Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds

Child labor law violations in the United States rose in recent years in a manner the Department of Labor has called "alarming".

As Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports, in the fiscal year of 2024, there were more than 4,000 of these infractions recorded, down from a recent peak of almost 5,800 in FY 2023.

According to the most recent DOL report on the topic, the general increase might have been in connection with more effective enforcement and awareness.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The peak was at least in part connected to a high-profile case of child labor uncovered at a meat production plant cleaning company, which has now been found to have employed more than 100 minors in hazardous, overnight cleaning operations in Nebraska and Minnesota.

The case that opened the eyes of many for the harsh realities of present-day child labor ended in February 2023 when Packers Sanitation Services Inc. paid $1.5 million in civil penalties on top of taking mandated steps to strengthen compliance within the company. Meat packing is an industry that has been notorious for employing children in hazardous conditions in the United States, with 145 compliance actions taken in the fiscal years 2023 and 2024 combined. A much bigger general violator of child labor laws is the hospitality industry at more than 1,100 compliance actions over the two given years. Other industries with many infractions were janitorial services and retail, where like in hospitality children run the risk of working inapproriate hours.

Human trafficking is another aspect that is sadly intertwined with child labor and in the fiscal years 2023 and 2024, the DOL notified the Department of Health and Human Services in relation to the suspected human trafficking of 43 workers they suspected were minors as well as making 11 other referrals. A recent survey found that around 60 percent of youths affected by child labor trafficking were form other countries, while around 40 percent were from the United States. The research found that victims commonly knew their trafficker and that in 40 percent of cases they were a family member. This could lead in some cases to the problem being overlooked, the report found. It also advocated for providing official and appropriate vocational opportunities for minors as well as safe housing for all young people in the country to make them less vulnerable to laboral exploitation.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

A rule from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) violates the beliefs of members of a Catholic association, a federal judge ruled on June 5.

The HHS rule requiring members of the Catholic Benefits Association to perform transgender procedures “violates their sincerely held religious beliefs without satisfying strict scrutiny,” U.S. District Judge Peter Welte said in a 19-page decision.

He permanently blocked HHS from enforcing the rule against the association and its current members.

The ruling also prevents the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from requiring the association and its members to provide insurance coverage for transgender procedures.

Spokespersons for the agencies declined to comment.

The association, which says it has more than 9,000 provider members, did not return an inquiry.

At issue is Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

That section of the Act bars discrimination on grounds outlined in other laws, including Title IX, which prohibits discrimination “on the basis of sex.”

HHS in 2016 said that discrimination on the basis of sex included discrimination on the basis of “gender identity,” and that health providers could not refuse to offer transgender procedures if the provider offered similar services to others. One example offered was that a provider that removed uteruses to treat female health problems was also required to perform hysterectomies for women who believe they’re transgender and want the procedure.

The Catholic Benefits Association sued over the interpretation and won an injunction.

HHS in 2020 updated the rule, removing the part about gender identity.

That same year, the Supreme Court ruled that “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex,” prompting a court to rule that the HHS gender identity discrimination prohibition remained in effect.

Welte later ruled in favor of the Catholic Benefits Association, concluding that the rule infringed on the association members’ exercise of religion in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That law allows the government to substantially burden the exercise of religion, but only if it shows it is using the least restrictive means available to achieve a compelling interest.

An appeals court overturned the decision because, judges said, the association failed to show standing since it did not identify specific members and their injuries.

The association brought a new suit identifying members and their injuries, resulting in Thursday’s ruling.

HHS had amended the rule again in 2024, reinstating the explicit prohibition on discrimination on the basis of gender identity. It also barred discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy or related conditions,” which officials said included abortion.

Government lawyers said that the latest version of the rule does not violate the Religious Freedom Act because of a new process that enables providers to seek religious exemptions to the requirements.

Welte disagreed.

“The case-by-case exemption procedure leaves religious organizations unable to predict their legal exposure without furthering any compelling antidiscrimination interests,” he said.

