Telegram CEO Pavel Durov Free To Leave France As Travel Ban Lifted: Report

Authored by Helen Partz via CoinTelegraph.com,

French authorities have reportedly lifted Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s travel ban amid an ongoing investigation into the messaging platform.

Durov had been ordered to remain in France following his arrest in Paris in August last year, facing multiple charges related to his operation of Telegram.

Durov was previously granted temporary exemptions, and French authorities have now fully lifted restrictions on his travel, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

As part of the latest decision, dated Monday, officials also removed the requirement for Durov to regularly check in at a local police station, the report said, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Investigation still ongoing

The report did not mention any details regarding the French investigation into Telegram, hinting that the case is still active.

According to a statement on preliminary charges by France’s Prosecutor’s Office, Durov was last year accused of facilitating a platform that enables illicit transactions. The prosecutors said the Telegram CEO is facing up to 10 years in prison, in addition to a fine of $550,000.

Pavel Durov met with Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at the Digital Bridge 2025 forum in October. Source: Press office of the President of Kazakhstan (Aqorda)

Telegram and Durov have repeatedly denied the accusations, highlighting the messenger’s compliance with industry standards and the laws of the European Union.

While denying the accusations, Durov has consistently criticized the French government, including French President Emmanuel Macron, regarding what Durov has described as the country’s political trajectory around censorship.

“Emmanuel Macron isn’t making the right choices. I’m very disappointed. France is getting weaker and weaker,” Durov said in an interview with French outlet Le Point in June.

In October, Durov warned of the potential consequences of the EU’s Chat Control proposal, urging the world to fight against the “dystopian” measures proposed by the EU.

“Germany is persecuting anyone who dares to criticize officials on the Internet. The UK is imprisoning thousands for their tweets. France is criminally investigating tech leaders who defend freedom and privacy,” Durov wrote in an X post on Oct. 9.

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/16/2025 - 08:10

A US Think-Tank Considers Armenia & Kazakhstan To Be Key Players For Containing Russia

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

They’re fearmongering about Russia’s intentions towards those two in parallel with proposing closer US ties with them.

The Washington Post recently published a piece fearmongering that Putin’s “next stop” after Ukraine might be Armenia and/or Kazakhstan, which they released in the run-up to the C5+1 Summit in DC between the five Central Asian leaders and Trump. It was written by Seth Cropsey and Joseph Epstein, the president of the Yorktown Institute and the director of the Turan Research Center therein. Their organization focuses on “great power competition”, “military supremacy”, and “alliance-building”.

Those two’s mentioning of Armenia and Kazakhstan in this provocative context, as well as the timing of their article, was deliberate.

The first functions as the irreplaceable transit state along the new “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP), which was assessed here in the summer shortly after its announcement as threatening to undermine Russia’s regional position. The fear is that NATO-member Turkiye will inject Western influence into the South Caucasus and Central Asia via this route.

Accordingly, Kazakhstan figures prominently in these plans since it’s the most prosperous country in the latter region and also shares the world’s longest land border with Russia, NATO’s rival.

It was assessed earlier this month that “The West Is Posing New Challenges To Russia Along Its Entire Southern Periphery” through TRIPP’s acceleration of those two regions’ engagement with the West. Even Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned about the bloc’s plans there as well as its de facto EU twin’s.

Armenia and Kazakhstan’s crucial roles in facilitating the Turkish-led injection of Western influence into their respective interconnected regions at the increasing expense of Russian interests there explains why Cropsey and Epstein decided to fearmonger that those two might be Putin’s “next stop” after Ukraine. The timing of their provocative piece importantly coincided with the C5+1 Summit and was therefore meant to influence off-the-record conversations there and/or Western reporting about the event.

According to them, last summer’s unrest in Armenia was a failed Kremlin-backed coup while Kazakhstan is being targeted through less visible forms of pressure such as the creation of pro-Russian influence networks, which they imply could precede a Donbass-like ethno-regional conflict in the north. The first was actually a patriotic revolt over the perception that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan sold Armenia out to its Turkic neighbors while the second is based on unverified leaked reports and attendant speculation.

The reality is that Russia accepts that the US successfully expanded its influence in the South Caucasus and respects Kazakhstan’s multi-alignment policy. The only concern that it has is that extra-regional actors like the US, EU, NATO, and Turkiye – all of whom it’s fighting by proxy in Ukraine to varying extents – could exploit those two and their regions to threaten its national security as part of their rivalry. That would risk expanding their proxy war from Eastern Europe to the South Caucasus and/or Central Asia.

Cropsey and Epstein propose more trade and investment between the US, Armenia and Kazakhstan, and their regions, which sounds innocent but could lead to or disguise closer cooperation on other issues like security that come at Russia’s expense. What they want to do is manipulate the perceptions of Russia’s partners against it and/or provoke an overreaction from Russia that ruins their relations for the same divide-and-rule ends, which is why it’s crucial that they’re aware of this so they can avoid falling for it.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/16/2025 - 07:00

US Needs More Gas Infrastructure, Storage To Support Electric Grid: NARUC

By Robert Walton of UtilityDive

Summary:

• The United States needs additional natural gas pipeline infrastructure and storage opportunities to reliably meet the growing demand for energy, a National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners task force report concluded on Wednesday.

• NARUC’s Gas-Electric Alignment for Reliability task force, or GEAR, was formed in 2023 in an effort to improve coordination between the two interwoven energy sectors, with an ultimate goal of bolstering grid reliability.

• The report includes nine recommendations but stopped short of advocating for a Gas Reliability Organization akin to electric grid efforts, and concluded changes to the gas-electric market day and force majeure contract provisions were unnecessary.

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners on Nov. 12, 2025, published a report concluding greater harmonization between the gas and power sectors is needed “to ensure reliable and affordable electricity service.” More gas pipeline infrastructure will be key to the effort, the report said.

Rising electricity demand and a reliance on gas-fired generation has at times left the power sector scrambling when necessary fuel was not available.

During Winter Storm Uri in February 2021, some Texas electric companies cut power to gas production and transportation facilities as part of their emergency conservation response. That reduced fuel supplies to gas-fired power plants, contributing to energy shortages and blackouts. Almost 250 people in Texas died in the storm.

And in 2022, unplanned generator outages reached 90,500 MW during Winter Storm Elliott, with gas fuel supply issues accounting for 20% of unplanned generating unit outages, derates and failures to start, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corp.

The GEAR report parses diverse policy perspectives around the future of gas and gas infrastructure expansion, NARUC said. However, task force participants found common ground “on the need for harmonization between the electric and natural gas sectors to ensure reliable and affordable electricity service,” the report said.

“The need for harmonization is crucial, regardless of one’s long-term perspective about future energy policy in various regions of the country,” it said.

Recommendations include: creation of a natural gas “readiness forum”; development of additional gas pipeline infrastructure and gas storage opportunities; new and enhanced market tools to improve supplier performance in extreme weather; demand response initiatives for gas utilities; and market changes to incentivize gas pipeline capacity releases.

Regulators and grid operators “should apply a strategic approach to expand opportunities for increased or new storage investment consistent with empowering end-users to exert greater control over supply needs,” the report found.

There was some support for the formation of a Gas Reliability Organization, similar to the North American Electric Reliability Corp., but not enough to advance the recommendation, the GEAR report noted. “A majority of members [concluded] that such an option (on a national, regional or state basis) is unnecessary or not the best means to efficiently enhance gas-electric reliability,” it said.

Similarly, discussions around aligning the timing of gas or electric days were not advanced. Gas and electric market schedules are typically several hours apart, though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has historically tried to better align them.

“While it is obvious that the current bifurcated system is not how anyone would design the combined system from scratch, we are unaware of any systemwide outage that has occurred due to scheduling issues or mismatches,” the report said.

And possible changes to standard force majeure contract provisions, which cover supply disruptions, were found to be “neither viable nor productive,” the report said.

The task force noted that the primary driver for changes to the force majeure provisions “is aimed at expanded winterization of the production system,” and noted there are two recommendations that “facilitate a better understanding of force majeure and provide greater opportunities to mitigate its use.”

The recommendations provide an “ideal starting point for state regulators to ponder future steps to enhance reliability,” Dwight Keen, vice chair of the GEAR working group, said in a statement. Keen is also a regulator with the Kansas Corporation Commission.

A coalition of gas-electric groups supported the report’s findings. “The biggest challenge affecting interoperability across the systems is not operational; it is economic,” the Reliability Alliance said in a statement,

The group consists of the Electric Power Supply Association, Interstate Natural Gas Association of America and Natural Gas Supply Association.

“Competitive power suppliers have invested significantly to strengthen winter readiness, but we need continued alignment between gas and electric systems,” EPSA President and CEO Todd Snitchler said in a statement. “That’s the measure of success we’re all working toward, and GEAR’s work has been an important step to bridge that gap.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 21:00

Epstein Backfire Intensifies: He Was Live-Texting With House Democrat During 2019 'Get Trump' Hearing

What a week in Epstein news... 

After Democrats dumped a new trove of emails to try and show that President Trump was much better friends with the dead sex offender than he let on, we've learned a few things. 

1. Trump was clearly pals with Epstein for a while. We've seen endless pictures of them hanging out. 

2. They had a serious falling out, as evidence (in the new emails) by... 

3. Epstein was helping Democrats with their efforts to hurt Trump with dirt, which we now learn extended to...

4. Texting with Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) during a 2019 congressional hearing with Michael Cohen...

Plaskett, for those who didn't know, previously served in the Virgin Islands government - helping to give Epstein tax benefits, and worked for Epstein's fixer on the island before she was elected to Congress.

Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) attends a March 2019 House hearing. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)

As the Washington Post notes:  

In the texts, Epstein appeared to be watching the February 2019 hearing in real time and at one point informed Plaskett — whose name is redacted from the documents — that Cohen had brought up former Trump executive assistant Rhona Graff in his testimony. At the time, Cohen was testifying before the House Oversight Committee against his former boss, alleging that Trump was racist, manipulated financial records and directed hush money payments to cover up his extramarital affairs — allegations Trump denied. The president said on social media that Cohen was “lying” before testimony began.

“Cohen brought up RONA - keeper of the secrets,” Epstein texted, misspelling Graff’s first name.

“RONA??” Plaskett responded. “Quick I’m up next is that an acronym,” she added, suggesting she would question Cohen soon.

In response, Plaskett's office said: "During the hearing, Congresswoman Plaskett received texts from staff, constituents and the public at large offering advice, support and in some cases partisan vitriol, including from Epstein," adding "As a former prosecutor she welcomes information that helps her get at the truth and took on the GOP that was trying to bury the truth. The congresswoman has previously made clear her long record combating sexual assault and human trafficking, her disgust over Epstein’s deviant behavior and her support for his victims."

lol... lmao even. 

BREAKING - Newly uncovered video reveals the moment House Oversight Democrat Stacey Plaskett was being coached by Epstein via text, being told what to ask, in the middle of a 2019 hearing. pic.twitter.com/j1e84oX96W

— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) November 15, 2025

The emails reveal that Plaskett texted Epstein first before the meeting started that day...

The messages show that Plaskett texted Epstein before the hearing started that day, at 7:55 a.m. Eastern time, to tell him: “He’ll talk about his grades”

Epstein replied a minute later: “what privilege stands behind the none release of college transcripts?”

And that he may have influenced her questions: 

Hes opened the door to questions re who are the other henchmen at trump org,” Epstein texted Plaskett at 12:25 p.m.

“Yup. Very aware and waiting my turn,” she responded.

When Plaskett questioned Cohen during the hearing, she asked about Trump associates that he had mentioned previously.

“Are there other people that we should be meeting with?” Plaskett asked.

“So Allen Weisselberg is the chief financial officer in The Trump Organization,” Cohen began to reply.

“You’ve got to quickly give us as many names as you can so we can get to them,” Plaskett interjected. “Is Ms. Rhona, what is Ms. Rhona’s— …?”

“Rhona Graff is the — Mr. Trump’s executive assistant … She was — her office is directly next to his, and she’s involved in a lot that went on,” Cohen replied.

So Jeffrey Epstein was live-texting a Democrat lawmaker during a 'get Trump' hearing. Right...

All Trump has to do at this point, after apologizing to MTG and Thomas Massie (WTF) of course, is admit he was buddies with Epstein, say he didn't bang underage girls, and point to all the evidence Democrats just dropped that's blowing up in their faces. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 20:25

Obamacare Is A Disaster, Just As Expected

Authored by Stephen Soukup via American Greatness,

Just over 15 years ago, when the Democrat-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate were debating the healthcare proposals offered by the Democrat president, nearly everyone on the political right was unified in opposition. It may well have been the last time the right was united on anything, but it was indeed unified and resolute.

Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (MN) warned that “This monstrosity of a bill will not only destroy the private healthcare market, it will lead to massive increases in premiums and rationed care.” Congressman (and eventual vice-presidential nominee and Speaker of the House) Paul Ryan (WI) complained that “This bill is a fiscal Frankenstein. It’s a government takeover that will explode costs and kill jobs.” Senator (and Republican Leader) Mitch McConnell (KY) insisted that Americans “want reforms that lower costs, not a trillion-dollar government experiment.”

Right-leaning commentators like George Will and Charles Krauthammer agreed, not only with each other but with Republicans in Congress as well. Krauthammer, in particular, argued that President Obama’s promise to “bend the cost curve” down was pure, unadulterated, and extensively documented fantasy. National Review, much maligned among Trump supporters these days, dedicated most of an issue to exposing and forecasting Obamacare’s fiscal absurdities and the likelihood that it would result in lower quality of care, increased taxes, and exploding insurance premiums. Even the Heritage Foundation—in the news lately for purportedly exacerbating rifts in the conservative coalition—likewise agreed with everyone in the movement, insisting that Obamacare was a disaster waiting to happen and would keep none of the promises that it made, all while destroying what was good and valuable in the private insurance market.

More than a decade later, when it was clear that the system was in trouble and that only greater government intervention and spending could save it, Heritage (in the form of Robert Moffit, Edmund Haislmaier, and Nina Owcharenko Schaefer) took something of a victory lap, detailing Obamacare’s manifest failures and arguing that it was long past time to scrap the whole experiment.

“The facts,” the Heritage analysts noted, “are in.”

• The ACA dramatically increased health insurance premiums and cost-sharing in the individual market….

• The ACA collapsed insurer competition in the nation’s individual markets….

• The ACA failed to meet official enrollment targets in the individual markets….

• The ACA is pricing middle-class Americans out of individual market coverage….

• The ACA expanded government coverage while wrecking the private individual health insurance market….

• The ACA compromised access to care for persons—including those with preexisting medical conditions—enrolled in the nation’s individual markets….

• The ACA failed—and failed miserably—to attract young people into the exchange insurance pools….

• The ACA Medicaid expansion prioritizes able-bodied adults, many of whom are working, over the elderly, the disabled, and poor women and children….

• The ACA did not, as predicted, “bend the curve” of America’s healthcare spending….

• The ACA’s vaunted delivery reforms did not yield the anticipated savings.

Everything Republicans warned would happen did happen. And the Democrats’ response was to offer a massive “temporary” increase in subsidies to help paper over the failures. Again, every sentient person in the country insisted that doing so would be a disaster, that the subsidies would only increase costs, and that they would not be temporary.

The Democrats didn’t listen, however. They didn’t listen in 2009 and 2010 when Congress initially debated and then passed Obamacare—without a single Republican vote in either house. They didn’t listen in 2020, when they insisted they needed expanded subsidies to address the financial hardships created by COVID-19. They didn’t listen in 2023, when they extended the COVID-era subsidies as part of the inaptly named Inflation Reduction Act, at a cost of $64 billion. And they’re still not listening now. Indeed, they just engineered the longest shutdown in American government history because they have no intention of ever listening or ever admitting that perhaps the right was absolutely spot-on in its predictions about Obamacare.

Worse still, in addition to sticking their fingers in their ears and ignoring the experiences of the last decade and a half, the Democrats are actually blaming the Republicans for all of the healthcare system’s problems, insisting that the GOP is somehow responsible for their delusions. As Senator Bernie Sanders, the ideological spirit animal of today’s Democrats, put it, “This government shutdown is all about whether Republicans will get away with raising healthcare premiums by 75% for 20 million Americans and throwing 15 million people off their healthcare.”

Over the years, countless conservative commentators have played upon the famous line in the movie “Love Story,” arguing that “being a liberal means never having to say you’re sorry.” More accurately, they would note that being a liberal/leftist/statist means never having to say you were wrong or admit that your utopian dreams were, in reality, nightmares. This is a feature, not a bug, of leftism. Just as today’s young leftists insist that communism can work, despite its many high-profile and bloody failures, because “real communism has never been tried,” so the Democrats insist that Obamacare can work if it’s tweaked and adjusted in just the right ways.

Although Jean-Jacques Rousseau shares the title “father of the modern left” with many of his Enlightenment contemporaries, he clearly did more than most to undermine and destroy the existing social and political orders and to discombobulate the West. As Nietzsche argued, Rousseau was “the greatest revolutionizing force of the modern era.”

Rousseau did not believe in the concept of Original Sin and insisted that the very idea was invented to keep man oppressed, silenced, and miserable under the thumb of society’s imperfect institutions. “Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the creator,” he wrote in the opening pages of Emile, but “everything degenerates in the hands of man.”

As a result, Rousseau and his followers saw society’s institutions as the foremost threat to man’s freedom and happiness. If man is good by nature, yet he behaves poorly under the direction and guidance of specific institutions, then the institutions, by definition, must be corrupt. They are clearly the cause of the aberrant behavior and must, therefore, be reformed—as thoroughly and as frequently as necessary to enable man to live as he should in a collective society. As the historian Paul Johnson noted in his Intellectuals, to Rousseau, society or “culture” was an “evolving, artificial construct….” But it nevertheless “dictated man’s behavior,” meaning that “you could improve, indeed totally transform, his behavior by changing the culture and the competitive forces, which produced it…” In short, according to Rousseau, one can change the world by successfully changing its institutions—over and over and over again, until you get it right, without ever having to say you’re sorry for getting it wrong.

Normal people, of course, think that the institutions created by Obamacare are destructive, costly, and ultimately ineffective. And we know they believe this because so many of them said so before the system was ever put in place. The Democrats disagree, and they will not be dissuaded from their course by any appeals to theory or experience. They want to keep the institutions and keep reforming them until they inevitably find the right formula.

They’ll get it right next time. Trust them. Oh, and in the meantime, pony up.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 19:50

Redistricting Could Determine 2026 Elections: Here's What Each State Is Doing

Authored by Jackson Richman and Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times,

The future control of the U.S. House of Representatives hangs in the balance as states move to redistrict their congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

A spate of redistricting efforts began earlier this year when Texas approved a map that would grow Republicans’ control of the state’s House delegation. California then responded in kind, approving a map to increase Democrats’ control by the same margins.

Since then, a flurry of other states have finalized redistricting, are moving toward doing so, or are considering proposals.

As things stand, Republicans enjoy a slight advantage, standing to gain three more seats than Democrats.

Here’s a breakdown of which states have been doing what, how the math works, the local legal challenges and politics, and what it might mean for the midterms.

States That Have Redistricted Their Maps Texas

The Lone Star State added five new Republican-leaning districts in response to a letter from the Department of Justice alleging that some districts in the state were unconstitutionally drawn by grouping minorities into a majority. President Donald Trump signaled his support for the state’s redistricting.

The redistricting was not without a battle, though. State Democrats at one point left Texas to prevent a quorum in the state legislature.

The new map prompted Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat, to announce his retirement.

SEAT CHANGE: R+5

California

Voters approved a ballot measure on Nov. 4 to counter Texas’s changes, adding five new Democratic-leaning districts in line with a request from California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The measure, Proposition 50, garnered 64.6 percent support from the state electorate.

Proposition 50 is the subject of a lawsuit by the California Republican Party. The Department of Justice has joined the suit.

SEAT CHANGE: D+5

Missouri

A newly drawn map in the state could help the GOP pick up an additional seat.

Gov. Mike Kehoe signed off on the new map in September after the state legislature approved it.

“Missourians are more alike than we are different, and our values, across both sides of the aisle, are closer to each other than those of the congressional representation of states like New York, California, and Illinois,” he said at the time.

The seat targeted belongs to Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.).

The St. Louis seat, held by Rep. Wesley Bell (D-Mo.), is protected under the Voting Rights Act.

SEAT CHANGE: R+1

North Carolina

Likewise, North Carolina’s new map—approved by the legislature in October—could give the GOP an additional seat.

Although the state has voted for Trump and Republicans in most elections in recent years, North Carolina is often considered a swing state.

Currently, the GOP controls 10 of the state’s 14 congressional seats.

Only one of those seats, held by Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.), is a potential target. Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, did not have the power to veto the new map.

SEAT CHANGE: R+1

Utah

After a judge struck down the map created by Republicans after the 2020 census, the Beehive State created a new Salt Lake City-based competitive seat for Democrats.

Currently, the state’s four congressional districts are split between Salt Lake City and the outlying rural areas. Redistricting would dilute the congressional map and its lines.

Republicans are planning to appeal the decision to the Utah Supreme Court. Former Rep. Ben McAdams (D-Utah) could run for the seat.

SEAT CHANGE: D+1

States Considering Redistricting Their Maps Colorado

Democrat gubernatorial candidate Phil Weiser, currently the Centennial State’s attorney general, expressed support for a possible constitutional amendment, which would need to be voted on by voters.

Colorado has become increasingly a safe Democratic state, with Republicans having last won the state in the 2004 election.

It is unknown which districts would be targeted, though Colorado’s congressional delegation includes four Republicans: Reps. Lauren Boebert, Jeff Crank, Jeff Hurd, and Gabe Evans.

Florida

In the Sunshine State, a special committee has been formed to take up the redistricting issue.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has expressed approval for redistricting.

“I think the state is malapportioned,” he said. “So I do think it would be appropriate to do a redistricting in the mid-decade. So we’re working through what that would look like, but I can tell you, just look at how the population has shifted in different parts of the state over a four-to-five-year period. It’s been really significant.”

Florida has shifted politically in recent years, moving from a swing state in presidential elections to a solidly Republican state.

Currently, Republicans control 20 of the state’s 28 congressional districts.

Illinois

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has urged Democrats in the Land of Lincoln to redraw the district map.

“We are going to support efforts to make sure that there are fair maps all across the country in the face of what Republicans are endeavoring to do,” he told reporters, accusing Republicans of gerrymandering.

Gov. JB Pritzker has said that all options are on the table. This could include potentially changing Republican districts to include larger portions of blue-leaning Chicago.

In the Democrat-dominated state, Republicans hold three of the state’s 17 congressional seats.

New York

Democrat state lawmakers have suggested a constitutional amendment that would need to be approved twice by the legislature and then by voters.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has expressed support for redistricting in the solidly Democratic state.

“All’s fair in love and war. We’re following the rules. We do redistricting every 10 years,” she said. “But if there’s other states violating the rules and are trying to give themselves an advantage, all I’ll say is, I’m going to look at it closely with Hakeem Jeffries.”

Democrats currently control 19 of the state’s 26 congressional districts.

Louisiana

Lawmakers are facing court challenges to Louisiana’s current map, approved in January 2024.

Some voters brought suit against the map, claiming it violates the Voting Rights Act. The status of this challenge is in limbo as lawmakers await the federal Supreme Court’s decision, but steps have been taken to push back primary elections in case the maps need to be redrawn.

Democrats hold two of the state’s six congressional seats.

Maryland

On Nov. 4, Gov. Wes Moore launched the Governor’s Redistricting Advisory Commission to consider redrawing the state’s maps in favor of Democrats.

However, the push has faced challenges in the state Legislature, with the Democratic state Senate president rejecting the notion outright.

Rep. Andy Harris is the state’s sole Republican member.

States Moving to Redistrict Their Maps Virginia

Following the 2025 elections, Democrats in Virginia now have a clear path to move forward with redistricting efforts in the commonwealth to favor Democratic candidates.

Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger will enter office in January with control of the governor’s mansion, a Democratic lieutenant governor and attorney general, and 64 Democratic seats in the state’s House of Delegates.

Democrats already hold the Senate, where seats weren’t on the ballot in 2025.

Currently, Democrats control six of the state’s 11 congressional districts.

Ohio

On Oct. 31, the Ohio Redistricting Commission unanimously gave the green light to a new congressional district map put forward by the state’s GOP majority.

The new maps, if finalized, could increase the number of Republicans in the state’s congressional delegation from 10 to 12.

Ohio was legally required to change its maps ahead of the 2026 election because the previous maps were only valid for four years, given that they had failed to win bipartisan support following the 2020 census.

Democrats see the current map under consideration as their best option to avoid a potentially worse outcome.

States That Have Ruled It Out Kansas

After pushing for months to bring Republican lawmakers on board with redrawing Kansas’s congressional maps, a push for a special session was abandoned on Nov. 4.

Republicans failed to garner enough support among state House Republicans to redraw the maps, which currently give Republicans 3 seats to 1 for Democrats.

