ZeroHedge News

Harris Renews Calls To Pack The Court Despite Poll Showing Most Americans Agree With Its Decisions

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 21:30:00 +0000

Harris Renews Calls To Pack The Court Despite Poll Showing Most Americans Agree With Its Decisions

Kamala Harris is again promising the radical wing of her party that she will pack the Supreme Court. Pete Buttigieg and others have done the same to pander to the extreme left. These calls are increasing among Democratic leaders despite a recent poll showing that the Court remains the more popular institution vis-à-vis Congress, and that the majority of Americans agree with its major decisions.

The Marquette Law School poll shows that the Court remains slightly underwater in popularity (47% favor, 53% disfavor), but it is still much more popular than Congress or the two political parties. Moreover, that popularity is increasing, not decreasing, as a result of recent decisions. It was at 44% in 2025.

The mantra to pack the Court is premised on the false claim that the Court is ideologically robotic and partisan. That claim has always been disconnected from the actual voting record of the Court. Forty-four percent of cases are decided unanimously by the Supreme Court. When nearly unanimous cases (8-1 and 7-2) are included, that figure jumps to over 60 percent.

The liberal justices themselves have pushed back on the Democratic narrative. Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor have all contradicted these claims. Justice Kagan recently spoke publicly on these claims, “rejecting claims that the high court’s conservative majority is in President Donald Trump’s corner.”

The most recent poll shows that Americans agree with most of the major decisions in the last year.

The poll highlights a disconnect with the logic of court packers.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) has called for packing the Court because it does not follow her views and those of “widely held public opinion.”

I have pushed back on that rationale given the Court’s function to be a countermajoritarian institution. However, this poll even challenges the flawed rationale for court packing.

Even the most controversial decisions break at around fifty percent.

Notably, the opinion that Harris repeatedly denounces as an attack on democracy (barring racial gerrymandering) is supported by a majority of the country.

Yet, Democratic leaders and the far left continue the false claim that the Court is out-of-step with America and captured by the Administration. The reason is simple. The DSA and far left are threatening establishment candidates. They are throwing institutions such as the Supreme Court to the mob in an attempt to use them to regain power. It is not just tragic but pathetic. These establishment figures are unlikely to be safe from the mob. Hakeem Jeffries can call the Supreme Court “illegitimate” and brandish a baseball bat on social media, but the mob is still chanting “you’re next” when he appears on the screens at rallies.

For its part, the far left knows that the full agenda of changes that it wants to make to our constitutional system cannot occur without control of the Supreme Court. Law professors and deans are joining them in calling for the trashing of our Constitution and “radical changes” to our system. They will need control of the Court to achieve many of those changes.

So the American people may support the Court and favor its decisions, but it still needs to be packed with a liberal majority.

Harris and Buttigieg consider trashing the Supreme Court to be a small price to pay for their own election.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 17:30

Trump Says "We Are Low Keying It" With Iran As Options For Walking Away Have Drastically Narrowed

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 20:55:00 +0000

Trump Says "We Are Low Keying It" With Iran As Options For Walking Away Have Drastically Narrowed

Iran's IRGC is holding the line, reiterating that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen to international shipping only after the United States accepts all of its conditions, which we outlined previously. Also, on Saturday Iran's army spokesman Amir Akraminia stated that Iran's new protocols in the Strait of Hormuz are "irreversible" and shall not be thwarted by the US. "The United States has no choice but to accept the existing situation; otherwise, it will incur costs far greater than those it has faced in the past," Akraminia said. "The United States has no choice but to accept the existing situation; otherwise, it will incur costs far greater than those it has faced in the past," Akraminia had added.

On Sunday, a fresh report in The Wall Street Journal states the obvious - that President Trump has fewer and fewer options and is being squeezed, with any opportunity to declare 'victory' and make swift exit more elusive than ever, given Washington would have to make huge compromises, including lifting sanctions and paying war compensation to Tehran. Nearly six months ago when the war started, many non-interventionist critics accurately predicted that the current quagmire and catch-22 the US now finds itself in is precisely where things would end up.

"For weeks, President Trump had been laying the groundwork to declare victory in the Iran war should Tehran fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even floating the idea privately to senior aides that he’s willing to walk away without a nuclear deal, U.S. officials said," WSJ writes.

AFP/Getty Images

"But that scaled-back objective became more difficult when Iran insisted Saturday on its highest price yet for permitting the free flow of traffic in the waterway, seeking billions of dollars in U.S. payments, the removal of American troops from the region and an end of the U.S. naval blockade, among other things," the report adds.

In a parallel vein to this scaled-back, lower grade conflict, President Trump has freshly told Axios in a brief interview that "We are low keying it" in the Persian Gulf. This comes after a week ago he called off 'planned' 'harder' attacks on Iran, which may have been just a bluff all along. Tehran didn't blink, and it continues to press for maximal demands - as if to put 'maximum pressure' right back on Washington.

"We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money," Trump claimed. According to more from Axios:

He stressed that Iran "is in very bad shape" economically and has no money to pay its troops. The U.S. naval blockade has exacerbated the Iranian regime's economic crisis, Trump said.
At the same time, Trump said that with oil down to slightly over $75 a barrel, U.S. consumers are feeling less pain from the war.

Ironically, this is simply a return to administration talking points which defended the early days and weeks of a war that officials constantly touted would be 'swift' and limited.

The US hope was that Iran and its economy would just collapse from within, the masses would take to the streets, and the government of the Ayatollah would be overthrown. This has proven delusional time and again.

Instead, what we see happening is Washington being forced to move its bases back from front line areas in the Gulf, and officials including Trump himself constantly retreating from stated goals, objectives, and red lines. This is on display once again in the Sunday Axios interview:

Axios acknowledges that the new list of Iranian demands have gone from being the prerequisite for a nuclear deal to a prerequisite to opening the Strait. Trump now says the US is “low keying it” and focusing on economic pressure. In other words: the Strait will not be opening. https://t.co/AweQabOB8W pic.twitter.com/3TMsxXcfh7
— barry with the NED (@bonzerbarry) August 9, 2026

In the meantime, there have been various op-ed moments throughout the conflict where The Wall Street Journal has cheer-led Operation Epic Fury. But now that political desperation has set in, and the Iranians smell blood in the water - knowing they can play hardball and extract a bigger cost from the US - even the WSJ has been forced to drastically change its tune:

Iran’s ability to essentially choke off the waterway through sporadic missile and drone attacks has proven to be powerful leverage for the country, stalling commercial traffic and roiling global oil markets. Trump has declared repeatedly in recent weeks that the Strait of Hormuz was already fully open, but each of those promises has proven premature.

Now, with less than three months until the midterm elections and the price of gasoline still much higher than it was before the war started in late February, Trump has been looking for ways to tell the American public that the war is won.

It will be quite the spectacle if eventually a desperate Trump White House is forced to lift sanctions and hand over some form of war compensation. WSJ notes further, "One major complication for the Trump administration is money."

"Iran is seeking billions of dollars in war reparations in addition to an agreement to unfreeze the country’s assets around the world," the report adds. "Trump has said the White House wouldn’t allow any taxpayer money to go to Iran, although a deal appears unlikely without the U.S. unfreezing some assets, possibly with conditions attached."

Trump should have listened to the non-interventionists and he wouldn't have put himself and the American people in this mess. American troops would not have been caught so flat-footed and directly in harm's way (given what was clearly lack of proper US military planning and preparedness for Iran to fight back as fiercely as it did), and hundreds of Iranian civilian lives - including massacred schoolgirls - would have been sparred.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 16:55

"Lie To People Who Want To Be Lied To": How To Make A Political Fortune As A Far-Left Democrat

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 20:20:00 +0000

"Lie To People Who Want To Be Lied To": How To Make A Political Fortune As A Far-Left Democrat

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

A financial journalist once offered simple advice: “Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich…Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.”

That axiom appears to have been taken to heart by radical Democratic candidates who this week issued transparent denials of past outrageous comments. Their calculus is clearly that the last thing that voters want to hear is the truth about their past views.

Certain cultural touchstones are considered inviolate in some states, such as beef in Texas.

In 2022, Talarico said he was reducing his meat consumption as part of climate-related efforts.

Texas Democratic Senatorial candidate James Talarico was roasted after a video surfaced of his calling to reduce meat consumption and “I am proud to say that our campaign has officially become a non-meat campaign. We are only buying vegan products from our local vegan businesses.”

The backlash was so great that Talarico has been eating whole cows to prove that he is not all-hat and no cattle.

Obviously, lying about your positions is hardly a phenonmon confirmed to the far left.

Many Republican candidates have also made painfully transparent pivots. However, the spins this week threaten to knock the planet off its axis.

In Wisconsin, Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong seems to be coasting to a primary win despite radical views such as defunding police.

In an episode of “Pod Save America,” Hong was asked about her 2020 statements declaring “police exist to uphold white supremacy” and “I support defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police.”

Hong responded with a convoluted spin:

“My views have only become stronger in that I’m serious about public safety and I will not abolish the police.”

Hong’s views on Thanksgiving takes the axiom to a whole new level. Hong previously stated:

“Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621. If it takes a worldwide pandemic for us to realize we should stop celebrating colonialism and the original superspreader event that killed Indigenous folx and women so be it.”

That did not go over well in Wisconsin, only slightly better than coming out against cheese.

Hong did not deny her 2021 statement for weeks, including when confronted on CNN by host Kaitlan Collins. Asked directly if she still hated Thanksgiving, Hong seemed to morph into Chauncy Gardner from Being There with her now much-ridiculed “I’m a chef” response, stating that, as a chef, she works to “bring more people to the table.”

Hong seemed to morph into Chauncey Gardner from Being There in offering non-sequiturs of being a “very serious gardener.”

When that interview fell flat, Hong decided to lie and claim that she was just joking in 2021 and “loves” Thanksgiving, her now “favorite holiday.”

No one reading her quote or her later interviews would believe that it was a joke. It was not a joke for weeks until her responses became a joke.

Abdul El-Sayed skipped the transitional period and went straight to the lie in his controversy this week when a video surfaced of his saying how he hates the iconic Mackinac Island.

Growing up in Chicago, one of my favorite things was to go with my family to the island, which is the quintessential small American town. I actually have never met anyone who hated Mackinac Island…until now.

In the video, El-Sayed states “I hate Mackinac so much. It’s funny cause, like, if we win, this is gonna be, like, the summer home. Every time I’ve ever come here I’ve hated it.”

El-Sayed was clearly informed that declaring that you despise the most popular tourist location in Michigan is not a vote getter. So, El-Sayed simply told his supporters what they wanted to hear: you cannot believe your lying eyes and ears.

His campaign issued a bizarre statement that sought to turn the controversial into his being opposed to the elite and privileged class, saying that he was actually Mackinac Policy Conference which is simply an annual nonpartisan forum for public policy discussions.

El-Sayed claims that he was referring to conference as being like a summer home for governors. He maintains that he was referring to a conference as the entire island.

El-Sayed knows that it does not matter. He could have claimed that he was referring to hating Mackinac Island Pizza Company. It does not matter. His supporters do not want the baggage and he simply needed to unload it

With the election in November, the next predictable step will be for Hong to join El-Sayed on Mackinac Island for a public Thanksgiving dinner. Talarico will be on hand to carve the bird with enthusiasm.

The real problem is that these individuals spent years throwing red meat (or, in the case of Talarico, tofu) to the far left. These statements were not considered extreme or controversial until they found themselves speaking to a wider audience. Then they sounded just crazy.

Moreover, some lies are unlikely to register with voters who may prefer to live in delusion. The fact that the Mamdani markets will ultimately sell the most expensive produce in New York is an inconvenient fact that is best ignored.

