Zero Rss

How Romania Came To Host A Post-9/11 CIA Black Site & Got US Cash Bonanza

Via Middle East Eye

Ammar al-Baluchi remembers the cold most of all. Held nearly naked in a cell lit around the clock by fluorescent bulbs, he referred to his detention "as if I was living in a refrigerator".

The nephew of self-declared 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Baluchi was one of six to a dozen men believed to be held and tortured in a secret CIA prison in Bucharest between 2003 and 2005. The treatment of detainees at the facility, formally known as "Detention Site Black", is described in detail in Guantanamo court filings. 

via AFP: The Romanian agency Orniss, pictured here on 8 December 2011, sits on a leafy street in northern Bucharest close to a set of train tracks. The agency has denied hosting a CIA prison.

Solitary confinement under lights that never switched off, sleep deprivation that at times meant being forced to stand shackled for days, repeated dousing with icy water, and forced shaving and physical handling that interrogators euphemistically logged as "attention grasps" and "facial holds" were common practice.

A photo released by Baluchi's lawyers to the press in 2024 shows him stripped naked and photographed. It is believed to be the first published image - of tens of thousands - of a "war on terror" detainee in a CIA black site.

"We know they were tortured horrifically," Ben Keith, a British barrister representing Baluchi outside the US, told Middle East Eye. "It's not always possible to say which bit of torture took place because they were tortured for days and weeks, but you don’t detain somebody in a black site with the purpose of just talking to them."

A quarter-century after the 9/11 attacks, which triggered the so-called "war on terror" and devastating US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that directly killed at least 940,000 people, a US military judge has finally set a trial date for Baluchi: 5 June 2028.

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Schrama ruled this month that the case against Mohammed, Baluchi, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi will begin on that date.

Schrama is the fifth military judge to preside over a case that has been trapped for more than a decade in disputes over evidence, national security secrecy and, above all, whether confessions obtained under torture before the men ever reached Guantanamo can be used at trial.

That question runs directly through a basement in Bucharest, where the accused are believed to have been detained and tortured.

In April 2025, a Guantanamo military judge ruled that statements Baluchi gave the FBI in 2007 were involuntary and inadmissible, tainted by what the court called torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment inflicted on him in CIA custody, including in Romania.

The judge found that Guantanamo's "modestly changed confinement circumstances" had not been enough to remove the “lingering taint” of what happened before he arrived there.

A gesture of courtesy

The Romanian site was part of a network of secret prisons the CIA ran across three continents in the years after 9/11 - in Thailand, Poland, Lithuania and Romania - as part of a rendition, detention and interrogation program that was formally shut down in 2009.

Romania's site opened in the autumn of 2003, according to court documents and NGO reports reviewed by MEE. According to a 2019 report by the Rendition Project, the CIA struck its agreement with Romanian authorities to host a black site in mid-October 2002.

By January 2003, the CIA's Bucharest station was already discussing how to show Romania that "we deeply appreciate the cooperation and support". 

That appreciation had a price: $8m, followed by "millions more", according to the same Rendition Project report. By autumn, the first batch of five prisoners had arrived.

The late Romanian president Ion Iliescu confirmed the outlines of the arrangement in a 2015 interview with Der Spiegel, describing a request that came "around the turn of the year 2002, 2003" from "our US allies" who asked Romania "for a site".

He said he approved it in principle as "a gesture of courtesy ahead of our accession to Nato", and that he deliberately did not ask for details. "We did not interfere with the activities of the USA on this site," he said. "This request seemed like a minor issue to me as the head of state."

The details, Iliescu said, were handled by Ioan Talpes, his national security adviser then. Talpes could not be reached for comment but gave a candid account to Der Spiegel in a 2014 interview, saying he discussed "a more intense cooperation" with the CIA from 2003 and understood that it involved detaining people at "one or two locations in Romania".

He admitted to personally approving the leasing of a government building to the American intelligence agency. Talpes put it more bluntly in Romanian media, saying his country "did not have the interest to know what the Americans were doing" at the site it provided, to prove to Washington that Romania could be trusted.

Crofton Black, a former investigator with the Rendition Project who spent close to a decade tracing the CIA’s rendition network through flight logs and declassified documents, told MEE that he thinks Romania "made the decision [to host the black site] because it was in their interest, and thought the US would cover for them".

'The highest state authorities were aware'

Swiss Senator Dick Marty, whose 2007 report to the Council of Europe was one of the earliest and most detailed independent reconstructions of the CIA's black-site network, concluded that while "very few people" in the countries involved likely knew the centers existed, "the highest state authorities were aware of the CIA’s illegal activities on their territories".

His report named Romania and Poland specifically as having hosted secret CIA detention facilities. The Council of Europe's list of Romanians who knew, according to Marty and later research by the Rendition Project, extends beyond Iliescu and Talpeş to a few other officials, including Traian Basescu, who succeeded Iliescu as president in 2004. 

MEE reached out to Basescu for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication. The 2019 report adds a detail Marty did not fully spell out. 

After September 2004, Romanian officials were formally briefed by the US ambassador and the CIA's Bucharest station chief on the program, in a presentation that "clearly described" the use of torture.

"It's definitively the case - the allegations of torture, the money, the people who were held there - it's definitively the case that that’s Romania in the court files," said Black, who co-authored the Rendition Project report.

Unlike the black sites in Lithuania and Poland, which are believed to have been in more remote locations, Romania's site is believed to have been located in central Bucharest.

An AP and ARD Panorama investigation in 2011 narrowed down the location of the site in Bucharest to the government building of the country's National Registry Office for Classified Information, also known as Orniss, on a quiet, leafy street in northern Bucharest close to a set of train tracks.

Orniss "categorically denied" speculation that there had been a CIA prison on the premises, telling MEE that it rejected any association between the institution and "the so-called CIA detention centers".

While the site's location is disputed, concurring testimonies in court records reveal details of the conditions inside it. The site consisted of six prefabricated cells painted white and tiled with impact-resistant glass, while the cells themselves were mounted on springs, engineered to keep detainees slightly off balance and disoriented. 

The site is sometimes referred to as "Bright Light" because of the fluorescent, continuous light inside.

Another detainee held there was Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of being the mastermind of the October 12, 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. He is believed to have been held in Romania between April 2004 and November 2005.

His case reached the European Court of Human Rights, which later found in a landmark 2018 ruling that his detention in Romania involved an "extremely harsh" regime, including blindfolding, total isolation, exposure to loud noise and unbroken light, and leg shackles during every movement. The Court and related records also document sleep deprivation, painful stress positions, slapping and, at one point, forced rectal feeding.

A 2014 US Senate Intelligence Committee report found that the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" program in the black sites did not produce unique, life-saving intelligence that could not have been obtained by other means.

A US Senate report on CIA torture revealed that the CIA held at least 119 detainees in its secret detention program, with at least 39 of them subjected to the agency's "enhanced interrogation techniques," often without proper authorization.

The CIA also misled oversight bodies and the public about the program’s brutality, while there was little accountability for the abuses.

Continued denial

For two decades, Romania's official position has been one of denial. The country's foreign intelligence service replied to an MEE inquiry that "the matters had already been thoroughly examined by the competent judicial authorities, both nationally and within international bodies" and that it could not comment further.

Despite that, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2018 that Romania had violated Nashiri's rights, including by allowing his torture, both through what happened to him and through the state’s failure to properly investigate it.

The Court found that a secret detention center had operated in Romania and that Romanian authorities had "cooperated in the preparation and execution" of the CIA's rendition and detention programme, fully aware of its nature and purpose even if they were not privy to everything that happened inside.

It took me many years and a lengthy #FOIA lawsuit against the CIA to uncover exactly what happened at the Salt Pit, one of the CIA's black site prisons in Afghanistan where detainees were tortured. CIA just destroyed part of it, according to NYT

Gruesomehttps://t.co/kGlFei1sfe https://t.co/tmWHrQ3hBE

— Jason Leopold (@JasonLeopold) September 2, 2021

Romania responded by closing the domestic criminal investigation. A case opened in 2012 after a complaint from Nashiri's lawyers, represented by the Open Society Justice Initiative, had by 2014 been formally classified as an inquiry into unlawful deprivation of liberty and torture.

Lawyers who represented Nashiri in Strasbourg and Romania did not agree to interview requests before publication. But according to a Romanian parliamentary question answered by the foreign ministry in 2018, the Open Society complaint originally filed sought far more than charges of torture and unlawful detention. It asked prosecutors to investigate complicity in murder, unlawful arrest, abuse of office, and failure to report a crime, among other allegations.

Prosecutors narrowed that down in 2014 to two counts: unlawful deprivation of liberty and torture. The investigation went nowhere. In any case, by 2016, the statute of limitations on the alleged crimes had already expired because no investigative steps had been taken that would have suspended the clock, and no suspect had ever been formally identified.

Romania's public prosecutor's office told MEE in an official response that the file was closed in March 2021, with the perpetrator classified as "unknown" despite what it described as the use of international cooperation mechanisms to gather evidence.

The same year, the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers expressed "profound regret" that Romania could not show it had used all possible means to establish the facts, three years after the Strasbourg ruling required it to.

Keith, Baluchi's counsel, said senior Romanian officials acted with direct intent in 2003 and 2004 to allow the CIA to detain, torture and later transfer Baluchi to Lithuania. "We know from the ruling in al-Nashiri the Romanians knew about it; they might have not known exactly what was happening, but they facilitated the CIA to create a black site to torture these men," Keith said.

"Our contention is that Romania not only facilitated the CIA black site but knew they were being used to torture individuals."

MEE reached out to Romania's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Justice for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication. Romania's domestic intelligence service, SRI, also declined to comment, telling MEE that it lacked legal standing to address claims "circulating in the public space".

With a trial date now set for June 2028, the confessions extracted under torture at CIA "black sites" – including the facility in Bucharest – have become central to the 9/11 case. So, too, has the role of the governments that allowed the CIA to operate these secret detention and interrogation sites on their territory.

Romania, for its part, is still refusing to talk about what happened in its basement, despite the body of evidence that has emerged. "There's been years of compelling evidence that Romania hosted a black sit,  and the more it has grown, the government continued to deny it was involved," said Black. "It's ridiculous, it's nonsense."

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 23:20

Florida's Attorney General Sues Netflix For Allegedly Harvesting, Selling Children's Data

Florida's attorney general sued Netflix on Sept. 9 claiming the streaming giant collected data on its youngest viewers and added addictive features to the platform after promising not to.

An aerial view of Netflix studios, with the Hollywood sign in the distance in Los Angeles on Dec. 5, 2025. Mario Tama/Getty Images

Attorney General James Uthmeier is seeking billions in damages from the company and asked the judge to order Netflix to stop its alleged deceptive practices.

