At The Money: When Should Do-It-Yourself Investors Fire Themselves? (July 15, 2026)

DIY investors have been a force in the market, pouring trillions into indexing and remaking asset management. But at a certain point in their lives, their needs become more complex and may require help. How can they tell when it’s time to bring in some professional assistance?

Full transcript below.

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About this week’s guest:

Dr. Jordan Grumet is a physician who works at the intersection of money, mortality, purpose, and regret. His work focuses on internal medicine and hospice care. His recent book is “Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor’s Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life.”

For more info, see:

Personal Bio

Professional website

LinkedIn

Podcast

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Find all of the previous At the Money episodes here, and in the MiB feed on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, and Bloomberg. And find the entire musical playlist of all the songs I have used on At the Money on Spotify

 



 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

 

Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of fears, without crying
Now I want to understand

Barry Ritholtz: Are you a do-it-yourself investor whose needs have become more complex? Is the world making you concerned about your portfolio? How do you know when it’s time to bring in some professional help?

To help us unpack all of this and what it might mean for your portfolio, let’s bring in Dr. Jordan Grumet, a physician whose specialty is the intersection of money, mortality, purpose, and regret. He’s trained and worked in both internal medicine and hospice care. His prior books include Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor’s Advice on Financial Independence and Living a Regret-Free Life, and The Purpose Code.

So, Doc G, let’s start very basically: what does it mean to fire yourself as a DIY investor?

Jordan Grumet: I grew up in the financial independence, retire early movement. These are the young, scrappy people who are trying to save enough so that they never have to work again. And so we were kind of cheap back in the day, right? This idea of, why pay someone else to do what you can do for yourself? That was good sense, because it made us deeply understand our investments. But as I get older, I realize that sometimes it makes sense to fire yourself. In other words, bring in the help when you need it, because you can’t know everything.

Barry Ritholtz: I know you’ve worked with other financial advisors. What has your own experience taught you about what financial advice should and should not address?

Jordan Grumet: I had Roger Whitney on my podcast, and he is one of the financial advisors I really respect. And we were talking about this idea of the balcony of your life — this idea that you want to stand on that balcony with your financial advisor, look out at your future, and start to plan.

This doesn’t look like, “Boy, I want my net worth to be this many millions of dollars.” It’s more a question of, how do I see the landscape of my life appearing in the future? That has to do with money, but that also has to do with family. It has to do with travel. It has to do with career. And so it’s really this holistic approach. As a doctor, we used to see people and we talked about the biopsychosocial model — the idea of not just seeing what’s hurting a patient, but how they fit in their environment and their needs. And I think with the financial advisor, it’s actually very similar.

Barry Ritholtz: What are the tasks that a smart do-it-yourself investor can probably handle by themselves – and what areas do they tend to run into trouble?

Jordan Grumet: So the truth of the matter is, when you’re young and you’re in the accumulation phase, it’s almost hard to mess up, right? You have to do it. Nick Maggiulli says, “Just keep buying.”

So when we’re young, there’s lots of room for error. Starting to understand the stock market, starting to understand index investing, writing out your investor statement or plan — basically, accumulation is really something that most people can manage.

The caveat is that you have to be able to control your emotions. Anyone who’s going to sell the minute the stock market drops on any given day probably needs financial advice right away. But assuming that you have the solidity of your character enough to be able to realize, okay, the market dropped, but I’m going to stay where I am and leave my money where it is — as long as you can pass that hurdle, a lot of accumulation and being young is quite possible to do it yourself.

Barry Ritholtz: How can a do-it-yourself investor recognize the difference between being reasonably capable and becoming overconfident? What are the red flags that they should pay attention to?

Jordan Grumet: Well, here’s something I think we don’t normally think about. When we’re talking about building wealth, what we’re really talking about is concentrating risk. For your average person, you’re going to be concentrating risk in your career, right? You’re going to be building and getting promotions and making more. You’re going to be concentrating risk in your business if you’re a founder or have a side hustle.

What you don’t want to be doing, unless you’re a professional, is concentrating risk in the stock market. Overconfident people seek alpha. They’re saying, boy, I don’t want to just take what the market has to give me — beta — but I’m going to seek alpha. And that’s exceedingly hard.

Some of the signs are: you’re zooming in and out of positions, you’re looking at lots of multiple stocks instead of thinking about index funds, you’re falling into the trap of FOMO, right? You’re starting to fear missing out. And so you’re making very reactive decisions.

If you’re setting it and forgetting it and maybe evaluating every six to 12 months, you’re probably on the right track. But if you’re looking at that stock market every day and buying and selling on a regular basis, you’re probably overconfident.

Barry Ritholtz: So this conversation is a giant exercise in confirmation bias for me. I’ve spent, I don’t know, three decades telling people you can do it yourself — but there’s an important caveat. You have to have a plan. You have to be disciplined. And when things start to head south, you must manage your own behavior.

Is that oversimplifying advice for do-it-yourselfers, or is it more or less a path to success you’ve seen in your career?

Jordan Grumet: No, I think it’s a beautiful assessment of how things should be.

Really, there are two things you need to watch out for as a young person. The first is your own behavior, which we just talked about. And the other is when you go from accumulation to decumulation — that’s a hard stop in my brain. That’s when you should really say, okay, do I need some professional help?

But when you’re a young person, those are really the two red flags. I think if you can keep those under control, doing it yourself is very reasonable.

Barry Ritholtz: We’ve built a firm over the past 13 years, and perhaps the biggest surprise to me has been how difficult it’s been to get people with plenty of money — lots of runway, they’ll never outlive their cash — to actually turn around and spend the money when they want. Whether it’s taking the whole family back to the old country to see where they came from, or buying a vacation property, or a boat. I got a phone call from somebody who wanted to buy a Ferrari, and I’m not exaggerating: he could buy a Ferrari every month for the rest of his life and never run out of money.

It’s shocking to me how challenging that is. Why is that decumulation phase — why is that spending the money that’s there to spend, even if it’s setting up a trust for your kids and grandkids, or giving it to philanthropy — why is that so challenging?

 Jordan Grumet:  I have this theory, and I call it escape velocity. If you listen to personal finance gurus, if you sit there and debate the 4% rule and talk about safe withdrawal rates and all those kinds of things, you’re under the assumption that the whole idea behind building a net worth is to have enough money so that you can decumulate during retirement.

I think that’s all false. Actually, all of our talk of safe withdrawal rates and net worth — all it is is the amount of money that gives you enough courage to walk away from the life you don’t want and start living the life you do want.  Believe it or not, I don’t even think that amount of money has anything to do with what you’re going to spend. It’s the amount of money that gives you the courage.

What we tend to find is, when people finally get the courage to leave the life that they’re living, that they don’t like, and then live the life they want to live, it’s actually just not that expensive. You can do a lot of the things you love without spending much money.

One thing is, it’s just not that expensive. The other thing is, we actually like having a safety net. People like having a lot of money in the bank — even to the extent that they’ll pass up on things they say they want to do — because that security and that good feeling, that identity of having a lot of money in the bank, actually serves them.

A lot of people see this as negative. And I agree, in a sense: this idea of working so hard and accumulating this much money and not spending it sounds bad at the forefront. But I’ll tell you, I know lots of happy people who are underspending, and yet they’re still happy. They’re still giving to charities. They’re still going on great vacations. They’re just not spending everything down. And one thing I think we need to come to peace with is, maybe that’s okay; maybe it’s fine if you die and you bequeath tons to either your kids or charity. And that just is what it is.

Barry Ritholtz: So I have a family member — I won’t mention their name, but they’re in their 50s, and, I don’t know, maybe the portfolio is $10 million. And I can’t get him — he’s constantly asking me about convertibles, and he sees the cars I drive, which are not crazy expensive but a lot of fun. I can’t get him to spend $25,000 or $50,000 on a convertible that he’s jonesing for and that will have no impact on his net worth. How do you advise a person like that?

Jordan Grumet: I just had a conversation with Jean Chatzky, who wrote a book that’s forthcoming soon called “The Forever Paycheck.” She makes a brilliant point with some of these people. What you have to do is set up a paycheck, so they feel like they have money that they either can spend or have to spend. You take someone with a net worth of $10 million or $11 million. The idea is to structure their assets in such a way that they feel like they’re getting a paycheck every year, and they have the freedom to spend that paycheck till it’s at zero.

Barry Ritholtz:  A muni bond portfolio or something like that, that just kicks out regular yield?

Jordan Grumet: You can do it in so many different ways. You can do it with annuities. You can do it with a mix of annuities, their Social Security, muni bonds, what have you.

Or you can even go the other way, which is have your adviser say, I’m just going to liquidate this much in equities every year, regardless of where the market is, and we’re going to call that your paycheck. It’s funny — this is not a math problem, this is a brain problem. And so the question is, how can you set these things up?

A good friend of mine made the joke. He said, well, I have something called the fun bucket, and I put as much money as I think I can spend every year in the fun bucket, and whatever is left, I either spend it or I have to donate it to a political candidate I hate. And that is the trick he plays on himself to make sure he spends it.

Barry Ritholtz: The fun bucket – I love that idea. So you mentioned the transition from accumulation to decumulation. What are the other big transitions — retirement, inheritance, selling a business, divorce — where the people who are doing it themselves might be most vulnerable?

Jordan Grumet: I think there are really two situations. One is where emotions play a big role. For some people, retirement — they just get very emotional, they don’t make great decisions. A family member dies and they get an inheritance, and you tend to make emotional decisions, especially at the beginning.

One is any place — whether it’s a divorce or a death or even retirement — where you feel exceedingly emotional. This is going to be different for each person.

The other time where I think it’s really important is when the room for error is small. And so, for instance — and this is why I always say, when we go from accumulation to decumulation, we have to be really thoughtful — because you might be depending on health care subsidies. If you decumulate incorrectly, you may find that those subsidies are no longer there.

Or you might be making complex Roth conversions, and if you do that wrong, it can really mess you up and put you in different tax brackets. Or if you have a disabled child, you’re starting to plan for the fact that you’re not going to have any income anymore. The room for error can be very small in those situations. And so that’s an indicator that a financial advisor, a professional — even if all they do is look over your work — is important.

We tend to forget: hiring a financial advisor doesn’t mean you hire them and they do everything for the rest of your life. It’s a continuum. You can hire a financial advisor to look over your work. You could pay them hourly. They can give you some recommendations, and then you can carry it all out yourself. There’s really a continuum of how we use a financial advisor in the first place.

Barry Ritholtz: You mentioned several behavioral mistakes. I’m curious: what do you see as the most common behavioral mistakes from young DIY investors? And what do you see amongst the more financially sophisticated investors?

Jordan Grumet: In the young investors, it’s definitely an overconfidence issue. We talked about this a little bit — it’s the seeking alpha when they should be concentrating on beta. It’s this idea that I know better than everyone else. And maybe they haven’t been around the block enough times to see a stock go to zero.

You see this all the time in alternative assets, too. We’re experiencing this right now with multifamily syndications. For years, people were telling me and everyone else, multifamily syndications are the way to go — very little work, very little risk. And what are we seeing now? We’re seeing some of these go to zero. Literally, people are losing everything. It’s overconfidence, and a lot of times it’s seeking alpha.

As you get older, believe it or not, I think the bigger problem in really mature DIY investors, is you get complacent. The world changes. For instance, I am a big believer in index funds, and I want to believe that index funds will be able to ride that wave for the next 50 or 75 years.

But I’m also open to the idea that we can become complacent, and we have to keep our eyes open, and we have to look for how the world is changing. Will index funds be the way to go in 50 years? I don’t know. I’m going to keep paying attention.

That doesn’t mean I’m changing things. That doesn’t mean reacting to little changes in the market. But I’m keeping my eyes open — especially as I get older and I’m in decumulation, we’re really talking about risk modification. So I’m not as worried about returns as I used to be; I’m worried about losses. I want to modify my risk in such a way that I don’t have those really deep losses anymore. Whereas if my money returns 4% one year, 8% one year, 6%, but the market does 7 or 7.5%, I might be okay with that.

Barry Ritholtz:  Last question. As a physician, you compare good advice to a diagnosis. What should the diagnostic process look like before someone either recommends a portfolio or recommends a change in course of financial behavior? Tell us what that looks like.

Jordan Grumet: So when a person comes into the office and has a medical problem, I can assess that medical problem, give them a quick treatment, and send them off. And that’s very transactional — it solves the problem for the moment, but doesn’t solve the greater problem.

I talked about this idea of the biopsychosocial model. We need to put a person in the context of who they are, who their family is, what their stressors are, and what their goals are.

When you walk into a financial advisor’s office and you’re trying to assess, is this the right financial advisor for you or not . . . One of the first questions they should be asking you is, “Tell me about your goals. What are your dreams?”

It shouldn’t be, “What is your goal net worth? It shouldn’t be, how many millions do you want to have by the age of 50 or 55?” Because that’s only one of many questions. The bigger questions are “What do you want to accomplish? What’s important to you? Who are the important people in your life? And what are the must-haves?”

Once you get past that, that’s when we can start looking at your specific financial goals. What are the trade-offs? Is retirement important to you? Or maybe you’re willing to work longer to enjoy life more now. All of those are bigger questions. It’s equivalent to the biopsychosocial model.

We really have to put people in context, and any good advisor is going to put you in the context of your life and try to stand on that balcony with you, look across the fields of your future, and try to help you plot out that best life — not just financially, but generally.

Barry Ritholtz: To wrap up: if you’re a do-it-yourself investor, there are a handful of mistakes you need to avoid. When you’re younger, you have to be aware of overconfidence and alpha chasing. When you’re older, complexity — changes in life, changes in the world — might lead you to seek additional help.