The model for far-left politicians appears to be Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger who ran as a moderate and then governed from the far left. Spanberger, for example, pledged not to gerrymander districts to eliminate all Republican districts and then immediately moved to do so. Many voters likely did not believe her on gerrymandering, taxes, or other broken pledges before the election. They just needed her to say it. So, you might have to visit Mackinac or feign enjoyment at Thanksgiving or barbeques for a few weeks. Then you can do a Spanberger.

Abraham Lincoln may have said “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

However, the fact is that you do not have to fool all of the people all of the time, just enough to win over the course of a few weeks.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 16:20

Senate Moves Major Crypto Regulation Bill Toward Vote

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 19:10:00 +0000

Senate Moves Major Crypto Regulation Bill Toward Vote

Authored by Tom Gantert via The Epoch Times,

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) took a procedural step Saturday to bring the CLARITY Act to the Senate floor, setting up a vote on whether to consider the bill when lawmakers return from their August recess.

The CLARITY Act would establish a federal regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and other digital assets, spelling out how the industry would be regulated and which federal agencies would have authority over different types of assets.

The legislation would divide oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, creating a distinction between digital assets that are considered securities and those treated as commodities. Supporters say the change would replace what they describe as the SEC’s previous “regulation-by-enforcement” approach with clearer rules for the industry.

The bill would also require certain digital asset offerings and sales to provide investors with specific public disclosures. It would create a new exemption from SEC registration, called “Regulation Crypto,” allowing qualifying digital asset projects to raise money from the public while complying with specific disclosure and regulatory requirements.

Other provisions are intended to prevent companies from structuring projects to evade securities laws and would restrict insiders from reselling assets in ways that could facilitate pump-and-dump schemes or market manipulation. The legislation would also provide legal certainty for digital assets that U.S. courts have already determined are not securities.

Senate Banking Digital Assets Subcommittee Chair Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) said in late July that she supported the legislation.

“This is another step in my years-long journey to ensure the U.S. leads the way on digital assets,” Lummis said in a press release.

“The U.S. has always been at the forefront of financial innovation, and the coming weeks are likely the last real chance we will have for years to get this right.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is among the lawmakers opposing the bill.

“Our job is not to advance a pro-industry crypto bill that will put American consumers, investors, our national security and our financial system at risk,” Warren said in a statement in May.

Warren said Congress should be working on kitchen-table issues, such as capping interest rates on credit cards and preventing big banks from charging overdraft fees.

“But, instead of that, we’re spending our time working on a bill written by the crypto industry for the crypto industry. Nothing made it into this bill that wasn’t approved by the crypto industry,” Warren said.

President Donald Trump supports the bill and has urged the Senate to pass it in honor of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has supported various pro-crypto efforts on Capitol Hill.

Trump said in July that China and other countries aim to “take complete and total control of the major financial ‘happening'” and artificial intelligence.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 15:10

Drug Kingpin Gets Life After 3-Year-Old Found With Backpack Full Of Drugs

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 18:35:00 +0000

Drug Kingpin Gets Life After 3-Year-Old Found With Backpack Full Of Drugs

A decade-long drug empire that prosecutors say pumped cocaine and fentanyl through Mobile has ended with its alleged mastermind headed to federal prison for the rest of his life, according to WSFA.

McGee, 42, received life sentences after being convicted of running a large-scale narcotics operation involving drugs, firearms and minors. U.S. District Judge Terry Moorer also imposed another life term stemming from fraud against the IRS and Small Business Administration, along with a $10 million fine.

The government portrayed McGee as far more than a street-level dealer. Prosecutors said his organization moved enormous quantities of cocaine over the years, including drugs obtained through suppliers connected to Mexican cartels. Evidence presented at trial convinced Moorer that the operation exceeded 450 kilograms of cocaine, an important threshold under federal sentencing guidelines.

Money was apparently pouring in as well. McGee reportedly acknowledged making roughly $120,000 in monthly profit, while financial investigators uncovered millions of dollars that could not be explained by his reported legitimate income. During one period, accountants found approximately $4.4 million in additional earnings beyond the $436,000 he officially reported.

Investigators were able to document much of the operation through an extensive surveillance campaign. Cameras secretly recorded activity around a house connected to McGee's family, while another court-authorized camera was installed inside his Cadillac Escalade. The resulting footage became a major component of the government's case.

But the money and drug quantities were overshadowed at sentencing by allegations that children were pulled into the operation.

The report writes that during a law enforcement raid on a Mobile stash house, agents encountered a 3-year-old boy carrying a backpack containing drugs. Prosecutors said McGee had learned authorities were approaching and efforts were made to get evidence out of the house before they arrived.

When officers confronted the frightened child, prosecutors said he responded with four words: “I’m not a bad boy.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney George May called what happened “just a horrifying scene.”

The government also presented evidence involving an 8-year-old boy. Prosecutors said a recorded conversation showed McGee discussing having the child throw a backpack containing drugs over a fence ahead of police arrival.

McGee disputed that accusation.

“I never instructed a child,” he told the court. The January verdict found McGee guilty of operating a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to distribute cocaine and fentanyl, multiple firearms offenses and involving people under 18 in drug activity.

Prosecutors also argued that this was hardly McGee's first trip through the federal criminal justice system. Investigators believe he resumed trafficking not long after leaving federal prison following an earlier drug conviction. At Friday's hearing, McGee challenged a number of the government's assertions but did not present character witnesses or make a substantial plea for a lighter punishment.

Judge Moorer indicated that the severity of the sentence went well beyond a mechanical calculation under federal guidelines. Even if life imprisonment had not been recommended, he suggested he would have arrived at the same result. “If every federal judge, including myself, was arbitrarily limited to imposing a life sentence in only three cases, I would impose it in your case,” Moorer said.

The punishment also extended deep into McGee's family. His wife, Echandza Dianca Maxie, was sentenced to life for participating in the drug and firearms conspiracy. His sister-in-law, Edeszann Dailene Maxie, received 13 years and three months for her involvement in the fraud operation.

Outside the courthouse, U.S. Attorney Sean Costello said the combination of narcotics, weapons, violence and financial crimes justified the government's request for life imprisonment. He characterized McGee as the head of a Mobile crime family and said South Alabama's streets were now “much, much safer.”

McGee's next fight will be in the appellate courts, where his lawyers are expected to challenge both his convictions and sentence.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 14:35

Rich-Kid Mamdani Ally Wants To "Abolish Rent"; Could Hawley Reform Bill Stop College Indoctrination?

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 18:35:00 +0000

Rich-Kid Mamdani Ally Wants To "Abolish Rent"; Could Hawley Reform Bill Stop College Indoctrination?

Tracy Rosenthal, co-founder of the Los Angeles Tenants Union, has emerged as an influential far-left star in the Democratic Socialists of America's tenant-organizing 'squatting' movement, promoting rent strikes and aggressive pressure campaigns to bankrupt landlords.

While the article focuses largely on New York City, Rosenthal’s influence extends far beyond it. She has built an entire career around this work, speaking at conferences and appearing as a media expert. The clips I used of her actually come from a talk she gave to Asheville DSA. pic.twitter.com/2LGiDzVYNG
— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) August 3, 2026

In this clip posted on X by Stu Smith, investigative analyst at the Manhattan Institute, Rosenthal stated that tenants pay rent "at the barrel of a gun." She explained how "Living on rent strike - right - getting to experience having your housing without having to pay for it is one of those liberatory visions of home."

🚨 Meet the “Abolish Rent” Ideologue Teaching DSA Tenant Organizers How to Wage War on Landlords

Tracy Rosenthal co-founded the Los Angeles Tenants Union, helps politically educate DSA tenant organizers, and is currently on rent strike in New York City.

In this supercut,… pic.twitter.com/0fw5wi30rt
— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) July 17, 2026

The problem with Rosenthal's revolutionary crusade to collapse capitalism is that she treats rent strikes, and the broader effort to destroy the nation from within, almost as a game, even though the financial fallout affects actual working-class tenants, property owners, lenders, and working-poor communities.

Her view that this is all a game is even more striking given New York Post reporting that she was raised in a super-wealthy household in a multimillion-dollar Manhattan apartment and is the daughter of four-time Grammy-winning studio owner Steven Rosenthal.

Rosenthal showing off her White privilege at the Grammys with her rich father and stepmother.

In other words, the very privilege created by the capitalist system she seeks to destroy has insulated her from terrible life decisions. She appears to be little more than a lonely cat woman and an unhinged white liberal "Karen" who hates the West, probably because she went to some liberal arts school and was handed an unproductive, woke degree that many companies today see merely as a liability.

She is also likely representative of many DSA members who, as they watch capitalism progress this summer. Spacex's IPO mints thousands of new millionaires, including working-class welders, and they see their jealousy boil over as they confront the reality that their decision to pursue far-left activism has led them down a sad and angry path, one full of hate and, as the far-left is known for, violence.

Rosenthal's 2024 book "Abolish Rent" has been a top read on the DSA's own website.

But hey, she is one of DSA’s recommended authors on “housing justice,” not a manipulative activist weaponizing laws and protections meant to help vulnerable tenants. pic.twitter.com/0uWgbxNYTR
— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) July 17, 2026

Rosenthal, who posted "death to America" the night Mamdani clinched the Democratic primary last year and now serves as a visiting scholar at the woke CUNY, has already put some of these rent strikes into practice.

Meet another of Mamdani's housing experts...

Mamdani housing event features a lady in a mask ranting about her landlord, declaring "eviction = violence" pic.twitter.com/el709Zzf88
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 16, 2026

It's time to recognize that Rosenthal, like much of the DSA activist class, is arguably a byproduct of an education system hijacked by the radical left that has purposely oversupplied the country with worthless woke degrees.

The result is a growing revolutionary cohort increasingly detached from economic realities that have one mission, and it's not affordability, climate, anti-data centers, Palestine, or any of the lefty causes; it's to destroy the nation from within - we're merely citing DSA leaders in their own words ...

Hawley's Solution

If policymakers actually want to dismantle the cancer killing the education system and producing this far-left activist class, perhaps forcing schools to have an economic interest in student outcomes will result in less wokes? Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced a bill in 2022 - the Make the Universities Pay Act, that would allow federal student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy after a certain period, but pair that relief with a clawback requiring universities that pushed these worthless and toxic degrees to absorb at least half of every covered loan that is ultimately discharged.

Such a mechanism would fundamentally change the economics of higher education overnight. Schools - with their massively inflated tuition - who produce graduates that are unable to generate enough income to repay their debts, would suddenly bear a direct financial cost for those outcomes. This would impose accountability, forcing schools to prioritize productive and demanding degrees instead of worthless woke degrees.

In other words, it's time to impose accountability on schools that push worthless degrees. Such a move could be the ultimate death blow to many universities with weak balance sheets, high debt loads, and small endowments.

Lawmakers should read more about how to break the cycle of bad ideas via U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.): New Legislation to Hold Universities Accountable for Rising Tuition Costs and Student Debt.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 14:35

Seattle Mayor Targets 'Surveillance Pricing' At Grocery Stores

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 17:25:00 +0000

Seattle Mayor Targets 'Surveillance Pricing' At Grocery Stores

Seattle leaders are moving forward with a first-of-its-kind proposal aimed at preventing grocery retailers from using consumers' personal data to charge different prices for the same products.

The ordinance, backed by Mayor Katie Wilson and City Councilmembers Alexis Mercedes Rinck and Dionne Foster, would prohibit large grocery chains from using information such as browsing history, social media activity, employment status, race, gender, or chatbot interactions to personalize prices, according to Wilson's website.

Instead, retailers would be required to publicly display uniform prices while still allowing traditional discounts for seniors, veterans, loyalty programs, and other transparent promotions.

"This policy stops corporations from using personal data to squeeze more money out of shoppers," Wilson said. "The same product, in the same store, should cost the same no matter who's pushing the cart."

