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10 Weekend Reads

The Big Picture -

The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Colombia Tolima Los Brasiles Peaberry Organic coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:

Behind Wall Street’s Abrupt Flip on Crypto: The reversal risks declawing a century of consumer financial protections and replacing the backbone of bank accounts. (New York Times)

21 Ways People Are Using A.I. at Work: “I can give it tasks and just walk away.” “It captures details I would have otherwise forgotten.” “There’s so much low-hanging fruit.” “The important thing is to maintain a reserve of skepticism.” (Upshot)

Capitalists Love This Podcast. So Do Their Critics. “Odd Lots” goes deep on lentils in Saskatchewan, the global tractor supply and trucking markets. Is it the skeleton key to understanding this strange economic moment? (New York Times)

So You Bought a Fancy Vintage Car. Now Who’s Going to Restore it? The restoration industry faces years-long waiting lists and a disappearing labor force. (Bloomberg)

The private sector can’t replace official statistics—but could be a great partner: Private sector data offer speed and specificity that official statistics cannot match, despite not being representative or comprehensive. At the online real estate platform Trulia during the foreclosure crisis in the late 2000s and early 2010s, my team built a list-price index showing home-value trends months ahead of leading sales-price indexes. (Peterson Institute for International Economics)

She was one of the first influencers. It nearly ruined her life. Lee Tilghman’s new memoir delves into the dark, dehumanizing side of the influencer industry, where people become brands and clout can mean cancellation. (Washington Post)

Facebook is Dead; Long Live Meta: Another strong quarter with more than 3.4 billion people using at least one of Meta’s apps each day, and strong engagement across the board. The wild card? Heavy investment in AI efforts. (Stratechery)

Canada Is Killing Itself: In 2016, Canada gave its citizens the right to die, @elainaplott writes. Now doctors are struggling to keep up with demand. How did the country become the world’s euthanasia capital?  (The Atlantic)

Armies Tormented by Drones Innovate Ways to Spot, Jam and Zap on the Cheap: U.S. forces test technology including computerized rifle sights and backpack-portable jammers. (Wall Street Journal)

‘Fleetwood Mac’ at 50: A Marvel of Serendipity and Perfectionism: The album that turned the band into superstars is getting an anniversary rerelease that shows why it still gleams. (New York Times)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview  this weekend with Deven Parekh, Managing Director, Insight Partners, a global venture capital and private equity firm. He has made 140 investments in enterprise software, data &, consumer internet businesses in N. America, EU, India, Southeast Asia, Israel, Africa, Latin America, and Australia. He was named to CB Insights’ Top 100 Venture Capitalist.

 

Feeling Especially Hot and Sticky This Summer? Now There’s a Metric for That

Source: Wall Street Journal

 

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

U.S. SOUTHCOM Deploying 4,000 Troops To Latin American Waters As Counter-Narco-Terror Operations Loom

Zero Hedge -

U.S. SOUTHCOM Deploying 4,000 Troops To Latin American Waters As Counter-Narco-Terror Operations Loom

The Trump administration is preparing for a large force projection across the Latin American and Caribbean theater.

U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) will deploy 4,000 Marines and sailors to counter narco-terrorist cartels. The move aims to enhance hemispheric defense and deter or limit Chinese activity in the region, particularly around critical infrastructure and trade chokepoints.

The news of this first comes from CNN, citing unnamed officials who stated:

The deployment of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit to US Southern Command, which has not been previously reported, is part of a broader repositioning of military assets to the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility that has been underway over the last three weeks, one of the officials said.

A nuclear-powered attack submarine, additional P8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft, several destroyers and a guided-missile cruiser are also being allocated to US Southern Command as part of the mission, the officials said.

A third person familiar with the matter said the additional assets are “aimed at addressing threats to US national security from specially designated narco-terrorist organizations in the region.”

While the deployment is intended primarily as a deterrent, it gives SOUTHCOM prepositioning and allows Trump broad military options if he orders action against narco-terrorists. Officials note the Marines aren’t trained for drug interdiction and would need Coast Guard support.

The incoming buildup follows a Pentagon directive making border security, counter-narcotics, and protection of the Panama Canal top priorities. The deployment shifts U.S. assets from earlier Northern Command border operations to a sustained SOUTHCOM presence.

Last week, The New York Times reported that Trump issued a directive authorizing the Pentagon to conduct direct military operations against certain Latin American drug cartels. Shortly afterward, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected the future presence of U.S. military forces on her soil.

By Wednesday evening, open source intelligence analysts posted flight tracking data of a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper spy drone operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that flew deep into Mexico.

The broader move here by the Trump administration is clear: Enhance hemispheric defense through counter-narcotics operations and maritime security. The second objective is to deter and limit Chinese activity in the region. 

By making moves to secure the Western Hemisphere, the Trump administration plans to disrupt command-and-control nodes between China and Latin American drug cartels that have waged irregular chemical warfare on the American people through the fentanyl crisis.

Source: Heritage Foundation

It might only be a matter of time before the U.S. Department of the Treasury moves to target Mexican and Chinese banks.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/16/2025 - 05:45

U.S. SOUTHCOM Deploying 4,000 Troops To Latin American Waters As Counter-Narco-Terror Operations Loom

Zero Hedge -

U.S. SOUTHCOM Deploying 4,000 Troops To Latin American Waters As Counter-Narco-Terror Operations Loom

The Trump administration is preparing for a large force projection across the Latin American and Caribbean theater.

U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) will deploy 4,000 Marines and sailors to counter narco-terrorist cartels. The move aims to enhance hemispheric defense and deter or limit Chinese activity in the region, particularly around critical infrastructure and trade chokepoints.

The news of this first comes from CNN, citing unnamed officials who stated:

The deployment of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit to US Southern Command, which has not been previously reported, is part of a broader repositioning of military assets to the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility that has been underway over the last three weeks, one of the officials said.

A nuclear-powered attack submarine, additional P8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft, several destroyers and a guided-missile cruiser are also being allocated to US Southern Command as part of the mission, the officials said.

A third person familiar with the matter said the additional assets are “aimed at addressing threats to US national security from specially designated narco-terrorist organizations in the region.”

While the deployment is intended primarily as a deterrent, it gives SOUTHCOM prepositioning and allows Trump broad military options if he orders action against narco-terrorists. Officials note the Marines aren’t trained for drug interdiction and would need Coast Guard support.

The incoming buildup follows a Pentagon directive making border security, counter-narcotics, and protection of the Panama Canal top priorities. The deployment shifts U.S. assets from earlier Northern Command border operations to a sustained SOUTHCOM presence.

Last week, The New York Times reported that Trump issued a directive authorizing the Pentagon to conduct direct military operations against certain Latin American drug cartels. Shortly afterward, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected the future presence of U.S. military forces on her soil.

By Wednesday evening, open source intelligence analysts posted flight tracking data of a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper spy drone operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that flew deep into Mexico.

The broader move here by the Trump administration is clear: Enhance hemispheric defense through counter-narcotics operations and maritime security. The second objective is to deter and limit Chinese activity in the region. 

By making moves to secure the Western Hemisphere, the Trump administration plans to disrupt command-and-control nodes between China and Latin American drug cartels that have waged irregular chemical warfare on the American people through the fentanyl crisis.

Source: Heritage Foundation

It might only be a matter of time before the U.S. Department of the Treasury moves to target Mexican and Chinese banks.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/16/2025 - 05:45

Israel Alarmed Over Suspected Chinese Support For Iranian Missile Program

Zero Hedge -

Israel Alarmed Over Suspected Chinese Support For Iranian Missile Program

Via The Cradle

Israel is concerned about a surge in military cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran and China, according to a report by Yedioth Ahronoth

The report notes that the concern lies with Chinese–Iranian cooperation on the manufacture of surface-to-surface missiles. It also says western intelligence agencies, particularly European agencies, have observed close cooperation between Tehran and Beijing recently. 

Shutterstock

“We do not know China's intentions yet, and we have sent clear messages to them, but Beijing does not confirm that it intends to supply Iran with surface-to-surface missiles,” Israeli officials are cited as saying by the outlet. According to the report, China “is now actually rebuilding the Iranian capabilities.”

In late July, Israel’s Ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, warned that there were “troubling” signs of Chinese support for Iranian efforts to rebuild and restock its missile arsenal following the 12-day, US-backed Israeli war in June. 

“There's some traffic that is troubling for us ... and we want to make sure that we're not dealing with chemicals [and] the ability to reconstitute a ballistic missile program,” Leiter said in an interview with Voice of America. 

He said Israel bears responsibility for ensuring that “China or other bad actors don't allow them to reconstitute” missile stockpiles. “There's no reason why we couldn't have good relations with the people of China. But we certainly don't want to see China acting alongside those who threaten our very existence.”

