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Knoebels opened its doors on July 4, 1926 — and will celebrate its 100th anniversary this year.

Support For Germany's AfD 'Firewall' Plummets As Voters Call To Bring Party In From The Cold

Via Remix News,

Germany's long-running "firewall" that sees the country's legacy parties exclude cooperation with the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) is moving further out of step with a large section of the electorate, with new polling showing voters now evenly divided over the governing CDU's refusal to work with the nationalist party.

Alice Weidel (AfD), federal chairwoman and parliamentary group leader, walks past Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) in the plenary session of the German Bundestag. (Photo by Lilli Förter/picture alliance via Getty Images)

According to the latest Deutschlandtrend survey by Infratest Dimap for ARD and Welt, 47 percent of Germans now say the CDU's exclusion of cooperation with the AfD is not right, while the same proportion say it is right. That marks a significant shift since September 2024, with opposition to the stance rising by 12 points and support falling by 13 points.

The figures come as the AfD remains Germany's strongest party in the national polling. Infratest Dimap puts the AfD unchanged on 27 percent, ahead of the CDU/CSU on 23 percent, with the Greens on 14 percent, the SPD on 13 percent, and the Left Party on 10 percent. The FDP and BSW would both remain below the five-percent threshold for entering parliament.

The CDU's position still has clearer backing among its own voters, with 62 percent of CDU/CSU supporters saying the exclusion of cooperation with the AfD is right. However, the wider national picture suggests the policy is no longer backed by a clear public majority.

The east-west divide is particularly stark on the AfD question. In western Germany, a narrow majority still supports excluding cooperation with the AfD, 50 percent in favor to 45 percent against. In the east, where the AfD has built some of its strongest support, a clear majority opposes the CDU's stance, 58 percent against to 38 percent in favor.

The poll also points to a deeper crisis of confidence in Germany's established parties. Only half of respondents said they support their preferred party out of conviction, while 46 percent said their choice was driven by disappointment with the alternatives. When the same question was asked in 2018, 61 percent said conviction was the main reason for their party preference.

That disappointment is especially pronounced among AfD voters. The poll found that 57 percent of AfD supporters are motivated primarily by frustration with other parties, although the party also scores strongly on its political program among its own base.

The findings come after a series of strong results and polling boosts for the AfD, particularly in eastern Germany. Last month, AfD politician René Stadtkewitz won a snap mayoral election in Zehdenick, Brandenburg, with 58.4 percent of the vote, becoming the party's first directly elected full-time mayor in the state. Separate regional polling has also shown the party on the cusp of absolute majorities in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel has presented the trend as part of a broader political realignment, writing after earlier polling gains: "The political shift is inevitable - we will put the interests of our country and our citizens back at the forefront!"

The pressure on the CDU is being intensified by deep dissatisfaction with Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the federal government. According to the Deutschlandtrend figures cited by Welt, only 16 percent of Germans are satisfied with Merz's performance, while 82 percent are dissatisfied. Overall, just 12 percent are satisfied or very satisfied with the federal government, compared with 87 percent who are less satisfied or not satisfied at all.

Economic pessimism is also weighing heavily on the political landscape. The economy is now the top issue for voters, ahead of refugees and migration. Only 13 percent describe Germany's economic situation as good, while 85 percent rate it as less good or bad. Just six percent expect to be better off in a year's time, while 38 percent expect things to worsen.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/05/2026 - 02:00

Kate greeted the couple’s baby.

Kate greeted the couple’s baby and said, “Isn’t Mummy brave?”

The Trump administration is launching a federal investigation into Atlanta’s troubled transit system after two recent stabbings, including the killing of a 66-year-old woman on a MARTA train.

A Cornell student activist who hounded the Ivy League school's president Michael Kotlikoff in the parking lot following an Israel-Palestine debate has been banned from campus.

"The investigation revealed that Mr. Whiten committed these heinous acts and then took his own life."

James Handy, a veteran character actor whose five-decade career included more than 150 film and television credits spanning everything from “Jumanji” to “Top Gun: Maverick,” died Wednesday after he was fatally stabbed in Tarzana.

The case against Republican sheriff nominee Aaron Spencer was dismissed on Thursday after law enforcement lost a dash cam memory card that may have captured the fatal shooting of Michael Fosler.

