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Dozens Of Nations Scramble For World Bank Financing Amid Iran War Global Shock

Via The Cradle

Twenty-seven countries have moved to activate emergency World Bank financing mechanisms since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in late February, Reuters reported Friday.

Three nations have already received approval for fast-tracked funding, while the other 24 are in the process of completing administrative procedures. 

Kenya and Iraq have publicly confirmed they are seeking emergency World Bank assistance, with Nairobi facing surging domestic fuel prices and Baghdad grappling with severely diminished oil revenues due to disruptions in maritime exports.

Getty Image

The 27 nations are drawn from a pool of 101 countries with access to pre-arranged contingent financing, including 54 that are enrolled in the World Bank's Rapid Response Option, a mechanism that allows sovereign borrowers to immediately redirect up to 10 percent of their undisbursed project balances.

World Bank President Ajay Banga has outlined a three-tier funding structure. Between $20 billion and $25 billion is available immediately through existing crisis instruments, rising to $60 billion within six months if the bank reorients parts of its broader portfolio, with longer-term structural changes capable of pushing the total to around $100 billion. 

Activity at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), by contrast, has been minimal. 

Despite Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva anticipating that up to a dozen nations would seek between $20 billion and $50 billion in emergency assistance, sources told Reuters that very few formal requests have been filed, with countries in a "wait-and-see mode.”

The IMF previously warned that the US-Israeli war on Iran has significantly worsened the global economic outlook by disrupting energy markets, raising inflation, and weakening growth prospects worldwide.

It said the war had reduced expected global growth from 3.4 percent to 3.1 percent, significantly worsened inflation, and posed major risks of further deterioration in energy supply routes.

From world markets still feeling the sting of the Iran war, to a host of central banks bracing for their next moves, these are the stories to watch in business and finance in the coming week https://t.co/xIhHy1MlEI pic.twitter.com/oqpUcNcUx9

— Reuters (@Reuters) May 22, 2026

The IMF added that prolonged fighting could deepen regional economic damage, potentially push the global economy toward recession-level growth, heighten uncertainty in financial markets, and accelerate broader geopolitical and economic instability.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 22:10

Ferrari Fever Hits Samsung, SK Hynix Workers As AI Memory Boom Mints New Wealth

The global memory boom, with Samsung at the epicenter of the production ecosystem, appears to be generating a sudden wealth effect among some employees, with local media reporting that newly enriched chip workers are now panic-buying luxury sports cars. 

A short clip from MBC News, the news division of Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation and one of South Korea's top national TV and radio broadcasters, featured at least one exotic car dealership reporting a sharp uptick in Samsung Electronics and Hynix employees seeking to buy high-end sports cars.

"We've been getting dozens of phone calls every day for the past month. The customers coming in are mostly employees from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. There have been a lot more people coming to look at cars priced over 100 million won (~$73,000 USD)," a MBC reporter could be heard saying in the news segment.

Just in: Employees at high-end and supercar dealerships in Korea say their showrooms are packed with Samsung and SK hynix employees. pic.twitter.com/LuCxWj3cpS

— Jukan (@jukan05) May 22, 2026

Google Search trends confirm a recent spike in internet searches for "Ferrari dealer" as Samsung and SK Hynix have become the world's most important memory companies.

Shares of Samsung and SK Hynix have gone absolutely parabolic ...

... as well as KOSPI.

Meanwhile...

• Korean Bubble Mania: Retail Investors Max Out On Margin Debt, Choose To "Risk Complete Collapse" Than Miss Stock Rally

We suspect the exotic-car buying spree will accelerate once Samsung and its largest union reach a new labor deal. Voting begins Saturday. Coverage here.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 21:35

State-Sponsored Suicide Authored by MN Gordon via dollarcollapse.com

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."

- Will and Ariel Durant, The Story Of Civilization

Enemy Within

How does a superpower die?

Does it come from the blinding kill shot of a hypersonic missile streaking through the sky? Or, perhaps, a rogue cyberattack that mortally destroys the national power grid?

Will the end of America come with foreign tanks rolling through New York or a massive, coordinated amphibious attack on Los Angeles?

These dramatic scenarios make for captivating conjecture. But they're highly unlikely. If you look at the autopsy reports of the world's greatest empires, the ultimate cause of death is rarely a sudden, overwhelming external blow.

Long before the barbarians breached the gates of Rome, the Roman denarius had been systematically devalued into a glorified copper token to fund a bloated bureaucracy. This was characterized by widespread domestic corruption and endless military expansion.

So, too, long before the British Empire reluctantly packed up its global flags, it realized the staggering cost of multiple wars had left it financially bankrupt, structurally hollowed out, and entirely dependent on American loans.

Great civilizations don't usually get slaughtered by their rivals. They commit slow, sophisticated, economically optimized suicide.

As we move through 2026, the United States is following a well-worn, dangerous path. But it's traversing it at a speed and scale that would leave ancient Rome in the dust.

The reality that no politician will publicly admit is that America's out-of-control federal spending and its monstrous, multi-trillion-dollar financial system are doing far more structural damage to the country's long-term survival than any foreign adversary ever could.

By burying the nation in unpayable debt, Congress is willingly destroying America from the inside. Hence, the greatest threat to our future lies not across the ocean, but directly within our own borders.

Act Of War

Let's talk about the ghastly numbers. They're often ignored by the general population because our brains are hardwired to glaze over when we start talking about trillions. Here we'll break them down for you.

Right now, the official U.S. national debt has blown past $39 trillion. To put that into perspective, if you spent one dollar every single second, it would take you about 32,000 years to spend $1 trillion. America owes 39 of those.

But the real issue isn't just the total balance on Washington's credit card. It's the cost of keeping the account active. The yield on a 30-year Treasury bond recently climbed above 5 percent for the first time in nearly 20 years. Yet today's balance is much larger than it was 20 years ago. When you owe $39 trillion, even a tiny uptick in interest rates transforms your budget into an insurmountable nightmare.

America is currently burning through roughly $3 billion every single day just to pay the interest on its existing debt.

Think about that for a second. Before a single pothole is filled, before a single soldier is paid, before a single school lunch is funded, or a Medicare claim is processed, $3 billion dollars vanishes into thin air every 24 hours. It doesn't buy new equipment, it doesn't rebuild infrastructure, and it doesn't help struggling families. It's purely the cost of treading water.

Instead of investing in the future, we're paying for the profligacy of the past.

If a foreign nation managed to sabotage the U.S. economy so severely that it drained $3 billion a day out of the federal Treasury, it would be viewed as an act of war. We would mobilize the military.

Yet, because this bleeding is caused by our own fiscal policy, we pretend it isn't happening and go back to scrolling on our phones.

Vicious Doom Loop

The entire American lifestyle - and by extension, the global economy - is built on the singular, fragile assumption that the rest of the world will always want to buy American debt. For decades, this was a safe bet. Treasuries were considered risk free in terms of default.

The U.S. dollar, while under threat of the U.S. government's making, remains king of the global financial system - for now. When global chaos hits, investors run to U.S. Treasuries like a safe harbor in a storm. This exorbitant privilege allowed Washington to spend money it didn't have without facing immediate consequences.

But that privilege resulted in a dangerous lack of discipline and created a catastrophic level of arrogance. Politicians on both sides of the aisle began treating the national debt like a meaningless artifact. To Congress, and as elaborated by the late Dick Cheney, "deficits don't matter."

Unfortunately, the mathematics of debt do matter. And right now, the system is locked into a vicious, mechanical doom loop. Here's how it works...

Every month, while you pay your bills, live within your means, and balance your personal finance books, the Treasury issues mountains of new debt just to pay off the old debt that's maturing. All the while, it's borrowing more to cover current overspending. Yet, because the market is getting flooded with U.S. bonds, investors are demanding higher yields.

Higher yields mean refinancing becomes more expensive. More expensive refinancing creates even larger deficits. Larger deficits require issuing even more bonds.

The financial system is, in effect, cannibalizing itself to stay alive. No enemy army could design a more effective trap to paralyze the American financial system.

When an enemy attacks, the damage is obvious. Buildings fall, smoke rises, and the country rallies together. But when financial decay sets in the destruction is deceptive. For many people, the cause is unclear.

Inside Job

Over the decades, American leaders assumed the world had no choice but to use the dollar. Where else were they going to go?

But our adversaries and allies alike have watched this fiscal train wreck unfold and are methodically diversifying their reserves. They realize that a superpower running a $39 trillion deficit is a precarious foundation for the global economy.

Central banks around the world have accelerated their gold purchases to historic levels. Countries like China have been systematically reducing their holdings of long-term U.S. Treasuries.

It's not a sudden boycott of the dollar. Rather, it's a slow calculated diversification. As the rest of the world lightens up on their purchases of U.S. debt, the Federal Reserve becomes the buyer of last resort. That means creating credit out of thin air to buy U.S. Treasuries. This is a formula for runaway inflation. The type that has destroyed countless currencies throughout history.