Weeks before the ambassador’s remarks, Middle East Eye (MEE) reported that China sent surface-to-air missile batteries to Iran after the 12-day war. The report said Tehran has paid for new Chinese deliveries with shipments of Iranian oil. 

The Israeli army stated it would prevent Iran from being able to fire ballistic missiles at Israel during the war, but failed to achieve that goal. 

Iran’s missiles caused widespread destruction across Israel. Key universities, research centers, and technological hubs were struck. Several military bases were also hit, yet media censorship has prevented much of the details from being released.

The Yedioth Ahronoth report comes as there is talk of a renewed war between Israel and Iran. Israeli officials have publicly threatened to resume strikes on the Islamic Republic. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on 27 June that he instructed the Israeli army to prepare an “enforcement plan” against Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. 

Tehran has vowed to continue pursuing nuclear enrichment and a peaceful nuclear energy program, despite threats. Intelligence assessments have confirmed that US President Donald Trump’s bunker-buster attack on Iran, while damaging, failed to “obliterate” the country’s atomic energy program.

An analysis by Foreign Policy released on August 11 suggested a potential resumption of the Israel–Iran war. 

“Israel is likely to launch another war with Iran before December – perhaps even as early as late August. Iran is expecting and preparing for the attack. It played the long game in the first war, pacing its missile attacks as it anticipated a protracted conflict. In the next round, however, Iran is likely to strike decisively from the outset, aiming to dispel any notion that it can be subdued under Israeli military dominance,” it said, warning that the next battle would “be far bloodier than the first.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 22:35

After 18 Years Without A Voice, AI-Powered Brain Implant Helps Stroke Survivor Speak Again

Zero Hedge -

After 18 Years Without A Voice, AI-Powered Brain Implant Helps Stroke Survivor Speak Again

At age 30, Ann Johnson’s life in Saskatchewan was full. She taught math and physical education at a high school, coached volleyball and basketball, and had recently married and welcomed her first child. At her wedding, she delivered a 15-minute speech filled with joy.

Everything changed in 2005, when she suffered a brainstem stroke while playing volleyball with friends. The stroke left her with locked-in syndrome - near-total paralysis and an inability to speak. “She would try to speak, but her mouth wouldn’t move and no sound would come out,” researchers said. For nearly two decades, she communicated slowly using an eye-tracking system, spelling out words one letter at a time.

In 2022, Johnson became the third participant in a clinical trial run by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of California, Berkeley. The project aimed to restore speech using a brain-computer interface, or neuroprosthesis, that bypasses the body’s damaged connections.

Ann Johnson became paralyzed after a brainstem stroke in 2005, at age 30. As the third participant in a clinical trial led by researchers at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco, she heard her voice again in 2022, the first time in 18 years. Noah Berger, 2023

We were able to get a good sense of the part of the brain that is actually responsible for speech production,” said Gopala Anumanchipalli, an assistant professor at UC Berkeley who began the work in 2015 as a postdoctoral researcher with Edward Chang, a UCSF neurosurgeon. “From there, they figured out how to computationally model the process so that they could synthesize from brain activity what someone is trying to say.”

The device records signals from the brain’s speech centers, sending them to an AI model trained to translate the activity into text, sound, or even facial animation. “Just like how Siri translates your voice to text, this AI model translates the brain activity into the text or the audio or the facial animation,” said Kaylo Littlejohn, a Ph.D. student and co-lead on the study.

To give Johnson an embodied experience, researchers had her choose from a selection of avatars, and they used a recording of her wedding speech to recreate her voice. An implant plugged into a computer nearby rested on top of the region of her brain that processes speech, acting as a kind of thought decoder. Then they showed her sentences and asked her to try to say them.

“She can’t, because she has paralysis, but those signals are still being invoked from her brain, and the neural recording device is sensing those signals,” said Littlejohn. The neural decoding device then sends them to the computer where the AI model resides, where they’re translated. “Just like how Siri translates your voice to text, this AI model translates the brain activity into the text or the audio or the facial animation,” he said. -Berkeley.edu

For Johnson, the trial was emotional. “What do you think of my artificial voice? Tell me about yourself. I am doing well today,” she asked her husband during one session. The researchers had used a recording of her wedding speech to recreate her voice and paired it with a digital avatar she had chosen.

We didn’t want to read her mind,” Anumanchipalli emphasized. “We really wanted to give her the agency to do this. In some sessions where she’s doing nothing, we have the decoder running, and it does nothing because she’s not trying to say anything. Only when she’s attempting to say something do we hear a sound or action command.”

The early version of the system had an eight-second delay between prompting Johnson and producing speech. But a March study in Nature Neuroscience described a streaming architecture that reduced that to about one second, enabling near-real-time translation. While the avatar in earlier tests bore only a passing resemblance to her, researchers say more lifelike 3D photorealistic versions are possible. “We can imagine that we could create a digital clone that is very much plugged in … with all the preferences, like how Zoom lets us have all these effects,” Anumanchipalli said.

Johnson’s implant was removed in February 2024 for reasons unrelated to the trial, but she continues to advise the research team. She has urged them to develop wireless implants and told them the streaming synthesis “made her feel in control.”

Looking ahead, Anumanchipalli said the goal is for neuroprostheses to be “plug-and-play” and part of standard medical care. “If that means they have a digital version of themselves communicating for them, that’s what they need to be able to do,” he said.

Johnson hopes to work as a counselor in a physical rehabilitation facility, ideally using such a device. “I want patients there to see me and to know their lives are not over now,” she wrote to a UCSF reporter. “I want to show them that disabilities don’t need to stop us or slow us down.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 22:10

Deep Throat For The Deep State

Zero Hedge -

Deep Throat For The Deep State

Authored by Sasha Gong via American Greatness,

By any normal standard, the recent filing from Voice of America (VOA) Director Michael Abramowitz - alleging the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) is trying to fire him illegally - should have been a Beltway bombshell. Instead, it barely rippled the news cycle. That’s convenient for the people who prefer the U.S. government’s vast international broadcasting complex to remain a black box, opaque, unaccountable, and - most importantly - under their control.

I remember the last time a VOA director was shown the door. On January 20, 2021, less than two hours after Joe Biden took office, Robert Reilly told me over the phone, “The guards are escorting me out of the building right now.” That same day, the new administration swept out Trump appointees across the USAGM—VOA, RFE/RL, RFA, and MBN—leadership, included—and dissolved boards on the spot. Media outlets applauded, framing it as a restoration of “experienced journalists.” The subtext was unmistakable: the right people were back in charge.

Here’s the problem. “Back in charge” at VOA under Biden did not mean neutral, mission-driven journalism beamed to the world. It meant a taxpayer-funded megaphone that echoed the ruling party’s priorities while targeting Donald Trump and his voters. Programming celebrated progressive policies, blurred the line between reporting and advocacy on immigration, and, in multiple languages, provided content that critics say veered into how-to guides for navigating U.S. benefits. When your transmitter reaches 45 language services, the line between domestic influence and foreign broadcasting doesn’t just blur—it disappears.

At the center of the current drama is Michael Abramowitz, a former Washington Post editor tapped by then–USAGM chief Amanda Bennett. To Trump supporters, Abramowitz represents continuity with Washington’s media-political nexus; to his defenders, he’s a credentialed professional trying to keep politics out. Both can be true in Washington—and that’s precisely why the structure matters more than the personality.

Donald Trump understood VOA’s strategic value. After his 2024 victory, he named Kari Lake, an experienced broadcaster, to lead VOA and redirect it to its core mission: telling America’s story credibly, not carrying any administration’s water. Instead, she ran headlong into a new maze of “reforms” installed during Biden’s tenure. Agency directors could no longer be removed by the CEO; ultimate authority now rested with a seven-member International Broadcasting Advisory Board (including the Secretary of State), whose members meet sporadically and require Senate confirmation—a process famous for taking forever when the minority decides it should. Another tweak eliminated the ability to appoint an interim CEO; the VOA director—inevitably a holdover—would automatically act in the role.

Translation: permanent government beats elected government every time.

This wasn’t a policy debate about programming standards. It was a procedural encirclement—belt-and-suspenders bureaucracy designed to outlast elections. If you think that’s too cynical, ask Michael Pack, Trump’s first-term USAGM nominee, who waited three and a half years for confirmation. Or ask Kari Lake, who arrived in Washington prepared to lead VOA and discovered she first had to run the gauntlet of a never-ending confirmation calendar.

Trump adjusted.

