ambitions, as Elon Musk or the friendly Wall Street sellside, which expects 100x higher revenues by 2030. 

But here a bigger problem emerges: as we have been pounding the table since last October, when we said that "AI Is Now A Debt Bubble Too, Quietly Surpassing All Banks To Become The Largest Sector In The Market" and most recently two weeks ago when we profiled "The $1.8 Trillion Off-Balance Sheet Time Bomb At The Heart Of The AI Supercycle", bondholders have been inundated with massive hyperscaler bond sales this year as tech giants race to raise billions of dollars to finance artificial intelligence projects (read: pay memory chip makers ridiculous prices for their commodity product). US high-grade supply of $180 billion as of Wednesday has set a new June record, surpassing 2020’s $169 billion haul, according to Bloomberg calculations. Morgan Stanley's internal calcs are even more insane: the bank's latest Debt Financing Tracker (available to pro subscribers) found that YTD $236BN in AI-linked debt has been issued, a 357% increase from the same period last year. By year-end, MS expect this number to more than double to $570 billion.

Source 

Even more amazing is the recent explosion in hyperscaler gross leverage, which has surged from 0.9x in Q3 '25 to 1.8x currently, doubling in just over two quarters, and surpassing the gross leverage of the entire energy sector. At this rate, hyperscaler debt is growing at about 0.3x turn per quarter.

Source 

Echoing Bloomberg's observation that the borrowing spree is starting to weigh on corporate bond spreads, pushing average high-grade risk premiums out of a historically tight range, Morgan Stanley noted that hyperscalers are drifting wider, and after trading insider AA spreads for much of 2025, are now on top of A, and as MS warns, "may widen further on supply." And it's not just outlier Oracle: META is now trading wider to CDX IG. 

Source 

Not surprisingly, Bloomberg reported earlier this week that demand for the SpaceX bond sale was strongest for the five-year notes, i.e. the lowest duration part of the offering, which let the company cut borrowing costs more on that portion of the deal than on the longer maturities. Interest was weaker in the 20-year and 30-year bonds, which saw the biggest drop-off in demand. Ironically that's precisely where the bulk of the "shareholder value" is concentrated, deep in the future when SpaceX is expected to be colonizing Mars, flying through worm holes, and enjoying other activities that push its EBITDA north of $1 trillion, or something. 

SpaceX’s long-dated bonds are widening despite “some initial excitement and demand,” with bondholders “seemingly concluding that there may be plenty more debt issuance to come, as the loss-making company finances its future path to profitability,” Mark Dowding, CIO for fixed income at RBC BlueBay Asset Management, wrote in a note.

Mark is undoubtedly correct, and we expect both SpaceX and other IG names to continue flooding the market until spreads eventually blow up like they did one year ago, and shut the debt issuance window for good, at which point the capex cycle will end as there is no more free cash flow, and in a few months, there will be no more debt either. 

We recommend reading the latest Morgan Stanley Debt Financing Tracker for a comprehensive analysis of the hyperscaler debt flooding the investment grade bond market (available to pro subscribers).

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 14:40

Trump Jokes "I'd Be The Greatest Communist In History" As Democratic Elites Panic Over Socialist Hijack

A series of high-profile Democrats and party strategists this week sounded the alarm that socialists have hijacked the Democratic Party, with radical left-wing revolutionaries increasingly gaining power not just in local elections across the country, but most notably in far-left-controlled New York City.

Let's begin with President Trump's overnight comments on Truth Social, in which he told the anti-American, pro-globalist radical left:

The Communists are finally making their move. I've been waiting and preparing for this for a long time. It's easy to be a Communist — All you have to do is say, "I'll give you everything," but that means you're taking it away from others that have earned it. Over thousands of years, that Ideology has not worked once. The game is on.

Trump also fired off another Truth Social post early Friday afternoon, joking that:

"Communism is very easy to sell. I’d be the Greatest Communist in History. I’d give free rent, free houses, free food, everything is free. Unfortunately, after two or three years, the Country where this is taking place would fail."

