Deporting Censorship: US Targets UK Government Ally Over Free Speech

Authored by Paul D. Thacker via RealClearInvestigations,

As ICE sweeps in Minneapolis have drawn wide attention, a little-noticed immigration case playing out in a New York federal court has significant implications for America’s relationship with Britain and the ongoing debate over global censorship.  

In late December, the State Department announced its intention to revoke the visas of five foreign individuals who have allegedly censored Americans. The most consequential member of this group is Imran Ahmed, a British Labour Party political operative now living in the U.S., who is the CEO of an influential nonprofit, the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

In documents released Feb. 6 in federal court, the State Department claims Ahmed and the Center have been key players in efforts to censor Americans. A memo written by State Department Undersecretary Sarah Rogers asserts that “Ahmed was a key collaborator with the Biden administration on weaponizing the national security bureaucracy to censor U.S. citizens and pressure U.S. companies into censoring, and his group advocates for foreign regulatory action that extraterritorially impacts American citizens and companies.” 

In a follow-up memo, Secretary Marco Rubio wrote that Ahmed had led efforts to censor Americans and harm U.S. media outlets, including ZeroHedge and The Federalist. “I have determined that Ahmed’s activities and presence in the United States have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences and comprise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.” Rubio asserted. While the Center casts itself as a disinterested nonprofit trying to stop online hate, Rubio noted that documents leaked from inside the group outline ambitious plans to “kill Musk’s Twitter” and “trigger EU and UK regulatory action.” 

Ahmed has a small army of lawyers working to halt his deportation proceedings, which are now being litigated. Ahmed’s lead attorney is Roberta Kaplan - a former advisor to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo - who sued President Trump on behalf of his niece, Mary Trump. Ahmed is also represented by Norm Eisen, a Democratic Party fundraiser and former advisor to Obama. Last Thursday, they filed an updated court complaint against the U.S. government to keep Ahmed in the United States.

International Implications

The effort to deport Ahmed has broader political implications because of the close ties he and his associates have to the highest reaches of the British government. Morgan McSweeney, who co-founded the Center with Ahmed, is widely seen as the architect of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party victory in 2024. McSweeney served as Starmer’s chief of staff until earlier this month, when he resigned because of a separate scandal connected to Jeffrey Epstein. 

Imran Ahmed

U.K. government documents reviewed by RCI show that the organization’s influence extends throughout Starmer’s government. The Trump administration’s pushback on Ahmed’s weaponization of speech against U.S. citizens and companies suggests a deep concern about foreign intervention and censorship stemming from one of America’s closest allies.

In a recent interview with Undersecretary Rogers, RCI noted that the State Department appeared to be “knocking on the door of the Prime Minister’s office.” Rogers demurred, declining to detail her discussion with Starmer officials. “We have a very special relationship with the British government,” she responded. “The issue has been communicated.”

Senior Labour Minister Chi Onwurah accused the Trump administration of attacking free speech after Rubio announced shortly before Christmas that the administration was seeking Ahmed’s deportation. “Banning people because you disagree with what they say undermines the free speech the administration claims to seek,” Onwurah said, adding that Ahmed was an articulate advocate for greater regulation of online speech.

However, internal British government documents show that Onwurah is one of Starmer’s many advisors who have been working with Ahmed on activities many consider censorship. Ahmed and Onwurah did respond to requests for comment.

Weaponizing Censorship

The Center for Countering Digital Hate grew out of the efforts of Labour Together, a think tank founded in 2015 to undermine Jeremy Corbyn, a far-left member of Parliament who led the Labour Party at the time. McSweeney, a leading figure in the organization, founded the Center around 2018 with Ahmed as a potent weapon to attack political enemies and advance narratives in the British media.

In a tactic also deployed by progressives in the U.S., the Center worked to silence voices it opposed by creating advertising blacklists to deprive disfavored media outlets of revenue. One successful campaign involved constant claims of “misinformation” and antisemitism lodged against the influential leftist news site Canary to drive away advertisers and tank their funding. “Bye birdie! Hyper-partisan fake news website The Canary is on its last legs!” tweeted British TV host and Center campaigner, Rachel Riley, celebrating a 2019 crash in The Canary’s advertising.

In 2021, Ahmed opened an office in Washington, D.C., and began working with American journalists to censor dissent and enforce political narratives friendly to Democrats and the Biden administration. The Center’s chairman is Simon Clark, a former senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a think tank founded by John Podesta, who ran Hillary Clinton’s campaign against Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

In 2021, the Center for Countering Digital Hate released a report targeting a “disinformation dozen” of critics complaining about the Biden administration’s COVID vaccine policies. This report, released by an organization founded only months earlier in the United States, received a warm reception at the White House.

At a July 2021 press briefing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki quoted from the report while claiming that Facebook was undermining federal vaccine policies. “There’s about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms,” Psaki stated. Facebook criticized the Center’s report for being free of evidence and failing to explain how they arrived at their numbers and conclusions.

One of the people included in the “disinformation dozen” was Robert Kennedy Jr., who was considering a run against President Biden in the Democrats’ 2024 primaries. The Center’s “infamous ‘disinformation dozen’ report specifically called for deplatforming Secretary Robert F. Kennedy and others,” wrote Secretary Rubio in his memo calling for Ahmed’s deportation.

Targeting Musk’s X

In the summer of 2023, the Center hosted a private conference in Washington for liberal groups allied with the Biden administration for the purpose of neutralizing the influence of X owner Elon Musk, who was helping to fund Trump’s presidential campaign. The list of attendees included Biden White House and State Department officials, Democratic Party congressional staffers, union leaders, the heads of several progressive foundations, and employees of the hyper-partisan website Media Matters for America. While no Republicans or conservatives appear on the roster, at least one member of the British foreign service is listed as an invited guest. Annabel Graham is a diplomat and national security professional based at the British Embassy in Washington. She previously handled the Home Office’s engagement with the U.S. and Five Eyes partners.

Working in parallel with Media Matters, the Center took aim at X’s advertisers, just as it had the British Canary. After the Center and Media Matters released reports claiming that Musk’s social media site was promoting “hate,” companies such as Disney announced they were pulling their advertising from X, triggering a crash in Musk’s profits. Disney’s CEO at the time, Bob Iger, was also a major donor to the Biden administration.

Ahmed has also worked in Brussels to influence EU censorship laws. When European regulators first began targeting X for alleged disinformation in late 2023, Ahmed celebrated on social media, implying that his organization was behind the move. “The @CCDHate has been briefing EU officials since October 7,” he wrote, “using our research on the tidal wave of hate and disinformation coming from social media.”

“X has surged to become the leading news app in every EU country, serving tens of millions of Europeans who use the platform daily to access uncensored information,” the State Department noted in its filings to deport Ahmed.  

Friends in High Places

The Center’s involvement in U.S. politics is especially fraught because of its close connections with Britain’s leaders. 

Ahmed began working hard to lobby the Labour government even before its landslide victory in July 2024. Weeks before the election, Ahmed emailed his staffers, looping them in with Josh Simons on his private Gmail to set up a meeting. “Josh is head of Labour Together and is a key person in policy for the next Labour government,” Ahmed wrote. Simons soon left the think tank to become a member of Parliament, where he is a close ally of Starmer.

The Guardian recently reported that before his election to Parliament, Simons “commissioned and reviewed a report in 2023 on journalists investigating the thinktank [Labour Together] that would help propel Keir Starmer to power.”

The Center even has its own members now operating in Parliament. One of the newly elected MPs, Kirsty McNeill, sat on the organization’s board from late 2019 until her 2024 election to Parliament. McNeill was listed in the Center’s staff handbook as a lead trustee, and the group’s mental well-being plan provided McNeill’s personal cell phone for their Mental Welfare Hotline. “Please feel free to contact Kirsty if you have any concerns about your Mental Wellbeing that is not being addressed by CCDH and/or your Line Manager.”  

Ahmed has also been working quite closely with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, which is responsible for regulating speech in the U.K., including implementing the Online Safety Act. Passed in 2023, the Act put a “range of new duties on social media companies and search services, giving them legal duties to protect their users from illegal content and content harmful to children.” The Starmer government has taken pains to hide Ahmed’s work with the department. When a British reporter asked the department to detail their relationship and work with Ahmed and the Center, it told him to file a freedom of information request.

Newly uncovered documents show that weeks after Labour won the 2024 election, Ahmed wrote to Baroness Jones of Whitchurch, whom Starmer appointed as a leading Minister of the department. Ahmed introduced Jones to his work to “outline the policy areas CCDH believes are critical to delivering your forthcoming agenda.”

Ahmed highlighted that the Center had “championed the Online Safety Act since its inception,” and bragged that he was the “first witness before the draft bill committee” that had reviewed the Act. He also promised that the Center would “continue to be a critical partner to OFCOM,” the U.K. regulator charged with enforcing the censorship act.

“We welcome the opportunity to work with your office as the UK leads the charge in online safety,” Ahmed wrote.

Ahmed stepped up his lobbying in August 2024, writing once again to Jones that, “Social media platforms cannot be a haven for those looking to sow division in our communities. … Please contact for further information or to arrange a briefing with CCDH.”

Closed-Door Meeting

Heavily redacted documents show that Ahmed met personally with senior department officials in early November 2024. This meeting led to a previously unreported closed-door roundtable with Baroness Jones and other prominent politicians. Documents show that Baroness Jones personally addressed the roundtable in her role as Minister for Online Safety. Jones emailed CCDH organizers and recommended that the meeting “focus on how best we can collectively monitor the impact the [Online Safety Act] is having and identify areas – based on evidence – of where further targeted interventions are needed.” 

Last July, the department published a report which argued that the Act “does not go far enough to address the spread of harmful misinformation.”

