Why are many Latin American countries shutting down nonprofit organizations? Amnesty International claims it has the answer: in every case, it’s part of a drive to restrict human rights and “tear up the social fabric.”

Amnesty’s new 95-page report (in Spanish, with an English summary), criticizes governments across the political spectrum for attacking what it calls “civil society organizations.” But Amnesty ignores the history of many such organizations and therefore why governments might be justified in closing them.

Here we focus on the report’s deficiencies in relation to Nicaragua, Venezuela (two NGOs interviewed in each) and Cuba (none).

Data-light analysis supports preconceived conclusions 

Amnesty’s report is strikingly thin. Unlike many other Amnesty investigations, this one provides scarce case studies or incidents, almost no statistics, few named victims or affected organizations, and little discussion of specific crackdowns. In most cases, substantive content about a particular country is assumed to apply to all countries.

Amnesty conducted interviews with only 15 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) across six countries: Nicaragua, Venezuela, Paraguay, Peru, El Salvador and Ecuador. Its analysis extended to two more, Guatemala and Cuba, where no interviews took place. Yet the six countries alone have around 40,000 NGOs between them, making Amnesty’s sample minuscule. In none of the countries did Amnesty do any direct fieldwork.

Amnesty did not consult with any government sources or individuals close to governments, resulting in a one-sided narrative. According to Amnesty, the issues “should not be interpreted as… differentiation between the countries analyzed.” Thus, countries as politically different as Ecuador and Nicaragua are painted with the same brush.

While claiming to expose the real purpose of these laws, Amnesty fails to explain their political context, despite the widespread and documented use made of NGOs by the US to destabilize countries.

The authors emailed Amnesty with our key criticisms. In a lengthy response, Mariana Marques, Amnesty’s South America Researcher & Advisor, claimed that “the report intentionally prioritizes depth and comparability [between the chosen countries].” However, this is difficult to accept given that the report’s sweeping generalizations are mechanically applied to all six.

The authors also asked Amnesty if they had considered evidence that NGOs in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba have indeed engaged in political activities – that would very likely be illegal in Western countries such as the US? Did they consider whether allegations that NGOs provoked political violence or other criminal activities might be true? In response, Ms. Marques wrote: “The report does not adjudicate case‑by‑case allegations about individual organizations.”

Nevertheless, the report apparently identified “selective enforcement” and “sanctions” that were “disproportionate.” But how could they reach an impartial judgment on the fairness of a government’s actions without considering whether the alleged infractions might have actually occurred?

Destabilization claims go unexamined 

If governments justify their laws as efforts to halt foreign-funded destabilization, surely Amnesty should ask whether such claims have merit. Here are some examples that Amnesty might have considered:

• In Cuba, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spent $15.5 million from 2009 through 2012 running “civil society” programs aimed at secretly stirring up anti-government activism. Then in just one year (2020), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – a reported CIA cutout itself masquerading as an NGO even though it is largely funded by the US government  – financed 40 civil-society projects in Cuba with sums up to $650,000. According to the Cuban government, these groups were directly involved in violent demonstrations that affected Cuba in July 2021.
• In Nicaragua, which suffered a major coup attempt in 2018, Global Americans reported that the NED was “laying the groundwork for insurrection” even as the violence was taking place. NED and other bodies bragged to Congress about their regime-change efforts, and the Council on Hemispheric Affairs described in detail how NGOs indoctrinated young Nicaraguans.
• In Venezuela, USAID corroborated the use of NGOs to further US regime-change activities; since 2017 it provided “more than $158 million in humanitarian aid in Venezuela” through questionably “impartial” organizations.

Well-substantiated examples of Washington’s huge investment, extending over many years, to create or infiltrate NGOs in the three countries and use them to provoke anti-government violence, were of no interest to Amnesty researchers.

Rather, the report focuses on restrictions on access to foreign funding, which allegedly have “chilling effects on legitimate human‑rights work.” Amnesty’s refusal to “map individual donors” prevents scrutiny about the purpose of Washington’s funding for NGOs, which are often framed in vague terms such as “promoting democracy” or “strengthening civic society.”

Had the researchers talked to actual NGOs doing humanitarian work, they might have heard testimony such as this one from Rita Di Matiatt with Master Mama, a Venezuelan NGO dedicated to offering support to breastfeeding mothers: “NGOs that conspire against the stability and rights of a nation or its citizens, as well as everything that does not comply with the norms and laws of a country must be held accountable.” Venezuelan National Assembly deputy Julio Chávez expressed concern about such NGO’s working “to generate destabilization.”

And, indeed, the current NED president, Damon Wilson, recently confirmed that Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela are his highest priorities in the region.

Comparison with other countries 

Amnesty claims a “global” trend toward laws resembling Russia’s “foreign agents” legislation. However, a more relevant comparison is the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) which is really the model.

The US has some of the world’s strongest and most detailed regulatory powers governing NGOs. Indeed, the US typically closes around 44,000 nonprofits annually that fail to comply. This is not unusual. The Charity Commission in Britain closes around 4,000 nonprofits each year. New regulations have led to large-scale closures in India, Turkey, South Africa and elsewhere.

Washington’s foreign agents act is not unique: The Library of Congress has examples of 13 countries with similar legislation. In Britain, the government has consulted on the introduction of a “Foreign Influence Registration Scheme,” which is similar to FARA, as are regulations which apply in the European Union.

However, it does not suit Amnesty’s narrative to make comparisons with Western countries that might caste the laws in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela in a different light.

Amnesty’s longstanding bias 

Amnesty has a long history of bias against countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Ecuadorian-Canadian journalist Joe Emersberger documents how Amnesty minimizes the impact of US sanctions – illegal under international law – which target all three countries.

While Amnesty refused to recognize Nelson Mandella as a prisoner of conscious, because he failed to renounce violence in self-defense against the South African apartheid regime, Amnesty readily bestowed the honor on Leopoldo López, who fomented a number of violent coup attempts in Venezuela.

María Corina Machado is arguably Amnesty’s most lauded Venezuelan. Her legitimacy is based largely on her victory in an opposition primary.  However, the contest was conducted by her personal NGO, Súmate, rather than the official Venezuelan electoral authority as is customary. This is relevant to NGO law, because Súmate received NED funds. Machado won that privately run primary by an incredible 92% landslide in a crowded field of eight candidates. When the runner-up, Carlos Prosperi, cried fraud, the ballots were destroyed to prevent an audit of the vote. 

Camilo Mejia, a US military resistor and an Amnesty “prisoner of conscience,” published an open letter expressing his “unequivocal condemnation of Amnesty International with regards to the destabilizing role it has played in Nicaragua, my country of birth.” 

Amnesty has long been accused of bias on an international scale. Journalist Alexander Rubinstein documented Amnesty’s collaboration with US and UK intelligence agencies dating back to the 1960s. Francis A. Boyle, human rights law professor and founding Amnesty board member, observed: “You will find a self-perpetuating clique of co-opted Elites who deliberately shape and direct the work of AI and AIUSA so as to either affirmatively support, or else not seriously undercut, the imperial, colonial, and genocidal policies of the United States, Britain, and Israel.”

NGOs and the “human rights industry” 

Alfred de Zayas, former UN independent human rights expert, argues in The Human Rights Industry that there are few fields that are “as penetrated and corrupted by intelligence services” as NGOs. “The level of NGO interference in the internal affairs of states and their destabilizing impact on the constitutional order has become so prevalent that more and more countries have adopted… legislation to control this ‘invasion’ of foreign interests, or simply to ban them.”

While de Zayas recognizes Amnesty International when it does good work, he points out that in Latin America it ignores the struggle of sovereign nations “to shake off the yoke of US domination.” In a general comment that might apply specifically to Amnesty’s Tearing Up the Social Fabric, de Zayas condemns “entire reports… compiled from accounts of US-backed opposition groups.”

The post Amnesty International Defends US Regime-Change NGOs: Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba appeared first on Activist Post.

There is a moment—subtle, almost impossible to locate precisely—when a society begins to feel different.

Not dramatically. Not in a way that triggers immediate alarm. But in small, almost negligible shifts: prices that no longer make sense, opportunities that seem harder to reach, institutions that respond slower than they used to. At first, these are dismissed as temporary fluctuations. Yet over time, they accumulate into something more difficult to ignore.

What becomes evident, especially when observed from outside formal economic discourse, is that collapse rarely presents itself as a singular event. Rather, it unfolds as a process of structural degradation, often masked by the continued appearance of stability.

Macroeconomic indicators continue to suggest resilience. Global growth projections remain positive, unemployment rates in developed economies are not dramatically elevated, and financial markets, despite volatility, continue to function. However, this surface-level stability conceals a growing divergence between statistical representation and lived economic reality.

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1. The Structural Illusion of Stability

The contemporary economic system is sustained not only by production and consumption, but by expectations. At its core lies a foundational assumption: that the future will be incrementally better than the present.

