Amid Retirement Challenges, Younger Generations Show Hope

Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times,

Americans of all ages increasingly view a comfortable retirement as a challenge, according to recent studies.

From baby boomers nearing their final paycheck, Gen X being late to the savings game, and millennials with employment-sponsored plans to Gen Z grappling with artificial intelligence (AI) on the first rungs of the career ladder, the challenges and outlook for each generation are very different.

Wealth management experts told The Epoch Times that the reality will likely mean lifestyle changes for many before and during their golden years. Laying out the pitfalls and opportunities for each, they also warn that some of the current expectations about certain generations might not hold true.

With more than 30 million Americans estimated to reach the age of 65 by 2030, according to Nasdaq, the road after retirement will be rocky for those who aren’t financially prepared.

In December, investment company Vanguard released a report that found that 58 percent of Americans will be unable to maintain their current lifestyles in retirement.

“The study primarily focused on an important metric: maintenance of their lifestyle in retirement. As a fiduciary retirement planner, I believe this is the most important metric to consider,” said Paul Murray, president of PTM Wealth Management.

“No one really wants to live on a tight budget after a lifetime of work.”

The Vanguard report also suggests that younger age groups and millennials may be better prepared for retirement than baby boomers because of wider access to defined contribution plans and better employer-sponsored options.

Murray disagrees, saying that the report is an “optimistic snapshot in time that is bound to be revised downward into the future.”

He said he believes that younger generations, including Gen Z and millennials, are more likely to struggle to define an acceptable living standard as the employment landscape changes, especially because of advances in technology.

He said most of the baby boomers he has worked with have maintained a “strong commitment” to saving in employer-sponsored plans.

“I consider baby boomers to have been fortunate to have accumulated wealth in a comparatively less complicated world, benefiting from the conservative values their parents passed on to them,” Murray told The Epoch Times.

“Vicinte,” who had been waiting in line overnight, prepares to enter Fresno Mission for food in Fresno, Calif., on Oct. 1, 2025. A December Vanguard report found 58 percent of Americans will not be able to maintain their current lifestyle in retirement. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

The ‘Steady Savers’

Esmeralda Quintero, wealth management adviser at Iarann Wealth, said that younger generations tend to “look more prepared on paper.”

“Many of them started saving earlier through auto-enrollment and easy access to Roth accounts,” she told The Epoch Times.

“They grew up hearing about market crashes and shaky pensions, so they’re more aware than older generations were at the same age.”

However, awareness isn’t the same as action, according to Quintero.

“Gen Z spends a lot on lifestyle, travel, and convenience. If they don’t start building habits in their 20s—into 401k, Roth IRA, regular investing—they could fall behind quickly,” she said.

“From what I see with clients, millennials are the most steady savers. They’ve built discipline because they’ve lived through multiple economic shocks. Gen X is trying the hardest to catch up because retirement is getting close. The least prepared tend to be late boomers who didn’t have strong retirement plans early in their careers,” Quintero said.

Chris Heerlein, CEO of retirement planning firm REAP Financial, had a similar take, noting that millennials and Gen Z are better savers than some would expect.

Students walk on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Sept. 20, 2024. Paul Murray, who leads a wealth management firm, says younger generations may struggle to define an acceptable living standard as the employment landscape changes, especially because of advances in technology. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

“Young generations are more financially prepared because they separate their identities from their incomes,” Heerlein told The Epoch Times.

He said he believes that the large debt held by older generations stemmed from associating self-worth with earnings, climbing a ladder, and upgrading their lifestyles at each stage of the journey.

“Younger workers these days, for all the criticism they get, tend to cap their lifestyles at an earlier stage and begin redirecting income into long-term savings earlier,” Heerlein said.

Manulife John Hancock Retirement’s financial resilience and longevity survey found that 56 percent of Gen X feel as if they’re behind in their retirement savings, while 70 percent of Gen Z said they’re focused on day-to-day expenses.

While financial planners may be bullish about younger workers saving money, these age groups don’t appear to harbor the same level of confidence.

The Manulife analysis noted that 52 percent of Gen Z and 53 percent of millennials rate their finances as either fair or poor. By contrast, 49 percent of Gen X and 34 percent of baby boomers felt the same.

Longer Life, Bigger Nest Egg?

Part of this gloomy outlook comes from how many years people expect to spend outside the workforce. Last year, a Corebridge Financial survey highlighted that many Americans expect to live longer, shifting the perspective on how much is needed to survive their golden years.

Half of U.S. residents think it’s possible to live for 100 years. However, Corebridge Financial stated that there’s a “clear disconnect” between longevity optimism and retirement planning. Half of the non-retired respondents are only planning for 20 years or less of retirement, but most don’t intend to work beyond their early 60s.

The reality of retirement savings takes on a different focus for Gen X and baby boomers. According to a 2024 AARP survey, one in every five Americans older than 50 years of age has nothing saved for retirement, while 61 percent are worried that they won’t have enough money to support themselves outside their working years.

Customers use ATMs at a Bank of America office in Daly City, Calif., on July 18, 2023. According to a 2024 AARP survey, one in every five Americans over 50 years had nothing saved for retirement. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

“Every adult in America deserves to retire with dignity and financial security. Yet far too many people lack access to retirement savings options and this, coupled with higher prices, is making it increasingly hard for people to choose when to retire,” Indira Venkateswaran, AARP senior vice president of research, stated on the organization’s website.

“Everyday expenses continue to be the top barrier to saving more for retirement, and some older Americans say that they never expect to retire,” she said.

Optimism improved this year for younger generations, according to AARP’s Financial Security Trends Survey.

Among adults older than the age of 30, 26 percent reported their financial situation in January was better than 12 months earlier—the largest segment that expressed this since the survey began in 2022.

That said, one in four U.S. residents in the same age group said their financial situation got worse during the same period.

Different Generations, Different Pressures

Vanguard’s own researchers called their analysis “pessimistic” in comparison to other recent retirement reports because of growing levels of personal debt across the age spectrum.

Vanguard predicted the median-income individual will suffer an annual spending shortfall of $5,000 after retirement. If this is true, then many will be forced to fall back on other assets, Social Security, or even return to the workforce to maintain the same lifestyle.

Murray, Quintero, and Heerlein all said a $5,000 spending shortfall is realistic based on the savings trends they’ve seen and inflated living costs.

“For some households, it may be more, especially with health care and rising living costs. Many people will need to work longer, spend differently, or use home equity. The biggest barriers to retirement are housing costs, debt, inconsistent access to employer plans, and rising medical expenses,” Quintero said.

Students arrive at Nora Sterry Elementary School with a parent in Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 2025. The biggest barriers to retirement are housing costs, debt, inconsistent access to employer plans, and rising medical expenses, one expert said. Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images

“Each generation deals with a different version of that. Gen Z faces expensive housing and a shaky job market. Millennials are juggling debt and delayed homeownership. Gen X is squeezed between raising kids and supporting aging parents. Boomers are dealing with longevity and health care shocks.”

Heerlein said lifestyle adjustments on paper are more than just numbers.

“I think what people underestimate is the emotional stress that it causes. I’ve seen retired people avoid seeing their grandkids or skip little trips because they don’t know if their budget allows it,” he said.

Some of this shortfall stems from what Heerlein called “decision overload.”

“The typical family has a bunch of different accounts thrown here and there. More often than not, people are embarrassed to admit they don’t know what’s going on with all of them,” he said.

In his work, Heerlein said baby boomers often look at all these separate parts and feel overwhelmed trying to figure out how to turn them into a paycheck-like income.

U.S. dollar bills in Washington on Nov. 13, 2025. With record demand on Social Security and Medicare and record national debt, Paul Murray expects taxes to rise across the board. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

His Gen X clients say they feel like they’re being crushed from all sides because many are taking care of their own finances along with that of their parents.

Are Taxes the Biggest Threat?

Murray said he believes that the most impactful lifestyle adjustment for Americans won’t come from a lack of fiscal belt-tightening before retirement but higher taxes.

“The biggest and most profound reason why future generations are threatened is taxes,” he said.

With the national debt surpassing a record $38 trillion in 2025, alongside record-high demands on Social Security and Medicare, Murray said he expects taxes will likely increase across the board.

“The reason why this is so critical ... is because Gen Z and millennials are still largely saving in tax-deferred accounts, and every dollar they remove in retirement to maintain their standard of living will be subject to income tax. As taxes increase to mitigate our country’s fiscal decline, there will be less after-tax spending power,” he said.

Ultimately, Quintero said addressing retirement plans on the front end is the best strategy.

“Every group has a hurdle, but the earlier someone starts addressing theirs, the better their retirement looks,” she said.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 22:35

"Largest Ever Retail Theft Ring" In Queens Busted After Stealing $2.2 Million From Home Depot

Prosecutors in Queens say they have dismantled what they describe as the largest organized retail theft ring ever prosecuted in the borough, after a crew allegedly stole more than $2.2 million worth of merchandise from Home Depot stores across nine states, according to ABC. 

Thirteen people were charged in a sweeping 780-count indictment that accuses the group of carrying out 319 thefts at 128 Home Depot locations in New York and eight other states. On some days, prosecutors say, the crew stole as little as $1,800 in goods and as much as nearly $35,000. Authorities said the volume of stolen tools and construction equipment was enough to “build an unknown number of houses.”

Investigators allege the defendants met in Queens to plan their thefts, then split into teams that scouted store inventories online the night before targeting specific locations. The stolen merchandise was transported back to Queens and resold, either through a Brooklyn storefront or on Facebook Marketplace. According to prosecutors, the group sometimes hit the same Home Depot up to four times in a single day, taking breaks for meals in between.

Governor Kathy Hochul and Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced the takedown Thursday. “Since taking office, my highest priority has been driving down crime and keeping New Yorkers safe,” Hochul said, crediting new funding for an organized retail theft task force and tougher laws for helping bring the case together. She said the effort has made New York safer for businesses, workers and shoppers.

Katz outlined the scope of the case, saying, “Thirteen defendants, over $2.2 million in merchandise, 319 incidents of theft, nine states and 128 separate Home Depot stores are the facts alleged, resulting in a 780-count indictment.” She added that her office worked closely with state police to stop the operation.

Hochul said changes to larceny laws allowed investigators to combine multiple thefts, elevating cases from misdemeanors to felonies. “Since we changed the laws and put money behind this effort, retail theft crimes are down 14% in the city and across the state of New York,” she said.

Eleven of the suspects appeared before a judge Wednesday. One defendant remains at large, and the others face up to 25 years in prison if convicted. Katz said the arrests send a clear warning: “The message today is organized retail crime will not go unanswered in this borough.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 22:10

Why Governments Prefer Cigarette Revenue Over Safer Alternatives

Authored by Roger Bate via The Brownstone Institute,

In December 2024, Congress did something unusual: it introduced a bill that openly acknowledges tobacco harm reduction. The POUCH Act of 2024, sponsored by Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI) and co-sponsored by Rep. Don Davis (D-NC), aims to prevent states and cities from banning or restricting FDA–authorized lower-risk products, including modern nicotine pouches and vaping products.