The judge did rule in favor of the government with regard to the requirements for covering “pregnancy or related conditions,” finding the Catholic association did not provide evidence that the requirement violates their members’ religious beliefs.

He also declined to extend the block on enforcement of the gender discrimination prohibition to future association members. That would “stray too far from the principle of party-specific relief,” he said.

Authored by José Niño via Headline USA,

The Trump administration is rethinking how it deals with Chinese-linked tech firms after a short-lived self-driving truck company was found to have stolen a vast trove of U.S. intellectual property. 

Founded in 2015 by Chinese entrepreneurs and backed by Chinese capital, TuSimple was once hailed as a leader in autonomous trucking, boasting a record-setting 80-mile driverless journey in Arizona and partnerships with major firms like UPS and Navistar.

But beneath its rapid rise, TuSimple’s dual presence in the U.S. and China created vulnerabilities. According to a Wall Street Journal report, February 2022, the company signed a national security agreement with the U.S. government after concerns emerged about its Chinese ties and potential for technology transfer. 

The agreement, enforced by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), required TuSimple to separate its U.S. operations and technology from China-based employees and partners, build firewalls, and prohibit the sharing of intellectual property. 

Yet, just a week after signing, TuSimple transferred a trove of sensitive data, which included test results and technical blueprints—to Beijing-owned Foton, a major Chinese truck manufacturer.

“They want a lot of details,” said TuSimple employee Xiaoling Han in a February 2022 chat.

“It is pretty time consuming.”

Internal correspondence shows the data sharing continued up to the six-month compliance deadline. 

WSJ reporter Heather Somerville noted thatTuSimple provided Chinese companies with what essentially constituted a complete autonomous driving system.

This included the source code that serves as the brain of an autonomous truck, in addition to various elements of the design, hardware, and integration of all these systems. 

A CFIUS investigation later found that while the data sharing did not technically violate the agreement, TuSimple was fined $6 million for other infractions. The company did not admit fault, and co-founder Xiaodi Hou insisted that no information prohibited by the company’s national security agreement “was ever shared with anyone.” 

The fallout was swift. TuSimple shut down U.S. operations, while being delisted from Nasdaq. These events prompted it to move investor funds to China. 

The episode compelled the Trump administration to rethink its reliance on mitigation agreements for high-risk, foreign-connected firms. According to new directives, the White House will “cease the use of overly bureaucratic, complex, and open-ended ‘mitigation’ agreements” and instead block more China-backed deals outright.

Earlier this year, Commerce Department has also issued new rules prohibiting the sale of internet-connected vehicles and components to entities connected to China, with further restrictions on commercial vehicles expected to be imposed soon.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

The excuse that this regime is better than it was, or might otherwise have been, only lasts so long. 

Every transition government in history has deployed that trope. Think the Girondins in France, Kerensky in Russia, Weimar in Germany, the Second Spanish Republic, Chiang Kai-shek in China, and so on. In order, they were replaced by Robespierre then Napoleon, Lenin then Stalin, Hitler, Franco, and Mao. 

In each of these cases, the transitional government was caught between and ultimately smashed by pressures from both sides: industrial and intellectual partisans of the old regime with legacy control, on one side, and the radicalism of the populist movements that brought new people to power on the other. 

Threading this needle is not easy in revolutionary moments. Of such times, history teaches one lesson more than any other. The new regime must be brutally honest about the criminality of the old one and work with focus to dismantle it as fast as possible. Anything short of that leads to its own discrediting and eventual replacement. 

In every area of government today under the Trump administration, now entering its second phase, we witness these very historical forces at work. The grassroots movement that beat all odds to put the new people in power had high and even revolutionary expectations following the five most horrid years of our lives. 

Some of these hopes are being partially met in good ways but blocked and neglected in too many other ways that are unbearably conspicuous. This dynamic affects the budget disaster, the demand for transparency, and in the realm of public health. 

As a result, the wild optimism that greeted the inauguration of Trump has turned to something different, a mixture of incredulity from the grassroots combined with outrage and disgust from the legacy media and establishment that fought this revolution at every turn. 

