Zero Rss

Trump Admin Targets States' Medicaid Fraud Units

Authored by Tom Gantert via The Epoch Times,

Vice President JD Vance said during a recent press conference that he was intensifying attempts to counter Medicaid fraud by investigating state-level units responsible for oversight.

States such as California and Hawaii seemed to lag behind others in combatting fraud, said Vance, whom the president picked in March to lead an anti-fraud task force.

“Now, we have red states and blue states that go after fraud aggressively, but we also unfortunately have some states, mostly blue states, unfortunately, that do not take Medicaid fraud very seriously,” he said.

In response, Vance said the administration would withhold $1.3 billion in Medicaid-related payments to California and also consider withholding from other states.

The administration put each of the 50 states on notice with recent letters signed by Health and Human Services Inspector General Thomas “March” Bell. It focused on state-level Medicaid Fraud Control Units (MFCUs), which receive federal funding.

Letters also went to the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Here’s what to know about the units and Vance’s efforts.

Federal Grants at Stake

The letters threatened to take away all federal grants provided to a state’s Medicaid program if the state was not fulfilling its duties.

“It has become clear ... that many MFCUs have been happy to rake in taxpayer dollars without fighting fraud,” Bell stated in the letter. “And for too long, there has been a lack of leadership at HHS that has allowed billions of our fellow Americans’ dollars to flow out to State capitals to fund MFCUs to supposedly fight Medicaid fraud without any real oversight.”

He said that the units must comply with certain requirements to receive funding. Federal law requires the units to investigate and prosecute fraud, investigate patient abuse and neglect in Medicaid-funded facilities, and recover overpayments.

The units must operate statewide, employ investigators, auditors, and attorneys, and remain separate from the state agency that administers Medicaid. The law requires the units to either possess prosecutorial authority or formally coordinate with prosecutors.

Bell told the attorneys general that “your failure to do your job as head of the MFCU has put all of your State’s Medicaid funds in jeopardy.”

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office told The Epoch Times that the administration wrongly accused the state.

“That the new HHS-[Office of Inspector General] would send such a letter to all 53 MFCU’s in the nation, writing that ‘your failure to do your job as head of the MFCU has put all of your State’s Medicaid funds in jeopardy,’ is inconceivable and completely disconnected from the performance record of Michigan’s MFCU and the tremendous reporting our office makes in compliance with the federal government’s oversight,” Danny Wimmer, Nessel’s press secretary, told The Epoch Times.

“While some states have been, over the last year, singled out by the federal government for purported performance issues, Michigan has never been among them."

The federal government covers most of the costs for MFCUs for each state.

For example, the attorney general’s unit for Michigan received a $5.5 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that covers 75 percent of its funding. The state picks up the remaining 25 percent, or $1.8 million.

In 2024, the total cost of all these state-based units was $396 million, of which $297 million was picked up by the federal government.

Wimmer said Michigan’s MFCU went through a “rigorous” recertification process every year in which the HHS’s Office of Inspector General determined whether it was in compliance with regulations.

How Do Fraud Control Units Work?

The Social Security Act requires each state to operate an MFCU.

Cases usually start as referrals from other organizations, third parties, or from MFCU staff members who detect potential fraud from data mining.

MFCU staff review referrals to determine the potential for criminal prosecution and civil action. Besides fraud, abuse and neglect are also investigated.

In 2025, about 1 in 5 cases investigated by MFCUs nationwide were for abuse and neglect. There were 3,019 investigations nationwide into abuse and neglect compared with the 12,902 investigations into fraud.

For example, Pennsylvania’s MFCU this year investigated a case involving a 50-year-old woman who was convicted of failure to renew a resident’s medications, which led to a fatal seizure in 2021.

About 4 in 10 fraud convictions from 2015 to 2024 involved Personal Care Attendants, nonmedical professionals who provide daily living assistance to people with disabilities or chronic illnesses.

Wimmer said Michigan’s unit “submits extensive questionnaires and produces significant accountings and reports on various aspects of their operations, such as investigative efforts and fiscal operations.”

He added that HHS “conducts very thorough weeklong on-site audits every 5-7 years on state MFCUs, including ours, wherein they send a team of approximately 10 inspectors to audit the fraud control unit.”

Ed Haislmaier, an expert in health care policy at The Heritage Foundation, said that although licensed providers were involved in fraud cases, fraud on an “industrial scale” appeared to occur more often in non-specialized areas of health care where professional licensing is not required.

Those sectors often included providers who could receive approval for government funding without undergoing background checks.

“The lower the barrier to entry for a type of provider, the more likely you are to see this kind of fraud,” Haislmaier said.

Targeted States

While the administration reached out to every state, Vance highlighted three—Hawaii, California, and New York—that he said were not taking fraud seriously.

During his press conference, he noted how Indiana had many more prosecutions than New York.

Vance said it was “absurd” to think that the people of Indiana were just more likely to commit Medicaid fraud than the people of New York.

“What is happening is that the leadership in New York are just not taking the fraud issue seriously,” Vance said. “They are not using these antifraud control units to actually investigate and indict the fraud.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

HHS data revealed that Indiana had 951 investigations in fiscal year 2025 with 42 indictments and 32 convictions.

California, a top target for the Trump administration, had 1,052 investigations with 83 indictments and 43 convictions.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office criticized Vance on social media.

Newsom’s office said in-home support services have grown because California is keeping seniors and people with disabilities out of the more expensive nursing homes—the cost of a nursing home was $137,000 a year compared with $30,000 a year for in-home support services.

Newsom said the approach saved taxpayers money.

Hawaii’s Medicaid investigative unit had 484 total investigations in fiscal year 2025 but not a single indictment or conviction, according to federal data.

Hawaii’s state data showed that from 2021 through 2025, the state conducted a total of 2,779 investigations into fraud and abuse that resulted in just five convictions. All were reported in 2021. That would mean Hawaii has conducted 2,104 fraud and abuse investigations from 2022 through 2025 without a single conviction.

Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez rejected Vance’s characterization of her state as not taking fraud seriously.

“Our Medicaid Fraud Control Unit has secured or helped secure more than $14 million in judgments, settlements and recoveries since 2021, filed recent criminal charges—and is actively working with federal and state partners to strengthen investigations and prosecutions,” Lopez said in a press release.

“We welcome accountability, but we will not allow the work of this unit to be mischaracterized as doing nothing.” 

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 22:35

Toyota To Import Taiwan-Built Minivans To Japan Amid Factory Strain

Toyota will start shipping Taiwan-built Noah and Voxy minivans to Japan later this year, marking a rare shift in the company’s production strategy as mounting pressures strain the country’s auto manufacturing sector, according to Nikkei.

Production for the Japanese market is set to begin in October on a dedicated line at Toyota’s plant in northern Taiwan, according to Nikkei. While Japanese automakers have long sold foreign-built vehicles at home, those models were typically intended for overseas markets first. Toyota’s decision to create an offshore production line specifically for Japanese consumers is highly uncommon, particularly for two of its key domestic models.

The move comes as Toyota faces increasing difficulty expanding output inside Japan. Factory utilization is already near its limits, while labor shortages, higher material costs, and tighter compliance requirements have made domestic manufacturing more expensive and less flexible. Delivery delays for popular vehicles have stretched for months — and in some cases more than a year — forcing the automaker to suspend orders periodically as demand outpaces supply.

Nikkei writes that Toyota has committed to maintaining annual domestic production above 3 million vehicles to support employment and preserve Japan’s industrial base. At the same time, however, the company is increasingly relying on overseas operations to ease bottlenecks and reduce operational risk.

The Noah and Voxy are among Toyota’s strongest-selling minivans in Japan, with annual sales typically ranging between 70,000 and 80,000 units. To help meet demand, Toyota plans to build roughly 100,000 vehicles per year in Taiwan, focusing mainly on lower-cost variants. Production in Japan will continue in parallel.

The Taiwan facility already assembles models including the Corolla sedan and Yaris Cross through a local joint venture. For the fiscal year ending March 2026, the plant produced around 120,000 vehicles. Expanding output for Japan-bound minivans is expected to significantly increase overall production volumes.

Building a new automotive production line with annual capacity of 100,000 vehicles can require investments worth tens of billions of yen. Even so, Toyota appears willing to absorb those costs as domestic factories struggle to accommodate additional output. The company currently produces about 14,000 vehicles per day across Japan, leaving little spare capacity.

Pressure on the production system intensified after certification issues uncovered in 2024 prompted Toyota to tighten testing and regulatory oversight procedures, further constraining manufacturing flexibility.

Producing vehicles in Taiwan also introduces new challenges. The yen recently fell to its weakest level against the New Taiwan dollar in more than three decades, raising labor and operating costs for Japanese manufacturers there. Still, Toyota sees offshore production as necessary to stabilize supply and reduce delivery times.

Toyota president Kenta Kon has warned that persistent shortages are unsustainable, calling the situation “abnormal and critical.” The company fears prolonged waits could eventually push customers toward rival automakers.

Toyota is not alone in turning to reverse imports. Industry data shows sales of Japanese-brand vehicles built overseas and sold domestically climbed 19% last year to more than 111,000 units — the highest level in three decades. Honda is also preparing to bring an India-made EV into the Japanese market by fiscal 2028 as automakers increasingly seek lower-cost production bases abroad.

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 22:10

"Marylanders Are Voting With Their Feet": Johns Hopkins Finds Blue State Exodus To Persist For Years

A new Johns Hopkins University survey shows that more than half of Baltimore respondents expect to move out of their current neighborhoods within three years, as the one-party-ruled state of Democratic Party queens and kings has failed taxpayers on affordability, law and order, and other basic issues commonly standard in red states.

The Hopkins survey, conducted from September to November 2024, found that 42% of Baltimore City residents want to leave the city entirely. Of those, 27% expect to stay somewhere else in Maryland, while 15% expect to leave the state, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Among the 58% of city residents who plan to remain in Baltimore, only 36% expect to stay in their current neighborhood, while 22% expect to move to another part of the city.

In Baltimore County, the urgency to relocate is also high, but most residents who want to move expect to remain in the county: 66% say they plan to stay.

Vice Chair of the Maryland Freedom Caucus, Republican Delegate Kathy Szeliga, explained the dire situation in Maryland, where a very real exodus is underway:

Every day, I hear from friends, neighbors, and constituents that they are considering or they are actually moving out of Maryland. It's not just the crushing taxes, unaffordable energy bills, and concerns about public safety; it's also the failing education system.

Governor Wes Moore is unable to deliver results or give people confidence that he can turn this state around, and so people are voting with their feet and leaving Maryland.

How bad is this exodus in Baltimore?

Well, the population of Baltimore City alone has collapsed 40% from its 1950s level, and deindustrialization, blended with half a century or more of toxic left-wing politics, has transformed parts of the city into an utter economic wasteland.

"There is no question that Governor Moore's policies on crime, affordability, and government competence make Marylanders want to flee the state," said Republican Delegate Robin Grammer, a founding member of the Maryland Freedom Caucus from Baltimore County.

Grammer added, "The Maryland Freedom Caucus has put affordability at the center of every fight in Annapolis, from electric bills to the increase in car registration fees. Marylanders are voting with their feet."

Related:

• "Billion-Dollar Ghost Town" Surrounds Under Armor Headquarters

• Downtown Baltimore CRE Crash Signals Deeper Fiscal Crisis Ahead

• Build It, And They Will Come? Not The Case At Baltimore's Harbor East Luxury Tower

• "Exponentially Deteriorating": Baltimore's Lawlessness Spreads Into Suburbs As Democrats Lose Control

Maryland is likely on track to become the California of the East Coast, as progressive policies over the last half century have epically backfired, unleashing crime and chaos, unaffordability, high taxes, and a deteriorating quality of life.

The end result of this left-wing experiment is a massive population collapse in Baltimore City and negative net domestic migration for the state. The city was once the beating heart of American industrialization, but it has now transformed into an economic wasteland run by unhinged left-wing politicians.

However, there is good news. The remaining residents who are sticking out the looming financial crisis, as well as a worsening power bill crisis, in the state and city are beginning to see these politicians for what they really are: left-wing activists. They are also beginning to understand that the pillaging and corruption must end. Hence, the rise of the Maryland Freedom Caucus.