This assumption underpins:

• credit expansion
• long-term investment
• educational financing
• housing markets

Yet recent data suggests that this assumption is weakening. Real wages in many economies have stagnated when adjusted for inflation, while essential costs—particularly food, housing, and energy—have risen disproportionately. The result is a silent compression of purchasing power.

This divergence produces a critical effect: a decline in perceived economic legitimacy.

Individuals begin to sense that effort no longer correlates reliably with outcome. This perception, once internalized across a significant portion of the population, alters behavior in ways that are not immediately visible in macroeconomic data but have profound long-term implications.

2. System Optimization and Fragility

Modern systems are designed for efficiency, not resilience. Over the past decades, economic structures have been optimized to reduce redundancy and maximize output. While effective under stable conditions, this optimization introduces systemic fragility.

Key sectors illustrate this clearly:

1. Energy Systems
   Energy markets remain highly sensitive to geopolitical and financial disruptions. Even moderate price increases can cascade across all sectors, increasing production costs and reducing overall economic activity.
2. Global Supply Chains
   Highly integrated and cost-efficient, these systems lack flexibility. Disruptions—whether logistical, political, or environmental—produce disproportionate effects, as observed in recent years.
3. Financial Structures
   High levels of public and private debt are sustainable only under conditions of continuous growth. In a prolonged downturn, this dependency becomes a vulnerability.

The interaction of these systems creates a condition in which small shocks produce large consequences, not because the shocks themselves are unprecedented, but because the system lacks the capacity to absorb them.

3. The Progressive Devaluation of Human Capital

One of the most underexamined aspects of economic contraction is the gradual devaluation of human capital, particularly within the higher education system.

The expansion of access to education, largely driven by credit-based financing, has produced a paradox:

• the cost of education has increased significantly
• the economic return on that education has declined

This phenomenon, often described as credential inflation, reflects a mismatch between supply and demand. As more individuals obtain degrees, the signaling value of those degrees diminishes.

The consequences extend beyond individual outcomes:

1. Rising Student Debt Burdens
   Individuals enter the workforce with significant financial obligations, limiting economic mobility.
2. Underemployment
   A growing proportion of graduates occupy positions that do not require their level of education.
3. Institutional Vulnerability
   Universities, dependent on continuous enrollment and high tuition fees, face increasing financial pressure.

In a scenario of economic contraction, these dynamics may converge, leading to institutional instability. Reduced enrollment, combined with high operational costs, could force many institutions to restructure or close.

4. Agricultural Dependency and the Risk of Yield Collapse

Modern agriculture operates on a high-input, high-output model. Productivity is sustained through the continuous application of external inputs:

• fertilizers
• pesticides
• fuel
• mechanization
• labor

This model assumes stable access to both resources and capital. However, in a constrained economic environment, this assumption becomes increasingly fragile.

The system is inherently cyclical:

• high yields generate revenue
• revenue funds the next cycle of inputs

Disruption at any point in this cycle produces cascading effects. If farmers are unable to afford inputs, yields decline. Lower yields reduce revenue, further limiting future investment.

This creates a negative feedback loop:

1. reduced inputs
2. lower yields
3. decreased income
4. further reduction in inputs

Over time, this process may lead to:

• consolidation of agricultural production
• exit of smaller producers
• increased vulnerability in food supply systems

While not immediately catastrophic, these developments increase the probability of localized or regional food insecurity.

5. Crime as a Structural Response to Economic Pressure

Crime, in the context of economic decline, should not be viewed solely as a social anomaly, but as a structural response to resource constraints.

As legitimate economic opportunities diminish, alternative forms of resource acquisition become more prevalent. This shift is not uniform, nor is it purely deterministic, but the correlation is well established.

Key dynamics include:

1. Increased Property Crime
   Theft and robbery rise as individuals seek to compensate for declining income.
2. Expansion of Informal Economies
   Activities operating outside formal regulatory frameworks become more widespread.
3. Normalization of Risk
   Individuals begin to anticipate and adapt to higher levels of insecurity.

The most significant consequence is not the increase in crime itself, but the transformation of social expectations. When insecurity becomes normalized, trust declines, and with it, the foundations of economic and social interaction.

6. Institutional Overload: Law Enforcement and Healthcare

Institutions responsible for maintaining order and well-being are not insulated from economic stress. On the contrary, they are directly affected by it.

Law Enforcement

Law enforcement systems are calibrated for average conditions. They operate with limited surplus capacity, making them vulnerable to sudden increases in demand.

Under sustained economic pressure:

• response times increase
• prioritization becomes more selective
• perceived effectiveness declines

This creates a feedback loop in which reduced enforcement capacity contributes to increased crime, further straining the system.

Healthcare Systems

Healthcare systems exhibit similar characteristics. Operating near capacity, they are highly efficient but lack resilience.

Economic decline affects healthcare through multiple channels:

1. increased injuries (associated with higher crime rates)
2. deteriorating baseline health (due to poorer nutrition)
3. reduced access to preventative care

The result is a gradual but persistent increase in demand, which the system struggles to accommodate.

7. The Erosion of Mobility and Everyday Security

As economic and social pressures intensify, the concept of safe and predictable mobility begins to erode.

Activities that were once routine become associated with risk:

• leaving one’s home unattended
• traveling with visible goods
• navigating public spaces during periods of unrest

This shift is not merely logistical, but psychological. Individuals begin to organize their behavior around risk minimization rather than efficiency or convenience.

At scale, this has economic consequences. Reduced mobility limits:

• consumer activity
• labor participation
• social interaction

In effect, the economy contracts not only because of structural constraints, but because individuals voluntarily restrict their engagement.

8. Mortality, Health, and Systemic Stress

The cumulative effects of economic decline, institutional strain, and social fragmentation ultimately manifest in public health outcomes.

Several factors converge:

1. Nutritional Deficiency
   Reduced access to quality food weakens immune systems.
2. Increased Exposure to Violence
   Higher crime rates lead to more injuries and fatalities.
3. Limited Healthcare Access
   Overburdened systems reduce the availability and quality of care.
4. Psychological Stress
   Chronic uncertainty contributes to long-term health deterioration.

Individually, these factors may appear manageable. Collectively, they produce a measurable increase in mortality rates.

9. Crisis as Catalyst: Between Emergence and Design

At this stage of analysis, a critical question emerges: are these processes purely emergent, or do they also serve a functional role within broader systemic transformations?

Historical patterns suggest that crises often precede significant structural changes:

• increased centralization of authority
• expansion of regulatory frameworks
• adoption of new technologies of control and coordination

These changes are typically justified as necessary responses to instability. However, they also reshape the distribution of power and redefine the relationship between individuals and institutions.

This dynamic is frequently summarized by the concept of “order out of chaos.”

It does not necessarily imply intentional orchestration in a simplistic sense. Rather, it highlights a recurring pattern: instability creates conditions in which transformation becomes both possible and acceptable.

In this context, a prolonged economic downturn may function not only as a period of decline, but as a transitional phase.

10. Toward a Controlled Reconfiguration of Society

What emerges from this analysis is not a vision of sudden collapse, but of gradual transformation.

Systems do not disappear; they evolve under pressure.

The likely trajectory includes:

• increased digitalization of economic activity
• greater reliance on centralized systems
• enhanced monitoring and regulation
• reduced tolerance for systemic risk

From one perspective, these developments represent adaptation and progress. From another, they suggest a movement toward greater control and reduced individual autonomy.

The distinction between these interpretations is not always clear.

Final Reflection

At a certain point, the question is no longer whether an economic collapse will occur in a dramatic, visible form. The more relevant question is whether a slow, structural transformation is already underway.

Not as a singular event, but as a continuous process.

Not visible in headlines, but in patterns.

Not defined by collapse, but by change.

And perhaps the most unsettling aspect of this process is not its severity, but its subtlety.

Because systems that collapse suddenly can be recognized.

But systems that transform gradually are often only understood… once the transformation is complete.

All Americans are expected to lose their homes, income, and access to electricity by mid-2026, potentially leaving millions without financial stability, basic security, or essential resources for daily life.

The post Beyond Recession: Economic Collapse and the Architecture of Control appeared first on Activist Post.

ScheerPost Staff

In a stark and unsettling conversation on The Chris Hedges Report, journalist Chris Hedges sits down with retired Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson to confront a question now hanging over Washington’s war planning: Is the United States preparing to send ground forces into Iran?

The interview arrives at a moment when the American-Israeli war on Iran has already burned through massive military resources, destabilized global markets, and failed to produce anything resembling a clear strategic victory. More than a month into the conflict, the central warning from Wilkerson is blunt: if Washington commits troops on Iranian soil, the result could be a military disaster on a scale policymakers appear unwilling to acknowledge.

Rather than describing the conflict as an isolated confrontation, Wilkerson places it inside a much larger geopolitical struggle — one tied to declining American economic leverage and the attempt to preserve dominance over global trade routes increasingly shaped by China. In his view, the war cannot be understood simply through the language of retaliation or deterrence; it reflects deeper anxieties inside an empire confronting limits it no longer knows how to manage.

That argument gives the interview its sharpest edge: the possibility that military escalation is being driven less by coherent strategy than by a collapsing political imagination in Washington.

