Zero Hedge

Immortal Monkeys? Not Quite, But Scientists Just Reversed Aging With 'Super' Stem Cells

Immortal Monkeys? Not Quite, But Scientists Just Reversed Aging With 'Super' Stem Cells

Key Points:

  • "Super Stem Cells" boosted memory in monkeys and offered protection against neurodegeneration.
  • They halted age-related bone loss and restored vitality in more than half of the 61 tissues examined.
  • The therapy also cut back harmful inflammation and reduced the burden of senescent cells — the aged, non-dividing cells that drive aging throughout the body.

In a discovery that may have profound impacts on aging, scientists in Beijing have taken a dramatic step toward what once seemed impossible: making old animals biologically young again. The study was published last month in the journal Cell.

By fortifying human stem cells with a gene long linked to longevity, they rejuvenated aged monkeys - improving memory, protecting bones, calming inflammation, and restoring youthful activity across dozens of organs.

The work, while still in animals, is among the most compelling demonstrations yet that aging in primates might be reversible.

    The Science Behind the Breakthrough

    At the heart of the study are mesenchymal progenitor cells (MPCs) - a type of stem-like cell found in bone marrow and connective tissues. These cells act as the body’s maintenance crew, capable of turning into bone, cartilage, fat, and muscle cells, while also secreting factors that help nearby tissues repair themselves.

    But like all cells, MPCs age with us and eventually succumb to senescence  a state of permanent retirement. Senescent cells don’t divide anymore. Worse, they pump out inflammatory molecules, scar tissue signals, and other “toxic chatter” that accelerate aging in neighboring cells. In effect, senescent cells spread decline.

    Upgrading the Repair System with FoxO3

    To overcome this exhaustion, researchers turned to FoxO3, a protein known as a longevity gene regulator. In healthy young cells, FoxO3 acts like a switchboard operator, turning on DNA repair pathways, antioxidant defenses, and stress-resistance programs. In older cells, FoxO3 activity wanes - leaving them vulnerable to damage.

    Hydra, a freshwater organism capable of regenerating indefinitely, rely heavily on FoxO to keep their stem cells active. Humans share this same protein, and genetic studies link variants of FOXO3 to exceptional longevity in people.

    (Image: aip.org) The Immortal Hydra

    The Chinese Academy of Sciences team genetically engineered MPCs so that FoxO3 would stay permanently active inside the nucleus, constantly flipping on protective genes. 

    The researchers engineered senescence-resistant cells - "SRCs" - by altering genes that control DNA repair, stress resistance, and mitochondrial function. These fortified cells were then transplanted into elderly macaques whose age roughly corresponds to a human in their 60s or 70s.

    They found that SRC treatment mitigated age-related brain shrinkage, and rejuvenated multiple organs and tissues.

    Put simply: MPCs provided the hardware - the body’s natural repair crew - while FoxO3 was the software upgrade that made them resistant to aging.

    What Happened Inside the Monkeys

    The results were striking:

    • Bone health: Normally, older primates show progressive bone loss, a close analog to osteoporosis in humans. Monkeys that received SRCs maintained or even improved bone density, suggesting the treatment reversed skeletal decline.

    • Cognitive performance: When tested on memory and learning tasks, the treated monkeys performed significantly better, recalling objects and navigating mazes more effectively than untreated peers.

    • Inflammation: Blood tests revealed a sharp drop in inflammatory markers. Since chronic inflammation - sometimes called “inflammaging” - drives many age-related diseases, this finding suggests SRCs could help blunt the root of multiple disorders.

    • Organ vitality: Post-treatment scans and biopsies revealed rejuvenation in the brain, bone, and even reproductive organs. The researchers believe this widespread effect was mediated by exosomes — tiny vesicles released by SRCs that carry rejuvenating proteins and genetic material to other cells, essentially acting as messengers of youth.

    As one of the lead scientists, Si Wang, put it: "We see evidence of rejuvenation."

    Why This Matters

    Most anti-aging strategies tested so far - from rapamycin to fasting mimics - have worked primarily in rodents. Translating those gains to primates, with their longer lifespans and complex physiology, has been an elusive goal.

    This study is different. By showing functional rejuvenation in macaques, it bridges the gap between mouse biology and human potential. The findings suggest that aging is not simply the result of passive wear and tear but is, at least partly, programmable and reversible.

    If similar approaches work in people, SRCs could one day treat not just osteoporosis or memory decline, but the broader syndrome of aging itself.

    But Enormous Questions Remain

    Experts stress that while the results are promising, translation to humans is far from assured. Questions loom:

    • Safety: Will senescence-resistant cells behave predictably, or could they persist too long, increasing cancer risk?

    • Durability: How long do the benefits last? Months? Years? A lifetime?

    • Delivery: Can such cells be manufactured at scale, and will the body accept them without immune rejection?

    • Ethics: How should such therapies be tested in people, and who should have access if they work?

    “This is a milestone, but we must not leap to human immortality headlines,” said an independent gerontology expert. “What it shows is that systemic aging in primates can be modulated — that is profound enough.”

    A Glimpse of the Future

    For now, the macaques remain under study, their bodies whispering signals of youth from transplanted cells. But the implications are profound: if scientists can replenish the body’s repair machinery with cells designed to resist aging, medicine might shift from treating diseases one by one to addressing their common root.

    That vision - once dismissed as science fiction - is now edging closer to scientific fact.

    Tyler Durden Sat, 10/04/2025 - 13:25

    The End Of Woke Capitalism

    The End Of Woke Capitalism

    Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

    The Egregore of Far-Left Radicalism Is Wounded – But What Will Take It’s Place?

    Today’s post is excerpted from the October edition of The Bitcoin Capitalist Letter – get a special deal for Bombthrower readers here »

    “At the physical level, we are witnessing a war of structures,
    on the meta-physical level, a battle of pendulums.”
    — Vadim Zeland

    Within the space of a few days over the second week of September, the world looked on in horror as a pair of unspeakably horrific crimes were committed; by now it’s likely everyone knows what I’m referring to.

    I’m talking, of course, about the stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a North Carolina transit train – and the all-too-public assassination of Charlie Kirk, at a campus event in Utah.

    The images from both events were horrific and circulated widely, there is no need to show them again here – but this “one-two” punch in my mind was the definitive knock-out blow to the far-left domination of our cultural zeitgeist.

    A few days after the Kirk assassination it became apparent that something big had shifted; at the time I called it the “Turning Point for the Radical Left”. It ran on Zerohedge and racked around 100K reads.

    The TL;DR on that, if you haven’t read it, was that Charlie Kirk’s assassination will mark the moment the cultural tide turned against the Left.

    It didn’t happen in isolation; it was the culmination of a progression that I first started documenting back in 2022, when both RFK Jr and Peter Thiel gave keynotes at the Bitcoin Conference in Miami – and it became clear to me that the entire edifice of “woke capitalism” upon which the whole left-wing, collectivist paradigm was built, was beginning to crumble.

    The process gained momentum via the through-line of the Oct 7 massacre in Israel, and the targeted killing of United Health CEO Brian Thompson.

    In the aftermath of these events, we started to see public opinion – and corporate / private governance –  start to turn against the radical left.

    After publishing my piece, and to my point, we saw lefties trying to regain the upper hand they once took for granted – with calls for Marvel to fire Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt.

    His moral crime?

    He asked the public to pray for the family of Charlie Kirk.

    Marvel will do no such thing, because, as I’ve said, those days are over.

    What did happen, however, was Marvel’s comic universe rival, DC, canceled the “Red Hood” comic book series, after its author Gretchen Felker-Martin (who is trans) posted on Bluesky:

    “Thoughts and prayers you Nazi b-tch… Hope the bullet’s okay after touching Charlie.”

    I can’t think of any alternate universe where this kind of sentiment toward anyone is okay, let alone sane. To my point that the momentum has shifted, even Bluesky suspended his account.

    Wow.

    I closed out my Bombthrower piece asking the open question about what was the fundamental driver that led to the far-left takeover of the zeitgeist?

    “Some say this ever-increasing polarization and these seemingly ritualistic events are all orchestrated by shadowy actors playing the long game. My take? It’s something deeper”.

    There are some very obvious trends and beats here that are hard to ignore.

    For starters, Kirk is not Trump, or even Elon Musk or Peter Thiel. His security detail likely wasn’t excessive; it was unlikely anybody thought it needed to be anything beyond a few bodyguards who could repel a bike lock-wielding soy-boy in a man-bun.

    If somebody really just wanted him dead, there would have been easier ways to get at him, and fare a better chance of getting away clean after.

    Murdering him in such a spectacular and shocking manner was deliberate and intentional. It was calculated to drive an effect at a mass, psychic level – and there are ritualistic elements to it, as there are wont to be in these archetypally shocking hinge-moments.

    The conspiracy minded would tell you this is intentional signalling – which may be true, at least partially – but I tend to think it’s because we live in a reality of “high weirdness” where events are playing out in a non-linear fashion across dimensional axes that we aren’t even aware of.

    But let’s follow this train of thought for a bit; I’m not comfortable sharing this publicly, so this is all between us girls.

    For years I ruminated that the Fabian Socialists had achieved complete victory in their stated mission of bringing world communism into being through a centuries-long process of inexorable infiltration of our institutions:

    They started with academia, then media and culture – and finally government and supra-governmental constructs such as the World Economic Forum.

    It was always driven by what I’ve called “the 3M’s of neo-collectivism”, namely: Malthusian, Marxist and essentially misanthropic.

    It’s an anti-human philosophy that regards our species as a cancer that needs to be managed, and ideally, depopulated.

    We’re heavily into tin-foil hat territory here – but a lot of this has been laid out in the writings of Julian Huxley, Warren Wagar and beyond.

    It’s never been refuted – and we see in the contemporary climate-alarmism movement a disdain for life itself and an embrace of the #Degrowth cause.

    So there’s that.

    Then I wonder — why all the trans violence?

    This feels so “off” to me, it’s like somehow under the hood the entire movement decided “hey, let’s make ourselves the absolute most vilified segment of the population in existence” – and proceed to carry out only the most heinous of crimes.

    This is a relatively recent development and it feels somehow deeper than plain-Jane frustration with being marginalized (and misgendered).