It is a modest bill, but one that finally moves federal policy in a sensible direction. The basic premise is straightforward: if the FDA has determined that a product is appropriate for the protection of public health, states should not be allowed to ban it for political, fiscal, or ideological reasons. This should not be a radical idea, but within the chaos of American nicotine regulation, it almost counts as revolutionary.

However, the bill also reveals a deeper truth about why the United States struggles so badly with harm reduction. It exposes the forces that keep smokers tied to cigarettes, protect government revenue streams, and effectively eliminate smaller innovators who cannot survive the regulatory gauntlet.

To understand why harm reduction keeps stalling, one must start with a simple reality: state governments make more money from cigarettes than anyone else.

The Real Beneficiary of Smoking: State Treasuries

Public-health activists often blame “Big Tobacco,” but the largest financial beneficiary of smoking in the US is the state itself. For every $100 spent on cigarettes, state coffers typically collect between $60 and $90 through excise taxes, sales taxes, and payments from the Master Settlement Agreement. States have built enormous, stable revenue streams on the backs of smokers.

When a smoker switches to nicotine pouches, the state does not merely lose some revenue—it loses most of it immediately. A switch from combustibles to pouches can cut state revenue from around $60–$90 per $100 spent to as little as five or ten dollars. No wonder state governments resist harm reduction. Pouches are good for public health but bad for the budget.

This is where Upton Sinclair’s observation becomes newly relevant: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” State treasuries do not want to internalize the logic of harm reduction because doing so would mean confronting the fiscal consequences of their dependence on cigarette revenue.

Why the POUCH Act Matters—And Why It Falls Short

The POUCH Act curbs state-level obstruction by instructing governments to respect the FDA’s scientific determinations. If the FDA authorizes a nicotine pouch or vape as appropriate for the protection of public health, it should not be banned by states that prefer the revenue from cigarettes. This restores a basic principle of regulatory coherence.

Yet the bill does not address the more fundamental failure at the federal level: the misclassification of nicotine pouches under the Center for Tobacco Products. Nicotine pouches contain no tobacco leaf, produce no smoke, involve no combustion, and have a toxicological profile closer to nicotine replacement therapies. Treating them like cigarettes is scientifically wrong and administratively harmful.

The FDA’s Pre-Market Tobacco Application process, designed for a different era, demands millions of dollars in data, toxicology, modeling, and population-level analysis. Large cigarette companies can afford these submissions. Smaller and mid-sized innovators cannot. Many have spent years in regulatory limbo, not because their products are unsafe, but because the agency reviewing them is structurally incapable of seeing the bigger picture. Regulators delay, request more studies, and fail to differentiate between high-risk and low-risk products.

In this environment, only the largest incumbents can survive long enough to receive FDA authorizations. Small companies fold. Their products vanish not due to safety failures but because the regulatory system is built in a way that privileges the deep-pocketed.

The irony is obvious: the more the FDA insists on treating safer products like cigarettes, the more it guarantees that cigarette companies will remain the dominant players in the nicotine market.

A Needed Next Step: Remove Nicotine Pouches from FDA-CTP Completely

If Congress wants to support adult switching, it must eventually reform the regulatory structure itself. Nicotine pouches should not be overseen by the Center for Tobacco Products. They should be subject to a proportionate regulatory framework—age restrictions, manufacturing standards, disclosures, contaminant testing—but not a system designed for combustibles.

Treating pouches like cigarettes guarantees two outcomes: slower harm-reduction adoption and consolidation of the market into a few multinational tobacco firms.

Treating pouches like modern consumer products supports innovation, competition, and switching.

The Bigger Picture: The POUCH Act Opens a Door Congress Must Walk Through

The POUCH Act is a step in the right direction. It attempts to return a measure of coherence to nicotine regulation by ensuring that states cannot override the FDA’s public-health judgments. It forces transparency around the FDA’s enormous backlog of applications. And it signals a small but important bipartisan recognition that harm reduction matters.

But if Congress wants to truly reduce smoking, it must address the system as a whole: the fiscal incentives that encourage states to keep smokers smoking, the misclassification that traps low-risk products in an inappropriate regulatory category, and the procedural delays that quietly eliminate small innovators while protecting only those companies wealthy enough to outlast the bureaucracy.

The POUCH Act is a beginning, not an endpoint. If lawmakers are serious about improving public health, they must resist the gravitational pull of the Sinclair Trap and design a nicotine policy that rewards switching rather than punishing it.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 21:45

Tennessee Christmas Parade Blocks Participation Of Gay Pride Group

The culture war in the US is far from over, but it's probably safe to say that most Americans are fed up with gay pride.  Without the flood of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to leftist NGOs from institutions like USAID, the prevalence of LGBT propaganda has gone into decline compared to the past five years. 

In 2025 "Pride Month" was barely a blip on the gaydar and most corporations desperate to bring back consumers have abandoned their overt woke marketing.  However, one odd tactic that leftist activists have been clinging to is the injection of pride ideology into Christian tradition.  Many critics argue that it is a blatant attempt to co-opt western religion and destroy it from within.

Enfield United Church of Christ pastor Greg Gray says Jesus Christ was “pretty queer” because he hung out with 12 guys pic.twitter.com/4oRXScbAvw

— Daily Loud (@DailyLoud) August 15, 2025

The movement has not limited itself to fake churches with "gay pastors", they have also been targeting Christmas events and symbolism.  By saturating every aspect of American life LGBT groups hope to normalize their ideology, but they are really just pissing people off.  The public, no longer fearing reprisals from the cancel culture mob, are finally saying no.  

A Tennessee Christmas parade organization has recently denied the application of a group called "Upper Cumberland Pride" who planned on entering a gay-themed float.  Pride groups were allowed to participate in the parade in 2024.  

The Cookeville Christmas Parade organization said in a statement that it rejected the application to avoid political distractions. 

“Our goal from the beginning has been to point others to the reason for the holiday that we are celebrating. We wanted to make much of the person of Jesus born in Bethlehem. To do so and in efforts to minimize distraction from Him, we planned this event with stated prohibitions of special interest groups. Although we agree there is a time and an important role played by special interest groups such as Upper Cumberland Pride, we didn’t think this was it."

The parade also rejected an application from a Young Republicans group, keeping politics out of the event on both sides of the aisle.  The Cookeville Christmas Parade is scheduled for Friday and this year’s theme is “Remember the Reason.”

LGBT activists argue that the rejection of their float is contrary to the Christian doctrine of "love thy neighbor."  Others called for a more inclusive "holiday" parade next year that would "represent all faiths."   Imagine what would happen if activists living in an Islamic country demanded that Muslims be more accommodating to other religions and gay pride for Ramadan?  

It should be noted that public sympathy for LGBT causes is plunging due to the extreme nature of trans ideology, including the targeting of children for indoctrination.  According to the latest YouGov poll, support for gay marriage has dropped dramatically; over 70% of Americans supported legal gay marriage in 2021, but in 2025 that number has dropped to 54%.   

Woke adherents use the claim that Christianity is required to be accepting as a means of manipulation, but the reality is that the Bible is rather specific on the exclusion of homosexuality.  Furthermore, Christians believe in "loving the sinner, but rejecting the sin."  That is to say, they believe in repentance and redemption, not enabling behaviors they view as degenerate.

This concept is completely alien to progressives, who believe that all behaviors and morals are relative and that the only true sin is to disagree with them.

For most leftists the forced injection of gay pride in Christian spaces is about conquest, not inclusion.  Like dogs marking their territory, they are letting conservatives know that no place is safe from their movement.  There's no other reason for them to attempt to participate in traditions they so vocally despise.  

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 21:20

US & China Are Headed For An AI Collision

Authored by Oren Etzioni via American Greatness,

President Trump spoke by phone to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on Monday, November 24, and later posted on Truth Social, “Our relationship with China is extremely strong!”

The warm feelings from Washington came on the heels of the two leaders holding a productive meeting in Korea recently and scheduling several more get-confabs for the year ahead.

But bubbling beneath the surface is a rivalry between the two countries over the most vital technology of the 21st century: artificial intelligence.

To understand the rivalry, consider a recent announcement by the U.S. Justice Department: on November 20, it charged two Americans and two Chinese nationals with a conspiracy to illegally export about 400 high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) to China.

Federal law requires that a license be secured for the export of these technologies, which can be used to develop and strengthen AI.

The co-conspirators didn’t have a license – and never even applied for one. In fact, they lied about the destination of the GPUs when shipping them. And for their services, they received a cool $3.89 million in wire transfers from China.

The backdrop to this smuggling scheme is Beijing having set a goal for China to be the world’s leader in AI by 2030. And it’s made considerable headway.

“China is the global leader in AI research publications and is neck and neck with the United States on generative AI,” points out the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

It adds that China is “advancing rapidly in AI research and application, challenging the United States’ dominance in this critical field.”

This progress stems from massive investments by the Chinese government in the 21st century. From 2000 to 2023, venture capital funds connected to the Chinese government made $184 billion in investments in China-based companies in the AI sector, according to a study published last year and conducted by professors at Harvard, MIT, and Oxford.

In an amusing coincidence of timing, one day after the smuggling indictment, Huawei – a leading Chinese technology company – announced a tool called Flex:ai that it said, “improves the utilization of artificial intelligence-based chipsets.”

The announcement also made the obligatory nod to corporate citizenship, saying that the technology will “speed up the democratization of AI.” But the company buried the lede, as they say in journalism, saving the most important detail – which is curiously attributed to “sources” – for the final sentence: “the new software tool will help China create an analogue AI chip 1000 times faster than Nvidia’s chips.”

Huawei is not just any company. It is the world’s largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment. And it’s also been engaged in the kind of skullduggery that resulted in the recent indictment. In 2020, the U.S. Justice Department indicted the company and four of its subsidiaries. The charges mostly revolved around attempts to steal trade secrets from U.S. companies.

The company used an array of tactics, but perhaps most brazen of all, it paid its employees bonuses if they procured confidential information from rival companies.

And when U.S. law enforcement was investigating Huawei, the company told its employees not to comply.

Suffice to say, there’s good reason not to trust the Chinese government and its proxy companies like Huawei.

The Trump administration recognizes the threat.

In late June, it wisely approved a merger between two American companies that compete with Huawei: Hewlett-Packard Enterprises and Juniper Networks. A senior U.S. national security official told Axios:

 “In light of significant national security concerns, a settlement . . . serves the interests of the United States by strengthening domestic capabilities and is critical to countering Huawei and China.”

The official said blocking the deal would have “hindered American companies and empowered” Chinese competitors.

Given the economic importance of AI to countries throughout the world, the competition between the United States and China is regrettable. But it’s probably also inevitable.

China is not abiding by the rules that are supposed to govern the global economy. And it’s using AI, says the Justice Department, to bolster its military, to test weapons of mass destruction, and to heighten surveillance.

