This past Spring, I had about 6 weeks of mad travel. Especially so, for someone who isn’t much of a road warrior. But my travels were nothing compared to my buddy Marshall’s.

My spring fling looked something like this:

-Grand Cayman (5 days; last minute getaway from NY winter)
-FutureProof Miami
-La Jolla, CA (surprise 50th Wedding Anniversary)
-Road Trip (see below)
-San Francisco, CA for Live Masters in Business/RWM client trip
-Montreal (overnight)

The Caymans and La Jolla were personal travel; everything else was work-related. And in the middle of all this was an unusual road trip. Actually, the first of its kind – part of a 48-state, cross-country run in a 12-cylinder classic Ferrari.

There is a story behind this.

I have known Marshall for almost as long as he has been an emerging markets manager (decades). He worked at a large shop, where he put up very impressive numbers — especially getting Grexit dead right. As so often happens, the big shop got gobbled up by an even bigger shop.

And despite having better returns across every metric, the acquirer decided it could do without Marshall, perhaps in favor of its own larger (but chronically underperforming) EM funds.

His lengthy “Garden Leave” became early retirement.

But Marshall is not much of a gardener. He’s more of a traveler, having visited nearly 100 countries. He had also been a competitive Formula Enterprise racer. He began as a Spec Miata driver and, after strong finishes, worked his way up to racing nationally on America’s most storied tracks. Mind you, this was his hobby, not his job.

So what does a bored five-star fund manager do when he realizes financial independence? Something no one else has ever done before:

As it turns out, no one has ever driven a 12-cylinder Ferrari across all 48 contiguous United States. The closest account we could find was the Magnum P.I. Ferrari 308 GTS being driven cross-country by P.J. Rourke so it could be shipped to Hawaii.

But that was 1) A brand-new car; B) with only 8 cylinders; iii) and not across all 48 states.

So Marshall spent a year deciding what car would be most suitable for this adventure, then hunting down the best version he could find. He went out and found a 2003 Ferrari 575M. It’s a classic V12 up front, rear-drive, F1 transmission, GT cruiser. Lots of power and handling, but designed for long highway trips, not the track. It took less than six months to get everything mechanical sorted out.

It took less than six months to get everything mechanical sorted out.

He then meticulously planned how to reach all 48 states, but not much more than the first couple of nights’ accommodations. One mid-trip service was scheduled in Seattle, and a lengthy list of Ferrari specialists along the route was assembled.

Oh, and where were the greatest back roads, scenic byways, twisty mountain passes, auto museums, and cool national parks along the way?

He shared his itinerary and planned routes with a few of us.

On the day he left Boston, I was about to have a few days of nothing major on my calendar. I recorded a podcast at Bloomberg and hopped on an Amtrak from Moynihan Station to Poughkeepsie. Marshall picked me up on the first day of his adventure.

From Upstate New York, we meandered, taking in the sights and discussing the journey ahead. On the first night, we stayed at a small motel/dump. Despite the pleasant April weather, we were shocked at the ice-crusted Ferrari in the morning, which had endured 24-degree, overnight temps.

Marshall is good company; you don’t want to be cooped up in a small cabin for nearly 24 hours a day, four straight days with just anyone.  (I had it much easier than he did…)

We traversed some amazing scenery, including a few parks and waterfalls, making it to Pennsylvania the next evening. On Thursday, we toured Gettysburg, Antietam, and several other Civil War and Revolutionary War battlefields. Botanical gardens, lakes, and mountains were also part of the scenery. Into New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia and then Virginia, where I jumped a quick flight home.

That was just 4 days – Marshall kept going for another 51 days straight.

A lot of his pals were kept apprised of this insanity throughout each stage before and during this epic adventure. Several of his pals were able to meet him for anywhere from one to ten days. During the 8-week trip, he sent out regular missives – a beautifully written and photographed travelogue that I am urging him to publish somewhere.

The trip made me consider going cross-country with the boss lady. Drive to California, the slow route in one of the fun cars. We shall see…

Check out the video at the top. Some of my photos are below.

Truly, a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

 

 

 

Pougkeepsie

Tight Squeeze

Your Captain

Our first night led to a frozen Ferrari

Gettysburg, Antietam and more

 

I love this idea:

    

American at its finest

The post Epic Road Trip appeared first on The Big Picture.

Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:

• The World’s Leading Deepfake Expert No Longer Trusts His Own Eyes: NYT on Hany Farid losing confidence in unaided visual judgment as generative video improves. The implications for evidence, journalism, and trust are large. In the age of A.I., Hany Farid is struggling to prove what’s real before the internet decides for itself. (New York Times)

• The Billion-Dollar Peptides Gold Rush: As black-market drugs go mainstream and legalization is within reach, entrepreneurs, investors and healthcare players are racing to cash in. (Bloomberg free)

• Copycats: How big a problem is plagiarism? Perhaps most complicated of all is the plagiarizing of ideas. On some rare occasions two people—one thinks here of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace on evolution—will come upon the same or a highly similar idea at roughly the same time. Others are only too pleased to take up the ideas of someone else and claim them as their own. (Commentary)

• Triple-Digit Club: A Wave of Stocks Have Seen Huge Gains in 2026: The AI infrastructure boom has driven huge rallies in many of these stocks. Morningstar on the surprisingly broad set of 100%+ YTD names in 2026. The market isn’t quite as narrow as the index would suggest. (Morningstar)

• Kremlin bots respond with disinfo after former U.S. national intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard publishes report on “biolabs” in Ukraine: The Russian bot network Matryoshka has devoted a series of fake videos and posts to the topic of “American biolabs” in Ukraine, AntiBot4Navalny, a project that analyzes disinformation campaigns. The Insider tracks the predictable Russian-bot amplification of Gabbard’s biolabs report. The operation is so routine it barely registers as news. (The Insider)

• The Apotheosis of Donald Trump: On the president’s 80th birthday, it became clear that he has entered his decline. It took 250 years and 45 presidents, but cage fighting has finally come to the White House. Donald Trump’s 80th birthday was in many ways the apotheosis of the Trump administration—the Ultimate Fighting Championship held a seven-fight card on the South Lawn of the White House, with the president and members of his family in attendance. The Atlantic uses the UFC card as the lens for the Trump-as-spectacle moment. The argument is sharper than the framing suggests. (The Atlantic) see also The Most Surprising Miscalculation of Trump’s Second Term: Politico Magazine on the structural miscalculation underneath the past 18 months: the assumption that nationalist policies are politically self-stabilizing. Brexit’s example keeps not being learned. (Politico)

• What lies behind the new boom in Colombian cocaine: FT on record Colombian coca production and the supply-chain mechanics underneath it. The demand side stays unspoken, as always. Leftwing rebels have been replaced by gangsters selling ever more drugs to Europe and Asia. (Financial Times).

• How the Right Captured State Power as a Weapon in Its Anti-Government Crusade: Republicans made state power a core part of conservative ideology. Democrats can take it back. TPM on the contradiction at the heart of the modern right: capture the state to dismantle it. Long read, well-argued. (Talking Points Memo)

• Apocalypse Early Warning System: In the event of an imminent nuclear apocalypse, we suspect that many people who have access to private jets will immediately take to the skies and escape city centers. This site tracks this indicator in realtime. The current emergency level is reported on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being an indicator of a likely imminent apocalypse. Kyle McDonald’s running tracker of civilizational risk indicators — climate, financial stress, geopolitical tail risks — in one place. Bracing and useful. (Apocalypse Early Warning System)

• 7 unexpected takeaways from the newest research on cannabis and brain effects: Whether it’s used in adolescence, midlife or older age may make a big difference. WaPo’s run-through of the most recent cannabis neuroscience. Some genuine surprises; most of them not great for heavy users. (Washington Post)

Video of the day: Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s Network of Power

Be sure to check out our Master’s in Business this week with Seth Klarman, CEO and portfolio manager of The Baupost Group. Founded in 1982 with $27 million in seed capital, over the past four decades, Baupost has grown to $22 billion, with annual net returns of over 20%. The legendary investor is known for his patient, risk-averse, and contrarian approach to finding deeply discounted securities across equities, distressed debt, and real estate.  He is the author of Margin of Safety (1991) and the editor of the 7th edition of Security Analysis (2023).

 

Understanding Trump’s Iran Deal: A Quick Guide   Source: Molly Ploofkin

 

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~~~

To learn how these reads are assembled each day, please see this.

 

The post 10 Sunday Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

Are iPhones Dialing Up The Birth Dearth?

Authored by Thaddeus G. McCotter via American Greatness,

When I call you up, your line’s engaged

I have had enough, so act your age

We have lost the time that was so hard to find

And I will lose my mind

If you won’t see me . . .

