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After Huge Election Defeat, Top CDU Politician Demands First Steps Towards AfD Ban

Via Remix News,

After a historic democratic victory for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, a top Christian Democrat (CDU) politician, Hendrik Wüst, is now calling for the first concrete steps towards a possible ban of the AfD party.

"I said something today, but I don't think any CDU member has said it publicly yet: That I am in favor of appointing this working group, which will then do this work," said North Rhine-Westphalia's Minister-President Wüst.

Wüst has already repeatedly referred to the AfD as a "Nazi party." North Rhine-Westphalia itself faces a state election in April 2027.

Wüst made the remarks on Monday evening in Berlin to a mostly left-leaning audience during a talk hosted by "transformation researcher" Maja Göpel. He presented this working group as a prerequisite before any application to Germany's top court, the Federal Constitutional Court, for an outright ban of the AfD.

While the AfD nearly obtained an absolute majority with 43.8 percent in the Saxony-Anhalt election, Wüst's own party saw a historic crash, with its support cut in half to 17.2 percent. The results have reportedly sent CDU leadership, along with Chancellor Friedrich Merz, into a potential existential crisis.

Wüst apparently does not like that voters are moving away from his party and now wants this working group to examine the AfD in preparation for a potential ban, but he says other outcomes are possible besides a ban.

Beyond his position as minister-president, there is also speculation that Wüst himself is a strong front-runner to replace Merz should he step down. Merz himself has rejected a ban of the AfD, saying that it "smacks too much of the elimination of political rivals."

Besides the Bundestag and the federal government, the Bundesrat, of which Wüst is a member as head of a state government, can also launch such proceedings. However, the final decision on a ban is ultimately made by the Constitutional Court.

Wüst framed the outcome of that review as a constitutional duty. If the working group's examination reveals that the AfD could be banned, that would be a "command to protect this constitution."

As reported by Die Welt, Wüst added:

"If, after an examination, the following is on the table: This party can be banned, then this ban procedure must be initiated. For me, that's relatively clear. But step by step."

Earlier the same day, at a campaign event in Berlin, he had already warned against underestimating the AfD after its result in Saxony-Anhalt.

"We must not be naive and believe that the AfD would somehow change course. They have a plan with this country, and it's not a good plan," he said.

Wüst was careful to say that it is not a foregone conclusion that such a working group would recommend a ban.

Wüst said the working group should "not operate with the politically predetermined goal" but rather "examine this party and the possible legal consequences."

"That could be a ban, that could also be something else," said the CDU politician.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 09/10/2026 - 02:00

The 5 Places In America You Want To Be When Society Begins To Collapse

Authored by John Walter via Substack,

There is a moment before the fall. You will miss it. Everyone does.

The shelves still hold food. The lights still work. The news still talks about politics, sports, the usual noise. But somewhere in the background, something has shifted. The supply chain that moved your breakfast cereal every Tuesday for twenty years now operates on thinner margins than the quarterly reports acknowledge. The water treatment plant built in 1967 still runs, but the replacement parts that once took three days to arrive now take eighteen months, if they arrive at all. The pension checks clear, but the funds backing them have been borrowing from themselves since 2008, and the actuarial projections no longer align with the demographic reality. They just haven't stopped clearing yet.

This is not collapse. This is the pre-collapse.

The period when preparation remains possible, when geography can still be chosen, when the window sits open but narrowing.

Most Americans live in places that will not survive prolonged systems failure. Not because the people are weak, but because the infrastructure is brittle by design. The Northeast Corridor depends on just-in-time delivery networks with three-day margins that assume trucks will always run and bridges will always stand. California's cities exist in permanent water deficit maintained only by imports traveling hundreds of miles across earthquake faults and political fault lines. Florida's peninsula offers no lateral escape when the storm surge comes, only northward highways that become parking lots. The desert Southwest operates on energy budgets that cannot be sustained without continuous fuel delivery to power plants that cannot function without water that no longer exists in sufficient quantities. The Industrial Midwest is already experiencing municipal bankruptcy that will soon make basic services - police, fire, snow removal, water treatment - unreliable or absent.

These are not predictions. They are observations of systems already stressed beyond design parameters, running on inertia and denial.

What follows is not a guide to bunker construction or food storage. It is an examination of five regions where the conditions for long-term survival exist - not because these places are easy, but because they are hard in ways that matter. They possess water, space, soil, and social structures that function without constant external inputs. They demand physical toughness, tolerance for isolation, and willingness to abandon the conveniences of contemporary life. They offer no guarantees. But they offer possibility, which is more than can be said for the places where most Americans currently live.

The selection rests on data: population density, water source reliability, agricultural capacity, energy independence, legal frameworks for self-defense. But it also rests on something harder to quantify - the persistence of skills and social patterns that predate industrial dependence. Some places remember how to survive without the grid. Others never forgot.

The window for relocation narrows daily. Land prices in these regions rise as awareness spreads. Communities that once welcomed newcomers now view them with suspicion that borders on hostility. Infrastructure that could support additional population strains under those already arriving. The question is not whether to move, but whether you will move before movement becomes impossible, before the roads clog with those fleeing the same crisis you saw coming, before the locals decide they have accepted enough outsiders.

Here are the five places.

Interior Redoubt

Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming contain approximately 3.3 million people spread across 270,000 square miles. Average density: twelve persons per square mile. In some northern counties, the figure drops below five.

Space you can breathe in.

Beneath southern Idaho lies the Snake River Plain aquifer. A USGS hydrologist explained it simply: enough water exists there to support populations hundreds of times larger than current levels, for centuries, even under drought conditions that would devastate other regions. Wells hit water at fifty to one hundred feet. In many places, the pressure is sufficient that pumps become unnecessary - gravity does the work, pushing water to the surface through artesian flow.

Montana holds the headwaters of three major river systems: Missouri, Columbia, and Mississippi. The state averages fifteen to thirty inches of precipitation annually. This water does not arrive through distant bureaucracies or engineering projects requiring political negotiation. It falls from the sky and runs off mountains that have not yet been drained by overuse because the population has never been large enough to drain them.

Wyoming has 580,000 residents. It is the least populated state. You can drive for hours and see no one. You can buy land by the hundred-acre parcel for prices that would not purchase a garage in San Francisco. The game populations - elk, deer, pronghorn, bear - are managed for sustainability rather than exhaustion. A resident can hunt them without competing with millions of others because millions of others are simply not there. They are elsewhere, packed into cities, dependent on systems that will not sustain them.

Winters here are brutal. Twenty below zero is common. Snow blocks roads for weeks, sometimes months. The growing season runs ninety to one hundred twenty days. The soil in mountain zones is thin, rocky, difficult to work. These are not inconveniences to be solved with better technology. They function as filters, keeping out those who lack the physical capacity or psychological tolerance for genuine hardship. They select for people who can survive when comfort disappears.

Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming all recognize constitutional carry. No permits are required for concealed or open carry. All three recognize Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground. A property owner faces no legal obligation to retreat before an intruder. These laws reflect a culture where self-reliance is expected, not merely permitted - a culture where waiting for police to arrive is understood as a luxury that may not always be available.

Communities here are not homogeneous. Some welcome newcomers with skills and capital. Others view outsiders with hostility that can last generations, rooted in experience with those who arrived with plans to transform rather than to join. Integration is slow. It requires demonstrating utility, respecting local norms, contributing before expecting acceptance. Those who arrive with intentions to make these places into versions of what they left will be resisted, sometimes violently. Those who arrive to learn and to work will eventually find their place, though "eventually" may mean years rather than months.

Life in the Redoubt demands tolerance for isolation that many cannot manage without psychological breakdown. The nearest hospital may be hours away. The nearest specialist may be days away. Preparation for winter cannot be improvised when the first storm hits in October and does not lift until April. Yet for those who meet these demands, this region offers something increasingly scarce: genuine autonomy, the possibility of building a life that does not depend on distant systems controlled by people who do not know you exist.

Water security is local. Food production is possible, though limited by climate. Defense is legally and culturally supported. Population density is low enough that resource competition will not become lethal for generations, even under severe conditions. Infrastructure is old but decentralized, simple but repairable with hand tools and knowledge that persists in the community.

A planner in Montana noted that some eastern counties have lost so much population that schools have closed, postal service runs only a few days per week, and emergency response is measured in hours rather than minutes. Some see this as demographic decline. Others see opportunity. The infrastructure exists. The land is there. The water flows. What is missing are people willing to do the work.

Ozark Plateau

Beneath the limestone and sandstone of the Ozarks lies one of the world's largest accessible aquifer systems. It covers 68,000 square miles across Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. The water sits shallow. In most places, fifty to one hundred fifty feet of drilling brings you to water that does not require heavy pumps or significant energy to extract. You dig. You hit water. You drink.

A 2024 USGS study confirmed what locals have known for generations: recharge rates remain sustainable. Unlike the Ogallala Aquifer, being depleted across the Great Plains, or the Colorado River basin, over-allocated by politics and climate change, the Ozark system continues to refill naturally from precipitation averaging forty-five to sixty inches annually. This water has been there. It will likely remain there long after other sources have failed.

Missouri's state average density is ninety persons per square mile. This figure misleads. Wayne County, in the southern part of the state, holds thirteen people per square mile spread across 774 square miles of forested, hilly terrain difficult to farm with industrial machinery. This difficulty has protected it. It has not been converted to monoculture corn and soy. It remains a patchwork of small holdings, woodlots, and family farms that have survived despite agricultural economics rather than because of them.

Arkansas adds nineteen million acres of forest. Hunting is abundant: squirrel, rabbit, whitetail deer, black bear, wild turkey. A resident who learns to hunt and process game can provide protein for a household without depending on supply chains that may break without warning. Forests also provide timber for construction and fuel, foraging for mushrooms and berries, and cover dense enough to make large-scale surveillance or control practically impossible without resources no collapsing government will possess.

The climate is humid subtropical. Summers are hot and wet. Winters are mild compared to the north. The growing season runs one hundred eighty to two hundred days at lower elevations. Two crops per year become possible with planning and labor. Rainfall is consistent enough that irrigation is unnecessary for most gardening, eliminating dependence on pumps and electrical infrastructure that may fail.

Land costs are among the nation's lowest. Twenty acres with water access and building rights can be purchased for under fifty thousand dollars in many counties. This is not an investment opportunity promising returns. It is a price point that permits people of modest means to achieve property independence without mortgage debt that would force continued participation in the wage economy, continued dependence on systems that may not survive.

By conventional metrics, the Ozarks are poor. Incomes are low. Educational attainment lags national averages. Health outcomes are worse than the nation as a whole. But these metrics measure integration into a system that may not survive. They do not measure the ability to feed oneself, to build shelter, to repair machinery, to survive without external inputs that require functioning supply chains and stable currencies. By those measures, this region possesses wealth that cannot be quantified in dollars and cannot be seized by institutions that may fail.

Scots-Irish immigrants settled this region, bringing traditions of self-sufficiency that have persisted through centuries of economic marginalization. People still can vegetables, smoke meat, build with timber they have felled themselves, repair vehicles with hand tools, deliver babies without hospitals. These skills are not romantic anachronisms. They are practical capacities that become essential when the industrial infrastructure stops functioning, when the trucks stop running, when the grid goes down and does not come back up.

