Former US Intel Officials: Dangerous Talk Of Putin's 'Loss' In Ukraine

Authored by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Dangerous Talk of Putin’s ‘Loss’ in Ukraine

VIPS tells President Trump that once apprised of the reality on the ground (and in the air) by his intelligence advisors, he might choose to do what is in his power to end the disaster in Ukraine.

Dear President Trump:

The New York Times is reporting that the outlook for Russia in Ukraine is “bleak.” C.I.A. Director John Ratcliffe is said to have explained that to the Russians while in Moscow Tuesday. He reportedly urged them “to cut a deal before their military and economic situation gets worse.”

We write you on the chance you may be taken in by this latest song and dance. We believe it is orchestrated by the same kind of geniuses who told President Joe Biden to announce on July 13, 2023, in a major speech in Helsinki, that the Russians had “already lost the war” in Ukraine.

We suggest that you “kick the tires,” if they try to sell you that same car. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your predecessor was ill-served by intelligence. We suspect you are getting the same tendentious treatment from your own advisers. Indeed, many of them seem unconscionably relaxed about risking wider war with Russia over Ukraine.

White House image

We offer you, as we offered Biden, the following jogs to memory:

— December 3, 2022: “Russia is using up ammunition quite quickly. It’s pretty extraordinary. Our sense is that Russia is not capable of indigenously producing what they are expending at this stage.” (National Intelligence Director Avril Haines)

— March 18, 2022: “Russia has lost in Ukraine. The West should recognize this Russian defeat.” (Anatol Lieven, Quincy Institute)

— July 1 & July 7, 2023: “Putin’s war has already been a strategic failure for Russia – its military weaknesses laid bare; its economy badly damaged for years to come.” (C.I.A. Director William Burns)

The Church of Latter-Day Pundits

Two NY Times journalists who specialize in intelligence matters report Thursday that this latest version of the Russia-has-already-lost story is “the current C.I.A. director’s assessment.” They warn somewhat quizzically that, despite this, President Putin might ignore it “and choose to keep fighting.” But why would Putin do that?

Indeed, the Gray Lady and her intelligence sources seem quite baffled by why Putin would keep trying when, according to U.S. officials and pundits, he started losing three and a half years ago and continues to lose. Could it possibly be that it was they that were wrong – terribly wrong?

Dismissing that as a possibility, they perform a somersault, straighten up, and chose to blame Putin’s advisers who, the Times says, have not “given Putin honest assessments of the war’s trajectory and toll.”

If Black Humor is at work here, we do not find it funny. The slaughter in Ukraine brings hundreds of victims daily.

Russia is methodically advancing in Donbass along a thousand-mile front, it is weathering drone attacks on its oil and civilian infrastructure with enhanced interception and has enforced a virtual blockade on Ukraine’s largest port, Odessa, with withering aerial attacks. Ukraine’s manpower and interceptor shortages make it impossible for it to ever recover its lost territory, as you acknowledged after your meeting with President Putin in Alaska.

Mr. President, if you were given access to reality-based, honest intelligence, you would be able to decide for yourself whose advisers have gotten it right over these past five years. And, once apprised of the reality on ground (and in the air), you might choose to do what is in your power to end the disaster in Ukraine.

Déjà Vu

This is not the first time we advised a president to seek unbiased advice with a view toward avoiding unnecessary, catastrophic war. We did that just a few hours after Colin Powell’s deceptive presentation to the U.N. Security Council on February 5, 2003.

Today, we strongly suggest that you broaden your circle of advisers, as we urged President George W. Bush to do then, in our first VIPS Memorandum, which ended with this recommendation:

“After watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”

FOR THE STEERING GROUP, VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY (VIPS)

• Fulton Armstrong, former National Intelligence Officer (ret.)

• Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret.); Division Director, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research

• Philip Giraldi, C.I.A., Operations Officer (ret.)

• Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq and Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)

• Larry C. Johnson, former C.I.A. and State Department Counter Terrorism officer

• John Kiriakou, former C.I.A. Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

• Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., U.S. Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003

• Douglas MacGregor, Colonel, USA (ret.) (associate VIPS)

• Ray McGovern, former U.S. Army infantry/intelligence officer & C.I.A. analyst; C.I.A. Presidential briefer (ret.)

• Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer/NE, National Intelligence Council & C.I.A. political analyst (ret.)

• Scott Ritter, former MAJ, USMC; former U.N. Weapons Inspector, Iraq

• Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)

• Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)

• Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army reserve colonel and former U.S. diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 03:30

Le Pen Would Beat Every Rival In 2027, Major French Poll Finds

Marine Le Pen would win France's 2027 presidential election against every major rival now being measured, according to a major survey by Elabe published on August 29 for BFMTV and La Tribune Dimanche.

Marine Le Pen, 2022. Albert Gea / Reuters

France elects its president in two rounds: a crowded first round on April 18 cuts the field to the top two - no one will win outright - and the survivors meet again on May 2. Elabe has Le Pen at 34% to 35.5% in round one depending on who else runs, far clear of the pack, then beating every potential runoff opponent it tested. The new poll comes on the heels of a Nomura report which showed Le Pen with a commanding first-round lead. 

The rest of the field is fighting over second place. Édouard Philippe, the former prime minister and the most plausible face of the post-Macron center, leads that pack at about 17% when he stands alone. Jean-Luc Mélenchon is on 14% to 14.5%, having lost his summer lift. Raphaël Glucksmann, now in the race, is between 11.5% and 14%. Gabriel Attal's presence mainly splits the moderate vote.

According to the poll, here's Le Pen:

• versus Philippe: 52.5% to 47.5%
• versus Attal or Glucksmann: 57% to 43%
• versus Mélenchon: 69.5% to 30.5%

For a generation, French presidential politics assumed a front républicain: a cross-party second-round squeeze that would keep the National Rally out of the Élysée. It elected Chirac 82-18 over her father in 2002 and Macron twice over her; yet the margin has narrowed every time. According to the Elabe poll, that squeeze is no longer automatic. Le Pen is not only first in April. She is ahead in May against every opponent Elabe put up. Even against Philippe, the closest of them, she leads by five points.

Le Pen's popularity has perhaps been boosted by her status as a martyr - created by what some might consider establishment efforts to throw her off track. On July 7 the Paris court of appeal upheld her embezzlement conviction in the European Parliament assistants case. It shortened the ban on holding office enough for her to stand and imposed a year of house arrest with an electronic tag. Her appeal to the Cour de Cassation freezes that sentence while she campaigns. The court has said it aims to rule before the first round. A confirmed tag would not take her off the April ballot. It would frame the May runoff. Le Pen herself has said she could not campaign tagged - though sentence remission could free her by early 2027 either way. Jordan Bardella remains the party's designated stand-in.

At the summer gathering of MEDEF (France's main employers' federation) at Roland-Garros on August 27 she set out a €125 billion savings path and a plan to let long-tenure workers retire at 60 to 62, costed at about €9 billion and described as a "societal choice." French banks are still wary of financing National Rally campaigns. On these numbers, voters are less so.

Bond markets are pricing the wider strain - as French 10-year yields have been near 4.1%, their highest since late 2008. The extra yield over German Bunds is about 80 basis points, the wide end of a 59-to-85 range over the past year. That premium reflects a hung Assembly, a government that has already stumbled on the budget, a 2027 finance bill due in October that may not pass in ordinary form, a deficit still near 5% of GDP, and IMF debt figures already around 118.5% this year and through 120% in 2027. 

The working rule of French politics was that Le Pen could reach the steps of the Élysée and not the door - but rules were made to be broken. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 02:45

Is Germany Preparing To Unveil A Wealth Tax?

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Will 2027 be the year the wealth register is introduced? Labor Minister Bärbel Bas confirmed this week on Bild that her ministry plans a representative survey of citizens next year on their assets and their views on distributive justice. A classic about-face by this government: just three weeks earlier, Bas had categorically ruled out any such plans.

Concretely, a tax-funded data collection effort involving roughly 5,000 citizens is planned. The rollout will run through an external research institute as part of an EU-wide tender, whose bidding deadline closes September 1.

"Survey experiment on wealth inequality in the population" is the innocuous-sounding name for this study — likely nothing more than a first step toward a comprehensive wealth register.

Cloaked in the mantle of scientific inquiry, politics is edging, step by step, toward the sensitive issue that has hung over the political debate for years like a sword of Damocles: the wealth register. This register — one of numerous European Union projects — is ultimately meant to enable seamless, individualized wealth assessments: the perfect tax base for the perfectly transparent citizen.

What's new here isn't really the format: similar wealth surveys have already been conducted every four years by institutes like Berlin's DIW. What's truly new is the explicit political framing and normative interpretation of the results.

Of course wealth distribution in Germany is unequal — a natural outcome of a free-market order, and an integral part of a system rooted in the principle that reward should follow performance.

The survey design and the interpretation of its results dock directly onto this inequality, and are meant to legitimize policy options such as introducing a wealth tax, raising inheritance taxes, or other redistributive measures. At least Berlin still bothers to maintain a veneer of scientific reasoning before executing its brazen raid on the middle class's savings.

That the German government has done more than merely glance at citizens' wealth became apparent, at the latest, this past Monday. The Federal Statistical Office reported a nationwide deficit of €71.3 billion for the first half of the year — an increase of €36.6 billion over the same period last year. The need is dire. The damage that Berlin's and Brussels' ideological policies have inflicted on the economy in recent years threatens to melt down the tax coffers.

Just a week earlier, the ifo Institute had warned of a fiscal tipping point. Economists concluded that tax revenue could actually shrink going forward, putting an end to Berlin's cornucopia politics. As possible countermeasures, Berlin is now clearly planning tax hikes as well as an expansion of the tax base to include citizens' wealth.

The situation is dire: cyclically sensitive taxes such as corporate and trade tax have shown a negative trend for several quarters now, and the wave of insolvencies sweeping the country, the growing number of business closures, and rising unemployment give no indication that this trend will reverse anytime soon.