"Parents were told kids' profiles were a child's own space - safe, separate, great for kids," Uthmeier said in a news conference Wednesday.

"Families believed them. But behind the brand, Netflix built something different."

In the lawsuit, Jill McLaughlin reporets for The Epoch Times,that Uthmeier claims Netflix offered an ad-free service that promised not to collect or sell data but began to track children and their profiles when it launched an advertising business in 2022.

The streaming service offers an under-12 profile option for children which promotes a non-advertising space, according to the state.

Uthmeier alleges Netflix violated the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and the state's Digital Bill of Rights, including by selling sensitive personal data collected from known children without prior consent.

He seeks a permanent injunction, an order requiring Netflix to purge any deceptively collected data from Floridians, and an end to addictive designs that keep children watching on the platform, in addition to billions of dollars in civil and other monetary relief, he said.

"Parents, not streaming corporations, need to direct the upbringing of children," Uthmeier said.

In the complaint, Uthmeier stated Netflix's executive officer Reed Hastings told investors during a Jan. 22, 2020, earnings call the company's model was not based on using customer data.

"We don't collect anything, we're really focused on just making our members happy and we're not tied up on all that controversy around advertising," Hastings said.

Hastings also said Netflix wasn't interested in tracking customers' locations or other things they were doing. "We want to be the safer spy where you can explore, you can get stimulated, have fun, enjoy, relax, and have none of the controversy around exploiting users with advertising," Hastings said during the call.

The Netflix executive compared the company to Google, Facebook, and Amazon's advertising models that used consumer data collection and targeting information, saying Netflix was "not controversial that way."

James Uthmeier speaks at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington on Sept. 3, 2025. Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Uthmeier's complaint alleges Hastings' comments represented to customers that buying Netflix subscriptions bought an escape from tech surveillance, but in fact generated years of "lucrative behavioral data" for the company.

Hastings stepped down as Netflix's chairman of the board of directors in June.

Uthmeier claims that, behind the scenes, the company accumulated years of consumer data and surveillance and used it when Netflix deployed its advertising business in November 2022.

The lawsuit alleges the streamer uses dark patterns, or subtle designs, to manipulate users to take actions the company wants them to take. The autoplay feature is one of these designs, the complaint alleges.

An attorney listed for Netflix didn't respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit.

Florida is the second state to sue the streaming giant. Texas filed a lawsuit in May alleging similar violations of the law arising from the collection of users' data without their knowledge or consent.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 22:45

Making The World Great One Nation At A Time

Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

What we call "globalism" has been on the march for eighty years. A system that embraces centralized markets, bureaucratic regulation, international institutions, and so-called non-governmental organizations (predominantly funded by governments), globalism places significant power in the hands of a small collection of wealthy and powerful stakeholders from the planet's top investment houses, corporations, law firms, universities, central banks, and government bodies.

Globalism speaks in the language of "democracy" while ignoring - or even criminalizing - the will of the people. Across the West, citizens have opposed open border policies that have flooded their nations with unassimilable, foreign immigrants. Globalists have categorized this dissent as "hate speech," censoring - and even prosecuting - citizens for their social media posts and public speech. Globalists insist that there must be limits on free speech. They seek to punish "thought crimes." They label opposing points of view "disinformation" or "misinformation." In practice, globalists protect governments and institutions from public criticism.

Globalism also speaks in the language of "free markets" while heavily regulating industrial production, encumbering the use of private property, and manipulating currency valuation, stock markets, and trade. By effectively "printing money" and intervening in markets, central banks steal from citizens who save their cash earnings, inflate the prices of essential household goods, and protect privileged companies or industries deemed "too big to fail." By ginning up "global warming" fears among the public, lawmakers, bankers, and bureaucrats have justified the imposition of "carbon controls" that regulate energy use, economic production, and human activity. By expanding public welfare programs while weakening protections for property ownership, globalists tax citizens at increasingly higher rates, redistribute earned income and savings, confiscate real property, and even permit squatters (often foreign migrants) to occupy private residences.

Globalism falsely clothes itself in principle and tradition. Its proponents speak of "Western values," while encouraging non-Westerners to migrate to and radically change the culture and demographics of Western nations. Its propagandists claim to represent "the people," while doing the bidding of multinational corporations and investment banks. Its defenders pretend to respect public opinion, while mandating slavish devotion to "expertise." Globalism seeks to end the nation state while demanding that citizens sacrifice themselves for government bureaucracies. It wages war against Christians who refuse to worship government institutions as the highest authorities on "truth." Globalists divide societies into "victims" and "oppressors," so that citizens remain too busy fighting each other to notice the surveillance prison being built around them. Globalists criticize opponents by saying things such as, "That's not who we are," while taking a sledgehammer and blowtorch to Western identities.

In defiance of globalism's steady advance since WWII, a revolution has been brewing. Although its messengers have appeared all over the world - including Pat Buchanan in the United States, Shinzo Abe and Sanae Takaichi in Japan, Marine Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Javier Milei in Argentina, Alice Weidel in Germany, and Nigel Farage in the United Kingdom - President Donald J. Trump is the unofficial leader of the rebellion. What these men and women have in common is a strong sense of duty to their respective nations, a firm belief that culture matters, a preference for common sense, and a commitment to their countrymen over the international institutions, multinational corporations, and globalist NGOs (such as the World Economic Forum) that seek to eliminate national borders and condemn citizens to lives as disposable serfs.

President Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement has spawned similar campaigns around the world. Whether in El Salvador or Nigeria, Spain or Australia, Canada or India, there are locals who have appropriated that slogan as part of an effort to make their own nations great. While globalism diminishes the importance of culture and celebrates amorphous "multiculturalism" as an inscrutable ideal, nation-builders around the world know better: Culture is the lifeblood of every society. It is the glue that binds a people together, fosters cooperation, and turns dreams of the future into reality. Just as members of a family help each other to succeed, members of a shared culture ensure their nation's success.

People who climb mountains do not plant flags from the United Nations, European Union, the World Economic Forum, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; they fly their national flags at the top. Because no matter how much globalists lecture us about the evils of nationalism and the moral equivalence of all cultures, human beings know better. Our families, traditions, religious convictions, and historical memories matter. And when we ascend the icy peaks that few people have reached, we mark the moment, not as an achievement for "multiculturalism," but rather as a testament to the inherent greatness of the places we call home.

For decades, globalism has been promoted as a "free market" ideal that would generate economic growth and foster international peace. But how has it operated in practice? Powerful corporations and lobbying groups have worked with governments to construct elaborate trade agreements that benefit the bottom line of political and financial elites. Rarely are the interests of the common man considered, except in the context of labor unions, standards bodies, or trade groups that purport to represent the average worker. Instead, complex legal documents such as the North American Free Trade Agreement have assisted in the creation of large industry monopolies while squeezing out small businesses. After the creation of NAFTA and similar "free trade deals," American corporations and investment firms became multinational conglomerates, while Main Street mom-and-pop shops disappeared.

Globalism's preferred winners became entities "too big to fail." Why were they "too big to fail"? Because their trillion-dollar operations stretched like a circulatory system around the globe. Their drive for "efficiencies of scale" pushed them into every local bank, industry, and consumer market that could be secured as a beachhead for future profit. But in the endless expansion of it all - the mergers, acquisitions, and amalgamated monopolies - globalism's circulatory system resembled that of a morbidly obese man only one meal away from a massive heart attack. A system so interconnected that it cannot survive the loss of any part makes the whole thing vulnerable to a few drops of poison.

Globalism's rise has been debilitating for national self-sufficiency. In their unending quest for returns on investment, the globalists have built a world in which slave labor is used in communist China, India, and most of the African continent (while corporate news media ignore the story). Natural resources are extracted from third-world countries where environmental protection laws do not exist (while corporate news media ignore the story). Companies exploit both illegal immigration flows and legal work visas to drive down wages and drive up demand for (and therefore the prices of) food, fuel, rents, household necessities, and homes (while corporate news media ignore the story).

In treating individual nations as stolen cars being stripped and sold for parts, globalists have taken what is most valuable from each country while depriving those countries of the resources to build resilient economies of their own. From the slave mines of Africa to the sweatshops of China, globalism profits from blood. From the American Rust Belt to Germany's decommissioned nuclear plants and the U.K.'s abandoned oil and gas fields, globalism sacrifices the wealth of nations, so that multinational investment banks can suck just a little more profit from the husks of countries with one foot already in the grave.

Why is it that patriotic love for one's nation is making a comeback? Because globalism's hatred for nations has left a trail of social conflict, government dependence, drug and alcohol addiction, deteriorating public health, environmental degradation, and cultural decline in every land it drains of life. What President Trump and his fellow rebels understand is this: Nations and their people matter. You cannot make the world great, while letting great nations die.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 22:10

West Virginia Joins Nuclear Campus Race With Waste Storage In Focus

West Virginia’s Governor Patrick Morrisey announced that the state had signed a memorandum of understanding with the DOE, joining Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah as the sixth contender for a Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus (NLIC).

West Virginia’s energy future will cover all the bases! 🔌

“You’ve heard me talk a lot about coal. You’ve heard we talk a lot about gas. And I said, just you wait, nuclear is coming.” —Gov. @MorriseyWV pic.twitter.com/J4LkLT8wmW

— West Virginia Prosperity Group (@wvprosperity) September 9, 2026

The state was not included on July’s initial shortlist, which postured itself as the final roster that the DOE would downselect from. Morrisey’s took to "working the phones" to emphasize their abundance of skilled workers and industrial capabilities, but the state’s willingness to accommodate spent nuclear fuel is likely all it took for the DOE to open the door to further discussions.

Marla Morales, the acting deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and high-level waste disposition at the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, recently made it explicitly clear what we had already come to the conclusion on in our previous coverage of the NLIC program: it's all about handling the used nuclear fuel.

At the NECX conference, Morales stated, “One of the things we knew from the beginning of this was that we had to be open and transparent with what we were talking about. We had to make sure that everyone understood: You can want all the fancy reactors you want; you're going to have waste at the end of this. It has to go somewhere. So, by the fact that we started the conversation with waste, it really helped frame our narrative to begin with.”

Clearly, any state that started getting uncomfortable when the DOE started asking about what they intend to do with all the used nuclear fuel that would be produced by their programs, was simply asked to stop pretending and please leave. This brings to a close the suspicions for why states like Texas and New Mexico are not included. 

The DOE’s initial selection followed 28 applications from 26 states. NLICs would combine enrichment, fuel fabrication, recycling and waste disposition, potentially alongside reactors, manufacturing and data centers.