Notably, Hopkins is considered a left-leaning institution, which makes the survey even more concerning for Maryland's Democratic leadership. Additionally, the state's top media outlet, The Baltimore Sun, is leaning more center-right under new ownership, suggesting that left-wing propaganda in print and on the airwaves no longer works. This shift may usher in new, common-sense ideas and welcome a new era of politicians unlike anything the city or central part of the state has seen in generations.

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 22:10

Can Progressivism Be Overthrown?

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

For the last year and a half, Americans have been slammed with politics to the point that it has made vast numbers of people nearly crazy. Following the news, the blow-by-blow is not easy, and it is worse seeing coalitions form, collapse, reconstitute, form again, and be witness nonstop to what seem to be subversions, betrayals, duplicates, and disappointments.

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas speaks at the University of Texas at Austin, in Austin, Texas, on April 15, 2026. AP Photo/Eric Gay

We follow the polls, donate to candidates, listen to podcasts, cheer our friends and boo the bad guys, all in this exciting spectator sport. I'm told it's not really this way in Europe. Americans have a distinct sense of investment in the way our public life operates and we believe we can and should do something about it.

Do we really have a clear conception of the larger forces at work? I sense that what is lacking is a clear-headed theory about what is actually going on, that is the thematics of the larger struggle going on here.

Oh sure, there are plenty of people who will tell you that this is about stopping the attempt of Donald Trump to be like a king. My neighborhood was filled with "No Kings" yard signs, until the same households quietly took them down as they cheered the visit of King Charles of Britain.

Others say this is really a struggle between the two political parties, an argument about U.S. foreign policy interests, wrangling over personnel, and so on. I'm not going to discount other theories entirely but what they all lack is a bigger philosophical way to understand our times.

A Supreme Court Justice recently gave a spectacular speech, one of the most important - probably THE most important - in a century or more. I've rarely read anything so clear, concise, accurate, and incredibly truth-telling.

Those who understand the speech and its message are going to be better positioned to understand what is really going on in our times. Those who ignore this speech will continue to be mystified by the day-to-day headlines and roiling political news.

The author and speaker is Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the most impactful voices of our times. It was delivered at the University of Texas, Austin, on April 15, 2026.

The core underlying message: Progressivism is falling apart or already is gone because it is contrary to the American idea. The remaining argument today that matters is what will replace it.

To understand the implications, we need to understand what Progressivism is, the role it played in remaking this country, its theory of power and expertise, why it was never consistent with American ideals, and why it is destined for the dust bin of history.

He begins with the historical context and the centrality of the Declaration of Independence. It "did not establish a form of government - that was the job of the Constitution that followed - but it stated the purpose of government. The Declaration made clear in unmistakable prose that the purpose of government is to protect our God-given inalienable rights, rights that all individuals equally possess."

"The ideas of the Declaration," he says, "were so powerful that our nation could not coexist with the contradiction created by the great evil of slavery. Those principles were so powerful that hundreds of thousands of Americans fought and died in the Civil War to make men free. Those ideas have been so powerful that they convinced our nation to finally end segregation. They continue to be so powerful today that they have inspired people throughout the world to throw off the shackles of their oppressors."

As he says, the Founders were willing to commit everything with great courage to the cause of individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was not mere philosophy but life purpose, something for which they were willing to fight with courage and enormous risk and sacrifice. That decision shaped the American experience.

It is about a third of the way through where the speech gets hot and revealing of a history that very few students or adults today understand. He explained how the advent of Progressivism in the early teens of the 20th century effectively attacked and overthrew the vision of the Founders and the Declaration.

"At the beginning of the 20th century, a new set of first principles of government was introduced into the American mainstream," he says. "The proponents of this new set of first principles, most prominently among them the 28th President, Woodrow Wilson, called it Progressivism. Since Wilson's presidency, Progressivism has made many inroads in our system of government and our way of life. It has coexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration. Because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever."

"Progressivism was not native to America," he continues in ways that are consistent with everything I've read about this period. Indeed, some of the most influential intellectuals that emerged on the U.S. scene in that time had in fact done their graduate work in Germany, schooled in the dreams of technocracy and centralized social and economic management.

"Wilson and the progressives candidly admitted that they took it from Otto von Bismarck's Germany, whose state-centric society they admired. Progressives like Wilson argued that America needed to leave behind the principles of the Founding and catch up with the more advanced and sophisticated people of Europe. Wilson called Germany's system of relatively unimpeded state power 'nearly perfected.'"

To Wilson, the inalienable rights of the individual were "a lot of nonsense." Wilson redefined "liberty" not as a natural right antecedent to the government. Instead he saw liberty as "the right of those who are governed to adjust government to their own needs and interests." The government, as Wilson said, would be "beneficent and indispensable."

Progressivism, says Thomas, "requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a Constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights."

It was this period in history when the original design of the Constitution was mangled with a 16th Amendment that authorized the income tax and the 17th Amendment that turned the bicameral Congress into a unitary majoritarian body, thus empowering large cities over states. The central bank came along at the same time. The federal agencies grew and grew, with ever more power and invasions of rights.

Central to the Progressive vision was the exaltation of science, as understood by credentialed experts, at the expense of liberty. They believed that Darwin had demonstrated the dangers of unchecked procreation and sought to replace freedom with race theory, segregation, and eugenics. This wicked vision of the purpose of government mutated further in Europe with the rise of Nazism, fascism, communism, and the administrative state that effectively deleted people's government.

Justice Thomas explains all of this in bracingly brief form. It is an extremely satisfying read because he compresses hundreds of books into a short address. I frankly doubt that any Supreme Court Justice has dropped so many truth bombs in such a short space in the history of our country.

The central point: the entire vision failed. It did not give us a better managed society but social and economic stagnation, an overweening government ruled by supposed experts, invasions of our communities and families, and a crushing of individual liberty.

Make no mistake: all of this flowed from a philosophy of government that had nothing to do with the Founders' vision.

The system that displaced the Founders' structure is under pressure as never before today. Indeed, Progressivism is unraveling in our times because it has failed to live up to its promise, it breeds corporate corruption, it impoverishes people, and it is contrary to all our moral intuitions as a people.

"As we are gathered to celebrate this 250th anniversary of the Declaration," he concludes, "it may be tempting to do so as if we are passive spectators. It may be tempting to ... treat the Declaration like a shiny object or a keepsake, and listen to the sound of our own voices. ... What we must turn our attention to today is finding in ourselves the same level of courage that the signers of the Declaration had, so that we can do for our future what they did for theirs."

His final message to students: "Each of you will have opportunities to be courageous every day, whether your calling in life is as a day laborer, a stay-at-home mom, a small business owner, an educator, an office worker, a judge, or a Senator. It may mean speaking up in class tomorrow when everyone around you expects you to live by lies. ... It may mean turning down a job offer that requires you to make moral compromises. One thing I know to be true: It will mean waking up every day with the resolve to withstand unfair criticism and attacks. These are the choices that will confront you, and you must decide whether to respond with timidity or with courage, as the signers of the Declaration did."

Hear, hear! This is a mighty and glorious speech in all its essentials, worthy of deep study and wide readership. Once you internalize the meaning of it all, and consider how the Founders confronted a system they too had to overthrow in order to realize the blessings of liberty, our task becomes very clear.

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 21:45

“We Must Leap Forward Into New Energy” - Canaccord’s Inaugural Nuclear Nexus Conference 

A new report from Canaccord Genuity captures the main threads from the firm’s first Nuclear Nexus conference, where fission and fusion developers, academics, and investors gathered to confront the practical barriers to scaling nuclear power. 

The event highlighted a shared recognition that surging electricity demand from AI data centers “finds itself bottle-necked by the physical reality of the grid”, forcing a hard look at fuel supply chains, regulatory timelines, and technology choices that can actually deliver power this decade.

The forum set out to connect the established track record of fission with the still-developing promise of fusion. Participants framed the two paths as complementary: one centered on controlled separation to release energy at scale, the other on forcing materials together under extreme conditions to achieve the same goal. 

Canaccord’s summary presents this tension as more than rhetoric, noting that Western nuclear deployment has lagged for decades, while Asia and Russia have moved ahead, driving up costs and exposing fuel vulnerabilities.

Oklo CEO Jacob DeWitte outlined the company’s Aurora Powerhouse, a liquid sodium-cooled fast reactor drawing on proven EBR-II technology and a build-own-operate model. He stressed the importance of securing a domestic HALEU supply chain through Idaho National Laboratory and Centrus, with longer-term options that include spent fuel reprocessing and access to government plutonium reserves suited to fast reactor designs. 

The discussion tied directly into broader concerns about Western dependence on foreign enriched uranium sources.

MIT professor Jacopo Buongiorno highlighted how the lack of recent construction experience in the West has roughly doubled nuclear build costs compared with earlier decades. He noted that small modular reactors are more likely to provide financing flexibility than dramatically lower electricity costs, and that HALEU supply remains a critical chokepoint. 

The contrast with rapid expansion in Asia and continued Russian export dominance was presented as a structural challenge rather than a temporary setback.

On the fusion side, UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Mike Gorley described the technology as fundamentally a large-scale thermal engineering problem rather than pure physics. A key constraint he flagged is the global shortage of Lithium-6, essential for tritium breeding and reactor performance. 

Several companies presented deployment timelines. Terra Innovatum’s SOLO microreactor is designed to run on either LEU or HALEU and incorporates inherent safety features that eliminate meltdown and explosion risks. The company is targeting a first-of-a-kind demonstration in 2027 and commercial units in 2028 under the NRC’s proposed Part 57 microreactor framework. 

Inertia is pursuing inertial confinement fusion and plans to begin construction of a 1.5 GW grid-scale plant in 2030 after solving manufacturing challenges for high-efficiency lasers and fuel targets. 

Newcleo is advancing lead-cooled fast reactors with MOX fuel and has partnered with Oklo to establish a U.S. MOX fabrication capability, addressing the domestic prohibition on commercial plutonium reprocessing.

MIT professors Dennis Whyte and Andrew Lo described their new Rutherford Energy Ventures vehicle as a diversified portfolio approach across the fusion value chain. They cited easier regulatory pathways for fusion compared with fission and immediate revenue potential from spin-off technologies as reasons the sector could reach system-level integration within the next decade, aided by hyperscaler demand.

TerraPower, backed by Bill Gates, received a landmark NRC construction permit in March 2026 for its Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor in Wyoming. The company is on track for a 2030 startup and has signed a major agreement with Meta to develop up to eight additional Natrium units capable of supplying 4 GW of dispatchable power to data centers. 

Zap Energy is running a dual-track program that pairs a Z-pinch fusion reactor with a simpler sodium-cooled fission microreactor, planning to deploy the lower-risk fission technology in the early 2030s before scaling fusion later in the decade.

Panels on critical materials and isotopes pointed to persistent supply constraints for both medical isotopes and nuclear fuel components that are expected to last through the 2020s due to underinvestment and lengthy permitting. ASP Isotopes is commercializing laser-based enrichment, SHINE Technologies is generating near-term revenue from isotope production and fusion-fission hybrids, and Uranium Energy Corp is positioning its U.S.-focused uranium assets against a projected 1.9-billion-pound market deficit.

NuScale and its development partner ENTRA1 are advancing a six-plant deployment across the Tennessee Valley Authority territory, with four sites already identified. 

Participants noted that while evolutionary light-water designs are likely to lead near-term deployments, Generation IV reactors should play a larger role through the 2030s. Elementl framed itself as a technology-agnostic integrator focused on scaling proven light-water reactor projects to 100 GW by 2040 while hyperscalers such as Google provide early demand signals.

The report leaves the impression that the nuclear sector is entering a more dynamic period, but one still defined by practical constraints on fuel, regulation, and execution speed rather than by any single breakthrough technology.

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 21:20

It's Not Iran Trapping Ships In The Hormuz, It's The Insurance Risk

Is the Iranian regime the immediate barrier to oil tankers seeking to exit the Strait of Hormuz, or is it fear of liability that's keeping shipping companies at bay?

The damage actually done to Iran's military and weaponry by US strikes is a matter of hot debate, but one aspect of the strikes that is relatively easy to confirm is the destruction to Iran's navy.  US Central Command indicates that around 92% of Iran's naval capacity has been sunk to the bottom of the ocean including at least 10 small submarines.  So far, the regimes ability to actually hit and destroy US ships is next to nil.

The much vaunted "mosquito fleet" of small and fast attack boats has proven to be ineffective against US operations in the Strait, with some naval ships traveling directly through the Hormuz without much trouble.  At bottom, Iran has no ability to enforce an effective "blockade" on the strait. 

