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Operation Blackout Takes Down 4 Of The 'Largest Scam Compounds On Earth': FBI

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Operation Blackout Takes Down 4 Of The 'Largest Scam Compounds On Earth': FBI

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The FBI announced on July 31 that it dismantled four of the “largest scam compounds on Earth” under Operation Blackout, seizing $15.2 billion in assets and freeing thousands of forced laborers.

Scam compounds provide the infrastructure to carry out large-scale online fraud operations and typically employ hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom are captives.

Operation Blackout freed thousands of trafficked workers, the FBI said in a post on X. In addition, roughly 10,000 Americans were reportedly saved from losing their life savings.

The agency did not specify a timeline for the event.

The FBI also built new international partnerships to fight off fraud and trafficking activities, the agency said.

Workers gather with their luggage after leaving a suspected scam center compound in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP via Getty Images

In a July 21 post on X, FBI director Kash Patel said that the seizure of $15.2 billion under Operation Blackout was made over a 16-month period. Dozens of scam centers were dismantled and hundreds of criminals arrested, with multiple human trafficking compounds eliminated. Patel listed four operations carried out as part of dismantling scam operations.

Operation Zephyr Exodus involved the takedown of Cambodia’s Prince Group, a transnational criminal organization.

This led to the seizure of a record 127,000 Bitcoin, worth roughly $15 billion at the time.

Operation Sand Dollar, conducted in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, dismantled nine scam compounds, arrested more than 300 individuals, seized around $300 million, confiscated thousands of electronic devices, and freed thousands of trafficked workers. It was conducted through a joint operation with China’s Ministry of Public Security and the Dubai Police, Patel said.

In Operation Compound Fracture, authorities seized domains and malicious apps linked to scam activities.

And under the Shunda Compound Takedown, the FBI and Thai law enforcement carried out a joint operation that disrupted a network responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to victims.

Last month, the Treasury Department sanctioned 35 individuals and entities linked to the Prince Group, including a Cambodia-based conglomerate that allegedly provided laundering services for scam proceeds.

U.S. authorities estimate Americans to have lost at least $10 billion to scam operations running from Southeast Asia in 2024, a 66 percent jump from the previous year, the department said.

According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Report 2025, the agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received more than a million complaints last year. Total losses from these complaints amounted to over $20.87 billion, a 26 percent increase from the previous year.

Scam Compound Trafficking

In a July 28 statement, the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM) highlighted the issue of trafficking victims being forced to work in scam centers.

Victims are initially lured through fake job advertisements that promise legitimate work abroad. Once they arrive, they are stripped of documents, locked inside compounds, and forced to carry out online scam operations under threat of violence and other measures. Many survivors report being subjected to sexual abuse, solitary confinement, starvation, and torture, IOM said.

“People trapped in scam compounds are victims of trafficking, forced to commit crimes through violence, threats and coercion. They deserve protection, not punishment,” IOM Director General Amy Pope said in the statement.

“We must work together to support survivors, stop traffickers and close the gaps these criminal networks exploit. No country can tackle this alone,” Pope said.

During 2022–2025, the IOM assisted over 3,500 trafficked victims of forced criminality in Southeast Asia. These people were from 39 nations, mostly from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

On Sept. 30 last year, a group of lawmakers introduced the Scam Compound Accountability and Mobilization (SCAM) Act that aims to counter foreign scam operations, according to an Oct. 1, 2025, statement from the office of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

The bill also seeks to hold transnational criminal organizations that engage in human trafficking, forced criminality, and cyber scams targeting Americans accountable for their actions.

The legislation was passed by the Senate in December and sent to the House of Representatives the same month. However, no significant action has been taken on the bill since then.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/03/2026 - 03:30

Logistical Nightmare Unfolds As Rhine Plunges Toward Record Low

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Logistical Nightmare Unfolds As Rhine Plunges Toward Record Low

The Rhine, one of Europe's most vital arteries for transporting industrial goods, has fallen to one of its owest level since the drought-stricken summer of 2018. The resulting loss of shipping capacity is driving up freight costs and raising the risk of supply disruptions for iron ore, coal, chemicals, petroleum products and other commodities moving through Europe's industrial heartland.

The Rhine water level gauge at Kaub, a key chokepoint on the Rhine for shipments heading to southern Germany and Switzerland, has fallen to just 25 centimeters, the lowest reading since the drought-stricken summer of 2018.

At levels of 40 to 50 centimeters, vessels can carry only about 20% of their normal cargo, according to Germany's Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration. The resulting loss of transport capacity is driving up freight costs and increasing the risk of supply disruptions of critical commodities.

German federal data compiled by ETH Zurich shows that a drop below 24 centimeters, which is in the forecast for this week, would mark the lowest level since records began in 1880.

JPMorgan analyst Chetan Udeshi told clients that with Rhine water levels dropping to 2018 levels, this may spark a drag across Germany's chemicals industry:

BASF/K+S/Sector read: Rhine water levels dropped to multi-year lows in August and are now comparable to 2H18 levels, when Germany-exposed chemicals saw material operational/logistics headwinds (see our previous report here). It remains to be seen whether low water levels will persist for as long as they did in 2H18; if they do, this would represent an additional downside risk to 2H26 expectations, albeit likely smaller given post-2018 mitigation. As illustrated in Figure 1Rhine watrlve Kaubmsring potand Figure 2Probailty-weghd 14-ayforecst forRhine watrlve Kaubsof 31July, at the Kaub gauge, Rhine levels have fallen to multi-year lows and are now similar to Oct–Nov 2018, when disruptions to barge logistics and wider supply chains hit German/European chemicals; the two most impacted names then were BASF and K+S. Evonik and to a lesser extent Brenntag had also flagged earnings headwinds in 2H18.

BASF saw the most adverse impact of ~€250m in 3Q-4Q18 (~2.5% of 2018 adj EBITDA) due to its reliance on the Rhine for transportation infrastructure and plant cooling. Since then, BASF has implemented a number of mitigation measures, including diversifying its logistics network to be able to switch to alternative transport modes (e.g. rail), if needed, as well as expanding its fleet to include vessels that can still operate in the Rhine at low water levels. On the last week's 2Q26 conference call, BASF's CEO commented that thanks to the mitigation measures, this time the company does not expect to see a negative impact of the magnitude seen in 2H26.

K+S relied on the Rhine for saline water disposal, which became impossible due to reduced water levels; as a result, K+S had to halt production at parts of its largest site in Germany, Werra, for almost two months. This translated into a ~€95m adverse impact (~15% of 2018 EBITDA). Since 2018, K+S has invested in improving the resiliency and sustainability of its wastewater disposal at the Werra site, including as part of the ongoing Werra 2060 project capex, which should help to more than halve the amount of process water for the Werra site. In its 2025 annual report, K+S commented that through the system of wastewater storage basins at the company's disposal, as well as other measures, it had "significantly increased the flexibility of wastewater management at the Werra plant in recent years, to fully maintain production at the Werra plant even in a hydrologically dry year”. The company also noted, however, that in the case of an extreme drought comparable to that seen in the summer of 2022 and lasting over a long period of time, resulting in low levels in the Werra river, there could still be a risk of a temporary production interruption. Hence, subject to the duration of dry conditions, the impact on production at K+S cannot be ruled out, although we would expect it to be much reduced compared to the 2018 situation reflecting the improved wastewater management infrastructure.

Rhine Level At Kaub

Kaub Level Forecast

Barclays analyst Katie Richards recently told clients to have Rhine water levels "on their radars."

Here's more from Richards:

Our view: Investors should have the Rhine on their radar. Rhine-exposed chemical stocks historically underperformed during the 2018 and 2022 low-water episodes. What makes 2026 noteworthy is that the Rhine is entering the summer from an unusually weak position, with water levels already near multi-year lows for this point in the year and further risk from El Niño. However, unlike 2018, producers have invested heavily in mitigation measures, and these appeared to have proven effective during the 2022 drought when disruption was limited despite challenging conditions. As a result, we see the risk today as more skewed towards higher logistics costs and supply-chain inefficiencies than a repeat of the severe operational disruption experienced in 2018.Our concern would increase if Kaub water levels were to spend a prolonged period around 40cm or below, a level broadly consistent with or more severe than the 2022 drought, when financial impacts across the sector were largely negligible (versus ~100cm today).

The fallout of summer heat across the continent has spread beyond freight markets. Heat waves have forced France to curb output from its nuclear fleet because rising river temperatures could fuel wildfires.

In Hungary, the government has urged households and businesses to conserve electricity and water after demand overwhelmed supplies in Szentendre, leaving thousands without drinking water. Meanwhile, Italy's Po River has fallen below historic lows.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/03/2026 - 02:45

Saudi Arabia Has Five Points Of Leverage Over The US

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Saudi Arabia Has Five Points Of Leverage Over The US

Authored by Andrew Korybko,

It probably won’t ever muster up the political will to use them, however, but the possibility always remains.