An individual campus could attract up to $50 billion in investment and create nearly 25,000 jobs.

The expanding NLIC list stands alongside an expanding Nuclear Energy Launch Pad (NELP) program. The NELP is one of the many other programs under the DOE intended to speed up nuclear development. The program recently saw a dramatic expansion from an initial four projects to now over 15 projects across over a dozen companies 

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 21:35

US Limits Its Air Defense Coverage For Tankers Sailing Through Hormuz: Report

Via The Cradle

The US military has reduced the daily window in which it offers air defense to commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the Financial Times (FT) reports on Saturday.

Since May, Washington has sought to break Iran's control of Hormuz by providing air defense for vessels sailing through the strategic strait along a southern route hugging the coast of Oman.

Image source: US Air Force

Iran imposed a blockade on the strait shortly after the US and Israel launched an unprovoked war on the Islamic Republic on February 28.

However, the US began limiting the time slots in which vessels can receive protection from US aircraft as of the start of this month, FT reported.

The move comes in response to stepped-up Iranian attacks on ships transiting Hormuz, particularly at night. Ships are reportedly advised but not required to sail during the air defense time slots.

To receive protection, shipowners must apply to a US naval coordination center known as the Naval Cooperation and Guidance for Shipping (NCAGS).

Upon approval, the vessels received coordinates to follow during a broad time window. However, that window was "reduced to two specific time slots daily around the start of September," FT wrote, citing emails NCAGS sent to maritime advisors.

Vessels are now being told to begin their journey at specified times, such as 9:00 am, to receive air defense.

"We are now providing recommended transit times that vary by day. Your vessel is not required to go during these times, but it is encouraged to receive the best support," one NCAGS email said.

"Transiting during a period of darkness has not proven to be the most secure time of day," stated another email, highlighting the increased threat of Iranian attacks at night.

Iranian forces have attacked dozens of vessels attempting to pass through the strait since the beginning of the war, greatly limiting the oil exports of Washington's Gulf allies.

The US responded by imposing a naval blockade on Iranian ports in a bid to block Tehran's own oil exports. Before the war, at least 20 percent of world oil exports passed through Hormuz.

Not only security but also cost considerations may have influenced the US decision to reduce the protected transit window.

Joshua Tallis, a researcher at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), stated that it costs the US Navy $25,000 to $75,000 an hour to operate its advanced aircraft.

Both Iran and the US stepped up their attacks on commercial vessels in the region earlier this week. Iran targeted two vessels and eight oil tankers in Hormuz in response to US strikes on five Iranian tankers. The US launched the strikes following an attack by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on a US warship days earlier.

"These waters aren't safe," stated Michelle Wiese Bockmann, an analyst at maritime intelligence firm Windward. Bockmann estimated that oil exports from Gulf countries other than Iran in August stood at about two-thirds of prewar levels, largely because of exports rerouted through pipelines to bypass Hormuz.

'Reached final stage' – Iran says agreement with Oman close on 'temporary secure passage in Strait of Hormuz' pic.twitter.com/UHFoKlfW5Q

— Syed Ali Salman Bokhari (@SyedAliSalman70) September 8, 2026

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei announced on Saturday that foreign ministers from several Gulf states will meet in Oman on Monday to exchange views on regional issues, including talks between Iran and Oman on designating safe routes for transiting the strait.

Baghaei added he hoped the meeting would improve understanding among regional countries and contribute to joint regional security.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 21:00

China's 70% EV Target Deals Another Blow To Oil Demand

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

China aims to have electric and hybrid vehicles account for as much as 70% of all passenger car sales by 2030, in a massive transport shift set to further dent oil demand for road fuels.

As of the end of last year, the share of the so-called new energy vehicles was 54% of all passenger vehicle sales.

In the new five-year plan for the automotive industry compiled by nearly a dozen Chinese government agencies, China also targets to have 40% of new commercial vehicle sales be electric by 2030.

The 70% target by 2030 could even be achieved earlier than planned, analysts say, as this year's oil and fuel price shock is accelerating the shift to electric vehicles.

EVs and hybrids accounted for 65% of China's total passenger car sales in August, according to data by the local Passenger Car Association (PCA) cited by Bloomberg.

The ambitious EV targets are expected to continue eroding road fuel demand in China, which has been falling for the second year in a row. This year, the decline has been steeper amid the energy price shock following the start of the war in Iran.

Chinese state refiners expect continued declines and prepare for the future of plateauing and falling road fuel demand.

For example, China's Sinopec, the world's top refiner by capacity, expects Chinese oil demand to drop by 8.9% in 2026 from a year earlier amid demand destruction from higher oil prices and the acceleration of electric vehicle adoption. Gasoline demand is set for an 8.7% decline, while diesel consumption is expected to crash by 11.4%, Sinopec Economics & Development Research Institute says.

The high oil prices destroyed some demand and sped up the adoption of EVs, which has been growing anyway in recent years, suppressing total oil demand even without blocked crude supplies in the Middle East.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 19:50

What Critics Keep Getting Wrong About Capitalism

Authored by Vincent Geloso via FEE,

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is not a publication most would be familiar with. It is meant as a repository of overviews of big topics in philosophy broadly defined, inclusive of political theory. As such, entries added to it are unlikely to generate strong responses by the experts deeply familiar with each individual entry. Every rule has exceptions though.

Image Credit: Custom image by FEE

Recently, Chiara Cordelli, a political philosopher at the University of Chicago, delivered her "three years in the making" commissioned piece on "capitalism." The piece went viral. The reason that it sparked such attention is that it read to many as basically a rehash of old online talking points spewed by more refined trolls. That is unfair but there is truth to the claim that there is no smoke without fire. It is indeed a boring "takedown" of capitalism.

Let me be precise here: the problem is not that the entry is critical of capitalism. There is nothing wrong with criticising capitalism, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman or classical liberalism. The problem is that much of the discussion does not pass even a modest ideological Turing test. An ideological Turing test asks whether one can state an opposing position so accurately that its proponents would recognise the argument as their own before one proceeds to criticise it. Here, too often, they would not.

This points to a common reflex in debates over "capitalism" and "neoliberalism." The vocabulary is often not used to define but rather rationalise already-held ideological priors. The characteristics one dislikes are incorporated into the definition of the system, after which those same characteristics are rediscovered as criticisms of it. The conclusion has, in part, been smuggled into the premises. But these end up being recycled over and over as one scholar states it before another regurgitates it back as fact and so forth.

Some examples help show this usual reflex. When describing the "market capitalism" advanced by Hayek and Friedman, Cordelli claims that they believed capitalism required "complete, private, and unregulated markets," and that this stemmed from their acceptance of a "general equilibrium" view, with the implication that "capitalism goes wrong when it is politically interfered with." But both claims - which underlie much of the entry - are massively incorrect. Not minor quibbles, mind you, but major and easily verifiable errors. Friedman initially advocated antitrust laws and, while he moderated on this front later in life, he still believed they did some good. He supported a negative income tax - a variant of a guaranteed minimum income - and schooling vouchers. Hardly the mark of someone who believed in the complete absence of political interference. Hayek for his part rejected the idea of general equilibrium altogether and preferred to speak of competition and markets as discovery processes. He defended regulation of natural monopolies and he also spoke in favour of some basic welfare state functions.

But this is not new. This description of Hayek and Friedman - and others like them - has been there since the 1960s and it can be found in the work of many. So too are the replies pointing all of this out. The claim has been recycled and vomited back. The replies have been ignored - the mark of the inability to undergo the key Turing tests I mentioned. Thus, the entry massively misrepresents what it dubs "normative defences" of capitalism.

And then, the preferred views of the entry's author also eschew major criticism raised at it. The best illustration of this is visible in the considerably detailed treatment that Karl Marx gets. Marx is presented as complete, coherent and accurate. No mentions are made of the fact that Das Kapital self-contradicts itself via the well-known transformation problem. Marx first argues that the value of commodities is determined by the labour required to produce them (i.e., the labour theory of value). This is the key foundation of "exploitation" theory in Marxist theory. But he later recognises that competition tends to equalise profit rates across industries. For that to happen, market prices must diverge from labour values. The problem, then, is explaining how one gets from labour-determined values to observed competitive prices without abandoning the labour theory of value itself. Marx never provides a fully consistent solution to that transformation. And no solution to the problem exists.

It explains why Marxist predictions fail to materialise. The most obvious example is that wages and incomes for unskilled workers were rising while Marx was writing his works. Not only that, he was writing in Britain - a society where inequality was actually falling! Moreover, in the United States - the country most often described as most capitalist by Marxists then and now - even socialist writers like Charles Spahr produced data which, when used with subsequent works, show massive growth in living standards at the bottom while inequality between the top 1% and the bottom 90% either stagnates or actually declines.

Not only did Marx predict that capitalism would generate pauperisation; he also added that it generated persistent pressure to lengthen working hours and lower labour's share of national income. Historical evidence runs strongly against these predictions: working hours have fallen dramatically since the nineteenth century, both annually and as a share of waking life - with only modest influence on unions or legislation. Marx's prediction about labour's share of income also fares poorly empirically, as many studies find that greater economic freedom (a proxy for capitalism) and globalisation are associated with a larger share of national income accruing to labour. In fact, in causal empirical tests, economies that become more capitalist (by liberalising) tend to show rising boats for everyone. Taken together, these findings suggest that some of Marx's central empirical predictions about capitalist labour markets have been contradicted rather than confirmed by subsequent economic history.

All of these massive holes in the Marxist account of capitalism are ignored and set aside. The criticisms are still presented as high-quality despite the fact that they have repeatedly failed to generate the predictions they are supposed to.

This is precisely where the usual reflex in debates over "capitalism" becomes problematic: early and criticised claims (even debunked ones) are built into the description of capitalism itself and then rediscovered as criticisms of it, even when the empirical evidence points in the opposite direction. Once repeated often enough, such claims pass from one scholar to another as established facts, with the original empirical proposition increasingly insulated from serious testing. The entry falls prey to this and while it does offer insight into how some people think about capitalism, it is merely a sophisticated rant - nothing more.

This article was originally published by CapX.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 18:40

Trump: Houthis 'Don't Want' US In Yemen - So They're Letting Most Red Sea Shipping Through

After it was widely reported this week that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urgently sought military assistance from President Donald Trump amid the rapid Houthi takeover of Yemen's Red Sea coast from the forces of the internationally recognized Sanaa government, Trump has said the Houthis are in contact with him and have pledged to let ships through the Bab Al-Mandab Strait. 

Trump is currently in Ireland. He said to reporters Saturday while meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin, "The Houthis called us, and they don't want to fight with us. They don’t want us to go after them." 

