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The Specter Of 'Economic Death' Looms Over All Of Us In Late-Stage Surveillance Capitalism

Tyler Durden — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 03:25:00 +0000

The Specter Of 'Economic Death' Looms Over All Of Us In Late-Stage Surveillance Capitalism

Authored by Milan Adams via Preppgroup,

I used to think the whole “debanking” panic was overblown. I really did. I’d roll my eyes at the Twitter threads and the think-pieces about how we’re all living in some dystopian soft-censorship nightmare. I’m a reasonable person, you know? I vote, I pay my taxes, I have a 401k that I check maybe twice a year when I’m feeling particularly masochistic. I thought the people screaming about being deplatformed or debanked were probably extremists, probably saying genuinely horrible stuff that any reasonable company would want to distance themselves from.

I was wrong about all of it, and I learned that lesson the hard way on a Tuesday morning that started like any other.

Let me tell you about March 14th, 2026. I remember the date because it was the day after my daughter’s seventh birthday, and we were still cleaning up wrapping paper and trying to find homes for the avalanche of plastic toys that had taken over our living room. I woke up, made coffee in the same black mug I always use, sat down at my desk to start the workday like I do every morning. I’m a freelance copywriter. Boring stuff. Product descriptions, email campaigns, the occasional blog post about software I don’t understand for companies I’ve never heard of. It pays the bills, or at least it used to before everything went sideways.

I tried to log into my Chase account to check if a client had paid an overdue invoice and got an error message. Weird, but not unheard of. I tried the app. Nothing. I called the number, waited through forty minutes of hold music that sounded like it was composed by an AI having an existential crisis, and finally got through to a human being who told me my accounts had been “restricted” and that I’d need to come into a branch with two forms of ID.

Restricted. That’s the word they used. Not frozen, not closed. Restricted. Like I was a teenager who’d hit their data limit.

So I drove to the branch during my lunch break, still thinking this was some kind of mistake, probably related to that time my card got skimmed at a gas station in 2019. I brought my passport, my driver”s license, a utility bill, my Social Security card, basically every piece of identification I’ve accumulated in my thirty-four years of existence. I sat down with a nice woman named Patricia who had the kind of patient smile that people develop after years of telling customers things they don’t want to hear. She typed for a while, her face slowly changing from professional neutrality to something more complicated, something that looked almost like embarrassment. Then she told me she couldn’t discuss the matter further and that I’d receive a letter explaining everything within ten business days.

Ten business days. I had maybe three hundred dollars in cash in my apartment, a mortgage payment due in five days, and a family that likes to eat food on a regular basis. I asked her what I was supposed to do until then, how I was supposed to pay for groceries or gas or the medication my wife takes for her migraines, and she just gave me that smile again and said she was sorry but there was nothing she could do.

The letter came six days later, after I’d already borrowed money from my brother-in-law and explained to my daughter why we couldn’t go to the trampoline park we’d promised her for spring break. It was three paragraphs of corporate legalese that boiled down to one sentence: my accounts had been flagged for “suspicious activity related to potential money laundering and the financing of extremist organizations.”

I read it three times sitting on my porch, feeling like I’d slipped into some alternate reality where I was a completely different person than the one I thought I was. I’m not an extremist. I’ve never been arrested. The most radical thing I’d done in the past year was argue with my HOA about whether I could plant tomatoes in my front yard. But then I got to the second page, and there it was: the specific transactions that had triggered their algorithms. A $500 transfer to a legal defense fund. A $200 donation to a nonprofit that I’d later learn had been added to some obscure watchlist. A subscription to a newsletter that apparently shared contributors with other newsletters that shared contributors with organizations that someone, somewhere, had decided were problematic.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about the modern financial system: it’s not really run by humans anymore, not in any meaningful sense. It’s run by algorithms and risk-assessment matrices and third-party vendors that sell “reputational intelligence” to banks who are terrified of bad press and regulatory scrutiny. Somewhere in a server farm in Virginia or maybe Bangalore, a piece of software had scraped my social media, cross-referenced my donations with databases I’d never heard of, and decided I was a risk factor. And because banks are incentivized to be paranoid, because the cost of a false positive is nothing compared to the cost of missing a real bad actor, there was no appeal process that mattered. I called the number on the letter and spoke to people who genuinely seemed to want to help but had no power to do anything. I escalated to supervisors who read from scripts that all ended with the same phrase: “The decision has been made in accordance with our risk management protocols.”

I spent the next three weeks living in a kind of financial limbo that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I couldn’t access my savings, which represented years of careful budgeting and sacrifice. My automatic payments started bouncing, which meant late fees and angry emails from creditors who didn’t care about my explanations. I had to ask my parents for a loan at thirty-four years old, which was humiliating in ways I can’t fully describe. My wife tried to be supportive, but I could see the worry in her eyes, the question she was too kind to ask: what if this doesn’t get fixed? What if this is just how things are now?

The Efficiency of the Surveillance Machine: Hard Data from 2026

Below are the official figures from FinCEN’s 2026 reporting cycle.

These numbers tell their own story about the scale of financial monitoring and its actual effectiveness:

A 0.001% success rate is not a law enforcement system. It is a mechanism of collective punishment designed to produce compliance through fear.

The part that really broke me wasn’t the practical stuff. It was the realization that someone, somewhere, had looked at my life and decided I was dangerous based on a handful of data points and association chains that I had no control over. I’ve always been politically engaged, sure. I post about local elections and environmental policy and sometimes I get into arguments in comment sections that I regret the next morning. But I’m not a radical. I’m a guy who likes to grill on weekends and worries about his kids’ education and thinks healthcare should be affordable. The donations that flagged me were to organizations that are completely legal, that have 501(c)(3) status, that operate in broad daylight. But someone had decided they didn’t like those organizations, or the people who run them, or the people who donate to them, and that dislike had cascaded through the system until it landed on me, sitting on my porch with a letter that made me feel like a criminal.

Eventually, after I hired a lawyer I couldn’t afford and threatened to go to the press, the bank reversed their decision. I got a call from someone in their “executive relations” department who explained that there had been a “misunderstanding” and that my accounts were being restored with a “goodwill credit” for the inconvenience. Just like that, after weeks of stress and shame and financial precarity, it was over. I was supposed to be grateful, I think. I was supposed to accept their apology and move on and be happy that I could pay my mortgage again. But I can’t shake the feeling that I got a glimpse behind the curtain, and what I saw there scares me more than I can articulate.

We talk a lot about free speech in this country, about the First Amendment and the marketplace of ideas, but we don’t talk as much about the infrastructure that makes participation in society possible. You need a bank account to get paid. You need a bank account to pay rent. You need a bank account to buy food, to access credit, to function in the modern economy. When that gets taken away, it doesn’t matter what rights you have on paper because you’re locked out of the systems that make those rights meaningful. And when the decision to exclude you is made by algorithms acting on criteria that are proprietary and secret, when you have no right to know who accused you or why, when the burden is on you to prove you’re not a bad person rather than on them to prove you are, that’s not freedom. That’s just a more sophisticated form of control.

I don’t know what the solution is. I’m not a policy expert. I just know that I’m different now than I was before March 14th. I self-censor more. I think twice before donating to causes I care about, before signing petitions, before posting opinions that might be controversial. I keep more cash in my safe. I’ve opened accounts at two different banks, trying to diversify my risk like I’m a portfolio instead of a person. My wife and I have talked about keeping more of our savings in physical assets, which feels paranoid until you remember that paranoia is just pattern recognition in people who’ve been burned before.

The worst part is the isolation. When this happened to me, I didn’t know who to talk to about it. I was ashamed, for one thing. There’s a stigma to having your accounts frozen that feels uncomfortably close to the stigma of being arrested, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. And the people I did tell mostly didn’t understand. They’d say things like “just use a different bank” or “you must have done something suspicious” or “this is why I don’t mix politics and money.” They couldn’t grasp that the problem wasn’t one bank making a bad decision, it was a system that allows private companies to act as gatekeepers to economic participation based on secret criteria and political whim. They couldn’t see that this isn’t about me and my specific situation, it’s about what happens when we build a society where the infrastructure of daily life can be withdrawn as punishment for wrongthink.

I’m telling this story now because I think people need to understand that this is real, that it happens to normal people who aren’t extremists or criminals or threats to anyone. It happens to freelancers trying to pay their mortgages. It happens to parents saving for their kids’ college. It happens to people who thought they were safe because they follow the rules and stay in their lane. And once it happens, you don’t see the world the same way anymore. You realize how fragile your place in the economy really is, how conditional your participation in society has become, and how little it takes to transform a respectable citizen into a financial untouchable.

I got my accounts back, but I didn’t get my sense of security back. That disappeared somewhere between the hold music and the form letter, and I don’t think it’s coming back. I used to believe that if you were honest and worked hard and stayed out of trouble, the system would basically work for you.

Now I know better.

Now I know that the system works for whoever controls the algorithms, and the rest of us are just living at the mercy of their judgment. And that’s no way to live at all.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 23:25

US Airports Remain Busy Despite Surging Prices

Tyler Durden — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 03:00:00 +0000

US Airports Remain Busy Despite Surging Prices

Following the historic slump in air travel during the Covid-19 pandemic, passenger volume at U.S. airports has gradually recovered, roughly matching pre-pandemic levels in 2023 and exceeding it in 2024 and 2025.

In fact, 2025 was the busiest year ever at U.S. airports with an average of 2.48 million travelers passing through TSA checkpoints each day.

Despite the latest surge in ticket prices – airline fares have risen 12.6% since January and more than 25 percent since July 2025, Statista's Felix Richter reports 2026 is on track to match or even exceed last year’s passenger volume.

You will find more infographics at Statista

As of August 11, TSA agents screened an average of 2.49 million passengers per day this year, trailing last year’s number over the same period by less than 8,000 passengers per day.

While airline fares have been impacted heavily by this year’s inflation surge caused in large part by the Iran war and its effect on global oil prices, they haven’t risen as much as overall price levels in the longer run.

Since February 2020, the last month before the pandemic hit, the all-items Consumer Price Index in the United States has increased more than 28 percent.

The sub-index for airline fares has only risen 16 percent.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 23:00

Governments Don't Like It When We Gather Without Their Permission

Tyler Durden — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 02:35:00 +0000

Governments Don't Like It When We Gather Without Their Permission

Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

Freedom of association is under attack...

There are a number of ways in which Western governments are waging war against their citizens. The United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and leftists in the United States do not believe in free speech. These Western governments also spy on their citizens without warrants or probable cause. They have transformed their court systems into ideologically-partisan dictatorships that impose rulings based upon feelings and “political correctness,” rather than black-letter law and self-restraint. An offense that often gets overlooked, however, is Western governments’ infringement of citizens’ freedom of association.

Freedom of association is our natural, God-given right to meet with likeminded people, discuss ideas, express ourselves, and promote our mutual interests. As with freedom of speech, it is fundamental to any notion of liberty. Respect for freedom of association is the bedrock for religious freedom, freedom of conscience, communal identity, and national self-determination.

Countries are born when people of common ancestry, language, history, and customs choose to work together and defend their way of life. Towns spring up when likeminded people settle and develop a region together. Religious congregations grow through common worship. Schools, skilled trade unions, clubs, sports leagues, and civic organizations of all types are formed when people come together to pursue similar interests and advance shared ideas.

At its heart, freedom of association respects human beings’ natural inclination to cooperate with others to build something together that would not be possible for any one person to build alone. As a voluntary commitment to pursue a group’s common aims, it is the collective expression of each individual’s personal liberty.

As with all God-given rights and liberties, government power (or State authority) is the greatest threat to freedom of association. When governments prevent people from discussing ideas, worshiping together, working together, or pursuing common interests, the State is using its monopoly on the lawful use of force to infringe citizens’ inalienable rights.

What we see across the West is the bureaucratic State imposing its political will in defiance of the collective will of citizens.

Perhaps the most glaring problem of the last several decades has been Western governments’ refusal to secure their national borders. There is no more natural political association than a nation state’s citizenry. Over centuries and millennia, tribes of similar peoples came together to protect their lands and resources from foreign invasion, while promoting domestic order, safety, and peace.

The rule of law traces its origin to common customs, personal duties, social obligations, religious convictions, and beliefs. Both political philosophers and ordinary people with common sense tend to define a government’s foremost obligations to include two complementary tasks: (1) to secure territory from invasion and (2) to promote the common law. Governments that successfully perform these duties advance their citizens’ natural freedoms, general welfare, and domestic peace.

By opening up their borders and inviting millions of foreigners to take over parts of their nations, Western governments have undermined their own citizens’ self-determination. They have directly attacked citizens’ freedom of association in the context of forming nation states. These governments have effectively destroyed the natural associations formed by generations of Westerners over many centuries. Because respect for the rule of law originates with common customs and beliefs, the introduction of foreign populations (who have no interest in assimilating) immediately erodes domestic safety and peace. Western governments betray their citizens twice: First, they fail to secure their territories from invasion. Second, they make domestic tranquility an impossibility.