To be clear, Fed asset purchases have been occurring for much of the 21st century. So, too, have U.S. government policies of dollar debasement. This sophisticated state-sponsored suicide takes place in ongoing Congressional hearings, mundane Treasury auctions, continuous debt ceiling increases, pretend government shutdowns, and carefully scripted statements by the Fed using concocted syntaxes that are designed to keep people from panicking.

As America closes in on its 250-year anniversary it's being drained of its capital. The government continues to borrow tomorrow's prosperity to pay for today's political promises. All the while, the people watch the infrastructure of the nation's cities crumble as $3 billion a day is directed to service interest payments. The currency buys less and less every year, forcing citizens onto an endless economic hamster wheel.

Alas, it hasn't taken an enemy to destroy America. Our politicians have already done the job for them.

Sincerely,

MN Gordon
for Economic Prism

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 21:00

Another Detransitioner Wins A Huge Settlement

A woman who underwent a double mastectomy after identifying as "nonbinary" has reportedly secured a confidential $3.5 million settlement after suing the mental health professionals who approved her for the life-altering procedure. Camille Kiefel, 36, alleged in a malpractice lawsuit that two Oregon therapists signed off on the surgery after only brief telemedicine consultations, despite a documented history of mental health issues. The settlement was reached just days before the case was set to go to trial. 

The case is already fueling renewed scrutiny of how quickly some medical providers have approved irreversible gender procedures for vulnerable patients struggling with serious mental health issues.

The settlement comes after another detransitioner, Fox Varian, won a $2 million judgment back in February against the providers who referred her for a double mastectomy at age 16. Soon after the settlement was announced, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons announced its position on gender transition surgeries for minors, concluding “there is insufficient evidence demonstrating a favorable risk-benefit ratio for the pathway of gender-related endocrine and surgical interventions in children and adolescents.” According to reporter Benjamin Ryan, at least 30 detransitioners have sued healthcare providers in the past four years.

Kiefel’s complaint, filed in 2022, named licensed clinical social worker Amy Ruff and licensed professional counselor Mara Burmeister, along with their respective employers, Brave Space and the Quest Center for Integrative Health. According to the suit, it took only two telemedicine Zoom sessions, each lasting about an hour or less, for Kiefel to get approval for the surgery.

Kiefel's history at the time of those consultations showed obvious signs of mental health issues that should have been taken into account, but clearly were not. She had a documented record of trauma, depression, ADHD, and suicidal ideation. Her path toward identifying as "nonbinary" began even earlier.

She has described a childhood incident in which her best friend was sexually assaulted when both girls were in the fifth grade. "I started dressing more masculine after that," she recalled. "I just wanted to protect myself." In college, a women's studies course introduced her to the concept of being nonbinary, and she came to believe adopting that identity could explain the gender-related distress she had carried since childhood.

Despite the approval of the mental health professionals, the surgery did not resolve her gender dysphoria, and within two years, she detransitioned. 

In the interim, she developed vertigo, tinnitus, and Raynaud's syndrome, a condition that causes extremities to go numb and cold. She eventually began working with a naturopath and exploring the relationship between gut health and mental wellbeing. Once she addressed her physical health through nutrition, she says both her mental and physical condition improved substantially. 

That improvement is what forced the harder question.

"So while I'm addressing all my physical health issues, I start to question whether or not the surgery was helpful for me," she told Fox News Digital. "And then about a year and a half later, I de-transitioned."

 "I didn't want what happened to me to happen to other vulnerable girls and women," she said. 

Her lawsuit alleged professional malpractice, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and fraud, each rooted in the same core allegation: that she was neither properly evaluated nor genuinely informed before she consented to an irreversible procedure. "And I wasn't given true informed consent. And that's something that everyone deserves to have for any medical procedure," she said.

Kiefel says she reached out to gender medicine organizations in hopes of creating dialogue around how vulnerable patients are screened and counseled. Those efforts went nowhere. "So for many, I think for a lot of this is going to be the lawsuits that are actually going to create change," she said. Given that Brave Space, one of the named defendants, has since shut down permanently, the courts may be the only venue left with any real leverage.

Despite detransitioning, her body will never be the same. “And it is difficult because there's like little reminders like, I'll be looking in a mirror after taking a shower and those ugly scars are still there," she said. "Dresses don't fit me the same way ... I'd like to have kids, but I would never be able to nurse them, and I'll never have that connection with them, and then they won't get the benefits of breast milk. So it's been difficult."

Despite the physical and emotional scars caused by her transition, by her own account, Kiefel is now the most mentally stable she has ever been. 

Cases like this are likely to reshape gender medicine for years to come, as doctors, therapists, and hospitals face growing legal and financial pressure over how quickly irreversible procedures were approved for vulnerable patients. The era of rubber-stamping gender interventions after cursory evaluations appears to be coming to an end, with malpractice lawsuits succeeding where internal oversight and medical institutions failed.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 20:25

Building American Cities That Would Make The Founding Fathers Proud

Authored by Charles Ma via RealClearPolicy,

American cities need bold renewal. What we need is a "MadeCity" vision - a vision for intentionally crafting or "making" cities that emphasize the enduring higher order potential within people.

Beginning to plan and build such cities as part of America's upcoming 250th anniversary is a fitting way to extend John Winthrop's vision for America as a "City on a Hill." A MadeCity is a living monument to faith, freedom, and entrepreneurship - the very ideals that turned a collection of colonies into the greatest nation on earth.

Washington, D.C., our nation's capital, is the ideal place to begin. Transforming the District into a true MadeCity would restore Americans' faith in their country and give the world a renewed beacon of hope. It would remind citizens of the Founders' deep faith and worship that sustained them through the Revolution and the creation of a new republic. The arts would play a central role, turning our capital into a place of inspiration and reverence rather than just a sterile bureaucracy. Venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and families would drive the transformation, proving that America is not destined to be a nation of elites and dependents, but of creators and builders with shared vision and purpose.

As Proverbs reminds us, "Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint." Today, too many Americans feel hopeless, taught to rely on government instead of cultivating motivated citizenship. Proper education can change that. We must teach young people the truth: America is the greatest nation on earth - a superpower of liberty, economic freedom, and human flourishing. Our most valuable currency is not dollars but our youth, talent, and leadership.

The Founders - Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington - were men of faith who thought and built on a grand scale. They were entrepreneurs and visionaries as much as statesmen. Franklin revolutionized printing and invention. Washington built a thriving business at Mount Vernon. They and countless others created vibrant cities - New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore - and inspired the rise of Chicago, Los Angeles, and beyond. Their greatest fear was that future generations would fail to keep the republic they sacrificed to establish. Franklin's warning rings loud today: "A republic, if you can keep it."

Yet too often our current leaders and builders operate with short-term, accountant-style thinking - applying band-aids when visionary, long-term transformation is required. Mayors and politicians focus on the next election cycle instead of monuments that will stand for centuries. We went to the Moon with courage and faith. Reaching Mars - and rebuilding our cities - demands the same spirit.

Government has an important constitutional role, but it cannot replace the human drive to create. Our $39 trillion national debt is sustainable only because the world retains confidence in America's future growth and productivity. That confidence must be earned, not assumed. True wealth is not created by trading stocks or relying on today's tech giants alone. It is built by bold minds who invent, manufacture, and construct - the same spirit that produced the iPhone, the assembly line, and the great American cities of the past.

Post-World War II Europe offers a powerful lesson. Nations rebuilt with purpose, drawing on faith and resolve to rise from ruins. America, never defeated, has even greater potential. Washington, D.C., is perfectly positioned to lead a new revolution in urban building - one grounded in faith-based entrepreneurship that honors the "Great Experiment" our Founders began.

We are a nation born in courage, not caution. Our builders must stop fearing failure and start believing again in the possibility of creating the next great American cities. Families need inspiration. Communities need purpose. The next generation needs to see living proof that the American Dream is alive and being built - not managed or regulated into mediocrity.

MadeCities are the answer. They are places where we create the conscious arrangements that make living irresistible and remarkably fruitful, where a quantum currency is realized through specified complexity and manifold beauty. Just as living organisms thrive as the result of the intelligent design and coordination of their many diverse parts, MadeCities promote human flourishing as a consequence of the integrated design of their different essential elements and institutions, whether residential, recreational, commercial, cultural, legal or religious. Indeed, a living and thriving city depends on the intelligent design and planning of its founders inspired by the Way, Truth, and Life of God the Creator.

Here is a bold framework: "How might we create cities that grow in the favor of both God and Man?" A living city where we as citizens are living stones, feeding on living waters, responding to a living God. This is what made America unstoppable and MadeCity's core Movement.