Trump recently surprised the Saudis by demanding that they recognize Israel as the precondition for the US implementing their newly signed nuclear energy deal, which wasn’t part of the agreement. This follows him humiliating Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Salman earlier in the spring by claiming that he’d been “kissing my ass” for rejuvenating the US economy. His mistreatment of the Kingdom and its de facto leader is unexpected since the US relies on them in the following five ways:

1. Indirectly Projecting US Influence Across The Ummah

Saudi Arabia wields tremendous influence across the international Muslim community, or Ummah, due to its role as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. It’s also been a rock-solid American ally since the end of World War II. By almost always aligning with the US’ foreign policy goals, Saudi Arabia indirectly projects its influence across the Ummah, in some cases even more effectively than the US itself since it’s a fellow Muslim country that many Muslim governments and societies alike look to for guidance.

2. Investing Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars Into The US

Saudi Arabia is globally known for its wealth, which it once again reminded everyone of when it pledged to invest a whopping $600 billion into the US during Trump’s trip to the Kingdom in May 2025. Few countries are capable of doing that. Even more importantly, the previously hyperlinked readout from the White House notes that at least $100 billion will go into the American tech industry, thus helping it to compete with China. The strategic significance of such Saudi investments into the US can’t be overstated.

3. Purchasing Billions Of Dollars Of American Arms

Building upon the above, nearly $142 billion of the $600 billion that Saudi Arabia agreed to invest into the US will go to the military-industrial complex, which is an astronomical amount. To put Saudi Arabia’s purchase of American arms into perspective, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s latest report noted that Saudi Arabia was the US’ largest client and the third-largest importer in the world from 2021-2025. This immensely benefits the American military-industrial complex.

4. Serving As The Core Of The “Islamic NATO”

One of this year’s trends that began to materialize late last year is the gradual formation of what’s been called the “Islamic NATO”, which is comprised of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkiye. They’re all either NATO members like Turkiye or “Major Non-NATO Allies” like the rest. Whether the “Islamic NATO” is ever formalized or just remains a consultative platform, it’s still expected to serve as the means of advancing American military-security interests across the Ummah as the US “Leads From Behind”.

5. Preventing The Rise Of The “Petroyuan”

One of the pillars of American hegemony is the petrodollar, which Saudi Arabia helped the US institutionalize, and its continued participation in this system prevents the rise of the hypothetical “petroyuan” that many members of the Alt-Media Community have speculated about for years. So long as Saudi Arabia remains committed to the petrodollar, the “petroyuan” will remain a thought exercise, thus indefinitely preserving what’s arguably one of the most important pillars of American hegemony.

These five ways in which the US relies on Saudi Arabia provide the Kingdom with leverage if it ever musters up the political will to wield these advantages. For example, it could stop indirectly projecting US influence across the Ummah, radically reduce its investments in the US economy and its purchase of US arms, refuse to allow the “Islamic NATO” to become the US’ proxy, and/or replace the petrodollar with the “petroyuan”. It probably won’t do any of this, however, but the possibility always remains.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/03/2026 - 02:00

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Atomic Bomb, & The Perils Of Power

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J.R.R. Tolkien, The Atomic Bomb, & The Perils Of Power

Authored by Jonathan Miltimore via The Epoch Times,

On Aug. 6, 1945, the Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, instantly killing tens of thousands and marking the first use of a nuclear weapon in warfare.

Three days later, a second bomb, “Fat Man,” was dropped on Nagasaki.

Within days, Japan surrendered, bringing World War II to an end.

For most Americans, the bombings were greeted with celebration. Polls at the time revealed that nearly 70 percent of Americans said the bombing was a “good thing,” while just 17 percent said it was a “bad thing.”

In some respects, this is no surprise.

Thanks to the bomb, the war was over.

Japan, the nation that had blindsided the United States at Pearl Harbor nearly four years earlier, had finally been brought to its knees, forced to surrender unconditionally.

Watching these events unfold from England, a professor of Anglo-Saxon literature saw something very different.

‘Utter Folly’

In 1945, J.R.R. Tolkien was a professor of Old English at Oxford and author of “The Hobbit” (1937), a book that would eventually become one of the most influential works of fantasy literature ever written.

Having served as a British Army officer in the trenches of World War I, Tolkien understood firsthand the horrors of modern warfare. Perhaps because of this, he recoiled upon learning of a new weapon that could destroy entire cities.

“The news today about ‘Atomic bombs’ is so horrifying one is stunned,” he wrote to his son Christopher. “The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world!”

Tolkien was no pacifist, and he recognized that U.S. President Harry Truman’s decision to drop this new superweapon might have a silver lining.

“Japan ought to cave in,” he admitted.

But even as he acknowledged the bomb’s immediate military value, Tolkien feared its long-term consequences. Humanity had crossed a threshold from which there would be no return.

“Such explosives in men’s hands,” he wrote, “while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope ’this will ensure peace.'”

On ‘Babel-Builders’

Today, discussions over the atomic bomb usually involve whether it was morally justified to drop it on Japan. Unlike in 1945, Americans are very much split on the matter. Recent polling shows 35 percent say the bombings were justified, while 31 percent say they were not.

The fact that a full one-third of Americans say they’re not sure if the bombing was the right thing shows how morally complicated the matter is. (If you doubt this, consider that General Dwight Eisenhower and Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy opposed dropping the bomb on moral grounds and because they doubted its military necessity.)

What is less often asked is whether the bomb should have been developed at all. The question is easy to dismiss. After all, Nazi Germany launched its own nuclear research program in April 1939. Had the Allies declined to pursue the bomb, they might have handed history’s most destructive weapon to Adolf Hitler.

There is also a philosophical hurdle. Science has long been celebrated as the engine of human progress. To oppose a scientific breakthrough on ethical grounds has a whiff of Luddism—a kind of rejection of progress itself.

Tolkien, once again, saw things differently. Though admitting “we’re all in God’s hands” now, he offered a word of caution about humanity’s growing faith in its own power. “He does not look kindly on Babel-builders,” he told Christopher.

By invoking the famous Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel, in which God confused and scattered the nations for attempting to reach the heavens, Tolkien was warning against a perennial temptation: placing human ingenuity and knowledge above moral wisdom.

The theme of man’s lust for knowledge and power would be developed in his next literary masterpiece.

‘An Allegory of Our Own Time’

In 1942, as the Manhattan Project was beginning in the United States, Tolkien was developing the core narrative of what would become “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first volume of his “The Lord of the Rings” epic.

Though the book would not be published until 1954, Tolkien spent much of the 1940s writing and revising the manuscript. The story follows a fellowship of nine companions who embark on a perilous quest to destroy the One Ring, a weapon of immense power that threatens to destroy all of Middle-earth.

The Ring is so powerful that no one—not even the heroes of the story—should possess it.

Indeed, Tolkien’s wisest and bravest characters all reject it. The wizard Gandalf refuses the Ring when it is offered to him. The elf queen Galadriel does the same. Aragorn, whose ancestor was killed after being corrupted by the Ring, is wary of its power and never seeks it.

Meanwhile, those who desire the Ring or attempt to wield its power—Boromir, Sauron, and Gollum—are ultimately destroyed by it.

The One Ring has rightly been interpreted as a metaphor for power; after all, Tolkien himself called it the “Ring of Power.” But in a 1947 letter to his publisher, he put a finer point on the idea.

“You can make the Ring an allegory of our own time, if you like,” he wrote, “an allegory of the inevitable fate that awaits all attempts to defeat evil power by power.”

These words help explain why Tolkien viewed the atomic bomb with such horror. It was a weapon created to “defeat evil power” through overwhelming force. In Tolkien’s view, the danger was not simply the weapon itself, but the modern faith in power and the belief that it could be controlled by those who possessed it.

Tolkien’s line about “Babel-builders” and “lunatic physicists” could give the impression that he rejected science. He did not. He was simply recognizing the limits of science. The fantasy writer, a devout Catholic, understood that even though scientists could unlock the power of the atom, they could not fix humanity.

By 1945, it had become apparent that moral wisdom and scientific progress do not necessarily advance at the same pace. If the Great War and the horrors of the Soviet Union in the 1930s had not made this clear, the military destruction of the 1940s and the liberation of Auschwitz in January 1945 did.

Humanity had acquired unprecedented power without acquiring the corresponding wisdom to restrain it. For Tolkien, this was the great danger of the modern age. Man was learning to harness the forces of nature even as he slid comfortably toward its oldest sins: pride, envy, and the lust for power.

None of this is to say the Ring of Power is an allegory for nuclear weapons. It is not. Tolkien himself made that quite clear in a BBC interview in the 1960s.

Yet a central lesson of his literary masterpiece is that some forms of power are simply too great for humans to possess.

Perhaps, then, the greatest virtue is not seeking out people who can wield great power wisely, but in possessing the humility to recognize that some power should never be wielded at all.

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

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 23:20

How China Is Using Its Coast Guard To Assert Control At Sea

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How China Is Using Its Coast Guard To Assert Control At Sea

Over the past decade, China's Coast Guard (CCG) has evolved from a conventional maritime law enforcement agency into a central instrument of Beijing's strategy to reinforce its territorial claims, according to Bloomberg.