The regime's containment is mostly restricted to the use of drones, which can be countered with US technology (jamming and counter-drone operations).  But Iran also understands that the volatility of the cargo and the insurance risk is the greater element working in their favor. 

In other words, no matter how effective US forces have been in destroying Iran's assets in the strait, the financial risk to oil shippers remains.  Insurance companies are the Trump Administration's biggest obstacle, not Iran's military.  Tankers will not budge because there are too many coverage gaps, including the dreaded environmental coverage gap.

Pre-conflict, the insurance premium baseline for the Hormuz was extremely low (0.25% of a ships total value).  Today, those premiums have spiked from 2% to 10%.  Major insurers including P&I clubs like Gard, Skuld, NorthStandard and London P&I issued cancellation notices for war-risk coverage in the Persian Gulf area, effective in March. Reinsurers pulled back, forcing repricing.  The costs are far too high and the risk outweighs the reward. 

Traffic in the strait dropped by 80% almost immediately because of the loss of insurance.  This created a self-reinforcing problem: Even with limited US naval guidance ("Project Freedom") or occasional Iranian-coordinated passages, commercial operators avoid the risk without affordable coverage.

Industry brokers and shipping executives assert that the costs cannot be managed, and they have decided to adopt a "wait and see" approach on negotiations. Marcus Baker, Global Head of Marine, Cargo & Logistics at Marsh notes that tankers remain “insurable, if you’re prepared to take the risk...” but he emphasized the massive cost barrier for most operators.  

Interestingly, Iran's latest negotiation salvo on the strait focuses on their own crypto-based insurance scheme.  It effectively amounts to a "protection racket", forcing companies to buy insurance from the regime in exchange for safe passage.  However, there have been few takers; most shippers don't trust Iran to ensure the safety of their vessels.   

The obvious first solution would be for the Trump Administration to offer US backed coverage for tankers traversing the Hormuz.  This already happened in March.

Early in the war President Trump directed the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to provide political risk insurance and financial guarantees for maritime trade in the Gulf region.  A maritime reinsurance facility was established offering up to $40 billion for hull & machinery, cargo, and in some expansions, liability risks. It partners with major insurers like Chubb and AIG.

The alternative coverage is reasonable, but there are some problems.  The US is not offering full coverage which includes environmental damages should an oil spill take place, along with other gaps which prevent shippers from taking the deal.  It also does not yet guarantee full escort protection for tankers traversing the strait, a factor which has been up in the air due to negotiations. 

Analysts at Moody's note that US government-backed coverage will not fully restart flows without broader liability protections.

In other words, if the Trump Administration wants to get ships moving out of the strait anytime soon, they will have to amend their insurance to cover all gaps including environmental risk.  And, they will have to provide a reliable escort system.  This can be easily accomplished with Littoral combat ships with anti-mine and anti-air capability and anti-drone tech that are able to operate in shallow and narrow waters.  These ships have some of the most advanced automated anti-drone systems in the world.  

Accurate details on negotiations with the Iranian regime are sparse.  Iran's propaganda operations on social media often contradict their own diplomatic statements.  It's important to keep in mind that the regime is concerned with looking weak to their own population, and the constant posturing online is often designed to keep their citizenry in line rather than frighten the US.

There are also questions as to who is actually in charge.  Iran's new "supreme leader" has not been seen alive since the decapitation strikes.  Theories suggest the IRGC has reanimated the corpse of Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei through propaganda as a means to maintain a semblance of government authority. 

It may be that no one is really at the wheel in Iran and that current negotiations are nothing more than a stalling tactic while the remaining officials vie for power.  A deal may be close, but alternatives need to be considered.  All other factors aside (including Iran's stockpile of nearly 1000 pounds of 60% enriched Uranium which they openly admit to having), the Strait of Hormuz may require solutions outside of a deal with Iran.  And, those ships simply will not move without some impressive financial guarantees from the US.        

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 20:30

Electric Bills Could Be 2026 Election Shocker

Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

If all politics is local, as former House Speaker Tip O'Neill said in tying politicians' fortunes to constituents' pocketbooks, then a voter's electricity bill is about as local as an issue can get, landing on kitchen tables every month.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images, Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

With electricity costs spiking for many of the nation's 133 million households, this local issue could determine whether Republicans retain control of Congress or Democrats seize one or both chambers in November's midterm elections.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, average residential electricity rates increased nationwide nearly 13 percent from April 2020 to April 2025. Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, they've increased 6 percent.

Electricity prices are expected to increase, on average nationwide, by another 6 percent in 2026, the administration projects, and as much as 40 percent by 2030, warns economic development finance firm ICF.

The reason is simple: supply and demand. The North American Electric Reliability Corp. projected in its 2026 long-term reliability assessment report that electricity demand will increase in the coming decade by 70 percent more than what was estimated in 2024. Many analyses find that overall demand will increase 25 percent by 2030.

The surge is driven by the development of power-hungry data centers, artificial intelligence computing, advanced manufacturing, and "the electrification of everything," with the average home featuring up to 21 digital devices - all eating electricity all the time.

The solution is also simple: The nation's 2,896 utility companies must increase the electricity their power plants produce with the most abundant, least expensive energy sources. Meanwhile, the nation's seven major grid operators must add up to 7,500 miles a year to their 240,000-mile network of high-voltage transmission lines while also upgrading up to 100,000 miles of those live wires, through 2035.

But determining what solutions work best and what long-term investments to make is a complex $1 trillion challenge mired in partisan politics and buried in century-old federal, state, and local regulations.

Not only are utilities and regional transmission operators amping up from a standing start after nearly two decades of inertia, but many are scrambling to keep pace with swelling demand while also building out generation and transmission capacities to meet projected need.

The cost of these capital improvements is showing up in customers' electricity bills, leading to heightened scrutiny of investment decisions and generation choices, as well as spurring debate about how individual communities want to develop, all while meeting a Trump administration mandate to expand rapidly to win the "AI arms race" with China.

The focus and investment is long overdue, said Robert Bryce, a film producer and author of a widely read Substack on the grid and seven books on energy policies, including, "A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations."

"Given what we've seen in recent months, where both Republicans and Democrats are focusing on power prices, it's clear that the days of ignoring the electric grid - and its pivotal role in our society - are over," he told The Epoch Times. "That's a good thing."

Bills On The Ballot

Rising electricity, health care, gasoline, and grocery prices are components of the 2026 midterms' top issue - affordability, as voters question why they're paying so much for basic needs.

A sampling: Electricity bills were among primary concerns cited by 84 percent of 2,710 nationwide respondents in a January Climate Power survey. Eight of every 10 in a Kaiser Family Foundation poll of 1,426 voters that same month said "affordability" was their top issue, with 22 percent placing electricity just below gasoline and grocery prices. In a March Environmental Defense Fund poll of 1,000 Florida voters, 57 percent said electric bills are stressing household budgets.

Data center development is the lightning rod of this angst. In a January Pew Research Center poll of 8,512 adults, nearly 40 percent blamed data centers for higher utility bills. A February Politico national survey of 2,000 voters found nearly half see energy costs spurred by data centers as a top issue in congressional, state, and local elections.

How campaigns tackle "electricity inflation" will be pivotal in many of November's 33 U.S. Senate elections, especially in Maine, Michigan, and Ohio races rated as "toss-ups" by Cook Political Reports. Sixteen House campaigns, including 13 seats held by GOP incumbents, are classified as "toss-ups."

Assuaging voter anger over rising electricity bills will be among defining factors in many of these elections and will determine whether Republicans hold on to their 53-47 Senate majority and 217-212 House advantage.

"I have been writing about politics and energy for three decades," Bryce said. "I cannot remember another time when so many politicians, from all parts of the political spectrum, are talking about electricity."

Aron Solomon, chief strategy officer for campaign consultancy Amplify Inc., told The Epoch Times: "This is, honestly, shaping up to be one of the most interesting political issues of the 2026 cycle because electricity bills hit people in a very direct, and profoundly emotional way.

"Voters may not follow every inflation report or Fed decision, but they for sure notice when their monthly power bill suddenly jumps."

University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs professor Charles Bullock III said electricity bills are ripe targets for Democrats looking to unseat Republicans, who voters will perceive as responsible - fairly or not - for rising rates.

"When we get beyond the primaries and we move into the fall - and I could see this happening for a variety of offices - the Democrat accusing the Republican of not having done something to try to constrain energy costs" will be a standard pitch, he told The Epoch Times.

This tactic already proved itself successful in November 2025 with Democrats citing Republican policies for skyrocketing electricity bills in winning gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, and in two Democrats unseating GOP incumbents in Georgia Public Service Commission races.

Blame Biden

There are well-defined partisan trenches on federal energy policies that voters believe manifest in their electricity bills. Those differences emerge starkly every spring and summer in congressional budget hearings.

The general gist is that Republicans say higher electricity bills are the residual fallout from President Joe Biden's "green energy" push that funneled billions into renewable energy and regulatory paralysis fostered by interpretative expansions of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Environmental Policy Act that induce litigation, prolong timelines, and add expenses to energy projects, including grid initiatives.

"There are few policy areas where reality asserts itself faster than it does in the field of energy," Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said during an April 21 hearing on the Department of Energy's Fiscal Year 2027 spending request.

"During the Biden administration, energy policy shifted away from reliability and toward favored sources, toward favored outcomes, and long, brittle supply chains that begin overseas. They assumed the system would hold together anyway, and it didn't."

In Trump's second term, his administration has tossed aside any "all of the above" pretense to aggressively champion "baseload" oil, gas, and coal production as well as nuclear energy development while rolling back environmental regulations and reviving the nation's refining and mining industries.

The president has orchestrated a "whole-of-government" focus on energy development, beginning with several day-one executive actions: declaring a national energy emergency, withdrawing from the Paris climate accords, opening Alaska's "extraordinary resource potential" to development, and pausing federally permitted offshore wind projects he's derided as boondoggle "wind mills."

Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum often reiterate that increasing natural gas and coal production and developing emerging nuclear technologies, rather than investing in "intermittent" renewables such as solar and wind, are key to scaling up the grid to accommodate data centers and other large load users. Both have said this is not only as an "affordability" consumer issue, but also as a national security imperative.

Wright has issued at least six emergency orders under the Federal Power Act to require retiring coal-fired power plants remain operable, if not actually operating, to ensure regional grids have capacity to generate electricity during peak demand, such as summer heatwaves and winter storms.

As of 2025, there were 401 coal-fired power plants in the United States, the last one coming online in 2013, according to America's Power, which advocates on behalf of the nation's coal-fired power plants. The Energy Information Administration documented in late 2024 that 173 of those units in 33 states were set to close by 2030, a pace accelerated by the Biden administration's Clean Power Plant 2.0 and Greenhouse Gas rules, which required them to trim emissions by 90 percent or shut down.

Once primary races are settled, when congressional Republicans and candidates face off against Democrats in 2026 general election campaigns, they will claim they inherited rising electricity prices from Biden policies. They will point to actions such as repealing power plant rules, scaling back environmental laws, trimming regulations, streamlining permitting, reinvigorating fossil fuel development, building nuclear reactors, and expanding the nation's 3.3 million mile natural gas pipeline network as ways to address energy affordability, which, they're certain to note, is more an issue in Democrat-led states than in GOP-governed states.

Blame Trump

Democrats' general election campaign pitch will claim the Trump administration and congressional Republicans are directly responsible for spiking electricity bills by ditching support for "all of the above" energy to exclusively favor fossil fuels while pulling the plug on assistance programs and renewable energy investments, especially solar, which has been the largest source of new electricity generation nationwide since 2020.

They point to initiatives adopted the last time Democrats held both chambers: 2021's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and 2022's CHIPS and Science Act and Inflation Reduction Act, which authorized billions in tax credits, low-interest loans, and grant programs incentivizing private investments in renewable energies, advanced manufacturing, and grid expansion.

Many Inflation Reduction Act initiatives and grants were suspended under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act adopted in partisan votes and signed into law by Trump in July 2025.

In October 2025, the administration canceled, or "clawed back," $8 billion in Inflation Reduction Act allocations for 223 renewable energy projects, nearly all in Democrat-led states.

"Satisfying a president's desire for political revenge or intimidation is not a lawful basis for terminating projects that were on track to help reduce soaring electricity prices," Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) told Wright during the April 21 hearing.