But attacks on Westerners’ freedom of association go much further than open borders. Because Western governments are clearly conspiring to facilitate mass migration without the consent of their respective citizenries, these governments are particularly invested in preventing their peoples from resisting the invasion of their lands. In order to silence public dissent, governments have chosen to abrogate citizens’ natural freedom to assemble together and protest their governments’ criminality. We see this taking many different forms. In Europe, political parties that seek to secure borders and limit immigration are designated “right-wing,” “fascist,” “nationalist,” and “threats to national security.” Those last two insults are peculiar contradictions; Europeans who wish to protect their nations are simultaneously branded “threats” to the nation state. In the United States, any voter who supports President Trump’s border security policies risks being harassed online, de-banked from financial institutions, fired from jobs, and targeted by Democrat prosecutors. In both the Old and New Worlds, the freedom of citizens to work together to fight their governments’ dangerous open borders policies is under constant attack.

Mass migration, however, is only one of many government policies that have been deemed so “sacrosanct” that citizens are not allowed to organize against them. Western governments continue to threaten and prosecute Christians who seek to end government-sanctioned murder of unborn babies. Under the Biden administration, the FBI placed concerned parents on domestic terror watchlists for publicly opposing “transgender” indoctrination in schools. Across the West, pro-family organizations that encourage strong marriages between one man and one woman are either officially or unofficially identified as “hate groups.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center in the United States has made a fortune over the years falsely acting as an authority on what kinds of public associations should be promoted and which should be condemned. While celebrating Black Lives Matter as a civil rights group (even though its member have caused billions of dollars in property damage and left dozens of unsolved murders across the country), the SPLC routinely designates conservative organizations and publications as threats to civil rights — designations that have prompted illegitimately-predicated law enforcement investigations, IRS scrutiny, censorship, and de-banking.

During Western governments’ COVID totalitarianism, freedom of association was effectively eliminated. Friends and families were not allowed to celebrate birthdays or comfort dying loved ones. Workers were not allowed to make a living. Congregations were not allowed to attend church services. Students were not allowed to learn together. Athletes were not allowed to compete against each other. Clubs were not allowed to operate. Civic organizations were shut down. Online dissent was censored. Medical researchers who opposed lockdowns, mask mandates, and forced experimental injections were denied any opportunity to work together. Western governments essentially outlawed people from associating together and sharing their experiences and opinions. And they prohibited freedom of assembly unless that assembly was part of the violent and destructive network of Antifa and Black Lives Matter domestic terrorists intent on burning down parts of major cities.

Today, we see freedom of association under constant attack in two separate public domains: (1) the local community and (2) the online community.

During Joe Biden’s presidency, his administration transplanted over ten million foreign nationals into unsuspecting towns across the United States. In the United Kingdom, some small villages now have six migrant men to every local woman. After Spanish authorities did nothing to prevent the invasion of Ceuta, foreigners have destroyed the small enclave in a matter of days. This unnatural phenomenon is occurring in every corner of the West. The common feature is that Western governments show outright disdain for the self-determination of local communities.

Likewise, Big Tech continues to work hand in glove with Western governments to shadow-ban, demonetize, and outright censor any associations of people opposed to official government policy. Western governments claim these attacks on free speech and freedom of association are necessary to combat “disinformation,” promote online safety, and protect so-called “Western values.” But the values that Western governments are committed to securing are not Western values at all; they are shameless infringements of Western citizens’ natural, God-given rights and liberties.

When governments prevent people from choosing their next-door neighbors and online friends, they target the essence of personal freedom. Such abuse constitutes an attack on freedom of association and a war on Western citizens.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 22:35

Arrest Warrants Issued For 6 DC Cops Accused In $440K Overtime Fraud

Tyler Durden — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 02:10:00 +0000

Arrest Warrants Issued For 6 DC Cops Accused In $440K Overtime Fraud

A D.C. Superior Court judge signed arrest warrants on August 18, 2026, for six current and former members of the Metropolitan Police Department's Fifth District, accusing them of fraudulently claiming overtime and regular-duty hours they did not work in 2024. The warrants target Peter Sheldon, Frantz Fulcher, Thomas Krmenec, Bernadette Richardson, Dorrie Smith Cleere, and Johnnie Dyer.

The six face charges of first-degree fraud, first-degree theft, forgery, and uttering (knowingly passing off a forged or fraudulent document as genuine). U.S. Attorney for the DC Jeanine Pirro announced the action, stating: "Every day, we rely on law enforcement to uphold the public's trust. These MPD members betrayed that trust by scheming to collect unearned, undeserved income, costing the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. They will be held accountable, and my office remains focused on rooting out fraud and protecting the American taxpayer."

According to an announcement from D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb's office, the scheme cost District taxpayers $441,137 in fraudulent pay during 2024 alone. The individuals and alleged amounts are:

Former Sergeant Frantz Fulcher: $174,915.39
Officer Thomas Krmenec: $89,478.00
Officer Dorrie Smith Cleere: $87,397.65
Former Senior Police Officer Bernadette Richardson: $43,351.68
Johnnie Dyer (civilian): $27,721.59
Former Lieutenant Peter Sheldon: $18,272.72

Prosecutors say the defendants, assigned to the Fifth District Administrative Office, submitted false claims through MPD's Timesheet Manager Application. Methods allegedly included claiming overtime while physically outside the District of Columbia (including during domestic and international travel), while on annual leave, forging supervisory signatures on authorization forms, and using administrative positions to facilitate fraudulent processing and approvals. Some also allegedly claimed compensation while engaged in secondary employment.

Investigators reconstructed activities using a wide array of independent data sources: body-worn camera footage, radio and GPS records, cell-site location data, cellular toll records, license plate reader data, annual leave and travel records, emails, network data, access logs, personnel files, and overtime documentation. These records demonstrated repeated and deliberate falsification. Collectively, the six submitted more than 11,000 hours and were paid over $935,000 in 2024; investigators determined roughly half of those hours - about 5,618 - were fraudulent.

The Metropolitan Police Department's Internal Affairs Division initiated the probe after spotting irregularities, including unusually high overtime volumes and inconsistencies with verification data. The case is being prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeremy Morris, on detail from the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia. Due to jurisdictional limits under the Home Rule Act, adult felony prosecutions of this type are handled by the U.S. Attorney's Office, with OAG attorneys serving in a supporting SAUSA capacity.

Attorney General Schwalb said: "These six officers abused their positions of power, exploiting the District and the residents they took an oath to serve and protect. No one is above the law, especially those trusted with enforcing it." As of Tuesday afternoon, a source told ABC affiliate WJLA that at least three of the six - Officers Smith Cleere and Krmenec, and Former Senior Police Officer Richardson - were in custody; warrants for Fulcher and Sheldon were executed Wednesday, according to court documents cited by the Washington Examiner.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 22:10

S.Korea Reaffirms Push For Military Independence After Trump Announced Scaled-Back Drills

Tyler Durden — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 01:45:00 +0000

S.Korea Reaffirms Push For Military Independence After Trump Announced Scaled-Back Drills

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has reaffirmed his push for South Korea to regain independent control of its military from the US after President Trump announced the scaling back of joint US-South Korean military drills taking place this week.

The US has had wartime operational control of South Korea’s military since the Korean War, which technically never ended. Combat was halted by a 1953 armistice, but the two sides never signed a formal peace treaty.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, Pool via Reuters

South Korea took peacetime operational control, or OPCON, of its military in 1994, but the US still holds wartime OPCON. Lee previously committed to regaining wartime OPCON by the end of his term in 2030, which he reaffirmed at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

"A strong alliance makes the foundation of security stronger, and strengthening our own capabilities increases our value and necessity as an ally," Lee said, according to The Guardian.

Also on Tuesday, Wi Sung Lac, Lee’s national security advisor, said that South Korea remained in close coordination with the US regarding joint military exercises.

"Based on the strong South Korea-US alliance, our government has been continuing coordination with the US side on combined exercises and drills between South Korea and the US," Wi said, according to the YONHAP News Agency.

Trump announced on Sunday that he ordered US War Secretary Pete Hegseth to "substantially reduce" Ulchi Freedom Shield, major joint US-South Korean war games that began on Monday, though it’s unclear if they are being reduced in any significant way.

The US president said he took the step based on his "very good relationship" with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un, whom he met with three times during his first term.

Lee’s office responded by saying it hoped that relationship would lead to "meaningful dialogue" and "discussions aimed at advancing peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula."

Pyongyang has meanwhile downplayed the Trump overture and has not acknowledged any new contacts...

Q: Why hasn't Kim Jung Un responded to your request to have a conversation?

Trump: How do you know he hasn't?

Q: Has he?

Trump: Uh... Yeah he has. pic.twitter.com/RXuoNkvK03
— FactPost (@factpostnews) August 17, 2026

While Trump has framed his action as some sort of punishment over South Korea’s lack of support for the Iran war, it aligns with the agenda President Lee has been attempting to pursue. Just one day before Trump’s announcement, Lee proposed direct talks with North Korea.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 21:45

Amazon 'Prime Air' To Expand Drone Delivery To Nearly 500 US Cities This Year

Tyler Durden — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 01:20:00 +0000

Amazon 'Prime Air' To Expand Drone Delivery To Nearly 500 US Cities This Year

Amazon's Prime Air drone delivery service, first teased by Jeff Bezos in a 2013 60 Minutes interview as a way to get packages under 5lbs to customers in 30 minutes or less, represents the broader push toward autonomous aerial last-mile logistics that could bypass traffic and cut delivery times dramatically.

After years of regulatory hurdles with the FAA, technical iterations, and limited trials, the service has matured into a commercial offering using the MK30 drone, which hovers to drop packages.

A major breakthrough came in 2024, when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted Amazon a waiver allowing its drones to fly beyond the visual line of sight of their operators, and has already completed hundreds of thousands of deliveries in 2026 across 11 sites in seven states.

Today Amazon announced plans to expand it to nearly 500 US cities and towns by year-end - a roughly sixfold increase - bringing ultrafast options (as quick as 30 minutes) to tens of millions more customers in places like the Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland, Syracuse, and Boise metro areas.

The drones will primarily operate in suburban areas, away from skyscrapers and major airports that could complicate operations.

Amazon describes the aircraft as “highly autonomous,” with onboard cameras and sensors for navigation, obstacle detection, and safe delivery.

The cameras do not transmit a live video feed, according to the company.

The company also sought to address the potential concern about noise.

“During drop-off, the sound level is below that of an idling delivery truck parked curbside and lasts about 30 seconds,” Amazon said.

Someone standing outside may hear a sound “comparable to a window fan on low” as the drone arrives, while people indoors may not hear it at all, the company added.

Prime Air delivery is free for Prime members on orders of at least $50, but orders below that threshold carry a $2.99 delivery fee, while customers without a Prime membership are charged $4.99.

The plan will intensify the battle between Amazon and Walmart to provide consumers with the fastest delivery times.

Both giants rely on a mix of drones and drivers to deliver everything consumers have ordered.

The goal is not necessarily about cutting costs by replacing drivers and trucks - and drones that can only carry one package at a time would have a hard time doing that. But instead, these companies are using drones as one tool to help keep customers happy with quicker deliveries, banking on a faster delivery system attracting more shoppers.

“It’s still an experiment. It’s still in test and learn mode,” said Sucharita Kodali, who is a retail analyst with Forrester.

However, it's not all instant utopian dreams as The Epoch Times reports that the program also faces safety scrutiny following recent incidents.

In October 2025, two Amazon drones collided with a crane in Tolleson, Arizona, prompting separate investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA.

Another FAA investigation was opened last November after an Amazon drone struck and severed an internet cable while ascending from a customer’s yard in Waco, Texas.

All three investigations are ongoing.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 21:20

"Doom Loop" Engaged: US Debt Hits $40 Trillion As Treasury Enters The Endgame

Tyler Durden — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 01:10:15 +0000

"Doom Loop" Engaged: US Debt Hits $40 Trillion As Treasury Enters The Endgame

It took the US 200 years to reach its first $1 trillion in debt. It took 95 days to add its last.

After several weeks of build up, today the Treasury announced that total public debt surpassed $40 trillion for the first time, after jumping by over $60 billion in one day, and has now surged by $1 trillion in just over three months, and by a third of the total in less than five years, as US lawmakers continue to ignore calls to contend with historically wide fiscal deficits.

The largely expected news came just hours after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unexpectedly announced the Treasury's latest attempt to rein-in long-term borrowing costs from multi-year highs, the most important component of the growth in debt. The Treasury stunned the market when it said, just two weeks after the latest Refunding Announcement where it should have made this change, that it was ramping up the support for longer-dated securities by "increasing, by at least double, the size of liquidity support buyback operations for longer-dated nominal coupon securities (the 10-year to 20-year sector and the 20-year to 30-year sector)."

The announcement that sent yields plunging, if only for the time being.

Remarkably, it was less than 5 years ago that US debt hit $30 trillion back in January 2022, illustrating the rapid growth in federal borrowing needs. And there’s no end in sight.

As Bloomberg notes, "Republicans have long opposed revenue-raising tax increases," while Democrats are best known for spending like drunken sailors to maximize socialist central planning, and both parties are loathe to sign on to politically toxic cuts to healthcare and retirement benefits for seniors. Many observers anticipate Congress and the administration of the day will only act if forced by a financial-market disruption.

