Zerohedge

Trump Crosses Iran's 'Red Line' By Heavy Bombing Of Kharg Island, Endangering Energy Assets Across Region In what could prove to be a major step up the escalation ladder in the two-week-old US-Israeli war on Iran, President Trump on Friday evening (notably after US market closure) announced that US Central Command had carried out a major bombing raid on Kharg Island, which handles upwards of 90% of Iran's crude oil exports. Importantly, Iran has previously warned that an attack on the island would cross a red line, and precipitate Iranian attacks on energy infrastructure up and down the Persian Gulf.   Video from the US raid on Kharg Island shows an explosion at an airport -- Iranian media said a control tower was among the targets Perhaps with that previous Iran warning in mind -- and to allay the fears of US allies in the region who don't want to see their energy facilities go up in smoke -- Trump emphasized that the attack was focused on military assets:  "Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island. Our Weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the World has ever known but, for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision."  Iran's FARS news agency confirmed the attack, saying at least 15 explosions were heard as it unfolded. FARS reports that targets included air defense assets, a naval base, an airport control tower and a helicopter hangar associated with Iranian Offshore Oil Company. The Trump administration released video highlights from the bombing raid:  Footage has now been published by President Donald J. Trump showing today’s strikes against Iranian military targets on Kharg Island in the Northern Persian Gulf, which acts as a port hub for the export of up to 90% of oil products leaving Iran. In the footage, strikes can be… pic.twitter.com/WH3iWw74sE — OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 14, 2026 Trump's threat to "reconsider" the decision not to damage the energy infrastructure on the island if Iran continues to shut down the Strait of Hormuz will surely cause deep concern among Gulf allies and everyone else who's wary of the looming global economic catastrophe that will unfold if the Persian Gulf energy shutdown persists. With Iran apparently bent on imposing a devastating cost for the US-Israeli war -- one that will deter future attacks -- there's little reason to think Tehran is going signal "all clear" on the strait anytime soon.  Five miles long and situated 15 to 20 miles off the mainland-Iranian coast, Kharg Island is essential to Iran's export of petroleum. Facilities there have continued to operate throughout the war, with at least 10 tankers hauling off nearly 19 million barrels since the US-Israeli surprise attack on Feb 28. Iran has, however, sought to add a small measure of export-facility diversification, by reopening energy exports at the Jask terminal, which is southeast of the Straight of Hormuz, in the Gulf of Oman.      Earlier on Friday, Trump said the US Navy would shortly begin escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, telling reporters, "It will happen soon, very soon."  A few hours after his Kharg Island announcement, Trump reiterated his latest war-justification that centers on Iran's supposed schemes for regional conquest, posting that "Iran had plans of taking over the entire Middle East, and completely obliterating Israel. JUST LIKE IRAN ITSELF, THOSE PLANS ARE NOW DEAD!"  The administration has reportedly contemplated seizing Kharg Island. Given its close proximity to the Iranian mainland -- which is teeming with drones, cruise missiles and weapon-bearing speedboats -- landing a strike force on the island and then occupying it could come at a high casualty rate. On Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved a CENTCOM request for a Marine expeditionary unit to be deployed to the theater of operations. This would typically comprise some 5,000 Marines and sailors on several ships.  Iranian armed forces statement in response to Trump's threat to attack oil infrastructure on Kharg Island (published by Iranian state media) pic.twitter.com/8J40dzIE7C — Steve Lookner (@lookner) March 14, 2026 Some speculation on Trump White House's thinking regarding this ultra-risky Kharg Island gambit (or what might eventually prove a point of no return) via Jim Bianco: Recognizing that this could freak out oil markets, they announced it on Friday evening to give markets 48 hours to digest the news. Trump also made it explicit that oil infrastructure would be next if Iran did not allow ships to pass freely through the Strait of Hormuz. In football terms, they're throwing a Hail Mary pass now, hoping it works. They don't have any more time on the clock. Oil markets and the world economy cannot wait weeks or months for the military to open the Strait. Further, I could envision political advisors suggesting that if oil prices are destined to hit $200 without this action, it might as well happen next week, giving six months to bring them down before the midterm elections. For now, though, all eyes are on Iran, and whether its leaders view a Kharg Island attack that was confined to military targets as within the red-line boundary -- or if energy assets across the region will soon be beset by drone swarms and ballistic-missile barrages, sending oil and gas prices rocketing higher.  Tyler Durden Sat, 03/14/2026 - 00:01

War Abroad Should Not Mean Less Freedom At Home Authored by Mollie Engelhart via The Epoch Times, As an American, a mother, and a rancher, I have been reflecting on what it means when our country enters another war—and what history tells us often follows at home. There will be endless debate about who is right and who is wrong. Some will praise our leaders, others will criticize them, and neighbors will disagree about how we got here and how events will unfold in the future. Those conversations are natural in a free society. But there is another conversation that deserves just as much attention, one that history quietly asks every time the United States goes to war: What freedoms will Americans lose this time? History suggests that wartime often reshapes the relationship between citizens and government. The United States remains one of the last English-speaking countries where speech and thought are still broadly protected. That did not happen by accident. It is the inheritance of a constitutional republic built on the understanding that rights do not come from government; they come from God. The Constitution did not grant Americans their freedoms. It recognized them and placed limits on what government may do. Yet when we look honestly at the past century, a pattern becomes difficult to ignore. Nearly every major war America has entered has been followed by some erosion of liberty at home. During World War I, Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917, followed by the Sedition Act of 1918. Under these laws, Americans could be arrested and imprisoned simply for criticizing the war or discouraging military enlistment. Speech that would normally fall under the protection of the First Amendment suddenly became criminal. One of the most famous cases involved Eugene V. Debs, a political leader who received a 10-year prison sentence for delivering a speech opposing the war and the draft. The war eventually ended, but the Espionage Act remains on the books more than a century later. World War II produced an even more direct violation of civil liberties. