Goldman: Local Resistance Against Data Centers "Are Not Slowing Development"

Fierce winter weather across the eastern half of the U.S. put the power grid, data centers, and electricity prices back in focus, especially in the Mid-Atlantic, where Washington, D.C., logged its longest freezing streak since 1989.

Our review of Facebook, X, media coverage, and local officials' comments suggests that the cold snap across the Mid-Atlantic has put data centers and power bills in the spotlight, especially given that PJM Interconnection is already operating in a very tight grid environment.

Even as residents in Mid-Atlantic states increasingly push back against data centers while watching their monthly power bills soar, local officials, some of whom are partly responsible for tightening grid spare capacity with backfiring "green" policies, are scrambling as public anger grows.

However, Goldman analysts led by Hongcen Wei have some disappointing news for residents in the Mid-Atlantic, and frankly elsewhere, who are trying to slow data center development: "U.S. Local Regulatory Pushbacks Against Data Centers Are Not Slowing Development."

Wei, Daan Struyven, and Samantha Dart explained:

Media coverage highlights growing local community pushbacks against data center developments, posing a slow-down risk to data center power demand growth, along with US power market tightness. While local regulatory reviews could pause data center approvals temporarily, we believe resulting regulations could lead to fewer pushbacks and streamlined development processes by enhancing power reliability and affordability and establishing clear requirements. Ultimately, we believe power tightness remains the primary risk that could slow the US in the AI race with China.

We note that these pushbacks mostly originated from local communities with little exposure to data centers. In such cases, we expect proposed data centers to relocate rather than be canceled in the extreme scenario of a ban, given elevated demand for data centers and AI. This suggests no significant impact on overall future data center power demand growth at the state or national level.

• We take Georgia as an example, where we estimate the power market is not tightening and power price increases were below the national average in 2025. There was wave of moratoriums enacted by at least six counties in the past year, putting a pause on new data centers for at least a few months (for example, in Coweta and DeKalb counties). However, most of these counties have no existing data centers, only proposed projects to start in a few years, so we do not expect these moratoriums to impact data center developments in the near future. Going forward, with no clustering advantage within these counties (to stay close to another data center with established data highways), we believe even permanent bans would only result in project relocation to a more welcoming area (potentially the neighboring county) rather than cancellations

In other communities with both regulatory actions and existing data centers, regulatory reviews are often followed by continued and even accelerated growth. Rather than creating red tape, we believe updated regulations could streamline development processes by clearly defining specific requirements for data centers which are easier to follow than addressing diverse local community concerns.

• Douglas County, the only one of the six Georgian counties with existing data centers (a top-10% county in the US), activated multiple new data centers in 2H2025 and more are scheduled for later following its 90-day moratorium on data centers starting from March 2025 (Exhibit 1).

• Nationally, Loudoun County, Virginia, the world's capital of data centers, started reviewing and updating its data center regulations in 2024 and approved them in 2025, with further regulations under consideration. However, the county continues to lead in data center capacity, with additions in the past year surpassing any other US county and its own previous records

Beyond local ordinances, we also see state-level legislation increasingly focusing on power affordability and reliability, which we do not expect to slow down data center developments. Specifically, we expect more regulations in the next few years aiming to shift more power costs from the public to data centers to incentivize additional power supply and to mitigate power bill increases. These regulations could take various formats, such as the President and several governors' plan for the PJM (Mid-Atlantic) power market, or reductions in data center tax exemption (as seen in bills introduced in Arizona and Maryland). Nevertheless, we expect higher power costs to have limited impact on future data center power demand growth, as power costs are not a primary driver for data center expansion

Conversely, we believe state-level regulations that enhance power affordability and reliability could lead to a more favorable environment for accelerated data center developments, as Texas has started to demonstrate (Exhibit 2).

• In June 2025, Texas passed its Senate Bill 6 (SB6) to regulate large electricity consumers, including data centers and cryptocurrency miners. The bill could be a bellwether for other states, with its new requirements for large-load customers to ensure power reliability, including backup generation and potential curtailments during emergencies. We do not expect these requirements to be a dealbreaker for new data centers, given our estimate that the Texas (mainly ERCOT) power market will be softer than other key regional power markets, resulting in a lower probability of curtailments, a key factor for data centers when choosing their location, while backup generation is always a standard component of data centers. In fact, Texas/ERCOT ranked second only to Virginia/PJM in data center capacity and additions across US states/power markets in 2025 (Exhibit 3). Going forward, we continue to consider Texas as one of the most competitive states for new data centers, with both high power availability and low time to client.

Professional subscribers can learn more about the data centers and power grids on our new Marketdesk.ai portal​​​​.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/06/2026 - 21:20

Suicide Bomb Rocks Pakistan's Capital, Over 30 Dead & 169 Wounded

Via The Cradle

At least 31 people were killed and 169 others injured on Friday when a suicide bomber struck a Shia mosque on the outskirts of Islamabad during Friday prayers, Pakistani officials said, in one of the capital’s deadliest attacks in over a decade.

The blast happened in the Khadija al-Kubra Imambargah mosque in the outskirts of Islamabad, with police saying the attacker had been stopped at the mosque gate before opening fire and setting off explosives among worshipers, according to officials cited by Reuters.

EPA/Shutterstock

Footage and images from the site showed bodies and debris scattered across the mosque’s carpeted prayer hall, with the wounded lying in the compound gardens, as bystanders called for help and rushed victims to hospitals.

Islamabad deputy commissioner Irfan Memon said the death toll stood at 31, adding that 169 injured people had been brought in for treatment, some in critical condition.

No group claimed responsibility yet; however, conflict monitor ACLED said the attack "bears the hallmarks of the Islamic State," while officials noted that Shia communities, a minority in Pakistan, have repeatedly been targeted in sectarian violence by extremist groups, including the Islamic State and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the bombing as "a crime against humanity," ordering full medical assistance to be provided for the wounded. 

Pakistan's Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said a thorough investigation is underway and that "those who are responsible must be identified and punished."

The attack unfolded as Islamabad was already under heightened security for a visiting foreign leader, with checkpoints and armed patrols deployed across the capital. 

While bombings are rare in the capital city, officials say militant violence has surged across the country in recent months.

Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif accused India of sponsoring the attack without presenting evidence, a claim New Delhi did not immediately respond to and has repeatedly denied in the past.

The deadly mosque attack comes after Pakistani security forces launched large-scale operations in Balochistan – a vast, sparsely populated region in southwestern Pakistan – following a wave of coordinated gun and bomb attacks over the weekend that killed about 50 people.