Social structure is tight, kinship-based, suspicious of outsiders. Family networks extend across counties. Reciprocity is expected and enforced: you help your neighbor raise his barn, he helps you bring in your harvest. Those who violate these norms find themselves excluded from the networks that provide security and mutual aid. Those who respect them, who contribute before claiming membership, may eventually find a place, though the process takes years and cannot be rushed by money or credentials.

Health care is inadequate by urban standards. Economic opportunities are limited to agriculture, logging, and tourism that will likely disappear when the economy contracts. Isolation can become crushing for those accustomed to urban stimulation and constant connectivity. Yet for those willing to work within its constraints, to accept lower material standards in exchange for genuine autonomy, the Ozarks offer water security, food production capacity, and social infrastructure that functions without dependence on distant systems.

Appalachian Highlands

Eastern slopes of the Appalachians receive more than sixty inches of annual precipitation in many zones. While the American West dries under climate change pressure, these mountains remain green, wet, breathing. Water flows from springs that have run for centuries, feeding creeks and rivers that require no pumping, no treatment plants, no distant infrastructure vulnerable to interruption. For a prepared household, that abundance can mean the difference between dependence and self-sufficiency.

Eastern Tennessee, particularly the Cumberland Plateau and the Unaka Mountains, combines this water abundance with moderate climate. The growing season exceeds two hundred days at lower elevations. The soil, though often rocky and steep, is fertile when worked with knowledge rather than machinery. Terrain is difficult - steep slopes, narrow valleys, limited road networks that become impassable in winter storms. This difficulty has protected the region from the development that has flattened other areas, turned them into suburbs and strip malls and dependent populations.

Wayne County, Tennessee, contains over two thousand documented springs. Many remain unexploited, flowing from hillsides on properties that have not been developed because the terrain made development unprofitable. A property owner who finds one has a water source that requires no electricity, that resists contamination by industrial activity, that will likely continue flowing as long as the mountains stand and the climate remains wet. Hydrology here is local. It does not depend on political agreements hundreds of miles away or engineering projects requiring maintenance by specialists who may not be available during institutional breakdown.

Western North Carolina offers similar conditions. The Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains create a precipitation capture effect that keeps the region wet even when surrounding areas experience drought. Forests are dense deciduous hardwoods - oak, hickory, maple - providing timber, fuel, and forage. Streams hold trout. Hunting is adequate, though not as abundant as in the Midwest or West. Terrain makes large-scale agriculture impossible but small-scale intensive cultivation viable for those who know how to terrace slopes and work with gravity rather than against it.

West Virginia has lost sixty percent of its population since the coal peak of the mid-twentieth century. Infrastructure built for two million people now serves fewer than seven hundred thousand. Empty houses dot the hillsides. Schools have closed. Roads are maintained minimally if at all. Some interpret this as failure. Others see opportunity. Land is cheap. Water flows from springs and wells that have not been exhausted because the population that would exhaust them has left for cities that will likely not survive systemic disruption as well as this abandoned region will.

Winters here are real. Temperatures drop below freezing for extended periods. Snow falls, sometimes heavily, closing roads and increasing isolation. But the climate is not arctic. Survival is possible with preparation that is demanding but not extreme, with wood heat and stored food and clothing adequate for cold that kills the unprepared but merely inconveniences those who have prepared.

Social fabric is complex, damaged by poverty and the opioid epidemic that has devastated communities already marginalized by economic change. Educational resources are limited. Medical care is inadequate by urban standards. But there is also a resilience that does not appear in economic statistics, a capacity for mutual aid that has never stopped functioning because it was never replaced by government services that might fail.

When floods hit in 2024, the response came not from FEMA but from neighbors with excavators and chainsaws, churches with shelter space and food stores, hunters with meat to share. Networks functioned because they had never stopped functioning, never been fully outsourced to institutions that collapse when funding disappears. They were still there, still operating on reciprocity and kinship, ready to activate when crisis came.

Terrain provides natural defensive advantages that should not be underestimated. Narrow valleys limit access to single roads that can be blocked or observed. Steep slopes prevent easy surveillance from a distance, make large-scale movement difficult, provide cover for those who know the land. Dense forests hide movement and shelter. Surveillance is difficult. Control is practically impossible without massive resource expenditure that no collapsing government will be able to muster. Historical precedents - from Civil War guerrilla operations to Prohibition-era resistance to federal authority - demonstrate the region's capacity to harbor autonomous populations against forces that technically possess superior power but cannot effectively deploy it in such terrain.

Suspicion of outsiders runs deep, often justified by experience with extractive industries that took resources and left poverty, with government programs that promised development and delivered dependency. Those who arrive with money and plans to transform the region into something else, something more like the places they fled, will face resistance that can become dangerous. Those who arrive with humility, with willingness to learn, with skills to contribute and patience to wait for acceptance, may eventually find a place. The process is slow. It cannot be rushed by credentials or capital.

Upper Peninsula of Michigan

Sixteen thousand five hundred square miles. Three hundred thousand people. Simple math: there is space here. Space between settlements. Space between people. Space to disappear, to operate without observation, to survive without constant interaction with systems of control that will likely not survive prolonged instability.

Surrounding the UP are the largest freshwater reserves on Earth. Lake Superior alone contains enough water to cover the continental United States to a depth of one foot. Rivers flowing into it are numerous and, in most cases, clean enough to drink without treatment that requires chemicals and equipment that may not be available during infrastructure failure. Water is not the problem here. It is the solution to problems that will kill people elsewhere - dehydration, thirst, conflict over shrinking supplies.

The growing season is short: ninety to one hundred twenty days. Agriculture is limited, challenging, requiring crops suited to cold climates and short seasons. But the UP is not a desert. Potatoes, root vegetables, cold-hardy grains can be grown with planning, with greenhouses, with knowledge of varieties that mature quickly. More importantly, the region supports game populations - whitetail deer, black bear, small game - that can provide protein for those who hunt and possess the skills to process what they kill. Lakes and rivers hold fish. Forests provide timber for fuel and construction, enough wood to heat homes through winters that would likely kill the unprepared.

Winters are brutal in ways that must be experienced to be understood. Twenty below zero is not unusual. Snow accumulates in feet, not inches, and stays for months. Roads become impassable without heavy equipment that requires fuel and maintenance. Isolation increases as the snow falls and temperatures drop. This is not a design flaw. It is a feature. It keeps people out. It makes large-scale movement difficult. It creates a barrier that does not need to be guarded because nature guards it with cold that kills those who are not prepared for it.

Only three bridges connect the UP to the rest of Michigan. All are vulnerable to interruption by weather, by accident, by deliberate action. The road network is sparse, maintained minimally, often impassable in winter regardless of official status. Population is concentrated in a few small cities - Marquette, Houghton, Sault Ste. Marie - leaving vast areas nearly empty, populated by scattered homesteads and small settlements separated by miles of forest and water.

Land is cheap. Forty acres with water access can be purchased for thirty thousand dollars, sometimes less. Infrastructure - roads, power lines, buildings - exists from the mining boom of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but is now underutilized, maintained for populations that no longer exist. Houses stand empty, available for those willing to repair them. Schools have closed, leaving buildings that could serve other purposes. Population has been declining for decades, creating opportunity for those seeking to establish autonomous operations without competing for resources with millions of others.

The electrical grid is vulnerable. Winter storms knock out power regularly, sometimes for days or weeks. Residents have adapted over generations. Wood heat is standard, not optional. Generators are common, though they depend on fuel that must be brought from distant sources. Culture here accepts interruption as normal rather than catastrophic. This adaptation means that when the grid fails permanently, the population will likely not panic. They will light their stoves and continue, as they have done before, as their grandparents did before them.

Medical care is limited by distance. Hospitals are few and far between. Specialized care requires travel to Green Bay or Milwaukee, hours away over dangerous roads in winter. Population is aging, older than the national average. But older residents possess skills that have been forgotten in cities: how to cut timber with hand tools and chainsaws, how to repair engines without specialized equipment, how to grow food in short seasons, how to preserve meat through smoking and freezing, how to survive without calling a service technician who may not exist when systems fail.

Life here is not for the casual prepper who believes that buying supplies is sufficient preparation. It demands preparation for winters that have killed the unprepared historically and will likely kill them again when the infrastructure that provides margin for error fails. It demands tolerance for isolation that can become psychological torture for those accustomed to constant stimulation and connectivity. It demands skills that cannot be learned from books in the moment of crisis but must be practiced over years. Yet for those who meet these demands, who possess the hardiness and knowledge required, the UP offers water security, space, and social infrastructure that functions without dependence on distant systems controlled by people who will not be there when those systems fail.

Interior Alaska

Three hundred thousand square miles. Fewer than one hundred thousand people. The density is not low. It is nearly nonexistent, approaching the point where human presence becomes statistical noise against the vastness of the land.

Interior Alaska is not a place for compromise or half-measures. Winters reach fifty below zero. Darkness lasts two months in which the sun does not rise above the horizon. Cost of living is extreme - gasoline at eight dollars per gallon when it is available, milk at ten dollars, everything flown in or barged during the brief summer when rivers are navigable. Medical care is practically nonexistent outside Fairbanks and Anchorage, and even those cities offer limited capabilities by lower-forty-eight standards. A broken bone or appendicitis or heart attack can be a death sentence if weather prevents evacuation, if the plane cannot fly, if you are too far from help to reach it in time.

Yet interior Alaska offers something no other region can match: the possibility of genuine disappearance. Not hiding. Not evasion. Ceasing to exist as a data point, a consumer, a citizen, a participant in systems of control and extraction. The land is too vast for surveillance. The population too scattered for enforcement. The conditions too harsh for those who lack the skills and temperament to survive them. The environment filters out the unprepared with brutal efficiency that makes no exceptions for good intentions or money or credentials.

Water is everywhere. Rivers flow clean enough to drink without treatment. Lakes freeze and thaw on annual cycles. Snow melts to provide drinking water. The problem is not finding water. It is staying alive while you access it, staying warm enough to melt snow, staying alert enough to avoid falling through ice, staying competent enough to travel safely in conditions where the margin for error becomes dangerously small.

Subsistence is not a hobby in interior Alaska. It is recognized by federal law - the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 - as a protected way of life. Rural residents have the right to hunt, fish, and gather on federal lands. The harvest is substantial: 295 pounds per person annually in remote communities, compared to 22 pounds in urban areas. For those who know how to hunt caribou, how to fish salmon, how to preserve meat through drying and smoking in Arctic conditions, how to build shelter that withstands winds and cold that destroy conventional construction, survival is possible. Without those skills, the margin for error becomes dangerously small, and the land offers little forgiveness for mistakes.

Those skills are not optional. Those who lack them face conditions where small errors become fatal. Hypothermia, starvation, accidents in remote locations, encounters with bears or moose that end badly - these are common causes of death for those who underestimate the environment, who believe that equipment can substitute for knowledge, that technology can overcome conditions that have killed the unprepared for thousands of years.

Social structure is based on reciprocity and competence, enforced by necessity. Those who do not contribute to hunting or fishing do not eat. Those who cannot repair their own equipment depend on others who can, and that dependency creates obligation that must be repaid. Communities are small - villages of two hundred people, homesteads separated by miles of wilderness, families living alone with nearest neighbors hours away by snowmachine or boat. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone knows who is competent and who is not, who contributes and who takes, who can be trusted in emergency and who cannot.