Now operating a fleet of roughly 680 vessels, it continues to conduct routine missions such as search and rescue, anti-smuggling operations, and fisheries enforcement, but increasingly serves broader strategic objectives.

Bloomberg reports that rather than relying solely on the navy, Beijing deploys the CCG to project control over contested waters in the South China Sea, East China Sea, and around Taiwan. Coast guard vessels regularly patrol disputed areas, escort Chinese fishing fleets, inspect foreign vessels, and employ coercive measures—including water cannons, lasers, blocking maneuvers, and collisions—to challenge rival claimants. They also operate alongside the People's Liberation Army Navy during military exercises, particularly those focused on Taiwan.

CCG operations have become both more frequent and more assertive. In mid-July, Chinese coast guard ships confronted Philippine vessels on three occasions, using water cannons despite the incidents occurring within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone. Taiwan has likewise reported a marked increase in CCG patrols, including sustained operations east of the island, fueling concerns that the force would play a prominent role in any future blockade or military campaign.

Analysts view the CCG as a key component of China's "gray-zone" strategy. Because its ships are presented as civilian law enforcement rather than naval assets, Beijing can press its maritime claims while making it more difficult for other countries to respond without risking military escalation. Maintaining a persistent coast guard presence also strengthens China's claim that it exercises effective control over disputed waters.

The agency's strategic importance has grown alongside institutional reforms. Created in 2013 through the merger of several maritime agencies, the CCG was placed under the People's Armed Police in 2018, bringing it under the authority of the Central Military Commission. A 2021 Coast Guard Law further broadened its powers, authorizing the use of force to defend China's claimed maritime rights. At the same time, the fleet has expanded to include some of the world's largest coast guard ships, several of which rival naval warships in size and capability.

China's increasing reliance on the CCG has prompted neighboring states to strengthen maritime cooperation, expand their own coast guard fleets, and step up patrols in disputed waters, contributing to a more contested and potentially volatile maritime environment.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 22:45

'You're Like A Parrot': RFK Jr. Destroys Dana Bash Over Fauci's COVID Lies

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'You're Like A Parrot': RFK Jr. Destroys Dana Bash Over Fauci's COVID Lies

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. obliterated CNN's Dana Bash during a fiery interview Sunday morning on State of the Union, and it was brutal.

The segment aired as measles outbreaks tore through several states, with public health officials warning that unvaccinated communities were fueling the spread of the disease to levels not seen in decades. Those outbreaks trace back to Joe Biden's presidency, when his administration allowed millions of illegal immigrants to pour across the southern border and bring diseases like measles back into communities that had all but wiped them out.

Bash spent much of the interview pushing Kennedy to look "into the camera" and tell parents to vaccinate their kids against measles. Kennedy did it.

He said exactly what she wanted him to say.

Then Bash kept going, and the interview went off the rails.

The conversation curdled into a fight over how the media treated skeptics and anyone who dared question the Biden administration's COVID-era public health guidance during the pandemic.

"You tweeted back in 2024 that [President Trump] let bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci shut down the entire country. Again, the president was in charge," Bash said to Kennedy.

“Trump, as you recall, wanted to end the lockdowns. I think the thing that did the most damage to our country was the lockdowns,” he said.

"Anthony Fauci was mismanaging the COID pandemic and he was doing it under the Biden Administration. President Trump wanted to end the lockdowns. And in fact, in Anthony Fauci's diaries, he talks about how President Trump was calling him every day, trying to get him to reopen the country," he added.

Bash continued with another accusation.

"You are the HHS secretary, and you are talking about things that lead to vaccine hesitancy in this country," she said.

"And it's something that causes problems for people when there is not anything."

Kennedy wasn't having it.

"Let me ask you something," he said.

"Do you see your job as ending vaccine hesitancy or do you see your job as telling the truth to the American people?"

Bash insisted her job was telling the truth.

"There is study after study after study," she said. "It's one of the most studied things out there in science." 

Kennedy pounced.

"You're repeating it like a parrot," he said, twice for emphasis.

Bash shot back, "So are you."

Kennedy wasn't buying it.

"I've actually read the science," he said. "You don't want to come back here and debate the science."

From there, Kennedy dismantled the premise CNN built its entire segment on: that trusting government "experts" is the same thing as trusting the truth.

"All you know how to do is repeat things that people told you and say, trust the experts," he said.

"That's what you did during COVID. Now we know that Anthony Fauci, who was the ‘expert,’ was lying about everything, about masks, about social distancing, about natural immunity, about the transmission from the vaccine, about the source of COVID. He was lying, and you were punishing people for not trusting the experts. And now you're rolling out the ‘experts’ again to talk about something that you have no personal knowledge of."

Bash tried to defend herself. "That is my job, to talk to people," she said. Kennedy wasn't finished. "Your job is to tell the truth to the American people," he replied.

If Bash thought she could lob a bunch of accusations against Kennedy and he would take it quietly, she was sorely mistaken. Kennedy didn't dodge a single question. He turned every one of them into an indictment of a press corps that spent years demanding blind obedience and calling it science.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 22:10

Jay Clayton To Become Top US Intel Official On Monday

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Jay Clayton To Become Top US Intel Official On Monday

Jay Clayton will take over as director of national intelligence (DNI) on Monday, according to a social media post by acting director Bill Pulte.

“I am eternally grateful to President Trump for the opportunity to serve as Director of National Intelligence, while he completed historic declassifications and we right sized the ODNI. I have no doubt that Jay will do a tremendous job,” Pulte wrote on Aug. 1 in a post on X.

“I have offered Jay my complete and total support as he transitions to take over this incredible agency!”

As Tom Gantert reports for The Epoch Times, the Senate confirmed Clayton as the next director of national intelligence in a 51–47 vote on July 28 after advancing his nomination in a series of largely party-line votes.

Pulte was appointed as acting director after Tulsi Gabbard resigned from the position to support her husband following his cancer diagnosis.

Pulte faced criticism from top Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who described him as “unqualified” and lacking intelligence experience.

During his confirmation hearing, Clayton pledged to strengthen trust in the intelligence community and improve coordination among intelligence agencies.

Democrats opposed his nomination, citing concerns over his testimony and ties to Trump, while Republicans described him as well qualified for the position.

Democrats criticized Clayton after his confirmation hearing for saying that Joe Biden was “certified as the president of the United States.”

“It has been clear for months that, under this administration, the main qualification to be DNI is the willingness to use the position to spread conspiracy theories about elections and to help Donald Trump make it harder for Americans to vote,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), said in a July 28 press release.

Trump praised Clayton following the confirmation, calling him “outstanding in every way.”

Clayton is a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he took on cases involving terrorists, cartels, and major national security threats, and is the former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the White House.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created by Congress in 2004 following recommendations from the 9/11 Commission to improve coordination among U.S. intelligence agencies after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The DNI serves as the head of the U.S. Intelligence Community, overseeing and coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies and organizations.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 21:35

India To Climate Cartel: Count Us Out

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India To Climate Cartel: Count Us Out

Authored by Vijay Jayaraj via American Greatness,

Sometimes a story gets buried not because editors conspire against it, but because the news cycle has room for only one crisis at a time.

This year the big news has been the Iran war. But even accounting for competing headlines, the silence around a genuinely consequential development is telling.

And that is the story of India’s explicit rejection of the global net zero movement. India has walked away from its bid to host the COP33 UN climate conference, and the world’s climate press has treated it as a footnote rather than the signal it is.

India had spent years projecting a rising voice in the development of climate policy, and hosting a COP33 is the closest thing the bureaucracy has to a coronation.

Then, quietly, without public explanation, India withdrew its offer. No press conference. No elaboration. Just a government stepping back from a role for which it auditioned for years.

The truth is India has run the numbers on the cost of a net-zero energy transition for a population of 1.4 billion climbing out of poverty, and it does not like what it sees.

The notion that India should shackle its economy by adhering to restrictive climate policies, while its people still grapple with energy deficits, is illogical and morally indefensible.

Data India Doesn’t Need a Summit to See

Furthermore, the narrative of a rapidly degrading Indian environment due to energy consumption is demonstrably false.

India’s own environmental indicators do not support the apocalyptic framing of the climate-obsessed.

For years, hydrologists and climate modelers have relied on estimates of Himalayan snowfall to forecast water availability for hundreds of millions of people across South Asia’s most fertile Ganges plains.

Their projections of a seriously drier India, it turns out, were wrong.

A team of researchers, including scientists from the British Antarctic Survey, the U.K. Met Office, and the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, used frozen high-altitude lakes as natural pressure sensors rather than relying on undersized conventional rain gauges. What they found was startling: In a single winter, the best available snowfall models had underestimated seasonal snow over the Lake Hampta area of Himachal Pradesh by 37 percent. The peer-reviewed study makes clear that conventional instruments have been missing large volumes of snow for decades.

Then there is the vegetation story, which cuts even harder against the doom narrative. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology modeled how India’s landscape would respond to a high-emissions future using the same family of computer models climate activists cite when warning of catastrophe.