    The legendary ex-KGB handler Yuri Bezmenov, who defected to the West over forty years ago, warned his debriefers that the Soviets would undermine America from within. They would achieve final victory over the West, not through military force – where it was impossible to win – but through subversion.

    They would, in Bezmenov’s warnings, engage in a multi-decades program of:

    Demoralization: Infiltrate & undermine institutions, amplify antisocial behaviours

    Destabilization: Create internal conflicts & radicalize, leads to clashes

    Crisis: Collapse, leading to civil war  or invasion

    Normalization: New authoritarian rule, discard old change agents

    It’s a long game. The “demoralization” phase alone is 15 – 20 years: “a single generation of students”, in Bezmenov’s words, to take them “in the opposite direction from the society’s moral and cultural values”.

    Of course, the USSR collapsed; did they set a plan in motion that continued operating after they unleashed it? Even after the handler regime was no more?

    Or, was that same playbook adopted – essentially co-opted – by someone else, the next geopolitical rival, perchance? Like the CCP.

    China also knows they cannot, yet, defeat the USA in a military conflict, at least not outside of the Asian-Pacific theatre – but if there’s one thing the Chinese are known for, it’s thinking in generational increments and in non-linear terms.

    Cultural Marxism makes very little sense to normal, rational people. It verges on total nihilism, and yet, it caught on like wildfire over the past couple decades and is now out of control and running amok across campuses and in our streets.

    Before September we were a few smidges away from civil war – now, I shudder to think what happens next.

    I remember a few years ago I was listening to a Value After Hours podcast (I’d never be able to find the episode) where they were talking about Ray Dalio’s prediction that America had a significant probability of being in a full-on civil war within three years.

    At the time Tobias Carlisle said “that sounds absolutely bonkers”.

    Dalio was recently on Diary of a CEO – following this theme of mass civil unrest, and that was recorded before the second week of September.

    So imagine if the subversion of our universities and media over the past few decades was the result of the most far-left and radical elements being funded and encouraged by a foreign actor, like China.

    Carefully nurturing the polarization, the angst, the demoralization of the entire population – on all sides – pushing it along with specific, targeted acts of camouflaged terrorism in order to bring it to a climactic state of unendurable tension – and then, the finale:

    An act so heinous and itself so polarizing that it ignites the “response”. Those familiar with the Hegelian dialect, “problem → response → solution”  (which happens to be the “three-act play” structure of every conspiracy theory), would recognize it.

    Even I recognize this and you all know how much I disdain most conspiracy theories. It’s a cognitive bias that I know is there but I hang on to it, because, frankly – it helps me maintain my equilibrium.

    I do not like the idea of world history being the outcome of behind-the-scenes machinations by all-powerful cabals, because believing that would make me feel powerless and helpless.

    So normally I subscribe to Hanlon’s Razor, as an article of faith.

    But as I’ve been admitting lately – it’s been getting harder to keep believing that. Most recently, it’s almost impossible.

    What I notice now, is things have gotten so out of hand that huge chunks of the population would cheer for an authoritarian strongman to take over the machinery of government – either through populist movements or even soft coups (or overt ones), so long as they promised and delivered a “return to rule of law and normalcy”.

    Ngl… Trump fits the bill neatly.

    They would succeed on the first aim, through largely technocratic means, probably nodding toward the state capitalism and political meritocracy of China, and call it the new “way of the world”.

    But “normalcy” would be gone.

    What I do believe is that we are in a Fourth Turning, in the Howe and Strauss sense, and that this fourth turning is unique in that it is occurring against the backdrop of a widely intolerable acceleration in the pace of change (“Future Shock”) and massively increasing wealth disparity because we’re in the early innings of a global fiat hyperinflation.

    If you back out the Fabians, the KGB and China and just stick with Future Shock and hyperinflation, you still have all the ingredients for a tightly wound powder keg:

    What is probably in play are elements of all of these forces. That’s what makes it so difficult to get a read on what is happening.

    There is no unified, coherent cabal behind this: the more I study the phenomenon of “pendulums” (in the Vadim Zeland sense), morphic fields and even egregores, I have come to suspect that there is no “they”, but there are “its” – several of them – converging, competing, conflicting, all the while amplifying and accelerating each other.

    Pendulums feed on both positive and negative mental energy. In Zeland’s words, in order to do one of two things:  “the pendulum’s goals are always to stabilize its own or a higher structure, and to destroy a competing structure”.

    More on these larger forces another time, but for now,  frankly, it’s rather amazing the system remains on the tracks at this point.

    I don’t expect it will last; I find myself once again perusing real estate listings for bug-out bolt-holes outside of the city.

    *  *  *

    Today’s post is excerpted from the August edition of The Bitcoin Capitalist Letter – get a special deal for Bombthrower readers here »

    Sign up for the Bombthrower Mailing List here and get a free copy of The Bitcoin Treasuries Playbook.

    Follow me Twitter/X or Nostr: npub1elwpzsul8d9k4tgxqdjuzxp0wa94ysr4zu9xeudrcxe2h3sazqkq5mehan

    Tyler Durden Sat, 10/04/2025 - 12:50

    These Are The Cities With The Highest Grocery Prices Worldwide

    These Are The Cities With The Highest Grocery Prices Worldwide

    U.S. grocery prices have spiked 29% since 2020, putting strain on consumers’ wallets.

    This impact has been felt across global cities, as supply shortages, extreme weather events, and pandemic-era inflation have pushed prices higher. But where in the world do customers face the highest prices overall?

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, shows the cities with the most expensive grocery prices, based on data from Deutsche Bank.

    Grocery Prices in Geneva are the Highest Globally

    Below, we show the grocery price index in 2025, reflecting the average cost of groceries in U.S. dollars using New York City as a benchmark:

    Switzerland is home to two of the top three most expensive cities for grocery prices, with Geneva seeing prices 5% higher than in New York City.

    San Francisco ranks second globally, with prices rising 19% since 2020. A combination of high real estate prices and strong wages are among the key drivers behind expensive grocery costs. Last year, consumers in California spent on average $298 per week on groceries, outpacing New York’s $266 in spending.

    Coming in at eighth place is Seoul, driven by currency fluctuations and weak economic conditions, leading consumers’ purchasing power to be among the worst in the OECD.

    Grocery costs in Paris, meanwhile, are nearly 30% lower than in New York City, a level similar in Sydney, Singapore, and Vancouver.

    To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on the U.S. cities with the most expensive grocery costs in 2025.

    Tyler Durden Sat, 10/04/2025 - 12:15

    Promised Recession... So Where Is It?

    Promised Recession... So Where Is It?

    Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

    Over the past three years, the economic conversation has been a “promised recession.” If you read the headlines, tracked economist surveys, or even listened to Wall Street strategists, you would have assumed a downturn was imminent. Many investors, bloggers, and YouTubers have had a “parade of horribles” promising a recession is just on the horizon.The logic was simple enough. The Federal Reserve aggressively hiked rates from near zero, inflation spiked to four-decade highs, the yield curve inverted for the longest stretch on record, manufacturing surveys collapsed, and stocks entered a bear market in 2022. Historically, those conditions have been reliable precursors to economic pain.

    And yet, here we are, late into 2025, and the U.S. economy is still standing. Not only standing, but GDP remains broadly positive, unemployment is relatively low, and equity markets sit at record highs. If the “promised recession” were near, none of that would be the case, and for many investors, the “recession that never came” has been one of the great surprises of this cycle.

    But does that mean we’ve escaped it altogether? Or is the downturn still lurking, delayed by policy distortions and fiscal largesse?

    I want to tackle that question today because how we answer it matters for portfolio strategy. Both the recession and the no-recession cases have merit. Each has its own probabilities, risks, and market implications.

    Why a Recession Still Looks Plausible

    Let’s start with the bear case.

    History tells us that a recession almost always follows when the yield curve inverts, well, technically, it is when it UN-inverts. Nonetheless, since the 1960s, every sustained inversion has been followed by an economic contraction, sometimes quickly, sometimes with a lag. The inversion that began in 2022 was the deepest and longest we’ve ever experienced. If that signal still carries weight, it is logical that we should expect economic weakness to emerge.

    Further, manufacturing activity has been in contraction territory for most of the past three years. The ISM Manufacturing Index, long viewed as a leading indicator, recorded 26 straight months below 50 through early 2025, briefly perked up, and then rolled back into contraction again. Historically, that kind of persistent weakness doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It usually shows up in corporate earnings, hiring, and consumer confidence.

    In addition, the role of Fed tightening has been added. Monetary policy famously operates with “long and variable lags.” The most aggressive hiking cycle in four decades would always take time to filter through credit markets, household spending, and corporate balance sheets. Post-pandemic distortions and massive fiscal deficits may have extended the lag, but we should expect that the effect hasn’t been repealed.

    And speaking of deficits, that’s another issue. Washington has effectively been running crisis-level stimulus despite a growing economy. Federal spending has helped mask underlying weakness. But it’s also raised debt-to-GDP ratios to levels that will eventually constrain fiscal policy. The “sugar high” from deficit-financed growth is not permanent, particularly since debt detracts from economic growth in the long term.

    Finally, valuations, as we discussed recently. Equity markets are priced for perfection, with mega-cap tech leading the charge. That means if growth does falter, even modestly, the downside could be amplified by the simple reality of stretched multiples.

    Taken together, these factors suggest the recession call wasn’t wrong so much as early. The patient looks healthy today, but the test results show underlying conditions that can’t be ignored.

    If we were to assign a probability of a recession in the next 12-18 months, it is likely somewhere around 55%.

    Why the Economy Might Dodge It

    Now, let’s give the bulls their due and explain why they were right to dismiss the “promised recession.”

    The biggest reason we haven’t fallen into recession is simple: spending. Both consumers and the government have been more resilient than expected, and the massive amount of liquidity injected into the economy following the pandemic has created enormous distortions to economic data. The huge surge in the monetary base has not fueled the “wealth effect” in the economy, but has sustained activity.

    Despite higher interest rates, households benefited from excess savings built up during the pandemic, increased wealth from housing and markets, and a historically tight labor market kept nominal wages elevated. As such, people kept spending and went further into debt, which kept GDP afloat.

    Meanwhile, government deficits have poured unprecedented amounts of cash into the system outside of a crisis period. Infrastructure projects, industrial policy initiatives, and entitlement spending have all provided ongoing support. In effect, Washington has been running “emergency stimulus” permanently, which has kept normal recessionary factors from occurring.