You can do it yourself if you’re disciplined, have a plan, and manage your own behavior. But there are times when you might need various types of help, and lots of it is available across all sorts of different price points. If you need assistance, go find it.

I’m Barry Ritholtz, and you’re listening to Bloomberg’s At The Money.

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The post At The Money: When Should Do-It-Yourself Investors Fire Themselves? appeared first on The Big Picture.

My mid-week morning train WFH reads:

•  Developers Are In On The Joke: Apologize Later: Jonathan Miller on developers who build first and beg forgiveness after. The oldest play in real estate. NYC Development Legend Harry Macklowe’s Midnight Demolitions (Housing Notes)

• Why recruiters can’t find workers and new grads can’t find jobs (it’s not AI): The Post digs into why recruiters can’t find workers while new grads can’t find jobs — and no, it’s not AI. A hiring market full of broken signals. Experts say a major labor shortage looms because of population shifts and a mismatch between new graduates’ skills and employers’ needs. (Washington Post) But See Remote Work Leaves Younger Workers Sidelined. Youth unemployment has risen dramatically since the pandemic—as has the prevalence of remote work.The New York Fed’s research shows early-career workers are being disproportionately harmed by remote arrangements — less mentoring, fewer network connections, slower skill development. Analysis suggests that these trends are related, with remote work making it more difficult for managers to train and mentor new employees The people who need the office most are the ones least likely to be in it. (Liberty Street Economics)

• You should be glad your boss is so well paid: Because it probably means you’re being paid well too.  (FT Alphaville free)

• What Are the Chances of Your Prediction Being Right? I have a question for you. If you take all of the hearts from a standard deck of 52 playing cards, and then lay them out one by one, in how many different orders can the 13 cards be dealt? Joe Wiggins on the odds your market prediction is actually right — and why the honest answer should keep forecasters humble. (Behavioural Investment)

• Why the Bipartisan Housing Bill Can Still Become Law – Despite Trump’s Refusal to Sign: The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which passed easily through both chambers of Congress in a rare display of bipartisanship, would ban large institutional investors from purchasing additional single-family homes. US News on why the bipartisan housing bill can still become law despite Trump’s refusal to sign. Procedural arcana, meet housing crisis. (US News)

• One of sci-fi’s most difficult questions about AI is becoming real: The rapid spread of chatbots and AI agents is intensifying a debate over who should be held responsible when something goes wrong. (Washington Post)

• How Putin Turned Japan Into a Den of Spies: Operating out of a Tokyo high-rise, a military intelligence unit finds the high-tech equipment that Russia needs to wage war. How Putin turned Japan into a den of spies: Russian intelligence quietly mining Japanese tech and industry for the war effort. (New York Times) see also Japan Is Building a New Intelligence Agency With Help From the West: Facing threats from Russia and China, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is breaking with World War II-era limits on security. Japan is standing up a real intelligence agency with Western help — a big deal for a country that’s been allergic to spycraft since 1945. (New York Times)

• Aspiring to Regional Domination, Iran Is Ready to Escalate Over Hormuz: New outbreak of fighting over the strait comes as Tehran sees itself as a winner in the war that would establish a new Pax Iranica in the Middle East. Iran isn’t bluffing on the Strait. The Wall Street Journal reports on Tehran’s military posture and its willingness to escalate — with global energy markets as collateral. = (Wall Street Journal)

• The 35-year-old powering Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones: Andrew Watt listened obsessively to rock as a teenager. Now, he considers all of his heroes — from Elton John to Mick Jagger — to be friends. Meet Andrew Watt, the 35-year-old producer powering late-career McCartney and the Stones. The Post profiles rock’s favorite whisperer. Andrew Watt listened obsessively to rock as a teenager. Now, he considers all of his heroes — from Elton John to Mick Jagger — to be friends. (Washington Post)

• Norway turn World Cup heartbreak into celebration as huge crowds pack Oslo: Norway loses the World Cup final and Oslo throws a party anyway. Huge crowds, zero bitterness — imagine that. More than 100,000 fans flooded the streets of Oslo, Norway’s capital, to give their team a warm welcome, turning the heartbreak of their World Cup exit into ⁠a massive national celebration. (The Guardian) see also Why is tiny Norway so good at sports? It’s more than Erling Haaland.  A youth system built on joy and participation instead of early specialization. One answer is that, from the youngest ages, Norway thinks about sports in a radically different way. In Norway, teams do not keep score before children turn 11, and the players cannot be separated into ranks until they are 12 or 13. Sports begin not as a race to the top, but as a constitutionally guaranteed social benefit for all, a place to learn, grow, and – perhaps most importantly – have fun. (Christian Science Monitor)

Video of the day: Why Tesla Sales are Falling Short in the U.S.

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with McKeel Hagerty, CEO and Chairman of Hagerty. We discuss how he transformed the family boat insurance business into a “sexy” driver-forward business. We also discuss our love of collectable cars and his love of his first car, a Porsche, that he bought at the age of 13.

 

How many Americans are using AI — and how?

Source: USA Facts

 

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

 

The post 10 Wednesday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

Can Britain's Next Prime Minister Escape The Net-Zero Trap?

Authored by Diana Furchtgott-Roth via Civitas Outlook,

Andy Burnham has a chance to restore sanity to British politics by choosing domestic production over Chinese renewables.

Britain is suffering from disruptions in both weather and politics as a heat wave grips a country where only four percent of homes have air conditioning. Sir Keir Starmer has resigned as Labour Prime Minister, and former Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, elected earlier this month as MP from Makerfield, is slated to replace him.

Since former Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May signed Britain up to the amended Climate Change Act in 2019, a binding law requiring a 100 percent reduction in emissions by 2050 compared to 1990 levels, Britain has had five Prime Ministers. This outpaces Italy, which has had three, long the byword for political instability in the Western world.

After Mrs. May herself, Britain cycled through Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, and now Sir Keir—none of them popular, none of them successful, all of them departing under economic pressure and in failure. This general dissatisfaction is not a coincidence, but linked to higher energy prices, which reduce growth and employment.

But today’s disruptions could be useful if Sir Keir’s resignation opened a window for Britain to reset its energy policy. Mr. Burnham, dubbed the King of the North, has already signaled that he wants affordable power and British jobs, especially in Britain’s north.

In his victory speech after winning his return to Parliament, Mr. Burnham declared:

“We do need to bring down water bills, energy bills, rail fares, just as we brought down bus fares in Greater Manchester, to make life more affordable for people.”

If he means it, energy is the place to start.

Britain pays 42 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity. Germany, Europe’s other great champion of the green transition, pays 43 cents. The United States, which has no national Net Zero law, pays 20 cents, less than half. Almost every EU country with binding emissions targets pays above 30 cents.

European policy choices have mandated expensive generation, loaded green levies onto bills, and prematurely wound down reliable conventional power. The Brits are paying a Net Zero surcharge on every unit of electricity they consume, every single day, with no measurable effect on global temperatures in 2100. And Britain’s wind and solar dependency funnels money to Chinese state-subsidized manufacturers and workers rather than British ones.

This means slower UK growth. Since the end of 2019, before the pandemic, the United States has recorded total GDP growth of 15.1 percent, compared to just 6 percent for the UK. Forecasts offer little comfort: the OECD projects UK growth of just 0.8 percent in 2026, against 2.3 percent for the United States. Countries with the highest electricity prices are growing the slowest.

And it’s not like Britain is getting top value for its money. Two weeks ago, temperatures above 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) reduced the efficiency of UK solar panels, and a lack of wind stalled the wind turbines. With electricity demand running at about 36 gigawatts, Britain had to import 20 percent of its electricity from the European Union.

The good news is that Mr. Burnham, with his flexible views, can take a different path.

Britain is not a resource-poor nation forced to depend on foreign suppliers, but a resource-rich nation that has chosen dependency through planning rules, regulatory obstruction, and a Net Zero framework that treats domestic oil and gas production as a moral failing rather than a strategic necessity.

In the short run, Britain could produce more North Sea oil and gas and approve stalled domestic natural gas projects. In the long run, Britain could speed up permitting for nuclear power plants, including new technologies such as floating nuclear reactors in harbors, as proposed by the British company Core Power.

Britain now imports oil and gas from Norway rather than allowing British workers to be well paid to extract them from the same North Sea—and pay taxes on the earnings. While Britain sits on the sidelines, Norway’s Equinor is raising output projections for the Norwegian continental shelf due to technological improvements and rising demand.

Mr. Burnham can move forward with offshore projects in the North Sea and North Atlantic totaling between 157,000 and 162,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day, with combined lifetime recoverable reserves ranging from 560 million to 920 million barrels of oil equivalent. Ithaca Energy’s Cambo project and Adura’s Rosebank and Jackdaw fields are all currently awaiting approval.

Adura estimates that Rosebank and Jackdaw will generate almost $38 billion in gross value added over their lifespans, generate almost $2 billion in tax revenues before the end of the current Parliament in 2029, and support 3,500 jobs.

In addition, the Gainsborough Trough, a major sedimentary basin between Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire, holds about 16 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas, equivalent to 2,750 million barrels of oil. With hydrofracturing, it could power Britain for ten years and create a quarter of a million jobs. Egdon Resources has long wanted to develop it, and no government funds would be needed.

Using these domestic resources would create well-paying jobs in northern communities that have seen manufacturing and mining decline over decades—precisely the area that Mr. Burnham wants to win from Reform.

To achieve Mr. Burnham’s desired growth, the government must remove the planning restrictions, the moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, and the regulatory framework that makes hydrocarbon investment impossible. Mr. Burnham needs to say plainly that Britain’s growth matters more than the approval of green lobbying groups.

The question is whether Mr. Burnham will move Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband to the coveted position of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Miliband has been the defining force in Sir Keir’s Cabinet against developing a realistic energy policy.

Mr. Miliband now presides over the planning regime that blocks hydrocarbon development, and it is his ideology, the belief that Britain can lead the world to Net Zero by making itself dependent on foreign energy while foreigners burn their own, that keeps British electricity rates among the highest in the world.

If Mr. Miliband were promoted to Chancellor of the Exchequer, he would oversee balancing the budget, or at least minimizing the deficit, and he might see energy production in an entirely different light. As current Chancellor Rachel Reeves has discovered, raising taxes and taking away senior citizens’ winter fuel credits are unpopular options (and may cost her her position).

Unfortunately, Mr. Burnham has floated the idea of nationalizing energy companies and other public infrastructure, even though money would have to be borrowed, taxed, or diverted from other priorities. Public ownership of expensive infrastructure would not achieve Mr. Burnham’s objective of lowering prices. The history of state-owned enterprises in Britain, reversed by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, is a history of inefficiency, underinvestment, and costs ultimately borne by taxpayers. What Mr. Burnham needs is private investment in cheap domestic production.

Energy is foundational to economic growth and to the costs of manufacturing, transportation, heating, and food production and storage. When governments require shifts from cheaper to more expensive energy options (such as from fossil fuels to more expensive renewables), they raise energy costs across the entire economy. Higher energy costs result in higher prices for goods and services, squeezing household budgets and eroding real wages.

Businesses facing higher power bills invest less, hire fewer workers, and, in some cases, relocate to cheaper jurisdictions abroad. The result is an economy that grows more slowly than it should, generates fewer job opportunities than it could, and delivers lower living standards than voters expect. People pay more for electricity and gas, groceries, and gasoline. And they take it out on whoever is leading the country. In Britain, this is the Prime Minister.

For years, Britain has turned its back on its own hydrocarbon wealth in pursuit of wind and solar targets that have driven up bills, exported jobs, and left the country dependent on imported LNG priced by global markets. The paradox is glaring: Britain sits atop significant untapped gas reserves yet pays premium prices for fuel shipped from abroad.

The economics are straightforward. North Sea drilling and domestic gas development are cheaper than the combined cost of offshore wind, grid expansion, and the battery storage needed to cover the days the wind doesn’t blow. Every pound spent on domestic production is a pound that stays in Britain, is taxed in Britain, and is employed in Britain rather than enriching foreign exporters.

Burnham says he wants to be the voice of the North. Here is his chance to prove it. An energy policy built around private investment in domestic production, lower bills, and British jobs recognizes that the transition must work for working people, not just for the investment banks financing wind farms.

Reform is siphoning off votes from both Labour and the Conservatives because it speaks to the cost of living in terms voters recognize. Mr. Burnham can occupy that ground without abandoning Labour’s broader commitments, simply by insisting that British energy for British homes comes before imported energy at any price.

Partly due to the costs of its Net Zero laws, Britain has burned through five Prime Ministers and is paying some of the highest electricity prices in the world. The King of the North has a chance to change that if he chooses a different path.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/15/2026 - 06:30

"Deport Criminals Who Steal Or Kill": Spanish Model Blasts Barcelona's Immigration Crisis

Via Remix News,

Influencer and model Jessica Goicoechea has posted a video on her social media channels in which she openly criticizes the insecurity she believes plagues Barcelona and details the personal measures she has taken to protect herself. In the clip, Goicoechea displays several security items she recently bought in Andorra, including 4 bottles of pepper sprays and a taser gun, which she describes as her "new essentials."

The video ends with a direct message: "Now, I can go calmly through Barcelona."

??? JUST IN: Spanish model Jessica Goicoechea shows off her 4 bottles of pepper spray and a Taser gun while speaking out against immigration.

"Now, I can go calmly through Barcelona," she said.

Following the video's viral spread, Goicoechea wrote a statement explaining that... pic.twitter.com/ATZYvfkOaX

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) July 13, 2026

The publication quickly sparked intense debate across social platforms. While some users criticized her for publicly showcasing self-defense weapons, many others - particularly women - expressed support and inquired about where similar products could be purchased. In response, Goicoechea stated that she is receiving "infinite messages" from women seeking ways to protect themselves. She defended her actions by saying that, given the current situation, she believes "if you don't protect yourself, no one will."