This further raises the prospect about which we’ve repeatedly warned: the Trump administration could go down in history as a transitional regime like we’ve seen so many times in history, a four-year experiment in moderation bookended by different brands of totalitarianism on either side. 

This is a serious matter, not a parlor game. Nor is this a typical political battle. What happened over the last five years was for the ages. The world economy was smashed by nearly all states due to a lab leak for a product partially funded by the US government. The unannounced fallback plan, pushed in the name of science, was to universally distribute a new shot with a new gene-altering technology. 

The shot did not work. It was not effective. It was not safe. Nor were they properly vetted because they were imposed by military edict under the cover of emergency. Other therapeutics were disparaged and banned. The critics in all areas were censored and shut down. People who refused the injection were fired. Public health collapsed in the name of preserving it. 

Those harms have seen no justice. 

Meanwhile, to finance this calamity, debt-financed spending ballooned by $8-10 trillion, leaving the federal government’s budget $2 trillion higher than it otherwise would have been. The shots are still on the market despite undeniable and widely known harms. 

None of this is a secret, as it might have been in former times. Because of information technologies, people are well aware of every detail. The so-called “populist movement” has become a vast community of in-depth expertise, fully capable of running circles around legacy people and institutions. 

The new leaders – elected to change course on all the above and more, including the accompanying crime and migration chaos – began with tremendous bravado and sweeping edicts that seemed promising. Four months later, they are asking for patience while dealing with legacy barriers on all sides from media harassment to court blockages. 

The trouble is that public trust is completely gone.

The whole country, traumatized by years of lies, has become Missouri: show me. 

• First, no one believes that the “one big beautiful bill” is just a first step on the way to future draconian cuts. We’ve seen this too many times, which is why Elon Musk finally broke his silence and denounced the entire “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill” as “a disgusting abomination.” That has set off a power struggle for the ages. 

• Second, in areas of government transparency, there have been some steps but not nearly enough to fulfill the promises. There are still no new Epstein files. The JFK files are a mess and incomplete. We know no more than already public information about the two shooters who tried to kill Trump. There are still many lingering questions about 9-11, the Covid disaster, and so much else. This is not the opening for which the people had hoped. 

• Third, let’s talk more at length about the public health area of policy where we’ve seen the most progress. We have a new and excellent Executive Order on science. Tax-funded Covid testing has ended. A contract of $750M for a Bird flu shot has been cancelled. There are new limits on gain-of-function research, and experiments on beagles and other animals are over. Many terrible contracts from NIH have been cancelled while parts of the CDC have been dismantled. 

As for the mRNA shots, the market has been narrowed from everyone to only vulnerable populations, leaving aside the known issue that vulnerable populations should not risk them either. 

There are new standards for randomized controlled trials with placebos, but no assurance that these companies will do them in a timely way. RCTs for a five-year-old product with massive immune-altering effects can never cobble together a valid sample selection at this late date, nor is a continuation of this experiment in any form morally justified. 

In two tremendous victories, the shots have been removed from the routine childhood schedule, the first time this has ever happened to any product targeting a specific disease apart from eradication or replacement. In effect, the CDC/FDA are saying: it is better to get Covid than risk these products. Such a message will drive uptake to new lows approaching zero eventually. 

In addition, the outrageous advice from the CDC that expectant women should take them is gone, finally. The champion of that policy has fled the CDC. 

These are all welcome changes in policies that never should have existed in the first place. Even now, however, no one says the quiet part out loud: even if these shots had been safe and effective, which they are not, they were never necessary for the overwhelming number of people. Which raises the profound question of how and why all this came to be in the first place. 

There are other initiatives too concerning food nutrition, mental health, and other matters in the MAHA Commission report that are hugely welcome changes from what has existed before. 