"These cancellations on a political basis are a blatant betrayal of the communities, the workers, and the businesses counting on those investments to lower their energy costs, and now it is those communities, workers, and businesses who will pay the price regardless of their particular politics."

Although Congress appropriated $8.8 billion for home energy rebates in 2026 to purchase more energy efficient appliances and for "weatherization" upgrades, the Department of Energy has stalled implementation in nearly 40 states, he said.

"That's obstruction," Heinrich said, "and while these cost-saving programs are being obstructed, the department is taking actions that actively raise prices. This [2027] budget reflects the same lack of concern for the real costs facing hard-working families trying to keep the lights on and their vehicles on the road."

The department's spending request eliminates the Weatherization Assistance Program, "which saves households, on average, $372 every year," he said. "It also rescinds another $15.2 billion of [Inflation Reduction Act] funding - congressionally directed funds that are ready to go out the door to support grid reliability and help reduce electricity prices."

After primaries set November ballots, when Congressional Democrats and candidates square off against Republicans in 2026 general election campaigns, they will pledge to restore these programs, revive defunded projects that boost grid capacity, encourage "all of the above" energies - especially nuclear - while refunding grants that advance renewables, which 65 percent of 3,524 adults surveyed in March 2026 by Pew Research Center said they support, including 44 percent of Republicans.

An aerial view shows a 49.5-megawatt, three-level data center under construction in Vernon, Calif., on April 14, 2026. Rising electricity costs for many of the nation’s 133 million households could shape control of Congress in November’s midterm elections. Mario Tama/Getty Images Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 20:05

The DNC Finally Releases Its 2024 Autopsy, And It's A Total Whitewash

The Democratic National Committee has released its long-awaited "autopsy" of the 2024 presidential election, and it is getting panned from all sides for being evasive, poorly constructed, and conspicuously silent on the two most consequential decisions the party made in 2024.

DNC Chair Ken Martin had been sitting on this report since late last year. He pledged transparency, then reversed course in December, saying he would not release it. The reversal created a slow-motion credibility crisis. NBC News described Martin as having "been pummeled in public for months" over the episode, and last week Kamala Harris herself called for the report to be made public. So Martin released it on Thursday, though not quite on his own terms. 

"When I received the report late last year, it wasn't ready for primetime — not even close — and because no source material was provided, it would have meant starting over,” Martin said in a statement Thursday.

“I could not in good faith put the DNC's stamp of approval on the report that was produced." 

Martin continued, "After last November's massive Democratic wins, I didn't want to create a distraction, but by not putting the report out, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. For that, I sincerely apologize."

 The document was released in full, but no one seems to be satisfied with it.

NBC News reported that large sections are devoted to "a lengthy recap of modern American political history dating to the 2008 presidential election, historic fundraising and spending data from past elections, and more." The annotations flagged factual errors, including incorrect election results, and challenged claims that the annotators said were unsupported by evidence. 

When the report does engage with 2024, it leans on broad themes like an “inability or unwillingness to listen to all voters” that provided the GOP “with opportunities for advancement at the expense of Democratic growth, evolution, and ability to find common ground with seemingly disparate groups of voters from coast to coast, and the heartland Democrats tend to ignore.” It also claims that Harris failed to make her positions known and didn’t go far enough in attacking Trump, in an apparent attempt to avoid addressing the specific problems with the campaign. 

The report also claimed that state parties were underfunded and that Democratic infrastructure was too weak in key battlegrounds. However, that argument doesn’t align with the actual circumstances of the election. Kamala Harris’s campaign raised and spent more than $1 billion, giving her every conceivable resource advantage heading into the election. 

Despite the massive war chest, the campaign failed to win a single swing state. Rather than confront why all that money still couldn’t connect with working-class voters in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the report leans heavily on vague complaints about “messaging” while largely ignoring the real problems that doomed her campaign.

CNN Senior Reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere pointed out what the report conspicuously omits. “It does not touch a couple of topics that a lot of people were very interested in, and thought were the reasons for this report not being out,” he said. “There's nothing about Joe Biden and what happened in the debate. There's nothing about Kamala Harris getting the nomination without any kind of primary process. And also there is nothing about the way that voters were responding to Gaza and how the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris policies and comments about it were hitting their minds.”

CNN just spent an entire segment proving the DNC autopsy is every bit as bad and evasive as we expected.

"There are a lot of things in that version that are incomplete, uh, and also it does not touch a couple topics that a lot of people were very interested in and thought were… pic.twitter.com/wxbsg5M8XB

— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) May 21, 2026

Democrats themselves have not been kind.

 "It sounds like we need a malpractice attorney, because we couldn't even do the autopsy correctly,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) told CNN. "Obviously, it was the Joe Biden issue at the debate. It was the switchover to Kamala without a process. And, at the end of the day, Democrats weren't talking enough about affordability and the economy." 

Moskowitz added, “We're too afraid to tell them the truth. They know the truth. They saw the debate. They saw what happened."

BREAKING: Democrat Rep. Jared Moskowitz is calling the 2024 DNC Autopsy report "malpractice."

"It sounds like we need a malpractice attorney because we couldn't even do the autopsy correctly."

"We got SHELLACKED in the last election. I mean, we lost every single solitary swing… pic.twitter.com/RgRxbpdxVX

— Turning Point Action Rapid Response (@TPARapidRep) May 21, 2026

Former CNN commentator Chris Cillizza also bashed the autopsy.

“I was a BIG advocate for the DNC releasing the 2024 autopsy,” he wrote on X. “Having now read it, I can see now why there was so much resistance within some corners of the party to releasing it. It is an utter disaster. And a failure on virtually every front.”

He expressed his frustration in a video post.

“Takeaway number one: Joe Biden is almost not in this report,” he said. “So it's 192 pages long. Again, how many times and what section do you believe how much time is devoted to Joe Biden's advanced age? He was 81 years old in 2024. And the concerns that the public voiced over and over again to pollsters that he was too old to do the job and shouldn't run again. It's zero. There is no mention of Biden's age, the polling on his age, his infirmity physically and mentally that was on display, the hiding of Biden from the public. There's none of it.”

Cillizza continued, “In fact, I was so surprised that after I kind of scanned through the entire 192-page document, I did a control F, a find, and I searched for Biden's name because I figured I must have missed that section. No, I didn't miss that section. The only acknowledgement is this statement. Two sentences. ‘The debate obviously changed many things. The dial testing during the debate demonstrated the weakness of the president's performance in a post debate survey was scrapped.’ Okay, that's it. That's it about the debate, Biden's age, etc.”

"The debate obviously changed many things. The dial-testing during the debate demonstrated the weakness of the President’s performance, and a post-debate survey was scrapped." -- DNC Autopsy

WHAT? They canceled polling after Biden's disastrous debate performance? WHY???

— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) May 21, 2026

A brutal chart from the DNC autopsy pic.twitter.com/fwfwREmxdH

— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) May 21, 2026

"The White House did not position or prepare the Vice President. Had the White House explored and evaluated ways to leverage Kamala Harris earlier in the administration, perhaps it would have improved the President’s standing, and it certainly could have helped prepare her to…

— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) May 21, 2026

The real autopsy, the one the DNC apparently declined to write, would grapple with candidate quality, a compressed general election timeline, unpopular policies, and the impact of covering up Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and letting him implode on stage with President Trump.

Instead, the party hid behind clichés and generic excuses, ignoring what really went wrong.

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 19:40

American Freight Revival Enters Next Phase As Illegal Alien Trucker Chaos Continues

Submitted by American Truckers United,

In a unanimous landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) does not protect freight brokers from state-law negligence claims when they carelessly hire unsafe motor carriers.

Landmark win for trucking safety this morning.

The Supreme Court rules UNANIMOUSLY against the broker that helped put the illegal alien who hit Dalilah Coleman on the road.

As a result of this decision, trucking brokers can be liable for negligently giving loads to illegal… https://t.co/0pYntFxiDx

— Senator Jim Banks (@SenatorBanks) May 14, 2026

The case, Shawn Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, et al., marks a seismic shift in the trucking industry. For the first time in years, brokers can be held accountable when their profit-driven shortcuts lead to deadly crashes. This is a massive victory for crash victims and the small- to midsize carriers who actually move America's freight.

American Truckers United (ATU) proudly filed an amicus curiae brief supporting the petitioner, exposing how blanket broker immunity had fueled a dangerous race to the bottom.

"It is implausible that Congress sought to immunize brokers from tort liability when their negligence leads to fatal or injurious motor vehicle crashes," our brief stated. "Any time the government provides immunity from suit, it picks economic winners and losers… There is no reason to believe Congress chose negligent brokers to be the winners."

🚨 The Supreme Court will soon rule in a blockbuster case that could impact liability for crashes involving unvetted carriers and truck drivers: Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II and C.H. Robinson. The trucking industry—and especially brokers—is watching very closely.

Freight… pic.twitter.com/csbNMFiRVu

— American Truckers United (@atutruckers) March 10, 2026

The Broken System That Needed Fixing

For too long, freight brokers have operated with near-total immunity while sitting in the middle of every transaction, pocketing the spread between what shippers pay and what they actually pay carriers.  

Their incentive was brutally simple: hire the absolute cheapest truck possible — safety, maintenance, and regulatory compliance be damned.

Resulting in brokerage's share of the freight market exploding from roughly 6% twenty-five years ago to 29% today. Much of that growth came by flooding the market with cut-rate, often illicit capacity — including non-domiciled foreign drivers operating under lower standards that undercut responsible American operators.

Legacy American carriers shuttered at historic rates. Small fleets filed bankruptcy in droves. Mega-brokers and a handful of giant carriers captured massive new market share. The human cost was measured in wrecked trucks, ruined families, and lives lost on our highways.

A recent viral crash in California involving an illegal alien truck driver from India brought the issue back into sharp focus — and raised the obvious question: Which broker put that truck on the road?

🚨New Fatal Truck Crash in California! 2 people killed! Truck Driver "Manvir Singh" facing several charges including vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, resisting police, and hit and run.

More details to follow. pic.twitter.com/Q6hZOV8AwZ

— American Truckers United (@atutruckers) May 20, 2026

And more. 

At least four Indian illegal alien truck drivers with CDLs have been arrested for allegedly causing deadly crashes that have killed multiple innocent people in different parts of the country.

Manvir Singh (CA)
Jashanpreet Singh (CA)
Harjinder Singh (FL)
Sukhdeep Singh (IN) pic.twitter.com/2ofd7QYSfp

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) May 21, 2026

The Turning Point

Back in December, momentum was already building toward meaningful reform. The Supreme Court decision has now cemented the recovery.

2026 will be "The Official Comeback Year of the American Truck Driver"!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to America's truck drivers and their families!

God is using this Administration to answer our prayers.

What started as a grassroots fight in Arkansas has become a… pic.twitter.com/qFyA5KOA9p

— American Truckers United (@atutruckers) December 26, 2025

Spot truckload rates just hit an all-time record of $3.69 per mile. For the first time since 2022, the American trucker ecosystem is returning to profitability. The playing field is finally leveling.

Related:

• Flatbed Truck Rates Hit New Highs As These Drivers Fuel Boom

Videos circulating over the weekend showed foreign drivers suddenly struggling to secure loads — an encouraging early signal that the era of unchecked undercutting may be ending.

It took less than 24 hours for brokers to tighten the belt after the Supreme Court ruled that brokers could be held liable for carrier accidents WOW!

#Truckers #trucking #truckinglife @topfans pic.twitter.com/MEnvzcKkar

— GRANDPA’s FREE ADVICE (@GOP_is_Gutless) May 16, 2026

What Comes Next

The Supreme Court has restored balance to this critical issue. Congress must now complete the work by promptly passing Dalilah's Law. This legislation would require the revocation of commercial driver's licenses held by illegal aliens and ensure that such licenses can never be reissued.

American Truckers United will continue fighting for safer roads, fairer competition, and real relief for asset-based carriers, hardworking American truck drivers, and the families of crash victims.

The Great American Trucker Revival is underway. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 19:15

Turkey Markets Crash After Court Unseats Opposition Head In Latest Erdogan Power Grab

Shortly after we learned that Turkey had sold virtually all of its Treasuries in March to defend the lira after the Iran war broke out, the country was thrown into fresh political turmoil on Thursday when a Turkish court removed the leader of the country’s main opposition party in a landmark ruling that triggered a stock market crash, including one marketwide halt, and could strengthen President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s grip on power while further alienating foreign capital.