Wilkerson, whose long military career included service under Colin Powell, argues that planners inside the Pentagon have historically understood the risks of a direct ground confrontation with Iran. Unlike previous wars launched under assumptions of rapid dominance, Iran presents terrain, manpower, regional alliances, and retaliatory capacity that could quickly turn invasion into prolonged attrition.

The concern is not only battlefield cost. The interview points repeatedly to how the war is already redrawing global alignments. Iranian retaliation, regional uncertainty, and threats to energy routes through the Persian Gulf have intensified fears of wider economic shock, with Wilkerson warning that continued escalation could accelerate conditions for a global depression.

One of the most alarming moments in the discussion centers on Israel. Both Hedges and Wilkerson raise concern that if Israeli leadership sees conventional military objectives slipping away, pressure could mount for far more extreme measures — including actions that would permanently transform the conflict and likely push Iran toward openly pursuing nuclear weapons.

That possibility exposes a contradiction running through Western war rhetoric: a campaign supposedly justified in the name of preventing escalation may instead be creating exactly the conditions for irreversible escalation.

Wilkerson’s proposed exit is politically simple but strategically difficult: declare victory and withdraw. Frame retreat as success before the conflict hardens into another generational war.

But he openly doubts whether the current administration possesses either the discipline or independence to do that. His most cutting remark suggests that many driving policy are not fully directing events themselves, but acting under pressures they neither control nor clearly explain.

The interview leaves viewers with a grim historical echo. From Vietnam War to Iraq War, American military history is crowded with conflicts entered under promises of control and exited under the weight of miscalculation.

What makes this moment especially dangerous is that many of those lessons appear visible — and ignored.

The central force of the discussion is not prediction but warning: once a ground war begins, political leaders often lose the ability to shape where it ends.

The post Ground War With Iran? Chris Hedges and Larry Wilkerson Warn of a Catastrophe Washington May Already Be Sliding Toward appeared first on Activist Post.

The Donald plunged into one hell of a hornets nest when he took the bait from Bibi Netanyahu and launched an all out “kinetic” war on Iran (as distinguished from the brutal economic war Washington has been waging for decades). But now that the gasoline pump price has breached $4/gallon and is heading higher, he’s desperately looking for an off-ramp.

Yet the one he has seized upon in the last 48 hours or so is not even remotely fit for purpose. To wit, he threatens to pick up Washington’s military football and go home, leaving what’s left of the Iranian government—mainly the brutish IRGC—in charge of the Strait of Hormuz. That is, operating a toll booth and military checkpoint on a waterway that had been open to world commerce free of charge until the Donald foolishly unleashed bombs and missiles on Iran on February 28th.

“we don’t import much oil from there anymore……within 2-3 weeks, we’ll leave. That’s not for us. A guy can take a mine, drop it in the water. That can be for France or whoever is using the strait”.

The presumption, of course, is that because the US imports virtually no petroleum from the Persian Gulf the new Hormuz toll booth is Europe’s and Asia’s problem, not Washington’s. And that’stechnically true but here’s the spoiler alert: What matters is not the geography of where the barrels of hydrocarbon molecules are moving from and to at any given point in time, but the level of hydrocarbon prices embedded in the digital bits coursing through the global futures and cash markets all the time and everywhere.

That’s because the latter reflects the markets’ judgement about the state of global supply, demand and inventories in totality. Unlike the Donald, traders on the exchanges are fully familiar with the potent process of market arbitrage. In this case, it means that when the same hydrocarbon molecule has radically different prices around the planet, then some enterprising traders will buy them where the price is low and ship them to where it’s high, and pocket the profit, net of shipping costs, insurance, interest carry cost and other nits and nats of market operation.

The consequence, of course, is the “law of one price” worldwide. Rather than zero exposure to the Persian Gulf’s slow-steaming barrels of hydrocarbon molecules, the US has 100% exposure to Gulf-impacted digital price bits being digitally transmitted instantaneously around the planet on a 24/7 basis.

Accordingly, if the Donald thinks the oil price is going to be high in Europe and Asia because they get their hydrocarbon molecules from the Persian Gulf and low in the USA because we are 100% self-sufficient in oil and gas, he is sadly and utterly mistaken. The digital networks of the paper and cash markets will quickly equilibriate the price of hydrocarbons on a worldwide basis, and the physical barrels will not be far behind.

So lets start with the home team that the Donald thinks somehow operates as an economic island all by its lonesome, unconnected to the global markets. But for this purpose we must look at the entire oil and natural gas complex because under the law of one market petroleum and nat gas molecules are highly interchangeable. And we also measure everything in BOE (barrels of oil equivalent) in order to avoid apples and oranges on the price quotations.

Thus, if we look at just the domestic energy patch, the massive output of the US natural gas industry—-heavily driven by fracking—towers well above conventional US crude oil production, including fracked crude. To wit, in 2025 field production of natural gas (i.e. “wet gas”) was 26.5 million BOE/day while crude oil and condensate from the field was 13.6 million BOE/day.

In terms of physical molecules and pricing, however, upwards of 30% of field production (7.9 million BOEs/day) of so-called “wet gas” consists of NGLs (natural gas liquids), mainly ethane, propane, butane and natural gasoline. All of these go into the same end markets—heating, cooking, petrochemicals and transportation—as similar liquids obtained from refinery runs of crude oil. The common molecules from both streams, therefore, are subject to the law of one market.

Thus, the 22.5 million BOE per day of total “petroleum liquids” supply shown in the table below includes a very large component of Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs) as follows:

• Crude oil + lease condensate: 13.6 BOE/d
• Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs): 7.9 BOE/d
• Refinery processing gain: ~1.0 BOE/d

The above hints at the price linkage between the oil and gas markets. The U.S. petrochemical industry, for instance, uses ethane as the primary feedstock for steam crackers that produce ethylene, which is the building block for plastics, packaging, and countless other products. Ethane from two main sources competes for the feedstock requirements of the steam crackers:

1. Field-produced NGLs (extracted from wet natural gas at gas processing plants)
2. Refinery-sourced ethane (produced as a byproduct when refineries process crude oil)

At the present time, NGL-derived ethane is generally cheaper and more abundant — especially from shale gas basins like the Permian and Marcellus owing to the continuing oversupply of natural gas. So it has captured the lion’s share of U.S. cracker feedstock in recent years.

By contrast, refinery ethane tends to be more expensive and less consistent in volume, so it often serves as a secondary or swing feedstock. Moreover, when NGL supply surges or the global price of crude oil and its derivatives rise, the ethane cracker feedstock competition intensifies. On the margin, petrochemical operators shift even more heavily toward the cheaper NGL-derived ethane, thereby linking U.S. natural gas prices to the global petroleum markets.

In any event, the convention with respect to industry statistics is to include NGLs extracted from natural gas wells in the “petroleum liquids” category. So to avoid double counting, we include in the table below only the dry gas portion of nat gas field production, which gets distributed to end markets by pipelines.

Accordingly, as shown below the USA in 2025 produced 41.1 million BOE/day of combined oil and gas, which well exceeded domestic demand of 36.3 million BOE/day. The latter went into the slate of refinery products sold domestically and the pipeline delivery of nat gas to domestic end markets.

The resulting arithmetic, of course, shows that the balance of supply over demand was accounted for by 4.8 million BOE per day of exports. This was a mix of crude oil (@ 1.4 million BOE/day and refinery products (0.7 million BOE/day) under the liquids column and mainly LNG under the dry gas column.

Still, the fact that domestic supply was 113% of domestic demand, does not mean the US economy is insulated from the current massive shortfall of both gas and oil coming out of the Persian Gulf. To the contrary, it means only that the process of arbitrage between geographic markets and near-substitutes among the gas and oil streams is far more complex and subtle than the “drill, baby, drill” rhetoric that the Donald dispenses in justification of what amount to his own attack on domestic users of globally priced hydrocarbons.

Needless to say, it is the 2.1 million BOE of liquids and 2.7 million BOEs of mainly LNG under the dry gas column in the table above that provide the transmission arteries by which domestic prices are linked to global prices. In basic form, the equation is straight forward: To wit, high prices abroad and low prices domestically will cause a massive incremental draw on US exports.

That is to say, if Qatari LNG is scarce and high priced, LNG exports from the US will increase—first from fuller utilization of existing LNG plants and then over time via increased investment in liquefaction capacity. Moreover, at the present time the LNG export market draw will be especially potent if Gulf supply remains curtailed and world LNG prices stay high.

Specifically, Iran’s successful attack on the huge Ras Laffan LNG facility in Qatar (and the prospect that the plant will be out of commission for up to several years) caused the Rotterdam price for LNG to soar from an average of about $69 per BOE in 2025 to current spot market quotes of @$152 per BOE.

So here is where the hidden magic of Mr. Market comes in—notwithstanding the Donald’s illusion that America is an insulated island of energy plenty and cheap prices. To wit, the current spot market price for pipeline natural gas in the US at the Henry Hub terminal is about $18 per BOE. So in the language of Mr. Rogers, can you say arbitrage?