A suicide blast in Shia mosque has killed more than 31 people in Islamabad, Pakistan. Jinnah made a country for Muslims but Muslims kill more Muslims than any other religion in Pakistan. pic.twitter.com/YQcVaY8bgs

— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) February 6, 2026

Islamabad announced the killing of at least 145 separatist militants from the Balochistan Liberation Army, according to provincial officials. Authorities said the assaults targeted multiple districts, including Quetta and Gwadar, and included suicide bombings and gunfire at security installations.  

Pakistan’s provincial leadership accused Afghanistan and India of backing the militants – claims that New Delhi has denied – as Islamabad imposed sweeping security restrictions across the province amid a broader surge in militant violence.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/06/2026 - 20:55

China Bans Stablecoin Issuance By Foreign And Domestic Companies

Submitted by Cointelegraph,

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the country’s central bank, and seven Chinese regulatory agencies published a joint statement on Friday banning the unapproved issuance of Renminbi-pegged stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).

The ban applies to both domestic and foreign stablecoin and tokenized RWA issuers, according to the statement, which was also signed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and China’s Securities Regulatory Commission. A translation of the announcement said:

“Stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies perform some of the functions of fiat currencies in disguise during circulation and use. No unit or individual at home or abroad may issue RMB-linked stablecoins without the consent of relevant departments.”

Winston Ma, an adjunct professor at New York University (NYU) Law School and former Managing Director of CIC, China's sovereign wealth fund, told Cointelegraph that the ban extends to the onshore and offshore versions of China’s Renminbi, also called the yuan.  

“The Beijing crypto ban rule applies across all RMB-related markets, whether CNH or CNY,” he said. CNH is the offshore version of the Renminbi, designed to give the currency flexibility in foreign exchange markets, without sacrificing currency controls, Ma said.

“This is the latest step in a multi‑year project: Keep speculative crypto outside the formal financial system, while actively promoting the usage of e-CNY, the sovereign CBDC issued by China's central bank,” he said.

The announcement follows the Chinese government approving commercial banks to share interest with clients holding the country’s digital yuan, a central bank digital currency (CBDC) managed by state authorities

Chinese government briefly considered yuan-pegged stables, but focused on CBDC instead

In August 2025, reports began circulating that China’s government was considering allowing private companies to issue yuan-pegged stablecoins, a major reversal of long-standing policy. 

However, the Chinese government restricted stablecoin and digital asset issuance in September of that same year, instructing stablecoin issuers to pause or halt their stablecoin trials until further notice.

In January 2026, the PBOC approved commercial banks paying interest to digital yuan wallets in a push to make the CBDC more attractive to investors.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/06/2026 - 20:05

Las Vegas Neighborhood Rocked By Suspected Illegal Biolab

Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

LAS VEGAS—Every morning, Raul Contreras rides his mountain bike along the quiet streets of northeast Las Vegas, passing tidy stucco homes and lawns that reflect a good quality of life.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Allan Stein/The Epoch Times, FBI, LVMPD via AP, Screenshots via The Epoch Times, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police

To him, the area is a hidden gem, far from urban crime and congestion. Families thrive, kids play and go to school safely, and neighbors look out for each other.

He had no idea that one of these homes was hiding a secret that could threaten public health.

On Jan. 31, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police and SWAT teams raided the house at 979 Sugar Springs Drive, a place Contreras passes every day.

Inside the garage, they discovered a suspected biological laboratory containing a freezer, several refrigerators, a centrifuge and other specialized equipment, and over 1,000 vials and gallon-sized containers of unknown red and brown liquids.

“That’s kind of scary,” Contreras, who lives about two blocks away, told The Epoch Times. “You don’t know what the hell is in that stuff.”

“Now, you know it can happen in any neighborhood—even the quietest,” he said.

The discovery has left residents feeling unsettled and unsure. Some are asking how this suspected biolab went unnoticed, possibly as long as three years, in an active crime watch community.

A crime watch community is one in which residents partner with local law enforcement to reduce crime through increased surveillance, reporting, and, in some cases, technology.

“I feel they shouldn’t have let it go on,” said Kathy, who gave only her first name, as she walked her dog near the now-empty home.

“It’s scary. It’s really easy to operate under the radar here.”

Cody Human, who owns a tree trimming service in Las Vegas, said he and his crew had planned to work at the house next door on the day of the raid.

However, when they arrived, they saw police officers and hazmat-suited personnel throughout the property.

“If I lived in this neighborhood, I would definitely be scared,” Human told The Epoch Times as he resumed work on Feb. 3.

Authorities discovered a freezer, several refrigerators, specialized lab equipment, and more than 1,000 vials and gallon-size containers of unknown red and brown liquids in the garage while searching a house on Sugar Springs Drive in Las Vegas on Jan. 31, 2026. FBI

“Anything like that is scary, especially for neighborhoods like this that have kids and families,” he said.

“I mean, this neighborhood is known as a family-oriented neighborhood. You’ve got churches. This is one of the better neighborhoods. It’s very clean, very quiet.”

Meanwhile, a team of local, state, and federal investigators is working to identify the materials seized from the suspected biolab and their purpose.

“We recognize that the public is seeking clarity,” Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill told reporters on Feb. 2. “What were they testing for? What possibilities are being considered?”

FBI scientists and specialized evidence teams entered the garage, where they opened the refrigerators and a freezer to inspect their contents.

Some items appeared to have been used to store biological and chemical materials, McMahill said.

The joint investigation involved multiple agencies and a “layered use of technology,” including Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department drones and a robotic dog, to assess environmental conditions at the residence to limit risk of exposure to potential pathogens.

Authorities search a house on Sugar Springs Drive in Las Vegas on Jan. 31, 2026. The discovery of the suspected illegal biolab left residents uneasy, with some asking how it went unnoticed in an active crime-watch community. FBI

McMahill said investigators collected more than 1,000 pieces of evidence and stored them temporarily at the Southern Nevada Health District building.

On Feb. 2, FBI agents transported the materials by aircraft to the National Bioforensic Analysis Center in Maryland, according to Christopher Delzotto, special agent in charge of the investigation at the FBI’s Las Vegas office.

McMahill said the Sugar Springs Drive home is owned by David Destiny Discovery LLC, whose principal is David He, the same person connected to an illegal biolab shut down in Reedley, California, in 2023.

The Epoch Times previously reported that David He is the pseudonym used by Jia Bei Zhu, a Chinese national.