If the front door was barricaded, he’d use a side entrance—naming Lake a special adviser with a mandate to unwind a “defunct” agency (Hillary Clinton’s word, not his). That move triggered the present standoff with Abramowitz, who, according to staff accounts and his own legal filing, decided he would not step aside, would not facilitate reforms, and would instead force a legal-political confrontation that keeps the old machine humming.

This is not a small fight.

USAGM’s $1-billion apparatus shapes how hundreds of millions abroad understand America. If it becomes a domestically resonant propaganda arm—soft power turned inward—then we’ve crossed a line the charter was designed to prevent. And suppose its leadership can be insulated from electoral accountability by clever rule changes and Senate slow-walking. In that case, the “administrative state” has discovered yet another pressure point where it can outlast voters.

The fix is simple in principle: restore electoral accountability while preserving the VOA Charter’s editorial independence, set firm timelines for Senate confirmation so nominations can’t be buried by delay, and re-center VOA on its core mission of telling America’s story abroad—measured annually by independent audits. Elections must have operational consequences, and the public should be able to see if the agency is living up to its mandate.

Critics will object that giving a president more control risks politicizing coverage. That objection arrives decades too late.

The choice isn’t between politicization and purity; it’s between politicization hidden inside an unaccountable bureaucracy and politicization constrained by law, sunlight, and elections. I’ll take the latter.

Abramowitz’s lawsuit is not the story—it’s the symptom. The disease is a governing class that prefers to win by rule change rather than persuasion. If the people cannot change the direction of their own government media through the ballot box, then the “deep state” isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s a workflow.

Kari Lake promised to make VOA programming fairer, sharper, and more recognizably American. Let her try—or defeat her vision in the open, not by burying it in process.

Sunlight, not stalemate, is the real test of confidence. If USAGM’s defenders believe in their product, they should welcome both.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 21:45

Why The Government Is Not The Answer To Urban Planning

Zero Hedge -

Why The Government Is Not The Answer To Urban Planning

Via SchiffGold.com,

City planning is a task that is often seen as a unique realm of governmental necessity.

The existence of externalities means that the market could create extremely sub optimal outcomes when creating a city.

For example, a house with a messy front yard hurts everyone, but the people in this house might have little incentive to clean up. A network of streets might not benefit its creator as much as the people who use it. While there are certainly some examples where the government intervening can be very helpful for most people, there are also many circumstances where government intervention is actually the key to a city’s demise.

The importance of city planning is so great that it truly cannot be the decision of any one individual.

Governmental city planning has many wins, but even more losses, not as a result of any specific government’s choices, but as a result of the institution’s inherent inability to capture information. 

The first problem with governmental urban planning is that they cannot effectively gather information on what people want.

It would be uncommon for them to even run surveys on individual preferences. Beyond this, preferences themselves fluctuate. Predicting people’s preferences far into the future is almost impossible, and even more impossible for cash-strapped governments. People often cannot predict even their own preferences, so even if this information was to be gathered, there is no guarantee it would remain true. This harms city planning practically in the example of deciding how walkable a city will be versus how much it will allow people to live in the suburbs and commute in. The usefulness of a city is derived from  how well it fulfills the preferences of its residents. People who try to make city planning a science don’t account for the fact that the exact same city would be a success or failure, depending entirely on the people who live within it. 

The second problem with government driven urban planning is that there is an extremely poorly-functioning feedback loop.

Governments obscure their understanding of their own successes because they typically benchmark against other cities. They can only see their actions in conjunction with so many other environmental factors that it is difficult to disentangle the results of their policy and what would have happened anyways. The problem with benchmarking against other cities is that the inherently different environmental, social and legislative conditions of each city mean that a success for one city would truly be a failure for another city. However, there is too much pressure for urban planners to compare between fundamentally different cities. Sometimes a city will view itself as a failure and take drastic remedial action, but not realize that they have actually improved greatly from their previous state and would have kept proving with even less drastic action. Like anything in the study of humans, it is almost impossible to isolate factors within city planning. The relative success of a given district within a city might arise from 30 different subjective factors but also allow urban planners to falsely attribute the success to either outcome variables, or insignificant elements of the urban tapestry.

A final limitation of governmental urban planning is the lackluster incentive structure.

People are voted into office based on a wide variety of factors, but most often the most divisive policy points. Except for a few extreme cities, urban planning and infrastructure are not often in this list of big ticket items. While it directly affects people’s lives, they are more likely to attribute their sense of unhappiness on their commute to any policy other than the policies that actually created their roads and city structure. People like to think that things can be changed after one electoral cycle, but the problems that towns and cities face require years of complicated work in the same direction. Elected officials have the strongest incentives to satisfy the people’s desires, but the people who do most of the city planning lack this incentive as strongly. Urban planners are much more concerned with pleasing the bureaucrats and politicians who hired them then they do in developing an understanding of what the people of the city want. They are incentivized to present ideas that have worked in other places and are theoretically agreed-upon in general which leads them to creating spaces that work well in many places but not incredibly well in any one place.  It is easy to tell when something has been created in this way because there are specific types of public transportation and urban spaces that seem to have been given the greenlight in the prestige-driven industry of urban planning. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 20:55

Fewer Women Are Using Birth Control Pills In The US

Zero Hedge -

Fewer Women Are Using Birth Control Pills In The US

Fewer women in the United States are opting for birth control pills than before, according to KFF data.

Where 33 percent of women aged 18 to 49 years old said they used oral contraceptives in 2022, that had ticked down to 29 percent in 2024.

As Statista's Anna Fleck reports, after male condoms, the pill is still the most commonly used form of contraception in the U.S.

 Fewer Women Are Using Birth Control Pills in the U.S. | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

Recently, there has been a growing number of influencers on TikTok criticizing different forms of hormonal birth control and promoting tracking fertility cycle apps instead.

This goes against experts’ advice, which states that contraceptives such as the pill and IUDs are safe and effective and that risks have been exaggerated online.

This is a trend that has been seen in other countries too.

The BBC reports that in the United Kingdom, some women are moving away from “hormonal” products such as the pill to “natural” fertility tracking apps.

While in Germany, health concerns have been cited in recent years, with younger women in particular moving away from the pill.

The KFF reports that almost four in ten (39 percent) of women of reproductive age have heard something on social media about birth control in the past 12 months, including half (49 percent) of women aged 18 to 25. Meanwhile, one in seven women aged 18 to 25 said they made a change or thought about making a change to their birth control method because of something they saw or heard on social media.

2024 data shows that emergency contraception increased by 5 percentage points compared to two years prior. This brings it to 12 percent of U.S. women aged 18 to 49.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 20:30

Indonesia Will Play A Key Role In Russia's Asian Balancing Act

Zero Hedge -

Indonesia Will Play A Key Role In Russia's Asian Balancing Act

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto was Putin’s guest of honor during mid-June’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

The privilege that was bestowed upon him wasn’t surprising since bilateral ties have greatly strengthened since last year as documented here in January. Russia envisages Indonesia playing key role in its Asian balancing act, which will only grow after their newly signed strategic partnership agreement. The present piece will detail some of the forms in which this will take.

To begin with, Russia helped Indonesia complete its accelerated accession to BRICS as a full-fledged member, for which Prabowo thanked Putin during their meeting and in statements to the press afterwards. The evening beforehand, Putin told the heads of international news agencies during his meeting with them that Indonesia’s nearly 300 million people enable it to play a larger role in the global economy, with the innuendo being that this will lead to it playing a greater role in global governance too.

It's here where the relevance of Indonesia’s Russian-assisted accession to BRICS comes into play. Although cooperation within BRICS is purely voluntary, the group can still collectively contribute to accelerating financial multipolarity processes and then gradual reforms to global governance afterwards. Accordingly, given Indonesia’s growing economic and corresponding political weight in the world coupled with their traditionally friendly ties, Russia expects that they can cooperate more closely to this end.

In pursuit of this goal, which is assessed to be the driving force behind their strategic partnership, both countries are prioritizing the comprehensive expansion of their economic, political, and military ties. From Russia’s perspective, the economic dimension can open new markets for all manner of energy and real-sector exports, closer ties with de facto ASEAN leader Indonesia can give Russia more of a presence in that bloc, and more military-technical cooperation can strengthen Indonesia’s own balancing act.

About that, Indonesia multi-aligns between rival powers just like India does, and closer military-technical cooperation with Russia could help it avoid the growing zero-sum dilemma to commit to China or the US. After all, closer such cooperation with either of them could unsettle the other and lead to more pressure upon Indonesia, but China probably wouldn’t mind its Russian strategic partner supplying Indonesia with arms while the US might not overreact to this if their incipient rapprochement remains on track.