    Second, the nature of the economy itself has shifted. The U.S. is far more services-driven today than in past cycles. Manufacturing weakness is notable, but it only represents about 30% of the economy today versus nearly 70% in the 70s. Given that it is a much smaller factor in the economy, it is services that we should focus on, and while weak, they have not been in recessionary territory. The chart below, an economically weighted composite of ISM Services and Manufacturing, shows that recession risks are elevated, but no recession is likely at the moment.

    Third, corporate America has adapted remarkably well. Companies took advantage of ultra-low rates in 2020–2021 to refinance debt. Their balance sheets are stronger overall, and many firms have locked in cheap financing for years. That reduced the immediate pressure of higher Fed funds rates. However, such is not likely the case for smaller and mid-capitalization companies, and the risk of a rise in bankruptcies is not zero when they must refinance their debt. That could weaken economic growth but is not necessarily a guaranteed recessionary outcome.

    Finally, the Federal Reserve itself has shown a willingness to pivot quickly. After hiking aggressively, the Fed began cutting in September, signaling that “risk management” and preventing unnecessary economic damage were priorities. Whether you agree with it or not, that backstop has provided psychological support to markets and businesses alike.

    The bulls argue that these structural and policy supports could allow the U.S. to avoid a traditional recession altogether. Growth may slow, productivity gains (particularly from AI and automation) may cushion margins, and the expansion could grind on longer than skeptics expect.

    But that is also not a guarantee, and the assigned probability of “no recession” in the next 12-18 months at 45%.

    What This Means for Markets

    For investors, the probabilities matter less than the preparation. Whether the economy slips into recession or not, the implication is that volatility will remain elevated, and risk management is essential. It also does not mean the financial markets can’t experience a 5, 10, or 20% correction outside the “promised recession.”

    If the recession scenario plays out, equity valuations will likely compress, earnings estimates will fall, and risk assets will reprice lower. Defensive sectors, like utilities, staples, and healthcare, could outperform. Treasury bonds, ironically left for dead in 2022, would likely provide ballast as yields decline in a flight to safety.

    If the no-recession scenario materializes, markets may not be “all clear” either. Corrections occur annually and can impact portfolio performance and investor psychology. With much of the “soft landing” narrative already priced in, the risk of correction is elevated. The S&P 500 is trading at multiples historically reserved for periods of strong, broad-based growth, leaving little margin of safety. Even modest disappointments could trigger corrections.

    I always return to risk management here. As I’ve written many times, investing is not about making bold predictions but instead aligning portfolios to probabilities, protecting against the downside, and participating in the upside when it comes.

    Today, that means remaining cautious even as markets cheer new highs. It means trimming exposure where valuations are stretched, holding a healthy allocation to cash and fixed income, and being selective in equity exposure. It means acknowledging that both outcomes—recession and no recession—are plausible and positioning accordingly.

    Let’s also step back and acknowledge the broader lesson. Economists have a terrible track record at calling recessions.

    • In 2007, two-thirds didn’t see one coming.

    • In 2022, two-thirds thought one was imminent.

    Both times, they were wrong. Why? Because the economy is not a machine that spits out predictable results. It’s a complex, adaptive system shaped by human behavior, policy distortions, and unforeseen shocks. Models can tell us what should happen, but a “promised recession” or not, reality often finds a way to surprise us.

    That doesn’t mean we ignore the indicators. Yield curves, manufacturing surveys, and credit spreads all have information content. But it does mean we treat them as part of a broader mosaic, not as gospel.

    As an investor, humility is key. The market doesn’t owe us clarity. The job is not to know the future with certainty, but to navigate the uncertainty with discipline.

    So forget about a “promised recession” and focus on what matters.

    Tyler Durden Sat, 10/04/2025 - 10:30

    Mapping America's Consumers: Median Household Income By Retailer

    Mapping America's Consumers: Median Household Income By Retailer

    Goldman analysts examined twelve companies (all within the GS coverage) with high exposure to middle-income consumers, including Walmart, Best Buy, Target, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Tractor Supply, Academy Sports + Outdoors, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Ulta Beauty, Petco, Bath & Body Works, Five Below, and Dollar Tree. 

    Using GS Data Works, company data, and Pace.AI, analysts led by Kate McShane determined the median household income by retailer, finding an average of about $81,848 across the retailers in the GS universe. 

    Breakdown: 

    • The average household income across the group is $81,848.

    • Highest Income: BJ’s Wholesale Club, at $90,433

    • Lowest Income: Tractor Supply at $68,829

    Although the 12 companies vary in their relative exposure to the middle-income cohort, all maintain very high exposure levels (63%–74%) and are positioned to benefit from the tailwinds.

    Breakdown: 

    • Highest middle-income exposure: Academy Sports + Outdoors, Walmart, Tractor Supply, Dollar Tree, and Dick’s Sporting Goods. These firms also have the lowest household incomes (except Dick’s).

    • Lowest middle-income exposure: BJ’s Wholesale Club, Target, Ulta Beauty, Petco, and Bath & Body Works. These firms have the highest average household incomes.

    Median household income by retailer.

    Latest commentary from executives at the twelve companies on the middle-income consumer.

    The full note offers deeper insights into middle-income consumers. ZeroHedge Pro Subs can access this in the usual place. 

    Tyler Durden Sat, 10/04/2025 - 09:55

    All Currencies Will Be Stablecoins By 2030: Tether Co-Founder

    All Currencies Will Be Stablecoins By 2030: Tether Co-Founder

    Authored by Brian Quarmby via CoinTelegraph.cvom,

    Tether co-founder Reeve Collins expects “all currency” to become stablecoins by 2030 as part of a broader shift that will see all forms of finance go onchain. 

    “All currency will be a stablecoin. So even fiat currency will be a stablecoin. It’ll just be called dollars, euros, or yen,” said Collins in a wide-ranging interview during Token2049 in Singapore. 

    “A stablecoin simply is a dollar, euro, yen, or, you know, a traditional currency running on a blockchain rail by 2030,” he added. 

    Collins argues that stablecoins will be the primary method for transferring money within the next five years, as the benefits of tokenized assets have become too compelling for traditional finance to ignore.

    “Probably before that, because you’re still going to use dollars. But it depends on what your definition of stablecoin is. The definition of stablecoin is essentially that you’re moving money on a blockchain,” he added. 

    US crypto shift was the best thing to happen

    Collins said that the best thing to ever happen to the crypto market was the positive “shift in stance” toward the sector by the US government this year.

    Tether co-founder Reeve Collins. Source: Cointelegraph.

    He argued that many large TradFi firms were too afraid to enter the industry out of fear of government scrutiny, and while there is still some gray area surrounding the industry, it’s a very different ball game these days.

    The Tether co-founder stated that this shift has opened the “floodgates,” with the traditional finance world scrambling to enter the crypto sector and blockchain-based stablecoins being a key focus due to their inherent utility.
     
    “Every large institution, every bank, everyone wants to create their own stablecoin, because it’s lucrative and it’s just a better way to transact. And so those floodgates are open, and what it’s going to lead to is that soon, there won’t be CeFi and DeFi,” he said.

    “There’ll be applications that do things, move money, give loans, do investments, and it will be a mix of the kind of the old, traditional style investments, and then the DeFi types of investments.”
    The tokenization narrative is strong

    Collins said tokenized assets offer far greater transparency and efficiency than non-tokenized assets — given that they can be moved quickly across the globe without middlemen — which in turn offers more potential upside.

    “That is why the tokenization narrative is so big, because everyone realizes the increase in the utility that you get from a tokenized asset versus a non-tokenized asset is so significant that even the same two assets, just once they’re moved onchain, since the utility increases, that means the return increases.” 

    Downsides of going fully onchain

    However, Collins acknowledged there were also risks to such a monumental shift in global finance, such as the security of blockchain bridges, smart contracts and crypto wallets.

    Crypto hacks and social engineering are also key issues that need to be addressed, he said, though he emphasized that overall levels of security are “improving.”

    “And so the old trade off is still going to remain there… which is if you want to be fully in control … you can do that, but it’s technically complex,” said Collins.

    “If you want to trust a third party like you do traditionally with banks, there are a lot of those services like the custodial versus non-custodial, so that those services will get more robust, and people will have more options moving forward. So yes, there are always risks in technology,” he concluded. 

    Tyler Durden Sat, 10/04/2025 - 09:20

    Norway Oversees New Drone Base For Ukraine Established In Poland 

    Norway Oversees New Drone Base For Ukraine Established In Poland 

    Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has newly announced the opening of a Norwegian-led training center for Ukrainian soldiers in southeastern Poland.

    The newly constructed Camp Jomsborg is a project overseen by Norway’s Brigade Nord in the town of Lipa. It is capable of housing up to 1,200 troops at a time and is expected to focus on "developing drone capabilities" at a moment EU officials are advancing plans for a collective 'drone wall' defense network in eastern Europe.

    Norway's defense minister. Source: High North News

    "This is not a one-way street. An important element is that we will draw on Ukrainian experience. Right next to us is a drone launch strip," Kosiniak-Kamysz said.

    Norway’s defense ministry has already confirmed that training has begun there, with Norwegian and Estonian instructors in charge of a "three-figure number" Ukrainian troops.

    A statement previewed further that once the camp reaches full capacity, it will be able to "train several thousand soldiers".

    Citing Norwegian Defense Minister Tore O. Sandvik, regional source Notes from Poland details:

    The programme covers both basic training and advanced courses for officers and specialists. Norway has so far allocated 10 billion kroner (€860 million) to Operation Legio, covering equipment, camp construction and training. Other Nordic and Baltic countries are also contributing, with total donations sufficient to equip two brigades.

    “Our concept is that Ukrainian needs are the driving force,” said Sandvik. “Their need is for both soldiers and equipment to strengthen existing units.”

    Norway is a founding member of NATO, but also demonstrates that Scandinavian countries have risked conflict and tensions with Russia while bolstering the alliance in the context of the Ukraine war.

    Currently, northern European countries like Denmark claim to be experiencing an unusually high number of 'mystery' drone incursions, which they blame on Russia. This is all being used as justification to ramp up war-readiness and expanding defense budgets.

    Source: Forsvaret

    It is also being used to justify continued build-up of NATO military infrastructure on the 'eastern flank' and right up to Russia's doorstep, which itself has remained a rationale for the 'special military operation' from Moscow's perspective.