Right now the 5.8 million of BTUs in pipeline gas form at Henry Hub (Louisiana) is priced at only 12% of the landed cost of 5.8 million BTUs in LNG form at Rotterdam. In this circumstance, of course, Mr. Market would also factor in about $20 per BOE to convert US pipeline gas to liquid form at an LNG plant and another $14/BOE to ship it to Rotterdam in a specially equipped LNG tanker.

But still, the apples-to-apples cost gap would remain at about $100 per BOE—that is, $52 per BOE for US gas delivered by LNG tanker to Rotterdam versus the current spot price there of $152 per BOE.

Of course, the arbitrage doesn’t work instantly and overnight. US Gulf Coast LNG plants currently have about 2.8 million BOE/day of capacity but are nearly fully utilized. So in the short run, the US/Rotterdam gap would likely just drive up spot prices and profitability on existing LNG contracts. However, there is also currently nearly 2.6 million BOE of new LNG capacity under construction in the US Gulf coast, which would nearly double current LNG export capacity when it comes on stream during the next several years.

So it is virtually guaranteed that the current $100 per BOE price gap between Rotterdam LNG and Henry Hub pipeline gas will close substantially, if shipments from the Persian Gulf remain restricted owing to Iranian military threats or just due to the delay in rebuilding the badly damaged LNG plants in Qatar and elsewhere.

More importantly, something else would happen as a second order effect that the Donald obviously hasn’t reckoned with, either. The Henry Hub price for pipeline gas at $18 per BOE is low relative to WTI for light crude oil at $100 per BOE or LNG at $152 per BOE in Rotterdam owing to the nature of the pipeline gas business.

That is, domestic demand for delivered pipeline gas is pretty much driven by the level of GDP embodied in household spending and business production. So when investment in the oil patch—and especially the fracking plays—-leads to excess gas supply, the spot price of pipeline gas falls. There is very little excess inventory/storage in the industry by its nature beyond the large seasonal working stocks held by the pipelines and middle men.

This is somewhat different than the case of crude oil where there is a huge long standing export market and giant waterborne tanker fleets. Prior to February 28th, there was ordinarily about 60 million BOE per day of crude oil on the blue water, carried by upwards 2,400 crude oil tankers.

So when the Brent or WTI crude oil prices rise owing to the huge supply restrictions out of the Persian Gulf the immediate impact has been the rerouting of tankers to the US crude oil terminals to take oil to Europe and Asia. In turn, that tightens the domestic supply/demand balance, pushing domestic prices higher, as well.

Accordingly, US crude and product export volumes have been and will continue to rise as long as the Gulf remains restricted and global marker prices remain high. All other things equal, in turn, this means that domestic petroleum prices will rise and stay high, as well.

In the case of natural gas, the response time and arbitrage pathways move a little more slowly, but the market dynamic is the same: As more excess US pipeline gas is drawn into the rapidly expanding US LNG plants and thereby into the global export markets, the Henry Hub pipeline gas price will rise as the current surplus of gas “deliverability” is reduced. In turn, the gas bills of homeowners and business users will go up.

In short, the global hydrocarbon market is highly integrated and with the rise of the LNG sector and growing LNG tanker fleet has become more seamless than ever under the one price rule of markets. In this context, the US production in 2025 of 41.1 million BOEs per day of petro liquids and nat gas was nearly as large as the 51.3 million BOEs per day coming out of the Persian Gulf. ( (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman).

By way of comparison, total Russian hydrocarbon production was 26.2 million BOEs or just 64% of the US output and Canada at 11.3 million BOE per day was barely 25% of the US total.

In short, when you look at the entire global oil and nat gas market at 182.5 million BOEs per day it is obvious that there are two giant hydrocarbon supply nodes—the USA and the Persian Gulf. There is no way on god’s green earth, however, that these giant hydrocarbon supply nodes could co-exist in splendid isolation.

Thus, having radically destabilized the world’s breadbasket of hydrocarbons and all their derivatives— LPGs, fertilizer, helium, sulfur and more—-that Donald’s assurance that America can remain a low price oasis in a $100 +per barrel world is a barking delusion.

To the contrary, as the sign in the store used to say, if you break it, you own it. The Donald did—so now he does.

For want of doubt, here is the path of the global marker crude oil during the past 24 months versus the national average pump price of gasoline in the US. The correlation is tighter than a drum owing to the arbitrage mechanisms outlined above.

In any event, global crude oil was at $60 per barrel at the beginning of 2026 and the national average pump price stood at $2.75 per gallon, eliciting a noisy chorus of atta boys from MAGA-land.

No more. It’s a global market where pricing pressures transmit rapidly accross markets and among various related elements of the hydrocarbon supply system. With global crude oil above $100 per barrel the domestic gas pump price is now at $4.03 per gallon for one reason and one reason only: The Donald kissed Bibi Netanyahu’s ass and joined his war of aggression not only against Iran but the entire Persian Gulf supply system for no good reason of America’s Homeland Security whatsoever.

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Editor’s Note: This jump in energy prices is not a passing disruption. It is one more sign that the financial and political cracks are widening—and that Americans could soon be hit with a much broader economic reckoning.

To see what may come next and how to prepare now, see our urgent new video, The Most Dangerous Event of the 21st Century, where legendary investor Doug Casey lays out what’s ahead. Click here to watch it now for free.

The post The Market Law Of One Price—How The Donald Bombed Energy Consumers, Too appeared first on Activist Post.

Round-the-clock markets promise freedom for investors and pressure for intermediaries who traditionally wielded immense power during off-hours

What to know:

• As major U.S. exchanges move toward 24/7 trading, some claim that the current system allows brokers to exploit thin after-hours liquidity and to use opening auctions to influence prices and trigger client stop-losses.
• Academic studies and recent SEC and FINRA enforcement actions suggest that price discovery is less efficient and more vulnerable to spoofing and other manipulative tactics outside regular trading hours.
• Proponents argue that round-the-clock markets would shift power from intermediaries to traders, especially retail investors, by allowing them to react to news in real time rather than being sidelined during market closures.

If the closing bell has long been a business model, then 24/7 trading is an attempt to break it. As the NYSE, Nasdaq, CME and Cboe race to introduce round-the-clock trading, the question is who stands to gain and who could lose.

The answer is quite simple, Mati Greenspan, CEO and founder of Quantum Economics, told CoinDesk: “The biggest losers in 24/7 stock trading won’t be traders: they’ll benefit massively. It’ll be the middlemen who’ve long made money when traders can’t trade.”

Greenspan, also a market analyst, alleged that when markets reopen after what he called a big event, “a handful of firms decide the first tradable price. Oftentimes, they will explicitly use a price that triggers stop losses for their clients, closing them out at a loss and making a profit for the broker who is essentially trading against the client.”

When Greenspan was asked whether brokers coordinate around pricing during market closures, he was blunt in his claim: “Yes, manipulation outright.”

“They basically get to control prices, often with hours to strategize,” he said. “Often hunting stops losses. When big news happens on weekends, the house tends to take liberties with pricing at the opening bell.”

His comments come as several major U.S. exchanges are looking to offer around-the-clock trading services. The NYSE said it is seeking SEC approval for 24/7 trading. Nasdaq announced similar plans in December. CME plans to roll out 24-hour crypto futures in 2026, pending approval, and Cboe recently expanded U.S. index options to 24/5 trading.

‘Plausible deniability’

While Greenspan’s comments could be seen as accusatory, it’s not hard to see why such practices could be prominent in the after-hours market. When the usual trading hours come to a close, at 4 p.m. ET, the thin liquidity can make prices easier to influence.

“After the 4 p.m. closing bell, you simply don’t have the same liquidity,” said Joe Dente, a floor broker at the New York Stock Exchange. “People have gone home and the liquidity is not there, so you’re going to see larger spreads.”

Wider spreads and thinner order books, he said, create an environment where price movements can be exaggerated compared with the regular session.

Academic research also supports the view that extended trading sessions are structurally different from core market hours. A widely cited joint UC Berkeley–University of Rochester study found that after-hours price discovery is “much less efficient,” citing lower volume and thinner liquidity that limit the speed at which information is incorporated into prices.

When asked whether manipulation already occurs during those periods, Dente said it is “possible,” but he also pointed out that “the event of 24-hour trading is going to leave things open to manipulation,” referring to conditions already seen in after-hours markets

Greenspan, meanwhile, noted that these alleged manipulation practices are “not exactly above board, so they [brokers who might be taking part in such actions] tend to maintain plausible deniability.”

This is where the line between actual manipulation and proof that such practises occur starts to blur.

A widely cited SSRN study on opening price manipulation shows how brokers can influence prices during the pre-open auction by submitting and canceling large orders, temporarily pushing stocks away from their fundamental value before broader liquidity returns.

The research found that such manipulation can create distorted opening prices that are later corrected once the full market begins trading, leaving investors who bought at the inflated price with losses. Because these distortions occur before normal trading volume returns, the resulting price moves can appear indistinguishable from ordinary market volatility.