He concluded by taking aim back at the Democrats:

"These are not social Dumocrats; these are hard-core, godless Communists. This is the most serious threat to our Country since its existence 250 years ago."

We have been warning readers for some time about the radical left's expanding power footprint and how they operate, from alleged foreign influence networks such as the China-linked Neville Roy Singham network, to billionaire- and union-funded left-wing NGOs, to the Democratic Socialists of America that are hellbent on crashing capitalism and the nation.

The wake-up call this week came in NYC, where Democratic Socialists scored closely watched House primary victories, beating out candidates backed by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

After Democrats allowed socialists and Marxist wolves into their DEI kingdom, the party is now facing an internal power struggle between its traditional establishment wing and the revolutionary left. This infighting has been obvious for some time, but until now, Democrats were unwilling to admit it publicly.

Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville was on News Nation on Thursday, blasting the DSA for hijacking the party to advance its far-left and anti-American agenda instead of launching its own party.

New York (D) Congressman Tom Suozzi joined Fox and addressed the growing division within the Democratic Party.

"Like I said, we're capitalist, not socialist. We believe in safety, not lawlessness. We're proud of America, not ashamed of it. We believe in fiscal discipline, and we have to organize better," Suozzi said.

'START YOUR OWN MOVEMENT': Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville is calling on Socialists to start their own movement and stop using the Democratic Party to advance it.

"If it's such a powerful, sweeping movement that's got momentum everywhere, then go ahead and be at the… pic.twitter.com/et3mZzqIA8

— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) June 26, 2026

Hakeem Jeffries joined CNBC on Thursday, as it only appears Democrats are in full-blown damage control mode, in addressing the parasitic nature of DSA hijacking the party.

Hakeem Jeffries refuses to answer if he will work with New York City Democrat Socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier.

CNBC: How are you going to work with some of these folks?

JEFFRIES: “Her views are clearly not my views… in terms of what brings Democrats together…” pic.twitter.com/JdjmwxSfr2

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 25, 2026

The damage control continued with New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), blaming far-left NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani for "blowing up" the party...

"Some of the candidates that he [Mamdani] has supported are individuals who do not understand the politics of New York City, the cultural differences from district to district, who have not been part of the history and the struggle of some of these districts, and are relatively new to the body politic," James told CNN.

James warned that Democratic Party officials have expressed concern and are "disappointed" in Mamdani's push to overhaul the party (really, it's the nonprofits behind Mamdani).

"All of us are a little frustrated with the Democratic Party. But you don't blow it up. That's what MAGA has done," James told CNN.

In case you're wondering what DSA stands for ... 

Even deep state Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich, warned on SiriusXM's "Straight Shooter": "That's why I believe we need significant new leadership. The old models are no longer working, and that includes the Democratic Party."

🚨 DEMOCRATS IN FULL CIVIL WAR — MODERATES VS SOCIALISTS!

Even Elissa Slotkin is reading the tea leaves: “The Democratic Party is a circular shooting squad… we just don’t have people who understand the moment and what leadership means.”

James Carville straight-up telling the… pic.twitter.com/IlGBHWUNMQ

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) June 26, 2026

Putting this together, the Democratic civil war appears to be finally emerging this summer - just ahead of midterms. Democratic Socialists and Marxist-aligned factions, most visibly through the DSA, are gaining uncomfortable levels of power inside the party, posing a direct challenge to old-school Democratic elites. The DSA's agenda seeks to push the party toward an anti-capitalist, anti-Western, and increasingly radical ideological posture that remains far outside the mainstream voter and does not resonate with most working-class Americans.

Democrats are absolutely terrified when the unofficial spokesperson of the DSA, Hasan Piker, calls for his followers to kill capitalists: "Yeah, kill them! Kill those motherfuckers and murder those motherfuckers in the streets. Let the streets soak in their fucking red capitalist blood, dude."