He further explained that "they would much prefer not having us involved:" and so "they are letting most ships go through." The president did acknowledged they do have a ban on Saudi vessels, however.

Trump: "The Houthis called us. They don't want to fight with us. They let us know they don't want to fight with us. They don't want us to go after them. They would much prefer not having us involved, and they are letting most ships go through. There's just one country they're not… pic.twitter.com/munm8N0Gys

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 12, 2026

Indeed this is consistent with Ansar Allah's latest statements declaring the Red Sea passage remains open, but closed to Saudi and Israeli-linked shipping.

This seems to confirm prior reporting that said Trump rejected MbS' request for US military intervention in Yemen. To review:

Axios: Trump declined Saudi requests to strike Ansarallah as they advanced Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called U.S. President Donald Trump twice on Thursday, urging him to launch strikes against Yemen’s Ansarallah as they advanced along the Red Sea coast toward Bab al-Mandab, two U.S. officials told Axios. Trump declined, with Washington saying it has no plans to intervene directly for now.

It seems Washington also doesn't want to see the Iran conflict explode into a runaway regional war which would certainly greatly exacerbate the global energy crisis.

Aaran Kennedy, a maritime security analyst with the global consultancy, Control Risks, has described to Al Jazeera that while "These advances strengthen the Houthis’ already strong position over the Red Sea. They simply make it even easier for the Houthis to target shipping" - the reality remains “It doesn’t necessarily mean that, right now, they’re going to expand their maritime target set."

Kennedy believes a full Bab al-Mandeb closure is unlikely. "Just because the Houthis have gained this territory near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to close it down. That situation remains highly unlikely. But what it does do is it expands their capabilities because it puts their weaponry closer to the Red Sea shipping lanes."

Analysts are calling the Iran-backed Houthi group’s victories the most significant regional development since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran.

The offensives could be particularly damaging for Saudi Arabia and its oil exports.

Here’s what we know https://t.co/nrVeKbd8EJ pic.twitter.com/qsqxbeJ0dh

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) September 11, 2026

But this does also ultimately given Tehran huge leverage, given it can persuade its Houthi allies anytime to take drastic action over the strait. Houthi threats over regional waters was on full display during the height of the Gaza War, which saw the US Navy get involved in the Red Sea, but warships later departed under the guise of handing security over to regional as well as European allies.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 16:55

'I Have To Sit With That': Gayle King's Brain Divides By Zero After Holdout Clancy Juror Revealed As Black Man

After the media spent the last two weeks casting pent up handmaiden feminist energy at the 'male holdout' juror who caused a mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy case, "CBS Mornings" anchor Gayle King had a visible record scratch after one of the karen jurors revealed that the holdout was a black man that the white ladies virtually lynched in the town square of national dialogue for not letting Clancy off the hook for murdering her children. 

"Was the person of color a woman or a man?" King asked juror Paula Devlin, who explained how 11 members of the jury were white and one was a person of color. 

"Is the holdout juror… a person of c– a black man?" King probed further...

To which Devlin replied: "Yes" - causing King to have to 'sit with that.'

Watch:

NEW: Lindsay Clancy juror Paula Devlin reveals on 'CBS Mornings' that the lone, male holdout juror who voted to find Clancy guilty of murdering her children was the *only* person of color -- a black man.

The 11 not-guilty jurors -- who hectored him for a week to cave -- were all… pic.twitter.com/5qirHNGCyx

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 11, 2026

Reminder - this wasn't just a black man, it was an arrogant black man.

Female jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial FUME over the lone male holdout: “He was very arrogant. He just completely disregarded the information they gave.” pic.twitter.com/3TF0SrlG6t

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) September 8, 2026

Needless to say, it's all anyone's talking about today...

"The other jurors have spent all week calling the lone male holdout an arrogant, uncooperative dummy who didn’t understand the law or follow the rules. Now we come to find out that they were talking about the only black guy in the room this whole time. Leftists have accidentally sided with 11 white bullies against a black man who stood up to them. Just an absolutely amazing twist. You couldn’t script it any better," said the Daily Wire's Matt Walsh, who had several great takes. 

This is amazing. The Left has been trashing this guy all week only to find out that he was the only black person on the jury, getting hounded by bossy white women. Just perfect. https://t.co/yooCcogaU8

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 11, 2026

This comedy skit is priceless now listen to the end pic.twitter.com/Olf4LXLQ82

— MoonriseBill (@MoonriseBill) September 11, 2026

The Left trying to figure out how to smear the lone holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial now that they know it was a black man.pic.twitter.com/XJnIGRksvz

— C3 (@C_3C_3) September 11, 2026

This is so much better knowing the hold out juror is a black man. pic.twitter.com/eKkzkvlEQ8

— Rosie Memos (@almostjingo) September 11, 2026

 

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 16:15

DHS Proposes Quickly Removing Visa Holders After Job Loss

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is floating the end of a 60-day grace period that currently allows some immigrants to remain in the United States after they lose their jobs.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin speaks during a news conference in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, on July 17, 2026. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Immigrants with temporary work visas such as H-1B visas would have to immediately leave the country if they no longer have a job, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a proposed rule filed on Sept. 10 and set to be formally published in the Federal Register on Sept. 11.

Such visas are contingent on an immigrant's employment, and a company sponsors the employee. Some of the visas are granted only to workers who have specialized expertise.

DHS originally provided the grace period to encourage immigrants who no longer have jobs to remain in the United States and try to obtain another form of legal status or get another job, Mullin said. But rulemakers did not sufficiently consider the negative effects of the grace period, such as burdening immigration officers who handle additional paperwork from visa holders during the time period, he said.

"DHS now believes that once the alien is no longer fulfilling the very specific conditions under which he or she was admitted or otherwise provided status, such status, as well as the authorization to remain in the United States, should definitively cease and the impacted alien should immediately depart the United States (unless otherwise authorized to lawfully remain in the United States)," he wrote.

"This is generally consistent with the requirements for aliens admitted or otherwise provided status in other non-immigrant categories when the alien fails to fulfill the very specific conditions under which he or she was admitted or otherwise provided status."

If finalized, the change could cause thousands of jobs to not be filled by specialty foreign workers, DHS estimates.

The department is presuming that the companies looking to fill the jobs "will either offer the same jobs to equally qualified U.S. workers or go through the I-129 petition process depending on their workforce requirement," the notice said, referring to the process of bringing foreign workers to the United States.

"In some situations, aliens who have gone abroad can be readmitted for employment if the I-129 petition filed on their behalf is approved and the alien is admissible. Even though these petitioners would witness a temporary loss of productivity, they might be able to gain U.S. workers for the positions that were generally offered to ... nonimmigrants during the possible grace period," the notice reads.

The proposal will be available online on Sept. 11. Parties can comment on the proposal for 60 days. Officials will then decide whether to finalize it, potentially with alterations in response to comments.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 15:10

Trump & Hegseth Try To Tie Iran To 9/11 At Pentagon Ceremony

The two main 9/11 ceremonies on Friday marking 25 years since the terror attacks were held at Ground Zero in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington DC. President Trump attended the latter while VP JD Vance was present at the former.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth also helped lead remembrance events at the Pentagon, but at the annual NYC commemoration, Vance appeared to keep a lower profile while listening from the audience to names being read out.

Trump and Hegseth in their respective addresses tried to tie the ongoing Iran war to Sept. 11, 2001. They both sough to frame current Iran action as a continuation of the Global War on Terror.

"We salute the service members working right now to ensure the world's number one sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran, will never ever have a nuclear weapon," Trump said at the Pentagon.

via Associated Press

As for Hegseth, he spoke just ahead of the president and said that US forces remain "vigilant" against the "Islamic theocracy" in Iran.

"Our warriors have fought an Islamic theocracy that has wished us death for nearly half a century, that cheered on 9/11," he said.

"A regime that has sponsored terrorist attacks against Americans for decades, killing thousands, including our comrades in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they did not factor in this president," the Pentagon chief continued.

"We’re still sending terrorists where they belong — to hell — and tankers to the bottom of the ocean, where they belong," Hegseth added. "And we are ensuring that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon."

Ironically it was close American ally Saudi Arabia which actually factors in most directly to the 9/11 tragedy, and family members of victims have filed a lawsuit against the kingdom for state-level and intelligence complicity in the terror attacks.

The majority of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, and each and every one of them was a Sunni Muslim. As for Iran, it is a historic enemy of the Sunni Saudi kingdom and practices Shia Islam, which Riyadh considers 'heretical'.

Trying to link Iran to 9/11 also has a whiff of Bush-era propaganda to it. Not only did some NeoCon pundits at the time try to link Tehran to it, but a major talking point was also a far-fetched 'Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda alliance'.

Of course, Saddam was a secular Ba'athist autocrat and historically sought to persecute radical fundamentalist sects. Still, Iraq got invaded on the heels of Afghanistan and Saddam was overthrown by US forces.

More recently, in the last decade of the Syria proxy war, Iranian officers and Shia militias were typically the ones along the front lines fighting ISIS and other Sunni jihad movements. The latter were often sponsored by the Gulf states as well as US intelligence. When it comes to the Middle East and Washington policy, nothing is ever as it seems.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 14:35

Sweden Discovers That Deporting Immigrant Gangsters Reduces Crime...

Authored by Mike McDaniel via AmericanThinker.com,

Among the things a police career taught me is that a small number—usually single digits—of felons commit most felonies. They’ll draw in other criminals, involve them in their crimes, and when convenient, abandon them to arrest. There is no honor among thieves. And the number of the most prolific felons increases and decreases slightly from place to place, and in relation to the specific type of crime.

In some places, crooks specialize in home or business burglaries. In others, specialization might involve burglarizing vehicles or carjacking.

But one thing is certain: take these small bands of crooks out of circulation, and the number of their crimes in those areas immediately, dramatically plummets. The trick is identifying the crooks and rolling them over on each other. Catch some in the act or with the evidence, and the second part is usually easier than the first. When they’re put away, innumerable people we’ll never know don’t end up as victims.

Of course, these kinds of positive results also rely on prosecutors willing to prosecute and judges willing to keep criminals in jail and hand down realistic sentences. That’s a real issue in blue cities and states.

Now it seems Sweden is discovering this reality, particularly where gang-committed, immigrant crime is involved. And it’s about time too. Reports out of Sweden, which has shown suicidal empathy for third-world barbarians, indicate that hand grenade(?!) attacks have become common. At PJ Media, Stephen Green explains:

So Sweden elected a conservative prime minister four years ago who promised to send criminal migrants back to their home countries, and you'll never believe what happened next.

Violent crime went down. Way down. Particularly gang violence, according to a new report out this week.