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the federal government issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the forced relocation of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. More than 120,000 people, mostly American citizens, were removed from their homes and placed in internment camps. Families lost farms, businesses, and property, and people were detained without criminal charges or trials. The Supreme Court upheld the policy at the time, though it is now widely regarded as one of the most troubling civil liberties failures in modern American history. The war ended and the camps were eventually closed, but the lesson remained clear: in times of fear and national emergency, the rights of citizens can be pushed aside. The Cold War era introduced another form of government intrusion into American life. Fear of communist infiltration led to sweeping investigations into the political beliefs of citizens. The House Un-American Activities Committee summoned Americans to testify about their associations and views, while the Smith Act allowed prosecutions for advocating certain political ideas. Teachers, actors, writers, and government employees were blacklisted or pressured into oaths of loyalty. Careers were destroyed not because someone had committed a crime, but because they held—or were suspected of holding—the wrong political beliefs. The Vietnam War era expanded another category of government power: domestic surveillance. During this period, the FBI operated a secret program known as COINTELPRO, which monitored activists, journalists, and political organizations across the country. Civil rights groups, anti-war movements, student organizations, and political activists found themselves under federal surveillance. What began as intelligence gathering against perceived threats grew into widespread monitoring of American citizens engaged in political activism. The pattern continued into the modern era. In response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States launched what became known as the War on Terror, a series of conflicts that included military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and later involvement in the war in Syria. At home, these wars were accompanied by some of the most significant expansions of federal surveillance authority in modern American history. Congress passed the Patriot Act, granting intelligence agencies broader powers to monitor communications, access financial records, and collect data connected to national security investigations. The federal government also created the Department of Homeland Security, dramatically expanding the domestic security infrastructure of the United States. Airport travel changed almost overnight with the creation of the Transportation Security Administration, bringing new searches, body scanners, and security databases that monitor millions of travelers. Years later, whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that intelligence agencies had been collecting vast amounts of digital information through programs designed to monitor global communications networks. Phone metadata, internet traffic, and other digital communications were gathered on a scale few Americans had previously imagined. The technology had changed, but the pattern had not. Once again, a national crisis and the wars that followed led to an expansion of government authority over the lives and communications of ordinary citizens. None of this history is meant to pass judgment on any particular war or moment in time. Every generation faces dangers that require difficult decisions, and national security is not an abstract concern. But history does reveal a pattern. War has often expanded the power of government while gradually narrowing the freedoms of citizens. Perhaps our generation can be the one that finally recognizes that pattern and refuses to let the erosion continue. It is easy to succumb to the emotions of the moment. War brings grief, anger, fear, and uncertainty. Families pray for sons and daughters in uniform, and communities mourn the innocent lives lost in conflicts far from our shores. Those responses are deeply human. But between the praying and the grieving, there must also be vigilance. Americans must stand shoulder to shoulder and guard the freedoms that define this country. Foreign policy decisions are often far beyond the control of ordinary citizens. Individuals living in small towns and rural counties do not set global strategy, but we do have a voice when it comes to the preservation of liberty at home. Whether someone supports this war or opposes it should not matter when it comes to defending constitutional freedoms. Americans across the political spectrum should be able to agree that freedom of speech, privacy, and due process matter. Our disagreements about policy cannot become an excuse to surrender the principles that allow us to disagree in the first place. History shows that government often expand their reach during wartime through censorship, surveillance, or emergency authority that remains long after the emergency has passed. Americans should make one thing clear: war must never become an excuse to erode the freedoms of citizens at home. Do not use technological capabilities, border crises, or fears of instability to justify mass surveillance of the American people. Military intelligence tools and artificial intelligence designed for battlefield awareness do not belong in the daily lives of citizens. The American people are not subjects of the state. We are sovereign citizens, and sovereignty means something simple but powerful: government authority ultimately flows from the consent of the governed. Many forces in the world are beyond the control of ordinary people. Wars between nations are often among them. But the preservation of liberty inside our own country has always depended on the vigilance of citizens, and that responsibility does not disappear in wartime. In fact, wartime is when it matters most. If the past century teaches us anything, it is that freedom rarely disappears all at once. It erodes slowly, piece by piece, often justified by fear and the promise that restrictions will only be temporary. Americans have heard that promise before. This time we should respond that we will pray for peace, we will pray for our troops, and we will mourn innocent lives lost in war. But we will also stand together in sending a clear message: Our freedoms are not negotiable. Not this time. Not ever. Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge. Ty Fri, 03/13/2026 - 23:05

Seventh Circuit Slams Chicago Judge Over Her "Constitutionally Suspect" Orders Against The Trump Admin Authored by Jonathan Turley, There has been an ongoing struggle between district court judges and the Trump Administration over a variety of policies. In the first year, some district court judges issued nationwide injunctions that were largely rejected by the Supreme Court and appellate courts. These conflicts have continued and the intracourt tensions have increased. That was evident with the recent decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which delivered a virtual haymaker in reversing Judge Sara Ellis, an Obama nominee. The panel criticized Ellis for limiting the operation of federal officers in Chicago, saying that she “effectively established the district court as the supervisor of all Executive Branch activity in the city of Chicago.” Protesters and journalists went to Ellis to restrain “Operation Midway Blitz.”  They challenged the conduct of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the First and Fourth Amendments, specifically raising  the use of tear gas and other chemical agents. Judge Ellis issued a preliminary injunction described by the panel as “sweeping”:  “It enjoined all law enforcement officers in the Northern District of Illinois, as well as federal agencies and the Secretary of the DHS, from using certain crowd control tactics and tools. It also required the defendants to regularly inform the court of its efforts at implementing the injunction.” That included requirements that U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino report to her daily to brief her on his activities. The panel found that her order  “impermissibly infringes on separation of powers principles.” Notably, this order came after various district courts were reversed on such orders, but Judge Ellis went forward with another attempt at a sweeping injunction. She reinforced her order by certifying a class action and then including 170 pages of fact-finding in her long order. After the operations ended, the plaintiffs were not eager to have the case reviewed on appeal. While the plaintiffs asked for dismissal with prejudice, Judge Ellis refused. She instead dismissed without prejudice and departed from standard rules on such dismissals. This was meant to allow a resumption of litigation. That led to an interesting (and telling) issue for the Seventh Circuit. Ordinarily, the court would have simply declared the case moot (as Judge Frank Easterbrook would have in dissent). However, two judges clearly felt that Judge Ellis needed a corrective measure on appeal for her future handling of such cases: “The district court’s order may also spawn adverse legal consequences. Because the district court dismissed this case without prejudice—against the plaintiffs’ unopposed request for a dismissal with prejudice—any class members or the lead plaintiffs could refile these claims tomorrow. They could ask the district court to reinstate a near-identical preliminary injunction, adopting the facts and legal reasoning from the district court’s order.” It reaffirmed that Judge Ellis’s order was  “overbroad” and “constitutionally suspect.” It made clear that “federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch” and that the district court “likely abused its discretion by issuing such a sweeping injunction.” The decision not to simply dismiss this case was clearly meant to send a message not only to Judge Ellis but also to other such judges who are exceeding their authority in seeking to limit Trump policies and programs. Here is the opinion: Chicago Headline Club v. Noem Tyler Durden Fri, 03/13/2026 - 22:15