The Justice Department releases a photo of Jia Bei Zhu, arrested in connection with an illegal Chinese biolab in Reedley, Calif., on Oct. 19, 2023. Department of Justice

The Justice Department releases a photo of Jia Bei Zhu, arrested in connection with an illegal Chinese biolab in Reedley, Calif., on Oct. 19, 2023. Department of Justice

Investigators at the Reedley biolab found materials possibly linked to infectious diseases, including hepatitis, COVID-19, HIV, malaria, and other dangerous pathogens, McMahill said.

Police have named He as a suspect in the Las Vegas case, and said federal authorities were already holding him because of charges related to the 2023 investigation.

A second suspect, Ori Salomon, 55, a nonimmigrant foreign national, was also arrested in the Las Vegas investigation. Salomon, who also spells his surname as Solomon, manages the home on Sugar Springs Drive and a nearby house on Temple View Drive.

Police booked Salomon at the Clark County Detention Center for disposing of and releasing dangerous waste, and he was released on $3,000 bail. Salomon is also facing a federal felony charge of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.

His next court appearance is scheduled for March 4.

The sheriff said the Reedley investigation raised significant concerns about what local authorities might encounter at the Sugar Springs Drive property.

“While it is unknown whether similar materials were present here at the Las Vegas residence, the possibility required us to proceed with extreme caution,” McMahill said.

On Jan. 31, the FBI also executed a search warrant at the property on Temple View Drive, where several people resided, but found no illegal biological materials inside.

When police went into the property on Sugar Springs Drive, they found three people living in different rooms they were renting. These people are not involved in the current investigation, McMahill said.

According to county documents obtained by The Epoch Times, David Destiny Discovery purchased the Sugar Springs Drive property in October 2022 from Wang Zhaoyan, who was connected to companies involved in the Reedley case.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/06/2026 - 17:40

Cuba Ready To Negotiate With Trump, But Urges Dialing Down Of Pressure

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has offered to enter negotiations with Washington, but has made clear that this must happen "without pressure" - at a moment the Trump administration is seeking to economically strangle Cuba - even going so far as to openly tout the desire to see regime change.

"Cuba is willing to engage in dialogue with the United States," the Cuban leader announced Thursday. He made clear this can be a "dialogue on any topic... but without pressure or precondition."

via Associated Press

But his key caveat is that for dialogue to take place, it must happen "from a position of equals, with respect for our sovereignty, our independence and our self-determination" and without "interference in our internal affairs."

Díaz-Canel added that Cuba has long been subjected to "intense media campaigns of slander, hatred, and psychological warfare."

President Trump has been seeking to end oil imports to Cuba, and after the Maduro overthrow, this has become a real possibility, given that the United States can now demand that the interim government in Caracas end its oil exports to Havana. Venezuela has always been Cuba's number one supplier. 

Mexico too has recently halted oil sales to Cuba so that it can avoid coming under a White House pressure campaign.

But there's still a lifeline: "Russian oil has been supplied to Cuba on numerous occasions in recent years. We expect this practice to continue," Moscow's ambassador to Cuba, Viktor Koronelli, has explained. 

In the background, Cuban immigrants in the US dread the possibility of being sent back to Cuba, especially with its economy in a sanctions-induced tailspin:

“It’s been brutal,” said Estévez. “Imagine Dylan hugging his phone every night when he sees his dad. I wouldn’t wish this on any mother.”

As the US government heaps pressure on Cuba, cutting off access to its oil shipments, Donald Trump has framed the campaign as an effort to make the island safe for Cuban Americans.

“A lot of people that live in our country are treated very badly by Cuba,” Trump said recently. “They all voted for me, and we want them to be treated well. We’d like to be able to have them go back to a home in their country, where they haven’t seen their family, their country for many, many decades.”

Last weekend, Trump said "We’re starting to talk to Cuba" and explained his view that "It doesn’t have to be a humanitarian crisis. I think they probably would come to us and want to make a deal. So Cuba would be free again."

But there's some clear regime change activity happening behind the scenes, with The Wall Street Journal reporting last week that the White House is "searching for Cuban government insiders who can help cut a deal to push out the Communist regime by the end of the year."

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/06/2026 - 17:20

If You're Free To Complain about Fascism, You Don't Live In A Fascist Country

Authored by Jenna McCarthy via Jenna's Side,

Many, many years ago—we’re talking decades—I got into a fight with a boy I’d been dating for (thankfully) not very long. I can’t even recall what the argument was about, but I’ll never forget his very last words to me:

“God, you’re so stupid.”

“There are plenty of insults you could fling at me that would be accurate,” I informed him by way of a breakup. “Hot-headed, demanding, defensive, defiant, opinionated, unfiltered, gets hangry if not fed every four hours—let me help you out—but make no mistake, stupid isn’t one of them.”

I think of that moment every once in a while, for instance when I hear celebrities, Facebook “friends,” or the coven of professional scolds over at The View whining about the “fascist dictator” in the White House. And not because my reaction is “God, you’re so stupid”—although it one hundred percent is—but because they’re obviously just reaching for the nastiest insult in the bag and hoping it sticks. It’s basically the “your mom is so ugly, she made an onion cry” of political attacks.

Trump is arguably bombastic. He is egomaniacal. He can be rude and misogynistic and childish. He fires off 3 A.M. Twitter tantrums like a drunk raccoon, insults world leaders to their faces, and was busted bragging about grabbing women by the… lady parts. If he were your uncle, no one would blame you for not inviting him to your wedding.

But a dictator he is not.

Let me prove it: In America, the worst thing that happens when you stream a boy band is that Spotify recommends more boy bands. Do you know what happens in North Korea? If you’re lucky, you’re sent to a labor camp. If you’re not so lucky, you could face the death penalty. That is not hyperbole.

According to a new Amnesty International report, North Koreans—including children—are being publicly executed for watching South Korean dramas or listening to music by groups like BTS. (Rich families can sometimes bribe officials to escape elimination, so apparently corruption is universal—although the price tag is often too high for many.) Thanks to Kim Jong Un’s 2020 Law on Rejecting Reactionary Thought and Culture, consequences for consuming or distributing unapproved entertainment range from five to fifteen years of forced labor and a public shaming to being brutally unalived in front of an audience as a gruesome cautionary tale.

But please, Joy Behar, tell me again how you’re living under a fascist regime.

North Korean escapees describe being lined up and marched to public executions as part of their “ideological education,” designed expressly to terrorize citizens into compliance. Tens of thousands of people dragged to a field to watch someone die for enjoying an unapproved TV show. Meanwhile, over here, “ideological education” means attending a corporate DEI seminar with lukewarm coffee, sitting through a required HR video about tone in the workplace, or getting lectured by a celebrity who listened to one podcast and now identifies as a constitutional scholar.