Alaska has no permit requirements for firearms carry. No restrictions on weapon types. No magazine capacity limits. The culture of armed self-defense is absolute - not as political statement or identity marker, but as practical necessity. Bears exist. Moose exist, dangerous when threatened. Distance from any help is measured in hours or days, not minutes. People are armed because they must be, because the alternative is to be defenseless in an environment that does not forgive defenselessness.

The interior is not a retreat from difficulty. It is a commitment to difficulty that exceeds anything most Americans have experienced or can imagine. Those who go there must abandon connections to systems that sustain modern life. Supply flights, satellite internet, imported fuel, medical care, social services - these are vulnerabilities that pure subsistence practitioners avoid not because they reject modernity on principle but because they know that dependence on such systems is fatal when those systems fail, and in the interior, failure means death.

Native corporations own much of the land. The federal government owns most of the rest. But subsistence rights, protected by ANILCA, provide legal access to resources regardless of ownership. The legal framework recognizes what the environment enforces: survival depends on use, not on title, on the ability to extract resources from the land rather than on documents that claim ownership but provide no capacity to utilize what is owned.

Climate change affects the interior paradoxically. Warmer winters extend the season of vulnerability to thawing ice that makes travel dangerous, to shifting wildlife patterns that disrupt traditional hunting. But they also extend the brief growing season, potentially improving subsistence conditions for those who adapt to new patterns. Permafrost degrades, causing infrastructure collapse that matters little to those who never depended on infrastructure, but also creating new water access and vegetation opportunities.

Psychological demands exceed the physical in ways that are difficult to convey to those who have not experienced them. Isolation, darkness, cold, silence - these break people who lack the temperament for them, who require constant stimulation, who cannot exist without external validation or entertainment. Those who remain possess characteristics that cannot be taught in any school: patience, tolerance for discomfort, capacity for delayed gratification, comfort with silence, ability to exist without constant input from outside sources.

Interior Alaska will not save many. Barriers to entry are too high. The learning curve is too steep. Margin for error is too narrow, measured in hours or minutes rather than days. Yet for those who possess the necessary skills and temperament, who have prepared not merely with supplies but with knowledge that can only be earned through years of practice, it offers the ultimate possibility: existence beyond the reach of any system that might fail, any government that might collapse, any economy that might disintegrate. Here, you are alone in a way that no other place in America can replicate. For some, that is a nightmare. For others, it is the only freedom left.

*  *  *

There is no conclusion to draw, no moral to extract, no moral can be extracted, no call to action can be phrased in a way that will convince those who are not already convinced. These five regions exist. They have water, space, and social structures that function without constant external inputs. They demand things that most people cannot give: tolerance for isolation, acceptance of physical hardship, willingness to abandon the conveniences and connections of contemporary life, capacity to survive without the infrastructure that most Americans believe essential.

Those who wait for clear confirmation that systemic failure is imminent will likely find the window closed when they finally decide to move - the roads clogged with those fleeing the same crisis they saw coming, the locals having decided they have accepted enough outsiders, and land prices having risen beyond reach.

The choice is not between safety and danger. All five regions are dangerous in ways that matter, that can kill the unprepared. The choice is between different kinds of danger: the danger of isolation and hardship versus the danger of dependence on systems that may fail; the danger of cold and dark versus the danger of thirst and hunger in places where millions compete for shrinking resources; the danger of doing too much versus the danger of doing too little until doing anything becomes impossible.

Geography is not destiny until it is. Until the moment when the aquifer runs dry, when the grid fails and does not return, when the trucks stop running, when the violence starts and does not stop. At that moment, where you are becomes who you are, what you can do, whether you will survive or become a statistic in a catastrophe that future historians will struggle to explain, if there are historians.

The ground is shifting beneath feet that do not yet feel the movement. The question is whether you will feel it in time to move your feet to somewhere the shifting matters less.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 23:25

Morgan Stanley: Oil Traders Are "More Precise" With Risk As Wars Drag On

By Michael Kern of OilPrice.com

Uncertainty about how the wars in Iran and Ukraine will unfold is keeping many traders away from taking positions in longer-dated futures contracts, according to Morgan Stanley.

Most traders have now moved to bet on futures prices within a three to six-month period, instead of longer-dated futures contracts, as volatility has spiked and uncertainty has grown regarding where the wars are going and how much they would continue to impact the global oil market.

“People have been more precise with their risk,” Brendan Ross, Co-Head Global Oil Trading at Morgan Stanley, said at the Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference in Singapore on Wednesday, as carried by Bloomberg.

“They’ve decided what they really want and what’s an unexpected bleed,” Ross added.

Many traders are ditching too risky bets and are piling up in near-dated futures contracts as they don’t want to be caught on the wrong side of the longer-dated bets amid high uncertainty about the Iran and Ukraine wars, according to the expert.

This shift into near-dated futures has sapped liquidity in the longer-term contracts, Ross noted.

Meanwhile, speculators and portfolio managers have recently amassed bets in the fuel markets as these have been considerably tighter than the crude oil market. Hedge funds have gone from short on fuels early in the spring to long now, building a net long position of 177 million barrels across the most traded fuel contracts—gasoline and diesel—as of September 1, according to the latest available data from exchanges compiled by energy analyst John Kemp.

Speculators’ position on fuels is likely to remain strongly bullish in the coming weeks, reflecting the impossibility of replacing lost output from the Middle East and Russia with alternative supply because there is not enough production capacity elsewhere. So, U.S. inventories of diesel and, most notably, gasoline, will continue to draw from an already low point.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 22:35

An AI-Designed Drug Just Moved Six Different Aging Clocks At Once

An experimental drug designed using AI has produced measurable shifts toward a younger biological-age profile in patients.

Developed by Insilico Medicine, the drug - rentosertib - was initially engineered to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a progressive, age-associated lung-scarring disease. When researchers analyzed blood samples from a Phase IIa clinical trial, they applied six proteomic profiling "aging clocks" among 42 participants. All six detected reductions in predicted biological age, whereas the placebo group showed little change or slight increases. The most pronounced and consistent effects emerged around week four of treatment.

The study was authored by Insilico with academic collaborators from Harvard, Stanford, the Broad Institute, RWTH Aachen, Peking University and Westlake University.

Insilico used AI not only to identify a specific enzyme (TNIK) linked to both fibrosis and aging pathways, but also to generate and optimize the specific molecule designed to inhibit it. That dual application makes rentosertib a rare clinical test of AI uncovering a target case and building new therapeutics from scratch.

In the earlier Phase IIa, patients in the 60mg once-daily arm recorded a mean improvement in forced vital capacity of 98.4 milliliters against a mean decline of 20.3 milliliters on placebo. FVC declines with age in healthy people over 65 at roughly 20 to 50 milliliters a year, which is why Insilico treats it as a physiological aging marker as well as an efficacy endpoint.

Via nature.com. Click to expand

"If you manage to add 3 years to everyone's life, the drug should be able to significantly extend the healthy portion of life as well, translating into trillions of dollars in productivity and savings," said Alex Zhavoronkov, Insilico's founder and co-CEO.

And according to 2013 chemistry Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, "What convinces me is not the size of the effect but the agreement, because these models share neither their features nor their training data," he said of the six clocks reaching the same conclusion on the same 42 patients.

Rentosertib is no longer confined to early-stage laboratory work. In July, Insilico announced that the drug had entered a randomized Phase III trial, expected to enroll 320 IPF patients for a 52-week, once-daily regimen. That trial is designed to evaluate pulmonary-fibrosis efficacy and safety, not life extension - but it advances an AI-generated molecule into the final phase of clinical development. Of note - the study does not prove that rentosertib extends human lifespan or literally shaves years off a patient's age. But the clock results, the senescence and metabolic pathway shifts, and the dose-dependent FVC gains all point the same way, and more study is needed to understand the possibilities.

If the drug succeeds clinically, it validates AI-driven drug discovery, and offers a template for testing future medicines against both specific age-related diseases and the biomarkers of aging itself. If it fails in Phase III, the aging clocks will have been measuring a lung.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 22:10

NextEra Secures $1.9BN Loan From Dept Of Energy For Restart Of Duane Arnold Nuclear Power Plant

By Zachary Skidmore of DataCenterDynamics

NextEra Energy has secured a $1.9 billion loan from the US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF) to support the restart of the Duane Arnold nuclear power plant, which is tied to a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Google.

The plant, located in Linn County, Iowa, is the only nuclear energy project in the state and first entered service in February 1975. However, due to the 2020 Midwest derecho (straight-line windstorm), which damaged the facility’s cooling towers, repairs were deemed uneconomical, leading to its shutdown.

Duane Arnold Energy Center in Linn County, Iowa

Reports surfaced in 2024 that NextEra was considering a restart of the 615MW plant, following Microsoft's announcement that it would take 100 percent of a revived Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. The company subsequently announced that it had signed a 25-year PPA with Google in October, with the plant expected to begin delivering power by 2029.

According to the DOE, the latest loan will help finance the restart of the plant and represents the third loan provided by EDF to support a nuclear plant restart in the US. These include the Crane Clean Energy Center (Three Mile Island Unit 1), which received a $1bn loan, and the Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert Township, Michigan, which secured a $1.52bn loan.

“President Trump has set an ambitious course to restore American nuclear leadership, and the restart of Duane Arnold Nuclear Plant in Iowa marks another step in advancing America’s nuclear renaissance,” said US deputy secretary of energy James P. Danly. “Returning 615MW of reliable baseload generation will drive down electricity costs, while supporting thousands of American jobs. This administration is pursuing a comprehensive nuclear strategy, restarting existing reactors, increasing the output of our nuclear fleet, and accelerating new construction, to build the abundant, affordable, and reliable power system required for American prosperity and reindustrialization.”

The plant is one of several to have its capacity contracted to a hyperscale data center firm. In addition to Google and Microsoft, Meta signed a 20-year PPA with Constellation Energy for the entire output of the 1.1GW Clinton Clean Energy Center in Clinton, Illinois. AWS has also gotten in on the act, signing a 1.92GW PPA with Talen Energy for energy from the 2.5GW Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 21:45

"Not Behind Us": Major US Tool Distributor Warns Tungsten Cost Shock Is Hitting Factory Floors

Speaking at the Jefferies Industrials Conference earlier on Wednesday, MSC Industrial executive Martina McIsaac warned of a tungsten supply shock rippling through the company's supply chain and continuing to drive up industrial tooling costs.

McIsaac told Steve Volkmann, an industrial analyst at Jefferies, that inflation affecting tungsten carbide inputs is "in the neighborhood of 500%" and said suppliers were still passing higher costs through the manufacturing chain.

Cutting tools represent about 15% of MSC's revenue, making tungsten a major source of pricing pressure for one of the largest industrial distributors of tools and supplies across North America used by factories and machine shops. Notably, Grainger and Fastenal are larger by revenue.

"Tungsten has been the biggest driver," McIsaac said. "It's not our whole business, but it's a chunk of business, and it's not behind us."

Volkmann asked McIsaac: "Okay. And you said that it wasn't over yet, but I believe tungsten prices have flattened out a bit."

McIsaac responded: "They have stabilized, but the ripples through the supply chain aren't over yet. So some suppliers, for example, depending on where they source their tungsten powder and how much they had on hand, the cadence of their increases is all different. So every supplier is behaving a little differently, but there's still a way to come. I think we said in the third quarter, we expected late ... our late fourth quarter, early first quarter, there would be another price increase."

