Zerohedge

Lavrov Soberly Acknowledged The Challenges Posed By Trump 2.0 Authored by Andrew Korybko, He calmly acknowledged that it’s now more difficult for Russia to advance its foreign policy goals due to the US’ renewed attempt to dominate the global economy through coercion and force, but he still believes that BRICS will play a pivotal role in furthering the global systemic transition to multipolarity. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently gave an interview to TV BRICS about their namesake organization and its role in the global systemic transition. He began by contextualizing the present moment in history as the interim period between the decline of US-led Western hegemony and the rise of multiple centers of power and influence. These inverse trends have led to friction because “the West is losing its hegemony but keeps on clinging to the institutions set up to secure that hegemony”. The US can no longer fairly compete within the ‘rules-based order’ shaped by none other than itself several generations ago so it’s resorting to “blatantly unfair methods” against its rivals, especially Russia. This includes sanctioning its energy companies, weaponizing sanctions threats against its “major strategic partners” like India (whom Lavrov specified) “to restrict Russia’s trade, investment cooperation, and military-technical ties” with them, and opposing the creation of alternative platforms of any kind. On that last point, Lavrov clarified that “We are not advocating for the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO to cease their existence” and that “President Putin has said on many occasions that we are not the ones refusing to use the dollar. The United States under President Joe Biden did everything to make the dollar a weapon against those who are deemed objectionable.”  BRICS, its proposed economic-financial tools, and other alternative platforms are only meant to complement existing ones and induce reform therein. Russia’s top diplomat soberly acknowledged that “given the global war unleashed against us and the feverish attempts of the West to ‘punish’ all our partners by demanding that they stop trading with us and cooperating in the military-technical sphere, it is significantly harder to do our job and to provide maximally favourable conditions for internal development than it was, say, 10 or 15 years ago.” He also mildly criticized Trump 2.0 for essentially continuing “Bidenism” despite its rhetoric to the contrary. Far from respecting the ‘spirit of Anchorage’, which refers to the verbal agreements reached during that summit for resolving the Ukrainian Conflict and normalizing ties, “new sanctions are imposed, a ‘war’ against tankers in the open sea is being waged”, and more pressure placed on Russian partners like India. Lavrov then accused the US of trying to control the global energy industry in order “to dominate the global economy”, but if it relents, then Russia would be eager to explore mutually beneficial cooperation. On that note, he concluded the interview by circling back to Russia’s vision of BRICS’ role in the global systemic transition, which he foresees “creating an architecture that will not be subject to the illegal actions of one or another player from the Western flank.” BRICS will also play a role in Russia’s “Greater Eurasian Partnership”, which Lavrov suggested could lay the basis for a “common ‘canopy’” over the continent, with the innuendo being that Eurasia might one day have its own version of the AU or CELAC. He didn’t say so, but the context implies that BRICS would then function as an alternative center of global governance for reforming the world order in order to make it more equitable, the goal of which would be advanced by assembling representatives from each continental organization to discuss viable pathways thereto within this ‘mini-UN’. Through these means, Russia and the rest of the World Majority could continue furthering multipolar trends despite the newfound challenges posed by Trump 2.0. Tyler Durden Sat, 02/14/2026 - 23:20

The Epstein Egregore Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com, The Politics Of Institutionalized Predation. “I become stronger as you become weaker, I absorb strength as yours flows into me. I become capable of this because I do not experience your pain, I don’t care about your loss, and I feel no regret about using, abusing, and devouring you.” — Page 63, An Age For Lucifer Consider the following: “This book explores a strange new spirituality about to enter into competition with other established religions. My purpose here is to convince you that its emergence is probable, if not inevitable. I begin this exploration with an unproven assumption based on Darwinian evolutionary principles: a new predator will appear on our planet, an evolutionary prototype designed to prey on humans. Another assumption then follows: this predator will evolve gradually and incrementally from humanity, just as we apparently evolved from lower forms to prey on them. A further assumption suggests that these predators have already appeared as evolutionary prototypes, as new humans with advanced methods of survival and new forms of spiritual expression and religious organization designed to support and advance their predation.“ — Robert C Tucker, An Age For Lucifer: Predatory Spirituality & The Quest for Godhood The book in question was Robert C Tucker’s “An Age For Lucifer: Predatory Spirituality and the Quest For Godhood“. I first wrote about it in a Bombthrower piece: The WEF Isn’t a Cabal, It’s A Cult, and I can’t remember how I came into possession of it in the first place. I remember owning it for years and never reading it, because frankly, it scared me. At first I thought it was some kind of manual for psychopathy – how to rise above your self-limiting human emotions to attain power and fame (even Godhood?) through the energetic predation of those around you. But once I found out that its author wasn’t some High Priest of the Left Hand Path, but rather, a former counsellor and director of COMA, the Council On Mind Abuse, based in Canada – it started to take on a different light. COMA worked with “adult survivors and child victims of ritual abuse“, and Tucker spent much of his adult life interviewing Satanists and Luciferians (yes, there is a distinction, as Tucker would elucidate in this book). The Winged God Lucifer, with a human child on his knee… It was an anthropological study, born out of a thought experiment: What if all the ritualistic abuse we are seeing isn’t random criminality but an expression of an overarching, organizing principle that viewed mere humans as psychic fodder, to be devoured for the benefit of those in the know? In his talks with Satanists and sociopaths Tucker repeatedly detected a whiff of something, he never put a name