Hasan Piker calls on his followers to kill capitalists:

“Yeah kill them! KiII those motherfuckers and murder those motherfuckers in the streets. Let the streets soak in their fucking red capitalist blood, dude.”

Democrats are campaigning with him. pic.twitter.com/YiZxGgRkgc

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) April 9, 2026

We have profiled this emerging radicalization fomenting like cancer within the Democratic Party, one that appears increasingly aligned with foreign influence networks, including the China-linked Neville Roy Singham network and, potentially, communist-linked actors in Cuba.

• Is There A "Cuba Connection" Behind The Radicalization Of America's Nonprofit Left

In circles at the highest levels of government, from Washington to Brussels, there is a clear and new understanding, only in the last month, that this left-wing revolutionary movement has created a very troubling pattern of radicalization among the youth:

• Troubling Pattern Of Left-Wing Revolutionaries Targeting "Capitalists" Raises Alarm Over Youth Radicalization

But get ready for an action phase because it appears Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been watching:

• Bessent Signals Crackdown On Dark-Money Funded NGOs In "Weeks, Months Ahead"

Rubio as well:

• "No Longer Tolerate Radical Marxists": Rubio Sanctions Revolutionary Cuban Influence Network Tied To U.S. Left-Wing NGOs

Circling back to Trump's overnight comment against communists: "The game is on."

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 14:20

Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz' To Permanently Close, Gov. DeSantis Says

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

Florida permanently closed the temporary illegal immigrant holding center “Alligator Alcatraz” June 25 after transferring federal detainees to other facilities, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced.

“Alligator Alcatraz now has zero detainees,” DeSantis told reporters at a press conference outside the facility at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the Florida Everglades, about 50 miles west of Miami.

“It has helped remove many, many dangerous people from the street and get them out not only the state of Florida but the United States of America,” DeSantis said.

The facility was completed in less than two weeks and led to the deportation of almost 21,000 illegal immigrants, mainly people who had criminal records or were wanted for crimes, DeSantis said.

Crimes committed by the foreign nationals who were deported from the facility included sexual battery, international cartel activity, drug trafficking, homicide, burglary, fraud, fentanyl distribution, and Medicaid fraud, according to records.

The 2026 hurricane season started June 1, prompting Florida officials to move detainees out of the soft-sided facility.

Florida will continue to cooperate with the Trump administration on its immigration program, DeSantis said.

The state’s Deportation Depot in Baker County has processed 10,000 illegal immigrants and will continue to operate, he said.

“We’re proud to be able to be in this fight,” DeSantis said.

Florida is the only state in America that requires all state agencies to cooperate with federal law enforcement agencies in Florida for immigration enforcement.

President Donald Trump (2nd L), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (L), and then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (R) tour a detention center for illegal immigrants, dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Fla., on July 1, 2025. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

As a result, Florida has accounted for 40 percent of all immigrant arrests during President Donald Trump’s second term, according to the governor.

U.S. Border Czar Tom Homan joined Florida officials at the closure of Alligator Alcatraz June 25, touting the state’s success in helping the administration achieve a “record number of arrests and deportations.”

“Targeting national security threats is a priority of President Trump and we’re achieving that,” Homan said. “This doesn’t end the relationship. This is a continuation.”

Homan reported the administration had reduced illegal immigration by 97 percent at the border and had recovered 147,000 out of the 300,000 immigrant children that went missing under President Joe Biden’s administration.

“We are saving thousands of lives by securing that border,” Homan said. “A secure border is the most humane thing you can do. This is what the American people voted for and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.”

White House border czar Tom Homan takes a question from a reporter outside the West Wing of the White House on June 22, 2026. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Even before Alligator Alcatraz opened its doors, the site drew protests and lawsuits filed by immigrant rights groups.

In July 2025, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other groups filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the facility. The ACLU alleged that there was a lack of access to it and that detainees lacked due process.