MSC sells tungsten-carbide cutting tools used to machine metal parts across North America. McIsaac's comments offer one of the first examples we've found of how the severe tungsten shortage, driven by China's export restrictions and continued Western demand, is pressuring industrial customers. Prices have climbed above $3,000, according to a recent Cantor Fitzgerald note.

China's dominance of tungsten production has certainly exposed a major vulnerability in Western manufacturing and defense supply chains.

The latest Katusa Research note puts China's share of global tungsten mine production at roughly 79% last year, or 67,000 tons out of 85,000 tons worldwide. The US has had no commercial mine production since 2015.

Beijing's February 2025 export-licensing requirements intensified that dependence. Katusa cites a nearly 70% decline in Chinese exports of ammonium paratungstate, or APT, through the first 11 months of 2025.

Rotterdam APT prices jumped from around $390 per metric ton unit at the beginning of 2025 to roughly $3,400 this spring, according to Katusa Research. 

Citing Financial Times reporting, Katusa said that Chinese traders have panic-hoarded carbide inserts, drill bits and worn tooling, sometimes bidding as much as five times normal market prices.

Christian Keller, Barclays' global head of economics research, co-authored a note on Tuesday warning that "China's quasi-monopolistic position provides it with significant geopolitical leverage."

The end result has been a mad dash across the West, from governments to importers, to secure tungsten supplies outside China ahead of any further tightening of Chinese supply. However, there is only one problem... 

Companies that can bring supply online sooner could capture a crucial early market advantage, including Almonty as it ramps up tungsten production in South Korea.

Jefferies initiates critical mineral companies Almonty, Materion, USA Rare Earth and Neo Performance with Buy; the firms are expected to benefit from increased demand for supply outside of China.

Almonty (buy, PT $26.25)

Sees Almonty offering public exposure to Western tungsten…

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 2, 2026

Deliverable supplies of critical materials from outside China can command a higher premium, reinforcing our broader decoupling theme. Our view is to identify companies positioned to bring new supplies to market as governments and manufacturers rebuild supply chains on an ex-China basis. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 21:20

D.C. Gas Ban Gets Favorable Hearing In Federal Appeals Court

Authored by Julianne Geiger via OilPrice.com,

A federal appeals panel appeared inclined Tuesday to let Washington, D.C.'s restrictions on natural gas in certain new buildings stand.

The case turns on the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, or EPCA, which gives the Department of Energy authority to set efficiency and energy-use standards for appliances including furnaces, water heaters, dryers and stoves. Industry groups argue that D.C. cannot accomplish through a building code what federal law prevents it from doing directly to an appliance.

The challengers include the National Association of Home Builders, Restaurant Law Center, National Apartment Association, Maryland Building Industry Association, Washington Gas and two labor unions.

D.C.'s Clean Buildings Act requires certain newly constructed or substantially improved buildings to operate at zero energy beginning in 2027. The building standards effectively prohibit natural-gas appliances in covered properties.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes upheld the law in March. Her ruling found that EPCA regulates how much energy covered appliances consume, not whether a local government permits those appliances to be installed in a particular building.

Bloomberg Law reported Tuesday that the D.C. Circuit panel appeared similarly unconvinced by the industry groups' preemption argument during oral arguments.

Federal appeals courts are already split on essentially the same question.

The Ninth Circuit struck down Berkeley, California's natural-gas piping ban in 2024, finding that a city could not evade EPCA by eliminating the fuel supply needed to operate federally regulated appliances. That ruling covers nine Western states.

The Second Circuit went the other direction in June. It upheld New York City and New York State restrictions on fossil-fuel appliances, finding that EPCA preempts appliance energy-conservation standards but does not prevent governments from prohibiting certain appliances altogether.

Washington's case gives the D.C. Circuit the same statutory language and two competing appellate interpretations.

For builders, restaurants and gas utilities, the result determines whether D.C.'s 2027 requirements stand. For the natural gas industry, another ruling against preemption would leave Berkeley increasingly isolated - and gas appliance rules dependent on which federal circuit a building happens to sit in.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 20:55

Iran State Media Says 'Enemy' Attacks On Southern Iran Overnight Summary

• Iran state media: 'Enemy' attacks on southern Iran overnight
• Trump: "This war will end immediately after our election."
• Iran escalates with "20 for 2" response doctrine: 20 targets for every 2-3 targets struck.
• Iran sets heightened conditions for war's end: Tehran calls for an end to attacks, Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, an end to the Yemen blockade, and release of $24B in frozen assets.
• Shipping attacked: A tanker carrying 2M barrels of Iraqi oil was hit by a drone in Iraqi waters.
• Damage assessment in wake of overnight assaults: CENTCOM denies US warships were hit while saying 10 Iranian tankers have been destroyed. Regional reports say Jordan bases hit hard.
• Oil tops $100: Brent crude surpassed $100/barrel as markets see prolonged Gulf disruptions and little hope for a diplomatic off-ramp.

//--> //--> Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by December 31?
Yes 20% · No 81%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

* * *

Iran says 'Enemy' Attacks on Southern Iran

Unconfirmed reports out of the Gulf region have been flying all evening about explosions heard in and around the Strait of Hormuz and southern Iran.

Iran state media is overnight reporting that ‘enemy’ projectiles hit Sirik areas, in mainland southern Iran. The city has been hit before during the height of prior US airstrikes. Al Jazeera summarizes of the emerging state reports:

• Projectiles have hit several areas in Iran’s Sirik, with multiple explosions heard across the coastal region, including Minab County and Qeshm Island, Iranian state media report.

Circumstances are still murky and ultimately unconfirmed, also as to the cause of the explosions.

Trump on 'War' Ending 'Immediately'

New Trump remarks on Iran... Note that he called it a "war" (no less than twice in the below clip) - contradicting the White House's own stance (Sept. 4: Trump said don't call it a war, instead: "I call it a military conflict because it's small potatoes for us.":

Q: Do you expect negotiations with Iran to restart at some point?

Trump: Uhhhhhh... we're not looking for it to be honest with you. This war will end immediately after our election.

And meanwhile, back to the below laughably implausible headlines...

Pakistani Ambassador says they believe that a better understanding will soon be achieved between the US and Iran, reports ISNA

But don't Republicans actually need the war to end before Congressional elections?

Trump on Iran: I think the war will end immediately after the election. They’re desperate to affect the election. pic.twitter.com/31VEeI0tjO

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 9, 2026

More on high prices at the pump and the question of nuclear weapons... however, the war itself has only made this a greater uncertainty, as Washington has not achieved any prime objectives - and the status of the Iranian nuclear program remains unknown...

Reporter: You said that oil and gas prices were going to come down. Oil is now back above 100 dollars. How do you explain this to Americans?

Trump: It’s very easy to explain to Americans: all you have to do is say, will you let Iran have a nuclear weapon? The answer is no. pic.twitter.com/HFldzUtrbo

— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 9, 2026 IRGC: '20 for 2', Vows Disproportionate Responses

Amid the dramatic escalation which kicked off since Tuesday night, Iran is seeking to impose new conditions on the United States. While continuing to vow a 'disproportionate response' to any attack moving forward, Tehran is now identifying specifics.

IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi states Wednesday, "The imposed war, which involved the world's most powerful nations, has ended in certain periods, but the nature of the conflict continues. For the first time, this conflict has directly inflicted strategic damage on the United States, impacting the country's security and economic equations."

He issued the following list for the US to reach an end to the conflict. "If the enemy desires an end to this situation, they must"...

• completely cease the war
• refrain from further threats
• withdraw the Israeli army from Lebanon
• end the siege of Yemen
• release the $24 billion of Iranian assets that have been frozen
• cease any interference in the country's nuclear and missile programs

This definitely marks a raised bar, to be sure, after this summer the MoU complete ceased, and negotiations vanished. There's no way Washington complies with even half of the conditions, at this rate.

Importantly, Mohebbi also said: "We have reached a point where if the enemy strikes at 2 or 3 of our targets, we will respond forcefully by striking at 20."

Tanker Attacked in Iraq Territory Waters, After CENTCOM Insists US Warships Not Hit

After a huge Iranian ballistic missile launch on US bases in Jordan overnight, CENTCOM has yet to respond in any major way. The Pentagon has also said all US troops "are accounted for" - but this doesn't necessarily mean there were no casualties. However, CENTCOM is at the moment denying that the Iranians hit US warships, as the IRGC has been claiming since Tuesday, in an oddly specific statement: The IRGC claims to have targeted and inflicted "significant damage" on a pair of US warships in the Gulf of Oman: DDG-119 USS Delbert D. Black and DDG-53 USS John Paul Jones, both Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

CENTCOM responded: "No U.S. Navy warship has been struck; all IRGC attempted attacks failed." It added on X, "Meanwhile, U.S. forces have successfully destroyed 10 Iranian tankers in just the last week. These vessels were part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC, and Iran cannot defend them."

Meanwhile, Iran's military is continuing to go on the offensive, seeking to maintain its leverage over the contested Strait of Hormuz.

"A Panama-flagged tanker carrying 2 million barrels of Iraqi fuel oil was struck today by a drone in Iraqi territorial waters, two port officials say," Reuters reports. "Iraqi rescue boats extinguished a fire aboard the tanker, New Andros, and there are no reports of casualties, port officials tell Reuters."

💢 BREAKING: A Panama-flagged tanker carrying about 2 million barrels of Iraqi fuel oil was struck by a drone in Iraqi territorial waters, according to two Iraqi port officials cited by Reuters journalist Ahmed Rasheed. The vessel and extent of the damage were not immediately… https://t.co/3ciZBBGgg7

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) September 9, 2026 Brent Crude Futures Top $100

Brent crude futures topped $100 a barrel for the first time since July as US strikes on Iranian oil tankers and renewed attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure and a US base in Jordan suggested to UBS energy specialist Dominic Ellis that a "US-Iran off-ramp remains elusive."

Ellis adds more color on the overnight Gulf developments and response in the crude oil market:

Brent topped $100/bbl as the US and Iran continue to trade strikes around the Strait of Hormuz. 

The US says it has destroyed multiple Iranian vessels (including 5 on Sept. 8) in response to Iranian attacks, and says it will respond to each subsequent Iranian hit (actual or attempted) by destroying another Iranian tanker.

CENTCOM forces destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers, Sept. 8, after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles twice over the past two days. The U.S. warship successfully evaded the attempted Iranian attacks and… pic.twitter.com/Gi8a2tloN1

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) September 8, 2026

Iran hit a US base in Jordan, and has stepped up attacks on the US' regional allies, with Saudi Arabia's energy infrastructure under particular pressure. 

Some investors have shown signs of wanting to fade the rally in oil and related equities, but the change in tone from all concerned makes it seem less likely (if not impossible) that we will see a return to the de-escalation narrative that has historically triggered a drop in oil and profit-taking in equities. 

With the tailwind into Q3 numbers for the integrated energy sector, I think most will be inclined to leave long positions open until there is evidence of real progress back toward a diplomatic off ramp.

Iran has reportedly rejected the latest US offer of talks, and the conflict seems likely to support oil at current levels and potentially push prices higher in the near term.

The global crude benchmark broke above $100 a barrel in European trading but initially failed to hold the level. Just over an hour later, at around 4:36 a.m. ET, Brent reclaimed triple digits and extended gains to $100.83 by around 6:00 a.m. ET.