to it, but referred to it as “the thing that points beyond itself”. COMA eventually went bankrupt, being on the receiving end of relentless lawfare from the Church of Scientology. Tucker died of a heart attack in Mexico in 2003. In my original Bombthrower piece, I picked up the thread on “The Thing That Points Beyond Itself”, positing the very real, not metaphorical, existence of larger, transpersonal entities such as egregores, morphogenic fields, Vadim Zeland’s “Pendulums”, memetics and mass thought forms in general. The WEF Isn’t A Cabal. It’s a cult As the world tries to wrap its head around the millions of new and partially unredacted Epstein documents, it becomes very difficult to unsee the dynamics of what has been revealed to be playing out at the highest echelons of institutional power, for decades at least. The Thing That Points Beyond Itself An egregore isn’t an analogy or mythical. It’s what a shared belief system becomes when it fuses with incentives and institutions and starts behaving like an organism. It recruits, it feeds, it protects itself. The Epstein network isn’t the egregore. It’s one of its organs. As the names keep dropping, it’s hard not to get a sense that absolutely anybody who had achieved fame, influence, power or renown was mixed up in an organized cabal of depravity and moral turpitude. It feels like every TED Talk you ever nodded in agreement to, every Grammy award-winning singer you vibed to, every politician you voted for, and every business leader whose companies you bought shares in, they were all laughing behind your back, because it was a Big Club and you ain’t in it. The Club is in the global domination game, and its accoutrements include fraud, racketeering, blackmail, and ritualized abuse of women and children. FedEx: “when you absolutely, positively need a wall-sized mural of infant massacre for a ritual happening Wednesday at 2pm” But what is weird about The Club is the seeming preponderance of pedophiles and sexual predators. Doesn’t anybody nice ever rise into positions of authority? The Club has to be impelled by something, be it an incentive structure or dynamic that attracts both sociopaths and easily manipulable bunglers. But it goes beyond that. The Falsification of Hanlon’s Razor Hanlon’s Razor used to be the bedrock of my thinking. It’s a derivation of Occam’s Razor. Loosely stated, it advises us: “Never ascribe to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity.” When you look at the types of people ensconced in government, bureaucracy, and academia, this fits. Nowhere in the private sector could you find such a monotonous array of one-dimensional apparatchiks. Any enterprise run by such institutionalized mediocrity would have zero competitive edge and go bankrupt. However, what I should also have taken to heart, more than I did, was something James Dale Davidson and Lord Rees-Mogg observed over twenty years ago in their seminal work The Sovereign Individual: “Too little attention has been paid to the fact that electoral politics lures disordered, Messianic personalities into positions of power.” My base case used to be that the political class were, by definition, failures and rejects. They washed out of the private sector, then drifted into statecraft out of necessity. I thought that belief in a vast, overarching conspiracy of powerful elites who controlled everything was Loserthink. It ingrained a sense of helplessness in the believer, which made them ambivalent and docile. Now I realize that I’m the loser – at least in the eyes of everyone in The Club, because there is now no doubt, except to the willfully ignorant – that The Club exists, and the entire political ruling class, the corporate oligarchs, the TED-class influencers and CNN talking heads and panelist experts, are all in it. Seeing now that The Club exists, and whatever is behind it pulls the levers of power, narrative, and money itself, doesn’t make me feel helpless after all. It makes me angry. As it likely does for a lot of people. But The Club is driven by something, that sits behind it. Not much Podesta in the Epstein files, but lots, and lots of pizza What’s Behind the Three-M’s? In numerous writings I have said that the main affliction facing humanity today was what I privately term the “3M’s of Elite Insularism”, those in the The Club are Malthusian, misanthropic, and Marxists. But I now suspect those are mere symptoms of how The Thing That Points Beyond Itself presents, and that thing is… In Gore Vidal’s 1954 novel Messiah, a Death Cult named “Caveism” sweeps the Western world in under 36 months. A Luciferian Death Cult Throughout his book, the term Tucker uses to refer to his posited predatory spirituality is Luciferianism, and he said that it “reinforces and encourages four basic energies — devouring, possession, violence and disguise — which in turn, assist the Luciferian to transform consciousness, animate hidden potential, and ultimately attain godhood.” Devouring is the core process – it is the act of ingesting various types of energy for oneself, whether it be wealth, property or life energy itself – it’s all fair game to the elites in The Club, because they view it all as theirs by divine right. “Luciferians believe that core identity can be devoured only when it is broken like an egg or nutshell. Once broken, the victim’s identity yields powerful energies. “ Page 71. (Serious adrenechrome vibes…) The elites, The Club, view themselves as a kind of breakaway civilization – but not in the sense that I have been calling The Great Bifurcation for years. My sense of that was a split into separate streams of humanity, a la the Eloi and Morlocks posited in The Time Machine, by that irascible communist H.G. Wells. But The Club isn’t splitting off from the mass of humanity, they’re using the masses as fuel for stage separation like a booster rocket. Ready to jettison our spent husks as our psychic energy is consumed to propel them into the stars and Godhood itself. For the rest of us to go along with this, we have to submit to this and want to provide ourselves as energetic fuel to be consumed by our betters. This involves the promotion of what Tucker calls “Self-Annihilating Traditions” and we see it in various forms of psychic driving and mass influence operations that induce an intellectual and instinctive lethargy at both the individual and mass levels: “The actual experience of being devoured emotionally, cognitively, or spiritually usually occurs gradually over time. The devouring itself is never obvious to the victim; if it was, then defenses would be mobilized.” Any suffering the victims do experience is attributed to other causes – I think of them as “institutional scapegoats”. “Suicidal Empathy” is phrase that has arisen from those skeptical of the value prop of allowing oneself to be psychically, economically