From the citizen's perspective, the situation looks like this: given the towering fiscal burdens an ever-expanding state apparatus imposes on him, a sovereign risks becoming a tax vassal — if he hasn't already become one.

A state that cannot get its own budget under control tends toward fiscal highway robbery — and will not hesitate to slap heavy levies on the already multiply-taxed wealth of families and businesses.

You know the drill: it's all done in the name of social justice. Reasons can always be found — but under this kind of policy, what erodes is the remaining sovereignty of civil society itself, the very engine of prosperity, social stability, and republicanism.

Friedrich August von Hayek would likely have judged: Germany is on the road to serfdom — and has already traveled a good stretch of it.

And anyone who still believes the reach for wealth, inheritances, and land will stop at the supposedly rich is in for a rude awakening: the truly wealthy escape the fiscal raid precisely because of their high geographic mobility.

No - the state has its sights set on those who cannot get out of its way: the classic middle class, the Mittelstand, those bound to the land, so to speak - to put it in neo-feudal terms.

The opposite of feudal would be an unrestricted right to private property — one that, naturally, also includes wealth accumulation, entirely without political debate. People are not sovereign when the sword of Damocles of arbitrary taxation hangs over them: once the state can seize assets at will, private property becomes borrowed possession — and the citizen becomes a tax serf. This is precisely why envy-fueled debates over wealth taxes and distributive justice are so dangerous: they shift power from the citizen to the state apparatus, which by its very nature knows no limits — and by now no longer even bothers to hide it.

In the end, only one bitter realization remains: a state that shamelessly lays its citizens bare, and strips away the sanctity of private property along with the last refuges of the once-sovereign citizen using a cheap, resentment-laden argument, has already broken the bond of trust between state and citizen. Wealth as the citizen's last line of defense simply evaporates.

* * * 
About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 02:00

Chinese Scientists Flagged Glacial Flood Danger One Year Before Nepal Catastrophe

Authored by Sophia Lam via The Epoch Times,

More than a year before the catastrophic flash flood devastated the China-Nepal border crossing at Gyirong last week, Chinese geologists had raised concerns about the impending danger.

CCTV footage shows people running away as wall of mud and water destroys buildings in a valley at the Nepal-China border, in Gyirong, Tibet region, China, on Aug. 26, 2026. Social Media/via Reuters

On August 26, a glacial-related collapse tore through Gyirong Port, one of the principal land crossings between Tibet and Nepal, destroying roads and bridges and leaving entire communities isolated and struggling to reach survivors. Villages and communities along the border have been left in ruins, with homes, roads, and infrastructure swept away.

At least 789 people have died, and more than 3,000 people are still missing.

More than a year ago, on July 8, 2025, a glacial lake outburst flood struck Gyirong County, in Shigatse, Tibet - the same area hit by the recent flash flood - destroying the Friendship Bridge on the China-Nepal border and leaving 17 people missing, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

Chinese scientists at the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection at Chengdu University of Technology published a study three days after the 2025 flood, warning that the area could experience another glacial lake outburst flood in the wake of the July 8 disaster.

They called for stronger upstream flood warnings and recommended conducting detailed assessments of the susceptibility and risks of all glacial lakes in the basin "as soon as possible" to support "post-disaster reconstruction and long-term stability."

A Warning Ignored

Drawing on their Qinghai-Tibet Plateau glacial lake database and risk assessments, these scientists identified 55 glacial lakes covering about 3.39 square kilometers [36 million square feet] in the watershed upstream basin of the Friendship Bridge.

Based on satellite imagery from July 8, the researchers determined that the flood was triggered by the outburst of a supraglacial lake upstream of the Purepu Zangbu River. The report found that the lake had also experienced an outburst in mid-July 2023.

According to the study, the lake began forming in 2018 and is a typical seasonal supraglacial lake rather than a permanent one.

Researchers said rising temperatures across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have intensified meltwater runoff and accelerated glacier melt, causing the lake to reach its largest recorded area.

Meltwater carrying large amounts of glacial debris may also have blocked subglacial drainage channels, preventing the lake from draining effectively. The water level eventually rose beyond historical extremes, triggering the July 8, 2025, outburst.

Chinese land on the left and Nepalese land on right after Friendship bridge, a key bridge over the Bhotekoshi River connecting Nepal with China, was swept away in monsoon rain at Rasuwagadi, 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the capital, Kathmandu, Nepal, on July, 9, 2025. AP Photo/Sujan Gurung

The researchers warned of "the possibility of another glacial lake outburst flood" due to the "many glacial lakes in this river basin."

They also called for "strengthened" upstream early flood warning systems and more detailed hazard and "susceptibility and risk" assessments for all 55 lakes "as soon as possible."

Xu Qiang, president of Chengdu University of Technology, repeated the findings from the 2025 report to explain the recent flood in an interview with the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) propaganda outlet People's Daily.

"Against the backdrop of climate warming, the risk of glacial lake outburst floods and debris flows triggered by ice and rock collapses along the Himalayas is continuing to rise. Glaciers across the region are retreating, and glacial lakes are expanding, increasing the likelihood of disasters such as glacial lake outbursts and ice avalanches," Xu said in the interview on Aug. 28.

Xu didn't mention the cross-border early warning system, and he didn't say explicitly whether China had taken any preventive measures or issued any warning before the flood.

China expert Li Linyi noted that Xu's remarks echoed recommendations the Chengdu research team had already laid out a year earlier, effectively amounting to an implicit admission that the preventive measures previously proposed to authorities were never implemented.

"This is not simply an unforeseeable natural disaster," he said in a recent interview with The Epoch Times, "but the inevitable result of absent early warning, delayed decision-making, and systematically underestimated risk."

On Aug. 27, the South China Morning Post reported that Chinese scientists have had a cross-border early warning system with counterparts in Nepal since 2017 to monitor Himalayan glacial lake outburst floods, and that the system had reportedly issued timely alerts in past years that helped prevent casualties.

Yet despite this track record, the report did not clarify whether the system detected any anomalies or issued any alerts ahead of the Aug. 26 disaster this year.

Independent verification of such claims is difficult because under CCP rule, Tibet remains largely closed to foreign journalists, researchers, and diplomats.

Natural Disaster, or Man-Made?

The Gyirong Port is built in unstable geological terrain, according to Chinese state-run media platform Sohu. The Chengdu research report lays out in more detail the risks and hazards in the upstream regions.

By 2024, trade through Gyirong Port had already hit 4.25 billion yuan (roughly $590 million) - nearly 30 percent of all China-Nepal trade.

The disaster has drawn accusations that the CCP's focus on the economy and disregard for known risks turned a natural hazard into a man-made tragedy.

Ethan Tu, founder of Taiwan AI Labs, wrote on Facebook on Aug. 28, "The greatest crime any of us can make is to call a man-made disaster a natural one."

He referred to the CCP's building of the port complex right in the middle of the river, blocking water flow and causing the disaster.

Lin Ting-hui, former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Society of International Law, criticized the CCP for building dams, roads, and tunnels that have destroyed local ecological conditions and geological stability in Tibet and neighboring areas.

"On top of that, accelerating glacial melt means meltwater keeps seeping into loosened mountainsides - so when heavy rain hits, the resulting mudslides can end up far bigger and more destructive than they'd otherwise be," Lin said in a recent interview with The Epoch Times.

He blamed the CCP for building the entire port complex right on top of a riverbed, calling it a move that "defies nature."

Lin said that Gyirong has served as a vital route since the seventh and eighth centuries, once used by Tang dynasty envoys and Buddhist monks, and holds deep significance in Tibetan Buddhist history.

"In all those centuries, the area had never suffered a disaster on this scale. However, in recent years, flooding began recurring," Lin said in a recent interview with The Epoch Times.

"The CCP's atheism has led it to believe man can conquer nature. But people must instead respect nature, or nature will strike back."

Tang Bing, Chang Chun, and Rex Widerstrom contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 23:25

Politician Busted After FBI Finds $62,900 Buried In His Backyard

A Southern California corruption case unraveled in dramatic fashion after federal agents discovered tens of thousands of dollars hidden underground at the home of a longtime local politician, according to the NY Post.

Ricardo Pacheco, a former Baldwin Park councilman, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for taking bribes while in office. Investigators recovered $62,900 buried in his backyard, part of more than $83,000 ultimately seized from him.

Federal prosecutors said Pacheco used his position to help private interests win favorable treatment from the city. Much of the misconduct involved companies seeking approval to operate marijuana businesses in Baldwin Park.

Galvan

Pacheco also took money from a police officer who was secretly cooperating with the FBI. Authorities said he received $37,900 from the officer and later backed a police association agreement valued at more than $4 million over three years.

The Post writes that another former elected official, ex-Compton Councilman Isaac Galvan, was caught up in the same investigation. Galvan admitted giving Pacheco $70,000 in exchange for assistance with marijuana permits and separately acknowledged failing to report more than $500,000 in income.

Both men received 18-month federal prison sentences. Pacheco was fined $10,000 and ordered to surrender nearly $220,000, while Galvan was ordered to pay more than $323,000 in restitution.

After pleading guilty and leaving office, Pacheco began cooperating with federal investigators and helped build cases against several other people tied to local government and the marijuana business.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 23:00

The Long Shadow Of Judge Indira Talwani

Authored by Jonathan Turley via Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column in The Hill on the latest controversy from the chambers of Judge Indira Talwani. While the court could be upheld in halting the executive order on mail-in balloting in this case, Talwani is one of a number of jurists who have been habitual blockers of executive reforms and policies. Talwani has been criticized in the past as something of a one-stop option for forum-shoppers. Her record reaffirms the rationale for justices in using the emergency docket, or so-called "shadow docket," to deter gaming the system.

Here is the column:

This week, the Trump administration found itself in a familiar position: facing an injunction from Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Indeed, it had just secured an order from the Supreme Court on its emergency docket lifting her earlier injunction on the U.S. Postal Service requiring voting lists to confirm U.S. citizenship.