Price Forecasts

Goldman's head commodity strategist, Daan Struyven, wrote in a note on Monday that, given the renewed turmoil in the Gulf region, he raised his Brent/WTI price forecasts by $5 to $85/$80 for December 2026 and to $80/$75 for 2027, on the assumption that Mideast shipping disruptions continue into 2027.

Struyven outlined significant net upside price risks with two Gulf output and Brent scenarios:

• Price upside scenario: Brent might exceed $120/bbl if 2027 average Gulf output remains 4mb/d below pre-war levels, versus 0.5mb/d below in the base case. The bank views more intense shipping attacks in Hormuz and the Red Sea as the most likely driver of this lower-output, higher-price scenario.
• Price downside scenario: Brent might decline into the $60s in 2027 if 2027 average Gulf output rises 1mb/d above pre-war levels. Goldman still recommends hedging geopolitical risk through deferred Mar27-Dec27 European diesel timespreads, which would rise over 100% if persistent Russia or Mideast refinery outages keep the nearby 9-month spread near current levels.

Separately, Darrell Fletcher, managing director for commodities at Bannockburn Capital Markets, warned that the "path of least resistance is a strong and steady grind higher as the war enters seven months," adding, "The fundamental picture for products remains bullish with global inventories and reserves deteriorating. In the typical pattern, the US and Iran continue their counterattacks and warnings." 

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 20:45

"Really Bright Future": Wall Street's Big Bet on Booming Red America Escalates

Goldman Sachs is nearing a major milestone on its new Dallas campus, where the exterior of an 800,000-square-foot building is nearly complete and the Wall Street firm is preparing to begin work on the interior ahead of a planned January 2028 opening.

The new Goldman Sachs campus in downtown Dallas is under construction, with a projected opening in January 2028. (Shelby Tauber via Getty Images, yoinked from Fox News)

The project will consolidate two existing Goldman offices into a single campus and give the firm more room to expand in a city that is already its second-largest U.S. base after New York, with roughly 4,500 employees across North Texas. The roughly $500 million campus is designed for more than 5,000 workers and will be the largest office by square footage in Goldman's portfolio when it opens - larger than anything the firm occupies in Manhattan. Ericka Leslie, Goldman's chief administrative officer, recently inspected the site and said Dallas has so far lived up to the firm's expectations.

"I can't say it enough, I think Dallas is a great place to do business, it really is. The building is beautiful," Leslie told Fox Business.

"We're in two buildings now, we're going to be able to combine everybody into this state-of-the-art space, and it's right next to the Perot museum, and the city itself is very vibrant. So we're looking forward to it, and we're going to grow there," the Wall Street executive continued. "It's a growth opportunity for us inside of the United States, and it's a really vibrant place to do business."

"The outside of the building is mostly complete, and they have to do that in order to start fitting out the inside of the building and air conditioning it, so that will begin fairly shortly. We're looking for a launch around January 2028," she added.

The new campus will offer views overlooking downtown Dallas and the Perot Museum, including from outdoor areas. (Goldman Sachs)

However, January 2028 is running a little late versus Goldman's original plan. Dallas is so busy building that even Goldman has to wait in line for contractors.

"The project is mostly on time. It's slightly delayed, there's quite a bit of development going on in Dallas right now, and so we're seeing small delays," she said.

The math behind the move is straightforward. CEO David Solomon has noted that Goldman's headcount in New York has not grown in 20 years, while Dallas and Salt Lake City are where the firm is adding people.

Goldman is hardly alone in putting more people and money into Texas. Some of the biggest names in finance are expanding their presence in the state, adding offices and employees as Texas seeks to establish itself as a larger rival to traditional financial centers on the East Coast.

For example, Morgan Stanley is planning a permanent Dallas hub by 2031. Under a July 2026 resolution filed with the Dallas City Council, the firm plans to spend just over $587 million on a 708,000-square-foot building expected to house about 3,800 employees by the end of 2035. At least 25% of relocated or newly created positions are required to go to Dallas residents. That works out to roughly $829 per square foot, against about $625 for Goldman's campus.

The new Goldman Sachs campus in Dallas will allow the firm to consolidate and grow its presence in the region. (Goldman Sachs)

Texas is also making a push into the infrastructure of financial markets themselves. The Texas Stock Exchange, backed by BlackRock, Citadel Securities, Charles Schwab and Goldman itself, raised $161 million, making it the most well-capitalized exchange applicant in U.S. history. The exchange went fully live in late July.

Meanwhile, Apollo Global Management is expanding farther south in Austin, which the firm selected for a new hub focused on innovation, emerging technology and its next phase of growth.

"At Apollo and Athene, we help meet the capital needs of companies and economies, while enabling people to retire with confidence. That mission has driven our innovation for more than three decades, and this new presence is a continuation of that DNA. Change is the only constant, and we'd rather lead it than react to it," Apollo CEO Marc Rowan said. "Austin lets us build the next generation of Apollo and Athene, including challenger models for parts of our own business, with the talent, technology and business environment already in place. That's why we chose Austin and Texas."

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 20:30

University Of Washington Settles Case Against Professor Disciplined For Mocking Land Acknowledgment

Authored by Jonathan Turley via JonathanTurley.org,

Land acknowledgments have become standard at academic and political events, including the opening of the Obama Presidential Library and a recent Michigan Democratic event. While supporters insist it merely shows respect for original inhabitants, critics argue it is the ultimate virtue signaling and is increasingly being forced on both speakers and audiences. One critic is Professor Stuart Reges, who teaches at the computer science and engineering school of the University of Washington. He has now received a settlement from the University of Washington, which spent a significant amount of time and resources in response to his mocking of the school's land acknowledgment.

University of Washington

We previously discussed the case of Professor Reges, who was disciplined because he refused to post the school's "land acknowledgment" and instead posted an alternative statement. Professor Reges sued the university and various officials in 2022. Professor Reges has declared "Land acknowledgments are performative acts of conformity that should be resisted, even if it lands you in court."

The defendants included Nancy Allbritton, the Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Washington, Magdalena Balazinska, Director of the Allen School, UW President Ana Mari Cauce, and the Allen School's Vice Director Dan Grossman.

After the university encouraged faculty to add a prewritten "Indigenous land acknowledgment" statement to their syllabi, Reges decided to write his own statement. He has now been told that, while the university statement is optional, his statement is unacceptable because it questions the indigenous land claim of the Coast Salish people.

The school provided a recommended statement for all faculty to post and/or read to their students at the first of every course:

"The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot nations."

Professor Reges disagreed with that statement and expressed his doubts to the faculty while also noting that "Magda" did not want the faculty to discuss such reservations on the email system. That may refer to the Director of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, Magdalena Balazinska.

Reges' alternative statement read:

"I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington."

The labor theory (which I teach) generally refers to John Locke's theory. In his Second Treatise, Locke laid the foundation for property as a divine gift of God that began in the state of nature, where all was created in common by God. Reges declared that these tribes, indigenous people, "can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land and that the claim of the university land was not sufficiently used or developed to bestow a claim upon the Coast Salish people. That acknowledged group is a broad collection of different groups with ethnic or linguistic associations."

In his lawsuit, Professor Reges says that, after he stated his own views, the university moved against him.

"On January 4, 2022, the day after Professor Reges's Computer Science and Engineering 143 class met for the first time, Defendant [Magdalena] Balazinska, Director of the Allen School, sent Professor Reges an email ordering him to remove the statement from his syllabus because it was 'offensive' and created a 'toxic environment.'"

Reges noted that the university allowed other professors "to include modified statements in their syllabi that were more consistent with the University's recommended statement." The operative point is that "other faculty at the Allen School continue to include land acknowledgment statements in their syllabi that differ from the University's own statement, so long as they express a viewpoint consistent with the University's recommended version."

According to the complaint, Balazinska then allegedly removed his dissenting statement, and the university emailed his students to apologize for their professor's "offensive" land acknowledgment opinion and advised them on "three ways students could file complaints against" him. The students were later allegedly told by Balazinska that, according to the complaint, "all students in Professor Reges's Computer Science and Engineering 143 class section [can] switch into a new 'shadow' class section, which would meet at the same time as Professor Reges's class section."

Reges notes that the alternative class was a series of recorded lectures, but viewed as a reasonable alternative to being in a class with a professor with a dissenting view on land acknowledgments. Some 170 out of his 500 students took the alternative course.

I previously wrote how universities can use course assignments and other collateral means to isolate dissenting professors in an effort to get them to resign. This is especially true of tenured faculty.

I wrote that:

The Reges case could prove a major challenge to that orthodoxy. All university faculty should have condemned the university's actions as an attack on academic freedom and freedom of speech, regardless of how they feel about land acknowledgment. The silence, however, is a reflection of how much has changed in higher education."

It has now resulted in a $600,000 settlement after the university spent massive amounts of public money over four years to fight this lawsuit over the abusive treatment of Professor Reges.

The university settled only after the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in December that administrators were "liable under the First Amendment for retaliation and viewpoint discrimination."

Unfortunately, there is no indication that the university officials who created this fiasco will be held accountable in any way. Millions were spent, and years of litigation were triggered by the orthodoxy of the university. However, these officials will likely be heralded by their colleagues, and nothing is likely to change in the University of Washington's intellectual echo chamber.

However, according to FIRE, the settlement "stipulates that the university cannot take any further action against Reges."

Congratulations to Professor Reges and FIRE for a well-fought case with potentially lasting implications in protecting free speech and academic freedom.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 20:05

Appeals Court Blocks IRS From Sharing Data With Immigration Authorities

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The IRS may not disclose the addresses of illegal immigrants to immigration officials, a U.S. appeals court said on Sept. 8.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a February ruling from a district court that deemed an IRS policy to share the addresses of tens of thousands of people with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) illegal in part because the policy failed to meet requirements in the law.

The unanimous panel agreed, rejecting arguments from the government to the contrary.

The policy "indisputably contravenes the requirements of section 6103," a law that governs when the IRS can share taxpayer information, Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote for the panel.

The law allows the IRS to disclose certain tax return information to other federal agencies for use in criminal investigations. To make a request, the head of the agency needs to identify the taxpayer by name and address, specify the relevant tax period, and explain why the information may be relevant to the probe.

Under a memorandum of understanding signed in April 2025 between the IRS and ICE, the latter asked for the last known address for more than 1 million people believed to be illegally present in the United States. ICE did not provide an address for some of the people on the list. Under the agreement, IRS workers sent 47,289 records to ICE before the district court stayed the process.

IRS officials requested the appeals court overturn the ruling. Government lawyers said that the groups that sued did not have standing, that the IRS did not have to follow procedures in the Administrative Procedure Act because the agreement was not a final agency action, and that the practice did not violate federal law.

Pillard wrote that at least one of the plaintiff organizations was sufficiently injured by the policy that it could bring suit, that the IRS did have to follow the procedures because the policy was a final action, and that the action violated federal law because ICE in some cases did not supply an address, as required by the law.

The law provides that the IRS can disclose information about a taxpayer to officials "personally and directly engaged" in criminal proceedings or investigations concerning that taxpayer, allowing disclosure as long as the field for the ICE point of contact is filled in, even if it said "unknown" or "to be determined."

ICE ended up putting the same person as the point of contact for each of the 1.28 million listed taxpayers for whom it requested information.

The judicial panel found that the government's practice "entirely fails to ensure that ICE lists a federal employee, let alone one 'personally and directly engaged' in a qualifying investigation of a particular taxpayer."