Ryan Higgins, a descendant of one of the founding families in the U.S. said the following about our nation's amazing history: "In 1623, my 13th great grandfather fled a tyrannical government and risked life and limb to come to the New World because he knew the recipe to human flourishing could not be found in a King. As a man of deep faith, Richard Higgins knew the only Hope worth fighting for was a civilization rooted in God, with a heavy emphasis on family and community. Made City is taking that same mindset into 2026 and beyond" and "our current concrete jungles across the US have lost hope, creativity and community. The result is clear to see; isolation, record levels of depression, anxiety and mental health issues." Higgins is correct to point out that what we have been doing for decades is not working.

Washington DC is the place to start. I hope to play a role in continuing America's tradition of faith-driven entrepreneurship and in helping build the next City on a Hill. America cannot remain the land of the free unless it is also the home of the brave, the innovative and the bold.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 19:50

"I Think It Will Reduce Our Jobs": Jamie Dimon Predicts AI-Driven Workforce Shift At JPMorgan

Artificial intelligence is set to significantly alter hiring patterns at JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to CEO Jamie Dimon, who said the bank expects to recruit more AI-focused talent while reducing reliance on some conventional banking roles over time, according to Bloomberg.

During a Bloomberg Television interview at the firm’s China Summit in Shanghai, Dimon acknowledged the long-term impact AI is likely to have on employment across the industry. “I think it will reduce our jobs down the road,” he said. “There will be all different types of jobs, and I think we will be hiring more AI people and fewer bankers in certain categories, and it will make them more productive.”

The shift reflects a broader transformation underway on Wall Street, where major banks are accelerating investments in automation and generative AI to streamline operations and improve efficiency. Executives across the sector have increasingly spoken about the technology’s ability to replace repetitive work while reshaping how financial institutions operate.

Bloomberg writes that unlike some peers who have framed the transition more bluntly, Dimon emphasized that workforce reductions could largely happen gradually through attrition rather than mass layoffs. JPMorgan, which sees roughly 25,000 to 30,000 employees leave annually, has enough turnover to retrain or reposition workers as roles evolve, he said.

He also argued that AI’s impact will not be limited to eliminating jobs. New positions are expected to emerge, particularly in areas tied to client relationships and revenue generation, even as some support and operational functions become more automated.

Dimon’s remarks followed controversial comments from Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters, who recently said the bank was replacing “lower-value human capital” with technology as part of a plan to cut thousands of support positions. Goldman Sachs President John Waldron has likewise described traditional back-office work as a “human assembly line” susceptible to automation, while HSBC CEO Georges Elhedery warned this week that AI would “destroy” certain jobs even as it creates others.

Addressing the backlash surrounding Winters’ comments, Dimon defended the executive while acknowledging the wording had landed poorly. “It was an inartful way to say something,” he said. “I think it will be old jobs. If back-office jobs disappear, we need more front office jobs to cover more clients.”

Research from consulting firms and banks suggests the disruption could be substantial. McKinsey estimates that nearly a third of work hours in finance and insurance may eventually be automated, while Citigroup has projected that more than half of banking jobs face a high likelihood of either replacement or augmentation through AI technologies.

Still, Dimon cautioned against allowing the transition to move too quickly without considering the broader consequences. “I think it’s incumbent upon us, society, to think through if it happens too fast,” he said.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 19:15

Iran Destroyed 20% Of Pentagon's MQ-9 Reaper Drone Fleet: Report

Via Middle East Eye

Iran has destroyed $1bn worth of MQ-9 Reaper Drones, or roughly 20 percent of the US's pre-war inventory of the sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicles, according to a report by Bloomberg on Friday.

The report said that many of the drones were downed by Iran in flight, but that others had been destroyed on the ground when Iran targeted US military bases in the Gulf.

via AFP

The MQ-9 is both a surveillance drone and capable of carrying a payload, typically Hellfire missiles or Joint Direct Attack Munition guided bombs.

Bloomberg reported that the US may have lost up to 30 MQ-9 Reaper drones in the war, a higher number than the 24 that a report released this month by the Congressional Research Service noted.

The $1bn price tag adds to the cost of the war on Iran, which a senior official at the Pentagon told Reuters in May reached up to $29bn. The MQ-9 Reaper drone is being gradually phased out by the US military, although General Atomics continues to produce it for foreign customers.

Iran’s ability to shoot down MQ-9 Reaper Drones is another demonstration of how it has managed to deploy some air defense, despite claims from US President Donald Trump that the country’s defences have been “obliterated”.

A US official told The New York Times this week that Iranian military commanders may have mapped out flight patterns of US fighter jets and bombers over their skies, raising the risks should Trump decide to restart the war on Iran.

Days before the US and Iran reached a fragile ceasefire in April, Iran shot down a F-15E Strike Eagle warplane, sparking a massive US recovery operation for the pilots. If Iran had been able to capture the US pilot alive, it would have put tremendous pressure on Washington, experts say.

The New York Times reported that Russia may have helped Iran map US flight patterns in order to better position their military assets and air defense systems.

Iran and Russia have a long-standing security arrangement. Russia has assisted Iran by providing satellite imagery of US warships and military personnel, according to multiple US media reports.

Various regional media had featured reports of downed Reaper drones through March into April, at the height of the air war over Iran:

🇾🇪 Iranian and regional media outlets, including Iran’s Fars News Agency, are reporting the downing of a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone over Yemen’s Marib province, the key oil and gas region located in north-central Yemen today.

The claim and the footage has not yet been confirmed by… pic.twitter.com/In3GVmuLJG

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) May 17, 2026

Iran’s air defence comprises a mix of domestically produced systems along with Russian and Chinese systems.

Middle East Eye was the first to report that China had provided air defence batteries to Iran, following the June 2025 war that culminated in the US bombing three Iranian nuclear sites.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 18:40

Disney Asks FCC To Declare 'The View' A News Show, Exempt From Equal Time Rule

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Disney is asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to declare the daytime talk show "The View" a "bona fide news" program to bypass the federal equal opportunities law, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr announced May 22.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris (C) chats with the hosts during a commercial break at “The View” in New York on Oct. 8, 2024. From left are Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, Whoopi Goldberg, Harris, Joy Behar, and Sunny Hostin. Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

The show, co-hosted by Joy Behar, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Whoopi Goldberg, Sarah Haines, Sunny Hostin, and Ana Navarro, has come under scrutiny in recent years for its programming that heavily favored progressive guests and commentary.

In February, Carr told reporters the agency was investigating whether the show violated the federal "equal time" requirements for political candidates.

The equal time rule requires broadcast radio and television stations to give comparable airtime to legally qualified political candidates.

In May, Disney-owned TV stations KTRK-TV, Houston, Texas, and American Broadcasting Companies (ABC) filed a request with the agency to exempt the show.

"The companies ... suggest in their Petition that they believe the federal equal opportunities statute itself would not survive First Amendment scrutiny today or at least if it is applied today to 'The View' would not survive any such review," the FCC stated in a public notice issued May 22. "The companies also point to a letter from an FCC staffer from 2002 in support of their argument that 'The View' qualifies as bona fide news."

If FCC commissioners exempt "The View" from the equal time rule, the program would be allowed to continue having almost exclusively left-leaning politicians and guests on to discuss political issues.

"Disney argues that The View qualifies as 'bona fide news' under the law, comparing itself to Meet The Press or Face The Nation," Carr posted on X. "Therefore, Disney argues, it can have one partisan candidate for office on The View while denying equal opportunities to all others."

Under the law, television shows don't qualify as news shows if their content is based on partisan purposes, such as if they intend to harm someone's candidacy for office, Carr said.

The FCC has opened public comment on the request, allowing written comments until June 22, before commissioners consider the request.

Stations can petition the FCC to seek exemptions from the rule for bona fide news programming.

Congress created exemptions for two news programs, "Meet the Press" and "Face The Nation," in 1959 by passing an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934, because of the traditional question-and-answer formats used.

Congress passed the equal time rule to prevent media gatekeepers from deciding the outcomes of elections, Carr said.

"The law, even when it applies, does not prohibit anyone from having any candidate appear on any show," Carr said. "Rather, Congress intended it to empower voters with more information and encourage more speech."

In April, the FCC ordered an early review of license renewals for Disney's ABC television stations as part of an ongoing investigation into whether the company and its stations were following federal communications laws and rules.

President Barack Obama appears on the ABC daytime television talk show "The View" in New York, alongside hosts (L–R) Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Saul Loeb/Getty Images Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 17:30

Ivanka Trump Was Reportedly Targeted For Assassination By IRGC Terrorist

First Daughter Ivanka Trump was allegedly targeted in an assassination plot by an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-trained terrorist seeking revenge for the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. Iraqi national Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, 32, reportedly pledged to kill Ivanka Trump and was found with a blueprint of her Florida home after his recent capture, according to an exclusive report from the New York Post.

The alleged plot traces directly to the January 2020 drone strike that killed Soleimani in Baghdad. 

Al-Saadi, who US authorities describe as a high-ranking operative within Iraq-Iran terror circles, had reportedly idolized the IRGC Quds Force commander as a father figure after his father died in a plane crash in 2006. That personal connection, analysts say, transformed a political grievance into something far more volatile. Ivanka Trump, 44, who converted to Orthodox Judaism before marrying Jared Kushner in 2009, emerged as Al-Saadi's primary target. 