Following the video's viral spread, Goicoechea followed up with a written statement. She explained that she had never wanted to enter debates about safety or immigration but felt compelled to speak out because conditions have deteriorated.

"I'm never going to shut up again," she declared. The model described living in fear while walking the streets of Barcelona and highlighted what she called a daily increase in stabbings and shootings that she becomes aware of almost constantly.

In the same statement, Goicoechea emphasized that her concerns are not aimed at immigration in general but specifically at individuals who commit crimes. She pointed to recidivism, impunity, and insufficient controls on people with serious criminal records as the core issues.

"The problem is not where someone comes from, but how they behave," she maintained.

Addressing comments under her video, Goicoechea responded to one follower who linked Barcelona's rising crime to immigration by saying she "100% agrees."

?? "They started hitting me in the stomach and in the face."

A Polish model, attacked by a group of migrants in Milan, spoke to Polish media about her experience.

The attack only ended abruptly thanks to the heroics of an Italian man who intervened.

The report links the attack... pic.twitter.com/ln1Rds6mTN

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) June 9, 2026

"It all stems from political mistakes, regardless of the party's political color, due to poor immigration planning," read the comment she agreed with.

She later clarified that this agreement applied only to those who engage in criminal activity. She argued that "if you come to steal or kill, I prefer you be deported."

Goicoechea reiterated that her goal is to call for improved street safety and a firmer response to crime. "I believe that demanding safe streets and firm laws against those who come to commit crimes is essential and common sense," she concluded in the statement shared on her profiles.

????Poland is much safer than the US, says Polish-American supermodel Joanna Krupa.

She directly refers to the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, who was killed by a career criminal with 14 convictions.

"I certainly feel more secure in Poland than in the States."... pic.twitter.com/eCGIieS5nG

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) September 23, 2025

Her comments arrive amid a series of violent incidents recorded across Catalonia in recent weeks, including approximately thirty firearms-related events, many concentrated in the Barcelona metropolitan area. These have been accompanied by frequent robberies and assaults that continue to affect both local residents and tourists, often generating significant public attention.

Other European models have delivered similar messages about crime concerns in the past, including Polish-American supermodel Joanna Krupa.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/15/2026 - 02:00

Iran War 3.0: Where Did This All Go Wrong?

Authored by Alastair Crooke

When the US Navy, in co-ordination with Qatar and Oman, tried to slip a convoy of four vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, via Omani waters, last Tuesday night – rather than pass via Iran’s officially approved route – Trump may have imagined (or been told) that with the massive funeral for the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei under way, that Iran would not react as the US Navy attempted to force open an American corridor. Trump however, misread the Iranian jibe – Hormuz is its “atomic weapon.” Iran will not relinquish it.

Trump insists – in clear contradiction to the terms set out in paragraph five of the MoU – that Iran has no right to interfere with any ship trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz. Iran nonetheless is acting within the terms of the agreed de-escalation framework, and has warned repeatedly that it would strike any vessel circumventing the Iranian control mechanism.

Iran responded directly to Trump’s challenge to Iranian control of the Strait by striking two vessels with missiles and a third with an armed drone. A forth Qatari-owned tanker, laden with liquefied natural gas, was set ablaze, forcing its crew to abandon the stricken vessel.

These Iranian ripostes provoked Trump to order American air strikes against Iranian targets; to reimpose sanctions on the Islamic Republic’s oil exports; and to revoke the MoU framework he had signed with what he called the “Iranian scum” – thus ending the ceasefire. “We hit them hard last night,” Trump said at the NATO summit in Ankara. “We will probably hit them hard again tonight.”

Trump did hit Iran again Wednesday night – even though Iran had not attacked another vessel seeking to by-pass the Iranian corridor. In response, Iran launched ballistic missiles and drones at US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE and Muwaffaq Al-Salti airbase in Jordan.

Vice-President Vance is saying to Iran, “If you try to close the Strait of Hormuz, the American military will respond. It’s that simple” – i.e. Iran either keeps the Strait fully open to all, or the US will keep hitting it, as it did on Tuesday night.

Iran insists that it is the US that has violated the MoU and (via the spokesman for Iran’s Parliamentary National Security Committee) warns that further attacks by the US on Iran will be met by a comprehensive all-out surprise offensive by Iran – and potentially by other options too, such as an Iranian withdrawal from the NPT, changing the country’s nuclear doctrine, and closing the Bab al-Mandab Strait alongside the Strait of Hormuz.

So, Vice-President Vance is saying if Iran restricts Hormuz (i.e. it stays open to friendly states’ vessels) the US will escalate. And Iran is responding to this threat by warning that it will escalate militarily – two strikes for every one American strike – and that they may also turn to new doctrines of warfare.

Essentially, Trump has plunged into an escalatory trap, seemingly in part out of pique at his collapsing polls at home. He did, however, directly put himself in this situation by trying to “act cute” during the Khamenei funeral pre-occupations in order to try to gain a “quick win.”

How long will this escalatory episode last? Certainly, it will not lead to the opening of the Strait; nor bring a return of the status quo ante that preceded the war. As long as Iran maintains its ability to exert control over Hormuz, there is no basis to assume that the situation will return to what it was.

On the contrary, and more likely, the crisis will accelerate the onset of looming global economic crisis that could last until the economic pain becomes acute, as the drawdown on sour crude continues – and as the effects on the real economy in the West become visible.

With shortages of munitions and the drawdown on air assets from the Middle East already beginning, Trump probably lacks the wherewithal to go full “Iran War 3.0.”

The timeline to this new bout of low-intensity tit-for-tat therefore, is likely dictated by refinery inventories in the US; but also by the extent of the “hurt” being experienced by Trump back home in the context of his fading political prospects, but also by his dislike for any personal humiliation.

Where did this all go wrong? Possibly the crux of it derives from the moment that Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Sayyed Mojtaba, issued his statement that he had held a different view on the MoU to that of the negotiating team, but had agreed to proceed with it after receiving an assurance from the Iranian President that he would ensure and take into account Iran’s overarching principles in respect to relations with the US.

The Supreme Leader Mujtaba Khamenei’s statement put on notice both the US – and the Iranian negotiators – that Iran’s approval of the MoU was no open mandate, but rather closely tied to the 10 principles originally enunciated by the new Supreme Leader.

At some point, the Iranian leadership seemingly came to the conclusion that Iran was being played by the US; that the MoU was a deception –

…and that the entirety of events since the announcement of the MoU reflected a US strategy based on the view that in the previous round of the war against Iran – [that the US and Israel] failed to achieve their objectives – necessitating a halt to the confrontation, albeit temporarily, in order to regroup and prepare “more thoroughly” for a new round when the right conditions arise.

This led to the Iranian reassessment that the Hormuz and Lebanon components constituted the vital leverage to engage in a new war as the West ramps up pressure as a holding strategy – whilst the US and Israel prepare for the next round of war.

The interim US strategy is no change to US-Israeli objectives, but rather an adjustment to their operational mechanisms to provide for certain compromises that Washington considers necessary (i.e. closer working with Turkey and via Erdogan to engage Syria’s Jolani) to reshuffle the Lebanon deck, and then to “assess how the cards lie,” as Vance outlined.

It is not certain that this new US policy will work. The world is changing rapidly. Their expected triumph of Israel over the Middle East has resulted in failure. Trump’s MoU ploy to open Hormuz likely will fail, too.

The connected war on Russia and the siege of China are faltering too – and Israel’s (until now unassailable) hold over the US is in question too. A senior US democrat, Rahm Emanuel, and potential 2028 US Democratic presidential candidate, spoke in Israel yesterday; he warned in no uncertain terms that Israel “has lost the world’s support, become a ‘regional pariah,’ [and that its] alliance with the US is ‘at a crossroads’.”

And finally, a “black swan” now can be observed swimming in increasingly sunlit waters – Eric Katz writing in Notus writes that, “a draft report inside the US Treasury Department is set to warn of the risks posed by the artificial intelligence market, likening key aspects of it to the dotcom bubble that upended the US economy when it burst in the early 2000s.”

Treasury analysts wrote –

Career Treasury analysts found that AI firms are more deeply entrenched in the US economy than their dotcom predecessors and pose significant risk to the entire system if financial conditions change, productivity goals are missed or various choke points stymie growth.

A downturn in the AI market would send shockwaves throughout the entire economic ecosystem.

A market downturn in the US – exacerbated by an energy crisis – could spell disaster for Trump’s midterm hopes.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 23:25

China's Mass Production Of Dual-Use Drone Engines Fuels A Global Proliferation Crisis

China's greatest military advantage may be its ability to convert its massive civilian manufacturing base into wartime production of low-cost, one-way attack drones modeled after Iran's Shahed-136.

This is especially alarming because the U.S. defense industrial base is only beginning (read here) to prepare for a transition to wartime output, even as a global drone procurement race accelerates. Nation-states are set to stockpile millions of autonomous, low-cost weapons in the years ahead.

We have already shown readers how Chinese firms appear to be ramping up production of Shahed-style drones, with open-source footage from social media increasingly pointing to expanding production capacity.

Some scary stats on China's militaro-industrail complex's capacity:
- China casts more metal products than the next nine countries combined and >5× the US.
- Its shipbuilding capacity is ~200× the US (a total-capacity figure, not per-ship speed).
- It makes ~90% of the world's… pic.twitter.com/RcxKN4SDZZ

— Léo (@LeoKharon) July 13, 2026

The latest finding centers on the drone's powerplant: the Iranian MADO MD-550 engine, which is used throughout the Shahed family and in Russia's Geran-2 variant. MD550-type engines are also being mass produced in China and widely advertised on Chinese e-commerce platforms, including Alibaba.

The problem is not that China manufactures small aviation engines; it is that commercially available, dual-use engines can be incorporated into Shahed-style drones with limited visibility into the final buyer or end use.

The United Nations has identified the Iranian MADO-550 as the engine used in the Shahed drone family, while the U.S. Treasury has said the sanctioned Oje Parvaz Mado Nafar Company (commonly known as Mado company). 

Chinese vendors on Alibaba advertise MD550-type UAV engines in large quantities, although the listings alone do not show any connection to a Chinese state weapons program.

More importantly, the Alibaba listings are evidence of commercial availability, not proof that Beijing is deliberately supplying one-way attack drone programs. However, the listings only highlight the erosion of the boundary between civilian manufacturing and weapons production.

The real threat is that long-range strike drones can increasingly be assembled from commercially produced parts at a scale traditional export-control systems were never designed to contain. This means Shahed-style systems are likely to proliferate far beyond nation-states, spreading to proxies, criminal networks, and other threat actors.

Like this: 

• Fiber-Optic Kamikaze Drone Found In Mexico Signals New Drone Threat South Of Border

Latest evidence:

• Why Is China Advertising Insane War Drones On Facebook

The question is no longer whether these drones will reach the West, but when.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 23:00

Open Borders Are A Death Sentence To Western Nations

Authored by J.B.Shurk via AmericanThinker.com,

As simmering conflicts between Western citizens and Western governments boil over the next few years, we must never forget how we got to this point: Elected officials and irremovable bureaucrats occupying permanent administrative roles have refused to respect the wishes of the citizens whom they ostensibly represent and serve.

From the United States to the United Kingdom, citizens have demanded that their governments secure national borders and end the steady flow of illegal aliens into their communities.  From France, the Netherlands, and Germany to Australia and New Zealand, citizens have demanded that their governments arrest and remove Islamic immigrants who are guilty of rape, murder, or other violent crimes.  With the exception of President Trump’s efforts to enforce immigration law and deport illegal alien criminals (despite formidable resistance from the courts, leftist NGOs, and Establishment politicians from both the Democrat and Republican Parties) in the United States, no Western official has done anything to remedy the scourge of unlawful mass invasion in a deliberate, meaningful, and effective way.  Instead, Western governments hide from their citizens the true number of illegal immigrants living among them.  Western governments hide from their citizens a full accounting of the crimes committed by foreign nationals who should never have been permitted entry in the first place.

Mass illegal immigration is not a new problem.  In the United States, President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act into law in 1986.  Defended by both political parties as a way of combating illegal immigration while providing long-term lawbreakers legal status, it effectively awarded millions of foreign nationals amnesty.  Politicians convinced the American people to support this trade-off: In return for citizens’ reluctantly permitting the government to reward the unlawful behavior of foreign immigrants who had no right to reside in the United States, the government would protect citizens by cracking down on future illegal immigration and punishing businesses that hired illegal immigrant workers.  The U.S. government never lived up to its side of the bargain.

Instead, U.S. officials have lied to their citizens for forty additional years.  Until President Trump entered office, U.S. borders were not secured.  Businesses were rarely punished for hiring illegal aliens.  Unbeknownst to most American citizens, State and federal welfare programs continued to add illegal aliens to their taxpayer-funded dole rolls.  School districts in both cities and small towns continued to enroll illegal alien children.  Hospital emergency rooms continued to overflow with illegal alien patients seeking “free” medical care.  American jobs — especially blue-collar jobs — continued to go to illegal aliens because employers could pay foreigners less, avoid state and federal taxes, and use the threat of deportation as exploitative leverage over their workforces.  Illegal alien workers continued to place downward pressure on hourly wages.  Illegal aliens continued to place upward pressure on the costs of housing, energy, and household necessities.  

Sometime in the ‘90s, American politicians and government bureaucrats began admitting to Americans that there were roughly eleven million illegal aliens inside the United States.  For the next thirty years, politicians and bureaucrats repeated the same “eleven million” figure as if no net-increase in immigration had occurred.  Anybody living in small-town America knew this to be a demonstrable lie.  In the nineties, local school classrooms were made up almost entirely of American kids who grew up speaking English in households whose families had been living in the United States for generations.  As each year passed, those same classrooms were increasingly filled with kids whose parents had come from all over the world, and even small school districts were forced to hire staff who could attend to the needs of an increasingly foreign student body unfamiliar with basic English.  