You poor, tortured souls. Please reward yourselves with a matcha latte; your activism must be exhausting.

Here’s a little reality check: if your fascist dictator allows you to tweet “FASCIST DICTATOR!!!” in all caps directly from your couch while wearing pajama pants you bought from the TikTok shop, you are not, in fact, living under a fascist dictator. If your most humiliating public moment is the time you accidentally replied-all to an office-wide email and called your boss an insufferable twatwaffle, you are not a victim of political oppression. And if the most hazardous consequence of your entertainment consumption is Hulu finding out you’re logged into your ex’s account and booting you off the platform, you do not live in an authoritarian state. You live in America, where the biggest threats to your freedoms are TSA confiscating your tweezers or Trader Joe’s discontinuing your favorite spicy peanut salad dressing.

“This country is an authoritarian hellscape,” the liberal left loves to lament. I know, it feels cool to say. It’s dramatic. It gets likes and comments and retweets. But if your alleged authoritarian hellscape permits you to organize protests against it, pen songs decrying it, record podcasts objecting to it, and sell merch mocking it, then maybe “authoritarian hellscape” isn’t the right term. Maybe it’s more like “stable, open society with Wi-Fi and too many microphones.” (Also, if it’s so dystopian, feel free to expatriate yourself. No, really. Flights leave hourly.)

These are the same Defenders of Democracy™, I’ll remind the class, who cheered when the unvaccinated were barred from restaurants, fired from their jobs, and banished from polite society altogether. The same hall-monitor brigade that applauded mask mandates, school closures, travel bans, curfews, capacity limits, and the glorious era of “Show Me Your Papers” vaccine passports. And now they want to style themselves as freedom fighters living under an iron-fisted despot? Please. These people didn’t just tolerate tyranny—they demanded it. They celebrated it. They literally couldn’t get enough of it.

When Barack Obama was droning American citizens overseas without trial, the left went mute. When Bill Clinton endorsed the assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, no celebrity declared we were living under a dictatorship. When Joe Biden tried to impose sweeping vaccine mandates through OSHA and attempted a massive student-loan bribery “forgiveness” plan via emergency powers—both slapped down as unconstitutional—the same people now screaming “authoritarian takeover!” were too busy knitting vagina beanies to notice. Funny how the outrage only kicks in when authoritarianism strolls in wearing a red hat.

So when the likes of Cher and Jim Carrey and John Legend and Bette Midler and George Clooney and Kathy Griffin and Bruce Springsteen use their public platforms to call out Trump’s fascist takeover of America, their claims collapse under their own weight. Because real authoritarianism doesn’t let you complain about authoritarianism. That’s sort of the whole point.

It would almost be funny if it weren’t so… stupid.

A dictatorship, for the record, is somewhere people cannot complain. Where they cannot consume outside media. Where the government can kill you for pressing play on the wrong USB drive. Where state power and fear control every aspect of life—not where a disliked political figure exercises lawful constitutional authority and triggers a tantrum.

And it’s not just North Korea. Zooming out even slightly reveals an entire planet of governments behaving in ways that make America’s “fascism” discourse look like a middle-school slam contest. (“Your mom’s so dumb, she studied for her Covid test!”). In China, people are disappeared for practicing the wrong religion, posting the wrong sentence, or attending the wrong protest; an entire ethnic minority has been shoved into “re-education” camps large enough to be visible from space. In Iran, teenagers are executed for chanting slogans, women are beaten for a strand of visible hair, and the government turns off the internet whenever it gets even a faint whiff of protest. In Russia, critics are jailed, poisoned, or randomly “fall out of windows.” In Afghanistan, girls are banned from school and public executions are a weekly event. These are governments that don’t merely dislike dissent—they annihilate it.

We, on the other hand, live in a country where we can march in the streets chanting “No Kings!” and not a single king will try to stop us.

Seeing the internet teeming with rants about America being one executive order away from total collapse feels like watching a Babylon Bee meme come to life. Because when people are free to say what they think, vocally dislike who they please, and watch anything they want without fear of a firing squad and somehow label that fascism, they’re not oppressed—they’re just spelling freedom wrong.

The next time a celebrity relaunches their “We are literally living under Mussolini” monologue while sipping an $8 iced coffee and documenting themselves flipping off their president, feel free to drop a reminder in the comments that there are places where people are dying because they downloaded the TV show those same celebrities binge-watched on their way to the Save Democracy Brunch.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/06/2026 - 17:00

"Are We A Nation... Or A Market?" Heritage And Cato Square-Off In Right-Wing Think-Tank Infighting

In last night’s ZeroHedge immigration debate, Simon Hankinson of the Heritage Foundation and David Bier of the Cato Institute offered sharply different policy prescriptions on the border, ICE, and H1B visas.

A proponent of net subzero immigration, Hankinson emphasized national cohesion and first-world culture while warning against treating people as interchangeable labor inputs. Bier, by contrast, defended the increasingly unpopular position of loosening immigration restrictions to allow a freer flow of individuals across the border. 

To Bier, who penned the above NYT op-ed late in Biden’s term, immigration is a question of individual liberty and voluntary association. Taking the pure libertarian perspective, he believes the government ought not have a role in job protectionism nor prohibiting an individual's movement.

Below were the key exchanges for those short on time and listen to the full think tank v. think tank debate here:

“Humans are not just labor units”

Hankinson rejected the idea that immigration can be evaluated purely through economic efficiency or aggregate fiscal outcomes, arguing that such an approach strips the concept of nationhood of any substantive meaning. 

As he put it, “humans are not just work units…. If we don't care if it's, you know, Gustav or Jerry or Carlos or Charlie or Mohammed or Melvin, it's just how many widgets can you make in a day? How many cars can you make in a week?” and instead emphasized that immigrants ought to “know the language, the culture, the history, if you love the country, if you fight for it, if you'd send your kids to fight for it, or if you'd volunteer for the fire department.”

“If none of that matters, if we're just labor units, then we should have unlimited immigration and there should be a free market.”

pic.twitter.com/Yg0FwAsQAP

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) February 6, 2026

Immigrants are not assaulting the Constitution; government is

Bier pointed the finger inwards, at the U.S. government, as the greatest threat to the liberties of Americans.