and even physically devoured to the benefit of The Club, ostensibly in service to the higher calling of the collective. We have to be conditioned to desire an end to our own existence as a moral imperative unto itself – hence the relentless climate crisis, mankind-as-a-cancer narrative, the institutionalization of euthanasia, abortion and the incentivizing of medical pseudo-science that induces violent psychosis on a mass scale. Like the Anti-Life Equation posited in DC Comics New Gods series, most humans have to be conditioned to want to die. DC Comics: New Gods #6 (1972), written and illustrated by Jack Kirby …so that the “capstone class”, as I’ve called them in the past, can use us as booster fuel into godhood. Tucker’s book was tabled as a thought experiment, and that’s where it sat for me, until now. When you map the model onto the world we actually inhabit the point ceases to be that some new predator-class spirituality might emerge. It is here now, and the point is that we inhabit a system that is optimized for it. Class structure, now and future Somewhere along the line, a prototype evolved inside the species, and learned to prey on its own kind. As I outlined in another (very long) piece, this has likely been going on for a long, long time. (That piece happened to mention Clinton Foundation insider Ira Magaziner, his role shaping the governance regime of the Internet, and his presence in the Epstein black book; the latest Epstein file dump shows, despite protestations that no relationship existed, that Magaziner and Epstein were indeed in contact beyond the stated claims. Ira is still CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative. His son is congressman Seth Magaziner, D-RI). Back to The Club: over the centuries, they’ve built a social and spiritual architecture that normalizes the predation, and advances it – taking special efforts to co-opt anything that appears that could challenge it. Tucker called it “predatory spirituality.” We have other names. The behaviour is the same. And where would such a class (The Club) take up residence, if they were real? They would not live at the margins, nor burrow into the powerless underclass. The Club would move inexorably toward the apex. They would infiltrate the institutions that confer immunity, walk the corridors of power where favours become law. They would acquire control of the media organs where spin defines reality, and they would reside above the law, where consequences are for other people, the little people. Predatory spirituality takes up residence where power emanates, because that is where it can feed without being seen, or at the very least with immunity. Civil War, SplinterNet and Guillotines (a.k.a. where we are headed…) Epstein is not important because he was uniquely depraved. He is important because he is the icon, the symbol that points beyond itself. The machinations of his network give us a glimpse of the operating system. It’s a case study in how leverage, ritual, and institutional protection intertwine. Once you accept that, the question is no longer “How could this happen?” The question becomes “How long has this been going on?” and “Who or what hasn’t been corrupted by it?” In the follow-up piece, I’m going to widen the lens. Because when institutional legitimacy breaks down, alternative structures step into the vacuum. Despite what The Club would want for the rabble, when it comes right down to it, people actually don’t want to be psychically, economically and spiritually devoured for the benefit of an insular, overlord class. For years I have written the age of centralization and the linear geometry of the Industrial Age was heading toward collapse. It was, and still is, too early to tell what comes next – but whatever it is, owing the emerging architecture of the Network Age, it won’t be a top-down hierarchy, lorded over by (Luciferian) priests of the temple. Whenever people ask me for a succinct descriptor of what I see coming, my answer was and remains: Snow Crash. We've already gone full Snow Crash. pic.twitter.com/KJjgRI6snQ — Mark E. Jeftovic (@jeftovic) February 11, 2026 As the collapse in institutional legitimacy accelerates, non-state groupings will step into the vacuum and provide the functional scaffolding that civil governments are no longer willing, or able to provide. Sometimes they look like protection rackets. Sometimes they look like special economic zones, franchise sovereignties or city-states. Sometimes they look like cartels with drones. Sometimes they look like transnational corporations with private intelligence services. The end result is the same. Fragmentation. Competing authorities. SplinterNets (and consensus reality shattered). That’s where this leads. Epilogue My next piece explores a strange new social construct about to enter into competition with other established sovereignties. My purpose here is to convince you that its emergence is probable, if not inevitable. I begin this exploration with an unproven assumption based on game theory and simple incentives: a new class of irregular sovereigns will appear on our planet, an evolutionary prototype designed to oppose Luciferian predation. Another assumption then follows: these factions will evolve gradually and incrementally from largely compromised nation states, just as we apparently evolved from previous obsolete governance structures. A further assumption suggests that these groups have already appeared as evolutionary prototypes, as guerrillas with advanced methods of resiliency and new forms of communications and asymmetric tactics designed to support and advance their insurgency. Watch this space. Get on the Bombthrower mailing list to get the next instalment, follow me on X, we’re also getting ready to relaunch Ready.ca – a boot camp for politically homeless Canadians (and others).  Tyler Durden Sat, 02/14/2026 - 22:10