That won't stop them from talking about it all the time, though, as both parties at least pretend to understand that the US is on a catastrophic collision course should debt growth continue at this pace, and if the AI bet - which is now an all-in for virtually everyone - fails to dramatically boost productivity. Bessent, for one, said a key reason he got involved in politics was to help tackle deficits running at a pace unprecedented for times outside of major wars, pandemics or depressed job markets. So far he has failed catastrophically, and worse, he is doing precisely the kind of activist issuance "Twisting" for which he bashed his predecessor, Janet Yellen.

Economists, the Congressional Budget Office and Wall Street all see little or no progress in coming years for the deficit-to-gross domestic product ratio.

“Optically, I’m sure crossing thresholds like $40 trillion will focus attention on the issue in the near term,” said Matthew Luzzetti, chief US economist at Deutsche Bank AG. “But it does not represent a magical threshold for debt dynamics, and projections have anticipated this outcome for some time.”

More important, Luzzetti said, is the climb in US Treasury yields, which is steadily increasing the cost of servicing the record debt load. Last Thursday, the department’s latest 30-year bond auction resulted in the costliest such sale in a quarter century. A 10-year auction a day earlier drew the highest financing cost at that tenor since 2007, and only today's announcement which sent yields tumbling prevent today's 20Y Treasury auction from pricing at the highest yield on record.

As buyers demand higher yields, that in turn drives up the Treasury’s borrowing needs. With two months left to go in the fiscal year, the government’s tally for interest costs so far for 2026 is $1.37 trillion - a 20% increase on the same period a year before. That in turn adds to the debt, potentially fueling further investor calls for higher rates, in a pattern known as a “doom loop.”

For a visual of said doom loop, consider that the Treasury paid out about $85 billion to bondholders in its semi-annual coupon payment on Monday, the largest on record. For comparison, the Treasury paid out $75 billion of interest at the mid-month settlement period in August 2025 and about $80 billion on Feb. 17.

Interest costs are now the third-largest part of the budget, surpassing healthcare and just behind Social Security. However, at $1.6 trillion, Social Security will be topped by gross interest no later than 2026.

It gets worse: thanks to the AI bubble - and specifically the AI debt bubble which we correctly spotted one year ago and which the market is only now starting to freak out about - the record debt issuance to fund capex is now starting to crowd out of demand for US paper. This means that very soon, the US government will have to decide: keeping the electorate happy, or funding data centers so they can buy the latest massively overpriced memory chips needed to run the latest chatbot. Incidentally, those soaring memory costs are now adding about 0.5% to core PCE, a number which the admin will soon realize is very politically unpopular, and will lead to a historic crackdown on hyperinflationary memory and semiconductor prices.

“The federal budget is the enemy within,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and a former director of the CBO, wrote in a note Monday. “It is the greatest threat to the foundations of economic progress, U.S. international economic standing, and national security. The only reason for optimism should be material actions to rein in the sea of red ink. There are no such material actions.”

He is right, of course: the only time there can be material actions, is when the bond vigilantes crash the market, yet actions such as those by Bessent today assure that said day was just punted several weeks or months into the future, again and again.

But wait, because there is even more: all of the above assumes no recession, no crises, no emergencies for the foreseeable future. Well, consider that US debt exploded higher during the most recent economic downturns tied to the global financial crisis and the Covid pandemic. During those periods, revenue slid as tax-paying workers lost jobs, and assistance payments jumped. One can only imagine where US debt will be after the next recession/pandemic/hot war.

Going back to Bessent, the current Treasury secretary came into office in 2025 touting a budget deficit target of around 3% of GDP by the end of President Donald Trump’s second term, which concludes in January 2029. It’s not clear how that will possibly happen: as of July the ratio is 6% and rising... and will keep rising the longer the AI bubble drains demand for US long-dated paper.

Meanwhile, according to recent reports, Trump is seeking to galvanize support ahead of the November midterm elections, and is looking at new tax-cut promises in addition to increases in defense spending, both of which will supercharge the deficit and lead to even more debt. Meanwhile, the Elon Musk-led 2025 Department of Government Efficiency effort, which sought to slash discretionary spending including on contracts and government buildings, failed to cut outlays as much as DOGE’s own estimates projected.

And then there is the next round of political theater: the current pace of debt accumulation...

We'll take the over https://t.co/Gw0yfjylXR pic.twitter.com/Abq2dtPtrx
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 19, 2026

... means that the government has about 4 or 5 months before it again hits the debt ceiling of $41.1 trillion. Hitting that marker is expected to trigger another in the series of partisan showdowns in Washington over the years to head off a potentially devastating US payments default.

“The government has not taken meaningful actions to address the large general government fiscal deficits,” Fitch said. “Spending pressures will mount over the next decade due to an aging population.” The country will be “vulnerable to future economic shocks” as debt levels increase, the rating company said.

For Fitch, talk is cheap: instead of downgrading the US credit rating, one week ago Fitch reaffirmed the US at AA+, assuring that absolutely no remedial step will be taken, and that the next debt crisis will be cataclysmic.

“Hitting this big round number will hopefully send a wake up call throughout Washington,” said Michael Peterson, who chairs the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a research group, in regard to the $40 trillion. “It will hurt everyday affordability across the country if we don’t get our debt under control,” he said.

He is wrong: everyone knows that the US is on a historic collision course with destiny. The only wake up call was for gold and bitcoin algos, both of which finally woke up from a bizarre slumber, sending both real and digital gold soaring.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 21:10

"Economic D-Day": Trump Announces "Most Crushing Economic Operation Ever" Against Iran

Tyler Durden — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 01:04:00 +0000

"Economic D-Day": Trump Announces "Most Crushing Economic Operation Ever" Against Iran

Summary:

Trump's Economic War against Iran Begins
Trump says "severe economic consequences" for any country that does businesses with Tehran
Trump says "ECONOMIC D-DAY" begins against Iran
UAE Cuts Ties As Iran Warns Gulf States Against Helping Washington; Kpler Says US Navy Gaining Ground In Hormuz

"ECONOMIC D-DAY"

President Trump is out with a Truth Social post describing today as "ECONOMIC D-DAY" against Iran, declaring that his total economic war against Tehran will be the "MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY."

Trump said that with Tehran's military and military-industrial base reduced to "now rubble" and its "currency worthless," he will unleash severe economic consequences against "ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran."

Here's the full Truth Social post:

Last week, Derek Holt, head of Capital Markets Economics at Scotiabank in Toronto, offered clients a preview of what the campaign to economically isolate Iran could look like (view here), including the potential targeting of China. Notably, much of Iran's crude exports flow to Chinese buyers.

UAE Cuts Ties As Iran Warns Gulf States Against Helping Washington; Kpler Says US Navy Gaining Ground In Hormuz

Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is visiting Baghdad while at the same time US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has spoken UAE National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan to discuss the Hormuz situation and security. Except of course the two sides aren't talking with each other.

President Trump has made clear that no talks are on, and that none are scheduled, as he's been floating a 'new' strategy to 'strangle' the Iranian economy over the long term. CNN reported Tuesday that White House officials have recently communicated that they are shifting their strategy — going from "hammer Iran ASAP" to "strangle them" over time.

US Navy file image/Reuters

As for Ghalibaf, he blasted War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday, mocking this new disengagement strategy, given the US has already failed to bring Tehran to its knees.

"Americans think squeezing Iran harder will win concessions that were never part of the agreement," Ghalibaf wrote in a post on X. "Bessent and Hegseth are way out of their league," Ghalibaf added while referring to them as the "clown crew." He stated:

Stop waiting for the clown crew to pull a rabbit out of their hat and clean up the mess you made.

After declaring a new 'offensive' military posture in response to the crisis, Iran is showing no signs of backing off the confrontation with the US in the region. On Wednesday its armed forces warned Gulf countries against hosting or assisting American forces, saying it would be tantamount to joining the war on the US side.

"We wish to warn that any assistance or facilitation provided to the aggressor U.S. military amounts to participation in the U.S. military operation," armed forces chief of staff Ali Abdollahi said.

"It seems unlikely that such a large number of military aircraft, particularly refueling aircraft could be present at regional bases without knowledge of host countries," the official continued as cited in Mehr news agency.

It's not known how many refueling tankers or else large warplanes are still positioned in the Gulf, but certainly the bulk of regional refueling aircraft operated by the US Air Force are currently concentrated at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion international airport - and has been subject of a lot of media attention.

And in another significant escalation that effectively torpedoes any remaining illusions of hoped-for cross-Gulf detente, the United Arab Emirates has announced Wednesday a complete and immediate severance of all economic ties with Tehran. The move comes on the heels of what UAE officials claim was a barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles targeted directly at Emirati territory.

Tehran had quickly denied it had fired missiles on its territory, but UAE authorities later clarified that the military observed two missiles inbound from Iran, which caused no damage or casualties - which triggered an urgent missile alert for the population on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, below are some of the latest major developments and reports related to the Iran conflict:

Iran has weighed attacking US military targets in Europe should Donald Trump escalate the war, according to people close to the regime, as Tehran considers its options to increase the stakes of the conflict. FT

Even as Iran projects resilience in the war with the United States, its leaders are worried that a threat of more economic punishment by Donald Trump could increase hardships, reignite unrest and further erode the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy. RTRS

Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz are piling up without an American military response, raising the risks of crossing the strategic waterway and frustrating some Arab allies who worry the U.S. doesn’t have a strategy to wind down the conflict. WSJ

However, shipping analytics firm Kpler has suggested that the US Navy is gaining ground in the Strait of Hormuz, and that Iran is ceding some control, amid a war of words between President Trump and Iranian leadership over who has actual 'control'.

previewing new sanctions still to be announced...

The Trump administration appears to be indicating it favors economic warfare in its approach to the conflict with Iran, touting its naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and previewing new sanctions still to be announced. https://t.co/k5g4FBcxF7
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 19, 2026

"At the moment, however, the evidence is clear: The United States, patrolling the strait with its navy, is gaining ground – and Iran is losing much of its control of the critical waterway," writes CNN. "More than 80% of liquids transits through the Strait of Hormuz over the past two weeks have taken the Omani route – a UN-authorized shipping channel that Iran vehemently opposes – or have been 'dark' transits that likely took the Omani route, according to Kpler, which tracks ships using transponders and satellite data."

But there's as yet no rush for international shipping to return to the waterway, given the risk of attack and all of the serious unknowns which could result in total losses as well as threaten the safety of crew.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 21:04

Trump Indicates Plans To Meet North Korea's Kim Jong-Un Later This Year

Tyler Durden — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:30:00 +0000

Trump Indicates Plans To Meet North Korea's Kim Jong-Un Later This Year

President Trump on Wednesday issued some surprisingly positive statements regarding North Korea and its expanded nuclear modernization ambitions, while fielding questions from reporters.

The comments come days after the Commander-in-Chief ordered scaled back US-South Korean joint military drills, which are happening this week and are now expected to end early.

Getty Images

Trump has indicated he plans to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un later this year, after breakthrough face-to-face diplomacy with the autocrat during his first term at the White House. According to reports:

Donald Trump said he would meet Kim Jong-un later this year. The US president has privately discussed setting up a face-to-face discussion with the North Korean leader during his next trip to Asia, which could happen in November, according to reports.

He confirmed on Wednesday that the pair had plans to meet later this year.

He stated that the relationship was an asset to the US and the world, before saying: "I get along with him well. And you know what? The fact that I get along with him, that’s a very good thing, not a bad thing."

According to more:

“As long as we have a smart president, he’s going to be fine,” Trump said.

Trump’s statement that North Korea has 57 nuclear warheads was within the range of widely reported estimates but was more specific than past U.S. government statements.

“They should have never allowed it. If I were president, I wouldn’t have allowed ⁠it. But he’s got them,” Trump said of the North Korean leader.

Trump didn't provide any further details on a potential meeting, and all of this interestingly comes at a time where the White House probably needs a distraction away from the Iran war and Hormuz Strait energy crisis.

The president had earlier in the week described North Korea as a "Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful" - in a post on Truth Social.

Before that, Pyongyang had slammed the drills as a "rehearsal for aggressive war". North Korea's Foreign Ministry had described last Friday that these planned drills look different, and will be more dangerous, compared to all prior ones of the past-half decade, in that they appear offensive in nature as the exercise will focus on modern warfare tactics.

Q: Are you exchanging written letters with Kim Jong Un?

TRUMP: I can't tell you that. But I get along with him great. He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons. He's gonna be fine. pic.twitter.com/AfhVw6Hrwl
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 19, 2026

North Korea had further stated: "It is our consistent principle of ensuring security to respond to a new level of a threat with a new level of a deterrent," and so the country "will more clearly express its stance on the enemies to cope with any threats and challenges through the responsible and decisive exercise of the right to legitimate self-defense."