The case against the executive order on mail-in ballots has reasonable arguments on both sides, although (as I have said previously) the challengers are likely to prevail in defeating the rule or at least delaying the policy until after the midterm elections. The Constitution gives states the primary responsibility over "the times, places, and manner of holding elections."

However, the U.S. Postal Service is a federal agency, and the federal government does have a role in the funding and regulation of federal elections. More importantly, the Trump administration is arguing that it is not barring mail-in voting but merely imposing "modest informational requirements." Non-citizens cannot vote in federal elections, and the new rule "does not displace a single state election law. And it need not and should not prevent a single voter from voting by mail."

The controversy over Talwani is not necessarily the merits of her decision that the rule convenes the constitutional framework. Indeed, the Supreme Court did not rule on the merits and could well rule in favor of her interpretation.

The controversy is the pattern of sweeping injunctions by Talwani and a few other judges.

Litigants have been accused of forum-shopping by going to liberal, Democratically appointed judges to prevent Trump policies from being implemented in a wide array of areas, including immigration, elections, reduction in government bureaucracies, and foreign aid.

Like her colleague in Boston, U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy, Talwani is viewed by many as a one-stop-shop judge for forum-shopping. Both have issued hair-trigger injunctions, and both have been repeatedly reversed.

Talwani was reversed on Aug. 24 for imposing an injunction against the mail-in balloting policy. Her injunction was taken to be premature and without a legal injury, since the administration had not issued a formal rule. The truth is, the challengers had her at hello. She did not wait for a showing of a cognizable injury before issuing another injunction, because the decision appeared made before the case hit her own docket.

Previously, Talwani showed the same inclination in other cases.

For example, she issued an injunction against revoking the humanitarian parole program for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Her order was lifted on appeal.

She also issued an injunction to stop the Trump Administration from defunding Planned Parenthood. That order was also set aside on appeal.

Regardless of the outcome of this latest injunction, Talwani has offered the strongest case in favor of the expanded use of the emergency docket, also known as the "shadow docket." Liberal law professors and litigants have bewailed the expanded use of this docket at the Supreme Court to resolve cases without the need for a long briefing and oral argument. However, judges like Talwani have created legitimate concerns over the use of the appellate system to slow or freeze new policies. This is why the "shadow docket" has become more prominent.

This year, confidential memoranda were leaked from the court on the use of the emergency docket and published by the New York Times. It was only the latest such strategic leak from a court that was once the paragon of confidentiality and civility.

The internal exchanges of the justices were illuminating as to the majority's underlying reason for allowing this fast-track review. The immediate issue was a move by the Environmental Protection Agency to impose unlawful regulatory burdens on electric utilities despite a countervailing earlier ruling in Michigan v. EPA. Chief Justice Roberts believed (as did many) that the EPA was using the ongoing litigation to force utilities to spend billions of dollars to comply with new regulations that the Supreme Court had already rejected.

"In other words," Roberts wrote, "the absence of stay allowed the agency to effectively implement an important program we held to be contrary to law."

As with the national injunctions that plagued the Trump administration in its first year, this tactic was all too familiar. Litigants would go to liberal judges in Washington, Boston, and other blue cities to secure injunctions that would take years to fully litigate. That approach effectively allowed individual judges to pursue their own preferred policies or to prevent a president from carrying out promises made during an election. At most, the president might have a year left after these cases slogged through the conventional appellate process. It is an administrative version of the old adage that "justice delayed is justice denied."

What concerned the justices was that many of these injunctions directly contravened earlier precedent, exposing the cynical purpose of these orders. For a president to be able to carry out major changes, he had to run a gauntlet of hundreds of judges, any one of whom could effectively negate reforms. In response, the Supreme Court ramped up the use of the emergency docket and cracked down on national injunctions, quickly reversing the rapidly increasing number of injunctions against the Trump administration.

With the midterm elections rapidly approaching, the odds favor challengers in either running out the clock or prevailing on the merits on the mail-in ballots. But Talwani and some other judges have reinforced suspicions of the Roberts court that some courts are willing allies of partisan groups in seeking to gum up the system.

Ironically, Roberts is one of the most likely conservative justices to be concerned with the Trump administration's effort to force election integrity reforms on the states. Either way, it is the shadow of these judges, not the docket, that is casting the most ominous concern for many of the Supreme Court justices.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of "Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution."

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 20:55

'Betrayal': Internal Pentagon Spat Emerges Over Leaked Middle East Deployment Plans

A number of US military top generals have taken the rare step of formally registering warnings to Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth over potential plans for a new phase of strikes against a non-compliant Iran. 

The warnings reportedly emerged through the Secretary of Defense Orders Book, which enumerates the availability of US military resources and force posture around the world - with direct input from American regional commanders.

via Reuters

The book is typically published twice a month, but this time it was reportedly filled with pushback by those overseeing operations in Latin America, Europe and Asia - who have seen training missions canceled, and ships and aircraft diverted to the Middle East for counter-Iran operations.

The Washington Post reported over the weekend that a chief complaint by the top officers was that the Iran conflict "has degraded their ability to fulfill homeland-defense obligations."

Amid fresh troop movements based on new orders reportedly issued in mid-August, commanders made clear they do not agree with the new force trajectory, but are ready to carry out the Commander-in-Chief's orders regardless.

Still, the leaking of this information, and such a rare public airing of grievances, has Hegseth and the Trump administration furious. The Washington Post reports:

The Aug. 14 orders book directs some troops deployed in the Middle East to remain there through September and some others into 2027, said those familiar with the document. The prospect of extending those forces further compelled military leaders to voice their concern, these people said.

Leaders of the U.S. European Command, the U.S. Pacific Command and the U.S. Southern Command, along with the Navy’s top admiral, responded with what is characterized in the SDOB as a “non-concur,” those familiar with the assessment said — meaning they disagree with the secretary’s order to extend their forces but will execute it nevertheless.

Another key line from generals cited in the WaPo reporting is that the Iran war - which the Trump White House early on had promised would be 'swift' - has been "too much for too long".

Some pundits are warning that this alleged rare leak is an alarming sign Trump could be preparing to do something 'big'...

I'm telling you guys and gals here: Trump is getting ready to something batshit crazy--which is why the generals and admirals are leaking SDOB to the WaPo. They're FREAKING OUT because it's obvious that Trump and his team are going to make them do something nutty. https://t.co/nc0tLcj0b6

— Brandon Weichert (@WeTheBrandon) August 31, 2026

That section from the WaPo report reads as follows:

Army and Air Force leadership concurred with Hegseth’s desire to extend their deployed forces, but each emphasized that doing so would come with significant risk, these people said.

Overall, the tenor from the military leadership is that the ongoing Iran operation, having reached the six-month mark, has been “too much for too long,” said one person familiar with the assessment.

The military’s warning to Hegseth, which has not been previously reported, offers new insight into the administration’s dilemma as Trump seeks to end the conflict on terms favorable to the United States while Iran, cognizant of the war’s unpopularity with most Americans and its mounting toll on the U.S. arsenal, refuses to capitulate.

As expected, the Pentagon has responded by calling it fake news and saying that leakers of classified information will be sought and dealt with.

"This fake news, poorly sourced reporting is full of inaccuracies," Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement. More from Parnell on X:

Publishing highly classified assessments from the Secretary’s orders book is a crime.
It’s a betrayal of the force.
And much of what they’re publishing is inaccurate.
Of course, we demand candid military advice. Non-concurs are standard. The Secretary sees them constantly. That’s… https://t.co/Jgc4GzdXcU

— Sean Parnell (@SeanParnellASW) August 30, 2026

He added: "Decisions regarding the scope and duration of specific force commitments to any Combatant Command are made based on the current threat assessment, strategic priorities established by the President, and the advice of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Combatant Commanders. However, the Department of War does not discuss internal operational processes, including the Secretary of War Orders Book (SWOB), or specific concurrences, non-concurrences, or risk assessments provided by the Services or Combatant Commands during force allocation deliberations."

But the reality is that this conflict is a full six months in, and the generals are perhaps keenly aware it is now in quagmire stage, with no plans for an exit or final strategic 'mission accomplished' vision in sight. Meanwhile, every escalation in the Persian Gulf tends to beget more escalation. What's the endgame here? 

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 20:30

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll Submits Resignation Amid Tensions With Hegseth

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is out. Early Monday evening The Wall Street Journal is the first to break the news, describing that he submitted his resignation to President Trump, following months of tensions with Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth.

Some national security sources have already been quoted as saying the development is "unsurprising" - with the WSJ writing that "Driscoll had been expected to step down this year from his role as the civilian leader of the Army after clashing with Hegseth."

via Associated Press

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly has confirmed that Driscoll resigned. It comes just days after the Iran war hit the six month mark, with no apparent exit strategy articulated by the White House or military leadership.

"Secretary Driscoll has been highly effective in advancing President Trump’s agenda to Make America Strong Again at the Department of the Army by providing outstanding leadership during historic military operations, restoring an emphasis on readiness and lethality, assisting with negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and more," Kelly said in a statement.

There could be more high-level resignations at the Pentagon to come, amid several simultaneous controversies gripping internal Department of War ranks over several months. To review:

• First and foremost, there's the Iran war and its strategy and direction, and overextension of forces.
• Next, there's the still raging controversy over dwindling missile and interceptor supplies.
• Also important is that Hegseth has been doing some house-cleaning at the Pentagon - since the start of the administration's term sacking a series top generals and commanders, also amid questions of loyalty.

On this latter front, the Journal presents some of the latest developments as follows:

Last week, Driscoll attended the retirement ceremony at Fort Bragg for Gen. Chris Donahue, who served as the top Army officer in Europe until Hegseth downgraded his position, effectively bringing an end to his military career. 

Donahue’s abrupt departure was presented as part of Hegseth’s broader push to shrink the number of generals and admirals by 10% overall, plus a 20% cut to the number of four-star positions, the Journal reported. 