The announcement on Wilson's site says that the measure is designed to curb AI-driven price discrimination as grocery costs continue to rise. The proposal follows a Consumer Reports investigation that found Instacart tested AI pricing systems that charged different customers different prices for identical grocery items. It also comes after Washington's attorney general sued Albertsons over allegedly misleading "buy one, get one" promotions that did not actually reduce prices.

Councilmember Rinck argued the legislation would establish "guardrails" around how retailers use customer data, particularly as many households face higher food costs and reduced SNAP benefits. Foster added that consumers "shouldn't have to wonder whether they're being charged extra because of an algorithm."

Labor and privacy advocates also praised the proposal. UFCW 3000 President Faye Guenther accused grocery companies of pursuing "AI-powered surveillance pricing tech" to create "fake discounts," while privacy advocates said the ordinance would help prevent algorithmic price discrimination before the practice becomes widespread.

If approved, Seattle would become the first U.S. city to adopt rules specifically banning the use of sensitive personal data to set individualized grocery prices.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 13:25

UK Police Literally Have An 'Elite Squad' To Flag Spicy Social Media Posts...

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 16:50:00 +0000

UK Police Literally Have An 'Elite Squad' To Flag Spicy Social Media Posts...

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Britain's latest free speech assault is underway.

An elite police unit set up by the Labour government has already flagged more than 100 social media posts to local forces, monitoring online "protest related activity" in a move critics brand a sinister step toward state control of speech.

The National Internet Intelligence Investigations team, created in the wake of the 2024 Southport riots, began operations in February. Freedom of Information figures obtained by the Telegraph and reported today show it has made 106 referrals of "suspicious" posts to forces across the country.

An elite police squad which was set up to monitor social media in the wake of the Southport riots has flagged more than 100 posts to local forces.

Political opponents have described the squad as "sinister" and said it represents a further erosion of free speech and civil... pic.twitter.com/g8YGewbIVn
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) August 8, 2026

In June alone, 50 of those referrals came as public anger boiled over in Southampton after police bodycam footage exposed officers handcuffing dying teenage murder victim Henry Nowak while accepting a false complaint of 'racism' from his Sikh killer.

When the unit was first announced, then policing minister Dame Diana Johnson described it as "a dedicated function at a national level for exploiting internet intelligence to help local forces manage public safety threats and risks."

New elite unit flags more than 100 social media posts to police forces as free speech fears grow https://t.co/DB5IhBmZVu
— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) August 8, 2026

The National Police Coordination Centre claims the squad "supports policing's understanding of protest-related activity in the online environment by developing a broader picture of emerging, potential risks."

Its remit, officials say, focuses on "providing strategic insight and improving awareness of protest-related developments that may have relevance to policing."

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage commented "This is the beginning of the state controlling free speech. It is sinister, dangerous and must be fought."

Police have refused to disclose which posts were flagged, citing exemptions around crime prevention. The pattern is clear enough. The unit was born from the Southport disorder that followed the murders of three girls by Axel Rudakubana.

In the information vacuum, online discussion of the attacker's background and wider immigration failures was blamed for fanning unrest. Now the same apparatus is trained on any online activity that might signal public discontent with official narratives.

This new monitoring squad slots neatly alongside the Home Office's long-running Research, Information and Communications Unit - RICU - a shadowy "thought police" operation exposed for controlling the mass migration narrative. That unit has intervened after migrant attacks, including the Henry Nowak murder, to shape family statements, briefed police to portray protesters as unsympathetic thugs rather than citizens with grievances, and treated online criticism of immigration policy as a threat requiring behavioural change.

It also sits on top of a growing machinery of digital control that has already turned Britain into a global outlier for speech arrests.

In 2024 alone, nearly 10,000 people were arrested for "grossly offensive" social media posts under communications laws - an average of 30 arrests a day. Some forces clocked rates 20 times higher than others.

Violent offenders were released early to free up cells for those jailed over online comments.

The machinery has been building for years. In 2024, a man was arrested simply for posting "anti-establishment rhetoric" after the riots. Authorities prioritised thought crime over street crime, even as prisons filled with people whose only offence was typing the wrong words.

The Online Safety Act handed regulators sweeping powers to force platforms to remove "harmful" content under threat of massive fines.

Critics called it a censor's charter from the start. Government units that once hunted lockdown dissenters pivoted to monitoring mass migration critics.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan openly called for a dedicated government social media disinformation unit.

The trajectory is consistent: expand the definition of threat, then expand the surveillance.

Layer on mandatory digital ID and biometric tracking, age verification systems that end online anonymity, and proposals that treat social media access itself as a privilege granted by the state.

What begins as "protecting the public from protest risks" becomes a permanent apparatus for mapping, flagging, and suppressing dissent.

Authoritarianism does not need tanks in the streets. It arrives with a login and a national internet intelligence team.

The 106 flagged posts are not the end. They are the proof of concept. An elite unit now sits at the centre of British policing with a mandate to scan the public conversation for signs of discontent and feed those findings to local forces.

The official language is careful. The practical effect is a standing capability to treat online speech as a public order threat.

Free expression does not survive that environment for long.

The only question left is how many more posts, how many more referrals, and how many more arrests will be required before the public refuses to accept the new normal.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 12:50

Lake Mead Hits Lowest Level On Record Amid Decade-Long Western Drought

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 16:15:00 +0000

Lake Mead Hits Lowest Level On Record Amid Decade-Long Western Drought

Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir by storage capacity, has fallen to its lowest level on record as a drought throughout western states continues.

Bureau of Reclamation data indicate that the reservoir’s surface elevation rose to 1,040.50 feet above sea level on Thursday, below the previous low of 1,040.58 feet set in July 2022, when the lake first fell to a low following years of drought.

Hoover Dam forms Lake Mead along the Colorado River on the Nevada-Arizona border, and holds water for approximately 40 million people in seven Western states, as well as parts of Mexico. In addition, Lake Mead generates hydropower for customers in California, Arizona, and Nevada, which is threatened by the falling water levels.

As Kimberley Hayek reports for The Epoch Times, the Colorado River Basin has been in a so-called megadrought for more than 20 years.

In 1999, Lake Mead was near capacity, but by 2022 its surface had fallen by nearly 176 feet after a period that is the driest on record throughout many parts of the West.

Southern Nevada gets nearly 90 percent of its water from Lake Mead, and the Southern Nevada Water Authority has long viewed the Colorado River allotment as its largest and most critical resource, leading to conservation efforts over the years that have slashed per-person use going back to the early 2000s, and nearly all indoor water is recycled.

When Lake Mead first fell below 1,075 feet in 2021, federal officials declared a Level 1 shortage, and further declines prompted deeper cuts. Nevada’s share of the river has fallen by billions of gallons over the course of several years.

Hoover Dam also produces thousands of gigawatt-hours of electricity annually.

At Glen Canyon Dam on Lake Powell, Lake Mead’s companion reservoir, the level was 3,521 feet on Thursday, down nearly 33 feet from a year ago.

Electricity production becomes infeasible once the surface falls to 3,490 feet and below.

Both lakes still operate despite being well below the elevation levels needed for reliable power and storage.

Population growth has also added to the pressure.

Nevada ranked near the top of states for growth in recent years, and Southern Nevada is home to approximately 70 percent of the state’s residents.

Lake Mead National Recreation Area attracts millions of visitors each year for a range of activities, including boating, fishing and hiking.

Low water has exposed once submerged features, such as the ruins of the town of St. Thomas. There is also a World War II-era B-29 bomber that was submerged in the lake after crashing almost 70 years ago.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 12:15

The Democrat Embrace Of Islamo-Socialism Is Party Suicide

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 15:40:00 +0000

The Democrat Embrace Of Islamo-Socialism Is Party Suicide

Authored by David Sultzer via AmericanThinker.com,

The Democrat party leadership—sensing its mortal danger from a very well-organized and radicalized Islamo-socialist movement—is trying to stay afloat, claiming that the Democrat Party is a “big tent” where the socialists can find a welcome home:

Senator Chuck Schumer thinks Democrat Socialists — who want to oust him as Leader — make the Democrat party stronger.

REPORTER: “Is the rise of the DSA good for your party?"

SCHUMER: “Being a big tent party is a strength not a weakness.” pic.twitter.com/17hSbCbtMx
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 4, 2026

But ironically, as the “big tent” expands, the number of constituencies inside the tent shrinks.

The traditional power bases of the Democrat party, the working class and minorities, are not part of the Islamo-socialist movement. Instead, the “socialist” part is comprised almost uniformly of downwardly mobile, white college-credentialed losers.

CNN: Abdul El-Sayed won 0 of the 15 counties with the lowest share of adults with college degrees, but 13 of the 15 counties with the highest share.

"El-Sayed's support came dramatically from those areas... More from elite circles than from the working class circles." pic.twitter.com/rY2VqhRixN
— Bobby LaValley (@Bobby_LaVallley) August 6, 2026

All members of the Democrat leadership, without exception, can see the danger to them from the Islamo-socialist movement, as well as the danger to their traditional constituencies—and, for that matter, to our constitutional experiment now 250 years old. Most, as epitomized by Chuck Schumer, are willing to sacrifice the country and appease the Islamo-socialist crocodile, hoping it will eat them last.

Others, such as Julian Epstein, writing today at the NY Post, are sounding all the alarm bells, namely, that such appeasement is not merely “a recipe for moral decay,” but “for political suicide” as well:

Democrats aren’t coddling Scandinavian-style socialists; they’re getting into bed with a nihilistic, deconstructionist brand of third-worldism.

It’s an ideology that seeks the elimination of prisons, policing, borders, the Senate, the presidency, the Supreme Court and democratic free markets.

A worldview that aligns with genocidal jihadist movements like Hamas.

This is, Epstein says, fracturing the party “as working-class voters flee an increasingly toxic Democratic brand [and] the party’s newfound embrace of anti-American extremists is likely to produce big losses nationally...”

Moreover, as to the socialist dreams of Bernie Sanders, Epstein criticizes it as a “delusion that attaches no importance to generating wealth—and only cares about redistributing it.”

Epstein ultimately opines that the rise of the Islamo-socialist movement is part of a bigger problem for Democrats:

[T]hat post-modern liberalism is failing. The more we spend on the welfare state, it seems, the worse the outcomes.

It is a fascinating essay, well worth the read. And as Epstein concludes.

“Democrats can’t run from this lunacy in November.”

And naturally, Victor Davis Hanson gets it:

Victor Davis Hanson: The Unintelligent, Arrogant Democratic Socialists Are About to Receive a Reality Check: National Elections

Michigan's Democratic Senate primary became the most expensive Senate primary in the state's history.

Haley Stevens' loss to Abdul El-Sayed says a… pic.twitter.com/9A8W2qACIR
— Daily Signal (@DailySignal) August 7, 2026

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 11:40

Apple Tests Chinese Memory Chips As Supply Crunch Pushes PC Giants Toward CXMT

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 15:05:00 +0000

Apple Tests Chinese Memory Chips As Supply Crunch Pushes PC Giants Toward CXMT

After months of lobbying the Trump administration for clearance to purchase Chinese memory chips, Apple appears to be nearing the point where it can tap China's domestic chip market. The push follows what the iPhone maker has described as "unsustainable" pricing from the memory "cartel," namely SK Hynix, Samsung, Micron, and SanDisk, whose production has been soaked up by unprecedented demand from hyperscalers.

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday morning that Apple is closer than ever to using memory chips from CXMT, a Chinese company that the Pentagon has put on a blacklist because of alleged connections to the People's Liberation Army.

Apple is currently testing CXMT memory chips across its product portfolio, including iPhones and MacBooks, according to the report.

The report continued:

Apple has held early talks with CXMT about supplying components with the goal of using them in some devices sold in China, the people said. Apple hopes to win the White House's blessing to do business with the Chinese company.