Baroness Jones left the department to join the House of Lords in September, and the department did not respond to RCI’s request for comment.

Senior directors at OFCOM, which is assessing and enforcing the Online Safety Act, were slated to attend this meeting, as was Simons and four other Labour MPs. Simons was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the department last month. He did not return request for comment sent to his government and private email.

Another guest expected to attend the private roundtable was Chi Onwurah, the MP who defended Ahmed when Secretary Rubio announced deportation proceedings. Onwurah chairs the Science and Technology Select Committee, which has oversight of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

Onwurah seems determined to obfuscate and mislead the media about her work with the Center. During a December BBC interview, she giggled when asked if the Center was a Labour Party front group that pushed through the Online Safety Act.

“The Online Safety Act was brought forward under the Conservatives and by the Conservative Party,” Onwurah told the BBC. Onwurah’s claim is a poor attempt to recast recent history.

Ahmed had, in fact, recruited at least one member of the Conservative Party. Damian Collins joined the Center in July 2020, and the British government later published a decision allowing his membership with Ahmed’s organization.

A Conservative Party MP, Collins is the original sponsor of the Online Safety Act. And the first person Collins had testify in favor of the act was Imran Ahmed, his colleague at the Center. 

After Parliament passed the Online Safety Act, which Collins and Ahmed campaigned for, Collins celebrated on X. Collins later left Parliament to join Geradin Partners in London to run the public policy practice at one of the leading law firms for digital regulation in Europe. Collins is also a director at Orbis, a firm co-founded by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Steele’s now-debunked dossier, alleging ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, helped spark years of investigation that plagued Trump's first term. 

The Trump White House has complained several times to the Starmer government about the Online Safety Act. Vice President JD Vance has said the law infringes on individual rights. When Vance accompanied an American delegationto London last August, he said the Online Safety Act is taking the Starmer government down a “very dark path” of online censorship. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/21/2026 - 08:10

Here's What People Value Most In The US, UK, & Germany

If you had to choose just three things that matter most in life, what would they be?

Across the U.S., UK, and Germany, family and health dominate. But after that, national differences emerge. Germans lean toward security and stability. Americans stand out for money, growth, and faith. In the UK, work-life balance comes into the fold as a top priority.

The data for this visualization comes from Statista Consumer Insights. Over 1,000 adults per country were surveyed in January 2026 and asked to select up to three personal values that matter most in their lives.

Family Comes First

Family life ranks as the most important value in all three countries.

In the UK, 51% of respondents selected family as a top priority, the highest share among the three nations. Germany follows at 43%, while 42% of Americans say family matters most.

Because respondents could choose multiple answers, percentages do not sum to 100%.

Health and Security Stand Out in Germany

Germans place a particularly strong emphasis on health, with 49% identifying it as a top value.

Safety and security (30%) and freedom/independence (27%) also rank highly in Germany. Friendships, at 26%, further suggest a focus on stability and social cohesion.

Money, Growth, and Faith in the U.S.

In the United States, making money ranks relatively high at 26%, slightly above the UK (25%).

Americans are also more likely to prioritize personal growth (24%) and faith or spirituality (21%), categories that did not rank among the top responses in the UK or Germany.

Work-life balance, cited by 24% in the UK, stands out as a distinctly British priority in this comparison.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Which Countries Are Diligent About Medical Check-Ups? on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/21/2026 - 07:35

Macron's India Trip Exposes EU Tech Overreach And Policy Failures

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

At times, it seems almost absurdly comical when senior European Union officials make conspicuous efforts to court local business on foreign trips. Didactic in tone, nearly arrogant in their demands toward potential trade partners, and buoyed by a taste for moral superiority, the EU takes the global stage.

It still attempts to force large parts of the world into Brussels’ doctrinal playbook—as if economic cooperation could be achieved through normative decrees.

Meanwhile, its own economic weakness is either overlooked or deliberately ignored.

Economic strength would at least provide some justification for such demands.

Yet the ongoing relocation of European industry to Asia and the United States undermines any carefully staged display of supposed superiority.

From February 17 to 19, France’s President Emmanuel Macron visited India—the newly discovered object of European diplomatic desire.

In Brussels, high hopes are pinned on Prime Minister Narendra Modi: unspoken is the goal of trade-policy support in the battle against Donald Trump’s America.

For Macron, this India trip could have been an easy diplomatic exercise—without missteps, without verbal blunders, simply by observing routine protocol.

He could have used the opportunity to study how a booming AI hub is being built. Instead, he presented his bewildered hosts with Europe’s “third way”—a performance that at best left them perplexed, likely met with a shrug.

Macron advocated for “transparent” AI focused on open-source models, strict privacy standards, and societal benefits in health, education, and especially climate protection. Initiatives like “Current AI,” an EU-funded €2.5 billion project to finance nonprofit activities, confirm what is already obvious: Brussels still believes technological innovation can be decreed by the state.

But new technologies do not emerge administratively or via bureaucratically managed grants. Innovation thrives where free markets operate, entrepreneurship takes risks, and open capital markets enable customer-oriented value creation.

For Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz, and Ursula von der Leyen, this insight may seem like a dangerously heretical lesson. Yet it describes nothing more than the only viable civilizational path: an open self-discovery process that allows mistakes, does not stigmatize risk, and provides bold pioneers real opportunities—essentially turning EU policy upside down.

European policy has little interest in fostering genuine open-source dynamics—even if desirable for a flourishing market economy. Rather, the impression solidifies that state control mechanisms are being secured: through regulatory backdoors, software tools, and laws like the Digital Services Act—with the aim of steering markets and, above all, controlling public discourse.

Macron delivered perhaps his most revealing remarks before students in New Delhi at the AI Impact Summit. He lamented the lack of control over platforms like Elon Musk’s X and spoke of missing transparency. A “jungle” had arisen in which no one knew who was saying what, algorithms were beyond state reach. In this context, he called appeals to freedom of speech “bullshit”—a striking moment of candor that accurately reflects the stance of much of the EU’s political elite.

They are engaged in an open struggle with citizens—at least with the portion who see themselves as the true sovereign and view politics as representation within a democratic state, not an educational disciplinary apparatus. Macron, however, seems convinced he can use aggressive opinion control to postpone both the collapse of his minority government and the looming state insolvency—at least until his own political exit is secured.

Back in wintry Germany, his counterpart Friedrich Merz struck a similar note. At a CDU Ash Wednesday event in Trier, the chancellor outlined his vision for future communication platforms: real-name requirements and digital identities for youth. Translated, this means nothing less than the gradual end of online anonymity—a space that has so far been essential for opposition voices and political coordination.

The pressure to act grows: month after month, the European economy loses substance—regardless of, or precisely because of, the intensity of state intervention in the shrinking remnants of the continent’s once-proud social market economy.

The gap between aspiration and reality in Europe was recently on display at the Munich Security Conference. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas presented Brussels’ demands toward Russia as a basis for potential peace talks. Moscow must make substantial compromises—limiting forces, cutting the military budget, and recognizing Ukraine’s pre-2022 borders. Territorial concessions or legitimizing occupied areas are out of the question. Sanctions and future use of frozen Russian assets, particularly via Euroclear, remain leverage.

A reminder: Russia’s de facto dominance in the Ukraine conflict is measured not least by its effects on Europe—ongoing energy crises across much of the continent and the visible erosion of the European economy. That Europeans weren’t even at the table in recent pre-negotiations for a peace deal is a diplomatic humiliation. Yet even this does not seem enough to fundamentally question their strategy or objectively assess reality.

Instead, growing elite resentment is increasingly directed inward. Citizens expressing dissatisfaction and supporting nationally sovereign political forces fall under scrutiny. This reflects a fear of competition that might effectively challenge what is perceived as coercive EU policy.

Upcoming state elections will reveal just how resilient the firewall really is—one that delivers more mass migration, digital censorship, and the construction of a green-military socialism.

* * * 

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

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/21/2026 - 07:00

The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:

• This Entertainment Lawyer to the Stars Shares His Best Negotiating Secret: Allen Grubman on why you should always overtip and why the media business is always seeking fresh blood (Wall Street Journal)

• AI and the Economics of the Human Touch: A reason for optimism: Either AI is so useless that we are in the middle of a bubble that’s about to burst and take the economy down with it, or AI is so powerful it’s going to replace us all and devastate the labor market. (Agglomerations) see also What AI says about AI eating itself and the world… AI says it is targeting IT and software, finance, customer services, manufacturing and logistics, and media and entertainment The market gyrations of the past two weeks, as fears about AI disruption hit first software and then technology and financial stocks, have left anxious investors wondering: which sector will be next to drop? Deutsche Bank identifies an $800 billion AI funding gap and questions whether the industry’s unsustainable spending can continue. (Deutsche Bank Research)

• The economics of the Kalshi prediction market: Kalshi has operated as a federally licensed prediction market in the US since 2021, free from the strict stake limits placed on previous legal prediction markets. Over 300,000 analyzed contracts and their outcomes demonstrate that Kalshi’s contract prices are informative and improve in accuracy as markets approach closing, but they display a clear favourite-longshot bias. Low-price contracts win far less often than required to break even, while high-price contracts win more often and yield small positive returns. (VoxEU/CEPR)

• The Hidden Plumbing of Stablecoins: Financial and Technological Risks in the GENIUS Act Era US dollar stablecoins are increasingly used as payment and settlement instruments beyond cryptocurrency markets. With the enactment of the GENIUS Act in 2025, the United States established the first comprehensive federal framework governing their issuance, backing, and supervision. This paper evaluates the financial, technological, and regulatory risks that may arise as GENIUS-compliant stablecoins scale into mainstream use. MIT researchers identify systemic risks lurking in the GENIUS Act’s stablecoin infrastructure, from redemption surges to technological failures. (MIT Media Lab)