Still another broker, familiar with overnight trading practices and who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said thin overnight liquidity can occasionally make it easier for coordinated strategies to influence prices in less widely traded stocks.

And this is not just anecdotal evidence.

In late 2025, the SEC settled charges over a multi-year spoofing scheme involving deceptive orders used to move prices in thinly traded securities. Regulators also fined Velox Clearing $1.3 million for failing to detect “layering” and “spoofing” in volatile stocks.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), in its 2026 Annual Regulatory Oversight Report, cited firms for “failing to maintain reasonably designed supervisory systems and controls, including with respect to the identification and reporting of potentially manipulative activity conducted in after-hours trading.”

A win for retail?

Whether it’s hard to point out how widespread these accusations are, one thing is for sure: if trading goes 24/7, traders will be the ultimate winners, particularly retail traders.

In today’s electronic markets, traders who respond fastest to market news have a structural advantage.

“There’s always an edge for whoever has the fastest computers and the best program writers,” said Dente, noting that algorithms can react to news and orders “in a nanosecond.” For individual investors, he added, keeping up with that speed is difficult. “How does the human person keep up with that?”

And reacting to these events becomes even harder for smaller investors when the market is closed, leaving those retail or smaller traders at a massive disadvantage.

Pranav Ramesh, head of quantitative research for options at Nasdaq and co-founder of Leadpoet, said thin markets can amplify those risks.

“Broker coordination may often show up as industry-wide alignment around routing and execution practices, especially where a large share of retail flow ends up with a small number of wholesalers,” he said. “Outside regular hours, scrutiny can be harder because the market is thinner and there are fewer straightforward reference points for investors to benchmark execution quality,” Ramesh said in his personal capacity.

Sources familiar with broker routing and liquidity practices told CoinDesk that price-setting power in thin sessions is real, particularly when major news breaks while markets are closed. According to those sources, coordination around routing, spreads and execution practices during extended gaps has historically been easier precisely because retail traders cannot participate.

This is precisely what around-the-clock trading will solve for traders, according to Greenspan, who said 24/7 markets would blunt fintech firms’ advantage by removing the weekend vacuum entirely.

The recent Middle East conflict has been a perfect example of how this can open up more trading opportunities when markets remain closed. Decentralized exchange, Hyperliquid, which trades on blockchain 24/7, has seen growing interest from traders betting on traditional financial assets, including oil and gold, during the weekend, when traditional exchanges are closed.

It has become so popular that weekly derivatives trading volume on the platform topped $50 billion, while it generated $1.6 million in revenue over 24 hours, outpacing the entire Bitcoin blockchain’s revenue. The platform has also recently added an S&P 500 perpetual contract.

Needless to say, major exchanges will also likely benefit from trading fees if they open for 24/7 trading.

Whether round-the-clock trading ultimately weakens brokers’ influence on price setting remains to be seen. What is clear is that exchanges and investors stand to gain from markets that never close.

“Traders can react in real time without being at the mercy of the middlemen — the brokers,” said Greenspan.

Read more: Bitcoin’s weekend selloff may be over with CME’s 24/7 crypto trading move

The post Traders are the big winners as 24/7 stocks will finally end the after-hours price ‘manipulation’ appeared first on Activist Post.

Physics tells us that the sheer act of witnessing an event plays a role in the outcome. Most people are helpless to change the situations we are witnessing around the world, but we feel compelled to know about their struggle, regardless of whether we can assist or not.

The American Empire uses this curiosity to manipulate the messages about these important world events in order to build support for unpopular ideas such as wars and banker bailouts. Media assets are being acquired, supply chains are being established, and the banks are getting liquidity rule changes to keep them from being insolvent. It is hard to know what to monitor the closest, as these global situations unfold towards World War 3 and energy supply shocks.

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The post #634: Monitoring the Situation appeared first on Activist Post.

• U.S. seeks to expand its military presence in Greenland at multiple sites.
• The aim is to counter growing Russian and Chinese activity in the Arctic.
• The plan leverages an existing Cold War-era defense pact with Denmark.
• It focuses on reactivating old bases with existing infrastructure.
• Local Greenlandic residents express unease about a larger military footprint.

The United States is quietly advancing a major strategic play in the Arctic, negotiating with Denmark to expand its military footprint across Greenland. This push, driven by Pentagon officials under President Donald Trump, aims to secure access to three additional sites on the immense island to counter increasing military activity from Russia and growing Chinese engagement in the region. The move signifies a concrete step to bolster American defense posture in the High North, leveraging a decades-old agreement to potentially reactivate former U.S. installations.

Currently, the American military operates from just one location in Greenland: Pituffik Space Base. This remote installation is critical for missile detection and early warning systems. However, top commanders argue that a single base is insufficient for modern Arctic challenges. The goal is to develop more ports and airfields to create options for enhanced surveillance, missile defense, and naval operations.

Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, who leads U.S. Northern Command, laid out the rationale to lawmakers. “I’m working with our department and others to try to develop more ports, more airfields, which leads to more options for our secretary and for the president, should we need them up in the Arctic,” Guillot said. He emphasized that strengthening capabilities along Greenland’s corridor would serve as a critical “first line of defense.”

The strategic sites

The targeted locations are not new to the U.S. military. They include former American installations at Narsarsuaq and Kangerlussuaq. These sites, used during World War II and the Cold War, offer existing infrastructure like long runways and deepwater port access. While much of the old military infrastructure has been dismantled, the foundational assets remain, allowing for a potentially faster expansion compared to building on untouched land.

Pentagon officials are eyeing these spots for special operations forces and maritime capabilities. The effort is framed as a necessary modernization of U.S. Arctic assets. “We’re very well established in Canada and Alaska,” Guillot noted, highlighting Greenland as the missing piece for a comprehensive defensive network.

Legal foundation and negotiations

This expansion is not being pursued through conquest or sovereign acquisition, but through an existing legal framework. Officials are leaning heavily on a 1951 defense agreement between the United States and Denmark. This pact allows U.S. forces to operate and establish facilities in designated areas of Greenland.

General Guillot described the ongoing discussions with Danish and Greenlandic authorities as “very productive.” He told Congress that the partners have been “very, very supportive.” He stated, “We don’t really need a new treaty. It’s very comprehensive, and it’s frankly very favorable to our operations or potential operations in Greenland.”

This approach marks a shift from earlier, more confrontational rhetoric about purchasing the island. It instead works within the established alliance structure, though it undoubtedly advances the Trump administration’s persistent focus on Greenland’s strategic value.

Local concerns and geopolitical drivers

Despite governmental support, the plan faces potential grassroots opposition. Some Greenlandic residents have expressed unease about an expanded U.S. military presence. “Many people don’t want more military in Greenland,” said Anso Lauritzen, a local business owner. A retired resident, Agnetha Mikka Petersen, said the prospect makes her feel “uneasy” and stated, “I’m not happy about it.”

However, under the 1951 agreement, Denmark and Greenland maintain limited authority to restrict U.S. activities deemed necessary for defense purposes. Analysts suggest that while local consent is sought, the agreement grants Washington significant leverage.

The driving force behind this push is clear: intensified great-power competition in the Arctic. U.S. officials point to Russia’s militarization of its northern coastline and China’s declared status as a “near-Arctic state” and its economic investments as primary reasons for enhancing the American position. Greenland’s location between North America and Europe makes it a vital piece of real estate for monitoring and controlling access to the Arctic.

This quiet campaign to secure more bases is a practical manifestation of America’s Arctic awakening. It moves beyond bold headlines about real estate deals and into the granular work of building a resilient defense network. While it may lack the drama of earlier proposals, this negotiated expansion could have a more lasting impact, solidifying the U.S. military’s role in Greenland for the next generation. The success of these talks will test the balance between urgent national security needs and the sovereignty concerns of a small, autonomous territory caught in the middle of an increasingly contested world.

Sources for this article include:

YourNews.com

NYTimes.com

Telegraph.co.uk

The post Pentagon seeks new Arctic bases in Greenland amid Russian, Chinese activity appeared first on Activist Post.

According to the Brookings Institution’s analysis of carbon tax timing, high fossil fuel prices are the worst time to impose a carbon tax, but are the best time to build the underlying market architecture. And that infrastructure is rapidly being built and deployed by the biggest multinational corporations, governments and states, and the United Nations — especially in the past few months.

Announced at Davos in January 2026, the carbon market platform EcoGuard automates the full carbon credit lifecycle. The carbon market is expected to reach $5 trillion by 2035. This infrastructure is designed to be “invisible and ubiquitous” — the goal is for every transaction, settlement, and data point to be managed behind the scenes so that the user is not aware of it.

Also at Davos last January, Palantir CEO Alex Karp said that AI “will destroy humanities jobs,” and described a future in which high school students train for factory jobs, no one goes to college or immigrates, and black-box software run by major government contractors determines whether society is being run properly.

