Zero Rss

EU Plans €100 Billion Project To Bring African Sunlight To Power Europe's Electric Revolution

The European Union, which has been starved for cheap energy since the start of the Ukraine war, is betting that the future of its energy system lies under the North African sun. On Tuesday, the European Commission pledged €5 billion of EU money to renewables projects in North Africa and the Middle East, which could feed electricity back into Europe’s grid, Politico reported.

The dream is that solar panels in the sun-soaked Sahara Desert and wind turbines along the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean generate electricity that is then sent through high-voltage transmission lines under the sea and into Europe’s grid. While visionary, the probability of this happening in the next decade is slim, meanwhile the bill for Europe - which is even more cash-strapped than it is energy-strapped - would be astronomic.

That electricity would replace imported fossil fuels, helping Europe meet its ambitious electrification and climate targets.

The Commissions hopes the EU funding will lure private money to co-invest, mobilizing up to €25 billion of investment in solar, wind, hydrogen, electricity grids and other clean technologies by 2035.

"The EU's bill for fossil fuel imports has increased by over €47 billion in the past 100 days, but not a single molecule of energy in addition," EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen said during a press conference announcing the new initiative on Tuesday.

By 2035, the Commission expects the initiative to support the development of at least 15 gigawatts of new renewable-energy capacity, create more than 100,000 jobs and strengthen electricity interconnections across the Mediterranean. It wasn't clear if the Commission also factored in the astronomic costs such a project would require, or where it would get the funds.

The launch of the initiative, known as T-MED, comes as Europe faces renewed volatility in global energy markets because of the war in Iran. Jørgensen linked the initiative directly to the current crisis, arguing that recent events have once again exposed the risks of relying on fossil fuels.

"Our energy security must be based on electrified energy systems that are based on clean energy, modern grids and increased connectivity," he said.

According to Brussels, North Africa and the Middle East holds around 2,300 gigawatts of renewable-energy potential,  more than twice the EU's current installed capacity. Solar and wind power can be produced 30 to 40 percent more cheaply than in Europe, the Commission estimates.

"Our objective is simply to turn potential into projects, projects into investments and investments into jobs and growth," said Mediterranean Commissioner Dubravka Šuica during the launch on Tuesday.

Yet the scale of the challenge remains enormous. By the Commission's own estimates the region will require well over €100 billion in investment by the end of the decade to fully exploit its renewable-energy potential. Officials acknowledged Tuesday that the €25 billion target is only a starting point. Meanwhile, as Rabo's Michael Every notes, such a project would require both massive capital as well as Africa not wanting that power for its own economy, not to mention an EU ability to physically protect such installations in a region plagued by Islamist attacks and Russian influence in places. "That could therefore cost more than €100bn."

The Commission hopes a new T-MED investment platform, due to become operational in September, will help bridge that gap by bringing together governments, development banks, project developers and private investors. At the same time, Brussels plans to push partner countries to simplify permitting procedures, improve grid access and strengthen regulatory frameworks in order to make projects more attractive to investors, which of course will be critical since the project would have to be funded with new debt. Lots of debt.

The initiative resembles a strategy Europe has pursued before. More than a decade ago, the Desertec project sought to harness North African solar power and export it to Europe. Despite early enthusiasm, the project ultimately ended up as a - pardon the pun - flaming disaster amid political uncertainty, financing challenges and concerns over the cost of new infrastructure.

Similar projects in other parts of the world have also collapsed: the Sun Cable project, for example, which promised to power Singapore with Australian sunlight via what would have been the longest undersea power cable in the world, was a flop.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/11/2026 - 04:15

Merkel Receives The First European Order Of Merit Award, Repeats Call For Crackdown On Free Speech

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The European Union recently announced the first recipients of its new European Order of Merit, the organization’s highest award. The headliner was Angela Merkel, former Federal Chancellor of Germany, who indeed personifies the European Union for both her fans and her critics. For many years, some of us have criticized Merkel as one of the leading forces behind European censorship efforts that have eviscerated the “Indispensable Right.” 

Not surprisingly, Merkel called for more censorship and attacks on free speech to a thrilled audience of EU bureaucrats and globalists.

In one of the most ironic moments, Merkel declared, “Europe was not handed to us. It was built treaty by treaty, crisis by crisis and by people who chose solidarity over division and cooperation over self-interest.” Indeed, it was not handed to them.

As I discuss in my new book, “Rage and the Republic, the EU was formed by design to incrementally get citizens in Europe to give up their national identities and rights:

The EEC worked to remove barriers to trade and coordinate national regulations to achieve greater uniformity. As nations conformed to such transnational standards, the final step toward transnational governance became less of a conceptual barrier for citizens, particularly younger citizens…

…The evolution of the EU is a cautionary tale. It began with assurances of marginal coordinating bodies and policies over areas like nuclear power and scientific research. Through this planned incrementalism, each insular move was defended on its narrow purpose while dismissing objections as nationalistic or conspiratorial. That planned incrementalism worked brilliantly in getting citizens to accept transnational governance.

Merkel was critical in that effort. She is blamed for opening the borders to a flood of undocumented immigrants that has caused rising violence and protests throughout Europe. However, her crowning jewel was the crackdown on free speech. She can honestly claim that Germans (and Europeans as a whole) have fewer rights after her public service. She increased the power of government, stripped away free speech rights, and reduced national identities without firing a shot.

Merkel consistently opposed free speech, building a censorship system that gave the government ever greater control over speech. Her decision to first apologize to authoritarian Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for a satirical poem and then approve the prosecution of the comedian is a shocking and chilling disgrace. Now, she is throwing her support behind a crackdown on “hate speech” on social media like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube — radically expanding the already broad scope of government regulation of speech.

Merkel declared, “I support efforts by Justice Minister Heiko Maas and Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere to address hate speech, hate commentaries, devastating things that are incompatible with human dignity, and to do everything to prohibit it because it contradicts our values.”

Merkel was a driving force in using such subjective standards as “compatibility with human dignity” as a foundation for government-imposed speech controls.

Merkel also threatened social media companies, warning they would face a government crackdown if they failed to get rid of “fake news.” Merkel insisted that such postings must be dealt with by the companies or the government will step in.

In her speech in May to the EU, Merkel doubled down on her attacks on free speech as a threat to the world order. She called for the prosecution of  American companies for spreading “disinformation” and “hate” online.

She denounced the “so-called social media” platforms as still not facing “accountability for lies.” She added, “I can only encourage you to continue regulating social media.”

I could think of no better recipient for the first European Order of Merit. No one better sums up EU values than Angela Merkel and her unrelenting campaign against free speech. For globalists who have called for “A New World Order with European Values,” Merkel is the perfect personification of a globalist dream of a world of regulated speech and transnational government.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/11/2026 - 03:30

Poland Won't Stand In The Way Of Ukraine's EU Bid, Despite Relations Hitting Rock Bottom

Poland will not obstruct the commencement of negotiations regarding Ukraine's accession to the European Union, but Warsaw remains firmly opposed to granting any preferential treatment to Kyiv, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has told journalists.

Relations between the two Eastern European allies have reached crisis-mode of late, after President Volodymyr Zelensky named an elite special operations unit after "UPA Heroes" - to denote a high honor for battlefield performance.

For Warsaw, uplifting this name is tantamount to backing the genocide against the Polish people:

For Poland, the UPA, or the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, is responsible for a campaign of genocidal ethnic cleansing in the 1940s that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 100,000 Polish civilians in Volhynia (known as Volyn in Ukrainian and Wołyń in Polish), a historic region with deep Polish and Ukrainian roots. This violence also systematically targeted Jewish survivors who had escaped the Holocaust.

Amid the diplomatic dispute sparked by the renaming, the Polish government is still promising not to let the issue steer its thinking on Ukraine's aspirations to join the European Union. It is pledging to remain objective related to examining Ukraine's status.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk specifically pledge before reporters this week that his government will not use the WW2 issue to block the start of EU negotiations centered on Ukraine.

"We are not going to trade our support for [European] ambitions of Ukraine," Tusk stated. According to more background:

The Prime Minister was responding to a reporter's question about whether Warsaw intended to block the accession talks following recent decisions by Volodymyr Zelenskyy to glorify historical followers of Stepan Bandera.

Despite the diplomatic friction, Tusk emphasized that Warsaw would maintain a strict, standard approach to the accession process.

"Nevertheless, there will be no special terms from our side. Poland will support Ukraine on its path to Europe on terms that will be European, as well as safe and beneficial for Poland," Tusk added.

🔴Poles' Reaction to "Heroes of the UPA" is an act of Cain

Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn — an educator within the Azov-rooted 3rd Assault Brigade whose callsign is "Nachtigall" (after the Abwehr battalion formed from the OUN in 1941) — described Polish outrage over awarding a military… pic.twitter.com/kxXat3M3in

— Marta Havryshko (@HavryshkoMarta) June 7, 2026

Poland also has other pressing concerns, not the least of which is the immigration and war refugee issue. Poland has throughout over four years of the Ukraine war had to absorb hundreds of thousands of refugees and war-displaced families.

A future where Ukraine could become part of the EU might prove a major drain on Poland's own struggling economy and resources.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/11/2026 - 02:45

After Horrific Belfast Migrant Knife Attack, U.K. Officials Think The Problem Is X

Authored by Monica Showalter via American Thinker,

Northern Ireland went up in flames as angry Irish mobs rioted in the streets and burned down publicly funded migrant housing complexes last night.

The spark that set it off was a migrant who tried to behead a resident.