Time after time

You refuse to even listen

I wouldn’t mind

If I knew what I was missing

—The Beatles, “You Won’t See Me”

As one heads into senescence, the milestones begin to fade in the rearview mirror. Yet every now and again, something jars the memory to refocus your recognition of such milestones and on how time has truly flown.

Recently, I was reminded that nearly an entire generation of Americans has been born after the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. As a Gen Xer born before the introduction of the answering machine, I felt the weight of my sixty years, along with a gnawing anxiety about the future.

No, not because I won’t be around all that much longer. Despite the myths of the ubiquitous cult of youth promoted by our callow commercial culture, the increasing aches and pains accompanying my journey into old age are an insistent reminder that no one lives forever. Rather, my concern is how few Americans will be born to replace me and the other older members of our aging nation.

As reported by Elise Winland in Zeale News, a new study suggests the 2007 introduction of the iPhone has played a significant role in the declining U.S. fertility rate.

Written by Caitlin K. Myers and Ezekiel Hooper and issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the title of the working paper says it all: “Is the iPhone Birth Control? Causal Evidence from AT&T’s 2007–2011 Carrier Monopoly.”

The study’s methodology is straightforward, as are its implications for our nation. As succinctly explained by Ms. Winland: “The paper draws on a natural experiment created by Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T. When the iPhone launched in June 2007, it was available only on AT&T’s network until February 2011, giving researchers a way to compare areas with different levels of early iPhone access.”

While this deal was fortuitous for the researchers, the consequences were disastrous for the nation’s birth rate. According to Myers and Hooper:

The diffusion of the iPhone deepened the decline in births among women under 30 while suppressing the rise in births among older women. Overall, the diffusion of the iPhone explains 33–52% of the decline in the general fertility rate among women aged 15–44. National-survey evidence on time use and sexual behavior is consistent with the iPhone reducing in-person interactions, increasing pornography use, and reducing sexual frequency.

Importantly, Myers and Hooper are not asserting that the iPhone is the sole cause of the steep decline in America’s birth rate, which they cite as having dropped by 22 percent since 2007, again, the year of the iPhone’s introduction. For, as Winland notes, the researchers believe the nation’s record low birth rate of 53.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 “cannot be fully explained by the common explanations such as the Great Recession, increased access to contraception, rising housing and childcare costs, and delayed marriage.”

The researchers do argue that “studies imply that access to the iPhone reduced births by 4.5–8.0% at ages 15–19 and 3.2–6.6% at ages 20–24, with statistically significant but smaller declines among older cohorts.” (It is worth noting that the iPhone had a salubrious impact on reducing teen pregnancies; however, the enduring detrimental effects stemming from the loss of social interaction and its accompanying skills will be carried into the future by today’s teens.)

Anyone with a cursory acquaintance with Marshall McLuhan’s work will see his dictum, “the medium is the message,” at work here. Every new technology affects human beings, both in how they interact with that technology and in how they subsequently interact—or fail to interact—with other people by using it.

The math—specifically subtraction—is elementary: by spending more time in your virtual cocoon, you have less time for interacting with real human beings. One must therefore consider how much of the iPhone’s contribution to the birth dearth stems from the technology’s unconscious effects on its users. Indeed, unlike, say, birth control or a career choice, the iPhone is not being used deliberately to delay or prevent pregnancy. Rather, the birth dearth is exacerbated because the iPhone user is more rapt with the device and the stimulation it provides than by another person. After all, there are only so many hours in the day—and night.

Meanwhile, the birth rate continues its decline. It is an indicator of national health. An optimistic, future-oriented nation has at least a replacement birth rate, if not a growing one. A declining nation has a declining birth rate. In America today, the atomization of our citizenry and its accompanying anomie continue apace, as algorithmically personalized prison cells push us out of gen pop and into solitary confinement. Thus does the insidious, circular logic of the siren song of decline become the mantra: life is unfair, inequitable, and horrible, so it is better—in fact, virtuous—not to bring a new life into this morass of meaninglessness.

The result of this is the declining birth rate found in both the United States and Europe, where the apostles of postmodernism hold sway, filling the perceived vacuity of modernity with a creed that holds the most “tolerant” belief is to believe in nothing—including one’s inherited civilization. A postmodern generation taught to loathe itself does not care to procreate. For what better way to reject the meaningless future than by making sure there are no succeeding generations to perpetuate it?

While my bachelor’s degree is only in political science, and despite all the technological advances during my lifetime—including the internet, social media, AI, and the answering machine—I nonetheless feel confident in declaring, “You can only make a baby in the real world.”

A healthy nation prizes real life over a virtual world. It doesn’t have a birth dearth. And I’m inclined to believe it has more answering machines—or at least call waiting—and fewer smartphones.

I had to interrupt and stop this conversation

Your voice across the line gives me a strange sensation

I’d like to talk when I can show you my affection

Oh, I can’t control myself . . .

Don’t leave me hanging on the telephone

Hang up and run to me

Oh, hang up and run to me.

—Blondie, “Hanging on the Telephone”

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

'Syria & Turkey Represent Bigger Threat To Israel Than Iran': Israeli Minister

Via The Cradle

Late this week Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli declared in an interview with Israeli Army Radio that Tel Aviv "will be at war with Syria sooner or later," highlighting that the alliance between Damascus and Turkey poses a "strategic challenge" to his country.

The Likud official said, "There is no way that a jihadist regime rooted in ISIS and Al-Qaeda, whose aspiration is the unification of Jerusalem, can live in peace alongside the State of Israel."

In a separate interview with Kol Barama, a prominent Israeli ultra-Orthodox radio station, Chikli identified Syria as part of a "radical Sunni axis of evil" involving Qatar, Turkiye, and Pakistan, labeling it "far more troubling" than Iran, and claimed that these nations shaped a recent US–Iran memorandum of understanding (MoU) intended to end regional hostilities.

While Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed the memorandum as an “important development,” Chikli joined other Likud lawmakers in branding Turkiye an “enemy state.” 

He claimed that Turkiye holds “very clear ambitions” compromising Israeli interests, saying that Ankara and Damascus are “ten thousand times more concerning than Iran.”

Following the ousting of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, the Israeli military continues to occupy Syrian land and destroy military equipment, using the new government as a pretext for escalation and territorial expansion.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now demands total demilitarization from south Damascus to the 1973 demarcation line. Since December 2024, Israeli military violations in southern Syria have escalated beyond periodic airstrikes to a sustained campaign involving ground incursions, raids, and the establishment of checkpoints. 

According to a daily tracker launched by Levant24, Israeli forces have carried out approximately 1,128 ground incursions and 1,055 airstrikes, advancing more than 20 kilometers beyond the occupied Golan Heights. These actions have resulted in over 197 detentions and at least 36 fatalities.

This expansion also includes property destruction and the systematic mapping of military positions, reflecting a broader pattern of activity that extends deep into Syrian territory.

Self-appointed Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa is reportedly resisting intense pressure from the US to launch a military incursion into Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah. 

Despite a framework proposed by US President Donald Trump for the Syrian military to lead this offensive, Sharaa remained “unprepared and unwilling,” according to  Israel’s Broadcasting Corporation (KAN). He cited concerns that such an attack would damage his regional legitimacy by appearing to serve Israeli interests, especially while Israel continues to occupy Syrian territory. 

Although US envoy Tom Barrack has threatened Lebanon with a Syrian assault to dismantle Hezbollah, Sharaa has dismissed the reports as “rumors,” asserting his goal is to end the war rather than expand it. 

Israeli War Minister Israel Katz told Channel 14 that “We do not need Julani. Julani, the terrorist in a suit, does not need to come and help us. We know Syria well. He is not going to help us in Lebanon.” He added that Sharaa “should stay in Syria, not interfere with us, and not make us interfere with him.” 

“Do you know what really hurts the jihadists?” Katz said, going on to assert that killing them would not hurt them as much as “when you take territory from them and destroy their homes – and that's what we did.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 22:45

In Defense Of Entrepreneurs

By Matthew J. Brouillette via RealClearPennsylvania,

Like clockwork, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) is again finding America's billionaires guilty by reason of existence, arguing the Elon Musks and Jeff Bezos of the world must donate more to the government via higher taxes.

Her premise is that the wealthy don't pay their "fair share," leaving the non-wealthy to suffer in a zero-sum game.

The problem is that Warren, and the many others in Congress like her, aren't simply attacking the wealthy; they are attacking the foundation of America's greatness - entrepreneurs.

Remember, "entrepreneurs" founded this great nation almost 250 years ago when they pledged their lives, the fortunes, and their sacred honor. Many of them were wealthy because they produced goods or services their fellow colonists voluntarily purchased.

Consider, for a moment, some of the wealthiest people in America: Elon Musk, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, and Mark Zuckerberg. Beyond eye-popping net worths, they, too, are entrepreneurs who have provided goods and services consumers voluntarily use every day.