State and federal officials have denied all allegations of torture and inhumane conditions at the detention facility.

The ACLU’s Florida chapter celebrated the governor’s announcement about the site’s permanent shutdown.

“Through pushback and litigation pressure, we the people successfully closed the chapter on this facility’s dark record,” the ACLU of Florida posted on X.

A protester stands outside the migrant detention facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Facility in Ochopee, Fla., on July 12, 2025. AP Photo/Alexandra Rodriguez

The Sierra Club of Florida welcomed the closure.

“We welcome efforts to permanently protect lands previously used for the prison camp known as ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’” the Sierra Club stated in an X post. “But fulfilling this commitment will require far more than the closure of the detention center alone.”

The Sierra Club is calling for the state to permanently protect the national preserve around the facility from future development, fossil fuel exploration, and drilling.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 13:40

American Benevolence During World Cup Erases Anti-American Propaganda

Authored by Armando Simon via AmericanThinker.com,

The World Cup, as everyone knows by now, has been taking place across several cities in stadiums that have surprised foreign visitors by being gigantic and air-conditioned. As usual, fans have been having a lot of fun. Many of the visitors have come to the United States for the first time.

Social media has been filled with countless postings from visitors relating their experiences in this country.

Overwhelmingly, they are blown away by the abundance of food, both in restaurants and in grocery stores, not just in amount but in variety (e.g., the dozens and dozens of varieties of coffee, or cereal, or snacks).

They have been likewise overwhelmed by the size of everything, from onions to sandwiches to steaks to stores to cars.

They found refreshing the unashamed patriotism, evident by all the flags.

The availability of fireworks to be bought by anyone was surprising. As with the wide variety of food, wildlife, and cars/trucks, they are shocked at the variety of climate, whereas they come from areas that are uniform in climate. They keep repeating how well Americans have it here -- even the health-care system was praised.

Some sampled firing guns in gun ranges (but they should be careful in returning home; last year, someone who did so was arrested by the British Stasi). They openly stated that we have more freedom than they have in their country.

Visitors found that Americans welcomed them with open arms, sometimes even giving them free rides, drinks, or food.

The Scots, in particular, made such a splash in Boston that Scotland was threatened that we were going to keep them here; one woman responded that if we did, then we had to send over an equal number of Texas cowboys.

Significantly, the visitors have also revealed that the anti-American propaganda they’ve been subjected to for years has been lying to them. About the country. And about the people.

Sound familiar?

One month has washed away years of anti-American propaganda.

As for American liberals, with their hatred of the U.S.  and of its people, some appear to be having a nervous breakdown.

Some have even cried.

American woman had a full meltdown after a European turists to America started enthusiastically praising the greatness of the country. She visibly hated hearing it.

This is the direct fruit of decades of left-wing indoctrination that has conditioned many Americans to hate their… pic.twitter.com/x0Msc4szck

— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) June 15, 2026

It has been drilled into their heads that hating one’s country is the height of intellectual achievement.

This constant praise of America by non-Americans!

And by Europeans, whom they have always told are superior to Americans and whom we should all admire!

A few liberals have ineffectually tried to stem the tsunami of goodwill.

While feeling so intellectually superior for hating their country, they lack the intelligence and self-awareness to realize they have been brainwashed.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 13:00

Polestar Barred From Selling Future EVs In US Under Connected-Vehicle Rule

The U.S. has become increasingly irrelevant to Polestar's growth story.

The Geely-backed EV maker said Thursday that it is "increasing its strategic focus on Europe," where much of its growth is now centered. The shift follows a decision by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security not to authorize Polestar to sell future model-year vehicles in the U.S. under connected-vehicle rules aimed at limiting Chinese-linked technologies on American highways.

"This follows a decision from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security to not grant Polestar an authorization under the current Connected Vehicle Rule to sell vehicles in the U.S. from model year 2027 onwards," Polestar wrote in a statement.