The result was not desertification. It was the opposite. Gross primary production, a measure of how much carbon dioxide India’s forests, croplands, and other vegetation are absorbing, rose from roughly 729 grams of carbon per square meter annually in 1985 to about 830 by 2014 and is projected to nearly double to around 1,305 by the year 2100.

Layered onto that are the steady expansion of India’s forest cover over the past two decades and the recovering populations of endangered species such as tigers and Asiatic lions, successes resulting from conservation and habitat management rather than from decarbonization mandates.

All this means India has stopped outsourcing its environmental judgment to a U.N. process that treats every barrel of oil and every ton of coal as a moral affront, regardless of its benefit in lighting a clinic for children or powering a steel plant that employs thousands. A country that still has hundreds of millions of citizens without reliable access to electricity does not have the luxury of treating energy poverty as an acceptable trade-off for leadership in the climate industrial complex.

That is why India has expanded coal production and struck oil and gas deals with the United States and Persian Gulf producers. It has resisted binding emissions targets that would cap its own industrial growth, unwilling to commit to far-off targets for emission reductions. India’s relinquishment of COP33 hosting rights is perhaps the most visible expression of a strategic direction that has been building for years.

A country that the entire architecture of climate financing is supposedly built to help just declined to host the party. If climate summits worked as advertised, that would be unthinkable. But it is no longer, and pretending otherwise will not make the next withdrawal any less predictable.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 21:00

Is Anybody Ever Going To Say, "I'm Sorry"?

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Is Anybody Ever Going To Say, "I'm Sorry"?

Authored by Mollie Engelhart via The Epoch Times,

This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared before Congress and, on the advice of his attorney, repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than answering many of the senators’ questions.

Everyone is talking about what he did or didn’t know, whether he misled Congress, whether he should have answered the questions, and whether he should be held accountable.

But that wasn’t the moment from this week that I can’t stop thinking about.

My husband called me as he was driving home from picking up grain for the hogs. He had stopped at Restaurant Depot to grab pizza boxes and a few supplies for the ranch. Rarely does he pay attention to American politics. Rarely is he interested in the stories that consume me.

He simply asked, “What’s going on with Fauci?”

I explained that he had spent much of the hearing invoking the Fifth Amendment rather than answering senators’ questions.

There was a long pause.

Then he asked me something that caught me completely off guard.

“Is anybody ever going to say, ‘I’m sorry. I was wrong. It cost you and your family everything?”

I had to choke back tears because no—nobody has ever said that to us.

My husband and I worked hard. We built businesses. We lived what most people would call the American dream. We weren’t looking for a bailout. We weren’t failing. In fact, when COVID-19 hit, we were just weeks away from selling our restaurant company under a $31 million contract.

Then came “two weeks to slow the spread.”

Two weeks became months. Months became years.

Government policies, not the virus itself, destroyed everything we had spent decades building.

This hearing didn’t make me feel any better. If anything, it ripped open wounds that had finally started to scar over.

Americans are still carrying losses that will never appear on a government balance sheet. They exist instead as tears in the fabric of lives that once felt secure. Businesses built over decades disappeared. Retirement accounts were drained. Marriages came under tremendous financial pressure. Ours was one of them. Homes were lost. Careers ended. Dreams were abandoned. Six years later, many of those wounds have not healed.

It would be easy to make this article about Fauci, but the truth is he is just one bureaucrat.

He may be the most recognizable face of the pandemic response and one of its highest-paid officials, but he was never acting alone. Governors issued orders. County health departments enforced them. School boards complied. Corporate executives complied. Church leaders complied. Republicans complied. Democrats complied.

And so did we, the people.

That may be the hardest part for me to admit. Yes, I am angry at Fauci, but, to be honest, I am just as angry at us.

When I say “us,” I don’t mean that I personally embraced those policies. I questioned them from the beginning.

I have never been vaccinated. That wasn’t a decision I made because of COVID-19. It was how I had lived my entire life. My mother raised me to question pharmaceuticals and to be cautious about trusting the government. That foundation shaped how I viewed the pandemic from the very beginning.

I don’t think that made me special. I think it made me less susceptible to what I believe was the greatest psychological operation of my lifetime.

But we, the people, largely complied.

We accepted the closure of our churches.

We accepted the destruction of small businesses.

We accepted keeping children out of school.

We accepted that bureaucrats knew better than families, business owners, pastors, physicians, and neighbors.

I believe we knew remarkably early that COVID-19 posed overwhelmingly different levels of risk depending on age and overall health. I believe we knew that respiratory viruses are ultimately resolved through herd immunity. We knew children and healthy adults were at extraordinarily low risk compared with the elderly and those with serious underlying health conditions.

Yet instead of allowing the conversation to evolve as the evidence accumulated, fear became the dominant force. Questioning the policies often became more unacceptable than questioning whether the policies were actually working.

This wasn’t simply one man’s failure.

It was a national failure.

Bureaucrats at every level implemented policies that devastated ordinary Americans. Republicans and Democrats alike largely fell in line. Many citizens did as well, whether out of fear, trust, social pressure, or the belief that someone else surely knew better.

Those of us who resisted often paid dearly. My family certainly did.

I thought that chapter of my life was over. I thought I had graduated from wondering how I was going to pay the bills. I had lived that life in my 20s and early 30s. I had spent decades working eighty-hour weeks to build something that finally gave my family financial stability.

Then pandemic policies tore it all down, forcing me to start over.

Today, at 48, I find myself greeting every customer who walks through the door, hoping they’ll come back and tell a friend. I write every day, hoping my words ripple outward and bring people who believe in what we’re building.

I am grateful to still have the opportunity to build.

But this is not where I imagined I would be after decades of working to finally get ahead.

A virus did not destroy everything I built.

Government policies did.

That doesn’t mean every decision was made with bad intentions.

It does mean that good intentions can still produce devastating consequences, and when those consequences permanently alter millions of lives, accountability matters. Humility matters. The willingness to simply say, “We were wrong,” matters.

This week, my husband asked me a question I still don’t know how to answer.

“Is anybody ever going to say, ‘I’m sorry. I was wrong. It cost you and your family everything?”

I don’t know if that day will ever come.

But I do know this.

This week, in that congressional hearing, was not that day.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 19:50

Leftist Activists Establish 'Autonomous Zone' In Madison

Zero Hedge -

Leftist Activists Establish 'Autonomous Zone' In Madison

Authored by Ben Sellers via Headline USA,

Far-left activists with apparent ties to the Democratic Socialists of America recently established their own autonomous zone in Wisconsin's capital city, Madison.

Activist Carlos LeMar Dixon confronts Madison Police Chief John Patterson during a press conference about the shooting death of Corey Ruiz. / IMAGE: @CollinRugg via X

The tent cities have become a familiar sight in far-left cities where the destructive and disruptive occupation is openly encouraged by government officials.

Investigative reporter Andy Ngo noted that similar protests had occurred in Minneapolis and Seattle, both of which were ground zero for BLM riots during 2020's ironically dubbed "summer of love."

Seattle's 2020 autonomous zone, alternately called the CHAZ and the CHOP, became a haven for lawlessness and, eventually, murder.

Wisconsin-based conservative activist Eric Bott, a regional vice president at Americans for Prosperity, alleged that the democratic socialist officials in charge of Madison's municipal government were "providing financial support and protection" to the current insurrection.

The far-left occupiers purported to be demonstrating on behalf of Corey Ruiz, a serial criminal who was killed on July 22 after allegedly stabbing a police officer during an altercation.

Ruiz's lengthy rap sheet included eight prior convictions over a 17-year period for charges including resisting, obstructing, threatening or injuring police officers.

Further feeding the perception that the insurrection was being conducted with the blessing and imprimatur of city officials was a press conference the day after Ruiz's death, during which a group of activists, led by local real-estate agent Carlos LeMar Dixon, hijacked a police press conference.

Dixon, who is believed to be staging a write-in campaign for governor, previously admitted to stealing the campaign signs of rival candidates.

Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 18:40

The GOP Has Its Own Platner-Esque Nightmare Erupting In Ohio

Zero Hedge -

The GOP Has Its Own Platner-Esque Nightmare Erupting In Ohio

Democrats spent months navigating the endless Graham Platner scandals in Maine, before credible rape allegations finally forced him out. Republicans got their own Platner-esque scandal of their own this week in Ohio.

Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) posted a 25-minute video to X on Sunday morning to deny a stack of abuse allegations from his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, the daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno. He's been accused of holding a gun to her head, throwing scalding water at her, and fracturing their 2-year-old daughter's collarbone. Miller says none of it happened the way it's described, and he says a family court fight over custody explains why the story surfaced.

"Let me begin with the most painful accusation of all: I have never abused our daughter," Miller said in the video, adding that the claims "have damaged my reputation, caused enormous pain to my family, and most importantly, it's affected our daughter."

He asked viewers to draw their own conclusions from his ex-wife's behavior after the alleged assaults. "Ask yourself, if I had assaulted her, would she have offered to cook me dinner six days later? Would she have invited me to spend an afternoon at the playground with her and our daughter?" Miller said, insisting there is "no evidence" against him and that no court or child welfare investigation has substantiated the allegations. The boiling water, he said, was a kitchen sink spray mistaken for horseplay.