Imagine that.

Graphic: X Post

When he campaigned for the PM spot in 2022, Ulf Kristersson — then a member of the Swedish parliament or riksdag — said of violent acts: "If you commit such crimes in Sweden and are not a Swedish citizen, you should be thrown out of the country.”

Apparently, Swedes got tired of dodging grenades and having their women raped.

By the summer of '22, escalating gang shootings and even bombings were commonplace in what had once been a country better known for spas than jihads. In total, Sweden suffered 361 shootings, 62 shooting deaths, and 90 bombings. The problem with migrant gangs escalated so quickly that Swedish authorities didn't bother to record bombings until 2018.

By the last election, even the governing soft-on-crime Social Democrats promised tougher measures, but that wasn't enough to stop Kristersson from putting together a coalition big enough to oust the SD.

Sweden didn’t bother to report bombings until 2018? That’s terminal suicidal empathy, but the Swedes had enough. They better funded the police, did more wiretapping, and directly focused on stopping gang recruitment among the young.

As it turns out — and again, you won't be shocked by this — sending foreign criminals home is just as effective as locking up homegrown thugs. But the numbers must be seen to be believed. 

Shootings are down "by 80 per cent since their 2022 peak," the Financial Times reported on Monday, and Kristersson reduced "the number of asylum seekers to its lowest in four decades."

It was apparently a huge deal earlier this year when one Swedish paper reported "No shootings in May."

“The fact that you have headlines saying no shootings at all this month: it says something,” Kristersson told the FT.

Sadly, the national tendency toward suicide may once again assert itself:

Still, Sweden holds another national election on Sunday, and the Social Democrats could very well take power again. “There’s a lot of discussion about the Winston Churchill effect,” Mattias Karlsson, the nationalist Sweden Democrats' chief ideologue, said.

Having all but won the war, will Swedish voters reject the man who got them this far?

The “Churchill effect” refers to what happened to Winston Churchill after WWII. Without him, England likely would have fallen to the Nazis. He was, during the war, the indispensable man, but once the war was won, he was put out to pasture, and the kinds of political forces that would have lost the war wormed their way back into power.

Having once again discovered the benefits of national sanity, Will Sweden fall back into leftist delusion and defeat? Perhaps there’s a lesson there for our midterms and beyond.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 14:00

Watch: 9/11 Widow Goes Off Script, Blasts Saudi Arabia For Complicity During Ground Zero Ceremony

We have for many years carefully followed and documented what has emerged in the over two decades since the 9/11 attacks concerning Saudi state complicity. Families of 9/11 victims have long had a lawsuit pending against Saudi government. The kingdom's intel officials show up in all kinds of declassified documents, and there remain plenty of unanswered questions concerning several other shady individuals.

On Friday during the 25th anniversary memorial service for 9/11 at Ground Zero in New York City there was an incredibly rare moment in which the widow of a victim broke from the script and openly called for 9/11 truth and justice. When she called out Saudi Arabia, a close US ally whose highest intel officials were frequently seen with then President George W. Bush (see "Bandar Bush"), it elicited applause from the crowd.

A 9/11 widow just rent rogue in NYC…

She read her husbands name and then called out Islamic terror and Saudi Arabia.

She called out Bush, Obama, Biden and JD Vance/Trump while they sat right in front of her. The entire crowd at ground zero cheered. pic.twitter.com/xICEZL6FOv

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) September 11, 2026

"For 25 years, administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families," Terry Strada, whose husband Tom Strada - a bond broker - was killed in the north tower of the World Trade Center, stated.

"They withheld evidence," Strada continued. "They vetoed JASTA [Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act]. They broke promises, both public and private. It has been one betrayal after another."

She called on the Trump administration to "tell the Saudis to stop lying" and to "Tell them that if they want to be friends with the USA, they cannot continue to deny all of this, all of the pain, all of the destruction that we have all been suffering through."

Former presidents & officials were present, Getty Images

Axios reports additionally that:

Another man participating in reading the names of the victims also appealed to Trump to "release the unredacted files that implicate Saudi Arabia while what's left of the victims' families are still alive to see it."

The oil-rich nation has long fought ongoing claims from victims' families, but last year, a federal judge determined that enough evidence existed to infer the kingdom employed two operatives to assist the hijackers, Axios' Marc Caputo previously reported.

Vice President JD Vance was in attendance for the Friday Ground Zero Memorial while President Trump led events at the Pentagon, which was also attacked on that tragic day.

🚨WATCH: Vice President JD Vance listens as 9/11 victims' family members call for an investigation into Saudi Arabia's alleged role in the attacks.

🎥:C-SPAN pic.twitter.com/6cClIH4DA5

— Off The Press (@OffThePress1) September 11, 2026

Strada expressed appreciation for Vance attending the event and urged him to "carry that message back" to the president.

The United States and Saudi Arabia have been essentially tied at the hip for many decades of what can be called a long-running and institutionalized "oil for guns" relationship. The Saudis also helped Washington topple Assad in Syria, and host an array of US bases and closely work with US intelligence.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, in Epstein's very interesting art collection...

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 13:25

This Time Is Different? Earnings & Price Break 90-Year Trends

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

September, so far, is living up to its reputation. The market slipped to the 50-day moving average, with the tape taking orders from crude oil. For the week, crude rose about 9% over four sessions, which pulled the 10-year Treasury yield higher right along with it, closing just under 5%. The corners of the market that hate higher rates slid while the S&P 500 dipped 0.68% to close the week at 7,666. However, that rather lackluster headline conveniently hides the real story beneath it.

Take a look at the spread between markets. Small caps fell 2.38% while the Dow dropped 1.51%. The equal-weight S&P index gave up 1.87% while the cap-weighted index, by contrast, lost less than a point. The Nasdaq-100 barely budged, declining just 0.52%. When the average stock falls three times as hard as the index, leadership is narrowing, not broadening. As we have flagged in recent notes on the AI complex, a market carried by a handful of names runs with a thin margin for error.

Of course, the big news this week was the inflation data, which gave the bond market the excuse it needed. Headline CPI ran at 3.4% over the past year, and remains sticky, while core CPI remained at 2.4%, just above the Fed’s target.

On the producer price side, inflation told a louder story, with PPI jumping 0.4% on the month and the annual rate accelerating to 5.4% from 4.8%. However, that number, while higher than expected, will be revised lower with the benchmark revisions at the end of the month.

Overall, it was goods pricing that did the damage, which rose 1.1%, with diesel alone leaping 24%. Even core producer prices printed at 4.6%. However, while the bond market was jolted, the reality is that this was an oil shock rather than a sign of an overheating economy. The former doesn’t justify a Fed rate hike; the latter would. Neither report was a disaster, but neither one gives the Fed a clean reason to hike rates.

On a cross-asset review, the moves fit a “rate scare.” Gold fell, the dollar remained flat, and volatility lifted off its lows without anything close to panic. However, the real story remained below the surface in the cyclical and rate-sensitive groups, which dragged lower all week.

The Fed meets Tuesday and Wednesday next week, with the market still leaning toward a quarter-point hike. Firm headline inflation and a crude oil spike are not the backdrop a central bank is likely to hike into, particularly with a softening labor market.

Watch the long end into the decision. If oil keeps running and the 10-year pushes above 5%, the multiple on this market gets much harder to defend. The narrow leadership that propped everything up all summer would be the first thing to give way, which wouldn’t be a surprising outcome for the month of September heading into the midterm election cycle.

💰 This Time Is Different?

For every secular bull market, there is an eventual secular bear market. The next leg of the full-market cycle inevitably begins where everyone believes “this time is different.” There were two important charts this past week that should at least lend a momentary pause. The first was from Ned Davis Research, showing the market (on a log scale) is now trading above the upper limit of its long-term trend. The previous extreme was in early 2000, for reference.

Secondly, corporate earnings just broke above a trend that had contained them for more than 90 years.

Currently, it is not surprising that, given the advancement of AI, surging earnings growth, and bullish markets, investors inevitably come to believe that “this time is different.” The question we want to explore today is “Is it really different this time,” or just a normal secular cycle playing out in real time?  

Earlier this month, I argued the AI bears are right about the excess but may be wrong on the trade. So let’s put the bull case on trial and see what holds.

What’s Actually Driving The Breakout

Let’s start with the good news, because there is plenty of it. Second-quarter S&P 500 earnings grew roughly 31% year over year on an adjusted basis, well ahead of the 23% the Street had penciled in before the season. Bloomberg calls it the strongest non-recession-recovery profit growth in its data going back to 1992. AI infrastructure did most of the heavy lifting. By BlackRock’s math, AI-related names drove close to 60% of the index’s earnings growth, and three hyperscalers account for roughly 70% of what analysts expect for the full year.ar.

Yes, there are reasons to be skeptical of the earnings growth, such as one-time investment gains that are boosting the numbers. However, there is a part that the bears keep glossing over. The rest of the index is finally pulling its weight as well. When you strip out energy, and the AI build, and the other roughly 490 companies still grew earnings 14% in the second quarter, a number that would headline most years on its own. The “broadening” everyone keeps asking for is finally showing up in the profit data itself, not the hope column.

This rally is earnings-led, not multiple-led, and that single fact is what separates it from 2000. Look at the revisions. Forward earnings estimates have climbed for most of the year, while the forward multiple has drifted lower. Price has been chasing profits, not the other way around. Hyperscaler capital spending is running north of $700 billion this year, up more than 80%, funded out of cash flow rather than junk debt. Furthermore, the hyperscaler capex is REAL. The question was never whether the spending exists. The question is what you pay to own the earnings it produces.

The Pain Trade Still Points Higher

However, the real risk to the bear case lies in the sentiment. You have a market compounding 30% earnings growth, and investors are positioned as if a recession just started. Sentiment across both the AAII survey and Goldman’s own indicator sits firmly bearish. Nasdaq-100 short interest is up 35% since June. A sharp third-quarter de-grossing has pushed fundamental long/short net leverage into the 6th percentile of the past year, gross tech exposure sits in the 43rd percentile, and roughly $163 billion in cash is parked on the sidelines waiting for a pullback that refuses to arrive.

Of course, the obvious is: “If everyone is already bearish, isn’t that itself the bullish tell?” The answer to that is “mostly, yes.” Strong earnings, light positioning, elevated shorts, and a mountain of idle cash are the exact ingredients of a “pain trade” that grinds higher and forces the underinvested to chase. Such is the setup that keeps me long into the highs even while I distrust them.

A good example is that single-stock short interest just hit its highest level in more than fifteen years. Every one of those shorts is a future buyer the moment the tape refuses to break. That’s fuel, not a warning, at least for now. The warning is in the next section.