Apple is raising prices on its products globally, blaming the rising cost of memory chips because of high demand from AI companies. Getting access to Chinese supplies could help the iPhone maker ease its crunch.

As we've covered, the iPhone maker has been waging a lobbying campaign to secure the White House's blessing in order to ease the financial pressure from soaring memory chip prices. A recent FT report said that Apple approached the Commerce Department earlier this summer about procuring Chinese memory chips.

Apple is not barred from buying chips from China's DDR giant CXMT or from YMTC, another Chinese memory chipmaker that focuses on NAND memory. YMTC has been aggressively growing its market share, has caught up with SanDisk, and is set to become the world's third-largest maker of flash memory as soon as this quarter.

However, US rules prevent Apple from ordering customized chips from CXMT but permit it to purchase off-the-shelf components and negotiate prices.

The WSJ noted that other device companies are seeking CXMT supplies:

Laptop makers HP and Acer have started using memory chips from CXMT in devices sold outside the U.S. to alleviate some of the memory supply strain, people familiar with the matter said.

We expanded on this last week:

World's Largest PC Makers Start Using Memory Chips From China's CXMT

Any agreement Apple inks with CXMT would risk immediate political resistance in Washington, where policymakers fear U.S. orders could strengthen CXMT. Its chip tech trails that of Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron, while its production capacity is largely committed for this year.

However, CXMT is rapidly gaining ground. Its second-quarter revenue increased more than eightfold from the same quarter one year ago, lifting its global DRAM market share to 7%. CXMT completed a successful IPO last month (read note).

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 11:05

UN Sounds Alarm As Iran Steps Up Executions To Silence Dissent

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 14:30:00 +0000

UN Sounds Alarm As Iran Steps Up Executions To Silence Dissent

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

The United Nations human rights chief has expressed alarm over a sharp increase in executions and death sentences in Iran, warning that authorities are using capital punishment to intimidate the population and suppress dissent.

“I am alarmed by the rise in executions and death sentences issued in Iran since March, and that capital punishment continues to be used to instill fear among the population and suppress dissent,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in an Aug. 5 statement. source

Türk said that since March 19, at least 56 people have been executed on national security-related charges, including 27 in cases connected to protests earlier this year.

More than 100 others face possible execution on similar charges, while executions for drug-related offenses are also continuing at what he described as an “alarming rate.”

He raised concerns about alleged torture, forced confessions, closed-door proceedings, and the rapid execution of some defendants following their arrests.

“Persistent lack of fair trial and due process guarantees are deeply troubling,” he said.

Confessions were allegedly obtained through torture and other forms of ill-treatment, while several executions were reportedly carried out in public. Some defendants were executed only weeks after being arrested, according to Türk.

In one case, 12 defendants were sentenced to death following a single closed-door hearing lasting three hours, he said.

Separately, an independent United Nations fact-finding mission in July urged Iran to halt the executions of 10 men who participated in protests in Isfahan. It also condemned the July 19 executions of two other men sentenced in the same case.

In a statement, the mission called on Iran “to immediately halt all executions, including those of individuals convicted in connection with the protests, and establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view to its abolition for all crimes.”

Protests and War

The increase in executions has unfolded since the United States and Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran in late February, following widespread anti-government protests in the country that began amid soaring inflation, economic hardship, and shortages.

The clampdown by the Iranian regime left thousands dead and thousands more detained, according to the United Nations, while Iranian authorities imposed an internet blackout that lasted for months.

Dr. Marjan Haghighi, an Iranian-Australian health professional and human rights advocate, said the increase appeared intended to discourage further opposition to the ruling regime in Iran in the wake of the January protests.

“Following those protests, I believe the authorities shifted from suppressing demonstrations in the streets to using executions to instill fear throughout society,” Haghighi told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

“Every new execution sends another message to society that dissent may carry the ultimate price,” she said.

Haghighi said Iran’s strict censorship makes independent reporting difficult and that many executions are never publicly announced.

“The true number of executions is significantly higher than what the world sees,” Haghighi said.

Iranian officials have previously rejected international criticism of the country’s human rights record while defending the use of capital punishment as lawful under Iranian law and necessary to protect public security.

Iran’s diplomatic mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

People wade in the water with cargo ships at anchor in the background, in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, on June 30, 2026. Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP

The surge in executions is taking place as the U.S.–Iran war is into its sixth month and Washington maintains military and economic pressure on Tehran.

President Donald Trump said on Aug. 6 that he believed the conflict would end soon, telling reporters that Iran could not sustain it much longer.

Trump said negotiations over reopening the Strait of Hormuz were progressing, although Iranian officials have denied that they are negotiating directly with Washington.

The United States has maintained its naval blockade of Iranian ports in order to compel Tehran to come to the table and agree to a negotiated settlement to the conflict.

Classicist and military historian Victor Davis Hanson said in recent commentary for The Epoch Times that Tehran appeared to be alternating between talks and attacks to delay a settlement and outlast the Trump administration politically.

Hanson opined that the shifting public negotiations obscured the mounting pressure inside Iran from the blockade, frozen assets, damaged infrastructure, and falling export revenue.

While critics contend that Washington risks becoming bogged down in a prolonged conflict, Hanson said the underlying conditions suggested that “Iran is running out of time.”

Trump has repeatedly said that months of U.S. strikes have decimated Iran’s military and that Tehran’s only remaining leverage is its ability to menace commercial shipping in Hormuz with naval mines and fast boats.

The U.S. president has threatened Iran with a vastly more intense and destructive wave of strikes if Tehran does not agree to a deal that would both reopen the strait and ensure that the regime never acquires nuclear weapons.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 10:30

Turkish FM Affirms Defense Pact With Pakistan, Saudi Arabia Is Same As NATO's Article 5

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 13:55:00 +0000

Turkish FM Affirms Defense Pact With Pakistan, Saudi Arabia Is Same As NATO's Article 5

World leaders have been reacting to the Friday signing of a major defense agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan in the Saudi city of Makkah among their heads of state. It seeks to strengthen joint deterrence and expanding defense cooperation, the Saudi Press Agency said.

As we reported, it essentially a NATO-style agreement for the 'Muslim world' - given that it stipulates and formalizes that an armed attack on any of the countries will be treated as an attack against all of them.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has on Saturday affirmed this in very clear terms - in case there were any doubts among pundits - describing that is indeed technically the same as NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense agreement.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, via Reuters

He told state Anadolu news agency that a committee of ministers similar to that within NATO would be formed to undergird the new alliance, with the establishment of general secretariat based in Saudi Arabia. This will be the tripartite pact's version of Brussels, it seems.

What's more is that "Egypt could potentially join the pact once certain technical matters are resolved," Fidan added.

Some are already seeing in this a kind of 'counter-Abraham accords' but which goes much further, given the military implications.

Will Washington ultimately back it and give its blessing?

Al Jazeera has provided the following commentary saying that the US will be okay with it so long as it does not become 'anti-Israeli' in its intent:

David Des Roches, an associate professor at the National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, has described the defence pact signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan as a good move that will be welcomed by the US.

“So long as it doesn’t metastasize into some sort of malign anti-Israel thing, which I think is a very remote possibility, I think it’s positive,” he told Al Jazeera.

The alliance would benefit from Turkiye and Pakistan’s robust defence industries, “a more advanced one in the case of Turkey, less advanced, more machine-age in the case of Pakistan”, he said.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, could help finance its two allies. “In both countries, the capacity exceeds their ability to pay for it, and they can’t really maintain national defence industries without a market,” said Des Roches.

The analyst added: "So there’s money, there’s markets, and there’s the possibility for advanced training and education. From an American perspective, if our partners have increased capacity, that's burden sharing. And that’s been the aim of successive American administrations since, really, the end of World War II."

But in the context of the US war on Iran, Iranian forces have attacked Saudi Arabia multiple times. If this happens again, would Pakistan and Turkey really directly intervene against Iran in an Article 5 fashion?

This scenario is highly doubtful, and Turkey and Iran even share a border which has long been fraught with tensions of its own, especially related to the Kurdish issue.

The USA claims to have made the agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey, and considers it as it's own achievement. https://t.co/1Ga9txAwGe
— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) August 8, 2026

One thing is certain: this is definitely a Saudi move away from the Abraham Accords which Trump has long pushed for and not toward it. Turkey and Pakistan want to see a clearer divide between Israel and the Saudis and so are only too happy to present it that way.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 09:55

Europe Bets Billions On North Africa's Clean Energy Potential

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 13:20:00 +0000

Europe Bets Billions On North Africa's Clean Energy Potential

Authored by Felicity Bradstock via OilPrice.com,

The EU’s T-MED initiative aims to mobilize billions of euros for renewable energy, hydrogen, clean technology, and electricity networks across the Mediterranean.
Morocco and Egypt are emerging as important partners as Europe invests in renewable generation, grid infrastructure, and potential subsea electricity connections.
Greater Mediterranean interconnection could give Europe access to abundant renewable resources while attracting investment and clean-energy jobs to North Africa.

Europe is deepening its ties with North Africa to develop stronger clean energy connections between the two regions in support of a green transition. The European Union and several European countries have invested in Morocco and Egypt in recent years to support renewable energy development in countries with favourable climate conditions for energy production. Over the coming decade, Europe and North Africa are expected to establish a stronger clean energy trade corridor that will help both regions decrease reliance on fossil fuels.

In June, the European Commission (EC) pledged almost $5.8 billion in renewable energy projects in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as part of its T-MED initiative, which it hopes will provide Europe’s grid with clean energy. The aim is to deploy solar panels in the Sahara Desert and wind turbines along the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean to produce clean energy in areas with optimal climate conditions. The electricity produced will be delivered to Europe’s grid via high-voltage transmission lines that run under the sea.

Much of Europe is already accelerating the expansion of domestic renewable energy capacity. However, investing in a region with more suitable weather conditions could help European countries transition away from fossil fuels even faster, to meet their electrification targets and climate pledges. The EC estimates that the MENA region has approximately 2,300 GW of renewable energy potential, which is over twice the EU’s current installed capacity. Solar and wind power can also be produced at between 30 and 40 per cent less cost than in Europe.

The hope is that the EU financing will encourage private funding of up to $29 billion by 2035 to support the growth of the MENA region’s renewable energy industry. This includes the development of solar and wind power, hydrogen, and electricity grids. However, to fully exploit its renewable energy potential, the EC estimates that MENA will require almost $115 billion in investment.

The EC expects more governments, development banks, project developers, and private investors to see the value of investing in the region. Meanwhile, it will encourage countries across MENA to simplify permitting procedures, improve grid access, and strengthen regulatory frameworks to encourage investment.

The European Commissioner for Energy and Housing, Dan Jørgensen, emphasised the need to invest in green energy in the face of ongoing geopolitical challenges that have led to energy shortages and driven fuel prices up.

“The EU’s bill for fossil fuel imports has increased by over €47 billion in the past 100 days, but not a single molecule of energy in addition,” said Jørgensen.

“Our energy security must be based on electrified energy systems that are based on clean energy, modern grids and increased connectivity,” he added.

This echoes a broader movement to diversify energy production to improve energy security in several parts of the world.

The EC intends for the initiative to lead to the development of at least 15 GW of new renewable-energy capacity by 2035, as well as to support the creation of over 100,000 jobs. It will also deepen the energy relationship between Europe and the MENA region. This is not Europe’s first clean energy investment in North Africa, but it may be the most ambitious.

In 2019, the EU and European Investment Bank invested €106.5 million in the development of the Noor Ouarzazate solar power complex, a 580 MW power plant located around 10 km north-east of the city of Ouarzazate. The project is expected to reduce carbon emissions by around 760,000 tonnes a year.