House Speaker Dan Hawkins announced that there were not enough votes in the state’s lower chamber to warrant convening a special session in November, meaning that the issue has, at least for the time being, been ruled out in the state.

Nebraska

Although Gov. Jim Pillen has said he’s “open” to redrawing the maps, lawmakers in Nebraska’s state legislature don’t share his stance.

Such a redraw would doubtless seek to shore up GOP support in outgoing Rep. Don Bacon’s (R-Neb.) Omaha-based district. But at present, there is too much GOP opposition in the state’s unicameral legislature to move forward with any such bid.

At present, any push to redraw the state’s maps seems to have far less than the 33 votes that would be needed to overcome a potential filibuster.

New Hampshire

Gov. Kelly Ayotte has said now is not the time to redistrict.

“The timing is off for this, because we are literally in the middle of the census period,” she said in an interview with WMUR. “And when I talk to people in New Hampshire ... it’s not on the top of their priority list.”

Though Republicans have enjoyed victories on a local level in New Hampshire, the New England swing state has consistently voted with its neighbors in favor of the Democratic Party at the federal level.

Democrats currently control the state’s two congressional districts as well as the state’s two Senate seats.

Indiana

The Trump administration’s efforts to persuade Indiana to redraw its maps hit a major roadblock on Nov. 14. State Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray said in a statement that the votes are not there to change the Hoosier State’s congressional map.

“Over the last several months, Senate Republicans have given very serious and thoughtful consideration to the concept of redrawing our state’s congressional maps,” he said. “Today, I’m announcing there are not enough votes to move that idea forward, and the Senate will not reconvene in December.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 18:40

October Foreclosure Filings Jump 20% YoY

Last month we noted that US foreclosure filings jumped 17% in Q3 of 2025 vs. Q3 2024, with Florida, Nevada, South Carolina, Illinois and Delaware leading the pack, based on research by ATTOM. 

Now, ATTOM is reporting a 20% monthly spike in October vs. 2024 - marking the eighth straight month of YoY increases. 

Breaking it down:

• There were 36,766 US properties with some type of foreclosure filing in October, which include notices of default, scheudled auctions, or bank repossessions - a 3% rise over September of this year, and a 19% jump vs. Oct. 2024.
• Foreclosure starts - the initial phase of the process, were up 6% vs. September and were 20% higher than October 2024. 
• Completed foreclosures - the final phase, jumped 32% YoY for October. 

That said, Attom CEO Rober Barber doesn't think it's a big deal.

"Even with these increases, activity remains well below historic highs. The current trend appears to reflect a gradual normalization in foreclosure volumes as market conditions adjust and some homeowners continue to navigate higher housing and borrowing costs," said Barber. 

Similar to last month's report, Florida, South Carolina and Illinois led the nation in state foreclosure filings. City-wise, the following metro areas led the pack:

• Tampa, FL
• Jacksonville, FL
• Orlando, FL
• Riverside, CA
• Cleveland, OH

When it comes to completed foreclosures, Texas, California and Florida had the most - suggesting that those states will see more inventory available for sale at distressed prices. As CNBC notes, there's strong demand for houses in these price ranges, so it's likely that those foreclosed properties won't last long on the market. 

Putting things in perspective

All of the above translates to less than 0.5% of mortgages in foreclosure. At the peak of the Great Recession, over 4% of mortgages were in foreclosure - so we have a ways to go, and are currently well below the historic average of between 1% and 1.5%. 

Also right now, 4% of mortgages are delinquent, which as 12% at the peak of the financial crisis.

What is concerning are FHA loans: 

"So, no foreclosure tsunami to worry about," said  Rick Sharga, CEO of CJ Patrick Co., a real estate market intelligence firm. "That said, there are a few areas of concern. [Federal Housing Administration] delinquencies are over 11%, and account for 52% of all seriously delinquent loans; we’re likely to see more FHA loans in foreclosure in 2026." 

Sharga also pointed out that states which are experiencing falling home prices with rising insurance premiums are seeing an uptick in defaults. 

At the end of the day, in most major metros - anyone looking to buy a home is still better off renting that same home for a fraction of the mortgage, property tax, and maintenance - with the wildcard of course being the potential for capital appreciation. 

Update: As ZeroHedge reader Montana Cowboy notes in the comments below - it's even worse than that...

The real problem arrives when the lender becomes the owner. This happens when the lender's demand exceeds the highest bid.

A foreclosure is not automatically a process where the lender becomes the owner. A foreclosure is a forced public sale. The lender makes the first bid for the amount owed, which includes missed payments, unpaid property tax, forced insurance, foreclosure costs, and other costs. It typically comes to about 110% of the loan balance but can dramatically exceed that amount if the lender stalls. If there is no cash buyer for that total amount, the lender is the highest bidder and becomes the owner. 

The fun really starts when the lender becomes the owner. GAAP and FAFSA accounting rules permit that lender to hide the loss by presuming the value of the property exceeds the lender's investment. Once the lender re-sells that property, there is no way to hide the loss on the lender's books. This is why lenders delay foreclosures, sometimes for years. They don't want to start the process because they know where it ends. It gets worse if the market is declining. Foreclosures accelerate that decline by increasing supply.

The foreclosures reflected in the article do not account for loans in trouble where the initial step of foreclosure (a Notice of Default) is being deliberately delayed. Things are much worse than this article shows.

Let's Compare

Take a $2.2 million home in San Diego, for example... Someone with excellent credit will pay $13,859 per month when you include taxes, HOA, and home insurance, and cough up $439,000 for the 20% down payment. 

If interest rates drop to 4%, you're still paying $11,480 per month...

Meanwhile, this almost identically sized house around the corner (literally) rents for $6,200 / month -  which is $7,659 less per month than the mortgage (or $91,908 less per year) and includes a landlord to pay for that broken washing machine or whatever, plus you can bail when the neighbor kid drops a 2000W stereo in his Acura you can hear from 3 blocks away coming home from his Drakkar Noir-drenched attempt to get laid in the Gaslamp (did not get laid).

Either way you're paying for a McMansion on a postage stamp.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 18:05

From Nukes To AI-Powered Drones: Saudi Arabia's MbS Bringing Wishlist To D.C. Next Week

Via Middle East Eye

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wants a defense deal that outshines Qatar’s, AI chips and AI-powered drones, and potentially, American nuclear weapons stationed in his country.

The wishlist reveals the confidence of a leader who arrives in Washington on Monday, having withstood pressure to normalize ties with Israel amid alleged genocide in Gaza. Then over the summer, he emerged unscathed, if not relatively stronger, by sitting out a direct war between Israel and Iran. On the opposite side of the aisle is a US president willing to put up his country's crown jewels for negotiation: nuclear and AI technology.

The success of the crown prince's visit will be a reflection of President Donald Trump’s core instinct to bypass the American security establishment’s concerns about China and safeguarding US technology in exchange for racking up foreign sales from one of the world’s few major economies that has the cash at hand, despite stretched budgets, to splash big. 

There was a time when Middle Eastern leaders came to the White House to discuss deals that basically just kept Boeing and Lockheed Martin humming. The shah of Iran, with his encyclopedic knowledge of weapons systems, was notorious for such visits. But experts say Mohammed bin Salman’s sophisticated shopping list reflects his view of a much more mature and forward-thinking kingdom.

"MBS is not looking for cooperation in a single area, but to strengthen US-Saudi cooperation in the long term. That is a two-way flow of technology and trade," Ayham Kamel, Middle East president at Edelman Public and Government Affairs, told Middle East Eye.

“Saudi Arabia still wants to be part of a multipolar world order, but it is pivoting to take advantage of its closeness to Trump,” he added. 

Nukes and defense agreement

One of the areas to watch, experts say, is a Saudi push to be included under the US’s nuclear umbrella. Days after Israel attacked Hamas negotiators in Qatar, Saudi Arabia signed a defence pact with Pakistan, the only nuclear-armed state in the Muslim world. Pakistan is estimated to possess around 170 nuclear warheads. Saudi and Pakistani descriptions of the deal said it encompassed all military options.

The Americans’ nuclear talks with Saudi Arabia have been kept under tight wraps, but one former US intelligence official said the idea of extending protection to the kingdom could serve a purpose.

“It would pull them [the Saudis] out of the Pakistanis’ nuclear umbrella and make the Saudis feel better than the Qataris,"  he said. "I think we should look for some language next week that points to Saudi Arabia being linked to the US nuclear arsenal," the former official said.

MEE reported previously that the Trump administration gave its approval for the Israeli attack on Qatar. The decision discredited the decades-old foundation of the US's status as the security guarantor of the oil-rich region.

But for Saudi Arabia, that image started to fray as early as 2019 when Iran attacked its Aramco oil facilities. The first Trump administration refused to retaliate against Tehran or its allies, the Houthis, whom Saudi Arabia was fighting at the time. "The memory of September 2019…still looms large," Hesham Alghannam, a Saudi defence analyst in Riyadh, said at an event hosted by the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington on Wednesday.

In a bid to mend ties with Doha after the Israeli attack, Trump signed an executive order that guarantees Qatar’s security and says the US will regard any attack on the Gulf state as a threat to its own “peace and security”. Few officials in Washington or the Gulf put much stock in the pledge. Unlike the US’s treaty commitments to Japan and South Korea, executive orders can be revoked at any time, and incoming governments may not honour them. 

Experts say Saudi Arabia wants something stronger, with the knowledge that it will not get a Senate ratified treaty. "Riyadh is not seeking symbolic protection. It wants a credible and clear defense arrangement. Not MOUs with no action plan. Something more than the partial offers the kingdom is getting now," Alghannam added.

Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman and national security adviser Musaad al-Aiban were in Washington earlier this week to iron out the potential defense pledge. Before he has even landed in Washington, one of the successes of the crown prince's visit has been the Saudi’s ability to disentangle bilateral deals with the US from Israel, experts say. 

The US and Saudi Arabia had been discussing a Senate ratified defence treaty as part of a quid pro quo for Riyadh to normalize ties with Israel.

Before Trump visited the kingdom in May, Saudi Arabia had pre-negotiated the talking points to make sure normalisation was not on the agenda, MEE was the first to reveal. Despite a fragile ceasefire holding in Gaza now, and Trump’s claim that Riyadh will normalise ties with Israel before the year’s end, western and Arab diplomats tell MEE that Saudi Arabia is just as reluctant to return to those discussions.

In addition to a ceasefire, the kingdom wants to see steps towards the creation of an independent Palestinian state, something Israel is loath to agree on.

Can Saudi Arabia enrich uranium?

Saudi Arabia and the US were also in talks about reaching an agreement on civilian nuclear energy as part of a reward for Riyadh to establish ties with Israel.

Those talks are still on - even if normalization is off the agenda. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright visited Saudi Arabia in the spring to discuss cooperation in nuclear technology.

While Trump considers the Abraham Accords a key success of his foreign policy, he is also seeking business deals. The allure of US companies like Westinghouse and Bechtel, which build nuclear reactors and the infrastructure to support them, profiting from a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, may be enough to overcome sidelining Israel, experts say.

In 2009, the UAE signed a so-called 123 agreement by which they promised not to enrich uranium in order to receive US permission to start a civilian nuclear program.

The crown prince and his advisors have pushed for a deal that will allow them to enrich uranium, which they say the kingdom holds vast reserves of. "We will enrich it and we will sell it and we will do a ‘yellowcake'," Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said at the start of the year, referring to a step in the process that comes after mining, but before enrichment.

"Not enriching would be a major concession by the Saudis. It’s an economic issue because the Saudis know they can make more money off their uranium by enriching themselves instead of exporting it. But it is also a matter of national pride. The question is, if they don’t enrich, what is their pay-off from Trump?" a Saudi-based analyst told MEE.

Bernard Haykel, a professor at Princeton, said at the Arab Gulf States Institute event that the trade-off could be nuclear weapons. "I suspect for now that they will give up on enrichment and processing, but they will want a nuclear umbrella protection from the US," Haykel said. "Which may involve the deployment of US nuclear weapons systems on Saudi soil."

Gregory Gause, a visiting scholar at the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington, told MEE: "Historically, we have had nuclear weapons stationed all over the place. It doesn’t require Congress to approve the stationing of nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia."

"We also have nuclear-armed submarines that can go anywhere in the world. Trump could just say we will commit to nuclear-armed submarines patrolling the Indian Ocean."

Will Saudi Arabia get F-35s?

Saudi Arabia is bringing 1,000 officials on 18 planes to Washington for the visit, a US official briefed on the preparations told MEE. Monday will mark the first time since 2018 that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will visit the White House.