Hegseth's efforts at bringing radical change to the Pentagon has resulted in huge, rare frictions between his office and top generals and admirals across the globe, particularly centered on questions of force readiness and future vision and doctrine.

"Driscoll brought up concerns with the administration surrounding Army transformation and readiness and Hegseth's blocking those efforts specifically by firing the Generals who were responsible," the source said. https://t.co/sO1r6dYkZ7

— Idrees Ali (@idreesali114) August 31, 2026

There are some political dynamics as well, with WSJ also noting that "Driscoll is a former law school classmate of Vice President JD Vance. A former Army officer, he forged a close relationship with George, the former Army chief of staff who was fired by Hegseth in April. The two pushed soldiers to adopt new technology and become more adaptable battlefield threats."

So all this further seems bound up with personalities, loyalties, as well as contrasting visions for the future of America's armed forces. It should be noted that Driscoll as a Vance-ally was probably - just like the Vice President - deeply skeptical of many of the Trump's administration's Iran-related decisions.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 20:05

Universities Could Lose Foreign-Student Certification Over Internship Rule Violations, Trump Admin Says

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump's administration has issued a memo to universities aimed at restricting certain internship work authorizations for international students. Officials cautioned that schools failing to comply could have their certification to enroll foreign students revoked.

A student walks toward Royce Hall on the campus of University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) on March 11, 2020. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

The memo, which is dated Aug. 24 and issued by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said the agency "has observed a rise in Curricular Practical Training (CPT) authorizations that appear to violate regulatory requirements which permit CPT only where the training is an integral part of an established curriculum."

"Failure to comply with SEVP regulations may result in an institution losing certification to enroll foreign students," the memo said.

Some schools have already stopped processing applications. The University of California, Los Angeles ceased issuing certain CPT authorizations while it reviewed the guidance.

"UCLA has paused certain Curricular Practical Training authorizations while it reviews recent federal guidance and determines next steps," a UCLA spokesperson said.

At the University of California, Berkeley, the international office described the Aug. 24 memo as "more narrow in focus, more direct, and includes content that is more restrictive in nature."

An earlier memo had been issued in mid-August. Berkeley said it is unlikely to process certain work authorization applications "in the near future" and told international students to plan accordingly.

The university will keep handling "degree-requirement" CPT as usual and plans to resume "Doctoral Dissertation and Master's Thesis Research CPT."

University officials said they would consult legal experts to align processes with the new federal requirements.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE's parent agency, said the underlying regulations have not changed.

"However, schools and employers should consider themselves on notice: under President Trump, abuse of this generous system will no longer be tolerated."

CPT allows eligible international students to participate in internships or training when the work forms an integral part of their academic curriculum. The memo stresses that the training must connect to an established academic program.

This step fits into an overarching set of changes for foreign students. In July, DHS completed a rule ending the long-standing "duration of status" policy. That system had permitted many F, J, and I visa holders to remain in the country without a fixed departure date.

The new rule, published in the Federal Register on July 17 and effective Sept. 15, limits most stays to four years unless students apply for extensions through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Extensions will require screening, background checks, and fraud reviews. The grace period after the conclusion of studies is reduced from 60 days to 30 days.

"For nearly half a century, the outdated 'duration of status' system has compromised national security and created an environment ripe for immigration fraud," DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said at the time.

"By implementing clear, finite limits on these visas, the United States is reclaiming its ability to properly screen, vet, and monitor individuals within our borders."

The rule is being challenged in court by a coalition of unions and advocacy groups that say the new rule makes the United States less competitive as a destination for international talent.

Earlier this year, ICE published the findings of an investigation into Optional Practical Training, a separate post-graduation work program.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said investigators "have identified over 10,000 foreign students who claim to be working for highly suspect employers."

Visits turned up empty buildings, locked doors, and addresses associated with hundreds of students who were not involved in the activity they claimed, he said. Officials also found "phantom employees" who never reported to the listed sites, as well as complex international financial transactions, according to Lyons.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 19:15

Take-Two Tumbles Most In Months As BofA Calls Grand Theft Auto Reveal "Impressive, But Unlikely To Surprise"

Take-Two Interactive shares plunged the most in nearly seven months on Monday as investors weighed a series of "Grand Theft Auto VI" leaks in recent weeks ahead of the Nov. 19 release. 

The leaked clips reportedly expose plot details, character scenes, and gameplay mechanics, prompting Rockstar Games (a studio owned by TTWO) to call the leaks "gut-wrenching" and warn that some of the game's surprises may have been spoiled. 

What X users are saying:

Time to address the elephant in the room:

No self-respecting man would like to play as an empowered, annoying 2/10 Latina in Grand Theft Auto.

This is lame and woke. pic.twitter.com/dgIVoT5Pf2

— Yorch Torch Games (@YorchTorchGames) August 30, 2026

So let get this straight...some Gaming writer at Forbes is speculating that GTA6 Online (not GTA6) could be 2 years delayed (according to himself) since $TTWO didn't mention it on their call and now $3B Mkt Cap gets whipped out ? lol

Thank you Mr Market pic.twitter.com/4CSjTucXsT

—  Q-Cap  (@qcapital2020) August 31, 2026

13 years of waiting and 1 BILLION dollars for THIS?

GTA 6 shaping up great pic.twitter.com/fQXy5PQ6HQ

— Rock Solid (@ShitpostRock) August 31, 2026

Omar Dessouky, an equity research analyst at Bank of America focused on gaming, digital advertising, and consumer internet companies, penned a note on Monday titled "GTA 6: Impressive Gameplay Reveal, but Unlikely to Surprise." 

Dessouky pointed out that the trailer released by Take-Two Interactive last week reduced the risk of another launch delay by showing GTA VI is already playable. 

"Some details in the footage are consistent with access to a genuine playable build. Were a distributable copy to circulate, it could weigh on sales (particularly the PC version); at this stage, however, there is no clear evidence one exists," the analyst said. 

Dessouky added that the footage delivered few surprises. Many of the mechanics had already been disclosed, while clips released by an anonymous account called CyberLeek stripped away some of the mystery ahead of the mid-November release. 

He forecasts that GTA VI will sell 45 million units during fiscal 2027, generate $3.44 billion in combined bookings with GTA Online, and deliver $898 million in incremental net income. Take-Two's total bookings are forecasted to jump 36% to $9.16 billion. 

Dessouky maintained his Buy rating and $368 price target. The stock dropped 6.3% late in Monday's cash session, marking its largest decline since Feb. 12, when it fell 6.6%. 

Gamers have waited 13 years for this point. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 18:50

FDA Authorizes Generic Ivermectin Shot To Prevent Screwworm

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

Federal regulators have authorized a generic ivermectin injection for the prevention of New World screwworm in cattle.

The Food and Drug Administration on Aug. 27 granted emergency use authorization for Bimectin, the injection, for use within 24 hours of birth.

The drug can also be used when castration is performed, or when a wound appears. It cannot be used in lactating dairy cows or in calves destined for veal.

Bimectin is a generic version of Ivomec, which the FDA authorized in February. The FDA previously approved Bimectin for treating and controlling parasites in cattle. The application for Bimectin came from Bimeda Animal Health, an Ireland-based company.

Based on available evidence, FDA officials concluded that the injection may prevent screwworm in cattle, and that the known and potential benefits outweigh known and potential risks. That information includes studies carried out in Brazil and Argentina in the 1990s, and a 2019 study conducted in Brazil, which found ivermectin injection prevented screwworm infestations in cattle, according to an FDA fact sheet.

"The animal safety profile for cattle, including male and female reproducing cattle, is well-characterized, and the information provided support that the food products obtained from the treated animals are safe for human consumption when used under the conditions described in the authorization," the fact sheet stated.

"This authorization reflects the FDA's commitment to expanding generic drug options against New World screwworm," Timothy Schell, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, said in a statement. "By authorizing both generic and pioneer products, the Agency is ensuring producers aren't dependent on a single manufacturer or product to protect their herds."

Ivermectin is an antiparasitic medication widely used in animals. The drug is also available for humans, primarily to prevent worm infections.

Screwworm, a flesh-eating pest, entered the United States from Mexico earlier in 2026 for the first time in years.

The Trump administration has since approved or authorized more than a dozen drugs for screwworm prevention and/or treatment, including an ivermectin oral solution for horses, a medication for dogs and puppies, and a generic treatment for dogs, puppies, cats, and kittens.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in its latest update, with data current through Aug. 25, said that there have been three screwworm cases in August, all in Texas. Two of the cases were among sheep, and one was in a goat.

There were 14 cases in July and 30 in June.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 18:25

Fauci Told Aide To Delete Email About Risky Research

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

Dr. Anthony Fauci said an aide should delete an email about risky research his agency was funding, according to documents released on Aug. 29 by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

"Please delete this e-mail and then delete from the deleted file," Fauci told Dr. Clifford Lane, a senior official at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in a missive on March 4, 2012.

Fauci, NIAID's director at the time, was commenting on an op-ed that criticized risky research that created a more transmissible H5N1 influenza virus. The research, led by European scientist Ron Fouchier, was funded by the NIAID.

The op-ed said the virus appeared to spread easily and would be lethal to humans if it escaped confinement or was stolen by terrorists. It highlighted the government's funding of the research.

It also noted that the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity had recommended that papers prepared by researchers such as Fouchier omit key details that might help terrorists make their own versions of risky viruses.

Fauci told Lane that "people are getting to" Phil Boffey, the writer of the op-ed, "and he is swallowing it." He said that the board's decision was wrong. And he wrote that if the board maintained its stance, "the field of research on influenza transmissibility and host adaptability has a very serious problem."

Fauci and Lane did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.

Boffey could not be reached.

Fouchier had told Science magazine that his team created "probably one of the most dangerous studies you can make."

Several weeks later, Fauci coauthored an op-ed in the Washington Post that said work by Fouchier and another group funded by the NIAID involved careful work in isolated laboratories and advanced understanding of how mutations of H5N1, sometimes known as avian influenza, worked.