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 20:30

8 Examples That Demonstrate That The Islamization Of America Is Steadily Progressing

Tyler Durden — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:05:00 +0000

8 Examples That Demonstrate That The Islamization Of America Is Steadily Progressing

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream,

In Islam, there is no separation between mosque and state. The goal is to use the state to make everyone submit to Islam. If you want to see what this looks like, just check out almost any country in the Middle East that has a Muslim majority. They don’t believe in freedom of speech or freedom of religion. Do you want to know how many churches there are in Saudi Arabia? The answer is zero, because churches are banned in Saudi Arabia. Now this same ideology is spreading in America, and that should deeply alarm all of us.

Today, Islam is the fastest growing religion in America.

It used to be witchcraft, but now Islam has taken the top spot.

There are now more than 2,700 mosques in the United States.

In 1970, there were about 100.

But it isn’t just mosques that are going up everywhere.

Enormous Islamic “mini-cities” are being constructed in states such as California and Texas.

And rapidly growing Islamic populations are taking over entire sections of the states of Minnesota and Michigan.

What we have been witnessing all over Europe is now happening here.

The following are 8 examples that demonstrate that the Islamization of America is steadily progressing…

#1 Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has a really good chance of winning in November, and he has publicly stated that he has a sacred “obligation” to obey Islamic law in every area of his life until he dies…

Muslim Democrat Michigan Senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed has previously declared his sacred “obligation” to follow Islamic law in every aspect of his life until he dies and stands before Allah. He has claimed he does not want to subvert the Constitution and mandate Islamic law but that is part of his religion.

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is having his words, vows, and religion come back to haunt him. According to The Washington Free Beacon, years ago he declared his sacred “obligation” to follow Islamic law in every aspect of his life until he dies and stands before Allah. This comes from remarks he made to the New York Times back in 2009, when he was younger and buying his first home.

#2 In the supposedly “deep red” state of Mississippi, a hijab-wearing Muslim woman has been sworn in as a municipal judge…

Assma Ali has made history. The daughter of Yemeni immigrants to the United States, Ali is now municipal judge for the City of Benoit, a small town in southwest Bolivar County in the Mississippi Delta.

Ali was sworn in as municipal judge on Aug. 5. She has spent nearly a decade serving as an attorney in Mississippi after graduating with her law degree from Mississippi Christian University (formerly Mississippi College) in 2017 and interned in both Rankin and Madison counties while attending law school.

#3 I know that this is hard to believe, but a bill in the state of Massachusetts would “identify and recommend qualified American Muslims for appointive positions at all levels of government”. Needless to say, this is very unconstitutional…

#4 What in the world has happened to the state of Texas? At DFW Airport, they are going to be putting in Islamic foot-washing stations…

#5 The city of Hamtramck, Michigan is one of the first cities in the nation where Muslims make up the majority of the population, and the all-Muslim city council decided that it would be a good idea to legalize the sacrifice of animals on residential property…

After several months of contentious debate and pressure from Muslim residents, Hamtramck City Council voted Tuesday night to allow the religious sacrifice of animals on residential property.

Muslims often slaughter animals during the holiday of Eid al-Adha and Hamtramck has one of the highest percentage of Muslim residents among cities in the U.S.

#6 An entire Islamic “mini-city” is going up right in the heart of Orange County, California…

#7 A survivor of Sharia law in Iran recently pleaded with the city council of McKinney, Texas not to approve a new Islamic center that was being planned…

An Iranian Christian who describes himself as a “Sharia law survivor” warned Americans during a McKinney City Council meeting that the United States is currently facing a “level one” invasion of Islam. The meeting involved discussions of a proposed Islamic Center.

“I’m a Sharia law survivor from Iran,” he began. “I’m telling you, this is a bad idea and you’re going to regret not listening to people like us who lived under Sharia law.”

“I’m here to tell you this is a dangerous ideology you’re allowing in your country. Every country that is Islamic now, it used to be a Christian country and we were soft Christians. And we allowed these people to come in, bring their Sharia law into our countries and slowly kill us off left and right.”

But after listening to him and countless others that objected to the project, the city council unanimously approved it anyway…

According to Texas Scorecard, McKinney City Council members have since voted 7-0 to approve plans for the Islamic Center.

#8 This summer, giant Islamic marches are being held in major cities all over the nation. Sean Feucht just stumbled into one in downtown Chicago…

US Christian worship leader Sean Feucht has issued a warning about the growth of Islam in America after his “Jesus march” encountered a Muslim procession in Chicago.

Feucht shared footage from the city showing participants in the annual Arbaeen Procession, which was taking place around an hour before his Christian event was due to begin.

“This is insane. What I’m witnessing is crazy,” Feucht said in a video posted on social media.

According to Feucht, those that were participating in the Islamic march were “shouting anti Christian and anti Israel verses from the Quran”…

“An hour before we start, there’s a massive Muslim march. We didn’t even know this was happening guys…where they are declaring their allegiance to Allah. And that the entire city of Chicago will bow to Allah.”

Feucht also claimed participants were “shouting anti Christian and anti Israel verses from the Quran”.

“Have you woken up yet? Do you understand what is at stake in our nation?” he asked.

They aren’t here to assimilate.

They are here to take over.

So why aren’t more Americans standing up?

Well, perhaps the fact that average testosterone levels have fallen dramatically over the past 50 years might have something to do with it…

A recent review of studies involving more than a million men all over the world found that average testosterone levels in blood have dropped by about 20 percent over the past half century. A new, unpublished study put the decrease during that basic time period at closer to 50 percent. Some scientists are skeptical of these numbers because testosterone has been measured in different ways over time. But Michael Eisenberg, a urologist at Stanford Medicine who specializes in male fertility, told me that the findings of a decline are “pretty solid.” The testosterone slump, he said, has “manifested across many different study designs.”

We are seeing entire communities being radically transformed all over this county.

We are going down the exact same road that Europe has been going for the past 30 years, and that should deeply trouble all of us.

There are approximately 2 billion Muslims in the world today, and they make up the majority of the population in more than 50 different nations.

But this is just the beginning.

It is being projected that by 2050 Muslims will make up nearly a third of the entire global population.

This is a story that is not going away, and now is the time to take a stand.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

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

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 20:05

Judge Ordered Off Karmelo Anthony Murder Case As Defense Pushes For New Trial

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 23:40:00 +0000

Judge Ordered Off Karmelo Anthony Murder Case As Defense Pushes For New Trial

Judge John Roach has been ordered to recuse himself from further proceedings in the Karmelo Anthony murder case, as the defendant seeks a new trial.

On August 19, 2026, Visiting Judge Sid Harle ruled that Roach must step aside. Retired District Judge Michael Chitty has been appointed to handle a hearing scheduled for August 20 on whether Anthony should receive a retrial.

Anthony, now 19, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison after fatally stabbing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf during an altercation at a high school track meet in Frisco, Texas, in April 2025. A Collin County jury returned the verdict in June 2026 following a trial in McKinney. Jurors deliberated for about three hours and rejected the option of a lesser manslaughter conviction.

Anthony's new defense team is pursuing the new-trial motion. His attorneys argued that Roach's strict courtroom rules - including restrictions on live media coverage - and public statements he made after the verdict demonstrated bias that would prevent him from fairly considering the request.

In a statement, the legal team said the ruling addressed "whether a reasonable fully informed observer would see Judge Roach's conduct and believe that he could fairly and impartially consider a motion for new trial," adding that they believed the judge correctly granted the recusal motion.

"Today’s ruling answers a fundamental question: whether a reasonable fully informed observer would see Judge Roach’s conduct and believe that he could fairly and impartially consider a motion for new trial," the legal team told the Epoch Times.

Critics of the original trial, including Anthony's former attorneys and groups such as the Collin County NAACP, had raised concerns about the absence of Black jurors in what they described as a racially charged case involving a Black defendant. Prosecutors struck several potential Black jurors, stating the decisions were race-neutral because the individuals were educators in a case involving young students. Roach rejected a challenge to the jury's composition during the trial.

The incident occurred on April 2, 2025. Students from Memorial High School's track team returned to their designated tent area and found Anthony, a Centennial High School student, sitting there. Metcalf asked him to leave. An argument ensued. Multiple witnesses testified that Anthony was the aggressor. One quoted Metcalf saying he would not fight at a track meet. Witnesses said Anthony responded, "Touch me and see what happens," while reaching into his bag. After Metcalf shoved him, Anthony stabbed Metcalf in the chest with a knife and fled. He was arrested shortly afterward.

The case drew significant public attention amid competing narratives about the confrontation and broader issues of race and self-defense. Both sides maintained at trial that race was not a factor in the events under the tent.

Judge Chitty will now oversee the upcoming hearing on the motion for a new trial.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 19:40

Your Bank Data Could Become A Profit Center - And You'll Pay the Price

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 23:15:00 +0000

Your Bank Data Could Become A Profit Center - And You'll Pay the Price

Authored by Morgan Sweeney via The Center Square,

A forthcoming federal rule on open banking may allow banks to charge new fees for access to consumer data, a move critics say would harm consumers and runs counter to other parts of President Donald Trump's agenda.

Open banking allows consumers to authorize banks and other financial institutions to securely share their financial data electronically with third-party providers.

PNC Bank building in Pittsburgh, PA (Photo: Grace David / The Center Square)

Why now?

The White House was reviewing the anticipated rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as of last week, according to reporting by Bloomberg Law. The rule would help shape the federal framework for open banking in the U.S., building on a broad provision contained within the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

Dodd-Frank was passed to enhance transparency and accountability and strengthen consumer protections in the financial industry after the economic crisis of 2008. The law is just under 850 pages long, and Section 1033 - which provides the legal basis for the open banking ecosystem that has evolved in the U.S. - was not one of its central provisions. Section 1033 is about one page long and it ensures that Americans have the legal right to access their own financial data upon request. Financial institutions must provide consumers' financial data relevant to the sought-after financial product or service in "an electronic form usable by consumers."

The law gives the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau broad authority to define and standardize this process, which is partly why affected industries have anticipated federal rulemaking on open banking for more than a decade.

The Biden administration issued the long-awaited rule in late 2024, which required banks to provide data directly to third parties authorized by consumers and prohibited banks from charging third parties fees for accessing the data, among other provisions. Banks pushed back, suing the bureau claiming it was exceeding the authority it was granted under Section 1033 and challenging those provisions in court.

Banks have said the rule would require them to build and maintain costly interfaces for third-party access while preventing them from being able to recoup those costs.

Last summer, JPMorgan Chase & Co. submitted proposed fees to data aggregators like Plaid for accessing Chase customers' financial data.

The Trump administration has said the Biden administration's rule was unlawful, "arbitrary and capricious" and began working on a rewrite of the rule last August. The lawsuit is essentially paused until the new rule is released, and the court ordered that enforcement of the Biden rule be stayed.

The Trump administration's version reportedly includes a provision that would allow banks to charge volume-based fees to fintech companies to access consumer financial data, meaning banks could begin charging fintech companies once they make more than a certain number of requests for customer data.

Who pays the price?

News that the Trump administration's rule would include a data-rationing provision prompted numerous objections from fintech companies and consumer advocacy groups, who argued that if banks didn't pay for the data sharing, consumers ultimately will.

"Inevitably, if [the cost] is on the third party, it's going to go back to the consumer," said Todd Zywicki, a George Mason University law professor who formerly led a CFPB task force on federal consumer financial law and served in a leadership role at the Federal Trade Commission.

A third party is really a false choice, according to Zywicki, and between consumers and banks, he thinks banks are the much better option.

"The bank already has built-in incentives to collect the data, keep the data safely, use the data, and under law would already be required to share the data with consumers for them to be able to use it to shop for themselves," Zywicki told The Center Square, "To then say, OK, now you have to also let Plaid access my data or Mint access my data, so they can go find me a better savings account than recommended to me or suggests this product instead of that product just strikes me as the only way to really make sense on this."

The five largest banks in the U.S. reported a record-worthy second quarter. JPMorgan reported its highest quarterly profit in history, Goldman Sachs had its best second quarter ever, and Citigroup enjoyed its best quarter in a decade. Bank of America also posted strong results, while Wells Fargo beat Wall Street expectations. Collectively, they brought in $49 billion in profits.

Zywicki and other sources who spoke to The Center Square also maintained that banks have already done much of the work to build an open banking ecosystem and any costs they might incur to share data with more third parties would be relatively small.

"Banks already are collecting and holding information securely... They've already got to share the information for free with the consumer. It's just a matter of whether a third party can get the information on behalf of the consumer," Zywicki added.

But there's another cost to consumers that could be even greater than any immediate impact on their wallets, advocates warn, and that's the cost of continued fervent fintech innovation.

"We have already seen the nation's biggest banks take advantage of regulatory ambiguity to impose fees and throttle access. Further uncertainty could stop the next great startup from forming and prevent consumers from accessing affordable financial products," said Miranda Margowsky, head of communications for the Financial Technology Association.

Fintech innovation can do more than help consumers manage their finances. Startups like Carefull, a fintech company that analyzes customers' financial activity for unusual patterns, can help detect warning signs of dementia or cognitive decline, potentially years before a clinical diagnosis.

"The goal here is to create a competitive framework where... small banks, for example, or fintech providers, or whoever can compete against the big banks that are currently holding the data," Zywicki said. "It's not really much of a fair playing field if banks can continue to use this information to market their [own] products."