SNAP Recipients Sue Trump Administration Over Sugary Food Restrictions Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) beneficiaries sued the Department of Agriculture on March 11 over the issuance of waivers to five states restricting certain types of foods that can be purchased under the program. On May 19 last year, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins issued a waiver to Nebraska that bans SNAP recipients in the state from buying soda or energy drinks. As of March 4 this year, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved similar waivers for 22 states in total. In addition to soda and energy drinks, the additional waivers prohibit the purchase of fruit and vegetable drinks with less than 50 percent natural juice, as well as candy, unhealthy drinks, soft drinks, prepared desserts, sugar-sweetened beverages, and processed foods and beverages. Different states ban one or more of these items. In the lawsuit, filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, plaintiffs argued that the USDA’s actions amount to “authorizing a patchwork of state-by-state food prohibition regimes.” “These changes deprive SNAP recipients and their families of the food they need to maintain their health and employment, and in some cases, to survive,” the lawsuit alleged. “Individuals with chronic illnesses are losing access to products they need to manage blood sugar or sustain diets they need to maintain baseline health care needs. “Families must choose between using scarce cash to purchase restricted items or foregoing essential household expenses such as rent, utilities, or transportation. These harms are tangible, ongoing, and irreparable.” The lawsuit specifically challenges SNAP waivers issued for Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia, the states in which the five plaintiffs reside. In 2018, the USDA had rejected similar food restriction proposals on SNAP purchases. According to the lawsuit, this was because the agency concluded that the restrictions would force the government to draw arbitrary lines among food products, limit food choices for households without clear evidence of health benefits, impose significant burdens on retailers, and increase administrative costs. “Even though the challenged waivers present the same defects USDA previously recognized, they were approved without any attempt to address, let alone resolve, those concerns,” the complaint stated. By approving the five waivers, the defendants are in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act and the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, the lawsuit claims. Plaintiffs have asked the court to deem the food restriction waivers as unlawful. The Epoch Times reached out to the USDA for comment but did not receive a response by publication time. SNAP Restrictions and Health While announcing SNAP waiver approvals for six states in December 2025, Rollins justified the need for food restrictions as a way to improve people’s health. “President Trump has made it clear: we are restoring SNAP to its true purpose—nutrition. Under the MAHA initiative, we are taking bold, historic steps to reverse the chronic diseases epidemic that has taken root in this country for far too long,” Rollins said in a Dec. 10 statement. “With these new waivers, we are empowering states to lead, protecting our children from the dangers of highly-processed foods, and moving one step closer to the President’s promise to Make America Healthy Again.” Rollins and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are strong advocates of banning food items deemed unhealthy from SNAP as part of the Make America Healthy Again agenda. Kennedy said he hopes that all states will have asked for, and received approval for, SNAP restrictions by the end of 2026. In June 2025, Kennedy called on all state governors to exclude sugary drinks from the SNAP program. “Taxpayer dollars should never bankroll products that fuel the chronic disease epidemic,” he said at the time. A study published on Dec. 8, 2024, in Frontiers in Public Health found that consuming more sugary drinks was linked to a higher risk of developing cardiovascular diseases than eating sweet food items such as pastries. “Liquid sugars, found in sweetened beverages, typically provide less satiety than solid forms—they make you feel less full, potentially leading to overconsumption,” Suzanne Janzi, the study’s co-author, said in a statement. “Context also matters—treats are often enjoyed in social settings or [for] special occasions, while sweetened beverages might be consumed more regularly.” The waivers have already been implemented in eight states: Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia. The waivers will come into effect in the remainder of the year in Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. The waivers are set to be implemented in 2027 or 2028 in three states: Kansas, Nevada, and Wyoming. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/13/2026 - 21:25

The Pacific Northwest's Anti-Democracy Progressives Authored by Jeff Eager via RealClearPolitics, Seattle, which is home to Amazon and Microsoft, currently employs some 193,000 well-compensated Washingtonians working in the tech sector. One major reason that Seattle emerged as the first big tech hub outside of California is obvious: It is the only West Coast state with no state income tax. Its state constitution forbids an income tax. High wage workers and entrepreneurs seeking a piece of the relatively laid back, outdoors-focused Pacific Northwest lifestyle can move to Washington without taking a state-mandated pay cut. For the progressive Democrats who dominate state politics in the Pacific Northwest, money in the pockets of anyone other than the government and its political allies is wasted. To grab more of it, legislative Democrats in Washington are pushing through an income tax in the guise of a “millionaire’s tax” that would levy a 9.9% tax on incomes over $1 million. Just yesterday, as the “millionaire’s tax” neared the finish line in the Washington legislature, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced he and his wife have relocated from Seattle, where they lived for 47 years, to Miami. Florida has neither a state income tax nor a state income tax masquerading as a “millionaire’s tax.” The constitutionality of the bill rests on progressives’ expectation that the Washington Supreme Court will completely abandon decades of precedent deeming income taxes unconstitutional. The expectation may not be unfounded: Five of nine justices were appointed by Democratic governors. Democrats also voted down an amendment to forbid applying an income tax to lower income levels, signaling the “millionaire’s tax” is likely to become a “thousandaire’s tax” if Democrats get their way. What makes this proposed tax truly egregious, however, is its attempt to stop voters from having any say in it. The Democrats’ tax bill includes a necessity clause that precludes a voter referendum that could overturn the new income tax. So long as the majority-progressive-appointed state Supreme Court goes along, progressives will have upended 90 years of constitutionally prohibited income taxes while shielding it from a vote of the people. Additionally, Washington progressives have taken a brazen step to undermine local governance in the state. The state house just passed a bill giving unelected bureaucrats appointed by the governor the power to remove any elected sheriff in the state based on vague guidelines, overriding local voters’ ability to select their own law enforcement. The move is an effort to exert progressive control of sheriffs in rural parts of the state who have questioned unpopular and difficult-to-enforce laws, such as COVID restrictions and gun regulations. Not to be outdone by its neighbor to the north, Oregon’s progressive governance is also thumbing its nose at the will of the voters. The Beaver State, which has made itself into an economic backwater, has long levied high state income taxes, driving businesses and people who earn money for a living out of state. (The state’s second largest business, the $12 billion Dutch Brothers coffee chain, left the state last year, taking its corporate tax revenue with it.) The state’s economy, always tenuous, is now crumbling. Oregon’s unemployment rate of 5.2% is third worst in the nation, better than only California (5.5%) and New Jersey (5.4%). Layoffs since the beginning of 2025 are comparable to job losses during the Great Recession. Oregon progressives charge forward undaunted. The Democratic legislative supermajority voted in February to disconnect Oregon’s tax code from the federal code so the state can continue to tax job-creating business investment at the higher rate eschewed by D.C. Republicans’ Big Beautiful Bill. The disconnect will not help attract the investors needed to stabilize Portland’s cratering downtown real estate market, where values, when buyers can be found, are a fraction of what they were five years ago. Investors recently rated Portland as the worst place in the country to invest in real estate other than Hartford, Connecticut.  