And like entrepreneurs throughout American history, they have delivered transformative innovations employed not only across America but throughout the world.

Think about it: Did you Google something today? Have you ordered from Amazon recently? Did you log onto Instagram? The answer to at least one of these questions is probably, "Yes."

And what of the millions of people employed by Google, Amazon, Tesla, SpaceX, Meta, Oracle, and other companies led by America's most wealthy? Do their families benefit from the career opportunities created by these entrepreneurs? Of course they do.

These benefits can even turn into windfalls. For example, The Wall Street Journal recently reported that once SpaceX goes public, thousands of current and former employees - from engineers to baristas - will reap the sizeable reward.

Benefitting the greater good is not the purview only of ultra wealthy entrepreneurs. Just look at entrepreneurs in your community. The owner of your favorite restaurant. Or your barber. Or plumber.

You've undoubtedly relied on these folks for either critical or quality-of-life services. And their entrepreneurship has also created jobs and sustained families. In fact, these types of local businesses are often considered the engines of America's Main Street economy - making our communities thrive, giving our neighborhoods unique character, and improving all of our lives.

And this doesn't even touch on the philanthropic contributions entrepreneurs make. Who often sponsors local community events that raise funds for non-profit causes? The businesses founded and run by entrepreneurs. This isn't coincidental.

A report by Fidelity Charitable on entrepreneurs as philanthropists found, "On average, the median annual gift for entrepreneurs is 50% higher than non-entrepreneurs." Further, "Two-thirds of entrepreneurs volunteer two or more hours a month, compared with just more than half of non-entrepreneurs."

You may wonder what this has to do with Ms. Warren's white whale of wealth taxes.

In a word, everything.

For the difference between these local entrepreneurs and the targets of Warren's ire is not one of type but simply degree.

The spirit of risk taking, innovation, ingenuity, and philanthropy characterizes entrepreneurs both famous and not.

And it shouldn't need repeating - but it does - that the wealthy already pay a lion's share of taxes, with the top 10% of earners paying more than 70% of all federal personal income taxes.

As we celebrate America's 250th birthday, it only makes sense to recognize that entrepreneurs founded and built our great country into what we are today. And entrepreneurs will help us keep it.

Rather than demonizing entrepreneurs by arguing that shouldering 70% of taxes isn't enough, we should acknowledge them and thank them for making America the leading innovator of the world - and for doing far more than their "fair share" to improve the lives and livelihoods of individuals of families across America.

Matthew J. Brouillette is president and CEO of Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs and the author of You GOTTA win Pennsylvania! A call to entrepreneurs to save America.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 22:10

China's Caribbean Listening Post? Satellite Imagery Shows Cuba Spy Base Completed

The Center for Strategic and International Studies published a report using geospatial intelligence to show that construction of a circularly disposed antenna array in Cuba has been completed.

CSIS states the circularly disposed antenna array in Cuba, just 240 miles miles from Miami, Florida, could be used to monitor or intercept radio transmissions across a wide range of frequencies in the region.

The DC-based think tank added that the site may be linked to China and could be used to track sensitive U.S. military and communications activity across the Caribbean, the Gulf of America, and the southeastern U.S.

Here's a section of the report:

At an expansive SIGINT site in Bejucal, near Havana, recent satellite imagery shows construction work completed on a new large circularly disposed antenna array (CDAA).

Over the last two years, an antenna field at the northeast end of the facility has been converted from a linear antenna grid to a CDAA. Imagery published by CSIS in April 2025 captured ongoing groundwork to lay cables between the antennas and the central control facility. Construction now appears to be complete and the facility has very likely begun operations.

The array of 32 antennas (19 outer and 13 inner) is larger and likely more capable than any Cuban CDAA previously observed by CSIS. CDAAs are primarily used for high-frequency direction finding, which involves intercepting and geolocating incoming radio transmissions over a wide range of frequencies.

From Bejucal's location in Cuba's northwest, the CDAA could improve the ability of Cuban authorities—or potentially their foreign partners—to monitor sensitive U.S. activities in the Caribbean and across the southeastern seaboard. U.S. naval and air operations in the region have escalated amid the Trump administration's prioritization of the Western Hemisphere, increasing the potential value of monitoring U.S. movements in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.

CSIS cited a congressional testimony in 2005 that pointed out China's activities in the Bejucal area:

The main Chinese electronic spy bases in Cuba are located to the northeast of Santiago de Cuba in the far east of the country and in the Bejucal area in the province of Havana, according to intelligence sources. The base of antennas in Santiago de Cuba is mainly dedicated to the capture of U.S. military satellite communications, meanwhile in Bejucal the Chinese have created a complex interception system of telephone communications. To disguise these activities, the official Chinese station, Radio China International is transmitting its programs from Havana to the United States and Latin America.

China's activity in the Western Hemisphere was recently uncovered by a Select Committee’s investigation that found Beijing developed "an extensive network of dual-use space ground stations and telescopes across Latin America and uses this network to collect intelligence and boost the PLA's warfighting capacity," adding, "The investigation found at least eleven China-linked space facilities established across Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, and Brazil."

The Trump administration's campaign to purge China's influence from the Western Hemisphere has intensified this year as part of a broader U.S. effort to reorder the political map of the Americas. After the collapse of the socialist Maduro regime in Venezuela, the Trump administration is increasingly focused on Cuba, where decades of communist rule have hollowed out the island's economy and turned it into an island playground for U.S. adversaries. 

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

Democratic Socialist Mamdani Wants Democratic Party To Move Further Left Ahead Of 2028

Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times,

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, issued one of his sharpest rebukes of the Democratic leadership Thursday night, saying that the party will lose the White House in 2028 if it does not fundamentally change course.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani (R) gestures on stage with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), during a Get Out The Vote rally ahead of New York's primary election in the Brooklyn borough of New York on June 18, 2026. Ryan Murphy/AP Photo

"For far too long, our party has seen its job as managing decline instead of delivering material change for working people," Mamdani told a crowd of thousands at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, where he and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) headlined a get-out-the-vote rally for three progressive congressional candidates ahead of New York's June 23 primaries.

"That old way of thinking will lose on Tuesday. And frankly, it will lose in South Carolina and New Hampshire. It will fall short of 270 electoral votes," the Democrat said, referring to the two early primary states in the presidential nominating process. "The Democratic Party must change."

The 34-year-old is backing Darializa Avila Chevalier against Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) in New York's 13th Congressional District, former city Comptroller Brad Lander against Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) in the 10th, and Assembly Member Claire Valdez in the open 7th. Early voting is underway through June 21.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has endorsed Espaillat, telling Fox 5 New York on June 15 that he and Mamdani had "agreed to strongly disagree" over the race. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul also endorsed Espaillat and campaigned alongside Goldman.

Mamdani described the primaries as the opening act of a longer national fight. "When does the race for 2028 begin?" he said. "It starts now. It starts on Tuesday."

He called on the party to offer "an affirmative agenda without apology" and to be "not just willing to stand up but also to stand for something" - drawing a contrast with what he called a politics that asks "working people to lower their expectations" and has "seen its job as explaining why we cannot instead of showing how we can."

Sanders, who introduced Mamdani at the rally, echoed the critique.

"The politics and the policies of the democratic establishment are no longer good enough," he said. "In this dangerous and unprecedented moment in American history, tinkering around the edges just won't work."

The Vermont independent has been traveling the country rallying voters for progressive candidates ahead of the midterms, pointing to a string of recent primary wins from New Jersey to Ohio to Maine - as has ally and New York progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), appearing on CNN Friday morning and responding to a clip of Mamdani's remarks, did not push back on his critique.

"Right now, the Democratic Party needs to be far less concerned about the Democratic Party and far more concerned with what people are struggling with," Booker said, calling for "big, bold solutions" and a coalition built around issues rather than party identity.

The DNC did not return The Epoch Times' request for comment by publication time.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Get Out The Vote rally ahead of New York's primary election, Thursday, June 18, 2026, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. AP Photo/Ryan Murphy Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 19:50

"It's That Bad": Virginia Residents Battling Constant Noise From Data Center Generators

For more than a year, residents living next to the Vantage Data Centers facility have endured what they describe as a constant, high-pitched whining or ringing sound coming from the site's massive backup generators - the facility's only source of electricity.

An aerial view of the Vantage data center in Sterling, Va., which abuts a residential neighborhood. (NewsNation)

Unlike most data centers connected to the power grid, this facility runs entirely on its own on-site power plant. What residents were told would be temporary generator testing has become permanent operation.

"They're Just Never Turned Off"

Neighbor Hari Doue told News Nation that the community was initially assured the generators were only being tested for emergencies.

"We were told in the beginning that they test the generators to make sure they're working in case of an emergency. And then as the year and the months have gone on, they're just never turned off," Doue said. 