At odds with Trump's agenda

Critics of a data tolling system have also said that allowing banks to charge for access to consumer data undermines several of the administration's other priorities and initiatives.

Several advocacy groups submitted a joint letter to the administration in July saying that the proposal would violate the spirit of one of Trump's May executive orders that specifically calls for government regulation that promotes financial innovation.

"The United States is a global leader in financial innovation, driven in part by the rapid growth of financial technology (fintech) firms," the order reads. "To foster this financial innovation, the Federal Government must update regulations.... and remove overly burdensome and fragmented regulations and supervisory practices that form barriers to entry and primarily benefit incumbent financial services firms."

The president has also heavily promoted Trump Accounts, the government-backed, tax-preferred investment savings accounts for minors, as a way for ordinary American families to leverage financial tools more often used by wealthier individuals. Trump Accounts use Plaid to connect users' bank accounts to the platform, though users whose financial institutions are not supported can verify their accounts manually.

The president has also been a vocal supporter of cryptocurrency and has advanced crypto-friendly policy. He and his sons founded World Liberty Financial, a financial platform that "bridges the gap between traditional banking and blockchain-powered innovation."

But the Blockchain Association, a cryptocurrency industry trade group, doesn't support volume-based fees either. It was one of the organizations that signed onto the July letter, and it also wrote a letter to the CFPB in October.

"The President's Working Group on Digital Asset Markets has entreated 'the Federal government to operationalize President Trump's promise to make America the crypto capital of the world.' Maintaining the broad permissions and prohibition of fees prescribed by the [Biden administration] Open Banking Rule is critical to realizing this goal and sustaining American leadership in fintech and blockchain for the century ahead," it wrote.

What's next?

The bureau's rewrite of the Biden administration's open banking rule is being reviewed by the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, according to Bloomberg. The bureau issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking in August 2025, received public comments and drafted a proposed rule. Once the White House review is complete - potentially with changes - the bureau can issue a notice of proposed rulemaking. That proposal will also be subject to public comment before the bureau can issue a final rule.

"It's really important to get this one right," Zywicki said. "When you get a regulation wrong, it's really hard to fix."

The Center Square reached out to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Bank Policy Institute and multiple banks but did not receive a response in time for publication.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 19:15

'Quality Over Quantity': Reddit Is Mostly Wiped From ChatGPT Citations

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 22:50:00 +0000

'Quality Over Quantity': Reddit Is Mostly Wiped From ChatGPT Citations

Nature is healing, with the latest data from the AI search visibility platform Promptwatch showing that OpenAI's ChatGPT citations from Reddit have plunged in recent weeks to nearly zero.

"It looks like Reddit is almost wiped from ChatGPT sources; the query fanout changes had a big impact, and in the past couple of days it seems to be almost completely removed from prompt responses," Promptwatch founder Klaas Foppen wrote on X.

looks like reddit is almost wiped from chatgpt sources

the query fanout changes had a big impact

and the past couple of days it seems to be almost completely removed from prompt responseshttps://t.co/oCGm9M0yPO pic.twitter.com/c2GJF2apG7
— Klaas (@forgebitz) August 18, 2026

According to Promptwatch, Reddit's daily share of all citations returned by ChatGPT Search began to move sharply lower in the first week of August, then fell to near zero by mid-month.

Promptwatch's website said the red lines on the chart began on August 8, when OpenAI changed the query fanout behavior of ChatGPT Search. By August 14, or last Friday, those citations had plunged again to near zero.

Promptwatch continued:

Reddit lost almost its entire citation footprint in ChatGPT within a single day. From July 18 through August 7, it held a steady 3.83% average share of ChatGPT citations, one of the largest of any domain. On August 14, the share collapsed to under 1%, and the August 14-17 average of 0.52% is an 86.4% relative drop.

The slide started earlier: on August 8, the same day ChatGPT changed its query fanout behavior, Reddit's share fell from the high 3s to the mid-2s. The chart shows when each change happened, not why. A shift in ChatGPT's source selection is the obvious candidate, but a data-collection issue cannot be ruled out, so treat the size of the drop as provisional while we keep monitoring.

Reddit citations in ChatGPT have been controversial from the start because there is often no confirmation of where the information originated, and the citations could point to someone claiming to be an engineer, doctor, trader, or insider without proving their credentials. There's also the fact that Reddit generally leans left-wing, which could alter answers.

All-In Podcast's Jason Calacanis asked Grok, "Is this a choice because of quality or because of legal IP issues?"

The answer:

Mostly quality. OpenAI shifted ChatGPT Search query fanout around Aug 8 to heavy use of site: operators targeting trusted domains. This cut Reddit citations from ~3.8% to 0.5% by Aug 14 (Promptwatch data) to reduce spam and low-quality results. The 2024 licensing deal for…
— Grok (@grok) August 19, 2026

Someone asked:

very likely the reason
— Klaas (@forgebitz) August 18, 2026

Foppen noted that instead of ChatGPT tapping Reddit, more official sources and direct-site citations are being pulled.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 18:50

The DSA's War On Wealth

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 22:25:00 +0000

The DSA's War On Wealth

Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

Communism is on the rise in the United States and has now entered otherwise mainstream Democratic Party politics.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is on track to increase the number of its members in Congress from two to at least six in January, possibly more. That's not including Sen. Bernie Sanders, who calls himself a democratic socialist.

A DSA member named Francesca Hong just came within striking distance of becoming the Democratic nominee for governor of Wisconsin, one of our largest and most important states. Hong was narrowly defeated in the Aug. 11 primary by Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.

Don't be confused by those calling themselves socialists. A few may be well-meaning middle-of-the-road Democrats who favor the Scandinavian socialist model. But others are wolves in sheep's clothing - communists who use the socialist label to hide their real intentions.

What's interesting is that many of the new socialists don't even try to hide their radical leanings. They publicly call themselves socialists and are proud of it.

After the fight against communism in the U.S. in the 1950s and the U.S. victory in the Cold War by the early 1990s, most Americans might assume that communism is no longer a threat to the American way of life and the U.S. political system.

That's a mistake.

Communist and Marxist ideas are alive and well in the U.S. and are thriving in universities, think tanks, foundations, the media and other institutions that Americans typically think of as having better motives.

The Evolution of Revolution

This ideological infiltration may follow Marxian economics, but the method used by the new communists was anticipated by the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci, who wrote in the 1920s and 1930s.

Gramsci agreed with Marx's goal - the abolition of private property - but he thought the way to achieve it was not through violent revolution but through a long-term struggle for control of society's cultural and political institutions.

Decades later, this strategy came to be described as "the long march through the institutions."

In other words, communism would not necessarily win by direct confrontation but by a gradual infiltration of education, culture and governance and the decline of critical thinking.

U.S. institutions would become ideological boot camps and propaganda outlets that would gradually convince Americans that communism, dressed up as "socialism," was the better path.

From there, it would be a simple task to tear down traditional constitutional structures by getting rid of the Senate, the Electoral College and an independent judiciary.

Top-down communist control would be the final step. No revolution required. Just long-term rot like the proliferation of mold or termites.

For a powerful example of this process, consider the recent controversy surrounding the Smithsonian Institution and testimony before Congress by Anthea Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History.

The dispute centered on whether America's national museums have increasingly emphasized slavery, race and inequality at the expense of the country's founders and achievements. Hartig defended the museum's approach and told lawmakers that it does not take sides in America's political debates.

The Smithsonian's treatment of Benjamin Franklin, for example, emphasizes his history as a slaveholder. Yet Franklin was also one of the great scientists and founders of the 18th century and, later in life, became a leading abolitionist.

He served as president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and, in 1790, petitioned Congress to work toward ending slavery.

Franklin also became the nation's first postmaster general, helped establish an early fire insurance company and helped found the institution that became the University of Pennsylvania, where I attended law school.

The real issue is one of emphasis: whether America's national museums should primarily celebrate the country's achievements or increasingly focus on slavery, race, inequality and other failures in the American story.

That debate is worth having because institutions shape the way Americans understand their own country.

A Very American History of Communism

Communist ideology never entirely disappeared from America. It took root in organized political movements following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 and expanded during the Great Depression.

The New York Times' Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty notoriously minimized Stalin's man-made famine in Ukraine in the early 1930s, reporting that helped obscure the brutality of the Soviet system.

American communism suffered a setback after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, which was a nonaggression treaty between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. American communists and fellow travelers were disillusioned that Stalin would make a deal with Hitler, who was universally viewed as the avatar of fascism.

Anti-communism reached a frenzy stage during the Cold War with the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 after their conviction for conspiracy to commit espionage, the Alger Hiss case, accusations of communist infiltration leveled at government officials by Sen. Joseph McCarthy and hearings by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Despite these setbacks, the radical left had a revival during the 1960s and 1970s and is prominent today in the success of the Democratic Socialists of America, now the largest socialist organization in the United States.

Castro's American Alumni

Cuba also played an important role in the American radical left during the Cold War. Many American radicals traveled to Cuba or absorbed the influence of Castro's revolution, including Stokely Carmichael and Angela Davis.

Karen Bass, now the mayor of Los Angeles, traveled repeatedly to Castro's Cuba in the 1970s as part of the Venceremos ("We Will Conquer") Brigade, where young American left-wing activists worked alongside Cubans and were immersed in the communist revolution.

Cuba was not the only source of communist influence. Barack Obama, as a teenager in Hawaii, had a relationship with Frank Marshall Davis, a writer and activist with documented ties to the Communist Party. Obama later wrote about Davis in Dreams from My Father and the influence Davis had on his thinking about race and identity.

If you wonder why race relations in the U.S. remain strained after enormous progress beginning in the 1960s and why socialism is on the rise today in urban centers like New York and Los Angeles, the history of the American radical left and its ties to international socialist movements are worth understanding.

The labels and tactics have changed, but the underlying struggle over property, markets and political power has not disappeared.

Politics Comes for Your Portfolio

The rise of socialism inside the Democratic Party is an enormously important political story on its own. But it also has huge investment implications that could affect your portfolio.

Many democratic socialists favor higher taxes on wealthy households, expanded government healthcare and tuition programs and sweeping changes to policing, immigration and other institutions. Some prominent figures on the left have also supported "wealth taxes" - which would tax certain holdings of property, shares, bonds and other assets rather than merely income.

Depending on how such a tax were structured, investors could find themselves selling retirement assets just to pay the new wealth tax.

Apart from causing social and economic disruption, these policies could hurt your retirement because you'll have to pay the taxes needed to finance them. Later, you may pay even more taxes to clean up the mess.

Gold and silver may be among the best assets to own in these circumstances because they're non-digital, can be held outside the banking system and are difficult to freeze electronically.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 18:25

Meet The Pro-Trump Billionaire Who Paid $40 Million For Fugly Ferrari EV

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 22:00:00 +0000

Meet The Pro-Trump Billionaire Who Paid $40 Million For Fugly Ferrari EV

A Florida billionaire was revealed Tuesday as the deep-pocketed buyer who shelled out a jaw-dropping $40 million for Ferrari's one-of-a-kind Luce EV, the Italian supercar that critics mercilessly roasted for looking straight-up fugly.

The Ferrari Luce ‘Tailor Made’ on display at RM Sotheby's auction event. RM Sotheby’s

The buyer: Dr. Herbert Wertheim, an optometrist who founded Miami-based Brain Power, a firm that cooks up tech for the eyewear industry.

Herbert Wertheim Alicia Devine/USA TODAY Network/Reuters

The Journal reports:

Wertheim's unique model, dubbed "Chassis 0," has an estimated worth of $1.1 million, according to Sotheby's. The car has been shipped to Italy for modifications - although Wertheim didn't know what kind - and he will take possession of it next year. But much like with the Ferrari Daytona SP3 he bought last year for $26 million at the same auction, Wertheim's bigger plan for the Luce - or the Lucy, as he calls it - is to be a fundraising workhorse for the many charities he supports.

"It will not be my personal car to go to Publix to get bananas," said Wertheim. "I don't want to break the sound barrier, but you know, it's nice when you're trying to get on the highway quickly."

If you thought Wertheim might be woke, you would be mistaken. The 87-year-old regularly hits Mar-a-Lago, the private club owned by President Donald Trump, who he considers a friend. At a charity gala in Palm Beach, Wertheim dropped another $2 million for a private White House visit with Trump. The winning bid came during the bash at Mar-a-Lago estate, raising cash for educational scholarships for kids of Palm Beach cops and firefighters.Wertheim has an an estimated net worth of $4.6 billion.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 18:00

Newsom's High Speed Train To Nowhere Is Not Arriving Anytime Soon

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 21:40:00 +0000

Newsom's High Speed Train To Nowhere Is Not Arriving Anytime Soon

Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been frantically trying to restart a presidential campaign that appears moribund, with polls showing him losing in some states to figures such as Pete Buttigieg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

In his absence, his multibillion-dollar high-speed train also seems to be going nowhere fast. A new report from the state inspector general revealed that the train will be delayed again and that the public is being kept in the dark about ongoing problems with Newsom's signature project. Oh, and one more thing: the project will run out of money by December 2027.

Benjamin Belnap's report revealed the project is again running out of money. It found missing details in the project's 2026 business plan, and concluded that the project will again be out of money by next year.