Punitive rates of income taxation are not enough for Oregon Democrats. For the past year, they’ve tried to muscle through the largest tax increase in state history. It is a deeply unpopular package consisting of fuel tax increases to pay for more unionized transportation workers and a doubling of the state payroll tax to fund public transportation – even though the state is shedding jobs at an historic rate and such a massive payroll tax will only make things worse. Those increases, which would hit consumers’ wallets directly, fomented a tax revolt among Oregon’s left-leaning and normally placid electorate. It took Gov. Tina Kotek and the backroom persuasion of the Service Employees International Union two legislative sessions, including the longest special session in state history, to eke out passage of the tax increases in the face of overwhelming public opposition. Kotek then waited to sign her signature bill to try to deprive opponents of the ability to collect signatures to repeal it. That tactic backfired spectacularly; opponents collected nearly 250,000 signatures from an electorate of 3 million voters in weeks, setting the tax hike on a path to near-certain defeat this November. Not having learned their lesson, Oregon Democrats are again trying to frustrate voter involvement by moving the date of the repeal vote from November to May, so that Kotek, who is up for reelection, and other Democrats, need not appear on the same ballot as their radioactive tax increase. This is in spite of the fact that the voter repeal petition signed by so many Oregonians specifically said the ballot measure was to be voted on in the November election.  Pacific Northwest progressives’ crusade against allowing the voters a direct say in their schemes is ironic. In 1902, Oregon was one of the first states in the union to adopt voter initiatives and referenda to supplant, in the eyes of that era’s progressives, the corrupt and elite legislators blocking the popular will. Washington state joined not long after. Yet, today’s progressives are the elites in Washington and Oregon, dominating every function of state government and culture. Their rule depends on seizing an ever-increasing share of the resources of private citizens to distribute among progressives’ sprawling and union-dominated political coalitions. And despite their obvious policy failures and responsibility for crumbling state economies, Pacific Northwest progressives have decided that the will of the people no longer matters. Voters cannot be permitted to stand in the way of the elite definition of “progress.” Jeff Eager is an attorney, former mayor of Bend, Oregon, and author of “Oregon Roundup” on Substack. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/13/2026 - 20:35

China Owns Canada's Only Antimony Mine And Shuttered It In Critical Minerals Power Play Submitted by The Bureau's Sam Cooper (emphasis our own),  In the rugged interior of Newfoundland, an hour's drive west from the Canadian Forces Base in Gander, sits a dormant mine with profound implications for the nation's security and prosperity. Beaver Brook could be the largest North American producer of antimony — a critical mineral threaded through the entire spectrum of modern military hardware, from small arms and artillery shells to advanced missile seekers and night-vision goggles. But China owns the mine and shut it down in early 2023 — one year before Beijing imposed export controls blocking antimony sales to U.S. military end users, driving prices from about US$5,900 per tonne to more than US$50,000. Antimony forms in crystalline masses, often clustered in dark silver needles — nature's own suggestion of the gunmetal world it enters. It was little known before Washington recognized that Beijing had quietly secured a near-monopoly over the world's critical mineral supply, antimony among them. The metal fires every conventional round, hardens military components, and provides the infrared edge that defines lethality in modern conflict. Armies could not sustain combat for even a single day without it — a reality that has driven urgent U.S. efforts to stockpile it, revive domestic processing, and cut reliance on China and Russia. The Newfoundland mine was acquired in December 2009 by Hunan Nonferrous Metals Corporation, a Chinese state-linked producer, for $29.5 million. It went silent in 2013 — the year Xi Jinping secured his presidency — revived in 2019 under China Minmetals Rare Earth Group, employed roughly 100 workers, shipped concentrate to China, and was abruptly shuttered again in 2023. It has not produced since. In a microcosm, The Bureau's reporting on Beaver Brook surfaces a contest that is reshaping geopolitics in ways inconceivable only a few years ago — one waged not with weapons but through control of the materials that make weapons. The questions it raises for Canada are urgent. Is Beijing deliberately keeping this strategic mine dormant to constrain global supply and freeze out Western competitors? Are Chinese party-state mining operatives in Canada blocking what could be Ottawa's trump card in its stalled trade negotiations with Washington — an administration now spending billions and scouring the Western Hemisphere, from Greenland to Argentina, to secure non-China-dependent supply chains? Could Canada invoke national security powers to compel Beijing's divestiture and reclaim the asset? And would it dare to — while Mark Carney moves Canada into deeper strategic alignment with Beijing, spanning electric vehicles and the critical mineral supply chains that sit at the heart of the new global security order? Some in the industry have been watching Beaver Brook for exactly this reason. Anthony Vaccaro, president of The Northern Miner, told the Central MinEx 2025 conference that the stakes for antimony were rising. "It's an important mineral. We need it. We need to make sure our military is strong, but China is absolutely dominating it," he said. "Prices have been surging on antimony and the Americans have woken up to it." He cited The Northern Miner's own 2004 assessment — that at full production, Beaver Brook would rank as North America's only primary antimony mine, producing about five percent of the world's supply. The contrast between Ottawa and Washington's response is telling. Perpetua Resources is developing a lower-grade antimony deposit in Idaho on more than $80 million in Defense Department funding and a federal financing commitment of up to $2 billion. Canada's better deposit sits idle in Chinese hands. "That is what the U.S. government is looking to secure," Vaccaro told the conference. "Well, lo and behold, Newfoundland and Labrador has the biggest antimony potential mine in all of North America. Who owns it? Why isn't it in production? The Chinese own it. We have this critical asset that's Canadian, on care and maintenance by the Chinese." The minister most directly responsible for Canada's critical minerals file is Tim Hodgson, appointed by Prime Minister Mark Carney as Minister of Energy and Natural Resources. His ministry oversees the federal critical minerals strategy, the sovereign minerals fund, and the Investment Canada Act framework governing foreign control of strategic assets. The Bureau submitted questions to Ministers Hodgson, Anand, and Joly before publication. The questions have been acknowledged, but not answered before deadline for this story. China Minmetals is not a commercial mining company in any sense Western regulators would recognize. It is one of China's largest state-owned resource conglomerates — Communist Party leadership embedded, operations spanning mining, metals