    Tyler Durden Sat, 10/04/2025 - 08:45

    Re-Evaluating Russia's Special Operation In Light Of The Valdai Club's Startling Insight

    Re-Evaluating Russia's Special Operation In Light Of The Valdai Club's Startling Insight

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

    The Valdai Club, which is Russia’s premier think tank and elite networking platform at whose annual meetings Putin participates, shared some startling insight into “the changing purpose of wars”. It was included in the eponymous section of their report titled “Dr. Chaos or: How to Stop Worrying and Love the Disorder”, which was written by Oleg Barabanov, Anton Bespalov, Timofei Bordachev, Fyodor Lukyanov, Andrey Sushentsov, and Ivan Timofeev. They’re all regarded as Russia’s top policy influencers.

    They wrote on page 25 that “Russia would not risk its own socioeconomic stability for a decisive victory in a military conflict. One exception is direct full-scale aggression, but the probability of such an action against a nuclear superpower is close to zero…Perhaps the purpose of wars has changed. The contemporary objective may no longer lie in victories – wherein one party achieves all its goals – but rather in maintaining a balance necessary for a period of relative peaceful development.”

    This startling insight prompts a re-evaluation of the special operation, which has been going on for over 3,5 years, in no small part due to Putin’s restraint in not waging a US-inspired “shock-and-awe” campaign at the cost of Iraqi-like civilian casualties among what he believes to be the fraternal Ukrainian people.

    In light of what Russia’s top policy influencers just revealed, however, a complementary reason might be his trusted policy advisors’ reluctance to risk their country’s “socioeconomic stability for a decisive victory”.

    It can only be speculated what form this could take if Putin abandoned his restraint by ordering the bombing of bridges across the Dnieper, the total destruction of all major Ukrainian power plants, and/or targeting political sites like the Rada. Nevertheless, the salience rests in the Valdai Club’s implied assessment that pursuing “a decisive victory in a military conflict” presumably like the present one could lead to such risks, thus further contextualizing why this hasn’t yet happened and might never will.

    More insight followed on page 26. According to the authors, “The current system is not excessively unfair to any of the major players; in other words, it is not so flawed as to require revolutionary solutions. The world has experienced numerous social and political upheavals on its path to self-awareness, learning to manage nature and control the most destructive socio-political processes. This capability has now reached a significantly high level.”

    Moreover, “It appears that the era of grand ideas, overarching theories, comprehensive programmes, and great expectations is over…national plans – even the most ambitious – are based on existing opportunities and realistic, accessible means of expanding them; they do not require a fundamental restructuring of the global order.” This suggests Russia’s satisfaction with the multipolar gains since 2022 and its reluctance to risk their reversal through a “decisive victory” that might destabilize this new order.

    To be clear, the Valdai Club only represents one of Russia’s policymaking factions and their insight might not accurately reflect Putin’s calculations, which could always change in any case. Even so, it does indeed explain Russia’s willingness to compromise with the US, ideally with the aim of reforming the European security architecture as the grand strategic outcome of this conflict. Trump thinks that he can coerce Russia into concessions, however, which risks unleashing the chaos that Putin’s restraint seeks to avoid.

    Tyler Durden Sat, 10/04/2025 - 07:00

    Leftists And Globalists Have Merged Into The Same Horrific Entity

    Leftists And Globalists Have Merged Into The Same Horrific Entity

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

    America is thoroughly divided. It has been divided and polarized for many years. Anyone who thinks they can stop it or fix it is fooling themselves. Anyone who thinks that conflict is avoidable is delusional. Anyone who thinks the division is “artificial” or a “false left/right paradigm” is naive. It is very real, tangible and undeniable.

    Many would argue that the core problem is the globalist cabal, influencing the population from the shadows, stoking violence from useful idiots and controlling every aspect of civil unrest. While these social engineers very much exist and they do try to play both sides of the chess board, they are only able to influence conflicts to a point.

    They didn’t create the conditions that make the conflict possible. Those conditions are inherent and eternal. The globalists merely exploit the divisions that already exist. Leftists WANT the power to destroy conservatives. They want control and they want to see blood. It’s the thing that subconsciously drives every political decision they make.

    Globalism as an ideology or a conspiracy has no power without the divergent and psychopathic subset present in every single society on Earth. Around 5% of any given population has narcissistic, sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies.

    Around 23% of the US population reports dealing with at least one mental illness and is likely to be taking some form of medication. Many of these people would still be considered “functional” in daily life, but not necessarily capable of controlling their emotions or avoiding reactionary behavior.

    Then you have around 25% of the US population with an IQ of 89 or less (well below average). This element of the public is deficient in critical thinking skills and they are more easily manipulated.

    These are just the intrinsic problems.

    When it comes to environmental factors, there’s the less obvious but always present element of academia that is “so smart they are dumb”. People who are educated but also heavily indoctrinated with an ideology that feeds their insecurities and their biases. Many of these activists are people with mental and emotional deficiencies trying to fill a void in their lives. They have no original ideas and they will rabidly and arrogantly defend the beliefs that they have been programmed with.

    Easily corruptible Americans exist across the political spectrum, left, right and center. However, today you are more likely to find most of them on the extreme left.

    A number of studies link far-left ideology with psychopathy and narcissism, and the majority of incidences involving legitimate politically motivated violence are committed by leftists (I outlined in my last article how data from left-wing NGOs like the ADL is rigged to make it appear that conservatives are “more violent” when we are not).

    It’s important to understand one vital thing; the key to grasping the root of the leftist problem: Leftist ideology, socialism, Marxism, communism, globalism, wokeness, etc. attracts mentally unhinged people.

    It sometimes creates them, but mostly it gives dangerous and unstable people a home, a club, a place to feel as if they are the majority and that they are on the right side of history.

    These stunted aberrations already exist everywhere, but in a healthy system they are usually isolated from each other and from normal society. In an unhealthy system without morals, responsibilities or self restraint, they thrive. The woke movement is a metastic mechanism; a relentless magnet that pulls in the ugliest elements of society and weaponizes them to attack the whole body.

    This is how every communist revolution starts – By gathering the dregs of a population together and telling them they are “the victims”. It then turns that mob loose for the sole purpose of burning down a target nation.

    Maybe 20 years ago the “false left/right paradigm” was an apt description of our nation’s quandary. Today the term does not apply. The leftists and the globalists have become one body, one entity. They are the same enemy, working hand-in-hand. You cannot defeat the leftists without defeating the globalists, and you cannot defeat the globalists without defeating the militant leftists (and by the way, Neo-Cons are also leftists).

    I would make one distinction here: There are people who consider themselves tied to the liberal left but they are actually centrists. They might be misled or uneducated on the facts, they might let their emotions rule their thinking, but they are not necessarily friends of the globalists. Some of them hate globalism as much as conservatives do, but they wrongly believe that globalism is a product of free market capitalism and conservatism.

    Globalism is fundamentally socialist, not capitalist. It is built first on corporations which only exist because of artificial government charter and government protection. The central bank bailouts, for example, protected numerous corporations from the financial consequences of their mismanagement. The idea of “too big to fail” is a socialist policy, not a capitalist one.

    Central banks are a primary plank of the Communist Manifesto, not free market ideology. Furthermore, globalism forces nations into interdependency instead of advocating for self sufficiency and redundancy. In other words, it’s about top-down control and removing choice from free markets. The political left proudly promotes this kind of system. They despise public choice.

    This is why the leftists and globalists are perfect allies.

    Globalists at the World Economic Forum (the Davos crowd) have been pushing the “Great Reset” for the past decade. This reset is decidedly leftist in its goals. They want a “sharing economy” in which private property is abolished. Citizens would be required to borrow everything they have from the government, from apartments to cars to dinner plates. As the WEF says, you would “own nothing and be happy”.

    It is a purely communist concept and fully supported by the political left.

    Then there’s the climate change agenda which demands carbon taxation, the dismantling of industry, the government regulation of the public diet and food supply, as well as population control (based on the lie of man-made global warming). Again, these are draconian restrictions that leftists cheer for.

    How about open borders and the end of nationalism? Leftists and globalists agree here, too. Both groups are ready to go to war in order to force western populations to accept mass immigration from the third world. Entropic immigration is a tool for ending western civilization, and leftists joyfully expedite that collapse.

    In terms of philosophy, progressive ideology and globalist theory intertwine into a symbiotic beast called “moral relativism”. Every element of the woke movement is based in selfish aggrandizement. All of its ideas require a morally relative framework that values hedonism over self restraint. In their minds, one cannot be free until one abandons all responsibility and conscience.

    It’s a confusing juxtaposition: They believe they are not free until they are allowed to entertain their darkest fetishes. At the same time, they want to micromanage the behaviors of everyone else.

    You will never see conservatives trying to defend this kind of thinking. You see leftists defending it all the time. In my view, two recent events make our irreconcilable differences abundantly clear: The pandemic response and the shooting of Charlie Kirk.

    During the pandemic we witnessed a clear fracture between conservatives and leftists in how we view freedom. Most leftists applauded the lockdowns, the mandates and the vaccine requirements. It wasn’t that they were afraid of Covid: They reveled in the vicarious power.

    They became animals frothing at the mouth for more. They demanded that conservatives be fined, imprisoned, forced to comply with the mandates. Many even wanted our children taken away.

    After Charlie Kirk’s assassination by a gay leftist (who confessed to his parents that he committed the attack after they recognized him in suspect photos), millions of other leftists danced, sang and cheered for the murder. They called for more blood, more death. They were in ecstasy.

    This was a defining moment for me, and I think it was a defining moment for our nation. The mask was completely torn away. Now we know, without a shadow of a doubt, the woke left is a purely evil movement. Not misguided. Not misunderstood. Not well meaning but stupid. They are evil.

    We need to accept the reality that we can no longer treat these people as if they are our fellow countrymen. As President John Adams once stated:

    “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

    Our nation was not made for leftists. That is to say, we are at war with a moral relativist enemy that wants to see us erased from history. The fact that this enemy lives next door to us is incidental. I’m willing to fight for our constitutional rights, but not the rights of people that want to see the constitution burned.

    Few if any of the Founding Fathers would have tolerated the woke left in their lifetime. They would have kicked them out of the country without regret.