• In World War II’s dog-eat-dog struggle for resources, a Greenland mine launched a new world order: Greenland’s cryolite mine was strategically vital during WWII, shaping the postwar global order in ways still reverberating today. (The Conversation) see also  Hitler’s Greenland Obsession: The historical precedent for great-power interest in Greenland is darker than you think. The Atlantic on how the Third Reich saw the island as strategically vital — a useful reminder as present-day territorial ambitions echo uncomfortably. (The Atlantic)

• The New Rules of Retirement: Popular guidelines about how to save, invest, and spend need to be updated and personalized to ensure you’ll never run out of money. (Kiplinger)

• The Sweet Lesson of Neuroscience: Scientists once hoped that studying the brain would teach us how to build AI. Now, one AI researcher may have something to teach us about the brain. Brains teach themselves through internal steering systems, suggesting that the future of AI alignment might hinge less on learning rules and more on training signals—a frontier neuroscience still understands better than silicon. (Asterisk)

• The Cult Deprogrammer Who Needed Deprogramming: The long decline of religion has left a vacuum of purpose and belonging, then technology fragmented us further, and cults have flourished in this habitat, preying on a disillusioned public with promises of special knowledge, chosen membership, and a new dawn. When the mainstream feels broken, the fringe swoops in. As Antonio Gramsci said, “now is the time for monsters.” Rick Ross, America’s foremost cult deprogrammer, reflects on 40 years battling brainwashing in an era when conspiracy movements are doing the work that fringe groups used to do. (Minority Report)

• How one country stopped a Trump-style authoritarian in his tracks: What Brazil got right that America got wrong. Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court, and military actively constrained Bolsonaro’s authoritarian impulses when he tried the moves Trump is now executing—showing that institutional resistance is possible. (Vox)

• The Rise and Fall of the American Monoculture: For most of the 20th century, pop culture was the glue that held the U.S. together. But what will it mean now that everything has splintered? Streaming and algorithms have shattered the shared cultural experiences that defined 20th-century America. (Wall Street Journal)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Hilary Allen, Professor of Law at the American University Washington College of Law. She specializes in financial regulation, banking law, securities regulation, and technology law, with a particular focus on how new financial technologies like fintech, crypto, and AI intersect with financial stability and public policy.

 

Online spending is surging, at the expense of physical retail, driven by K-shaped consumer spending, rising BNPL usage and adoption of Agentic AI.

Source: Shruti Mishra, BofA Global Research

 

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

 

The post 10 Weekend Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

Is It Time To Reopen The Franklin Child Prostitution Case After Epstein Revelations?

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

The seriousness of a conspiracy can often be quantified by the amount of energy the establishment expends trying to bury it. Consider for a moment the fact that Jeffery Epstein’s monstrous club of elites faced near zero mainstream exposure for over 20 years, despite his arrest for human trafficking in 2006.

Think about the level of political and media interference, the highly organized propaganda, the targeted attacks against conspiracy researchers – Think about the amount of money and time that was expended just to shut us up and convince the public the Epstein situation was “overblown”.

The revelations of the “Lolita Express” and the flights to Little Saint James Island are nothing compared to what we now find in the millions of documents released in the past month. Hints of rape, torture, possible murder, and even cannibalism are present in the coded (and not so coded) language of Epstein’s emails. And, if the revelations of “Pizzagate” and the John Podesta emails are correct, then many of the horrors committed on Epstein’s Island involved young children.

As I noted in my last article, Epstein’s private emails contain coded references to “pizza” (an FBI confirmed code used by pedophiles to describe young boys) over 900 times. They mention “jerky” over 380 times, including mentions of “freezing jerky”, “walking” jerky from one location to another, and getting jerky tested in a lab for “safety”.

The establishment machine is going into panic mode, once again trying to obcure the darker aspects of the Epstein files as “conspiracy theory” and “moral panic”. There is a clear attempt being made to mitigate and run damage control.

In other words, the elites are willing to give up the fight on the issue of underage sex trafficking. They know that the abuse of teens will not trigger enough outrage to get them killed by mobs of angry citizens. However, they are DESPERATE to silence any discussion on the abuse of very young children including babies. They will do anything to prevent the investigation from escalating to issues of cannibalism and occultism.

As long as the public thinks it was all about rich and powerful perverts getting their jollies with 16 and 17-year-old girls, the elites think they can weather the storm. After all, in most states the age of consent is 16. They might even be able to convince a large percentage of the populace that those girls did those things “of their own free will.”

I can already see them generating the spin in the event that any of the perpetrators actually go to trial. By the time it’s over, people will be questioning if anything criminal happened at all? That’s how the system works. It demands that the public ignore the obvious and wait for official confirmation of guilt, which rarely ever comes when oligarchs are involved.

I would continue to warn people NOT to put too much hope in the notion that any of the Epstein suspects will face legitimate legal consequences. Just look at how many corrupt judges we have encountered in the US when it comes to the immigration issue. Now imagine the army of left wing judges that will slither out of the woodwork to protect Epstein’s clients.

The Epstein case does not represent a silver bullet for eliminating the elites and their cabal, but it does represent a moment of mass awakening that cannot be stopped. Never before have conspiracy analysts been so close to exposing the reality of the “New World Order” to the normies. It creates a pathway to other opportunities, including reopening conspiracy events that were buried by the establishment a long time ago.

One such conspiracy of evil from the past stands out to me as directly related to the Epstein case, and I think it should be reexamined in light of the release of the Epstein files.

The Franklin Child Prostitution Case

In Omaha, Nebraska in the 1980s, a child sex abuse scandal was uncovered which involved high profile politicians and business moguls. The central figure, Lawrence King Jr, was a GOP favorite and the manager of the Franklin Federal Credit Union, an institution which would eventually be caught up in an embezzlement investigation.

He was accused of hosting lavish parties where minors were sexually abused and ritual occultism was practiced.

Victims, often from foster care or a regional Boys Town orphanage, alleged they were tricked into recruitment, then flown to locations like Washington, D.C. for exploitation by high-ranking individuals, including politicians, businessmen, and law enforcement. Key accusers included Alisha Owen, Paul Bonacci, and Troy Boner. They claimed the existence of an elitist network engaged in ritualistic practices, drug use, and coercion.

The accusers faced extreme pressure to recant. Alisha Owen was imprisoned for “perjury” by a grand jury – She never recanted her story. Troy Boner recanted due to threats of legal ramifications, then returned to assert that everything he originally said was true after the untimely death of investigator Gary Candori. Boner died mysteriously at the age of 36 in Texas in 2003 with no public information on the cause.

Paul Bonacci would go on to win a civil case against Lawrence King and received a $1 million default judgment for child abuse. King failed to defend the case and the judge found Bonacci’s claims to be credible.

Gary Caradori, a private investigator hired in August 1989 by the Nebraska Legislature’s special “Franklin Committee” to look into evidence of child exploitation, conducted extensive interviews. He gathered over 21 hours of videotaped testimony from alleged victims like Alisha Owen, Paul Bonacci, and others. He uncovered what he described as breakthrough evidence, including photographs and leads implicating prominent individuals.

In 1990, Candori died along with his 8-year-old son while flying his single engine plane over Illinois. The plane reportedly “disintegrated in mid-air” and the wreckage was found strewn across a field near Ashton in Lee County. The FAA ultimately ruled that the incident was “accidental.”

The Buried Documentary

In 1993 a 60 minute documentary called “Conspiracy Of Silence” was produced by a UK company called Yorkshire Television for the Discovery Channel. The production focused on the investigations of John Decamp, a US Army Captain, lawyer and former aide to CIA Director William Colby (who also mysteriously died by “drowning” in the Wicomico river near his home in 1996).

Decamp was a Republican legislator in Nebraska at the time the Franklin case broke. He asserted that the claims of abuse were true, and that the politicians involved had ties to the Iran/Contra drug running scandal.

He also named five prominent local officials and businessmen, including:

• Harold Andersen: Publisher of the Omaha World-Herald newspaper (frequently cited as central to the alleged cover-up; DeCamp accused the paper of bias and suppression).

• Alan Baer: A wealthy Omaha businessman (indicted on pandering charges in 1990 related to the scandal, though not directly for child abuse; he pleaded to lesser charges).

• Robert Wadman: Former Omaha Police Chief (accused in victim testimonies of involvement; he denied it and sued over the claims).

• Peter Citron: A former World-Herald columnist (convicted in 1990 on separate child sexual assault charges; linked in allegations to the network).

• Lawrence E. “Larry” King Jr.: The Franklin Credit Union manager (central figure; convicted on financial embezzlement but never on abuse charges).

These figures were named for alleged involvement in procuring child victims for political elites in Washington DC, or for covering up the crimes.

The Discovery documentary focused on this thread as well as interviews with the victims, then outlined the government and media suppression campaign that was used to threaten them. It was set to air in May of 1994, but it was abruptly pulled weeks before broadcast, apparently due to pressure from political officials in the US. All master copies were ordered destroyed.

The only reason we know about its existence is because some anonymous hero released a rough edit to a lawyer involved in the case.  The full documentary can be VIEWED HERE.

The suppression of this documentary is clear evidence of a conspiracy. At the time, the majority of accusations surrounding the Franklin case were dismissed by the media as “Satanic Panic.” This is a narrative that has also been used to dismiss the darker crimes behind the Epstein case and others. It is time to crush this lie and expose these people for what they truly are.

Furthermore, it’s time to acknowledge the fact that ritual child abuse has been happening in the shadows, in dark and grotesque places, for many decades and long before Epstein. His island is only one of many elitist retreats where such evils are practiced. Esptein was merely a middle-man in a much larger network of pedophiles and luciferians that have operated with impunity for generations.