Former Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino has said repeatedly that there are more than one hundred million illegal aliens residing in the United States.  In other words, roughly one out of every three people living inside the borders of the U.S. is a foreign national unlawfully here.  If those foreign nationals are employed, then they are likely guilty of identity fraud and committing a number of additional state and federal crimes.  Of those committing identity fraud, many are using social security numbers stolen from American citizens.  Illegal aliens who steal Americans’ identities adversely affect citizens’ credit scores, tax obligations with the IRS, and background checks.  Illegal aliens who fraudulently vote by claiming to be American citizens steal votes from actual American citizens.  Foreign nationals who illegally vote in American elections deny American citizens legitimate representation and undermine Americans’ constitutional form of self-government.

In 1986, lawmakers from both parties promised an end to illegal immigration.  Instead, tens of millions of new illegal aliens have continued to arrive.  In return for grudgingly acceding to the government’s desire to provide a one-time gift of amnesty to those foreigners whose first act in the country was to break our immigration laws, Americans continued to lose jobs, pay more for everything, and be defrauded by identity theft.  Even worse, they were forced to watch as foreign cultures transformed their schools and towns.  They were forced to watch as foreigners successfully ran for political office and pushed foreign policies and beliefs upon American citizens.  

New York City has a Muslim mayor from Uganda who has been a naturalized U.S. citizen for only eight years.  Minneapolis has a Muslim member of Congress from Somalia who became a naturalized U.S. citizen at the age of seventeen.  Roughly 4% of Congress are foreign-born naturalized citizens, while 15% of Congress have at least one immigrant parent.  A third of the judges occupying prestigious and powerful positions on the D.C. District Courts were born in foreign nations.  

These numbers are going in one direction — up!

When President Barack Obama spoke enthusiastically about “fundamentally transforming” the United States, this is what he had in mind.  If you invite third-world communists to break into your country, pretty soon your government will be filled with third-world communists, too.  Americans were never consulted about this “fundamental transformation.”  Politicians and bureaucrats steamrolled American citizens with tall tales of foreign immigrants fleeing violence in their home countries and seeking safety in the United States.  Nobody tried to explain why all the foreigners fleeing persecution in their home countries still wave their national flags in American neighborhoods and at American sporting events.  Nobody tried to explain why foreigners from all over the world couldn’t obtain asylum in countries closer to home.  Nobody tried to explain why so many foreigners claiming asylum in the United States continue to visit their friends and families in their native countries. 

No American ever voted for this radical transformation.  No politician or government bureaucrat respected American citizens enough to seek their consent.  Nevertheless, politicians and bureaucrats continue to lie to the American people by pretending that foreign nationals are not taking over their society.  Because they despise American citizens, government officials tell obvious lies without shame.

Where is all this shameless and callous disregard for the will of American citizens headed?  It is headed toward the same dead end already appearing in other Western nations such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, and France: Increasingly, Western peoples are electing political representatives who promise to end divisive and deadly mass immigration policies.  The more that government officials undermine their citizens’ electoral will, the more that citizens are turning to the streets to be heard.  

Peaceful forms of civil disobedience are evolving into violent altercations with police. 

Instead of listening to their citizens, Western governments call them racists and censor their online speech.  At some point, citizens will conclude that their governments have become threats to their security and way of life.  Governments will lose their legitimacy.  Western countries will become battlefields.  Open borders guarantee that Western nations will die.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 22:35

Fast Food Giant Under Investigation Over Explosive Diarrhea Outbreak: Report

Federal and state health officials are reportedly zeroing in on Taco Bell restaurants as a possible culprit in one of the biggest parasite outbreaks to slam the U.S. in years, a nasty bug that turns your guts into a nonstop disaster zone of explosive diarrhea and misery.

More than 4,000 people have already been sickened, the vast majority of them in Michigan, where victims are enduring days of gut-wrenching, bathroom-racing hell that has hospitalized at least 80 people so far.

The Washington Post reports that officials are probing whether contaminated fresh produce at the fast-food chain helped spread the Cyclospora parasite, which hitches a ride in feces-tainted veggies. No smoking gun has nailed Taco Bell or any single supplier yet, but the chain has yanked lettuce, cilantro, onions, pico de gallo, and guacamole from some Detroit-area locations after a nationwide recall notice surfaced last week.

Taco Bell insists it is playing it safe and putting customers first.

"The health and safety of our guests is our top priority," the company said in a statement obtained by the Post. "Public health officials have not confirmed a link to Taco Bell or any specific ingredient, so we have voluntarily pulled some items at select spots as a precaution while authorities continue their review."

Michigan is ground zero for the outbreak and is getting absolutely hammered, with a staggering 3,300-plus cases and hundreds more piling up daily as state health officials repeatedly flag leafy lettuce and salad greens as the leading suspect after interviewing more than 1,000 sick patients.

"Current results point to lettuce or salad greens as a potential source," Michigan's health department warned Monday. Meanwhile, federal officials at the CDC and FDA are being far more cautious, insisting there is no confirmed single multistate outbreak and that the numbers are not yet definitively unusual even as they log 145 cases across 17 states outside Michigan, along with 20 hospitalizations.

As we previously noted, Cyclospora cayetanensis is a microscopic parasite that loves hitching rides on fresh produce. Once it gets inside you it unleashes watery diarrhea, vicious cramps, vomiting, nausea, exhaustion, and fever that can drag on for days or even weeks if left untreated.

One victim, Cristy Cooper, recently spoke from her hospital bed to the New York Post about the nightmare that started June 25.

"This is worse than any flu I have ever gotten. It is just so miserable," she said. "I am worn out from it. I really am."

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 22:10

New Women's Athletics Guidelines Crack Down On 'Sexualizing' Camera Angles

Authored by Calum Patterson via Dexerto,

New broadcasting guidelines have been introduced in Europe to prevent women athletes from being sexualized through camera angles and slow-motion replays.

The European Broadcasting Union partnered with European Athletics to release new guidance for women's athletics coverage, with broadcasters urged to focus on performance and technical ability.

The guidelines warn against lingering shots of athletes' bodies, low camera angles that capture revealing views, and slow-motion replays that offer little technical or storytelling value.

"The sexualization of women athletes through selective camera angles and editing choices continues to be a significant concern across many sports broadcasts," said Glen Killane, Executive Director of EBU Sports.

"Lingering shots on bodies, low-angle cameras that capture revealing views, and excessive slow-motion replays that serve no technical or storytelling purpose are among the issues observed in the media coverage of women's athletics competitions today."

Broadcasters urged to avoid 'compromising' shots

The 23-page Raising the Bar document uses examples from real broadcasts to highlight potentially "compromising" shots across high jump, pole vault, long jump, and running events.

Broadcasters are advised to avoid tight shots from behind athletes, low cameras underneath competitors, and certain slow-motion replays. Instead, wider angles showing run-ups, take-offs, and technique are encouraged.

British Olympic pole vaulter Holly Bradshaw said some athletes have even become distracted by camera positions during competitions.

"Many athletes, myself included have been in competitive scenarios where they are more focused on the cameras instead of their own performance," she said.

Bradshaw also revealed she has received social media abuse and seen "inappropriate videos" of herself and fellow athletes created from slow-motion competition footage.

The guidelines are now available to broadcasters covering women's athletics, with the EBU saying coverage should focus on athletes' "technical ability and compelling storytelling."

Never forget. https://t.co/q5Fzz1gp6G pic.twitter.com/CPthfFWxBx

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) July 14, 2026

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 21:45

Israeli Officials Try To Push US Refueling Tankers Out Of Ben Gurion Airport Amid Disruptions

Immense controversy has remained centered on Ben Gurion International Airport as dozens of giant US Air Force refueling tankers have essentially taken over the main Israeli flight hub for many months, since the start of Trump's Operation Epic Fury. Reports also say it has cost the airport hundreds of millions of dollars at this point.

The Israeli government itself seems to be divided, and there's been outrage among the general public as the presence of the American tankers has blocked and slowed regular commercial flights, leading to the recent cancelations of many passengers' tickets, but with an expected tens of thousands more cancelations to come.

On Tuesday the simmering controversy erupted again, and has even raised the possibility of introducing fresh tensions with Washington, after Israeli Transportation Minister Miri Regev announced that the government will not allow more than 20 US refueling tankers to be parked at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport at any given time.

Regev specifically addressed the domestic public's concerns over air travel. "Hundreds of thousands of plane tickets were bought by Israelis to fly and enjoy their summer vacation," the official said. "We promised that we will enable commercial flights and we will not cancel a single ticket because of American refueling planes."

Haaretz had already by June tallied that "Some 75 U.S. refueling planes occupy more than half of Ben-Gurion Airport's parking spots and fill up takeoff and landing slots" and cites airport officials who warn: "For lack of a solution, 1.5 million passengers may have their flights canceled this summer."

Anadolu Agency

"Therefore I have given instructions that we will not allow any US refueling tankers to land at Ben Gurion Airport beyond the agreed number of 20 planes and the remaining planes will land at Air Force bases," Regev adds.

Israeli media notes that the crisis has been building:

The directive comes after the Israel Airports Authority warned that unless more US aircraft are removed from the country’s main international air gateway, as many as 50,000 flight tickets could be at risk of cancellation in the coming weeks.

The monthslong presence of US military aircraft at Ben Gurion Airport amid the Iran war has been preventing a full return to normal commercial flight operations, while also driving up operational costs for local airlines.

It's a deep irony that Israelis are increasingly complaining the United States military has effectively taken over Israel's international travel hub.

Media reports have been going so far as to call Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport a "US military base" - as the prominent local newspaper Haaretz does:

The US refueling aircraft and other military assets, which have been stationed at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport for months, are causing congestion and may result in flight cancellations, Israeli officials and media reports have said, calling the facility a "US military base."

That prior report complained that "U.S. Air Force refueling aircraft have been stationed at Ben Gurion International Airport for three months, occupying parking spots, taking up takeoff and landing slots and worsening congestion at Israel's main international gateway since the war with Iran erupted in late February, officials say."

Again, a central irony here is that it has largely been US military assets protecting Israel the whole time, going all the way back from last year's June war, from Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks.

The U.S. has reportedly paused the withdrawal of its aerial refueling aircraft from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport as tensions with Iran continue to escalate.

The Times of Israel, citing the Israel Airports Authority, reports that the tankers continue to occupy parking space… pic.twitter.com/ag8FY7ETET

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) July 14, 2026

The Netanyahu government is perceived by many to be a prime reason the US and Iran are at war in the first place, and so the Pentagon might argue that it's only fair that Israel host its large fleet of military planes and refueling aircraft.

Iran's large retaliatory strikes on US airbases in the Gulf region during the opening weeks of the conflict essentially forced the Pentagon to move its expensive, large aerial assets much further back from the front lines of the war. Previously several parked tankers at Gulf facilities were destroyed or damaged.

It still remains unclear whether the Transportation Minister's directive is approved by Netanyahu's office. Likely all it will take is one angry phone call from President Trump and the order could be reversed.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 21:20

The Lockdown Disaster Must Not Be Forgiven

Authored by Ian Miller via The Brownstone Institute,

Six years since “15 Days to Slow the Spread", data shows why our policies didn't work...

That policy has to have been one of the most disastrous in world history, created by “experts” who took all established pre-pandemic planning documents and tossed them out the window at the first opportunity.

It was a policy based on inaccurate reports out of China, which claimed that their lockdowns effectively stamped out transmission of Covid-19 within a matter of days.

It was a policy that ignored solid research – from established epidemiologists like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya – which found that the coronavirus had already spread much more widely than previously realized.

It must be noted forever that lockdowns and the associated mask mandates, vaccine passports, and school closures continued in some places for several years. The ramifications of those wretched policies will be quite literally endless. It’s not an exaggeration to say that lockdowns, our policies, and responses have quite literally changed the course of world history.

One would think that there would definitely be a concerted effort to understand whether such policies were effective or not. Whether approaching respiratory viruses with authoritarian crackdowns on businesses and schools was necessary to save lives.

Yet six years later, there’s unfortunately very little interest in examining those questions. And when you understand the data from Sweden, you will see exactly why.

Study on Swedish Approach to Covid Shows Lockdowns Didn’t Work

A study published in PubMed examined the Swedish approach to Covid policy, relative to its European counterparts, primarily because Sweden did not rely on lockdowns in response to the pandemic, but instead used “voluntary and sustainable mitigation recommendations,” the study says.

Despite a “majority of Swedes” supporting those policies, “this approach faced rapid and continuous criticism.”

That criticism came primarily from public health figures such as, surprise, surprise, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who criticized Sweden repeatedly for going against the herd.

“You’ve compared us to Sweden, and there are a lot of differences,” he said during a Senate Committee hearing in September 2020. “But compare Sweden’s death rate to other comparable Scandinavian countries. It’s worse. So I don’t think it’s appropriate to compare Sweden with us.”

“If you look at Sweden, they are in some trouble,” Fauci claimed on Good Morning America in late 2020. “They are starting to see that their death rate is much higher than the surrounding countries of Norway, Denmark, and Finland…They’re starting to see now that they’re having to rethink some of the things they did.”

This was, of course, not true. They did not “rethink” their strategy of light touch recommendations over lockdowns. And comparing Sweden exclusively to its neighbors is an absurd misdirection that no other country was subjected to. But Fauci, obviously never one for honesty or intellectual integrity, represented many public health figures who were anxious to see Sweden fail.

Yet as this research shows, reality was precisely the opposite.