The people in power in these agencies are pleading for patience. That is not unreasonable. Remember that these few appointees are confronting a beast larger, more entrenched, and better financed than any hegemon in human history. The pharma/media/tech/NGO/academia complex is larger and more powerful than the slave trade, the East India Company, Standard Oil, or even the munitions industry that started the Great War. 

It’s certain that such a Leviathan cannot be ended in three months, not even with the best people in charge. All the grassroots really need to see is evidence of progress plus a transparent reason for delays. If the shots cannot be pulled now, people need to know why. If Covid emergency powers cannot be ended, explain why. If the new Moderna shot was already in the works and could not be stopped, people need to know the reasons. 

Everyone who has watched all this unfold is of two minds, never mind the endlessly mutating factions within the dissident movements that have seen their leadership ascend to power. The people in the MAGA/MAHA/DOGE movements are as thrilled by the progress so far to the same extent that mainstream media and the legacy establishment are furious about all the changes. 

For my own part, having watched public affairs for decades, this is the first time I’ve witnessed some progress in at least one area of state operations. That is worthy of celebration. I don’t even need to dwell on the many ways in which improvement over the darkest times of our lives is perhaps not as great an achievement as it would be otherwise. 

That said, the release of yet another shot, implausibly called NexSpike, especially in light of all evidence and promises, is a tremendous shock for which no one was prepared. If they were in the works and the appointees could not stop them, we should be told that and the full explanation should be given to all. If President Trump himself is still attached to the foul spawn of Operation Warp Speed, and has forced them back onto the market despite vast public opposition, we should know that too. 

Above all else, what we really need is the blunt truth about the last five years. We need to know that the people in office, whether elected or appointed, still share the deep outrage that fueled the movement that put them in power. We need to hear frank talk about the harms, the mandates, the suffering, the deceptions, the payoffs, the graft, the abuses, the illegal vanquishing of freedom, science, and human rights. 

It is not enough to proclaim a new Golden Age and be done with it. This pertains to every aspect of public life. Press conferences by the new officeholders, with smiles and promises of better behavior in the future, don’t cut it given the mass loss of trust, rampant cynicism, and grassroots fury. There must be more straight talk, more decisive action that goes to the heart of what happened, and some degree of accountability. 

We hear daily rumors that all of this is coming. Great. In which case, the new leaders need to make that clear. The masses are not inherently unreasonable. But they are the people within whom the leadership must reason – not “message,” not presented with flim-flam, not entertained with digital Punch and Judy shows, and not sniffily dismissed as ignorant extremists and conspiracy theorists. 

Every new leadership in government that inherits that kind of disaster of the last five years is necessarily going to be squeezed between the legacy regime – including its vast bureaucracies and industrial interests – and the populist movements that put them in power. In these cases, the status quo usually proves irresistible but with disastrous consequences later. 

Now is the time to stop that unfolding disaster, one which can only compound the errors of the past. 

Via Middle East Eye

The US-led coalition in Syria has launched a formal investigation after "unapproved symbols or language" were observed on a US military vehicle in northeast Syria, the coalition said in a statement to Middle East Eye on Friday.

On Thursday, MEE reported that a US military vehicle patrolling near the city of Hasakah last weekend displayed the word "kafir" - infidel in Arabic - on its front next to a Christian cross. 

A US armored vehicle bearing the word 'kafir' patrols near the city of Hasakah in northeast Syria on 31 May 2025, via MEE

The term "kafir" gained global notoriety during the Syrian war, frequently used by the Islamic State (IS) and other extremist groups to justify violence against those deemed non-believers - including Muslims who did not share their ideology.

Local residents described the graffiti as "offensive" and a "provocation", particularly as IS no longer has a presence in the region.

"Markings of this nature violate U.S. Department of Defense policy," the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) said in a written statement. "CJTF-OIR has initiated a formal inquiry and will implement appropriate disciplinary measures under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

"This incident does not reflect the professionalism of our personnel or our respect for the Syrian people. While fact-finding is underway, our mission remains unchanged, enabling the enduring defeat of ISIS in Syria and Iraq."