Polestar said that 94% of its retail sales volume in the first quarter of 2026 came from ex-US markets, and that, following the US Commerce Department's connected vehicle rule, it is now "increasing its strategic focus on Europe."

According to the Q1 retail sales data, which totaled 13,126 cars, the 94% figure means that the EV company sold only 788 vehicles in the US, or about 6%. This compares with the 117,300 EVs Tesla sold in the US market in the same quarter.

Michael Lohscheller, Polestar CEO, said: "The automotive industry is entering a new phase, based on regional dynamics. Our strategy reflects that, with Europe being our largest growth engine and our plan to manufacture Polestar 7 in Europe."

What Citi analyst Ross MacDonald says:

In May-26 Volvo Cars was granted specific authorizations for the continued import/sale of connected cars in the US (LINK), thus avoiding a costly US sales ban. Reuters is today reporting that Geely sub-brand Polestar has not received this favorable ruling, being denied authorization to sell vehicles model year 2027 cars in the US market. While this may at first be seen as an opportunity for Volvo Car to gain share in the premium US BEV segment, we actually see a small negative read-across to Volvo Car from this ruling. This reflects the fact – as shown below and discussed in our initiation (LINK, 25-June) – Volvo car actually share factory space with Polestar in several plants. The ruling could therefore drive some additional fixed cost absorption for Volvo Car across these plants if Polestar volumes decline rapidly and was likely not assumed in CMD targets, we would argue. Remains Sell.

What hat Bloomberg Intelligence Says...

"Polestar's inability to sell US model-year 2027 vehicles under the connected-vehicle rule may put about $250 million of 2027 revenue at risk. Yet that equates to only about 5% of group sales. A Europe focus also appears strategically sensible because Polestar could redirect South Korea-built Polestar 4 vehicles from the US to Europe, avoiding EU tariffs on China- made EVs."

Polestar American depositary receipts closed down 6% on Thursday following the news. Shares are down 11% on the year and have been locked in a vicious multi-year bear market:

Bloomberg noted, "Polestar 3s for the US market are assembled at Volvo's plant in Charleston, South Carolina. A Volvo spokesperson said it was too early to speculate on any impact, adding that previously announced investments at the Charleston plant remain unchanged."

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 12:40

No Accountability

Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance

I honestly don’t know where Bitcoin is going from here.

It could be substantially higher a year from now. It could be substantially lower. It could spend the next five years frustrating both the bulls and the bears. I’ve learned over the years that making precise price predictions about speculative assets is a fool’s errand, and I’m not interested in pretending otherwise.

This article isn’t a referendum on Bitcoin, Ethereum, or digital assets generally. It’s also not an attempt to settle the endless debate between Michael Saylor and Peter Schiff. It’s about accountability, and whether financial media has any obligation to revisit the narratives it spends years enthusiastically promoting once those narratives begin to crack.

That question came to mind yesterday after Peter Schiff posted a tweet criticizing CNBC’s coverage of the recent collapse in Strategy-related securities and weakness in Bitcoin. Schiff wrote:

“Given how much airtime CNBC gave @Saylor to shill his MSTR house of cards, they are barely devoting any airtime to its current collapse…”

It’s one thing to never have Schiff on your network. That’s fine. But Schiff is right: this story is too big to not be covering. In the last 12 months, Strategy is down about -78%:. The scales are leaning slightly more towards “Schiff was right” than “Strategy is poised for a comeback” at this point, if you ask me.

I’m a realist, though, and I’m sure many people dismissed the Tweet yesterday because it came from Schiff. After all, he’s been one of Bitcoin’s most vocal critics for more than a decade. If you’ve followed financial markets for any length of time, you’ve heard someone say “Schiff has been calling for Bitcoin to collapse forever.” Fair enough. That’s true.