The study explains that Sweden received criticism for “not legally enforcing mask-wearing in public spaces,” as well as keeping schools open and “being too permissive” with its policies. All the things that we were told were necessary to stop Covid and save lives. The researchers tested these statements using excess mortality data and stringency indices to compare Sweden across the whole of Europe, not just its neighbors.

They chose excess mortality because, unlike Covid specific measurements, it’s less subject to bias, differences in testing, and counting, and individual definitions of Covid-caused outcomes. It also accounts for deaths that “could potentially be indirectly attributed to the negative effects of strict lockdown measures and the overall strain on healthcare systems, leading to reduced access to healthcare for other diseases, among other factors.”

Turns out that what they discovered was that Sweden vastly outperformed the rest of Europe from 2020-2022, with outcomes that were remarkably similar to the other Nordic countries.

“Among 42 European countries, the cumulative excess all-cause mortality from January 2020 to December 2022 ranged from 46 (Luxembourg) to 1,080 (Bulgaria) deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, with a median of 351/100,000,” they write. “In Sweden, the excess mortality rate of 158/100,000 was among the lowest, ranked 37th among 42 countries, and not very different from other Nordic countries: Norway (129), Denmark (97), and Finland (228).”

So why did Sweden underperform in 2020 relative to their neighbors? Likely due, as the study explains, to “mortality displacement due to low all-cause mortality in 2019,” as well as “poorly organized older adult care structures.”

What does this mean? Essentially, there were significantly fewer deaths from all causes in Sweden in 2019, meaning there were more extremely elderly people alive in 2020 that were susceptible to severe outcomes from Covid. This is reflected in the massive age gradient with Covid-associated deaths. In Sweden, “~40% of the COVID-19-associated deaths were among patients in nursing homes,” the study says, “and 67% of all COVID-19 deaths were among individuals above 80 years of age, representing 10% of all deaths in that age group.”

For younger age groups, Covid was mostly a non-issue. “COVID-19 deaths below 50 years of age represented only 1.2% of all COVID deaths, including 21 individuals below 20 years of age, mostly with underlying co-morbidities, representing 1% of all deaths in that age group.”

Effectively, Covid ravaged extremely elderly people, while those under 50, despite the lack of mask mandates and lockdowns, saw very limited impact.

Sweden’s Lack of Lockdowns Led to Better Outcomes

Equally important, they examined the “stringency index” for countries across Europe, then made a data table comparing that stringency to excess mortality from 2020-2022. Effectively, how strict were a country’s policies, and how much did that matter to reducing excess mortality?

Turns out, there’s a definitive, resounding answer which this chart demonstrates perfectly. Countries are plotted based on their stringency index, the x-axis, and excess mortality, the y-axis. The line demonstrates the trend in mortality rates, and there’s virtually no relationship between the severity of policy and preventing excess mortality.

The R-squared, effectively the relationship between stringency index and excess mortality, is just 0.14. The closer to 1, the more related stringency is to outcomes. This is 0.14.

Countries like Italy and Spain were some of the strictest when it came to lockdowns and mandates, yet ranked near the top in excess mortality rates. The UK, Portugal, the Netherlands and others were significantly more stringent and also had demonstrably worse outcomes. Denmark was the second least strict country and had the best outcomes, at least in this examination.

What does this tell us? Well, put simply, Fauci was wrong. Sweden did not underperform relative to its neighbors. It did significantly better than the rest of Europe, and of course, the United States. Lockdowns and stringency were not related, whatsoever, to reducing excess mortality. They never mandated masks, one of his chief policy recommendations, and outperformed other countries like Germany which imposed N95-level mandates for months on end.

This is a clear repudiation of the lockdown model. Which is precisely why Sweden’s example is deliberately being ignored today.

Because learning the actual results of these historically bad policies requires humility, accountability, and honesty, all qualities that many in public health are truly incapable of possessing.

Republished from the author’s Substack

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 20:55

New York's Millionaire Exodus Is Costing Billions In Lost Revenue

Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood outside Ken Griffin's $238 million Manhattan penthouse in April and declared victory. "When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich. Well, today we're taxing the rich," he said in a social media video marking the debut of New York City's first pied-à-terre tax, an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million whose owners do not live in the city full time. He promised the tax would raise "at least $500 million directly for the city," money he said would fund free child care, cleaner streets, and safer neighborhoods. "This is a fundamentally unfair system that hurts working New Yorkers," Mamdani said. "Now it's coming to an end."

BREAKING: Mamdani announces new tax on all property worth over $5 million if the owner doesn’t live in NYC full time pic.twitter.com/qN7pU3xEDg

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) April 15, 2026

Three months later, a new study suggests the mayor picked an odd moment to celebrate.

The Citizen Budget Commission published an analysis Monday, finding that New York's shrinking share of the nation's millionaires cost the state an estimated $10.7 billion in lost personal income tax revenue in 2022 alone. New York's share of the country's millionaires fell from 12.7 percent in 2010 to 8.7 percent in 2022, the steepest decline of any state over that period. Had New York simply held its 2010 share, the Commission concluded, the state would have collected roughly $10.7 billion more in personal income tax that year.

So Mamdani, who took office in January, had inherited a tax base already showing signs of flight. His pied-à-terre push targets exactly the kind of high earners the CBC says have been leaving in growing numbers, and critics view the timing as more provocation than plan. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is running for reelection in November, has stopped short of backing an outright tax increase on wealthy New Yorkers this year, though she supports the pied-à-terre concept for luxury second homes in the city.

"In New York, the top 1% of earners pay about 45% of all state income taxes in any given year, so New York's revenue is very reliant on high earners to stay in New York, and that has been a challenge in recent years," said Jared Walczak, an economist and senior fellow at the Tax Foundation think tank, told the New York Post.

Walczak said city-level measures like Mamdani's cannot fix the underlying problem, since any meaningful tax change requires action in Albany. He also warned that continued hikes combined with more competitive alternatives elsewhere could accelerate departures.

Abir Mandel, senior state policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, said New York currently ranks last in the nation for tax competitiveness. She pointed to Elon Musk relocating his companies from California to Texas as the kind of decision New York risks inviting without reform, cautioning that the state will otherwise struggle to attract both population and business. Of Wall Street's outsized role in propping up state revenue, Mandel offered a blunt assessment. "Wall Street is the golden goose," she said. "But for how long?"

The CBC report traces the stagnation back well before Mamdani ever took office. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo raised income taxes on high earners during the COVID pandemic, and Hochul now oversees Medicaid spending, which is on pace to reach $58 billion by the end of the decade. Ken Girardin, a research fellow at the Manhattan Institute, pointed to the state's 2019 rent-control overhaul and its green-energy mandate as a one-two punch that reduced housing supply and raised energy costs. "Albany is directly responsible for the stagnation," he said.

New York has lost more residents to every other state than it has gained from any of them, with Florida and Texas among the top destinations for departing New Yorkers, and that's a huge problem.

Justin Wilcox, executive director of Upstate United, called the study's findings hard to ignore. "It's difficult to not be alarmed by this data," he said. "With this CBC tool, Upstate New Yorkers can see for themselves the devastating impacts of Albany's policies - businesses failing to grow, population decline, and the loss of revenue. NYS needs to course correct now before it's too late and we become permanently entrenched in a cycle of fewer people."

Asked about the study on Monday during an unrelated event, Mamdani dismissed concerns that higher earners will flee the city, arguing that New York gained millionaires after past tax increases by Albany. He defended his broader philosophy without addressing the CBC's specific findings. "I've been very clear about the fact that we live in the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, and it's unacceptable that one in four New Yorkers are living in poverty, and I believe that the wealthiest can do a little bit more to ensure that everyone can afford to live here," he said.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 18:00

Offload Risks Onto The Bottom 90% And Immiseration Follows

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The underlying story of the past 50 years has been the offloading of risk onto workers and consumers.

On my map of how the world works, we start with structures of control that distribute the good stuff--resources, assets, income and power--and the bad stuff: costs, losses and risks. As I explained in The US Economy In a Nutshell: Privatize the Gains, Socialize the Costs, the current arrangement distributes the gains to the top 10% and the costs and risks to the bottom 90% via privatizing the gains and socializing--i.e. dumping them onto the biosphere and the public--the costs and losses.

This follows a power-law distribution: the few at the top reap most of the gains, and the leftovers, scraps and crumbs are distributed in descending order, with most of what's left going to the top 9.5% and a diminishing dribble is scattered over the lower 90%, so that by the time we get to the bottom half of households, 170 million people own a grand total of 2.5% of the nation's financial assets, while the top 0.1% own 16.6%--6.6X the bottom 50%.

A key mechanism in this wildly asymmetric distribution of gains and costs is the system favors capital over wages. As the charts below illustrate, the financial gains go to the owners of capital, and since ownership of capital is highly concentrated, these few owners siphon up the vast majority of the gains.

One way to understand how the current arrangement favors capital over wages is to reverse the tax liabilities of capital and wages. Employers and employees pay 15.3% of every dollar of wages in Social Security / Medicare taxes, plus income taxes that quickly rise to 22%, for a total tax rate of 37.3% on wages. (Note self-employed people like myself pay the full 15.3% ourselves, as we're both employer and employee.)

Capital gains are taxed at 20%, but only when the asset is sold, so the wealthy borrow against their unrealized gains and live off this borrowed money to avoid selling and having to pay tax on capital gains. And since the system depends on debt to survive, the interest on debt is deductible, giving the wealthy borrowers a tax deduction for avoiding capital gains.

Now imagine all capital gains, realized or unrealized, were taxed at 37% and the first $80,000 of wages were tax-free. The median wage is around $80,000, hence my picking that number. As for the hue and cry about unrealized capital gains being taxed, that's easily addressed: unrealized gains in primary-residence owner-occupied homes and retirement accounts would be exempted. Every other gain made playing in the casino would be taxed.

Reversing the asymmetry of tax liabilities would dramatically alter the distribution of gains and costs. Wages have lost ground for 50+ years, and the favoring of capital is a key driver of this decline in the share of the economy that's distributed to wage earners.

Half the nation's households--170 million people own a grand total of 2.5% of the nation's financial assets:

The winner-take-most arrangement favoring capital:

Another key driver is the offloading of risk from owners to consumers and workers, a perverse process that has been obscured by incremental degradation. Risk is a strange phenomenon that defies easy definition. Risk isn't a direct loss or cost; it's the probability of losses and costs arising in what appears on the surface to be a stable arrangement.

Consider the stunning decline in the quality of durable goods such as appliances, and global industry adopting a laughably valueless one-year warranty across the board. Appliances that routinely lasted 30 years before "Progress" took the reins now routinely fail in 3+ years.

In the good old days before "Progress" took the reins, manufacturers absorbed the risk of premature failure of the goods they produced. Now this risk has been offloaded onto consumers, who are now forced to buy "extended warranties" as the only means of mitigating the risk they now carry of premature failure.

This is in effect a form of extortion: "nice refrigerator you got there, too bad it's at risk of breaking." Well, if current manufacturers had the same standards as previous generations, we wouldn't need "extended warranties." Welcome to the Mafia Economy: low quality goods and services force "upgrades," i.e. extortion.

Consider the offloading of risk onto workers. Employment other than casual labor once included healthcare insurance and other basic benefits. In the "gig economy" of contract employment and gigs, the worker is now responsible for paying their Social Security / Medicare taxes, healthcare insurance and retirement contributions.

The decline of hourly wages is another offloading of risk onto the worker. The percentage of workers paid by the hour has declined in favor of salaried positions with open-ended demands on workers: where hourly workers get paid for hours on the job, salaried workers are now on the hook for work beyond a conventional 8-hour work shift.

Then there's the immense mass of risk and labor that's been offloaded onto consumers and workers as shadow work, often the result of having to fix failures in goods and services that were once the responsibility of the provider or employer and have been dumped on consumers and workers. This is a topic I've often addressed.

This Is Why You're Drowning in Busywork: We have been told that A.I. will take people's jobs. What no one mentions is that many of those jobs are landing on us. The A.I. revolution involves a huge transfer of labor-- not from worker to machine but from worker to consumer. (nytimes.com, paywalled)

Another source of risk is the dependence on debt to fund the lifestyles we deserve: as the purchasing power of wages has declined, the easy "solution" is to fill the gap between what earnings can buy and what we want / need / expect / deserve with borrowed money.

As we all know, debt comes with risk, as falling behind greases the slide to default, bankruptcy and ruin. 27% interest rates on credit cards steepen the slide into a cliff: one missed payment can trigger a cascade of events that cannot be reversed. This is why I often observe that fewer bad things can happen if you have no debt.

Last but far from least, is the current arrangement's dependence on serial credit-asset bubbles as the sole driver of "growth", a dependence that has led to a casino economy in which wage earners lose ground and in desperation turn to gambling as their last-ditch hope of gaining ground.

But despite 24/7 assurances that "this isn't a bubble," all bubbles pop with devastating consequences for those who believed the assurances of those operating the casino.

The underlying story of the past 50 years has been the offloading of risk onto workers and consumers, with the inevitable consequences being higher costs and losses leading to impoverishment and immiseration. We're frogs in water that's getting measurably hotter, and it's getting harder to muster the means to jump out of the simmering pot.

*  *  *

My book Investing In Revolution is available at a 10% discount ($18 for the paperback, $24 for the hardcover and $8.95 for the ebook edition). Introduction (free). Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 16:20

Venezuela's Oil Revival Faces A Critical Services Bottleneck

Authored by Rystad Energy via OilPrice.com,

• Venezuela could increase crude production by about 194,000 bpd by late 2028, with most growth coming from existing producing fields rather than new discoveries.

• International oil companies led by Chevron are expected to deliver nearly two-thirds of the forecast production increase through brownfield investments.