As for Russia’s Asian balancing act, it aims to preemptively avert disproportionate dependence on China, some of the consequences if troubled Indo-US ties improve, and being caught in a zero-sum dilemma to commit to one over the other. Closer economic ties with Indonesia therefore help Russia hedge against trade dependence on China, closer military-technical ones could partially replace declining market share in India, and closer political ties with ASEAN can give Russia more flexibility amidst the Sino-Indo rivalry.

Altogether, Russia and Indonesia play complementary roles in one another’s balancing acts, with each serving as valve of sorts from the pressure to commit to China-India and China-US respectively. Their close Soviet-era strategic cooperation before General Suharto’s mid-1960s coup serves as a nostalgic reference point for the level of relations that their contemporary leaders are eager to revive. Now is the perfect time to do so, and since there aren’t any impediments, the future of their ties looks very bright.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 20:05

Hezbollah Chief Threatens 'No Life In Lebanon' If Government Moves To Disarm It

Zero Hedge -

Hezbollah Chief Threatens 'No Life In Lebanon' If Government Moves To Disarm It

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem has warned that if the Lebanese government moves to disarm Hezbollah, which is the large Shia militia group backed by Iran, then the whole country will suffer destabilization, death, and destruction.

He claimed that there would be "no life in Lebanon" should its weapons be taken by force - which brings to mind the mass death and destruction the country experienced during the prior two-decade long Lebanese civil war of the end of the 20th century.

Via AFP

The United States has long exerted immense pressure on the Lebanese government of President Joseph Aoun to take away Hezbollah's weapons. These pressures have amplified in the wake of the recent Israel-Lebanon war, which subsided due to a fragile truce.

This is why Qassem has accused the Lebanese government of in essence "implementing an American-Israeli order to end the resistance, even if it leads to civil war and internal strife."

"The resistance will not surrender its weapons while aggression continues, occupation persists, and we will fight it… if necessary to confront this American-Israeli project no matter the cost," he continued, warning the government "not to hand over the country to an insatiable Israeli aggressor or an American tyrant with limitless greed."

Without doubt, Hezbollah has been immensely weakened since last year's assassination of longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah - and the killings of many other top and mid-level leaders.

Hezbollah's abiding by the ceasefire with Israel is a reflection of this. However, the last year has seen sporadic airstrikes on southern Lebanon by Israel. The fall of Assad in Syria last December has also greatly weakened Hezbollah.

Still, the group remains the single most well-armed and militarily powerful entity in the Lebanese state. It is actually stronger that the Lebanese Army

So if there is a big move to disarm Hezbollah, there's a likelihood that indeed the whole state would unravel - also at a moment the country has been experience economic collapse, and destruction due to recent Israeli bombings.

The general view among regional analysts is that Hezbollah, representing the 'Shia axis', has ultimately lost at this point. This is also underscored in the fact that the Israeli army is now occupying large swathes of southern Syria - perhaps less than a dozen miles from the outskirts of Damascus.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 19:40

Gerrymandering, Race-Pandering, & Political-Meandering

Zero Hedge -

Gerrymandering, Race-Pandering, & Political-Meandering

Authored by Arthur Schaper via American Greatness,

Gerrymandering, the political practice of carving up awkward-looking legislative districts to benefit one party’s political power, has slithered into the public conversation once again.

Some of us remember the history behind this political practice, starting with the governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry. Democratic-Republicans want to shore up their new power in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Federalist opponents of the maneuver mocked one of the serpentine-like districts created by the party, christening the shape with claws, wings, and a razor-sharp mouth, calling the monstrosity “The Gerrymander.”

Why has the discussion roared into the public consensus this time? It started with the Texas legislature’s efforts to redraw its state’s districts after a request from the Trump Administration to review the fairness of the districts.

Yes, there is gerrymandering in Texas, but not the way that liberal reformers want to portray the problem. Consider some of the urban, Democratic Congressional districts in Texas: the 29th, 32nd, and 33rd, for example, are obscenely drawn. These contortions are examples of race pandering, or “race-mandering,” which result from the tortured misuse of the Voting Rights Act and fears of ongoing legal challenges from left-wing legal activists demanding more majority-minority districts. This kind of lawfare recently forced Alabama and Louisiana to create gerrymandered districts.

Texas is not alone in this fight, either. Ohio has to redraw its Congressional districts. This opportunity could create three more Republican-leaning Congressional seats, while the Texas legislature advances a map creating five more GOP seats. Of course, Governor Abbott and the Republican leadership have floated increasing the GOP advantage to six to eight seats if absent Democrats refuse to come back to work in their vain efforts to break legislative quorums. Democrats have not helped their cause by fleeing to Illinois, whose districts are so gerrymandered that even Stephen Colbert poked fun at them.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who bravely pushed through a race-neutral Congressional map in 2021, netting four more GOP seatshas offered to redraw the Congressional districts yet again, in part because the state population has grown due to an increase in migration from failed blue states. DeSantis deserves credit for the current GOP-mandering effort, since he had refused weak maps from the Florida RINOs at the beginning of the decade.

IndianaMissouri, and South Carolina are also exploring more daring redistricting efforts, not just because of Trump’s leadership and Texas’s fight, but because the United States Supreme Court will be reviewing the “majority-minority” provisions in the Voting Rights Act. Democrats and liberal pundits fear that the court will strike them down entirely, wiping away the need for “majority-minority districts” and ensuring that Republicans gain more seats!

Republicans are fighting back, and Democrats don’t like that the Republicans are using their tactics against them.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is running for President even though he won’t admit it, is leading the charge, demanding that fellow Democrats start fighting with fire, although they started the fire, perfecting the art of gerrymandering under the guise of independent commissioners. Newsom urged the California legislature to reform the state’s Citizens Redistricting Commission to create more Democratic-favoring districts.

The problem with this effort, though, is that Democratic-leaning states already have some of the most heavily gerrymandered districts in the country. Maryland had three Republicans as recently as 2003, but has reduced the number with creative redrawing. Illinois is the most gerrymandered state, despite relying on an independent commission. New York State tried to push through one of the most gerrymandered districts possible, but even the all-Democratic New York Supreme Court rejected the naked political grab from Albany politiciansDeclining Governor Kathy Hochul wants to jump into the fray anyway. They wear their lawlessness like a dinner jacket.

Even Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey jumped on the merry gerrymander bandwagon. She made a total fool of herself. All nine Congressional districts are gerrymandered to the Democrats’ advantage, since the Bay State hasn’t had a Republican Congressman since 1997.

Republicans are looking good going into Election 2026, but there are rumblings against the gerrymandering sparring.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) has introduced legislation to stop the national mid-decade redistricting efforts. This effort is understandable, since Kiley will likely lose his seat should Gavin Newsom get his way. However, the country needs a strong GOP majority in both chambers to ensure lasting electoral and cultural change, and if a couple of seats get lost in California but more make up for the loss in other states, I can live with it (and I live in California). Kiley appears to be panicking unnecessarily, as there is no legal way for Newsom to push through his so-called ‘Newsom-mandering’ without significant legal retaliation. Moreover, Newsom’s efforts are not winning him support from California voters or liberal columnists.

Should we be concerned about the constant political meandering caused by redistricting? Voters deserve consistency in representation. I do not agree with banning mid-decade redistricting, especially if a state’s population shifts or changes radically within a decade.

Independent commissioners don’t work—they are unaccountable to the people, and still produce gerrymandered districts. California Globe dishes on this perfectly. We have already discussed Illinois, with its contorted, snake-like districts designed to force out Republican congressmen, even though they garnered 43% of the vote in the 2024 election.

State legislatures should be required to draw the districts.

How do we prevent the ridiculous salamander shuffle, though?

If the district covers multiple counties, at least one should be placed entirely within the congressional district. If a governing county is large enough to incorporate more districts, then it should not straddle more than one other county. Municipal and geographical boundaries should be respected. No portion of a congressional district should be thinner than 20 miles.

Lastly, the notion that districts are set in stone despite gerrymandering or partisan advantage is dubious in the long run. Political demographics and voting patterns change, and even well-entrenched incumbents face losses when they lose touch with voters. Nothing is static in politics.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 19:15

Joby Aviation Makes "Aviation History" With First Piloted eVTOL Flying In FAA-Controlled Airspace

Zero Hedge -

Joby Aviation Makes "Aviation History" With First Piloted eVTOL Flying In FAA-Controlled Airspace

Joby Aviation shares rose in premarket trading after news that one of its electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxis "successfully operated" in highly controlled airspace between two California airports: Marina (OAR) and Monterey (MRY).

The 12-minute, 10-nautical-mile flight of the eVTOL air taxi in Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-controlled airspace integrated with other aircraft and demonstrated vertical takeoff, wingborne transition, and vertical landing. This is clear evidence that commercialization will happen within this decade.