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

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 23:25

AI Content 'Incidents' Skyrocket: A Growing Threat In The Digital Age

The latest data from the OECD’s AI Incidents and Hazard Monitor reveals a staggering boom in monthly media-reported AI-related content incidents: from just about 50 in early 2020, to over 200 in early 2024 and nearly 500 by January 2026, representing a tenfold increase over the period.

As Statista's Tristan Gaudiaut details in the infographic below, the rise has been particularly strong since last year (doubling in the last twelve months).

You will find more infographics at Statista

This exponential rise underscores the rapid proliferation of AI-generated content worldwide, from synthetic media to deepfakes, flooding platforms like TikTok, X, Instagram or YouTube.

Teens are on the frontline: A 2025 Pew Research Center survey found that two-thirds of U.S. teens now use AI chatbots, with nearly 30 percent engaging with them daily.

More concerning, a 2026 Education Week report revealed that 1 in 17 teens (aged 13 to 17) have already been targeted by deepfake content, such as non-consensual synthetic imagery, with over 80 percent of surveyed teens acknowledging the harm caused by such manipulations.

Meanwhile, adults struggle to keep up.

Research shows that while humans can sometimes detect AI-generated voices or videos, accuracy rates vary widely: from around 60 percent to 90 percent, according to a study published by PMC in Jan. 2026.

Thus, many remain vulnerable to believing synthetic content is real, raising urgent concerns about the spread of misinformation, especially as AI tools become more sophisticated and accessible.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 23:00

Riyadh Seeks To Replace Israel With Syria For EU Fiber-Optic Cable Route

Via Middle East Eye

Saudi Arabia wants to replace Israel with Syria as the transit country for a fiber-optic cable designed to connect the kingdom to Greece through the Mediterranean Sea, two regional officials familiar with the project told Middle East Eye.

Saudi Arabia's insistence that it be connected to Greece through Syria, and not Israel, as previously discussed, underscores how regional alignments are shifting as Riyadh looks to bolster Damascus’s standing in the region and potentially isolate Israel.

via AFP

Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has publicly accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, where over 72,000 Palestinians have been killed. Riyadh is also at odds with the UAE, Israel’s closest Arab partner, in Yemen, Sudan, and the Red Sea.

Athens is trying to position itself as a hub between Europe and the Middle East for energy, real estate and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Greece has courted Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia for investment, but it is particularly close to Israel, which policymakers in Athens view as an ally against Turkey, and an insurance policy to keep the US engaged in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Saudi Arabia's shift on the project could throw a wrench in Greece’s relationship with Israel, if it is indeed snubbed in the new route.

Fiber-optic cables carry essential digital services from country to country in milliseconds using pulses of light. Their importance is growing as Gulf states position themselves as exporters of AI, seeking to send data to Europe. 

Greece and Saudi Arabia announced the East to Med data Corridor, or the EMC project, in 2022. It is a joint partnership between Saudi Telecom (STC), the Greek electricity provider PPC, Greek telecoms and the satellite applications company, TTSA.

At the time, Saudi Arabia was in talks with the US on a deal that would see them normalize relations with Israel. Those negotiations were derailed by the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks, which Israel retaliated against by launching an offensive on Gaza that the United Nations and human rights groups have deemed a genocide.

Israel also attacked Lebanon, Syria and Iran. “There were a number of projects that planned to go through Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel - this was one of them,” Julian Rawle, a US-based submarine fibre-optic cable consultant, told MEE.

“Saudi Arabia asking for transit through Syria is new. People are looking for additional terrestrial routes between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. Syria is another option, if people feel comfortable with the evolving political situation there,” he added.

A presentation by Greece’s PPC dated November 2025, obtained by MEE, does not show Syria linked up to the EMC network. The corridor appears to move through Israel and its offshore waters. 

In addition, another regional official told MEE that Saudi Arabia envisions an electrical cable project with Greece bypassing Israel in favour of Syria. This project would link the Gulf state and Europe via a High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) interconnection. 

'Shift in attitude'

Saudi Arabia’s attempt to bring Syria into the projects underscores how it is using its wealth to bolster regional allies at a time when it is challenging the UAE and Israel in the region. It also hints at Riyadh's broader vision for the region. 

"For Saudi Arabia, Damascus is at the heart of regional connectivity," a western official familiar with Riyadh's investment drive told MEE. "The Saudis want the roads, cables and trains to go through Syria".  

Saudi Arabia’s STC announced in February that it will invest about $800m in Syria’s telecommunications infrastructure. The kingdom’s state news agency said the plan is to “connect Syria regionally and internationally through a fibre-optic network extending over more than 4,500 kilometres”.

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Gulf expert at Rice University's Baker Institute, said Saudi Arabia's bid to include Syria at the expense of Israel reveals how much the region has reordered itself.

MEE: Saudi Arabia is surrounded by major fiber-optic cables - but the Trans Europe Asia System will be the first such project to cross the country (telegeography.com)

“A project like this is consistent with Saudi attempts to reintegrate Syria to the regional fold and play down any tangible links with Israel,” he added.

The year “2022 was the height of talk about normalization between Saudi Arabia-Israel normalisation. This is indicative of the shift in Riyadh’s attitude,” he told MEE.

Europe's ports of entry shifting east

Greece envisions itself serving as a hub for multiple cable routes, as the Gulf states boost their investments in AI data centres and link up to East Asian business capitals such as Singapore.

Originally, the port cities of Marseille and Genoa were the embarkation points for fibre-optic cables arriving in Europe. But the industry wants to diversify routes, and ports of entry to Europe have been shifting further east, putting Greece and Turkey on the map.

The Eastern Mediterranean is littered with the corpses of grand infrastructure projects dreamed up by regional leaders and by Washington-based think tanks. A gas pipeline to connect Greece, Cyprus and Israel never materialized. Likewise, the Great Sea Interconnector cable, envisioned to link Greece, Cyprus and Israel, has faced multiple delays.

Turkey, which lays claim to a wide swath of the Eastern Mediterranean disputed by Greece, has opposed the projects. A trade corridor under discussion also aims to link India to Greece, Israel and the UAE.

But Rawle told MEE that the East to Med data Corridor, or EMC West, is one of the more viable projects. He said that making a down payment to the system supplier is a key hurdle that the industry watches as a marker for progress.

Greek and Saudi banks signed an agreement to finance 60 percent of the project. In 2023, EMC signed a supply contract with Alcatel Submarine Networks to construct two subsea and terrestrial data cables.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 22:35

A Year Into Trump's 2nd Term: When Does Accountability For The Deep State Begin?

Authored by Jeff Dornik via American Greatness,

We were told this time would be different. We were told that a second Trump administration would not repeat the mistakes of the first, that hard lessons had been learned, and that the Deep State would finally be confronted rather than tolerated. One year into President Trump’s second term, it is both fair and necessary to ask whether those assurances are being honored—not from hostility but from a sincere desire to see the America First agenda succeed, endure, and become irreversible.

During President Trump’s first term, Congress squandered its moment. The first two years were consumed by infighting, hesitation, and internal paralysis, even with Republican control. Then came the midterms, control was lost, and meaningful legislative progress effectively ended. What followed were impeachment spectacles and relentless political warfare, while entrenched corruption inside the federal government remained untouched. Now, just past the first year of President Trump’s second term, the pattern feels disturbingly familiar. The urgency voters demanded is not being matched by the actions of those entrusted to deliver it.

The question that must be asked plainly is this: when is the Trump administration actually going to root out the Deep State?

Executive Orders are being signed at a rapid pace, but Executive Orders are not reform. They are temporary directives that can be erased with a single signature the moment someone like Gavin Newsom takes office. Without legislation, without prosecutions, and without accountability, nothing is secured. Power is being exercised, but it is not being anchored, and lasting change is never achieved that way.

Kash Patel built his credibility by telling the truth about corruption in Washington. His book and documentary, Government Gangsters, documented in detail how entrenched bureaucrats and intelligence officials worked against President Trump from within the federal government. He even came on my show and spoke openly about this corruption, and he stated repeatedly across multiple platforms that the FBI, particularly at its highest levels, was deeply compromised and required fundamental reform. He did not argue that the Bureau should be abandoned, but that it could not be trusted without aggressive leadership, restructuring, and accountability for the Deep State operatives within the bureau. He warned that the Deep State would never reform itself and would have to be confronted directly. He also told Glenn Beck that the head of the FBI possessed Jeffrey Epstein’s client list. These were not casual remarks. They were core assertions made publicly and repeatedly.

Now Kash Patel is the head of the FBI, and the public posture has shifted dramatically. The same institution he once described as captured is now treated as credible and restrained. The Epstein client list, once discussed as a known reality, is now dismissed as conspiracy, even as new Epstein-related documents continue to be released to the public over the protest of the Trump administration. Each document release raises more questions, not fewer, and every delay from federal law enforcement deepens public distrust rather than restoring confidence. A reversal this significant demands explanation. Trust is not rebuilt through silence, and credibility is not preserved by pretending prior statements were never made.

These questions extend far beyond the FBI and land squarely on the Department of Justice, where accountability appears to collapse the moment it threatens entrenched power. The removal of Ed Martin from his role inside the DOJ is not just a minor personnel decision; it appears to be a clear signal that real investigations into weaponization and lawfare are not being tolerated. Ed Martin was positioned to expose how the Biden Department of Justice targeted Americans, abused prosecutorial authority, and used federal power as a political weapon. According to Emerald Robinson, whose reporting has repeatedly exposed corruption others refuse to confront, Martin was removed from his position by the same people who refer to parents as terrorists: “Vance Day, senior counsel for Todd Blanche, refers to parents targeted by Biden DOJ as ‘terrorists’ in recent meeting with one parent asking for accountability. Blanche’s office also removed Ed Martin from his role at the DOJ.” That disclosure alone should alarm every American paying attention.