PHOENIX –– There are no-doubters. And then there are the kind of thunderous swings Ketel Marte uncorked in the bottom of the ninth inning on Thursday night. After leading by two runs entering the eighth inning, the Dodgers got walked off by the Arizona Diamondbacks 3-2 on Thursday night. The fatal blow: A first-pitch fastball...

S&P Denies SpaceX Fast Index Entry, Delaying $14BN In Passive Inflows By At Least A Year

Earlier today, in our forensic analysis of the SpaceX IPO, we said that according to BNP estimates, the company's inclusion into the S&P500 some 6 months after the offering would unlock $13.4 billion worth of inflows.

It turns out that that is not going to happen 6 months after the IPO. In fact, the earliest it may happen is 12 months after Friday's break for trading... and realistically well after that. 

That's because after the close today, S&P Dow Jones Indices said it would keep its existing eligibility requirements for main benchmarks like the S&P 500 Index, rejecting proposals that would have made it faster for mega-cap companies such as SpaceX to gain rapid entry into the benchmark after going public.

The index provider in a press release Thursday said it will not shorten the 12-month seasoning period for newly public companies it currently has or waive existing profitability and public-float requirements based on a company’s size, diverging from a broader industry shift embraced by rivals Nasdaq Inc. and FTSE Russell.

This is what S&P Dow Jones said in the press release:

"S&P DJI determined that exceptions to the financial viability, seasoning, and IWF requirements should not be granted solely based on market capitalization. The decision not to adopt the proposed exceptions preserves core index principles by maintaining consistent application of these key requirements. Although there may be trade-offs between strict adherence to these eligibility requirements and broad representativeness, the current methodology provides substantial market coverage and sector balance. As a result, the indices can continue to meet their stated objectives while preserving their role as representative and investable benchmarks for the U.S. equity market.

No changes will be made to the eligibility criteria including financial viability screens, seasoning period, or minimum IWF, for the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400, or S&P SmallCap 600 as a result of the S&P Dow Jones Indices consultation on the treatment of MegaCap companies. Accordingly, there will be no changes to existing methodology for this index family."

A more detailed breakdown of today's announcement: 

The requirements that will now remain in place are:

• No changes to S&P 500 eligibility rules for mega-cap companies.
• Mega-cap companies will still need to wait 12 months after their IPO before being considered for S&P 500 inclusion.
• S&P will not waive profitability requirements for mega-cap companies. The company must have positive GAAP net income in the most recent quarter, and the sum of the most recent four consecutive quarters.
• S&P will not waive minimum public float requirements for mega-cap companies. At least 10% of a company's shares must be publicly tradable ("free float").

The S&P rejected proposals that would have:

• Reduced the IPO seasoning period from 12 months to 6 months
• Waived profitability requirements
• Waived minimum public float requirements

This means that the earliest SpaceX (as well as Anthropic and OpenAI after it) could be eligible to be added to the S&P 500 would now be June 2027.

The decision arrived as Wall Street has been grappling with a new reality: some companies are reaching unprecedented sizes before they ever enter public markets. The consultation, launched earlier this year, effectively asked whether index rules written for a different era should bend to accommodate companies that now arrive at a scale once reserved for mature blue chips in what has become known as the “fast entry” in industry parlance.

However, the push for quicker inclusion raised concerns among some investors who said rules around profitability, float and trading history exist precisely to prevent benchmarks from chasing hype. Furthermore, adding IPOs too quickly, they say, could expose passive funds to greater volatility and force them to buy shares before reliable market pricing is fully established.

Meanwhile, supporters say indexes should include massive companies as quickly as possible to reflect the market investors actually own, adding that these trillion-dollar firms can be economically significant long before they satisfy traditional index requirements.

“I am genuinely surprised,” said James Seyffart, ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “But S&P is the market leader and they can buck the trend.”

Shocker for me to be honest. I genuinely assumed they would make the changes because everyone else was. But S&P Dow Jones is not changing their rules to allow for Fast Adds of Megacap IPOs

(We all know what happens when you assume) pic.twitter.com/tzrURWksPJ

— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) June 4, 2026

Unlike the S&P, Nasdaq changed its rules recently so SpaceX can join the Nasdaq 100 Index, a cohort of the largest non-financial companies listed on its exchange, in just 15 trading days, down from a three-month minimum. FTSE Russell adopted a similar approach, shortening the waiting time to five trading days. Indicatively, the Nasdaq addition would generate roughly half the passive inflows into SpaceX as an S&P includion would. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/05/2026 - 00:27

The brief, late-night message from the Yankees regarding star Aaron Judge’s condition wasn’t the worst possible news. But it very close to the worst. 