The Ankara appeals court annulled the results of the 2023 congress of the Republican People’s Party, known by its Turkish initials CHP, the party’s deputy chairwoman Gul Ciftci told Bloomberg on Thursday. The decision voids the election of Ozgur Ozel as CHP chairman. The party can appeal the ruling.

The decision reinstates the CHP’s previous administration, including former party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who lost a presidential race to Erdogan in 2023. The ruling also effectively cancels all decisions made by the party since the 2023 congress, according to the verdict.

By further hollowing out the political opposition and hampering the CHP’s efforts to secure the release of Imamoglu, Erdogan’s most prominent political rival, the decision eases the president’s ability to tighten his grip on power. Imamoglu has been behind bars since March 2025. Although he’s the CHP’s presidential candidate for elections slated for 2028, he may not be eligible for the ballot due to the cancellation of his university diploma.

Turkish stocks plunged after the court decision, with the benchmark Borsa Istanbul 100 Index closing 6.1% down. The sharp decline triggered a market-wide circuit breaker. Five-year credit default swaps rose 12 basis points to 253 basis points, while the lira was little changed and trading at 45.6133 per US dollar as of 6:09 p.m. Istanbul time although with little reserves left to defend the currency, we expect a painful and sharp devaluation in the coming weeks.

“While the central bank still has enough reserves to maintain the current policy framework, the buffer is wearing thin,” said David Austerweil, emerging-markets deputy portfolio manager at Van Eck Associates Corporation.

The decision paves the way for a comeback by former party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, potentially derailing CHP unity in the run-up to the next presidential elections, which is currently set for 2028 but expected earlier. According to Bloomberg, it may also hamper the party’s efforts to secure the release of jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, Erdogan’s most prominent political rival.

The biggest impact, however, was on the Turkish markets which were already strained by the fallout of the Iran war. As reported earlier, to support the lira, monetary authorities offloaded almost all of the country’s US Treasuries in March.

They have also sold much of the country's gold reserves, tightened liquidity, made lira funding costlier and asked state-run lenders to intervene in the currency market. The ruling on Thursday will likely put further pressure on Turkish assets and send the lira into a tailspin.

Ironically, the decision came while Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek and Central Bank Governor Fatih Karahan were in London courting investors. Both figures have been trying to attract foreign investment since taking over Turkey’s economic management in 2023. Their efforts were hampered after the arrest of Imamoglu last year, which led to a foreign investor exodus.

Hundreds of CHP figures have been detained since the 2024 elections, including the leaders of large cities. More recently, Erdogan's regime detained the mayor of Bursa, the country’s fourth-largest city, on charges of corruption and launched a probe against Ankara’s popular mayor, Mansur Yavas, over the alleged misuse of state resources. Like Imamoglu, Yavas is also seen as a potential presidential candidate. Opposition figures have said such charges are politically motivated.

In September, a court removed the CHP’s Istanbul leadership over allegations of corruption and appointed Gursel Tekin - a former Istanbul party chief and ally of Kilicdaroglu -  as trustee, another move that unnerved markets and triggered a selloff.

“The decision is an opportunity to unite,” Kilicdaroglu wrote on X after the ruling, having effectively reclaimed the party’s leadership. He had published a video the day before in which he spoke about the need to root out “corruption” within the CHP.

The ruling “will dent further risk appetite for TRY carry trades,” said Guillaume Tresca, an emerging market strategist at Generali Asset Management SpA. “Turkey is a trickier position than before.”

Turkey's five-year credit default swaps - a barometer of risk sentiment and odds of sovereign default - rose 19 basis points to 261 basis points.

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 18:50

We Are 6 Months From Global Food Shortages Because Farmers Are Facing A Quadruple Whammy Crisis

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

We have never faced anything quite like this. Diesel fuel and fertilizer have become far more expensive as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, and extreme weather is playing havoc with crops all over the planet. Here in the United States, we just experienced the driest first three months of a year in recorded history. No, that isn’t an exaggeration. Now a “Super El Niño” is coming, and that means that drought conditions are going to get even worse in many areas of the world. The “Super El Niño” of 1877-1878 resulted in widespread droughts that killed more than 50 million people, and now we are being warned that the upcoming “Super El Niño” could be even worse. Our farmers have never faced a “perfect storm” of this magnitude, and global food production is going to be way down in the months ahead.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization is publicly warning that a severe global food crisis could strike about 6 months from now if something really dramatic does not happen…

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz could trigger a severe global food price crisis within six to 12 months unless governments act quickly, the Food and Agriculture Organization warned Wednesday.

Decisions now by farmers and governments on fertilizer use, imports, financing and crop choices will determine whether food prices spike later this year or in early 2027, the agency said.

I don’t know what national governments around the world are supposed to do.

They can’t create fertilizer out of thin air.

Thanks to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, millions of farmers all over the northern hemisphere didn’t get the fertilizer that they needed for the spring planting season.

UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo is telling us that as a result “many places in the world will have problems of food shortage” once harvest season arrives…

Food shortages are expected to hit many parts of the world from September or October following a fertilizer production plunge, the U.N. Development Program’s head said on Monday.

“In September, (or) October, many places in the world will have problems of food shortage,” as agricultural production is expected to be much lower following the fertilizer production slump resulting from high oil prices amid Middle East conflicts, UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo said in an interview in Tokyo.

Even if fertilizer is available, many farmers simply cannot afford it.

In fact, one recent survey discovered that 70 percent of U.S. farmers could not afford to buy all of the fertilizer that they needed for the spring planting season because it has become so expensive.

Meanwhile, diesel has become painfully expensive as well.

Virtually all farm equipment runs on diesel, and as I write this article the average price of a gallon of diesel in the U.S. is sitting at about five and a half dollars.

But in California, the average price of a gallon of diesel has reached nearly seven and a half dollars…

According to AAA, the average price for diesel fuel in California is about $7.43 per gallon, which is $2.36 higher compared to last year. In Fresno, prices are slightly higher.

“In Fresno, you’re paying about $6.06 for a gallon of regular gasoline, but you’re paying $7.48 for a gallon of diesel,” Johnson said.

You may not care about what is happening in California, but you should because California produces more fruit and more vegetables than any other state by a very wide margin.

Drought is another major problem that U.S. farmers are dealing with.

In West Texas, the cracks in the ground caused by endless drought are big enough to swallow an entire human hand…

Scott Irlbeck crouched in a field of stunted wheat plants in a parched stretch of West Texas and slipped his hand into a crack wide enough to swallow it.

Last autumn, Irlbeck planted a crop that barely grew because rain never came. ​He now hopes his insurance adjuster will declare it a total loss so he will not need to spend money on pricey fuel to harvest it next month.

Coming into this year, the southwestern portion of the nation was experiencing the worst multi-year drought in at least 1,200 years.

And then the first three months of this year were the driest first three months of a year for the entire country ever recorded.

As a result, it is being projected that the winter wheat harvest will be a disaster…

Crop estimates underscore just how bad the situation is. Growers will see their smallest wheat crop in terms of production since 1972, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture; 1.56 billion bushels this year, down 21% from 2025. That’s especially harmful to Kansas, one of the top overall producers of wheat in the U.S.

This year, only 22 million acres of winter wheat will be harvested, and the abandonment rate is above 32 percent…

Only 32.4 million acres (13.1 million hectares) of wheat were planted this year to begin with, and harvested acreage hit just 22 million, marking abandonment, which is when farmers stop tending to a crop before harvesting, at slightly above 32% of this year’s wheat crop, according to USDA estimates.

Just think about those numbers for a moment.

Our farmers simply gave up on nearly a third of this year’s winter wheat crop.

Wow.

Looking ahead, we are being told that the number of acres of wheat that U.S. farmers are planting in the spring will be the fewest “since record keeping began in 1919”…

U.S. growers were poised to plant the fewest acres of wheat since record keeping began in 1919, as high costs for fertilizer, seeds, and equipment have made it difficult to turn a profit.

In 1919, there were 104 million people living in the United States.

Today, there are more than 340 million people living in the United States.

It doesn’t take a math genius to figure out that we are headed for trouble.

And now a “Super El Niño” is looming…

A “Super El Niño” may be on its way and could impact weather in the United States and worldwide for the next several months.

El Niño is described by the National Weather Service (NWS) as “a state where the water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean near the equator become abnormally warm.” These warmer waters trigger significant weather pattern changes across the globe.

One expert is warning that there is approximately a 50 percent chance that this “Super El Niño” will be the most powerful ever recorded…

“I would suggest there is roughly a 50 per cent chance of the event becoming the strongest in the historical record right now,” Paul Roundy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University at Albany, in the US, told BBC Science Focus. “A few weeks ago, I was suggesting maybe 20 per cent.”

In a previous article, I discussed the fact that the “Super El Niño” of 1877-1878 caused widespread global famines that resulted in the deaths of 50 million people.

So how many will die during the “Super El Niño” that will begin later this year?

According to the UN, the number of people around the world there were experiencing acute hunger was already at an all-time record high even before the war with Iran started.

Now global hunger is spiking, and when people get really hungry they get really desperate.

For example, just check out what is going on in Afghanistan…

Khwaja Ahmad barely gets out a few words before he starts sobbing.

“We are starving. My older children died, so I need to work to feed my family. But I’m old, so no one wants to give me work,” he says.

When a local bakery near the square opens up, the owner distributes stale bread among the crowd. Within seconds, the loaves have been pulled apart, half a dozen men clutching onto precious pieces.

This should break your heart.

One extremely hungry man in Afghanistan says that he is willing to sell his own daughters just so that he will have enough money to buy food…

Abdul Rashid Azimi takes us into his home and brings out two of his children – seven-year-old twins Roqia and Rohila. He holds them close, eager to explain why he’s making unbearable choices.

“I’m willing to sell my daughters,” he weeps. “I’m poor, in debt and helpless.

“I come home from work with parched lips, hungry, thirsty, distressed and confused. My children come to me saying ‘Baba, give us some bread’. But what can I give? Where is the work?”

This is what is already happening.

Six months from now, the level of desperation around the world will be so much worse.

We need the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened as soon as possible, but that simply is not going to happen.

The Iranians are never going to give President Trump what he wants, and they are preparing for the next phase of the war…

Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf claimed Wednesday that the U.S. is looking to “start a new war,” a report said.

“The enemy’s movements, both overt and clandestine, show that despite economic and political pressure, it has not abandoned its military objectives and is seeking to start a new war,” Ghalibaf said in a statement shared by Iranian media, according to The Times of Israel.

“Close monitoring of the situation in the United States reinforces the possibility that they still hope for the surrender of the Iranian nation,” he reportedly added.

The next chapter of this war is not going to look like the last chapter.

The IRGC is openly telling us that they are ready to attack “in places you cannot even imagine”…

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned on Wednesday that any new attack on the country would provoke them to spread the war beyond the Middle East, raising the stakes of diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.

In a statement reported by Iranian state media, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a powerful military force that answers directly to the country’s supreme leader, said that if “aggression against Iran is repeated,” it would deliver blows “in places you cannot even imagine.”

The Iranians know that they cannot win the war by fighting symmetrically.

So they are going to use asymmetric tools to get the job done.

And some of those asymmetric tools will not be conventional.

When fighting erupts again, I expect things to get really crazy.

What this means is that the Strait of Hormuz is going to remain closed for a long time, and that is really bad news for farmers all over the globe.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 18:25

Daily Wire Names New CEO As Audience, Revenue Challenges Mount

The Daily Wire announced Tuesday that CEO Caleb Robinson is stepping down effective immediately and transitioning to a board role while retaining significant ownership in the company. Mike Richards, who joined as President and Chief Content Officer roughly a year ago, has been named the new CEO.

Robinson framed the move as a deliberate shift: "Stepping down as CEO of Daily Wire. Effective immediately, my new title is 'guy on the board who still owns a lot of the company.' Pay cut in stress. Raise in the important things."

pic.twitter.com/3D0hpjn3nJ

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) May 20, 2026

Earlier this month, Puck reported that The Daily Wire's audience is in freefall. Ben Shapiro's flagship show episodes, which once regularly drew several million viewers, now average around half a million. The company reportedly lost 80,000 YouTube subscribers in 2026 alone, described by analyst Kyle Tharp as "the steepest decline of any major political channel" this year.