• The biggest obstacles are operational, including drilling rigs, diluent supplies, infrastructure upgrades, and a competitive fiscal regime capable of attracting long-term investment.

Venezuela's upstream industry has entered a new phase. Following sweeping hydrocarbon reforms and broader geopolitical developments in early 2026, the conversation has shifted from whether the country can reopen its oil sector to whether it can successfully execute a meaningful production recovery. The country's resource potential has never been in doubt. The greater challenge now lies in converting policy momentum into sustained operational growth.

Rystad Energy estimates Venezuela's crude production could increase by approximately 17%, or around 194,000 barrels per day (bpd), between the fourth quarter of 2025 and the fourth quarter of 2028. Importantly, this growth is expected to come primarily from existing producing assets rather than large-scale new discoveries, highlighting that operational execution, not resource availability, will determine the pace of recovery.

Near-term production growth will be dominated by heavier crude grades. Around three-quarters of Venezuela's output through 2028 is expected to come from heavy, extra-heavy crude and bitumen, with the Orinoco Oil Belt accounting for roughly 60% of total production. This makes access to diluents, workover activity, infill drilling, and mature field management considerably more important than reserve additions over the next several years.

Venezuela upstream figure 1

International operators are driving the recovery

International oil companies (IOCs) are expected to contribute nearly two-thirds of Venezuela's forecast production increase through 2028. Chevron remains the largest contributor, followed by Repsol, Eni, Maha Energy and Maurel & Prom. Most of this growth is expected to come from expanding production at existing joint ventures, reflecting renewed investment following regulatory changes and sanctions relief rather than greenfield developments.

Chevron continues to occupy a particularly strategic position. Recent portfolio adjustments have strengthened its exposure to the Orinoco Oil Belt, while future production growth is expected to rely on brownfield optimization, infill drilling and the phased development of Ayacucho 8. Beyond Chevron, companies such as Eni and Repsol continue to play a dual role in both Venezuela's crude and natural gas sectors through assets including the Cardón IV block and the giant Perla gas field.

However, international participation remains highly selective. Companies continue to balance the opportunity presented by Venezuela's vast resource base against fiscal uncertainty, operational complexity and long-term investment risk.

Execution, not geology, remains the key constraint

While policy reforms have improved the investment outlook, they do not eliminate the operational bottlenecks that have constrained production for years.

Sustained production growth will require continuous access to diluents, higher drilling activity, extensive workover campaigns, improved infrastructure and significantly greater rig availability. These operational requirements represent the critical link between resource potential and realized production.

Fiscal competitiveness also remains an important consideration. International operators have indicated that future capital commitments will depend on further improvements to Venezuela's fiscal framework, particularly around royalty rates and taxation. Lower project breakeven costs through more competitive fiscal terms could materially improve investment economics and encourage broader participation across the sector.

Oilfield services could become the industry's defining bottleneck

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing Venezuela's recovery lies beyond the upstream operators themselves. The Venezuelan Oil Ministry has identified a requirement for 93 active drilling rigs by 2028, a significant increase from current activity levels. Achieving this target would require a phased expansion involving reactivating domestic rigs, refurbishing idle equipment, and eventually importing additional rigs from international markets.

This creates substantial opportunities for drilling contractors and oilfield service providers but also highlights the scale of the execution challenge. Companies must balance equipment mobilization costs, contract duration requirements, and country risk before committing capital.

Local contractors have begun reactivating existing fleets, while international service providers remain more cautious, waiting for greater evidence that recent policy reforms will translate into a stable, commercially attractive operating environment. As a result, rebuilding operational capacity may ultimately prove just as important as attracting upstream investment.

Venezuela upstream figure 2

The next phase depends on implementation

The 2026 Hydrocarbons Law represents one of the most significant structural reforms to Venezuela's upstream sector in decades. By expanding opportunities for private participation and introducing greater fiscal flexibility, the legislation has created a more attractive framework for future investment.

Yet legislation alone cannot restore production. The speed of implementation, the stability of fiscal policy, continued sanctions relief, and the industry's ability to rebuild operational capacity will ultimately determine whether Venezuela can translate ambition into sustained output growth.

For investors and operators alike, the opportunity is considerable. But the country's upstream revival will depend less on the size of its resource base than on its ability to consistently execute across drilling, infrastructure, services, and investment policy. That execution gap, not geology, is likely to define Venezuela's production trajectory over the remainder of the decade.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 15:45

Lucid Calls Bankruptcy Report "Completely False" As Shares Stage V-Shaped Recovery

Summary: 

• Lucid Exec Calls Bankruptcy Report 'Fake News' 
• Lucid Reponds, Denies AlixPartners Has Recommended Bankruptcy Route  
• Lucid Crashes On Report It's Weighing A Take-Private Or Bankruptcy

Lucid PR Head Calls Report "Completely False" 

Nick Twork, Lucid's chief communications officer, took to X in late-afternoon trading to deny Electric-Vehicles.com's report about a potential bankruptcy, stating that the "company has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year, as recently published in its last quarterly filings, and it has not formed any special board committee to explore the scenarios reported today."

Twork stated:

The rumors are completely false. The company has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year, as recently published in its last quarterly filings, and it has not formed any special Board committee to explore the scenarios reported today.  Our focus is on improving execution, strengthening operations, and positioning Lucid to realize the full potential of its technology, products, and innovation. AlixPartners is assisting us in that and nothing else and has not recommended bankruptcy to management or the Board. We

$LCID The rumors are completely false. The company has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year, as recently published in its last quarterly filings, and it has not formed any special Board committee to explore the scenarios reported today. Our focus is…

— Nick Twork (@ntwork) July 14, 2026

Shares crashed nearly 50% at one point today and, in the final hour of trading, staged a V-shaped recovery. 

Bloomberg data show Lucid is heavily shorted, with 37.22% short, or about 63.6 million shares.

One can only assume that short sellers used the crash to cover some of their bearish positions.

Lucid Denies Report 

Lucid responded to Electric-Vehicles.com's report, stating that restructuring adviser AlixPartners has not recommended bankruptcy.

Bloomberg headline:

• LUCID SAYS ALIXPARTNERS HAS NOT RECOMMENDED BANKRUPTCY

Electric-Vehicles.com's report did mention that another strategic option would be a take-private transaction.

Here are Lucid's top shareholders:

Lucid Crashes On Report It's Weighing A Take-Private Or Bankruptcy

Shares of struggling EV maker Lucid plunged as much as 49% after auto-industry news website Electric-Vehicles.com reported that the company is working with restructuring adviser AlixPartners to evaluate strategic options, including a potential take-private transaction or a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

Lucid (LCID) considering going private or chapter 11, according to https://t.co/lDDwzdDPdL

LUCID DOWN 45%

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 14, 2026

Lucid EV

Here's more from the report:

According to the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the review is strictly confidential, AlixPartners is urging the board to run one more round of restructuring in the United States and Europe, and to narrow the company's focus onto its Gravity SUV.

. . .

One person close to the matter told EV that the two starker questions, whether Lucid should be taken private or seek Chapter 11 protection, are among the scenarios the adviser has been asked to weigh.

Neither, the person stressed, is a decision the board has taken.

Shares were halved in late-afternoon trading in New York... Multiple trading halts were seen. 

How long until Lucid denies the report?

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 15:41

IRGC Vows 'Not A Drop Of Oil & Gas Will Be Exported' From Region Amid Sustained Cross-Gulf Fighting Summary:

• Iran-US fighting is sustained but in tit-for-tat pace, with new reported strikes across the Gulf.
• Trump declares FULL blockade on Iranian ports, while IRGC asserts 'wartime control' of Hormuz.
• Trump drops 20% transit fee plan; oil prices ease.
• Multiple tanker attacks over past day again disrupt shipping & cause casualties.
• Regional conflict expands with reported Houthi missiles on Saudi Arabia.

//--> //--> //--> Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by August 31?
Yes 12% · No 89%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

*  *  *

IRGC: Iran to 'Control Entire Strait in Wartime'

Amid ongoing cross-Gulf attacks today between Iranian and US forces, the IRGC says they targeted enemy weapons and parts storages in Bahrain and Kuwait. This after the US appeared to attack some critical Iranian infrastructure on coastal islands.

The IRGC has issued a fresh statement via state media on Tuesday, saying that "as long as the US evil stays in the region, not a drop of oil and gas will be exported from the region." It said further, per the press release:

• US aggression will have no result other than delaying the opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
• Targeted drone ramp in Kuwait's Ali Al Salem air base; today's attacks in response to US attacks on Iran.

ABC is meanwhile reporting during the mid-afternoon (US time) that American airstrikes on Iran have been underway for the last couple of course. And yet still, Iran's IRIB has said that the Islamic Republic "must control the entire Hormuz Strait in wartime". The region is being plunged back into full-fledged war, also as fighting between the Saudis and Houthis in Yemen appears to be breaking out.

Footage of a coalition Patriot surface-to-air interceptor self-destructing over Bahrain this evening during an Iranian missile attack. pic.twitter.com/Mo7Sx66Rxn

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) July 14, 2026

Morning warnings from Tehran late Tuesday: Iran's deputy foreign minister says if the US thinks its military attacks and blockade will force them to request negotiations, it's making a mistake.

Trump Backs Off 20% Fee Plan For Hormuz, Asserts 'FULL Blockade' 

It's the return of another TACO Tuesday as President Trump in a lengthy Truth Social missive appears to have reversed his plan to collect a 20% of cargo fee for international vessels wishing to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

"Oil is flowing like never before," he began (except it's not...), before writing, "Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States. Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future." He echoed the same in follow-up with reporters at the White House:

Trump on Strait of Hormuz fees:

I was called by different people, different countries — kings, emirs, and all of the people that we all know.

They said we'd love to do it a different way. We'd love to invest in the United States — billions and billions of dollars. And continue… pic.twitter.com/MHFmQfhxVy

— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 14, 2026

So Gulf allies, and likely officials within his own cabinet, have talked Trump out of the 20% collection scheme idea, which would have likely in the end just shifted leverage back over to Iran, given its own much cheaper passage protocol scheme.

US OIL PARES GAINS, WTI TRADES NEAR $78/BBL

Oil prices decline on the stated reversal in plans:

...amid emerging reports of fresh Iranian attacks on Kuwait:

Smoke columns can be seen in Kuwait near the Iraqi border. https://t.co/FyMw2W4qBD pic.twitter.com/hx2lR04kN4

— Tabz (@TabzLIVE) July 14, 2026

The battle for Hormuz has ramped up after the United States has undertaken three consecutive nights of major bombing raids against Iranian targets.

All the while President Trump is said to be "very serious" about his plan to impose a 20% toll on cargo transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, a Semafor report says, citing a White House official who says the president has desired such a plan for months. Both warring sides are insisting that it is their side alone which will be 'guardian' over the strait.

AFP/Getty Images Iran FM Trolls Trump Toll Scheme

Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi took some jabs at the proposed US plan soon after Trump unveiled it on Truth Social.

"POTUS is absolutely right. Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service," Araghchi wrote on X. "20% is of course too much. We will be fair," he added.

Below: ongoing reports that the Houthis are entering the war after Monday missile attacks on the kingdom:

Media: Abha Airport in Saudi Arabia is out of service after being completely destroyed by Houthi shelling. pic.twitter.com/uYp1AsWCx0

— Rojava Network (@RojavaNetwork) July 13, 2026

The same day, a clip of Secretary of State Marco Rubio from late June insisting that "no country" can extract tolls went viral. "That's the law. It's an international waterway. No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway," Rubio said.

"That's existing international law. That's the way it is in international waterways all over the world and that's the way we'll expect it'll be here." He added: "I think all the countries in this region would agree."

Meanwhile Iranian sources continue to warn the West, also with dramatic images of tankers exploding:

This ship was given clearance to pass the strait of Hormuz by The U.S. without even coordinating with the IRGC.

It is now in the bottom of the sea after catching fire.

For a safe passage through the strait, only The IRGC can give you clearance. pic.twitter.com/V4N3Aj5390

— Daily Iran News (@DailyIranNews) July 14, 2026

Gulf Air Defenses Active Night & Morning

German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd says also agrees that charging fees for what is in reality international waters and thus under the control of no single nation "would be fundamentally wrong".

Even amid a relentless bombing campaign, Iranian forces have not shown signs of backing off their enforcement of their navigation protocol.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has on Tuesday newly "targeted and disabled" two supertankers for switching off navigation systems which involved "ignoring warnings and endangering navigation," according to Tasnim.

Al Jazeera reports early Tuesday, "It's been an active night and morning for air defense systems in several countries in this region because of missiles and projectiles fired from Iran."

"This has affected the ship traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Yesterday, we saw the lowest number of ships passing in five weeks," it continues, adding: "There were only six ships. The day before that, there were 14."

Multiple Tankers Attacked Over Past Day, Casualties

At least three tankers have been struck overnight into Tuesday, with among them:

The tanker Stolt Magnesium has caught ⁠fire after the “explosion of an unidentified external device” as it was ⁠sailing in the Arabian Sea off Oman, its ⁠manager, Stolt Tankers, says.

The incident occurred at 12:40am (20:40 GMT on Monday) and caused a fire in the ‌vessel’s engine room, the company said in a statement.

The UAE and Gulf allies have strongly condemned the 'brazen' attacks on international shipping.

Source: CNN

There are growing deaths among seafarers in what's obviously the world's most dangerous and volatile energy transit water way. India has formally summoned Iran's deputy ambassador after an Indian sailor was killed.

According to the UAE defense ministry, the casualty occurred when two Iranian cruise missiles targeted two UAE vessels in the crucial shipping lane, leaving one Indian national dead and eight others wounded.

Chaos erupts in the Strait of Hormuz after Iranian forces struck three commercial vessels overnight, including two tankers hit by cruise missiles, as a U.S. blockade is set to take effect. pic.twitter.com/yJWuzthTLV

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 14, 2026

More latest developments

via Newsquawk...