Seven months after that trip, he ordered the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, triggering a torrent of criticism by human rights groups and former US President Joe Biden when he was campaigning for office. Riyadh’s ties to the US were strained during the Biden administration’s early days, but by 2022, they recovered, in part because the US needed Saudi energy after it sanctioned Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman emerged from that rupture in a much stronger position. He sought a truce with the Houthis in Yemen and has patched up ties with Iran. The crown prince moved out of isolation long ago. This visit, experts say, is about consolidating the raft of deals that the US and Saudi Arabia committed to when Trump visited the Gulf in May. 

The two announced $142bn in defense sales. At the time, MEE revealed that F-35s, stealthy fifth-generation fighter jets, were part of the prospective agreement. Reuters reported last week that the sale could include up to 48 F-35s.

Some US and Israeli officials have been concerned about the sale for months, as MEE and others have reported. Israel is the only country in the Middle East to operate the F-35, which it views as a key part of its qualitative military edge against its neighbours.

Plans to sell F-35s to the UAE as part of its establishment of diplomatic ties to Israel stalled during the Biden administration over concerns that China could gain access to the technology. US officials have been raising those concerns about Saudi Arabia for months also, current and former US officials tell MEE.

Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace expert at Aerodynamic Advisory, said if the deal went through, they wouldn’t start getting deliveries until three or four years from now, as they would be behind several European countries that have already placed orders.Aboulalafia said concerns about maintaining Israel’s qualitative edge have been a perennial issue in warplane sales to Saudi Arabia.

In the 1990s, the US sold the kingdom F-15S strike eagle warplanes with downgraded radars and inferior electronics countermeasures, in part to appease pro-Israel lobbying groups. "The Israelis will be a little concerned, but usually, that is addressed because Israel gets technological rights to enhance their stuff, that the Saudis do not get," Aboulalafia said.

"The F-35 is also, to a far greater extent than any other aircraft, vulnerable to a kill switch," he added, meaning that the US can remotely disable the warplanes.

President Trump is planning a formal dinner for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his trip to Washington, a man the U.S. intelligence community concluded approved the killing and dismemberment of Post opinion columnist Jamal Khashoggi. https://t.co/TCT4hzLLtW

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 14, 2025

Israel itself has pioneered advancements on the F-35 with the US’s support. Israel modified its version of the warplane, the F-35I Adir, to carry external fuel compartments without compromising on its stealthy features, MEE reported. That modification allowed Israel to fly the F-35s thousands of miles round-trip to Iran, without refuelling, during its surprise attack on Iran in June.

Alghannam, the Saudi analyst, told the Arab Gulf States Institute that this is the kind of cooperation, what he called “the localisation of content”, is what Saudi Arabia is really seeking from Trump. He said, “without US assistance”, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned weapons manufacturer, Saudi Arabian Military Industries, could not become a “serious” player in the industry.

Drones to data centres: Saudi Arabia's AI agenda 

In addition to F-35s, the US and Saudi Arabia have been discussing the sale of hundreds of MQ-9 Reaper drones. However, defense industry insiders and officials say that the kingdom is becoming more selective, and the space to watch for deals during this visit is with smaller defense players.

Saudi Arabia has been in talks with Shield AI, a US start-up whose AI-supported V-Bat drone is operating in Ukraine. The company is also working on a so-called vertical takeoff drone that carries both air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons.

"Riyadh is a big area of interest," one person briefed on the discussions told MEE. "The Saudis are looking at mid-sized drones. They want Collaborative Combat Aircraft that can fly alongside warplanes, and they want drones suitable for maritime surveillance."

Like its smaller neighbor, the UAE, Saudi Arabia is also eying American AI chips. In May, Nvidia announced plans to sell thousands of its advanced Blackwell chips to Humain, an AI firm owned by Saudi Arabia’s $1 trillion Public Investment Fund.

The kingdom is pitching itself as an AI hub with cut-rate electricity prices to power data centers. Humain is building data centres from Riyadh to Dammam, which it says will have 6.6 gigawatts of capacity by 2034. Saudi AI company Datavolt is building a $5bn data center on the kingdom’s Red Sea coast.

While AI deals were announced with fanfare during Trump’s visit to the kingdom in May, the delivery of chips has stalled, with no public announcements. Some US officials have raised concerns that China could gain access to the US’s AI technology in Saudi Arabia. The crown prince is expected to push for progress on the deals in Washington.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 17:30

Labor Demographer Issues Warning: College-Educated Oversupply Is Here

Goldman analysts led by Evan Tylenda published a note on emerging labor-market risks and how companies are adapting to aging demographics and shrinking labor pools.

One section stood out in particular: the widening mismatch between an oversupply of college-educated workers and a deepening shortage of talent for non-degree, hands-on jobs.

Tylenda and others on the team spoke with labor demographer Ron Hetrick, who outlined how the U.S. labor market is entering a structural slowdown driven by aging demographics, a falling birth rate, and weakening participation among older workers.

Hetrick outlined that baby boomers once supplied 65 million workers, but only 25 million remain, and no younger generation is large enough to replace them. 

He noted that BLS data show the workforce adding just 5.9 million workers by 2034, with nearly half of that coming from workers aged +65, even as participation among those +55 continues to decline.

Here's where things get spicy: This demographic squeeze is creating a skills imbalance: an oversupply of college-educated workers and a shortage of vocational and lower-skilled labor for non-degree jobs.

From the note:

• Shortage of skilled / technical labor: The Demographic Dilemma and resulting labor shortages make automation and AI success essential while simultaneously threatening to constrain AI's physical scale-up via potential skilled labor shortages. The emerging bottlenecks lie in power generation, transmission and grid modernization, and upstream industries required for electrification and digitization such as manufacturing, and critical minerals mining and processing — industries with long project cycles, high regulatory friction, and limited talent mobility from displaced knowledge-worker pools.

• Shortage of low-skilled labor in high turnover industries: where recent graduates and knowledge workers displaced by AI are imperfect fits. This is driving rising automation for low-skilled jobs, driven by rising costs, declining labor pools. For example, the U.S. added 4.5 mn workers with a college degree since 2019, while losing 800k workers without a degree. Automation in low-skilled roles (especially ones with repetition) has potential to help improve worker safety and pay for remaining workers, potentially driving lower employee turnover in the medium to long term.

We hosted Ron Hetrick, a labor demographer, to highlight the structural issues forming for labor markets in the U.S. coming from declining labor pools, particularly in lower skilled fields not requiring a degree. Mr. Hetrick sees mounting challenges for the aging and declining workforce in the U.S., with industries like Healthcare and Construction most exposed to disruption, driven by limited availability of labor solutions.

Companies adapting, and key solutions for addressing labor challenges. Corporates, across industries, are taking different measures to remedy risk of labor shortages, mainly around 1) Automation upgrades to boost productivity and consistency; 2) Retention efforts, including increased pay, better work conditions, enhanced benefits packages, providing childcare service etc.; and 3) Training & Upskilling through the expansion of their own training infrastructure and partnerships with external institutions.

ZeroHedge Pro subscribers can read the complete note in the usual spot. It's loaded with far more detail on the shifting labor market, a framework that's increasingly important to understand before the 2030s arrive. 

The most appropriate way to end the note is an epic quote by Palantir CEO Alex Karp:

The average Ivy League grad voting for this mayor is annoyed their education is not that valuable, and that the person who knows how to drill for oil has a more valuable profession.

I think that annoys the f*ck out of these people. 

Palantir CEO Alex Karp on Zohran Mandani:

“The average Ivy League grad voting for this mayor is annoyed their education is not that valuable, and that the person who knows how to drill for oil has a more valuable profession”

“I think that annoys the fuck out of these people” https://t.co/uYA54AYAJN pic.twitter.com/46XmHSB1gb

— Jawwwn (@jawwwn_) November 6, 2025

These days, college is a woke indoctrination factory pumping out our purple-haired creatures who are confused about their gender and rave about Marxism.

College is not like it used to be. There is an oversupply of unproductive "woke" degrees. Don't be woke. Be productive, find a solid trade job that won't be automated into extinction by 2030, and start a family; this is one pathway for GenZers.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 16:55

All SNAP Beneficiaries Will Need To Reapply For Benefits: Agriculture Secretary

Authored by T.J.Muscaro via The Epoch Times,

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins suggested on Nov. 14 that everyone registered for the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits should reapply as a result of ongoing fraud discoveries.

At least, that is what she said when she shared what the Trump administration was planning to enact during her appearance on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight.”

“It’s going to give us a platform and a trajectory to fundamentally rebuild this program, have everyone reapply for their benefit, make sure that everyone that’s taking a taxpayer-funded benefit through SNAP or food stamps, that they literally are vulnerable, and they can’t survive without it,” she said.

This decision comes after Rollins disclosed on X that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) discovered that nearly 200,000 deceased people across 29 states received benefits.

The remaining 21 states sued to keep their data from being disclosed, according to the post.

The states that chose not to cooperate were mostly Democratic-run states.

More than 500,000 people were registered twice, she revealed.

She also said that the program experienced a 40 percent increase under the Biden Administration.

About 42 million people, or one in eight Americans, use the federal food program, and they receive $177 per person per month, on average, according to the latest USDA data.

Rollins, in an earlier interview, said that 80 percent of people using the program were able to work and described SNAP as one of the “most corrupt, dysfunctional programs” in U.S. history.

Those who choose to reapply would have to verify that they could not survive without it, she said. She also argued that the cutoff of some SNAP benefits would also incentivize more illegal immigrants to self-deport.

“In just the states that cooperated, we’ve already uncovered massive fraud,” Rollins said on X at the beginning of November.

“The Democrat Party has turned its back on working Americans and built its entire strategy around protecting illegal aliens. They know if the handouts stop, those illegals will go back home, and Democrats will lose 20+ seats after the next census.”

“There’s a new sheriff in town. @POTUS will not tolerate waste, fraud, or abuse while hardworking Americans go hungry,” she wrote.

SNAP beneficiaries became a poignant topic after the USDA ran out of funding for the program during the record-long government shutdown. Distribution of benefits was ordered to resume immediately after President Donald Trump signed a continuing resolution to keep the federal government funded through the New Year.

“The reduction in maximum allotments for November is no longer in effect,” the USDA said on Nov. 13. “State agencies should immediately resume issuing combined allotments for November and December for newly certified applicants who apply after the 15th of the month.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 16:20

Jan. 6 Panel Cost Twice Previous Estimates, Hiring TV Producers To Dramatize Attack

Authored by Mark Stricherz via The Center Square,

The U.S. House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol cost almost twice as much as previously reported, including spending taxpayer funds for TV news producers and documentary filmmakers to create videos dramatizing its case against President Donald Trump, an investigation by The Center Square found. 

The Washington Post reported that the panel had a projected budget of $9.3 million in September 2022. According to a review of U.S. House disbursements, the select committee spent $17.4 million.

U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, a Texas Republican who is on a new committee appointed by House Speaker Mike Johnson to investigate security failures on Jan. 6, said the original committee didn’t spend taxpayer money properly after The Center Square told him about the final costs of the panel’s investigation. 

“They wasted it, wasted it,” he said walking into his House office Wednesday before referring to two former GOP members of the panel.

“That was a sham committee. (Liz) Cheney. (Adam) Kinzinger. It was a joke.” 

Dan Savickas, president of policy and government affairs at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a non-partisan nonprofit, said more than doubling of the budget was not appropriate.

“The median budget for a House committee is $6 million a year, so for the Jan. 6 committee to spend $17.4 million is excessive,” he told The Center Square in an interview.

“And anytime a committee is grandstanding, specifically Jan. 6, to fit a narrative instead of holding people accountable and getting the story is bad. That’s why they hired documentary filmmakers.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and chair of the committee, declined an interview request.

“The work of the committee speaks for itself, and the chairman continues to stand by it,” Yasmine Brown, a press secretary and communications director, wrote in an email to The Center Square. 

An undetermined amount was spent on three dozen contractors and consultants. Many worked for a few months or less than a year, rather than all 18 months like full-time staff. They are listed in the committee’s report but do not show up in a list of expenditures the U.S. House posted online disclosing its spending.

Among them were the former president of ABC News, a longtime producer for ABC’s Nightline, an Emmy-award winning daily TV news producer, and a former documentarian for the Oprah Winfrey Network.  

“I was part of the first ever team of former television journalists brought in by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol to produce the historic live hearings laying out the committee’s evidence to the country,” Melinda Arons, a former Nightline senior producer, wrote on her LinkedIn page.  