The CJTF-OIR began operations in October 2014 [ostensibly] as the US-led coalition to defeat IS in Syria and Iraq.

Earlier this week, the US special envoy to Syria announced that the United States would reduce its military presence in the country, scaling down from eight bases to three in Hasakah.

Speaking to MEE, Jihan, a 34-year-old Kurdish woman, said it was hard to discern the intended message behind the markings. "We have nothing to do with IS, we don’t consider Americans to be kuffar [plural of kafir], and even less so the Christians who have always lived in Syria," she said.

Syria was one of the first places in the world to have a Christian community – the community is mentioned in the Book of Acts and St Paul’s famous conversion on the road to Damascus...

Christians are not foreign to Syrian land; they have not been imported; they are, in fact,… pic.twitter.com/zty0Plep2f

There are currently an estimated 2,000 American troops in Syria, with the number expected to be halved in the coming months.

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on June 6 to allow it to resume dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, following a lower court’s previous order halting the process.

A federal district court issued an injunction last month blocking the process, directing the government to rehire some of the departmental employees who had been laid off.

“Each day this preliminary injunction remains in effect subjects the Executive Branch to judicial micromanagement of its day-to-day operations,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in the new emergency application.

As Matthew Vadum reports for The Epoch Times, ​​President Donald Trump campaigned on shuttering the department.

On March 20, he signed Executive Order 14242, pledging to close the agency, which he said “has entrenched the education bureaucracy and sought to convince America that Federal control over education is beneficial.”

The department “does not educate anyone” and “maintains a public relations office that includes over 80 staffers at a cost of more than $10 million per year,” the executive order states.

In a May 22 order, U.S. District Judge Myong Joun of Massachusetts ordered the government to rehire about 1,400 laid-off employees and reverse other actions aimed at downsizing the department.

Joun said that for more than 150 years, “the federal government has played a crucial role in education.” Since it was created in 1979, the department’s “role in education across the nation cannot be understated,” he added.

The agency oversees the federal student loan system, performs research for states and schools, distributes federal funds, and enforces compliance with various federal laws.

Joan said it’s clear that the Trump administration’s “true intention is to effectively dismantle the Department” without first obtaining the required congressional approval.

President Donald Trump held a highly anticipated 90-minute phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday. Trump described the conversation as "very good" and mentioned that a potential visit to China is being planned — though Beijing or Washington has not confirmed the trip.

To end the week, more positive trade news hit the wires late Friday morning in New York, as Reuters cited three sources saying that China has granted temporary export licenses to rare-earth supplies for three major U.S. automakers.

The export licenses for rare earths were granted to the three major U.S. automakers: General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, the maker of Jeep. Sources noted:

At least some of the licenses are valid for six months, the two sources said, declining to be named because the information is not public. It was not immediately clear what quantity or items are covered by the approval or whether the move signals China is preparing to ease the rare-earths licensing process, which industry groups say is cumbersome and has created a supply bottleneck.

In April, China deployed non-tariff countermeasures against the U.S. amid the escalating trade war, including restrictions on rare earths exports and related magnets — moves that disrupted the supply chain for American companies. 

Readers are well aware that China controls approximately 90% of the global rare earths market and has repeatedly used this dominance as a strategic economic weapon.

• European Industry Under Siege: China Deploys Rare Earths As Economic Weapon

In response, Western nations are ramping up efforts to boost production in allied countries to reduce supply chain vulnerabilities...

• U.S. Can Produce Rare Earths If China Stops Exports - But There's A Catch

Earlier this week, a separate Reuters report said President Trump plans to use emergency powers under the Defense Production Act to bolster domestic production and processing of these metals.

The broader takeaway is clear: the U.S. must reclaim critical supply chains as the global order fractures into a bipolar state—while simultaneously accelerating the deployment of new hemispheric defense capabilities. We outlined this strategic mission for readers in a recent note titled:

• Golden Dome Unleashes U.S. Hemispheric Defense Theme - And Goldman Finds One Firm Stands Out

It's a five-year sprint to secure critical supply chains and build out hemispheric defense infrastructure before the 2030s kick-off. This comes as the Biden-Harris regime screwed around for four years, more focused on Marxist DEI and gender nonsense than actually preparing the nation to meet the rising threat from China today and in the next decade.