Parents who were targeted and persecuted by the Biden Department of Justice are now being labeled terrorists by senior DOJ leadership, while the man tasked with investigating that persecution is sidelined. Whether this is described as a firing or a demotion is irrelevant, because the outcome is the same. Another one of the good guys has been removed from doing the work voters were promised would finally drain the swamp. This is not an isolated incident or a misunderstanding but a pattern that repeats with disturbing consistency. Every time someone begins making real progress against the Deep State, authority is stripped, investigations are stalled, and momentum is deliberately crushed before accountability can be delivered.

So the questions must be asked:

Where are the arrests?

Where are the prosecutions?

Why has Attorney General Pam Bondi not brought cases against members of the January 6 Committee despite documented misconduct and destroyed records?

Why has the Department of Justice taken no action against Anthony Fauci even after Sen. Rand Paul issued criminal referrals? 

Why is the DOJ actively fighting to shut down Brook Jackson’s case against Pfizer instead of allowing it to proceed and standing with a whistleblower who exposed documented fraud?

Why do Epstein-related documents continue to surface while no meaningful accountability follows?

What happened to transparency, and what happened to equal justice under the law?

Congress bears equal responsibility for this failure. DOGE exposed widespread corruption, fraud, and waste throughout the federal government, yet Republican spending bills continue to fund the very programs DOGE identified. If fraud has been uncovered, there is no justification for continuing to finance it. Where is the legislation to codify President Trump’s Executive Orders so they cannot be casually undone by the next administration? Where is the structural reform that fixes what is broken instead of managing its decay?

It increasingly appears that Republican leadership is content to run out the clock while President Trump absorbs the political risk. That approach is not strategic. It is reckless. We are less than one year away from the midterms, and the possibility of losing congressional control is very real. If that happens before reforms are locked into law, the opportunity may be lost entirely.

So what is the agenda for this year? What are we fighting to accomplish while the window is still open? America First cannot remain a slogan. It must become law, policy, and precedent. And by America, I mean Americans first, not institutions, not bureaucracies, and not federal agencies that operate without consequence.

The stakes are higher than many are willing to acknowledge. A future Democrat administration, particularly one led by Gavin Newsom, would inherit not only an unrestrained administrative state but a vastly expanded and centralized federal system increasingly powered by artificial intelligence. The Trump administration is already integrating AI throughout government. Without moral clarity, legal restraint, and decentralization, that power will inevitably be turned against the people it claims to serve.

This is not an attack on President Trump. It is a call to fulfill the mandate voters gave him. The American people did not vote for symbolism. We voted for accountability. We voted for justice. We voted for a government that serves the people rather than ruling over them.

Time is running out. If decisive action is not taken this year, there is a real chance it never will be. If that happens, no one should be surprised when everything collapses the moment power changes hands. Truth demands courage, and courage demands action.

The question is no longer whether the Deep State exists, but whether those in power are willing to confront it while they still can.

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

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 21:45

Washington Post Editorial Board Brutally Mocks Mamdani

Margaret Thatcher once said, “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money,” and New York City's new socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is learning just how right she was, and New Yorkers are going to pay a hefty price for it.

On Tuesday, a mere two months after declaring he would “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism,” Mamdani announced a $127 billion preliminary budget for fiscal year 2027, a $5 billion increase from the prior year, while simultaneously warning residents of "painful" tax hikes if state officials refused to bail him out to cover his socialist policies. 

“That’s a city budget bigger than the state budgets of 47 states. Even the state government of Florida (population 23 million) spends less than New York City’s,” explains The Washington Post editorial board. “And the state still managed to attract hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in recent years.”

“The reality is that The reality is that Americans may like the idea of ‘free’ stuff — it’s how socialists win elections — but they are less excited about having to pay for it” they continued. “They’re even less excited when they live in a state that ranks at the very bottom of the Tax Foundation’s State Tax Competitiveness Index.”

During a press conference earlier this week, Mamdani called on New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to raise income taxes on the “ultra-wealthy” help fund his budget for New York City.

“The onus for resolving this crisis should not be placed on the backs of working and middle-class New Yorkers,” Mamdani said. “If we do not fix this structural imbalance and do not heed the calls of New Yorkers to raise taxes on the wealthy, this crisis will not disappear. It will simply return, year after year, forcing harder and harsher choices each time. And if we do not go down the first path, the city will be forced down a second, more harmful path. Faced with no other choice, the city would have to exercise the only revenue lever fully within our own control. We would have to raise property taxes.”

Mamdani says if Hochul doesn't allow NYC to raise taxes on corporations and highest earners, he will raise property taxes on New York City homeowners. pic.twitter.com/Bm07LxS9OH

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 17, 2026

Hochul rejected the tax hike demand without hesitation, telling Mamdani to expand his "ridiculously low" proposed spending cuts instead. 

Mamdani has claimed his administration identified $1.7 billion in cuts. The Post's editorial board was not impressed, calling it a “laughable number.”

“The reality is that Mamdani is trying to expand a city government that already does way too much,” they argued. “ The city should provide basic services, such as law and order, but instead it pours billions into social spending like housing and health care.”

They even cited California as a cautionary tale, warning that in the Golden State, “a slew of billionaires are fleeing at the mere possibility of a wealth tax. They’ll avoid the wealth tax — and California will miss out on the billions that these individuals otherwise would have contributed before a wealth tax was even imposed.”

More experienced Democrats in New York understand this. Gov. Kathy Hochul, no one’s idea of a fiscal hawk, nevertheless instigated Mamdani’s tantrum by refusing to go along with more tax hikes. The city council speaker and comptroller also have sway and are skeptical of new taxes.

This week, it was revealed that acclaimed director and filmmaker Steven Spielberg officially became a New York resident on January 1, effectively avoiding the billionaire tax—though a representative for Spielberg and his wife Cate Capshaw claimed the move was to be closer to family.

Mamdani's pre-election promises — free buses, expanded child care, cash assistance, rental aid, and smaller class sizes for teachers' unions — were crowd-pleasers that earned him "tax the rich" chants at campaign rallies. The problem is that governing a city with a structural deficit requires something more than slogans. His preliminary budget now acknowledges a $5.4 billion shortfall for the current fiscal year, with projections that worsen over time. 

“No one in New York is ambitious enough to dramatically reshape city government, and residents either vote for class warfare or vote with their feet. A reckoning will have to come eventually. The question is how bad it gets before reality sets in,” the board concluded.

Ouch.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 21:20

India Boosts Saudi Oil Imports, Slows Russian Buying, Amid US Pressure

Via The Cradle

Saudi crude shipments to India are set to reach their highest level since 2020 this month, narrowing the gap with Russian supplies as New Delhi faces ongoing US pressure to reduce its purchases of Russian oil, according to data from Kpler cited by Bloomberg on Friday.

Flows from Saudi Arabia are projected at between 1 million and 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd), Kpler lead research analyst Sumit Ritolia said, describing the volumes as the strongest since November 2019, bringing Saudi exports broadly in line with Russian deliveries.

Saudi Aramco

Kpler estimates Russian crude shipments to India at around 1.2 million bpd this month, which would keep Moscow as India’s largest supplier, though at levels well below the more than 2 million bpd seen at peak periods over the past three years.

For March, Kpler forecasts Russian flows easing further to between 800,000 and 1 million bpd, noting that such a drop could allow Saudi Arabia to retake the top spot if Indian refiners keep replacing Russian crude with Saudi shipments.

In early February, US President Donald Trump announced a trade deal with India that linked tariff reductions to India halting purchases of Russian crude oil. 

He said he would cut punitive tariffs on Indian goods in exchange for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agreement that India would stop buying Russian oil. He even suggested New Delhi would increase purchases of US – and potentially Venezuelan – oil.

Current import levels indicate that Indian buyers have not moved abruptly to cut Russian intake.

India emerged as a major buyer of Russian crude after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when discounted barrels diverted from Europe were rerouted to Asian markets – meaning that any loss of market share in India would shrink one of Moscow’s main export outlets.

Meanwhile, as Indian spot purchases soften, China's imports of Russian oil are on track for a record month. 

Russian share of India's January oil imports lowest since late 2022, data shows
https://t.co/w6wClXRX1Z

— Economic Times (@EconomicTimes) February 18, 2026

Data from Vortexa and Kpler, cited by Reuters, shows Chinese inflows at roughly 2.07–2.08 million bpd in February, underscoring a shift in trade patterns rather than a collapse in overall Russian exports.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 20:55

US Intelligence: 15,000+ Were Let Free From ISIS Detention Camp After Collapse

Another 'win' for America's disastrous Syria policy, long predicated on overthrowing the Assad government and installing a 'moderate' Sunni regime - though it turns out Jolani's bearded Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants are anything but...

"U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that 15,000 to 20,000 people, including Islamic State affiliates are now at large in Syria, after an exodus from a camp that held jihadists’ families, U.S. officials familiar with the estimate said," The Wall Street Journal reports Friday.

Who could have predicted that chaos, instability, and terrorism would come out of the CIA's Operation Timber Sycamore? Well, we did, and every rational observer of the Syria situation.

Al Hol camp last year, AFP/Getty Images

A billion plus dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives after the decade-long proxy war, and this is all Washington has to show for it:  

Security experts have long warned that the wives of Islamic State fighters were effectively raising the next generation of militants at the sprawling Al-Hol facility. Security at the camp fell apart in recent weeks after Syria’s government routed the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which had guarded Al-Hol for years, raising concerns about the release of people who might have become radicalized during the years held behind the razor wire.