Referencing the high-profile visa revocations for anti-Israel opinions, Bier said, “It’s not immigrants who are arresting people for writing op-eds in student newspapers.” Bier went on to say immigrants are not behind the assault on the Bill of Rights:

“The repudiation of the First Amendment, with the Second Amendment’s under assault by this administration, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment—you go down the list,” Bier said. In his view, “this administration is the most hostile to constitutional democracy in my lifetime,” and “it has nothing to do with immigrants.”

pic.twitter.com/eitydfdgWA

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) February 6, 2026

Watch the full debate below (or on YouTube) or listen on Spotify.

https://t.co/nQbAlgfyqj

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 5, 2026

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/06/2026 - 16:40

As ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs on July 30, 2025

"This Bread & Circuses Routine Is Looking Pretty Played Out..."

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

Blood In The Water

“Subversion works by importing an inverted moral frame and getting the target population to install it as its own conscience.”

- Yuri Bezmenov’s Ghost on X

Even in the deep-frozen fastness of midwinter, events and tensions surge, and America awaits . . . Bad Bunny!

You perceive that there is some message in the genderfluid Puerto Rican songster’s upcoming Superbowl halftime gig, but what is the message?

A 180-degree counterpoint to the earnest bashing and mashing of giants on the field?

The official annunciation of Reconquesta?

A thumb in the eye of President Donald Trump and the white supremacist horse he rode in on?

This bread and circuses routine is looking pretty played out.

The bread, of course, is pizza, the Soylent Green of these seeming end-times, underwriting the nation’s romance with morbid obesity (and perhaps with degenerate sex).

The circuses - last week’s Grammy Awards, the Winter Olympics tonight, Sunday’s looming Superbowl — give off an odor of utter cultural exhaustion.

What will it finally take for Western Civ, and its avatar, the USA, to stop embarrassing itself before God and history, and find better things to do?

Big Bad Bunnies Toy with Baby Bunny

You have been following the Epstein papers, no doubt.

The sordidness grows like a yeast infection in the body politic, and yet to date hardly one prosecutable crime? What gives with that? Last week’s release of the final super-batch of Epstein papers brought on a harvest of reputations, at least.

The docs revealed Microsoft zillionaire Bill Gates conniving with the late (possibly) Jeffrey Epstein to turn pandemics and vaccines into a profitable enterprise, with a spate of email discussions years before Covid got sprung on the world.

Then, it just happened that Mr. Gates sponsored the Event 201 pandemic exercise in October 2019 (with Johns Hopkins and the World Economic Forum), around the same time that the first outbreaks of Covid-19 occurred in Wuhan China with the World Military Games, a sort of Olympics for soldiers. Many athletes from various countries (including the U.S., France, Germany, and others) fell ill with a respiratory infection.

Naturally, you wonder how long, exactly, was the Covid prank in the works and among whom? If Mr. Gates was involved with Johns Hopkins planning Event 201, wouldn’t you suppose he was also in contact with US NIAID, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s agency, and with Dr. Fauci himself? Dr. Fauci had a special talent for augmenting taxpayer funding of his activities with money from outside government, and Bill Gates certainly had a lot of it, plus an obsessive drive equal to Dr. Fauci’s for messing around with viruses. And 2019 was exactly the time that scientists at the Wuhan Virology Institute happened to be experimenting with corona viruses associated with bats. Whoops.

It happens that Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Oversight Committee now looking into the Epstein matter, indicated this week that he was interested in calling Bill Gates to testify about his activities with Jeffrey Epstein. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear from Bill about his adventures in virology? Bill Gates is not a doctor or an accredited medical researcher, by the way. Virology is his hobby.

As a sort of tail on the donkey, an email written by Jeffrey Epstein in 2013 surfaced this week stating that Bill Gates said he caught a sexually transmitted disease from Russian girls and sought help from Epstein getting antibiotics to secretly dose his then-wife Melinda with. It blew up the Internet, but do you detect a whiff of a cockamamie story (no pun intended)? Bill Gates surely had the resources to virtually buy a doctor and have him prescribe whatever Mr. Gates wanted. In any case, Bill Gates’s long-running consort with Jeffrey Epstein has apparently sunk his reputation as a medical philanthropist, so expect him to look for another hobby as he skulks off into the gloaming of ignominy.

Then, there is the case over in the UK of Lord Peter Mandelson (Baron Mandelson of Foy), erstwhile UK ambassador to the USA, lately cashiered out of the job for his relations with Jeffrey Epstein.

Photos emerged of Lord M less than fully clothed with others in Jeffrey Epstein’s troupe, also less than fully clothed. In the notorious 2003 birthday book, he wrote that Epstein was “my best pal.” He received payments from JE over the years and, in return, it appears, Mandelson, then working as a senior minister after the 2008 financial crisis, allegedly forwarded to JE confidential UK government emails, market-sensitive details (e.g., on EU bailouts for Greece, banker bonus taxes, and notes from meetings with US officials in Britain for JE’s investment purposes. Bottom line: Mandelson ruined. Ambassadorship terminated. . .resigned from the House of Lords. . .King Charles III reportedly looking to revoke his title (Baron of Foy), leaving him a mere commoner in ruin.

Lord Peter Mandelson, Baron of Foy, in Briefs, with Epstein Girl

Next up (looks like): Bill and Hillary Clinton are called by subpoena to testify before Mr. Comer’s House Oversight Committee on Feb 26 and 27. They’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do about how Jeffrey Epstein helped them construct the fabulous engine of wealth known as the Clinton Foundation and its various spinoffs such as the Clinton Global Initiative, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, the Clinton Family Foundation, and the Clinton Presidential Library.

This followed a months-long tussle to get the Clinton’s to submit to in-person interviews under oath in closed session. The Clintons wanted to just hand in some written bullshit of their own and leave it at that. They were on the verge of being voted in contempt of Congress — like other political luminaries, Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon recently were, with months of jail time — when they gave in. Hillary got all snippy about it yesterday, demanding the hearing go pubic on TV so she could grandstand. Denied. Curiously, no one is rushing to the Clintons’ defense. You might suspect their many friends and associates smell blood in the water and nobody wants to get wet.

Speaking of things wet and bloody, the final super-batch of Epstein papers has revived rumors of a dastardly Satanic child abuse cult among the anointed... all kinds of horrifying activities, such as those represented in Tony Podesta’s art collection.

Even the cuckoo story of PizzaGate is back up for review. I can’t state that I actually believe any of it, but the chatter is deafening so you are advised to stand by and see what turns up.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/06/2026 - 16:20

Consumer Credit Smashes All Estimates As Monthly Credit Card Debt Unexpectedly Surges By Most In 2 Years

2025 closed with a surprising surge in consumer spending and retail sales, one which was unexpected since personal savings at the end of the year had just ground to a 3 year low...