Brian Sasser, an Emmy-award winning daily TV news producer, noted on his LinkedIn page that his job was to “(m)anage constantly evolving rundown and scripts for live hearings” of the select committee and to “(c)oordinate with various U.S. House staffers and Committee investigators to ensure accuracy of all scripting.” 

James Goldston worked for ABC News for 17 years, including more than one year as the senior executive producer for Good Morning America and seven years as its president, according to his LinkedIn page. Ryan Mayers said on his LinkedIn page that he has been a freelance filmmaker for seven years and edited the documentary and interview series Oprah’s Next Chapter for the Oprah Winfrey Network. 

Hyatt Mamoun described herself on LinkedIn as an award-winning filmmaker with a focus on environmental design. “With a passion for conservation through education, I believe that through educating as many people as possible through the entertainment of film, we can change our future,” she wrote.

Jan. 6 different from other committees

Previous committees and commissions examined the Watergate scandal in the early-to-mid 1970s, the Jonestown massacre of 1978, and the Islamic terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. They hired or used only congressional staff, lawyers, and investigators.  

By contrast, the Jan. 6 committee hired more than congressional staff, lawyers, and investigators. They also hired freelancers with backgrounds in producing and editing graphics as well as video and audio footage – prominent features of the committee’s 10 nationally televised hearings from June to December 2022.

The committee’s records do not disclose the amount the panel paid for each freelancer. 

Among the contracting companies was Innovative Driven Inc., an Arlington, Virginia-based firm that specializes in forensics, electronic data discovery and project management. The privately held company received $2.4 million. A company spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 

Another recipient was Polar Solutions Inc., a Gaithersburg, Maryland-based investigative firm of money laundering and cryptocurrency crimes. The company received $2.7 million. Polar Solutions’ president, Arthur Ahrens, declined to comment when called by The Center Square. 

Full-time committee staffers received more money in personal and other compensation than regular members of Congress, a tradition in line with recent history. While rank-and-file members earn $174,000 a year, Timothy J. Heaphy, the committee’s chief investigative counsel, was paid almost $190,00 in personal and other compensation in 12 months.

Election results challenged

The committee was formed after former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat, defeated President Donald Trump, a Republican, in the 2020 election. With 44,000 votes separating the candidates in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin, Trump contested the results. 

He claimed voting fraud and irregularities were responsible for his margin, but 62 of his 63 legal challenges failed in court. On Jan. 2, Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to help him “find 11,780 votes” so he could be declared the winner in the Peach State. 

On January 6, 2021, the day Congress gathered at the Capitol to certify Biden the winner, Trump led a “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse in Washington at which more than 28,000 people passed through security. 

More than 2,000 broke into the Capitol, including Ashli Babbitt, who was shot to death by a Capitol Police officer while attempting to break into the House floor. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick collapsed and died one day after the attack, while four other police officers at the Capitol that day died of suicide half a year later. 

The violence represented a break with tradition in which presidents transfer power to their successor peacefully. On Jan. 7, 2021, Trump conceded he would not serve a consecutive second term. 

That June, the House of Representatives voted to create a select committee, to be composed of 11 members “to investigate and report on the causes, circumstances, and causes” of the violent attack.”

The panel was controversial from the start. 

Previous select committees had members selected by leaders from both parties. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, nominated five House Republicans. In a break with tradition, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, rejected two of the members. 

Instead of suggesting alternatives, McCarthy declined to cooperate. Pelosi, then, chose two Republicans as replacements, Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Both were outspoken critics of Trump for his conduct on Jan. 6.  

The other seven members of the nine-member panel were Democrats. The committee hired more than 60 full-time staff members, many with backgrounds in intelligence and investigations, and conducted more than 1,000 interviews in 18 months. 

Among the committee’s findings was that White House lawyers and senior Department of Justice officials told Trump early on that his claims of election fraud were baseless.

“From the beginning, Donald Trump’s fraud allegations were concocted nonsense, designed to prey upon the patriotism of millions of men and women who love our country,” the report concluded.

In addition, the committee found that Trump’s effort to overturn the election was multi-layered. He worked with a “handful of others” to prepare Trump slates of Trump electors in seven states that Biden won. He raised roughly $250 million between the election and Jan. 6 to support his claims. And as the attack on the Capitol unfolded, Trump watched the violence on television and did not tell his supporters to desist for 187 minutes.

Police without “sufficient assets”

At the same time, the Jan. 6 select committee was different from the Senate Watergate Committee of 1973 and 1974 and the 9-11 Commission, and not just because the panel hired contractors and consultants with backgrounds in television.

The panel also examined only one part of that day and the events leading up to it – the role of Trump, his administration, and supporters. In its report, the panel concluded Trump was “the central cause” of an attempted insurrection. 

In addition, the committee referred four criminal charges against Trump to the Department of Justice. While the Justice Department convicted more than 900 people for their actions on Jan. 6, special counsel Jack Smith was unable to prosecute Trump after Trump won the presidential election last year, bowing to longstanding department custom to not prosecute a sitting president. 

Further, the Jan. 6 committee devoted less attention to the role of federal, state, and local law enforcement in failing to deter or stop the attack. 

“Capitol police leadership did not have sufficient assets in place to address the violent and lawless crowd,” the report concluded.  

The committee’s conclusion has come into question.  

In an op-ed for Politico in January 2023, Georgetown Professor Donell Harvin, who oversaw the District of Columbia’s assessment of threat intelligence, wrote that “(t)he events of Jan. 6 represented the most telegraphed and predictable attack on the homeland in history.” Further, Harvin noted that the committee devoted only 44 pages in the annexes to the security and intelligence issues, roughly 5% of the 845-page report. 

In 2022, Denver L. Riggleman, a former GOP U.S. representative with a background in military intelligence, wrote in Esquire magazine that the committee group in charge of investigating law enforcement’s response, known as the “Blue team,” occupied a lower place in the panel’s pecking order. 

“The sensitivity of their investigation and the multiple moving parts – House leadership, the National Guard, DC and Capitol police, and the Pentagon – created a politically explosive finger-pointing extravaganza,” Riggleman wrote.

“Several witnesses they tried to interview remained elusive, and the committee gave Blue no means to compel testimony.” 

Riggleman received at least $97,047 in personal and other compensation as a senior technical advisor to the committee for 10 months, House spending data shows. 

A February 2023 study from the General Accountability Office concluded that the attack on the Capitol cost taxpayers $2.7 billion. Most of the costs were for Capitol police and other law enforcement.  

In September, House Speaker Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, named eight members – five Republicans, three Democrats – to a select subcommittee under the authority of the House Judiciary Committee to “conduct a thorough review of the security failures that occurred on Jan. 6.”

The subcommittee’s chairman, U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Georgia Republican, declined comment. Kinzinger, Cheney and other members of the committee did not respond to The Center Square’s requests for comment.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 12:50

US Utility Giants Discuss Soaring Power Bills, Grid Reforms In The Data-Center Era

Readers were given an epic breakdown on Wednesday detailing the true scale of funding needed for the AI data-center boom, one that would require an estimated $5 trillion in investment, with Washington on the hook for at least $1 trillion of it. In a separate note, we highlighted an inconvenient truth for this cycle: the U.S. is short 44 nuclear power plants.

Power is the obvious bottleneck that could derail the entire AI boom cycle. We now turn to Goldman analysts led by Carly Davenport for deeper insight into what electric companies are saying about the grid's current structure, data center demand, load growth, the power-bill crisis, and other critical topics discussed at the EEI Financial Conference in Hollywood, Florida, earlier this week.

Davenport told clients that sentiment across the utilities sector was broadly constructive, driven by optimism about accelerating load growth, expanding capital spending plans, and a stronger earnings outlook heading into 2026. She noted investors are increasingly focused on identifying which utilities have downside protection tied to data-center growth and which are proactively addressing labor, supply-chain, and affordability constraints.

Conversations during the meetings highlighted growing bullishness toward NextEra Energy and Sempra, while near-term political and regulatory developments remain key issues for Public Service Enterprise Group, Southern Company, and PG&E Corp.

Here's a breakdown of the top ten takeaways Davenport had from EEI:

1. Focus on inflections in regulatory backdrops. Several utilities are experiencing significant state-level policy shifts and ongoing rate case activities. In New Jersey, the upcoming transition to Governor-elect Sherrill's administration and anticipated changes within the BPU are topical. PEG is preparing to leverage mechanisms such as utilizing ZECs to help alleviate customer bills, aligning with the new administration's focus. EXC expects its NJ rate case at ACE to be on track for year-end 2025, and FE noted that clarity on BPU composition will be key ahead of upcoming rate case filings at JCP&L. Elsewhere, ES is focused on securing regulatory approvals for its Aquarion sale and storm cost securitization in CT from a newly composed PURA. Sentiment is growing more constructive on a positive shift in balanced collaboration between utilities and regulators in the state. Finally, SO noted 2026 could be noisy from a state-wide elections standpoint, but with a relatively quiet regulatory calendar, the company plans to actively engage with newly elected commissioners on utility economics and affordability.

2. Still room for positive capex revisions into 4Q earnings, with focus on financing options. SRE anticipates significant capital plan upside at Oncor, highlighting opportunities around an incremental ~$12 bn on top of the preliminary 30% increase to the current five-year plan, driven by accelerated Permian transmission projects and substantial data center load growth, with a definitive update pending the ongoing rate case outcome. DUK has previewed a robust $95-105 bn capital plan, with an expected update next quarter, and sees the $10 bn upside range driven by LNG solutions and transmission investments, while exploring numerous options around financing, including private credit for specific projects. XEL targets a 9% EPS CAGR through 2030, and has identified significant upside around both generation and transmission, with resource plans pointing to a potential $16-20 bn (though XEL targets 50% ownership of assets) and over $10 bn for transmission projects. FE benefits from the PJM open window, with three identified projects on the RTEP short list totaling approximately $3 bn in potential capital expenditures, in addition to growth opportunities in West Virginia from data centers, with current generation addition plans estimated at $2.2-2.5 bn of capital. Finally, SO mentioned potential capex upside, driven by significant demand growth particularly from large industrial and data center loads in Georgia, in addition to FERC natural gas pipelines.

3. Potential for greater state involvement to reform PJM. Utilities are increasingly advocating for greater state involvement in reforming the PJM market, driven by perceived market inadequacies and the need for enhanced resource adequacy. EXC advocates for states to take more control over generation procurement through processes like Maryland's dispatchable generation procurement and Illinois's IRP, while also pushing for expedited interconnection and extended price collars within PJM. PEG emphasizes the necessity for New Jersey to implement a comprehensive IRP to define reliability standards, emissions targets, and affordability metrics, suggesting that state-led solutions, potentially including utility-owned storage, gas or nuclear generation, are crucial, and advocating for competitive processes that allow rate-base solutions. FE highlights West Virginia's proactive approach, where the governor is focused on generation, transmission, and energy security, allowing for new generation filings outside of standard IRP cycles to meet rapid load growth, and notes a desire for continued capacity pricing caps in PJM with less traction for longer-duration auctions. This collective sentiment points towards a growing trend where states are stepping in to ensure resource adequacy and guide generation development.

4. Affordability and bill transparency remain top of mind. As utilities strive to meet rising power demand, affordability remained a key discussion point in our meetings with management. ED's management highlighted that property taxes, which constitute a sizable portion (~20%) of customer bills, will potentially be displayed separately to consumers as part of its joint proposal for its CECONY rate cases, aiming to promote transparency. During our meeting with PEG, management discussed the possibility of refunding ZECs to customers, which could reduce rates by 2%. However, this was viewed as a short-term solution, given that bill inflation in PEG's service territories rose 17-20% year-over-year, largely due to supply cost increases rather than distribution costs for which PEG is directly responsible. Collectively, utilities emphasized that affordability is paramount, with customers and regulators seeking greater clarity, hence the focus on bill inflation targets (e.g., DUK aiming to keep bills below inflation).

5. EPC relationships matter for capital plan execution. Several utilities are emphasizing the strategic importance of long-term Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) relationships and partnerships to ensure efficient capital plan execution and manage labor and equipment supply. AEP highlighted that its partnership with Quanta will be key to secure labor and transformers/breakers for grid project execution, while its agreements with Kiewit, allowed for proactively locking in turbine slots. Similarly, DUK underscored its partnerships with EPCs like Zachry and Kiewit to standardize operations and ensure a consistent labor force across multiple sites, while XEL has pivoted from project-by-project RFPs to partnering with key tier-1 EPCs for a multi-year book of business. WEC also highlighted its long-standing relationships with EPCs/developers such as Burns & McDonnell and Invenergy to line up labor and manage project delivery. This positioning is crucial for mitigating supply chain constraints, standardizing equipment, and ensuring a stable, skilled labor force to manage the scale and complexity of current capital plans.