Police confirmed to CNN that prosecutors never filed charges over the daughter's collarbone injury, and that there are no other open investigations involving Miller or Moreno.

Miller has also filed a defamation suit against his ex-wife and her attorney. And the legal conflict cuts both ways: a judge last week ordered both Miller and Moreno - not just one of them - not to "threaten, abuse, annoy or interfere" with each other.

Whatever the merits of that defense, within the hour, Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio posted a statement.

"As he has admitted privately, Max Miller needs serious psychological help," Moreno wrote on X. "He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter." He went further still, writing that "if there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them" and that his former son-in-law "should not serve in the House of Representatives."

He continued, "If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them. He should not serve in the House of Representatives. I believe Max Miller needs to seek professional help to end the clear pattern of abuse he has left in his wake. I believe he should not be free to continue endangering others until he does."

Miller didn't let the statement sit unanswered. He shot back at Moreno in his own post on X, writing that "if my daughter said the same thing to me, I personally wouldn't wait two years before holding him accountable." "You know this isn't true and the only reason you are speaking out now is to hide from your own media circus. This is all political," he added.

A sitting Republican senator calling for a sitting Republican congressman to resign is not a dynamic party leadership wanted heading into a midterm cycle crowded with headaches. Moreno described the two years since the divorce as "pure hell" for his wife, his daughter and the rest of the family, which is not the kind of language reserved for a policy dispute.

Miller's Democratic opponent in the 7th District, union ironworker and Brook Park councilman Brian Poindexter, wasted no time exploiting the situation for his campaign. "No one credibly accused of holding a gun to his wife's head and breaking their 2-year-old daughter's collarbone belongs in the halls of power," Poindexter said in a social media post Sunday as part of a fundraising pitch.

Democrats clearly see an opening in a seat that was not on anyone's flip list a month ago.

Emily Moreno's spokesman, Stefan Mychajliw, offered his own assessment of Miller's livestream, and restraint was not the operative word. "It is shameful that Max Miller decided to go on a bizarre and lie-filled rant about his ex-wife to desperately try to save his political career," Mychajliw said in a post on X. "There is a documented trove of evidence that Miller has a history of violent and dangerous behavior and no amount of victim shaming will change that. Miller can lie and spin on X, but he cannot do so under oath in a court of law. We are confident that justice will prevail in court."

Miller, a former adviser in President Trump's first administration, who was previously endorsed by Trump this cycle, has given no indication he intends to step aside. "I'm not dropping out of this race," he said. "And I'll win in November."

The Ohio GOP faces a Wednesday deadline to swap him out if it wants a different name on the November ballot, an option party officials have discussed given the volume of pressure bearing down from inside the family and outside it alike.

Platner cost Democrats a clean shot at Susan Collins in Maine. Miller may cost Republicans a House seat that shouldn't even be competitive.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 17:30

Japan, Bretton Woods 2.0, & The End Of The Carry Era

Zero Hedge -

Japan, Bretton Woods 2.0, & The End Of The Carry Era

Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama is set to announce as early as Monday that Tokyo and Washington are coordinating on steps in the foreign exchange market to curb the yen’s weakness, a person familiar with the situation told Bloomberg.

Satsuki Katayama

The content of the announcement is still being worked on but could happen as early as Monday morning, the person said, declining to be identified as the information isn’t public.

Reuters earlier reported Katayama would confirm the joint action, and reinforce the two sides’ commitment to battle what they deem as excessive declines in the yen.

Japanese authorities bought yen and sold dollars during New York trading on Friday, Bloomberg reported earlier, citing one person with knowledge of the matter. At the close of New York trading on Friday, the yen was quoted at 157.40 to the dollar, the strongest since early May.

Just two days earlier, it was flirting around the weakest levels since 1986.

The sharp gains were fueled by a combination of direct purchases of the yen, calls by officials to banks that trade the currency and jawboning from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Katayama.

Bessent’s commitment to shoring up the yen was also shown when Reuters published a photograph of a notepad in front of him at a cabinet meeting in Camp David on Friday.

Under a “To Do” title, it was written “Buy Japanese Yen (JPY) $5-10 bil.”

Japan’s original plan appeared to have been to stick to a “no comment” line while the operation was underway, and offer only subtle hints of US support.

The approach was kept to Thursday and Friday.

But with multiple media reports emerging and Bessent’s to-do list on show, authorities may have decided to change course and make a clear public announcement.

The operation on joint action is “still ongoing,” Reuters said, citing an unidentified government official.

As James Thorne, Chief Market Strategist at Wellington Altus, explained via X, Bessent’s move toward the New York Fed matters because it signals that Treasury understands the long end is being driven by flows, not by the inflation scare Wall Street keeps recycling.

Japan is now central to that story.

If Tokyo must defend the yen, the Ministry of Finance may need to sell U.S. Treasuries, and when the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt becomes a seller, the long end will reprice.

That is why this moment looks bigger than a routine currency episode.

It has the feel of a new Plaza Accord and the opening phase of Bretton Woods 2.0.

Since the 1980s, Japan has sat at the heart of the global yen carry trade, exporting savings, suppressing yields, and helping sustain a financial order built on cheap leverage and central-bank engineering. That order is now breaking down.

The end of QE and the coming end of the yen carry trade mean capital markets, not central banks, will increasingly set rates.

This is also why the inflation narrative is so weak.

Breakevens remain anchored. Credit markets are not pricing a new inflation regime. Wall Street keeps labeling every rise in the long end as “inflation risk,” but that is intellectual laziness.

The real story is Japan, reserve liquidation, and a global adjustment process that has barely been recognized.

Adding to that pressure is Big Tech’s pivot from providing savings to demanding credit.

The same companies that once absorbed duration are now issuing debt to finance AI infrastructure, data centers, chips, and power.

That is another reason the long end is moving.

The upshot, secular forces are tightening credit conditions, and central bankers need to cut policy rates to help facilitate the adjustment.

A global economy hooked on the carry trade cannot go cold turkey.

This unwind requires finesse.

Bessent is starting that process, but central bankers and Wall Street still need to abandon the Keynesian dogma that treats rise in the long end as an inflation scare!

The deeper shift is structural.

America is escaping secular stagnation by running the economy hot through supply-side economics, deregulation, and productive investment.

A Warsh Fed would fit that world, because growth would no longer be treated as a policy mistake.

Japan, meanwhile, may finally be restructuring both its economy and its geopolitical role.

That is why this is not an inflation story. It is the beginning of a new regime.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 16:55

Bill Gates Held A Top Secret 'Q' Clearance For Seven Years - And The DOE Won't Say Why

Zero Hedge -

Bill Gates Held A Top Secret 'Q' Clearance For Seven Years - And The DOE Won't Say Why

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates held a top-tier "Q" security clearance at the Department of Energy from 2014 to 2021 - though the DOE didn't grant it. Another federal agency vetted him first, and the letter confirming the clearance doesn't say which one.

The detail comes from a DOE letter entered into the Congressional record by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). The letter emerged as Fauci faced fierce Republican blowback during his Senate hearing last week, where the longtime face of COVID policy pleaded the Fifth more than 100 times.

A "Q" clearance is the Energy Department's highest classification level, the kind normally reserved for people working on nuclear weapons design, national labs, critical energy infrastructure, and highly classified scientific research. Gates kept that clearance for seven years, starting under President Obama and running through the entirety of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One explanation as to why; Gates founded and chairs TerraPower, the advanced nuclear reactor company that has spent years working alongside DOE national laboratories and won Nuclear Regulatory Commission construction approval in March. A nuclear executive holding a nuclear clearance is not, on its own, a scandal.

But the letter doesn't mention TerraPower - or why he had it at all. What it does say is that the clearance was granted reciprocally on June 11, 2014 - meaning it originated at another federal agency, and DOE simply honored it - before terminating on December 6, 2021. The letter does not name the agency that vetted him in the first place.

That's the question sitting in the middle of this document, and nobody in the federal government has answered it. Which agency decided a private citizen needed access to Restricted Data under the Atomic Energy Act, and for what program?

Once a Q clearance expires, getting it back isn't automatic. The government keeps reviewing eligibility, and anyone hoping to restore it usually has to show a real change in circumstances.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 16:20

Bloomberg: Tesla’s Edsel Moment

The Big Picture -

 

 

Bloomberg just says it: The Cybertruck is an automotive disaster on par with the Edsel, which itself became shorthand for a total failure:

Ford introduced a car named the Edsel, named after Henry Ford’s son, almost 70 years ago. It’s widely viewed as the greatest automotive flop of all time. Tesla’s Cybertruck may now be well on its way to claiming that title.