Eat The Rich: California Democrats Trigger Reverse Gold Rush With Wealth Tax Authored by Jonathan Turley, This month, the anniversary of the California Gold Rush came and passed with little mention … for good reason. When James W. Marshall found gold at Sutter’s Mill, millions traveled great distances to seek their fortune in the “Golden State.” Now, 178 years later, California has engineered an inverse Gold Rush, virtually chasing wealth from the state. Rather than covered wagons going West, there is a line of U-Hauls going anywhere other than California. From boondoggle projects to reparations, California politicians continue to rack up new spending projects despite a soaring deficit and shrinking tax base. Rather than exercise a modicum of fiscal restraint, Democrats are pushing through a tax that takes five percent of the wealth of any billionaires left in the state. I have long criticized the tax as perfectly moronic for a state with the highest tax burden and one of the highest flight rates of top taxpayers. In my new book, “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution,” I discuss the reversal of fortunes in California and other blue states as politicians unleash new “eat the rich” campaigns before the midterm elections. The problem, of course, is that billionaires are mobile, as is their wealth. Liberals expect billionaires to stay put in a type of voluntary canned hunt.  They are not. Billionaires are joining the growing exodus from the state, taking their companies, investments, and jobs with them. The latest billionaire to be chased off may be Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is reportedly heading for Florida. The growing departures have triggered outrage among many on the left, who are in disbelief that billionaires will just not stand still to be fleeced. Former New York Magazine editor Kara Swisher captured that rage in a recent posting, declaring “you made…all your money in California, you ungrateful piece of s***, you could figure out a way to pay more taxes, and we deserve the taxes from you, given you made your wealth here . . . so why don’t we just do shock and awe at this point, because you don’t seem to be availing yourself to thinking that you owe your state something more.” By some estimates, California has already cost over a trillion dollars in lost investments and business. That is no small achievement. Here’s a mind teaser: How can you burn a trillion dollars (which would create a stack some 67,866 miles high) without taking years and destroying the environment? California politicians have a solution: Have people take it out of the state in a reverse gold rush. In addition to saying that they want to grab 5 percent of the wealth of these billionaires, California Democrats are planning to base wealth calculations on the voting shares of corporate executives. Often, particularly with start-ups, entrepreneurs have greater voting shares than actual ownership. However, they will be taxed as if voting shares amounted to actual wealth. In other words, California is moving to nuke the entrepreneurs who created the Silicon Valley boom. Emmanuel Saez, the U.C. Berkeley economist who helped design the tax, insists that they may not want to stay, but they will still be tapped. They are planning to trap the wealthy fleeing the state retroactively: “The tax is based on residence as of Jan. 1, 2026, sharply limiting their ability to flee the state to avoid paying. Despite billionaires’ threats to leave, I think extremely few will have been able to change residence by Jan. 1, given the complexity of doing so.” The effort to retroactively impose such a tax is legally controversial and will face years of challenges. In my view, this is unconstitutional, but admittedly it is a murky area. Regardless of the outcome, a wealth tax will affect a wide range of other wealthy taxpayers. If Democrats can get a retroactive wealth tax to be upheld, it is doubtful that they will stop with billionaires. Why should other top taxpayers stick around to find out where the next cull will fall in the tax brackets? Recently, Gavin Newsom boasted, “California isn’t just keeping pace with the world — we’re setting the pace.” That is undeniably true if the measure is the record number of U-Hauls fleeing the state — more than any other state. Indeed, the only thing harder to find than a wealthy taxpayer in California appears to be a U-Haul. According to U-Haul’s data, the state is again leading blue states in the exodus. The Washington Post noted recently that “California came in last. Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey rounded out the bottom five. Of the bottom 10, seven voted blue in the last election.” Conversely, “nine of the top 10 growth states voted red in the last presidential election,” with Texas again leading the growth states. The Post put it succinctly, “People want to live in pro-growth, low-tax states, while the biggest losers tend to be places with big governments and high taxes.” The problem is that, while the economics are horrific, the politics remain irresistible. Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who represents part of Silicon Valley, recently mocked billionaires rushing to escape the state. Laughing at his own constituents, Khanna quipped, “I will miss them very much.” You will not be alone as California becomes known as the La Brea Tar Pit of taxation. They are on the verge of converting the state motto from “Eureka” to “Welcome to Hotel California, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.” Tyler Durden Sat, 02/14/2026 - 20:15

Trump Promises Voter ID "Whether Congress Approves Or Not" The SAVE America Act squeaked through the House this week by five votes. The final tally was 218-213, with Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas standing as the lone Democrat to cross party lines.  On Friday, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) gave Republicans their 50th vote late Friday afternoon, telling Maine Wire the revised bill strikes an appropriate balance between election security and voter access.  “The law is clear that in this country only American citizens are eligible to vote in federal elections. In addition, having people provide an ID at the polls, just as they have to do before boarding an airplane, checking into a hotel, or buying an alcoholic beverage, is a simple reform that will improve the security of our federal elections and will help give people more confidence in the results,” she told Maine Wire. “Requiring voters to produce passports or birth certificates on Election Day — as opposed to just a state-issued ID — would have placed an unnecessary burden on the voters. That provision is no longer in the bill, and dropping this requirement was key to getting my support.” With Will Collins on board, Republicans have enough support to pass the bill even without additional backing, with Vice President JD Vance ready to break any tie. Unfortunately, 50 votes only get the GOP so far. The legislation still lacks the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has made clear the bill is "dead on arrival.”  