"Today's order is a resounding victory for the protection of all taxpayers' right to the confidentiality of their tax information in the hands of the IRS," Nina Olson, executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, one of the groups that sued over the policy, said in a statement.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, ICE's parent agency, told The Epoch Times in an email that the agency disagreed with the ruling.

"We will continue using every lawful tool available to locate and remove illegal aliens with final orders of removal, and this ruling in no way prevents us from doing so," the spokesperson said.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 19:15

Data Center Revolt Accelerates Ahead Of Midterms As Wells Fargo Warns Of Fourfold Jump In Active Moratoriums

With the midterm elections just 55 days away, the data-center buildout story has become a major political issue.

Socialists Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have proposed a nationwide moratorium on new data-center buildouts. President Trump, meanwhile, has promoted data centers and infrastructure development as sources of jobs and economic growth. 

Last month, Trump wrote on Truth Social, "The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backward and poor. If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign."

"If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame. China could not be happier with this anti-data center movement. Actually, they can't believe it is happening!" Trump continued.

Vice President JD Vance also addressed the issue, acknowledging the backlash around data centers and saying he believes the concerns stem from higher power bills. But data centers wouldn't be an issue if not for years of terrible grid management and climate change policies that have neutered the grid over the last decade. 

Data center messaging has been a major issue for hyperscalers, as local resistance, some of which is fueled by outside groups and ones linked to China, spread rapidly and threatens construction timelines, complicating the electricity-demand forecasts underpinning Wall Street's AI trade. 

We cited Morganley Stanley in mid-July, which warned:

"An estimated $156 billion of data center projects were canceled or delayed in 2025, and $130 billion in 1Q26.  Community pushback against data center construction has accelerated in 2026 as new moratoriums have been introduced, with the majority of the change happening at the local level. This puts pressure on costs and timelines and could alter the geographic distribution of data centers. Sustained data center pushback could ultimately extend the cycle and reduce future supply by lowering capex and financing needs." 

"An estimated $156 billion of data center projects were cancelled or delayed in 2025, and $130 billion in 1Q26. Community pushback against data center construction has accelerated in 2026 as new moratoriums have been introduced, with the majority of the change happening at the…

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 15, 2026

And according to Wells Fargo's latest data center tracker, the revolt continues to grow, with 374 active local moratoriums by the end of summer, compared with 92 reported in June. 

Analyst Shahriar Pourreza said the data center blowback centers on electricity costs, grid capacity, water use and the impact of large industrial developments on surrounding communities. He compared the organized opposition to the resistance that materialized around natural-gas infrastructure. 

Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa and Tennessee rank among the states with the most local moratoriums in Pourreza's report.

Pourreza continued:

State-level policy actions have also been increasing (recently Texas Audit/PA GRID & EO among others) alongside election rhetoric (PA, TX, GA, OH, IA, MI, WI, KS) because DCs are unpopular across the political spectrum. 

In our view, the most exposed to state- level DC political rhetoric risk are: The IPPs (CEG, NRG, TLN, VST), AEP, CMS, CNP, DTE, EXC, FE, LNT, PPL, SO, SRE, and WEC. That said, we think much of the current pressure is optical and election-driven and should moderate post-November.

We believe noise will quiet post-Nov. as election winds down, econ- dev/nat'l security interest wins out. While we are less comfortable calling the trend fully benign, we view risk as manageable for credible projects. The unregulated era is over, but load-growth is not. State involvement post-Nov. could even be constructive by giving local officials more comfort. We think the market will always allow responsible hyperscaler projects that do not shift costs & deliver meaningful community benefits. 

He pointed out that active moratoriums average about 346 days, while the average across all tracked measures increased to 311 days from 277. Some extend as long as five years. Even temporary pauses can delay projects enough to push developers toward other states. 

Map of Active Local Data Center Moratoriums

Mounting moratoriums pose an execution risk for the AI trade as local opposition and infrastructure constraints delay projects. 

A Democratic sweep in the midterms could increase investor concerns about nationwide restrictions, though passage would remain uncertain. If enacted, a broad construction moratorium could reprice stocks linked to the AI buildout and derail Trump's 'Digital New Deal,' holding up the entire economy - and, in fact, the entire global economy (read here). 

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 18:50

Jack Dorsey's Block Seeks US Trust Bank Charter For Bitcoin, Stablecoin

Authored by Ezra Reguerra via Cointelegraph,

Jack Dorsey's payments company Block seeks to establish a federally regulated trust bank to provide custody services for Bitcoin and stablecoins.

Block said Tuesday it had submitted an application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to create Builders Bank & Trust, an uninsured national trust bank.

If approved, the bank would operate under OCC supervision and offer custody and related fiduciary services.

Block said the charter would give its custody operations a consistent national framework as the business expands.

The proposed bank would not accept deposits or make loans, separating it from a conventional commercial bank.

Lee Woolley, Block's digital asset strategy lead, would serve as Builders Bank's president and CEO.

Woolley said the proposed institution would draw on Block's digital asset operations and its experience with Square Financial Services, the company's existing industrial bank.

Block joins a growing list of financial technology and crypto companies pursuing national trust bank charters.

Ripple has received conditional approval for a similar charter, while Circle and BitGo have received final approval.

Kraken parent Payward and crypto infrastructure provider Zerohash have also submitted applications.

[ZH: We would imagine these firms are in a hurry to get these approved before the Midterms.]

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 18:25

Internet Loses It After Russian Official Turns Out To Be Peter Griffin's Twin

A newly appointed Russian government official has exploded across social media after users seized on a press-conference photograph and began joking that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have a difficult time pushing a man of his size out of a window, according to the Daily Star.

🍖🍔🍩 “Russia and Armenia are like one big family — sometimes things go differently,” said Rossotrudnichestvo chief Igor Chaika

There’s an old saying: “In a big family, if you’re too slow, you miss out on dinner.” Chaika clearly wasn’t too slow — he seems to have eaten Armenia for dinner himself. Peter Griffin, is that you????!!!!

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) September 8, 2026

Igor Chaika, who now leads Rossotrudnichestvo, Russia's federal agency for foreign aid and cultural exchange, sparked widespread mockery and memes when images from a briefing on Moscow's strained relationship with Armenia began circulating online.

In the photos - many which were digitally altered - Chaika is seen standing behind a row of microphones representing state-linked outlets as he addresses reporters on the deteriorating ties between the two countries.

Social media compared the imposing official to Marvel's Kingpin, and one widely circulated post captured the tone of the moment by suggesting the Kremlin would struggle to remove this particular figure in the way that has become grimly familiar in Russian politics.

Didn't realize we were getting a comic accurate Fisk/Kingpin in Avengers: Doomsday

— Alex Hillman (@alexhillman) September 8, 2026

Good luck to Putin managing to push this official out of a window.

— Mark Wallace (@wallaceme) September 8, 2026

Russian officials have biologically evolved to be harder to push out of windows.

— Zoska (@TotallyNotZoska) September 8, 2026

Uncanny...

— WarMonitor (@WarMonitor3) September 8, 2026

https://x.com/europemaxxed/status/2097599894806581503?s=20

— @europemaxxed September 9, 2026

https://x.com/pronouncedsimon/status/2097426283328156048?s=20

— @pronouncedsimon September 8, 2026

Chaika, a prominent businessman and the son of former Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, was appointed to the post in April 2026. At the conference he dismissed rumors of a complete break with Armenia, describing the relationship as that of a large family while announcing agreements to expand Russia's cultural centers, known as Russian Houses, across the region.

Maybe a music career is also in the cards? 

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 18:00

29 Health Systems Dropping Medicare Advantage Plans

Authored by Sylvia Xu via The Epoch Times,

Twenty-nine health systems are dropping Medicare Advantage plans in 2026, citing prior authorization denials, reimbursement issues, and deal renegotiations.

A Medicare Advantage PPO card sits on top of a Medicare card, in this file photo. AP/Jenny Kane

The number of terminated contracts this year is down from 40 in 2025 and 32 in 2024, Becker's Hospital Review reported on Sept. 4.

Naples Comprehensive Health, one of America's top 50 hospitals, will go out of network with Centene's Wellcare and Health Care Service Corporation's HealthSpring Medicare Advantage plans, effective in 2027.

"This change allows us to ensure that the plans we partner with truly support quality care, reduce unnecessary administrative barriers, and align with our commitment to delivering the best possible experience for our patients," the hospital said in a statement.

The Epoch Times requested comments from Wellcare and HealthSpring but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Lee Health in Fort Myers, Florida; Fairview Health Services in Minneapolis, University of Miami Health System; and CarolinaEast Medical Center in New Bern, North Carolina, are terminating contracts with the UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plan at the end of 2026, according to corporate statements.

If unable to reach a new agreement, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital will be leaving UnitedHealthcare on Oct. 1, according to a hospital statement.

A UnitedHealthcare spokesperson told The Epoch Times, "We are actively negotiating with most of these providers to renew our network relationship," except for the University of Miami Health System.

"These discussions are similar to the thousands of provider contract negotiations we conduct each year, the vast majority of which result in renewed agreements that support continued access to quality, affordable care for the people we serve," the spokesperson said.

Lee Health wrote to its patients saying that a central concern "is the impact that UnitedHealthcare's authorization, review, and denial processes can have on timely access to medically necessary care."

UnitedHealth denied 17 percent of Medicare Advantage prior authorization requests in 2025, the highest rate compared to its competitors, according to KFF, a healthcare research group.

Roughly 60 percent of those denials were overturned upon appeal.

On average, insurers denied 12 percent of standard prior authorization requests for Medicare Advantage, 14 percent for traditional Medicare claims, and 18 percent for Obamacare, according to KFF.

Prior authorization requests were overturned on appeal more often in Medicare Advantage (67 percent) compared to Medicaid (47 percent) and Obamacare (43 percent).

Additionally, UnitedHealthcare owes Lee Health more than $100 million in disputed and underpaid claims, according to a hospital statement.

Fairview also pointed to care denials, payment issues, and frequent coverage changes as reasons to leave UnitedHealthcare plans in its public statement.

CarolinaEast Medical Center (New Bern, N.C.) did not provide reasons for leaving Medicare Advantage plans.

However, UnitedHealthcare will stop requiring prior authorization for more than 1,700 procedure codes, which is about 30 percent of the total for its commercial, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, and Affordable Care Act plans, according to a September announcement from the company.

"We know the time you spend managing prior authorizations, paperwork, and reimbursements is time you'd rather spend with your patients," the company said in the memo to providers.

"Removing these prior authorization requirements is part of our effort to help reduce administrative work, remove barriers that can delay care and give you more time to focus on patient care," the memo reads.

UnitedHealth, Humana, and Aetna, the three largest Medicare Advantage carriers, reduced the number of counties they serve in 2026 due to low financial margins, according to analysis from ATI Advisory, a healthcare strategy group.

This marks a new phase in the Medicare Advantage market in which growth is driven less by geographical expansion and more by focusing on more lucrative markets, according to ATI.

Most counties offer a zero-dollar premium Medicare Advantage plan in 2026, according to ATI Advisory.

As of May, more than 50 percent of Medicare beneficiaries - about 36 million Americans - have enrolled in Medicare Advantage, according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Medicare Advantage enrollment is concentrated among large carriers. UnitedHealthcare, Humana, and Aetna together account for nearly 60 percent of market share, according to KFF.

The Medicare Advantage market share held by UnitedHealthcare dropped to 26 percent in 2026, down from 29 percent in 2025, according to a June analysis from KFF.