Tesla started delivering its unusually angular vehicle in 2023 and Elon Musk called it the company’s best product ever, estimating the carmaker might build more than 250,000 annually. Initial reviews were mixed at best, and by the time Tesla started delivering the pickup years behind schedule, the company charged initial buyers more than $100,000. Cybertrucks faced production challenges from the start. It’s been plagued by recalls, and Tesla has been sued because its truck’s doors wouldn’t open after a crash. While Edsel sales dropped each year the model was on the market, Cybertruck sales are off to an even worse start. Just 7,133 have been registered in the US through May this year — and that count is buoyed by Musk’s SpaceX building out a fleet of the vehicles.

 

 

Source:
Tesla’s Cratering Cybertruck Sales Evoke Ford Edsel Comparisons
By Bethany Benjamin
Bloomberg, July 22, 2026

 

The post Bloomberg: Tesla’s Edsel Moment appeared first on The Big Picture.

'Defend Israel Or The Homeland': Top US General Issues Stark Warning To Pentagon Brass

Zero Hedge -

'Defend Israel Or The Homeland': Top US General Issues Stark Warning To Pentagon Brass

Via The Cradle

The highest-ranking US general in Europe informed the Pentagon this week that he does not have enough naval units to protect Israel against potential Iranian missile strikes, according to a report by the Washington Post on Saturday.

General Alexus Grynkewich, the head of US European Command (EUCOM), notified senior Pentagon officials in writing that without another navy destroyer, he will be forced to choose between defending the US "homeland" and defending Israel. Grynkewich's warning comes as US President Donald Trump continues to escalate the war on Iran.

Gen. Alex Grynkewich, source: US Air Force Senior Airman Spencer Perkins

The US Navy has shouldered a significant burden in waging the war, including responsibility for blockading Iranian ports in response to the Islamic Republic's closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

US naval destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean have long been part of Israel's defense strategy. They are equipped with radar systems and missile interceptors capable of countering Iranian ballistic missiles and drones.

EUCOM is responsible for protecting Israel from the Mediterranean and deterring any Russian ground incursion into NATO member states.

The US Navy has five destroyers deploying from Rota, Spain, with a sixth expected later this year. They face maintenance issues due to lengthy missions. The US is also reportedly experiencing a shortage of missile interceptors, which are costly to manufacture and hard to restock.

Pentagon assessments conducted earlier in the war showed that US forces have "shouldered the brunt of defending Israel from Iranian ballistic missiles."

Washington has used more of its defensive weapons, including the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and naval interceptors, to defend Israel from Iranian missile and drone attacks than Israel has used of its own interceptor stocks.

US inventories of Patriot missiles have now fallen below 1,000 and THAAD inventories to about 250, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Israel has not participated in the war on Iran since Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) and ceasefire in mid-June. Trump resumed attacks on Iran three weeks ago.

WaPo: "A shortage of Navy destroyers, used to defend against Iranian ballistic missile attacks, will force the head of U.S. European Command to prioritize the U.S. homeland instead officials said."

Last week, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel was content to remain out of the fighting and allow the US and its Gulf allies to fight the war on Tel Aviv's behalf.

"Israel has no interest in joining the campaign - the current situation is the best for us," Smotrich said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House last week and lobbied Trump to escalate the war by imposing a land blockade on Iran. According to a CBS News report on Friday, Washington and Tel Aviv are planning to significantly escalate the war of aggression by targeting Iran's vital energy infrastructure.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 11:40

Entitled Migrants Complain About Hospitality And Prices After Invading Spanish Territory

Zero Hedge -

Entitled Migrants Complain About Hospitality And Prices After Invading Spanish Territory

One of the most egregious fantasies promoted by liberals over the past several decades is the worshipful image of the desperate and grateful third world asylum seeker.  We see it constantly in movies television and popular media; the narrative of the "huddled masses, yearning to breathe free..."  This narrative has become so ingrained in western culture that it is absolutely world shattering when people find out how entitled and arrogant most migrants really are.

The flood of over 60,000 Muslim migrants from Morocco to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta has dashed a lot of progressive delusions in the past week, with migrants fresh from the beaches already looting businesses, raiding homes, attacking locals and setting fires.  European officials are reluctantly admitting that the invasion is a problem that must be corrected.   

The video evidence on social media is a crushing blow to the multicultural agenda, so much so that Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, complained about the optics of the images coming out of Ceuta on social media. 

Spanish officials have attacked the negative response of some European leaders as "selfish" and "prejudiced", stating that the European Union would be harmed by the "polarizing" rhetoric.  

But isn't this migrant horde exactly what European elites have been enabling for the past decade?  Yes, it is, but the Cueta incident is happening too quickly and gaining far too much public attention.  They usually prefer a "frog in a boiling pot" strategy over blatant barbarian pillaging plastered all over international news. 

But it gets much worse for the multicultural cabal, because interviews with these migrants are hitting the mainstream.  What these people have to say about their stay in Ceuta so far is mind blowing.  The entitlement is unprecedented.  Third worlders thought they were marching into a free buffet with easy access to amenities, jobs and westerners bowing at their feet. 

Instead, the illegals were met with closed businesses (for safety), prices they could not afford, no jobs and hostility from other migrants who came to Ceuta legally.  

People being beaten or killed (if the claims are true) is unfortunate, but then again, it seems to have worked.  Large numbers of migrants are reportedly leaving Ceuta on their own because they fear backlash from the locals.  There's an important lesson that could be learned her by populations across the western world:

If governments are not going to do their duty and secure national borders from invaders, then the public still has the power to make those invaders leave simply by making the lives of illegal migrants miserable.  If their experiences in the west are worse than their experiences in their home country, they will go back.

  

Of course, the entitlement of migrants is amplified by progressive leaders in the west.  Foreigners have been regaled with stories from western media about a land of plenty and a life of ease.  All they have to do is make the crossing and the streets will be paved with riches for the taking.  It is clear that the majority of migrants entering Ceuta were under the impression that they would be welcomed with open arms and lavished with subsidies.

Instead, the Spanish military is escorting thousands of them out of the enclave.  Or, at the very least, the military is making a good show of trying to remove the migrants from the area.  Meanwhile, the locals are doing the job that the government should have been doing from the beginning, which is making Ceuta so inhospitable to migrants that they will never want to go back.  

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 11:05

"Nothing Is 100%": CZ Warns Bitcoin Holders After $89 Million Coldcard Wallet Exploit

Zero Hedge -

"Nothing Is 100%": CZ Warns Bitcoin Holders After $89 Million Coldcard Wallet Exploit

Update (1030ET): A third wave of thefts against Bitcoin wallets built on flawed Coldcard firmware ran through Saturday morning, lifting observed losses to roughly 1,367 BTC - close to $89 million - drained from 4,585 addresses since Thursday.

As Cyberkendra.com reports, the size is not the interesting part. The third wave is the first one designed to be hard to follow, and that shift tells self-custody holders more about what happens next than any dollar figure does.

Galaxy Research published the wave-three findings early Sunday. Between 12:23 UTC on July 31 and 06:42 UTC on August 1, across blocks 960,396 to 960,471, another 207.73 BTC left 1,912 addresses. That is roughly a tenth of a coin per victim.

Wave one, which opened at 01:10 UTC on July 30 and closed 41 minutes later, took 1,082.65 BTC from 1,195 addresses — nearly a full coin each.

Wave two, on July 31, collected just 76.16 BTC from 1,478 addresses.

Median losses tell the same story more bluntly: 0.270 BTC in wave one, 0.010 in wave two, 0.013 in wave three. The operator is now emptying wallets worth a few thousand dollars apiece and still finding enough of them to spend ten hours sweeping.

Waves one and two were easy to map because the attacker made them easy.

Both funneled coins through a handful of shared collector addresses into P2WPKH holding wallets (pay-to-witness-public-key-hash — plain single-key SegWit outputs, fully visible on chain).

Wave three abandoned that.

Each victim's coins went to their own destination, and the proceeds now sit in 293 separate P2WSH vaults (pay-to-witness-script-hash, a format that keeps its spending conditions hidden until the first time the coins move). The sweeper also batched an average of 6.37 victims per transaction, where wave one took exactly one at a time, and scanned only the default derivation path instead of testing several branches per seed. Even the fee constant changed — 30 sat/vB in wave one, 50 and 10 in wave two, roughly 200 then exactly 10 in wave three.

That is either the same crew rebuilding after being enumerated in public, or a second crew grinding the same broken key space on its own.

The falling average haul suggests the profitable end of the vulnerable key space is picked over. That is cold comfort. Wave three's median take of 0.013 BTC is the clearest evidence yet that no balance is now small enough to be beneath the scanner's notice — and the sweeping had not stopped three days in.

* * *

As Decrypt.co detailed earlier, Binance founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao is warning crypto owners not to place blind faith in hardware wallets, following an exploit that drained tens of millions of dollars in Bitcoin from Coldcard devices.

In a Saturday post on X, Zhao cautioned that even hardware wallets can carry bugs, and that older wallets with long histories are not immune.

“Nothing is 100%,” he posted.

He suggested holders consider spreading their funds across several wallets as one way to reduce exposure, while acknowledging the approach carries its own trade-offs and that no setup is entirely foolproof.

CZ closed with his familiar refrain urging users to stay informed and keep their funds safe: “Stay SAFU!”