This is the attack in living color, which was posted on X:

Tekijä: Hadi Alodid, sudanilainen turvapaikanhakija

Video tapahtuneesta: pic.twitter.com/XLHbgMxRCo

- Roni Arvonen (@RoniArvonen) June 10, 2026

Mob action is never desirable but the anger was predictable, as the details were worse than they looked: An innocent Scotish resident, Stephen Ogilvy, who is partially deaf, was helping a Sudanese 'asylum seeker' move into his residence. The migrant, Hadi Alodid, had entered the country in 2023 and got a five-year pass to seek 'asylum.' For unknown reasons, the migrant grabbed Ogilvy, began slashing him with a knife, gouging out one eye and severely damaging the other, slashed his knife all over Ogilvy's face, and then began to cut Ogilvy's head off in the street. He was intercepted by locals, one of whom hit him over the head with a shovel, saving Ogilvy's life. Ogilvy's alive, but gets to go through life not just nearly deaf, but nearly blind, too.

Coming on the heels of the Henry Nowak murder by a migrant-involved person, along with the bad police response, and it was too much for many in Belfast.

The riots that followed were the result of the state which failed to protect the people from uninvited barbarians who repaid kindness with savagery and who exhibited little consideration for the victims.

Brendan O'Neill, who's a heckuva good writer, sums it up this way at Sp!ked:

Yes, only the blood-stained degenerate bears responsibility for the horrors inflicted on that innocent man. But we now know the piece of scum had an army of witless aiders and abetters. There lurks in the background of this abomination a whole regime of complicity. The wilfully oblivious technocrats who have overseen the withering of our borders. The spineless legal system that refuses to remove people who should not be here. The virtue-hoarding activist class that agitates for the right of every 'asylum seeker' to stay, because they cherish the spotlight of self-righteousness far more than they do the safety of working-class men and women. None of them wielded the knife, no; but all helped to pave the way for that reprobate's presence in Belfast.

Isn't there now a case against officialdom of reckless endangerment? Every week there are reports of horrifying rapes carried out by illegal immigrants. Working-class women and girls have suffered sickening abuse at the hands of men who came on small boats under the noses of our apathetic, cowardly rulers. People have been murdered, too. From the alleged rape gang overseen by Afghan nationals in Norwich to last night's demented bloodletting in Belfast - when are we allowed to say this is all the bitter harvest of state failure, the predictable outcome of refusing to get a handle on who is coming here and why?

But the response of the state was utterly repulsive.

Officials expressed umbrage about the news getting out, not the migrant problem and the state that had ushered them in.

Their fury was concentrated almost solely on the reacting rioters, who were branded 'racists' as they always are, instead of the underlying crime - notice that the U.K. legislator shows no 'horrified' sentiment about the crime, just the resulting disorder:

🇬🇧 A single knife attack in Belfast cost a man his left eye and set off a night of city-wide violence and unrest.

Hadi Alodid, 30, has been charged with attempted murder.

PM Starmer addressed the resulting unrest in Belfast at PMQs, calling the disorder "completely... https://t.co/9pDVq3bmgT

- Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) June 10, 2026

I am horrified by the disorder and racist violence in Belfast last night.

Far too often now, we see extremists exploiting people's anger and grief to spread hatred and violence - with the help of divisive algorithms on social media.

This has to stop.

- Ed Davey (@EdwardJDavey) June 10, 2026

Then they tried to cover it up by shutting the family up.

These crimes and bad responses from officials are now so frequent the British public believes it knows what's going on:

100% written by the government.

Nobody refers to their own family member as "loved one" pic.twitter.com/uGOhWB8Zui

- Kevin MacLean (Fortress of Lugh) (@FortressLugh) June 10, 2026

It took the nudge unit a day, but they got to them in the end. https://t.co/025qI3NWVO

- Gary McLeeve. (@GaryMcleft) June 10, 2026

Nudge unit. In the U.K., they have them.

After that, they blamed Elon Musk, who owns X:

🚨KEIR STARMER COMMITS TO CRACK DOWN ON X

Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey says it's "NOT FREE SPEECH"

Starmer agrees and says we need to crack down on X for whipping up violence

These people are insane
They're authoritarian and dangerous
They must be removed from power pic.twitter.com/mnC1VtJdWG

- Basil the Great (@BasilTheGreat) June 10, 2026

The scenes we saw in Belfast yesterday were horrific, and people are right to be concerned.

The Government must take action against tech billionaires like Elon Musk, who control the divisive and harmful social media algorithms that are inciting violence and hatred. pic.twitter.com/aBBcPUYzSH

- Ed Davey (@EdwardJDavey) June 10, 2026

Including the media intelligentsia:

24 hours after footage of an African man trying to saw the head off his Scottish victim in a Belfast street circulated online, Irish politicians and journalists openly discuss on live TV how such videos can be suppressed, in future.
We're going down a dark road. #TonightVMT pic.twitter.com/oDWSYiOVxw

- 243Cal 🇮🇪 (@243_cal) June 9, 2026

Because what's shown on X does mess up their narrative - innocent migrant, racist Irish locals - and shames the press for its obeisance to the powers that be.

The only reason we're hearing about this Belfast horror is because it flooded X first

Had X not existed - much to Labour's desire - the story would not reach MSM

This is why Starmer & Co Hate X and Musk

THEY CANNOT CONTROL THE NARRATIVE 🇬🇧

- Essex Patriot (@Essex_Patriot) June 9, 2026

There may have been a second migrant involved in the attack, too, which certainly wouldn't have come from the press - it's slowly coming out on X, too. That shames them.

It also exposed the elites' bizarre priorities as to who gets into the country:

I am banned from entering the United Kingdom because I have been deemed to be "not conducive to the public good".

The Sudanese migrant who literally was cutting a man's head off in the middle of the street in Belfast was given refugee status and full financial benefits by the...

- Joey Mannarino (@JoeyMannarino) June 10, 2026

It's a Europe-wide problem and it keeps happening over and over. This one, meanwhile, is emerging from Italy.

Outrage in Italy as an Albanian man was almost beheaded by a North African gang for defending an elderly man during a robbery.

The North Africans entered a restaurant in Fermo and began harassing an elderly Italian man, demanding money.

The Albanian noticed what was happening... pic.twitter.com/n0YriWUHT2

- Dr. Maalouf (@realMaalouf) June 10, 2026

Like the Irish, the Albanians often have their own ways of solving problems, so it's a case worth watching.

The bottom line here is that it isn't just a few bad apples among the migrant communities, it's large numbers of them, with outrageous incidents happening over and over now. The public has seen its candidates banned and demonized for questioning the system, so it's very difficult to change it to get a responsive government that promotes what the public wants. We even see that behavior in the U.S., as we can recall the many ways the left tried to disqualify President Trump from winning his current term.

What it underlines is that there is a massive, evil deep entrenched state everywhere with interests in replacing the population with criminal migrants. The Irish are rebelling, at least temporarily, as the riots die down. But they are awakened. And one wonders how long these matters will just stay temporary matters with a government as unwilling to change its ways as the U.K. The trouble seen is their doing.

Image: X screenshot

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/11/2026 - 02:00

Putin Powerfully Rebuffed The Hawks Who Want Him To Attack NATO

Authored by Andrew Korybko,

In his words, talk about Russia attacking NATO “is not simply nonsense; it is a provocation.”

Several top “Non-Russian Pro-Russians” (NRPR) influencers rang the alarm last month about Russia’s alleged plans to attack NATO, which were inspired by top hawk Sergey Karaganov and then Russian Ambassador to the OSCE Dmitry Polyanskiy ominously channeling his rhetoric. Readers can review examples of their warnings here, here, here, here, and here. Casual NRPRs therefore braced themselves for what would have in that scenario almost certainly been the start of World War III had it come to pass.

It obviously hasn’t and it likely won’t ever, however, judging by Putin’s response when he was recently asked about these alleged plans during a meeting with foreign journalists. In his words, “Why would Russia attack Europe or go to war with NATO? What would be the purpose? As I have said before, these claims are not merely nonsense. In my view, they are a deliberate provocation designed to create the impression of a threat that does not actually exist.”

Putin then elaborated that “The objective is to persuade their populations to increase defence spending and, as a first step, to pay for the regime that seized power in Kiev. That, I believe, is the real explanation. It is not simply nonsense; it is a provocation. What surprises me, however, is that some people in European countries appear to believe it. I find that astonishing. The whole notion is simply absurd. It would be amusing if it were not so sad.”

It’s not just “some people in European countries” who “appear to believe it”, but his own top hawk is championing this policy and it was recently amplified to the max by top NRPR influencers, many of whom can be described as “state-adjacent” due to being platformed by publicly financed media, attending government-organized conferences, and/or taking state-secured tours of Donbass.

Casual NRPRs are therefore left to wonder whether Putin is telling the truth or is “psyching out the West”.

It’s always best to defer to what Putin himself says in such cases whenever confusion arises, which is due to top NRPR influencers practicing what’s been called “Potemkinism”, or the creation of “alternative realities” about Russian interests and policy for “strategic purposes” (whatever they might be). The most infamous example is that Putin is an anti-Zionist secretly allied with Iran against Israel despite him being a proud lifelong philo-Semite as proven by his many quotes to this end from the official Kremlin website.

Accordingly, while it would be inaccurate describe the fiercely loyal Karaganov as a “provocateur” in the spirit of how Putin condemned such folks who advocate for Russia to attack NATO, he nevertheless powerfully rebuffed hawks such as him as well as the top NRPR influencers who hyped up his rhetoric. That said, Russia’s foreign spy service did indeed warn last month that their country might carry out retaliatory strikes against Latvia if Ukraine launches drones from there, which should be taken seriously.

That’s altogether different than what Karaganov has been pushing for, namely a first strike against NATO that could easily spiral into World War III, and it’s important for casual NRPRs to understand this. As Putin himself phrased it, such talk “is not simply nonsense; it is a provocation.” When those on Russia’s side do it, no matter what their intentions might be, they inadvertently “persuade [Westerners] to increase defence spending and, as a first step, to pay for the regime that seized power in Kiev.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 23:25

As Spy Law Nears Expiration, Lawmakers Mull Short-Term Renewal

Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump’s pick for a key intelligence post has left Democrats and Republicans at odds over a spy law set to lapse on June 12.

As the clock ticks down, lawmakers are contemplating Trump’s latest proposal: another short-term extension of the authority while the president searches for a permanent nominee other than his chosen acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allows the government to spy on foreign targets outside the United States.