... which when coupled with stagnant earnings prompted the question just where did consumers get the money for December's spending spree. 

We now have the answer: at 3pm today, the Fed published the latest consumer credit data, and boy was it a doozy. After November's tepid $4.2 billion increase in total consumer credit (which came in below estimates even after today's revision to $4.7 billion), consensus was looking for a modest bounce to $8 billion, or well below the post-covid average. Instead, what the Fed reported was a stunner: consumer credit soared by a whopping $24.045 billion, the biggest monthly increase of 2025 by a wide margin (only Dec. 2024 was bigger going back all the way to 2023),..

... and not only was the number 3x higher than the median forecast, it came in above the highest economist forecast, in this case from RBC's Michael Reid at $22.7 billion.

The breakdown shows that while the increase in non-revolving credit, or auto and student loans, was a bit more than recent monthly prints at $10.2 or the highest since May '25...

... it was the surge in credit card debt (i.e. revolving credit) that was the big delta in the December numbers: at $13.8 billion, a huge jump from the $1.7 billion drop in November, this was the biggest monthly increase since 2023!

In other words, the unexpectedly strong close to the end of the year was funded by the same old source: credit cards, and as in all previous credit card fueled surges, this one too will have to be repaid, pulling from future spending at some point, although it very well may not if credit card companies just tacitly approve some more dry powder and instead just bury the average American under even more debt. 

As for student and auto loans, it was a surprisingly tame quarter because even though nonrevolving credit closed 2026 at a new record high of $3.780 trillion (with the two largest components student and car loans at $1.856 trillion and $1.562 trillion, respectively), the increase in the quarter was modest at best, up just $2.6 billion for student loans, and $0.8 billion for auto loans. What is remarkable is that auto loans actually declined in 2025 which may explain why the car industry has been so bad in 2025.

Finally, and this will come as a surprise to nobody, despite 1.75% in rate cuts by the Fed since last September, we can now confirm that rates on credit cards have gone... nowhere as banks continue to bleed US consumers dry: at the middle of 2023 the average rate on credit card accounts was 22.16%... and on Dec 31, 2025 - and a half years years later, the number was higher at 22.30%, just barely below the all time high of 23.37% set one year ago. And all thise despite 6 rate cuts by the Fed. 

One almost wonders: if it's not the Fed setting rates on consumer credit, what's the point of having a central banks?

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/06/2026 - 15:58

As ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on December 17, 2025

As reported by the House Committee on the Judiciary on January 30, 2026

As reported by the House Committee on Financial Services on September 8, 2025

As reported by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on January 30, 2026

As ordered reported by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on September 17, 2025

As ordered reported by the House Committee on Education and Workforce on December 11, 2025

As ordered reported by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on January 21, 2026

Trump Says He's Still Looking 'Seriously' At Sending $2,000 Tariff Rebate Payments

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump has said in a recent interview that his administration is still considering sending out $2,000 payments to Americans derived from his tariffs.

During an interview with Trump on NBC News published on Feb. 4, host Tom Llamas noted that the president “floated the idea of $2,000 rebate checks for Americans from tariff revenue” and asked him, “Who’s going to get that and—when is that going to happen?”

Trump responded by saying that he is “looking at it very seriously” and that he is “the only one” who can issue such payments because his administration is “taking in hundreds of billions of dollars of money from tariffs.”

When pressed by Llamas on whether he would “promise some Americans” could get the payments, Trump said, “I can do that. I haven’t made the commitment yet, but I may make the commitment,” without elaborating.

The president then pivoted to saying that his administration provided a $1,776 dividend payment to members of the military in a move that was detailed by the IRS and the Pentagon last month.

Dividend payments derived from the administration’s sweeping tariff regime were floated by Trump in November 2025.

While some White House officials have said the $2,000 payments would need an act of Congress, Trump signaled last month he can unilaterally issue them.

He and others in the administration have indicated there would be limits on income and said that the payments would be sent to non-wealthy Americans.

“I don’t think we would have to go to the Congress, but we’ll find out,” Trump told reporters on Jan. 20, adding that “the reason we’re even talking about it is that we have so much money coming in from tariffs.”

But he added that with the tariffs, the administration “will be able to make a very substantial dividend to the people of our country.”

Last year, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that Congress would need to pass legislation before the payments could be sent, while National Economic Council head Kevin Hassett made a similar comment in November that legislation would be needed first.

Some Republican lawmakers have said they would be willing to support legislation to send tariff rebate checks to people. Among them is Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who introduced a measure in 2025 that would send rebates to workers, although the payment appears to be lower—$600 per adult and $600 per dependent child, totaling $2,400 for a family of four—than the checks proposed by Trump.

Trump’s tariffs are still being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has yet to issue a ruling on a lawsuit challenging the legality of the import taxes under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA. It’s not clear when the high court is slated to rule on the tariffs.

Tariffs could still be imposed by the administration, said Trump and Bessent, under different authorities. However, Trump has warned that imposing them would be more cumbersome and a slower process without using the 1977 law.

Last April, Trump imposed tariffs on nearly every country in the world and has argued that the United States has been victimized by other nations for decades on trade. In other instances, he’s said the tariffs can be used to end wars and to put pressure on countries that aren’t aligned with U.S. national security interests.

Democratic lawmakers have been critical of the tariff policies. During a contentious House hearing this week, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) told Bessent that she believes the tariffs have increased “prices across the board,” including for housing and lumber, and claimed the administration has been “waging a war” against U.S. consumers.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/06/2026 - 15:00

Pam Bondi's DOJ Is Sabotaging The Trump Coalition

Authored by John Velleco, Executive Vice President Gun Owners of America,

In November 2024, the American people decisively elected President Trump to a second term in office. After four intolerable years of controlled national demolition under the Biden autopen, the newly elected 47th President was poised to keep his promises and fulfill his mandate.

President Trump had the opportunity to stop the federal government’s leftward push, steer the government back in the right direction, and make significant and lasting progress in that new direction. That third point is the most critical. Indeed, without permanent change, President Trump’s historic election – and this nation’s generational opportunity to course-correct – will turn out to have been nothing more than a momentary pause in America’s long-term decline.

Yet inexplicably, the Trump Administration has failed to take even basic steps to effect permanent change. For example, the Administration often has taken the easy path of using temporary Executive Orders rather than insisting on permanent legislation. Of course, Executive Orders are temporary, and can be undone by any future President with the stroke of a pen.