"This research has allowed identification of genetic pathways by which such a virus could better adapt to transmission among people," the op-ed, titled A flu virus risk worth taking, stated.

Fauci's agency later funded research in China that made a modified coronavirus more pathogenic than the original version, among other gain-of-function experiments.

Fauci's directive to Lane was one of five times he told aides to delete emails, according to documents obtained and released by Paul. The other instances took place in 2009, 2011, and 2020. Fauci left the government in late 2022.

Paul said in a statement that the documents "show years of 'delete this email' orders." He has referred Fauci to the Department of Justice for prosecution after Fauci, during an appearance before the Senate panel Paul chairs, declined to answer questions. Fauci has not been charged.

Prior to leaving office, President Joe Biden gave Fauci a preemptive pardon covering conduct from Jan. 1, 2014, to Jan. 19, 2025.

It is a federal crime to destroy or attempt to destroy federal records. Dr. David Morens, one of Fauci's former aides, recently pleaded guilty to violating that law.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 17:40

SCOTUS Rules Trump Can Build White House Ballroom, Roberts Joins Dissenting Liberals

The U.S. Supreme Court just issued an order allowing construction of President Trump’s White House ballroom project to continue while the administration contests a lower court order that would block much of the development.

The justices voted 5–4 (with Chief Justice Roberts joining the three 'liberal' judges in dissent) to grant the federal government’s request to stay a lower court’s order halting above-ground construction of the ballroom while a lawsuit against the project by a historic preservation group plays out.

“We do not pass upon the legality” of the project, the court said in an unsigned eight-page decision from five of the court’s six Republican-appointed justices.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, two lower courts had declared the ballroom project illegal and said construction must be halted.

But a judge’s stop-work order was put on hold while the administration pursued appeals.

The Supreme Court’s ruling keeps that order on hold indefinitely, effectively giving a green light to one of Trump’s most visibly audacious projects, which critics see as the latest instance of the president ignoring Congress and flouting norms.  

Writing for the dissenters, Roberts said the project is “likely unlawful.”

“The White House is an iconic American building whose symbolism and history are wrapped up in its architecture,” Roberts wrote, adding that it is critical to “ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House.”

Roberts had already blocked the stop-work order from kicking in on Aug. 22 with a temporary measure that gave the justices more time to deliberate.

In his emergency appeal to the high court, the solicitor general warned that stopping work now would leave the half-built project “susceptible to strong winds during extreme weather, and vulnerable to erosion, water, foundation damage, and other setbacks that will fundamentally compromise the integrity of everything currently built.” 

The green light means the project could largely be completed before a final ruling on its legality.

Construction on the project, which calls for building a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, began in September 2025.

Building it required demolishing the East Wing, which Trump said was too small and in poor shape.

The facility is now expected to accommodate 1,000 guests, up from the initial 650 people projected, and its original $200 million price tag has doubled, though the true cost of the project is unknown.

Trump has pledged the project will be paid for entirely with private donations, but taxpayers could help fund security-related upgrades if a GOP-led Congress approves it. 

Developing...

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 17:20

Trump Mulling New 'Limited' Strike Package, After Iranian Attack On Jordan Base Summary

• Trump vows retaliation, mulls more 'limited' strikes after Iran's own 'retaliatory' missile attacks on US bases in Jordan.
• Eight Iranian missiles were intercepted by Jordan amid the first major tit-for-tat military strikes in a month.
• US forces struck Iranian missile launchers on Larak Island, reportedly killing two people.
• Iran threatens further retaliation, while regional tensions reignite across UAE, Qatar and Red Sea.
• Global oil prices rose Monday in wake of the overnight renewed fighting.

//--> //--> Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by October 31?
Yes 11% · No 90%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

* * *

Trump Mulling New 'Limited' Strikes (Again)

New reporting from Axios: "President Trump and his senior aides have been considering waging limited strikes in the Strait of Hormuz to prevent Iran from reconstituting its radar and missile capabilities to attack ships, according to three U.S. officials."

This suggests that once again when US 'bad options' tighten related to Iran and the Hormuz crisis, there is still this (bad) idea among decision-makers that the Pentagon can just 'bomb its way out' of a crisis that's of Washington's own making. Such an assumption has already been tried and tested several times before, amid what is now six months into the war.

"The plan, which was developed over the past week by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and supported by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, had not been approved by Trump ahead of this weekend's exchange of fire with Iran," Axios continues. "But he could greenlight it after the new escalation."

And still this reported new potential escalation is being presented by Axios as if it's somehow the US fully in the driver's seat, when in reality this continues to be a "bombing campaign in search of a strategy". More from Axios:

• One U.S. official said the idea behind the plan is to reduce the risk of Iranian attacks on oil tankers, U.S. Navy ships and Air Force aircraft — to "mow the lawn," as this person put it.
• A White House said: "The President retains all options at his disposal. The Iranians want to make a deal, but they are always a day late and a dollar short."

This comes as some top generals have taken the ultra-rare action of leaking their views of this to the press. "Several U.S. military leaders have advised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland, according to people familiar with a recent assessment prepared for the Pentagon chief," wrote the Washington Post on Sunday.

More latest from Trump (via Newsquawk):

US President Trump says Iran strikes will be limited; Strait of Hormuz is in extremely good shape; A lot of oil coming out of Hormuz; Ships came through Hormuz last night with Navy assist.

The Iranians meanwhile appear to be ready for the possibility of renewed dialogue, but they also certainly don't appear to be "begging" - as Trump has maintained. "The US must return to its commitments and abide by the terms of the memorandum; only then can we exit this situation," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Telegram Monday.

Vance: I believe that Trump was sending a message to Iran through his post about Kharg Island. https://t.co/y3HZjRhjEE

— barry with the NED (@bonzerbarry) August 31, 2026

"The solution is clear and unambiguous: the US must return to its commitments and to the agreement its own president signed" - and, he continued, "Should that happen, everything can be put back on track." The Iranian top diplomat said, "All countries share the concern that the war must end as quickly as possible."

Trump Vows US will Respond to Iranian Attacks

President Trump has continued teasing possible 'retaliation' on Kharg Island after an Iranian overnight ballistic missile attack on American bases in Jordan. Trump says the US will respond to the Iranian attacks, according to Fox. According to further context via Newsquawk: 

• Note, the remarks from US President Trump were broadcast as part of a interview on Fox on "Sunday Night In America".
• Follows the US hitting Larak Island on Sunday. In response, Iran fired on US bases within Jordan.
• Reports since indicate that Iran's retaliation did not cause any significant damage.
• Modest upside seen in energy benchmarks and downside in the risk tone in proximity to this remark.

Iran state media is meanwhile reporting that two were killed in the CENTCOM attack on Larak Island late yesterday, which triggered this fresh round of fighting.

"During the attack on Larak Island late Sunday, two people were martyred and several others were injured. The injured in the incident are receiving medical services and their treatment is ongoing," the official IRNA news agency said.

Also, the Iranian foreign ministry stated: "The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will have no hesitation in exercising their inherent right to self-defense and will respond decisively, as appropriate, to any military aggression by the enemy."

The Jordanian government has meanwhile confirmed the Iranian ballistic missile attack: 

The Jordanian Armed Forces said Sunday it intercepted eight missiles that had entered the country's airspace, according to Jordan's Al-Mamlaka TV broadcaster.

A spokesperson for the military said all eight missiles were destroyed before they could do any damage, according to the broadcaster.

Military Strike Tit-for-Tat Resumes After Weeks 

Brent crude futures climbed back above $90 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate topped $86 after the US and Iran exchanged strikes for the first time in about a month. Tehran also claimed that an unidentified supertanker was struck by naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, diesel crack spreads are approaching $100 a barrel again, suggesting an increasingly severe shortage across refined-product markets as the summer draws to a close. 

US Central Command said American forces struck Iranian rocket launchers that were preparing to deploy anti-ship mines in the critical waterway. The US has touted the Oman shipping corridor as open for business and moving crude and other energy products. Tehran's inability to halt tankers passing through that part of the strait may suggest that its offensive capabilities have been degraded.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it retaliated by targeting US air bases in Jordan, while the United Arab Emirates intercepted an Iranian drone over its territorial waters.

Trump: 'Failed Nation'

Trump on Monday morning issued a Truth Social declaring Iran a "failed nation":

The US military (CENTCOM) has said it did not target Kharg Island in the overnight strikes. According to a summation of there things stand:

The latest U.S.-Iran escalation appears increasingly centered on control of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has been using small boats to monitor and identify commercial vessels transiting the Strait using Omani waters for an undetermined period. The boats can blend into civilian maritime traffic, making them difficult to distinguish from ordinary vessels. This comes amid sporadic Iranian attacks and attempts to restrict ships transiting Hormuz without Iranian permission.

The U.S. then struck Iranian missile launchers on Larak Island after assessing they were preparing to deploy sea mines into the Strait. Iran responded with missile attacks targeting U.S. bases in Jordan, with eight missiles reportedly intercepted. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar was also reportedly targeted, though that remains unconfirmed.

The pattern suggests Iran is attempting to reassert control or disrupt maritime traffic through Hormuz, while the U.S. is acting to prevent Iran from closing or mining the waterway. Various reports indicate transits through the strait of Hormuz have declined. What remains to be seen is whether the strikes from both sides tonight will continue in the coming days.

Crude Transit Opening?

"Brent crude is firmer at $90.48/bbl, up 2.5%, as tensions around the Strait of Hormuz support the geopolitical risk premium," UBS analyst Dharmesh Gangaram wrote in a note.

Gangaram continued, "Overall, the desk sees a cautious, risk-off start to the session. Geopolitical developments and lower European liquidity are likely to remain the key drivers, with particular attention on the resources complex amid broad-based weakness in precious metals."

Despite the overnight tit-for-tat attacks, an estimated 6 million to 8 million barrels per day of crude, primarily from US-allied Gulf producers, continues to move through Hormuz.