Another neighbor, Greg Pirio, has reached out to attorneys over the issue. He described the impact bluntly:

"You just hear this noise, it's just like, you just want to curse, you know, it's that bad."

Some residents have taken drastic steps to cope. One placed a mattress against their window to muffle the sound. Another installed plexiglass and began monitoring decibel levels with a sound meter. Concerns center on sleep disruption, stress, and falling property values.

Vantage Data Centers officials told NewsNation they continue to monitor noise levels and do not believe the sound exceeds Loudoun County's limits - which is 55 decibels in Residential and rural areas and 60 decibels in Mixed-use residential areas. Exceptions include generators operating during emergencies, at utility request, or during testing.

Virginia: America's Data Center Capital

Virginia has the largest concentration of data centers in the United States - 287 operational and 398 prospective, according to Pew Research. Loudoun County has become ground zero for this boom, often called "Data Center Alley."

The economic upside is significant. Data centers generate almost half of Loudoun County's property tax revenues, funding schools and public services while helping keep residential tax rates lower.

However, the facilities consumed approximately 26% of Virginia's total electricity in 2023, contributing to higher energy costs for all residents.

The situation in Sterling reflects a broader national tension. On June 18, 2026, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued show-cause orders requiring major grid operators to justify or update rules for connecting large energy users such as data centers.

President Trump has encouraged data center developers to build dedicated on-site power sources - the exact model used by Vantage in Sterling - to protect regular utility customers from rate hikes.

Residents near the Vantage site acknowledge the benefits of data centers, including jobs, tax revenue, and essential digital infrastructure, but strongly object to their placement directly next to homes.

"Do everything in your power to try and stop it from being built in an area that has any residential properties within 10 or 15 miles of it," said Doue. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 19:15

NY Pride Group Disbands After Drag Queen Founder - A School Board Member - Arrested On Child Sexting Charges

A New York LGBTQ+ advocacy group has canceled a scheduled pride parade and disbanded after its founder was arrested on child-sexting charges. 

Travis J. Longo, 46, of Cazenovia - a drag queen and a member of the Cazenovia School District Board of Education (of course), was arrested on Thursday and charged with four counts of endangering the welfare of a child after allegedly sending sexually explicit communications to a child under the age of 12. 

In a now-deleted Facebook post, the group Longo founded, Cazenova Pride Inc., announced that it is "canceling this year's Pride Festival and all associated events, and we are dissolving as an organization." 

"This decision follows serious criminal charges against Travis Longo, the founder of Cazenovia Pride Fest and a longtime figure in our organization," the post continues. "Travis Longo has no further affiliation with Cazenovia Pride Inc."

Longo, who reportedly performed as a drag queen under the name "Anita Buffem," was listed as a "hostess" at the first Pride festival in Cazenovia in 2021, which was organized by Pride Cazenovia, ">The Blaze reports.

Congratulations to Travis Barr-Longo aka Anita Buffem on being elected to the cazenovia School board and being the second drag performer in the US to be elected to public office. This is how we win and how we outrun in rural America. Shoutout to the @DemocratsNy! pic.twitter.com/AcH75ak5Ol

— The Outrun Coalition (@TheOutrunCo) June 19, 2024

"We are deeply sorry for the pain and disappointment this causes our community," the group's statement concludes. "The years of support, love, and solidarity you have shown us have meant everything. Thank you."

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 18:05

Banning Hospitals' 'Certain Contracts' Could Save Americans $45 Billion, Report Finds

Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times,

A ban on certain contracts between hospital systems and health insurers could save Americans around $45 billion, according to a report from White House analysts released on June 18.

Lenox Health Greenwich Village Hospital in Manhattan, New York City, on Nov. 2, 2020. Chung I Ho/The Epoch Times

"The Council of Economic Advisers' findings reinforce that the Trump administration is delivering meaningful cost reductions for American patients," White House spokeswoman Allison Schuster told The Epoch Times by email June 19, noting the president's surgical approach to policy development that prioritizes fiscal discipline.

"By harnessing the use of free-market competition, President Trump has found a real solution to lowering costs instead of blindly throwing more taxpayer money at the problem."

Administration officials are exploring how best to manage hospital systems and insurers without relying on price controls or heavy-handed regulations.

At issue are three clauses, known as "anti-steering, anti-tiering, and all-or-nothing" contracts, which critics say shield healthcare providers from competition, thus increasing prices for consumers.

Anti-steering clauses block insurers from incentivizing or guiding clients toward cheaper options or providers, even when their data indicate clear savings potential.

Anti-tiering is used to stop insurers from categorizing hospital systems in less desirable benefit tiers that would reduce profit margins by forcing the providers to cover higher patient costs.

Bundled, also known as all-or-nothing, contracts require insurers to include all hospitals and physicians in a system, eliminating the option to negotiate independently.

Combined, the provisions result in more expensive healthcare, with higher rates, less efficiency, and limited insurance plan innovation due to reduced competition.

In markets where the clauses in question are widespread, a ban would lead to an 18 percent decline in hospital and physician prices, amounting to approximately $4,100 per inpatient admission, according to the report.

Premium prices would decline by about 7 percent, saving the average family about $1,800 annually, the report found, with aggregate reductions totaling about $45 billion and up to $63 billion.

Workers would benefit from higher take-home pay and lower out-of-pocket costs thanks to the reduced insurance costs. Small businesses and employers would also get relief with lower costs.

Analysts arrived at the numbers by calculating several variables, including the increased leverage insurers would gain while bargaining, with an expectation that prices would drop by about 8 percent as a result.

Allowing steering and tiering will improve patient management and shift care toward lower-cost providers, with transparencies helping reduce prices by about 4 percent, according to the report.

Free-market dynamics are expected to drive dynamic competition, with efficient, low-cost competitors helping further drive down costs by about 3 percent.

Proposed policies prioritize healthcare in rural areas, with bans aimed at lowering premiums while boosting independent rural hospitals.

Crackdowns are underway in the form of federal legal proceedings, with eyes on a national framework to codify the proposals.

"Thanks to the Trump administration's crackdown on anti-steering, anti-tiering, and all-or-nothing contracts by hospitals, everyday Americans are directly benefitting from lower premium contributions and higher take-home wages," Schuster said.

Congressional lawmakers are considering a similar course of action with the Healthy Competition for Better Care Act introduced by Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), which would outlaw the anti-competition clauses.

Some states, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Texas, prohibit certain clauses, though coverage and enforcement vary.

The report referenced two recent civil antitrust actions brought by the Department of Justice, one against OhioHealth filed in February and settled June 18, with no admission of wrongdoing and the hospital forbidden from using anticompetitive clauses.

"Providing affordable healthcare to Americans is uncontroversial and this Department of Justice will not tolerate corporate prioritization of revenue in contravention of our antitrust laws," Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in a statement.

A case against New York-Presbyterian Hospital, filed in March, is pending. Justice Department filings allege the hospital is insulated from price competition by contractual clauses, thus raising healthcare costs for New Yorkers.

A settlement with Sutter Health of Northern California from 2022 offers a successful precedent, according to the report, with the system agreeing to pay $575 million in fines and stop using the contractual clauses and succeeding in the aftermath of the agreement, later receiving recognition for its rural facilities.

Trump has repeatedly placed healthcare at the front of his second-term agenda, seeking to address the root causes of high medical costs, including with the release of TrumpRX.gov for prescription medicine at reduced prices.

He's taken his message on the road around the country in recent weeks, highlighting his actions and plans to further address Americans' healthcare cost burdens.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 17:30

Why CME Is Really Suing The CFTC Over Perps

Authored by David Christopher via Bankless.com,

CME wants Kalshi's Bitcoin perp reclassified as a swap, not banned. That distinction reveals what's actually at stake in the CFTC lawsuit.

Yesterday, CME, the country's dominant derivatives exchange, sued the CFTC over its recent approval of regulated crypto perpetual futures.

The exchange argues Kalshi's  Bitcoin perp should be treated as a swap, not a futures contract, a classification shift that would push the product into a more restrictive, institution-facing rulebook. The CFTC called the suit "frivolous" and said it looks forward to dismissing it.

We've known for some time that major exchanges like CME and ICE have grown uneasy about the rise of perpetuals, an unease already visible in their push to have regulators scrutinize  Hyperliquid over manipulation, sanctions evasion, anything they can find.

Why? Because regulators have finally opened a compliant path for Americans to trade an entirely new class of derivatives, one whose financial efficiency threatens the effectively monopolistic business model of these incumbents.

CME is scared of perps. No one should be scared of CME. https://t.co/l0ZHyqcpPk

— Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) June 18, 2026

The Label Is the Business Model

CME's legal argument turns on a label.