The same dynamic exists in the world of litigation, where Pam Bondi’s DOJ has chosen the temporary fix over the permanent solution. In addition to having repeatedly bungled implementation of President Trump’s agenda, Bondi’s DOJ has deliberately avoided letting cases reach final judgment.

For example, DOJ has repeatedly attempted to moot litigation involving Biden-era policies, even after a judge seems on the verge of striking down those bad policies through a precedent-setting decision. Yet all this tactic does is ensure that a future Democrat administration will be able to put these Biden policies right back into effect.

But why would the Bondi DOJ work so hard to prevent lasting victories in court for Trump Coalition interests? Indeed, with DOJ friends like that, who needs enemies? If the Bondi DOJ’s hostility to the groups that made up the Trump Coalition in 2024 continues, it will seriously damage any chance of success in the 2026 midterms. This article will examine the Bondi DOJ’s infuriating pattern of obstruction, sabotage, and outright friendly fire against the Trump Coalition and ask one simple question: Why?

DOJ’s Failure to Implement the President’s Mandate

But first, let’s examine what DOJ could have done in service of the American people during this past year. As it turns out, DOJ has a number of legal tools available that it inexplicably has declined to use.

Consider the role litigation plays in shaping domestic policy. A court order can bind the government to a certain legal interpretation or specific course of conduct, and generally will survive a change in administrations. Thus, if the federal government is a party to a lawsuit, a court order against it can codify policy – good or bad.

So what happens when a new administration inherits an ongoing lawsuit that was originally brought by its political allies against the prior administration? Well, in the past, DOJ often has simply settled cases, either privately or via court-enforceable consent judgment. Perhaps to no one’s surprise, this tactic has been a favorite of Democrat administrations.   The Biden DOJ’s handling of a prior Trump-era lawsuit illustrates the point.

When Biden took office in 2021, his DOJ inherited a pending ACLU-led lawsuit against the first Trump Administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration enforcement policy. Rather than litigate the case any further, the Biden DOJ settled with its friends at the ACLU, barring the federal government “from reenacting the zero-tolerance policy” until 2031, and agreeing to pay the ACLU some $6 million in attorneys’ fees to boot.

In addition to settling cases, DOJ also can (and has) let its friends’ lawsuits play out. For example, if a judge appears poised to rule in favor of an outcome the administration wants, DOJ can simply wait for that ruling. Then, not only will the federal government be bound by that ruling, but also it will generate favorable legal precedent for use in future cases.

The same options would be available if new lawsuits were to be filed during the administration – settle with allies when they are right, or let the courts issue decisions on the merits. But we are not talking about using the Democrat tactic often dubbed “sue and settle.” Democrat administrations have abused this tactic to “compel government action that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to achieve.”

In fact, During the Obama years, many of the administration’s environmental regulations came about from these sorts of “sue and settle” pre-arranged consent decrees. Although we are not urging the use of such sham lawsuits, it’s worth noting that this is the tactic the Democrats use to get what they want.

In stark contrast to the Democrats’ underhanded “sue and settle” tactics, Pam Bondi’s DOJ has refused to allow Trump Coalition victories even in legitimate litigation that has been ongoing for years. Instead, Pam Bondi’s DOJ has fought tooth and nail to make suits filed by Trump Coalition groups simply go away.

Gun Rights

We at Gun Owners of America (GOA) have experienced DOJ’s inexplicable resistance firsthand. Although our Second Amendment lawsuits are by no means the only Trump Coalition causes torpedoed by Pam Bondi’s Justice Department, they are quintessential examples of this worrying trend.

During both his 2024 election campaign and when taking office in January of 2025, President Trump made a number of promises to gun owners, a massive contingent of his voters. First, President Trump promised that Biden-era ATF regulations – what he called “disasters” for gun owners – would be “ripped up and torn out” his “first week … in office.”

GOA applauded this news, since we were the only Second Amendment advocacy group to have challenged every one of Biden’s anti-gun rules in court. But we knew that merely rolling back existing infringements would do little to regain the miles of ground lost during the left’s decades-long war of attrition against the Second Amendment.

And so, much to his credit, President Trump went on offense, announcing a comprehensive Department of Justice-wide initiative to review all federal actions for consistency with the Second Amendment. Once again, GOA applauded this historic undertaking, and looked forward to working with DOJ to end unconstitutional gun restrictions for good. Key words – for good.

But sadly, DOJ has taken precisely the opposite approach. At almost at every turn, elements within the Bondi DOJ have resisted permanent victories in GOA’s cases. And without something permanent like a settlement, consent judgment, or a court order on the merits, any future leftist administration can simply reimplement Biden’s infringements at will.

Take GOA’s challenge to the Biden ATF’s “Engaged in the Business” rule. After Democrats promulgated this rule to criminalize all private gun sales, GOA secured a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the rule. But after taking power, rather than allow the district court to finalize its preliminary pro-gun ruling into a permanent one, the Bondi DOJ worked to undermine our pro-gun victory. For more than a year, DOJ stalled progress in our litigation, both in the district court and on appeal. Thankfully, the Fifth Circuit recently denied DOJ’s most recent request to stall the case even further.

DOJ also aggressively sought to moot GOA’s challenge to ATF’s 2020 refusal to allow Michigan Concealed Pistol Licensees to avoid redundant federal background checks. DOJ could have allowed GOA to obtain a binding ruling in court.   Instead, DOJ had ATF simply rescind its policy, and then immediately sought dismissal of GOA’s case as moot. By taking this “nothing to see here” approach, and avoiding a permanent judicial ruling or settlement, DOJ’s actions have ensured that a future Democrat administration is free to simply reimplement ATF’s old policy.

The same is true for GOA’s challenges to ATF’s Biden-era “zero tolerance” license revocation policy for gun dealers. As the Trump White House acknowledged, this policy “undermine[d] the Second Amendment” by “shut[ting] down small businesses across the Nation” over inadvertent and inconsequential paperwork errors. But rather than recognizing the need to permanently block “zero tolerance” now and in the future, DOJ just rescinded the policy and moved to dismiss. Again, this leaves a future Democrat administration free to reimplement this Biden policy at will.

But what about GOA’s challenge to the federal ban on mailing pistols using the U.S. Postal Service?   After GOA moved for summary judgment in December 2025, DOJ actually agreed in an Office of Legal Counsel memorandum that the statute violates the Second Amendment.

So, DOJ settled with GOA, right?

Wrong.