Sometime next year, President Trump is scheduled to make a state visit to Beijing, and Xi is scheduled to come to Washington. They’re destined to focus on the cooperative parts of the relationship, but you don’t need to ask ChatGPT to see that the two countries are on a collision course over AI. Buckle up.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 20:55

Hysterical Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Declares Trump Larger Threat Than Islamic Terrorism

The Democrat Party has taken a break from comparing President Donald Trump to Adof Hitler to warn that the president is a larger threat to the United States than Islamic jihad.

The hysterical remarks came during a Tuesday appearance on NewsNation's "On Balance," where host Leland Vittert asked Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) whether Islamophobia or jihad posed the larger threat to American life and values, following the recent terror attack targeting Jews at Bondi Beach that killed 15 people and wounded dozens more.

“I think we have to focus, quite frankly, on, if we’re worried about the threat to American values, on the person who’s in the White House. I mean, we have a president,” Schultz, who is Jewish, said. “Yeah, I’m going there because we have a president who has completely undermined our democracy.”

“So you don’t see jihad, you don’t see this as a problem?” a stunned Vittert asked.

Democrat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz says Trump is a bigger threat to America than radical islamic jihadist t*rrorists
pic.twitter.com/R8cIjgVSbj

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 17, 2025

“What I don’t see is it as a single lens problem. We have a president who has been determined to undermine our constitutional principles, to degrade our democracy, to divide instead of unite us,” the Florida Democrat replied.

Wasserman Schultz went on to accuse Trump - often described as one of the most pro-Israel U.S. presidents in recent decades - of permitting antisemitism to grow, citing his 2022 dinner with rapper Kanye West, where anti-MAGA podcaster Nick Fuentes tagged along.

“I want a president who actually walks the walk as much as he talks the talk,” Schultz said. “I want a president that makes sure that we restore the nonprofit security grant funding that protects Jewish institutions and other religious institutions from attacks like we’re talking about here. I want a president who isn’t closing down divisions that investigate discriminatory conduct and antisemitic attacks.”

A White House spokesperson pushed back strongly in a statement to Fox News, saying, “Only someone suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome would make such an outlandish comment.

“Following several recent high-profile cases of Jihadist attacks, no sane person should hesitate to condemn radical Islamic terrorism. Debbie Wasserman Schultz obviously does not fit in that category.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 20:30

China Sues Sen. Schmitt And Others For Defamation Over COVID-19 Lawsuit

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Years ago, I called the pandemic arguably the greatest case of negligence in the history of torts. However, with millions dead and hundreds of billions expended, it was unlikely that China would ever be truly held accountable for its actions. Those failures include not only the alleged release of the virus from the Wuhan lab but also China’s concealment of the release until it had spread globally. A $24 billion judgment was secured in Missouri earlier this year, but China defied the verdict.

Now, it has countersued, naming former Missouri Attorney General and now Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., among others as defendants. Even by the standards of the Chinese legal system, this action is legally absurd. However, in the CCP-controlled court system, the verdict is little in doubt.

China posted a notice of the lawsuit in Wuhan, naming the state of Missouri and Andrew T. Bailey, in addition to Schmitt. Bailey is listed in the notice as the current Missouri Attorney General, but he recently left that job to become the FBI’s co-deputy director.

After international service under the International Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters, the defendants are called to appear before the Intermediate People’s Court of Wuhan Municipality of Hubei Province, Jianghan District in Wuhan. They are being sued for $356.4 billion Chinese Yuan, or $50.5 billion — just over twice the amount awarded in Missouri.

The complaint demands “public apologies on New York Times, CNN, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, YouTube and other American media or internet platforms, and People’s Daily, Xinhuanet and other Chinese media or internet platforms…”

The filing is premised on their bringing a successful action against China in United States courts and effectively defaming Wuhan, Chinese officials, and the government generally. I have taught torts for over 30 years and would be hard pressed to come up with a more meritless claim, but law means little in the Chinese court system.

The Missouri action named the Chinese government, various ministries, the Communist Party of China, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences as defendants. They were found to have withheld information about the COVID-19 virus, failed to contain the outbreak, and actively hoarded high-quality personal protective equipment (PPE) while producing and selling lower-quality PPE to the rest of the world.

After securing the largest damage award in that state’s history, the current Attorney General filed with the U.S. State Department for diplomatic provided service to China in November 2025. Once service is confirmed, Missouri can return to the district court to obtain certification of compliance with service and seek to seize Chinese-owned assets, including real property, financial interests, and other holdings tied to the defendants.

That is what clearly prompted this tit-for-tat litigation in Wuhan.

The Chinese lawsuit names the defendants as an economic and reputational threat to the People’s Republic of China. It argues that their actions have had “negative effects on the soft power” of Wuhan and have “belittled the social evaluation” as well as adversely affected the “productivity and commercialization of scientific and technological achievements” of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

It cites the defendants as having engaged in “vexatious litigation” that “defamed Plaintiffs’ reputation, resulting in huge economic losses of the Plaintiffs, and deeply endangering sovereignty, security and development interests of China.”

Obviously, this is not vexatious litigation in any actual legal sense. The Missouri litigation was based on long-established legal precedent, even if the judgment itself against a foreign nation was unprecedented in size.

The notion that these allegations constitute defamation is absurd. First, these allegations are well-established by various countries. China enlisted the World Health Organization (WHO) and others to echo its denials about the virus’s origin. Even after the Biden Administration sought to suppress evidence and views implicating China, federal agencies and experts ultimately refuted those denials.

Even under the more demanding standard that applies to public officials and public figures (known as the “actual malice” standard), China would fall short. There is ample and credible evidence to support these statements, including findings from other countries.

There is also a type of group libel element to the Chinese action.

Such lawsuits are very difficult to maintain.  In Neiman-Marcus v. Lait (1952), a New York federal district court addressed a defamation claim arising from the publication of the book “U.S.A. Confidential.” The author wrote that “some” models and “all” saleswomen at the Neiman-Marcus department store in Dallas were “call girls.” It also claimed that “most” of the salesmen in the men’s store were “faggots.” The store had nine models, 382 saleswomen and 25 salesmen. The court found the size of the group of women was too big to satisfy a group libel standard. However, the size of the group of salesmen was viewed as sufficiently small to go to trial.

Here, China is suggesting that not only was the entire Wuhan staff but the entire nation was effectively defamed. That absurd claim was actually tried by a Chinese American group in the United States over Trump’s reference to COVID-19 as Kung Flu. The Chinese American Civil Rights Coalition brought that meritless case, which was quickly dismissed.

China is clearly hoping to engineer a verdict and then somehow use it to counterbalance or negate the Missouri judgment. It will still be tough for Missouri to ever collect on this judgment. However, the verdict was an important effort to secure a judgment on China’s conduct leading to a worldwide pandemic.

One has to assume that the Wuhan court will dutifully render a verdict to counter Missouri.

It will do little beyond confirming in the mind of many that China is as nimble at manipulating the legal system as it is at allegedly manipulating spike proteins.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 20:05

Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios.

Friday:
• At 10:00 AM ET, Existing Home Sales for November from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The consensus is for 4.15 million SAAR, up from 4.10 million.

• Also at 10:00 AM, University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (Final for December).

Peak Wokeism & More: Doug Casey On 2025's Defining Events And What Comes Next

Via InternationalMan.com,

International Man: As we step back and look at 2025—politically, economically, technologically, and culturally—which developments mattered the most?

Doug Casey: Politically, and in every other way, it’s all about Trump. As Shakespeare said of Julius Caesar, “he doth bestride the narrow world. Like a Colossus, and we petty men. Walk under his huge legs and peep about. To find ourselves dishonorable graves.”

Trump has his finger in everything, in all countries, all spheres of enterprise, everywhere. He’s a political phenomenon with authoritarian tendencies. Which is a natural consequence of an unstable “democracy.” In fact, Caesar rose to power because of the late Roman Republic’s chronic political instability—much of which he caused. Trump could be America’s answer to Caesar.

I made that observation to a friend who, like me, is prone to classical references. He countered that perhaps Trump sees himself as a Cincinnatus lookalike. Cincinnatus, you’ll recall, was a patrician citizen appointed dictator in about 458 BC to deal with a military emergency. He quickly did so. Instead of serving out the rest of his six-month term, he handed back his power and returned to his farm.

Trump sees that the US is on the cusp of a cultural crisis, and wants to avert it. He’s certainly a cultural conservative who wants to return the country to the halcyon days of yesteryear, the way it was in “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best.” But he’s also a narcissist and a megalomaniac, trying to reorder the world by signing hundreds of Executive Orders, creating chaos with his tariffs, subsidies, threats, attacks, and arbitrary blustering. At heart, Trump is a Caesar, not a Cincinnatus,

Economically, the U.S. is imitating Argentina. His actions are pretty much those of Perón, who was responsible for the destruction of the Argentine economy: tariffs to protect domestic industries, lots of arbitrary regulations, and government “partnerships” with corporations. Both Peron and Trump are reminiscent of Mussolini. It’s a slippery slope.

He’s surrounded himself with sycophants and lickspittles. His tariffs have an excellent chance of upending both the domestic and world economies. He claims that he will replace the income tax with tariffs, which sounds great. It’s true that tariffs paid for over 75% of government expenditures up to 1916. But that was when Federal spending was tiny, about 1.5% of GDP. Today, the only way to reduce taxes is to reduce spending—but Trump loves spending. DOGE is long forgotten. I predict he’ll outdo FDR by every measure in spending.

He claims to have ended eight wars around the world: Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the DRC and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Israel and Gaza. In each and every case, there’s been zero change in the fundamentals. Any ceasefires were the result of threats and bribery. By intervening, the US is likely to involve itself militarily in these places. Not to mention that he’s at the point of starting a war with Venezuela. Trump loves hyperbole, prevarication, and half-truths. His word is approaching zero value, both inside and outside the US.

There’s so much more. Will ICE ever be disbanded? Will it deport 30 million illegal aliens? Will tourism from advanced countries, worth about $250 billion a year, collapse with Trump’s new demands for vast amounts of personal data? Even though Zelensky can be shown to have personally looted several billion dollars, will he be reinstated as Ukraine’s president? What will the consequences be of Trump’s promiscuously granting pardons to friendly billionaires? Will he get away with the billion-dollar rug pull on his and Melania’s worthless cryptocoins?

We’re in a state of political chaos.

Financially, the destruction of the currency can only accelerate when Trump gets his new Fed chairman.

Technologically, we’re in an AI bubble. I don’t doubt that AI will enable huge scientific advances, but I wonder if the hundreds of billions going into AI will ever show an economic return. If not, the losses could result in real upset. The amounts are so large that—apart from the deleterious ways it can be used—they might cause a real drop in the general standard of living. Or at least catalyze a stock market collapse. The old saying “high-tech, big wreck” will likely once again prove true, even if AI changes the world for the better—which is not a certainty.