We previewed this in a note last week titled:

• "Dark" Tanker Fleet Shatters Iran's Hormuz Stranglehold As Gulf Oil Exports Top Two-Thirds Of Pre-War Level

"The key is to watch the barrels, and as long as they continue to flow through the Strait of Hormuz, the buying appetite in the market remains muted for fear of being caught out," Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, wrote in a note.

Last week, the top US commander for the Middle East said American forces had cleared Iranian mines from the Hormuz waterway, declaring the shipping lanes open.

With its missile batteries, drone launchers, naval units, surveillance networks, or command infrastructure degraded, Iran appears to be shifting from conventional sea denial toward a lower-cost asymmetric strategy.

Weekend Developments

•  US attacked two missile launchers of the IRGC on Larak Island on Sunday, which were said to be on standby to launch missiles with sea mines toward the Strait of Hormuz, while there were later reports of explosions heard near Larak Island.
• US Central Command said IRGC claims of US aggression in the Strait of Hormuz are false, but added the US conducted limited precise action against IRGC minelaying forces that posed an imminent threat in the Strait of Hormuz.
• Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned the US strike on Larak Island would be met with a response and punishment, while it said several soldiers and civilians were killed and wounded in the assault.
• Iran's Revolutionary Guards later announced that they retaliated with missiles and drones against two US bases in Jordan and warned that any attack against them will be met with a more devastating response, although a US official cited by Fox News stated no major damage in Iranian attacks on US forces in Jordan and that all missiles were intercepted.
• Iran's Press TV noted reports of Iran firing missiles towards US vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, and there were reports of explosions heard in the UAE and in Qatar, while Iran's army later said it launched tens of drones at the Al Minhad air base in the UAE.
• IRGC said a supertanker caught fire and was halted after being struck by two naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, while it added that the tanker was attempting to pass illegally through the Strait of Hormuz and that ships must comply with its rules for passage. IRGC separately announced that it shot down a US MQ-9 drone over the Strait of Hormuz.
• Iran's Foreign Ministry said it will respond decisively to any further enemy military aggression, and stated that the US and parties supporting its military actions bear full responsibility for consequences of escalation.
• US President Trump reiterated in a pre-recorded Fox News interview that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and said the Iran blockade has been unbelievable, while he also commented that the US had to intervene in the Middle East to prevent Iran from using a nuclear weapon against Israel and other countries in the region and possibly against the US.
• US President Trump posted a generated video with the caption "Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!!"
• US Treasury Secretary Bessent said the US Treasury plans to impose more Iran secondary sanctions every week, starting with banks. He also stated that they are telling banks it's not okay to have Iranian money and to aid the Iranian regime, and they will probably just sanction a bank outright next time, after the US imposed curbs on an Egyptian bank's United Arab Emirates branches.
• Iranian President Pezeshkian said they are not looking for war, but will give a decisive response to the aggressors, while he added that instability and unrest in the region are not in the interest of any countries and will create challenges for everyone.
• Iran's President said on Friday that Iran is ready for cooperation and understanding with regional countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, while it is to open its route if four commitments are met. He also stated that Iran is to increase gasoline prices, and that exports and imports have decreased by up to 35% because of US sanctions and the blockade.

Overnight Developments

• US officials said they are monitoring the Strait of Hormuz and will strike any forces that threaten navigation in the waterway, Al Arabiya reported.
• Iran's IRGC Navy said compliance with regulations issued for the Strait of Hormuz is mandatory and warned against being “misled” by the US, Press TV reported.
• Yemeni armed forces reportedly targeted Saudi ships in the Red Sea, ISNA reported citing Yemeni media reports.
• UAE Ministry of Defense denied reports that Al Minhad Air Base was targeted by missiles, calling the claims unfounded and saying it remains on high alert and fully prepared to respond to any threats.
• Iranian oil operations are continuing on Kharg Island, and the oil sector there has not stopped, Al Hadath reported.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 15:15

Rickards: The Dollar's Not Dying

Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

Last week's financial media was full of apocalyptic headlines: "$40 trillion in national debt!" "U.S. debt in a doom loop!" "The end of the dollar is near!"

Gold and bitcoin soared in lockstep with the dollar doom and gloom. If you took the headlines at face value, one would assume the dollar was already toast and U.S. Treasuries were worth no more than digital confetti.

The truth is that the dollar's position as the leading reserve currency is not in jeopardy. Of course, foreign exchange reserves are not simply piles of currency. They are largely held in liquid financial assets, including U.S. Treasury securities denominated in dollars.

Dollar-denominated assets will dominate global reserves for decades to come.

The reason is simple. There are few sovereign bond markets with the size, liquidity and depth of the U.S. Treasury market. Other large government bond markets, including Japan and major European markets, do not offer the same combination of scale and liquidity. King dollar will remain king.

This does not mean interest rates won't rise or inflation won't increase. Both are likely. But neither means the end of the dollar. It just means the Treasury pays more to borrow and you pay more at the gas pump and grocery store.

So, there are problems in the dollar bond markets, but debasement-trade hysteria is not a useful way to understand them.

BESSENT GOES AFTER THE BOND MARKET

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has just announced a plan to address higher interest rates in U.S. Treasury securities markets and, by extension, mortgage and credit card markets. It has both long-term and short-term components.

One short-term component involves U.S. support for Japan's efforts to prop up the yen, including joint currency intervention and potential greater use of the Federal Reserve's FIMA Repo Facility. That facility allows Japan to borrow dollars against its U.S. Treasury holdings rather than selling those securities outright.

In turn, that could take pressure off U.S. interest rates. Japan is the world's largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries, with about $1.12 trillion as of June.

Another short-term component is for the Treasury to purchase longer-dated Treasury securities, specifically those in the 10- to 30-year sectors. The Treasury recently announced that it will at least double the size of certain scheduled buyback operations from $2 billion to $4 billion, with the possibility of going higher.

Treasury has also relied heavily on short-term maturities such as one-month, three-month and six-month Treasury bills in its overall financing mix. These Treasury bills generally carry lower interest rates than longer-dated notes and bonds. Greater reliance on shorter maturities can lower U.S. interest expense, at least in the short run.

Treasury bills are also prized by dealers and hedge funds because they are highly liquid and are widely used as collateral in financial transactions. Supporting liquidity at the long end while maintaining a large supply of short-term Treasury securities makes sense. Why it is causing such hysteria in the media is a bit of a mystery.

BESSENT'S 3-3-3 GAMBIT

The longer-term component of the Bessent Plan is sometimes referred to as the Three Arrows.

The first arrow is to keep annual deficits at 3.0% or less of GDP. The second arrow is to achieve GDP growth of 3.0% or more. The third arrow is to increase U.S. energy production by the equivalent of 3 million barrels of oil per day.

That's where the shorthand 3-3-3 comes from: a 3% deficit, 3% real GDP growth and 3 million additional barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Since oil output does not directly impact fiscal policy, we can leave that to one side in our analysis. The deficit and GDP growth targets, however, are critical.

The metric that really matters in terms of whether investors have confidence in U.S. Treasury securities is the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio. It's silly to hyperventilate about $40 trillion as the U.S. national debt unless you put that number in the context of the GDP available to finance and roll over the debt.

Right now, gross U.S. federal debt is roughly 123% of GDP. That's the result of approximately $40 trillion of debt divided by roughly $32.5 trillion of annualized nominal GDP. That ratio is near the highest levels in U.S. history.

High debt-to-GDP ratios can be a drag on growth and leave governments with less room to respond to crises. A ratio of 60% is much more comfortable. A ratio of 30% is more comfortable still. The previous postwar high was reached around the end of World War II.

The annual deficit will not go down to zero. That's a fantasy. The level of U.S. national debt will also not go down anytime soon. That's another fantasy.

But that doesn't matter.

What does matter is whether the debt-to-GDP ratio goes down.

The way to do that is to grow the economy faster than the debt. If you can do that, the ratio goes down even if the debt goes up. That's Bessent's plan. That's what he meant when he said the U.S. could "grow its way out" of the debt problem. In theory, he was right.

For example, let's say annual deficits are $2 trillion so that a year from now the national debt will be $42 trillion. That's a 5.0% increase in the national debt.

But if GDP grows from $32.5 trillion to $34.5 trillion, that's a 6.2% increase. The debt-to-GDP ratio drops from roughly 123% to 121.7%. That's still high, but it's lower than the year before.

That's all the so-called bond market vigilantes need to see. As long as the debt-to-GDP ratio is coming down, bond investors have reason to retain confidence in U.S. Treasuries and the U.S. dollar.

The U.S. has done this before. The gross federal debt-to-GDP ratio reached roughly 119% in 1946 and was down to about 31% by 1980. That process took more than three decades and occurred under both parties using a combination of fiscal and monetary policy, strong nominal growth and inflation.

During that period, the national debt increased substantially. But GDP increased by more than 1,000%. And that was the key. If GDP grows faster than debt, the ratio comes down and America's fiscal position improves.

HERE'S THE DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

So, that's the plan. But there's a dirty little secret that Bessent has not emphasized.

When the government computes debt-to-GDP ratios, it's using nominal numbers, not numbers adjusted for inflation.

In the example above, GDP grew by about 6.2% while the national debt grew by 5.0%. That lowers the ratio, but it does not reveal how much of the GDP growth was real and how much was inflation.

The 6.2% nominal growth could have been 4.2% real growth plus 2.0% inflation. That's fairly healthy. But it could have been 2.2% real growth plus 4.0% inflation.

At 4.0% annual inflation, the purchasing power of the dollar is cut roughly in half in about 18 years and cut in half again over the next 18 years. That kind of inflation can destroy your net worth and income if you're not prepared.

So, how much inflation is included in the Bessent Plan? Secretary Bessent didn't say.

Investors should assume the worst.

The U.S. has had difficulty sustaining real growth of more than about 2.0% per year on average since the global financial crisis. If we need roughly 6.0% nominal growth to outrun the growth in debt and if we can only produce 2.0% real growth per year, then the difference has to come from inflation.