Entifadh Qanbar, a former deputy military attaché at the Iraqi embassy in Washington and now head of the Future Foundation, says Al-Saadi began openly vowing revenge after Soleimani's death. "We need to kill Ivanka to burn down the house of Trump the way he burned down our house," Al-Saadi allegedly told associates. "We heard that he had a plan of Ivanka's house in Florida," Qanbar adds, noting that a second source independently confirmed the existence of the plot.

Al-Saadi posted a map image on social media showing the exclusive Florida enclave where Ivanka and Kushner own a $24 million home, paired with a warning in Arabic that "neither your palaces nor the Secret Service will protect you" and that "our revenge is a matter of time." In that same post, he declared that he and his network were "currently in the stage of surveillance and analysis,” framing the operation not as an aspiration but as active preparation.

“Al-Saadi is said to be a high-ranking figure in Iraq-Iran terror circles, arrested in Turkey on May 15 and extradited to the US, where he is charged with 18 attacks and attempted attacks throughout Europe and the United States, per the Department of Justice,” the New York Post reports. “He’s been behind attacks on US and Jewish targets including the firebombing of the Bank of New York Mellon in Amsterdam in March, the stabbing of two Jewish victims in London in April and a shooting at the US consulate building in Toronto, also in March, according to the DoJ.”

Court documents also state that he "planned, coordinated" and claimed responsibility for attacks on Jewish communities, including the bombing of a synagogue in Liège, Belgium, and the arson of a temple in Rotterdam.

What makes the case especially striking is how openly Al-Saadi allegedly operated online. 

According to federal investigators, he posted photos with missiles, praised Qasem Soleimani, threatened “the American enemy,” and even shared images tied to alleged terror targets. Authorities also say he used a religious travel agency as cover to connect with terror cells internationally and traveled with an Iraqi government-issued service passport that reduced scrutiny at airports.

Analysts say Al-Saadi had deep ties to Iran-backed militias and maintained connections with both Soleimani and his successor, Esmail Qaani. He is now being held in solitary confinement in Brooklyn while supporters in Baghdad reportedly portray him as a resistance figure.

🇺🇸🇮🇷 An IRGC-linked Iraqi terrorist named Mohammad Baqer Al-Saadi was plotting to assassinate Ivanka Trump as revenge for the U.S. killing of his mentor Qasem Soleimani.

He had a blueprint of Ivanka’s Florida home, posted maps and threats online, and was actively involved in… https://t.co/pubLwRaJj7 pic.twitter.com/PCCto7v8yT

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 23, 2026

“Ivanka Trump was allegedly targeted in an assassination attempt tied to Iranian terror groups. Thankful Ivanka remains safe right now,” House Republicans said in a statement on X. “The failed assassination plot shows Iran’s true colors (and why we must make sure they never have a nuclear weapon). They hate America and they clearly see President Trump as the man standing between them and death to America. That’s why they’re targeting his daughter. It’s sick.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 16:55

What 'Compassion' Isn't

Authored by Laura Hollis via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

One of the most frustrating aspects of contemporary conversations about politics and public policy is how often the deleterious effects of terrible programs - local, state and federal - are brushed aside with distracting and even deceitful claims that the intentions behind the policies were "compassionate." This is an utterly wrongheaded analysis for many reasons. Laws, public policies, and government programs should be evaluated by their results, not by the state of mind of their advocates or sponsors.

Nathan Dumlao/Unsplash.com

The weaponization of compassion has launched a de facto competition of who can be thought to be the most "compassionate" or, at least, not thought to be uncompassionate. The result of this arms race has been chaos, destruction, and depravity.

It's easy to lose sight of just how often this pernicious dynamic takes place, so it's worthwhile to point out a few of the disastrous policies that were promoted, and in some cases continue to be promoted, as being "compassionate" and to call them out for the societally corrosive lies they are.

1. It wasn't "compassionate" to close our mental hospitals. The impulse was understandable; plenty of those facilities were substandard. But the results were catastrophic. Until fairly recently in this country's history, the "homeless" population consisted largely of small numbers of unattached males who drifted from place to place seeking work. But since the 1980s, the homeless population of the United States has exploded. Nearly three-quarters of a million people are homeless, and the number jumped 18 percent from 2023 to 2024. California has 187,000 of the country's homeless; more than 70,000 are in Los Angeles County alone.

2. It isn't "compassionate," nor is it respect for "individual autonomy" or "dignity," to leave the homeless to live as they do. Homeless encampments are hotbeds of filth, including human urine and feces, crime and diseases like leptospirosis, typhus, hepatitis, tuberculosis, and even plague. Across the country, cities are dealing with the economic impact of shuttered stores and declining downtowns attributable to the presence of ever-growing numbers of homeless.

3. It isn't "compassionate" to hand out needles or create places where addicts can use drugs. Leaving aside what should be an obvious argument that we shouldn't be encouraging, much less facilitating, the use of dangerous drugs, two-thirds of America's homeless have a diagnosed mental health illness. A third have a serious substance abuse problem. Approximately half suffer with both. Open-air drug use exacerbates those problems and creates others.

4. It isn't "compassionate," or "equitable," for that matter, to eliminate teaching math, giving grades, standardized tests, advanced academic programs for gifted students or graduation requirements, or to lower entrance qualifications for college and graduate school. It punishes high-achieving students and sends the message to lower-performing students that they aren't capable of meeting basic standards. That, then, undermines public confidence in the graduates of our high schools, colleges, and professional schools.

5. It wasn't "compassionate" to stop enforcing our immigration laws.

6. It isn't "compassionate" to allow violent criminals back on the streets.

7. It isn't "compassionate" to subject children and teenagers with gender dysphoria, and other emotional disorders, to permanent alteration of their bodies with medical and surgical interventions before they are old enough to understand the implications of those decisions.

None of these decisions have had beneficial impacts on their intended populations. Worse still, they are all deeply destructive to other individuals, groups, and society at large. Everyone affected should be able to protest the consequences of these failed policies without getting smeared with the false accusation that they "lack compassion."

Another reason to eliminate "compassion" as a basis for public policy, which we're seeing daily with painful clarity, is that these policies end up being vehicles for massive fraud. Anyone can set up a 501c3 nonprofit, claim to be working for a charitable purpose, and deceive donors into giving money that does little but line the CEOs' pockets. And when government grants are involved, there is little oversight, take Minnesota, for example, and more incentive for grift, bribery, and payback in the form of pouring money into the campaign coffers of politicians who hold the grants' pursestrings. What we end up with is a situation where neither the nonprofits nor the politicians have an incentive to solve the underlying problems, since they're getting rich from their continued existence.

Why has the United States become a nation where "compassion" trumps all other considerations?

Scholars like Helen Andrews argue that the emphasis on "compassion" over logic and methodical analysis is a function of what she calls "the great feminization." Women, Andrews claims, are hardwired to be maternal, and thus more likely to be persuaded by something that tugs at their empathy than by that which appeals to their reason.

I'm not so sure. First, women have functioning brains, and they are certainly intellectually capable of dispassionate analysis. Second, an awful lot of men seem to be just as hornswoggled by appeals to their "compassion" as are misguided women. And third, I don't understand how it is "feminine" or "maternal" to witness the collapse of huge sections of our cities into third-world slums; or to know that drugs are pouring into the country, children are being trafficked for sex, and young women are being raped and murdered because the borders are unenforced; or to see people stabbed to death on public transportation, pushed in front of trains or run down by crazed lunatics at Christmas parades because criminals aren't incarcerated; or to watch as multiple generations of disadvantaged minorities struggle because of schools with weak disciplinary and academic standards; or to want children and emotionally troubled teens to be chemically castrated or surgically sterilized before they're old enough to drive a car, drink a beer, or understand the concepts of sexual satisfaction, fathering, giving birth to or nursing a child, none of which they will experience if they are "transitioned."

None of this is "compassionate." It's objectively irrational. It's wantonly destructive. It is the deliberate disregard of monumental, systemic, catastrophic failure, the evidence of which is irrefutable. There's something seriously wrong with anyone who continues to defend these policies and programs, and I'm not persuaded that it's a matter of chromosomal biology or evolution.

I don't profess to have a complete solution. But a good start would be to demand meaningful metrics when we discuss proposed and existing policies and programs. What matters isn't "compassion"; it's consequences.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 16:20

AI Content Is Swamping The Internet: How It Impacts Critical Thinking

Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A never-ending flood of content generated by artificial intelligence is reshaping the internet and the way people engage with information faster than ever.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Freepik

From news summaries to social media posts to academic research, the sheer volume of machine-assisted materials has been correlated with a spike in "cognitive offloading" - a phenomenon in which people outsource critical thinking and verification to automated systems.