On the bright side, SpaceX can build giant rockets with large payloads and reuse them multiple times, cutting costs by a factor of 10 or 100. Bezos’ Blue Origin is doing the same. As are the Chinese. Technologically, 2025 was a great year, and in the long run, technology is what drives civilization. Loads of civilizations, governments, religions, and ideologies have risen and fallen in the 12,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age. The one thing that’s progressed on an accelerating curve, bringing mankind out of the mud, is technology.

There’s cause for long-term optimism, even if some bad things happen. However, technology needs more capital than ever. And if the economic, financial, political, and cultural problems—including Wokism and the resurgence of Islam—make it impossible to accumulate adequate capital, even the great flywheel of technology could slow down.

The biggest problem is cultural Wokeism.

Maybe the election of Trump signals peak Wokeism; many sensible people are reacting against it. But its underlying causes in the educational system, and the hive mind of Boobus americanus, are still there.

The optimist in me says that 2025 probably signals a turning point.

International Man: 2025 seemed to accelerate the delegitimization of major institutions—the media, academia, government, and even central banks.

Has the loss of trust reached the point of no return? What does that imply for the stability of the US and other countries going forward?

Doug Casey: Not so long ago, the electronic media meant CBS, NBC, and ABC. I’m not saying they were particularly truthful, but newsmen like Huntley and Brinkley, Edward R Murrow, and Walter Cronkite were thoughtful and independent. Their spoken words had more credibility than the writing in manipulative newspaper behemoths like those of Pulitzer and Hearst. Print publishers were replaced by electronic networks. Now, blow-dried lookalike corporate newscasters have lost credibility. They’ve been replaced by independent media, podcasts, and blogs. It’s true that the old institutions have been delegitimized. It’s much as Buckminster Fuller said: “You don’t change things by destroying the old order; you change the old order by making it irrelevant.”

The same thing is happening with academia. It’s become obvious to almost everybody that college is a negative value. Parents are aware that, starting in grade school, their kids are subjected to standardized indoctrination. Schools have become corrupt babysitters that enrich administrators while impoverishing their customers.

Let me draw your attention to a current series called The Chair about a totally woke mid-level Ivy League university on the edge of chaos. I mention it because I had trouble figuring out whether it was a spoof of the educational system or a semi-documentary description of it.

As for government, I suppose people are genetically programmed to want leaders. Just in my lifetime, governments have become vastly more powerful and coercive. On the other hand, the concepts of libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism have gone from things that nobody had even heard of to being widely discussed. And people are even starting to understand how central banks create fiat money, and that an increase in the money supply is what causes inflation. Even that meme is getting traction.

So there’s some cause for optimism regarding the delegitimization of corrupt old institutions. But if trust collapses too far, and everywhere, that implies bad things for the stability of society.

The U.S. used to be a high-trust culture with shared values and long-term time preferences. But now, with the mass immigration of vastly different cultures with conflicting values and very short-term time preferences, that’s changing—and not for the better. The new migrants sense that traditional American institutions in the U.S. are washing away, and they’re taking advantage of it.

International Man: Economically, 2025 was a paradox: financial markets hit new highs while the average household struggled under rising debt and falling real wages.

What does this divergence tell you about the underlying state of the economy—and where does it lead from here?

Doug Casey: The health and direction of the stock market and the economy are two different things. The massive money creation that’s gone on in the U.S. for decades, but especially over the last 10 years, has found its way into the stock market as a place to hide, out of self-preservation. I think both the stock market and the economy are riding for a fall.

International Man: It seems to many that the US is approaching a period of major political, social, and institutional upheaval. Do you think the country is at the beginning of a broader historical shift?

Doug Casey: Strauss and Howe’s book, The Fourth Turning, predicted a major upset would occur about now. But they didn’t predict who would win. I agree. My only prediction is that the US will be a different place in 10 years. Whether it will be “better” or “worse” is an open question.

*  *   *

Doug Casey’s candid assessment of 2025 makes one thing clear: we’re living through a historic inflection point—politically, economically, and culturally. But this conversation only scratches the surface. In a new free special report, Doug Casey’s Top 7 Predictions, Doug goes a step further, laying out the key trends he believes will define the decade—and what they mean for your wealth, freedom, and future. Learn how to position yourself to not just survive, but thrive, in today’s volatile economic and political environment. Click here to get it now.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 19:15

Tether CEO Warns AI Bubble Is Bitcoin's Biggest Risk In 2026

Authored by Helen Partz via CoinTelegraph.com,

Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, has raised concerns about how a potential AI bubble could affect Bitcoin by 2026.

Ardoino shared his outlook on Bitcoin and the broader crypto industry on Thursday during the Bitcoin Capital podcast, co-hosted by Bitfinex Securities and Blockstream.

The executive said he sees Bitcoin “still too much correlated” to capital markets, thus potentially being impacted by the AI bubble, or a theorized stock market bubble growing amid the current AI boom.

“That is the so-called AI bubble, this concern about the fact that AI companies are spending too much money in AI infrastructure and data centers and trying to build a gazillion gigawatts of power and installing GPUs,” Ardoino said.

Ardoino predicts no sharp BTC corrections as seen in 2022 anymore

In a potential scenario where AI sentiment shifts in 2026, the associated stock market turmoil in the US could affect the price of Bitcoin, Tether CEO predicted.

Apart from AI bubble-associated risks, Ardoino sees no other major risks to Bitcoin performance in 2026 due to growing adoption by pension funds and governments.

Bitcoin (BTC) price chart since 2018. Source: Bloomberg

“So I would imagine that sharp corrections of 80%, like we saw in 2022 or early 2018, might not be the case anymore,” Ardoino predicted.

Ardoino also expressed bullishness on real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, saying that tokenized securities and commodities are “going to be massive.”

“The only downside I see is like. Bitcoin is for Bitcoin, right? You don’t want 99% of Bitcoin being institutionalized,” he said.

Ardoino bearish on Europe and “just treasury companies”

While remaining bullish on Bitcoin and tokenization in 2026, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino expressed a far less optimistic view on crypto adoption in Europe and on certain developments in digital asset treasuries in the year ahead.

“I’m very bearish on Europe,” Ardoino said in the interview, arguing that the region continues to lag behind on innovation.

Source: Bitfinex

“Europe will always remain the last wheel of the cart whenever we talk about innovation. Europe is trying to regulate something that it doesn’t understand yet. That is very sad,” he added.

Ardoino pointed to the implications of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which has intensified debate over centralized versus local oversight in the crypto sector.

Tether has been among the most prominent companies to openly refuse compliance with MiCA, a stance that has led many European crypto asset service providers to delist the Tether USDt stablecoin.

Addressing DATs, Ardoino said he’s “not very bullish” on crypto treasury companies that are “just treasury companies.”

“I think that you want a treasury company to have an amazing operational business,” Ardoino said, adding remarks about the Tether-backed Bitcoin company Twenty One:

“The aim for Twenty One is for Twenty One to be an amazing Bitcoin company that provides Bitcoin services and also has a Bitcoin treasury, a very important, big Bitcoin treasury.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 17:00

Tether CEO Warns AI Bubble Is Bitcoin's Biggest Risk In 2026

Authored by Helen Partz via CoinTelegraph.com,

Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, has raised concerns about how a potential AI bubble could affect Bitcoin by 2026.

Ardoino shared his outlook on Bitcoin and the broader crypto industry on Thursday during the Bitcoin Capital podcast, co-hosted by Bitfinex Securities and Blockstream.

The executive said he sees Bitcoin “still too much correlated” to capital markets, thus potentially being impacted by the AI bubble, or a theorized stock market bubble growing amid the current AI boom.

“That is the so-called AI bubble, this concern about the fact that AI companies are spending too much money in AI infrastructure and data centers and trying to build a gazillion gigawatts of power and installing GPUs,” Ardoino said.

Ardoino predicts no sharp BTC corrections as seen in 2022 anymore

In a potential scenario where AI sentiment shifts in 2026, the associated stock market turmoil in the US could affect the price of Bitcoin, Tether CEO predicted.

Apart from AI bubble-associated risks, Ardoino sees no other major risks to Bitcoin performance in 2026 due to growing adoption by pension funds and governments.

Bitcoin (BTC) price chart since 2018. Source: Bloomberg

“So I would imagine that sharp corrections of 80%, like we saw in 2022 or early 2018, might not be the case anymore,” Ardoino predicted.

Ardoino also expressed bullishness on real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, saying that tokenized securities and commodities are “going to be massive.”

“The only downside I see is like. Bitcoin is for Bitcoin, right? You don’t want 99% of Bitcoin being institutionalized,” he said.

Ardoino bearish on Europe and “just treasury companies”

While remaining bullish on Bitcoin and tokenization in 2026, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino expressed a far less optimistic view on crypto adoption in Europe and on certain developments in digital asset treasuries in the year ahead.

“I’m very bearish on Europe,” Ardoino said in the interview, arguing that the region continues to lag behind on innovation.

Source: Bitfinex

“Europe will always remain the last wheel of the cart whenever we talk about innovation. Europe is trying to regulate something that it doesn’t understand yet. That is very sad,” he added.

Ardoino pointed to the implications of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which has intensified debate over centralized versus local oversight in the crypto sector.

Tether has been among the most prominent companies to openly refuse compliance with MiCA, a stance that has led many European crypto asset service providers to delist the Tether USDt stablecoin.

Addressing DATs, Ardoino said he’s “not very bullish” on crypto treasury companies that are “just treasury companies.”

“I think that you want a treasury company to have an amazing operational business,” Ardoino said, adding remarks about the Tether-backed Bitcoin company Twenty One:

“The aim for Twenty One is for Twenty One to be an amazing Bitcoin company that provides Bitcoin services and also has a Bitcoin treasury, a very important, big Bitcoin treasury.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 17:00

Court Axes Trevor Milton Lawsuit, Awards Attorney's Fees To CNBC And Hindenburg

A New Jersey appellate court on Monday threw out Trevor Milton’s lawsuit against CNBC and short-seller Hindenburg Research, ruling that the case was time-barred and improperly framed.

In a unanimous opinion, the Appellate Division held that Milton’s claims—styled as “trade libel”—were, in substance, ordinary defamation claims subject to New Jersey’s one-year statute of limitations. Because Milton filed suit well after that deadline, the court ordered the case dismissed with prejudice and directed the trial court to award attorneys’ fees and costs to the defendants under the state’s anti-SLAPP law.

The panel rejected Milton’s attempt to recharacterize his allegations as trade libel to avoid dismissal, concluding that the complained-of statements targeted Milton personally and concerned his credibility and conduct, not any product he sold. Since the underlying claim against CNBC failed, the court also dismissed Milton’s related allegation that Hindenburg aided and abetted the network’s reporting. At oral argument, Milton’s counsel conceded that the Hindenburg claim could not survive independently. The court emphasized that New Jersey’s Uniform Public Expression Protection Act exists to deter lawsuits aimed at punishing or chilling reporting on matters of public concern.