His comments followed the discovery of a flaw in Coldcard devices made by manufacturer Coinkite.

As Decrypt reported, a build error caused seeds on affected units to be drawn from a software fallback rather than the device's hardware random-number generator, leaving the private keys far easier to guess than intended.

The problem traced back to firmware shipped in March 2021, and updating the firmware does not fix a seed already created on a compromised device.

The scope of the theft has grown considerably since the first estimates.

Early reporting pegged losses at roughly 594 BTC, or about $38 million, drained from around 500 wallets.

According to a report from Galaxy Research, which mapped the flow of funds based on a pattern identified by engineers at Jack Dorsey’s Block, the toll is now put at 1,196 addresses drained for about 1,082.65 BTC, or roughly $70.2 million, in a 41-minute window on July 30.

That is nearly double the initial figure.

Galaxy said every sweep paid an identical hardcoded fee and left no change output, a signature it described as consistent with an automated tool spending keys it already held rather than owners moving their own funds.

“The pattern tells us these were all the same attacker — it does not capture the attack itself, which looks the same as if a coin owner chose to move coins,” Galaxy Research said, adding that Bitcoiners should move funds out of single-signature Coldcard addresses and into secure custody.

The victims spanned native SegWit and older address types, pointing to multi-path key scanning.

The stolen Bitcoin was consolidated within minutes into a handful of addresses and, per Galaxy, has not moved since.

Coinkite co-founder Rodolfo Novak said in an X post on Friday that the company takes responsibility for the firmware bug and has shipped emergency hotfixes.

Novak also warned that the update does not protect seeds generated on vulnerable firmware.

He advised users who generated seeds on vulnerable firmware to move their funds to a new seed.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 10:30

No, The Spanish Invaders Have Not All Just 'Gone Home'

Zero Hedge -

No, The Spanish Invaders Have Not All Just 'Gone Home'

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Spanish authorities and their leftist allies are pushing the line that the tens of thousands of migrants who stormed Ceuta have mostly "gone home." The claim is pure fantasy. Fresh video from the streets shows the city still under siege, with invaders assaulting facilities, smashing graves, clashing with locals, and turning a Spanish enclave into a no-go zone.

This is the same dangerous mass migration reality that open-borders ideologues keep denying, even as the evidence piles up in real time.

The official narrative landed hard on Friday. Spain's Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares declared that "the practical totality of those who entered Ceuta have already returned to Morocco." The Spanish Embassy in the UK amplified the message, insisting almost everyone was gone, that no one could reach the mainland without ID checks, and that Schengen integrity remained fully guaranteed.

The Guardia Civil's own association posted that Ceuta was "breathing again," with returns advancing little by little and normality returning thanks to security forces.

Locals on the ground immediately called it a lie. One Ceuta resident posted that around 50,000 invaders remained, the city was collapsed, and the official numbers were pure spin. Video filmed that same afternoon showed streets still packed, nothing like the "most have left" story.

Just days earlier, we documented the initial invasion and the subsequent rampage through homes and streets.

The claim that the crisis simply evaporated overnight collapses under the weight of the footage still circulating.

While Madrid spun the returns, Moroccan migrants were filmed storming a public asylum centre in Ceuta. The CETI facility came under direct assault as the government continued insisting order had been restored.

Elsewhere, invaders smashed Christian graves and hurled the broken pieces at Spanish citizens. Locals fought back with whatever they could grab while police and military presence remained inadequate.

Knives came out in the open. Migrants stabbed one another in the streets while Spanish residents stayed locked indoors, prisoners in their own city of roughly 80,000 people now overrun.

Cars belonging to locals were attacked simply for driving past and showing dissatisfaction. Grocery stores had to be fenced off and guarded by police to stop looting by the hungry crowds.

Vehicles burned at the border as the surge continued. Groups of military-age men, far from the "families and refugees" talking point, were filmed taking escalators and moving through the city with the swagger of occupation rather than desperation.

A morning drive through the "conquered" enclave captured the new normal: streets transformed, Spanish life subordinated.

One clip captured the pure contempt: an invader brutally attacking a Spaniard. Another showed the broader pattern of violence and disorder that leftist outlets prefer to ignore.

A simple question cut through the spin: if these were genuine asylum seekers looking for safety and a better life, why the rampage, the attacks on civilians, the destruction of graves, and the open hostility?

A hospital worker described axes and sticks in the streets, people entering homes, shops boarded up, and police turning on protesting Spaniards while the border remained porous.

Estimates put the influx at 50,000 according to Interior, up to 60,000 according to Ceuta's own president, in a city of 84,000. Twenty-four bodies had already been recovered from the coast by that point. Sánchez visited for three hours, spoke alone without the local president, and left to shouts of resignation.

Spanish intelligence reportedly warned the government in advance, including details of rehearsals and coaches massing in the nearby Moroccan town of Castillejos. The warnings were ignored.

The fury was not confined to Ceuta. Thousands of Spaniards gathered outside PSOE headquarters in Madrid, chanting against Pedro Sánchez and rejecting the government's handling of the invasion.

Instead of securing the border, Sánchez went on the offensive against other European leaders. In a letter to EU heads of government he denounced those who had tightened controls as "selfish."

Italy suspended free movement under the Schengen agreement with Spain for a month. Meloni made clear that uncontrolled illegal migration threatens Europe's security and that Italy would not stand by. France ramped up checks on its Spanish border, planning a fivefold increase in officers.

Sánchez wrote: "In the current international context, the European Union cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarising and unlawful reaction." He demanded an emergency meeting of interior ministers. Spain's interior minister echoed the line, asking for "greater solidarity, more responsibility and less selfishness" while reminding critics of Lampedusa.

The European Commission confirmed no migrants had reached the mainland or the wider Schengen zone, yet the political fallout continued. At least 67 people died in the crossings according to Spanish figures released on Saturday. A 500-metre floating barrier was being installed at the Tarajal breakwater. Soldiers broadcast messages in Arabic telling the young men to go home.

The numbers and the images do not match the soothing government script. Ceuta's president estimated 60,000 entries. Returns were real, but thousands remained and the disorder persisted.

Footage kept arriving of assaults, desecration, violenace, and a city that had not simply returned to normal overnight. Leftist voices seized on the official talking points to deny the obvious: this was a coordinated mass breach that exposed the fragility of open-border policies and the willingness of socialist governments to prioritise ideology over their own citizens' safety.

When a government treats a sudden invasion of tens of thousands of military-age men as a temporary inconvenience that can be papered over with press releases, the people on the ground pay the price.

What is happening in Ceuta is the direct result of years of failed deterrence, amnesty incentives, and the refusal to treat borders as non-negotiable. Europe's more serious leaders are already acting. Sánchez prefers to lecture them for defending their own populations.

The footage keeps proving who is living in reality and who is not.

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 Sun, 08/02/2026 - 10:00

Water-System Hacks Hit 7 States This Week, FBI Warns, As Trump Shoots Down Iran Theory

Zero Hedge -

Water-System Hacks Hit 7 States This Week, FBI Warns, As Trump Shoots Down Iran Theory

Cyberattacks on municipal water systems were reported in at least seven states this week, according to a joint public service announcement from the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency - and in some cases, the agencies say, the malicious activity actually degraded water operations. The feds declined to name the states.

A water tower in Plymouth, Minnesota, on Thursday after a cyberattack targeted the operating technology at more than 30 water systems across the state. (Ellen Schmidt/AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

The warning lands just days after we reported that a "coordinated cyberattack" struck more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota over July 26-27 - knocking the water plant in tiny Braham offline for a stretch, pushing Plymouth and South St. Paul onto manual operations, and prompting Maple Plain to declare a local state of emergency, according to Just The News.

The playbook, per federal officials, was crude but effective: attackers remotely accessed internet-facing operational technology, changed device IP addresses and passwords, and locked utility operators out of their own monitoring and control systems, NBC News reported. The PSA is now pleading with utilities to do the bare minimum - pull programmable logic controllers off the open internet and put them behind gateways and firewalls, use actual passwords, and restrict which devices are allowed to talk to one another.

(Yes - in the year 2026, a nontrivial share of the machines controlling America's drinking water are still sitting on the public internet, some with absurdly simple passwords.)

CISA followed Thursday with an advisory warning that Iranian-affiliated actors are going after U.S. critical infrastructure, water and wastewater systems included - an update to guidance the agency first pushed out in April, which we flagged in our earlier coverage. Some of the larger water-sector intrusions, the advisory notes, have produced boil-water notices and left plants grinding along in manual mode for extended stretches. CISA's top-line fix is the same one it has been repeating for years: cut direct internet access to control systems.

Except - Washington can't agree on who did it.

Multiple U.S. officials have told ABC News the Minnesota attacks may be linked to Iran, and investigators' preliminary assessment reportedly leans the same way - with the caveat that it could change. Meanwhile President Trump denied it. Speaking to reporters at Camp David on Friday, Trump dismissed the Iran theory - "Iran should be so lucky," he said - and instead pinned the blame on what he called Minnesota's grossly incompetent and corrupt leadership under Gov. Tim Walz, arguing Tehran has bigger problems than the Gopher State's pump stations.