Jalen Brunson had no jokes, no sarcastic remarks, no not-so-subtle digs about his longtime teammate. 

The time was coming, the Hurricanes kept insisting, when their top-line guys and the power play would make big plays. Turns out, they were right.

The Golden Knights defenseman had to leave Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final in a scary scene on Thursday.

Steve Hilton’s plan aims for results by June 11, using state workers & “surge teams” to tackle hundreds of thousands of backlogged ballots.

Two of the Spurs’ most visible fans will not be in their seats for Game 2 of the NBA Finals.

The Modern “Red Calendar” And The Death Of Pride Month

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

In the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution and the takeover of Russia in 1917 (largely funded by international elites), the new communist regime sought to implement what I would call “propaganda saturation” – An avalanche of policies designed to secure the red army’s political power by manufacturing false consensus.

It should be noted that, even at the peak of the Bolshevik movement’s influence, the reds only represented around 23% of the total Russian population and were never a majority. However, they had substantial monetary backing from overseas (read Antony Sutton’s extensive study titled “Wall Street And The Bolshevik Revolution). Think of this as an “NGO funded rebellion”, the kind of thing we are witnessing in America today with militant woke activists.

It was this international backing that gave the communists the boost they needed to take physical control of the government. But what they really needed was control over the general populace. One tactic they relied on in the early stages of the takeover was the use of a “Red Calendar”. If this phrase is unfamiliar to you, you’re not alone. Most people have never heard of it.

The Red Calendar was a propaganda program designed to eliminate and replace existing Russian holidays and religious observances with new, secular holidays. Foremost on the agenda for the Bolsheviks was the erasure of Christianity, which they viewed as a dangerous competing ideological influence that could one day undermine the government’s authority.

If the population’s first loyalty is to God, then the government and the party will always be in second place. This was unacceptable.

The Red Calendar established a series of special Marxist holidays revolving around labor movements and the revolution. The soviets would later declare special month-long celebrations of certain ideals, such as the “month of solidarity” or the “month of friendship.”

In short, the Red Calendar was a deliberate ideological tool: Old holidays weren’t always formally “banned” everywhere at once, but they were systematically deprioritized, persecuted, or culturally overwritten in favor of new communist ones.

Not to be outdone, the National Socialists (Nazis) in Germany and Italy also engaged in projects similar to the Red Calendar. This is just one of the MANY parallels between the Soviet Marxists and the Third Reich (Hitler consistently admitted that the concept of National Socialism was rooted in Marxism).

The Nazis targeted Christian holidays, but instead of relying on atheist or secular propaganda models, they used pagan alternatives. Christmas, for example, was changed to “Yule” or the “Winter Solstice” and the role of Jesus was systematically repressed or removed.

For the leftists who claim that the Nazi’s were pro-Christianity, sorry, but you are wrong yet again. Hitler despised Christianity in his private life and viewed it as a religion “for weaklings”. He spoke often about how he wished that the German people had a more militant religious tradition, similar to Islam.

In his postwar memoir, Nazi architect Albert Speer recalled Hitler complaining about Germany’s “wrong religion”. In secret, the Third Reich sought to establish a pagan religion which they felt was more aggressive:

“You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?” – Adolph Hitler

The point is, socialists, whether nationalist or globalist, always seek to co-opt the existing culture of the countries they want to dominate. It’s one of the first things they do when they take over and the invasion is tailor made to subvert the specific culture being targeted. For the US, this looks less like a “workers revolution” and more like a coordinated insurgency of asylum patients against the traditional moral order.

The “gay rights” movement has long been at the forefront of this sabotage project, supported from behind the curtain by NGO’s like the Ford Foundation and communist groups like the Mattachine Society in the 1950s under Harry Hay.  Once again, Joseph McCarthy was right.

Their propaganda tactics are relatively unknown to the average American because they simply are not mentioned in public schooling or college academia. But, in researching the history of Red Calendar methods you might find yourself recognizing a familiar pattern.

Well, it’s the first week of June once again and in recent years, for the vast majority of Americans, the month of June has brought with it a sense of overwhelming exhaustion. A WHOLE MONTH officially recognized by the government as a celebration of “LGBT Pride”.  And yes, Pride Month is in every way an attempt by the far-left to bring back the communist Red Calendar.