The lawsuit stemmed from CNBC coverage and Hindenburg Research reports in 2020 that scrutinized Milton and his electric-truck startup Nikola Corp. The reporting alleged that Milton had exaggerated Nikola’s technological capabilities, including claims about proprietary battery systems and a prototype truck that was later shown to have rolled downhill rather than driven under its own power.

Milton argued that the coverage destroyed his reputation and future business prospects, asserting that CNBC knowingly broadcast falsehoods and that Hindenburg coordinated with the network to amplify them.

Both defendants countered that their reporting was accurate, newsworthy, and protected speech. Lower courts initially dismissed portions of Milton’s complaint, and the Appellate Division’s decision effectively ends the case entirely, while opening the door for CNBC and Hindenburg to recover significant legal fees. The ruling marks one of the more forceful recent applications of New Jersey’s anti-SLAPP protections to high-profile media defendants.

The decision arrives as Milton continues efforts to rebuild his business career after his dramatic fall from Nikola, which he founded in 2014 and led until his resignation in the wake of the 2020 allegations. Since then, Milton has publicly promoted new entrepreneurial ventures and investments outside Nikola, positioning himself as an innovator once again despite ongoing controversy surrounding his past claims.

After Hindenburg Research published its September 2020 report, Nikola itself publicly acknowledged that several of Trevor Milton’s prior statements were inaccurate or misleading. The company admitted that a promotional video showing a Nikola One truck “in motion” had been filmed by rolling the vehicle downhill rather than driving it under its own power, contradicting earlier impressions that the truck was fully functional.

Nikola also walked back claims that it had developed proprietary battery technology in-house, conceding that it had relied on third-party suppliers rather than owning breakthrough battery innovations as Milton had suggested. In subsequent disclosures, Nikola stated that Milton had made statements about the company’s technology and readiness that were not always supported by facts, and it emphasized that those statements were not authorized by the company—an acknowledgment that helped cement the core factual basis of the scrutiny triggered by the Hindenburg report.

Milton was indicted by federal prosecutors in 2021 on wire fraud and securities fraud charges, went to trial in 2022, and was convicted for misleading investors about Nikola’s technology and readiness. He was later spared further punishment after receiving a presidential pardon by President Trump, which wiped out the conviction.

Hindenburg Research closed up its shop at the beginning of 2025, and Milton has since moved on to his new venture, SyberJet. You can read the NJ court's opinion here. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 16:40

Court Axes Trevor Milton Lawsuit, Awards Attorney's Fees To CNBC And Hindenburg

A New Jersey appellate court on Monday threw out Trevor Milton’s lawsuit against CNBC and short-seller Hindenburg Research, ruling that the case was time-barred and improperly framed.

In a unanimous opinion, the Appellate Division held that Milton’s claims—styled as “trade libel”—were, in substance, ordinary defamation claims subject to New Jersey’s one-year statute of limitations. Because Milton filed suit well after that deadline, the court ordered the case dismissed with prejudice and directed the trial court to award attorneys’ fees and costs to the defendants under the state’s anti-SLAPP law.

The panel rejected Milton’s attempt to recharacterize his allegations as trade libel to avoid dismissal, concluding that the complained-of statements targeted Milton personally and concerned his credibility and conduct, not any product he sold. Since the underlying claim against CNBC failed, the court also dismissed Milton’s related allegation that Hindenburg aided and abetted the network’s reporting. At oral argument, Milton’s counsel conceded that the Hindenburg claim could not survive independently. The court emphasized that New Jersey’s Uniform Public Expression Protection Act exists to deter lawsuits aimed at punishing or chilling reporting on matters of public concern.

The lawsuit stemmed from CNBC coverage and Hindenburg Research reports in 2020 that scrutinized Milton and his electric-truck startup Nikola Corp. The reporting alleged that Milton had exaggerated Nikola’s technological capabilities, including claims about proprietary battery systems and a prototype truck that was later shown to have rolled downhill rather than driven under its own power.

Milton argued that the coverage destroyed his reputation and future business prospects, asserting that CNBC knowingly broadcast falsehoods and that Hindenburg coordinated with the network to amplify them.

Both defendants countered that their reporting was accurate, newsworthy, and protected speech. Lower courts initially dismissed portions of Milton’s complaint, and the Appellate Division’s decision effectively ends the case entirely, while opening the door for CNBC and Hindenburg to recover significant legal fees. The ruling marks one of the more forceful recent applications of New Jersey’s anti-SLAPP protections to high-profile media defendants.

The decision arrives as Milton continues efforts to rebuild his business career after his dramatic fall from Nikola, which he founded in 2014 and led until his resignation in the wake of the 2020 allegations. Since then, Milton has publicly promoted new entrepreneurial ventures and investments outside Nikola, positioning himself as an innovator once again despite ongoing controversy surrounding his past claims.

After Hindenburg Research published its September 2020 report, Nikola itself publicly acknowledged that several of Trevor Milton’s prior statements were inaccurate or misleading. The company admitted that a promotional video showing a Nikola One truck “in motion” had been filmed by rolling the vehicle downhill rather than driving it under its own power, contradicting earlier impressions that the truck was fully functional.

Nikola also walked back claims that it had developed proprietary battery technology in-house, conceding that it had relied on third-party suppliers rather than owning breakthrough battery innovations as Milton had suggested. In subsequent disclosures, Nikola stated that Milton had made statements about the company’s technology and readiness that were not always supported by facts, and it emphasized that those statements were not authorized by the company—an acknowledgment that helped cement the core factual basis of the scrutiny triggered by the Hindenburg report.

Milton was indicted by federal prosecutors in 2021 on wire fraud and securities fraud charges, went to trial in 2022, and was convicted for misleading investors about Nikola’s technology and readiness. He was later spared further punishment after receiving a presidential pardon by President Trump, which wiped out the conviction.

Hindenburg Research closed up its shop at the beginning of 2025, and Milton has since moved on to his new venture, SyberJet. You can read the NJ court's opinion here. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 16:40

Has Orwell's 1984 Become Reality?

Authored by Bert Olivier via The Brownstone Institute,

To some readers it may seem like a rhetorical question to ask whether the narrative of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four (or 1984), first published in Britain in 1949, has somehow left its pages and settled, like an ominous miasma, over the contours of social reality. Yet, closer inspection – which means avoiding compromised mainstream news outlets – discloses a disquieting state of affairs. 

Everywhere we look in Western countries, from the United Kingdom, through Europe to America (and even India, whose ‘Orwellian digital ID system’ was lavishly praised by British prime minister Keir Starmer recently), what meets the eye is a set of social conditions exhibiting varying stages of precisely the no-longer-fictional totalitarian state depicted by Orwell in 1984. Needless to stress, this constitutes a warning against totalitarianism with its unapologetic manipulation of information and mass surveillance. 

I am by no means the first person to perceive the ominous contours of Orwell’s nightmarish vision taking shape before our very eyes. Back in 2023 Jack Watson did, too, when he wrote (among other things):

Thoughtcrime is another of Orwell’s conjectures that has come true. When I first read 1984, I would never have thought that this made up word would be taken seriously; nobody should have the right to ask what you are thinking. Obviously, nobody can read your mind and surely you could not be arrested simply for thinking? However, I was dead wrong. A woman was arrested recently for silently praying in her head and, extraordinarily, prosecutors were asked to provide evidence of her ‘thoughtcrime.’ Needless to say, they did not have any. But knowing that we can now be accused of, essentially, thinking the wrong thoughts is a worrying development. Freedom of speech is already under threat, but this goes beyond free speech. This is about free thought. Everybody should have a right to think what they want, and they should not feel obliged or forced to express certain beliefs or only think certain thoughts. 

Most people would know that totalitarianism is not a desirable social or political set of circumstances. Even the word sounds ominous, but that is probably only to those who already know what it denotes. I have written on it before, in different contexts, but it is now more relevant than ever. We should remind ourselves what Orwell wrote in that uncannily premonitory novel. 

Considering the rapidly expanding and intensifying, electronically mediated strategies of surveillance being implemented globally – no doubt aimed at inculcating in citizens a subliminal awareness that privacy is fast becoming but a distant memory – the following excerpt from Orwell’s text strikes one as disturbingly prophetic, considering the time it was written (1984, Free Planet e-book, p.5): 

Behind Winston’s back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. 

Before adducing compelling instances of the contemporary, real-world surveillance equivalents of 1984’s ‘telescreen,’ which have become sufficiently ‘normal’ to be accepted without much in the form of protest, and to refresh your memory further, here’s Hannah Arendt, in The Origins of Totalitarianism (New edition, Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich 1979, p. 438): 

Total domination, which strives to organize the infinite plurality and differentiation of human beings as if all of humanity were just one individual, is possible only if each and every person can be reduced to a never-changing identity of reactions, so that each of these bundles of reactions can be exchanged at random for any other. The problem is to fabricate something that does not exist, namely, a kind of human species resembling other animal species whose only ‘freedom’ would consist in ‘preserving the species.’ 

As Italian thinker Giorgio Agamben would say: totalitarianism reduces every singular human being to ‘bare life;’ nothing more, and after having been subjected to its mind-numbing techniques for a certain time, people start acting accordingly, as if they lack the capacity to manifest their natality (unique, singular birth) and plurality (the fact that all people are singular and irreplaceable). The final blow to our humanity comes when totalitarian rule’s coup de grȃce is delivered (Arendt 1979, quoting David Rousseton conditions in Nazi concentration camps,m p. 451):

The next decisive step in the preparation of living corpses is the murder of the moral person in man. This is done in the main by making martyrdom, for the first time in history, impossible: ‘How many people here still believe that a protest has even historic importance? This skepticism is the real masterpiece of the SS. Their great accomplishment. They have corrupted all human solidarity. Here the night has fallen on the future. When no witnesses are left, there can be no testimony. To demonstrate when death can no longer be postponed is an attempt to give death a meaning, to act beyond one’s own death. In order to be successful, a gesture must have social meaning…’

Surveying the present social scene globally against this backdrop yields interesting, albeit disturbing results. For example, Niamh Harris reports that German MEP Christine Anderson and British politician Nigel Farage have both warned that globalists are frantically trying to establish a fully fledged surveillance state ‘before too many people wake up’ to this state of affairs. Anderson – whose caution is echoed by Farage – points to the irony that people are waking up precisely because globalist efforts to hasten the installation of a totalitarian surveillance state are accelerating and becoming conspicuous. Hence, the more the process is ramped up, the louder critical voices become (and protests are likely to occur), and correlatively, the more anxious the neo-fascists become, to close the net around citizens of the world. She warns that:

‘Digital identity [is] not so your life is easier. It’s so government has total control over you.’

‘Digital currency [is] the crème de la crème of all control mechanisms…What do you think is going to happen the next time you refuse to take an mRNA shot? With the flip of a switch, they just cancel your account. You cannot buy food anymore. You cannot do anything anymore.’