The size of a small city, the camp in Syria’s eastern desert at one point held more than 70,000 people after U.S.-backed forces destroyed what remained of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria in 2019. At the end of 2025, more than 23,000 people were there, according to a report this week from the Pentagon’s Inspector General.

The US military is rapidly backing out of this region after the years-long occupation, effectively throwing the Kurds (SDF) under the bus, as HTS radicals move in and take control. 

Given many analysts have pointed to HTS being 'ISIS-lite' to begin with, the following WSJ note is no surprise: "The vast majority have left Al-Hol after the Syrian government took control last month. Western diplomats in Damascus assessed that more than 20,000 people fled the camp in a matter of days earlier amid rioting and a surge of escape attempts."

There were even reports that the ISIS prisoners greeted the government HTS troops rolling in as 'liberators'. The new government is certainly not "fighting" Islamic State cells... quite the contrary:

As the Asayish is set to re-take the control of the Al hol camp and region (including everything north of it) - the Syrian Government Forces currently in charge of Al Hol Camp have opened the gates of the camp and are releasing+transporting as many ISIS members and families out… pic.twitter.com/2jQOR4hisI

— ScharoMaroof (@ScharoMaroof) February 13, 2026

And now the Washington blob is simply moving on to the next regime change operation, this time a little further east in Iran, which it turns out was a key Assad ally.

So in place of the secular nationalist Baath party (under the Assad family), the West has the literal founder of Syrian al-Qaeda as president of Damascus, letting ISIS prisoners and affiliates walk free.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 20:30

FDA Dropping Requirement For 2 Studies For New Drug Approvals

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will approve many new drugs based on one trial moving forward, agency leaders have said.

FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary in Washington on July 29, 2025. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

The FDA has typically required two studies from companies seeking approval for most new drugs, although in recent years it has approved some drugs based on a single well-run trial.

“The FDA has demonstrated disease-by-disease flexibility and has granted approvals based on a single premarket study with confirmatory evidence. In some fields, such as oncology, single trials have supported the majority of drug approvals,” Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA’s commissioner, and Dr. Vinay Prasad, head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in an article published on Feb. 18 by the New England Journal of Medicine.

“However, although we have exercised flexibility in the past, there remains confusion from manufacturers regarding settings in which a single trial will be accepted. Moving forward, we are announcing that a one-trial requirement will be the FDA’s new default standard. This reform is being rolled out synchronously with the agency’s postmarket initiative to collect robust data on all drugs and devices.”

The two-study standard for drugs dates to the early 1960s, when Congress passed a law requiring the FDA to review data from “adequate and well-controlled investigations” before clearing new medications. For decades, the agency interpreted that requirement as meaning at least two studies, preferably with a large number of patients and significant follow-up time.

The second study would, in theory, confirm that the first trial’s results weren’t a fluke and could be reproduced.

Beginning in the 1990s, the FDA increasingly began accepting single studies for the approval of treatments for rare or fatal diseases that companies often struggle to test in large numbers of patients. Over the past five years, roughly 60 percent of first-of-a-kind drugs approved each year have been cleared based on a single study.

Makary and Prasad said that the historical reliance on multiple studies “was intended to provide credible causal evidence that a therapy could improve clinical outcomes with acceptable safety in a world where biologic understanding was more limited than it is today.”

They later added: “In the modern world, as drug discovery becomes increasingly precise and scientific, the FDA considers not just effects on survival, but biochemical and intermediate changes that tell a complete biologic story: does this drug actually work? In this setting, overreliance on two trials no longer makes sense.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in White Oak, Md., on June 5, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The change will save drug developers money and reduce the time it takes to get drugs to market, the officials said. They expect more drug development in response.

Dr. Janet Woodcock, the FDA director who led the agency’s drug center for about 20 years before retiring in 2024, said the change makes sense and reflects the FDA’s decades-long move toward relying on one trial, combined with supporting evidence, for various life-threatening diseases, including cancer.

“The scientific point is well taken that as we move toward greater understanding of biology and disease we don’t need to do two trials all the time,” Woodcock said.

Dr. Reshma Ramachandran, assistant professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, said in a post on X that it’s true most FDA approvals in recent years have been based on single, strong trials.

“But as the authors noted (& have for years!), patients are increasingly left with uncertainty of their effectiveness,” she wrote, “so why set a standard continuing the (bad) same old instead of demanding more?”

Makary and Prasad said that they reserve the right to demand additional testing if a trial has limitations or deficiencies.

“Instead of prioritizing finite reviewer time reading and assessing two or more pivotal trials, we will focus our energies on ensuring that the one clinical trial we require provides the most up-to-date and useful information for American patients,” they wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 20:05

Amazon Cloud Unit Taken Down Twice By Its Own AI Tools: Report

Amazon’s cloud-computing arm suffered at least two recent service interruptions linked to the use of its own artificial intelligence coding assistants, prompting some internal concerns about the company’s rapid deployment of autonomous software agents inside production environments.

In mid-December, Amazon engineers allowed the company’s Kiro AI coding tool to implement system changes that ultimately led to a roughly 13-hour disruption affecting one of the systems customers use to analyze the cost of AWS services, people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times. 

The agentic tool - which is capable of taking autonomous actions on behalf of users - reportedly determined that the optimal remediation step was to delete and recreate a computing environment. AWS later circulated an internal postmortem examining the outage.

Employees said the December incident marked the second time in recent months that one of Amazon’s internally deployed AI development tools had played a central role in a service disruption. In both cases, engineers permitted the software agent to execute changes without requiring secondary approval, a safeguard typically mandated for manual interventions in production systems.

AWS accounts for roughly 60% of Amazon’s operating profit and is investing heavily in artificial intelligence tools designed to function as independent “agents” capable of carrying out tasks based on high-level human instructions. The company - along with other large technology firms - is also positioning such tools for sale to external enterprise customers.

Oregon AWS datacenter

Amazon said it was a coincidence that AI tools were involved in the disruptions and maintained that the same outcome could have resulted from conventional development software or manual intervention.

“In both instances, this was user error, not AI error,” the company said, adding that it had found no evidence that mistakes occur more frequently when AI tools are involved.

The company described the December interruption as an “extremely limited event” affecting a single service in parts of mainland China and said the second incident did not impact a customer-facing AWS system.

Neither disruption approached the scale of a broader AWS outage in October 2025 that lasted approximately 15 hours and temporarily took multiple customers’ applications offline - including services operated by OpenAI.

Employees said the company’s AI development tools are often treated as operational extensions of human engineers and are granted comparable system permissions. In the December case, the engineer involved had broader access than anticipated - a user access-control issue that Amazon said allowed the changes to proceed without appropriate review.

AWS introduced Kiro in July as a next-generation coding assistant designed to go beyond so-called “vibe coding,” in which developers rapidly assemble applications using AI-generated suggestions. Instead, Kiro was intended to produce code directly from formal specifications.

Prior to Kiro’s launch, AWS engineers relied on Amazon Q Developer, an AI-powered chatbot designed to assist with software development. Employees said that tool was involved in an earlier outage.

Some staff members said they remain skeptical about the reliability of AI-assisted coding for mission-critical tasks, particularly as Amazon has set internal targets encouraging 80% of developers to use AI tools for coding at least once per week. The company is said to be closely monitoring adoption rates.

Amazon said customer uptake of Kiro has been strong and that it wants both clients and employees to benefit from efficiency gains. Following the December incident, AWS implemented additional safeguards, including mandatory peer review procedures and expanded staff training.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 19:40

More Than 550 Commercial Driving Schools To Close After Checks: Transportation Department

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Department of Transportation announced on Feb. 18 the removal of certifications for more than 550 U.S. commercial driving schools that train truckers and bus drivers.

Truckers transport cargo in the Port of Long Beach, Calif., on Nov. 29, 2023. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

The schools were employing unqualified instructors, using fraudulent addresses, and failing to properly train applicants for transporting hazardous materials, investigators found.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration deployed more than 300 investigators across all 50 states to conduct more than 1,400 safety operations.

After the investigation revealed hundreds of safety violations, the agency served notices to more than 550 schools informing them of their proposed removal from the national training provider registry, including one school that had previously provided training for operating school buses.

The announcement is the latest development in the Trump administration’s crackdown on the commercial driving training provider industry, following the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s nationwide audit last year.

The Transportation Department also imposed stricter English-language skills requirements for commercial truckers, resulting in more than 9,500 being removed from service for failing proficiency checks.

“For too long, the trucking industry has operated like the Wild, Wild West, where anything goes, and nobody asks any questions. The buck stops with me,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement.

“My team is cracking down on every link in the trucking chain that has allowed this lawlessness to impact the safety of America’s roads.”

The five-day, on-site investigations yielded 448 notices of proposed removals alleging the schools failed to meet the agency’s basic safety standards.

Another 109 training providers voluntarily removed their status from the national training provider registry after “hearing investigators were on the way,” the Transportation Department said.

The alleged violations included schools employing unqualified instructors who lacked the proper licenses and permits for the vehicles they were teaching students to drive, including school buses.

Some schools were also accused of using vehicles that did not match the type of training being offered, conducting incomplete testing on basic requirements for students, and failing to meet state-specific safety requirements.

“We mobilized hundreds of investigators to visit these schools in person to ensure strict compliance with federal safety standards,” Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Administrator Derek D. Barrs said in a statement.

“If a school isn’t using the right vehicles or if their instructors aren’t qualified, they have no business training the next generation of truckers or school bus drivers.”

Another 97 training schools are still under investigation for compliance issues, the Transportation Department stated.

The agency has said it is imposing new requirements for the trucker training industry to increase road safety.