It has long been controversial, in part because Americans can also be caught up in its warrantless surveillance dragnet. Section 702’s defenders stress its importance to national security, the risks of allowing it to expire, and the strength of the 2024 reforms to the program.

The provision was renewed in late April for a period of 45 days as some lawmakers pushed for reforms to the law.

Also in late April, the House passed a three-year renewal of the spy law with some reforms, though without new warrant requirements.

Democrats raised concerns with re-upping it after Trump selected Pulte as acting director of national intelligence (DNI).

Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and a close Trump ally, is set to replace outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard on June 19 while retaining his other duties.

Acting appointments do not require Senate confirmation—but Democrats and some Republicans in the Senate appeared less than enthusiastic about the selection after Trump announced it on June 2.

When asked about Pulte on June 2, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who lost the GOP Senate primary to Trump-backed Ken Paxton, told reporters, “I see no evidence of any qualifications for that job.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) speaks at a rally for his Senate primary campaign in Austin, Texas, on Feb. 17, 2026. Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times

That same day, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, declined to comment on Pulte’s fitness for the position when asked about him.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), ranking member of the intelligence committee, voiced shock and disapproval of Trump’s selection at a June 2 hearing, noting that Pulte lacked experience in law enforcement, the military, and other relevant domains.

He also warned that the pick could undermine public confidence in Section 702.

On June 5, almost all Senate Democrats, joined by some Republicans, blocked a measure to renew the provision.

With the Pulte controversy brewing, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) met with Trump at the White House on June 9. Johnson’s staff confirmed the meeting to The Epoch Times but did not elaborate on what was discussed.

On June 10, Trump laid out a new path forward on Truth Social.

“I am asking Congress to send me a short-term extension of FISA to provide time for the selection and confirmation of a permanent head of the agency,” the president wrote.

Some Senate Democrats continued to express concern about Pulte and Trump’s plan.

Warner told reporters he was not sure if there were enough votes to advance a short-term extension of the authority.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) speaks at a campaign event for Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate former Rep. Abigail Spanberger at H Mart in Centreville, Va. on Nov. 2, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) told reporters he would “listen to Senator Warner, adding that the choice of Pulte was “the best way to sabotage [Section] 702.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a frequent critic of Section 702, told The Epoch Times he had not seen Trump’s proposal, adding, “There’s no votes for this bill while Bill Pulte is still on the job.”

Yet, some key Democrats and aligned lawmakers signaled more optimism.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who is expected to succeed outgoing Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) in leadership, told reporters he was open to a short-term extension. He said he doesn’t anticipate the provision will lapse on June 12.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats, told reporters a short-term extension could pass muster with him if it came with a clear timeline.

However, he said he would have issues with Pulte staying in the role “for an indefinite period.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told The Epoch Times he had no problems with Pulte.

“If he wants him to be acting as short-term [DNI], that’s fine,“ he said. ”If he wants to nominate him permanently, that’s fine by me.”

Hawley told reporters he would not raise opposition to a short-term extension of the authority.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 22:35

The SAVE America Act Hits A Milestone, Does It Have Momentum Now?

The SAVE America Act remains in limbo, but it achieved a critical milestone during a late-night vote-a-rama to advance the GOP’s $70 billion immigration enforcement package, when Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) switched her vote. That means the only thing preventing it from becoming law is the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

The legislation, formally titled the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility Act, would require proof of U.S. citizenship at voter registration and a valid photo ID to cast a ballot in federal elections. It cleared the House months ago and has sat in the Senate since, caught between a Republican majority that supports it and a 60-vote cloture threshold that has become its ceiling.

Despite the filibuster standing in its way, reports suggest that meeting the 50-vote threshold to pass has given the legislation new momentum.

The path to 50 came through Sen. Mike Lee's (R-Utah) amendment, which used the bill's original, unmodified form as passed by the House. An earlier attempt by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to attach a modified version that included additional provisions, such as barring men from competing in women's sports, fell short when four Republicans defected. Sens. Collins, Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) all voted against the Graham version. Collins switched her vote on Lee's amendment and provided the crucial 50th yes vote.

“51 votes for the SAVE America Act during tonight’s budget reconciliation vote-a-rama,” Lee said in a post on X during the session.

“That means that but for the Zombie Filibuster, the House-passed SAVE America Act would now be on its way to the White House for President Trump’s signature.”

The Zombie Filibuster he references is the modern mutation of a once-demanding procedural tool that required senators to physically hold the floor with hours of continuous speech. Today, any senator can invoke it with a single objection; legislation dies unless it clears 60 votes, and no one has to say a word.

Lee and a bloc of conservatives have pressed Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to force a talking filibuster, requiring Democrats to hold the floor continuously until they run out of steam and the bill advances by a simple majority. However, Thune has so far declined. 

Thune’s concern is that a sustained floor fight and a flood of Democratic amendments could fracture the Republican conference or cause collateral damage to other pieces of Trump's agenda. It is a calculated bet that the bill's supporters find increasingly difficult to accept.

The filibuster has taken a huge toll on the productivity of the U.S. Senate. Congress is on pace to enact less legislation in this two-year session than at any point since Barack Obama's presidency. According to GovTrack, just 97 bills became law across the two most recent Republican-controlled Congresses, compared to 274 during the 118th Congress. The last time the number sank this low was the 112th Congress. 

Yet, the battle inside the chamber bears almost no relationship to where the country stands on the SAVE America Act. A Harvard-Harris poll from earlier this year found broad public support for the SAVE America Act, with 71% of Americans supporting the legislation, including 69% of independents and even 50% of Democrats. Support for its key provisions is even stronger: 81% favor requiring voter ID, 75% support proof of citizenship to vote, and 80% want states to remove non-citizens from voter rolls. Perhaps most striking, 85% of Americans—including 84% of independents and 82% of Democrats—agree that only U.S. citizens should be allowed to vote in federal elections. Overall, 60% view the bill as a commonsense measure to prevent fraud and safeguard election integrity.

Trump has directed his frustration at Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth Macdonough, who ruled the SAVE America Act ineligible for inclusion in the GOP's $70 billion immigration enforcement package under the Byrd Rule, which governs what legislation qualifies for budget reconciliation at a 50-vote threshold. 

Trump has called on Thune to remove her. 

"Just the other night, as an example, she ruled against us on a proposal that would have easily been approved, and should have been, by anyone else," Trump posted. He followed with a sharper message on Truth Social: "We have every right to change her, and should do so, IMMEDIATELY," Trump wrote, adding, "As long as she's there, we will never get our desperately needed, SAVE AMERICA ACT, approved, and put into full force and effect!" 

Thune dismissed the pressure as routine.

"That's not a new request, as you all know," Thune said of Trump's demand, "and as is typically the case, the parliamentarian, the rulings break both ways. And, you know, we lose a few, we win a few, but that's been true when Democrats have been in the majority, too."

Collins, who provided the decisive 50th vote on Lee's amendment, has previously stated she will not support eliminating the filibuster, and it’s unlikely she’ll change her mind on that with her facing a tough reelection bid this year. But reaching the 50-vote threshold to pass the upper chamber is a modest victory that could change the debate going forward.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 22:10

New Arizona Law Targets Demand Behind Prostitution, Sex Trafficking

Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times,

Arizona has enacted a law that increases penalties for people who buy or attempt to buy sex, and directs new funding to services for victims of sex trafficking.

Under the law, paying, agreeing to pay, or offering to pay for sexual conduct is now a felony offense and carries mandatory jail time. Offenders must also pay a $200 assessment, with all proceeds dedicated to programs that assist trafficking survivors.

A first offense can result in up to 15 days in jail, while a second offense carries up to 30 days.

“Arizona is going after the demand that fuels prostitution and sex trafficking,” said state Rep. Selina Bliss, chairman of the House Health and Human Services Committee, in a June 8 statement.

“This is a victory for families, neighborhoods, and victims who deserve a path out,“ Bliss, who co-sponsored the bill, added. ”The people paying for sex are funding an industry that traffickers exploit, and communities across Arizona are left to deal with the crime, abuse, and damage that follow.

“This law holds offenders accountable, puts money directly toward helping victims recover, and puts every person who pays for sex in Arizona on notice: you can face jail time, a felony record, and the consequences that come with it.”

House Bill 2720 also expands protections for trafficking victims. Courts must seal records tied to prostitution convictions that are later vacated because the individual was a victim of sex trafficking. Supporters say the change will help survivors pursue jobs, housing, and other opportunities without the burden of a criminal record.

Lawmakers said the bill was developed with input from local officials, advocacy organizations, neighborhood groups, schools, and residents seeking stronger action against prostitution and sex trafficking.

Parts of Phoenix, including a three-mile corridor known as “The Blade,” have long been associated with street prostitution. In 2025, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office filed 437 prostitution-related cases, fueling debate between law enforcement officials and advocates who argue that many people arrested for prostitution are trafficking victims rather than willing participants.

A 2015–2016 study by Arizona State University found evidence that sex trafficking in Arizona had grown substantially over the previous 15 years.

Researchers noted, however, that the increase could have reflected both a rise in victimization and greater public awareness and enforcement efforts.

In Arizona, prostitution is classified as a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail, a $2,500 fine, and as much as three years of probation, according to AZDefenders.com.

Related offenses include solicitation, pandering, facilitating prostitution, and child prostitution.

Escort services remain legal under Arizona law, provided no sexual acts are offered or exchanged for compensation.

Arizona is home to two federally funded human trafficking task forces—the Southern Arizona Anti-Trafficking Unified Response Network and the Central Arizona United to Stop Exploitation Task Force—as well as the City of Phoenix Human Trafficking Task Force and the Governor’s Human Trafficking Council. Together, they work to raise awareness, identify victims, and expand support services for survivors.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 21:45

SoftBank Attempt To Get Downsized $6 Billion OpenAi Margin Loan Stalls

One month ago, Japanese tech giant SoftBank Group, was forced to downsize plans for a $10 billion margin loan backed by its OpenAI stake after facing hesitation from some creditors. Today, it couldn't even get that done after talks with potential creditors to raise the downsized $6 billion stalled amid rising concerns about the collateral value, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter. 