Humana's market share increased to 20 percent in 2026, up from 17 percent.

Medicare Advantage plans account for 80 percent, 33 percent, and 12 percent of revenue for Humana, Aetna, and ​UnitedHealthcare, respectively.

"[Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services]' vision for Medicare Advantage and Part D is clear: a great choice for seniors and a smart deal for taxpayers," said Chris Klomp, director of Medicare and Chief Counselor of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"The Rate Announcement improves payment accuracy and strengthens competition based on quality - not on coding practices - helping put the program on a more sustainable path for the long term."

Federal payments to Medicare Advantage plans would increase 2.48 percent in 2027, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. But the increase is still below insurers' expectations for 2027.

"All insurers are likely to cut back on benefits, but Humana will be cutting back the most," said Kevin Gade, chief operating officer at Bahl and Gaynor.

Members with higher medical needs might have to seek other plans, Gade said.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 17:40

Hunter Biden Blames Liquidity, "Predatory Snipers" For LAPTOP Memecoin Collapse

Update: Straight from the horse's mouth - it crashed because of "predatory snipers" or something, according to a post by Hunter on X. 

As you may have seen, the LAPTOP memecoin saw a sharp swing in token price during its first hours of trading.

The headlines are all the same.

Token down 99%. Rug pull. Biden Crime Family. The list goes on.

This is far from the truth.

The reality is that available liquidity could not sustain the strong level of interest at launch. Technical issues coupled with predatory "snipers", who seek to beat liquidity providers to market, caused a spike in price, which has since stabilized to healthy levels.

The team's allocation is locked. Nobody on our side sold, and nobody could have. I, personally, have not made a single dollar.

I'm used to legacy news and social media trolls spinning realities to fit their own narrative.

The fully diluted valuation of the token is over $1 billion. And we're actively working on the best solutions to optimize liquidity and continue engaging my community.

We gave free tokens to those who lost on Trump's memecoin. 

Somehow the media is painting that as a "failure".

This journey is far from over. We built this community for the long game, and that's exactly how we're playing it. I'm going to keep doing what I do best: ignoring the noise, and reclaiming the narrative.

Maybe he can finally get back to his lucrative art career?

* * *

Hunter Biden’s LAPTOP memecoin fell 99% in its first hour of trading on Wednesday, as the son of former US President Joe Biden officially entered the market for politically themed cryptocurrencies.

The token, which we previewed here, issued on Ethereum layer-2 network Base, traded below $2.00, after opening at $199.50, according to CoinGecko data.

It recorded more than $3 million in trading volume.

Source: CoinGecko

“The symbol they used to try to end me is now a symbol of resilience, redemption and recovery,” Biden said in an X post on Wednesday, responding to public backlash.

Biden also said he understood the cynicism around memecoins, called President Donald Trump’s token a “grift” and warned buyers not to expect him or anyone else to make LAPTOP more valuable.

The memecoin is promoted as an attempt to reclaim the “laptop narrative,” which centers on a MacBook that Biden reportedly left at a Delaware repair shop in 2019.

The New York Post published emails and other files purported to have come from the device before the 2020 presidential election. Trump allies used the material against Hunter Biden and his father, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.

On Monday, Biden teased LAPTOP on X with a post showing the token’s ticker, accompanied by a montage of media coverage of the laptop.

As CoinTelegraph reports, the announcement drew criticism from the likes of digital investigator Stephen Findeisen, known as Coffeezilla, who called LAPTOP a “shitcoin” and urged his followers not to buy it.

X account “scupytrooples” told Biden there was “still time to walk this back.”

Base founder Jesse Pollak said in an X post that the project had contacted his team, but Base made a “conscious decision” not to help with the token’s design or promotion.

Biden did not respond to Cointelegraph’s query before publication. 

The project’s disclosures say LAPTOP has no utility, lock founder tokens for six months and reserve 2% for wallets that lost money on TRUMP.

LAPTOP disclosures set 2% of token supply for TRUMP token losers

Biden’s earlier criticism of the Trump family’s crypto ventures also gave traders a ready-made hypocrisy argument. 

In an Aug. 21 post, Biden accused World Liberty Financial of using political influence, centralized controls and leverage to benefit its founders, while saying the crypto industry deserved better. 

He has now launched a memecoin built around his own political identity, with founders allocated a chunk of the supply.

The project’s disclosures describe LAPTOP as a digital collectible with no utility, ownership rights, voting rights, yield or profit-sharing rights. The token has a fixed supply of 1 billion, with 350 million tokens circulating at launch.

Founders, including Biden, are allocated 300 million tokens, or 30% of the supply. Those tokens are locked for six months and then vested monthly over the following 24 months. Another 30% is tied to political, cultural and crypto predictions, with tokens burned when specified outcomes occur and released to charity if they do not.

The disclosures also outline airdrop figures, with the initial round representing 10% of the total supply. Of those, 2% is reserved for wallets that lost money on TRUMP and 8% for eligible subscribers to Biden’s “Where’s Hunter” Substack newsletter.

A separate 10% future airdrop is to be distributed at the foundation’s discretion. That means 20% is allocated to airdrops overall, while the specific TRUMP-loss allocation is capped at 2%.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 17:27

Hyped Mecca Joint Defense Pact Is MIA After Houthis Targeted Four Saudi Cities

Saudi Arabia got pummeled by cross-border Houthi ballistic missiles and drones on Tuesday, where a reported four Saudi cities were targeted.

...So what about those much hyped Mecca Defense accords that were just signed last month? The pact between Riyadh, Islamabad, and Ankara has been likened to NATO Article 5, where an attack on one is an 'attack on all'. These countries' own officials have in many cases advanced this interpretation.

Getty Images

As the Saudi-Yemen war heats up again, Pakistan is threatening just such a triggering of the Mecca Defense Pact, but so far this has stopped at mere words.

Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif threatened in Wednesday remarks that the Ansarallah attacks "could trigger" the defense agreement.

"Under the trilateral agreement, any aggression against any of the three [countries] is regarded as an aggression against all. There is no ambiguity about that," the Pakistani minister told Geo News. 

He underscored that the ongoing Houthi retaliations "could trigger the pact" between the three regional nations, after over 70 people were wounded on the Saudi side, which heavily targeted energy infrastructure, and resulted in flight stoppages at major Saudi flight hubs.

Another key aspect to the new pact is that it further formalizes Pakistan's nuclear umbrella for Saudi Arabia, which lacks atomic weapons. Turkey does not have its own nukes either, but plays host to US nuclear weapons as part of NATO. Turkey maintains the second-largest military within the NATO alliance, behind the United States.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia already had a bilateral defense pact before the Mecca agreement, which has lately seen Islamabad deploy 8,000 troops, a ​squadron of fighter jets, and an air defense system to Saudi Arabia.

But the Houthis are warning of more attacks to come, also as the 'siege for siege' policy is still on against the kingdom, aimed at curtailing its vital energy exports.

🚨BREAKING: Reports Indicate Yemen’s Ansarallah Have Taken Control Of Camp Khalid

This strategic military base is situated near the port city of Mokha.

Forces loyal to the UAE & Saudi Arabia fought huge battles, with massive air support, to seize it in 2017. If Ansarallah… pic.twitter.com/c7IgnPcaxH

— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) September 9, 2026

The Houthis have newly released footage of an operation showing Saudi military equipment en route to Riyadh’s proxies being Yemen, coming under heavy fire and being blown up.

The Iran-aligned Yemeni group is also newly vowing to stave off the Saudi aerial attack, after Riyadh declared the end goal is to eject the Houthis from Sanaa. One excuse or way out of not choosing to trigger the Mecca pact could center on the fact that the Houthis are a non-state actor, or at least are not 'recognized' as a legitimate government on an international level.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 17:20

Japan Is Telling You To Run To Gold

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via Von Greyerz,

Below, we look at lessons from Japan and its latest signals to prepare for a market sell-off, a debasement acceleration and a golden endgame.

Pattern Recognition

My father taught me long ago that the years teach things the days do not always notice.

In all areas of our lives, we slowly acquire perspectives earned by experience over theory and by time rather than guesses.

This is equally true of lives spent investing in markets and cycles. A certain pattern recognition is acquired that not even a Bloomberg terminal or AI robot can teach.

As one, for example, who traded through a dot.com bubble led by the undeniably transformative technology of the internet of all things, I remember well how everyone from Wall Street experts to Hollywood movies made it clear that names like Cisco, Yahoo and AOL were kings who would never be dethroned.

That felt very exciting.

At least until the NASDAQ lost 78% and two of those "kings" were carried off the market on their shields, while Cisco, which at least survived the carnage, would never be the same again.

Those days and years are now teaching us yet another lesson, one whose pattern few wish to see, for the simple reason that many are not, or never were, paying attention.

And as for such patterns or lessons, what very few are seeing today is that Japan's JGB, yen and Nikkei have just given us a familiar road map for what lies ahead for America's Fed, dollar and S&P.

I Think We're Turning Japanese (Yes, I Really Think So)

What is happening this year in Japan goes well beyond the otherwise significant conversations on the Japanese "Carry Trade."

As bond jocks constantly remind us of boring things like sovereign debt yields, it can often be too boring (or too scary) to confront.

Like the sun, topics like death and bond markets are often hard to look at directly.

The fact, for example, that the yield on the Japanese 30Y JGB just hit over 4.18% for the first time in its history may seem like a yawn to many otherwise doom-scrolling through the latest war, AI meme or DC scandal de jour.

But this historical yield spike out of Tokyo is far more than just another bond signal - it's a harbinger of things to come in your own backyard (and wallet).

The Canary in a Coal Mine

Much like the USA, today's Japan (which is the world's 3rd largest economy) is a paper tiger built on extraordinary debt (greater than 200% of its total economy) and a bond and hence stock market entirely supported by (and correlated to) a central bank fatally addicted to printing (debasing) trillions worth of its currency to keep its illusion of economic survival going.

If this profile looks a lot like America's and Europe's, that's because Japan is just a canary in the Western coal mine. Where it goes, we shall follow.

In fact, Japan's sins are in many ways our own, especially America's.

Blame It on the Experts

Just after the Nikkei literally died in 1989, a then-ambitious and much younger Ben Bernanke gave Tokyo a handbook to print their way out of collapse.

Bernanke would use a similar handbook when U.S. markets tanked years later in 2008. As we are now discovering, his expertise was anything but expert.

But during this period of mass MMT delusion and massive currency debasement, Wall Street was betting for years (decades) that Japan's debt levels would eventually implode under inevitably rising bond yields (and hence debt costs).

For literally decades, Wall Street mavericks were betting big on a yield spike that would re-crush the Nikkei and JGB in one big headline.

But this headline never came, and the foregoing bet against Japan became known on the Street as the "widow maker."

Buying Time, Postponing Pain

Instead, the BoJ bought itself decades of time and a market recovery by printing just unthinkable levels of yen to keep JGBs (Japanese bonds) bought and the Nikkei higher.

For the near entirety of my career, this kept Japanese yields at zero to negative, buying time while crushing those who bet against Tokyo.

Which brings me back to that boring 4.18% record yield on the 30Y JGB.

This figure confirms that the dam has finally broken on the broken Japanese "plan."

Or to use the analogy above, the canary in its coal mine just died.