If Kalshi's Bitcoin perp is a futures contract, it can trade on a regulated futures exchange, where regular U.S. users can access it. If it is a swap, it falls into a heavier rulebook built largely for institutional derivatives, making it harder to launch, harder to distribute, and functionally out of reach for most retail traders.

That distinction sounds technical, and it echoes the same fight playing out over prediction markets, but the effect here is simple: whether perps will be accessible to retail users, or reserved primarily for institutional actors.

CME's filing comes wrapped in safety language, but, as always, the motivation is financial. Perps threaten the part of CME's business built around expiration.

A normal futures contract expires. To hold the same exposure, a trader has to roll into a new contract before it does. CME collects another round of trading and clearing fees on every roll, and that churn feeds the market data business it sells on top.

A perpetual future doesn't expire. A trader holds the same position open indefinitely and settles periodic funding payments instead of rolling.

No roll means no recurring trade, and that breaks a rhythm CME's business is built on. The market already understands the threat. When regulators opened the door to regulated U.S. perps, shares of CME, Cboe, and ICE fell as investors priced in real competition.

Chair Selig has broadcast we are getting Hyperliquid and it will be before the election.

There will be US compliant front ends to access the giant liquidity pool on Hyperliquid.

The CME is as pissed as Nevada is about losing their monopoly to prediction markets.

Welcome to… https://t.co/IYFmfWZPwL

— Mister Todd (@pondermint) June 18, 2026

Why Perps Keep Gaining Ground

None of this makes perps harmless. They can involve leverage, liquidations, and funding costs that quietly eat into a position over time. CME CEO Terry Duffy is right that many retail traders don't fully understand those risks, and the venues offering perps should do the work to make them clear.

But blocking regulated U.S. perps does not make demand disappear. It pushes Americans back offshore, where they get fewer disclosures, weaker oversight, and less protection when something breaks.

That is why the better answer is to regulate the instrument clearly: leverage limits, margin standards, and liquidation transparency.

Crypto is where this starts because the markets are already mature. That makes Bitcoin perps the easiest place for regulators to begin. But given the demand we've seen with HIP-3, it won't be long before the model stretches to stocks, indices, and ETFs.

That is what makes CME's lawsuit so revealing. The exchange is asking for a reclassification, not a ban. You do not do that to a product you think you can kill. If you can kill it, you kill it. If you can't, you relocate it, cut it off to slow the bleed.

This is the history of crypto. A better technology emerges, users are drawn to its merits, incumbents call it dangerous, and the regulatory fight begins. Those fights have rarely decided whether the old model gets protected. They simply decide how long.

The Perpification has already begun, and all incumbents can hope to do is slow it down.

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

Agri Markets Hit By "Aggressive Positioning Washout" But Supply Risks Linger

The Bloomberg Agriculture Spot Index has nearly reversed its US-Iran war gains in recent weeks, as sliding fertilizer and energy prices, along with an interim peace deal between Washington and Tehran, have reopened the Strait of Hormuz and initiated the normalization process.

Daryna Kovalska, a commodity strategist at BofA Global Research, told clients that, with agricultural markets having undergone an aggressive positioning washout, there is reason to believe the selloff in the corn market is overdone.

Kovalska pointed out that while improved US rains, easing geopolitical risks, and lower urea prices have stripped weather and war premiums from the market, her team believes risks have been deferred rather than eliminated. She remains constructive on corn, while trimming its 2026 upside target to $5.50 per bushel from $6.00.

More color here from her note titled "Corn market cools, but risks simmer beneath":

Ag markets hit by sharp spec long liquidation…

Agricultural markets have undergone an aggressive positioning washout, with net spec longs down 88% in three weeks. Corn hasn’t been spared: managed money flipped from decade-high longs to a net short by June 9, sending Dec 26 prices to a low of $4.4/bu.

…but we believe the corn selloff is overdone

Corn sentiment has softened, as geopolitical and weather risks have eased. But risks have not disappeared; rather, they look deferred and could still trigger a supply shock. We remain constructive, though, trimming our 2026 upside to $5.5/bu from $6.0/bu, supported by three key arguments.

1: Weather risk premium has been stripped out too early…

Improved US rains have eased weather risks in the corn market, but threats persist in certain states. Nebraska (12% of US production) remains in severe drought, with crop conditions 20% below average, while South Dakota and Kansas ratings (another 12% of output) are at risk of deteriorating without sustained rainfall.

…especially with an unprecedented El Nino unfolding

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology continues to warn of an historic El Niño event. Brazil’s corn output could be hit hard, declining 10% yoy in 2026/27E. Iowa state also shows a pattern of sharply depleted soil moisture during analogues.

2: Brazil fertilizer supply remains a concern

Urea prices have eased, but despite a potential US-Iran deal to be signed on June 19, the Strait of Hormuz still needs to be de-mined and resume operations, with timing critical as Brazil’s peak dispatch window approaches. Substitution efforts remain insufficient, with nitrogen imports still down 15% yoy, putting first crop corn yields at risk of a 10% decline if Gulf urea shipments do not restart before the end of July. Phosphate constraints are compounding risks to the new crop, which could fall 10 mn t yoy.

3: US-China $17bn deal could upend the market

The White House expects China to buy at least $17bn of US ags annually in 2026 (pro- rated) and 2027-28. Mirroring Phase One, we think US corn exports to China could surge from zero in 2025 to 5.5 mn t in 2026 and 16 mn t thereafter. While purchases have yet to begin, implementation would materially tighten the US corn market.

Kovalska provides her team's view from macro to crude to softs:

Here's her price forecasts across softs:

With the war-risk premium evaporating from agricultural markets, Kovalska believes that lingering risks around weather, fertilizer flows, El Niño, and Chinese demand could still combine to tighten global supply and push prices higher again.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 15:45

DOJ Can Provide Biden's Conversations With Ghostwriter To Heritage Foundation, Judge Says

Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge on Friday rejected former President Joe Biden's bid to prevent the conservative Heritage Foundation from receiving redacted transcripts and recordings of conversations he had with a ghostwriter for his 2017 memoir.

Former President Joe Biden speaks in Chicago on April 15, 2025. Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo

Although District Judge Dabney Friedrich delayed her own decision by three weeks later on Friday to allow for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on the matter, she said her order will remain in place because of the recording and transcripts' significant public interest.

"This case involves an unusually strong public interest in the release of law enforcement materials to outweigh the privacy interests protected by [the Freedom of Information Act's] exemptions," the judge said.

The Epoch Times attempted to reach out to Biden for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

The Heritage Foundation's lawsuit originated in 2024. The group sought the transcripts and recordings from conversations the former president had with his ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, to produce his memoir, "Promise Me Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose."

In January 2023, then-Attorney General Merrick Garland launched a probe into Biden's alleged keeping of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania and at his private residence in Wilmington, Delaware.

Garland appointed former Special Counsel Robert Hur to investigate and potentially prosecute any federal crimes that arose - none did.

In Hur's February 2024 final report, he noted Biden's "diminished faculties and faulty memory" during an interview and in Biden's 2016 and 2017 recordings with Zwonitzer.

The former special counsel declined to prosecute Biden for his retention of classified documents because "the evidence [was] not sufficient to convict" and because "it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict [Biden] - by then a former president well into his eighties - of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness."

Hur continued in his report, referring to some of Biden's recorded conversations with Zwonitzer as "painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries."

The Heritage Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all records that Hur relied on for his final report.

Under Biden, the Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to release the records, citing national security, privacy, and other FOIA exemptions.

The Heritage Foundation brought its FOIA lawsuit against the Biden DOJ in March 2024. In the two years since, legal proceedings have developed slowly.

The court stayed proceedings in September 2025 - now with the DOJ under President Donald Trump - after the agency said it would review the documents it was withholding.

In a May 8 filing, the DOJ said it "intends to disclose the written transcript and audio recordings at issue in this matter" to Congress, with redactions, but Biden moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent their release, which the federal judge denied on Friday.

Friedrich found in her decision that "in all, Biden is not likely to succeed" in his claims that his privacy interests outweigh the "significant public interest in the disclosure of the redacted Zwonitzer Materials."

"Biden offers little in the way of specific details about the types of harm he foresees, especially in light of related information already in the public domain," Friedrich wrote.

Friedrich further said that the ghostwriter records must be provided to the Heritage Foundation.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals could make its decision on this case in the coming weeks while Friedrich's order is paused.

Biden has previously pushed back against claims that his cognitive abilities declined during his presidency.

"They are wrong, there is nothing to sustain that," the former president said during a May 2025 interview with ABC's "The View."

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 15:10

CIA Official Confirms Agency Flip-Flopped Over COVID-19 Origins Over Five-Day Period

Over the span of five days in 2021, the CIA abruptly changed its opinion on the origins of COVID-19 from a laboratory to neutral, a newly released document confirms. 