But it’s also worth remembering that Schiff was among those publicly questioning Alex Mashinsky and crypto firm Celsius before its collapse. Eight months before the firm blew up, on Kitco, Schiff criticized the platform’s unusually high yield promises, warning that such returns were often a red flag in the crypto industry and could signal underlying insolvency or mismanagement. He argued that Celsius was taking excessive risks with customer funds and questioned the transparency of its operations, suggesting that investors might not fully understand how their assets were being used.

And that’s why, in April, with Strategy’s STRC preferred product still trading at its $100 par price, I pointed out to my readers that it probably wasn’t a bad idea to listen to Schiff’s criticism of the product and take its 11.5% yield with a grain of salt.

“When you’re telling people to put their savings into this for income, that’s a huge red flag,” Schiff argued earlier this year. Now, STRC is trading at a $73 handle, representing a more than 20% loss of principle for people who bought then — a hole that would take years of collecting dividends to make up for. Some crypto commentators believe that STRC will never trade at par again and that “the damage has been done”.

And so you don’t have to agree with Schiff’s long-term conclusions on Bitcoin to acknowledge that he has occasionally identified serious problems before the broader market was willing to confront them. More importantly, history is full of people who sounded repetitive until they were suddenly proven right about something else entirely.

Madoff’s whistleblowers were ignored. The skeptics of Enron weren’t exactly invited onto television every week while the stock was climbing. Analysts warning about subprime mortgages in 2006 and early 2007 were mocked for “missing the new paradigm.” Critics of the SPAC boom were dismissed as people who simply didn’t understand innovation. Looking back, their warnings seem prescient. Living through them, however, they simply sounded like broken records.

That’s why I don’t think Schiff himself is the story here. His tweet merely raises a question that deserves a much broader discussion: what responsibility does financial television have after it spends years giving a platform to the same handful of market evangelists and those guests are imploding and taking viewer and investor capital with them?

Think about the amount of airtime Michael Saylor has received over the past several years. It seemed like every new Bitcoin purchase became an interview. Every convertible debt offering became another segment. Every financing announcement was treated as an opportunity to explain why borrowing billions of dollars to buy more Bitcoin was a revolutionary corporate strategy.

Likewise, Tom Lee has become one of CNBC’s most frequent market commentators, not only discussing equities but increasingly making the case for Ethereum and digital assets. Whether you agree with either man is beside the point. The point is that viewers have been exposed to these bullish narratives constantly.

And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Bullish guests deserve airtime. Bears deserve airtime too. Markets function because different people have different opinions. But journalism doesn’t end once the interview is over. If a network is willing to devote hundreds of hours to amplifying a thesis during the ascent, shouldn’t it devote at least some meaningful coverage to evaluating that thesis when things begin going the other direction?

Like, for example, how some sources estimate that between Saylor and Lee, they have over $20 billion in losses on their respective crypto investments. And how Lee’s BMNR is down about 58% year to date.

The media imbalance becomes even more glaring when you look at products like Strategy’s STRC preferred shares. When the offering was launched, the messaging wasn’t that this was some wildly speculative instrument appropriate only for aggressive traders. Quite the opposite. It was discussed as a safe yield-oriented security designed to broaden Strategy’s investor base and appeal to investors looking for income.

One video from Michael Saylor’s Twitter account shows a woman, retired on what appears to be a tropical island. Someone asks her if she’s on vacation while serving her a cocktail. She responds: “I’m retired. I just don’t think I was meant to live an uncomfortable life. I worked hard as an engineer to save money, then I put my savings into STRC…”

Saylor’s text above the video says “You weren’t meant to live an uncomfortable life.” Below the video, Schiff had Tweeted in response:

I think this ad is deceptive and leaves Strategy open to lawsuits from investors who lose money. I don’t think the small print at the end will offset the deliberate intent of the ad that preceded it.

CNBC covered the launch of STRC and gave Saylor TV time to make his case for it, as did virtually every major financial publication.