In September 2025, the Transportation Department announced new, stricter rules for issuing “non-domiciled” commercial driver’s licenses to non-citizens, requiring them to meet higher safety standards.

“Non-domiciled” licenses are issued to people who are legally allowed to work in the United States, but are not residents or living in the state where they receive their license.

Earlier this year, multiple trucker training providers told The Epoch Times that limited federal oversight in recent years has led to inconsistencies in state-level requirements for schools and their students, as well as issues with providers who self-certify with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s national registry.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 19:15

Israel Reviews Wartime Hospital Readiness As Iran Retaliation Fears Mount

An Israeli television channel reported Thursday that the government's Health Ministry convened an emergency session with hospital directors and major health funds to assess readiness for a possible escalation with Iran.

According to i24 News, senior ministry officials attended the meeting and instructed hospital administrators to detail their level of preparedness in the event of a direct confrontation with Tehran. The extra caution also stems back to the June war with Iran, where hundreds of Iranian ballistic missiles and drones inflicted significant damage on Israeli cities and bases.

AFP/BBC: The Soroka hospital in Beersheba was reportedly hit by an Iranian strike during the brief June war, although Iran denies targeting it.

Iran has warned that if it gets attacked again, it will consider both the United States and Israel to be aggressors, since the two allies work in concert to undermine the Islamic Republic.

One major hospital, for example, already suffered damage during the 12-day June conflict, and wants to take no chances amid reports of looming new war:

Soroka Medical Center has begun preparing for conflict with Iran, with hospital management and emergency teams updating procedures, checking readiness, and running simulations for wartime scenarios. 

The hospital was hit by a ballistic missile in June of 2025, sustaining severe damage to its infrastructure. Since then, Soroka Center has been working on recovery and is now forced to prepare for another military campaign. 

The medical center is already simulating emergency situations, and in recent days, procedures have been refined and guidelines updated for transferring patients in case of another emergency.

Israeli media further says that top level dialogue over preparedness reportedly centered on defensive protocols, infrastructure resilience, and the availability of critical medical equipment should the existing emergency framework shift into full wartime footing.

Dramatic footage from the Iranian counter-attack on Israel in June...

❗️Israeli hospitals race to EMERGENCY MODE amid Iran war fears — Yediot

— “Suitable patients” sent home to free up beds for mass casualties

— Medical staff BANNED from traveling abroad

— Hospitals 'reinforced' with doctors pic.twitter.com/DGTjjHnJpD

— RT (@RT_com) February 20, 2026

Guidelines presented during the session included preparations for mass-casualty scenarios, relocating operations to fortified sections of hospitals, potentially recalling additional medical personnel, as well as scaling back non-urgent procedures such as elective surgeries.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 18:50

As Pentagon Races to Deploy AI, Operational Challenges Highlight Risks

Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Artificial intelligence (AI) is often framed as a force multiplier that can accelerate decision-making and produce valuable information. Meanwhile, AI deployment exercises have yielded mixed results, highlighting challenges such as systems stalling and unpredictable software outside controlled environments.

A U.S. soldier holds a drone in the Pentagon parking lot in Arlington, Va., on June 14, 2025. Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Some defense insiders believe that AI tools also introduce new safety and escalation risks if not developed, evaluated, and trained correctly.

Over the past year, U.S. military testing has demonstrated that some AI systems are failing in the field. In May 2025, Anduril Industries worked with the U.S. Navy on the launch of 30 AI drone boats, all of which ended up stuck idling in the water after the systems rejected their inputs.

A similar setback occurred in August 2025 during the company’s test of its Anvil counterdrone system. The resultant mechanical failure caused a 22-acre fire in Oregon, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Anduril responded to the reported AI test failures, calling them “a small handful of alleged setbacks at government experimentation, testing, and integration events.”

“Modern defense technology emerges through relentless testing, rapid iteration, and disciplined risk-taking,” Anduril stated on its website. “Systems break. Software crashes. Hardware fails under stress. Finding these failures in controlled environments is the entire point.”

But some say the challenges AI faces in the national security landscape should not be taken lightly. Problems such as brittle AI models and building on the wrong kind of training data can create systems that do not perform as expected in a battlefield scenario.

“This is why military-grade AI, purpose-built for national security use cases and the warfighter, is critical,” Tyler Saltsman, founder of EdgeRunner AI, told The Epoch Times.

Saltsman’s company has active research and development contracts with the U.S. military. He said AI systems are not typically designed for warfighting.

“[AI models] may choose to refuse or deflect certain questions or tasks if those requests do not comply with the AI system’s own rules,” Saltsman said. “A model refusing to provide guidance to a soldier in combat or giving biased responses rather than operationally relevant responses can have life-or-death implications.”

Scenarios such as the one Saltsman described can start with the wrong kind of training data.

A U.S. Army staff sergeant operates an Anduril Ghost X unmanned aircraft system during Exercise Balikatan 25 in Itbayat, Philippines, on April 22, 2025. While artificial intelligence is often framed as a force multiplier, deployment exercises have produced mixed results, including system stalls and unpredictable software performance outside controlled environments. Pfc. Peter Bannister/U.S. Army Data Dilemma

Jeff Stollman, who has worked with defense contractors as an independent consultant and is familiar with a range of products and services used by the military and intelligence communities, said much of “the data needed has not been collected historically.”

“And because internet data is typically of limited value and internet-based models can’t be run on isolated classified networks, military and intelligence users will need to collect their own new data,” Stollman told The Epoch Times.

He said there are three categories of training data used by the defense and armed forces communities, all of which have different hurdles.

Offering an example of a sustainment—or maintenance—data challenge, Stollman said that collecting this type of information typically requires adding sensors that can record the data needed to predict malfunctions and failures.

“This includes measuring temperature, vibration, friction, the amount of wear on various parts,” he said. “This is an expensive undertaking. Sensors aren’t free. They add weight and volume to space and weight-constrained platforms such as aircraft and spacecraft.”

This type of data collection is offloaded to a database because of limited onboard computer resources. Although that sounds logical at first, the problem is the time it can take.

“For platforms like ships and submarines, windows for transmission of such data, which might give away the position of the platform, are limited,” Stollman said. “As a result, data may not be accessible for months at a time.”

A drone of an AI-based drone system is pictured during a presentation in Eberswalde, Germany, on March 27, 2025. Ralf Hirschberger/AFP via Getty Images

Another challenge of AI integration is reliability. Issues such as AI “hallucinations” and poor decisions can be amplified in adversarial environments.

“The most dangerous assumption is that AI can distinguish between legitimate inputs and adversarial manipulation,” Christopher Trocola, founder of ARC Defense Systems, told The Epoch Times.

He cited the July 2025 experiment in which AI-powered, cloud-based platform Replit’s “vibe coding” ended with an AI assistant panicking and trying to cover its tracks. The AI coding assistant reportedly deleted a live production database, fabricated thousands of fake records, and created misleading status messages.

“Military applications amplify these vulnerabilities catastrophically,” Trocola said.

He explained that three critical AI assumptions can fail under adversarial pressure: prompt injection resistance, hallucination control, and intent recognition.

This is when adversaries can manipulate AI through carefully crafted inputs designed to override instructions, generate false information, or indicate that malicious inputs are benign.

“This represents what’s known as distribution shift: AI trained in controlled environments failing catastrophically when deployed in real-world adversarial contexts,” Trocola said.

Saltsman said this highlights the importance of building AI models with military applications in mind.

“Most commercial AI systems are black boxes,” he said. “We don’t know what data trained the models. We don’t know what guardrails or biases were baked into the models. And we don’t know if our data is truly secure. All of this is highly problematic in national security settings.”

Risk Evaluation

Stollman noted that generative AI—which is already used in U.S. intelligence and defense—is “plagued” with problems such as hallucinations. However, it is also the most practical kind of AI for military operations.

“Generative AI is useful in areas such as reconnaissance, where it is necessary to identify installations and activities from data collected by various sensors: photos, radar, sonar, etc.,” Stollman said. “It can also be used to support decision-making.”

A consultant instructs the Advanced Artificial Intelligence Command Course at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina on Dec. 12, 2025. Lance Cpl. Payton Walley/U.S. Marine Corps

“For example, drones or missiles could be given autonomy of action to overcome signal jamming that prevents their being controlled remotely by humans,” he said. “But before such autonomy can be deployed, it is necessary to anticipate all the failure modes that could lead to undesirable consequences.”

Saltsman said he agrees that AI development and deployment must be carefully balanced with long-term risk evaluation.

“But make no mistake, we are in an AI war against China, and we must win the race,” he said.

He noted that if China’s AI models and hardware dominate the market, the United States could become dependent on the Asian nation for critical technologies.

“Therefore, it is a national security imperative that we accelerate the pace of AI development while also balancing the risks,” Saltsman said.

In 2025, the United Nations said that the use of AI in warfighting was no longer a hypothetical future scenario. The U.N. also stressed the risks and consequences of AI system failures in this capacity.

“Without rigorous safeguards, it risks undermining international humanitarian law,” the agency stated.

“Complex battlefields already test human judgment in distinguishing between combatants and civilians; for machines, the challenge is even greater, particularly in urban settings where civilians and fighters often intermingle.”

Xpeng’s next-gen Iron humanoid robot speaks to media during a showroom tour at its headquarters in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China, on Nov. 5, 2025. Tyler Saltsman said that if China’s AI models and hardware dominate the market, the United States could become dependent on the Asian nation for critical technologies. Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images

Trocola said he shares concerns that AI deployment in the military and defense sectors is outpacing risk assessment.

“Documented patterns suggest this creates systematic vulnerabilities,” he said. “Industry data shows [70 percent to 80 percent] of AI projects fail due to organizational readiness gaps.”