As a result, the company is now considering various different fundraising options, although it could still move forward with the margin loan at a later stage, they added.

It’s unclear why the margin loan discussions stalled. SoftBank had allegedly secured some $5 billion for the loan before the development, although it was unclear if those were verbal or written commitments. Judging by the outcome, the commitments were tenuous at bet. 

According to the report, the current inaction on the margin loan comes even after some of the potential lenders who had been pitched on it - and who did not view it in an all too favorable light to start - said that they’d started to consider it in a more favorable light, after news last month that the ChatGPT creator was preparing to file for an initial public offering.

Previously some of the potential creditors pitched on the margin loan had expressed concerns about the difficulty of reaching a valuation for an unlisted company like OpenAI. As noted above, SoftBank downsized the loan’s initial target size by 40% after facing pushback from some of the potential lenders. 

“The margin loan is just one piece of a much larger puzzle, and unless we see a clear deterioration in their ability to raise funds this way, we don’t view it as a standalone red flag,” said Hua Cheng, head of Asia credit research at AllianceBernstein. “The best‑case scenario is an OpenAI IPO this year, with SoftBank offloading part of its stake to pay down debt. That would be consistent with what credit investors want.”

OpenAI filed confidentially for an IPO in the US, joining artificial intelligence rivals in tapping public markets to fund ambitious growth plans. The firm is working with Goldman  and Morgan Stanley on a potential listing as soon as in the fall. 

Loan aside, markets have witnessed a broader debate in recent months about SoftBank’s commitments of more than $60 billion to OpenAI at a time when recent breakthroughs by resurgent rival Anthropic PBC have raised doubts for some investors about the business. Within SoftBank itself, some officials had grown anxious about that commitment, according to Bloomberg.

Never one to back down, Masa Son - who nearly went broke after the dot com bubble burst - has been ramping up its broader AI plans. Late last month, it said that SoftBank plans to invest as much as €75 billion - which it does not have - to build artificial intelligence data center capacity in France, saying the country is poised to become a top European hub for AI infrastructure (narrator: it's not). 

But storm clouds are gathering again for Masa: looming in the background is a $40 billion bridge financing that supported the conglomerate’s investments in OpenAI, and which SoftBank must repay in March 2027. SoftBank has said that borrowing would likely be repaid “through the utilization of existing assets and other financing measures.”

While SoftBank has a number of potential fundraising options, it’s unclear if it would opt to use any of them. Those include potential issuance of more bonds, or possibly borrowing against other listed holdings in its portfolio, although if it can't get a margin loan against its portfolio crown jewel, one wonders what terms its other assets would garner. Its stakes include ones in Arm Holdings and Intel, whose shares have jumped 197% and 192%, respectively, so far this year amid the AI boom. 

Following the news, Softbank shares tumbled as much as 9.7% Wednesday. Even after declines, SoftBank’s stock was still up about 45% for the period, extending gains in recent weeks after the company reported a jump in quarterly profit due largely to valuation gains on its OpenAI investment. On June 1, SoftBank overtook Toyota Motor Corp. as Japan’s most valuable company by market capitalization. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 21:31

JPM Says US Defense Base Faces 'Evolve Or Die' Moment As Warfare Forever Changes

For several quarters, we have described the Trump administration's massive push to reshape the military-industrial complex, from DOGE-driven efforts inside the Department of War to reset the procurement process, to a broader pivot toward fast-moving "war unicorns," like Anduril, rather than bloated legacy defense primes.

The urgency of that transition is now capturing Wall Street's attention. JPMorgan analysts frame it as a major inflection point: America's defense industrial base must shift away from slow-moving, costly production and toward one built around speed, scale, technology, low-cost, attritable systems, and rapid battlefield iteration to preserve America's status as the world's dominant military power. 

Analyst Jahangir Aziz pointed out: 

The U.S. defense-industrial enterprise now stands at a decisive inflection point.

Success in the era ahead will be determined by its ability to deliver on three tightly interlocking imperatives: integrating the defense and commercial industrial bases, unlocking genuine mass-scale production, and unleashing innovation across the entire ecosystem.

Together, these are the enabling conditions for a force capable of meeting the relentless operational and technological pressures revealed in Ukraine, exposed by China's fusion model, and only latently present in the U.S. system today.

Aziz wrote that the post-Cold War model, centered on highly capable systems such as the F-35 stealth fighters, aircraft carriers, and advanced missile platforms, has been rendered obsolete in a world defined by China's anti-access strategy, Russia's war in Ukraine, the Iran conflict, suicide drones, cyber warfare, electronic warfare, and other low-cost precision weapons.

He said that modern warfare is increasingly defined by the ability to "sense, make sense, and act," relying on the processing of vast amounts of data and translating it into timely decisions. Such as AI 'kill chains'… 

The four major vulnerabilities in the U.S. defense industrial base that he outlined include shallow supplier depth, slow acquisition timelines, prime-contractor concentration, and fragile global supply chains, including exposure to China-linked inputs.

U.S. Defense Base Supply Chain 

He warned that major defense programs can take years to field, while critical electronics may be obsolete before they ever reach the modern battlefield.

U.S. Military's procurement process timeline

Capacity constraints notable among the primes

That lag has become a major problem as modern warfare quickly evolves across Eurasia and the Middle East, from Ukraine to the Gulf, where drones, robotics, electronic warfare, and AI-enabled kill chains are transforming how conflicts are fought. The battlefield of the 2030s will be defined less by slow-cycle platforms and more by high-speed, low-cost, increasingly automated weapons.

For the U.S. military to remain dominant on the global stage, the analyst laid out a clear framework for how that advantage must be secured: 

Our broader take, however, is that the direction of travel is likely to be shaped by the following factors. First, as mentioned, the nature of war has changed and communication and control capabilities will be fundamental in the digital age. Second, that successful defense industrial bases elsewhere, each in their own way, have largely based their success on the integration of their defense and commercial industrial bases. Third, and related to the two above, the U.S. possesses a technological edge in the digital space that is largely in the commercial sector, and integrating it into the defense ecosystem is crucial for the U.S. to maintain its military dominance.

To maintain military dominance, the U.S. defense base must secure enduring advantages by:

• Integration: Forge deeper links between defense and commercial sectors, leveraging shared platforms, open standards, and continuous feedback.

• Scale: Build modular, manufacturable systems for rapid mass production, lower barriers for new entrants, and foster a networked industrial base.

• Innovation: Drive software-led transformation, iterative hardware development, and commercial digital integration. Emerging tech leaders are reshaping autonomy, hypersonics, advanced manufacturing, satellite communications, and mission resilience.

• Policy reforms like NDAA and Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA) are promising, but must overcome entrenched acquisition processes, PPBE constraints, and persistent friction over intellectual property and data rights—barriers that can either enable competition and modularity or reinforce vendor lock-in and exclude new entrants.

America's defense industrial base stands at a crossroads. Adapting to persistent competition, rapid technological change, and mass-scale attrition warfare is not optional; it's essential. Enduring advantage will depend on integrating commercial and defense sectors, scaling production, and accelerating innovation, while dismantling deep-seated institutional and structural barriers. Failure to act risks eroding deterrence and long-term military effectiveness, with consequences for national security and global leadership.

None of this should surprise readers. We have repeatedly highlighted the rise of "war unicorns" such as Anduril and other defense-tech startups that are building affordable, scalable, and software-defined weapons systems for the modern battlefield.

pic.twitter.com/maeU5jrpDv

— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) May 9, 2026

Beyond Anduril in the war unicorn sphere, there's DZYNE Technologies developing autonomous defense systems... 

BLITZ (Attritable System)

🇺🇸 DZYNE Technologies unveiled BLITZ, a low-cost and fully autonomous Group | UAS platform. A modular system light enough for hand launch, rail launch or containerized launch such as BlitzBox.

"The Blitz platform features a foldable, packable design… pic.twitter.com/llQxsZRBEt

— Counter Unmanned Systems (@CUAS_NEWS) May 15, 2026

Anduril's rapid ascent has already captured Wall Street's attention. Goldman analysts recently sat down with company executives to better understand the story, the business model, and the role Anduril could play in the next phase of rebuilding America's next-generation defense-industrial base. The takeaway is increasingly clear: the future of U.S. military power will not be defined by legacy primes alone, but by war unicorns.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 21:20

California Gets 80% Of All Federal Cash For Illegal Immigrant Families: Report

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

California is home to the lion’s share of illegal immigrant families in the United States with children who received federal welfare assistance in 2024, according to a federal report published on June 10.

More than 80 percent of all nationwide cash assistance allocated to such households was spent in California. The report tracked $759 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) spent in 2024 on families headed by a parent living in the country illegally.

In those cases, the child qualified for federal welfare, even though the parent was excluded from the federal program because of immigration status.

“These cases receive relatively little public attention, yet ... data show that they are far from a negligible part of the program,” wrote authors David Swegle, director of the Office of Family Assistance at the Administration for Children and Families under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Alex J. Adams, assistant secretary at the Administration for Children and Families, in the report.

Nationally, the federal government paid 85,000 households with qualifying children receiving assistance who were living with their illegal immigrant parents in the U.S. in 2024.

“Although the benefit is formally paid on behalf of the child, it still supports a household that includes an immigration-status-ineligible parent,” the authors stated. “The significance of these cases therefore cannot be judged solely by the fact that the adult is not the formal recipient.”

The cases are also significant because they don’t have to adhere to the TANF rules requiring work expectations, such as regularly applying for jobs, and the payments aren’t limited to the federal 60-month lifetime limit, according to the report. The illegal immigrant families, therefore, can receive federal welfare until the child turns 18 years old.

Low-income American families are held to the federal welfare restrictions that require work participation and are restricted to a 60-month lifetime limit, the authors said.