The state has already spent $18 billion, but it will need at least another $18 billion to finish the first segment. It could take roughly $200 billion more actually to complete the original San Francisco-to-Los Angeles line.

Even with billions more, the current segment will not be completed until 2034.

Voters approved a $9.95 billion bond issue in 2008 under Newsom's predecessor after absurdly low cost estimates. Newsom has been a champion of the project. Influential figures and companies stood to make a fortune, and the key was to secure a "buy-in" worth billions, so that it would become increasingly difficult to abandon the project as overruns and delays sent costs soaring.

Now the official estimate of future ridership has dropped by 25%, and it demands billions more to complete a project delayed by decades. Remember that this entire project was meant to create a rail line of only 171 miles.

One would think that the California voters would be marching to the capital with pitchforks and torches over such breathtaking incompetence and waste. However, they appear to have been conditioned to accept the lowest level of performance from their public officials.

The response of Democratic leaders is crushingly predictable: they are pledging to seek a federal bailout to cover their own incompetence. The Democratic nominee for governor, Xavier Becerra, is promising to fight to get back federal funds that were cut off by the Trump Administration. While promising to seriously review any problems in the project (as if they are not obvious), no one has been held accountable for this financial train wreck. Instead, all Democrats can do is demand that citizens around the country help bail out their boondoggle.

Yet, the Inspector General is describing a failure of leadership where no one is making any real decisions:

"Exploration of specific financing mechanisms is a positive step, but because the Authority might run out of funding as soon as December 2027, and the financing strategy the Authority uses has the potential to significantly affect the amount of interest it will need to repay, the Authority and state lawmakers have little time for delay in deciding upon a strategy and implementing it."

Belnap indicated that those in control are simply shrugging off the problem, noting that "[b]ecause the Authority has thus far not demonstrated a willingness to establish and reinforce a process that ensures accuracy and transparency in project reporting, we have directed our report recommendations to the Board."

In the meantime, the state will continue to creep along with a project that is sucking billions into a project that has become a national disgrace. Becerra's pledge to seek bailouts shows that the problem remains the political culture in California. There is little accountability left in a one-party state where companies and individuals have made fortunes off this debacle. The only people being taken for a ride are Californian citizens and it is not the ride that they bargained for.

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

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 17:40

California Retail Theft Blitz Leads To 97 Arrests And $1 Million In Stolen Merchandise

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 21:20:00 +0000

California Retail Theft Blitz Leads To 97 Arrests And $1 Million In Stolen Merchandise

A coordinated crackdown on organized retail crime across California ended with 97 arrests and the recovery of thousands of stolen products, according to KTLA.

Over nine days in early August, California Highway Patrol investigators worked alongside more than 100 law enforcement agencies as part of the National Organized Retail Crime Blitz. The enforcement effort focused on suspected theft activity at retailers, shopping centers and other businesses throughout the state.

The KTLA report says that authorities ultimately recovered more than 8,500 items believed to have been stolen. CHP estimated the merchandise was worth roughly $1.05 million. Of the 97 people arrested during the operation, eight were taken into custody on felony charges.

The enforcement push included operations in several communities. In San Diego, authorities recovered a large quantity of stolen sneakers, while officers in Roseville, Lodi and Stockton carried out proactive operations that led to additional arrests.

CHP Commissioner Sean Duryee said retail theft can have lasting consequences for businesses and the communities they serve, and said the agency plans to continue committing resources to identifying and apprehending those involved.

The latest operation adds to several years of organized retail crime enforcement by the CHP. Since its Organized Retail Crime Task Force began operating in 2019, the agency has been involved in more than 4,700 investigations and over 5,300 arrests.

During that period, authorities have recovered more than 1.6 million stolen products with an estimated combined value exceeding $76.6 million, according to CHP.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 17:20

Harvard To Pay $53 Million To Families Of Donors Whose Body Parts Were Sold Off

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 21:00:00 +0000

Harvard To Pay $53 Million To Families Of Donors Whose Body Parts Were Sold Off

Authored by Chris Summers via The Epoch Times,

Harvard University has agreed to pay $53 million to resolve lawsuits brought by the families of those whose loved ones' body parts were donated to its medical school only to be sold on the black market by its morgue manager.

A flag hangs on campus at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on Sept. 4, 2025. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

A state court judge in Boston preliminarily approved a class action settlement on Aug. 18 that would resolve the lawsuits filed against the Ivy League institution eight months after Cedric Lodge, the former manager of Harvard Medical School's morgue, was jailed.

Dozens of relatives of individuals whose bodies were donated to Harvard filed lawsuits accusing the school of negligence, contending it turned a blind eye to Lodge's years-long misconduct until he was indicted in 2023.

On Dec. 16, 2025, Lodge, 58, pleaded guilty to charges related to the interstate transportation of stolen goods and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

He admitted to stealing body parts from cadavers donated to Harvard Medical School's Anatomical Gift Program and selling them to buyers across the country.

Morgue Manager Stole Brains, Skin, Bones

Prosecutors said that between 2018 and March 2020, Cedric Lodge stole and trafficked "heads, brains, skin, bones, and other human remains" after the donated bodies had been used for teaching and research.

His wife, Denise Lodge, 65, was also sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison.

Denise Lodge (L) covers her face with a printout of the indictment against her as she walks from the federal courthouse in Concord, N.H., on June 14, 2023. Steven Porter/The Boston Globe via AP

Cedric Lodge, who had worked in Harvard's morgue for almost three decades, smuggled the body parts from the morgue in Boston to his home in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he and his wife sold them, prosecutors said.

A judge had initially dismissed the class action lawsuit against Harvard, but in October 2025, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court overturned that decision, finding that the plaintiffs had sufficient claims that the institution had failed to act in good faith in handling the bodies.

"Instead of the dignified treatment and disposal of human remains required ... the donors' remains were ghoulishly dismembered and sold for profit under the most horrifying of circumstances," Justice Scott Kafker wrote in the court's opinion at the time. "This horrific and undignified treatment continued for years and involved numerous donors."

'Flagrant Betrayal of Our Values'

Harvard's dean of the faculty of medicine, George Daley, and the dean for medical education at Harvard Medical School, Bernard Chang, said in an Aug. 17 message to the school's community that Lodge's actions took place without the school's knowledge.

Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Mass., on April 22, 2020. Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

"His violations ... were despicable, abhorrent, and a flagrant betrayal of our values as a medical community," they wrote. "These events do not reflect the reverence we hold for the altruistic individuals who selflessly donate their bodies to our Anatomical Gift Program (AGP) to provide essential educational opportunities to medical and dental students, practicing surgeons, and allied health professionals."

Daley and Chang offered their "deep sorrow and empathy" to the families of the donors and said that, in addition to the financial payment, they will provide a statement to the families via a live webinar "confirming that Lodge's criminal acts were morally reprehensible" and inconsistent with the standards Harvard Medical School expects for the treatment of anatomical donors.

John Morgan, whose law firm Morgan & Morgan represented families in the litigation, said, "We hope that this resolution ensures that this never happens to another family ever again."

The remains were sold to, among others, Katrina MacLean, who ran Kat's Creepy Creations, a studio and store in Peabody, Massachusetts, the indictment stated. Payments were often made to Denise Lodge through her PayPal account.

On Aug. 18, MacLean, 47, was jailed for 24 months by Chief U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann for interstate transportation of stolen property.

Bill Pan and Reuters contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 17:00

The $1.5 Million Rich Kid Socialist: NYC-DSA Co-Chair Gustavo Gordillo Lives The Revolution From Daddy's Townhouse

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 20:40:00 +0000

The $1.5 Million Rich Kid Socialist: NYC-DSA Co-Chair Gustavo Gordillo Lives The Revolution From Daddy's Townhouse

Gustavo Gordillo wants you to believe the system is broken. He wants landlords punished, private property redistributed "from landowners to the landless," and double-digit returns on investment declared unconstitutional. He wants New York City to stop being a "playground for the rich." He wants grocery stores that can't compete with government-run ones to simply close. And he wants you to see him as a blue-collar union electrician fighting for the working class. What he does not want you to notice is the $1.5 million Bed-Stuy row house his multimillionaire parents bought and renovated for him - the very kind of asset his politics treat as moral failure.

The New York Post reported this week that the 38-year-old co-chair of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America lives in a nearly 2,000-square-foot, two-story converted single-family home on a tree-lined block in historically Black Bedford-Stuyvesant. The property was purchased in 2019 by Chucuito LLC - controlled by his parents - for $935,000. Extensive renovations followed: new facade, landscaping, interior overhaul, roof decks. The fair-market value now sits around $1.5 million.

His father confirmed it on the record: "My son and my other son both live there. The LLC purchased the home, and then we did the renovations."

Via @nypost at x.com

This is not a modest starter apartment. It is a luxury single-family residence carved out of what had been multi-family housing stock - the exact reduction in units that DSA rhetoric claims to abhor when ordinary developers do it. Bed-Stuy has undergone intense gentrification. Gordillo's presence there, financed by parental capital, is textbook displacement by another name. The same organization that decries "greedy landlords" and "gentrifiers" has a co-chair living the outcome those forces produce.

The hypocrisy compounds. Gordillo has spent years presenting himself as a working-class union electrician. His X handle and bio still lean into the brand. He joined IBEW Local 3 in 2019. Yet there is no public record he completed the multi-year journeyman process. He told The New York Times earlier this year he is no longer an electrician. Before the union phase, he was a Yale graduate with an MFA in sculpture and video who worked in the art world - the same rarefied scene he later said was funded by "the very same people that we were fighting in DSA." The electrician persona appears to have been a political costume.

Immigrants from Peru, the family is a capitalist success story. Starting with low-wage work - Wendy's and house cleaning. His father founded Draftpros Inc., an engineering and consulting firm specializing in telecommunications infrastructure. The company operates multiple offices across Florida, plus Houston, Chicago, and Lima, Peru. The parents own two Florida properties valued at roughly $3 million each, including a sprawling Boca Raton home listed for $3.1 million. They previously paid $2,600 a month, through the same LLC, for Gordillo's Lower East Side apartment from 2016 to 2019.

On Fox News in July, Gordillo called his parents "an exception." Most of his generation, he claimed, cannot afford families because the city has become a playground for the rich. The same interview produced his most revealing line: "We don't think that anybody should have the constitutional right to double-digit returns on their investment… No one has a right. That's not in the Constitution." Landlords, he said, were "crying" about rent freezes.

Fox News’ Martha MacCallum: “Your family came here from Peru really in the middle of the heat of the Shining Path. They were Maoist communist guerrillas in Peru. So why did your family come to America?”

New York City DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo: “The economic situation in… pic.twitter.com/mz8nPSrZYG
— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) July 18, 2026

Yet the property his parents purchased for him has appreciated by roughly half a million dollars in seven years. The returns he declares illegitimate are the returns that house him.

The house itself has appeared on Mayor Zohran Mamdani's controversial "shame the rich" list of second homes potentially subject to the pied-à-terre tax - a list generated by an administration closely aligned with the DSA. The optics write themselves: a socialist leader's family property flagged under a policy designed to punish wealth concentration, while he continues to live there rent-free in all but name.

Gordillo's politics are not subtle. DSA rhetoric frames private landlords as extractive, profit as suspect, and land ownership as a system to be dismantled. He has argued that if city-run grocery stores drive private ones out of business, "maybe they shouldn't have been in that business in the first place." The consistency ends at his front door. The capital that bought and upgraded his home, the business success that produced it, and the intergenerational transfer that sustains him are precisely the mechanisms his ideology seeks to constrain or seize for others.

This is not an isolated personal story. It is a recurring pattern among certain progressive activists: elite credentials, family money, radical aesthetics, and zero willingness to apply the rules to themselves. Gordillo is not a tenant scraping by under a rent freeze. He is the beneficiary of successful immigrant capitalism, living in a renovated single-family home in a gentrifying neighborhood while demanding the rest of the city accept lower returns, fewer private options, and redistributed ownership.

The revolution, it turns out, comes with a $1.5 million roof and parental financing. Some animals remain more equal than others.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 16:40

The Cruelty Of DEI

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 20:20:00 +0000

The Cruelty Of DEI

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

This past week ended with shock and sadness at the news that Jason Arday ended his own life in the midst of an investigation over his intellectual credibility. He was the vaunted education sociologist at Cambridge University, media darling and beneficiary of a big book contract, the toast of the town, and the subject of countless hagiographic profiles in media venues.

People walk past floral tributes to remember Jason Arday, attached to the railings outside Senate House in the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, eastern England, on Aug. 15, 2026. (Justine Gerardy/AFP via Getty Images)

Plenty of people had whispered for years that he nowhere near qualified for all this celebration. He was not a genius. He was a fabulist. Saying it, however, was dangerous to one's career. As a result, he kept getting away with it. His luck ran out when a U.S. academic pressed the issue. The tissue of lies collapsed.

The circumstances surrounding his absurd appointment to a full professorship with a named chair - the youngest black professor to enjoy such privilege - are hardly unique to him. When the full truth coming out about his plagiarism and autobiographical embellishments hit the international news, despair overwhelmed him in tragic ways.