A few days later, New York Magazine highlighted other warning signs, including Daily Wire YouTube videos garnering fewer than 10,000 views days after posting (a sharp contrast to the channel's more than 3 million subscribers) and mocked comment sections. While acknowledging poor business decisions such as feature films, the Pendragon Cycle fantasy series, and unusual merchandise lines, Barkan argued the deeper issue is the "collapse of Shapiro’s constituency," particularly among young and Gen-Z conservatives who once drove the company's growth.

In recent weeks the company carried out layoffs affecting a reported 42 employees - roughly 20 percent of headcount - concentrated at its Nashville production office. A Daily Wire source told Puck that the cuts were a "course correction after years of mismanagement and overhiring," while attributing part of the audience softening to platform algorithm changes that favor more partisan or conspiratorial content.

Sources close to the company described the cuts as a course correction after years of mismanagement and overhiring, and attributed any audience decline to platform algorithms that prioritize more-partisan or even conspiratorial content. But Ben’s competitors and other industry insiders suspect it has more to do with a “MAGA vibe shift,” and the growing unpopularity of his support for Israel and the war in Iran, among other issues. -Puck

A spokesperson told the outlet that the company had "made a difficult decision to restructure the organization, which included layoffs to a number of teams."

Internal Tensions and the Pendragon Cycle

Much of the strain traces back several years according to Puck. While the company hit strong revenue growth - Boreing told the outlet in late 2024 it was on pace to exceed $200 million annually - tensions grew between the co-founders over Boreing's ambitious creative projects.

Central to the rift was The Pendragon Cycle, a seven-episode Arthurian fantasy series. Boreing reportedly secured an eight-figure budget but ultimately spent nearly three times that amount. Sources said both Shapiro and Robinson initially signed off on the project but became disillusioned as costs mounted and Boreing took a leave to focus on it. This contributed to a deeper falling-out.

In late 2024 or early 2025, Robinson pushed to engage SPAC SilverBox Capital to explore strategic options, including a possible exit. Boreing reportedly opposed the move, viewing it as jeopardizing the company's mission. He stepped down as co-CEO in March 2025, officially to focus on creative projects. According to Puck's reporting, Shapiro and Boreing largely stopped communicating afterward, aside from a call following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Reactions from the Right

The Daily Wire's challenges and Shapiro's staunch pro-Israel positions have fueled sharp criticism from prominent voices in the populist/America First wing of the conservative movement.

Tucker Carlson has been among the most vocal. On a recent episode of The Megyn Kelly Show, Carlson downplayed Shapiro's influence amid discussions on the Iran conflict:

"You wonder where the pressure's coming from... Those are clearly the spokesmen for the coalition applying pressure, but they're not in themselves powerful figures... Ben Shapiro's going out of business."

He further described figures like Shapiro and Mark Levin as occupying "the outer fringe of the outer fringe" with minimal real audience or constituency.

Megyn Kelly has pushed back against Shapiro's attacks while commenting on the layoffs. She has noted her own show's stronger performance metrics compared to Shapiro's and expressed a mix of schadenfreude and detachment. In one recent post, she highlighted her audience numbers dwarfing Shapiro's.

Candace Owens, who was terminated from The Daily Wire in 2024, has repeatedly mocked the company's troubles and accused Shapiro of relying on "fake" or purchased views. In a May 15, 2026 post reacting directly to the New York Magazine article, she wrote:

"As if the Ben Shapiro crash out over the New York Magazine article couldn't get more hilarious... Also Tucker is big in Pakistan? The cope here is beyond exceptional." (View post)

Owens has tied the decline to Shapiro's foreign policy stance and past internal conflicts.

As if the Ben Shapiro crash out over the New York Magazine article couldn’t get more hilarious.

Someone fed Ben Shapiro bad intel and he ran to his show to giddily report on it. 😂

To the express contrary, we actually just increased our production staff by 2.

Also Tucker is…

— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) May 15, 2026

Other America First voices have amplified the "MIGA" (Make Israel Great Again) critique, accusing Shapiro and the Daily Wire of prioritizing Israeli interests over American ones. The New York Magazine piece echoed this sentiment, arguing that Shapiro's conservatism retains support among Republican elites but is being rejected by the future grassroots of the party - especially younger conservatives who view the Iran conflict as a costly quagmire tied to foreign policy priorities. Posts frequently reference Shapiro's consistent calls for strong U.S. support for Israel as a key driver of audience alienation.

Ben Shapiro's @benshapiro Pro Israel Empire Crumbles For America Last Stance

New York Magazine reports that Ben Shapiro's once-dominant position as the "king of conservative media" has collapsed in 2026.

The Daily Wire is undergoing major layoffs, its YouTube subscriber base… pic.twitter.com/iftvIEM7sH

— AMERICA 24 (@America24news_) May 15, 2026

Shapiro has pushed back forcefully, dismissing critics as part of a "woke right" and insisting the company is executing standard restructuring while expecting a strong advertising year.

Robinson's departure and Richards' ascension - the latter bringing extensive experience in scaled television production from Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune - come as the company attempts to stabilize. Daily Wire officials continue to emphasize its large subscriber base, daily content output, and enduring role as a major voice on the right.

The story reflects broader pressures in independent media: the difficulty of scaling personality-driven outlets into entertainment studios, platform volatility, and realignment within conservative audiences following the 2024 election - particularly around foreign policy and Israel.

Whether the latest leadership change and restructuring can reverse the recent audience and momentum losses remains to be seen. The company has not issued further public comment beyond Robinson's statement as of this writing. Developments are expected to be addressed directly on Daily Wire platforms in the coming days.

* * *

Psst, need anything? We run a tight ship but your support is always appreciated. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 17:20

US Deploys Aircraft Carrier To Caribbean As Trump Admin Pressures Cuba Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. military command operating in the Western Hemisphere said on May 20 that an aircraft carrier strike group entered the Caribbean Sea, as the Trump administration heaps pressure on the Cuban communist regime.

In a post on X, U.S. Southern Command said that the USS Nimitz is now in the Caribbean and released video footage of the carrier group. Southern Command did not provide more details about why the carrier group traveled to the region.

The Nimitz, it said, "has proven its combat prowess across the globe, ensuring stability and defending democracy from the Taiwan Strait to the Arabian Gulf."

The Nimitz, commissioned in 1975, carried out joint naval exercises with the Brazilian Navy off the coast of Rio de Janeiro last week, the U.S. Embassy in Brazil said in a May 14 statement.

On May 20, the Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed a criminal indictment against former Cuban leader Raul Castro, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio released a video in Spanish urging Cubans to reject the country's communist leadership.

According to the DOJ indictment, Castro was indicted in connection with the 1996 downing of civilian planes operated by Miami-based exiles. Castro, now 94, was Cuba's defense minister when the planes were shot down, killing four people.

The charges against Castro, the brother of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, drew pushback from the country's current leader, Miguel Diaz-Canel, in a post on X.

"This is a political maneuver, devoid of any legal foundation, aimed solely at padding the fabricated dossier they use to justify the folly of a military aggression against Cuba," Diaz-Canel wrote.

This year, U.S. President Donald Trump has been ratcheting up talk of regime change in Cuba and said he would potentially initiate a "friendly takeover" of the country if its leadership did not open up its economy to American investment and kick out U.S. adversaries.

When asked what will happen next for the U.S. embargo on Cuba on Wednesday, Trump said, "We're going to see." He added that the U.S. government is ready to provide humanitarian assistance to what he described as a failing country.

Trump said that "there won't be escalation" between the United States and Cuba, adding, "I don't think there needs to be."

"Look, the place is falling apart. It's a mess," Trump added. "They've really lost control of Cuba."

In Cuba, there is no food, electricity, or energy, Trump said, adding that the U.S. government will have to act to assist the country.

Earlier this month, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Cuba to meet with the country's top officials, a visit that came as the country's energy minister said the island has completely run out of fuel and that its power grid is in a critical state.

In January, the U.S. military launched an operation in Venezuela that captured its president, Nicolas Maduro, an ally of the Cuban regime, and took him to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges.

Since September 2025, the U.S. military has been launching strikes against suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean in what the military calls Operation Southern Spear.

Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) sails in the Arabian Sea, on May 3, 2026. Courtesy of the U.S. Navy Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 17:00

DOJ Probe Widens: Minnesota Daycare Owner Charged, While Convicted Fraudster Gets Nearly 42 Years

A Minneapolis daycare owner has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, adding another case to Minnesota's widening public-benefits fraud scandal.

Fahima Egeh Mahamud, 50, CEO of Future Leaders Early Learning Center, allegedly submitted more than 13,000 false claims to Minnesota's Child Care Assistance Program between 2022 and 2025, according to prosecutors. Thousands of those claims required families to make co-payments before the daycare could receive federal reimbursements.

BREAKING: Minneapolis daycare owner featured in Nick Shirley’s video Fahima Egeh Mahamud, CHARGED with wire fraud and conspiracy for allegedly stealing over $4.6 million through false claims to federal and state programs pic.twitter.com/OJ6plcQ7lq

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 21, 2026

Prosecutors say Mahamud falsely certified that those family co-payments had been collected, allowing her daycare business to receive roughly $4.6 million in improper reimbursements.

The case is not Mahamud's first encounter with federal fraud investigators. She was separately charged in February with wire fraud over her alleged role in the Feeding Our Future meal-fraud scheme, the sprawling Minnesota case in which federal prosecutors say taxpayer money meant to feed children during the pandemic was diverted through sham meal sites, inflated meal counts, rosters, invoices, and kickback arrangements.

In that earlier case, prosecutors alleged that from December 2020 to July 2021, Mahamud claimed to serve tens of thousands of meals to children each month at the Future Leaders site, when the site allegedly served only a fraction of those meals.

An attorney for Mahamud could not be reached for comment. Mahamud and all other defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.

A Wider Minnesota Fraud Crackdown

The daycare charge comes as Minnesota faces a widening federal crackdown on alleged fraud across multiple state-administered programs. AP reported that, after former Feeding Our Future leader Aimee Bock was sentenced to nearly 42 years in prison, federal authorities announced a new batch of charges against 15 people accused of stealing from social-service programs administered through Minnesota's state government.

AP said the new cases involve roughly $90 million across seven state-managed Medicaid programs. Those cases include Mahamud, whom AP identified as the former CEO of Future Leaders Early Learning Center. Prosecutors allege her organization was reimbursed about $4.6 million for services tied to people who did not make required co-payments.

🚨 HOLY CRAP! The Trump DOJ has just announced a MASSIVE $90M FRAUD BUST in Tim Walz's Minnesota, with criminal charges being slapped on 15 defendants

This involves 7 STATE-MANAGED MEDICAID PROGRAMS totally plundered by fraudsters — one program has $0 LEFT! 🤯

Tim Walz knew!… pic.twitter.com/KottcIOU2K

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 21, 2026

The New York Post reported that Justice Department officials described the latest Minnesota charges as involving the two largest Medicaid fraud cases ever brought in the district, including what officials called the "largest autism fraud scheme ever." According to the Post's account of the DOJ announcement, prosecutors said the schemes involved fake diagnoses, billing for services that were not provided, and the exploitation of programs intended for vulnerable people.

Autism Program Targeted In Alleged $40 Million Scheme

One of the most explosive allegations involves Minnesota's Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program, known as EIDBI, a Medicaid-funded autism services program for children and young people.

FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X that one alleged scheme was worth more than $40 million and involved kickbacks to parents who fraudulently used autism centers to obtain autism diagnoses for children regardless of medical necessity, followed by billing for services that were not actually provided.

That's nice and all Kash, but...

Still in congress

Still free

Still has millions of hard earned TAXPAYERS money stolen from our children and grandchildren pic.twitter.com/vR26CqcW2n

— Roger Sunderlin (@RogerSunderlin) May 21, 2026

That allegation shifts the Minnesota story from ordinary benefits fraud into something much darker: children, disabled patients, and struggling families allegedly being treated as billing instruments inside programs that were supposed to help them.

The Justice Department had already been building toward this moment. In December, federal prosecutors announced additional charges in autism and housing fraud cases, including allegations that a Minnesota autism provider paid cash kickbacks to parents, submitted inflated Medicaid claims, billed for services not actually provided, and obtained millions of dollars from Minnesota's Department of Human Services and related payors.

Housing And Home-Care Programs Under Scrutiny

Federal prosecutors have also zeroed in on Minnesota's Housing Stabilization Services program, a Medicaid benefit designed to help people with disabilities, seniors, people with mental illness, and people with substance-use disorders find and maintain housing.