For the more compliant, the so-called 15-minute city, smart city, and freedom city models are being built to incorporate digital ID, carbon tracking, and population monitoring. Where you live, how far you travel, and what your carbon footprint is are already being tracked in multiple countries and several US cities. For the non-compliant, the prison business is booming. Federal and state governments have announced over $2 billion in new prison construction in the past year alone — and the private sector dwarfs that. ICE’s detention budget quadrupled when the One Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law in July 2025, adding nearly $11.25 billion to their coffers every year through 2029. An ICE director said he wanted a detention system that runs “like Prime, but for human beings.”

And in order to keep the compliant managed and the non-compliant contained, we have Palantir, which received a no-bid contract from the USDA to track federal employees’ return-to-office compliance with “real-time analytics” and “continuous compliance monitoring.” The contract also includes the initiative, which will give Palantir a unified database of the land holdings, conservation practices, insurance claims, and financial data of every farmer who interacts with the USDA. This is the same Palantir that is proudly assisting the United States and Israel in targeting operations against civilians across the Middle East.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp published The Technological Republic in February 2025. It became an instant New York Times #1 bestseller and has been described as “the AI manifesto inspiring Keir Starmer’s government” by The Times of London. Karp’s central argument is that the state must merge its power with Big Tech — as it did during the Manhattan Project — to “save Western civilization.” The original 1930s technocracy movement, of which Elon Musk’s grandfather was a member, declared that “technocracy stands ready with a plan to salvage American civilization, if and when democracy can no longer cope with the inherent disruptive forces.” Palantir is currently deployed by the Department of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, the FDA, the CDC, and the NIH, and is in discussions with the IRS and the Social Security Administration.

The Bank for International Settlements has been quietly publishing frameworks for CBDC interoperability that would allow all national digital currencies to communicate with each other under a unified settlement layer. Sam Altman’s Worldcoin project is building a worldwide biometric identity system with the stated goal of distinguishing humans from AI agents at scale. It already operates in dozens of countries.

The new system is falling together in pieces: a digital ID to fight fraud, a stablecoin for faster payments, carbon tracking for transparency, and AI for government efficiency. Our driver’s licenses become our digital wallets, and our level of compliance can determine how much access we have to them. There appears to be very little pushback — and soon, it may seem to be the only option available to avoid total collapse.

The post The System Being Built While the World Burns appeared first on Activist Post.

While the political establishment buries the names of elite predators and engineers foreign bloodshed to distract the masses, a peaceful man is losing nearly a decade of his life in a federal cage for the “crime” of helping people bypass the fiat banking cartel.

The glaring reality of the American justice system is not that it is broken, but that it functions exactly as intended to protect the elite while crushing the peaceful and creative. To see this in action, you need look no further than the fact that years after the most prolific child trafficking ring in history was exposed, not a single one of Jeffrey Epstein’s high-profile American clients has seen the inside of a jail cell.

Just look at the absolute theater surrounding the Epstein files. This administration actually campaigned on a platform of transparency, promising to finally expose this elite predator ring to the world. First, we were told the unredacted files were “on the desk,” ready for total declassification. Then, the narrative abruptly shifted. The administration claimed the files didn’t even exist, later dismissing the justifiable public outcry as nothing more than a “Democrat hoax.” When they finally did dump a batch of documents under immense pressure, it was a masterclass in state-sponsored cover-ups: tens of thousands of pages with the names of the biggest political and financial power players heavily redacted, or mysteriously scrubbed from the DOJ’s website overnight.

But the true sleight of hand happened next. Just as the heat on the Epstein cover-up was reaching a boiling point, the war drums began beating for Iran. It is no coincidence that the state escalated a catastrophic overseas conflict precisely when they needed a massive distraction from the predators operating within their own ranks. As I pointed out recently, Google trends data exposes this manipulation perfectly: the exact moment the media-manufactured interest in Iran skyrocketed, the public’s focus on the Epstein files flatlined. The political class effectively engineered a bloodbath to change the news cycle, and now, the trafficking network that serviced the world’s most powerful people has conveniently vanished from the headlines. We live in a world where government actors can orchestrate this kind of mass slaughter—like the horrifying reality of the state murdering over a hundred school girls in Iran—and absolutely no one faces justice. The politicians and enforcers responsible for these atrocities will never spend a fraction of a second behind bars, nor will they ever offer an apology for the blood on their hands.

Meanwhile, Ian Freeman, a man whose only so-called crime was facilitating voluntary cryptocurrency exchanges, sits rotting in a federal cage. The juxtaposition is sickening, but it perfectly illustrates the priorities of a ruling class that views individual liberty as a far greater threat than systemic predation and mass slaughter of children.

When a peaceful man in New Hampshire helps people bypass the fiat banking cartel using Bitcoin, the full force of the empire is brought down upon his head. Freeman’s conviction is a masterclass in prosecutorial overreach and judicial acrobatics. As we noted in a previous breakdown of this political imprisonment, he was effectively railroaded for supposedly conspiring to launder money with an undercover federal agent. Under well-established federal law, it is legally impossible to form a criminal conspiracy with a government agent, yet the First Circuit Court of Appeals enthusiastically upheld his eight-year sentence anyway when they officially denied his appeal. They threw an innocent man in a cage over regulatory infractions and the testimony of an IRS agent who admitted under oath that Freeman might actually owe nothing in taxes.

The financial destruction the state has leveled against him is just as absurd as the cage they put him in. In addition to his eight-year sentence, a federal judge ordered Freeman to pay over $3.5 million in restitution to victims of internet romance scams—scams carried out by third parties Freeman didn’t know and never colluded with. The government is literally criminalizing the act of not acting as a financial spy for the state, punishing Freeman for running a business that respected customer privacy by disabling surveillance features on his Bitcoin kiosks.

Fortunately, those who actually understand the concept of liberty haven’t forgotten him. Free Staters have been pursuing a concerted effort to demand a pardon for Freeman, pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of a system that selectively doles out clemency while burying whistleblowers and agorists. The push continues through platforms like FreeIanNow.org and the daily advocacy of his co-host, Mark Edge, on Free Talk Live. Last year, we had Edge on the TFTP podcast to talk about this very issue. Click here to listen. 

The cruelty of this system is designed to break the individual and systematically erase them from the public consciousness. A recent post from the Free Talk Live X account captured this grim psychological warfare perfectly, stating, “The cruelest thing a cage does is teach the world how to keep moving without you.” Freeman is losing years of his life that he will never get back, punished strictly because he refused to bow to the financial surveillance state, while the people who care about him are left trying to hold his place in the world.

We cannot allow his absence to become a normalized footnote in the alternative media space. The State relies on our short attention spans to quietly disappear those who challenge its monopoly on money and power. It is on all of us to keep his name alive, to push for his immediate release, and to continue exposing the rampant hypocrisy of a government that shelters elite predators while imprisoning peaceful advocates for liberty.

Please take a moment from your day to sign the petition demanding Ian’s immediate release. 

The post As Epstein’s Clients Walk Free, an Innocent Man Rots in a Cage for Promoting Liberty appeared first on Activist Post.

Investigative Analysis – A series of arson attacks and alleged incidents targeting alleged Jewish-linked sites across Europe have been attributed to a little-known group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI), or Ashab al-Yamin. The group has been widely described in media and security circles as an Iran-backed network, allegedly linked to the IRGC.

Since March 9, HAYI has been credited with what some analysts describe as “hybrid warfare” style operations spanning multiple countries from Greece and Belgium to France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Among the most high-profile incidents was the burning of four ambulances in Golders Green, North London, on March 22.

The emergence of this group coincides with the escalation of the US-Israeli war against Iran. In parallel, media outlets and pro-war commentators have warned that Tehran could expand the conflict by carrying out attacks across Europe.

But a closer examination raises serious questions about its actual existence and the pro-Israel groups pushing this narrative. 

Several of the incidents attributed to HAYI do not appear to have directly targeted Jewish communities. Others remain murky, with limited verified information about the perpetrators. And beyond scattered claims and online statements, there is little concrete evidence that this group as described actually exists.

In the fog of war, narratives can move faster than facts. 

At the same time, governments across Europe and the UK are moving to formally designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization — a policy long pushed by pro-war, pro-Israel lobbying networks. Many of the same actors amplifying the HAYI narrative are also leading that campaign within Western media to manufacture consent for war and accelerate this political objective of proscription. While raising the possibility that unverified claims of an Iran-linked threat are being leveraged to shape public fear and justify sweeping new security measures tied to the widening war.

This investigation examines each reported attack, the sources promoting the HAYI narrative, and how claims of a coordinated campaign may be shaping public perception — fueling fears of rising antisemitism, calls for expanded security measures and proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist organisation amid an illegal war. 

But what is Ashab al-Yamin? Where did it come from and does it exist at all?

This investigation reveals that there is no such group. It appears to be a fictional cut out. Half of its reported activities simply did not occur. The other half were so amateurish, and inconsequential – with not a single injury –   One theory is that they may have been messily undertaken by hired gig criminals and/or incompetent Sayanim, the name given to Mossad’s network of little helpers in countries all over the world. This investigative analysis shows that even the Zionist regime and its assets in establishment think tanks acknowledge that so-called “gig criminals” have been involved in this series of events, in a striking parallel with similar events in Australia (fourteen of them between October 2024 and January 2025) which were similarly low impact with no casualties, declared to be “fake” by Australian police in March 2025.