    The most peaceful solution to our problem would be nothing less than a shared agreement of national divorce. The political left and the globalists must be separated from the rest of us, cast to their own degenerate communist enclave. A place where they can sink or swim based on their insane dystopian theories on society (much like North Korea).

    They could give up on their ideology, embrace moral objectivity, meritocracy and national identity; but we all know that’s not going to happen.

    The final choice, and the most likely, is that we go to war. In which case, leftists would not last long and the globalists would escape overseas.

    Mark my words, the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the numerous attacks by leftist activists are just the beginning. I predicted this outcome right after Donald Trump’s election win and I warned that, like all communist uprisings, the violence will continue to escalate. The assassinations will pile up unless something is done.

    At bottom, everything the political left champions falls perfectly in line with the globalist vision for the future. They are not separate, they are the same organism. When you see an Antifa thug, an NGO activist or a transgender militant, what you are looking at is a willing appendage of globalism, not a “patriot” trying to be heard.

    This is why I can no longer tolerate the impotent calls among some conservatives and libertarians for “unity”. Nor the calls for “forgiveness” and “reconciliation”.  Our most fundamental beliefs are mutually exclusive. It’s a childish notion to think you can coexist with the devil in the same house when his only desire is to see your destruction.

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

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/03/2025 - 23:05

    30% Of Food Produced Worldwide Goes To Waste

    30% Of Food Produced Worldwide Goes To Waste

    Around the world, 30 percent of food which is produced is never eaten.

    While 13 percent perishes or is discarded before it even reaches supermarkets or restaurants (so-called food loss), consumers, retail and food service businesses leave another 17 percent unused (referred to as food waste).

    This is according to data by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN Environment Programme. 

    The shockingly high number means that one billion meals are wasted every day at the household level and that food loss and waste account for an estimated 8-10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The UN and the FAO have been tracking food loss since 2015 and have found that its levels have not changed much. Data on food waste has not been collected consistently enough to make any judgements about changes in recent years (even though some countries have reported improvements). September 29 marked the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste.

    As Statista's Katharina Buchholz details below, food losses are particularly high for fruits and vegetables (25.4 percent lost), followed by meats and animal products (14 percent). Losses occur due to incorrect harvesting times, climatic conditions, incorrect harvesting techniques, poor storage and improper transport. Developing countries are particularly affected by these issues as Sub-Saharan Africa struggles with losses of almost a quarter of available foods, compared to 14 percent in Asia, 10 percent in North America and just 6 percent in Europe.

    30 Percent of Food Produced Worldwide Goes to Waste | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Food waste, on the other hand, was traditionally associated with high-income countries, but this gap has been closing. As of 2022, food waste per capita varied little between high income, upper-middle income and lower-middle income nations. According to the UN, this is due to the rapid development and urbanisation of countries in the Global South, for example India and China. While sufficient data lacked on low income nations overall, country-level data shows that even among this group of nations, food waste amounts varied significantly. Some of the countries reporting the least food waste were on the territory of the former Soviet Union or located in Eastern Europe.

    Households are the biggest culprits for food waste as they are responsible for around 60 percent of it. Waste continues to happen as consumers of all income levels, especially those in cities, lack food management skills and rely on deep-seated habits and beliefs rather than knowledge around the edibility of foods.

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/03/2025 - 22:40

    Link Between Transgenderism And Violence In Spotlight

    Link Between Transgenderism And Violence In Spotlight

    Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A combination of ideology, social media, mental health disorders, and medication may be influencing recent trends in violence and radicalization among those who identify as transgender, according to experts.

    Antifa activists gather in Sacramento, Calif., on March 28, 2023. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

    “My general feeling is that we’re seeing more of it ... not for any one factor, but because of several factors all convening, and they’re all amplified by the political rhetoric,” said C. Alan Hopewell, a Fort Worth neuropsychologist.

    When people struggling with their sexual identity are prescribed hormones to change their bodies, it impacts the way they think, he told The Epoch Times.​

    Hopewell said that combining hormones, medication, and intense online pressure can create a dangerous situation.

    Since 2018, there have been at least six high-profile shootings at schools and businesses involving individuals who identified as transgender or were described as gender-confused.

    Two were mass shootings, which are defined by the Crime Prevention Research Center as the killing of four or more people in a single incident that’s not gang-related or related to some other crime.

    Last year, Anderson Lee Aldrich, a man who identifies as nonbinary, was sentenced to 55 concurrent life sentences for the 2022 shooting of five people at an LGBT nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

    In 2023, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, a woman who identified as a man, opened fire at the Covenant School in Nashville. Three 9-year-olds and three adults were gunned down before police shot and killed Hale.

    Robert Westman, who changed his name to Robin, killed two children and wounded 21 others before killing himself at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis this August. The 23-year-old left a manifesto saying he “was tired of being trans” and scrawled anti-Christian messages and the words “kill Donald Trump” on weapons.

    Likewise, members of the Zizians, described as a cult-like group largely made up of transgender individuals, have been mentioned in connection with the death of a woman during an attack on a California landlord in November 2022, the landlord’s subsequent killing, and the deaths of a Pennsylvania couple.

    Most recently, the Zizians have been linked to a highway shootout in Vermont that left a U.S. Border Patrol agent dead.

    In Texas, Cameron Arnold, also known as Autumn Hill, and Bradford Morris, also known as Meagan Morris, were charged with the attempted murder of federal agents in connection with an ambush of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer at the Prairieland ICE detention facility in July.

    Police block a road after a shooting involving a U.S. Border Patrol agent on Interstate 91 near Coventry, Vt., on Jan. 20, 2025. Experts say ideology, social media, mental health disorders, and medication may be driving recent trends in violence and radicalization among people who identify as transgender. WCAX via AP

    Both suspects were members of an Antifa-affiliated group and both identified as transgender, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

    Court proceedings recently revealed that the man arrested for allegedly plotting to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022 identified as a woman.

    Tyler Robinson, the alleged killer of Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, was romantically involved with a transgender partner whose picture in a “furry” suit has been widely distributed online.

    Friends reported that Robinson delved into a “dark” internet culture, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said on Sept. 14.

    Messages on the cartridges in a rifle found by police in a wooded area after Kirk’s shooting gave insight into the shooter’s motive.

    According to court documents, the phrase on one cartridge contained a reference to online furry and roleplay culture. Another read “Hey fascist! Catch!” and featured arrow symbols that may have referred to a sequence of controller moves that unleash a bomb in the video game “Helldivers 2.”

    Robinson’s mother told investigators that over the past year or so, Robinson’s political beliefs had been leaning to the left, “becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented,” according to the documents.

    President Donald Trump said on Sept. 15, “It looks like he became radicalized on the internet.”​

    The FBI is investigating other possible accomplices in the assassination of the conservative influencer.

    Ideology and Violence

    When asked whether the FBI should be investigating transgender extremism, Trump told reporters on Sept. 21: “Something seems to be going on, but you can’t make that statement yet. We’re looking at it very closely.”

    Groups such as Armed Queers of Salt Lake City, a militant anti-fascist group that wiped its social media presence after Kirk’s assassination, and Trans Army have come under public scrutiny.

    Armed Queers spoke on “queer resistance” at the University of Utah in 2023. The group, which calls itself a revolutionary LGBT organization that defends “oppressed people,” is led by Ermiya Fanaeian, a transgender activist whose parents were Iranian immigrants. Fanaeian identifies as a “trans woman of color.”

    New York police arrest a protester during a pro-transgender demonstration in New York City on Feb. 3, 2025. President Donald Trump recently said his administration is examining possible transgender extremism in the country. Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images

    Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said in an X post that the socialist group is now under FBI investigation in connection with Kirk’s slaying. She noted alleged funding links between the group and the Chinese Communist Party.

    The Trans Army, which offers “guides, toolkits, and counterinsurgency strategies to survive and fight back” denied the group was anything but peaceful, after journalist Andy Ngo posted on X that the organization was training for a “paramilitary insurrection against the U.S. government.”

    The group said in an online statement, ​“The recent portrayal of the Trans Army initiative as a violent revolutionary force fundamentally misinterprets the organization’s intent, purpose, and advocacy.”

    ​Trump designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist group on Sept. 22 and signed a presidential memorandum on Sept. 25 with the aim of dismantling left-wing terrorism networks in the United States.

    The memorandum stated that recent political violence, including anti-ICE shootings and assassinations, did not have organic origins.

    “Instead, it is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society,” the president said.

    The memorandum directed the National Joint Terrorism Task Force to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and people engaged in political violence and intimidation designed to suppress lawful political activity or obstruct the rule of law.

    President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office on Sept. 25, 2025. Days earlier, the president designated Antifa a domestic terrorist group and later signed a memorandum to dismantle left-wing terrorism networks in the United States. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Hormones and Mental Health

    Dr. Lauren Schwartz, an Oklahoma psychiatrist, cautioned against the assumption that transgender individuals are inherently violent.

    “I would be very cautious to link it directly to a violent act, of something like murdering someone or assassinating someone,” she told The Epoch Times.

    Schwartz said individuals experiencing gender confusion are already vulnerable, and affirming their beliefs does not appear to improve their situation. Instead, she noted, their conditions may worsen.

    “Steroids, and testosterone specifically ... I do think all of them put these kids and young adults in horribly compromised medical situations, even if it has nothing to do with harm to others,” she said.

    While the number of mass killings involving transgender individuals is small, some experts say that the proportion appears statistically high.

    A testosterone ampoule is displayed at a hospital in Santiago, Chile, on Jan. 8, 2020. Claudio Reyes/AFP via Getty Images

    ​“If you look at mass public shootings since 2018, what you find is about 5 percent of the mass public shooters were trans individuals, and given that their share of the population is about 0.7 percent, they’re obviously overrepresented,” John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, told The Epoch Times.

    Read the rest here...

    *  *  *

    Meanwhile, boost your testosterone...

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/03/2025 - 22:15

    America's Sober Revolution Marches On: NielsenIQ Data Charts Continued Decline In Alcohol Sales

    America's Sober Revolution Marches On: NielsenIQ Data Charts Continued Decline In Alcohol Sales

    Reaffirming that the sober revolution in America is continuing full steam ahead into fall, a new Goldman report shows total alcoholic beverage sales fell 3.9% in the two weeks ending September 20, consistent with prior 4-week and 12-week declines. 