The Asterisk On “This Time Is Different”

Here’s the problem with the clean bull story. The multiple only looks reasonable because it’s sitting on peak earnings. The S&P trades near 25.6 times trailing profits. That runs above the long-run average, and it runs above the typical reading at prior bull-market peaks. The Shiller CAPE just hit 41, its 96th percentile since 1980, a zone AQR ties to something like 3.9% annual returns over the next decade.

While there is a lot of focus on the market price, the risk was never really the “P.” It’s the “E.” When earnings break above a trend that held for ninety years, they are, by definition, above trend. And above-trend things are the things that mean-revert. A “reasonable” forward multiple computed on earnings that later prove to be a cycle peak is one of the oldest traps in the book. Such is the quiet danger in every “this time is different” market: the story is usually true right up until the math stops cooperating.

How These Breakouts Usually End

As we have discussed previously, Bob Farrell’s Rule #4 has aged well for a reason. “Exponential moves,” he wrote, “usually go further than you think, but they do not correct by going sideways.” That’s the uncomfortable geometry of a breakout above a nine-decade trend. It can extend beyond the skeptics’ ability to stay solvent, and it can still end with a snap rather than a slow drift back. Both things are true at once.

So, in my view, there are only two ways this will eventually resolve, and the market is currently pricing the first option with near 100% certainty.

1. Either AI capital spending converts into durable returns and record margins hold, in which case earnings grow into the price, and the bull runs on. Or,
2. Capex depreciation starts hitting the income statement, AI demand hits an air pocket, margins normalize, and profits fall back toward the trend they just escaped.

Here is the most important point. Whatever event causes the “E” to revert towards its long-term mean, the “P” will be repriced lower. I laid out the arithmetic of that second path in Why Crashes, Timing and Valuations Still Matter, and the math is unforgiving.

Nothing about a valid breakout tells you which path you’re on until you’re well down it. That’s precisely why you don’t have to pick. You participate in the move while it runs, and you pre-commit to the exit before it ends.

 What Next?

I will tell you one thing: you have to give the bulls their credit. This past week was the perfect setup for a sharp sell-off in the market.  Corporate buybacks are sidelined, interest rates spiked, and oil surged, pushing inflation higher. If there was ever a case for a pullback, it was this past week. Nonetheless, the correction that we have discussed over the last two weeks stopped right where the first line of support sits. The S&P 500 closed the week at 7,666, down 0.68%. The part that matters happened on Thursday, with the index trading down to 7,595 and closing dead on its 50-day moving average near 7,600. That was our initial downside target, and the market met it up to that point before Friday’s bounce lifted the price back above the line.

While the 50-DMA held on the first test, overall momentum remains another matter. RSI sits at 50.9, dead neutral, down from the high-50s a week ago. The MACD signal has crossed below its signal line, keeping downward pressure in place into the end of the quarter. Furthermore, the histogram has turned negative, adding to our caution. While the market held support, it did so with weakening momentum, which is the definition of an undecided tape.

From our vantage point, the breadth story is the bigger worry. The equal-weight S&P fell almost three times as hard as the cap-weighted index this past week. Most notably, it was small caps that led the whole thing lower, with volume telling the same story. Of course, the spike in crude oil didn’t help and forced the heaviest selling in the rate-sensitive names, rather than the index leaders. As noted, breadth is the key to a sustainable bull market rally. The current breadth is a warning, but not yet a sell signal.

This coming week keeps our focus on risk management. From that standpoint, we continue to recommend trimming the most extended winners back toward model weight into any push toward the old highs, rather than chasing them. The 50-DMA near 7,600 is the support line that decides our next moves. If we hold it, and the uptrend off the spring lows stays intact, we can keep exposures near normal levels. However, if we lose that support on a closing basis, the next real floor sits much lower at the 200-DMA near 7,158. We suggest keeping some dry powder heading into the Fed rate decision and next Friday’s option expiration.

Heading into the end of the month and the quarter, there is one level that dictates portfolio strategy into October. A weekly close back above 7,796, the August record, says the buyers have reclaimed control. A close below 7,600 signals that the 50-DMA has failed and that the market wants deeper support. Everything in between is noise. And next week brings two catalysts big enough to force the break. Trade the level, not the narrative.

🔑 Key Catalysts Next Week

As mentioned throughout the commentary so far, there are two key events next week, and both are large enough to set the tone for the quarter. More importantly, they land 48 hours apart.

The first is the Fed. The FOMC meets Tuesday and Wednesday. The decision, a fresh set of projections, and Warsh’s press conference all hit on Wednesday afternoon. The market still leans toward a rate hike. However, as noted above, I think this week’s data made the call harder, not easier. A central bank does not like hiking into a 3.4% headline inflation print that was primarily a function of a temporary crude spike, so the real story on Wednesday may be who dissented, rather than the lack of a rate hike.

The second catalyst is purely mechanical. Next Friday brings the options and futures expiration, known as “quad-witching,” which occurs four times a year.  Notably, this one is set up to be a record in size, which is unsurprising given the surge in options trading in the markets over the last couple of years. However, historically, expirations this large can pin price to the big strikes. Then they release it hard once they clear. Layer that on a Fed decision 48 hours earlier, and the week has a real setup for an outsized move.

The economic calendar around the Fed is full. Retail sales, industrial production, housing starts, the regional Fed surveys, and weekly jobless claims all print across the week. Retail sales carry the most weight. Consumer resilience is the last leg holding the soft-landing story together. A soft print would land badly, coming the morning after the Fed. There are no Fed speakers on the slate. The pre-meeting blackout window sees to that.

Earnings are thin in the gap between quarters, which gives macroeconomic data much greater weight. FedEx is the marquee large-cap report, worth a look as a read on shipping demand and the industrial economy on Friday.

The asymmetric risk is a hawkish surprise from the Fed. Whether the market is priced for a hike remains to be seen. However, if Warsh delivers a hike, the rate-sensitive trade may have already priced it in, along with the bond market. In other words, a rate hike might turn out to be a relief for bond traders after all.

What Should Investors Do Now

So, what does all this mean for your portfolio heading into next week? Mostly, nothing. However, over the longer-term time frame (next few quarters to a couple of years), this is where the two halves of the argument stop fighting and start cooperating. Is “this time different?” Most likely not.

First, the near-term evidence remains bullish. Both momentum and washed-out positioning suggest that investors remain invested for now. However, the longer-term evidence, including price action, stretched valuations, and above-trend earnings, clearly suggests that stronger risk management protocols should be implemented.

The reality is that you can hold both views without contradiction, and from our view, you should.

It isn’t a difficult plan to implement; it just requires a willingness to potentially give up some gains if that market moves higher near term, which is likely. Ride the trend, harvest the winners back to weight, spread into the parts of the market that are cheaper and finally growing, keep real ballast in bonds and cash, and write down your sell discipline today while your head is clear, rather than in the middle of the reset.

Will that keep you from giving back some of the last leg of the move? Yes. Will it keep you from riding a ninety-year breakout all the way back into the channel it came from? Also yes. I’ll take that trade.

The trend is your friend, right up until the bend at the very end. Position for the friend. Prepare for the bend.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 12:50

Beijing Threatens To Cancel Trump-Xi Summit If US Approves New Arms Sales To Taiwan

Chinese President Xi Jinping used today's 18th BRICS Summit to push for a greater diplomatic role in Gulf affairs. The move appears to be transforming the bloc's economic weight into geopolitical influence, really positioning it as a counterweight to US foreign policy.

Beijing's leverage also rests on its control over rare-earth and other critical-material supply chains, as it maintains a "quasi-monopolistic" grip on the industry that will persist through the end of the decade.

Keeping that leverage in mind, Japanese news outlet Kyodo News reported that Beijing threatened earlier today to cancel the summit with President Trump in Washington if the US approves new arms sales to Taiwan.

Kyodo stated:

China has told the United States that it intends to cancel a planned meeting between their leaders later this month if Washington approves any new arms sales to Taiwan by then, multiple sources familiar with bilateral ties said Saturday.

U.S. President Donald Trump, apparently eager to showcase some diplomatic achievements ahead of November's midterm congressional elections, places great importance on holding the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

While preparing for Xi's upcoming trip, China has restated its position that the Taiwan issue is a "red line" in bilateral relations, sources said.

The report comes ahead of Xi's planned summit with Trump at the White House on September 24. The threat is another obstacle for the administration as it seeks to maintain an already fragile diplomatic and trade truce amid worsening relations over the Gulf conflict.

Polymarket traders appear unfazed by the Kyodo report, with Xi still leading the "Who will Trump meet with in September?" market at 95% and odds showing little reaction to the reported threat.

Taiwan arms sales have already emerged as a critical focal point for both superpowers. After meeting Xi in May, Trump declined to commit to approving another weapons package, while Beijing warned that mishandling Taiwan could spark a conflict.

A late-August report cited by Taiwan's main English-language daily newspaper, the Taipei Times, said that China had deployed a record 244 coast guard, research, and other government vessels around the island amid mounting fears of a blockade next year.

"Might be the first in history to see a power play coming from China when it comes to this. Not because they want, but because they can. One of the main reasons would be because of the control they have over critical minerals US has to pick which front to focus on- China or Iran," Teo Sinamin, who runs a Substack focused on rare earths, wrote on X.

Might be the first in history to see power play coming from China when it comes to this.

Not because they want,but because they can.

One of the main reasons would be because of the control they have over critical minerals

US has to pick which front to focus on- China or Iran https://t.co/VIyOSuHaOp

— Teo (@Teo_Sinamin) September 12, 2026

Sinamin continued ...

Greenest Monday ever for critical minerals https://t.co/tgxwyZj1jo

— Teo (@Teo_Sinamin) September 12, 2026

A further deterioration in US-China relations could trigger tighter export licensing or renewed restrictions on critical materials, intensifying pressure on Western industrial and defense supply chains. This issue resurfaced earlier this month when Reuters reported that some Chinese rare-earth suppliers refused shipments to US customers for fear of repercussions from Beijing.

The ongoing disruption supports the bullish investment case for reducing dependence on China, with junior miners and established producers offering alternative supplies. That is certainly the talk among private equity and hedge funds to date. Further escalation could push the decoupling theme to the forefront across the investing world, as these critical-material supply chains are the building blocks for AI data center buildouts, electrification upgrades, reindustrialization, and the upcoming rearmament cycle.

The strongest beneficiaries would likely be companies that can deliver ex-China supplies at scale in time to ease Western shortages as demand soars for the reasons mentioned above.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 12:15

Gen Z Has No Idea What 9/11 Is

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Twenty-five years after Islamist hijackers murdered 2,977 people on American soil, a young man in Lower Manhattan looked at 2,977 memorial drones drawing the towers in the night sky and asked why anyone would build a "fake" building.