According to the Justice Department, the program had low barriers to entry and minimal records requirements, making it vulnerable to fraud. The program's costs exploded from an expected $2.6 million annually to more than $21 million in 2021, $42 million in 2022, $74 million in 2023, and $104 million in 2024.

In one housing case, two Pennsylvania men pleaded guilty to traveling repeatedly to Minneapolis to defraud the Housing Stabilization Services program, according to the DOJ. Prosecutors said they stole about $3.5 million for services they falsely claimed to have provided to roughly 230 Medicaid beneficiaries and even used ChatGPT to generate fake client notes when insurers asked for documentation.

Feeding Our Future Casts A Long Shadow

The overlap among these cases is what has made the Minnesota scandal so politically explosive. What began with Feeding Our Future has expanded into child care, housing services, autism therapy, home supports, and other Medicaid-funded programs.

According to AP, Bock's Feeding Our Future network involved phony distribution sites, fake lists of children supposedly being fed, kickbacks, and lavish spending on international travel, real estate, and luxury vehicles. Bock was convicted last year of conspiracy, fraud, and bribery and sentenced this week to nearly 42 years in prison.

Bock blames Minnesota officials for not catching the fraud, telling CBS: "We relied on the state," adding that local officials, including Rep. Ilhan Omar, would often visit the meal sites. "We told the state, this site is going to operate at this address, this time, and this number of children. The state would then tell us that's approved."

👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻👂🏻
WORTH A LISTEN
Aimee Bock from behind prison is naming names in the Minnesota fraud scandal… which she believes was no surprise to local Democratic leaders. pic.twitter.com/UfrKsvJNjV

— Andrew C ™️ (@Sheckyi) January 23, 2026

The Justice Department has described Feeding Our Future as the single largest COVID-19 fraud scheme in the country. Prosecutors said the scheme stole roughly $250 million from a federal child nutrition program that was supposed to feed children during the pandemic.

Future Leaders Early Learning Center was also one of the Minneapolis daycares referenced or featured in YouTuber Nick Shirley's viral December video examining possible fraud in the system. The video helped push the issue into national politics and drew attention from federal officials already scrutinizing Minnesota-administered benefits programs.

Washington Freezes Funding And Demands Answers

The fallout has reached Washington. The Department of Health and Human Services announced on Jan. 6 that it had frozen access to certain child care and family-assistance funds for California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, citing concerns about widespread fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars in state-administered programs.

According to the HHS announcement, the freeze applied to three programs: the Child Care and Development Fund, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and the Social Services Block Grant.

Minnesota has also faced specific Medicaid funding pressure. AP reported that the Trump administration notified the state it was deferring an additional $91 million in Medicaid funding because of concerns about fraud vulnerabilities in state-run but federally funded social-service programs. That came on top of hundreds of millions of dollars the administration had already withheld earlier this year.

CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said the additional deferral was tied partly to high-risk service categories and partly to concerns about payments for ineligible recipients. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called the move political retaliation, while state officials said they have been taking aggressive action to stop fraud and recover improper payments.

The Oversight Question

The numbers explain why the issue is not going away. Minnesota receives about $185 million in child care funds each year from the Administration for Children and Families, according to HHS officials cited in earlier reporting. The latest cases raise basic questions about how federal money was monitored, how providers were verified, why warning signs were missed, and how alleged fraud was able to spread across so many programs before federal investigators stepped in.

The scandal now appears to be less about one daycare, one nonprofit, or one program than about a broader failure of oversight. Prosecutors are no longer describing isolated cases of paperwork abuse. They are alleging networks of providers, recruiters, shell companies, fake records, kickbacks, inflated claims, and programs designed for children, disabled people, and low-income families being turned into taxpayer-funded revenue streams.

For Minnesota, the political problem is obvious. For taxpayers, the question is simpler: how many more programs were treated this way, and how much money is gone?

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 16:40

Exit Taxes Won't Save Failing States

Authored by Vance Ginn via TheDailyEconomy.org,

When a state starts floating an exit tax, it is telling you something more important than any campaign slogan: the people running the place know their model is not working. 

They may not say it that way. They will call it fairness, responsibility, or making the wealthy “pay what they owe.” But the meaning is the same. 

If families, entrepreneurs, and investors are leaving, the state can either ask why its policies are pushing them out, or it can try to tax them for escaping. An exit tax chooses punishment over reform. 

I understand why these proposals resonate with some people. If you are watching wealthy residents relocate while governments still face bills for schools, roads, pensions, and other commitments, it is easy to feel like the people with the most mobility are ducking the tab. 

That frustration is real. It deserves a serious answer. But an exit tax is not a serious answer. It is a confession that lawmakers would rather cling to a failing fiscal model than fix the spending, regulation, and tax policies that made people want to leave in the first place. 

That is why the current trend is so revealing.

In California, proposals have centered on taxing billionaire net worth, including wealth that often exists on paper rather than in cash. In New York, the push has extended to a new surcharge on high-value second homes in New York City.

In Washington, lawmakers have already enacted a “millionaires’ tax.” These policies differ in form, but not in spirit. They all send the same message: if government has made your state too expensive, too hostile, or too unpredictable, it may still try to claim part of your future anyway. 

The economics are worse than the politics. Supporters talk as if wealth is a pile of idle cash sitting in a vault, just waiting to be skimmed. It is not. Wealth is usually tied up in businesses, shares, property, and future earnings. 

Taxing net worth or unrealized gains means taxing value that often has not been sold, realized, or converted into cash. That can force asset sales, dilute business ownership, weaken investment, and change behavior long before the tax collector ever gets a check.

 A Hoover Institution analysis of California’s proposal found that once likely migration responses are considered, the measure could leave the state with a negative net present value of about $25 billion. That is the real lesson: politicians score the tax statically, but the economy does not sit still. 

And that is before you get to the broader evidence. The OECD has noted that recurring net wealth taxes have become much less common across advanced economies because they tend to raise less revenue than promised while creating large compliance costs, avoidance incentives, and economic distortions. Countries tried them. Many backed away. 

A recent NBER study on Scandinavian wealth taxation found that higher top wealth-tax rates reduced the number of wealthy taxpayers and that many of those taxpayers were business owners whose departure reduced investment, employment, and value-added. 

That is the part too often ignored in political talking points. When a state drives out a founder, investor, or employer, it is not just losing one tax return. It is losing future jobs, future capital formation, and future opportunity for everybody else too. 

Defenders of exit taxes still fall back on one argument that sounds morally satisfying: these taxpayers benefited from state infrastructure, legal protections, and markets while they lived there, so the state deserves one final cut

But that argument quietly rewrites the relationship between citizen and government. It turns moving into a taxable offense. It says the state retains a lingering claim on your success because you once lived under its jurisdiction. That is a dangerous principle in a federal system built on mobility and competition.

 Even in the international arena, exit taxes are controversial, complex, and tied to specific movements of assets or functions across borders. Importing that logic into state tax policy is not modernization. It is escalation. 

The problem is not just that these taxes are bad economics. It is that they usually do not stay narrow. Politicians sell them as a tool aimed only at billionaires or luxury homeowners — policy aimed at an applause line. But when the revenue falls short, the scope expands. 

One-time wealth taxes become annual property surcharges. “Billionaire” thresholds are expanded to target millionaires and eventually the middle class. “Temporary” taxes become permanent fiscal architecture. New York’s pied-à-terre proposal is a good example of how quickly the logic expands once the principle is accepted. 

Frédéric Bastiat warned us to look not just at what is seen, but at what is unseen. We see the tax revenues. That’s a small, visible victory compared to the investment that never happens, the entrepreneur who builds elsewhere, jobs that never arrive — the unseen costs compound. 

Exit taxes are built on ignoring all of that. 

Claiming an exit tax frames mobility as theft, when it is often a rational response to bad governance. They do not restore prosperity. They steal the opportunity to prosper by doubling down on the very policies that made growth harder in the first place. 

If lawmakers want to deter departures, the answer is not a fiscal trap door. It is better policy: lower taxes, lighter regulation, spending restraint, and a serious effort to make their states places where productive people want to stay.

Real economic renewal is more difficult than yet more taxation, but it is also the only approach that works. Exit taxes will not save failing states. They only confirm why people wanted to leave. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 16:20

Trump Posts Article Laying Out: "Here's How To Crush Tehran In Three Moves"

President Trump on Thursday posted to Truth Social a New York Post article which was first published over two weeks ago, on May 1st, with the headline "Here's how to crush Tehran in three moves."

Trump's new social media post, issued without additional comment, comes just after news of Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei having drawn a hard line in the sand, ordering that Iran's stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% remain strictly inside Iranian territory. So now the world awaits what's next at a moment the White House has renewed threats of massive military strikes if Iran doesn't quickly come to the table and conform.

The NY Post article had straight-faced and without a hint of intended irony proclaimed: "President Trump has the upper hand." That statement was issued on day 63 of Trump's Iran war. Today is day 83.

What did the interim look like as the world's most powerful military force has been unable to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, amid constant threats to take new, bigger military action - but which never actually materializes (at least not yet) no matter how many times the Iranians reject Washington's terms?

The below timeline and outline, stretching from last week into this one, basically illustrates the weekly Trump pattern that's been on display going back many weeks at this point: 

• Wed: Iran wants a deal. They called us 
• Thu: We are looking at proposals
• Fri: We might be close. Very close
• Sat: Iran knows what to do
• Sun: OBLITERATION. TOTAL. COMPLETE. They have 24 hrs. 
• Mon: The storm is coming 
• Tue: I'm giving it more time

This is what 'winning' looks like according to the NY Post, apparently. The publication also feels itself in a position to give 'advice' and guidance to the White House on executing a war. "His best path forward is to pursue three lines of effort in parallel," author Richard Goldberg (of Foundation for Defense of Democracies) wrote. It must be remembered that very recently a former senior official from FDD Action, the think tank's lobbying arm, joined Trump's Iran negotiating team - his name is Nick Stewart.

Here are the three:

1. Sustain the blockade and accompanying economic warfare to destabilize the regime’s hold on the state;
2. Remake the world in America's energy dominance image to mitigate long-term price impacts while undermining China's global ambition to defeat the United States;
3. Order the US military to forge a path through the Strait of Hormuz to restore freedom of navigation on our terms not Tehran’s.

...if only simply ordering a military "path through" was that easy!

NurPhoto via Getty Images

"You might call the latter Operation Epic Passage — a combined naval and air mission of self-defense that offers escort to tankers and restores freedom of navigation, all while making clear to Tehran the devastating consequences of breaking cease-fire," Goldberg, who openly boasts of his close ties to the Israeli government, also wrote. He further offered the mission name of "Blockade Plus".

After the opening days and weeks of Operation Epic Fury, when it became clear that the large-scale US and Israeli bombardment would not produced regime change in Iran, pundits widely questioned whether the Trump White House actually had a plan, or long-term strategic vision for the military mission. 

And now, after more than 80 days in, the public gets Trump posting a NY Post article by a hawkish FDD writer, which seems more focused merely on ways to mitigate the blowback and 'make the best' of a failed regime change operation, in the wake of the administration's constantly evolving stated goals.

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 15:50

Rickards: Investing In A World In Turmoil

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

To say that the world is in turmoil to an extent not seen since the 1960s is an understatement.

The war in Ukraine is now in its fifth year. The war in Iran continues with no end in sight, despite Trump’s optimistic talk. NATO may be nearing the break-up stage as Trump pulls U.S. troops out of Germany.

Energy prices are soaring, inflation has accelerated sharply again, consumer confidence has fallen sharply, debt is at an all-time high and supply chains are breaking down.

Yet the major U.S. stock indices are at or near all-time highs.

What accounts for record stock prices amid almost unprecedented turmoil?

There are a number of key factors supporting stocks. The most obvious is the AI frenzy. This has two aspects. The first is that AI applications can improve productivity. The second is that the build-out of data centers with the most advanced semiconductors has led to a $1 trillion capital investment tsunami as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic and other AI providers build their server farms.

The next factor is related to the first and is often called the picks-and-shovels trade. The idea is that those who benefit in a gold rush are not the gold miners but the merchants who sell tools, clothes, supplies and other goods the miners need.

In the AI gold rush, the winners are electricity suppliers, builders, hardware manufacturers (semiconductors and servers) and small towns where the server farms are located. These suppliers will do well today whether AI lives up to its promise or not.

Passive Aggression

Another major factor is passive investing. An enormous amount of U.S. wealth is held in 401(k)s, IRAs and assets under management by wealth managers.