Given these warnings, a case in point concerns well-known globalist Tony Blair’s recent attempt to assuage people’s fears about digital ID-systems. Needless to point out, his commendation of the system (because of its ‘amazing benefits’), in conjunction with AI and facial recognition capacity, is disingenuous in the extreme, as is palpably evident from his words (quoted from Wide Awake Media on X):

‘Facial recognition can now spot suspects in real time from live video…[It] helps identify suspects quickly in busy places like train stations and events.’ ‘AI will go even further—spotting crime patterns, guiding patrols and streamlining decisions…This is where technology, like digital ID, becomes critical.’ 

Wide Awake Media’s laconic comment on Blair’s words (alluding to the already dystopian surveillance practices in the United Kingdom) says it all: ‘Imagine this kind of system in the hands of a government that imprisons people for memes and jokes.’ 

It requires no genius to grasp that these examples of attempts at furthering the totalitarian agenda of complete surveillance, coupled with inescapable control mechanisms such as CBDCs, are rooted in the structural dynamics of the (no-longer-fictional) society of Big Brother, as evocatively depicted by Orwell more than 75 years ago. Except that – given the advent of the network society of electronically mediated actions and behaviour – such surveillance and control are at a level of efficiency and pervasiveness that Big Brother could only dream of. This is unmistakable when one peruses reports such as this one, which alerts one to the fact that, in Britain today, surveillance technology enables the neo-fascist authorities to identify, arrest, and imprison individuals for so-called ‘crimes’ which echo the thoughtcrimes of Orwell’s 1984, except that, by comparison, they seem trivial to the nth degree. As the article in question states,

Following a number of high-profile arrests for speech-related crimes, Britain is seen as far as the White House as a realm of tinpot, two-tier woke tyranny, where authors of errant tweets can expect to spend more time in prison than sex pests and paedophiles and which commentators and comedians should avoid — lest they be whisked straight from arrivals to a holding cell having offended Left-wing orthodoxies.

Lucy Connolly, a mother and childminder who received a 31-month prison sentence for ‘inciting racial hatred’ over a single (quickly deleted) tweet posted in the wake of the Southport Murders, is just one of many Brits that the state has pursued for such crimes in recent years. British police presently make 30 arrests per day for online speech offences, with many of these treated far more seriously than violent, sexual, or acquisitive crimes. Connolly’s was one of 44 convictions for ‘stirring up racial hatred’ last year…

Those, like Tony Blair, who are trying their best to justify surveillance as being ‘beneficial,’ even go as far as employing Orwell’s terminology to assuage the fears of the public who would be at the receiving end of such vaunted ‘protection.’ In this vein, in 2022 outgoing mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, was reported as claiming that: 

Americans will learn to love the Chinese-style surveillance state, according to New York City Democrat Mayor Eric Adams who responded to criticism over increasing the use of facial recognition technology by declaring, ‘Big Brother is protecting you!’

Adams made the disturbing comments in response to elected officials who expressed concerns that using such technology is turning society into an authoritarian surveillance state.

Not everyone was enamoured of the mayor’s reassurance, however:

Albert Fox Cahn, the head of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, responded by warning that facial recognition technology would be weaponized to crack down on ‘every aspect of dissent’ in the city.

‘These are technologies that would be chilling in anyone’s hands. But to give an agency with such a horrifying record of surveillance abuse even more power, at a time when they face dwindling oversight, is a recipe for disaster,’ he said.

Part of the problem faced by freedom-loving citizens everywhere is the uncritical acceptance by many – although by no means all – people, that constantly changing technology is somehow self-justifying. It is not, as a simple thought-experiment confirms. If someone tells you that, compared to its 18th-century French Revolution precursor, today there is a much more efficient, ‘electronic guillotine’ available, which terminates a person’s life quickly, humanely, and painlessly, and could solve the overpopulation problem by euthanising people over 60 years of age, should you agree?

Of course not. For one thing, older people have the same right to life as anyone else, and many of one’s most productive, and enjoyable years come after 60. Hence, there is absolutely no ground for accepting or justifying new technology as ‘beneficial,’ simply because it is supposedly ‘more efficient.’ 

Yet, everyone of globalist persuasion seems to believe that, to persuade the ‘sheeple’ to enter the corral of digital imprisonment, all they need to do is to glorify the technology involved – lying through their teeth, of course. But lest I forget, according to the 1984 playbook, which all and sundry among the globalist neo-fascists seem to have adopted (stupidly believing that no one would notice), everything we have been taught in the world that preceded the attempt to establish their vaunted New World Order, has been turned on its head, so that ‘falsehood’ (lying) has now become ‘truth.’ If this sounds far-fetched, take a look at the globalists’ disingenuous pronouncements through the lens of 1984 (p. 6):

The Ministry of Truth—Minitrue, in Newspeak—was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: 

WAR IS PEACE 

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY 

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

The ‘Newspeak’ of today does exactly the same thing, as anyone who frequents the alternative media easily discovers.

Hence, if those among us who cherish our freedoms wish to preserve them, we had better be wide awake to any and all the continuing attempts to impose terminal limitations, or should I say, permanent termination, on them, all in the name of putative ‘benefits, safety, and convenience.’

If we don’t, we shall have only ourselves to blame if legislators of various stripes succeed in imposing them on us by stealth.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 16:20

Has Orwell's 1984 Become Reality?

Authored by Bert Olivier via The Brownstone Institute,

To some readers it may seem like a rhetorical question to ask whether the narrative of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four (or 1984), first published in Britain in 1949, has somehow left its pages and settled, like an ominous miasma, over the contours of social reality. Yet, closer inspection – which means avoiding compromised mainstream news outlets – discloses a disquieting state of affairs. 

Everywhere we look in Western countries, from the United Kingdom, through Europe to America (and even India, whose ‘Orwellian digital ID system’ was lavishly praised by British prime minister Keir Starmer recently), what meets the eye is a set of social conditions exhibiting varying stages of precisely the no-longer-fictional totalitarian state depicted by Orwell in 1984. Needless to stress, this constitutes a warning against totalitarianism with its unapologetic manipulation of information and mass surveillance. 

I am by no means the first person to perceive the ominous contours of Orwell’s nightmarish vision taking shape before our very eyes. Back in 2023 Jack Watson did, too, when he wrote (among other things):

Thoughtcrime is another of Orwell’s conjectures that has come true. When I first read 1984, I would never have thought that this made up word would be taken seriously; nobody should have the right to ask what you are thinking. Obviously, nobody can read your mind and surely you could not be arrested simply for thinking? However, I was dead wrong. A woman was arrested recently for silently praying in her head and, extraordinarily, prosecutors were asked to provide evidence of her ‘thoughtcrime.’ Needless to say, they did not have any. But knowing that we can now be accused of, essentially, thinking the wrong thoughts is a worrying development. Freedom of speech is already under threat, but this goes beyond free speech. This is about free thought. Everybody should have a right to think what they want, and they should not feel obliged or forced to express certain beliefs or only think certain thoughts. 

Most people would know that totalitarianism is not a desirable social or political set of circumstances. Even the word sounds ominous, but that is probably only to those who already know what it denotes. I have written on it before, in different contexts, but it is now more relevant than ever. We should remind ourselves what Orwell wrote in that uncannily premonitory novel. 

Considering the rapidly expanding and intensifying, electronically mediated strategies of surveillance being implemented globally – no doubt aimed at inculcating in citizens a subliminal awareness that privacy is fast becoming but a distant memory – the following excerpt from Orwell’s text strikes one as disturbingly prophetic, considering the time it was written (1984, Free Planet e-book, p.5): 

Behind Winston’s back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. 

Before adducing compelling instances of the contemporary, real-world surveillance equivalents of 1984’s ‘telescreen,’ which have become sufficiently ‘normal’ to be accepted without much in the form of protest, and to refresh your memory further, here’s Hannah Arendt, in The Origins of Totalitarianism (New edition, Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich 1979, p. 438): 

Total domination, which strives to organize the infinite plurality and differentiation of human beings as if all of humanity were just one individual, is possible only if each and every person can be reduced to a never-changing identity of reactions, so that each of these bundles of reactions can be exchanged at random for any other. The problem is to fabricate something that does not exist, namely, a kind of human species resembling other animal species whose only ‘freedom’ would consist in ‘preserving the species.’ 

As Italian thinker Giorgio Agamben would say: totalitarianism reduces every singular human being to ‘bare life;’ nothing more, and after having been subjected to its mind-numbing techniques for a certain time, people start acting accordingly, as if they lack the capacity to manifest their natality (unique, singular birth) and plurality (the fact that all people are singular and irreplaceable). The final blow to our humanity comes when totalitarian rule’s coup de grȃce is delivered (Arendt 1979, quoting David Rousseton conditions in Nazi concentration camps,m p. 451):

The next decisive step in the preparation of living corpses is the murder of the moral person in man. This is done in the main by making martyrdom, for the first time in history, impossible: ‘How many people here still believe that a protest has even historic importance? This skepticism is the real masterpiece of the SS. Their great accomplishment. They have corrupted all human solidarity. Here the night has fallen on the future. When no witnesses are left, there can be no testimony. To demonstrate when death can no longer be postponed is an attempt to give death a meaning, to act beyond one’s own death. In order to be successful, a gesture must have social meaning…’

Surveying the present social scene globally against this backdrop yields interesting, albeit disturbing results. For example, Niamh Harris reports that German MEP Christine Anderson and British politician Nigel Farage have both warned that globalists are frantically trying to establish a fully fledged surveillance state ‘before too many people wake up’ to this state of affairs. Anderson – whose caution is echoed by Farage – points to the irony that people are waking up precisely because globalist efforts to hasten the installation of a totalitarian surveillance state are accelerating and becoming conspicuous. Hence, the more the process is ramped up, the louder critical voices become (and protests are likely to occur), and correlatively, the more anxious the neo-fascists become, to close the net around citizens of the world. She warns that:

‘Digital identity [is] not so your life is easier. It’s so government has total control over you.’

‘Digital currency [is] the crème de la crème of all control mechanisms…What do you think is going to happen the next time you refuse to take an mRNA shot? With the flip of a switch, they just cancel your account. You cannot buy food anymore. You cannot do anything anymore.’

Given these warnings, a case in point concerns well-known globalist Tony Blair’s recent attempt to assuage people’s fears about digital ID-systems. Needless to point out, his commendation of the system (because of its ‘amazing benefits’), in conjunction with AI and facial recognition capacity, is disingenuous in the extreme, as is palpably evident from his words (quoted from Wide Awake Media on X):

‘Facial recognition can now spot suspects in real time from live video…[It] helps identify suspects quickly in busy places like train stations and events.’ ‘AI will go even further—spotting crime patterns, guiding patrols and streamlining decisions…This is where technology, like digital ID, becomes critical.’ 