production, trading, and engineering across dozens of countries. By its own description, it is a "national team" and the "main force to ensure the security of resources." It is directly supervised by China's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. In practical terms, that places the company inside China's industrial strategy — particularly in sectors considered essential to technology manufacturing, defense systems, and the global energy transition. In 2021, the company became a core shareholder in the formation of China Rare Earth Group, a state-directed merger designed to concentrate Beijing's control over a strategically vital mineral industry. Ottawa's response to China Minmetals' outsized strategic presence in Canada has been notably absent. In November 2022, it ordered three Chinese companies to divest from Canadian critical mineral firms on national security grounds — Power Metals Corp., Lithium Chile, and Ultra Lithium, all minor lithium exploration plays. Canada's only primary antimony mine remained untouched. In November 2024, the government approved Zijin Mining Group's acquisition of a Pan American Silver critical minerals asset, citing rigorous scrutiny and security undertakings. Fourteen months later, Zijin announced a C$5.5 billion all-cash takeover of Toronto-based Allied Gold Corporation. The Bureau's review of corporate records identified a Canada-based executive connected to China Minmetals — the enterprise that controls Beaver Brook — whose involvement in discussions about the mine's future was flagged by a Canadian mining source. Independent review of the same executive's profile disclosed a concurrent role at Zijin Mining Group, the firm now acquiring Allied Gold and the Pan American Silver asset. The same pattern reaches into Canada's Arctic. Through MMG, China Minmetals controls the Izok Corridor Project in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut — a 1,083-square-kilometer package of high-grade copper, zinc, lead, silver, and gold claims, among the most significant undeveloped mineral corridors in the North. MMG has linked its development to the proposed Grays Bay Road and Port, which would open the first all-weather land route and deep-water Arctic port in that part of the country. Commercially, that unlocks the ore body. Strategically, it determines who builds Canada's Arctic infrastructure. The proposition carries immediate military concerns. On March 12, 2026, Prime Minister Carney announced $35 billion in Arctic military and infrastructure spending — repackaging funds first earmarked by Justin Trudeau's government in 2022 — and referred the Grays Bay Road and Port to his government's Major Projects Office for fast-track approval. The same road MMG has identified as essential to unlocking the Izok Corridor. Canada's sovereignty-asserting Arctic plan would, if executed, directly accelerate the strategic position of a Chinese state enterprise in Canada's North. Carney's plan also specifically designated 5 Wing Goose Bay in Labrador as a Deployed Operating Base — a forward platform for F-35s and allied NORAD training operations — deepening the military significance of a province that also hosts, an hour's drive from 9 Wing Gander, the dormant Beaver Brook antimony mine in Chinese state hands. The sovereignty concern in Canada's Arctic was already on record in Ottawa six years ago. A 2019 House of Commons Standing Committee report warned that China had shown "considerable interest" in Arctic shipping routes, infrastructure, and resource access. Duane Smith of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation delivered the plainest verdict: "We stand here on the edge of the continent waving our maple leaves at China, at Russia, at the U.S. and at any others who have designs on our Arctic." The Chinese academic literature is candid about why. A 2023 paper by researchers including Menglong Li of Jilin University frames China's Arctic position with notable directness. Russia dominates the Northern Sea Route, it says, and Canada and Russia treat Arctic passages as internal waters. China — though not an Arctic state — is a legitimate outside stakeholder whose role should grow, the paper argues. The paper quotes Xi Jinping directly: "I hope that the international community will attach great importance to development issues, promote the establishment of global development partnerships, and achieve stronger, greener, and healthier global development. A sustainable Arctic is the only way out. The peace, stability, and sustainable development of the Arctic region will be beneficial to the whole world and accelerate the pace of economic globalization," the quote from Xi continues. "In this era of great change, we should abandon the confinement of the Cold War mentality and strengthen cooperation between the East and the West. We should not distinguish by ideology but work hard for the common interests of all mankind. If human society can reach beneficial cooperation on the Arctic issue, it will become a template for resolving other disputes, and it will be a new chapter in history to sell part of the interests in exchange for the common development of all mankind." Reading between the language of environmentalism and globalism and humanism, General Secretary Xi's hardened CCP language and objectives can be easily discerned. China Minmetals' global reach has sometimes broached conflict. Its subsidiary MMG — the same entity straddling the Nunavut deep-water port that Carney's $35 billion Arctic plan has now fast-tracked — operates Las Bambas, one of the world's largest copper mines, in Peru's Apurimac region. Acquired in 2014 for $5.85 billion and in production since 2016, Las Bambas topped the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre's global ranking of transition mineral conflicts in 2024, with more than 100 documented allegations of abuse. Indigenous communities report polluted water, blocked ancestral lands, and environmental assessments they say concealed risks to local aquifers. Lima declared states of emergency over unrest at the mine four times between 2015 and 2022. Three protesters were killed by gunfire in 2015. More than 300 people have been charged or jailed for opposing its operations, according to monitors including the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders. MMG says it pursues dialogue and operates in compliance. The record tells a more complicated story. In Brazil, MMG's February 2025 acquisition of Anglo American's Barro Alto and Niquelândia nickel mines for $500 million drew antitrust complaints from a Dutch-Turkish rival — whose $900 million bid was passed over — filed in Brasilia and Brussels. Critics warned the deal could hand China 52 to 62 percent of Brazil's nickel output. The American Iron and Steel Institute asked the White House to intervene, arguing it would give Beijing direct influence over a metal critical to electric vehicle batteries and stainless steel. The European Commission opened a formal probe in November 2025 into MMG's state ties. The transaction remained under scrutiny in early 2026. Understanding how Beijing built its Western Hemisphere mining positions — and why governments from Ottawa to Washington were so slow to see it — requires going back further. While Western industrial policy in the 1990s and 2000s operated on the assumption that trade made war obsolete — a variant of Fukuyama's "End of History" thesis — Chinese strategic planners were reading their history differently. The lesson they drew from the past century of American dominance was not that economic integration creates peace. It was that whoever controls the physical inputs of modern industry controls the terms on which everyone else does business. The Chinese Communist Party's minerals strategy was, like most of its 5-, 25-, and 100-year plans, patient, systematic, and nearly invisible to Western publics until reversing it became expensive. China produces approximately 48 percent of the world's mined antimony and refines the overwhelming majority of what is processed globally. For gallium — essential to semiconductors and communications equipment — China controls 98.8 percent of refined global output. For rare earth elements, which power the magnets in every electric vehicle, every wind turbine, and most advanced weapons systems, China accounts for roughly 60 percent of mining and over 90 percent of processing. The International Energy Agency has calculated that China dominates refining for 19 of the 20 key strategic minerals the energy transition and defense industry require. Back to Newfoundland. One year after China Minmetals