Pride Month was first recognized by the federal government in 1999 under Bill Clinton (Mr. Lolita Express). It was expanded on by Barack Obama in 2009 to include transsexuals and Joe Biden flooded Pride programs with federal cash through USAID in 2021. He even went so far as to hold a pride celebration on the White House lawn which included guys with tits running around topless.

I can recall the national attitude towards gay people in 1999 was extremely accommodating. We were all indifferent and no one cared if someone was gay as long as they kept it away from children. Whatever people did privately was their business.

Zoomers like to pretend as if their mediocre activist movements are “changing the world” and bringing equality to minority groups, but Gen X already finished that job decades ago. In fact, one of the most popular shows on TV in 2003 was called “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy”, which featured a team of flaming gay dudes prancing around and taking straight guys on shopping sprees so that they would look less unkempt (and less masculine).

This was not an era of discrimination. Zoomer activism doesn’t solve problems, it creates problems.

The opposition started when the gay community, or whatever you want to call it, became the “LGBT” community. The opposition started when they became a political cult. Being gay suddenly meant joining a militant wing of the wider woke invasion into our social and governmental institutions. This is when “Pride” mutated into a monstrous blob; spreading beyond localized gatherings in liberal cities and turning into a national astroturf movement which everyone was forced to endure every summer.

ESG funding rained down on LGBT organizations through corporations and NGOs from 2015 onward. Not long after, Pride was everywhere. In our movies, in our TV shows, in our video games, in our comic books, in our sports, in our commercials, it was even on our food as companies slapped gay flags and activist mantras like “Love Is Love” on everything from candies to iced tea.

This was clearly a strategic effort hijack the cultural driver’s seat in the US. But the end, the inevitable end, was set in motion when Pride was injected into the public school system by far-left teachers unions. The agenda to indoctrinate children with transgender ideology and gay sexuality sealed the fate of “Pride Month.”

When the activists went after people’s kids, that’s when the greater majority of Americans started to realize that maybe, just maybe, the conservative “conspiracy theorists” of the early 2000s might have been right about a few things. Maybe, LGBT is not about equal rights? Maybe it’s about predatory politics, social control and the normalization of degeneracy?

Today, pride has imploded. Corporate sponsors have dried up along with ESG funding. The shutdown of USAID by the Trump Administration was integral to the death of LGBT Red Calendar celebrations because these groups relied heavily on government money to make organized events possible. As the money disappears, the real LGBT movement is barely noticeable. And, that’s the way it should be.

Anyone who makes their sexual orientation the very center of their identity is mentally ill, and no functional society should promote or celebrate mental illness. An even greater concern, though, is the exploitation of gay “victimhood” as a means to push socialism/communism/globalism.

It’s no coincidence that LGBT activism comes as a package deal with every globalist scam imaginable. To be “gay” these days means you are expected to applaud the deconstruction of the west, the death of free markets, the rise of climate change laws, the normalization of veganism, the end of freedom of speech (for everyone except communists), the systematic destruction of religion, etc.

There are gay people out their who don’t subscribe to any of these things, but the majority of them do, in many cases because they feel they are required to in order to fit in with the movement. It’s not enough to be gay, they have to be revolutionaries.

And this is why public support for gay issues is in decline in the US. This is why Pride Month was barely a blip on the gaydar in 2025 and it’s even less visible in 2026. By whoring out their community to the machinations of communists and globalists, gays really screwed themselves. Now, far less people are trusting.

Pride Month is, by itself, a kind of egomaniacal display of performative narcissism. That is to say, pride is not something to be proud of. Accomplishment is something to be proud of…but being gay is not an accomplishment. Many Americans now see Pride Month as nothing more than an act of self worship.

The pendulum is swinging back hard and I think the “persecution” the LGBT movement pretended to suffer from ten years ago might very will hit them hard in real life in the next few years. It was probably not the best idea to reanimate the communist Red Calendar or declare gays as idols to be worshiped for their “virtue”. The backlash is deserved.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/04/2026 - 23:25

Trump confirmed with reporters at the White House on Thursday that he would make the trip to New York to see the Knicks play in their first NBA Finals home game at MSG since 1999.

FIFA confirmed a World Cup 2026 ticketing glitch allowed dozens of fans to receive tickets for $0 before the governing body reversed the orders and demanded full payment within seven days.