And Collins herself opposes scrapping the filibuster to ram the measure through. “I oppose eliminating the legislative filibuster,” Collins said. “The filibuster is an important protection for the rights of the minority party, that requires Senators to work together in the best interest of the country. Removing that protection would, for example, allow a future Congress controlled by Democrats to pass provisions on anything they want — DC Statehood, open borders, or packing the Supreme Court — with just a simple majority of Senators.” President Trump, however, is promising that requiring a photo ID to vote will get done with or without Congress. In a post on Truth Social, he accused Democrats of opposing Voter ID and citizenship verification because “they want to continue to cheat in Elections.” He said this “was not what our Founders desired” and promised to present an “irrefutable” legal argument on the issue soon. \ Trump vowed that “There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not,” and stated that Americans demand “Citizenship, and No Mail-In Ballots, with exceptions for Military, Disability, Illness, or Travel.” Trump also slammed Democrats as “horrible, disingenuous CHEATERS” for opposing Voter I.D., claiming they “boldly laugh in the backrooms” while opposing it. He called the lack of Voter I.D. “even crazier, and more ridiculous, than Men playing in Women’s Sports, Open Borders, or Transgender for Everyone.” Trump urged Republicans to make it “a CAN’T MISS FOR RE-ELECTION IN THE MIDTERMS, AND BEYOND,” noting that “Even Democrat Voters agree, 85%, that there should be Voter I.D.” He called Democratic leaders “Crooked Losers like Schumer and Jeffries,” who label it “racist,” and promised to present legal arguments for action via an Executive Order. Trump warned that if Democrats regain power, they will “PACK THE COURT with a total of 21 Supreme Court Justices” and warned the country “will never be the same if they allow these demented and evil people to knowingly, and happily, destroy it.” Trump previously signed an executive order attempting to impose proof-of-citizenship requirements on federal voter registration forms. That effort crashed into multiple legal challenges and has been systematically dismantled by the courts. Tyler Durden Sat, 02/14/2026 - 19:15

"Billion Dollar Movie In One Prompt": AI Disruption Crosshairs Hone In On Hollywood Studios AI-driven equity disruption was everywhere this past week, spreading like wildfire beyond software into insurance, commercial real estate, financials, shipping, wealth management, and likely many more industries in the coming trading sessions. One industry in the crosshairs of AI disruption is Hollywood. Some of the publicly traded studios include The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global, Sony Group Corporation, Netflix, Lionsgate, and others. On Friday, Axios reported that the Walt Disney Company sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance, alleging that the Chinese tech firm has been infringing on its films to develop Seedance 2.0 without compensation. Disney's outside attorney, David Singer, wrote a letter to ByteDance global general counsel John Rogovin, accusing the AI company of "pre-packaging its Seedance service with a pirated library of Disney's copyrighted characters from Star Wars, Marvel, and other Disney franchises, as if Disney's coveted intellectual property were free public domain clip art." "Over Disney's well-publicized objections, ByteDance is hijacking Disney's characters by reproducing, distributing, and creating derivative works featuring those characters. ByteDance's virtual smash-and-grab of Disney's IP is willful, pervasive, and totally unacceptable," Singer said. He added, "We believe this is just the tip of the iceberg, which is shocking considering Seedance has only been available for a few days." It’s not just ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0 that has spooked Hollywood studios. A growing wave of video-generation models suggests that Hollywood’s moat is crumbling, and its control of the media game is nearing its end. AI VIDEO WARS JUST GOT REAL Seedance 2.0 Kling 3.0 Sora 2 Veo 3.1 Compared in single-prompt romance scene. Who's winning 2026 filmmaking?pic.twitter.com/hrh8nNbG1U — 0xMarioNawfal (@RoundtableSpace) February 10, 2026 "Authorities should use every legal tool at their disposal to stop this wholesale theft," the Human Artistry Campaign - a coalition that includes dozens of creative groups such as SAG-AFTRA and the Directors Guild of America - said in a statement on Friday. Seedance 2.0 model ... Seedance 2.0 Prompt: Sum up the AI discourse in a meme - make sure it’s retarded and gets 50 likes. pic.twitter.com/09yPdo3Tjy — Charles Curran (@charliebcurran) February 14, 2026 Absolutely insane. Seedance 2 is able to recreate full scenes from Breaking Bad. We are officially cooked.https://t.co/1mrmjLXI3e pic.twitter.com/CggLHH8R6Q — Mark Gadala-Maria (@markgadala) February 11, 2026 Seedance 2 is already making full cinematic short films. Time is running out on Hollywood...pic.twitter.com/VjTdnsCeHd — Mark Gadala-Maria (@markgadala) February 12, 2026 Billion dollar movie in just one prompt Seriously, what the hell is going on with Seedance 2.0 pic.twitter.com/yTBlThLhBv — Random AI (@Random_AI000) February 11, 2026 Hollywood is living on borrowed time. The next big AI disruption trade could be studios. Tyler Durden Sat, 02/14/2026 - 18:05

FAA Mandates Airlines To Affirm Merit Hiring For Pilots Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is issuing a new mandatory rule that requires all commercial airlines in the country to formally commit to merit-based hiring for pilots, according to a Feb. 13 statement from the Department of Transportation (DOT). Under the new mandate, all U.S. carriers must certify that the practice of airlines hiring based on race and sex has ended or face a federal investigation. “When families board their aircraft, they should fly with confidence knowing the pilot behind the controls is the best of the best,” DOT Secretary Sean P. Duffy said. “The American people don’t care what their pilot looks like or their gender—they just care that they are [the] most qualified man or woman for the job.” DOT said that even though the FAA has raised performance standards while eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) based positions within the agency and terminating related contracts, “allegations of airlines hiring based on race and sex remain.” The action follows President Donald Trump’s executive order on Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity, and his presidential memorandum Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation, both issued on Jan. 21, 2025. In the order, Trump wrote that critical institutions in the country, including large commercial airlines, have adopted “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences” under DEI policies that can violate the country’s civil rights laws. The memorandum ordered Duffy and the FAA to end all DEI initiatives at the agency. Just over a week after the executive order, Trump blamed DEI hiring practices at the FAA, followed by the previous administration, for a midair crash that occurred on Jan. 29, 2025, killing 67 people. This was the deadliest plane crash in the United States since November 2001. In its statement, the DOT said the FAA is authorized to prescribe minimum safety standards for airline operations. The operational safety of air carriers is “fundamentally dependent” on the proficiency and knowledge of their crew members. The DOT said that federal regulations establish stringent training and qualification standards for flight crew members. The effectiveness of these training programs, it said, improves when pilot applicants have the required cognitive skills, qualifications, and technical knowledge. “It is a bare minimum expectation for airlines to hire the most qualified individual when making someone responsible for hundreds of lives at a time,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said. “Someone’s race, sex, or creed, has nothing to do with their ability to fly and land aircraft safely.” In December 2024, a month before the new Trump administration took office, America First Legal (AFL) said that Southwest Airlines and American Airlines had committed to dropping their DEI policies after the nonprofit filed complaints against the companies. Tyler Durden Sat, 02/14/2026 - 16:20