    There's a lot to unpack in Goldman's alcoholic beverage trends note, which cites NielsenIQ data through September 20. A team of analysts led by Bonnie Herzog wrote the report. Here's the breakdown:

    Overall U.S. Market

    • Total alcoholic beverage sales fell -3.9% in the 2 weeks ending 9/20/25, consistent with prior 4- and 12-week declines.

    • Volume remained under pressure (-3.0%), while pricing slipped slightly (-0.7%).

    • Spirits and Cider were the only categories avoiding volume contraction.

    Beer Category

    • Beer sales declined -3.8%, driven by a -5.2% volume drop, partially offset by +1.5% pricing.

    • Modelo: Sales down -3.5% on weaker volumes (-4.6%) but modest price growth (+1.2%).

    • Bud Light: Sales fell -8.9%, losing 44 bps market share to 7.7%.

    • Michelob ULTRA: Grew +2.5%, gaining 55 bps market share to 9.0%.

    • Coors Light & Miller Lite: Both declined (-4.6% and -7.8%), with share erosion.

    Flavored Malt Beverages (FMBs)

    • FMB sales fell -6.8%.

    • Twisted Tea: Sales dropped -12.8%, though market share edged higher.

    • Simply Spiked: Severe weakness continued (-32.0%).

    • Hard Seltzers: Down -5.7%, led by Truly (-13.6%) with share loss.

    Ready-to-Drink (RTD)

    • Cocktails Strong growth continued: Spirit-based RTDs: +23.1% Wine-based RTDs: +28.5%

    Promotions

    • Promotional spend moderated slightly to 18.5% of sales (from ~18.6–18.7%).

    Herzog's team published an extensive chartbook visualizing the NielsenIQ data, underscoring a "sober revolution" that has gained momentum since the Covid lockdowns. Gen-Z sober behaviors are also changing the drinking landscape.

    The charts line up with Gallup's latest survey showing (read report), for the first time in the poll's 90-year history, that a majority of Americans now view even moderate alcohol consumption as harmful to one's health.

    Bud Light sales remain depressed after a transgender TikTok in early 2023 nuked the brand. 

    Hmmm.

    Related:

    For the full 75 charts and tables on the latest U.S. alcohol trends, ZeroHedge Pro Subs can access the report in the usual spot.

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/03/2025 - 21:50

    7 Midlife Money-Traps That Could Drain Your Wealth

    7 Midlife Money-Traps That Could Drain Your Wealth

    Authored by Mike Donghia via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Being able to identify financial traps can help make security in your midlife and beyond a breeze.

    The Epoch Times/Shutterstock

    When you’re young, the central money problems to solve are how to grow your income and begin to invest so the magic of compounding is on your side.

    As you approach retirement, the challenge shifts to managing health care costs and transitioning your investments to a stable phase, allowing you to draw on them.

    What about the midlife years when life is busy and the demands on your time are at their all-time high? What is the most innovative way to approach your finances during this season?

    As I enter my mid-30s, I am firmly entering the exciting midlife years with a career and a large family to care for. After years of having to closely manage our money, a bit of breathing room has finally emerged. However, I’m convinced the key to this season in life is avoiding the money traps that so easily entangle otherwise intelligent people.

    Midlife can last for around three decades—a long time to see your career and investments grow if you’ve set yourself up that way. That much time also means plenty of opportunities to get off track and blow your blessings on trivial mistakes.

    7 Common Midlife Money Traps

    There are several ways we can fall into financial trappings. Becoming aware of them can help us avoid their ill effects.

    1. Allowing Your Spending to Increase With Rising Income

    Our default human behavior is to spend nearly everything we make. As your income grows, your expenses grow proportionally, as if by some inexplicable magic. It happens without even thinking about it, but means your rate of savings never increases. The opportunity cost is significant because that money could be invested conservatively and grow over time to meet larger needs that will surely arise down the road.

    2. Not Diversifying Your Investments

    There comes a season in many people’s lives where they get the idea that they can invest their own money better than the average professional. Generally, people who get the investing itch end up concentrating their investments into what they see as “sure bets” instead of diversifying and accepting normal rates of growth. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and this will work out, but more often you’ll be unlucky and see painful drawdowns. For most non-experts, it’s a trap to avoid.

    3. Underestimating the Impact of Inflation

    Another type of person views the stock market and other investments as risky and therefore avoids them altogether due to fear. They read about the volatility in the news or hear about friends or family losing money, and want to stay as far away as possible. What they often fail to account for is the slow, draining effect that inflation can have over decades. With just three decades of 2 percent inflation, your original amount is worth about half of what it was at the start. The moral is: Don’t let fear keep your money from earning interest— find a local advisor that can help you make wise investments.

    4. Carrying High-Interest Credit Card Debt

    Credit card debt is a trap, and possibly the main reason, besides health care expenses, that people end up in bankruptcy. Avoid at all costs. Aim to make it through your entire midlife years without ever paying a dime of credit card interest. For one, if you have a substantial emergency fund, it should never really be needed. If you do need a loan for any reason, there are much cheaper sources that any bank or credit union can point you toward.

    5. Falling for Get-Rich-Quick Schemes

    We all know the dangers of the midlife crisis and the irrational decisions it can lead people to make. Sometimes we feel “behind” on our financial journey and want to make up for lost time in one fell swoop. When it comes to money, always assume there’s no additional upside without additional risk, and your midlife is not the time to be ratcheting up the risks you’re willing to take. It’s far safer to find a source of side income if you want or need to grow your savings faster.

    6. Not Building an Emergency Fund During Good Times

    Many of the problems mentioned in the above list can be avoided by making it a priority to build an emergency fund and add to it over time. Having cash on hand, or money that you can quickly and easily convert to cash, is one of the best safety nets you can build for yourself. While many people advocate for three to six months of expenses, I say to aim even higher in your midlife—up to 12 or even 24 months so that you can weather any financial storm.

    7. Buying Too Much House or Too Nice a Car

    One of the most common traps people fall into when they finally start having some extra dough is looking around and seeing how they stack up to their peers. Not wanting to appear behind, many upgrade their lifestyle with bigger homes and newer, higher-status vehicles. I’m not against spending your well-earned money, but be careful that you’re doing so thoughtfully, and with the bigger picture of your financial goals in mind.

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/03/2025 - 21:25

    The Courage To Stand Alone In An Age Of Cowards

    The Courage To Stand Alone In An Age Of Cowards

    Authored by Maureen Steele via American Greatness,

    The bravest souls are rarely the loudest in the room, but they are often the most misunderstood.

    In an age when conformity is dressed up as virtue and applause is the currency of self-worth, those who refuse to play by the script become lightning rods. They provoke discomfort simply by existing in truth. They trigger the insecure, unsettle the complacent, and disturb the carefully curated illusions of the fake.

    We like to imagine that the pressure to conform ends with adolescence, with the awkward teenage years when belonging matters more than authenticity. But Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments in the 1950s proved otherwise. In a simple exercise—identifying which line matched another in length—he planted actors in the room to all give the same obviously wrong answer. Time and again, the lone real participant abandoned the truth they could plainly see with their own eyes and went along with the group. Three out of four conformed at least once. Not because they were fooled, but because they did not want to stand out. The fear of sticking out, of being “that person,” overpowered reality itself.

    And here is the sobering part: that experiment never ended.

    It repeats itself every day in classrooms, workplaces, media echo chambers, and politics.

    People choose the safety of the crowd over the solitude of truth. They surrender what they know is real because they do not want the chill of unpopularity or the sting of rejection. The applause comes cheap, but the price of dissent feels unbearable.

    Pair that with Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies in the 1960s—where 65 percent of participants willingly administered what they thought were lethal shocks to another person simply because an authority told them to—and you see the bleak pattern. Obedience to authority and conformity to the crowd are the twin forces that crush truth. And yet, every turning point in history has been authored by those who resisted both—the prophets, the dissidents, the whistleblowers, and the reformers.

    To live this way is to accept loneliness as a companion. It is to endure suspicion, ridicule, and rejection, not because one is wrong but because one refuses to settle for the comforting lie. Truth costs dearly, but its reward is integrity: an internal compass that does not lose its bearing when the crowd veers off course.

    Applause fades. It always does.

    What endures is the quiet, steady force of those who never sold out, never bent, and never exchanged their essence for acceptance. They may never be fully understood in their time, but they will always be remembered as the ones who saw clearly, stood firmly, and lived bravely.

    *  *  *
    Reminder, grab your meat by Sunday for Monday delivery... 

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    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/03/2025 - 19:45

    Regulatory Rollbacks Begin To Combat California's Housing Crisis

    Regulatory Rollbacks Begin To Combat California's Housing Crisis

    Authored by Carey Wedler via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    California is home to numerous profitable industries, but many of the state’s residents struggle to survive under the weight of big government. Case in point: excessive regulations have suffocated the state’s housing market and led to some of the nation’s highest rents and most expensive homes.

    Panoramic view of a neighborhood in Anaheim, California. Nancy Pauwels/Shutterstock

    In contrast, metro areas in the South, particularly in Texas, are leading in the construction of new apartment buildings this year. Austin hosted nearly double the number of new units as Los Angeles, which is larger tin both geographic and population size. One of the reasons for the South’s housing boom is its less-restrictive regulatory environment. According to Doug Ressler, a senior analyst and manager of business at Yardi Matrix, a real estate data firm, “Southern metros typically offer streamlined approval processes and fewer regulatory hurdles, making it easier to bring multi-family projects to market.” Notably, Texas lawmakers further relaxed the state’s land zoning laws earlier this year to allow for more housing construction.

    Californians have long been victims of government overreach. Has the tide begun to turn?

    Earlier this summer, members of the heavily Democratic state legislature voted to roll back CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, for certain building projects. The law, passed in 1970 and signed by then-Governor Ronald Reagan, mandates that developers consider environmental impacts when proposing construction projects. CEQA requires government agencies tasked with approving building projects to conduct reviews based on potential environmental threats, including those to nearby water, air, flora, and fauna. CEQA also allows members of the public to file lawsuits to block projects based on environmental concerns.

    The law has faced widespread criticism, as builders say it contributes to making housing construction too expensive and time-consuming. But faced with staggering housing shortages and skyrocketing costs, the Democrat-dominated state legislature and Governor Gavin Newsom instituted unprecedented reforms at the end of June.