Relatively few of the account holders (or, for that matter, wealth managers) really understand active stock investing or risk management. Instead, they buy index funds, ETFs or other equity basket products that track the stock market itself or a specified segment.

When money is put into these index funds, the manager buys the stocks in the index. That buying pushes stock prices higher. That attracts more money, more buying and more gains in a positive feedback loop that drives stocks even higher. No Ph.D. is required. You just buy the index, sit back and enjoy the ride.

FOMO and TINA

Two other factors related to the passive investing feedback loop are fear of missing out (FOMO) and the idea that there is no alternative (TINA). It’s difficult to show up at a cocktail party or the country club when all of your friends are touting their stock gains and you’re not in the market.

It’s also difficult to put money in 4% cash equivalents or assets like gold when stocks seem set to deliver 10% returns as far as the eye can see.

FOMO and TINA have nothing to do with fundamental stock analysis. But they are real and powerful drivers of human behavior.

It’s not all fairy dust, however. There are actual fundamental drivers behind stock gains. Corporate profits are coming in strong (despite some high-profile missed estimates). U.S. energy self-sufficiency will keep the lights on in the U.S. and help prevent 1970s-style gas lines — even if we are not immune to the impact of higher prices.

That’s the argument for higher stock prices despite global problems. What could possibly go wrong?

Unrecognized Risks

The greatest threat to higher stock prices is that the market has not fully discounted the impact of the war in Iran and the unprecedented disruption in the supply of oil, liquid natural gas, nitrates for fertilizer, helium, sulphur, aluminum and other critical inputs.

The reality of these shortages has not hit home (with the exception of higher prices for gasoline and oil), but that does not mean the coast is clear.

An enormous amount of oil supply was already on vessels that left the Strait of Hormuz before the war began. That “floating supply chain” took weeks to be delivered to end users. That process has now been completed; the last deliveries have been made. There is nothing else on the way.

Major manufacturing nations like South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China are now using up reserves. These may last another month or so. The critical point at which reserves are gone, no resupply is on the way and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed grows nearer by the day.

Even if the strait reopens tomorrow, the current shortages will raise prices, disrupt supply chains and possibly lead to a global recession. Markets seem to be ignoring this possibility in favor of a narrative that says the strait will reopen soon and all will be well.

Great Expectations (for AI)

Eventually, it may also occur to markets that AI is not producing any revenue. It’s consuming $1 trillion in capital and promising untold riches, but those riches have yet to materialize. AI is a powerful technology and it’s here to stay. But that does not mean it will be particularly profitable. It may even hurt growth if hundreds of thousands of skilled workers are laid off.

There are serious reasons to believe that AI will not be that productive at all. Output errors (called “slop”) not only cast doubt on the reliability of AI, but are also populating the internet, which AI itself uses as a training set for new applications.

More slop in the training set means even less reliable output than earlier versions. The dream of superintelligence (artificial general intelligence, AGI) is out of reach because of the inability of engineers to code abductive logic.

If the AI bubble bursts (which I expect), it will not only hurt the Mag 7 stocks but also the picks-and-shovels plays around it.

The Private Credit Canary

A separate trigger for a market meltdown is the crisis in private credit. Funds sponsored by top managers like Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, KKR, Morgan Stanley and others are severely limiting investor withdrawals.

Complicating matters further, if fund managers try to sell assets quickly, there may be very few buyers unless the seller agrees to slash the price dramatically — sometimes by half or more compared with the stated “book value.”

Supporters of private credit say that this private market is only worth about $4 trillion and that even 20% write-offs will not jeopardize the system. But this calculation ignores the impact of leverage and the effects of contagion. Losses in private credit can trigger runs on mid-tier banks, which then spread to funds that hold those mid-tier bank stocks and so on.

The Dark Side of Passive

But the greatest threat to the stock market may be the dominance of passive investing.

The same buying dynamic that drives stock prices higher can work in reverse. A market drawdown can cause investors to sell their index funds. This causes fund managers to sell the underlying stocks, which takes down the indices, causing more selling by investors and so on.

While passive investing can push markets higher gradually, it can also drive them lower with startling speed and violence.

What’s an investor to do? The positive story for stocks is real, but the downside potential is equally real. The solution is to hedge by diversifying your portfolio. Keep some stocks, but also maintain a slice of cash, a slice of gold and medium-term U.S. Treasury notes.

Gold is the everything hedge. Treasury notes are secure and will rally when the recession goes into high gear. Cash will give you the option to go shopping for bargains when everyone else is dumping stocks.

TINA and FOMO are not your friends. Diversification is.

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 15:40

Rubio: Diplomacy Will Be Rendered 'Impossible' If Iran Enacts Hormuz Toll System

Iran has been seeking to significantly expand the area around the Strait of Hormuz over which it claims military control by this week advancing the newly-created government agency of the "Persian Gulf Strait Authority".

The agency quickly published a map proclaiming "Iranian armed forces oversight" across more than 22,000 sq km (8,800 sq miles) of the Hormuz waterway. Now, all transit through the strait "requires coordination with and authorization from the Persian Gulf Strait Authority" - the new entity announced.

Of course, Washington has made clear that international vessels must not comply with Iran's rules. Yet Tehran is Wednesday into Thursday claiming some 'victories' in this regard. 

The Iranians say they are in active discussions with Oman to establish a permanent toll system for maritime traffic passing through the strait, according to Iran’s ambassador to France, Mohammad Amin-Nejad.

"Iran and Oman must mobilize all their resources both to provide security services and to manage navigation in the most appropriate manner, prevent pollution, and simply strive to establish an order so that global trade is not subject to disruptions. This will entail costs, and it goes without saying that those who wish to benefit from this traffic must also pay their share," Amin-Nejad said, as cited in Bloomberg.

Amin-Nejad further asserted the potential costs would be "clear, transparent, reasonable, and logical" - though the system is not yet in place. An initial toll proposal, which some companies may have already paid in order to get their stranded vessels out, was reportedly up to $2 million per tanker.

Iran is also touting that China and and South Korea have been in direct communication to arrange passage of their ships:

Iran continues to control the flow of tankers through the Strait of Hormuz for political and propaganda gains as the war of words continues over the peace negotiations. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy is claiming to have increased the flow with Chinese tankers and the first South Korean tanker permitted to make the transit, while many other vessels continue to wait.

...The IRGC Navy released a statement claiming that in the past 24 hours, a total of 26 vessels safely transited the Strait of Hormuz. It said this included tankers as well as containerships and other vessels. It asserted, however, that they were all “under the coordination and security support” of the IRGC Navy. They said all the ships making the transit had obtained prior authorization and required close coordination with the IRGC. 

...South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced May 20 that its first tanker had been able to make the transit carrying about two million barrels of crude bound for Ulsan. It said there are 25 other South Korean-flagged vessels still caught in the Persian Gulf, but it was significant after Iran refused transit a month ago to another South Korean tanker that was reportedly bound for Pakistan.

If Tehran can attract each country to make separate deals for the passage of their ships, this will be hailed as a 'win' for Iran and its Hormuz protocols. 

But the US and its regional allies are not buying into Iran's narrative, with the UAE having described Iran's claims of control as "nothing but fragments of dreams."

And importantly, on Thursday US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz would render a diplomatic deal unfeasible and that the US remains "very upset with NATO" their response to the Iran crisis. He said: 

"A toll collection system in the Strait of Hormuz will make a diplomatic deal impossible."

"We are very disappointed with NATO allies, we will discuss the issue of troop deployment at the upcoming meeting."

Some vessels are paying Iranian authorities more than $150,000 for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, sources told Reuters. The US has warned that such payments might trigger American sanctions but some ship owners are paying anyway https://t.co/87HQZcBDcr pic.twitter.com/nuc7UXaFX9

— Reuters (@Reuters) May 21, 2026

But at this point, Tehran doesn't look to be in a rush to complete a deal. Trump could be ready to indefinitely withhold new military strikes, and Iran is busy rearming and regrouping. Also, as enough time passes with the stalemated situation in place, Tehran is likely to convince more countries that they have no choice but to deal with the Islamic Republic directly.

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 15:20

Democrats Move To Block Trump's $1.776 Billion 'Anti-Weaponization' Fund

Via American Greatness,

Congressional Democrats are moving to shut down President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund, escalating a political fight over compensation for Americans who say they were targeted by politically motivated prosecutions and federal lawfare.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is introducing legislation aimed at preventing any federal money from being used to create or distribute payments through the fund.

According to a copy of the bill shared with Axios, the legislation states that “no Federal funds may be used to create or make payments” tied to the Trump administration’s Anti-Weaponization Fund.

The fund emerged from a settlement between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service after the president sued the agency over the leaking of his confidential tax returns during his first term.

Under the settlement framework, individuals claiming they were victims of politically motivated prosecutions or government abuse would be able to seek compensation.

Potential applicants could include January 6 defendants and others who were unfairly targeted by federal authorities.

Raskin is reportedly considering using a discharge petition to force a House vote if Republican leadership blocks the measure from reaching the floor.

At the same time, some establishment Republicans are also voicing opposition to the fund. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick told reporters Wednesday that he would “try to kill” the program.

“We’re going to write a letter to the [attorney general] to start, but we’re considering a legislative option,” Fitzpatrick said.

Supporters of the fund argue it represents a long-overdue effort to compensate Americans harmed by politically driven prosecutions and abuses of government power.

Critics, meanwhile, claim the program would improperly use taxpayer money to compensate individuals tied to controversial investigations, including those connected to the January 6 Capitol protest.

Two law enforcement officers who were present at the Capitol on Jan. 6 have already filed a lawsuit seeking to dissolve the fund entirely.

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 15:00

Marcus Lemonis Fires Back On X Over Claims Camping World Spiraling Toward Bankruptcy

America's largest RV dealer and service chain, selling new and used motorhomes, travel trailers, and more for outdoor living, has been under pressure over the past several years as high interest rates have crushed RV demand.

An X user with the handle "Roger" laid out his thesis on why Camping World is next on the list to "file Chapter 11 bankruptcy with $3.5 billion of unpayable debt," adding, "West Marine (one of the largest boat suppliers in the US) just filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy today, holding over $1 billion in debt."

Camping World $CWH expected to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy with $3.5 billion of unpayable debt.

West Marine (one of largest boat suppliers in US) just filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy today holding over $1 billion in debt.

RV and Boat Bankruptcies. The signs are clear. pic.twitter.com/hBUvxQ5sWJ

— Roger (@rdd147) May 21, 2026

Camping World Revenues and Liabilities

Roger added, "RV and Boat Bankruptcies. The signs are clear."

Same boat as West Marine. Camping World is in Final stages of screwing the landlord to pay the debt holders. pic.twitter.com/25KTtPlZcq

— Roger (@rdd147) May 21, 2026

Shares of Camping World have been locked in a brutal bear market since peaking near $45 in late 2021, with the stock now down about 86% as of Thursday. The sell-off has pushed shares back toward Covid-era lows, as high interest rates continue to choke off RV demand and corporate America as a whole warns that consumers have significantly dialed back on big-ticket items (read here).

Responding on X to Roger's bear thesis on Camping World was none other than Marcus Lemonis, CEO of Bed Bath & Beyond, co-founder of Camping World, and TV personality.

Lemonis said Roger's view that Camping World was sliding toward bankruptcy was "totally false."

Totally false

— Marcus Lemonis (@marcuslemonis) May 21, 2026

Roger then responded to Lemonis: "Explain. Why are liabilities rising, in particular lease obligations? Paying debt holders and not rent is end-stage preparation. See West Marine. Couldn't pay its leases."

Explain. Why are liabilities rising, in particular lease obligations?

Paying debt holders and not rent is end stage preparation. See West Marine. Couldn’t pay its leases.

Honestly happy to hear an assessment pic.twitter.com/7uzCrIdtq2

— Roger (@rdd147) May 21, 2026

Roger ended with: "Honestly, happy to hear an assessment."

The CEO just entered the chat and bodied you. You shorting the company or?

— Brandox (@AngelsKill) May 21, 2026

Here is Wall Street's view on Camping World:

And the fact that Marcus Lemonis felt compelled to respond to a random X user raises its own set of questions.

False. Do your research

— Marcus Lemonis (@marcuslemonis) May 21, 2026

The stock is 21% short, equivalent to about 12.5 million shares, with 2.7 days to cover. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 05/21/2026 - 14:40