Rubio Says US & Europe "Belong Together", Urges Alignment With Trump's Vision For Western Revival Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told European leaders on Feb. 14 that Washington is not walking away from the transatlantic alliance—but called for a renewed partnership that aligns with President Donald Trump’s push for national revival, tougher border control, and a return to industrial and military strength. Addressing the annual Munich Security Conference, Rubio sought to reassure governments unsettled by a year of tensions over trade, defense spending, and at times critical U.S. rhetoric toward NATO. At the same time, he made clear that Washington’s commitment would be tied to what he called a broader civilizational renewal—one that calls on Europe to strengthen its own defenses and reassess policies on migration, climate, and economic globalization. “Under President Trump, the United States of America will once again take on the task of renewal and restoration, driven by a vision of a future as proud, as sovereign, and as vital as our civilization’s past,” Rubio said. “And while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference, and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe, for the United States and Europe—we belong together.” Serving as both a warning and an invitation, Rubio’s remarks acknowledged “mistakes” made by both the United States and Europe in the decades following the Cold War, while highlighting a shared responsibility to correct course. A Critique of the Post-Cold War Order Rubio’s address included sharp criticism of the post–Cold War consensus, while also praising it for enabling the United States and its allies to resist the onslaught of Soviet communism and to emerge victorious and prosperous together. “Even as World War II still burned fresh in the memory of Americans and Europeans alike, we found ourselves staring down the barrel of a new global catastrophe—one with the potential for a new kind of destruction more apocalyptic and final than anything before in the history of mankind,” he said. With thousands of years of Western civilizational heritage hanging in the balance in the face of a threat from a nuclear-armed, expansionist “evil empire,” Rubio said that a unified resistance within the transatlantic alliance ultimately prevailed. But what followed the “euphoria of this triumph,” Rubio said, was a descent into a “dangerous delusion” that history had ended, that every country would become a liberal democracy, that economic and trade ties would replace nationhood, that national interest would be replaced by the rules-based global order, which would usher in a world without borders. “This was a foolish idea that ignored both human nature, and it ignored the lessons of over 5000 years of recorded human history, and it has cost us dearly in this delusion,” he said. “We embraced a dogmatic vision of free and unfettered trade, even as some nations protected their economies and subsidized their companies to systematically undercut ours, shuttering our plants, resulting in large parts of our societies being de-industrialized, shipping millions of working and middle-class jobs overseas, and handing control of our critical supply chains to both adversaries and rivals.” Rubio criticized what he called an excessive expansion of welfare states at the expense of national defense, noting that America’s rivals had increased military spending and did not hesitate to use hard power to pursue their national interests. The West, he said, by contrast, adopted energy policies that impoverished its citizens in order “to appease a climate cult,” while competitors continued to exploit fossil fuels, gaining leverage over Western economies. He also sharply criticized mass migration policies, rejecting the idea that tighter borders are expressions of intolerance. “Gaining control of national borders is not an expression of xenophobia or hate,” Rubio said. “It is a fundamental act of national sovereignty. And the failure to do so is not just an abdication of one of our most basic duties owed to our people—it is an urgent threat to the fabric of our societies and the survival of our civilization itself.” Throughout his speech, Rubio said Europe and the United States are bound together in shared responsibility for a series of strategic missteps that it is now time to correct. A Call for Restoration Rubio repeatedly said that renewal should be a shared effort, not something the United States pursues alone. While saying Washington is ready to act independently if needed, he presented Trump’s agenda as an invitation for Europe to join in rebuilding Western strength. “For the United States and Europe, we belong together,” Rubio said, describing the United States as “a child of Europe,” shaped by centuries of shared history, faith, culture, law, and political traditions. He said that the fundamental question facing the alliance was not simply how much to spend on defense or how to deploy forces, but rather how to share a common understanding of what the United States and its allies are defending. “Armies do not fight for abstractions,” Rubio said. “Armies fight for a people. Armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life, and that is what we are defending—a great civilization that has every reason to be proud of its history, confident of its future, and aims to always be a master of its own economic and political destiny.” Rubio called for re-industrialization on both sides of the Atlantic, saying that Europe and the United States should work together to rebuild manufacturing capacity, secure supply chains, and reduce reliance on strategic rivals for critical goods and minerals. “What we want is a reinvigorated alliance,” Rubio said, “one that does not allow its power to be outsourced, constrained, or subordinated to systems beyond its control.” The Munich Security Conference, which has long served as a barometer of transatlantic unity, runs through Feb. 15. It comes at a moment its organizers describe as an “inflection point” marked by the erosion of the international rules-based order and mounting instability across the globe. Tyler Durden Sat, 02/14/2026 - 15:10