    The reforms removed the CEQA review for certain types of developments, effectively “exempting or streamlining infrastructure projects, including high-speed rail; community water and sewer systems; certain types of daycare centers, health clinics and food banks, wildfire risk reduction projects; and ‘advanced manufacturing’ located in industrial zones,” Deborah Sivas, co-director of Stanford University’s Environmental Law Clinic, told ABC News.

    Perhaps most significantly, the reforms grant an exemption for “infill” housing construction projects. Infill housing generally refers to urban housing built in and around existing developments. CEQA restrictions previously created a huge hurdle to building infill housing in densely populated areas where it is most needed. The reformed CEQA will unblock most new infill housing developments, which is expected to expand the state’s housing supply.

    CEQA advocates have argued the law is not a significant impediment to the housing supply, claiming few CEQA lawsuits actually target housing projects. But others disagree with this assessment.

    Nick and Daniel Yost, a father and son who are both environmental attorneys and activists, have pointed out that “The mere threat of a CEQA lawsuit is enough to stifle new housing developments since such suits can add substantial time, cost and risk for builders who already face daunting construction costs.” Lawsuits don’t actually have to be filed to disincentivize developers from starting new projects.

    Further, according to a 2018 analysis by veteran attorney Jennifer Hernandez published in the University of California Law Environmental Journal, the most frequent targets of CEQA lawsuits have been housing projects—specifically multifamily construction projects in urban areas. Referring to her previous research on the effects of the law, she wrote that “CEQA lawsuits were most often aimed at infill housing (especially multifamily apartments in urbanized areas).”

    She also noted that projects generally viewed as good for the environment often become CEQA targets, as “more transit projects were challenged than roadway and highway projects combined, and that the most frequent ‘industrial’ targets challenged were clean energy facilities like solar and wind projects.” Additionally, even some environmental advocates have taken issue with CEQA’s detrimental effects on the environment. As Nick and Daniel Yost noted, CEQA restrictions on infill housing can force construction projects into open and agricultural spaces.

    Further, many CEQA lawsuits are actually efforts to weaponize the law for non-environmental interests. A 2022 paper by attorney Noah DeWitt published in Pepperdine University’s law journal argued that “the wrong people have discovered the right ways to make CEQA serve their own interests—interests that demote the environment to a secondary concern.” Developers seek to stymie projects that may compete with their own business. Unions are also known to threaten CEQA suits if developers do not hire their workers.

    NIMBYs (“Not In My Backyard”) also leverage CEQA—not to protect the environment but to limit new housing developments in their communities. Such applications of the law have harmed the poor and minorities, who suffer the most from rampant housing shortages. As DeWitt notes, CEQA tactics are used to keep such groups out of certain areas, and bear a “strange resemblance to the sorts of racially based tactics used to keep minorities out of white communities in the 1960s.”

    CEQA perfectly encapsulates a key flaw of progressive governance: the “fix” for one problem often creates another. An ideology attempting to serve many high-minded ideals will quickly damage some cherished cause by seeking another. CEQA’s costs have become so high that some Democrats are willing to compromise. Even so, others in the legislature staunchly opposed these CEQA reforms, insisting that reforms should also prioritize the construction of low-income housing. The endless appetite for controlling and tinkering—in this case, in the name of helping the disadvantaged—has virtually ensured such dire, if unintended, outcomes.

    This fracture within the California legislature highlights an emerging attitude in left-leaning ideology: the “abundance agenda.”

    The term aligns with the popular book, “Abundance,” by authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. This mindset acknowledges that bureaucracy and administrative excesses have created serious barriers to prosperity and innovation, from housing to infrastructure and energy. Klein called out progressives in a New York Times piece earlier this year, writing:

    “It has become too hard to build, and too expensive to live, in the places where Democrats govern. It is too hard to build homes. It is too hard to build clean energy. It is too hard to build mass transit. The problem isn’t technical: We know how to build apartment complexes and solar panel arrays and train lines. The problem is the rules and the laws and political cultures that govern construction in many blue states.”

    Unsurprisingly, a 2024 UC Berkeley survey found more than half of California voters agreed that “it is difficult to access at least some essential goods and services.” Limiting the question to finding suitable housing at an affordable price, almost half said they strongly agree, reflecting, the scholars summarized, “the severity of the state’s decades-in-the-making housing crisis.”

    Some skeptics of the CEQA rollback are not defenders of the law, but worry rolling it back may not have much effect. Some builders have said the reforms may provide more freedom and speed up timelines, but that “plenty of barriers to home construction remain in California,” citing “bureaucratic delays, high labor and materials costs, strict liability laws, and environmental regulations.” Further, while the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market research organization, praised the reforms, it highlighted new instances of bureaucratic red tape built into them.

    The state’s CEQA rollback is a vital step toward solving at least some of the many problems California’s big government has created. But there is a long way to go, if legislators intend to help the people most hurt by decades of excessive regulation.

    From the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER)

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/03/2025 - 18:55

    Shocker: Soros-Backed Tides Foundation Funding Wikipedia

    Shocker: Soros-Backed Tides Foundation Funding Wikipedia

    X user DataRepublican, also known as Jennica Pounds, who leads DOGE-adjacent efforts in an open-source capacity, has delved deeper into the dark-money-funded NGO world. Her latest target: George Soros and one of the largest soft-power projects of the 1990s, called the Muskie Fellowship program. 

    But the focus here is not the Muskie Fellowship program, but rather her question: "This is straight off the Federal Register. Now ask yourself why Wikipedia doesn't mention the Soros Foundation." 

    She added, "And fun fact -- Soros had further grants for these graduates of the Muskie fellowship program. Hard to interpret this as something other than using our taxpayer funds to educate his minions." 

    Responding to Pounds' thread, X user Leigh Marcotte suggested that Wikipedia's omission of the Soros Foundation from the Muskie Fellowship program entry may be linked to Soros-backed pass-through grants to the Wikimedia Foundation.

    Marcotte explained:

    Wikipedia may omit Soros from search results because Tides, an OSF pass-through, grants funds to the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates

    Wikipedia and related projects like Wikimedia Commons and Wiktionary. Wikimedia provides infrastructure, funding, and support to keep Wikipedia free and accessible.

    Per its 2023 Form 990, Tides Advocacy awarded $3,176,116 to Wikimedia Foundation for general support.

    This may explain why Grok increasingly makes errors when fact-checking conservatives' posts on Soros funding

    For context, the Wikimedia Foundation is a nonprofit organization that operates and supports Wikipedia and other projects. 

    Marcotte's post was even read by Elon Musk, who replied, "Noted." 

    Earlier this week, Muk revealed plans to launch "Grokipedia" as a move to counter the world's largest online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, which has been hijacked by left-wing activists who manipulate narratives and silence dissenting viewpoints. 

    "We are building Grokipedia @xAI . Will be a massive improvement over Wikipedia. Frankly, it is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe," Musk wrote on X.

    The reliability of OpenAI's ChatGPT and even xAI's Grok comes into question given Wikipedia's designation of "reliable source"... 

    And then there's this. 

    Related:

    The broader message is that the fight for narrative control continues. Wikipedia has received funding (as per the report above) from dark-money NGOs, which undermines credibility and, most importantly, raises questions about the reliability of chatbots that pull information from Wikipedia entries. This may help explain why Musk is preparing to launch a competing "Grokpedia." The pursuit of truth, or the effort to seize narrative control from the Deep State, marches on.

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/03/2025 - 18:30

    New York Targets Bitcoin Mining With Proposed Tax Hike Bill

    New York Targets Bitcoin Mining With Proposed Tax Hike Bill

    Authored by Frank Corva via BitcoinMagazine.com,

    Yesterday, two members of the New York State (NYS) Senate introduced Senate Bill 8518 (S8518), which imposes excise taxes on digital asset mining using the proof-of-work consensus mechanism, making it even more difficult than it already is for bitcoin miners to operate in the state.

    S8518, which was co-sponsored by Liz Krueger (D) and Andrew Gounardes (D), stipulates that bitcoin and digital asset miners in the state will pay increased taxes based on the amount of energy that they use.

    The rates are as follows:

    • 0 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for every kWh less than or equal to 2.25 million kWh per year

    • 2 cents per kWh for every kWh between 2.25 million and 5 million kWh per year

    • 3 cents per kWh for every kWh between 5 million and 10 million kWh per year

    • 4 cents per kWh for every kWh between 10 million and 20 million kWh per year

    • 5 cents per kWh for every kWh over 20 million kWh per year

    The proposed taxes will not apply to miners who utilize renewable energy sources, as defined by Section 66-P of NYS public service law, to power their facilities. The mining facility would also have to “not [be] operated in conjunction with an electric corporation’s transmission and distribution facilities,” according to the bill.

    The bill also stipulates that all taxes, interest, and penalties collected as a result of this potential law be used to subsidize energy customers enrolled in NYS energy affordability programs.

    The introduction of this bill comes approximately one year after NYS’ digital asset mining moratorium expired. The moratorium banned any digital asset mining that required the use of fossil fuels.

    Now that bitcoin mining companies can technically operate in the state again, they will likely think twice about doing so, as the increased taxes will likely cause these companies to look to set up facilities elsewhere in the U.S..

    This new bill is just another in a series of bad regulatory proposals from Democratic lawmakers and bureaucrats in NYS that disincentivize the Bitcoin and crypto companies from setting up in NYS.

    Instead of thinking about the jobs that the bitcoin mining industry could bring to upstate New York, home to a number of cities and regions that suffer from poverty in this post-industrial era, Democrats seem more hellbent on sticking it to bitcoin miners.

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/03/2025 - 17:15

    "Cancel Netflix" Google Searches Erupt After Musk Urges Parents To Protect Kid From "Groomer" Shows 

    "Cancel Netflix" Google Searches Erupt After Musk Urges Parents To Protect Kid From "Groomer" Shows 

    Momentum in Netflix cancellations hype and internet searches accelerated by the end of the week after Elon Musk and large X accounts, including Chaya Raichik's "Libs of TikTok", urged Americans to cancel subscriptions over what they described as pro-transgender messaging pushed by far-left elites to corrupt youth. Netflix appears to be aligning with the broader left-wing indoctrination agenda also present in public schools run by progressive activists, where children are radicalized with wokeism and Marxism and, by their teenage years, transformed into purple-haired "woke warriors" for the Democratic Party.