He called the Tribute in Light the "Batman signal."

This is what happens when media and universities treat the Islamist nature of the attack as a political embarrassment instead of a fact.

?? Young American outraged by a 9/11 memorial action

2,977 drones, one for each victim, went up at once to draw a full-size silhouette full-size silhouette in the sky over Lower Manhattan.

The man did not understand what was going on and sharply commented: "We have enough... pic.twitter.com/6gkGbIbpRt

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 11, 2026

"We have enough buildings, bro. Why are they making a fake one?" The guy filming the video states.

Critics assert that education about the September 11 2001 attacks has been avoided due to the Islamist nature of the terror attack, leaving large parts of Gen Z with almost no knowledge of what happened that fateful morning.

Gen Z's indifference to Sept. 11 is inexcusable | RESTORING AMERICA by @SouthernKeeks https://t.co/vscKWQag7k

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) September 11, 2026

Washington Examiner columnist Kimberly Ross called the indifference inexcusable. Younger Americans cannot be blamed for being born after 2001, she wrote, but they can be charged with treating the day as a bother.

"If you have the immense privilege of calling yourself an American, you have a duty to understand both the scope of loss and how it forced a titanic shift in our national perspective," she writes, noting that the dead, the jumpers, Flight 93, Todd Beamer's "let's roll" cannot be treated as optional educational content.

The vacuum is not accidental. Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia told teachers not to "associate the 9/11 attacks with Islam or Muslims" and not to "center the extremists."

Roughly half of that district's commemorative guide is devoted to "safe spaces" for Muslim students.

Penn GSE's "Teaching Beyond 9/11" curriculum, pushed into New York City schools and several state education departments, gives the attacks themselves a single paragraph, says the United States merely "accused" Osama bin Laden, and then piles on units about Islamophobia, right-wing extremism, and "avenues for solidarity."

Only a handful of states mandate real instruction. Texas just approved language tying "radical Islam" to the attacks; Democrats on the board called it an outrage.

One Navy veteran put the motive in the open:

What should be taught in every single American school is intentionally hidden and lied about by our own education system. They don't want them to know Muslims were responsible for thousands killed that day and years after by war. That's why people are stupidly voting for them,...

— megourd1967 (@ProudUSNvet67) September 11, 2026

Others expressed consternation about the lack of knowledge among Gen Z:

If they don't even know history from 25 years ago, what do they know?

— Creature of Habit2 (@CreatureHabit2) September 11, 2026

Generation Z is a disaster. They are completely out of touch and stupid. They respect nothing and don't study their own history.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana.

— Roger Pellegrini (@Pellegrini_RG) September 11, 2026

Media and universities are to blame, yes. But where TF are the parents on this? If my kids had no idea 9/11 even happened, I have failed. It's kind of a big deal..

— TheArmedGardener (@Cheeky1iam) September 11, 2026

While that ignorance played out over Manhattan, New York's first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani, stood at Ground Zero after families and first responders spent weeks begging him to stay away.

Giovanni Galante, whose wife Grace was killed in the North Tower, organized a petition that passed 100,000 signatures. "We don't believe in what he believes in, and we really want us to be left alone," Galante said. "This 25th anniversary is for victims and survivors... not have a circus around us."

Charles Wolf, who lost his wife, said: "This mayor is not serving us. He's serving himself." Monica Iken asked him to "respect us from 7 to 11 and let us have our mourning." Cheri Sparacio, whose husband Tom died on the 84th floor of the South Tower, pointed to Mamdani's chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, who previously represented a convicted al-Qaeda operative.

City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino demanded he "not show his face at that sacred ground." The Port Authority Retired Police Association, which lost 37 officers that morning, told him the day was "not a political occasion, a photo opportunity, or a platform."

He came anyway. Cameras then caught him laughing with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez while family members read the names of the dead.

They're Showing You EXACTLY Who They Are...

Mourner Walter Matuza, whose father was killed and who helped push the petition, said: "He showed up anyway. It does bother us." Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani had already said Mamdani's presence "offends" him and that the mayor "stands in direct support of the movement that killed their children."

Andy Ngo documented another face of the same contempt a few blocks and a few hours from the names: a trans 'activist' who regularly dances at Pride events ripping pages from a Bible at a 9/11 "direct action."

NYC (Sept. 11) — A trans activist who regularly dances at Pride events rips out pages of the Bible at a 9/11 direct action. pic.twitter.com/6qtsAyaIzO

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) September 11, 2026

Sick. Just sick.

Meanwhile, 9/11 families have once again demanded release of files that the deep state has spent a quarter-century ducking. Terry Strada, after reading her husband Tom's name, asked: "How can it be 25 years and still we have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder?"

She said families had "proved that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia fomented a rancid culture of anti-American terrorism" and sent agents to support the hijackers. "For 25 years, administration after administration... chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families." She told Vice President JD Vance: "Stand with the families. Stand with the survivors. Stand with Americans."

The nephew of Lisa Marie Terry said: "For 25 years, the Deep State has hidden the truth about what happened 25 years ago. President Trump, you're our last hope. Release the unredacted files that implicate Saudi Arabia, while what's left of the victims' families are still alive to see it."

9/11 Family Members Demand Trump Admin Release Docs 'Deep State Has Hidden'

A generation that cannot identify a silhouette of the towers has no grounding in modern American society. A school system that treats "Islamophobia" as the real lesson of 9/11 will not produce one.

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

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 11:40

"Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda": Hillary Clinton Gives Flippant Answer When Pressed On Patriot Act Support

Hillary Clinton attempted to wave off criticism of her post-9/11 votes this week, telling a Columbia University audience that Monday-morning quarterbacking carries its own bias and that relitigating the Patriot Act does little good.

The former secretary of state, who teaches crisis decision-making at Columbia's Institute of Global Politics, was pressed by a moderator on whether Americans were "served well" by the Patriot Act and the Authorization for Use of Military Force, and on what she remembered about the deliberations.

https://x.com/kenklippenstein/status/2098234790692446256?s=20

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) September 2026

"I think what you just heard is such a reminder about how difficult decision-making is in the midst of a crisis," Clinton said, speaking at a Columbia SIPA Institute of Global Politics panel titled "The 9/11 Attacks 25 Years Later: Lessons Learned, Lessons Forgotten."

"And that's the course that the dean and I teach every day, or every week, because hindsight is always perfect."

"But it's got as much bias as anything else. And so looking back and saying shoulda, coulda, woulda doesn't really help us," the failed presidential candidate added.

Clinton was a freshman senator from New York when hijacked airliners slammed into the World Trade Center towers in her home state. Clinton joined 97 colleagues in voting for the USA Patriot Act that October. Then-Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) was the lone no.

Days earlier, the Senate had cleared the AUMF 98-0. Across the Capitol, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) stood alone as the only member of Congress to vote against it.

That authorization became the legal blank check for roughly two decades of American military adventurism spanning multiple wars in the Middle East and multiple administrations, power lawmakers in both parties have since tried, and failed, to claw back.Gives 

The Patriot Act's Section 215, the so-called "business records" provision, became the legal foundation for the National Security Agency's bulk collection of American phone records, a program the public learned about only in 2013 through the Edward Snowden leaks. Congress scaled it back with the USA Freedom Act in 2015. The authority finally lapsed in March 2020.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 11:40

Left-Wing Media Doxxes And Attacks Black "Rogue" Lindsay Clancy Juror

Critics say they have never seen a more egregious example of political groups and the media attempting to expose and destroy a juror for not making the decision they wanted. 

During the Lindsay Clancy trial Judge William Sullivan sealed the identities of all 12 jurors until at least September 18th, citing safety concerns after the high-profile trial.   An incident in which a woman was arrested for allegedly attempting to film and intimidate the jury added weight to the decision.  Deranged feminist activists have been rallying for weeks hoping to manipulate the outcome of deliberations in favor of Clancy, a mother who brutally strangled her three small children and then claimed "postpartum psychosis" as a defense.  

The announcement of a mistrial due to one male juror triggered a rabid fervor among leftist wine moms, leading to immediate calls for the juror to be doxxed, harassed and potentially "punished" for his refusal to conform to the wishes of the rest of the jury.  Evidence suggests that a pro-Clancy group formed very early in the deliberations process, and this group pressured the few holdouts to give in.  Only one man remained.  

Lindsay Clancy juror Paula Devlin tells @gayleking that the holdout juror was a Black man, whom she estimates is in his 30s. Devlin says after watching a video of an interview with Clancy, the holdout juror “realized that it wasn’t murder in the first degree,” adding the jury… pic.twitter.com/ZxFa2hgSsY

— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) September 11, 2026

The problem for the political left?  The juror is black, and they were hoping for an "evil white man".  This revelation has caused liberal heads to explode because black people within woke culture generally rank higher on the DEI totem pole than white women.  However, as everyone knows, when a black person leaves the liberal plantation these activists can become some of the most racist people on the planet.  They would rather destroy a minority than let him "go rogue".  

Lindsay Clancy supporter learns the lone holdout juror was a Black man—and suddenly says it “changes the landscape of the conversation.”

“I think a lot of us were assuming that it was a white man.”

Absolutely wild.pic.twitter.com/0vCiWsWrG0

— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) September 11, 2026

New outlets and online headhunters have been scrambling to dig up dirt on the black juror in order to gain some kind of narrative leverage.  Media sources have somehow obtained the man's name, though they can't release it yet without violating the court order.  NBC published a hatchet job article outlining the jurors criminal history.  

EXCLUSIVE: The holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial had a history of domestic violence allegations, the NBC10 Boston Investigators have learned through court documents and interviews with family members. Read the full investigation here. https://t.co/qSjIiU8Og8

— NBC10 Boston (@NBC10Boston) September 11, 2026

Defense Attorney Kevin Reddington's wife is apparently leading the charge on social media to undermine the juror's credibility.  It's a bizarre decision given that the trial is already over, unless the goal is to intimidate future jurors in a future trial. 

Kevin Reddington's wife is leading the slander campaign against the black hold-out juror.

You heard that right.

The wife of Clancy's lawyer is putting a target on the back of the one brave person who stopped her husband from getting a 3X child killer off the hook.

This is… pic.twitter.com/GXVuuzwWjM

— Pro America Politics (@proamericapol) September 11, 2026

The man's previous charges include a restraining order filed in 2021 by his wife, who claimed at least one incident of physical abuse.  It should be noted, though, that all criminal charges were dismissed.  NBC also dug up a $12,000 civil dispute the juror had with a landlord.  NBC has not attempted to dredge up dirt on any other juror in the Clancy trial, only the juror who refused to accept the insanity plea.