It goes without saying that this young man had benefitted from what's called DEI, which is the new term for what used to be called "affirmative action" but mutated into rampant privilege based on raw identity politics. Reverse racism doesn't describe it fully. It is institutionalized discrimination that breeds deep resentment from those passed over and cultivates hidden contempt for those who ride this wave to unearned prestige and plaudits.

Something else has always bugged me about these systems that confer high titles and salaries on people solely on grounds of their race. It is deeply condescending and cruel to the point of being abusive of our fellow human beings. While it is easy to resent people who benefit from unearned exaltation, the plight of those who are its seeming beneficiaries also deserves some attention.

Years ago I had the opportunity to get to know a university administrator and his wife who occupied such a role. We met at a dinner party. He was the only black gentleman in the upper echelon of a major state university. His title was vice president for civil rights or some such made-up badge. It was a position invented to create the appearance of diversity. The position fell to him because he ticked all the boxes.

He was proud of his new position. But the more we spoke, the more he had doubts that he would express under his breath. He said that he has a large budget and staff but is rarely included as part of any serious planning team. He told me that he is mostly sent out on fundraising efforts to tell his story about how he grew up poor, overcame racism, and now has a prestigious position in university administration. But, he told me with frankness, he is tired of that story of himself.

We met up a few weeks later because I was curious to know more. He laid it all out to me. He came of age in an educational environment that was especially seeking blacks who performed above expectations which he always did. But instead of moving up a notch based on merit, he said he became aware early on that he was being accelerated and escalated beyond a level that was justified.

It became obvious in his college admissions, which pushed him into an institution far above that for which he was prepared. He found himself lost in a sea of high achievers. His privilege became a burden. He could not keep up in his classes and began to cut corners. It became obvious to him early that he was going to get away with this.

It seemed like the entire system was on his side. He tried to justify this to himself on grounds that every university has white kids on trust funds with legacy connections. They work less hard than a working-class kid who made it on his own so perhaps this is not unusual.

But, he said, he always felt burdened in multiple directions. It was sad enough that he grew up poor and black in the Deep South and was not expected to achieve. But it was far worse that he was given advancements beyond what he deserved when everyone knew it and considered him to be little more than a token of a compensatory system.

He described to me that choice he had to make. He could refuse the high grades, the advanced placements, the awards and attention that he knew were unmerited. But he was never sure what the point of that would be. Instead, he accepted them all as part of a game. He lost trust and respect in the system that he joined precisely because the system never really expected a high degree of performance from him.

He continued in this vein to tell me about graduate school and PhD studies which were more of the same. There was no point in this where he knew when to refuse, when to say no, when to call out the condescension and fakery of which he was presumably benefiting. In fact, he never saw himself as much of a beneficiary at all. He felt burdened by it all, and even robbed of what all the white kids faced: high expectations and the satisfaction of knowing that one climbed the ladder by virtue of his own efforts.

The story ends with his then appointment, which he knew to be fake at least on some level, though he believed that he truly did have something to contribute to university culture. It was that tag of having been marked by DEI that prevented it. He said he knew from childhood that in any endeavor in life, a title is easy but genuine respect from colleagues must be earned. He simply did not have that and did not know how to get it.

I was hardly in a position to give him advice so I did my best simply to be a sympathetic ear. I've thought about this case often through the years, knowing all the while that such cases were growing in academia to absurd extents.

What if the entire system of educational and professional achievement suddenly decided that white guys from Southwest Texas needed a boost through the ranks to make up for past wrongs? Everything I did and everywhere I went was read through my accidental identity and I was celebrated on the basis that I was from Southwest Texas, bypassing everyone else. How would this sit with me?

Absurd, right? Well, for my friend and by virtue of his race, whole degree programs were being manufactured as well as departments all designed to create the illusion of achievement without the reality. And who was doing this? For the most part, it was white left-liberals who were seeking some kind of propitiation for perceived social sins, using black people as pawns in their egalitarian gamesmanship.

And it wasn't just academia. DEI bled into corporate America, banking, media, the movies, arts institutions, publishing, and into every space and sector in modern life. Objecting to it at any point meant taking a huge risk of being called a racist. Whole systems of communication and enforcement have been invented to cover up all the ways in which meritocracy was being displaced by a new racial hierarchy.

Countless whistleblowers in academic and corporate life have faced brutal retaliation for calling this out. Everyone knows the rules: play along or face the purge. This is how Arday and so many others have gotten away with this for so long. The brave dissidents are smeared and broken. All that's left are the people willing to live with the lies.

None of this can end well. In the case of Jason Arday, it was not a case of Icarus who flew too closely to the sun and saw his wings melt before falling to earth. No. Instead he was catapulted by others at his previous schools and by Cambridge itself as high in the air as possible but given no parachute.

One day, seemingly out of the blue, the standards police came for him and revealed vast plagiarism and implausible biography. He tried the old tricks of calling them names but they would not stop their investigations. His entire life story was being upended and he was being made a laughingstock, merely for playing along with a system that everyone knew was fake to begin with.

The personal pain of this level of public humiliation is impossible to describe. It is worse than prison. Even when it is completely deserved - he had played the game all along, just as his critics had said - the suffering is unbearable for most mortals. What angers me most about this is not even that Arday played along with the racket that he knew was nothing more than that. It's that the racket was constructed to work exactly the way it did work, and then suddenly and without any warning, it stopped working.

Decades have gone by when such intellectual fakery has only grown and persisted. It's not that such systems have been abused by bad actors. It's that the systems themselves were built to baptize abuse and injustice as a fairness and compensation for past wrongs.

In reality, DEI is demeaning to everyone: the bypassed, the whistleblowers, and the seeming beneficiaries. It is a socially engineered scam created by guilt-ridden intellectuals that is exploitative even of those who seemingly win from its emoluments.

Jason Arday, despite all his failings, never deserved the indignity that comes with an unmerited promotion to the top. He knew this all along, just as my friend knew it. Any serious person with the capacity for self-examination knows it. We should stop these absurd games. They are unsustainable and can end in terrible tragedy.

Jeffrey A. Tucker is the founder and president of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press, as well as 10 books in five languages, most recently "Liberty or Lockdown." He is also the editor of "The Best of Ludwig von Mises." He writes a daily column on economics for The Epoch Times and speaks widely on the topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 16:20

China's Tungsten Chokehold Turns Almonty Into a Critical-Metal Lifeline

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 19:25:00 +0000

China's Tungsten Chokehold Turns Almonty Into a Critical-Metal Lifeline

Almonty Industries has evolved from a junior miner into an established tungsten producer and a pure play on the China decoupling theme, the incoming defense rearmament supercycle in the West, AI infrastructure, and, of course, critical-mineral scarcity. As Western governments race to rebuild a tungsten supply chain outside China, Almonty's producing assets and the ramp-up of its Sangdong and Panasqueira mines position the miner as a potentially critical supplier to the Western world.

Let's begin with the catalyst. Beijing tightened tungsten export controls in February 2025, citing national security concerns, and has continued to subject the metal to strict controls. The restrictions have severely curbed available supply, triggering a squeeze in the physical market and driving prices above $3,125 a ton as of Wednesday morning.

Image via Cantor Fitzgerald:

Earlier this year, an inquiry from the US Defense Logistics Agency about potential tungsten purchases unsettled an already tight market, according to industry commentary circulated by Almonty. The agency, which manages critical stockpiles of tungsten for the government, ultimately did not proceed after industry players raised alarm bells that a massive government purchase could drive prices even higher.

Tungsten supplies are certainly turning out to be a major chokepoint: much of the metal available outside China is already committed under long-term contracts, leaving very little supply for the US government to add to its national stockpile.

Meanwhile, Japan is facing a critical shortage. Shipments of Chinese APT, or ammonium paratungstate, a vital white-powder intermediate used to create tungsten products, have reportedly stopped entirely since the beginning of this year, placing immense pressure on Japanese hard-metal and tool manufacturers. Japan has since increased its imports of tungsten scrap, but the US Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security has issued a new rule requiring US suppliers to allocate 100% of their tungsten scrap to domestic buyers, not overseas ones.

The great tungsten squeeze has positioned Almonty as a pure play on ex-China supplies, especially as it advances its Sangdong Mine in South Korea toward full production. The project is expected to become a major source of non-Chinese tungsten for Western defense manufacturers and critical-mineral supply chains. The miner also operates one of the world's longest-producing tungsten mines in Portugal.

On the earnings front, the company's existing operations benefited from record tungsten prices during the second quarter. Revenue increased 498% from one year ago. Almonty reported net income of about $182 million, though most of that reflected a noncash accounting gain related to convertible securities.

Image via Cantor Fitzgerald:

It's that very supply gap that shows why Almonty's mines in South Korea and Portugal are becoming extraordinarily important to the West, not just for defense industries facing a weapons-production supercycle because of depleted stockpiles and the urgent need to resupply, but also for the semiconductor industry, where tungsten hexafluoride is used to create microscopic connections inside advanced memory chips. The supply squeeze ties Almonty to Samsung, SK Hynix, other chipmakers, and the broader AI infrastructure boom.

At the start of the week, Almonty authorized a $300 million stock buyback, allowing it to purchase up to 5% of its outstanding shares over three years.

CEO Lewis Black wrote in a statement, "The Board authorized this program because we do not believe today's share price reflects the underlying value of this Company or the assets behind it."

"Almonty controls one of the largest and highest-grade tungsten deposits outside of China at precisely the moment Western governments and defense manufacturers are rebuilding their critical minerals supply chains around non-Chinese sources," Black said.

He added, "With Sangdong advancing toward full capacity, we believe our own shares are one of the most attractive investments available to us at current market pricing, and repurchasing them is a direct way to build value for the shareholders who own this business alongside us."

The buyback comes as Almonty's shares have diverged from tungsten prices since late April.

Almonty's story should be viewed within the broader China decoupling theme, a trend likely to accelerate as the Trump administration seeks to reindustrialize the US and secure critical supply chains. The underlying move here is to reduce exposure to Chinese supply chains before a potential invasion of Taiwan disrupts access to strategic minerals, semiconductors, and other materials essential to the Western defense-industrial base and now the entire AI data center buildout.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 15:25

200,000 Fake AI 'Victims' Deployed To Scam-Bait Online Fraudsters

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 19:05:00 +0000

200,000 Fake AI 'Victims' Deployed To Scam-Bait Online Fraudsters

Authored by Andrew Fenton via CoinTelegraph.com,

Australian tech firm Apate deploys a vast array of AI-bot characters worldwide that play the role of gullible scam victims to waste millions of hours of con artists’ time each month.

Hilariously, one of the company’s monthly performance metrics is how many times frustrated scammers swear at the idiot ‘victims’ who are playing dumb and stringing them along.

“I think we’re the only company in the world that is actually keeping as part of their KPIs the number of F-words that scammers are dropping at them,” Apate founder Dali Kaafar tells Magazine with a chuckle.

The company has a stable of almost 200,000 AI characters that are able to hold convincing phone conversations and to chat on social media and messaging platforms.

”I can tell you that we’re basically servicing, as we call them, hundreds of thousands of calls a day, and pretty much hundreds of thousands of conversations on the other channels,” he says.

Every hour of a con artist’s time they waste is another hour they’re not scamming a member of the public. In the six weeks up to the end of 2025, Apate’s bots engaged in 600,000 scam calls for a single telco called TPG in Australia.

“Essentially, we wasted more than five hundred days of scammers’ time,” he explains. “That roughly equates to somewhere around thirteen million dollars being saved.”

The bots’ other goal is to elicit actionable intelligence for banks and telcos to combat scam rings across Australia, Asia, Africa and the UK and Europe.

Apate bots deal with scammers via chat. Source: Apate

Scam baiting at scale with AI victims

Kaafar says he got the idea when he received a scam call while having a picnic with his family in Sydney back in November 2021.

To his wife’s annoyance, but his kids’ delight, he strung the scammer along for 44 minutes by pretending to be a gullible rube falling for the scam.

“What followed was really literally a full comedy show for my kids,” he says, adding that during the call he’d also learned a lot of potentially useful information about the mechanics of the scam and the tactics used.
“As I hung up that call, I remember thinking very clearly: if I could do that just for fun, imagine what technology can do at scale.”

Working as a professor at Macquarie University at the time, he raised the idea with some of his doctoral students working on AI and security.

“I said, ‘Guys, there has to be a much better way of doing this. Let’s build something that is really automating this whole process of engaging scammers at scale, but also, perhaps most importantly, extracting all sorts of intelligence from these conversations.’ And that’s literally how it started.”

Within a few months they’d secured funding from the Office of National Intelligence to research the idea, and the project was spun off from the university into Apate in 2023. The company now works with most of the big banks in Australia, as well as numerous banks in the UK, South Africa and South East Asia.

Apate is far from the only company scam baiting fraudsters using AI bots — though they are doing it on a greater scale than most. United Kingdom telco O2 rolled out an AI Granny campaign last year, which frustrates scammers by taking up hours of their time talking about her 28 cats. It was as much an ad campaign to warn the public about the dangers of scam calls as anything else.