The seal of the Central Intelligence Agency at the entrance of the agency headquarters in McLean, Va., on Sept. 24, 2022. Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Originally, CIA analysts concluded that COVID-19 likely came from a high-level laboratory in Wuhan, China located near where the first cases were detected in late 2019, senior CIA officer James Erdman III told lawmakers in May. Over the span of five days in 2021, however, Edman says the agency changed its stance to 'neutral.' 

Then in September of 2024 during a private briefing between intelligence officials and members of Congress, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) inquired as to how the agency came to the conclusion that lab-origin vs. natural origin were about equal, according to yesterday's document release by outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard. 

In response, an unnamed CIA employee told Wenstrup that "he made the call to stop the shift to lab because [redacted] had come in the day before they were ready to publish which made them back off the call," according to a summary of the briefing compiled by an intelligence official. 

As the Epoch Times notes further, officials said in a declassified assessment based on information through August 2021 that only one agency - which was not the CIA, based on details since made public - favored a lab origin for COVID-19.

An updated assessment released in mid-2023 states that the CIA was unable to determine the origin of COVID-19 because both the lab and natural origin theories “rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting.”

The CIA said in 2025 that a lab origin for COVID-19 was “more likely.” The Trump administration maintains that COVID-19 came from the lab in China.

More on Changes

A whistleblower in 2023 told members of Congress that the CIA team tasked with analyzing the origins of COVID-19 favored a lab origin, but that after the team was paid, it changed its position.

The CIA at the time denied paying analysts to reach specific conclusions.

Erdman, the senior CIA official, told a Senate panel in May that he was on a team investigating how intelligence agencies handled the COVID-19 pandemic and that the CIA declined to provide documents the team had requested that may have shed light on the change.

Erdman said that the team found the shift happened after Dr. Anthony Fauci, at the time the head of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases - which provided funding for the lab in Wuhan - briefed intelligence officials and suggested to officials that they talk to specific scientists, including researchers who wrote a paper with which Fauci and the institute’s head secretly assisted.

The paper, called “Proximal Origin,” purported to rule out a laboratory origin.

Wenstrup also asked intelligence officials in the 2024 briefing about a white paper that National Center for Medical Intelligence analysts compiled as a rebuttal to the “Proximal Origin.” The authors of the white paper felt their conclusions were ignored by intelligence officials, they informed Wenstrup.

A representative for the center was not prepared for the questioning, “which annoyed Wenstrup,” according to the briefing summary.

Fauci Briefed Intelligence Officials

Fauci briefed intelligence officials on June 4, 2021, and promoted the idea that COVID-19 had a natural origin, according to another briefing summary released by Gabbard.

Fauci “recommended that [intelligence officials] take a look at Tulane’s paper on two lineages from two separate markets,” the summary states. “To Dr. Fauci, this paper’s findings were a clear indication of natural origins of COVID-19.”

Fauci also “reminded the group that even for SARS, it took 12 years to make the link to a bat even though it only took 4 months to identify the natural reservoir” and that “we still haven’t identified source/origin of Ebola,” which is believed to have a natural origin, according to the summary.

Fauci, who has not responded to requests for comment, told lawmakers during a hearing in 2024 that he did not talk about viral research related to COVID-19 with intelligence officials.

“After the investigations began about COVID, I was briefed by intelligence agencies about possibilities of there being activities going on in different laboratories,” he said.

In another readout of the 2021 briefing, Fauci was said to have suggested intelligence officials connect with three scientists whose names were redacted.

“All three ... have advocated for features of the virus that they judge to be consistent with a natural origin,” the readout states.

An email disclosed that one of the scientists was Kristian Andersen, a Scripps Research researcher who coauthored the “Proximal Origin.”

Andersen said in private messages with coauthors that COVID-19 may have been engineered before the paper was published. He has said that further analysis of the virus altered his and others’ views.

“Dr. Fauci was the behind-the-scenes adviser who, alongside his hand-picked so-called experts, pushed the intelligence community to endorse a natural animal origin to hide his dangerous gain-of-function research that he funded using taxpayer dollars,” Gabbard said in a video statement posted to X on June 18.

“All of this in a deliberate attempt to cover up the truth and shift the blame and attention away from Fauci’s own actions.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 14:35

Swalwell Ordered By FEC To Return Campaign Contributions

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

Former California congressman Eric Swalwell was ordered by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) June 15 to return all donations received during his bid for governor before dropping out of the race.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) during a news conference on the introduction of the Protection from Abusive Passengers Act at the U.S. Capitol Building, in Washington on April 6, 2022. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The agency charged with enforcing federal campaign finance laws threatened Swalwell with an audit or enforcement action if he fails to give back $30,075 in contributions that 16 donors made to his campaign committee, according to a letter sent to the former candidate.

"Failure to comply with the provisions of the Act may also result in an enforcement action against the committee."

In the letter, FEC Senior Campaign Finance Analyst Mary Seiler also stated Swalwell would not be eligible to request a time extension to give the money back.

According to the letter, the FEC requires candidates to return contributions to the donors if they drop out of a race. Swalwell did return some of the donations, but not all of them, according to the agency.

General election contributions can't be used to pay off primary debts or other obligations, the FEC noted.

All refunds were required to be made by July 20. If not, the commission may take further legal action in the case, the FEC said.

Swalwell and his attorney, Sara Azari, didn't return requests for comment about the FEC's demands.

Swalwell dropped out of the governor's race in April after multiple women stepped forward with sexual assault allegations, which he has denied. He also faced a U.S. House of Representatives ethics investigation over the accusations and a call from his party to resign.

The former congressman and candidate continues to face criminal and ethical investigations over the allegations.

His official state campaign finance disclosure information shows Swalwell collected donations from individuals and organizations until the day he resigned April 13. The last-minute donors included the United Food and Commercial Workers Western States Council Candidate PAC, California Dairies, real estate developer Jeff Worthe, and Greater Anesthesia Service and PAC - each of which gave him $39,200.

The last contribution made to Swalwell's campaign was nearly $460,000 on April 18 in "unitemized contributions," according to the state. The report doesn't specify who gave Swalwell the large donation or where it came from.

The California Secretary of State's office didn't immediately return a request for information about the contribution.

Swalwell's campaign finance report filed with the state shows he used campaign funds in the final weeks to pay his attorney Azari at least $313,000 and the Democratic political media firm KMM Strategies more than $600,000.

Filling Swalwell's Seat

Democratic state Sen. Aisha Wahab, a progressive from Hayward, California, advanced June 16 in a special general election to fill Swalwell's vacant U.S. House seat.

Swalwell resigned from Congress in April, a day after ending his campaign for governor.

Wahab will move on to the Aug. 18 runoff to determine who will fill the remainder of Swalwell's term through January.

Democrat Melissa Hernandez, a transit director and former mayor of Dublin, California, was in second place June 19 but votes were still being counted.

The district includes East Bay cities of Fremont, Hayward, and Livermore, which heavily favors Democrats.

A regular primary was held June 2 to elect a new Congress member for the district to a full term. Wahab and Hernandez were the top two vote-getters.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 14:00

Trump Says He No Longer Views Anthropic As A National Security Threat

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump said he no longer views the artificial intelligence (AI) giant Anthropic as a national security threat.

Illustration of Anthropic on June 18, 2026. Riccardo Milani/Hans Lucas via AFP via Getty Images

"We have a situation with Anthropic, and we didn't like what they were doing, and so far I think they behaved very responsibly to our request," Trump told Axios's Marc Caputo in an interview that aired on June 19.

Caputo then asked Trump if he still viewed Anthropic and its CEO, Dario Amodei, as a threat to national security.

"Well, not now, but a week ago, maybe," Trump said, describing a meeting with Amodei at the G7 summit this week that influenced his change of heart.

"[Amodei] responded to us very quickly, because you know it's tremendous liability," Trump said. "You know, you can't play games with it. And he responded very responsibly."

The comments come one week after the Trump administration directed Anthropic to shut down foreign nationals' access to its new Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, which resulted in the company suspending access to all users entirely.

Issued on June 12, the directive from U.S. officials did not include specific details of potential security threats or concerns, according to Anthropic.

"Our understanding is that the government believes it has become aware of a method of bypassing, or 'jailbreaking' Fable 5," the company said in a statement at the time.

Trump told Axios that one of the company's competitors "turned Anthropic in" and raised alarms over the new models.

"They didn't like what [Anthropic was] doing. They were very concerned," he said.

Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

When Anthropic released Fable 5 to the general public on June 9, it said the model had exceeded the capabilities of "any model we've ever made generally available."

"It is state-of-the-art on nearly all tested benchmarks of AI capability, showing exceptional performance in software engineering, knowledge work, vision, scientific research, and many other areas," Anthropic stated.