Wide Awake Media’s laconic comment on Blair’s words (alluding to the already dystopian surveillance practices in the United Kingdom) says it all: ‘Imagine this kind of system in the hands of a government that imprisons people for memes and jokes.’ 

It requires no genius to grasp that these examples of attempts at furthering the totalitarian agenda of complete surveillance, coupled with inescapable control mechanisms such as CBDCs, are rooted in the structural dynamics of the (no-longer-fictional) society of Big Brother, as evocatively depicted by Orwell more than 75 years ago. Except that – given the advent of the network society of electronically mediated actions and behaviour – such surveillance and control are at a level of efficiency and pervasiveness that Big Brother could only dream of. This is unmistakable when one peruses reports such as this one, which alerts one to the fact that, in Britain today, surveillance technology enables the neo-fascist authorities to identify, arrest, and imprison individuals for so-called ‘crimes’ which echo the thoughtcrimes of Orwell’s 1984, except that, by comparison, they seem trivial to the nth degree. As the article in question states,

Following a number of high-profile arrests for speech-related crimes, Britain is seen as far as the White House as a realm of tinpot, two-tier woke tyranny, where authors of errant tweets can expect to spend more time in prison than sex pests and paedophiles and which commentators and comedians should avoid — lest they be whisked straight from arrivals to a holding cell having offended Left-wing orthodoxies.

Lucy Connolly, a mother and childminder who received a 31-month prison sentence for ‘inciting racial hatred’ over a single (quickly deleted) tweet posted in the wake of the Southport Murders, is just one of many Brits that the state has pursued for such crimes in recent years. British police presently make 30 arrests per day for online speech offences, with many of these treated far more seriously than violent, sexual, or acquisitive crimes. Connolly’s was one of 44 convictions for ‘stirring up racial hatred’ last year…

Those, like Tony Blair, who are trying their best to justify surveillance as being ‘beneficial,’ even go as far as employing Orwell’s terminology to assuage the fears of the public who would be at the receiving end of such vaunted ‘protection.’ In this vein, in 2022 outgoing mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, was reported as claiming that: 

Americans will learn to love the Chinese-style surveillance state, according to New York City Democrat Mayor Eric Adams who responded to criticism over increasing the use of facial recognition technology by declaring, ‘Big Brother is protecting you!’

Adams made the disturbing comments in response to elected officials who expressed concerns that using such technology is turning society into an authoritarian surveillance state.

Not everyone was enamoured of the mayor’s reassurance, however:

Albert Fox Cahn, the head of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, responded by warning that facial recognition technology would be weaponized to crack down on ‘every aspect of dissent’ in the city.

‘These are technologies that would be chilling in anyone’s hands. But to give an agency with such a horrifying record of surveillance abuse even more power, at a time when they face dwindling oversight, is a recipe for disaster,’ he said.

Part of the problem faced by freedom-loving citizens everywhere is the uncritical acceptance by many – although by no means all – people, that constantly changing technology is somehow self-justifying. It is not, as a simple thought-experiment confirms. If someone tells you that, compared to its 18th-century French Revolution precursor, today there is a much more efficient, ‘electronic guillotine’ available, which terminates a person’s life quickly, humanely, and painlessly, and could solve the overpopulation problem by euthanising people over 60 years of age, should you agree?

Of course not. For one thing, older people have the same right to life as anyone else, and many of one’s most productive, and enjoyable years come after 60. Hence, there is absolutely no ground for accepting or justifying new technology as ‘beneficial,’ simply because it is supposedly ‘more efficient.’ 

Yet, everyone of globalist persuasion seems to believe that, to persuade the ‘sheeple’ to enter the corral of digital imprisonment, all they need to do is to glorify the technology involved – lying through their teeth, of course. But lest I forget, according to the 1984 playbook, which all and sundry among the globalist neo-fascists seem to have adopted (stupidly believing that no one would notice), everything we have been taught in the world that preceded the attempt to establish their vaunted New World Order, has been turned on its head, so that ‘falsehood’ (lying) has now become ‘truth.’ If this sounds far-fetched, take a look at the globalists’ disingenuous pronouncements through the lens of 1984 (p. 6):

The Ministry of Truth—Minitrue, in Newspeak—was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: 

WAR IS PEACE 

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY 

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

The ‘Newspeak’ of today does exactly the same thing, as anyone who frequents the alternative media easily discovers.

Hence, if those among us who cherish our freedoms wish to preserve them, we had better be wide awake to any and all the continuing attempts to impose terminal limitations, or should I say, permanent termination, on them, all in the name of putative ‘benefits, safety, and convenience.’

If we don’t, we shall have only ourselves to blame if legislators of various stripes succeed in imposing them on us by stealth.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 16:20

The Cleveland Fed released the median CPI and the trimmed-mean CPI.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the median Consumer Price Index rose 0.1% in November. The 16% trimmed-mean Consumer Price Index increased 0.1%. "The median CPI and 16% trimmed-mean CPI are measures of core inflation calculated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland based on data released in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) monthly CPI report".

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the year-over-year change for these four key measures of inflation. 
On a year-over-year basis, the median CPI rose 3.1% (down from 3.5% YoY in September), the trimmed-mean CPI rose 2.9% (down from 3.3%), and the CPI less food and energy rose 3.0% (down from 3.2%). 
Core PCE is for September was up 2.8% YoY, down from 2.9% in August.  

Watch: Presidential 'Wall Of Fame' Gets A Savage Upgrade...

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

President Trump has seemingly taken his trolling to new heights by installing brutal plaques beneath key presidential portraits at the White House, exposing the failures of his leftist predecessors.

The inscriptions lay waste to the deep state’s darlings—detailing Obama’s foreign policy debacles, Clinton’s globalist sellouts, and Biden’s total mental collapse—while also celebrating Reagan’s conservative triumphs that paved the way for Trump’s landslide victory.

Building on the initial autopen stunt, fresh images reveal expanded plaques that deliver unfiltered truth about how radical policies wrecked American sovereignty and prosperity.

The new additions, spotted near the Rose Garden, align with Trump’s promise to rewrite the narrative on failed administrations that prioritized open borders, endless wars, and economic surrender over putting America First.

Analysis of the photos suggests they are genuine, with natural lighting, shadows, and reflections on the frames and glass showing no signs of AI manipulation such as distorted text or unnatural elements. 

The White House has added text to the Wall of Fame next to the Rose Garden. ? @PenguinSix pic.twitter.com/3mVNI21LDo

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) December 17, 2025

The images are credited to X user @PenguinSix—a D.C.-based freelancer and live streamer known for real-time coverage of White House developments.

Starting with the autopen standing in for Biden, the top plaque reads:

“Sleepy Joe Biden was, by far, the worst President in American History. Taking office as a result of the most corrupt Election ever seen in the United States, Biden oversaw a series of unprecedented disasters that brought our Nation to the brink of destruction. His Policies caused the highest Inflation ever recorded, leading the U.S. Dollar to lose more than 20% of its value in 4 years. His Green New Scam surrendered American Energy Dominance and, by abolishing the Southern Border, Biden let 21 million people from all over the World pour into the United States, including from prisons, jails, mental institutions, and insane asylums. His Afghanistan Disaster was among the most humiliating events in American History, and resulted in the murder of 13 brave American Servicemembers, with many others gravely wounded. Seeing Biden’s devastating weakness, Russia invaded Ukraine, and Hamas terrorists launched the heinous October 7th attack on Israel.”

The bottom plaque for Biden continues:

“Nicknamed both ‘Sleepy’ and ‘Crooked,’ Joe Biden was dominated by his Radical Left handlers. They and their allies in the Fake News Media attempted to cover up his severe mental decline, and his unprecedented use of the Autopen. Following his humiliating debate loss to President Trump in the big June 2024 debate, he was forced to withdraw from his campaign for re-election in disgrace. Biden weaponized Law Enforcement against his political opponents, while also persecuting many other innocent people. He left office issuing blanket pardons to Radical Democrat criminals and the guilty as well as members of the Biden Crime Family — But despite it all, President Trump would get Re-Elected in a Landslide, and SAVE AMERICA!”

Moving to Barack Obama, the plaques are forthright on his divisive tenure. The top one states:

“Barack Hussein Obama was the first Black President, community organizer, one term Senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American History. As President, he passed the highly ineffective ‘Unaffordable Care’ Act, resulting in his party losing control of both Houses of Congress, and the Election of the largest House Republican majority since 1946. He presided over a stagnant Economy, approved the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, and signed the one-sided Paris Climate Accords, both of which were later terminated by President Donald J. Trump.”

The bottom Obama plaque adds:

“Under Obama, the ISIS Caliphate spread across the Middle East, Libya collapsed into chaos, and Russia invaded and took Crimea, in Ukraine. He crippled small businesses with crushing regulation and environmental red tape, devastated American coal miners, and weaponized the IRS and Federal bureaucracies against his political opponents. Obama also spied on the 2016 Presidential Campaign of Donald J. Trump, and presided over the creation of the Russia, Russia, Russia political scandal in American History. His handpicked successor, Hillary Rodham Clinton, would then lose the Presidency to Donald J. Trump.”

For Bill Clinton, the single plaque highlights his globalist betrayals:

“Bill Clinton served as Attorney General and Governor of Arkansas before winning the Presidency in what was called a major upset over President George H. W. Bush. As President, Clinton signed crime and welfare legislation, which was passed with the leadership of Republicans in Congress. He approved NAFTA, which President Donald J. Trump would later terminate as being bad for the United States, welcomed China into the World Trade Organization, and oversaw NATO’s Military intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo. Despite the scandals that plagued his Presidency, the tech boom of the late 1990s resulted in excellent Economic growth, which helped him and Republicans in Congress deliver balanced budgets for the first time in decades. In 2016, President Clinton’s wife, Hillary, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump!”

Finally, Ronald Reagan gets a glowing tribute that ties directly to Trump’s movement:

“Ronald Reagan won the Cold War and transformed American politics and the Conservative Movement. Before entering the White House, Reagan was a Hollywood actor, President of the Screen Actors Guild, Governor of California and, for decades, a leading voice in American Conservatism. As President, he enacted Tax Cuts, presided over a thriving Economy, and rebuilt the American Military. He survived being shot by an assassin, and confronted the Soviet Union with striking moral clarity, labeling it an ‘evil empire,’ and putting unprecedented pressure on the Communist menace. Known as ‘The Great Communicator,’ he was re-elected in a Landslide in 1984, and left office with high approval, having restored National Confidence, Spirit, and Will. He was a fan of President Donald J. Trump long before President Trump’s Historic run for the White House. Likewise, President Trump was a fan of his!”

Responses have been mixed, with some praising the additions and some suggesting they are a waste of time.

Quiet little move, but it matters. History is written by whoever gets the wall space, and the bureaucracy knows it. Who decided these additions, and what else is getting rewritten behind the scenes?

— rowdyamerican (@rowdyamerican69) December 17, 2025

Hahaha. Sign a bill saying these can never be removed. ??