A 2025 analysis of how AI tools affect cognitive offloading showed a "significant negative correlation" between frequent use of AI tools and the ability to think critically in people across age groups and educational backgrounds. The researchers at the SBS Swiss Business School found that younger age groups exhibited a higher amount of dependence on AI models and lower critical thinking scores.

What's more troubling is a Pangram/YouGov study in May that found only 55 percent of participants, all of whom were Gen Zers aged 18 to 28, were able to identify fake or misleading AI-generated material. That number is lower in older age groups, which means half or fewer of adults over the age of 28 were confident in their ability to spot AI content online.

"AI-generated posts and comments can distort public perception, especially when volume is mistaken for credibility," Javi Pérez, an editor of AI-assisted consumer education websites, told The Epoch Times.

"If a user sees dozens of similar posts about a product, trend, political claim, health issue, or financial topic, they may assume there is broad agreement."

'Confident Sameness'

Pérez said consumers need to beware as AI content increases the volume of what he called "confident sameness" online.

"Many articles and posts now repeat similar structures, similar advice, and similar phrasing. For casual readers, this can create the impression that a topic has more consensus or certainty than it really does, because they keep seeing the same ideas repeated across many sources," Pérez said.

"The risk is that people stop knowing which content has been checked. In fields like finance, health, law, education, or news, readers need to know whether claims were reviewed against primary sources, updated recently, and edited by someone accountable."

AI strategy consultant Armand Cucciniello III told The Epoch Times that AI-generated content is changing not only how we consume information, but also how quickly we process and trust it.

"We're moving from deliberate reading toward rapid skimming of polished summaries, commentary, short-form videos, and AI-assisted content designed for speed and engagement," he said.

As someone who has worked in the "U.S. national security landscape," Cucciniello said one of his biggest concerns is that AI systems "can unintentionally amplify large volumes of inaccurate or deliberately manipulated content simply through repetition and scale."

He also believes the high volume of AI-generated content is creating real pressure on public trust.

"When readers encounter nearly identical phrasing or interpretations across multiple sources, it's natural to question whether the information was independently reported or simply repackaged," he said.

Carl Stroud, a public relations expert and chief storyteller at the Smoking Gun Agency, has also witnessed AI content take a toll on the public.

"The fundamental audience need has not changed: People want to trust what they are reading," Stroud told The Epoch Times. "What has changed is how much harder that judgment has become.

"AI-generated content, aggregation, and low-quality slop have made the information environment noisier, flatter, and more confusing, so audiences are now trying to work out whether they are reading original reporting, rehashed content, or something that should never have been published in the first place."

Beyond social media and academia, few industries have been hit as hard with AI-generated misinformation as the news. Stroud, who has spent two decades within UK media circles, editing, and journalism, said he's seeing the AI content churn create fatigue among readers searching for accurate information.

"Fatigue is dangerous because when people feel overwhelmed, they either disengage or become easier to mislead," he said.

Losing Touch

Ashutosh Khulbe, founder of RawPickAI, tests AI tools for a living - about three to four new ones every week.

"What I notice most in my corner of the internet is that everything sounds the same now. Like, eerily the same," he told The Epoch Times. "I'd guess 70 to 80 [percent] of 'best AI tools' articles are AI-generated at this point.

"It creates this weird feedback loop where AI writes reviews based on what other AI already wrote, readers assume there's a consensus, and the actual experience of using these tools gets buried."

He said he tested one writing tool that had hundreds of positive reviews online yet was unusable at the free tier. "You couldn't even finish a paragraph before hitting the limit. But good luck finding that info in a Google search," he said.

Khulbe is especially bothered by the way information distortion is affecting the public.

"AI content skews relentlessly positive because it's trained on marketing pages and affiliate reviews. Nobody's training models on 'I tried this for two weeks, and it sucked.' So the negative signal just disappears from the internet," he said.

The effects of the AI content boom can now be seen in what some are calling "AI psychosis," or a disconnect from reality. While not a clinical diagnosis, the term has become a popular catch-all phrase to describe when AI reinforces an unusual, fixed, or even delusional perception of something in the real world.

People with mental health conditions could be predisposed to developing "AI psychosis," but it's also not limited to that population, according to Dr. Ragy Girgis, professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

"The phenomenon of AI psychosis is quantitatively new and could be very dangerous, but qualitatively it's very similar to what's been happening for decades now since the advent of the internet," Girgis said during an interview with the National Academy of Medicine in March.

This photo illustration shows a person holding two mobile phones displaying viral AI-generated videos of students and an elderly woman sharing views on the impeachment of Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte in Hong Kong on June 20, 2025. Days after the Philippine Senate declined to launch the impeachment trial, the two videos arguing for and against the move went viral. Yan Zhao/AFP via Getty Images Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 15:10

'Impossible To Negotiate With Ukraine' After School Dormitory Strike, Kremlin Informs UN

The last year of the Ukraine war has been marked by both warring sides remaining far from the negotiating table, instead opting for a battlefield solution, also as a deadly tit-for-tat drone and aerial war continues to unfold. This week things just got even worse concerning the distant prospect of restarting direct peace talks, something underscored by a fresh statement of Russia's Ambassador to the United Nations.

Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Friday after a massive Ukrainian drone attack on a college in Starobelsk (Starobilsk) in the Lugansk People's Republic that it's now impossible to negotiate with Kiev.

via BBC Hardtalk 

"This clearly confirms the treachery and non-negotiability of Kiev, which, with the encouragement of its Western sponsors, is not only not committed to a peaceful settlement, but also openly sabotages it," Nebenzia told a meeting of the UN Security Council.

"This deliberate attack on a civilian facility where children study and live, carried out at night when the dormitory was full, was clearly carried out with the aim of maximizing the number of victims," the Russian envoy continued.

The death toll from the Thursday overnight into early Friday hours attack has risen to at least 18, amid a massive rescue effort which went through Friday. At least 39 were initially reported injured.

Large-scale destruction was observed at the academic building and dormitory of the Starobelsk Professional College, which teaches students aged 14 to 18. Over 80 students were at the complex at the time of the attack.

Additionally, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said those responsible needed to be brought to justice, calling it "a monstrous crime" - given the "attack on an educational institution where children and young people ⁠are present."

The assault also included multiple strikes and drones, ruling out the possibility of an 'accidental' targeting, Amb. Nebenzia continued in his remarks. He further blasted Ukraine's western backers.

"Such strikes using long-range weapons provided to the Kiev regime by NATO countries, including drones, are being carried out with technical assistance being provided by foreign specialists from well-known NATO states," Nebenzia added.

State media also underscored that "He argued that the attack demonstrates that negotiations with the current Ukrainian leadership are impossible."

President Putin had on blasted the mass casualty incident as a "terrorist attack by the neo-Nazi regime" while vowing swift revenge. He has reportedly asked for input from the Defense Ministry, meaning that plans are in motion for a likely imminent, heavy aerial assault on Ukraine.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 14:35

"Preserve All Records": DOJ Puts Democrat-Run Maryland On Notice In Election Integrity Probe

Submitted by Maryland Freedom Caucus, 

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon announced on X last night that she has ordered Maryland’s State Board of Elections to preserve their records concerning the utter debacle of mail-in ballots during the state’s primary election season.

It's the wrong time to send voters the wrong ballots. This @TheJusticeDept’s @CivilRights will not let Maryland's mail-in ballot mistakes go unnoticed! pic.twitter.com/nm9S1x9amX

— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) May 22, 2026

“It's the wrong time to send voters the wrong ballots. This @TheJusticeDept’s @CivilRights will not let Maryland's mail-in ballot mistakes go unnoticed!” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon.

This update comes just one week after SBE was forced to admit that its third-party, out-of-state vendor mailed half a million or more ballots to the wrong primary voters. 

President Trump himself called for a federal investigation into this breach of trust with Maryland voters...

... immediately after the Maryland Freedom Caucus had suggested the same:

To restore faith in Maryland's electoral process, decisive action is necessary. We must release the voter rolls to the federal government to allow for a thorough audit into the reported issuance of 400,000 incorrect ballots. pic.twitter.com/39PJlDyKiN

— Maryland Freedom Caucus (@MDFreedomCaucus) May 16, 2026

The Maryland Freedom Caucus has been on the front lines of election integrity since our formation, placing Voter ID, citizen-only voting, and in-person voting at the center of our legislative platform. This past year, our landmark legislation, the Secure the Vote Act of 2026, did not even receive a vote in committee. To date, no other legislative group - Republican or otherwise - has called for the intervention of the Justice Department in oversight of Maryland’s elections.

But Maryland voters need not despair, because together with our grassroots partners, Secure the Vote MD, we have been pushing for reform in the court of public opinion and it is working. With AAG Dhillon’s announcement last night, the oversight of Maryland’s elections we have been calling for since last fall may soon come to pass.