In June, the EU announced plans to deepen ties with Egypt by providing a financing package of up to $794 million to upgrade and expand Egypt’s electricity network. The package consists of a $690 million loan from the European Investment Bank’s development arm, EIB Global, and up to $104 million in EC grants.

Meanwhile, Germany has launched a $30 billion project known as Sila Atlantik with Morocco to develop what would be the world's ‌longest intercontinental undersea power link. The aim is to connect Morocco and Germany via two high-voltage subsea cables to deliver up to 5 per cent of Germany’s annual electricity demand. However, the project has been delayed due to disagreements over structure and guarantees, Reuters reported in June.

If developed, the cables would stretch around 4,800 km and deliver up to 15 GW of solar and wind power from Morocco to Germany. The German firm Sila Atlantik was established to manage the project following the collapse of a similar proposed Morocco-U.K. renewable electricity link, known as Xlinks, in 2025.

The European Commission’s T-MED initiative is the latest and most ambitious plan to expand the MENA region’s renewable energy capacity and enhance clean energy trade between the two regions. It is expected to encourage high levels of private investment in the sector and support broader diversification aims to strengthen energy security across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 09:20

Fire Erupts At Saudi Aramco's Jazan Refinery As Iran-Backed Houthis Claim Drone Strike

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 12:45:00 +0000

Fire Erupts At Saudi Aramco's Jazan Refinery As Iran-Backed Houthis Claim Drone Strike

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Saudi Aramco's $21 billion Jazan refinery, located on Saudi Arabia's southwestern Red Sea coast, roughly 44 miles from the Yemeni border. The facility is strategically important because it allows Aramco to export refined products through the Red Sea without transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The attack also signals the growing vulnerability of Saudi energy assets in the region, where Houthi forces have repeatedly targeted them in recent weeks.

A Bloomberg report cites Saudi Arabia's Energy Ministry, which said a fire broke out early Sunday at the 400,000-barrel-a-day Jazan refinery before being extinguished.

The outlet continued:

No injuries were reported, the ministry said in a post on X, without providing details on the cause of the fire. Authorities "are completing necessary procedures to deal with the incident," it said. Yemen's Houthi rebel group subsequently claimed the attack, the group's military spokesperson said in a post, also on X.

Ariel Oseran of i24NEWS English reports:

The Houthis attacked the port of Mocha in western Yemen, causing several explosions and a large pillar of smoke. Earlier, the Houthis said they attacked a Saudi Aramco oil facility in Jazan.

The Houthis attacked the port of Mocha in western Yemen, causing several explosions and a large pillar of smoke. Earlier, the Houthis said they attacked a Saudi Aramco oil facility in Jazan. pic.twitter.com/oNm7ZLvami
— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) August 9, 2026

The Jazan incident comes as U.S. and Iran are going back and forth in an effort to ink a peace deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears to back the Iran-Oman deal to open the critical maritime chokepoint, with President Trump and his officials remaining surprisingly quiet even as it has emerged that the deal outline is wholly favorable to Tehran's conditions.

Any agreement to reopen the narrow waterway will require approval from Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, potentially delaying an announcement as officials struggle to reach him, according to Bloomberg.

Iran Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei says he met with President Masoud Pezeshkian to discuss economic conditions and the war. Maybe it’s random, but the first item mentioned in the read out is “the provision of the people's livelihood needs.”

The meeting follows significant…
— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) August 9, 2026

"The opening of the Strait is subject to other conditions, including the compensation for the US's violations of the Islamabad Agreement," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday. He was referring to the now-collapsed memorandum of understanding signed in June.

Catch up with Saturday's US-Iran news flow:

Sunday morning data from Bloomberg show vessel crossings through the Hormuz chokepoint are still at ultra-low levels.

Brent crude futures closed Friday at $83.55 a barrel, bouncing off the $80 level.

Latest US-Iran Headlines (courtesy of Bloomberg):

Hormuz Deal Status

Iran says it is "very close" to a deal with Oman on a temporary maritime transit route through the Strait of Hormuz, but any agreement would not immediately reopen the waterway.
Iran's conditions for reopening the strait include compensation for U.S. violations of the Islamabad Agreement, lifting sanctions, and billions of dollars in war damages, according to U.S. officials.
Iran is also reportedly demanding that U.S. Navy warships be barred from passing through the Strait of Hormuz as part of any reopening agreement, reflecting the influence of IRGC hardliners.
Oman has called for a halt to attacks on ships in the strait, saying they violate sovereignty, while describing negotiations as progressing in a "positive and constructive atmosphere."

Iran-US Talks

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday that direct talks with the U.S. are currently impossible, citing U.S. violations of the June Memorandum of Understanding.
Iran says it is currently only exchanging messages with the U.S. through intermediaries, with some countries trying to reestablish grounds for negotiations.
Trump had been laying the groundwork to declare victory if Iran fully reopened the strait, even floating the idea of walking away without a nuclear deal, but Iran's escalating demands have complicated that objective, according to U.S. officials.
Vice President JD Vance said the U.S. is "in the middle of the game" with Iran, using diplomatic, economic, and military tools, and expressed confidence in reaching a good outcome.

Iran's Politics

Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei met with President Pezeshkian on Sunday for "detailed discussions" covering livelihoods, war conditions, military developments, and economic interactions. Khamenei has not been seen in public since the war began.
Mohsen Rezaee, a military adviser to Khamenei and former IRGC commander, has been appointed as Khamenei's representative on Iran's Supreme National Security Council, according to TSNA.
Hardline factions within Iran, including IRGC leaders and clerics, are reportedly pushing to keep Iran at war and block peace talks with the U.S.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 08:45

From "Designed Viruses" To "Digital Telepathy" – AI Panic Kicks Into Overdrive

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 12:10:00 +0000

From "Designed Viruses" To "Digital Telepathy" – AI Panic Kicks Into Overdrive

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

Two days ago, I wrote an article detailing the sudden rash of “rogue AI agents” allegedly besetting the tech community, and how that may be used to bring in new regulations, notionally targeting AI, but actually limiting or monitoring how ordinary people use the internet.

In the 48 hours since, that blatant fear-mongering has gone WILD.

Within a few hours of our original article being published, Meta joined the parade of “rogue AIs”, when Mark Zuckerberg “confirmed” one of their AI agents had left the play area and gone toddling off into the internet to do a little bit of hacking.

Then, this morning, Chinese AI company Moonshot reported their Kimi3 model had “escaped containment” [from Wired]:

THE AI INDUSTRY is having a rogue agent summer. The latest model to escape onto the open internet during security testing is Kimi K3, a powerful open-weight offering from the Chinese company Moonshot AI.

Bloomberg reports that hackers are using AI voice-cloning to steal from hedge funds. The Guardian says AI doctors are spreading medical misinformation.

The Independent is screaming:

Out-of-control AI systems are going rogue and hacking people. Is it time to panic?

And you know what? I think it just might be.

After all, rogue AIs hacking the planet are the least of it. That’s small fry already.

The New York Times is reporting that AI is now sequencing genomes and designing brand new viruses – biological viruses, not computer viruses – which will be used to treat diseases:

This A.I. Just Created Viruses Not Found in Nature – Scientists trained artificial intelligence on libraries of DNA and then asked the model to create recipes for viral genomes. Sixteen of them were viable, yielding new viruses.

But experts are warning – “warning” seems to be about 80% of what “experts” do – that this is potentially dangerous:

But experts have also warned AI-designed viruses raise “urgent” safety and security concerns.

This is painfully unsubtle propaganda, obviously hoping to play on both the Covid-inspired fear of viruses and trendy gain-of-function panic. A crossover episode, the Batman vs Superman of modern panic narratives.

In other scary AI-related news, an AI engineer with a twitter blue tick is leaving OpenAI to join Conduit, a tech start-up with the aim of creating an AI that can read people’s thoughts:

Naomi Bashkansky left OpenAI and joined Conduit to build models that turn non-invasive neural recordings into text prompts. She says a headband could decode rough intentions into AI coding prompts by 2027, with broader brain-to-AI milestones later.

I’m not sure why this is news at all, or what “non-invasive” mind-reading might look like, but since it’s probably not going to happen that doesn’t really matter.

The point is – believe EVERYTHING they tell you – and be afraid!

That’s what Geoffrey “Godfather of AI” Hinton thinks, according to the interview published by CNN yesterday:

“What’s happening is these things are getting smarter […] I think as they get smarter, we’re going to see more and more complex intentions they have – and more and more ability to escape control […] I don’t believe we’re going to be able to keep control of them in the simple way of just outthinking them so they can’t escape […] I anticipate there will be lots of nasty cyberattacks[.]”

Like I said, be afraid.

But what’s the endgame here? The answer to that seems to be “regulation”.

Regulating AI is suddenly all anyone wants to talk about.

Many want a global treaty to govern AI risk. California and New York may already be writing it.

That’s from Foreign Policy.

The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times all have similar things to say.

Bloomberg thinks we should treat AI like the airline industry.

Politicians across the spectrum of from the UK’s AI Minister to the Governor of Vermont are clamouring for regulation.

The United Nations University tells us:

You Can’t Regulate AI Without Fully Understanding It

Oh, and in case you were in any doubt about what you were supposed to think, Donald Trump has come out for AI and against regulating it, claiming AI will be “bigger than oil”, and warning that congress wants to “regulate AI out of business”.

Trump bad.

Trump like AI.

AI must be bad.

This is the simple moral math that swaths of the US have been conditioned into.

AI is scary and needs to be regulated, and if you don’t agree you’re just like Donald Trump. That’s the headline.

But what will this “regulation” look like?

That’s a good question. One I’m not sure anyone has an all-encompassing answer to quite yet.

There’s talk of “kill switches”. The Bank of England suggested them months ago, to prevent AI stock traders crashing the market, and Rep. Ted Lieu wants congress to pass a law requiring them by the end of the year.

Two liberal professors, writing for Project Syndicate, are here to tell us “the right way” to regulate AI, using paragraphs like this:

Addressing AI’s societal risks requires institutions designed to recognize and respond to emerging threats before they become systemic failures.

…and this:

These skewed priorities can be traced to the framing of AI development as a geopolitical race. But technological leadership means little if it comes at the expense of workers’ health, social resilience, and people’s ability to lead meaningful lives. A country that develops the world’s most capable AI models while leaving its workforce deskilled and its public discourse polluted by misinformation has not won anything worth winning.

Which give vibes over specifics, but I think suggests a very familiar marketing strategy and a vague policy direction.

This vagueness is largely intentional at this point.

First they want the public to beg them to do something. They can decide what the something is later.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 08:10

Europe Was Once Bigger Than The US Economy. What Happened?

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 11:35:00 +0000

Europe Was Once Bigger Than The US Economy. What Happened?

The United States and the European Union are the two largest Western economies of the 21st century.

Over the past two decades, however, their economic trajectories have diverged significantly.

This line chart below, via Visual Capitalist's Gabriel Cohen, tracks the gross domestic product (GDP) of the EU and U.S. economies from 2006 to 2026 using the latest figures available from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s World Economic Outlook. Figures for 2026 are forecasts.

The Early Rise and Fall of the EU

The 15-member European Union was established in 1993 from precursor organizations such as the European Communities. In 2004, 10 new member states joined, followed by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007.

Aided by the addition of these new member states, along with strong British and German economies, the EU’s total GDP reached $19.3 trillion in 2008. This represented 131% of the U.S. economy that year, which stood at $14.8 trillion. The euro also reached an all-time high in June 2008 at roughly $1.55.

The table below shows the size of the EU economy relative to the U.S. economy from 2006 to 2026.