"The achievement is a major step as part of Joby's commercial market readiness," the aviation startup wrote in a press release, adding, "It's a critical measure of the maturity of the Company's path to commercialization as the flights also demonstrated the type of real-world service Joby intends to offer to the public." 

Joby has previously stated that commercial flights of its eVTOL air taxis will begin in early 2026, with a broader rollout of this revolutionary mode of transportation expected by 2028.

Shares of Joby were up 8% in New York premarket trading. Year-to-date, the stock is up 114% as of Thursday's close. Short interest stands at about 11.5% of the float, or approximately 58 million shares, with around 1.3 days to cover.

Watch:

Related:

Guess who delayed America's industry? You'll never guess...

.  .  . 

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 18:50

The Death Of The Small Farm Is The Death Of Rural America

Zero Hedge -

The Death Of The Small Farm Is The Death Of Rural America

Authored by Mollie Engelhart via The Epoch Times,

Modern farming is destroying small communities as we move more and more toward the “go big or go home” model—thousands of acres of the same monocrop, managed by one or two people on a tractor spraying chemicals. What used to be 20 or 30 small farms—each with a household and family that supported the local restaurant, gas station, feed store, and the veterinarian who served a few counties—is now replaced by a single sprawling operation with no animals, no neighbors, and no community.

Over the past decade, roughly 140,000 U.S. farms have vanished, and it’s not just those farms that have collapsed—but the entire ecosystem they supported: diners, auction barns, schools, vets, and feed stores have all felt the blow. The economic destruction radiates outward—every boarded-up business is a ripple from a missing farm.

Despite this, small farms are often treated as quaint, inefficient, and economically irrelevant in the modern food system. But the numbers tell a different story. Globally, farms under 2 hectares (about 5 acres) produce around 30 to 34 percent of the world’s food, while using only about 24 percent of agricultural land. That’s not inefficiency—that’s productivity. If you expand that to farms under 5 hectares, they produce more than half of the world’s food. These farms grow a diverse range of crops and raise animals in ways that serve local and regional markets—feeding people directly, not just supplying commodity markets or overseas exports.

Small farms matter because they produce food where it’s eaten, keeping supply chains short and resilient. They’re often the ones growing the vegetables at your farmers market, the eggs from down the road, the beef from a rancher you know by name. They support biodiversity, employ more people per acre, and keep profits circulating locally. Dismissing them as outdated isn’t just wrong—it’s dangerous to our food security.

While most of the farms we’ve lost were small family operations, the fight to save rural America isn’t just about acreage—it’s about approach. It’s not the size of the farm that determines its value to a community, but the farming practices it uses and the relationships it sustains. A larger farm can still operate in a way that regenerates the soil, employs local people, and feeds its neighbors—if it’s run with vision and courage.

That’s exactly what Will Harris has done at White Oak Pastures, his 1,250-acre family farm in Bluffton, Georgia (held by his family since 1866). In the mid-1990s, Harris made a radical break from industrial agriculture. He replaced chemical inputs and confinement feeding with rotational grazing, diversified livestock, and on-site, USDA-inspected processing facilities. White Oaks Pastures is now one of the only farms in the country with separate abattoirs for red meat and poultry.

To make this transformation, Harris took an extraordinary risk—borrowing $7.5 million against the family land to build these processing plants in 2008. It was a gamble most would never dare, but it paid off. His farm now operates as a zero-waste, closed-loop agricultural ecosystem, where nothing goes to waste, and grass-fed meats, eggs, organic vegetables, and byproducts like hides are turned into artisanal goods and compost. His regenerative practices have rebuilt topsoil, captured carbon, and sparked a local economic revival.

Today, White Oak Pastures employs up to 180 people, making it Clay County’s largest private employer. What was once a dying ghost town now has a general store, a restaurant, lodging, and an event center—because one man chose to bet everything on a different way forward. His example proves it’s not the scale that matters—it’s the soil health, the humane treatment of animals, the jobs created, and the way the farm integrates into the life of the town.

The wake-up call is already ringing: boarded-up Main Streets, closed auction barns, veterinarians relocated to cities, feed stores shuttered, schools shrinking. And make no mistake—this is not just an economic issue. It’s a matter of national security. If we lose the ability to feed ourselves, we lose the ability to protect ourselves. Food has been a weapon in almost every war in history. Without control over our food supply, we surrender control over our future.

When we allow small and mid-size farms to fail, we don’t just lose their food production—we lose the skills, the infrastructure, and the intergenerational knowledge that comes with them. We also lose the community glue they provide. Farmers don’t just grow food—they buy feed, fix equipment locally, hire the local vet, and send their kids to the local school. Multiply that by dozens of farms in a county, and you see why their disappearance hollows out whole regions.

That’s why I am thrilled that Will Harris will be joining us at Sovereignty Ranch at the end of September for our Food is Medicine retreat—a gathering dedicated to restoring health, community, and resilience through the way we grow, cook, and share food. We’ll be talking about soil, nutrition, farm economics, and the urgent need to rebuild regional food systems—because the fight for our farms is the fight for our future.

If you care about your country, your health, and your freedom, start now: support small farmers. Buy from them directly. Demand that your grocery stores and restaurants source from them. And most importantly—eat the small farm diet. This means real food from real farms, grown in a way that nourishes the soil and the people. Every purchase is a vote for the kind of America we want to live in. The survival of rural America—and perhaps the survival of America itself—depends on it.

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

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 18:25

China Rushes To Buy Russian Oil As India Pulls Back

Zero Hedge -

China Rushes To Buy Russian Oil As India Pulls Back

While Trump has been raging in the past month at India for buying Russian oil (then processing it and reselling it to Europe at a huge markup) and slapping it with punitive tariffs in response to repeat sanctions violations, he has generally ignored the fact that China has been importing glorious amounts of Russian oil as well: amounts which are only set to become even more glorious in coming weeks. 

And now that India is suddenly shy about funneling millions of Russian barrels with the world spotlight aimed squarely at it, Beijing is stepping up to fill the void: according to Kpler, Chinese state-owned and mega-sized private refiners are snapping up Western Russian crude cargoes for Oct. and Nov. arrival as India eases off.

Previously Bloomberg reported that in hopes to appease Trump and as they hedged their bets ahead of the Trump-Putin summit, refiners in India, the world’s top importer of seaborne Russian crude, have been scouring the globe for alternative supplies. Trump has demanded that India stop purchases of cut-price crude and doubled tariffs on the country’s goods as punishment for imports he has said were fuelling “the war machine”. The move left refiners in the world’s third-largest oil consumer looking to switch up their procurement plans.

India’s state processors have bought large volumes of non-Russian crude this week for prompt September-October delivery, extending a buying spree spurred by an early threat by Washington. Indian Oil Corp. and Bharat Petroleum Corp. have taken cargoes from all corners of the market including the US, but also Brazil and the Middle East. Just earlier today, Reuters reported that IOC bought another cargo of US WTI for delivery in October. 

These spot market purchases come on top of supplies from long-term sellers like Saudi Arabia, which is set to send about 22.5 million barrels of crude to India for September loading, traders said. India’s monthly imports from Saudi last exceeded that level in September 2024, according to data from analytics firm Kpler. 

And with India slowing, China has stepped up: as Bloomberg reports, Chinese refiners purchased about 13 cargoes of Urals and Varandey for October delivery, and at least two Urals cargoes for Nov., Kpler analyst Muyu Xu wrote in a report. The last time China took Varandey was Sept. 2023.

Following intensified Ukrainian drone attacks, which have crippled many of its refineries and lowered domestic intakes, Russia instead moved to export 10-12 more Urals cargoes. Indeed, according to BBG, refineriies at Saratov, Novokuibyshevsk, Afipskiy, and Ryazan have fully or partially halted crude intake

Still, the rise in Chinese demand for Russian oil has failed to fully offset loss of Indian demand, and Urals may be trading at $0.80/bbl premium to Dated Brent, down from $2/bbl before India scaled back buying in July. Prices are expected to fall further if India continues to eschew Russian, although with India forced to buy oil in the open market, it will likely push broader benchmark prices solidly higher in coming weeks. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 18:00

I Challenged Duke's DEI Dogma - And Paid With My Job

Zero Hedge -

I Challenged Duke's DEI Dogma - And Paid With My Job

Authored by Dr. Kendall Conger via RealClearInvestigations,

I was heartened to see my former employer, Duke University Health System, quietly reverse its commitment to woke racism this year. I had joined the internal resistance to its diversity, equity, and inclusion crusade and was fired because of it. Here’s my story. 