shuttered North America's most significant antimony mine, on August 14, 2024, Beijing announced that antimony exports would require a government license, effective the following month. In October, Chinese shipments fell 97 percent against the prior month. In December, Beijing escalated: it banned antimony exports to United States military users specifically — the first time China had directed a critical minerals restriction against a single country rather than the world at large. The price at Rotterdam doubled in two months, then doubled again. In February 2025, China added tungsten to its export control list. In April, seven heavy rare earth elements were placed under licensing requirements globally. Then, in January 2026, China issued Announcement No. 1 of 2026, prohibiting all dual-use exports to Japan for military end users or any purpose that could enhance Japan's military capabilities. The trigger was Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's statement that a Chinese military attack on Taiwan could legally constitute a threat to Japan's survival. On February 2, 2026, President Trump announced Project Vault: a strategic reserve for critical minerals backed by a $10 billion Export-Import Bank loan. Two days later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio convened 54 countries and the European Commission at the State Department for the first Critical Minerals Ministerial, launching FORGE — the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement — as the successor to the Minerals Security Partnership. Eleven new bilateral frameworks were signed. The stated ambition: a preferential trading bloc for critical minerals, with minimum price floors designed to make Western production viable against Chinese state-subsidized output. Canada attended the FORGE ministerial. It was not among the eleven countries that signed a new bilateral critical minerals framework with Washington. The U.S. Defense Department has committed $245 million in antimony offtake to U.S. Antimony Corporation, the only antimony smelter in North America, based in Thompson Falls, Montana, currently running at a fraction of its mandated target. Perpetua Resources, developing the Stibnite gold-antimony project in Idaho, has received more than $80 million in Defense Department funding. "Perpetua never would've been able to build a mine here five or ten years ago," Vaccaro told Central MinEx 2025. "It's this federal funding. So critical." Vaccaro's presentation ranged broadly — critical minerals, great-power competition, a world reorganizing around strategic resource control. But on Beaver Brook, he zeroed in on something specific: what he described as circulating chatter in Canadian mining and political circles about Beijing's real intentions for the mine. "I will tell you, there's rumors that the Chinese use this — that Beaverbrook is on care and maintenance, but if the price of antimony stays high and other projects come on, they can turn the tap on, flood the market a little bit, drive the price back down, discourage others from entering," he said. "There's rumors that that's one of the games they're playing. There's certainly nothing stopping them currently from doing that. So I think this is going to be a very interesting asset to look at as possibly a microcosm for what's going on on that big geopolitical scale." There is a harder lens through which to view Beaver Brook — the hardened geopolitical logic that sovereignty is expressed not only through the votes of citizens, but through jobs, productivity, presence, and utility. By that measure, a dormant mine in Chinese hands in the interior of Newfoundland is a statement of power, and not Ottawa's. Then there is polar projection — the map centered on the North Pole that NORAD has always used, the one that shows the world as it actually is rather than as Mercator flattened it. Russia and Canada face each other across the Arctic Ocean. Greenland bridges them. Newfoundland's coast is the eastern hinge of North America's Arctic exposure, closer to Moscow than to Vancouver. The province no longer hosts permanent U.S. military bases — Fort Pepperrell, Argentia, and Ernest Harmon Air Station belong to another era. But 9 Wing Gander, roughly an hour's drive from Beaver Brook, anchors search and rescue and continental air operations on the island. To the north, Five Wing Goose Bay in Labrador serves allied low-level training and NORAD-related activity. The province sits at the intersection of Arctic strategy and transatlantic defense — North America's eastern gateway to the North Atlantic, close neighbor to Greenland across the Labrador Sea — at a moment when both are being urgently renegotiated. The questions The Bureau put to Carney's mining minister Tim Hodgson, a Goldman Sachs banking alumnus, were direct: Has the government assessed Beaver Brook as a strategic asset within North American defense-industrial supply chains? Has any national security review been conducted into Chinese state control of Canada's only primary antimony mine? Does the 2023 rationale for not requiring Chinese divestiture — policy uncertainty — still apply, given Beijing's subsequent ban on antimony exports to United States military users? Has Ottawa raised Beaver Brook with Washington as part of critical minerals cooperation? Has any mechanism been considered to restart production? The questions were acknowledged. They were not answered before deadline. Ottawa's inaction and China's potentially intentional dormancy of one of the world's most significant antimony deposits is not a question of market inertia or supply and demand. It is a test of sovereignty — one that sharpens as Newfoundland's geostrategic salience grows, its ports and radar installations forming a bulwark near American strategic assets in Greenland at a moment of intensifying Beijing activity in the Arctic, including through state-linked mining footholds like the Izok Corridor in Nunavut. Meanwhile in Glenwood, where Beaver Brook workers have waited for work that did not return, life is slower than it might be. A Tim Hortons. A gas station. A Legion hall. Population roughly 700. Canada's latent potential in microcosm. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/13/2026 - 19:45

CDC: Little-Known Virus With No Vaccine Spreading In US Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The human metapneumovirus (HMPV) is spreading in the United States, including in California and the Great Lakes region, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A person receives a vaccine in Los Angeles in a file photograph. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images Symptoms include cough, fever, and nasal congestion, and, unlike better-known respiratory viruses, HMPV does not have a vaccine or known treatments, the CDC stated. “There’s no specific treatment that’s generally recommended,” Dr. Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of California–Davis Children’s Hospital, said in a video released by the school. “For the youngest children, using a bulb syringe to clear the congestion can be useful. Sometimes a humidifier or vaporizer may be useful, especially if they have something like croup as a complication of infection and trying to make sure that they don’t get dehydrated and get enough fluids.” Hospitalized patients typically receive supportive care, or oxygen if they need it, and intravenous fluids to prevent or treat dehydration. Of nationwide tests that were positive for respiratory viruses in the week that ended on Feb. 28, 5 percent tested positive for HMPV—the highest percentage for HMPV since mid-2025. The percentage is lower than that of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) but higher than that of COVID-19, according to the National Respiratory and Enteric Virus Surveillance System. California and New Jersey are among the states that have recently reported HMPV cases. According to the CDC, cases have been recorded in all regions of the country. Data voluntarily reported to the California Department of Public Health from clinical laboratories show an increase in HMPV test positivity to 8.6 percent during the week that ended on Feb. 28, a spokesperson for the department told The Epoch Times in an email on March 10. The HMPV levels in California at this point are higher than during four of the past five respiratory virus seasons. The seasons run from the fall into the following year. “While levels are currently higher than previous seasons, HMPV most commonly causes mild respiratory illness in people of all ages,” the spokesperson said. “Severe illness is less common. However, it can occur in young children, older adults, those with chronic medical conditions, and people with weakened immune systems.” Blumberg also stated that symptoms are usually mild but that the virus can lead to more severe complications, particularly in young children, the elderly, and others with weaker immune systems. HMPV usually starts circulating later in the season than influenza and RSV, researchers with the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and other institutions said in a study published in February. They found that the virus also peaks later, often in April. The researchers said that the study shows that HMPV was “an important cause” of respiratory symptoms among both children and adults. Experts recommend practicing good hygiene during the virus season to prevent HMPV and other viruses, including covering one’s mouth when coughing or sneezing and frequently washing one’s hands. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/13/2026 - 18:55