• US President Trump reiterated that Iran has no air force, no navy and no military, while he said they will hit Iran very hard on Monday night and on Tuesday. Trump said they had a deal yesterday and that Iran breaks deals, as well as commented that the MoU was built to test Iran and that Iran didn't honour it. Trump also stated that they will hit 'Pickaxe Mountain' pretty soon and have their eyes on the site all the time, which is a good potential target
• US Central Command announced that it conducted and completed a third consecutive night of strikes against Iran, with US strikes reported in Bushehr, Bandar Abbas and Bandar Kangan, while explosions were also reported in Iran's Qeshm Island and Kish Island. More recently, there have been reports of explosions have been heard near Bandar Abbas, Bushehr and Choghadak.
• Details of US President Trump’s proposed Strait of Hormuz toll plan are still being finalised, according to Semafor, saying Trump is 'very serious about the tolls.
• Iran's armed forces have begun targeting US naval vessels in the Strait of Hormuz with cruise missiles, Al Mayadeen reported.
• Iranian Army Spokesperson said the Strait of Hormuz will not be open with US aggressions and war, SNN reported.
• IRGC said it targeted weapons warehouses, satellite communications centres, and US forces' housing building at Bahrain's Juffair base. Iran's army also targeted US military facilities and equipment in Kuwait with drones, as well as targeted a 'hostile' US vessel with cruise missiles, while it was separately reported that a US military base in Jordan was hit by a missile attack and that a missile attack hit an Iranian Kurdish opposition group site east of Iraq's Erbil.
• UKMTO received a report that a tanker was hit by an unknown projectile 40NM northeast of Qalhat, Oman. UKMTO reports of an incident 13NM southeast of Lima, Oman, the tanker was reportedly hit by a missile transiting outbound on the southern route
• The UAE Defence Ministry reported that two national tankers were targeted by Iranian cruise missiles in the southern Strait of Hormuz, with the incident occurring in Omani territorial waters, although the fires on both tankers were brought under control, and it reserved the right to respond to the escalation.
• ADNOC confirmed tankers "Al Bahyah" and "Mombasa B" were hit in the Strait of Hormuz.
• Oman’s Foreign Minister said complex talks are under way to make a long-term arrangement to guarantee freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 15:15

De-Banked: It's Only A Matter Of Time Before It Happens To You

Via InternationalMan.com,

"We are writing to inform you that we cannot continue serving you.

As a result of this decision, your account will be closed within 14 days from the date of this letter.

Any remaining account balances will be sent by check to the address we have on file."

Sooner or later, expect your bank to send you a letter like this.

They won't even tell you why they are closing your account, and you will probably have trouble opening accounts at other banks.

De-banking is a disturbing and growing trend.

In short, the ruling elite - parasites, more accurately - have weaponized the banking system to enforce conformity to their preferred narrative.

If you don't lap up their lies about Covid, climate, elections, wars, rising crime, or whatever the media is hyping as the "current thing," expect the financial hammer to come down on you without warning.

You could lose your ability to take payment from your customers and pay your bills at the drop of a hat.

We've seen banks close the accounts of prominent doctors critical of the Covid mass hysteria and politicians opposed to schemes to centralize power on a global level (globalism).

However, for every example of a bank closing a high-profile person's account, hundreds - or thousands - of other ordinary people likely receive the same despicable treatment but are never heard from.

Every day people are losing their ability to interact in the economy because the elite have determined they committed a thought crime.

Interestingly, the banks never canceled the accounts of the warmongers who spread the lies about WMD in Iraq or the liars that led to the toppling of the Ghadafi government in Libya and the liars that fueled the Syrian conflict.

All of their bank accounts are in good standing, even though they contributed to the unnecessary deaths of countless innocents.

Nor did the banks close the accounts of those who, for years, peddled the Russiagate lies that tore the country apart or those who claimed the Hunter Biden laptop story was phony when it was, in fact, real and probably affected the outcome of an election.

All of their bank accounts are in good standing too.

The banks also did not close Jeffrey Epstein's accounts, even though they were likely aware of what he was up to.

These are just a few examples of the blatant double standard.

If you are skeptical about whether men can get pregnant or if cow farts will destroy the planet, you should expect very different treatment than Jeffrey Epstein or people whose lies align with the military-industrial complex.

De-banking is another example of how formerly free societies are rapidly descending into high-tech totalitarianism.

It's only prudent to expect de-banking to worsen as governments fall deeper into bankruptcy and become more desperate to maintain control. Controlling the narrative - partly by de-banking anyone with opposing views - is crucial for them to try to hold on to their power.

Today you can be de-banked for having the wrong opinion. Tomorrow you could be de-banked for even more trivial reasons.

For example, even if you loyally follow whatever the TV tells you to think, the banks may notice you are purchasing "too much" meat or gas and are therefore exceeding your monthly carbon allowance. In the name of saving the planet and maintaining their ESG scores, they'll close your account.

Think that's far-fetched?

Consider that already, today, Bank of America shares all gun purchases from its clients with the FBI. It would be naive to assume they and other banks don't automatically share additional data.

Or that PayPal recently floated the idea of charging people $2,500 for promoting so-called "misinformation" - a vague propaganda term that really means "information the people in charge don't want you to know because they're afraid you will come to a conclusion they don't like."

It's not hard to see where the de-banking train is going.

We're only a few stops away from a full-blown social credit system.

There Is No Free Market in Money and Banking

Money is simply supposed to be something useful for storing and exchanging value.

Banks are simply supposed to be money warehouses.

However, that is not how it works today.

Governments have perverted money and banking into tools to control the population.

An unconvincing argument you may hear is that banks are private companies exercising discretion on their clients. They are within their right to de-bank whoever they want.

They say it is no different from a baker having the right to refuse to bake a cake for someone they don't like.

You could make that argument if only there was a totally free market in money and banking... but there isn't. Not even close.

Here's a more accurate analogy.

Imagine a situation where the only bread available on the market is government bread, and the only way you could obtain such bread is through government-approved bakeries. Independent bakeries would not exist.

The government could then exert overt and subtle pressure on the bakeries to ensure they aligned with their preferred narrative by removing their permission to operate or threatening to. They could also impose fines, start invasive investigations, or add more regulations.

There would be no shortage of ways a bureaucrat could find to make things unpleasant for the bakeries.

The bakeries' owners know such a dynamic exists, so they enthusiastically fall in line with the "current thing" to avoid problems.

Then, suppose it became known to the bakery that one of their customers had committed a thought crime. They wouldn't hesitate to throw him to the curb, even if he had been a loyal customer for many years. It simply wouldn't be worth the potential problems. Word would spread to other bakeries that he was trouble, and they'd avoid his business too.

Since the only bread on the market is government bread, which is only available from government-licensed bakeries, he would be unable to obtain bread.

A similar situation exists today in money and banking.

In Marx's Communist Manifesto, the 5th plank calls for the "centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly."

That perfectly describes fiat currency and the Federal Reserve, which oversees the banking system.

The free market wouldn't choose easy-to-produce government confetti as money without laws forcing their use.

Here's another way to think of it.

Imagine if Tony Soprano forced his neighborhood to use pieces of paper with his signature as money and threatened violence against anyone who disobeyed. That's what governments are doing with their currencies today.

It's a far cry from when people used gold - a politically neutral, hard-to-produce asset voluntarily chosen on the market - as money.

That's why the notion of a free market in money is laughable.

We don't have free market money; we have communist money forced upon us with violence and threats of violence. Further, for most practical purposes, the banking system is needed to use this lousy "money."

Similarly, modern banks are not creatures of the free market like the independent money warehouses of the past. Today banks exist at the pleasure and service of the state - and obtain special privileges as a result.

Perhaps the most obvious observation is that there would be zero government bailouts in a free market and certainly no such thing as "too big to fail" banks. Incidentally, it's no coincidence that the most egregious de-bankers are the "too big to fail" banks.

Further, modern banks resemble government-sanctioned Ponzi Schemes, as they rely on the false belief that depositors' (fake) money is readily available when, in fact, it isn't because of fractional reserve banking. If only a tiny portion of depositors demanded their money back, most banks would be in big trouble.

Governments allow banks to commit this fraud that would be illegal in any other industry.

For example, imagine a fractional reserve car dealership or jewelry store where the car salesman and jewelry store owner could create 10x more claims for cars and pieces of jewelry than what actually exists in their inventories. They would be selling claims for goods that don't exist.

Not only would such a practice be fraudulent, but it would also not be sustainable.

If even a few people who purchased fractional reserve claims on the nonexistent cars and jewelry asked for delivery, it would blow the whole scam up.

The government and the banks understand this dangerous dynamic, which is one reason they created the so-called "lender of last resort," the Federal Reserve. When the banks get in trouble, the Fed can create new currency units out of thin air to bail them out.

Let me translate it into plain English.

A "lender of last resort" means legalized counterfeiting of the currency to backstop a legalized Ponzi Scheme.

Such blatant fraud would have no place in a free market for money and banking. However, because it is institutionalized and has the government's blessing, most people thoughtlessly accept the situation as normal.

In a truly free market for money, people would voluntarily choose whatever was most suitable for storing and exchanging value. Historically, that meant gold because it was the one physical commodity that was hardest to produce and most resistant to debasement. Tomorrow it might be Bitcoin.

In a truly free market, banks would cease to be government-sanctioned Ponzi Schemes and revert to their historical role as independent money warehouses. Further, anyone could enter the banking business in a free market; you wouldn't need the approval of the Federal Reserve cartel, as banks do today.

That's why the argument that de-banking is simply private companies rightfully exercising discretion is disingenuous.

The Solution

The ideal solution is to get the government entirely out of banking and money and have a totally free market. But that's probably not going to happen anytime soon.

So what can you do about de-banking?

First, don't expect to use physical cash as a solution for long.

The elites have long had nefarious plans to eliminate cash. Today they're

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 15:05

Billionaire Ken Griffin Has Spent $40 Million To Keep The Senate Red, But Snubs Trump's Favorite Texan

Ken Griffin has put roughly $40 million into Republican midterm efforts this year and could double that by November, according to the Wall Street Journal. The money runs through nearly every competitive Senate race in the country - except for one... Ken Paxton's run for a seat in Texas, which won't see a dime of it.

According to the report, the Citadel founder has no plans to help the Texas Republican nominee - the candidate President Trump pushed onto the ballot by helping end John Cornyn's Senate career. The Journal notes that donors rarely broadcast who they're refusing to fund. When one does - a day before super PACs file their quarterly reports, and eight days before Senate Majority Leader John Thune headlines a Washington fundraiser for Paxton - it's fair to assume other donors are meant to hear it.

The refusal lands in the middle of an argument Republicans have been having since late May, sometimes privately and increasingly on the record: who pays for the candidates Trump forced on the party? The president's own political action committee, MAGA Inc., was sitting on roughly $382 million as of last month, the Boston Globe reported, and hasn't said what the money is for. Cornyn, asked about funding the man who beat him, told Semafor: "I think he can spend his money."

Where Ken Is Spending

Griffin's biggest check this cycle, $10 million, went to the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Thune, according to the Journal. He gave $2.5 million apiece to groups backing Sen. Dan Sullivan in Alaska and Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, and $1.5 million to one supporting Rep. Ashley Hinson in Iowa's open-seat race. The Cook Political Report rates Alaska and Maine as tossups, while Iowa leans Republican - a state Trump carried by double digits in 2024. On the House side, he gave $5 million in May to the Congressional Leadership Fund and $5.5 million split between two other groups, including one that backs veterans running as Republicans. "I am able to fully fund these races because of his steady investment cycle over cycle," said Chris Winkelman, the Congressional Leadership Fund's president.

The people familiar with his giving told the Journal that Griffin is focused on the Senate because six-year terms give his money the longest reach into the party's future after Trump, whose term ends in January 2029. A senator elected this fall serves until January 2033. Whoever wins the White House in 2028 will be confirmed, funded and investigated by the class Griffin is paying to elect right now.

He has already said which 2028 candidate he'd rather see. At the Allen & Company conference in Sun Valley on July 8, interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Griffin to pick between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance in a hypothetical primary. Griffin said he'd be "predisposed" toward Rubio, whose 2016 campaign he backed with $5 million to a supporting super PAC, Axios reported. (The Journal notes the question offered only those two names.) According to Revenge, Axios reporter Alex Isenstadt's book on the 2024 campaign, Griffin urged Trump not to put Vance on the ticket at all. Vance has said he'll decide on a presidential run after the midterms.

Griffin's distance from Trump goes back years. Worth an estimated $50 billion-plus, he was the country's fifth-biggest political donor in 2024, giving $108 million by OpenSecrets' count - about 37 percent of what top donor Elon Musk spent that cycle - and none of it went to Trump, whose campaigns he has never funded. He spent $5 million that cycle keeping Nikki Haley's primary bid alive. He voted for Trump - "not with a smile on my face," he said afterward - gave $1 million to the inaugural committee, and has since praised the administration's border enforcement while criticizing its tariffs and its pressure on the Federal Reserve. If his giving doubles as projected, Griffin would join the cycle's top tier of donors, which a New York Times analysis this spring put at Andreessen Horowitz ($115.5 million), George Soros ($102.9 million) and Elon Musk ($85 million).

Then There's Texas

Paxton, the state attorney general, launched his challenge in April 2025, and Senate Republican leadership spent heavily to stop him. Cornyn and his allies put more than $90 million into the primary, according to the Texas Tribune, including $11 million from One Nation, the nonprofit arm of Thune's political operation; pro-Cornyn groups outspent Paxton's side by roughly nine to one. Cornyn finished a point ahead in the March 3 first round but short of a majority. A week before the runoff, Trump endorsed Paxton, calling him "a true MAGA warrior." Cornyn became the first Republican senator in Texas history to lose his party's nomination, in a spring when Trump-backed challengers also took out Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana and Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky.