That could mean 4.0% inflation.

That's not a policy preference. It's just fifth-grade math.

In describing how the U.S. lowered its debt-to-GDP ratio dramatically between the end of World War II and 1980, I conveniently omitted the fact that consumer prices rose about 50% between 1977 and 1981.

That's one way the U.S. government took care of the debt problem.

I lived through that period. It was a fun time if you owned gold or real estate, if you used leverage and if you had a job that gave you a raise every few months.

It was not a fun time if you depended on fixed-income streams like annuities, insurance policies, pension plans or Social Security.

Which side of that trade are you on?

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

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 15:00

'You Will Only Have Yourselves To Blame': Trump Warns Anti-Data-Center Crowd Not To 'Kill The Golden Goose'

Despite recent polls showing that 70% of Americans oppose building AI data centers in their area (including 60% of Republicans), President Trump on Monday warned that communities that don't embrace them will "end up being backwards and poor."

"The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign."

And if people "kill the Golden Goose" by successfully resisting AI data centers, "you will only have yourselves to blame," Trump continued, adding "China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement. Actually, they can't believe it is happening!"

According to a Gallup poll published in May, 71% of Americans oppose building AI data centers in their local area, including 48% 'strongly opposed' - and only about a quarter in favor. Opposition crosses party lines: Gallup's breakdowns showed 63% of Republicans strongly or somewhat opposed to a data center where they live, while a July Fox News poll found that 60% of Republicans and 53% of self-described "MAGA Republicans" oppose data centers where they live.  

At the same time, Beijing structurally benefits from anything that slows US compute (and according to X, are amplifying the outrage).

Some observations

• Eighteen months ago, American frontier models from Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI had virtually no competition - and the entire AI bubble (circle-jerk) was based on already-insane revenue projections. 
   
• Then, Chinese labs began rolling out open-weighted AI models that are up to 90% cheaper per token, for around 95% the same performance as US frontier models. Suddenly, the American AI buildout thesis that led the market to all-time highs this year, was pricked - and companies are migrating towards these cheap Chinese models they can run on their own infrastructure. Chinese providers went from under 2% of OpenRouter tokens a year ago to over 45% of weekly volume by April 2026, and Chinese models surpassed US models in weekly token volume for the first time in February. An a16z partner estimated roughly 80% of US startups build on Chinese base models.
   
• The July tape made it official: chip stocks shed more than $1 trillion as investors began asking whether AI infrastructure spending is peaking faster than expected - even as the hyperscalers, undeterred, still guide to roughly $660-690 billion in 2026 capex, nearly double last year's.  
   
• Chinese AI firms are also starting to run proprietary chips - a workaround to years of banning Nvidia's top of the line AI chips. Beijing's Cyberspace Administration barred major tech firms from buying Nvidia chips in September 2025, and state-backed data centers now require domestic silicon. Domestic suppliers are projected to capture nearly 90% of Chinese AI accelerator sales this year. That said, Huawei's Ascend still trails Nvidia on raw performance and software, and its flagship CloudMatrix cluster draws roughly four times the power of Nvidia's comparable system - a trade Beijing happily makes, because China is substituting electricity (which it has) for chip quality (which it doesn't).
   
• China is also able to rapidly expand both data centers and electricity generation because the CCP gives zero fucks about NIMBY Chinese 'having a say' over whether they plunk a loud data center or power generation facility next to their house. Instead, provincial officials are rewarded for building, the grid is state-owned, and the new Five-Year Plan explicitly treats data centers as a demand sink to soak up surplus renewable generation. In China, data centers are the solution to too much electricity. In America, they've become the cause of expensive electricity.

China Is Loving This

Trump isn't wrong that Beijing benefits from anything that slows the US buildout. But the astroturf version of the argument was quickly dispelled: data center investor Kevin O'Leary claimed China was behind the protests, admitted he had no evidence, and is now being sued for defamation by two Utah groups. And the polling is real too - Heatmap asked the identical question about data centers in Americans' backyards four times in 12 months and watched a 33-point collapse, from a 43/42 split last August to 75% opposed now. Public opinion doesn't move like that because of foreign bots. It moves like that because of utility bills.

The grievances have receipts. PJM's independent market monitor found data centers responsible for 63% of the capacity auction spike - $9.3 billion recovered from ratepayers in a single year, with measured bill impacts of $21/month in DC, $18 in western Maryland, $16 in Ohio. Total PJM capacity costs went from $2.2 billion to $14.7 billion to $16.1 billion in two years - and the latest auction only stopped at $329.17/MW-day because of a price cap Pennsylvania's governor demanded. Gallup's own open-ended data shows what's actually driving opposition: half of opponents cite resource consumption - 18% each naming water and energy - plus noise, pollution, and traffic. Not anti-AI ideology. Bills.

And when the industry had the chance to carry its own costs, PJM members voted down all 12 proposals to shift them in July. Ratepayers remain the unpaid sponsors of the buildout. Meanwhile, dozens of companies – including Meta, Amazon and Google - have signed onto Trump's "ratepayer protection pledge" to cover increased energy costs. You don't create a ratepayer protection pledge against an imaginary grievance.

Meanwhile this is about as bipartisan as it gets: Greg Abbott has frozen new data centers in Texas, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee - Senate Republicans' own campaign arm, warned in an August memo that the campaign against them "will expand far beyond Ohio," where the issue has Jon Husted in a dead heat with Sherrod Brown - a Democrat Ohio voters fired statewide just two years ago.

And what Trump fails to see, apparently: the CCP would entertain exactly none of this. There is no mechanism in China for citizens to oppose infrastructure - and what the no-veto model produces isn't just speed. Many local-government data centers run at 20-30% utilization, Beijing is now planning a national scheme to resell the surplus compute, and even SMIC's own chairman warned the rushed buildout "has not been fully thought through." The people of Licking County get a say. The people of Gansu get a ghost data center.

Trump says China "can't believe" the anti-data-center movement is happening. Of course not - there is no version of it available to Chinese citizens.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 14:40

Amazon Shares Tumble Amid News Of FTC 'Advertiser Deception' Lawsuit

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is about to drop a lawsuit on Amazon today alleging that the e-commerce platform manipulated prices paid by businesses to advertise on its retail platform, which made the company tens of billions of dollars over a seven-year period, WSJ reports, citing agency officials. 

According to the report:

The lawsuit, joined by a bipartisan group of more than 20 state attorneys general, will allege that Amazon deceived advertisers by secretly raising the minimum price advertisers had to pay to place ads promoting their products, FTC officials said.

The case, to be filed in a Seattle federal court, will become the consumer-protection agency’s third major case against Amazon, which agreed to pay $2.5 billion last year to settle an earlier suit alleging it tricked people into signing up for its Prime service and made it hard to cancel the subscription. Another lawsuit alleging that Amazon engaged in illegal monopolization is headed for trial next year. -WSJ

Amazon's digital advertising platform is the third-largest in the world, behind Alphabet's Google and Meta - earning $68 billion in ads in 2025, according to the report - which claims that advertisers suffered billions of dollars in harm by paying higher prices for ads. Some states may attempt to claw some of the money back. 

Shares shot sharply lower on the news.

Every time a shopper searches for a product on Amazon, merchants compete to offer different types of ads to get in front of consumers. According to the FTC, Amazon began changing its ad auction strategy in 2018 - raising prices on advertisers in a way they wouldn't notice. 

The way this worked was through a mechanism called a "soft reserve": 

The company had historically run a special type of auction, popular in Silicon Valley, designed to attract more bids and protect winners from dramatically overpaying. That formula tended to reduce the price a merchant paid to advertise.

To raise the price, Amazon began entering its own bid, known as a “soft reserve,” which was higher than the price of the runner-up bidder, the FTC will allege. Under the rules of the auction, that raised the price paid for an ad. Amazon knew the merchants’ competing bids and didn’t disclose its new practice, officials said.

Amazon’s ad executives tracked the “surcharge” they earned from the strategy and sought to limit how much others knew about it, FTC officials said. The executives initially deployed the strategy only on popular shopping days when companies would think higher ad rates resulted from intense competition for shoppers’ attention, the officials said. -WSJ

According to the FTC, Amazon's goal was to capture more of the value of each retail sale connected to a successful ad - in recent years intervening in auctions to raise the minimum price 70% - 80% of the time. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 14:20

"Prepare For More Severe Scenarios": Bank Of England Chief Warns Of AI Threat To Global Financial System

As the world marches towards open-weight, efficient, unrestricted frontier AI models out of China, Western leaders are starting to panic over the lack of guardrails. Most recently, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey suggested that the threat posed by AI could lead to a chaotic correction in global financial markets, as frontier models are now showing "increasingly sophisticated autonomy and problem-solving abilities, as well as threat capabilities."

Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey addresses the media during a press conference concerning interest rates, at the Bank of England, in London, Britain, November 2, 2023. HENRY NICHOLLS/Pool via REUTERS

"Financial institutions, financial market infrastructures, and technology providers will therefore need to strengthen vulnerability management, response and recovery capabilities, and prepare for more severe scenarios involving simultaneous disruption across multiple firms or shared technology dependencies," Bailey wrote in a two-page letter published Monday to G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in his capacity as chair of the Financial Stability Board - an international body that coordinates international policy and provides recommendations to national authorities. 

Bailey says the cyber risk posed by AI is "the most immediate concern" for the global financial system. 

"Frontier AI may have the ability materially to alter the speed, scale and economics of cyber risk, which could undermine market confidence system-wide, especially due to highly concentrated third-party service providers," he wrote, adding. "Recent developments have also highlighted to me that many jurisdictions do not have the protocols in place to manage the development, release, and deployment of advanced frontier AI models, heightening risks for the financial sector and beyond." 

Bailey's warning comes one month after the Bank for International Settlements warned that the AI bubble itself is one of three of the most alarming threats to global prosperity at this time. 

"Disappointment in returns could trigger a sudden pullback in financing and turn the capex boom into a protracted investment bust, with potential knock-on effects on financial conditions," the BIS said, before observing that "a major equity-market correction could have larger macroeconomic consequences today than in the past."