What happened?

There have been ten incidents attributed to Ashab al-Yamin between March 9 – March 23rd. Of these ten incidents, as we will show, five did not happen.  Three of these were entirely fictional (Greece, 11/12 March; France, 23 March; Haarlem, Netherlands, 23 March).  One was not associated with the alleged terror group nor was it an attack on “the Jews”.(Antwerp, Belgium, 23 March). The fifth was only ever alleged to have been “planned” but nothing actually happened (Chabad Hebrew School, Heemstede, Netherlands, 23 March)

The other five events, or “attacks” if you will, did occur.  Four involved a small “explosion”, accompanied in one, or perhaps more, cases by a fire (Liège, Belgium, 9 March, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 13 March, Bank branch, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 15 March) and the final one involved the burning of four ambulances (Golders Green, London, 22 March). 

Disinformation – Fake attacks

Even the establishment think tank the International Centre for Counter Terrorism in the Hague was sceptical of several of the attacks. It reported on 23 March that “HAYI has claimed attacks against an unspecified site in Greece on 11 March, as well as in France and another in the Netherlands both on 23 March, which all likely constitute disinformation.”  The ICCT analysis “of the ‘Greek attack video’ indicates that it depicts an explosion at a residential building in Rotterdam on 3 March.” Even the Zionist regime’s  Ministry of Diaspora Affairs said  the Greek incident “may constitute disinformation”.

Of course, what the ICCT and the Ministry mean is that the disinformation was produced by the alleged terror group, on behalf of Iran. But if it is not, then who produced the disinformation?

The fourth of the fake attacks was an incident involving what was claimed by the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs to be “An arson attack targeting a vehicle in a Jewish neighborhood in Antwerp, Belgium (March 23).”  However, as the Dutch newspaper HLN reported, the owner of the car was Moroccan and not Jewish:

The car’s owner, Fatia M., was also full of praise for the emergency services and the police. “These vandals must be severely punished. I believe they first smashed the window to search the car. There were jewels inside that I received from my late father. They were stolen. After that, the perpetrators set the car on fire. Why? This is a 2005 Ford Fiesta. What a senseless act that is?”

Most mainstream media reports in English stated that the car was in the Jewish quarter.  While some accounts said that the car was “on the edge” of the Jewish district, Nieuwsblad reported the car was located “just outside the Jewish quarter” (“net buiten de Joodse wijk”). Two “minors” were arrested in relation to the alleged crime. 

The last non-attack was reported to be a possible plan to attack a Chabad school in Heemstede. The Dutch police arrested two teenagers, aged 14 and 17 on Monday 23 March “on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack”.  A Fourteen year old?  The two were allegedly in possession of “fireworks”. The police and the Public Prosecution Service “are taking into account the possibility that a synagogue near Adriaan Pauwlaan, where the two were arrested, was the target of an impending explosion.” Other reports claimed the target might have been a local Chabad Hebrew School. Chabad is, of course, an ultra genocidal Jewish supremacist cult. Even the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs was reticent about claiming this one.  The arrests they said: “may have been linked to Ashab al-Yamin; however, no confirmed connection to the group has been established at this time.”  They did however, falsely claim that the police had “foiled a planned bombing attack”.

Real events

Of the five “real” events four involved a small “explosion” with what was referred to as an “improvised Explosive Device” or IED, resulting in one, or possibly more, cases in a short lived fire. The similarity in the first four suggests one group was possibly responsible for all of them. 

In Liege a synagogue was targeted with a small incendiary device which reportedly “damaged the door and windows on the front façade.”

There was reportedly an alleged explosion at a synagogue in Rotterdam on 13 March, which caused scorching to the door. Four men aged 17-19 were arrested in relation to the Rotterdam incident.  A fifth (age 19) was picked up later and then two more (ages 20 and 23) were arrested on 27 March.

In the 14 March alleged explosion outside a Jewish school, there are hardly any images of the damage done, since it was so minimal.  Here is the best image I have found, captured from video news footage. As you can see in small print at the top, the report says that the alleged explosion reportedly “damaged a drainage pipe and charred an outer wall”.

The alleged explosion at the Atrium reportedly “targeted the Bank of New York Mellon”. In the video released by the alleged terror group  the Bank correctly noted that its office is on the fourth floor of the South Tower of the building. The homemade IED was, however, thrown at the outside door of the building on the ground floor, as can be seen in the image above.The Golders Green arson attack on the four Hatzola ambulances appears to have been carried out by three men, who can be seen in the CCTV footage supplied to news organisations. While suspects in the less serious incidents in the Netherlands are still in custody, the Metropolitan Police promptly bailed two suspects that they picked up in London, and refused to say any more than that they were UK nationals, leading to speculation about the motivations of the attack.

Here is the the English language version of a communique from the alleged new terror group:

The Machzike Hadath Synagogue in London is one of the important centers of Orthodox Judaism, and its deepest connection to Israel is through Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Israel and one of the most influential thinkers of Religious Zionism, who served at this synagogue before immigrating to the Land of Israel. This historical bond continues to this day, and the synagogue has become one of the main bastions of support for Israel in Britain, so much so that in June 2024, Rishi Sunak, the former British Prime Minister, visited this site amidst the Gaza war to affirm, alongside his expression of solidarity with the Jewish community, his country’s unwavering support for Israel.

This is oddly written. First of all, the attack was on four ambulances belonging to Hatzola Northwest, not on the synagogue beside which the ambulances were parked. Did the crack team dispatched by the IRGC confuse the ambulances with the synagogue? Note also the use of the term “land of Israel” a decidedly zionist turn of phrase. The Machzike Hadath Synagogue is hardly an “important center” of Orthodox Judaism (note the US/Israeli spelling of “centre”).  Rabbi Kook, though an important figure in the history of Religious Zionism, is hardly a top target of Palestinians  (or Iranians), given he has been dead for over ninety years. His association with the Synagogue is something likely known only to very few, including, most obviously, congregants of the Synagogue itself. 

The Synagogue is not one of the “main bastions” of support for “Israel” in Britain.  There are hundreds of Zionist organisations that are more important. While the Synagogue is a Jewish supremacist institution, it is not explicitly Zionist, especially by comparison with hundreds of other synagogues, Jewish schools, youth groups and indeed formal affiliates of the Zionist movement.  Its origins are in the so-called Litvac or ‘Misnagdim’ community – from Lithuania.  

It is a member of the Federation of Synagogues which gathers together both Hasidic and Central-orthodox synagogues.  While several synagogues from the genocidal ultra-Zionist Chabad cult are members, the Z word is nowhere mentioned on the website of the synagogue. This is a contrast to the many others affiliated with the largest and avowedly Zionist United Synagogue movement. At best this claim is an unconvincing statement either written with AI or possibly by someone with close knowledge of the synagogue.

On the “real” attacks

The first thing to say about the “real” events is how low impact they have been.  There were no casualties and barely a smashed window (with the exception of the ambulance arson). The Islamic Republic of Iran is currently defending itself against US-Israeli strikes with the most sophisticated missiles and a stockpile of underground cities as the Islamic Republic destroys US military bases and radar systems worth billions of dollars in the region. At the same time, the European and British public are asked to believe that Iran sent sloppy individuals, some of them children/teenagers, to set small fires at or near Jewish venues (or in some cases venues with no Jewish or Zionist connection) some of which were put out by a fire extinguisher?

It looks like Ashab al-Yamin is not all it is claimed to be and what the media would us to believe.  So, lets look at the sources of data used to convince us that an IRGC cut out was in play.  That alleged evidence were claims that Telegram channels allegedly associated with the Axis of Resistance and then with the alleged group HAYI itself had issued claims of responsibility for the attacks. 

The three sources of data on alleged Telegram posts.

It is widely reported in the mainstream media that these incidents were (mostly) claimed by the new group via Telegram groups aligned to the Axis of Resistance and from its own Telegram channel.  This tale falters a little when one learns that the group’s alleged Telegram channels only became operational after five of the “attacks” had taken place.  It is alleged there were two Telegram Channels  – one created in 2023 but not active until the 16 March or thereabouts, after five of the alleged attacks had taken place. The other was created only on 21 March just before the other five alleged attacks took place. 

Claim videos were posted there, so it is claimed,  only after they had already circulated on pro-Iran/axis-of-resistance Telegram channels. These claims first appeared on Telegram on 11 March for example on Sabereen News which posted the video showing an incendiary device being placed on the front step of the synagogue in Liege on 9 March.

It is also claimed that it had “a few dozen followers” at the time of activation. Referred to generically as “an allegedly official Telegram account of HAYI” or “the Telegram channel that HAYI uses to claim its attacks.” No specific Arabic/English username was published and nor were any links given.