School Branded 1st Grader 'Racist' Over 'Any Life Matters Drawing; Court Slams Principal Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, When a 7-year-old’s heartfelt sketch promoting equality gets twisted into “racism” by leftist school officials, it’s a chilling sign of how far indoctrination has gone—now finally overturned in a resounding First Amendment victory. This case exposes the hypocrisy at the heart of progressive education: punishing a child for daring to change “Black Lives Matter” into a message of universal value, all while claiming to champion inclusion. In 2021, at Viejo Elementary School in California, a first grader identified as BB created a simple drawing after her class learned about Martin Luther King Jr. and “Black Lives Matter.” The artwork showed four oval shapes in shades from orange to brown, representing friends holding hands, with the words “Black Lives Mater” above and “any life” below. A 7-year-old California girl drew four oval figures in colors ranging from orange to brown -- her friends holding hands -- and wrote "any life" above them. Her school principal called it racist. Now a federal appeals court has ruled she had a First... https://t.co/Bo88Q46X9U — The Washington Times (@WashTimes) March 11, 2026 BB gifted it to a black classmate in a show of friendship. The child thanked her and showed no signs of offense. But the child’s mother complained to Principal Jesus Becerra, writing, “My husband and I will not tolerate any more messages given to our daughter because of her skin color. As the administrator we trust you know the actions that need to be taken to address this issue.” Becerra confronted BB, telling her the drawing was “not appropriate” and “racist,” according to her account. He allegedly forced an apology, banned her from recess for two weeks, and prohibited her from giving drawings to classmates—without notifying her parents. BB didn’t even fully understand “Black Lives Matter,” but added “any life” because she believed “all lives matter.” This innocent twist on the slogan clashed with the school’s apparent BLM doctrine, turning a gesture of friendship into a so called ‘microaggression’. The family eventually sued the Capistrano Unified School District in 2023, but a lower court dismissed the case, with U.S. District Judge David O. Carter ruling that BB’s drawing “trampled on her classmate’s right to be left alone in school” and, remarkably, that First Amendment protections didn’t apply to such young students. 2/ B.B. was in first grade when she drew this picture after a classroom lesson on MLK. The principal called it "racist" and "inappropriate," banned her from giving out drawings, and made her sit out of recess for two weeks. The family challenged these unfair punishments. pic.twitter.com/H3uyNgwyr9 — Pacific Legal 🗡⚖️ (@PacificLegal) March 10, 2026 More about the 9th circuit decision: https://t.co/5pnd0v9kCL — Pacific Legal 🗡⚖️ (@PacificLegal) March 10, 2026 The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that nonsense on March 10 of this year, affirming that constitutional rights don’t vanish at the school door—even for first graders. “In sum, elementary students’ speech is protected by the First Amendment,” the three-judge panel stated in an unsigned opinion. The court referenced the 1969 Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines, emphasizing that schools must prove actions are necessary to prevent disruption.  “Age is relevant as younger students are more vulnerable than students who are approaching adulthood. But, as all students, including elementary school students, have First Amendment rights, the school has the burden, under the Tinker balancing test, of showing that its actions were reasonably undertaken to protect the safety and well-being of its students,” the judges ruled. This sends the case back to the lower court to examine if Becerra’s response was justified. He denies calling the drawing inappropriate or racist and claims no punishment occurred, but the appeals decision puts the onus on the school to back that up. Pacific Legal Foundation, representing BB pro bono, celebrated the win. “The First Amendment requires schools to meet a demanding standard before punishing student speech,” said PLF attorney Caleb Trotter. “The court made clear that schools cannot simply label a child’s message inappropriate and impose discipline without showing that punishment was necessary to prevent disruption,” Trotter added. The drawing itself—a colorful symbol of unity—has become an icon in the fight against overreach. This incident highlights how leftist dogma infiltrates classrooms, where straying from approved narratives like BLM invites backlash. Schools plastered with BLM posters and lessons pushed one viewpoint, then branded a child’s attempt at broader equality as offensive—exposing the intolerance beneath the surface. Becerra’s actions smack of ideological enforcement, prioritizing political correctness over a 7-year-old’s pure intentions. It’s a reminder that radical leftist influences in education aim to stifle free thought early, molding kids into compliant echo chambers. Yet this ruling pushes back, reinforcing that individual liberty trumps bureaucratic control. Parents now have stronger ground to challenge such abuses, ensuring schools teach facts, not force-fed propaganda. BB’s story is a triumph of innocence over indoctrination. Her drawing wasn’t racist—it was the opposite, a child’s vision of true equality. The court victory safeguards that spirit, proving the Constitution protects even the youngest voices. 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 Fri, 03/13/2026 - 18:05

The Order Of Battle Authored by James Howard Kunstler, Don’t lose your shit over mines in the Strait of Hormuz and the oil price shooting up. Iran has many thousands of mines. But something has to lay them out in the water. Iran has no more naval ships. They have small boats. The US can see everything moving on the surface, or sitting at docks. We are blowing them up methodically. The news outlets who want the US to fail in this operation (because: Trump) want you to think that we had no plan for dealing with this problem. That’s not so. There are very few mines actually laid so far. Tankers are not going through the Strait of Hormuz because their captains are nervous. Their ships and their cargos are worth millions and the insurance costs millions. So, they’re waiting in place, hanging back. The US still has work to do destroying Iran’s shoreline defenses of missile and drone launch sites. Iran is firing all they’ve got left. Whenever they launch something, we see the geo-location on our satellites and radars. The mobile launchers are a little trickier because, obviously, they shoot and move. But they don’t always move fast enough, and there isn’t an endless supply of them. The US Navy decommissioned its four Avenger-class minesweeper ships in the Persian Gulf in September, 2025, but replaced them with more agile Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs) capable of countering submarines and clearing mines. Two LCS ships — USS Santa Barbara and USS Canberra — quietly deployed in March 2025. An LCS uses an Airborne Laser Mine Detection System and an Airborne Mine Neutralization System via helicopter. In the water, it uses mine-hunting sonar and the Unmanned Influence Sweep System — all operated from unmanned surface vessels. The unmanned sweep vehicle triggers magnetic, acoustic, or combination mines, with the LCS at a safe distance. The LCS vessels are armed with an 11-cell SeaRAM launcher for point defense that fires Rolling Airframe Missiles — fast, radar-guided