AAG Harmeet Dhillon is exactly right. Voters receiving the wrong ballots isn’t a harmless mix-up; it is the kind of sloppiness that shatters confidence in our elections at the worst possible time. Mass mailing of ballots has always been a bad idea. It compromises the chain of… https://t.co/QXM2RZA0vH

— Matt Morgan (@MattMorgan29A) May 22, 2026

“AAG Harmeet Dhillon is exactly right. Voters receiving the wrong ballots isn’t a harmless mix-up; it is the kind of sloppiness that shatters confidence in our elections at the worst possible time. Mass mailing of ballots has always been a bad idea. It compromises the chain of custody on a large scale, and this isn't the first time Maryland has dropped the ball on issuing ballots,” said Maryland Freedom Caucus Chair, Matt Morgan.

Morgan added, “Thank you for making sure the DOJ Civil Rights Division holds Maryland accountable. Common sense tells us fair elections demand accuracy, not excuses. Integrity first.”

“565,639 Maryland voters were failed by the very system entrusted to protect their vote. We are grateful that Harmeet Dhillon and the Department of Justice are paying attention — because clearly, Maryland’s State Board of Elections is not. SecuretheVoteMD will not stop until every one of those voters be has a guaranteed path to a clean, counted ballot,” said Kate Sullivan, president of SecuretheVoteMD, the state’s citizen watchdog group. 

Delegate Lauren Arikan, a founding member of the Maryland Freedom Caucus, thanked President Trump on X last night for following through on his promise to investigate what went wrong with Maryland’s no-excuse mail-in ballots this year:

The Trump administrationis once again walking towards the fire, even in a state that most Republicans would consider a lost cause. President Trump is going to Make Voting Great Again. 👏👏👏👏

— Lauren Arikan (@laurenformd) May 23, 2026

“The Trump administration is once again walking towards the fire, even in a state that most Republicans would consider a lost cause. President Trump is going to Make Voting Great Again," Arikan noted. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 14:00

Nvidia CEO Urges Super Micro To "Enhance Compliance" Amid AI Chip-Smuggling Probe

In a rare public comment that Nvidia is growing more sensitive to downstream risk, CEO Jensen Huang was quoted by Bloomberg News as saying Super Micro Computer must strengthen internal compliance controls after Taiwanese authorities detained three people accused of smuggling banned AI chips to China.  

"Ultimately, Super Micro has to run its own company," Huang told reporters on Saturday in response to the chip smuggling scheme. "I hope that they will enhance and improve their regulation compliance and avoid that from happening in the future."

The U.S.-based server and data-center hardware company primarily builds high-performance servers, storage systems, networking gear, and complete AI/data-center racks for various customers, but most importantly for those working on edge computing and artificial intelligence workloads.

Huang said Nvidia is "rigorously" explaining the complex regulatory environment to all its partners to avert further downstream diversion risk.

Huang's comments stem from federal prosecutors charging the co-founder of Super Micro and two associates with participating in a scheme to divert roughly $2.5 billion in Nvidia AI accelerators to China.

How the Alleged Scheme Worked:

• The group used a company in Southeast Asia as a front buyer to place huge orders with a California-based U.S. manufacturer.
• Once the servers arrived in Southeast Asia, they were quickly repackaged and secretly shipped to customers in China through a network of brokers.

Related:

• $92 Million In Banned AI Chips Went From Super Micro To Little-Known Chinese Tech Company

Our view is that Huang's comments suggest he is trying to insulate Nvidia from a widening chip-smuggling investigation while preserving access to highly scrutinized international markets.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 13:25

When Unfairness Is Systemic, The Consequences Are Flight, Resistance, Revolt

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Now that we've drained the aquifers of a stable society, the replacement form of "wealth" is a delusional credit-asset bubble that generates the illusion of "wealth."

Let's weave together two threads that look different: systemic unfairness and civilizational psychosis. As I often note, social species that organize themselves into hierarchies (i.e. primates, including humans) have an innate sensitivity to fairness, as this trait is essential to maintaining social stability, and therefore it has been selected as advantageous.

This sensitivity applies both to individual instances of unfairness / injustice and to systemic unfairness / injustice. If there is no redress when an individual is treated unfairly or abused, the social order is weakened. This is why early civilizations instituted legal codes and systems of redress as they expanded into nations / empires that needed bureaucracies to organize, manage and enforce the rules and responsibilities of every class.

If the mechanisms of redress have become empty shams, then the unfairness is systemic: it isn't just some individuals who have been treated unfairly--everyone is being exploited and treated differently from what the system claims is the operative set of values and rules.

When there's an external source of wealth to be exploited, the leadership has the luxury of becoming extractive and oppressive, because they have a source of wealth that's external to their own populace. Consider the progression from a society of systemic fairness to a society of systemic unfairness.

Consider a fledgling nation that was a society with high levels of social trust and cohesion generated by a dutiful leadership, social mobility and a system in which social pressures meant members of each social class had to respect the same set of social rules.

This structure is the essential foundation of a functional society and economy, for if the resident populace is immiserated by an unfair system, they respond by either fleeing the system (i.e. opting out or leaving), resisting the unfairness / exploitation or revolting against the status quo.

If the nation transitions into an expansionist empire, the leadership can jettison fairness / redress because it can extract wealth via conquest or exploiting new resources. The bureaucracy is co-opted / bought off via the spoils of conquest and corruption, and as the imperium expands, it has sufficient wealth to buy off the citizenry class with bread and circuses or equivalent largesse.

In other words, systemic unfairness--what we now call a rigged casino--is accepted as long as the key social classes feel they're getting ahead. The Roman state / empire is an example of these dynamics, but there are many others.

As long as there's enough external wealth flowing in to enable people to feel they're still getting ahead, social decay is tolerated as "the cost of progress." In other words, who needs fairness if I have a seat in the rigged casino?

But this structure is inherently unstable, both economically and socially. External sources of wealth / resources are eventually depleted, and the largesse diminishes asymmetrically: the wealthiest few at the top continue amassing fortunes, the bureaucrats are squeezed, and the lower classes are now being taxed to cover the decline of external wealth extraction.

The systemic unfairness that was tolerated is no longer tolerable once the majority are no longer getting ahead. This presents the leadership class reaping the lion's share of the wealth extraction with a problem: how to persuade the masses that 1) they're still getting ahead, even as they visibly lose ground, and 2) how to mask the systemic unfairness, i.e. the rigged casino that stripmines the many to benefit the few.

The leadership's "solution" is civilizational psychosis: the founding mythology of the state--so inspirational and lofty--is heavily promoted, even as this mythology (super-abundance, democracy, etc.) no longer maps the real world.

This widening divide generates civilizational psychosis as the masses are corralled into a state of denial that temporarily eases their anxiety at the recognition they're no longer getting ahead and the ladders of upward mobility have all crumbled.

This state of inspirational delusion enables denial to take a superficially plausible inspirational form: Rome is eternal, so we don't have to do anything but await an automatic return to greatness, AI will make us all rich, technological Progress is inevitable and automatically solves all our problems, and so on.

We fervently believe these delusions because the alternative is too painful to bear. The system is rotten to the core, it's all artifice masquerading as authenticity, and not only are we no longer getting ahead, there are no pathways left to get ahead other than gambling, selling our blood or delusional aspirations to become one of the tiny handful of newly minted Tech Bro millionaires.

There is an emotional progression that parallels the progression from a stable society of dynamic equilibrium to civilizational psychosis: denial breaks down into anger, a volatile state with uncertain outcomes, which eventually transitions to bargaining (please let the stock market go back up so I can exit without losses) which leads to depression (it's all lost) which once processed can move to acceptance (oh well, time to start over).

Both denial and civilizational psychosis are inherently unstable as they're self-liquidating. So denial will blossom into anger whether we "like" it or not.

Now that we've drained the aquifers of a stable society, the replacement form of "wealth" is a catastrophically delusional credit-asset bubble that generates the illusion of "wealth." Since the top 10% managerial / entrepreneurial / professional class the leadership needs to run the empire own 90% of the bubbling assets, inflating a credit-asset bubble is a painless way of generating the illusion in this class that they're still getting ahead.

Until the bubble pops, of course, and all bubbles pop, even when we insist they're not bubbles.

Bubbles masquerading as "wealth" is a manifestation of civilizational psychosis, and so these asset bubbles are equally unstable and self-liquidating: they implode not as a result of some external influence but as an inevitable consequence of their internal structure / nature.

Once the system's transition to a rigged casino becomes undeniable, denial cracks wide open and is replaced by anger. The responses to systemic unfairness are flight, resistance and revolt: dropping out, laying flat, let it rot, opting out, booing toadies worshiping the new gods of AI and eventually, manifestations of revolt as political, economic and social redress are suppressed as needless by a delusional leadership class that has embraced civilizational psychosis.

The price of believing their own PR will be higher than anyone thought possible.

*  *  *

My book Investing In Revolution is available at a 10% discount ($18 for the paperback, $24 for the hardcover and $8.95 for the ebook edition). Introduction (free)

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Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 12:50

No Wonder Men Are Opting Out

Authored by Bettina Arndt via DailySceptic.org,

The warning signs have been there for decades.