Without public notice, the 38,000-employee organization scrubbed its website of the commitment to DEI it had trumpeted in 2021, when it proclaimed racism a “public health crisis,” and “equity” as its cure. Now, all such fealty to DEI has been discarded with its new 2025 statement of values

The title of its 2021 pledge to patients – “Duke Health Stands Against Racism, Bias, and Hate” – has been replaced by “Leading with Heart: Rooted in Humanity.” 

No doubt some of this change is due to increasing pushback to those policies: a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging pervasive racial discrimination in its hiring and admissions practices, and the Trump administration’s freezing last month of $108 million of federal monies to Duke University and Duke Health because of “the illegal use of racial preferences.”

Duke Health did not respond to requests for comment. 

I worked at Duke for 10 years without incident before spending the last few years of my tenure battling the 2021 policy – at the cost of my job as an emergency room physician, which is now the subject of a separate lawsuit I have brought. As much as I would like to proclaim victory, I do not want this episode to get memory-holed by organizational leaders who would rather we forget the moral panic that gripped them and the price many of us paid for their destructive and divisive efforts. As the country pulls back from the pernicious ideology of DEI, there are countless other people like myself who suffered the repercussions for refusing to buckle to the madness.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, let me be clear: Everyone I know is opposed to racism, bias, and hate, but Duke distorted those words to indict white doctors and nurses for complicity in the poorer health outcomes of black patients. 

My own form of resistance began in 2018 when Duke’s chief diversity officer gave a talk on implicit bias at a physicians’ meeting. I was shocked by what I heard. For the previous six years, I had been secluded from the world, working weekends in the ER while spending the week homeschooling my children. I was blithely unaware that academia had shifted from a love of Western civilization (a mandatory course when I was in college) to a disdain. The diversity officer told us that “society can be broken up into two groups, the oppressors (those with power - essentially, white males) and the oppressed.” With stunned incredulity, I wondered, “Who thinks like this?” 

One week later, and purely coincidentally, I read “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx. There it lay in his opening paragraph: “The history of society is the history of class struggles…of oppressor and the oppressed.” As I continued reading, I was shocked by how similar Duke’s diversity officer sounded to the discredited 19th-century polemicist. Didn’t she know Marx seized on this confrontational construct as dynamite to obliterate the current capitalist system via the communist revolution? Although Marx held out hope for one day creating an imagined classless society, the purpose of his model was destruction. Desiring answers, I read all I could on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the historical origins of this ideology. I expressed my concerns over the divisiveness of her ideas. “What else do you propose?” she asked me. I was prepared, and quoted social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt:

To make a human hive, you want to make everyone feel like family. So don’t call attention to racial and ethnic differences; make them less relevant by ramping up similarity and celebrating the group’s shared values and common identity. You can make people care less about race by drowning it in a sea of similarities, shared goals, and mutual interdependencies.”

Haidt’s advice seemed like common sense to me. There was an awkward, discomfited pause before she responded, “That’s not our model.” Discussion over. 

After the George Floyd riots in 2020, Duke’s embrace of DEI tightened. The university prepared an antiracist pledge to the community, dedicating itself to equity. It read, in part:

“We commit to the elimination of racial inequities. … We recognize our own implicit biases and actively seek, listen, and respond to feedback from others as part of our personal growth and development. When confronted with racism, we always take action to speak out against it. … We are guided by science and know that excellent research and health care cannot happen without equity.”

Call for Questions

Before its public release, Duke asked its employees if they had any “questions or concerns” regarding the content. I knew remaining silent meant giving tacit approval to their political pursuits, and I thought it unfair of them to strong-arm our complicity, knowing most people would fear “poking the bear,” as I was warned. Not totally naïve to the danger, I spoke up. 

Upon questioning the pledge, I was told by an ill-informed chief medical officer (CMO) that equity did not mean “equal outcomes for groups,” as I had feared, but rather “equal distribution of resources and equal access to treatments.” However, my reading on DEI told me this was a dodge, that its advocates believed if racial groups were given equal “resources and access” then outcomes for groups necessarily would follow. The proof for “equitably distributed resources” could only be equal group outcomes.

The pledge alleged “racism is a public health crisis,” an assertion that was purportedly “guided by science,” and signed by four senior-level physicians. As racism was not my observation, I asked my supervisor for the medical data supporting this audacious claim that racism was the primary driver of the unfortunate health disparities among many African Americans. He did not have the evidence, nor did he offer to find it. So, I approached the CMO. He likewise did not have the data, nor did he offer to look into it. At this juncture, I was beginning to understand this ideology as tyrannical, precariously held in place by fiat – an automatic red flag to its dubious legitimacy. 

Next in line was Duke Health’s vice president. My supervisor urged caution in approaching him. “Why,” I thought, “is the data a state secret?” I was redirected to the chief architect of the pledge, who sent me eight studies to read. Unconvincingly, the studies showed differences in racial outcomes without any link to implicit bias (unconscious racism) as alleged. The assumption was that unequal outcomes were proof of harbored unconscious racism. I pressed the architect: “I did not see a correlation between outcomes and unconscious racism in these studies, did you?” He conceded he did not, but there were “social science studies” linking implicit bias to unequal outcomes. I was dumbfounded and, as a physician trained in evidence-based/clinical data, I was uninterested in social science studies. I had social science studies of my own with different conclusions. The pledge misleadingly claimed to be “guided by science,” only it was not medical science.

Disagreement Turns Dangerous

My persistent efforts nettled Duke, and tension was growing. A nurse saw me reviewing those eight studies at work and asked what I was working on. This segued into a discussion about implicit bias. We civilly disagreed, and I assumed that was the end of the matter. I soon learned that she reported me to the ER supervisor. A few days later, my presence was requested in his office along with a human resources representative in tow. I wasn’t asked what had happened or for my side of the story. I was simply told the nurse felt my speech was “unsafe.” Instead of receiving instruction on the science of implicit bias, I received a hard lesson on how this dogma would be wielded in the workplace.

It was Kafkaesque, with the conclusion predetermined, with no evidence presented to me and none asked of me. With the gravity of the proceedings sinking in, I leveled my gaze to his and inquired, “Which ideas were unsafe?” He seemed flummoxed that I asked, telling me he wasn’t prepared to discuss it. All that mattered was my expression of opinions inconsistent with Duke’s dogma. In addition, as a doctor, I had exploited a power differential with the nurse – who had initiated our conversation – leaving her, presumably, in no position to withstand a conversation with me, even though I wasn’t her supervisor. In consequence, I was forbidden to speak about or discuss the pledge in any way with anyone while on Duke property. I had been silenced.

Around that time, I had reached out to the new president of Duke Raleigh Hospital regarding the subject of equity. Earlier, I had informed Duke that equity seemed like discrimination and a new form of racism in line with the work of Ibram X. Kendi, whose bestselling work, “How To be Anti-Racist,” was recommended reading. In this left-wing, social justice bible, Kendi famously claimed the “only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

I arranged a meeting with her, indicating I had one question I wanted made official and on the books, not a passing curb-side consult. To my surprise, she brought along HR for backup. “Here is my question,” I said, “Please explain why equity is a better goal for society than equality.” In my mind, equity was the foundation upon which the whole woke edifice rested, and I wanted to know why America’s original foundation of equality, in place since 1776, was being replaced. The president never got back to me with an answer, but suggested that if others joined me, then maybe Duke would reply. She knew others would never join, and Duke would never explain itself.

Since the head of HR was at my meeting with the president, I sought a substantive answer from her. Instead, she sent this: “Duke leaders have shared with you that these commitments were made after many opportunities listening to the voices of the people we serve. Our commitment is resolute.” Duke was resolute, resolute to not answering my question.

I asked my supervisor why Duke was refusing to answer my concern about equity, as it seemed discriminatory by favoring certain preferred groups. He said that whenever Duke speaks with me, I share their responses with others. It was true. Was that a crime? The pledge was a public document; shouldn’t their defense of it be public as well if they were willing to provide one? I said, “Supervisor, do you hear the words coming out of your mouth? Duke does NOT want the public to know why it values equity above equality? How strange.” 

I decided to put equity on pause and test diversity. I wrote to the CMO, “Does diversity mean that Duke hires the best and the brightest, or is diversity a goal to be sought as an end in itself?” The response I received, minus some verbiage, was, “Diversity is a Duke value.” “Right,” I said, “but as a goal or as an accommodation of hiring the best and the brightest no matter how it looks?” He wouldn’t say. 

When I asked my supervisor, he responded, “My opinion is that our emergency department team should be focused on the delivery of high quality emergency medical care to anyone seeking it. This is my singular focus as medical director. Duke’s values and policies serve as a guide for me in that work and should guide all of us in our care of patients at DRAH [Duke Raleigh Hospital]. Persistent emails demanding debate are a distraction and consume time that could otherwise be better directed.” 