Elon Demands Investigation Into Reid Hoffman’s "Ice Cream For The Girls" Epstein Ties Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news, Elon Musk has ramped up his assault on LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, demanding a full investigation into the Democrat mega-donor’s disturbing Epstein connections—including buying “ice cream… for the girls” and offering PR help as the child trafficking scandal erupted. This latest clash exposes Hoffman’s role in Epstein’s elite circle, where he exchanged over 1,700 emails, called the sex offender a “very close friend,” and stayed at all three notorious properties, while funneling millions into anti-Trump dirty tricks that undermine American democracy. The feud intensified when Musk responded to a detailed thread by investigative poster @KanekoaTheGreat, who highlighted Hoffman’s Epstein entanglements. “Hoffman should be investigated,” Musk stated bluntly, echoing his earlier calls for scrutiny. Reid Hoffman stayed at Jeffrey Epstein's ranch, private island, and Manhattan apartment. He bought "ice cream... for the girls" and a "metal sculpture for the island." Hoffman donated over $100M to Democratic causes. He funded fake Russian bots on Twitter and financed the E.… pic.twitter.com/kzRIwedmz0 — KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 13, 2026 In the thread, emails reveal Hoffman offering “ice cream… for the girls” and a “metal sculpture for the island” during his visits to Epstein’s Little St. James, New Mexico ranch, and Manhattan townhouse. One chilling message shows Hoffman regretting a missed opportunity to deliver a gift, responding “likewise” to Epstein’s disappointment and promising it “will wait for the next opportunity.” Even more damning, in January 2015—as global headlines blasted allegations of Epstein trafficking Virginia Roberts to Prince Andrew—Hoffman offered to assist with Epstein’s negative press coverage. Why would a top Silicon Valley figure and Democrat powerhouse step in to shield a convicted predator during his downfall? Liar, you are guilty of dark deeds and haven’t been cleared of anything. You stayed at Epstein’s island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico and Epstein’s house in New York. You offered to help him with PR. You gave him gifts … Maybe if it was only one stay over, you could claim it… — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 14, 2026 Musk didn’t hold back in his direct confrontations with Hoffman on X. When Hoffman claimed the FBI had “cleared” him and pointed fingers at Musk, the Tesla CEO shot back: “Liar, you are guilty of dark deeds and haven’t been cleared of anything. You stayed at Epstein’s island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico and Epstein’s house in New York. You offered to help him with PR. You gave him gifts … Maybe if it was only one stay over, you could claim it was a mistake. Maybe. But there is NO possible explanation for the second time, let alone the third time. As the record shows, you were an eager repeat customer.” Musk has stated that he consistently rejected Epstein’s advances, noting how the pedophile used Hoffman’s involvement to try luring him: “Epstein hounded me relentlessly to go to his pedo island and I always declined. Not you though. You actually went.” He questioned the “gifts” Hoffman provided, tying into revelations of private jet discussions and mutual expressions of missing each other. Hoffman, who has donated over $100 million to Democratic causes, has weaponized his wealth against political foes. He funded fake Russian bots on Twitter, bankrolled the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit against President Trump, and supported Clear Choice PAC’s lawfare to boot Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West from battleground state ballots—stripping voters of choices while claiming to defend democracy. He also backed Fusion GPS, the firm behind the Steele dossier that smeared Trump as a Russian asset. Despite admitting to MIT fundraising ties with Epstein and expressing regret, Hoffman downplayed the extent of their “bromance.” Files show ongoing Skype calls, sushi meetings, and interactions into 2016 in Palo Alto and Cambridge—years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction. This builds on prior exposures, like venture capitalist David Sacks slamming The New York Times for downplaying Hoffman’s 2,600 mentions in the files while hounding right-leaning tech leaders like Musk and Peter Thiel. Sacks pointed to Hoffman’s “multiyear relationship” and accused media of protecting left-wing insiders. The Justice Department’s document dump continues to reveal Epstein boasting of “wild dinners” with Hoffman, Mark Zuckerberg, and others, illustrating how these ties rehabilitated Epstein in Silicon Valley post-conviction. Tyler Durden Sat, 02/14/2026 - 14:00

'Miss America' Org Dethrones Winner For Daring To Say 'A Woman Is A Woman' Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, Kayleigh Bush, the 2024 Miss North Florida champion, has been stripped of her title and barred from competing in the Miss America nationals—all because she wouldn’t sign a revised contract that essentially erases the biological definition of womanhood to include men who’ve undergone surgeries. The Miss America organization demanded Bush affirm transgender participation, turning a century-old celebration of women into another battleground for gender ideology.  Bush, standing her ground on basic truth, called it out as a betrayal of the pageant’s legacy. Miss North Florida winner Kayleigh Bush speaks out after her crown was revoked for saying that men CANNOT become women. "I didn't lose my crown because I broke a rule. I lost the crown because I was unwilling to rewrite the TRUTH." MEN CANNOT BE WOMENpic.twitter.com/xKQFwF8aAM — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 11, 2026 Bush revealed the ordeal in a recent interview, explaining how she was pressured months after her win to accept new language in the contract. The rules now define eligible “women” as including those who’ve completed “Sex Reassignment Surgery via Vaginoplasty (from male to female).” Bush refused, stating flatly that she couldn’t agree to the idea that “a little boy could mutilate his body and become a woman.” “It was heartbreaking. It was confusing. It was disappointing,” Bush said. “Because Miss America has been honoring women for over 100 years, and now they can’t even define what a woman is.” She added that the organization had changed the contract four weeks after her victory, forcing her into a corner. “I didn’t lose my crown because I broke a rule. I lost the crown because I was unwilling to rewrite the truth,” Bush told TMZ. Her mother joined the fight, leading to weeks of appeals, emails, and even involvement from Liberty Counsel, a legal group defending religious freedoms. But Miss America doubled down, refusing to budge. A spokesperson for the pageant defended the decision, claiming it’s about “fairness to all contestants and adherence to nondiscrimination principles.”  