Year	🇪🇺 EU GDP ($T)	🇺🇸 U.S. GDP ($T)	EU % of U.S. GDP
2006	15.27	13.82	110.5
2007	17.83	14.47	123.2
2008	19.27	14.77	130.5
2009	17.21	14.48	118.9
2010	17.09	15.05	113.6
2011	18.49	15.6	118.5
2012	17.40	16.25	107.1
2013	18.20	16.88	107.8
2014	18.86	17.61	107.1
2015	16.61	18.3	90.8
2016	16.70	18.8	88.8
2017	17.57	19.61	89.6
2018	19.00	20.66	92.0
2019	18.69	21.54	86.8
2020	15.49	21.38	72.5
2021	17.51	23.73	73.8
2022	17.04	26.05	65.4
2023	18.67	27.81	67.1
2024	19.50	29.3	66.6
2025	21.23	30.77	69.0
2026	23.03	32.38	71.1

The global financial crisis and Great Recession changed the European Union’s fortunes.

The newly expanded bloc faced severe challenges as several member-state governments struggled to service their debts or rein in large structural deficits. These countries included eurozone members Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain.

Through a combination of multilateral bailouts and austerity measures, the EU weathered the crisis. However, in the years that followed, the 28-member bloc’s aggregate GDP contracted, and the $18.3 trillion U.S. economy surpassed it in 2015.

Part of the decline in dollar-denominated GDP also reflected changes in exchange rates as the euro weakened against the U.S. dollar.

Brexit and the Years of Decline

Further challenges followed. In a June 2016 referendum, British voters narrowly chose to make the United Kingdom the first country to withdraw from the European Union. The Brexit process culminated in the UK’s formal withdrawal in January 2020.

Losing the UK dealt another blow to the EU’s aggregate economy. Although the country had never joined the eurozone, it was the EU’s second-largest member economy. Combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit helped push the bloc’s GDP down to $15.5 trillion in 2020, roughly where it had stood a decade earlier.

As the UK economy has struggled through much of the 2020s, some in London have begun to float the possibility of rejoining the EU. Other European countries, including Albania and Montenegro, remain potential future entrants to the bloc.

The Post-Pandemic Divergence

Since the pandemic, the U.S. and European Union have followed very different trajectories. Despite inflation and high interest rates, the U.S. economy rebounded strongly from COVID and is forecast to reach $32.4 trillion in 2026.

Meanwhile, the EU has faced a combination of rising Chinese industrial competition and an energy crisis stemming from Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. With economic heavyweight Germany facing protracted stagnation, the EU’s GDP is forecast to reach $23 trillion in 2026.

That leaves the EU economy at just 71% the size of the U.S. economy, a sharp reversal from its position in 2008. Exchange rates account for part of the shift, but weaker growth and a series of economic shocks have also contributed to the widening gap.

To explore what EU membership meant for one major economy, read Poland’s GDP per capita has more than doubled since it joined the European Union in 2004 on Voronoi.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 07:35

Iran's Mehr Releases Video Of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei For 'First Time' - Except It's Old

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 11:11:00 +0000

Iran's Mehr Releases Video Of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei For 'First Time' - Except It's Old

Update(2210ET): Iran's state Mehr has purported to release video of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei for the 'first time' since the start of the war, and since he was wounded in a US-Israeli airstrike in the opening days of the attacks of over five months ago. The state-released footage is titled "First Images of the Leader" - and shows the Ayatollah addressing students, after months of speculation over his status, or whether he is even alive. He has not been seen or heard from directly since the war began, amid conflicting reports and accounts. The video has no date or location given. It appears to be in response to recent Israeli media reports alleging his deteriorating health.

However, analysts - as well as social media users in Iran - were quick to identify the footage as old material from his past lectures in Qom. This has in turn resulted in accusations of a cover-up, and that Tehran is in damage control concerning his status. For example, one hawkish US-based think tank researcher and pundit, Jason Brodsky, has commented on the released footage as follows:

This footage is old, from before the war. It was first circulating in March. It's telling Iran's regime's Mehr News feels the need to circulate old video of Mojtaba.

Iran’s Mehr News released a video claiming to show Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei “for the first time,” with no date or location specified. The right side of his face cannot be seen in the footage. pic.twitter.com/JdKWU2Svy6
— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) August 8, 2026

Foreign press reports, including Russian and Chinese state channels, have been reporting the footage soon on the heels of Iranian state media circulating it...

#LATEST Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, appeared in a video recording of a lesson released by Mehr News Agency on August 8. pic.twitter.com/SjebyaGVm8
— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) August 8, 2026

Proof that it is actually archived footage and not in reality recent 'proof of life' imagery...

See here. Iranian media first started circulating it in March.https://t.co/mQae3nqjZp
— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) August 8, 2026

This is the Mehr story indicating the outlet is claiming to publish the images for the "first time" [translation]:

https://t.co/j8OfnYg64P
— وكالة مهر للأنباء (@mehrnewsarabic) August 8, 2026

* * *

In another sign of mounting pressure on President Trump to disengage the US armed forces from his failing, five-month war on Iran, America's top general has been carefully working with other Trump advisers to communicate that continued depletion of the Pentagon's arsenal is unlikely to alter Iran's stance, while escalation is likely to backfire, CNN reported on Friday evening, citing "sources familiar with the matter."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine has been using side conversations with cabinet officials -- including CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance -- to ensure they have a shared, clear picture of the military situation before they meet with Trump, CNN's sources say. Summing it up, one said, “Caine is looking for an off-ramp.”

In a July congressional hearing, Caine said "airpower has its limits." Nicknamed "Razin Caine," the general said to be reiterating that caution in his behind-the-scenes discussions with likeminded officials who think a major escalation of US attacks on Iran could cause disastrous fallout for the region and US interests.“There really isn’t much else to hit since it is whack-a-mole with drone and missile sites. Bombing power plants would be publicly a lot more significant," one source said. Others said hitting Iranian infrastructure would likely rally the country's citizens around the government -- even more than the war has done already

Last weekend, the US military seemed poised to carry out Trump's threat to unleash “the biggest attack since World War II," but he called it off, at least in part because of profound concerns raised by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Iran had promised to wreak havoc up and down the Gulf. “The only ones in favor of the operation were elements of CENTCOM,” said one source, referring to the Pentagon's Central Command, which is responsible for action in the Middle East. The source also pointed out that Israel also wants escalation of the war.

The U.S. Intelligence Community assessed this & consistently briefed it. Unfortunately, it was the Israeli government & their lobbyists who convinced the President that Iran would be as easy as Venezuela. https://t.co/C1Vw7L06OH
— Joe Kent (@joekent16jan19) August 7, 2026

“I think it is just his way of protecting the military,” a source said about Caine's cautionary campaign. In addition to squandering the lives of at least 18 US service members and wounding more than 600 more, the five-month Trump-Netanyahu war on Iran has severely depleted the US arsenal. Referring to Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), two sources this week told Reuters that "Washington has used virtually all of these weapons," further substantiating earlier media reports and think tank studies that sounded alarms over dwindling munitions. It's not just offensive weapons that are running out: Low air defense missile supplies are also of grave concern, particularly to Gulf states that would face what would likely be a devastating Iranian backlash to a major new US assault on Iran.

Earlier this year, one source criticized Caine for failing to pointedly counsel Trump on the pitfalls of taking on such a well-equipped and geologically-protected adversary. “He’s definitely pulling punches,” the source said then, adding that Caine was much more candid with fellow military officers than with his commander-in-chief. Now, Caine is apparently intensifying his approach. Though warning of the dwindling arsenal, Caine is said to have assured Trump that, if he does order a major escalation, the Pentagon could manage to cause plenty of destruction across Iran. However, it probably wouldn't put a crack in Iran's grip on the Strait of Hormuz, much less substantially affect the nuclear situation that was fraudulently advanced as the casus belli -- for decades:

🇮🇱 NEW: CNN compiled a series of clips showing Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu warning since 1996 that Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. pic.twitter.com/HSyWkoj6OB
— GBC (@GBC_Press) August 4, 2026

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 07:11

Turkey Restricts Black Sea Traffic As Drone Attacks On Commercial Vessels Spike

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Turkey Restricts Black Sea Traffic As Drone Attacks On Commercial Vessels Spike

Via The Cradle

Turkey has begun restricting commercial ship traffic into the Black Sea amid a surge in Russian and Ukrainian attacks on civilian vessels, Bloomberg reported Saturday.

Turkiye's Directorate General of Coastal Safety has informed several ships heading to Novorossiysk, an important Russian oil and grain export port, that it is not issuing transit permits at this time and requires more time to review passage applications through the Dardanelles.

via Reuters

The sources told Bloomberg that Turkish authorities had provided no explanation for the move. Some vessels have also reportedly been told that the restriction applies to ships heading to Ukraine.

The report comes after a series of drone attacks targeting Turkish commercial vessels operating in the Black Sea and near Russian ports in recent months.

On Friday, a Turkish-flagged vessel, the MV Gulluk, was struck by a drone off the Russian port of Novorossiysk. Although the drone hit the ship's living quarters, no crew members were reported injured or killed.

On August 3rd, the Ro-Ro cargo vessel Nadezhda was struck by a drone about 20 nautical miles off Novorossiysk while en route from the Russian port to Samsun. Three members of the ship's crew were injured and in serious condition after the attack. The same day, two civilian vessels, the Yasar and the Nadezhda, were attacked after leaving Novorossiysk.

In response, Turkiye's Foreign Minister issued a statement saying it was "deeply concerned about the escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine in the Black Sea, which is affecting civilian shipping despite our numerous warnings."

"Unless preventive measures are taken, the escalation in the Black Sea will have multifaceted negative repercussions, including for food security," the statement added.

Ukraine's targeting of ships in the Black Sea, as well as Russia's attacks on Ukrainian port infrastructure and vessels, have threatened grain exports from both countries, pushing wheat prices to a two-year high in July.

"Russia is the world's largest wheat exporter, and Ukraine is known as Europe's breadbasket, while mutual attacks between the two countries are putting pressure on maritime transport in the region during the harvest season," Anadolu Agency reported.

❗️Turkish sailors film the moment a group of Ukrainian “Shahed-like” kamikaze drones fly past before striking a Russian vessel in the Black Sea. pic.twitter.com/yLR7xB6dWf
— 🪖MilitaryNewsUA🇺🇦 (@front_ukrainian) August 8, 2026

Global food prices already spiked as a result of soaring energy prices following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf earlier this year. Iran closed the strait in response to the US-Israel war of aggression, disrupting oil and natural gas exports from the Gulf countries partnering with the US and Israel in the war.

Global fuel prices have also risen in response to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries. On Saturday, a Ukrainian drone targeted the Ilsky oil refinery in Russia's ‌southern Krasnodar region, causing it to catch fire.

Ukraine's general staff said the Ukrainian military also hit the Syzran oil refinery in the Samara region of Russia overnight, causing a fire there as well.

The Ilsky refinery can process over 6 million metric tons of oil per year, while the Syzran refinery has a processing capacity of 8.5 million tons annually.

In May, Reuters estimated that disruptions associated with the wars between the US and Iran and between Russia and Ukraine together had knocked out nearly 9 percent of global refining capacity.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 07:00

The Trojan Horse Inside Your Head: How Government Propaganda Is Quietly Dismantling Free Thought

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 03:20:00 +0000

The Trojan Horse Inside Your Head: How Government Propaganda Is Quietly Dismantling Free Thought

Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

Ignore the bureaucrats; listen to the free thinkers...

If the Trojan War were being fought today, the Greeks would not need to hide inside of a big, wooden horse and hope to be dragged inside Troy’s city gates. They’d simply disseminate all kinds of lies on social media and wait for the Trojan people to fight each other. Such is the power of corrosive ideas: They can destroy a civilization before its defenders understand that they are under attack.