    On Monday, the campaign against Netflix began with Libs of TikTok's post that highlighted that Dead End: Paranormal Park, created by Hamish Steele and produced by Blink Industries in partnership with Netflix Animation, and distributed by Netflix, created woke propaganda aimed at kids as young as seven years old. The post has since been viewed 33 million times. 

    Following Libs of TikTok's viral post, Elon Musk amplified the cancellation movement, telling his quarter-billion followers to “Cancel Netflix for the health of your kids.”

    And again. 

    And again. 

    And again. 

    "Netflix is grooming our children," Musk said. 

    By early Friday, Musk, whose fortune briefly hit a half-trillion dollars earlier this week, told followers, "Netflix is deliberately choosing to pay people to create sexualized content for children. Freedom of speech should be respected, but this is PAID speech. Netflix is going out of their way and reaching into their wallet to push this."

    X users en masse followed Musk's lead, amplifying the call to "cancel" Netflix over pro-trans propaganda targeting youth. This created a massive multiplier effect, spreading the message to an even broader audience.

    By Friday morning, Google Search trend data shows an eruption in "cancel Netflix" searches ...

    Related queries.

    For Musk, the topic of "saving humanity" is deeply personal. He has previously stated he was "tricked" into authorizing trans-related medical treatment for one of his children. Maybe this explains his hate for woke media. 

    However, there may also be an underlying motive here: with X (the "everything app") and soon Grokipedia, Musk and his allies in the America First movement, along with tech investors, appear intent on seizing further control of cultural narratives.

    The aim: erode messaging power from Democrats and their Marxist-aligned allies, who support indoctrination programs of young kids from the TV to the classroom that transform the youth into the Democratic Party's woke warriors by their teenage years.

    To win the culture war, Musk and his allies need further narrative control. That could only suggest the evolution of the X platform could soon be a video streaming component. First discredit Netflix, then roll out a competing, non-woke alternative. That's how the game is played.

    Just remember, the woke mind virus doesn't build; it destroys. That's why this toxic propaganda is aimed at the youth, while Democrats push globalist, nation-destroying agendas. Trump is attempting to reverse this anti-American agenda.

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/03/2025 - 16:50

    Higher Ed Bottoms Out

    Higher Ed Bottoms Out

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

    "There are so many disgusting animals in public life that we have allowed to fraternize with the rest of society to our absolute peril."

    - Aimee Terese on "X"

    Harvard, apparently, can never learn.

    It has made itself the poster-child for all the failures of contemporary education, including the racketeering around endowments, government grant grifts, race and gender hustles, and intellectual surrender to ideas that would make medieval astrologasters burst out laughing.

    Case in point: the university lately announced the hiring of a Boston-area drag-queen to teach a course in the spring semester of 2026 about the TV show known as Ru Paul’s Drag Race. The show features contestants vying for prizes and crowns based on “Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent” (C.U.N.T.). Get the picture? Reach into your Jungian psychology tool-bag.

    This backwater of the arts was identified some years ago by the literary pop-star Susan Sontag as “camp” derived from the French se camper “to pose in an exaggerated fashion” depicting “unnatural artifice.” Camp is the theatrical cousin of kitsch, which is the celebration of bad taste, with histrionic overtones of exaggerated sentimentality.

    Please understand: when you are watching drag-queens, you are not really seeing men posing as women. You are seeing men portraying women as monsters. You might surmise that these are men who labor under “mommy issues.” The giveaway is that they often banter onstage humorously about their male genitalia, and sometimes even attempt sneaky displays of such, which opens that behavior to interesting interpretations.

    Harvard’s drag-queen du jour demonstrates all that nicely. Kareem Khubchandani, his legal name, is a professor of theater, dance, and performance studies at Tufts University.

    Drag Queen LaWhore Vagistan a.k.a. Kareem Khubchandani

    He also teaches “Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora.” As a drag star, he goes by the stage-name LaWhore Vagistan. This is how he describes himself to the news media: “[M]y preferred pronouns are ‘she’ or ‘aunty.’ I chose ‘LaWhore’ because my family traces its origins to Pakistan: Lahore is an important city in Pakistan, and well, I’m a bit of a whore. And Vagistan because I see the subcontinent as one, big, beautiful Vag … istan.”

    Of course, his fascination with female genitalia, of seeing a whole nation in that guise, is a bit odd considering that A) he is a homosexual performer who is ostensibly not attracted to female sexual characteristics and lacks experience with them, and B) he is a male of the species who does not possess such organs himself. Therefore, on what basis would he have gained so much knowledge of female genitalia and developed such a powerful obsession around them as to imagine the whole country of his ancestors that way? Possibly, it has something to do with mommy. . . something that made her appear. . . unforgettably monstrous.

    We will probably never know the answer to these quandaries, and they are somewhat secondary to the main question of Mr. Khubchandani’s employment in this connection at Harvard where young minds get molded to become the future managerial class of our nation. Other questions do present, though. For instance, did Harvard’s President Alan Garber know about this hire and sign off on it, and how would he say it fits Harvard’s mission? Or Provost John Manning? Or Hopi E. Hoekstra, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences? Or Harvard’s Board of Governors?

    All this underscores an important lesson that America has apparently managed to unlearn, something that we once knew quite well: that marginal behavior belongs on the margins, not in the center of our national life.

    The celebration of vulgarity for its own sake is arguably not the highest aspirational ideal for the best-and-the-brightest of our society, however amusing it might be in their hours of leisure, when people are free to pursue whatever lights their imaginations.

    It also raises the question as to why would highly-educated women, say, the female faculty and admins at Harvard, virtually all PhDs, certified geniuses in their fields, go along with such a garish display of farcical disrespect for the female of the species, being officially showcased as part of Harvard’s curriculum? Do they see themselves as monsters who deserve mockery and objurgation? Do they enjoy watching a man enact such degrading psychodrama so as to diminish his manhood altogether? Does it signify some sort of conclusive triumph over “the Patriarchy?” (And how much of a good thing is that?)

    Harvard happens to have a Psychology Department, including a PhD program in Clinical Science, Social Psychology, and Cognition, Brain, and Behavior, under chairman Matthew K. Nock, PhD. His official Harvard bio states:

    “Nock’s research is aimed at advancing the understanding of why people behave in ways that are harmful to themselves, with an emphasis on suicide and other forms of self-harm. . . to better understand how these behaviors develop, how to predict them, and how to prevent their occurrence.”

    Perhaps President Garber should ask Dr. Nock to audit LaWhore Vagistan’s upcoming course to see, for instance, how it speaks to the epidemic of transgender violence currently plaguing the USA. We need all the insight we can get.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/03/2025 - 16:25

    Hamas Ready To Release All Hostages In Major Trump Deal Breakthrough

    Hamas Ready To Release All Hostages In Major Trump Deal Breakthrough

    Update(1608ET): Late Friday evening Hamas has announced it has agreed to release all of the Israeli hostages as well as the bodies of those who had died. This is in direct response to President Trump's peace proposal, contained in the 20-point plan released by the White House earlier this week. According to the breaking announcement via the NY Times:

    In a statement posted online on Friday night, the armed group said it would release the hostages “according to the exchange formula contained in President Trump’s proposal, and as the field conditions for the exchange are met.”

    “In this context, the movement affirms its readiness to immediately enter into negotiations through the mediators to discuss these details,” the group added.

    But as the wording suggests, there will be more hurdles to go as the group enters fresh "negotiations". Trump had earlier said there's little room for this, but it's unlikely that Hamas will sign on to all points of the White House plan. Additionally, it remains to be seen whether the IDF will engage in a 'partial withdrawal' from the Strip, as the plan calls for.

    Nevertheless, at this early moment in entering the new deal, this is the first positive news out of Gaza in a long time, and the US administration is likely to hail it as a major victory going into the weekend.

    * * *

    As previously reported by Jackson Richman of The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), President Donald Trump has given Hamas until Oct. 5 to accept a deal to end the war between the terrorist group and Israel and release all the hostages. Trump announced the deadline in a post on Truth Social on Oct. 3.

    President Donald Trump speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Va., on Sept. 30, 2025. Alex Wong/Getty Images

    “An Agreement must be reached with Hamas by Sunday Evening at SIX (6) P.M., Washington, D.C. time. Every Country has signed on! If this LAST CHANCE agreement is not reached, all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas. THERE WILL BE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST ONE WAY OR THE OTHER,” Trump wrote in his post.

    “Hamas has been a ruthless and violent threat, for many years, in the Middle East! They have killed (and made lives unbearably miserable), culminating with the October 7th MASSACRE, in Israel, babies, woman, children, old people, and many young men and women, boys and girls, getting ready to celebrate their future lives together. As retribution for the October 7th attack on civilization, more than 25,000 Hamas ‘soldiers’ have already been killed. Most of the rest are surrounded and MILITARILY TRAPPED, just waiting for me to give the word, ‘GO,' for their lives to be quickly extinguished. As for the rest, we know where and who you are, and you will be hunted down, and killed.”

    Trump also called on Palestinians to go to safe parts of Gaza.

    “I am asking that all innocent Palestinians immediately leave this area of potentially great future death for safer parts of Gaza. Everyone will be well cared for by those that are waiting to help,” Trump said, adding that his warning is “one last chance.”

    Israel has accepted a 20-point plan put forward by the United States to end the war.

    The plan includes deradicalizing Gaza and making it a terror-free zone; redeveloping Gaza; releasing alive and deceased hostages within 72 hours of Israel agreeing to the plan; immediately ending the war; Israel releasing 250 life-sentenced prisoners and 1,700 Gazans who were detained after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas; and sending humanitarian aid into Gaza.

    Gaza would be governed by a technocratic and apolitical Palestinian committee subject to oversight by a “Board of Peace” chaired by Trump and comprising heads of state as well as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

    Also, under the plan, no one would be forced to leave Gaza.

    Additionally, Hamas would have no role in Gaza and its administration, and all terrorist infrastructure would be destroyed.

    An International Stabilization Force would be deployed to Gaza to “train and provide support to vetted Palestinian police forces in Gaza, and consult with Jordan and Egypt, who have extensive experience in this field,” according to the plan.

    Tyler Durden Fri, 10/03/2025 - 16:08

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