It's only a matter of time before the juror's full identity is revealed, opening the door to a barrage of harassment from activists and journalists.    

It shouldn't need to be explained, but the man's past is completely irrelevant to his duties on the jury.  He was approved by the defense and criminal histories of all candidates are examined during jury selection.  Perhaps Reddington assumed that the jury was stacked in Lindsay Clancy's favor and adding a black man to the list was the same as adding another sure vote.  This explains why the lawyer acted so aggressively to have the juror pressured or removed - His "rogue" decision" is viewed as a betrayal.     

This effort by political movements and establishment journalists to assassinate the character of a juror from a trial that has already ended represents a dangerous subversion of America's justice system.  If future juries cannot make decisions based on evidence without being worried that they'll come under attack after the trial is over, this would mean the death of the jury based system.  

Such a precedent would devolve into absolute chaos within the legal structure, and of course, vigilante justice to fill the void that follows. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 11:05

No Secretary Bessent, We Aren't Magically Growing Our Way Out Of Debt

Authored by Vincent Cook via The Mises Institute,

As the official federal debt hit the $40 trillion mark and attracted a lot of negative publicity, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried to reassure CNBC's Sara Eisen in an August 20 interview that there is nothing to worry about:

Well, yes, I mean, look, Sara, there's nothing magic about the $40 trillion number. And we can grow our way out of that. So, but what we do want to signal is, I think that there's been a lot of misinformation in terms of what's going on with the deficit, what's going on with the deficit to GDP. We actually had a fiscal consolidation for the calendar year 2025. We had, we are at about 5.7 percent of GDP. And one of the things that's temporary here that's influencing the deficit has been these tariff refunds. And we won't have to do that again. . . . The other big item in the budget that we're seeing is the hit that we're taking from, to revenues for the immediate expensing of factories and of equipment and farm structures. And I think that, if people sit back and think, that's not government spending. That is actually an investment in the future and we're increasing the tax base. And that's how, that is what measures the wealth of a nation, is the ability to increase after-tax return on capital. So we're pulling back the, think of it as pulling back the slingshot here. We have a lot of potential energy that will turn into kinetic energy during this year, next year, as these factories come online.

While Republicans have long been chanting "voodoo economics" incantations (i.e., claiming that increased growth happens in spite of federal deficit surges caused by tax reductions, so tax revenues will eventually catch up to spending over the long run), Bessent's remark does represent a new wrinkle on this theme. Here Bessent focuses attention on the ratio of the official budget deficit to GDP, as if the official budget is the only relevant factor affecting the future growth of total public debt and as if a short-run increase in GDP is a strongly positive indicator of the economy's long-run ability to sustain increased taxes.

The most basic objection to Bessent's argument (and indeed to the older versions of "supply-side" voodoo as well) is that it doesn't make any fundamental difference in the physical quantity of capital goods if private savings are consumed by higher deficits instead of being consumed by higher taxes. Either way, the labor and natural resources that otherwise could have been devoted to increased net capital accumulation are instead diverted towards increased present consumption and/or increased governmental malinvestments. Giving a tax break to encourage greater investment without corresponding decreases in government spending is self-defeating, since increased deficits divert the additional savings away from private businesses towards the government and its clients and minions.

We can see through the Republican smoke and mirrors to visualize the relationship between deficits and net saving with a graph of historical data. Figure 1 shows these amounts as fractions of net national product (NNP, a measure of what was actually earned by Americans at home and abroad) over the past seventy-five years, with the green line representing net saving and the green line representing federal surpluses and deficits.

Figure 1: Net saving, federal surpluses/deficits as fractions of net national product, 1950-2025

Source: BEA and OMB via FRED®

During the first twenty-four years, net saving varied between ten percent to fifteen percent of NNP, while the federal budget was close to being balanced. However, net saving peaked in 1965, and has since declined to very nearly zero percent in the 2020s. This sixty-year decline in net saving coincides with the emergence of steadily worsening federal deficits, which started becoming particularly acute in the 1980s and early 1990s at around 5 percent of NNP (roughly comparable to the New Deal deficits of the 1930s). During Clinton's two terms things turned around and the federal budget climbed all the way back to a small surplus, coinciding with a partial recovery of net saving.

Since the Clinton era the deficit situation has severely deteriorated, punctuated by sharp spikes during the 2008 financial crisis and during the 2020 covid lockdowns. It is in this fiscal morass that net saving has almost vanished. While Bessent can truthfully boast that net saving in 2025 was a little bit better than in 2024, keeping up this rate of improvement for three more years won't even get net saving back to the level achieved under the first Trump administration in 2019.

Chronic deficits have canceled whatever successes Republicans have had otherwise in reducing tax rates on investors. Their failure since the Eisenhower administration to keep spending under control, in conjunction with the equally reckless fiscal policies of the Democrats, has had a catastrophic impact on America's ability to keep increasing its stock of capital goods out of its own private thrift. While soaring deficits didn't cause the entire decline of net saving over the past sixty years, they did account for roughly half of it.

The official debt figure as such isn't even accurate as a measure of the problem, let alone magical, as $40 trillion gravely understates total federal obligations. This official figure does not include the net present value of the unfunded liabilities of the Social Security, Medicare, and federal employee trust funds, which the trustees (including Secretary Bessent) estimate will put the federal government a further $80 trillion in the hole in the absence of any growth-killing tax increases or political career-killing benefit cuts. The total liabilities of the federal government add up to at least $120 trillion; just servicing such an almost incomprehensible burden requires extremely powerful magic indeed, since no politician even dares acknowledge that two of the trust funds are set to go broke in the early 2030s, let alone come up with a plan to balance all the trust fund budgets.

So what are we to make of Bessent's contention that everything is fine because GDP is growing faster than deficits are? The deficit/GDP ratio referenced by Bessent (figure 2) did decrease from 6.2 percent in 2024 to 5.8 percent in 2025, but such a tiny improvement is barely noticeable when viewed over a seventy-five year perspective.

Figure 2: Federal surpluses/deficits as a fraction of GDP, 1950-2025

Source: BEA via FRED®

The deficit-GDP ratio in figure 2 looks very similar to the red line of figure 1, the main difference being that GDP is somewhat larger than NNP because it includes capital depreciation expenses (which makes "gross" metrics bigger than "net" metrics), offset slightly by the overseas earnings of Americans (which makes "national" metrics smaller than "domestic" metrics). GDP has grown slightly faster than NNP over this period, but it is NNP that is the better proxy of the income tax base, since depreciation expenses are not taxable while overseas income is taxable.

Admittedly Bessent overstating growth slightly by his preference for GDP over NNP is a minor issue, but it highlights a more fundamental methodological problem in his thinking. He starts by cherry-picking a popular metric to compare to the deficit metric and then extrapolates long-term trends from a single year's changes in each metric. What he fails to do is to apply sound economic theories deduced from the incontrovertible fact of human purposefulness to the historical statistics, a priori theories which are necessary both for selecting the most relevant comparative metric and for correctly inferring what possible combinations of causal factors might account for observed changes. Moreover, extrapolating a sustained trend reversal from a single, small year-over-year improvement makes absolutely no sense; a credible time-series analysis of these data can only show a worsening budget trend.

The GDP growth illusion conjured up and widely touted by Trump, and Vance, as well as by Bessent depends heavily on wicked black magic of the monetary variety. The accelerating creation of fiat dollars out of thin air by the Federal Reserve and the creation of fractional reserve dollar deposits and other dollar-denominated substitutes out of thin air by the banking system - that is, accelerating inflation and faster inflation-caused price increases - are what temporarily boost GDP, what permanently increase trust fund obligations via statutory cost-of-living adjustments, and what fuel wasteful boom-bust cycles characterized during the bust phase by burgeoning deficits, severe declines of net saving due to intensified government interventions, and the writing off of massive quantities of malinvested capital.

This sort of monetary hocus-pocus never makes tax revenues catch up with soaring expenditures over the long run; inflation can "solve" the federal liabilities problem only by utterly destroying the purchasing power of the dollar and thereby making all dollar-denominated obligations worthless. Whatever one may think about the efficacy of the central bank's monetary wizardry and the Treasury's fiscal sorcery, none of their spell-casting, witchery's brews, or prestidigitations are equivalent to private restraint of present consumption by Americans making more labor and natural resource inputs available for growing the physical quantities of sustainably-productive factories, equipment, and farm structures in America. The green line in figure 1 demonstrates that such growth has virtually halted; over the decades Republicans and Democrats alike have put a bipartisan hex on growth.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 10:30

"Riyadh In Difficult Position": Saudis Shutter Critical East-West Pipeline After Drone Attacks

Saudi Arabia temporarily shut its 7 million-barrel-a-day East-West pipeline following multiple drone attacks, exposing a massive vulnerability in a critical export route used to bypass the Strait of Hormuz during more than six months of US-Iran conflict.

The closure puts new pressure on Saudi oil exports as the pipeline designed to bypass the Hormuz chokepoint becomes a target. The Energy Ministry described the shutdown as precautionary while emergency crews secured the pipeline and assessed its safety.

The oil pumping station on the Saudi East-West pipeline was completely destroyed during yesterday’s attack, according to satellite imagery released today.

This is incredibly important news, as the East-West pipeline can transport up to approximately 210 million barrels of crude… https://t.co/6GCaYnkkAs pic.twitter.com/YggT4Lwzwm

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 11, 2026

Here's the ministry's statement:

An official source at the Ministry of Energy stated that the East-West Pipeline in the Riyadh and Madinah regions was subjected to multiple attacks on the morning of Thursday, 10 September 2026. The pipeline was shut down as a precautionary measure. The attacks resulted in a number of injuries, and medical care was provided to those affected.

The source said emergency and specialised technical teams responded immediately following the attacks, taking the necessary measures to secure the pipeline and assess its safety in line with approved safety procedures and emergency response plans, in coordination with the relevant authorities. Any further developments will be announced in due course.

The shutdown deepens an already severe export squeeze on the kingdom. Saudi oil shipments fell to about 3 million barrels a day in August, the lowest level on record since early 2017.

Iran-backed Houthis seized the strategic island of Mayun in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait last week, tightening pressure on the kingdom's Red Sea export hub. With Hormuz already disrupted, ongoing threats to both maritime chokepoints are narrowing the kingdom's options for moving crude to global markets. 

"Riyadh is in a difficult position," said Rapidan Energy Group analyst Fernando Ferreira. "As the US maintains the blockade and succeeds in escorting more tankers out of the region, Iran will pivot toward increased attacks on Gulf energy facilities."

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/12/2026 - 09:55