Instead, DOJ once again moved to dismiss, on the curious theory that its brand-new OLC memo meant that GOA lacked standing to challenge the statute’s constitutionality in the first place. Of course, all this tactic does is reserve the right of a future Democrat DOJ to reverse course. OLC memos are not set in stone, and many have been reversed by subsequent administrations. And left without any permanent victory, when (not if) a future Democrat administration simply rescinds OLC’s memo, GOA will have to challenge the statute all over again.

DOJ’s pattern is clear:

• First – avoid siding with gun owners even when they are clearly right.
• Second – delay, deny, and avoid pro-gun rulings.
• Third – don’t settle meritorious cases – in fact, work to prevent pro-gun decisions by mooting challenges so that gun owners can’t get permanent relief, thus preventing lasting victory for gun owners.

This begs the question: Who is the Bondi DOJ working for? It’s doesn’t appear to be the current President, and it certainly isn’t the tens of millions of gun owners who elected him. Rather, it must be the “swamp,” the “deep state,” or Permanent D.C. – whatever you want to call it.

Under Pam Bondi’s DOJ, it is the interests of the federal government – not the people – that are being protected at all costs.

That would explain why DOJ even sought to moot GOA’s First Amendment appeal of an unprecedented Biden-era gag order blocking GOA’s First Amendment right to print the news – with DOJ “intentionally” breaking the law in the process.   And it may also explain why GOA can’t even get a fraction of the attorney’s fees that Biden’s DOJ was thrilled to award its friends at the ACLU – in a case we won fair and square.

Speaking privately with GOA in recent months, the Attorneys General of two deep red states – as pro-Trump as they come – have told us that they have observed a similar pattern of Bondi DOJ resistance to litigation brought by their states and other Republican Attorneys General.

So it is not just pro-gun cases that this Bondi DOJ has resisted tooth and nail. Rather, her DOJ is actively opposing many of the groups that formed the Trump Coalition that elected her boss.   The following examples are only illustrative of the broader problems that have been shared with us, in matters where GOA does not lobby.

Undermining Trump Coalition Causes

Just last month, DOJ sought to pause the State of Louisiana’s challenge to Biden-era regulatory rollbacks on mifepristone, an abortion drug. Rather than agree with Louisiana that this abortion drug should not be accessible via mail order, DOJ sought to wait for the FDA to reverse itself, which DOJ claims will make Louisiana’s requested relief “unnecessary” and moot the case. Once again, DOJ is hoping to undermine a challenge by the President’s political allies, reserving the right of future Democrats to reverse and reimplement.

The same is true for another lawsuit led by Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri against the telehealth prescription of this same drug. In May 2025, DOJ sought to deprive plaintiffs of access to a judge who previously had ruled against the pro-choice cause. In that case, DOJ attorneys “stayed the legal course charted by [the] Biden administration,” arguing that the deep red states should sue in other, less favorable jurisdictions.

DOJ also has undermined the President’s energy agenda, defending a pretextual Biden-era national-monument designation that blocked uranium mining in Arizona. Rather than come to the aid of Republican plaintiffs challenging Biden’s designation, DOJ has argued they lack standing to sue.

Making matters worse, DOJ allowed Democrats to take a victory lap against President Trump’s order to freeze approvals of costly and unreliable wind energy projects.   When a district court ruled the President’s wind order “unlawful,” vacating it nationwide, left-wing Attorneys General from states like Connecticut and Washington celebrated.   DOJ never appealed this final ruling, allowing the Democrats to continue implementing their anti-energy agenda.

Conclusion

The pattern is clear. And it appears that gun owners are not the only group from the 2024 Trump Presidential Coalition that Pam Bondi’s DOJ has been working to undermine in court. In fact, the Bondi DOJ is resisting litigation by Trump Coalition groups almost as much as the Biden DOJ did.

This is no way for Pam Bondi’s DOJ to treat the voters who elected the same President who appointed her to office. And something needs to change.   Like a ratchet gear and pawl, this country for decades has moved to the left. By preventing rightward movement, this DOJ appears to be the pawl.

The hour grows late for President Trump to deliver on the promises he made to voters. So long as Pam Bondi’s DOJ continues to actively undermine litigation by Trump Coalition groups nationwide, there will be no permanent victories to cement the President’s agenda.  And all the next Democrat administration will have to do is reimplement old policies.  On many fronts, Bondi’s DOJ is fighting hard to empower the next Democrat to do just that.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/06/2026 - 14:55

HGP Partners With Shaw To Deploy Navy's Nuclear Reactors On Land

HGP Intelligent Energy is partnering with the Shaw Group to deploy U.S. Navy submarine and aircraft carrier nuclear reactors at the DOE's Paducah, Kentucky facility.

Back in December, we covered their initial proposal to the U.S. government to utilize reactors from the Navy in an effort to find the quickest means of deploying new nuclear energy to support AI demand for government efforts like Project Genesis.

The U.S. Navy has operated the most successful nuclear program in history with over 7,500 reactor years of safe operation. It is abundantly clear that if there is a way to bring their technology and operational success to other efforts and venues, these possibilities should be pursued.

Shaw will be utilizing its previous experience with nuclear projects, including their involvement at Vogtle Units 3 and 4, to advance HGP’s CoreHeld Project through engineering, procurement, and fabrication services. Shaw's potential scope of work includes “balance-of-plant module fabrication, piping systems, structural components, pressure vessels, and related nuclear-grade equipment.”

The Paducah, Kentucky, site has been a hotspot of nuclear fuel chain activity over the past couple years. Formerly the site of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, the last commercial-scale, American uranium enrichment facility that closed in 2013, is being utilized by multiple companies. 

General Matter, led by Founders Fund's Scott Nolan, is developing one of the newest uranium enrichment facilities in Paducah after being awarded $900 million from the DOE in an effort to increase domestic production capacity. Global Laser Enrichment (GLE) is also working on uranium enrichment, but with a next-generation laser technology that hopes to provide lower-cost enrichment and a smaller footprint. GLE additionally looks to re-enrich some of the byproduct of previous enrichment processes with enough material stored on-site in Kentucky for GLE to become one of the largest uranium producers in the world. 

With naval nuclear reactors now potentially being deployed at Paducah, it creates the perfect recipe for Kentucky to participate in the recently announced Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses program. This program aims to create mega-campuses and partnerships between state and federal governments to house the entire nuclear lifecycle within a single fence line. Considering the only uranium conversion facility in the United States is located just across the river from Paducah and owned by Solstice Materials, Kentucky appears to be taking shape as one of the leading candidates for the first campus. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/06/2026 - 14:20