Back in 1983, American author Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a powerful book — The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment — arguing that a male revolt was underway. Since the 1950s, she suggested, men had begun rebelling against the breadwinner ethic, inspired by Playboy culture, the counterculture and a desire for personal freedom. They were rejecting the cultural ideology that had shamed them into tying the knot and becoming a good provider, lest they be seen as immature, irresponsible and less than a real man.

Ehrenreich understood that marriage was the mechanism by which society harnessed male productivity. Remove the shame and the yoke comes off.

Forty years on, the yoke has disappeared. In April 2026, the American male labour force participation rate hit its lowest level since records began in the 1940s, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics. One in three American men — roughly 33% — were not working or actively looking for work. The overall male participation rate for men aged 16 and over stood at just 67%, down from 73.5% two decades ago and from 87% in the postwar years when Ehrenreich’s story begins.

The trend is not confined to America. Similar declines — though less dramatic than in the United States — have occurred in the UK, Australia and Canada.

The marriage collapse runs in lockstep with the workforce data. According to US Census Bureau data, married-couple households made up 71% of all US households in 1970; today it’s just 47%. As University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox documents in his 2024 book Get Married, the marriage rate has fallen 65% in the last half century.

Ehrenreich had made the argument that marriage and productivity were inseparable — that the same mechanism which got men to the altar got them to work. The data suggest she was right.

What Ehrenreich did not fully reckon with — and could not have foreseen in 1983 — was that the inducements for tying the knot would collapse. The shame mechanism has disappeared, yes. But the incentive has simultaneously imploded. The product on offer has changed beyond recognition. If you want to understand why men are voting with their feet, you need to look not just at what marriage now costs them — and the costs are severe — but at what it delivers. Increasingly, what it delivers is a pretty dud deal.

The modern woman: a prospectus:

• They are the most miserable, anxious and insecure cohort in living memory — hardly great marriage material.

• Most married women go off sex — and the husband who objects is seen as the problem.

• Many women don’t actually like men very much. The more educated she is, the higher the contempt.

• They’ve gone full throttle Left — and three quarters of college-educated women won’t even date a man who votes differently.

• They’ve rigged the education system and colonised corporate and institutional life, turning universities and workplaces into man-repellent factories.

• Yet their hypergamy is still running hot. Despite outnumbering men in education and careers, they still demand a tall, equally high-status unicorn.

• The modern female threat-detection system is hyperactive. Almost any male behaviour — silence, opinions, jokes, breathing — gets flagged as a red flag.

• They’re extremely well-versed in the lucrative economics of divorce, including a well-timed false allegation to eliminate tedious shared parenting.

What rational man reads this list and thinks: yes, that’s exactly what’s been missing from my life?

To examine more carefully what is going on here, let’s start by looking at the latest addition to this sorry reckoning. I’m referring to the finding published in the New Statesman last month that many young women don’t like men.

A Merlin Strategy poll of young Britons aged 18 to 30 found three times more young women than young men held a negative view of the opposite sex. Only about 50% of women had a positive view of men compared to 72% of men feeling positive about women. For women under 25, it was even starker: only around one-third (35%) reported a positive view of men. This applies particularly to professional and managerial young women of whom just 36% hold a positive view of men, compared with 61% of working-class women.

The contempt for men is hardly surprising – that’s what they have been taught. Mary Harrington, a British journalist and cultural critic who writes on Substack, frequently criticises what she calls the “femosphere” — the online feminist spaces where women bond through shared grievances about men.

“The online feminist scene often feels like one long group therapy session for women to compare notes on how awful men are,” she writes, suggesting this makes men the universal scapegoat, where ordinary male behaviour is routinely framed as toxic or oppressive, while women’s collective resentment is rewarded and amplified. “Casual, low-level male-bashing has become the background hum of progressive online culture.”

Not only does this toxic climate encourage women to be wary of men, but growing up in a hate-fuelled online sewer takes a toll on their mental health.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has long been warning that the toxic world of social media would lead to a rise in mental health problems, particularly in girls and young women.

“Since the early 2010s, young people across the developed world are becoming more anxious, depressed and lonely. The increases were even greater in young women,” he said.

Recent large-scale surveys (Ipsos 202-–2026 across 31 countries, Gallup 2025) are showing Gen Z women currently report the highest recorded levels of anxiety, persistent sadness, hopelessness and depression of any female generation at the same age.

Not much fun for their partners. Last year Psychology Today had a stark warning for men about these women as marriage prospects.

The saying ‘happy wife, happy life’ may have some validity, but the lesser-known saying ‘anxious wife, miserable life’ has research-approved validation. … The more neurotic the spouse is, the less happy the relationship — but women’s neuroticism seems to carry more weight in the overall marital happiness equation.

Then there’s the intriguing issue of married women turning off the tap, leaving sex-starved husbands as the norm. For as long as anyone can remember, men were shamed into showing up economically. Society has absolutely nothing to say to women who stop showing up sexually. One obligation was enforced by church, law and community for centuries. The other is now abrogated on the grounds of bodily autonomy.

So here we have the portrait of the modern woman as marriage prospect: miserable, anxious, politically radicalised, contemptuous of men, often sexually rejecting and trained to see menace in ordinary male behaviour. And yet the puzzled chorus from commentators, economists and policymakers continues: why won’t men commit? Why won’t they work?

The approved explanations are dutifully trotted out. The economic story: men have been displaced by automation and globalisation. The health story: opioids, disability, mental illness. The educational story: men are falling behind women in universities and therefore in the job market. The cultural story, favoured by progressive commentators: toxic masculinity is preventing men from adapting to a modern service economy. All of these contain a grain of truth. But they do not account for what is really going on.  The obvious explanation — the one staring out of every data table — is intentionally ignored.

Marriage was the primary incentive for sustained male economic effort. It has always been — Ehrenreich knew it in 1983, and the economists have now confirmed it. There’s an economic research paper, ‘The Declining Labour Market Prospects of Less-Educated Men, which establishes that the prospect of forming and providing for a family constitutes a critical male labour supply incentive, and that the decline of stable marriage directly removes it. Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas calculated that declining marriage rates are responsible for roughly half the drop in the hours men work.

Remove the marriage and you remove the responsibility. The data have been telling us this for decades.

But here is what nobody in the mainstream conversation will say: it is not only that marriage has become too costly and too legally treacherous for men — though it has. It’s that many young women themselves have become, to put it plainly, not worth having. Half of young British women don’t trust men. More than half of educated young women view men negatively. They arrive at relationships pre-loaded with grievance, primed by algorithms that have fed them a diet of male failure and female outrage since adolescence. They are, by their own account, anxious, miserable and politically furious.

What rational man, surveying this landscape, concludes that what his life is missing is a legally booby-trapped commitment to a woman primed to be impossible to keep happy?

Ehrenreich feared in 1983 that if the shame mechanism collapsed, male productivity would follow. She was right. What she could not have anticipated was the other half of the equation — that the feminist revolution would produce not a generation of fulfilled, generous, companionable women, but one that is, by every available measure, angrier and unhappier than any before it.

The yoke is off. The men have looked at what’s on offer. And many have, with considerable rationality, decided to go and play video games instead.

As one of Australia’s first sex therapists, Bettina Arndt began her career discussing sex on television and training doctors and other professionals in sexual counselling at a time when such topics were largely taboo. Her current – and even more socially unacceptable – passion is exposing Australia’s unfair treatment of men through the relentless weaponisation of laws and policies that portray women solely as victims. Her decades of advocacy for fair treatment of men in the Family Court included serving on key government inquiries. Bettina makes YouTube videos and blogs on Substack.

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

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 12:30

Tulsi Gabbard Resigns As Director Of National Intelligence

Tulsi Gabbard is stepping down from her role as Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to support her husband, Abraham, as he battles an extremely rare form of bone cancer, according to Fox News.

Gabbard informed President Donald Trump of her decision during a meeting in the Oval Office on Friday. Her last day at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) will be June 30, 2026.

In her formal resignation letter, obtained exclusively by Fox, Gabbard expressed deep gratitude to Trump, writing:

"I am deeply grateful for the trust you placed in me and for the opportunity to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for the last year and a half. Unfortunately, I must submit my resignation, effective June 30, 2026. My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer."

She added that her husband "faces major challenges in the coming weeks and months," and that she must step away from public service to be by his side.

"Abraham has been my rock throughout our eleven years of marriage... His strength and love have sustained me through every challenge. I cannot in good conscience ask him to face this fight alone while I continue in this demanding and time-consuming position."

Gabbard noted the significant progress made during her tenure, including major declassification efforts (more than half a million pages), reducing the size of the intelligence community and saving taxpayers over $700 million annually, dismantling DEI programs, and establishing a "Weaponization Working Group" to address government weaponization.