The Department of War AI Acceleration Strategy launched in January, which emphasizes rapid deployment to counter strategic competitors.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 18:25

From Germany To Brazil: The "Social Media Ban"-Craze Continues

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

The list of countries that want to “ban social media for children” (read: identity-gate internet access) just continues to grow and grow.

There’s Germany…

NEW - Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), a former BlackRock chairman, wants to end the anonymity on the Internet: "I want to see real names." pic.twitter.com/sUjG7XIdrd

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) February 18, 2026

At least Merz is being somewhat honest about the intention – ending anonymity.

Meanwhile, Greece is doing it to “protect democracy”…

NOW - Greece's PM says banning social media for minors and adolescents "goes hand in hand with a democratic responsibility" to ensure "that technology strengthens the public square rather than overwhelms us with disinformation and hate," and that if dialogue with big tech fails,… pic.twitter.com/qJ9shDiUYr

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) February 19, 2026

And Canada is still clinging to the “protect kids” line:

So is Brazil:

Not to mention France, Spain, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy, and Slovenia [link].

Social media bans are the newest trend. Heads of state, like Mad Men-style 60s housewives, are seeing what their neighbors have and jealously demanding their own.

Not since the early days of Covid have our world leaders demonstrated such school-of-fish-like hivemind synchronization.

It’s all just a coincidence, I’m sure.

Even the US, a supposed bastion of freedom under The Don, is inevitably heading in the same direction.

That’s the reason for the big “social media trial”, contrived performance theatre to air the anti-algorithm grievances of bereaved parents who or may not be real, and engage the increasingly hysterical sentiments of the digital mob.

America may be the last domino to fall, it may even be relegated to a state-level matter, but fall it will.

And that will be that.

It’s another reason why the proposed VPN ban may come to nothing, because there’s no point in spoofing your IP to another country if every country on earth requires digital ID anyway.

This is the wall of a digital prison closing in, and it’s far more important than the alleged arrest of Prince Andrew.

Which is why THAT is on every front page in the country, and THIS is not.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 17:00

From Germany To Brazil: The "Social Media Ban"-Craze Continues

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

The list of countries that want to “ban social media for children” (read: identity-gate internet access) just continues to grow and grow.

There’s Germany…

NEW - Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), a former BlackRock chairman, wants to end the anonymity on the Internet: "I want to see real names." pic.twitter.com/sUjG7XIdrd

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) February 18, 2026

At least Merz is being somewhat honest about the intention – ending anonymity.

Meanwhile, Greece is doing it to “protect democracy”…

NOW - Greece's PM says banning social media for minors and adolescents "goes hand in hand with a democratic responsibility" to ensure "that technology strengthens the public square rather than overwhelms us with disinformation and hate," and that if dialogue with big tech fails,… pic.twitter.com/qJ9shDiUYr

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) February 19, 2026

And Canada is still clinging to the “protect kids” line:

So is Brazil:

Not to mention France, Spain, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy, and Slovenia [link].

Social media bans are the newest trend. Heads of state, like Mad Men-style 60s housewives, are seeing what their neighbors have and jealously demanding their own.

Not since the early days of Covid have our world leaders demonstrated such school-of-fish-like hivemind synchronization.

It’s all just a coincidence, I’m sure.

Even the US, a supposed bastion of freedom under The Don, is inevitably heading in the same direction.

That’s the reason for the big “social media trial”, contrived performance theatre to air the anti-algorithm grievances of bereaved parents who or may not be real, and engage the increasingly hysterical sentiments of the digital mob.

America may be the last domino to fall, it may even be relegated to a state-level matter, but fall it will.

And that will be that.

It’s another reason why the proposed VPN ban may come to nothing, because there’s no point in spoofing your IP to another country if every country on earth requires digital ID anyway.

This is the wall of a digital prison closing in, and it’s far more important than the alleged arrest of Prince Andrew.

Which is why THAT is on every front page in the country, and THIS is not.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 17:00

Steven Spielberg Flees California Amid Raging Wealth Tax Battle

Another day, another rich liberal leaving a state over policies they promoted. 

In today's episode of modern hypocrisy, Steven Spielberg, director of blockbuster hits like Jaws, E.T., Poltergeist and Saving Private Ryan, has moved to Manhattan, according to the Los Angeles Times. A spokesperson for one of Hollywood’s most reliable Democrat Party donors was quick to insist the relocation has nothing to do with California’s highly controversial wealth tax proposal.

“Steven’s move to the East Coast is both long-planned and driven purely by his and Kate Capshaw’s desire to be closer to their New York-based children and grandchildren,” spokeswoman Terry Press told the newspaper. Unsurprisingly, Press declined to say where Spielberg stands on the wealth tax when asked.

California is now seriously considering a new wealth tax targeting billionaires, including a levy on unrealized gains. The idea has already spooked investors and contributed to several high-profile tech figures running for the exits. It’s a familiar pattern when progressive policies finally start to bite, a surprising number of billionaires discover a sudden deep affection for Florida, Texas, or even New York.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin quietly began unwinding portions of their financial empires in California in the days leading up to Christmas, while Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg dropped $150 million on a Miami mansion. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan had been looking for a home on Indian Creek Island, the ultra-exclusive, heavily guarded enclave nicknamed “Billionaire Bunker” that is already home to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, former NFL star quarterback Tom Brady, and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

Even Jeffrey Epstein pal Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder and major Democratic donor, has taken aim at the billionaire tax proposal, slamming it as a "horrendous idea" that could drive tech founders and executives out of the state.

Rep. Khanna reached out to me to discuss the proposed California wealth tax; and while I am against the proposed tax, I'm always open to dialogue with our elected leaders.

The proposed CA wealth tax is badly designed in so many ways that a simple social post cannot cover all of…

— Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman) January 7, 2026

"The proposed CA wealth tax is badly designed in so many ways that a simple social post cannot cover all of the massive flaws. One well-documented example is the horrendous idea to tax illiquid stock in the proposal. Poorly designed taxes incentivize avoidance, capital flight, and distortions that ultimately raise less revenue," Hoffman said of the plan.

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, a longtime Democrat who voted for Trump in the 2024 election, warned that California is on a "path to self-destruction."

California is on a path to self-destruction. Hollywood is already toast and now the most productive entrepreneurs will leave taking their tax revenues and job creation elsewhere.

And then the Democrats highlight @CAgovernor Newsom as a great leader. Crazy. https://t.co/bFyLhARrNn

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) December 27, 2025

"Hollywood is already toast, and now the most productive entrepreneurs will leave, taking their tax revenues and job creation elsewhere,” Ackman said.

Our readers will recall that Tesla and SpaceX Ceo Elon Musk was one of the first big names to leave California years ago, citing the state’s punishing taxes and its embrace of radical left-wing governance. The list keeps growing.

Buckle up, Newsom. Musk was the first and Spielberg won’t be the last.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 16:40

Steven Spielberg Flees California Amid Raging Wealth Tax Battle

Another day, another rich liberal leaving a state over policies they promoted. 

In today's episode of modern hypocrisy, Steven Spielberg, director of blockbuster hits like Jaws, E.T., Poltergeist and Saving Private Ryan, has moved to Manhattan, according to the Los Angeles Times. A spokesperson for one of Hollywood’s most reliable Democrat Party donors was quick to insist the relocation has nothing to do with California’s highly controversial wealth tax proposal.

“Steven’s move to the East Coast is both long-planned and driven purely by his and Kate Capshaw’s desire to be closer to their New York-based children and grandchildren,” spokeswoman Terry Press told the newspaper. Unsurprisingly, Press declined to say where Spielberg stands on the wealth tax when asked.

California is now seriously considering a new wealth tax targeting billionaires, including a levy on unrealized gains. The idea has already spooked investors and contributed to several high-profile tech figures running for the exits. It’s a familiar pattern when progressive policies finally start to bite, a surprising number of billionaires discover a sudden deep affection for Florida, Texas, or even New York.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin quietly began unwinding portions of their financial empires in California in the days leading up to Christmas, while Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg dropped $150 million on a Miami mansion. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan had been looking for a home on Indian Creek Island, the ultra-exclusive, heavily guarded enclave nicknamed “Billionaire Bunker” that is already home to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, former NFL star quarterback Tom Brady, and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

Even Jeffrey Epstein pal Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder and major Democratic donor, has taken aim at the billionaire tax proposal, slamming it as a "horrendous idea" that could drive tech founders and executives out of the state.

Rep. Khanna reached out to me to discuss the proposed California wealth tax; and while I am against the proposed tax, I'm always open to dialogue with our elected leaders.

The proposed CA wealth tax is badly designed in so many ways that a simple social post cannot cover all of…

— Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman) January 7, 2026

"The proposed CA wealth tax is badly designed in so many ways that a simple social post cannot cover all of the massive flaws. One well-documented example is the horrendous idea to tax illiquid stock in the proposal. Poorly designed taxes incentivize avoidance, capital flight, and distortions that ultimately raise less revenue," Hoffman said of the plan.

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, a longtime Democrat who voted for Trump in the 2024 election, warned that California is on a "path to self-destruction."

California is on a path to self-destruction. Hollywood is already toast and now the most productive entrepreneurs will leave taking their tax revenues and job creation elsewhere.

And then the Democrats highlight @CAgovernor Newsom as a great leader. Crazy. https://t.co/bFyLhARrNn

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) December 27, 2025

"Hollywood is already toast, and now the most productive entrepreneurs will leave, taking their tax revenues and job creation elsewhere,” Ackman said.

Our readers will recall that Tesla and SpaceX Ceo Elon Musk was one of the first big names to leave California years ago, citing the state’s punishing taxes and its embrace of radical left-wing governance. The list keeps growing.

Buckle up, Newsom. Musk was the first and Spielberg won’t be the last.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/20/2026 - 16:40