The number of TANF cases involving an illegal immigrant parent reached nearly 850,000—or 10 percent of all cases—in 2024, up from nearly 6 percent in 2001.

Of those, nearly 78,000 households—or about 91 percent—also received federal food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the report revealed.

Most of the illegal immigrant parents—over 106,000—identified as Hispanic, while 5.3 percent were White, 4.3 percent were Black, and 2 percent were Asian, the report stated.

California was the primary driver of the national totals, according to the report.

In 2024, the state accounted for nearly 60,000 affected households, or about 70 percent of the national total of the illegal immigrant-headed households.

The state’s annual cash assistance paid to those homes reached about $618 million, or about 81 percent of nationwide spending on these cases, the authors reported.

The average monthly benefit in California for child-only households with illegal immigrant parents increased from an estimated $408 in 2013 to $875 in 2024—an increase of 114.5 percent, according to the report.

“No other state approached California’s combination of scale, concentration, and fiscal impact,” the authors stated in the report.

The next-largest states were New York, with about 7,635 households and about $47.5 million in annual cash assistance, followed by Massachusetts at about 3,777 households and about $27.3 million, and Washington at about 1,796 households and about $12.2 million, the report found.

From 2001 to 2024, the U.S. spent about $18.3 billion in TANF cash assistance on these cases involving illegal immigrant parents with welfare-recipient children, according to the report.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 20:55

MSFT Restricts Internal Use Of Claude Fable Over Data-Retention Concerns; BMO Calls Anthropic A Leading Pure-Play AI Lab

Anthropic released Claude Fable 5, a next-generation "Mythos-class" AI model, on Tuesday. The model is designed to restrict dangerous capabilities in areas such as cybersecurity and biological research after CEO Dario Amodei warned about risks last month.

The model gives users access to Anthropic's more powerful Mythos model, which the company had previously deemed too risky for public release last month. However, when users ask about sensitive topics, such as bioweapons or software exploitation, Fable 5 redirects them to the older Claude Opus 4.8 model.

"We maintain that Anthropic is the leading pure-play AI lab, combining best-in-class model intelligence with its cutting-edge, benchmark-leading Claude Fable 5 frontier model released June 9, 2026; with clear commercial traction and momentum in its enterprise offerings," BMO analyst Brian Pitz wrote in a note earlier today.

Pitz noted, "Anthropic's strengths are particularly evident in coding, agents, and enterprise, where Claude has emerged as a leading model powering tools such as Claude Code and Cowork, both of which have scaled rapidly. This reinforces the company's advantage in translating model intelligence beyond benchmark performance into viable, real-world applications—what we view as the next key battleground in AI."

The release of Claude Fable 5 prompted Pitz's team to declare, "While it is too early to crown a winner among foundation models, we see Anthropic and OpenAI as the leading pure-play AI labs today."

The Verge's Tom Warren reported that Claude Fable 5 has already raised security concerns within Microsoft, prompting the tech giant to limit internal employee access to the model due to Anthropic's data-retention requirements.

Warren said that Claude Fable 5 has been rolled out to GitHub Copilot and Foundry customers but is not available in the internal GitHub Copilot model picker used by Microsoft employees. Other Claude models remain available internally because they operate under zero data retention rules.

He said the issue centers around Anthropic's safety architecture. Claude Fable 5 requires Anthropic to retain prompts and outputs for 30 days to operate new safety classifiers, while some flagged content can be stored for up to two years if it violates usage policies. These rules could potentially create risks for confidential information.

Pitz published the current AI leaderboard overview with Anthropic's models on top (but at the time of the note, Claude Fable 5 was not included):

Western AI Models Comparison

BMO analysts see the release of new advanced models driving AI revenue to $1.8 trillion by 2032. That would mean the market has expanded at an average annual growth rate of 48% since ChatGPT launched in 2022.

Token prices have declined over the last six days.

"Adoption is becoming less about what frontier models can do and more about the price... the recent drop in the token index may reflect some of this shift toward cheaper models," Citadel analysts noted (read). 

Token prices down 6 days in a row: longest streak since January.

"Adoption is becoming less about what frontier models can do and more about the price... the recent drop in the token index may reflect some of this shift toward cheaper models"- Citadel https://t.co/n2dQtQ7rqs pic.twitter.com/OOW2uXdedj

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 10, 2026

Prices per million tokens for Western models vs. Chinese models

Tokenmaxxing. 

I hit my usage limits on my $200/month Claude Max subscription in less than 30 minutes and up to 14% in less than a minute as the session resets using Claude Fable 5. pic.twitter.com/lertUFPCC2

— mercury (@mercury_0x) June 9, 2026

Average cost per task.

Claude Fable 5 is now available in Cursor.

It sets a new state of the art on CursorBench at 72.9%, 8 points above the previous best. pic.twitter.com/L3Wm8mSYq9

— Cursor (@cursor_ai) June 9, 2026

What X users have been creating with Claude Fable 5:

Claude 5.0 built a Chinese girl a trading bot.

skip to 0:08 look at her journal, bot easily earns your monthly salary in a couple of days.

how it works:

the bot runs mean reversion on s&p 500 and nasdaq on 15-min candles, catching the small overextensions indices make every… https://t.co/V2R3gRNXTA pic.twitter.com/iRVgo1jdYF

— AdiiX (@adiix_official) June 9, 2026

Claude 5 Fable (high)

“Make a Minecraft clone”

I’m stunned.. it made this in 20 minutes, one shot.

Multiple Biomes, day time/night time, different ores, Caves & more! pic.twitter.com/jfiGsalxvx

— Chris (@ChrissGPT) June 9, 2026

Wow Claude Fable 5 is insane!!

I just created GTA 6 in ONE prompt so i don't have to wait anymore to play it

Prompt: make gta 6

It over for game studios now. pic.twitter.com/eKSx0PRTJ2

— caso (@casoxbt) June 10, 2026

claude fable 5 /goal:
help me shoot this soccer ball faster https://t.co/8eIKp2Np3x pic.twitter.com/Iac3mvVo57

— AA (@measure_plan) June 9, 2026

Claude Fable 5, 40% of Max 5x usage.

Full Mario Kart 64 type game in 2 sentence prompt.

All decoration and character models, 4 maps, music, all three game modes, UI was done by Fable 5 in a single shot, in about 15 mins.

What the fuck.#fable #anthropic pic.twitter.com/B7mTidE84U

— Kiera (@kieradev) June 9, 2026 Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 20:30

From FOMO To Oh No! Koreans Face Massive Forced Liquidations As AI Bubble Bursts

Korean retail investors’ aggressive leveraged bets on the market’s two dominant AI/Semi names - Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix - are now colliding with a sharp KOSPI correction, triggering the largest wave of forced stock sales in years and raising the specter of a self-reinforcing liquidation spiral.

At its peak last week, the benchmark KOSPI index  was up 100% for 2026, rivaling the Nasdaq 100 Index’s 102% surge in 1999 - right before the bubble burst...

Last week we warned, as levered bets soared to record highs... that 'the signal is clear: the cash buffer eroding while active leverage refuses to unwind'.

And the concentration was extremely clear with 'new lows' dominating even as KOSPI hit record-er and record-er highs...

Driven purely by retail momentum chasers, as foreigners were fleeing...

We specifically made the point that the rise of leveraged exchange-traded funds, designed to magnify daily moves, may further intensify a reversal.

Fast forward a week - and sprinkle in some vicious moves in the Korean index (down 17% from the highs in a week) - and those warnings have now punched Korean retail investors in the mouth.

As The Korea Times reports, South Korean investors are facing massive forced liquidations and margin loans come due.

Aggregated over the last few trading sessions, the figure approached ~300 billion won (~$197 million) - the largest such reading in recent memory.

The ratio of forced sales to outstanding margin loans hit 9.1% on that Friday, the highest of the year.

Source

These sales occur mechanically: investors who borrowed from brokerages (typically putting up 30–40% equity) must settle by T+2.

When equity falls below maintenance levels, brokerages automatically sell at the opening call auction - often locking in losses and adding downward pressure that can trigger further margin calls.

“The biggest risk during a sharp market decline is not the drop in prices itself, but forced liquidation,” said Kim Seok-hwan, an analyst at Mirae Asset Securities.

“Investors are advised to reduce leverage, hold more cash and focus on high-quality assets.”

And it is far from over as margin lending balances remain near record highs.

According to the Korea Financial Investment Association, outstanding margin loans climbed to a record 38 trillion won on May 29. Although the balance eased to 37.8 trillion won as of Monday, it remained at an elevated level.

“It is estimated that much of the recently increased margin financing entered the market when KOSPI was trading in the 8,200-8,400 range,” said Noh Dong-gil, an analyst at Shinhan Securities.

“Investors often begin trimming positions voluntarily once losses approach 15 percent, while the risk of forced selling rises significantly around the 20 percent loss level.”

This unwind is the direct consequence of retail investors aggressively piling into Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix using both traditional margin debt and the new wave of single-stock leveraged ETFs launched in late May 2026.

What began as a retail-driven, leverage-fueled melt-up concentrated in two AI stocks is transitioning into a classic de-leveraging event.

The new single-stock 2x ETFs and record margin debt have amplified both the upside and now the downside.

Foreign outflows have provided the fundamental counter-pressure, while mechanical forced sales are adding the accelerant.

Retail leverage that felt like genius in May is now being stress-tested in real time - with the Korean market’s extreme concentration making the moves especially violent.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 19:40

CBP Chief Says Border Wall Should Be Finished By Late 2027

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. southern border wall will be completed by the end of next year, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Rodney Scott at an event on Tuesday.

Scott told an audience in Washington that the “primary border wall ... will be done by the end of 2027,” adding that there are a “couple of gaps.” The wall will stretch from San Diego to Texas near the Gulf of Mexico.

“The only places we’re not building a border wall is places where we’ve made a conscious decision that we don’t need it,” Scott said at the Center for Immigration Studies conference, adding that Big Bend National Park is an example of a “super remote area” with “some very, very high cliffs” that preclude construction of the wall.