The ER Is Colorblind

I wrote back to my supervisor: “It was an important question. It never occurred to me that diversity would be a goal. I thought diversity was a way of acknowledging that greatness comes in various shapes, sizes and colors, and that we should be open to it. However, the goal should be greatness and excellence, not diversity for its own sake. Priorities seem twisted. We should look for the person best fitted and capable for the job rather than looking at melanin or gonads when hiring. Merit is a better way to deliver high quality care.” (I wanted to tell him we both knew how silly these ideas were. When a patient comes into the ER struggling to breathe, bleeding out, or crashing in any way, all we think about is the algorithms in our heads for cheating death, not the physical characteristics of the person on the gurney. Every save is cause for equal celebration and reflects on our skill and training as physicians.)

I shared most communications with family and co-workers so they could stay abreast of developments. My colleagues cautioned against foolhardiness and quixotic endeavors, and my family feared for our livelihood. Moreover, my wife said termination would be an embarrassment. I was counseled to keep quiet because things would turn on their own, and my meager efforts wouldn’t make a ripple. The prudent path was to keep my head down and lie low. The pendulum would swing. The confrontation with Duke brought tense moments between my wife and me. To her credit, she did become a staunch supporter as Duke showed its ineptitude.

I had read “The Gulag Archipelago,” including Solzhenitsyn’s conclusion that the work camps were the result of good men holding their tongues and taking the expedient path in the face of evil. I knew the equality of individuals was the good and proper goal for society. Individuals were created equal, not groups, and imperfect equality was better than forced equity. I was convinced Solzhenitsyn was right when he said, “If one man can tell the truth, and always tell the truth, and never lie, he can bring down a tyranny.”  

It was clear to me that Duke was not interested in substantive diversity, only superficial diversity. Each year, we could propose a change to help improve the health system. As I could find no conservatives in leadership or on the board, I recommended a diversity of ideas by actively seeking out conservative voices for leadership positions to offset their uber-left echo-chamber. The leadership declined. Apparently, it’s not a diversity of ideas that matters, but diversity of color and genitals. I sensed most medical professionals at Duke agreed with me, so the next year I asked for an anonymous survey of the employees with this question: “Would you rather be judged and treated based on your personal and individual qualities or by your group identity?” Duke said they couldn’t do anonymous surveys. My supervisor and CMO never replied after I showed them that Duke had done so in the past.

Told To Go Home

I had pushed them near the breaking point, not with difficult questions, but embarrassingly simple ones. How had this whole DEI fiasco been allowed to progress this far? I showed up for work on Jan. 1, 2024, but was instead directed to a room with the president and the CMO while a security officer stood outside. Having done nothing medically or ethically wrong, I was told I was being terminated “not for cause.” The president opined, “You don’t seem surprised.” I replied, “From the first day I spoke up, I knew this was a possibility.” I was given six months’ notice. 

“Go home,” they said, “we have someone to cover your shift.” 

“I’m fine,” I said, “I don’t want anyone covering my shift.” They insisted. What bothered me more was walking back into the house and facing my wife. How would I tell her? She is strong, but this stung and needed processing.

One year later, when it was time to renew my medical license through the North Carolina Medical Board, I had to answer in the affirmative that I had been terminated from a previous position. This triggered an investigation, which triggered more stress and more consultations with my lawyer. Duke listed the cause of my termination as “disruptive behavior.” However, nothing I did qualified as disruptive behavior per the board’s website. Fortunately, the Board found no violation.

Finding a new job that would not require moving became difficult. Attaining employment at a new hospital as an employee was typically blocked by HR. I would interview with the medical director, and things would be fine until HR found out who I was. I eventually found a facility where I work as a contractor (not an employee), a little more than an hour’s drive from home. With twelve-hour shifts and driving back and forth, it makes for a long day.

As my hero Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist, says, “always tell the truth and you will have the adventure of your life.” The adventure may not be easy, but it will be worthwhile. Have faith that continually telling the truth, whatever happens, will eventually be for the best. Don’t let falsehoods pass by you. 

Some people think I was courageous. I was not. With a timid and small voice, I barely dared to ask the first question. It was Duke’s pathetic answers and evasions that emboldened me. Its supervisors weren’t so smart, they were just more fearful of the people above them than I was. 

As Duke has quietly changed its pledge, I have grown to feel indomitable – and vindicated. My biggest takeaway was what this experience allowed me to tell my four children, “You will fear something. Fear God, not man. Never shy away from asking questions in the pursuit of truth.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 17:40

MAHA Advocates Urge Trump To Block Immunity For Pesticide And Chemical Manufacturers

Zero Hedge -

MAHA Advocates Urge Trump To Block Immunity For Pesticide And Chemical Manufacturers

Authored by Jeff Louderbeck via The Epoch Times,

As anticipation builds about the upcoming Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission Report’s release, 241 MAHA advocates sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to prevent the House of Representatives from limiting regulation for pesticides and “forever chemicals” in its environmental appropriations bill.

“We ask you to take action to make sure any protections for pesticides are stricken from this Appropriations bill,” the letter says, or risk losing Republican backing.

The letter also expressed opposition to liability shields for pesticide companies.

Every year, more than 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides are used on U.S. farmland, including dozens of chemicals banned in other developed nations, the letter states.

“These toxic substances are present in our food, air, soil, and water, and are increasingly in our children’s bodies, negatively impacting normal brain development and hormonal function,” the letter explains.

“Extensive peer-reviewed research has linked glyphosate to infertility, increased reproductive risks, and 6 of the top 10 most common cancers in the [United States]. At the same time, atrazine is a known endocrine disruptor affecting sexual development, and paraquat has been linked to Parkinson’s and neurological and respiratory diseases.”

Signers of the letter highlighted provisions in the Fiscal Year 2026 House Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill—Sections 453 and 507 —which they claim create broad product-liability protections for domestic and foreign pesticide and chemical manufacturers “by refusing to fund the critical, legally required scientific safety assessments needed to update labels across more than 57,000 synthetic chemicals.”

Numerous pesticides that fall under Section 453 are chemicals that are already banned in multiple other developed nations. Despite a massive outcry from citizens, the House Appropriations committee passed the spending bill last month with Section 453 and Section 507 intact,” the letter states.

MAHA advocates also expressed concern about Section 507 because “it prohibits the EPA from finalizing risk assessments for PFOA and PFOS forever chemicals found in biosolids spread on farmer’s fields and eliminates funding for community health monitoring, new research, and the cleanup of more than 70 million acres of U.S. 2 farmland contaminated with PFAS from the application of biosolids.”

“Mr. President, creating broad liability protections for pesticides is a losing issue for your party and your coalition, and may well cost you the House majority in the midterms,” the letter said.

MAHA Action CEO Tony Lyons said in a July 24 X post that stopping Section 453 should be MAHA’s top priority right now.

“There couldn’t be anything that is more important to MAHA than making sure that we don’t have pesticide liability protection for big corporations,” Lyons wrote.

“Nobody should want their children to be exposed to them. Nobody should wanna be exposed to them themselves. What’s happening now looks a lot like what happened in 1986 with the vaccine liability protection for these big companies.”

The letter stated that some Republicans “talk MAHA” on camera while silently advancing policies that undercut the movement.

“Republicans must do more than ride the wave of MAHA’s high polling,” David Murphy, founder of United We Eat, a major fundraiser for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign, said in a press release.

“President Trump must stand firm and follow through with real policy that protects American health, including opposing chemical liability shields and the Eats Act that put our children at risk and trample Americans’ constitutional right to sue,” Murphy added.

The letter pointed to a 2024 poll of Iowa Republicans by Accountable Iowa that found efforts to pass cancer lawsuit liability bills “could significantly cost Republicans in state and federal elections in 2026.”

The proposed legislation was not passed in Iowa.

According to the poll, 87 percent of registered Republicans oppose giving chemical companies like Bayer-Monsanto immunity from lawsuits, while 94 percent agreed it is “very concerning” that the EPA relies on industry-funded data to administer safety studies.

“If Republicans want to retain MAHA support long-term, they need to stop siding with agrochemical companies and take leadership on these issues,” Charles Eisenstein, who served as Kennedy’s chief speechwriter during the Health and Human Services Secretary’s presidential campaign, said.

The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission “is on track to submit its Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy report to the President on August 12th,” Kush Desai, a spokesman for the White House, told The Epoch Times in an email on Aug. 11.

“The report will be unveiled to the public shortly thereafter as we coordinate the schedules of the President and the various cabinet members who are a part of the commission.”

The MAHA Commission’s first report was released in May. It mostly details issues related to the health of Americans and attributes the rise of chronic diseases among children to a diet focused on ultraprocessed foods, exposure to chemicals, a lack of physical activity, and the over-prescription of medications.