Democratic nominee James Talarico, an Austin state representative, had raised more than $40 million through his primary and took in $600,000 in the two hours after Paxton won, his campaign said. Paxton had raised $7.6 million and had $2.3 million left as of early May, per FEC records cited by NBC News. Republican operatives told the network that holding the state, with its roughly 20 media markets, could cost outside groups $100 million. Meanwhile, anti-Paxton Republicans handed Democrats their script: a 2023 impeachment on corruption charges by the Republican-led Texas House (the state Senate acquitted him) and years of legal and ethics controversies besides.

That history, the people familiar with Griffin's giving told the Journal, is why he's staying out.

The $10 million question

There's a catch to Griffin's ghosting of Paxton - The Senate Leadership Fund hasn't ruled Texas out. If the group goes in this fall, Griffin's $10 million goes in with it; money doesn't stay in labeled jars. So either "no plans to help Paxton" has some give in it, or the leadership PAC's most prominent donor has effectively told it where not to spend. Neither Griffin's office nor Latcham has answered that question on the record.

The backdrop: Republicans hold the Senate 53-47, Democrats need to net four seats, and Griffin's side of the ledger has strengthened without him lifting a finger. In Maine, Democrat Graham Platner - who won the June 9 primary with about 70 percent of the vote - formally quit the race July 10 over a sexual assault allegation he denies, leaving the party to pick a replacement at a 601-delegate convention on July 25, two days ahead of the ballot deadline. Collins, backed by Griffin's $2.5 million and $42 million in SLF reservations, currently has no opponent at all.

The quarterly filings land Wednesday, and the Paxton fundraiser is a week later.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 14:45

Sheriff Says Somali Youth Gangs Are Running Wild In Minneapolis

Authored by Joe Schaeffer via Liberty Nation,

A Minneapolis sheriff has triggered an uncomfortable conversation by saying out loud what you are not supposed to talk about in Minnesota. "Out of control" gangs of Somali youths are terrorizing the city, and the mayhem is poised to get worse.

(Photo by Christopher Mark Juhn/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher released a livestream video on July 6 decrying widespread violence by Somali gang members over the Fourth of July weekend. He also took the opportunity to criticize media outlets in the Twin Cities and the state for refusing to cover the problem.

Fletcher "stated that the Somali gangs are responsible for at least 14 murders in the last two years as well as over 100 shootings - many of them at high-profile events like graduations and the State Fair. Fletcher also said in his promo video that he heard from a Minneapolis police officer who said that 20 percent of their homicides are now Somalis," local news site Alpha News reports.

The situation is blowing up right in front of the public eye.

'It's All About Ego for 99% of It'

"Investigators say Somali gang violence is growing quickly and now spans the metro [area], with 12 Somali gangs tracked from Minneapolis and St. Paul to St. Cloud, Apple Valley and Burnsville. Most of the violence involves guns, according to the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office," Fox-9 TV in Minneapolis reports. "Authorities say the gangs are still young and growing, with about 300 people involved right now."

Ramsey County Deputy Ben Seidel said the Somali youth gangs don't operate like traditional inner-city gangs in the sense of being motivated by money. "From what I've seen... it's all about showboating. It's all about ego for 99% of it. They aren't selling narcotics. It's all about just gloating," Seidel states in the video.

There's a history to Somali gang violence in Minneapolis that explains the seeming novelty of these officers' remarks. In blue-dominated Minnesota, criticizing the Somali community in any way is immediately defined as racist. The "R card" has been so weaponized in the state that health-care fraud was allowed to flourish for years, which may have cost American taxpayers up to $9 billion.

There is nothing new about Somali gangs in Minnesota. They have been identified as a growing problem for 20 years or more. And it has never sounded like child's play. Every few years, the issue is ventilated, only to recede amid de rigueur pressure from "anti-racist" organizations and personalities.

The City of Minneapolis commissioned a study in 2007 after a series of robberies by Somali teens in 2005. As Minnesota Public Radio detailed at the time:

"The report's author, consultant Shukri Adan, presented her findings to members of the city council.

"Adan says at first it was thought the Somali youth were involved in loosely organized groups of 'troublemakers.' However, Adan says as these young people ended up in jail, they met established gang members and learned from them how to organize.

"'They're very sophisticated and they've adapted some of that into the Somali gang structure. But for the Somali gangs that I've identified, they were specifically Somalis and all their membership were Somalis, even though they had associations with other gangs.'"

Yet leftist MPR made sure to point out that "[t]he report says gang activity is relatively small. Statistics from the Minnesota Gang Strike Force identifies 52 Somali gang members - less than one percent of all known gang members in Minnesota."

Three years later, the Somali youth had moved on to serious organized criminal activity.

Somali Gangs Trafficking African American Girls

A "federal indictment unsealed in November [2010] in Tennessee charges 29 people with crimes from sex trafficking to credit card fraud to witness intimidation. It said the accused were members or associates of three Somali gangs - often acting as one larger gang - bent on forcing girls into prostitution for their own profit," the Associated Press reported in 2011. The gangs were trafficking girls from Minneapolis to Nashville and Columbus, Ohio - three cities with significant Somali populations.

The article featured a harrowing account of the brutalization of a 12-year-old girl. And there was a further revelation that the professional "anti-racists" would rather you not hear about.

"The indictment details several instances in which young Somali or African American girls were taken from place to place and forced to engage in sex acts with multiple people. One girl was under 13 when she was first prostituted. Another girl was 18 when she was raped by multiple men in a hotel room," the AP reported in November 2010.

Whereas much of the violence perpetrated by Somali youth gangs is targeted at their fellow East African immigrant communities, underage native-born American black girls were among those being sexually exploited by this ring, as well. Where was the outrage from the Congressional Black Caucus?

Just as with MPR, the AP seemed to downplay the number of Somali gang members in 2011. "There are seven Somali gangs in Minneapolis, and a total of about 200 documented Somali gang members and associates, [Minneapolis police officer and Somali community liaison Jeanine Brudenell] said - about 10 percent of the roughly 2,100 documented active gang members in the Minneapolis Police Department's system. The gang members are a small fraction of the Somali population," the AP stressed.

Fast forward to 2026 and we're up to 300 gang members (and who knows how many more yet to be identified?). Even Sheriff Fletcher, while calling out the problem nobody wants to talk about, treads carefully.

"Fletcher was careful not to castigate the entire Somali community or even all of their youth in his comments," Alpha News noted of the livestream video. "Rather, he said that the violence is stemming from a small number of misguided, mostly male youth, which he later clarified is about 300 young people participating in about 12 gangs across the metro [area] and Minnesota."

There's one final element we should emphasize. As Somalis moved en masse to states like Minnesota, they retained their fiercely held tribal identities.

"[C]lan rivalry is often the most important reason for gang violence" within the Somali community, Viktor Marsai at the Center for Immigration Studies wrote in March. "Clan violence is fueled not only in the offline space. More and more Somali TikTokers and Youtubers are using online platforms to glorify their own clan tradition and savage rival groups. In many cases, tens of thousands of people are following these accounts and add hundreds of comments. The inflammatory effects spill over from the online... these influencers utilize their clout to support violence in their country of residence and in Somalia."

Americans may not be able to comprehend the meaning behind what Deputy Seidel refers to as "showboating" among Somali gang members. How much of this comes from lingering clan identification dating back to the old country? How much is fueled by a foreign culture wholly incompatible with the American way of life?

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 14:25

Watch: Yet Another Shocking Video Of UK's Two-Tier Policing Drops

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Fresh footage from Northern Ireland captures police sprinting past a group of knife- and stick-wielding feral youths to cuff a local man who had grabbed a stick to protect the native women and children in his street.

The scene in Dungannon underscores a now-familiar pattern: authorities appear quicker to restrain locals standing up for their communities than to neutralise imported threats.

The video, shared widely on X, shows a large group of youths described as "foreigners" arriving armed in a Protestant area of the town. One man, who also appears to be of foreign descent, picks up a stick in response. A police officer runs straight past the armed mob and detains the defender instead.

A large group of foreigners armed with knives and sticks show up at the protestant area of Dungannon in Northern Ireland.

A police officer runs past them to arrest a local man who had picked up a stick to defend his community.

Two-tier policing... pic.twitter.com/SXlix63Pkz

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 14, 2026

Official police accounts confirm serious disorder in the area yesterday evening.

District Commander Superintendent Peter Stevenson stated: "At approximately 7.45pm police received a report of altercation involving approximately 10 men armed with knives and bats at a property in the Killyman Road area. The men smashed the windows and caused damage to the front door of a property. Officers attended and a 32-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. Two other men, aged 32 and 35, were arrested on suspicion of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. They remain in police custody at this time."

The Superintendent continued, "At approximately 11pm, officers on patrol came across a large group of males gathered in the Newell Road area. Further reports had also been received of a number of males in the area carrying knives and bats. One man had been assaulted and sustained cuts to his hands and face. He attended hospital for treatment for his injuries. An 18-year old man was arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon with intent to commit an indictable offence. He remains in police custody."

DUP MLA Deborah Erskine voiced growing local frustration: "There is no place for violence, intimidation or criminality on the streets of Dungannon. Criminality is criminality, regardless of who is involved or which section of the community they come from. It must be called out and condemned consistently."

"There can be no selective condemnation when it comes to lawlessness and public disorder," Erskine continued, adding "People have a right to feel safe in their own homes and neighbourhoods, and any allegations of violence or intimidation must be thoroughly investigated. Too often, when residents raise such legitimate concerns, or when I raise those concerns in the Assembly Chamber, elements of the Assembly are quick to dismiss them with accusations of racism or bigotry."

"That approach does nothing to solve problems or build community confidence. It is time for people to listen to genuine concerns, stop applying labels, and start taking meaningful action," Erskine further urged.

Dungannon hosts a substantial migrant population, including a large East Timorese community drawn to local meat-processing plants, making up a significant share of the town's non-national residents.

Social media reports tied to the footage describe the armed group as foreigners, many from East Timor, turning up in a Protestant area, while some official framing casts the clashes as internal community matters.

These foreigners are mostly from East Timor, by the way.

What the fuck are people from East Timor doing in Northern Ireland? They shouldn't even know NI exists let alone be in the country.

— Haribo (@kerrso94) July 14, 2026

Regardless, the video evidence reveals the two-tier reality on the ground: the defender gets the cuffs while the knife-and-stick mob receives the pass.

This latest episode fits a lengthening list of migrant-linked violence and uneven policing responses across Northern Ireland. Last month, north Belfast saw a brutal street attack in which an African migrant repeatedly stabbed and attempted to saw off a victim's head with a Stanley knife-style blade.

Bystanders had to drag the attacker off and beat him back until police arrived. The victim suffered life-altering injuries. Official and media descriptions initially softened the horror to a generic "stabbing incident," sparking fury over downplaying and delayed accountability.

Patterns of sex crimes and grooming scandals in parts of Northern Ireland have also continually triggered nights of anti-immigration unrest, with locals expressing fury at perceived failures to protect communities or deport offenders. The same complaints of selective enforcement keep surfacing.

The Dungannon footage now joins a wider catalogue of two-tier policing examples stretching across the United Kingdom. In one recent case, officers were captured shielding three black aggressors who had assaulted a white British teenager in Birmingham, then manhandling and swearing at the victim while forcing him into a police vehicle the wrong way. Bystanders trying to explain the situation were ignored as more officers piled in.

Other documented incidents include South Yorkshire Police officers using batons, shoves and Tasers on teenage girls during dispersal operations, with the force later admitting the clip looked "nothing short of shocking."

Separate footage showed officers manhandling a five-year-old boy, smashing a man's head into a bollard before dragging him, and slamming an elderly woman, Siobhan Whyte, to the ground during protests linked to the murder of her daughter by an illegal migrant.

A 50-year-old military veteran was struck with riot shields and kicked in the head multiple times while sitting on a wall filming.

The inquest into the death of 18-year-old Henry Nowak continues to examine whether police handcuffing contributed to his fate after he was stabbed five times in Southampton. Reports indicated officers initially focused on restraining the victim rather than immediately addressing his wounds, while the attacker was not promptly secured.

Bodycam and witness accounts have raised questions about training priorities that appear to emphasize ideological considerations over straightforward protection of the vulnerable.

These cases share a common thread: native residents or victims frequently encounter swift, heavy-handed intervention, while threats tied to mass migration and certain imported communities receive softer or delayed responses until public outrage forces attention.

Bodycam footage and civilian videos repeatedly contradict official narratives that downplay risks or deflect criticism by labeling concerns as bigotry. The result is eroding public trust, with communities left feeling that law enforcement operates under different rules depending on who is involved.

Northern Ireland's recent history shows what happens when these pressures build without resolution. Local people have watched graphic attacks, heard excuses, and seen footage of defenders being targeted while armed groups operate with apparent impunity. The same dynamic now plays out in towns like Dungannon, where long-standing Protestant areas face new tensions from rapid demographic change and selective policing.

Britain's experiment with open borders and ideological policing has produced predictable outcomes: rising disorder, native communities on the defensive, and officers caught between political directives and the basic duty to protect everyone equally.

The Dungannon video is not an isolated clip. It is the latest confirmation that two-tier standards are actively undermining safety and consent on the streets.

The solution is straightforward. Policing must return to equal application of the law, without regard to background, migration status, or political fashion. Communities deserve the right to defend themselves when authorities hesitate, and they deserve officers who prioritise stopping armed threats over everyday people trying to defend their families.

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 Tue, 07/14/2026 - 14:05