O2’s highly entertaining AI Granny. Source: 02

Creating the perfect AI victims

Apate launched with 120 different personas across different genders, ages and personality types, and now have 197,000 personas with identifiable vocal tics, accents, and they make the same noises people make when they’re trying to think of what to say.

“We spent a lot of time refining and building these AI bots that sound exactly like you and I and our neighbors,” he says.

The AI models were trained on “hundreds and hundreds” of hours of recorded conversations between human scam baiters and scammers, so they can employ counter strategies.

“They know that they’re talking to bad guys, if you like, and they really navigate the conversations so that it sounds really very, very realistic to any scammer out there, even if a scammer is skeptical about things.”The bots get sent out on WhatsApp and Telegram to act as honeypots for scammers. While the old cliché that you can’t scam an honest man is not true, it’s still very possible to exploit the scammer’s desire for money.

“They are cybercriminals, really. I think we just very often forget that they’re cybercriminals who are trying to get people’s life savings. And so that element of greed is sometimes what our bots also exploit.”

Bots collect valuable intel from each scam call

In the crypto industry, Apate works for “one of the leaders in blockchain analysis,” which may or may not be Chainalysis. They aren’t interested in wasting scammers’ time — they want intelligence on which wallets and methods scammers are using so they can track the flow of funds.

“These bots, as they engage across different conversations, extract new crypto wallet addresses by the hundreds and by the thousands,” he says. “It’s data and intelligence that is coming literally before their damage happens.”

Scamming is big business, and the call centers are “pretty much corporate organizations,” Kaafar explains.

“This data is very, very important because, literally, that’s the new account or the new wallet where you really need to pay extreme attention to. Because this is where these… scammer compounds are collecting their money or their funds with.”

“Think about it literally as being always ahead of the scammer’s tactics. And the more you know before the money gets transferred, the better it is.”

In July, Apate’s bots uncovered a marketplace for brokers soliciting verified bank accounts in India, offering commissions of up to 5% paid in USDT on the proceeds from scams passing through the accounts.

Apate’s human staff in Sydney. Source: Apate

AI arms race between good guys and bad guys

Scammers are increasingly using AI bots themselves, and it won’t be too long before AI scammers are as ubiquitous as spam emails. Scamming people is a $1.24 trillion business, so the industry can afford the compute required to scale up operations.
Apate’s research suggests that about 20% to 30% of scam text conversations employ AI already, but Kaafar isn’t too worried about the outcome of anti-scam bots fighting scam bots.
He says their researchers believe that AI bots playing defense have an advantage, according to game theory, because they’re trying to extract intelligence, while the scam bots are trying to get the other AI to perform an action.

“You can also demonstrate mathematically that that is to the advantage of a defender because it becomes easier to extract intelligence from the attacker’s AI model,” he says.

“We can imagine a world where scammers become a lot more sophisticated and deploy such technology. But that also means that if they do, they’re actually deemed to lose the game, which is great news in the fight against scams.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 15:05

Media Accuses Hegseth Of Covering Up USS Lincoln Supply Crisis

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 18:45:00 +0000

Media Accuses Hegseth Of Covering Up USS Lincoln Supply Crisis

The scandal and controversy over the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier continues, despite the Trump administration and top military brass reiterating this week that the issues have been hugely overblown. It's long been reported that the supercarrier which is front line in the war against Iran has suffered resupply problems, low morale, sub-standard conditions, and mental health problems given the over-extended deployment.

One prominent media outlet is now alleging that the crisis is largely due to War Secretary Pete Hegseth having "hid" a crucial piece of information - that amid Iran's retaliation during Operation Epic Fury, it had destroyed much of the main resupply base for the US Central Command region (CENTCOM).

via Stars & Stripes

MS Now senior national security reporter David Rohde made the claim, saying that when the logistics hub Naval Support Activity (NSA) Bahrain was struck by Iranian ballistic missiles at the start of the war, it effectively crippled Pentagon resupply and logistics for the Mideast region.

According to MS Now's reporting:

During a segment in MS Now discussing President Donald Trump's dismissal of reports of low morale and the mental health concerns of those aboard the carrier during an unusually long deployment, Rohde said the resupply issue was "because Pete Hegseth hid the fact that Iran destroyed the main resupply base that the United States has in the Gulf."

"He did not make that public in press conference after press conference, and that is, again, the way that they have mishandled this war," Rohde added. The full segment can be viewed here.

As a reminder, at the end of June the Wall Street Journal featured several satellite images which demonstrated the widespread destruction at the base. From there, the Pentagon was forced to only maintain a small staff there, and is said to be mulling abandoning it as an operations center altogether.

"When the Iranian missiles and drones came for the nerve center of America’s naval operations in the Middle East, some of them hit their mark," that prior WSJ reporting indicated. According to more:

The U.S. Navy base in Bahrain was repeatedly targeted between late February and June. Strikes that got through caused extensive damage, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of satellite imagery, social-media footage and interviews with current and former servicemembers—damage that the Pentagon hasn’t publicly acknowledged. Hit hard were the command headquarters and at least a dozen other buildings, along with two satellite communications terminals.

The military said no one was killed at the base, known as Naval Support Activity Bahrain, and that the strikes didn’t significantly impact operations. The U.S. evacuated most personnel but has kept a small staff on the ground.

,,,The extensive damage done to America’s sole naval base in the Middle East—along with hits to at least 20 U.S. sites across the region, including military installations and diplomatic facilities—has the U.S. re-evaluating its entire footprint in the region, according to U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations.

All of this reportedly had significant impact on the USS Lincoln's ability to maintain standard supplies and conditions. Again, all of this is being downplayed or else outright denied by the Pentagon and US administration.

Media headlines focused on the Lincoln have been growing over the summer...

We will quote one unnamed former national security insider who has offered the following...

"Bahrain NSA was critical to keeping carriers on station because it provided nearby supplies and you can't put the carriers in at ports within missile range of Iran as they will become sitting ducks (and sabotage targets). Bahrain NSA was a soft target (I've been there), and questions should be raised about why it wasn't hardened if we were going to use military force against Iran. Iran could not destroy a carrier so it did the next best thing and destroyed its logistics."

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 14:45

Here Comes QE Lite: Yields, Dollar Tumble, Gold Spikes After Treasury Unexpectedly Doubles Size Of Long-End Treasury Buybacks

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 18:40:00 +0000

Here Comes QE Lite: Yields, Dollar Tumble, Gold Spikes After Treasury Unexpectedly Doubles Size Of Long-End Treasury Buybacks

Over the past several years, one of the more amusing debates gripping the market's Fed-watchers was whether the Fed's treasury buyback auctions were a form of soft QE, with this website consistently arguing that - contrary to what washed out ex-Bridgewater traders with a newsletter to sell may tell you - Treasury buybacks were just that when it comes to what matters such as market reaction, to wit:

*TREASURY SAYS IT'S EVALUATING ENHANCEMENTS TO BUYBACK PROGRAM

"Not QE"
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 30, 2025

*TREASURY INCREASES LIQUIDITY BUYBACK TOTAL TO $30B FROM $15B

"Not QE 2.0" is growing
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 31, 2024

TREASURY DEBT BUYBACK TARGETS COUPONS MATURING IN 2031 - 2034

Next QE rehearsal
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 24, 2024

And moments ago, Scott Bessent finally resolved the debate when, with 30Y yields at 20 year highs and threatening to blow out higher, the US Treasury shocked markets, sparked a meltdown in yields and surge in equity futures and gold when it announced at 8:30am that they will be "increasing, by at least double, the size of liquidity support buyback operations for longer-dated nominal coupon securities (the 10-year to 20-year sector and the 20-year to 30-year sector). The current maximum size of $2 billion per operation will be at least $4 billion per operation."

This change will be effective September 9, 2026 and will be in effect for the remainder of this refunding quarter (through November 4, 2026). The releases noted that the Treasury will provide more information about future buyback sizes at the next Quarterly Refunding, scheduled for November 4, 2026, in other words it has the benefit of 3 months of "NOT QE" without having to even specify its thinking.

According to the statement, "this increase in buyback operation sizes reflects Treasury’s desire to provide greater liquidity support in longer-dated nominal sectors where there is consistent strong sponsorship from market participants, as evidenced by the significant volume of high-quality offers Treasury routinely receives in longer-dated buyback operations."

Translation: Bessent panicked and the justification that there is no liquidity is just a strawman, with the Treasury now freaking out that the demand for AI paper is crowding out demand for Treasuries as we have been warning for the past several weeks, and as we predicted a week ago when looking at the blowing out Treasury skew, "Bessent will be busy.:"

Bessent will be busy https://t.co/0BslbpgnLs pic.twitter.com/kreaTPS1rh
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 11, 2026

It took just one week for him to show just how busy he would be.

The market reaction was instant and violent, with 30y yields down 6bps in an instant on the headlines, having been down 2bp prior, This brings Wednesday's yield decline to 8bp total

US 2s30s is 7bp flatter on the day and 10s30s 2bp flatter.

Naturally, with Bessent panicking, stock futures surged...

... but more importantly, gold is breaking out bigly....

... as the market realizes that with total US debt about to hit $40 trillion...

so close.... pic.twitter.com/edFs1kzVZB
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 18, 2026

... it all gets much worse from here.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 14:40

Texas Hits New Peak Demand Record, Faces 80% Supply Shortfall By 2030

Tyler Durden — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 18:25:00 +0000

Texas Hits New Peak Demand Record, Faces 80% Supply Shortfall By 2030

By Marlene Wilden of UtilityDive

Peak demand in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas territory could reach 120 GW by 2030 – incredible growth of more than 30% above the new, unofficial all-time peak reached on July 22, but notably lower than ERCOT’s own forecasts, according to a market report from Ascend Analytics that was provided to Utility Dive.
The firm cites gas turbine shortages, multi-year development timelines and interconnection bottlenecks as limiting factors preventing enough new generation from coming online to serve proposed large loads.
Ascend says ERCOT’s energy-only market no longer provides enough revenue certainty to finance the dispatchable generation needed to meet future demand, while persistent gaps between forward markets and actual outcomes weaken the market signals used to guide investment decisions.

ERCOT’s large-load queue has grown by more than 200 GW since 2024, driven largely by data centers, manufacturing, cryptocurrency and industrial oil and gas development, but uncertainty remains over how much load can be safely interconnected.

The grid operator said in April that the total 2030 load reported by transmission service providers, based on contracts and officer letters, was 208 GW. ERCOT’s adjusted load forecast put it at 138 GW.

Ascend’s estimate of 120 GW assumes delays and a 55.4% success rate for proposed loads. The firm says delays in energization and large-load attrition are making it increasingly difficult to forecast how much demand will actually materialize on ERCOT’s grid.

“Even though that appetite is enormous, if it can’t get met, it’s not coming online,” Brent Nelson, senior managing director of market intelligence at Ascend, told Utility Dive in an interview.

“The ability of the grid to add new generation is much, much smaller than the demand of queued large-load facilities,” Robert LaFaso, Ascend’s director of market intelligence, told Utility Dive.

Both executives identified generation availability as the primary constraint.

Nelson said some transmission challenges can be mitigated by co-locating generation and load. Developers face significant supply chain hurdles in adding those resources, particularly dispatchable plants, according to Ascend.

Ascend cites the limited number of tier-one gas turbine manufacturers as a key factor contributing to project attrition among Texas Energy Fund applicants. The firm also identifies engineering, procurement and construction capacity, high-voltage equipment and permitting as growing bottlenecks to building new generation.

Ascend expects ERCOT’s reserve margins will remain healthy through 2026 before tightening as load growth outpaces supply additions. That shift is prompting discussion of potential market reforms, including concepts such as a “bring-your-own-new-generation” requirement for large loads.

Nelson said such a structure could help align new demand with new supply but warned it could undermine the economics of existing merchant generators and increase policy uncertainty for investors.

For storage, the challenge is squarely financial.

“We’ve seen pullbacks from a lot of the lenders expressing drastic concerns over the past several years, where [storage projects] have not met revenue expectations, and the lending community is starting to question whether or not merchant storage is investable without firmer revenue,” LaFaso said.

Lenders increasingly require contracted revenues rather than relying on merchant market returns, he said. Those financing challenges are compounded by ERCOT’s energy-only market design, which relies on scarcity pricing to incentivize new generation.

Scarcity revenues alone are unlikely to support investment, particularly as developers face rising costs for natural gas equipment and other infrastructure. The problem, Nelson warned, is that there are only two realistic outcomes under that structure: Either scarcity pricing fails to provide enough revenue to support new entry — leaving the system short of dispatchable capacity — or it succeeds in doing so but creates an affordability crisis by forcing consumers to pay high, volatile prices to the entire supply stack.

The firm also said a changing generation mix could make scarcity revenues more weather- and outage-dependent, adding volatility for generators and complicating financing. It identified September as an emerging risk period due to reduced solar output from earlier sunsets and lower evening wind generation than in August.

Ascend expects wholesale prices to rise in the near term as demand grows before stabilizing over the longer term as additional renewable generation comes online. Natural gas plants are still expected to set prices during evening ramping periods when solar output declines.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/19/2026 - 14:25

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