“If Bitcoin’s up 2% a year, we can pay those dividends forever,” Saylor said a couple months ago on CNBC. He wasn’t asked directly what would happen in bitcoin went down for a prolonged period of time.

And today on STRC, shares trade dramatically below their $100 par value, falling to about $73 this morning in the pre-market session. Investors who bought near issuance are down more than 20% on principal alone, meaning it could take roughly two years of those attractive dividend payments just to recover the capital loss, assuming nothing else changes.

Which makes me ask: how is that also not a major financial news story?

Imagine if a preferred security issued by a regional bank had been aggressively marketed, only to lose more than one-fifth of its value within months. Imagine if a dividend-focused REIT had produced that outcome shortly after management completed a nationwide media tour. Financial TV would almost certainly have panels discussing what went wrong, analysts debating whether investors had underestimated the risks, and anchors asking executives difficult follow-up questions. Yet when the same thing happens in the crypto ecosystem, the conversation seems subdued compared to the enthusiasm that surrounded the launch.

Nor is this phenomenon unique to crypto.

Take Cathie Wood, for example, who I have written about extensively. She gets tons of CNBC time since getting her Tesla investment “right” around 2020. By 2024, Morningstar estimated that ARK had destroyed approximately $14 billion in investor capital. They listed her as one of the top 15 funds that have destroyed the most wealth over the past decade. The CNBC appearances, however, have not stopped.

$14 billion is the kind of number that should invite some uncomfortable questions. Instead, the broader narrative around Wood has remained oddly charitable, as though the earlier success still carries more weight than the subsequent reality. Here she is getting 10 minutes on CNBC a couple months ago. A month before that, in March, she got another 10 minutes with Tom Lee. To start the year she was asked about her predictions for 2026 in another 6 minute look interview.

Wood is currently clinging to a 2024 analysis of Tesla that predicts shares could go to $2,600 by 2029. They are currently at about $350, down from recent highs over $400. She has missed a ton of operational targets and price targets on the name since her 2020 jump to fame. Since January 1, 2019, her flagship fund has underperformed the NASDAQ by about -259%. And this includes her Tesla run up where she was thrashing her benchmark by more than 100% at one point! 

Since January 1, 2021, ARKK is down -38% while the NASDAQ is up 128%.

I discussed more about Wood during my recent interview with Adam Taggart here.

Despite all of this, Wood remains one of television’s favorite guests, regularly invited back to explain why the next disruptive innovation is just around the corner. Again, she has every right to make her case. My question is why the media rarely spends equal time examining the cost to the investors who followed it.

I estimate that between Michael Saylor, Tom Lee and Cathie Wood, there has been over 100 total appearances on CNBC over the last two years.

Now we’re watching what feels like the next chapter with the relentless promotion of SpaceX’s valuation. Cathie Wood is buying it, of course. And hey, maybe SpaceX ultimately becomes one of the greatest investments of this generation. It’s certainly one of the world’s most impressive companies. But I’d love to know how many people appearing on financial television to tout the opportunity already own shares, work for firms with exposure, or otherwise stand to benefit from continued enthusiasm.

Conversely, how many guests are invited simply to explain why investors should be cautious? How many independent skeptics are asked whether today’s private-market valuations make sense? Those voices seem remarkably difficult to find.

This is where the issue shifts from just Bitcoin to financial journalism.

Financial television does not have to predict market tops. Nobody can do that consistently. It doesn’t need to become bearish every time prices fall, nor should it refuse to interview people with optimistic outlooks. But it should have an obligation to revisit those optimistic narratives with some gusto after investors have experienced meaningful losses. If an executive spends months explaining why a strategy is revolutionary, that executive should also be invited back to explain why shareholders are down billions of dollars when circumstances change. If serious allegations of wrongdoing are leveled at a multi-billion dollar company and CNBC gets a chance to interview the CEO on live television, why not ask some pointed questions more than once?

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

Otherwise, what exactly is financial journalism accomplishing?