— C_Ross_++ (@C_Ross_tt) December 17, 2025

This is what we get instead of deep state arrests and economic advancement. Peak boomer-IQ level.

— Im Just Here For The Chaos. (@MashedPotatoJK) December 17, 2025

All this time and effort spent on ‘owning the libs’ when we just want a thriving country.

Like haha yes this is funny, but not too funny because White people are being replaced and we can’t fucking afford anything.

This administration is a joke, I can’t believe I voted for…

— Mr. White (@MrWhiteGroyper) December 17, 2025

This administration needs to stop doing petty bullshit and actually start cracking down.

— I. Williams (@TedWilliam97) December 17, 2025

Pointless performative distractions. Where are the arrests? Where are the Epstein files? On and on…

— Puke (@Puke1260) December 17, 2025

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 15:30

Watch: Presidential 'Wall Of Fame' Gets A Savage Upgrade...

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

President Trump has seemingly taken his trolling to new heights by installing brutal plaques beneath key presidential portraits at the White House, exposing the failures of his leftist predecessors.

The inscriptions lay waste to the deep state’s darlings—detailing Obama’s foreign policy debacles, Clinton’s globalist sellouts, and Biden’s total mental collapse—while also celebrating Reagan’s conservative triumphs that paved the way for Trump’s landslide victory.

Building on the initial autopen stunt, fresh images reveal expanded plaques that deliver unfiltered truth about how radical policies wrecked American sovereignty and prosperity.

The new additions, spotted near the Rose Garden, align with Trump’s promise to rewrite the narrative on failed administrations that prioritized open borders, endless wars, and economic surrender over putting America First.

Analysis of the photos suggests they are genuine, with natural lighting, shadows, and reflections on the frames and glass showing no signs of AI manipulation such as distorted text or unnatural elements. 

The White House has added text to the Wall of Fame next to the Rose Garden. ? @PenguinSix pic.twitter.com/3mVNI21LDo

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) December 17, 2025

The images are credited to X user @PenguinSix—a D.C.-based freelancer and live streamer known for real-time coverage of White House developments.

Starting with the autopen standing in for Biden, the top plaque reads:

“Sleepy Joe Biden was, by far, the worst President in American History. Taking office as a result of the most corrupt Election ever seen in the United States, Biden oversaw a series of unprecedented disasters that brought our Nation to the brink of destruction. His Policies caused the highest Inflation ever recorded, leading the U.S. Dollar to lose more than 20% of its value in 4 years. His Green New Scam surrendered American Energy Dominance and, by abolishing the Southern Border, Biden let 21 million people from all over the World pour into the United States, including from prisons, jails, mental institutions, and insane asylums. His Afghanistan Disaster was among the most humiliating events in American History, and resulted in the murder of 13 brave American Servicemembers, with many others gravely wounded. Seeing Biden’s devastating weakness, Russia invaded Ukraine, and Hamas terrorists launched the heinous October 7th attack on Israel.”

The bottom plaque for Biden continues:

“Nicknamed both ‘Sleepy’ and ‘Crooked,’ Joe Biden was dominated by his Radical Left handlers. They and their allies in the Fake News Media attempted to cover up his severe mental decline, and his unprecedented use of the Autopen. Following his humiliating debate loss to President Trump in the big June 2024 debate, he was forced to withdraw from his campaign for re-election in disgrace. Biden weaponized Law Enforcement against his political opponents, while also persecuting many other innocent people. He left office issuing blanket pardons to Radical Democrat criminals and the guilty as well as members of the Biden Crime Family — But despite it all, President Trump would get Re-Elected in a Landslide, and SAVE AMERICA!”

Moving to Barack Obama, the plaques are forthright on his divisive tenure. The top one states:

“Barack Hussein Obama was the first Black President, community organizer, one term Senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American History. As President, he passed the highly ineffective ‘Unaffordable Care’ Act, resulting in his party losing control of both Houses of Congress, and the Election of the largest House Republican majority since 1946. He presided over a stagnant Economy, approved the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, and signed the one-sided Paris Climate Accords, both of which were later terminated by President Donald J. Trump.”

The bottom Obama plaque adds:

“Under Obama, the ISIS Caliphate spread across the Middle East, Libya collapsed into chaos, and Russia invaded and took Crimea, in Ukraine. He crippled small businesses with crushing regulation and environmental red tape, devastated American coal miners, and weaponized the IRS and Federal bureaucracies against his political opponents. Obama also spied on the 2016 Presidential Campaign of Donald J. Trump, and presided over the creation of the Russia, Russia, Russia political scandal in American History. His handpicked successor, Hillary Rodham Clinton, would then lose the Presidency to Donald J. Trump.”

For Bill Clinton, the single plaque highlights his globalist betrayals:

“Bill Clinton served as Attorney General and Governor of Arkansas before winning the Presidency in what was called a major upset over President George H. W. Bush. As President, Clinton signed crime and welfare legislation, which was passed with the leadership of Republicans in Congress. He approved NAFTA, which President Donald J. Trump would later terminate as being bad for the United States, welcomed China into the World Trade Organization, and oversaw NATO’s Military intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo. Despite the scandals that plagued his Presidency, the tech boom of the late 1990s resulted in excellent Economic growth, which helped him and Republicans in Congress deliver balanced budgets for the first time in decades. In 2016, President Clinton’s wife, Hillary, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump!”

Finally, Ronald Reagan gets a glowing tribute that ties directly to Trump’s movement:

“Ronald Reagan won the Cold War and transformed American politics and the Conservative Movement. Before entering the White House, Reagan was a Hollywood actor, President of the Screen Actors Guild, Governor of California and, for decades, a leading voice in American Conservatism. As President, he enacted Tax Cuts, presided over a thriving Economy, and rebuilt the American Military. He survived being shot by an assassin, and confronted the Soviet Union with striking moral clarity, labeling it an ‘evil empire,’ and putting unprecedented pressure on the Communist menace. Known as ‘The Great Communicator,’ he was re-elected in a Landslide in 1984, and left office with high approval, having restored National Confidence, Spirit, and Will. He was a fan of President Donald J. Trump long before President Trump’s Historic run for the White House. Likewise, President Trump was a fan of his!”

Responses have been mixed, with some praising the additions and some suggesting they are a waste of time.

Quiet little move, but it matters. History is written by whoever gets the wall space, and the bureaucracy knows it. Who decided these additions, and what else is getting rewritten behind the scenes?

— rowdyamerican (@rowdyamerican69) December 17, 2025

Hahaha. Sign a bill saying these can never be removed. ??

— C_Ross_++ (@C_Ross_tt) December 17, 2025

This is what we get instead of deep state arrests and economic advancement. Peak boomer-IQ level.

— Im Just Here For The Chaos. (@MashedPotatoJK) December 17, 2025

All this time and effort spent on ‘owning the libs’ when we just want a thriving country.

Like haha yes this is funny, but not too funny because White people are being replaced and we can’t fucking afford anything.

This administration is a joke, I can’t believe I voted for…

— Mr. White (@MrWhiteGroyper) December 17, 2025

This administration needs to stop doing petty bullshit and actually start cracking down.

— I. Williams (@TedWilliam97) December 17, 2025

Pointless performative distractions. Where are the arrests? Where are the Epstein files? On and on…

— Puke (@Puke1260) December 17, 2025

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 15:30

House Kills Bill On Blocking War With Venezuela

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com

The House on Wednesday voted down a War Powers Resolution meant to block President Trump from launching a war with Venezuela without congressional authorization, as required by the Constitution.

The bill failed in a vote of 211-213, with nine representatives not voting. Just three Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the bill: Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), and Don Bacon (NE). One Democrat, Henry Cuellar (TX), voted against the legislation.

Source: Spectrum News 1

The legislation would have directed the president to remove "United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress."

Before the Venezuela bill, another War Powers Resolution aimed at stopping President Trump’s bombing campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific Ocean also failed. That bill failed in a vote of 210-216, with two Republicans (Massie and Bacon) voting in favor and two Democrats (Ceullar and Vicente Gonzalez (TX) voting against.

The votes came a day after President Trump declared a "complete and total blockade" on "sanctioned" tankers going into and leaving Venezuela, an action that’s widely considered an act of war under international law. President Trump and his top officials have also been clear that their goal is regime change.

"Do we want a miniature Afghanistan in the Western Hemisphere?" Massie, a co-sponsor of the bill, asked on the House floor before the vote.

"If that cost is acceptable to this Congress, then we should vote on it as a voice of the people and in accordance with our Constitution," Massie continued.

Massie: Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs that did not exist. Now it's the same playbook. Except we're told that drugs are the WMDs. If it were about drugs, we'd bomb Mexico or China or Colombia. And the president would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez.… pic.twitter.com/5h296rYnPJ

— Acyn (@Acyn) December 17, 2025

"And yet today, here we aren’t even voting on whether to declare war or authorize the use of military force. All we’re voting on is a War Powers Resolution that strengthens the fabric of our Republic by reasserting the plain and simple language in the Constitution that Congress must decide questions of war."

Several polls in recent months have found that the idea of the US going to war with Venezuela is extremely unpopular among Americans.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 15:00

House Kills Bill On Blocking War With Venezuela

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com

The House on Wednesday voted down a War Powers Resolution meant to block President Trump from launching a war with Venezuela without congressional authorization, as required by the Constitution.

The bill failed in a vote of 211-213, with nine representatives not voting. Just three Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the bill: Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), and Don Bacon (NE). One Democrat, Henry Cuellar (TX), voted against the legislation.

Source: Spectrum News 1

The legislation would have directed the president to remove "United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress."

Before the Venezuela bill, another War Powers Resolution aimed at stopping President Trump’s bombing campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific Ocean also failed. That bill failed in a vote of 210-216, with two Republicans (Massie and Bacon) voting in favor and two Democrats (Ceullar and Vicente Gonzalez (TX) voting against.

The votes came a day after President Trump declared a "complete and total blockade" on "sanctioned" tankers going into and leaving Venezuela, an action that’s widely considered an act of war under international law. President Trump and his top officials have also been clear that their goal is regime change.

"Do we want a miniature Afghanistan in the Western Hemisphere?" Massie, a co-sponsor of the bill, asked on the House floor before the vote.

"If that cost is acceptable to this Congress, then we should vote on it as a voice of the people and in accordance with our Constitution," Massie continued.

Massie: Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs that did not exist. Now it's the same playbook. Except we're told that drugs are the WMDs. If it were about drugs, we'd bomb Mexico or China or Colombia. And the president would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez.… pic.twitter.com/5h296rYnPJ

— Acyn (@Acyn) December 17, 2025

"And yet today, here we aren’t even voting on whether to declare war or authorize the use of military force. All we’re voting on is a War Powers Resolution that strengthens the fabric of our Republic by reasserting the plain and simple language in the Constitution that Congress must decide questions of war."

Several polls in recent months have found that the idea of the US going to war with Venezuela is extremely unpopular among Americans.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/18/2025 - 15:00