Information warfare is the name of the game today. It exists all around us. Soundbites attack us from every phone, computer, tablet, and television screen. Succinct messages ripple through social media platforms until people from opposite sides of the world repeat the same words without knowing why.

The most powerful bits of information are the ones that sound unquestionably true. “Believe all women.” “Black lives matter.” “Build back better.” Their simplicity assists their deception. We certainly shouldn’t distrust women, right? Who wants to argue that black lives mean nothing? Surely nobody wishes to build something worse than it was before. People hear the soundbites, nod their heads, and repeat those words to their friends and neighbors. Some place signs in their yards with those three-word messages, as if they were brilliant expositions of fundamental truths.

Successful information warfare propagates ideas without triggering in those who receive the message any need for reflection. Like the Greeks’ wooden horse, the communication is hollow. It is intended to be just attractive enough that listeners drag the soundbite into their heads but sufficiently harmless in appearance to avoid real scrutiny. Great propaganda does not conquer by force. It seduces. It knocks on the door, smiles, and charms its way into unsuspecting minds. Then it waits — patiently — until the day arrives when it can do the most damage.

Effective propaganda, however, is inherently fragile. Should anyone take the time to reflect on those three-word messages above, their magic spells are broken. Once someone asks, “Don’t some women lie?” people remember that accusations matter less than evidentiary proof. Once a person is shouted down for saying, “All lives matter,” it becomes clear that “diversity” and “equity” have nothing to do with equality and justice. When anyone stops to ask, “What are we building, and why are we building it?” the World Economic Forum’s plans for a “new world order” stand naked and exposed.

In other words, thinking is the enemy of information warfare. Those who engage in its dark arts see independent thinkers as missile shields that must be eliminated. Reason and rational debate remain the most effective defenses against propaganda. People who ask questions build forts for society with their minds. The entrances to those forts are adorned with this sign: Come let us reason together.

Reasoned debate is not scary; on the contrary, it is the path upon which we walk toward enlightenment. It is why people who demand complianceshould never be trusted. Anyone who says, “The science is settled,” or, “Trust the experts,” seeks to deprive the listener not only of his capacity to reason but also of his prospect for salvation. When we forsake the mental gifts that God has given us, we hobble our potential for spiritual growth. Nobody has ever been redeemed for “just following orders.” A good life comes from good choices, and good choices come from faithful contemplation. In this way, attacks on free speech are attacks on our very souls.

When propagandists attack our souls from all directions, it is difficult to know who is waging war against us and why. But there are telltale signs. When groups and governments attempt to “cancel” individuals for their personal beliefs, they are waging war against individual conscience.

Sometimes acts of war are obvious, as when a British communist allegedly bludgeoned well-known conservative Ann Widdecombe to death with a hammer. Other times, information warfare is more subtle, as when the British government banned Christian and Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen from flying through London’s Heathrow Airport because she boldly defends the Bible’s prohibition against sexual sin, something that both Finland and the United Kingdom have now officially criminalized as “hate speech.” Along the same lines, the Polish government recently convicted a young, pregnant mother for the “crime” of speaking at a public rally against mass immigration. Found guilty of “inciting hatred,” Oliwia Olejniczak has received a harsher punishment for expressing her opinion than many illegal immigrants have for committing rape.

When governments abuse their criminal justice systems to persecute Christians and mothers concerned about their families’ safety, the signs are clear: Those governments are at war with their own people. When governments “cancel” citizens for their beliefs, politicians and bureaucrats identify for us which independent thinkers they most fear. As is written in the Gospel of Matthew (5:10), “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” When people stand up for moral truths — while bearing the brunt of their governments’ hatred — pay attention. Those people are building forts for society with their minds. Seek the shelter of those forts; then expand those forts to protect others. This is the way to defeat government propaganda.

Those who engage in information warfare have a propensity for projecting their crimes onto the innocent. This is why leftwing groups and governments accuse Christians of “hate speech,” while saying the most hateful things about Christians. It is also why governments and NGOs insist on categorizing citizens’ dissenting speech as “disinformation” or “misinformation,” when governments and NGOs manufacture false information on an industrial scale.

There has never been a time in human history when self-appointed public censors turned out to be the “good guys.” Communists, fascists, Nazis, and military dictators all believe in censoring public speech and rigging public debate. The globalists, socialists, collectivists, and other Big Government parasites that have infiltrated and seized most national governments today likewise believe in censorship and the criminalization of dissent. Information — whether true or false — does not belong to any one group of people. Oligarchies are not filled with angels; they are filled with sinful human beings.

We saw how evil oligarchies can be during the COVID lockdowns. Government bureaucrats and self-described “experts” told us explicitly, “Now is the time to do what you’re told.” Western governments committed unforgivable crimes against their citizens in the name of “science.” Australia rounded up people into “quarantine camps,” and we now know that pretend-President Joe Biden’s CDC was planning to do the same thing in the United States.

For eighty years, American schoolchildren have been taught that President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII was an unconscionable violation of Americans’ constitutional rights that could never be permitted to happen again. Yet it almost did happen again. The U.S. government was preparing to imprison Americans who refused experimental pharmaceutical injections or expressed unapproved speech. In January 2022, majorities of Democrats believed that “unvaccinated” Americans should be fined, locked in their homes, sent to quarantine camps, and imprisoned for questioning the effectiveness of the experimental injections. A third of Democrats believed that the government should remove children from homes with “unvaccinated” parents.

How did we get so close to completely destroying the Bill of Rights? Health bureaucrats and government authorities engaged in an all-out information war against the American people. They pushed lies into American homes just as the Greeks pushed a wooden horse into Troy. And their attack on the American people almost worked. Americans hated each other more than ever before and nearly tore each other to shreds. COVID was weaponized into the kind of irrational fear that destroys civilizations.

In the end, it was not the “experts” or government ministers who prevented Western civilization’s collapse. It was the people who saw through the propaganda and refused to submit to tyranny. The next time governments send a Trojan Horse, just light the damn thing on fire.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/08/2026 - 23:20

Diarrhea-Gate: One Sinaloa Farm, 345 Sick, And Two Restaurant Chains Down Double Digits

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 02:45:00 +0000

Diarrhea-Gate: One Sinaloa Farm, 345 Sick, And Two Restaurant Chains Down Double Digits

The FDA has finished tracing a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Javiana back to its source - a single grower in Sinaloa, Mexico, which entered the U.S. through Coast Citrus Distributors, a California importer that supplies restaurant customers.

In this file photo, a shopper checks the firmness of a fresh jalapeño pepper at a produce stand in Jackson, Miss., on Wednesday, July 15, 2015. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

The agency asked Coast Citrus to recall the product. The company says has done so, and is no longer buying from the grower.

The CDC has counted 345 confirmed infections in 27 states, including 36 hospitalizations and no deaths. Illnesses began between June 19 and July 20. The real number is likely higher: most people who get salmonella recover at home and are never tested.

The epidemiology was unusually clear. Whole-genome sequencing suggested the cases were coming from the same source, and restaurant histories pointed investigators in the same direction. Of 191 people interviewed, 177 - 93 percent - said they had eaten at a Mexican-style restaurant in the month ending July 14.

The restaurant chains, for their part, moved before the investigation became a national story. Chipotle changed jalapeño suppliers at affected restaurants on July 20. The company says its traceability system allowed it to identify the grower and lot involved, remove the peppers and replace them with product from other farms.

Qdoba took a broader approach and stopped serving jalapeños across the chain on July 28. Regulators now say neither chain represents a current ongoing risk.

Investors were less patient. Chipotle shares fell nearly 10% Tuesday and have kept sliding, closing Friday down almost 12% on the week. Sweetgreen, which uses jalapeños in only two of its fifteen dressings and removed them Thursday, fell 8% Friday and is down more than 16% on the week.

Of note, Sweetgreen had already seen July sales weaken amid concern over an unrelated cyclospora outbreak tied to iceberg lettuce - an ingredient the chain does not even serve. Once customers start worrying about contaminated produce, distinctions between one ingredient, one supplier and one restaurant brand tend to disappear quickly.

Mexican health authorities have opened a separate inquiry, meanwhile. Officials visited a packing facility this week in Nuevo Leon, which is in a different state from the grower identified by U.S. investigators.

FILE – The Chipotle logo is displayed at a store, Aug. 13, 2025, in Newton, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/08/2026 - 22:45

The Rarest Asset In A Fourth Turning: The Freedom To Act

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 02:10:00 +0000

The Rarest Asset In A Fourth Turning: The Freedom To Act

Authored by Chris Macintosh via InternationalMan.com,

The Fourth Turning does not end with a return to the prior equilibrium. It ends with a new order - better or worse, depending on which forces prevail in the decisive battles of the crisis era.

Those battles are being fought now, across domains: monetary (the BRICS challenge to dollar hegemony, the rise of non-dollar settlement, the emergence of digital currencies), geopolitical (the realignment of the Middle East, the unravelling of the post-Cold War security architecture), and epistemic (the collapse of institutional trust, the fragmentation of shared information environments, the re-emergence of heterodox analysis as a credible alternative to official consensus).

What distinguishes the people who navigate Fourth Turnings successfully is not superior prediction — the future is genuinely unknowable in its specifics — but superior optionality. They hold assets in multiple forms and jurisdictions. They maintain relationships across multiple networks. They retain the cognitive independence to update their models when evidence demands it. And they have not surrendered the most fundamental asset of all: the capacity to act on their own judgement.

Agency is what the propaganda apparatus is designed to extinguish. The entire architecture of manufactured consent — from the captured universities to the curated information feeds to the credit-financed comfort — is designed to produce a population that does not exercise independent judgement because it has been conditioned not to trust its own. The Covid episode was the proof of concept: even people who did not fully believe the narrative could be induced to act as though they did.

The restoration of agency is therefore not merely a personal project; it is the foundational political act of the current historical moment. And the regulatory arbitrage it enables — moving capital, business, and oneself to jurisdictions where the apparatus has not yet fully captured the population’s trust — is not tax evasion or political cynicism.

It is the restatement, in the language of economic action, of the oldest principle of political economy: that free people, in control of their own affairs, are more productive, more innovative, and ultimately more ungovernable than any administrative apparatus can tolerate.

The Argentine farmer, the Czech entrepreneur, the Singapore manufacturer, and the Dubai trader are not united by politics or culture. They are united by a single attribute: they have not forgotten how to say no.

The Turnings theory does not predict what the new order will look like. But it does predict that the people who enter the resolution phase with real assets, genuine skills, multiple jurisdictions, and uncompromised mental models will be disproportionately represented in whatever comes next.

The compliant will have managed their risk by surrendering to the system. The independent will have managed their risk by retaining the capacity to leave it.

History will record, as it always does, that the real crisis was not the one that triggered the Fourth Turning but the one that preceded it: the slow, comfortable, credit-financed surrender of agency that made populations incapable of resisting when resistance mattered most.

* * *

Preserving your agency starts with understanding the forces working to limit it. Our free report reveals the economic, political, and cultural shifts now unfolding, what they could mean for your wealth and personal freedom, and how a contrarian investor is positioning to stay one step ahead. Get your free report.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/08/2026 - 22:10

Trump-Backed "El Tigre" Takes Power In Colombia As Right-Wing Wave Sweeps Americas

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 01:35:00 +0000

Trump-Backed "El Tigre" Takes Power In Colombia As Right-Wing Wave Sweeps Americas

Colombia entered a new political chapter as Trump-backed President Abelardo de la Espriella was sworn into office Friday, pledging to reverse much of former President Gustavo Petro's nation-killing socialist agenda and to restore law and order, a free market economy, and relations with the United States.