Today, with great humility and sincere appreciation, I shared the below letter with President Trump. It has been a profound honor to serve the American people as DNI. pic.twitter.com/p7AZ4wa9Yi

— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) May 22, 2026

The news comes roughly a week after a controversy involving the CIA reclaiming approximately 40 boxes of sensitive documents - including files related to the JFK assassination and MKUltra - from the ODNI. The incident sparked accusations of a “raid” on Gabbard’s office by some lawmakers, though her team pushed back against that characterization amid her broader push for declassification.

Gabbard was confirmed as DNI in early 2025 and has been a key figure in advancing transparency within the intelligence community.

//--> //--> Tulsi Gabbard out by June 30?
Yes 27% · No 73%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

This is a developing story.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 12:30

Ukraine Regained Territory After Cutting Russia's Black Market Starlink Terminals

According to a newly declassified U.S. defense intelligence assessment first reported by Bloomberg, Moscow’s frontline command-and-control structures suffered a catastrophic blackout earlier this year due largely to coordinated crackdown that disabled thousands of black market Russian Starlink terminals.

The Pentagon document highlights just how deeply Russian forces had come to rely on Elon Musk's commercial satellite terminals to patch over their own spotty military communication systems. For months, Russian units bypassed international sanctions via shadow supply networks to source the hardware.

The Friday Bloomberg report claims that a "Ukrainian offensive against Russia earlier this year retook about 400 square kilometers after thousands of portable Starlink internet terminals operated by Russian forces were deactivated," citing analysis from the US Defense Intelligence Agency. 

The document, authored jointly by the DIA and US European Command, states that "Russian military capabilities in Ukraine were temporarily yet significantly degraded following Ukrainian officials’ efforts in February to deactivate thousands of Starlink terminals that were illicitly used by Russian forces to coordinate movements and unmanned aircraft strikes in areas where communications were unreliable or easily jammed."

Ukrainian forces then made their first territorial gains since 2023, after years of steady Russian gains, with Russia military comms now said to be "temporarily yet significantly degraded" due to the loss of the terminals.

The report further describes that Kiev forces working in tandem with SpaceX were able to deploy sweeping geographic restrictions that target-locked and deactivated unauthorized terminals operating inside the combat zone. This resulted in "instant" results.

What also didn't help is the Kremlin's own tightening restrictions on the use of Telegram by Russian forces, and so also the recent lack of this favored encrypted messaging platform among military units left frontline commanders totally isolated.

While US intelligence noted that Russia still maintains an overall structural advantage in raw combat functions, and of course manpower and firepower remains on Moscow's side, the incident demonstrates that communications are still a vital backbone to any modern warfare and command system.

SpaceX has long sought to officially bar Russian consumers from using Starlink, due to long-running sanctions, and to prevent military use against Ukraine.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 12:15

Highlights From 2nd Batch Of Declassified UFO Files Include A UAP Shootdown

The Pentagon’s second batch of declassified UFO files released on May 22 includes videos such as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) being shot down over the Great Lakes and audio of astronauts witnessing a series of unexplained phenomena.

​Dozens of documents were cleared for release on Friday, adding to the previous document dump on May 8, which revealed that Apollo 11 astronauts reported seeing a “sizable” object near the moon.

​The Epoch Times' Jacki Thrapp offers the following highlights from a partial review of the newly released files.

UAP Shot Down

The U.S. Air Force shot down a balloon-shaped UAP over Lake Huron, one of the Great Lakes located between the United States and Canada, on Feb. 12, 2023.

A U.S. Air Force Air National Guard F-16C shoots down a UAP over Lake Huron on Feb 12, 2023. Department of War

The video, which the War Department said was likely taken by an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform, showed the UAP being struck and “fragmenting in a radial displacement pattern that suggests a high-energy event.”

Fragments fall from the UAP after it was shot. Department of War

The War Department did not reveal what fell from the object.

Officials did not share if any attempts were made to recover the fragments.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Department of War for additional information.

​UAP Formation Caught on Camera

The Department of War released a video showing “four areas of contrast” seemingly making a formation, according to a video apparently filmed by an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform.

A screenshot from a video titled “UAP USO Formation.” USO stands for unidentified submerged object. Department of War

The eight-minute clip, which was edited and digitally altered, showed four objects moving in a parallel direction as they became “increasingly indistinct over time as the video quality degrades.”

Four unexplained objects moving in the same direction in a screenshot from video. Department of War

The War Department did not share the date or location of the unexplained formation.

International Sightings

An infrared sensor spotted a UAP, described as “four areas of contrast,” zoom past what appeared to be ships in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility in Iran on August 2022.

In a separate incident that year, video captured “multiple spherical UAP” near a submarine in March that were going “in and out of water.”

A UAP, or possibly more than one, appears on the lower left side of a classified video taken in Iran on August 2022. The red circle was added by The Epoch Times to clarify what the Department of War considered to be an unknown anomaly. Department of War

Additional videos showed UAP in Syria in 2021, a “spherical UAP over [Afghanistan] in and out of clouds” in November 2020, and a video that starts in color and shows a bright UAP over the water off the East Coast of the United States. 

The latest document dump included a CIA intelligence information report from the Soviet Union that was recorded in the summer of 1973.

The decades-old report revealed that an unnamed source on the Sary Shagan Weapons Testing Range in Kazakhstan witnessed a “sharp, (bright) green circular object or mass in the sky.”

The source, who was identified as a former Soviet citizen, said the “green circle widened and within a brief period of time several green concentric circles formed around the mass.”

The witness did not hear any sounds associated with the phenomenon.

NASA Audio

The second batch of UFO-related files also included several audio clips released by NASA from its Mercury and Apollo missions.

An audio recording from Mercury-Atlas 7 on May 24, 1962, featured pilot Scott Carpenter describing reflective white particles that moved at “random” and appeared to “look exactly like snowflakes.”

He said the phenomena moved faster than his spacecraft.

Additional “little white objects” were also reported months later during the Mercury Atlas 8 mission.

On Oct. 3, 1962, pilot Walter M. “Wally” Schirra Jr. described “little white objects that tend to come from the capsule itself and drift off.”

Minutes later, Schirra reported a burst of light in his window.

“[I’m] getting a real burst of light in the window, and I really don’t know what it is,” Schirra said. 

In December 1972 during the Apollo 17 mission, the 11th and final crewed mission in the Apollo program, Cmdr. Gene Cernan, Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, and Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans reported “very bright particles or fragments of something” that drifted by outside the spacecraft as they transited to the moon.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 11:40

Delivery Hero Confirms Uber's Takeover Bid In Push For Global Food-Delivery Empire

Summary:

• Delivery Hero Confirms 33 Euro Takeover Bid 

• Uber Speculation of Delivery Hero Takeover 

• Uber Builds Large Stake in Delivery Hero 

Delivery Hero Confirms Takeover Bid 

Delivery Hero has confirmed that Uber has proposed buying the German food delivery company for 33 euros per share, in line with earlier takeover reports.

Following today’s press publication, Delivery Hero SE confirms that Uber Technologies, Inc. reached out with an indicative proposal of €33 per share in respect of a potential takeover offer to all shareholders of the Company.

Delivery Hero continued:

The Company remains fully focused on executing its strategic review process. Further updates will be provided as required or appropriate.

Recall earlier reports that said Uber built a 19.5% stake in Delivery Hero, plus 5.6% option exposure, as it explored takeover opportunities.

Our previous note outlined that Uber’s move to acquire Delivery Hero was likely aimed at expanding its international footprint.

Uber Builds Large Stake In Germany's Delivery Hero As Takeover Speculation Builds

Uber is exploring a potential takeover of Delivery Hero after building a large stake in the rival German food delivery company, Bloomberg News reports. This follows an earlier report that Uber had built a 19.5% stake.

On Monday, Uber disclosed that it owns 19.5% of Delivery Hero, plus an additional 5.6% through options. The position was built with the help of Morgan Stanley traders, according to people familiar with the matter.

Uber's move to acquire Delivery Hero could be an attempt to expand Uber Eats' global footprint and improve its competitive position against DoorDash outside the US.

Delivery Hero operates in more than 60 countries, giving Uber exposure to markets where it is either underscaled or trailing its competitors.

Map of Operatoins of Delivery Hero Brands

"While Uber's ultimate intentions on further stake-building remain unclear, we view the move as a clear endorsement of the strategic attractiveness of Delivery Hero's asset base for Uber," JPMorgan analysts wrote in a note.

Earlier, Uber said it "currently" has no intention of increasing its stake in Delivery Hero beyond 30%.

Delivery Hero shares in Frankfurt are up nearly 50% this year and have more than doubled from their March lows of around 15 euros. Uber shares were marginally lower in early afternoon trading.

Berenberg analyst Wolfgang Specht wrote in a note that Delivery Hero's investment case has changed following news of Uber's stake. He said it now seems prudent to assign value to scenarios that include a potential takeover.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/23/2026 - 10:47