missiles designed to knock down incoming anti-ship missiles and drones at short range. They also carry Longbow Hellfire missiles with updated software and hardware specifically to counter drones. The Longbow Hellfire uses radar-guided technology enabling it to engage targets through battlefield clutter, with a range of up to eight kilometers — giving the LCS the ability to engage drones before they get close. The LCS ships will be accompanied by Arleigh Burke-class destroyers equipped with Aegis and full missile defense suites for protection against the full spectrum of Iranian threats. The oil markets are extremely sensitive to any changes in the oil environment, and war induces the most extreme changes. Even outside of war, weird things happen. April 20, 2020, was the apex of Covid-19 paranoia when everyday life was shutting down all over Western Civ. The price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures — specifically the May 2020 contract, which was expiring the very next day — crashed to an historic low of negative $37.63 per barrel. That is, sellers were literally paying buyers to take oil off their hands. By the following day, April 21, prices had rebounded back into positive territory, though still at very depressed levels around $10–$15 per barrel. The current situation with oil in the $100 range is not going to be a one-day event, but it won’t last forever, either, so do your deep-breathing exercises and calm down. Of course, in America right now, a seditious news media will take every opportunity to induce exquisite anxiety in the public-at-large to deflect from the order-of-battle that President DJT is carrying out to 1) improve America’s geopolitical position and relations, and 2) to defeat the forces both external and domestic that seek to wreck the country. Which is why you might see that the next move in the order of battle will be against the wrecking crew in our own country, including the political figures behind the decade-long conspiracy to undermine the president, the administrative rogues running the “resistance” in government agencies, the Lawfare ninjas queering the justice system, and the big money that funds the hundreds of NGOs attempting to instigate a color revolution here. I have visions of perp walks and indictments coming in on the zephyrs of spring. It looks just now like Majority Leader John Thune and his RINO herd will trample the SAVE Act (election reform) into failure. But consider that Mr. Trump’s FBI has had more than a month to analyze the Fulton County, Georgia, ballot evidence from the 2020 election (while only last week it seized the Maricopa County, AZ, records, and for all we know the agency also has 2020 ballot evidence from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada, too). So, prepare for the public to be shocked and amazed at what has been discovered, and expect to see a sharp attitude change among embarrassed US Senators who will be compelled to come on-board for election reform. Somewhere in all that, you might expect Cuba to fall — a momentous event, actually, considering the cumulative mischief Cuba’s government has provoked all over the western hemisphere since 1958. We don’t even have to do anything to make it happen, just respond in the aftermath with emergency food and fuel relief, and perhaps some help averting the vengeful slaughter of the old Castro governing network. We don’t want a bloodbath there. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/13/2026 - 17:15

29% Of Americans Have Finally Figured Out The Problem... 71% To Go Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com, A new Gallup poll finds that 29% of Americans now say government itself is the country’s biggest problem. That’s a higher percentage than people who think America’s biggest problem is the economy. Or immigration. Or inflation. Think about that for a moment. The institution whose entire job is to solve problems has become, in the eyes of the public, the single biggest problem of all. Joseph Tainter described exactly this phenomenon in his 1988 book, The Collapse of Complex Societies. Tainter studied empires from Rome to the Maya and found the same pattern every time: as societies grow, they create layers of bureaucracy and complexity to solve problems. Eventually the bureaucracy becomes so bloated and expensive that it stops solving anything — and starts generating new problems instead. And you can see it playing out in real time. Rather than address why it is failing to solve problems with the $5 trillion plus it already collects, a growing number of politicians simply want to extract more wealth from the people who create it. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna just introduced the “Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act” — a 5% annual wealth tax on America’s roughly 938 billionaires, which they optimistically estimate would raise $4.4 trillion over ten years. That’s about $440 billion a year. Sounds like a lot. Until you remember the federal government is running $2 trillion deficits every single year. Sanders’ grand plan wouldn’t cover a quarter of the annual shortfall. And that’s the best case — which assumes no billionaire leaves the country, no assets decline in value, no capital flees to friendlier jurisdictions. Britain tried something similar when the Labour government abolished its 110-year-old “non-dom” tax regime. The result? Over 10,000 millionaires left the country, and tax revenue actually fell. But even setting aside the question of whether it would “work,” a 5% annual tax on existing wealth — compounding every year — is an extraordinarily destructive idea. It’s not a tax on income. It’s a tax on assets — on the factories, businesses, and investments that employ people and produce things. If you tax at 5% annually, within 15 years you’ve confiscated more than half the wealth. You haven’t funded the government. You’ve just driven capital, talent, and entire companies to friendlier places. Then what? America is poorer. There are fewer businesses, fewer jobs, fewer wealthy people left to tax. Growth slows. Tax revenue declines. The deficit gets worse, not better. The federal government already collects $5.2 trillion a year in tax revenue. The problem was never insufficient taxation. It’s a spending addiction that no amount of taxation can feed. And we know that’s true because the entire federal budget in 2019 was $4.4 trillion. If Congress had simply held spending at that level, the government would have posted an $800 billion surplus last year. Even adjusted for inflation, they would have roughly broken even — without making a single spending cut. Instead, spending surged 59% to over $7 trillion. And what did Americans get for it? Roads and bridges are still crumbling. Social Security is still barreling toward insolvency. Is America safer? Is inflation down? Do we receive more government services? No. The only people it’s working out for are the Somali immigrant fraudsters who are part of the network that steals $600 billion from taxpayers every year. And the bureaucrats in California, where the legal graft funnels $100 billion in government grants to DEI initiatives, intersectionality programs, and non-binary construction apprenticeships. Of course this dysfunction is not just at the federal level. In Los Angeles, fire victims who lost their homes in the devastating Palisades fires have been receiving citations from the city’s fire department — for failing to clear brush on properties that already burned to the ground. In Baltimore, where the Francis Scott Key bridge collapsed in March 2024, the city initially said that reconstruction would cost $1.7 billion and be complete in 2028. Nine months later they revised their cost estimate to $5.2 billion, and completion to 2030. These people just cannot execute. This is what late-stage institutional decay looks like. Not a dramatic collapse, but a slow, grinding loss of competence and legitimacy — where the government’s primary function shifts from solving problems to perpetuating itself. But here’s the thing — history shows that this kind of decay is less “end of the world” and more forest fire. Painful, yes. Destructive, absolutely. But forest fires clear out the deadwood, return nutrients to the soil, and make way for new growth. It’s happened to every overgrown empire in history, and what comes after is almost always better than what came before. The sensible course of action is to make sure, one, you have fire insurance, and two, you’re positioned for the new growth. That’s what a good Plan B is all about. Tyler Durden Fri, 03/13/2026 - 16:25