Other parts of the border wall, including a secondary wall and a barrier in the Rio Grande, will be complete by July or August 2028, Scott said. The barrier will also be backed by electronic surveillance and other systems, he added.

The border wall, which was a campaign promise made by President Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign, is designed to curb illegal immigration and drug trafficking into the United States.

But Scott said the wall isn’t enough to completely stop either one. Drug traffickers and human smugglers are using tunnels to find workarounds, he said.

“That is their business model, and drones definitely make it easier,” he said, adding, “They’re also smuggling narcotics across with drones.”

On the first day of his second term in January 2025, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of War and Department of Homeland Security secretaries to “take all appropriate action to deploy and construct temporary and permanent physical barriers to ensure complete operational control of the southern border.” The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, approved by Congress in July 2025, included $46.5 billion for border wall construction.

Apprehensions of people crossing the border illegally in the Big Bend Sector fell 74 percent in fiscal 2025 compared with fiscal 2023, according to the CBP. Autonomous surveillance towers have also significantly reduced traffic, according to the agency.

Last month, the CBP released data marking a year of zero releases at the southern border, and apprehensions of illegal immigrants have dropped to their lowest levels in more than three decades.

The agency said that the Border Patrol recorded 8,943 apprehensions along the southwest border in April, a 94 percent decline from the monthly average under the Biden administration and 96 percent below the peak in December 2023.

Rodney Scott, commissioner for Customs and Border Protection, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 16, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

“The U.S. Border Patrol released zero illegal aliens into our country again this month, unlike April 2024, when more than 68,000 were released under President [Joe] Biden,” Scott said in a statement in May.

The Trump administration has also prioritized deporting illegal immigrants.

The White House’s border czar, Tom Homan, said in an interview in May that the administration is moving to increase deportations and that around 800,000 illegal aliens have been removed from the country since Trump took office again.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 19:15

Goldman Flags Tightening Power Grid In Texas Amid Rapid Data Center Growth

Goldman shared some of their thoughts on the tightening of power markets as the decade comes to a close. ERCOT’s own Preliminary Long-Term Load Forecast now sees baseline peak-summer demand (excluding most medium and large loads) growing at a 5.2% average annual rate from 2026 through 2030. This is already well above the 3.4% realized average of 2022-2025. 

Layer in the medium- and large-scale additions, overwhelmingly data centers plus crypto and industrial electrification, and the forecast explodes to 31% average annual peak-summer growth.

Put that in national context and Texas alone would account for 39% of total U.S. peak-summer power demand by 2030, up from just 11% last year, assuming the rest of the country continues its slower recent trajectory. 

Goldman analysts flag a 200 GW queue of large-load applications sitting with the grid operator. Even if only 10% of that queue ultimately energizes, it would still lift the region’s demand growth rate above 9% against an expected 6% annual increase in effective generation capacity over the same window. That math points to a high probability of a critically tight market unless supply-side responses accelerate sharply in the next few years.

A quick look at Goldman's recent nuclear report for last month shows the large grid-scale reactor industry is still sleeping in the US…

Earlier we highlighted ERCOT’s disclosure that multiple clusters of proposed hyperscale loads and crypto facilities failed voltage ride-through testing. Four of those groups alone could shed more than 5,000 MW (Boston-sized chunks of demand) during routine transmission disturbances. That is the demand-side mirror of the Spain blackout dynamics we referenced, where rapid disconnections and inadequate reactive power support turned a manageable event into a cascading failure.

ERCOT is not alone in upgrading its outlook. PJM lifted its 10-year average annual peak-summer demand growth forecast from 3.1% to 3.6% earlier this year. MISO raised its 20-year view from 1.6% to 2% in April, more than doubling its realized 2022-2025 average of 0.8%. 

These changes reflect the same AI-driven commercial load surge now visible in the data. Goldman shows the U.S. commercial sector posting the strongest year-over-year power demand growth in January-February at +1.8%, while industrial and residential lagged. Nationally, data-center capacity additions are accelerating, with Texas, Virginia, Arizona, Ohio, Indiana, and Georgia leading the way on a year-over-year basis.

On the generation side, the picture is mixed. Solar continues its seasonal ramp with solid year-over-year capacity additions. 

Natural gas-fired output has been responsive. But nuclear has been weaker due to maintenance outages, hydro is suffering from drought across more than half the country, and coal remains under pressure. 

Construction employment tied to data-center and utility work is rising sharply, which is welcome, but employment is not the same as energized megawatts and reinforced lines.

We noted flags starting to pop up regarding the lack of construction industry manpower back in October…

And then there is the issue of where the US gets 300,000 engineers to build all this missing power supply by 2030 https://t.co/a18crhqZ4v pic.twitter.com/tinW8SHDwM

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 14, 2025

And we also noted other analysts starting to recognize the same body count issue – the lack of engineers and other skilled laborers to build the energy generating side of the grid. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 18:50

The Potemkin Ballot

Authored by Spyridon Andrews via American Greatness,

The only completely predictable result of an election in a Western democracy is election fraud.

Fraud is so fundamental to Western democracies that it is fair to say that democracies exist in name only. In fact, elections have become so essential to illegitimate power that they are almost the surest path to subvert the will of the people. Potemkin elections are essential ways for the ruling class to mask that they are truly in control. The notion of the divine right, or right of the aristocracy to rule, died a relatively quick death after the Renaissance. And the 14th-century political Renaissance led by figures such as Leonardo Bruni, the brilliant Renaissance historian who later became chancellor of Florence, brought back the notion of the Roman Republic to the modern era. Florence reinvented free elections of the citizenry; however, the notion of citizenry was limited compared to today.

Palazzo Vecchio, the town hall of Florence, which sits on the Piazza della Signoria.

Uniquely, Florence had no king, duke, or hereditary monarch during much of the Renaissance. Power was vested in the city’s executive governing council, or the signoria. The Council was led by a chief magistrate, known as the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia or justice. There were various legislative and advisory councils, as well as guilds that represented merchants, banks, craftsmen, and professionals.

In order to avoid “corruption,” the Florentines used the lottery system. When a government position opened, names were drawn from bags. As a further precaution, terms were short, only two months, and rotations were constant.

Cosimo the Elder or “Father of the Fatherland.” Posthumous portrait attributed to unknown 16th-century Florentine workshop artists.

Enter the Medici. It was Cosimo de’ Medici who transformed the system into the dynasty that is famous in history. The Medici controlled the largest banking network in Europe and, consequently, extended credit to many of the continent’s most powerful families. The success of a merchant’s business relied upon loans or assistance from the Medici. As a result, patronage opportunities were abundant, and the Medici had a ready-made army of supporters. They also had the support of the intelligentsia through their patronage of literature and the arts. There was no need for Cosimo to be elected to office or even to be seen all that much.

This, however, did not prevent the Medici from influencing electoral outcomes in their favor. Although appointments were decided by lot, there was an art to ensuring that the correct names got dropped into the lottery in the first place. Committees controlled by the Medici determined which citizens were eligible to be elected to posts. So, although a genuine lottery was held, the candidate pool was not so genuine. Florence, on the surface, held free elections and had councils, debates, and all the symbolism of republicanism. But it was controlled by the family who controlled the money supply.

If this sounds familiar, this is because the Medici’s influence extended well beyond their patronage of literature and the arts. During the reign of Louis XIII in France, Cardinal Richelieu never wore a crown. Nevertheless, he controlled foreign policy, court appointments, political alliances, and intelligence networks.

William “Boss Tweed” (1823–78)

In America in the 19th and 20th centuries, the New York machine at Tammany Hall ran the show. The outward constitutional order remained in place, while the political bosses determined the candidates who could run, who received the patronage jobs, and who was awarded the political contracts. While Boss Tweed was an important part of the machine while he was alive, the machine outlived him, and the candidates became fungible.

The same type of arrangement was in place in Chicago from the time of Mike McDonald in the late 19th century all the way to the Daleys in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. McDonald and his political machine financed businesses and candidates, controlled networks, and made or broke political careers. McDonald was succeeded by the duo of Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna and John Coughlin, an unlikely pair of Irish mobsters who ran the gambling houses and brothels, owned the police, and made sure that their business interests were fully accommodated by the mayors they owned. While neither Boss Tweed nor Mike McDonald were above stuffing ballot boxes or breaking a few legs to ensure the appropriate result, those were matters that only needed to be resorted to in dire emergencies.

The Old Federal Building, where Washington took the First Presidential Oath of Office in 1789.

The modern-day Rothschilds are perhaps less interesting as a secret cabal than as the outrageously wealthy banking family that can make or break global banks and governments. In the late 18th century, Mayer Amschel Rothschild placed his five sons in the European financial centers of London, Frankfurt, Paris, Vienna, and Naples. From there they went on to finance governments, underwrite sovereign debt, fund railroads and infrastructure, and move money across borders as fast as their clients needed it. And it is indisputable that the Rothschilds were fundamental in creating the modern state of Israel—from funding settlements to funding the Israeli parliament building.

It is not simply that the wealthy classes needed additional help to grab political power, but they sure received it in the Citizens United case in 2010. A majority of conservative justices held that political speech is protected by the First Amendment and that the identity of the speaker, whether it is a corporation, union, or nonprofit, does not eliminate that protection. While that was all very noble, the Supreme Court further held that independent expenditures are different from direct campaign contributions and that the states could not limit such spending. Needless to say, political spending exploded, and Super PACs, industry associations, labor-backed organizations, and ideological advocacy groups began buying up politicians and votes like a Blue Light Special at K-Mart.

Politicians selling themselves like hookers on South Figueroa Street in L.A. is not enough these days. Donors need insurance policies for the peace of mind that their investments do not go to waste. And so, they are not above good old-fashioned voter fraud. The alleged appearance of 24,000 votes from nowhere in the Los Angeles Mayoral primary election this week is a testament to the new era of “mail-in balloting,” which is about as legitimate as a Florida time-share. It was the midnight deliveries of mail-in ballots in swing districts during the 2020 election that led to the Capitol protests on January 6, 2021—and the perception by nearly half of Americans that the election was outright stolen.