For those paying attention, these rising yields just caused the Nikkei 225 to lose 200B in a single day, and this sell-off was led by the so-called "Immortal" tech kings, you know, the kind which were never supposed to fall - like AOL, Yahoo or Cisco of old.

The Sickness is Global and Currency-Killing

But what happens in Tokyo doesn't stay in Tokyo.

Yields across the "developed" world have been rising to decade highs because the bond markets are now showing more honesty than central bankers, from Tokyo to DC.

As the yield on the Bloomberg Global Sovereign Bond Index shoots past 3.72%, yields from Australia and the UK to Germany and the USA are skyrocketing to untenable levels.

The bond market is essentially asking for more risk premium (yield) on government IOUs that are no longer trusted.

Given this global debt fiasco, is it therefore any surprise that the global broad money supply of printed paper currencies, which hit $150 TRILLION in June, has increased by a staggering 50% since 2020?

Such open currency debasement now hiding in plain sight not only explains why currencies like the USD have lost 87% in absolute purchasing power since decoupling from gold in 1971, it further explains why the world's central banks are stacking gold at an unprecedented pace in 2026.

Physical gold is no longer an allocation or dollar "debate"; it is the open and now obvious puck direction of global collateral and the de facto international reserve asset above tanking currencies and unloved sovereign IOUs.

This is not fable but fact.

Stocks vs. Gold

But equally worth noting from the Japanese tech sell-off of late is what it reminds as to the dot.com era of yesterday and what it portends for the AI era/market of tomorrow.

Unlike the aforementioned bloodbath during the internet bubble, today's U.S. stock market is literally being kept alive by an equally game-changing technology meme with an even greater profile of over-investment ($400B this year alone by the leading tech names), which always moves from over-bought to over-sold.

With U.S. public debt crossing 40T as rates rise to levels costing Uncle Sam (i.e. you) over $3B/day to service the interest expense, the convergence of a credit crisis is about to slam into a dying PE market, an already dead private credit market and an over-valued and over-hyped AI sector.

This suggests that what we just got a glimpse of in Japan (as to both its markets and currency) is an undeniable warning of what is to come to the U.S. NASDAQ and dollar.

Be Prepared

Timing this convergence is a mug's game. Preparing for it is not.

Even if central banks like the Fed or BoJ "save" the markets with mouse-clicked trillions, the currency destruction necessary to support those "resilient" markets is robbing you in plain sight.

The Nikkei, for example, has seen an impressive 145% gain in the last five years, yet when measured in gold terms, the result was a net loss of -31%.

During that same period, the NASDAQ 100 has shown an impressive nominal return of 95%, yet when measured in gold, the net result has been a loss of -23%.

And if any of you were being told by your advisors over the last 12 years that USTs were the key to your safe retirement, the "risk-free returns" of Uncle Sam's IOU, when measured against gold, have lost you 90%.

See the theft? See the real measure of wealth?

Given the foregoing interplay of rising rates, tanking bonds, debased currencies and hyper-risk in the tech sector, an allocation to physical rather than paper gold is the only asset separating the informed from the uninformed, and the wealth-protected from the wealth-destroyed.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 17:00

Elon Musk's PAC Bets Trans Issue Push Will Drive GOP Voters To The Polls

Elon Musk's America PAC has opened its 2026 midterm ad campaign with a barrage of ads centered on trans issues. Musk has reportedly authorized the PAC to spend more than $100 million this cycle and is targeting four Democratic Senate candidates in competitive races: Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Josh Turek in Iowa, James Talarico in Texas and Mary Peltola in Alaska. They are running online and across streaming platforms, marking the first coordinated trans-focused push of the cycle from a major Republican-aligned outside group.

Photograph: Michael Swensen/Getty Images

According to AdImpact, the firm that tracks political ad spending, trans issues have been a minor theme in GOP Senate advertising so far this cycle. America PAC's opening salvo changes that calculus, and it arrives as Republicans navigate a difficult midterm environment, with voters across party lines angry over the Iran war and the high gas prices that have followed it. Economic concerns dominate what voters tell pollsters they want candidates to address. Trans and LGBT issues barely register on those same surveys.

New — Elon Musk's super PAC America PAC is going up with its first connected TV ad of the cycle. It's against Sherrod Brown in #OHSen.

— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) September 8, 2026

Elon Musk's America PAC is running this ad on CTV in #TXSen right now, per @AdImpact_Pol:

— Brad Johnson (@bradj_TX) September 8, 2026

This paid digital ad from America PAC started running in Alaska over the weekend. "Would you want your daughter sharing a bathroom with a biological man? Mary Peltola cosponsored legislation that would require it." #AKSen

— Andrew Arenge (@MrArenge) September 8, 2026

Here's a paid digital ad America PAC is now running in Iowa going after Josh Turek The ad uses the emergency sound phones use when amber alerts are pushed out. #IASen

— Andrew Arenge (@MrArenge) September 8, 2026

So, why try this now? The answer traces back to the final weeks of the 2024 presidential campaign, when a similar ad devastated Kamala Harris's presidential campaign. Trump's closing spots successfully cast Kamala Harris as out of touch because of her support for taxpayer-funded gender transitions for prison inmates and illegal immigrants, culminating in the line "Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you."

Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.

— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) September 23, 2024

Democrats have not disputed the ad's effectiveness, even in hindsight. Quentin Fulks, Harris's principal deputy campaign manager, said after the election that even though trans issues sat "at the bottom for voters," trailing the economy, immigration, crime and inflation in what people actually cared about, the "Kamala is for they/them" line effectively branded Harris as "out of touch."

According to a report from Semafor after the election, Democratic Party allies had expected it to "flop or backfire," but instead, "it inspired more than $215 million of follow-up ads, by multiple campaigns, dividing Democrats and fulfilling the Trump campaign's goal of branding Harris as an out-of-touch progressive."

That explains why America PAC is reaching for the same playbook now, and public opinion data suggests this still can be an effective strategy.

Gallup found in 2025 that 66 percent of Americans want a person's birth sex listed on documents such as passports and driver's licenses, versus 31 percent who favor listing current gender identity. Sixty-nine percent told Gallup they favor requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams matching their biological sex. Pew Research Center found nearly identical numbers on athletics, 66 percent in favor and just 15 percent opposed, with support up 8 points since 2022. A separate Pew survey published Aug. 11, 2026, found 73 percent of respondents uncomfortable, to varying degrees, with transgender athletes competing on teams that do not match their biological sex. On gender transitions for minors, Pew found 56 percent favor making it illegal for health-care professionals to provide gender-transition treatment to people under 18, up 10 points since 2022.

Whether pivoting midterm messaging to the culture war pays off depends on a variable the 2024 campaign did not have to contend with: an electorate frustrated with Republicans over the Iran war and the prices that have followed it. Trans messaging worked in 2024 as an addition to an economic argument that heavily favored Trump. America PAC is banking on it working again in this cycle as a substitute for one.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 16:40

"You Better Get Ready For... War": Socialists Call For "War In The Streets" & The End Of Capitalism

Authored by Jonathan Turley via JonathanTurley.org,

"You better get ready for ... war."

Across the country, radicals are openly planning for the next stage of their movement, and notably, the Democratic establishment is not part of their plans.

Despite the talk of a "Big Tent Party," socialists are riding high on a surge of support and talking purges and revolution.

In Chicago, radicals gathered for a conference on Marxism during what many view as the heyday of socialism in the United States. The Democratic Socialists of America is now larger and more powerful than at any time in our history. Socialist candidates are winning elections across the country as Democratic establishment figures from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) to Gov. Gavin Newsom pander to the movement.

Speakers in Chicago used the conference to push supporters to the next stage in the movement, including some openly calling for violence and the end to capitalism.

University of California Santa Barbara History Professor Butch Ware said Democrats "must be destroyed" and urged attendees to be ready for "war in the streets." Notably, in postings on X, Ware has said that candidates such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed are too restrained and are being pushed by the establishment "to contain radicalism."

The professor "of Africa and Islam" whose faculty page is appropriately found under "bware" is the latest radical to dismiss the "Big Tent Party" rhetoric of establishment figures like Schumer. He declared, "The Democrats cannot be reasoned with. They must be destroyed." There is little subtlety in the message, Ware has explained: "You cannot call yourself a revolutionary and not be talking about training with weapons."

It is another example of the delusion that establishment Democrats have that they will be able to use these radicals to destroy their political enemies but not themselves.

After one election victory, socialists chanted "You're Next!" when House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries's image came on big-screen televisions.

Hasan Piker has called for a purging of moderates from the Democratic Party.

Just last week, Darializa Avila Chevalier declared, "A big tent doesn't pay your rent, lower your grocery bill, or take on the corporations bleeding our country dry. Democratic socialism does."

In a video posted to X, Professor Ware called for violence, warning followers that "some of these clickety-clack revolutionaries have never been in a f*cking gunfight." He menacingly added, "Y'all ain't nowhere near ready for a war in the streets. You better get ready for both kinds of war if you stay ready, you ain't got to get ready."

This is just the latest example of the type of hate-spewing radical that university departments want to teach in higher education. While purging virtually all Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians from departments, faculty candidates cannot be too radical enough to secure positions on colleges and universities. UCSB pays Professor Ware over $211k to spread this type of lunacy.

Notably, this is the same university that saw a professor lead her students in physically assaulting pro-life advocates on campus years ago. Despite pleading guilty to criminal assault, she was not fired and later honored by the University of Oregon for her inspiring leadership.

In other events around the country such as "Socialism 2026 Conference," City University of New York Professor Ruth Gilmore said in a video, "It's capitalism we're after,...There isn't a capitalism that is somehow not racial. There isn't a capitalism that does not produce and reproduce all kinds of sexual and gender boundaries."

At my alma mater, University of Chicago professor Eman Abdelhadi, the half-sister of Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, has denounced the university and explained that she is only teaching there to bring down the system.

One year after the massacre, Professor Abdelhadi offered an "October 7th blessing" over an attack that murdered, raped, and tortured innocent men, women, and children. She was previously arrested for spitting on officers.

She added "I hope you know that we have a lot of work ahead of us and that we need each other to do that work. We have an imperative to not just imagine a better future, but to build one together. I'll see you on the streets."

What is so striking is that these radicals are not hiding their agenda or their hostility toward the Democratic Establishment. William Lawrence, who is running for Michigan's 7th Congressional District, previously called for the end of borders, the nation-state, capitalism, and told a leading moderate Democrat to "hurry up and die."

In the meantime, some Democrats are admitting that, after using the socialists to retake power, they will marginalize them in actual governing decisions. Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) just explained that they will have to block the "crazy" DSA stuff from actually getting to the floor for a vote.

In Rage and the Republic, I discuss how these Democratic leaders are following the same self-destructive delusions of other establishment figures in history who thought that they could use mobs against their opponents while hoping that they could survive.

Figures like Newsom have even campaigned on denouncing capitalism as "not working" as candidates like Texas Democratic Senatorial candidate James Talarico have called to "dismantle" capitalism. Figures like former Vice President Kamala Harris have dismissed loyalty to our core institutions such as the Supreme Court as mere "nostalgia."

It will not work. These figures are nothing more than "clickety-clack revolutionaries" who convince no one inside or outside the movement. By putting their elections above every other consideration, Democratic leaders are willing to endanger core institutions, values, and even capitalism itself to reacquire power. In so doing, they are embracing the very "mobocracy" that the Founders warned us against in laying the foundations of our constitutional system.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 16:20