6. Phase 2 of wildfire policy reform underway, but investors still in wait and see mode. Phase 2 of the California's wildfire policy reform is actively progressing, with Investor-Owned Utilities (IOUs) like PCG, EIX, and SRE collaboratively engaging in the process. Over 30 diverse stakeholders have submitted abstracts, with IOUs filing together to present a unified front on problem identification and solution principles, aiming for a whole society approach to reduce wildfire risk and ensure predictable claims recovery. Key next steps include the submission of detailed white papers by December 12, with comprehensive reports anticipated by January 30 and a final recommendation on April 1, outlining necessary legislative changes and reforms in areas touching insurance, liability, and community hardening. According to PCG and EIX, credit rating agencies are closely monitoring phase 2 developments, with some mainly seeking tangible progress in Phase 2, while others are awaiting the final legislative outcomes before fully assessing the benefits.

7. Focus on identifying high confidence load from overall pipelines. Investors are increasingly focused on rigorously identifying high-confidence load within utility pipelines, moving beyond speculative inquiries to secure firm commitments. There is a higher degree of focus on signed ESAs, and more concern from investors that LOAs do not have the staying power that they have had previously. Companies are working to cull the speculative inquiries by requiring upfront deposits to conduct load/engineering studies, including FE, WEC, DUK, EXC and AEP. For example, AEP and EXC employ measures such as upfront deposits, take-or-pay contracts, and TSAs or LOAs that can convert to ESAs to identify high confidence load. AEP sees 80% of its LOAs converted to ESAs in PJM, though that share is lower in Texas/SPP. SO also has ESAs for its 2 GW of demand, with customers already funding engineering and site studies.

8. Customer and financial protections for data center deals are key: Across meetings, minimum take provisions, 12-18 year contract lengths, and termination fees emerged as key considerations, reflecting the push to ensure predictable cash flows amid unprecedented data center led power demand surge. WEC's filed tariff for very large customers includes robust protections: hyperscalers must cover all incremental infrastructure costs, agree to 20-year contracts if seeking renewable generation, and pay for all requested capacity even if not fully utilized. Under the terms of WEC's proposed contract for large load customers, they must pay the net book value if WEC cannot re-purpose assets upon early contract termination, providing downside protection for WEC and its other customers. Overall, managements remained confident that a collapse of the tech driven data center build-out is less of a concern for in flight projects, given the amount of capital tech companies are investing in the facilities. The tone of our meetings remained optimistic, with data centers driving a large portion of power demand in the U.S., but with utilities prioritizing contract discipline and balance sheet protection over headline megawatt wins.

9. Investors still highly focused on revisions to EPS growth CAGRs. Investors are seeking proof that increased power demand is translating into earnings growth for utilities. Companies that have successfully raised their EPS CAGRs are viewed more favorably on the back of this theme. For instance, XEL, targeting a 9% EPS CAGR through 2030, received positive feedback from attendees. NEE's upcoming investor day is anticipated to bring potential earnings revisions, aligning closer to its historical EPS CAGR of approximately 10%, especially since its current CAGR is lower at 6%-8%. AEP's recent guidance revision to a 7%-9% CAGR, with expectations of achieving 9% actual earnings growth, was also well-received. Some investors have queried if there is upside to DUK's current 5%-7% earnings CAGR over time, given its projected annual rate base growth of approximately 8.5% (at the lower end of its new capital plan) and management's expectation to comfortably reach the top end of the current range by 2028. For SO, growth is projected to be in the 5%-7% range, with 2027 and 2028 likely above the top end, after which the company would re-base off 2028, which was viewed as mixed by investors.

10. All the above generation technologies needed to meet demand. Renewables remain topical for utilities with investors focused on projects that are safe harbored. NEE also talked about how 8-hour batteries are becoming increasingly cost-competitive, though there are still technology evolutions needed for longer duration options. Nuclear has also been topical where PEG had talked about its opportunity for new nuclear development where it would leverage its existing early site permit but established that it will not direct capex into new nuclear generation to avoid development risk. In meetings, our overall impression was that bridge solutions are not viewed as cannibalization risk due to the amount of demand needing to be met, and that utilities including NEE and AEP are also considering those options to provide better time to power for customers.

ZeroHedge Pro subscribers can read the complete note (here) with additional color from the EEI conference about data centers colliding with the grids. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 12:15

CEO Of Crowd-For-Hire Company Calls For Transparency In Who Funds Demonstrations

Via American Greatness,

The CEO of Crowds On Demand is urging members of Congress to pass a Transparency In Political Demonstration Act (TPDA) that would require greater transparency in groups that hire demonstrators for events around the country.

Adam Swart wrote a letter to Congress on November 11, calling for more transparency in who is hiring protestors in order to “protect free speech while ensuring accountability and safety.”

Paid protest CEO urges Congress to pass law exposing who funds demonstrations

https://t.co/ZMqj8VDMeP

— Brent Cutburth (@brentcutburth) November 12, 2025

According to Swart, the TPDA is needed to ensure that the American people have full knowledge of who is funding and facilitating political demonstrations.

Swart expressed concern that “in recent years, we’ve seen the line between authentic civic expression and paid political manipulation blur beyond recognition.”

In his letter, Swart told Congress, “Across the country, peaceful activism has too often been replaced by coordinated influence campaigns. Most concerningly, many of these campaigns result either intentionally or unintentionally in violence, property destruction, and the mass disruption of American cities through unpermitted road closures.”

He added, “While these demonstrations are branded as ‘grassroots,’ evidence increasingly shows large-scale organization and financing behind them, often routed through opaque nonprofit networks designed to conceal true funders—some of whom may be foreign entities with nefarious intentions.”

The TPDA would require disclosure of funding sources behind demonstrations that exceed a defined number of participants as well as establish a “public accountability portal” where the sponsors or subcontractors involved in planning or logistics of large scale protests must be disclosed.

According to The Hill, the proposed bill would also seek to ensure that foreign entities and intermediaries cannot covertly fund or coordinate demonstrations intended to destabilize domestic institutions.

The TPDA would also hold funders and organizers to a strict nonviolence standard and would disqualify those who promote or tolerate violence from nonprofit protections or certain federal benefits.

Swart told Newsnation that he’s making his proposal to Congress because peaceful protest is supposed to be protected speech, saying, “This isn’t about stopping protest; it’s about protecting it. The First Amendment only works when Americans know who’s paying.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 11:40

BBC Edits Trump; Trump Still The Villain

Authored by Jenna McCarthy via Jenna's Side Substack,

“Sure, we misquoted him. But now he’s weaponizing our mistake!”

Remember that fateful January day when the sitting President of the United States ordered all his angry, disappointed supporters to rush down to the Capitol—where they were busy certifying his opponent’s stolen Electoral College victory—and fight like hell? I mean, that was bold. Crazy, even. It almost sounded as if he was inciting violence.

Except—tiny plot twist—he didn’t say that. I know, you saw it all over the news and everything, but what he actually said was, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”

Slightly different ring, no?

But let’s be honest; “Go, Congress!” makes a lousy lead-in to a Trump Spurs an Insurrection story. So when the BBC was putting together a little pre-election documentary about the famed day, they decided to rewrite the script. They grabbed that “walk down to the Capitol” line, snatched a completely different quote from nearly an hour later in his speech (notably, “We fight, we fight like hell”), and then chopped out everything in between—including peacefully and patriotically, in case anyone’s keeping track.

The result? Oh, just a bunch of mostly benign words being rearranged into a call to arms. No big deal.

@flufrstf #BBC #Jan6 #Trump ♬ original sound - FlufferstuffTheBlameless

It’s bad enough that a once respected media outlet was so blatant in their bias. It’s humiliating that they were busted, hilarious that they think anyone will believe it was accidental, and egregious that their journalistic PR-wrangling cronies are actually trying to defend them. But the fact that, even after the BBC issued an apology and an admission of guilt, the rest of the media mafia is trying to spin this into Orange Man Attacks Journalists is almost too much to take.

THE BBC, BASICALLY: “Look, editing is hard. Who among us hasn’t unknowingly rearranged someone’s words to mean the exact opposite of what they actually said? It’s called craft. You wouldn’t understand.”

But, you see, Trump is the bad guy here, because he didn’t just notice; he said something. Actually, he didn’t just say something, he filed a lawsuit. A big-with-a-B (as in billion-dollar) lawsuit.

“They actually changed my January 6 speech, which was a beautiful speech, which was a very calming speech, and they made it sound radical,” Trump said.

“I think I have an obligation to [proceed with legal action], because you can’t allow people to do that.”

And even though the BBC admitted they were in the wrong, even though two of their top executives promptly escorted themselves out of the building in the wake of the editing scandal, and even though the “documentary” has now been confirmed to be about as honest as a reality TV reunion… the true crime, according to the press, is, well, Trump.

Whatever you say, Guardian.

“There’s a political context to this attack—and it is an attack—it’s a concerted full-frontal assault on the BBC for what was absolutely an editorial mistake,” said broadcaster Steven Barnett. “It’s the kind of mistake that is easily accounted for, easily apologized for… and once you see that program, you will realize that that edit made absolutely no difference to the overall impartiality of that biography of Donald Trump leading up to the 2024 presidential election.”

So, just so we’re clear: “news” outlets are now accusing politicians of “weaponizing editing errors”—as if asking journalists and editors not to remix speeches like a bad rap track is some unreasonable, dictator-level request and not basic kindergarten fairness. It would be like your teenager admitting they were texting when they wrecked the car—then accusing you of “holding it against them” when you won’t pay for the repairs.

The subtext of the coverage is basically: How dare the peasants expect accuracy?

From StopTrump.org.uk, because of course.

And the BBC saga is only one chapter in the Media Bias scrapbook. CBS had to quietly settle a $16 million lawsuit because 60 Minutes edited Kamala Harris’ answers so creatively that she actually appeared intelligent. Kristi Noem accused Face the Nation of “whitewashing the truth” by selectively chopping out entire chunks of her replies, to which the network sheepishly responded by announcing they’d now only air full, unedited interviews. Apparently they realize their editing bay is a lawless frontier where any sentence might wake up missing an organ.

Regardless, every headline still finds a way to imply Trump is the problem. The BBC admitted it Frankensteined his speech. Editors resigned. The entire world noticed. But the narrative is, “Editing decisions were once behind the scenes—now Trump is turning them into weapons.”

No, kids. The weapon was forged when newsrooms decided that “shortening clips for time” included playing God with context. Trump is merely the first person with the resources (and the pettiness… and the cojones) to fire back.

Poor, tortured journalists lament that they’re being scrutinized “more than ever.” Yes. Yes, you are. Because it turns out when people discover you’ve been editing interviews like they’re Hollywood trailers instead of news broadcasts, they realize you’re not journalists—you’re screenwriters.

“I would call this a big screw-up, a big journalistic screw-up, but in a very small, narrow way, because it was one small part of a long documentary, and most importantly, because nobody seemed to notice it at the time,” said CNN’s Brian Stelter.

Oh, well, nobody noticed it at the time? I guess we’re good.

One editor quoted by the AP complains that every cut is now “under a microscope.” Good. If you can stitch together two unrelated fragments of a presidential speech like a Build-A-Bear, you deserve a microscope, a spotlight, and possibly a babysitter.

My favorite part is the quiet panic underlying all these articles: the realization that normal people, armed with transcripts and internet access, can now compare what aired to what was actually said. In 1992, that would’ve required a team of interns and a sacrifice to the gods of VHS. Today, it’s a Tuesday morning for any bored guy on Reddit.

The media in a meme.

No wonder the press is stressed. The era of “trust us, it’s fine, this is totally what they said—er, meant” is over. When you make a living off deception, that’s bad news. But sure, mainstream media. Tell us more about how you’re the real victims here.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 10:30

Germany Marches Toward Reinstating Military Conscription, Starting With Fitness Database

Under US pressure to bolster its armed forces so as to deter supposed Russian aspirations to invade NATO countries, Germany is moving toward reinstating military conscription, with the initial steps centering questionnaires and medical exams that will feed a database detailing each young man's fitness, aptitude and willingness to serve. The plan was agreed upon by Germany's coalition government on Thursday, and now goes to parliament, where the ruling coalition has a slim majority of 12 seats out of a 630 total.   

If Germany reinstates conscription, holding a German passport means possibly fighting in a foreign war, while not holding a German passport means access to the welfare state.