The utter ignorance of the history of election fraud in the United States is perhaps the major reason that anyone would believe that our federal elections are trustworthy. Apart from the outright purchase of votes in Congress, American history has consistently had patterns of repeat voting, padded rolls, absentee-ballot abuses, vote buying, dead voters, false or corrupted registrations, not to mention election-official complicity, patronage pressure, counting manipulation, control of election officials, and downright intimidation. Election fraud is not prosecuted as often as it should be, but it is prosecuted with regular frequency. The 1982 Illinois Election Fraud cases, combined with the Greylord investigations and indictments of federal and local judges, have clearly demonstrated the infiltration of organized crime into the courtroom. And allegations of organized crime connections between presidents such as Kennedy and Nixon have swirled for decades.

This does not account for the recent charges and countercharges regarding gerrymandering, the reluctance to impose voter ID requirements, allegations regarding dark-money pools, and “legal” lobbying, which is considered outright bribery in other countries. Chicago’s corruption runs so deep that the residents of the city just assume that’s the way it’s all supposed to work. In fact, I hear Chicagoans complain that the system ran better when there was more of a sticker price on what it cost to fix a traffic ticket, reduce a murder charge, or buy an alderman’s vote on a zoning permit.

The demands of a democratic society have equally necessitated workarounds for unsavory results that stem from the will of the people. It was not the will of the people that brought us into either of the World Wars in the 20th century—certain workarounds had to be put into place. Although the cost of life, around 27,000 Americans, was regrettable during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive during World War I, the conveniently placed Zimmerman telegram alleging a German–Mexican alliance was necessary to bring us into the war in the first place.

American Doughboys in the final year of the Great War, likely captured at the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.

Pearl Harbor was regrettable, but apparently our leaders determined that the loss of life was necessary in order to make a highly unpopular war seem necessary. Americans did not vote to intern Japanese citizens, nor did they vote to infect black soldiers with syphilis. But our politicians knew better. In the last two wars, the threat of weapons of mass destruction has led to wars that politicians wanted to fight against Iraq and Iran. And so democratic government does not just necessitate vote buying and election tampering, but also an occasional well-placed lie in order to meet the demands of governing in accordance with the desires of the moneyed interests.

A cynical interpretation might hold that extending suffrage to women and the poor was less about social justice than about creating larger, more easily mobilized voting blocs. Vast voter pools, especially ones that can be purchased through government programs, motivated by single issues or through perceived grievances brought on by other groups, are terrific tools to stay in power.

When these issues become supercharged with emotion, usually through manipulation of media sources or outright lies, they usher forth passionate armies that stand for a candidate or a political party. A much more economical way to hold a voter base together is to convince them that Neil, who coaches your son’s little league team, is a fascist because he’s a Republican, or that Ahmed, who runs the 7-11 next to the dry cleaner, is an existential threat.

One could be cynical and believe that our political class has nothing but disdain for their voters and that they are capable of literally any act to stay in power. One could even believe that because they have seemingly lied to us about everything from the reasons to go to war, the origin of a global pandemic financed by our own government, or the extent of government surveillance by the NSA, they would be capable of anything.

We could say that. But that would be undemocratic.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 18:25

Bank Of Japan Governor Ueda Hospitalized, Will Miss June Meeting

Bank of Japan's 74-year-old Governor Kazuo Ueda has been hospitalized for medical treatment and will miss the June 15 to 16 ‌policy meeting, the central bank said on Wednesday. It is the first time for the governor, who chairs the BOJ's policy discussions, to miss a scheduled meeting since the central bank began deciding policy ​under the current arrangement in 1998.

The governor will submit a written statement on his view on policy but will not participate in ​next week's vote, the BOJ said in a statement.  Ueda is expected to remain in hospital for about two ⁠weeks getting treatment for an infected liver cyst, work remotely and attend the next July 30 to 31 policy meeting, the central bank said.

The central bank is widely expected to raise interest rates next week to levels unseen in three decades to counter the plunging yen, crashing bond prices and reverse soaring inflationary pressures from the Iran war.

Ueda's hospitalization is unlikely to affect next week's decision, with a rate hike highly anticipated, but it will complicate the BOJ's communication ​about what may come next, said Mari Iwashita, executive rates strategist at Nomura Securities.

"With Ueda's absence, the BOJ may decide not to send clear signals on the future rate path. Given uncertainty on how long it may take for the governor to fully recover, it's also become more unclear on whether the BOJ would hike again this ​year."

The BOJ said that Deputy Governor Ryozo Himino will preside over the rate review in place of Ueda, while the other deputy governor, Shinichi Uchida, is set to ​host the post-meeting press conference. 

The announcement follows one the BOJ made in late May that its Deputy Governor Uchida had been discharged from hospital after recovering ‌from leukaemia ⁠treatment. 

The yen was roughly steady on the day against the dollar, which traded at 160.5, a level traders watch closely as it has triggered official intervention in the past.

Since taking control of the BOJ in 2023, Ueda has spent the first half of his tenure dismantling the remnants of his predecessor's massive stimulus as rising commodity and energy costs and intensifying labor shortages propelled inflation above the BOJ's 2% target.

The BOJ is now at a ​critical juncture as it moves away from ​withdrawing stimulus in baby steps ⁠towards fighting inflation - something it has not done for decades.

Ueda's hawkish speech earlier this month underscored the BOJ's changed narrative that led markets to near fully price in the chance of a June rate hike, yet which saw no upside for the yen. At the previous meeting in ​April, three of the BOJ's nine board members already voted in favor of hiking its short-term policy rate ​to 1% from 0.75%, ⁠and since then two more, Junko Koeda and Kazuyuki Masu, called for a near-term rate hike.

However, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, known as an advocate of loose fiscal and monetary policy, has voiced reservations over the BOJ's rate-hike plans (because like every other politicians, she is focused on the "wealth effect" first and foremost, even if it means galloping inflation).

Some analysts said Ueda's health issue may offer Takaichi an opportunity to influence the BOJ policy including ⁠by selecting ​his successor if the governor were to step down. Yet according to Norihiro Yamaguchi, senior economist at Oxford Economics ​in Tokyo, such a scenario now appeared unlikely.

"That said, it is also true that Takaichi is likely to appoint a more dovish person if she were to appoint a new ​governor," he said.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 18:00

RFK Jr. Responds To "Explosion" in Tick-Borne, WEF-Touted Alpha-Gal Syndrome

Authored By Ben Bartee at Armageddon Prose Substack

In response to a question on the topic posed by ZeroHedge reporter Liam Cosgrove, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently addressed the astronomical increase in alpha-gal syndrome, a tick-borne infection that causes potentially life-threatening allergic reactions to red meat:

“Last week, I went to New Hampshire… to address this explosion of alpha-gal, and we take it very seriously. One of the epicenters is Martha’s Vineyard where 50% of the adult population is now affected. It is really a devastating disease. You can’t eat red meat for the rest of your life. We are looking at medications that can serve as both prophylactics and also potentially cures for it. We’re funding those studies now and we’re working with the companies that are making those. We’ve also launched a major effort on tick control through a number of different strategies that address deer populations… Three ticks that are causing these, most of the tick-borne diseases, all breed on deer. And we’re looking at strategies for eliminating their breeding capacity.”

Secretary Kennedy tells me HHS is addressing the “explosion of Alpha Gal,” a tick-borne disease that leaves people with a life-long allergy to red meat.

Efforts include searching for a cure and reducing tick populations.

In the quoted tweet, you’ll see NYU “bioethics” professor… https://t.co/D1lLclY4bt pic.twitter.com/fWXxqmXqmL

— Liam Cosgrove (@cosgrove_iv) June 8, 2026

Related: Bird Flu Engineered to Infect Humans Could Be Lab- Produced ‘in Months,’ Former CDC Director Says

Over the last month, a groundswell of anecdotal accounts and videos from farmers and ranchers across the country have flooded social media, depicting massive tick infestations on their properties.

Man films strange box of ticks dropped in woods -- one of many such reports pic.twitter.com/CWtMpaDzAm

— Ben Bartee (@BenBartee) May 20, 2026

Apart from how to effectively treat alpha-gal syndrome for those infected, another questioning hanging in the air, as posed by Cosgrove but unaddressed by Kennedy, is whether the documented 5,566% increase in Alpha-Gal over the past ten years is an organic phenomenon or, like COVID, a man-made one.

“THE TICK THING IS NUTS” – JOE ROGAN & CONGRESSMAN TIM BURCHETT DON'T MINCE WORDS: “It’s Bill Gates.”

Joe Rogan: “A good friend of mine got bitten by a lone star tick and now has Alpha Gal syndrome. He can ONLY eat eggs and vegetables.” One bite. No more red meat. Ever. Your… pic.twitter.com/vfOaNbTIFp

— Valerie Anne Smith (@ValerieAnne1970) May 24, 2026

As I reported in detail at Armageddon Prose in May against this backdrop, the national security state has a long history of weaponizing ticks at notorious research facilities like Fort Detrick and Plum Island, including proposals to dump diseased ticks on Cuban sugar plantations in the 1960s in order to undermine its economy, with the ultimate aim of triggering regime change.

Via Principia Scientific:

“During the Cold War, the United States maintained an active biological warfare program from 1943 until President Richard Nixon ordered its termination in 1969.

Centered at Fort Detrick in Maryland*, the program explored various delivery systems for pathogens, including insects such as fleas, mosquitoes, and ticks. One notable experiment, Operation Big Itch in 1954, involved releasing approximately 670,000 fleas from cluster munitions to test their viability as disease vectors.