As a "Mythos-class" model, Fable 5 is essentially as strong as Mythos, but with key safety features to make it safe for public use.

In the same announcement, Anthropic made Mythos 5 available to a small group of cyberdefenders and infrastructure providers. But after the company's decision to suspend access to all users on June 12, both models are currently unavailable.

Two days before Anthropic pulled access, Amodei wrote on X that he believes frontier models such as Mythos 5 "should face mandatory third-party testing for cyber, bio, and autonomy risks - with the power to block or revoke deployment of models that pose catastrophic risk."

Trump signed an executive order early this month asking AI firms to voluntarily submit their frontier models for government review 30 days before they're available to the general public.

At the time, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) criticized the order for only being "voluntary," saying that mandatory testing and review of frontier models is needed to "protect Americans."

Jacki Thrapp contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 11:40

The Consumer Sentiment Disconnect From Economic Reality

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index just printed 44.8 in May. That’s the worst reading since the survey began in 1952. That print was lower than in 2008 and the 1980 inflation panic. It was also worse than the COVID lockdowns, yet the S&P 500 continues to climb higher, Q1 corporate earnings posted 27% growth, and weekly jobless claims sit near cycle lows. That “disconnect” has sparked many statements on social media, such as:

“GDP is growing at a healthy 2.7% in the US. GDP statistics in the US are clearly completely broken and no longer make any sense whatsoever.” – Philip Pilkington

That statement sums up many of the concerns I have read as of late, and the University of Michigan consumer sentiment disconnect from economic reality demands an honest answer. Which set of data is wrong? I think the honest answer is both, and neither. Over the last three decades, I’ve learned that surveys and behavior often part ways, and the gap usually tells you more about the survey than about the consumer. So let’s walk through what’s actually happening, because the consumer sentiment disconnect isn’t a single story. It’s three stories stacked on top of each other.

Start with the disconnect itself. If you only looked at the Michigan headline, you’d assume the country was in a depression. However, when you look at what people are actually doing, the picture changes completely.

Retail sales rose 0.5% in April and are running 4.9% above year-ago levels. In addition, Q1 earnings season has delivered an 84% beat rate on the S&P 500, well above the 5-year average of 78%, with aggregate earnings beating estimates by 20.7%. That’s the strongest surprise rate since the first quarter of 2021. Furthermore, initial jobless claims came in at 209,000 for the week ending May 16. Unemployment is sitting at 4.3%. Notably, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model is tracking 4.3% annualized growth for Q2 as of May 21.

Notice in the chart above what’s never happened in the 25-year history of this comparison. In every prior cycle, sentiment and growth moved roughly in step. The 2001 mild recession, the Global Financial Crisis, and the COVID lockdowns all show sentiment and GDP cratering and recovering side by side. Since 2022, that relationship has broken in a way it never broke before. GDP has been running between +2% and +3% year over year for three straight years. Consumer sentiment has been running below 70 the entire time, levels that historically only appeared during deep recessions. The gap in the lower-right corner of that chart is the entire argument.

Meanwhile, the headline economic narrative making the rounds on social media insists that GDP statistics are “completely broken” and that real data show a hidden recession. Here’s the problem with that argument. The labor market, spending, earnings, and credit data all line up in the same direction. They don’t agree with the sentiment survey, but they do agree with each other. So when one indicator disagrees with five, the prior should be on the one. That’s the heart of the consumer sentiment disconnect we need to explain. We flagged an earlier version of this same divergence in February, when economic sentiment was already at odds with the strong macro data-based estimates.

Yes, There Really Is a Partisan Problem

So why is the Michigan survey saying something so different? Part of the answer is exactly what many investors suspect, and the data backs it up.

Notice in the chart above what happens at every administration handoff. In January 2021, the navy line shoots up while the red line plunges almost vertically. The two cross within weeks of Biden’s inauguration, and Independents barely budge in the middle. Then it happens again in January 2025, only sharper. Republican sentiment surges from 67 to 93 in two months, while Democrats collapse from 78 to 56 over the same window. The X-pattern at each transition is the partisan gap in action. The survey isn’t measuring the economy. It’s capturing tribal loyalty, and that mechanic is a meaningful slice of the consumer sentiment disconnect we’re trying to explain.

The Richmond Federal Reserve published research in 2024 that found something striking. Specifically, the partisan gap in consumer sentiment is now far larger than the gap by income, age, or education level. Per the Richmond Fed analysis, the gap between Democratic and Republican sentiment expanded from 21 points under George W. Bush to 25 points under Obama, and then to 45 points under Biden. That’s not noise. That’s a structural issue with how the survey is being completed.

Moreover, it gets worse. Researchers at BriefingBook documented what they call “asymmetric amplification.” Republicans swing their sentiment responses roughly 2.5 times as much as Democrats do, depending on who controls the White House. When their party wins, they go euphoric, but when they lose, they go bleak. Democrats do this too, just less violently. Importantly, adjusting only for that asymmetry closes about 30% of the gap between predicted and observed sentiment over the post-2020 period.

Fundstrat’s Tom Lee made waves last week with an even sharper critique. He pointed out that 51% of Democratic respondents are now reporting sentiment readings below the survey’s all-time worst reading of 47.6. He also flagged that around a quarter of Democratic respondents believe inflation is currently running above 100%. Clearly, that isn’t a forecast. That’s a vote.

Now layer on something most readers haven’t heard about. In 2024, the University of Michigan switched from cellular phone surveys conducted via random-digit dialing to an online-only address-based sampling method. The change began in April and was fully completed by July of that year.

U-M’s surveys director, Joanne Hsu, has consistently maintained that the methodology change produced comparable results. However, the independent research disagrees. Cummings and Tedeschi, in a widely cited analysis published in BriefingBook, estimated that the switch from phone to online interviews lowered the sentiment index by about 8.9 points, or more than 11%. They benchmarked their adjustment against Morning Consult’s continuous online sentiment survey, which uses the same five core questions but has been online since 2018. Notably, Morning Consult’s index did not show the same precipitous decline as Michigan’s headline number. That gap alone accounts for a meaningful slice of the consumer sentiment disconnect.

Tom Lee added a further claim that I’ll attribute to him because I haven’t independently verified the underlying response data. He stated that the new online survey is producing a respondent breakdown of roughly 66% Democratic and 33% Republican, which would not be representative of the U.S. adult population. Whether or not that exact ratio holds, the broader point stands. In fact, self-selection bias on online opt-in is a known issue, and the structural break in the series is real.

The Conference Board Tells a Different Story

This brings us to the question I’ve raised previously. If the Michigan number is so distorted, what does the other major survey say? The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index gives us a useful check.

Notice in the chart above just how different the two stories are. The Michigan survey’s Current Economic Conditions component is 26% below its 2008 financial crisis trough. By contrast, the Conference Board’s index, while soft, sits near its long-term average and remains well above every cyclical low of the modern era. Consider the historical anchors. In 2009, the Conference Board bottomed at 25.3. During the 2020 COVID shock, it hit 85.7. Today’s reading of 92.8 isn’t a crisis print on that scale.

Methodologically, the two surveys measure different things. The Conference Board’s index places greater weight on labor market and current business conditions. The Michigan survey places greater emphasis on household finances and inflation perceptions. When inflation perception is the dominant factor and partisan respondents spontaneously volunteer inflation rates above 100% as a protest vote, you get the Michigan number.

The real question is whether the partisan effect is mitigated in the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index? The honest answer is partly. The Conference Board doesn’t publish party-affiliation crosstabs the way Michigan does, so we can’t directly measure their internal partisan gap. However, its methodology is less exposed to the specific inflation-expectation channel where the partisan skew is most extreme. And its readings show that.

But This Time, Republicans Are Sour Too

Now here’s where the partisan-bias narrative needs an honest correction. If you stopped reading at “the Michigan survey is just upset Democrats,” you’d miss something important about the May 2026 reading.

According to the University of Michigan’s own release on May 22, sentiment among Independents and Republicans dropped to the lowest readings of the current presidential administration. Democratic sentiment, in contrast, was little changed from April. Republican long-run inflation expectations have more than doubled on a monthly basis since February 2025. The cost-of-living concern is showing up across the political spectrum, not just on one side.

Why? Two reasons. First, gasoline prices surged 12.3% in April thanks to the ongoing conflict with Iran and the supply disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. Pump prices are at levels not seen since 2022. Gas is the most visible price in the American economy, and it’s hitting every household. Second, tariff-related price pressure is starting to filter through, and roughly 30% of respondents in early May spontaneously mentioned tariffs as a concern. Make no mistake, those aren’t imagined problems.