The German government pays foreigners while contemplating sacrificing what is left of its native youth. pic.twitter.com/a1NZ1gfd7y

— Ralph Schoellhammer (@Raphfel) August 19, 2025

Today, the German armed forces -- the Bundeswehr -- has about 180,000 service members. The government said it was laying out a plan to have 260,000 people on active-duty service, with another 200,000 reservists, which is triple the current reserve force. In the first step, to be taken in 2026, the government will send questionnaires to every 18-year-old in the country. Men will be legally obliged to complete it; for women, it will be optional. The questionnaires will gauge respondents' inclination and willingness to serve. Then, starting in July 2027, men will be required to report for a medical examination.

Germany drafted men for military service from 1956 until 2011, when the country adopted the US model of a professional, voluntary force. Rather than abolishing conscription -- which would have required a constitutional amendment -- it was merely suspended that year. Reinstating it would only require a simple majority of the parliament. However, unless the constitution is changed, women will remain exempt. 

Earlier this month, protesters in Munich carried a banner that read "Against Conscription. End War Preparation." (Michael Nguyen/NurPhoto/ Getty via The Times)

For now, conscription will not be put to a vote, as the government hopes to achieve its enormous military expansion -- 44% growth in active-duty ranks -- via recruitment of willing volunteers.  “We will make voluntary service more attractive,” said Jens Spahn, parliamentary leader of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) party. “We want to win over as many young people as possible for the service for the fatherland.” If that fails, however, "we'll need to make it obligatory," he added. Without providing details, the government has said a lottery system would be employed. The Bundeswehr will report on its recruitment efforts every six months, ready to request the reinstatement of conscription to make up any shortfalls.

A recent poll for Stern magazine found that a slim majority of Germans favored reinstating the draft. However, 63% of Germans between 18 and 29 years old opposed it.  

German defense minister Boris Pistorius told Germans there was "no cause for concern...no reason for fear...The more capable of deterrence and defense our armed forces are, through armament through training and through personnel, the less likely it is that we will become a party to a conflict at all." Pistorius and Chancellor Friedrich Merz have set a goal for having Europe's largest military and to be "war-ready" by 2029. Doing its part to promote German militarism, the Wall Street Journal's report on the conscription plan credulously cited unnamed "military analysts [who] think Russia may be able and willing to attack NATO" by that year. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 09:55

New Facial Recognition Vans Rolled Out For Use By 7 More UK Police Forces

PA Media via The Epoch Times,

A new fleet of facial recognition vans are to be rolled out by seven police forces across the UK in an expanded pilot programme.

A police officer views a camera feed from inside a live facial recognition (LFR) van. Andrew Matthews/PA

The Metropolitan Police, South Wales Police and Essex Police have been using the facial recognition vans for some time to mixed receptions.

The software enables officers to use cameras mounted on top of their vans to locate people on their watchlists by filming the surrounding area.

Home Office funding has been provided for new facial recognition vans in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley and Hampshire.

The Met released a report last month which said that from September 2024 to September 2025 the software had a false alert rate of 0.0003 percent from more than three million scans.

Civil liberties and anti-racism groups criticised the software for having a “well-documented history of inaccurate outcomes and racial bias” ahead of the Notting Hill Carnival this year.

In response, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley acknowledged that the software was “limited” when it was used at the Carnival in 2016 and 2017 but has made “considerable progress” since then.

Ahead of the new rollout, Chief Inspector Andy Hill, of Surrey Police, was asked if he still harboured concerns about false readings from the technology.

He said: “There’s been a lot of development with the software, a lot of national testing to give us confidence in the software and, at the last Notting Hill Carnival this year, their positive alerts were much higher.”

The police watchlists uploaded to the van are bespoke and will include details and photos of wanted people and people subject to court orders like sex offenders.

If their faces are scanned by the van’s cameras it will alert the officer to the match, and they can verify whether the comparison is correct and take action.

“It’s a positive step in terms of using the latest technology available to us, and it’s about pursuing criminals, it’s about investigating crime thoroughly and also reassuring the public that we are out and about and we are visible and we’re doing our job,” Mr Hill said.

Across the seven new centres, 10 new vans are to be deployed including one in Surrey and another in Sussex which will at times be used in tandem.

The police have said that images of people walking past the van which do not set off an alert will be deleted in less than a second.

Mr Hill said: “We want to be as open and transparent about our deployments, we publish them on our website at least seven days in advance, and we’ll publish the results afterwards as well,

“And during the deployment, we’ve got signage up to inform people that they’re entering a zone of live facial recognition with information on that, and also they can talk to any of our officers at any time about the technology.”

Surrey Police will be deploying a Live Facial Recognition van in Redhill on November 13.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 09:20

US, Switzerland Reach Tariff Deal That Lowers Duties, Stokes Investment

The United States and Switzerland have reached a trade deal under which Swiss imports to America will be subject to a reduced 15 percent duty, officials said.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CNBC on Nov. 14 that the administration had “essentially reached a deal” with the Swiss government after months of negotiations in the context of President Donald Trump’s reset of U.S. trade ties with the rest of the world.

Under the Trump administration’s trade policy, Swiss goods were hit with a 39 percent tariff, one of the highest rates imposed on any country and substantially higher than the 15 percent applied to European Union member states.

The new agreement, which lowers Switzerland’s levy to match that of EU countries, includes measures that support Trump’s goal of reindustrializing the United States quickly, after decades of offshoring.

“They’re going to send a lot of manufacturing here to the United States—pharmaceuticals, gold smelting, railway equipment—so we’re really excited about that deal and what it means for American manufacturing,” Greer said, adding that the White House would release details of the agreement later in the day.

As Tom Ozimek details below for The Epoch Times, the Swiss government confirmed the deal in a social media post, thanking Trump for his “constructive engagement” and acknowledging a “productive” meeting with Greer.

“Switzerland and the U.S. have successfully found a solution: U.S. tariffs will be reduced to 15%,” it said.

In a statement offering further details on the agreement, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs said that the country would reduce its import duties on a range of U.S. products. These include all industrial products, fish and seafood, as well as American agricultural products that are considered “non-sensitive.”

For certain categories of U.S. agricultural products considered sensitive due to their potential impact on the Swiss market, Switzerland will grant duty-free quotas, including 500 tonnes of beef and 1,500 tonnes of poultry from the United States.

Swiss companies have also agreed to invest $200 billion in the United States by the end of 2028, partly in initiatives meant to boost vocational training.

“The announcement of the reduction in additional US tariffs on Swiss imports will serve to stabilise bilateral trade relations,” the Swiss government said.

“Although overall tariffs remain higher than before the additional tariffs were introduced in April, the agreed reduction in additional tariffs is expected to have a positive impact on the Swiss economy.”

The announcement comes a day after Greer met with Swiss Economy Minister Guy Parmelin in Washington for talks on resolving outstanding trade issues and finalizing the deal.

The deal stabilizes the approximately $188 billion in bilateral trade between the United States and Switzerland, whose export-driven economy heavily relies on U.S. demand for its pharmaceuticals, high-precision machinery, and world-famous watches.

The United States absorbs more than one-fifth of all Swiss foreign direct investment, making it Switzerland’s top investment destination.

The tariff accord ends months of tension for Swiss exporters, who had warned that the 39 percent duty was disrupting shipments and forcing companies to rethink production plans.

Additional technical talks are scheduled for the coming weeks as details of the new quotas, tariff schedules, and investment pledges are finalized.

Nearly 1,200 U.S. companies operate in Switzerland, employing about 95,000 people. Swiss firms, meanwhile, rank among the highest-paying foreign employers in America, with average wages above $130,000, according to Switzerland’s foreign affairs department.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 08:45

Tucker Exposes Trump Would-Be Assassin Thomas Crooks' Social Media History, The FBI Coverup, And More Strangeness

Tucker Carlson has just released a deep dive into Donald Trump's attempted assassin, Thomas Crooks - who both the Biden and the Trump FBI have been very quiet about since the July 13, 2024 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

In late September, Carlson's team received an anonymous tip from someone who said they had gained access to some of Crooks' online accounts, which he found using 'tools commonly used by private investigators' after obtaining Crooks' phone number and gmail address from public documents. He then traced that to two encrypted foreign email accounts (bcook[at]mailfence.com and americangamer[at]gmx.com). He also had a snapchat account, a Venmo, Zelle and PayPal account among several others. 

"It turns out that Crooks was hardly an online ghost," Carlson reports. "And yet, federal investigators lied and told us there was no trace of him online."

The source was able to obtain all materials from Crooks' deactivated YouTube account - which includes his search history, watch history, and 737 public comments. 

When Carlson's team asked the FBI why they hadn't shared this information with the public, the agency replied by asking if they could verify the authenticity of the shooter's account. 

What did Crooks say?

The comments by Crooks were posted between 2019 and 2020, when he was between 15 and 17-years-old. "They show two things," Carlson explains. "First, that Thomas Crooks was not some secretive lone wolf who never warned anyone that he was planning on violence. Just the opposite. Years before he showed up in Butler, Crooks was leaving a detailed digital trail of violent threats - including calls for assassinations and political violence. Second - they show a man who started out as a radical Trump supporter, whose views on the President transformed - changed completely, during Covid. The FBI lied about that fact, and that Crooks was a right-winger."

Pro-Trump: 

On July 19, 2019 Crooks writes: "Ilhan Omar and others are invaders and should honestly be killed and their dead bodies sent back."

On July 20, 2018, Crooks writes: "If youre saying trump is a bad president you arent a patriot as trump is the literal definition of Patriotism"

Seven hours after that comment, Crooks writes: "I hope a quick painful death to all the deplorable immigrants and anti-trump congresswoman who dont deserve anything this countru [sic] has given them"

Later that evening he wrote: "Everyone of the Trump hat-ing democrats deserve to have their heads chopped of and put on steaks for the world to see what happens when you fuck with America"

These types of comments continued for months, "and became increasingly violent." 

"If any of the democratic candidates win. They wont be in there for long. Because unlike the dems we have guns and lots of them"

He also quoted Mao - writing "The only real political power comes from the barrel of a gun." 

The Change:

In early 2020 as the pandemic shifted into the headlines, crooks "radically" changed - writing of "trumps stupidity." 

He then began to mock the idea of the deep state - writing that "The deep state is simply made up of anybody who dis-agrees with the right wing. Conversation over." 

In Feb. 2020, Crooks called out Trump supporters as "brainwashed," and a "cult."

Later that day, Crooks called Trump a racist. 

And in April 2020 when the COVID panic was in full swing, Crooks became pro-lockdown, writing "It seems that you people don't understand that sometimes Public safety comes before your Personnel rights." 

He then wrote: "...going to a chinese new years party in america isn't putting you at risk for corona virus because believe it or not viruses don't spread through race like Tucker Carlson probably told you." 

In May of 2020, Crooks called Republican concerns over voter fraud "ignorant." 

He then wrote a comment that sounded like a "digital manifesto," Carlson reports. 

"they only way to fight the gov is with terror-ism style attacks, sneak a bomb into an essential building a set it off before anyone sees you, track down any important people/politicians/military leaders etc and try to asasinate them. Any sort of head fight is suicide and even ambush/surprise attacks likely aren't going to end well."

The Agitator

Then - a YouTube user @Willy_Tepes began seemingly encouraging Crooks... writing "If a gun and a badge is all that is needed, then authority obviously comes from the barrel of a gun. We have more guns than they do ;)" 

"We have nothing to lose and everything to win,.....and the alternative, a global police state, is unacceptable!" Tepes continues in another comment. 

Carlson asks who Tepas could be - noting that the FBI hasn't made any mention of him, but that someone had screenshotted his YouTube page despite the fact that he had very few followers. 

That said, the usernme was used on a foreign Antifa website linked to the Nordic Resistance Movement, which was designated a terrorist organization by the US State Dept. 

Crooks' online comments mysteriously disappear after his interactions with Tepas, and Carlson notes that Crooks was 'ripe for recruitment' by someone. However his search history was still available:

From early 2019 to mid-2020, "Crooks searched for Trump more than 700 times online," and searched for "Jack Ruby" , "Best places for mass shooting." , and how to make various explosives and devices for mass killings. He also searched for "Sniper in Dallas shooting" , "American Nazi Party" , "German National Anthem 1933-1945," and "Hitler's speeches with subtitles." 

FBI Coverup? 

"Why is the FBI keeping Crooks' views a secret?" asks Carlson, adding "Why are they ignoring Congressional subpoenas to divulge information?"

"So here you have a volatile, troubled, possibly mentally ill young man with a long record of espousing violence in public," Carlson continues. "The FBI clearly knew he existed. And then you have at the very end of his years commenting in public, espousing violence, an exchange with a mysterious figure affiliated with a group that we know is being monitored by the US State Department." 