Cybersecurity veteran Morgan Wright, founder of the National Center for Open and Unsolved Cases, told The Hill that Iran is the likely culprit, pointing to the CISA advisory as one tell. The U.S. may dominate on land and at sea, Wright argued, but cyberspace is the one domain where Tehran gets to punch above its weight class. Federal officials, for their part, caution that attribution requires careful technical analysis alongside broader threat intelligence - because otherwise it looks like the same nakedly transparent propaganda we've been fed for decades (duh).

That said - there is precedent as we detailed in our Minnesota coverage, if we're to believe the official stories. In November 2023, the IRGC-linked CyberAv3ngers seized control of a device at the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. In early 2024, the Cyber Army of Russia Reborn claimed attacks on water facilities in the U.S. and Poland, including a breach in Muleshoe, Texas that dumped tens of thousands of gallons of water. In October 2024, American Water - the largest regulated water utility in the country, serving more than 14 million people across 14 states and 18 military installations - shut down computer systems after a cyberattack. Beijing's Volt Typhoon has spent years quietly pre-positioning inside U.S. critical-infrastructure networks, per CISA. And just weeks ago, the Iranian MOIS-linked Handala persona claimed to have compromised California Water Service - which serves roughly 2 million customers - leaking 5 gigabytes of data, then vowed via Tehran's Press TV to keep hitting U.S. industrial control systems.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 09:45

Spain's Immigration Crisis: Ceuta & The Collapse Of Sánchez's Pro-Migration Experiment

Zero Hedge -

Spain's Immigration Crisis: Ceuta & The Collapse Of Sánchez's Pro-Migration Experiment

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

The new migration crisis in Ceuta is not an isolated episode or a simple border emergency. It is the result of a deeply irresponsible and damaging political and economic model. Sánchez boasts about aggregate growth while destroying cohesion, productivity, net real income per capita, and institutions. Spain is not an example of growth, migrant integration, or cohesion. It is a statistical mirage juiced by population increase and a fiscal time bomb. It has taken a migration crisis for the European Union to wake up.

Illegal immigration is not a stroke of fate or a recipe for growth and for shoring up public finances; it is a strategy of control and demolition of the nation from within, with the aim of creating a dependent, captive underclass, buying votes by altering demographics and shifting onto future generations the enormous cost to the state of a population increase whose net contribution to public accounts is overwhelmingly negative.

Spain was presented by progressives as a model of migrant integration. It was never true, and now it has become a full‑blown crisis. The uncontrolled wave of illegal immigration is the direct result of the socialist government’s policies: mass regularizations, subsidies, and the constant message that illegal migration pays.

For years, Spain has attracted uncontrolled inflows with promises of regularization and public transfers, while Brussels looked the other way because headline GDP grew and the statistics looked “inclusive.” However, the cost is enormous and borne by Spanish workers and taxpayers and, increasingly, by the entire European Union. Its elite tolerated Spain’s destructive policies as long as aggregate GDP was fattened, even in the face of the clear warning sign that GDP per capita was stagnating and pressure on public services and social unrest were rising.

The Sánchez government and its coalition have imposed unprecedented regularization processes, presenting them as a model for Europe and explicitly linking them to GDP increases and the supposed sustainability of the welfare state. This was a major deception. Regularized illegal immigration does not make pensions more sustainable; quite the opposite, because its net contribution to public accounts is unquestionably negative, as all studies on the matter show. Meanwhile, the government inflates aggregate GDP, but GDP per capita, net real wages, productivity, and the real effective employment rate remain stagnant.

The Spanish government has presented itself to the world with an openly pro‑immigration stance, at odds with decisions taken by the European Union itself. However, the Commission and the EU remained silent in the face of the assault on institutions, corruption, and the disaster of migration policy. European institutions bear responsibility because they supported and amplified Sánchez’s destructive, extensive migration policy, presenting it as if it were inclusive. They ignored the evidence that Spain’s numbers are poor once you look beyond headline GDP.

Stagnant GDP per capita: the IMF’s own estimates show that Spain’s GDP per capita will grow by just 1% a year between 2018 and 2027, exactly the same as the euro area average.
Falling net real wages: under Sánchez they have fallen by almost 3%.
Real unemployment: 3.7 million real unemployed, including inactive workers registered with the SEPE and 792,341 inactive permanent‑intermittent workers. The number of effectively unemployed has barely improved since 2019.

Zero fiscal consolidation: the net debt of the public administrations under the Excessive Deficit Procedure has risen to a record 1.6 trillion, while the total liabilities of the public sector have increased by more than half a trillion to 2.2 trillion. Debt‑to‑GDP and the deficit only appear to improve because the denominator is being doped with immigration and inflation above the euro area average.
An unsustainable Social Security system: Sánchez has multiplied Social Security’s debt, and the system needs a bailout every year from a state that is already in deficit. Immigration is not going to reduce that enormous hole; it increases it, as its net contribution is mostly negative.

All the data on the Spanish economy show weakness, statistical illusions, and severe imbalances, but the European Union and the Commission preferred to remain silent, buy the official propaganda, and cling to a doped aggregate GDP. The same thing they did with Greece between 2004 and 2007.

The official narrative highlights headline GDP contributions and demographic arguments while remaining silent about the stagnation of GDP per capita, productivity, net real wages, and the fiscal and institutional strain of absorbing huge irregular inflows through emergency regularizations instead of orderly, skills‑based migration. The EU allowed it because Sánchez sold it as a model when the time bomb was already obvious.

The Spanish government’s strategy is clear: to create a gigantic underclass dependent on public subsidies and captive as a future electorate. The massive inflow of illegal immigrants is the consequence of years of mass regularization policies, subsidy announcements, basic income plans, and a sustained pull factor.

Ceuta is facing its worst migration crisis in years, with thousands of irregular entries in barely a week and reception facilities completely overwhelmed. Centers for adults and minors are overflowing, local authorities speak openly of a humanitarian and social emergency, and the daily pressure on the border shows just how far the state has lost its capacity for anticipation and deterrence. This is not just a migration crisis. It is also a crisis of authority, planning, and institutional credibility.

To understand what Sánchez calls “the rocket,” today in Ceuta “GDP goes up,” but people in Ceuta are poorer and worse off.

More migration pressure, overwhelmed public services, greater dependence on public money, more debt, and higher future taxes, while Sánchez boasts about the figures and abandons the border.

The government uses the 0.7% quarterly and 2.7% year‑on‑year GDP growth in the second quarter of 2026 as if it were proof of strength, but aggregate growth is not prosperity. Spain is not growing; it is swelling and getting deeper into debt. The government relies on demographic expansion, artificially propped‑up domestic demand, rising public spending, and jobs in low‑productivity sectors.

Spain is growing in volume and getting poorer in quality. Aggregate GDP increases, but the net real income of its citizens deteriorates. The economy is doped with population and spending while efficiency, competitiveness, and per-capita well-being worsen.

On top of this comes inflation. The flash estimate for July, at 3.5%, once again puts Spain above the euro area average, which had eased to around 2.8%. This gap is not irrelevant. It means loss of competitiveness, more pressure on costs, further erosion of purchasing power, and greater difficulty in turning growth into real prosperity. Spain not only grows with low productivity but also with relatively high inflation. It is the worst combination for selling a supposed durable economic success.

The Spanish economy shows no structural leap in productivity, no decisive improvement in productive investment, and no solid convergence in GDP per capita with the most advanced economies of the euro area, where it remains 8 points below the average of a European Union that itself is not doing well, according to Eurostat.

The Ceuta crisis is a symbol of the complete failure of this model. A massive, irregular inflow of people generates, in the short term, a higher volume of measured activity because it triggers emergency spending, more budget mobilization, and more administrative needs. Statistically, that “pushes up GDP.” However, socially and economically the balance is devastating: it makes citizens poorer, worsens security, increases pressure on housing, healthcare, and education, and the cost is borne by taxpayers who already shoulder high debt, rising taxes, and a loss of net real purchasing power.

This is what “sanchismo” calls success: the numbers grow, and reality deteriorates.

Spain is not suffering border chaos by accident. It is the consequence of Sánchez’s mass regularizations and years of pull‑factor policies, a message to the world that entering illegally pays off.

It is not a mistake; it is a power strategy. Sánchez seeks to create a captive underclass, dependent on subsidies and papers, that will vote for him in the future and shift the social consequences and the bill onto taxpayers. While the government sinks under corruption scandals and loses social support, it tries to cling to power by dismantling Spain and its institutions and importing the future voters it is losing today.

Sánchez is not governing Spain; he is dismantling it in an attempt to cling to power. That is the big lie of Sánchez’s “rocket,” bloating up instead of truly growing.

It seemed Elon Musk was on to Sánchez early on. After the prime minister defended his amnesty plan in April, Musk wrote on X, "Dirty Sánchez is guilty of high treason."

Sánchez responded cheekily at the time, "Mars can wait. Humanity can't." 

Call that humanity?

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 09:20

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