Officials highlighted vulnerabilities linked to funding, including complex arrangements such so-called “circular financing” deals that can mix equity and debt with supplier-client contracts (as discussed here "The $1.8 Trillion Off-Balance Sheet Time Bomb At The Heart Of The AI Supercycle"). 

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 14:15

Lake America Name Begins Appearing On Google Maps In US

Authored by Tom Gantert via The Epoch Times,

Google Maps has updated its site to include Lake America in place of Lake Ontario, following the direction of President Donald Trump's executive order renaming the Great Lake.

"It's official! LAKE AMERICA on Google Maps," Steven Cheung, assistant to the president and White House director of communications, posted on X on Aug. 30.

It’s official! LAKE AMERICA on Google Maps. pic.twitter.com/CotsXetERJ

— Steven Cheung (@StevenCheung47) August 30, 2026

Google released a statement on the changing of the name of the body of water.

"The U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has formally changed the name for 'Lake Ontario' to 'Lake America' in the United States," the company said.

Since it updates Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources, people using the application in the United States will see "Lake America," Google said.

In Canada, users of Google Maps will continue to see "Lake Ontario," and those outside of the two countries will see both names, the statement reads.

Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 27 directing the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to update federal records to identify Lake Ontario as Lake America.

The president said the change recognizes the United States' role in protecting and maintaining the Great Lakes. The order cites nearly $4 billion in U.S. spending on the Great Lakes ecosystem during the past decade and said the U.S. Coast Guard operates nine of the 11 icebreaking vessels serving the lakes.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the change, saying that Canadians would continue calling it Lake Ontario. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has also said the state will retain the lake's traditional name.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced on May 9 that her government had sued Google over the company's decision to label the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America after Trump changed the name of that body of water.

Google made the change for U.S. users after Trump's executive order directed the federal government to adopt the new name. Users in Mexico continued to see the Gulf of Mexico, while users elsewhere saw both names.

Sheinbaum had threatened legal action in February, arguing that the United States could rename only the portion of the gulf under its jurisdiction, not the body of water. She disclosed the lawsuit during her briefing but provided no details about where it was filed or what relief Mexico was seeking.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 13:40

Lindsay Clancy And The Political Weaponization Of Mentally-Ill Women

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

After the publishing of George Orwell’s 1984, communist governments and organizations around the world condemned the book as “anti-Soviet slander” and “capitalist propaganda.” Orwell died only eight months after the book’s release and his personal feelings on the details of the story are limited to a few personal letters to friends and publishers.

Orwell was a Democratic Socialist, but even he was disturbed by the path that socialist movements had taken in light of genocidal far-left governments. His criticisms of Stalinist politics were treated by leftists as a betrayal.

However, it was Orwell’s depiction of women within authoritarian systems that angered the political left most of all. They have attacked 1984 for decades as “misogynistic”and “blind to gender oppression”. But as time passes, Orwell’s views on leftist women have proven more and more prophetic and they were written well before second wave feminism became a reality. In 1984, the character of Winston Smith described them thus:

“He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones. It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy…”

“She had not a thought in her head that was not a slogan, and there was no imbecility, absolutely none, that she was not capable of swallowing if the Party handed it out to her…”

The women in Orwell’s Stalinist world were a key tool in controlling society. They are easily brainwashed to serve “Big Brother”, turning them into affection-less robots. Their ability to nurture a family is conditioned out of them and if they are allowed to have children, they have no care for them. The children immediately become property of the state.

It’s not just women’s biological habit of following the dictates of the herd, it’s also their inherent desire for chaos that makes them destructive to society at large. Nearly every civilization from the beginning of recorded history has understood this problem and sought to keep it contained. Only in the modern west in the past century have we abandoned reason for madness.

I have said it many times in previous articles and I will repeat it here now: Feminism is by far the most destructive movement in the history of western civilization. In the US, almost every political and social crisis we face today can be linked directly or indirectly back to the rise of feminist ideology. The weaponization of mentally ill women is the single most effective attack on the foundations of our culture.

It’s not because women are particularly scary or dangerous. It’s because, as western men we have adopted principles of fairness; to care about elevating those who are weaker than us and value their contributions. Feminism is designed to exploit our love of fairness and our love of women and it turns our love into a weakness.

Compare the west to almost any other civilization in this regard and you will find undeniable differences. There is no such thing as fairness, equal rights or feminism throughout most of the world. Women are, at best, barely tolerated. At worst, they are chattel to be abused with impunity.

Often considered one of the greatest accomplishments of the First World (as opposed to the third world), men have ALLOWED women to rise to equal standing. In many cases, we have prioritized them and given them privileged status, and this is where we made a big mistake.

All of our problems with feminism are self created. Western men allowed the ideology to spread. Conservatives talk a lot about the dangers of “suicidal empathy” when it comes to liberals and mass immigration, but we suffer from suicidal empathy when it comes to women.

The early women’s suffrage movement had numerous ties to Marxist causes and the communists saw very early how useful women could be in destabilizing western nations. Marxists like Friedrich Engels argued that women’s oppression began with the institution of private property and class division, not biology.

This, of course, is pure nonsense – A great lie which requires us to ignore thousands of years of recorded history from every feudal monarchy and empire that existed previous to the 18th Century Enlightenment.

Because of their biology, women are naturally removed from the power dynamic except for influencing men to take actions in their favor. For women as a group to have power requires numerous artificial social constructs and laws be put in place.

Marxists also argued that the family unit must be targeted for deconstruction as a social pillar. They claim that the family unit is “how capitalism uses women as free labor to raise new workers for the system.” In reality, the family unit represents the atomic core of any civilization. Breaking it apart, and using women to do it, will inevitably destroy that civilization and make it ripe for conquest.

Leftists and their globalist cohorts do not care about women. Feminism does not care about women. The goal of these movements is to turn women into suicide bombers. Their goal is to radicalize women to forsake their biological and psychological imperatives, turning them into corrosive saboteurs willing to sacrifice their own happiness for the sake of the Marxist cult.

Millions of women have even been convinced that their grand mission requires them to kill their own children. Sometimes this is done in the name of freeing themselves from the “shackles” of the family unit. Sometimes it’s done as an offering to the collective feminist coven to prove they are “worthy.”

This is why a child killer like Lindsay Clancy, a woman who openly confessed to the crime, has attracted the full attention, adoration and protection of the liberal congregation. She didn’t just go to a clinic and abort a baby, she went the Full Monty; she murdered her own growing children in cold blood. She looked into their eyes when she did it, and the feminists are impressed and they want more.

What has followed is a sort of hysterical worship, a swirling vortex of dark-feminine chaos as the brood searches for ways to protect Lindsay Clancy from punishment while also rationalizing her crimes. The case has become a nexus point for the ever festering conflict between the champions of moral order and the terrorism of morally relative chaos.

In my recent articles I have talked about the eternal battle between the producer class and the pillager class, but this is only half the story. The other half is the battle between the champions of conscience and the purveyors of subjective nihilism. The political left has happily embraced nihilism.

We might find it bewildering, but this is why these people are defending a child murderer. If Lindsay Clancy can be glorified, even deified as a oracle of the feminist calling, then any evil can be justified. “Do as thou wilt” could become the prevailing ideal of a soulless age brought into being by female insanity.

All they have to do, in their view, is help Clancy to escape blame and responsibility for her crime.

The postpartum excuse is the most common strategy because it works. Around half of all female child murderers who use this defense get off with a jury decision of “not guilty by reason of insanity.” The concept ignores the fact that ANYONE who kills kids is mentally ill or broken in some way. Postpartum is simply a more acceptable excuse for diminishing the crime.

It’s a way to paint the killer as a victim; a more empathetic victim than the dead children.

If western women can be convinced that they can get away with murdering their offspring out of the womb, we would be setting a new and horrific precedent. The feminist mob will jump on every crime involving a woman in an effort to leverage them out of repercussions. The legal system already has so many double standards in favor of women, but we are getting dangerously close to a two tier system.

If Clancy escapes with a lesser charge or institutionalization instead of prison, leftist women will see this as political victory. That said, the case is opening the door to an awakening among men. Young men are using the case to “test” their girlfriends and wives. If these women show any inkling of sympathy for Lindsay Clancy, men are dumping and divorcing them without a second thought.

It’s a smart move and, for now, it’s the only strategy against the ongoing cancer of liberal female derangement. But it doesn’t solve the greater issue of feminism as a societal influence. In the meantime, families are not being built.

I would point out that there are men who kill their own children as well. It’s not as if this crime is exclusive to women. However, I can’t find a single instance in which a mob of men rallied together to defend a father who murdered his family. This is strictly female behavior.

The Clancy trial is nearly over, and regardless of what the jury decides to do there’s no denying that the event has reminded us, once again, that western men have ignored the single most poisonous problem in our society for far too long.

Liberal women are the most privileged, most entitled and most coddled people on the planet. No other group comes close. Their obsessive grasping for power by any means necessary is corrosive. Their rabid efforts to elevate their own egos as the focal point of politics, government and the social contract is sinking our nations one by one.

Perhaps this quest for power needs to end? Perhaps western men need to finally abandon the liberal experiment in equality or “equity” and bring our countries back to the models they were founded on? Or at the very least, we need to bring back certain limitations. Not all freedoms are good and we have seen where our current path leads.

If liberal women have been weaponized, then liberal women need to be nullified and controlled. Or, at the very least, their level of participation in institutions of power needs to be restricted. In other words, we would have to set aside our empathy, be the bad guys and TAKE power (and rights) away from the leftist cabal. We would have to fundamentally overturn every facet of feminism and erase it from our daily lives.

We have seen what these women do with liberty and we’re not impressed. The celebration and adoration of a child murderer is, in my view, the last straw. If their first inclination is to use their freedoms as a license to tear the world down instead of building things up, then they no longer deserve those freedoms.

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

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 13:00