When Trump established the commission not long after beginning his second term, the panel was tasked to submit its first report to the president within 100 days and present him with a strategy on how to address chronic diseases, including obesity, within 180 days.

That deadline was Aug. 12.

The White House has not commented on the MAHA advocates’ letter as of this article’s publication time.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 17:00

Power Bill Crisis Is Here To Stay "For A Few Years" 

Zero Hedge -

Power Bill Crisis Is Here To Stay "For A Few Years" 

To close out the week, we're getting a much clearer picture of the power bill crisis financially battering working-poor and middle-class households, as well as mom-and-pop businesses - and it's about to get a whole lot worse.

Monthly bills are set to spike even higher, and the political fallout could be brutal for Democrats who championed everything 'green' - retiring stable fossil fuel power generation in favor of unreliable wind and solar. This epic failure guarantees voters a monthly reminder of just how disastrous these policies have become across Maryland and New Jersey (soon, many other states) every time they open their power statement. 

On Thursday, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright joined conservative commentator Glenn Beck in a discussion about all things energy, especially the emerging power bill crisis that will soon become a national topic in the era of faltering green policies colliding with surging power demand from AI data centers. 

The takeaway from Beck and Wright's conversation is that the power bill crisis won't be solved this year and will only worsen. 

Here's the conversation:

Beck: When should we see this actually starting to happen and how long before power prices come down?

Wright: Oh, man. That is the big question that President Trump asked me that every single day, let's get oil prices down, let's get gas prices down, let's get electricity prices down. And it takes a while to build infrastructure. Fortunately quickly we can stop the closure of coal plants, but still have lots of lifetime left. We've already done that. That's why we don't have much worse blackouts already today. We do have new gas plants coming on this year, a lot more coming on next year. We'll have nuclear plants on later this term. We'll have a whole bunch of them under construction. But yet to turn the giant aircraft carrier that is the electricity grid, that's going to take a few years. But hopefully we can stop the huge rise in prices. We can build the capacity so the United States can keep our lead on artificial intelligence over China. We get behind China and they control AI, our national security is at risk.

Beck: Yeah, I know.

Wright: So the whole administration is seven days a week working on this effort. You will see dramatically fewer blackouts this summer than you would have had the election gone the other way. And I think we'll be in a little bit better situation next summer, somewhere in between there this winter. We're rapidly swimming the right way. I wish I could say power prices are going down twenty percent next year, but it's simply not possible to do that in twelve months. What I will tell you, President Trump is seven days a week doing everything he can towards that goal.

To recap the week in all things power: The epicenter of America's power crisis appears to be on the PJM Interconnection grid, with the Mid-Atlantic area at ground zero. 

In Baltimore, Maryland, on Monday, a single substation outage pushed a grid serving a million people to the brink of collapse, with no spare capacity (thank the Democrats), as the local utility warned of widespread blackouts. The grid was ultimately fixed hours later, but the near collapse raised alarms at the local, state, and national levels over how fragile Maryland's grid has become after years of Democrats retiring fossil fuel power generation in favor of unstable solar and wind.

Then by Tuesday, a new poll in Maryland showed that among the many things, if that's fisical crisis, taxes, illegal aliens, crime, and whatever else, as well as exploding power bills for millions, Maryland Governor Westley Watende Omari Moore, who is being positioned for the party's 2028 presidential run, experinced sliding poll numbers that have set the Democratic Party into a panic. 

And later in the week, we identified that the power bill crisis had spread from Maryland to New Jersey. What state is next?

As well as citing a Goldman Sachs note about how America's power crisis is only getting started

Key chart from the report (read here). 

Ah yes, this. Mark our words. 

. . . 

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 16:40

Stockman: America Don't Need No "Independent" Fed

Zero Hedge -

Stockman: America Don't Need No "Independent" Fed

Authored by David Stockman via InternationalMan.com,

Talk about hiding in plain sight.

Here is possibly the most important graph ever about the flagging state of the US economy and the utter failure of Washington’s constant efforts during the last two decades to “stimulate” improved outcomes.

To wit, the US industrial production index—which measures the sum of manufacturing, energy, mining, and utility output—marched straight uphill at a 3.3% annual rate between 1954 and 2007.

Yet since then it has essentially plateaued, rising by just 0.10% per annum during the past 17 years.

That’s right. The growth rate of America’s industrial foundation has plunged by 97% since the pre-crisis peak in Q4 2007. And yet June’s industrial production index, which was up a small tad, gets headlined as a sign of economic strength. In fact, the longer-term chart below screams the very opposite.

After all, there is no logic that says an economy can remain healthy and prosperous that is increasingly based on educating a shrinking number of kids, feeding an expanding national waistline at fast food joints, and changing adult diapers among the soaring share of the population composed of octogenarians. At the end of the day, you actually have to make things in order for the population to pay for taking in each other’s laundry.

As it has happened, however, during the 48 months since June 2021 the industrial production index has been negative or flat nearly half the time on a month-over-month basis. For all practical purposes, the US industrial economy is just playing “mother may I”, advancing one step forward and the next step backwards month after month. And if that’s “strong” or even a sign of anything except decaying performance, we’d suggest the English language has lost all meaning.

As it happens, the disconnect becomes even more dramatic when you compare the production of goods since Q4 2007 with the constant dollar value of goods consumption (PCE) during the same period.

That is to say, cumulative real consumption of goods (durable and non-durable) rose by 62% but domestic industrial output was up by only 1.4%!

Obviously, the yawning gap got filled by imports. On the margin, therefore, the growth of goods consumption during the last 17 years was based on imports financed by massive current account deficits.

Needless to say, the above disconnect was not due to a want of trying by means of Washington-based stimmies. The index lines for Federal Debt and the Fed’s balance sheet since 1954 show the opposite pattern to that embedded in the industrial index chart above. That is to say, growth was slow to moderate between 1954 and 2007, but then took off like a bat out of hell thereafter.

Thus, between 1954 and 2007, US Treasury debt outstanding grew by 6.5% per annum, while the Fed’s balance sheet expanded by 5.6% per year. During the last 17 years, by contrast, the public debt rose by 10.7% per year, and the Fed’s balance sheet grew by 13.3% per year.

To reprise, industrial production growth has essentially ground to a halt at 0.1% per year since 2007, notwithstanding a 13.3% per annum expansion of Fed credit. Self-evidently, all that high-powered central bank money was going somewhere, but clearly it was not into the production of goods on Main Street.

There is no mystery, however, as to where it actually went. Since Q4 2007, the NASDAQ 100 index has risen by 86-fold. In turn, the net worth of the top 1% of US households has soared from $18.9 trillion to $49.4 trillion.

Stated differently, industrial production went nowhere, even as the net worth of the top 1.35 million US households soared by nearly $31 trillion.

And yet and yet. Bubble vision today was replete with Wall Street experts rebuking the Donald in the name of the Fed’s purportedly sacrosanct “independence” for his impending plan to fire Jay Powell.

Then again, the Latin phrase “cui bono” immediately comes to mind. The answer to “who benefits” from the Fed’s so-called “independence” is surely not Main Street America.

The fact is, the Fed is neither a democratically accountable arm of the state nor an agency of the free market. It was, is, and may always be a tool of the traders and gamblers who inhabit the canyons of Wall Street.

To be sure, the Donald’s comprehension of monetary policy is about as wrong-headed as it gets, but his imminent frontal attack on the rogue institution domiciled in the Eccles Building may well be the only way to upend its destructive reign.

*  *  *

The data doesn’t lie—and neither do the consequences. As Washington’s debt-fueled “stimulus” regime enriches Wall Street while hollowing out Main Street, the illusion of prosperity continues to mask an industrial and monetary decay that cannot go on forever. The cracks are widening, and the next phase may bring seismic changes most Americans are unprepared for. That’s why we’ve put together a free special report: “Guide to Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse.” If you want to understand what’s coming—and how to protect yourself, your assets, and your freedom—don’t wait until the crisis hits full force. Click here to claim your free copy now. You owe it to yourself to be informed—and ready.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/15/2025 - 16:20

Producer prices for July (apparently) show the first significant negative effects of Tariff-palooza!

Angry Bear -

– by New Deal democrat Normally I don’t pay too much attention to producer prices, but occasionally they are very important – and today is one of those days.  Here’s why. In the past, as shown in this graph going back over 50 years: when producer prices outstrip consumer prices, that means producers aren’t able to […]

The post Producer prices for July (apparently) show the first significant negative effects of Tariff-palooza! appeared first on Angry Bear.

S. 254, ARTIST Act

CBO -

As ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on June 25, 2025

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