So the partisan-bias critique is real, but it’s only part of the story. The 2026 Michigan plunge contains a partisan distortion, a methodology distortion, and a genuine bipartisan reaction to higher prices. In short, the consumer sentiment disconnect we’re seeing isn’t just noise. Pulling those threads apart matters if you want to use the data correctly.

“The Michigan survey isn’t broken. It’s measuring something narrower than the headline suggests, and what it’s measuring is real. The question is whether what it’s measuring should drive your portfolio.”

Why The Consumer Sentiment Disconnect Rarely Predicts Spending

The most important question isn’t whether the Michigan number is “correct.” It’s whether the number actually predicts anything useful for investors. Decades of research from the Federal Reserve system suggest the answer is largely “no.“

A February 2026 paper from the Kansas City Federal Reserve titled “Forecasting with Feelings” found that the link between consumer sentiment and growth in real household spending has been modest historically. The authors built two forecasting models: one using only official economic data, and one augmenting that data with consumer sentiment surveys. The sentiment-augmented model didn’t materially improve the forecast over the past 30 years. Fed Chair Jerome Powell echoed that finding in his May 2025 press conference, stating directly that “the link between sentiment data and consumer spending has been weak. It’s not been a strong link at all.”

A 2014 Boston Fed paper reached a similar conclusion. When you control for standard fundamentals such as income, employment, and wealth, the role of consumer sentiment in predicting consumption is marginal at best. People can feel terrible about the economy, yet still spend. We’ve seen that play out for almost three full years now.

The composite chart, which combines the Michigan and Conference Board indices to dampen the noise in each survey, clearly shows the broader pattern. Confidence has weakened from cycle highs, but the market has continued to advance. As we covered in our prior analysis of the confidence dichotomy between consumers and investors, there have been three other periods where stocks rallied while sentiment fell. The dot-com bubble. The mid-cycle expansion of the late 1990s. And the post-COVID period. In each of those cases, the market eventually had to reckon with reality, but the disconnect lasted longer than skeptics expected.

The composite sits at 71 today, a full 47 points below the October 2018 cycle high of 118. Over that same stretch, the S&P 500 has more than doubled, and that’s the consumer sentiment disconnect we’ve been pointing at for the better part of three years.

What Investors Should Actually Watch

If sentiment surveys aren’t reliable inputs for portfolio decisions, what is? My answer is the same one I’ve given for 20 years. Behavior beats feelings every time. So watch what consumers and businesses are doing with their money, not what they say in a survey. That single shift in focus turns the consumer sentiment disconnect from a confusing headline into a useful contrarian signal.

The takeaway from that table is simple. Five of the six categories show behavior diverging from sentiment in the same direction. People are saying one thing and doing another. When that happens at this scale, you don’t trade off the talk. You trade off the action.

That said, two items in the table do deserve real attention. Gas prices are a tax on consumers and on margins. If the Iran conflict drags into the summer driving season, demand destruction becomes a real risk for cyclical names. And tariff pass-through is the slow leak that markets keep underpricing. Importantly, those are concrete data series we can monitor, not abstract sentiment vibes. Pump prices, container shipping rates, retailer margin guidance, and consumer credit delinquencies are on the watchlist.

The Conference Board’s index, the Atlanta Fed’s GDP nowcast, the earnings beat rate, the retail sales print, and the jobless claims data all point to an economy that is slowing in some places, accelerating in others, and not remotely close to the Depression-era reading on the Michigan headline. What does this mean for investors? Stay disciplined. Watch the behavioral data. Maintain risk-management protocols. Be ready to lean in when the noise creates a real dislocation, and be ready to lean out when the data, not the surveys, actually rolls over.

Consumers are gloomy. Some of that gloom is justified, particularly around gas and inflation. But gloom is not a portfolio strategy.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 10:30

Trump Mocks Italy's Meloni Over Disputed G7 Photo: 'She Wants To Be Friends Again, No Thanks!'

President Trump has once again lashed out at Italy, as Washington and this 'wayward' NATO ally continue to clash on a range of issues from Iran to Israel to Ukraine..

It follows on the heels of the cancellation of the planned diplomatic visit by Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. President Trump on Saturday has newly taken to Truth Social to reiterate that PM Meloni "asked, over and over, for a picture with me during the G-7 meeting in France."

He continued: “She is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a Country that truly loves and protects Italy, when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a Nuclear Weapon (But so did NATO, for that matter!).”

According to more background:

Trump’s comments were aired Friday on the La7 network. A correspondent had asked the president about Ukraine, but Trump raised Meloni and made the claim about the photo. Trump said he was not obliged to take the picture with her but that he felt sorry for her and agreed, La7 said. The broadcaster put a dubbed version of the conversation online, but not the original English audio.

Meloni has very publicly rejected Trump's version of events at the G7:

Clearly irked at President Donald Trump’s suggestion that she had had “begged” him for a photo at the Group of Seven summit earlier this week, the Italian prime minister said this was “totally fabricated.”

Bilateral defense agreements and NATO's base sharing framework allows US access to key strategic hubs for US operations in the Mediterranean - however, Italian law and a historic treaty requires parliamentary approval for anything outside that scope. 

It was in late March that for the first time Italy's defense ministry confirmed that "some US bombers" were denied landing at Sigonella – one of seven US navy bases in Italy.

Among the scenes at a G7 working lunch in France on June 16 was this...

Pool image via AP

Italy tried to frame the issue as merely bureaucratic and an issue of paperwork. Initial complaints were that the US didn't follow required permission protocol, and requested landing only while in the air and already en route to Sicily.

Meloni's office has all the while maintained it is "acting in full compliance with existing international agreements"  - while underscoring that each flight request must be "carefully examined on a case-by-case basis, as has always been the case in the past."

More of Meloni's response to Trump's latest Truth Social:

Italy's Meloni responds to Trump:

President Trump, these constant, unprovoked attacks are senseless. As for my popularity, being your friend certainly has not helped it, nor does it depend on my relationship with you.

My popularity depends on my ability to defend Italy’s… pic.twitter.com/myot615UVl

— Clash Report (@clashreport) June 20, 2026

But the truth also is that American hegemonic action in the Middle East, and the Iran conflict in particular, is deeply unpopular among the Italian population, which has long had a strongly anti-war bent especially among the youth. Meloni has tried to assure here electorate that she's never "begged" for anything from Trump.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 09:55

FBI Warns That Fake FIFA Website Being Used to Steal Personal Information

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The FBI on June 16 advised people to be wary of fraudulent websites that try to mimic World Cup or FIFA sites, as the agency warned that such websites have been used to steal personal information and sell counterfeit tickets.

In a public service announcement, the FBI stated that scammers and fraudsters have launched spoofing attempts designed to mimic FIFA’s official website as the World Cup games hosted in North America continue.

“Threat actors often create spoofed websites by slightly altering characteristics of legitimate website domains, with the purpose of gathering personally identifiable information entered by a user into the site, including name, home address, phone number, email address, and banking information,” the FBI statement reads.

The individuals behind such websites may be attempting to trick people into entering sensitive information that could be used to “create new accounts in a victim’s name and ultimately defraud the victim,” the FBI stated.

The federal law enforcement bureau noted that it has identified individuals who had attempted to collect personal information, sell counterfeit World Cup tickets or “hospitality products,” or engaged in other forms of malicious activity in connection with the scams.

The fraudulent website domains could include alternate spellings of words or use a different top-level domain, or TLD, referring to the final segment of the web address, such as .com, .gov, .org, and more, according to the notice.

Scammers may also create a deceptive version of a legitimate website, such as fifa.com, that tricks people into thinking they are going to the official website, it stated. Some include website domains that use alternate domain extensions such as “.blue,” “.beer,” “.city,” and more. Dozens of fraudulent domains were identified by the FBI that have been linked to the scheme, including fake domains related to FIFA jobs, merchandise, or tickets.

FBI officials advised people to first verify website URLs before they enter potentially sensitive or personally identifying information and to go to FIFA’s official website by typing the URL into their browser rather than relying on results produced by search engines, while also verifying that it reads fifa.com.

An Epoch Times review found that many of the websites listed by the FBI in the alert appeared to be down. However, the FBI stated that the “public should be aware that new websites will continue to appear.”

“Exercise caution when clicking on advertisements. Before clicking on an advertisement, check the URL to make sure the site is authentic,” the notice reads. “Malicious advertisements may redirect users to a different website than indicated.”

The June 16 public service announcement did not say whether anyone was victimized by a FIFA website-related scam. But victims who believe that they were targeted in a scam should file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov, it states

Aside from combating fake websites, the FBI has also acted to keep drones away from World Cup games. Earlier this week, an illegal immigrant with a prior criminal history, including a cocaine-trafficking conviction, was arrested for flying a drone near a World Cup event in Atlanta, the FBI announced.

The World Cup lasts from June 11 until July 19, with matches being played across the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/20/2026 - 09:20

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