... with some work reportedly conducted at Plum Island, where large colonies of both soft and hard ticks were maintained. Wildlife, including deer and birds, moved freely between the island and the Connecticut mainland, creating potential pathways for pathogens to reach local populations. The program gained additional momentum during the Kennedy administration. In response to Cuba’s alignment with the Soviet Union, the United States launched Operation Mongoose, a covert campaign aimed at undermining Fidel Castro’s regime. Some proposals reportedly examined the use of disease-carrying insects to target Cuban agricultural workers, particularly in sugarcane and tobacco fields, in an effort to disrupt the island’s economy. While the full extent of these plans remains debated, declassified documents confirm that Project 112, authorized in 1962, expanded biological weapons testing and included research on mass insect production.

Between 1966 and 1969, the U.S. military released 282,800 ticks labeled with radioactive carbon-14 along bird migration routes in Virginia. The goal was to study how ticks—and the diseases they might carry—could spread across wide areas. Notably, lone star ticks, previously not found north of the Mason-Dixon line, soon established populations on Long Island.”

Related: After Years of Covering For Fauci, Washington Post Acknowledges Beagle Torture

According to the account of a retired CIA black ops agent interviewed by investigative reporter Kris Newby in “Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons,” the covert weaponized tick program actually went live during Operation Mongoose, in which he participated.

Via The Spectator:

“On December 18 last year, Donald Trump signed into law an order to 'review and report on biological weapons experiments on and in relation to ticks [and] tick-borne diseases.' The investigation is long overdue but even so, the facts it uncovers will come as a shock to many. A growing body of evidence shows that during the Cold War ticks were tinkered with and used as delivery mechanisms for biological warfare agents. And these weaponized ticks may have been released both intentionally and unintentionally on an unsuspecting public by the US military…

I met a man in his seventies who had been in black ops in the CIA. He told me that the strangest thing he ever did was drop infected ticks on Cuban sugarcane workers in 1962. I verified the details of what he told me – it turned out that the dropping of infected ticks in Cuba was a subproject of Operation Mongoose, which aimed to weaken Fidel Castro’s position in Cuba by destroying its economy... The US entomological bioweapons program was directed by the Chemical Corps, headquartered at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

The program was almost as large and secretive as the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. In 1951, Willy Burgdorfer, a medical zoologist with experience working with ticks and Q fever, was recruited from Basel, Switzerland, to conduct feasibility studies for Fort Detrick. His lab was based in the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton, Montana, which was home to the largest living tick collection in the US. Burgdorfer often traveled to Fort Detrick, where he worked alongside former Nazi biowarfare scientists who had been allowed into the country through Operation Paperclip.”

Benjamin Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile (now available in paperback), is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 17:40

Apollo's President Warns AI Is Coming For Professional Services Jobs Next

First AI came for Software, disrupting its various offshoots and sparking a brutal bear market at the start of the year before a powerful squeeze sent software stocks surging in recent weeks. Now, it's the turn of professional services, including law firms, accountancies and consulting firms, which according to Apollo’s co-president, Scott Kleinman are likely to be the next sector to face disruption from artificial intelligence.

Investors have had their worries focused on the software sector, and the extent to which AI will upend these businesses. But going forward, buyout shops should be looking at investments in professional services, Kleinman said on a panel at the SuperReturn conference in Berlin on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg. 

“Apologies to the lawyers, accountants, consultants in the room, but I do think that’s a place where you’re going to see a lot of pressure,” Kleinman said, noting that Apollo is now "massively underweight" software and is directing capital toward critical infrastructure and less exposed business, reflecting a defensive credit stance. 

Private equity shops have funneled money into professional services firms, particularly accountancies, in recent years as many have looked for new sources of cash. Cinven, for example, bought a majority stake in Grant Thornton’s UK business in 2024.

Going forward, buyout firms should evaluate whether any professional services companies they’ve invested in can be replaced or supplemented by AI, Kleinman said.

Which is not to say that AI is done with software: Kleinman said that the software sector still poses an issue for private equity firms, many of which haven’t marked down their investments in the space at the same rate as the public markets have.

While software companies aren’t “going away,” ones that are “AI-native” are “going to put enormous pressure over time on legacy software businesses,” he said.

“The private equity industry fell in love with software, decided to pay ungodly prices for these businesses on the assumption that they keep growing forever and their margins would keep expanding forever,” Kleinman said. “But as we know, nothing grows to the moon. It’s a question of what is the next buyer going to pay for these companies and is it going to look anything like the multiple you paid for it?”

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 17:20

Even CNN Admits Democrats Are Cooked On Immigration

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity,

CNN's latest "Run the Numbers" segment lays bare a brutal reality for Democrats: their radical immigration stance has left them bleeding support across every demographic, while President Trump racks up historic approval on the issue.

The numbers don't lie, and even the network long accused of carrying water for open-border advocates is now spotlighting just how badly the party has botched border security.

One anchor stated plainly what millions of Americans have known for years: "Democrats have a PROBLEM."

?? JUST IN - CNN just completely BOMBED Democrats on their disastrous border policies.

"Democrats have a PROBLEM." ??

"Donald Trump has been THE MOST consequential president on immigration policy in the 21st century."

"Republicans are MORE trusted on immigration by +8,... pic.twitter.com/GO4gJr6uJf

— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) June 9, 2026

The discussion quickly turned to the dramatic reversal in public trust. CNN highlighted that Republicans now hold an edge where Democrats once led comfortably.

"Republicans are MORE trusted on immigration by +8, and Republicans with a +16 LEAD among independents."

This marks a complete flip from June 2018, when Democrats held a +7 point advantage on the issue. The shift among independents is especially devastating for a party that has long relied on that group to paper over its extremes.

The correspondent didn't stop at party trust. The segment emphasized that President Trump stands apart historically: "Donald Trump has been THE MOST consequential president on immigration policy in the 21st century."

That assessment lands with extra force because it comes amid Trump's second term, where his America First approach has produced tangible results on enforcement, deterrence, and restoring order after years of record illegal crossings, fentanyl deaths, and strained communities.

CNN's analysis didn't end with trust metrics. Another graphic drove the point deeper into Democratic territory. A majority of voters across the board want the party to abandon its far-left positions.

The data showed 59% of all voters believe Democrats should move to the center on immigration. Only 18% want the party to move further left. Breaking it down by group revealed the breadth of the rejection: White voters without college degrees at 67%, White voters with college degrees at 59%, Latino voters at 54%, and Black voters at 51%.

Every major racial group in America also agrees that Trump and Republicans have a much better immigration policy than radical Democrats who want open borders. This isn't a niche complaint from one corner of the electorate. It is a broad consensus that the party's embrace of lax enforcement and sanctuary policies has backfired spectacularly.

The segment also zeroed in on presidential approval ratings specifically tied to immigration. The results were unambiguous.

"TAKE A LOOK! Guess who has the HIGHEST approval on immigration? It's Donald John Trump who has the highest approval on immigration - 42%!"

The graphic compared 21st century presidents at the equivalent point in their second terms. George W. Bush sat at 30%. Barack Obama registered 36%. Trump leads them all at 42%.

"Donald Trump has the highest approval of ANY president on immigration at this point in a second term," CNN noted.

?? BREAKING - President Trump has the HIGHEST APPROVAL rating on immigration among Presidents in the 21st century.

"TAKE A LOOK! Guess who has the HIGHEST approval on immigration?"

"It's Donald John Trump who has the highest approval on immigration - 42%!"

"Donald Trump has... pic.twitter.com/n6sDbVe7DY

— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) June 9, 2026

These figures reflect more than abstract popularity. They measure results. Trump's policies - enhanced vetting, cooperation with local law enforcement, physical barriers where needed, and ending catch-and-release - have restored a measure of control that previous administrations surrendered. The public notices when chaos at the border subsides and when the rule of law reasserts itself.

What makes CNN's presentation particularly stinging for Democrats is how it undercuts years of media and activist framing. For too long, any serious discussion of border security was dismissed as xenophobic or extreme. Now the numbers reveal that position as the true outlier.

Voters are not demanding open borders or the decriminalization of illegal entry. They are demanding basic sovereignty and safety. When majorities of Black and Latino Americans join White voters in telling Democrats to moderate, the party's coalition shows visible cracks.

The radical wing that pushed "abolish ICE" rhetoric and resisted even modest enforcement measures has dragged the entire party into a ditch. CNN's own data confirms it. The 18% who want Democrats to move further left represent a loud but tiny faction that has outsized influence in primaries and party infrastructure. The other 82% are sending a clear message: enough.

This isn't about partisan score-settling. It is about measurable failure. Communities across the country absorbed the costs of unchecked illegal immigration for years - overwhelmed hospitals, schools stretched thin, wage pressure on working-class Americans, and tragic losses to fentanyl and crime. Trump's return to the White House has begun reversing that damage. The polling captures the relief and approval that follows.

With midterm elections approaching, these trends carry heavy implications. Immigration remains a top-tier issue for voters, and the party that owns the stronger record on it holds a structural advantage. Republicans' +16 lead among independents is not a minor detail. It is a warning sign for any Democrat hoping to flip seats in competitive districts.

The data also exposes the limits of identity politics on this issue. The assumption that minority voters would automatically back lax policies has collapsed under scrutiny. Real-world consequences - cartel violence spilling over, strained public resources, and threats to social cohesion - cut across racial lines. Voters prioritize safety and fairness over ideological slogans.

CNN's willingness to air these numbers suggests the political reality has become too obvious to ignore, even inside institutions that once minimized the border crisis. When a network that spent years downplaying record encounters now runs segments titled around "Democrats' PROBLEM ON IMMIGRATION," the shift in the Overton window is undeniable.

President Trump's approach has always centered on putting American citizens first. Secure borders, legal immigration that serves the national interest, and accountability for those who break the rules are not radical ideas. They are the baseline for any functional nation. The polling CNN presented proves that a growing share of the country agrees - including many who once leaned the other way.

Democrats face a choice. They can continue following the activist base into further isolation, or they can confront the data their own preferred media outlets are now forced to acknowledge. So far, the party's direction suggests denial remains the dominant strategy. That path leads to more losses.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/10/2026 - 17:00