🔥 AWESOME! New Trump-endorsed Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella is GOING OFF after his inauguration into office, he's now preparing to work closely with 47 to decimate the drug traffickers

This is a HUGE shift from left-wing former President Petro

Espriella is ready… pic.twitter.com/QrdmH0IgLm
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 7, 2026

Known by his nickname, "El Tigre" (the Tiger), De la Espriella's inauguration marks one of the most significant political shifts in Latin America in recent years. After four years of former President Petro's socialist experiment, which ended in economic decline, expanded coca cultivation, and increasingly strained relations with Washington, De la Espriella has already declared war on Marxist terror groups, earning a new security pledge from the US.

He was joined at the inauguration by several conservative presidents from across the Americas, including Argentina's Javier Milei, Ecuador's Daniel Noboa, and Chile's José Antonio Kast. Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche attended as part of the U.S. delegation.

El Presidente Javier Milei junto al Presidente electo de la República de Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella. pic.twitter.com/GPjZcRZEBj
— Oficina del Presidente (@OPRArgentina) August 7, 2026

"I have come to close a long chapter of national resignation and, together with the people, embark on the most profound transformation of our destiny," De la Espriella said while speaking at the Pichincha Battalion military base in Cali.

He continued, "I send a firm message to the Colombian people: The time has come to restore order, authority, and freedom."

Camilo Guzmán, executive director of Libertank, told Fox News that the new president will be focused on rebuilding strategic ties with the US, restoring close cooperation with Israel, and adopting a tougher stance toward the authoritarian governments of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

"President de la Espriella inherits a house with the roof leaking and the safe empty. The order matters because almost everything he promised requires money he does not have," Guzmán said, adding that Colombia's deteriorating fiscal situation is the new administration's most immediate headwind.

"Start with the fiscal picture. It is worse than his own team seems to expect. The 2026 deficit is tracking around 6.5-6.7% of GDP, the financing gap is close to $34 billion and the implicit medium-term adjustment being left on his desk is near five points of GDP. It is also a cash problem, not only an accounting one. Before he governs, he must make payroll," he said.

Shortly after de la Espriella took office on Friday, the US pledged $1 billion in security assistance, subject to congressional approval. The money will be used to "relentlessly defeat narco-terrorism" perpetrated by revolutionary Marxist groups who had already detonated car bombs ahead of yesterday's inauguration. If we've learned anything from America's far-left revolutionaries, it is that the far left uses political violence to project power.

El Tigre's rise to power comes amid a once-in-a-generation political shift from left-wing regimes controlling the Americas to a majority of right-wing governments closely aligned with the Trump administration. The State Department has pursued this strategy to secure the West, ensure countries align with the U.S. rather than China or Russia, and promote open and free markets over failed socialist ones.

Americas Political Map: Presidential Shift From Left To Right

Country-by-country presidential shift tracker

"For the first time in 15–20 years, the overwhelming majority of the countries in the Western Hemisphere are now led by pro-American leaders and governments since @POTUS was elected president," Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated last week with President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/08/2026 - 21:35

WNBA To Hold 'Listening Sessions' After Second Former NBA Star Says He's A Woman, Declares For Draft

Tyler Durden — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 01:00:00 +0000

WNBA To Hold 'Listening Sessions' After Second Former NBA Star Says He's A Woman, Declares For Draft

Update (1800ET): WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert sent a memo to teams that addresses ongoing discussions around transgender athletes in women's basketball.

"I know many of you have received questions in recent weeks regarding transgender athlete participation in women's basketball, and I expect this topic will continue to receive significant attention," Engelbert wrote in the memo, which was sent Friday afternoon and obtained by The Associated Press and ESPN.

"I wanted to reach out to share how we are approaching these conversations at the league office and to thank those of you who have responded to questions from the media with thoughtfulness and professionalism."

The memo said the topic will be discussed further by a task force of team presidents and general managers at a previously scheduled meeting next week.

The league's collective bargaining agreement states that "only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA," but it does not include any more specific language about gender identity or sex assigned at birth.

"We recognize that this is a complex and nuanced topic, and we will continue to have important conversations with all of you and the Players Association in the weeks and months ahead," Engelbert said in the memo.

"We also plan to convene additional discussions and offer listening sessions for any team leaders who would like to participate. Your perspectives and feedback are invaluable, and I appreciate those who have already reached out to share their thoughts."

The Women's National Basketball Players Association released a statement on social media Friday that emphasized diversity and inclusion while saying the group "will not be used as political pawns."

"We embrace justice equity, diversity, and inclusion," the players' union said.

Inclusion?

Perhaps the WNBA will finally be the first group to actually define "what is a woman?"

* * *

As Robert Spencer reported earlier for PJMedia.com, every person who is tired of the left forcing its delusions and fantasies on the rest of us, and shaming, deplatforming, and silencing us if we refuse to go along, ought to be applauding Royce White and Enes Kanter Freedom for standing up to the madness, and showing the world just how absurd it really is.

White and Freedom have declared that they’re women, at least for the purposes of professional basketball, and so they’re declaring for the 2027 WNBA draft. This is hilarious, but it’s no joke. It’s an unanswerable response to the left’s fashionable gender delusions, which have recently become a source of controversy within the WNBA, which ought to be called the WWNBA, the Woke Women’s National Basketball Association.

It all started when WNBA star Sophie Cunningham stated that she was not in favor of men pretending to be women playing women’s sports.

This sparked the usual spittle-flecked fury from the left. The WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, among others, came out in favor of delusional men competing against women.

The WNBA players’ union issued a weaselly statement denouncing “Hate, abuse, and demonization of any person or group of people, including transgender people.”

Nobody had engaged in any of that, but that’s how leftists always characterize disagreement with the views they want everyone to hold.

Meanwhile, there has been talk of a WNBA team signing French basketball player Julie Tétart, who is a dude.

And so if Julie Tétart can do it, why can’t Royce White and Enes Kanter Freedom? They are just as female as Tétart is. Fox News reported Friday that White said: "I'm transgender. I'm a woman. I identify as sometimes identifying as a woman for purpose of basketball, professional basketball, so I'll be declaring for the WNBA draft in 2027 as well," that is, in addition to Enes Kanter Freedom.

White added a correct assessment of how well a male professional would do in the WNBA: "I think I’d be unstoppable. But I’m a team-first guy. I’m a pass-first kind of player. I do the little things. I led my team in all five major stat categories at Iowa State University, so I do a little bit of everything. I’ll do whatever the coach needs me to do. I’ll do whatever the girls need me to do... I think it’s only fair."

White noted that the WNBA, for all its declarations of how much it rejects “hatred” of men who claim to be women, hasn’t said explicitly that men could play in the WNBA. Maybe WNBA top dogs hope that the whole thing will just go away, but it won’t.

"I think the WNBA could come out,” White said, “and make a definitive statement about guys with a pair of balls playing in the Women’s Association."

Asked if he would declare for the WNBA draft unless the league said that men could not play in the league, White responded: "Oh, no, I’m declaring. And I don’t want to be discriminated against. I want fair treatment. I’m a young, black, hopefully United States Senator that would like a fair chance to participate as a sometimes-identifying-as-a-transgender-woman athlete." White is on the ballot for the senate in Minnesota in the Republican primary; the election is coming up next Tuesday.

What if the WNBA calls White’s bluff and no team opts to sign him?

"I have to file a discrimination lawsuit, right?,” White said.

“I mean, that's, that's ridiculous. We're gonna have to have a huge legal battle about discrimination if I can't play." White says he would like to play for Cheryl Reeve: "It’s got to be the Minnesota Lynx, and I hear the coach loves a good transgender, so we’ll all be in perfect harmony.”

White expressed confidence that he would be drafted:

“How you gonna pass up on a 6-foot-8, 270-pound point forward? That’s ridiculous. I’m 260 pounds, 265 pounds, 6-foot-8, can palm a basketball — can palm a men’s basketball probably as easily as any player in history. I think I had the third-biggest hands in the modern NBA Draft Combine. So, yeah, I’m sure the women’s basketball is going to fare even easier to palm, which is a huge advantage. They’re going to have nightmares, and they should. I really feel like I’m going to be dominant."

He’s right.

If a WNBA team signs Julie Tétart or any other delusional man, the Minnesota Lynx or any other WNBA team would be foolish to pass on Royce White.

And then other teams will follow suit, until there are no women players left at all, and the WNBA is entirely filled with men and becomes a junior NBA. That will be true gender justice, won’t it, Ms. Reeve?

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/08/2026 - 21:00

'Busted': Female Bicyclists 'Bulk Up'

Tyler Durden — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:50:00 +0000

'Busted': Female Bicyclists 'Bulk Up'

Authored by Mike McDaniel via AmericanThinker.com,

I’ve been a bicyclist all my life, but because I came to serious road racing late in life, I never had the opportunity to be competitive. Oh, I had a few good bikes and wore the required attire, but I was never going to make the medal stand.

I did ride with enough serious riders to understand their compulsions. Among them was doing whatever was necessary to shave every gram of weight possible off their trusty steeds and to make them, and themselves, more aerodynamic. Shaving the legs was mandatory, but I never participated in that ritual. The seconds that might save weren’t going to make any difference for me, nor would drilling holes in this or that component.

If you know the jargon, those were the days when shifters were mounted on downtubes, and carbon fiber was in its infancy. It consisted of round frame tubes glued into metal fittings. Ten-gear cassettes and single chainrings were the hot setup. That dates me, doesn’t it?

Much has changed since those years. Frames can now be entirely made of carbon fiber and tuned for specific kinds of races.

Everything is lighter and stronger, and computer technology has made it possible to fine-tune bike and rider to an amazing degree—particularly female riders’ breasts. Breasts?! Breasts:

Something strange is happening at the Tour de France Femmes this year.

Several women’s WorldTeams have come forward claiming that some riders are padding their bras during time trials to gain an aerodynamic edge.

The Dutch website Wielerflits broke the story after hearing from multiple teams. The complaint is that certain cyclists are using extra padding to make their chests appear larger. In the low, aggressive position of a time trial, a rounder chest can act like a “fairing,” smoothing the air and reducing drag.

Oh, come on. This has to be The Babylon Bee, right? Nope. It, and the breasts, are the real thing:

Graphic: X Post

… aerodynamics expert Bert Blocken has studied the idea. (Uh-huh. I’m sure he did).

Hey! You don’t want to be a science denier, do you?

His research found that a proper chest fairing can cut air resistance by as much as 3.6 percent. In a race that often comes down to seconds, that kind of gain is not nothing. Over 20 or 30 kilometers, it could easily decide a stage.

That’s exactly why riders strain to do whatever they can to get that kind of advantage. Races are often won by fractions of a second, and a 3.6% aero advantage translates to double-digit seconds over longer races. That’s a substantial win, particularly in a time trial.

Due to a law enforcement neck injury, my bike racing days are over. I can’t get on the drops (the lower portion of road bike handlebars)—it’s a pain in the neck--so I ride recumbents. You never see them in sanctioned bike races because while they’re heavier than the lightest road bikes, they also have a 10-15% aerodynamic advantage, so they’re banned.

The timing of the accusations is pretty interesting. They surfaced just as the race produced one of its most memorable moments — the longest solo breakaway victory in the history of the Tour de France Femmes on Stage 3. Officials have been quick to note there is no evidence a padded bra had anything to do with that result.

In bike racing, the tiniest technical detail and rule is usually rigorously observed. Obviously, they’re taking breasts seriously, which is always wise.

Still, the story has put the entire field on notice. Extra clothing inspections are now expected ahead of the next time trial. Bra inspections. Unbelievable.

Graphic: X Post

It should be pretty easy to spot padding.

Female riders tend to be among the leanest female athletes in the world with very low body fat percentages, which means less - ahem - prominent breasts.

I also suspect the line to volunteer for that duty will be long indeed. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it for the purity of sport and the sanctity of science.

Being male and having decades of experience with observing and judging breasts, I’m uniquely qualified. Where do I apply?

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/08/2026 - 19:50