Second HAYI Telegram Channel

A second Telegram account was reportedly created on 21 March 2026, two days before the Golders Green Hatzola ambulance arson on 23 March. It, reportedly, became immediately operational upon creation and was used for the London attack claim, which included a QR code in the video linking directly to this channel. The Telegram accounts are only described generically by the ICCT as “another Telegram account, likewise posing as an official mouthpiece of HAYI” or “a second HAYI-affiliated channel.” No t.me handle or exact name is disclosed, though the Ministry of Diaspora affairs published a screenshot of one of the alleged channels. That channel has now been deleted.

It is claimed that the first organisation to amplify the claims made on this second Telegram channel from 21 March was the SITE Intelligence Group. SITE is a well known Zionist intel cut out run by the daughter of a Zionist spy executed in Iraq in 1969, Rita Katz. It’s involvement – rather late in the day – following the previous interventions of the FDD and the Zionist regime itself.

So, who is it that has made these claims about Telegram channels and messages?  There are only three sources.  

Foundation for Defense of Democracies

The first source was on 12 March, when Joe Truzman wrote a short article posted both on the site of the Long War Journal, which he edits and on the site of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies where he works and which publishes the journal.  He was the first to claim the possibility of an Iran link: “The claimed attacks could signal that Iran or Iran-aligned actors are executing acts of terrorism in Europe”. FDD is a Likudnik cut out, and as we famously admitted by the then Director General of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, Sima Vaknin-Gil, FDD is used by the regime to gather information:  ‘we have FDD. We have others working on this.’

The FDD’s intervention though, saw limited traction. It was cited by the regimes Ministry of Foreign Affairs on X and some pro-Israel accounts, and niche sites. But there was no major mainstream media pickup. Social media mentions were low-volume. Clearly bigger guns were needed.

The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs

The second source, on 16 March was none other than the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs based in Apartheid Israel.  Almost all of the coverage in English and in other languages took its cue from this intervention.  The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs has absorbed international hasbara operations from the downgraded Ministry of Strategic Affairs, now funding overseas cutouts and churning out propaganda materials to shape narratives abroad. The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs assumed responsibility for Israel’s international propaganda efforts when the Ministry of Strategic Affairs was downgraded. Minister Amichai Chikli’s department rebooted the former Concert project as Voices of Israel post-October 2023, directing it to go “on the offensive” against critics.

The ministry funds overseas cutouts to evade foreign-agent scrutiny while producing propaganda content. It allocated $2 million to STOIC for covert social-media campaigns targeting US lawmakers and spent millions on campus operations and media kits. It also issues calls for proposals that channel shekels into settler outreach and “struggle against delegitimisation” videos. Israel’s hasbara machine now operates under one roof, quietly scaling influence operations worldwide.

The International Centre for Counter Terrorism

The third source claiming a link to Iran was an establishment think tank in the Hague. It published a piece on its website on 23 March the same day as the London attack. It was only after this that big mainstream media like the BBC (24 March) started to mention Iran links, though it appears not to have ever been mentioned on CNN.  

But what is the International Centre for Counter Terrorism? It is  based in the Hague receives a ‘core subsidy’ from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It also advertises the following partners all of which are affiliated with the Western imperial complex and have presumably provided funding of some sort: NATO, Global Counterterrorism Forum, RUSI Europe, Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs and USAID.

One of its Junior Research Fellows, Julian Lanchès, authored the ICCT briefing on Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia. Lanchès previously worked at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) a well known asset of Apartheid Israel and is well networked with Zionist and groups It was created Lord Weidenfeld, the publishing magnate, and former adviser to Chaim Weizmann when he was the first president of the entity in 1949. The ISD is overseen by a board and a team of advisors. The board is stuffed with figures from the financial sector. These include some who have other connections such as the former chief of staff of the British Army Charles Guthrie, who has also had advisory roles with neoconservative think tanks and pro-Zionist groups such as the Jewish National Fund. Guthrie also, is an advisor to the haute neocon lobby group United Against a Nuclear Iran.178

A wide range of western government departments has funded the ISD including from Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Australia as well as the UK Home Office (parent of propaganda group RICU) and Foreign Office, the US State Department and the EU itself. Also of note is the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at Kings College. The Eranda Rothschild Foundation, one of the the family foundations of the UK branch of the Rothschild family, has also supported it, as well as funding neoconservative think tanks such as the Henry Jackson Society and the Jerusalem Foundation, which is engaged in illegal occupation activities in East Jerusalem.

Lanchès also studied at the King’s College in War Studies which is run by the International Centre for Study of Radicalisation (ICSR). The ICSR was created as a result of attempts by pro-Israel figures to combat Boycott Divestment and Sanctions in relation to Israel/Palestine and is financially supported by foundations that also fund pro-Israel, indeed pro-settler activities, including from foundations created by the following Zionist families: Atkin, Wolfson, Sacher, Clore, Ronson, Pears and Sieff.

When the terrorism experts at the ICCT do talk about Israel or Zionism, it is clear that it is Israel centric talking points that they spout.  The image above shows Bibi van Ginkel appearing on Dutch TV to spout lies about the Jewish supremacist thugs who spread terror throughout Amsterdam when they arrived for a Maccabi Tel Aviv game in November 2024.  The ICCT reported that she: “spoke on the possible qualification of the attack as terrorism or vigilant terrorism.” Incredibly she was not referring to the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans but to the brave Muslims who fought back.  Back in December 2023 she perjured herself by saying on NPO, the Dutch public broadcasting organisation, that “Hamas itself now also has a network here, that had planned attacks against Jewish institutions. And that really is a new development.” The ICCT is, therefore, one step down the food chain from its masters in the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.

History of False Flags

Of course this would not be the first time that the Zionists have indulged in False Flag operations.  Such operations go way back, as anyone familiar with the Lavon Affair (Code named Operation Susannah)  knows. Israeli Defense Minister Pinchas Lavon organised a plan to use Egyptian Jews and undercover Zionist agents to bomb American, British, and Egyptian buildings in Cairo. Lavon’s goal was to blame the bombings on Arabs, creating the impression of an anti-Western atmosphere and helping convince the British and Americans of the need to have the British stay in the Suez Canal zone.  Instead there was a public trial and conviction of eight Egyptian Jews who carried out the covert operation, two of whom were subsequently executed; this led to a chaim of events culminating in the Suez invasion and then, as Leonard Weiss writes:  “France expanded and accelerated its ongoing nuclear cooperation with Israel, which eventually enabled the Jewish state to build nuclear weapons.” As this cautionary tale indicates false flags can be effective motors of human history.

It’s also known that the Zionists created a fake terror group in Lebanon: The Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners (FLLF).  It operated in Lebanon between 1980 and 1983. While it claimed to be a Lebanese resistance movement, it was actually a covert terrorist organisation run by the Zionist regime. It was established on the orders of Rafael Eitan, then Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), and was overseen by Israeli General Avigdor Ben-Gal and Meir Dagan, who later became the director of Mossad. Its primary goal was to “cause chaos among the Palestinians and Syrians in Lebanon” without leaving an Israeli fingerprint. The group engaged in car bombings and other terrorist activities targeting Palestinian and Syrian interests, often under the guise of Lebanese sectarian infighting. 

But have they operated false flags in Europe?  As is widely known an MI5 whistleblower, Annie Machon, has claimed that MI5 concluded that the Zionists bombed their own embassy in London in 1994. It’s also known that Zionists executed the famous Palestinian cartoonist Naji El Ali in Knightsbridge in London in 1987 using Palestinians to carry out the act to cover their tracks. In 1988  Margaret Thatcher – yes Margaret Thatcher – expelled the whole Mossad station from the country as a result. 

More recently an apparent rash of “antisemitic” attacks in Australia was revealed by the New South Wales Police to have been a hoax in March 2025.  The alleged attacks were reportedly undertaken by an organised crime network.  Zionist regime sources pushed this line in Australia:

• Peter Wertheim Executive Council of Australian Jewry – “low-level local criminals paid to provide crime as a service… a web of local and off-shore criminal intermediaries.” (27 August 2025)
• Mossad (official statement released via Israeli Prime Minister’s Office) – “terror without Iranian fingerprints, high compartmentalization, recruitment of foreigners, use of criminals, and covert communications,” (26 October 2025).

This alleged use of criminal networks was a key element in the saga of Ashab al-Amin, the ones that actually happened at least.

The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs  claimed that the attacks might involve “Contracted operatives – local criminals or youth recruited and paid through intermediaries, similar to models previously used by Iranian networks in Europe.” 

The ICCT ludicrously tried to explain away the anomalies by claiming (links in original): 

Another relevant development is the emergence of a new crime–terror nexus, whereby hostile state actors increasingly cultivate ties with criminal networks, ranging from organised crime groups to local petty criminals, and leverage them for hybrid activities. Iran, for instance, has reportedly commissioned criminal gangs such as Foxtrot and Rumba in Sweden, including for the aforementioned grenade attack against the Israeli embassy, as well as groups such as the Hells Angels for attacks against synagogues in Germany.

Is this a new Mossad Modus Operandi? Employing “gig criminals” to carry out fake terror plots to pursue particular foreign policy objectives?  If so, as millions have now discovered: when it comes to Zionism – every accusation could be a confession.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.

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