Turns out that around the same time as Thomas Crooks was making assertions and posting overt threats of violent against public figures on YouTube, the FBI was issuing contracts to private sector tech surveillance firms to harness the power of mass data collection tools to monitor social media for people just like Thomas Crooks," Tucker continues. "It's hard to imagine that Thomas Crooks is making these posts publicly and in his own name, and had not been identified and looked at closely by federal law enforcement. In fact, it's impossible to imagine." 

"We know that the FBI had access to these YouTube comments."

Yet, "they used a selective read of those comments to lie about what Thomas Crooks was saying."

Two and a half weeks after the attack, a 'source familiar with the investigation' told CNN that "Federal investigators are looking into a YouTube account possibly connected to Crooks in which the user espoused political violence as well as antisemitic and anti-immigration themes."

Carlson says that the FBI "knew full well" that it was Crooks' account. "There was never any question." 

Biden's FBI Deputy Director lied the same day as the CNN report in Congressional testimony, while the NY Post reported in Feb. 2025 that the "FBI has obstructed efforts to solve the mystery of why Thomas Matthew Crooks, who left no manifesto, did what he did."

Other notable facts: 

• Crooks' body was cremated on orders from the FBI the same day the House Homeland Security and Oversight Committee began their investigation.

"Can't do a new tox(icology) screen, because the body doesn't exist," Carlson points out. 

• Photos from the day after the shooting "show an FBI agent hosing down the site where Crooks died," which high-level sources told Carlson was 'very strange,' as the FBI 'usually hires out crime scene cleanup to third-party contractors - but in this case they did it themselves." 

• Biden FBI officials accessed Crooks' phone using software from an Israeli firm, Cellebrite, and accessed his phone, computer and his encrypted messaging apps in Belgium, New Zealand and Germany - "yet none of the online activity the FBI discovered was referred to in any way in the final Congressional report." 

Carlson then notes FBI Director Kash Patel and Assistant Director Dan Bongino's awkward and evasive answers when asked whether we'll find out more...

These interviews are from May. Patel and Bongino told us there would be another release from FBI on Butler and that we’re going to know everything they know … here we are in November and crickets.

Where is their release? We don’t know anything close to what they know. https://t.co/xR5rviChxp pic.twitter.com/UzxnuquK54

— JaneDoeUKnow (@MsJaneDoeUKnow) November 14, 2025

More Weirdness

Carlson also points out that Crooks had an unbelievably 'lucky day' the day of the shooting, which the FBI is stonewalling the public over. 

For example: 

• Within days of the shooting, the FBI had 'collected all the relevant surveillance footage,' which includes footage from local businesses, state police,  and "critically, the gun range where Thomas Crooks trained." Did he train alone? We don't know, because to this day the FBI refuses to release the footage.

• Some of Crooks' comments were erased from the internet archive after the shooting. 

• On the day of the attack, Crooks conducted surveillance at Butler - flying a drone over the rally site for 11 minutes - right as the Secret Service's anti-drone system was mysteriously down. 

• Police at Butler saw Crooks with a rangefinder and a backpack, identified him as a suspicious person, but 'quickly lost track' of him. 

• Crooks climbed onto the only building in the area that did not have a video surveillance system, and was 'remarkably' outside the Secret Service's security perimeter. 

• Two local cops saw crooks but did not report it, while a 3rd police officer who was supposed to be covering the building 'left early.'

Watch the entire thing below:

Who is Thomas Crooks? pic.twitter.com/WwjvPGGRwS

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) November 14, 2025

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Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 08:20

Germany's "Council Of Economic Experts" Calls For Higher Inheritance Taxes, And Bows To The State

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

In its latest annual report, Germany’s Council of Economic Experts — once regarded as a market-oriented corrective to government excess — has presented what can only be described as a courtesy opinion. Rather than challenging the political status quo, the five “wise men” largely echo Berlin’s own agenda: more state intervention, higher taxes, and tighter regulation.

On Wednesday, the council presented its annual report at the federal press conference. For the first time, Chancellor Friedrich Merz received the economists’ assessment in person. What they handed him, however, reads less like independent advice and more like a compilation of familiar political slogans.

At the top of the list stands — yet again — the call for “cutting bureaucracy,” a mantra repeated endlessly but never realized. Meanwhile, the council ignores the core problem: the German economy is suffocating under its own regulatory machinery. In the past three years alone, businesses have had to hire roughly 325,000 additional staff just to deal with the avalanche of new rules — a massive diversion of resources that adds nothing to productivity.

Bureaucratic Strangulation, Military Keynesianism

Among the council’s key recommendations is “more joint procurement and innovation” in the defense sector — another item perfectly aligned with government priorities. Together with its uncritical support for climate policy, the report reveals how deeply the economists have internalized state narratives.

Instead of questioning the economic burden of the artificial “green industry,” which drags down productivity across all sectors, the council now embraces the logic of a war economy as the next growth engine. The parallels are disturbing. Rather than recalibrating Germany’s economic compass, the report doubles down on the same failed assumptions: more state, more coordination, less individual responsibility.

Phantom Growth, Real Debt

When it comes to growth, the council again mirrors the government’s projections. Both the experts and the Economics Ministry expect a meager 0.2% GDP growth for 2025. That means the massive, debt-financed stimulus packages — which will push public debt up sharply in the coming years — have already fizzled out.

With the state share at roughly 50% of GDP and net new borrowing around 4.2% (including special funds and off-balance items), the implication is devastating: the private economy has contracted by more than 4%.
This is a resounding failure of the government’s Keynesian strategy — yet the economists respond not with structural criticism but with timid nods to bureaucracy reform, while otherwise parroting eco-socialist talking points.

Inheritance Tax: The New Redistribution Tool

The council’s most controversial proposal concerns inheritance taxation. Once a bastion of market-oriented reasoning, the body now advocates raising taxes on inherited business assets, denouncing the current exemptions as “socially unjust.” The language could have been lifted straight from the Green Party’s manifesto.

Specifically, the report suggests limiting the tax exemption for business assets to €26 million, and either abolishing or sharply restricting relief for larger inheritances. Payment deferrals would be introduced to avoid liquidity crises during succession. 

Behind the talk of “asset mobility,” however, lies a distinctly socialist vision — one aimed at broader redistribution and fiscal relief for the state.

Meanwhile, Germany’s real debt (including special funds and hidden borrowing) will rise by over 5% next year. Yet the council sees no problem, as long as Berlin remains in the good company of the EU’s “debt club.”

The State as Sacred Cow

Any notion of shrinking government or ending the interventionist spiral has vanished. The council now fully embraces the political orthodoxy. In doing so, it breaks decisively with the principles of private property and free enterprise, aligning itself intellectually with Marcel Fratzscher’s DIW — a think tank long known for its statist bias.

The report even promotes a state-guided “retirement savings fund” that would channel private investment toward politically defined objectives — above all, climate policy. Once again, the state seeks to steer private capital allocation while dressing it up as “financial inclusion.”

The underlying message is unmistakable: the state is no longer the problem, but the solution.
Even by Berlin standards, this marks a profound paradigm shift.

The Fall of the Economic Council

The council’s ideological transformation — especially in its endorsement of higher inheritance taxes — is a turning point. It confirms what many suspected: Berlin’s bureaucracy has wrapped itself in a belt of compliant advisors, ensuring that no fundamental market-liberal critique can pierce its walls.

Now, even family-owned businesses are to be fed into the meat grinder of redistribution. This represents the low point of a once-proud institution that has steadily drifted away from the foundations of economic freedom.
The principle of private property, generational continuity, and the right to dispose freely of one’s already-taxed assets — all this has been subordinated to the new orthodoxy of “social justice.”

If economists truly value civilizational progress, these principles should be their starting point, not their target.
It is a bitter moment for German academia — assuming one can still call it that.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, born in 1978 in Neuss/ Germany, is a graduate economist. 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 Sat, 11/15/2025 - 08:10

Climate Circus COP30: Capital Bazaar And Moral Rejuvenation

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

From November 10 to 21, the latest climate summit, COP30, is taking place in Belém, Brazil — a global stage for fighting what is labeled the “climate-damaging gas” carbon dioxide. Germany has sent a 170-member delegation to participate — ostensibly to “save the planet,” but more realistically to distribute German taxpayers’ money among the world’s climate faithful.

The German group travels in the slipstream of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who arrived in Belém early for a brief five-minute speech and a tour of the Amazon. Merz pledged that Germany would make a “significant contribution” to the so-called Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) — an initiative rumored to receive around €1 billion in German funds.

Indulgence Level Unknown

Last year, Germany already funneled €6.1 billion into global climate financing — a form of checkbook diplomacy with zero economic return. How much will be paid this year remains unclear, but travel activity is intense: a 170-strong delegation from the ministries of economy and environment has flown commercial to Belém to negotiate Germany’s share in “saving the world’s climate.”

The sacred rule remains: every ton of CO₂ emitted must be compensated by equally costly “climate protection” measures. Greta Thunberg’s ghost clearly still haunts German ministries.

What we are witnessing is nothing but modern indulgence trading. The higher the payment, the purer the conscience. The entire climate circus survives on the illusion that sending money to global funds can stabilize the planet’s temperature. Simple, absurd, and lucrative.

Despite budget constraints, Berlin is again expected to pour over €5 billion into various initiatives. The tropical fund is a fresh addition — and Germany, as always, is in the thick of it.

Germany: The Taxpayer as Milking Cow

This is money siphoned from German workers to vanish in the opaque channels of the green clientelist economy, where corruption thrives and accountability is a relic. Reason, efficiency, and transparency have long been replaced by symbolism. Politicians now care less about impact and more about waving the green flag of virtue.

This became painfully evident in the alarmist speeches of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, both desperate to inject new life into the limping climate show.

Guterres lamented that the 1.5-degree target had failed, warning of advancing catastrophe — but insisted that “hope remains” to secure humanity’s survival on a livable planet. One might add with a smirk: everything now depends on the price of redemption, morally steadfast and fiscally “creative.”

Yet with Europe sliding into recession, public enthusiasm for man-made climate apocalypse has faded. Ordinary citizens have other worries than embracing Greta Thunberg’s and Luisa Neubauer’s “degrowth” fantasies that lead straight into economic ruin.

Thus, COP30 exists above all to manufacture public consent — keeping the moral machinery oiled and the green patronage networks supplied with fresh credit.

Chancellor Merz, the Climate Savior

After half a year under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, one thing is clear: Germany stays the course as climate policy front-runner, continuing the legacy of his predecessors. Merz has not reversed the combustion-engine ban, nor touched the Building Energy Act, which will cost households billions. The nuclear exit remains final, Russian gas is history, and now even the gas grid faces dismantlement.

With his subsidized industrial electricity plan, Merz practices the classic shell game of interventionism: each political blunder is buried under a new subsidy — all at the expense of purchasing power and market efficiency.

CO₂ taxes continue to rise, hitting aviation and industry alike. The EU’s emissions trading reform, soon to cost German companies billions annually, remains untouched.

Merz is, in short, the perfect climate chancellor — soothing the middle class with rhetoric and fake reforms while faithfully executing Brussels’ dogmatic agenda. A believer in state omnipotence, he wields ever-more intervention as a cure for the very economic damage his policies cause.

Despite criticism from activist groups like Fridays for Future or Last Generation, the COP30 crowd in Belém will be delighted to see Merz’s delegation arrive bearing gifts. Germany’s lavish climate pledges confirm that domestic hardship will never interfere with global virtue signaling.

This is music to Ursula von der Leyen’s ears, as she pushes her 2028-2034 EU budget proposal — expanding the climate fund by over 30% to a staggering €750 billion. Facing resistance in the European Parliament, she badly needs Berlin’s continued compliance.

A European Affair

Since the United States abandoned the Paris Agreement and returned to an unregulated energy policy, the COP summits have become a Eurocentric spectacle. India refuses to foot the bill, while China plays both sides — funding climate NGOs in Europe that keep the green channel open, then using it to export its subsidized solar panels and batteries.

Meanwhile, China’s domestic energy strategy revolves around building hundreds of new coal plants, rendering Western emissions targets meaningless.

COP30 represents the lunatic apex of a Western climate dogma now facing real resistance — particularly from the United States. Under Donald Trump, carbon dioxide was removed from Washington’s list of “climate-killer gases,” where it had sat since Obama’s era.

That alone offers a glimmer of hope: that in the face of deepening global recession, this costly climate cult may soon meet its end.

Tyler Durden Sat, 11/15/2025 - 07:00