Too often it begins to resemble marketing. Bull markets create charismatic personalities. Those personalities attract viewers. Viewers generate ratings. Ratings sell advertising. Everyone benefits while prices are climbing. When prices reverse, however, the cameras simply move to the next exciting story. There is very little institutional memory. Few difficult follow-up interviews. Almost no serious discussion of whether the original thesis was incomplete, overly optimistic, or simply wrong.

That’s particularly unfortunate because ordinary investors absolutely notice this pattern. They notice which guests appear repeatedly during speculative booms. They notice that the skeptical voices often receive a fraction of the exposure. And they certainly notice when the enthusiasm disappears much faster than the accountability once prices begin falling.

Ironically, I don’t lose much sleep over it. If anything, it probably helps independent writers like me. Every time financial television fails to ask the questions viewers are asking themselves, more people begin searching for alternative sources of analysis. That’s probably good for my subscriber count. It’s why I started a podcast and a blog to begin with.

But let’s not pretend investors don’t see what’s happening. They’re smarter than the industry often gives them credit for. They understand that nobody can predict markets perfectly. They’re perfectly willing to forgive a bad call. What they’re less willing to forgive is the appearance that financial media is eager to amplify bullish narratives during the boom but reluctant to scrutinize those same narratives after billions of dollars have evaporated.

That’s ultimately why Schiff’s tweet resonated with me yesterday. Not because I suddenly agree with his outlook on Bitcoin. Not because I think Michael Saylor or Tom Lee shouldn’t be interviewed. And certainly not because I think CNBC should root against innovation or speculative assets all the time. It resonated because it asked a question that applies far beyond crypto: if financial television is going to enthusiastically hand out microphones on the way up, shouldn’t it be equally eager to ask hard questions on the way down?

That isn’t being bearish, it’s just journalism.

--

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

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

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

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

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

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 12:20

Volkswagen CEO Plans 100,000 Job Cuts In Generational Overhaul

German business news outlet Manager Magazin reports that Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume is eyeing a major restructuring that could eliminate as many as 100,000 jobs. The latest VW earnings show just why: Europe's largest automaker remains bloated in a world of weak demand, a softening Chinese market, rising Chinese competition in Europe, and low margins.

"Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume is getting serious. He plans to drastically intensify job cuts, actually phase out production at four German plants, and spin off the VW brand into a new company. Volkswagen is to become a new company," Manager Magazin wrote in the report.

If fully implemented, the 100,000-job reduction would eliminate about 15% of Volkswagen's current global workforce of 650,000. Bloomberg data shows VW went on a hiring spree between 2008 and 2020.

Now, it appears a generational high has been reached in VW's workforce, as a shift toward efficiency, automation, and AI could soon result in massive job losses. We're sure lefty unions will be furious.

Manager Magazin also noted that Blume plans 11 billion euros in cost cuts by 2030, which could include spinning off component operations and the core VW brand.

The restructuring plan will be presented to the supervisory board next month and is expected to face intense resistance from labor unions and Lower Saxony lawmakers, who hold significant influence over the company's governance.

The urgency behind a restructuring stems from deteriorating earnings: its first-quarter revenue fell 2.5% to 75.7 billion euros, while operating profit dropped 14.3% to 2.46 billion euros, and the operating margin slipped to 3.3% from 3.7%. Earnings after tax fell 28.4% to 1.56 billion euros, while vehicle sales fell 6.9%, and deliveries were down 4%.

A Volkswagen spokesperson told the Hamburg-based outlet that the struggling car company "must undergo profound change." The executive board "has been working intensively over the past few months on a future-oriented plan to realign the company."

Shares in Germany slipped 34 basis points following the report and remain down 25% on the year. The stock is trading at 2010 levels...

The implosion of VW tells you all you need to know about Europe's crumbling industrial base at a time when war is still raging, and in fact accelerating, in Ukraine. Time to convert unused civilian vehicle production lines into interceptor missile production.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 12:00