They further insisted the contract doesn’t force personal belief changes but ensures no “discriminatory conduct.” In other words, contestants must play along with the fiction or get booted—hardly the empowerment women were promised. This is far from an isolated incident; it’s part of a broader pattern where transgender individuals are infiltrating and dominating women’s spaces, even pageants. Back in 2023, the Miss Universe pageant made headlines when its new owner, a transgender businesswoman, celebrated the event as being “run by women”—prompting widespread mockery for the obvious irony. Miss Universe’s shift under transgender ownership turned it into what many called an “international drag queen show.” Examples abound. In 2018, Angela Ponce became the first transgender contestant in Miss Universe, representing Spain.  Ángela Ponce, ganador transexual del Miss España dice: "tener vagina no te hace mujer." Ah vale, asi que ser un Frankenstein de hormonas, químicos y plástico al parecer sí que te hace mujer ? pic.twitter.com/vZZL2JmJ8U — Dark Celtic (@DarkCeltic10) July 26, 2018 To celebrate #PrideMonth, we’re taking a look back at Angela Ponce’s journey to the Miss Universe stage. ???? “If I can give that to the world, I don’t need to win Miss Universe, I only need to be here.” – Miss Universe Spain 2018, Angela Ponce pic.twitter.com/57ZsQJjxLq — Miss Universe (@MissUniverse) June 5, 2019 By 2022, an individual known as Kataluna Enriquez won Miss Nevada USA, and in 2023, Rikkie Kollé took the Miss Netherlands crown. Those Women are absolutely BEAUTIFUL…!!! But look at what we have defined as a beautiful woman in the USA… Kataluna Enriquez became the first transgender woman to win the Miss Nevada beauty pageant? pic.twitter.com/xn34hGTeuz — APer289?? (@AlPere289) January 21, 2023 Kataluna Enriquez — the first openly trans Miss Nevada USA — is speaking out against Congress forcing members to use the bathroom according to biological sex … calling the whole fight totally disgusting. pic.twitter.com/ZIgKQu2UrO — TMZ (@TMZ) November 23, 2024 The winner of Miss Netherlands 2023 is Rikkie Valerie Kollé, a male pic.twitter.com/5AyiIEvcCt — End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 9, 2023 Amid the push for transgender inclusion, not all pageants are folding to the pressure. In a refreshing contrast, the Miss Italy pageant doubled down on biology back in 2023, explicitly banning transgender contestants and requiring all entrants to be “a woman from birth.” Patrizia Mirigliani, the competition’s patron, described the policy as longstanding, predicting even then that gender ideologies might try to warp beauty standards.   Miss Italy beauty pageant BANS transgender competitors. The owner of the Miss Italia pageant Patrizia Mirigliani has announced biological males are banned from competing in the women’s beauty contest. “My competition provides in its rules the clarification that you must be a… pic.twitter.com/cKsmAQib0F — Oli London (@OliLondonTV) July 21, 2023 Mirigliani slammed other contests for chasing media buzz by including trans participants, calling it “a little absurd” and refusing to “jump on the glittery bandwagon of trans activism.” She emphasized avoiding “excesses” that distort aesthetics, framing it as part of a broader defense of traditional views on womanhood. Critics argue this trend isn’t about inclusion—it’s about conquest. Women’s sports have seen similar invasions, with transgender athletes like Lia Thomas dominating swimming events and sparking lawsuits from displaced female competitors.  Beauty pageants, once a platform for empowering young women, now risk becoming performative spectacles where biology takes a backseat to ideology. Bush remains hopeful, urging Miss America to “return to truth.” Her stance echoes a growing resistance among Americans tired of forced compliance with radical gender theories. Groups like Liberty Counsel are stepping up, framing these battles as defenses of free speech and religious liberty against corporate wokeness. If even pageants can’t uphold the simple reality that women are women, what’s left for actual women to celebrate? Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews. Tyler Durden Sat, 02/14/2026 - 12:50

Venezuela Oil Revenue Projected To Hit $5 Billion Under U.S. Control By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com, Venezuela’s oil sales, under the control of the United States for five weeks now, are set to bring $5 billion over the next few months, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told NBC News in an interview.    “Sales today are over a billion dollars, and in fact, we have sort of short-term agreements over the next few months that will bring in another $5 billion,” Secretary Wright said in the interview during a historic visit to Venezuela to meet with the interim President Delcy Rodríguez.   The United States has already transferred $500 million in proceeds from sales of Venezuelan crude oil to Caracas, following the deal agreed by the two governments in January.   All the money from the oil sales, handled by top commodity traders Vitol and Trafigura, goes back to Venezuela from a U.S. Treasury-controlled account, Secretary Chris told NBC News.   There is a lot of work to be done and massive investments need to flow for Venezuela to restore its oil industry, “But it's on the road to becoming investable,” Secretary Wright told NBC News.   At last month’s White House meeting of U.S. President Trump with oil executives, ExxonMobil’s CEO Darren Woods said that “If we look at the legal and commercial constructs—frameworks—in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable.”   During the visit to Venezuela, Secretary Chris said earlier this week that Venezuela’s crude oil production could surge as soon as this year. “This year, we can drive a dramatic increase in Venezuelan oil production, in Venezuelan natural gas production and Venezuelan electricity production,” the U.S. official said.  Commenting on a recent change in Venezuela’s oil law, Wright said that it was “a meaningful step in the right direction”, as quoted by AP, but “probably not far and clear enough to encourage the kind of large capital flows.” Tyler Durden Sat, 02/14/2026 - 11:40