Via The Cradle

On Thursday, the US government imposed sanctions on four International Criminal Court (ICC) judges over their role in investigations into war crimes by US and Israeli forces.

The US State Department said the sanctions freeze any assets the judges hold in the country and ban them from any transactions involving US citizens or institutions, cutting them off from the US financial and legal system. This includes a ban on US banks, companies, or individuals from sending money, offering services, or cooperating with the judges through international bodies.

Getty Images

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions in a written statement, accusing the ICC of overstepping its authority and threatening the sovereignty of the US and Israel.

The ICC responded by condemning the move as an attack on its independence. It said the sanctions undermine efforts to hold war criminals accountable. "Targeting those working for accountability does nothing to help civilians trapped in conflict. It only emboldens those who believe they can act with impunity," the court said.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk also criticized the move, emphasizing that "attacks against judges" are in direct contradiction to "respect for the rule of law and the equal protection of the law – values for which the US has long stood."

The judges targeted are Solomy Balungi Bossa, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza, Reine Alapini Gansou, and Beti Hohler.

According to the State Department, Bossa and Carranza were sanctioned for approving a 2020 investigation into alleged war crimes by US troops and CIA officers in Afghanistan and secret prisons.

Alapini Gansou and Hohler were targeted for their involvement in issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024, with charges including starvation and attacking civilians in Gaza. The decision triggered a strong reaction from both Washington and Tel Aviv, which rejected the ruling outright.

Less than three months later, on February 13, 2025, the US sanctioned ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, freezing his assets and banning him from entering the country.

On April 29, ICC judges issued a gag order on Khan, barring him from publicizing any new arrest warrant applications in the Palestine case. Judges said his public announcements had disrupted proceedings and put pressure on the court.

Trump escalated the campaign after returning to office in January 2025. Just days in, he signed an executive order threatening sanctions against anyone involved in ICC investigations related to US or Israeli war crimes.

The same order is now being used to justify sanctions against the four judges. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio maintain that the ICC holds no authority over the US or Israel, neither of which is party to the Rome Statute.

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

What Movie Is This?

“MAGA is developing “tech right” fatigue.”

- Cernovich on “X”

In this age of info overload, when everybody’s brain has become a memory hole, we’ll see how long anyone remembers Elon Musk’s epic tantrum. The latest news is that Mr. Trump and Wonderboy have scheduled a phone convo for today, Friday, supposedly to “make-up.”

The whole psychodrama looks like an episode out of the Batman movie that America has become. You could see the current plot twist from a thousand miles away. Even back in the summer, Elon’s spastic cavortings on the campaign trail looked suspiciously drug-edged. He’s reported to use ketamine, which induces mood changes from euphoria to anxiety and agitation, as well as slurred speech. Also, altered judgment and disinhibition that might provoke risky behavior. You just have to kind of wonder.

Meanwhile, the fabled Fourth Turning enters full churn. Western Civ, of which we are part, continues to go sideways into history. In case you are distracted by Mr. Musk’s histrionics, we are on a path toward World War, political crack-up, and global bankruptcy.

Among the strange doings, note former CIA Director Mike Pompeo showing up a week ago at a “Black Sea Security Forum” in Odessa, Ukraine, where — say, what? —he called for called for a "complete victory" over Russia, and advocated for Crimea to be recognized as part of Ukraine (which is not in the folder labeled “Reality”).

A call for “victory” implies that we’re at war with Russia, or seek to enter such a war. Granted, the US neocon-intel-blob sparked the Ukraine-Russia War, starting in 2014, when State Department Cookie Monster Victoria Nuland set off the Maidan color revolution. And “Joe Biden” kept stoking the conflict with cash and ammo — and inflammatory rhetoric. But Mr. Trump has been working this year to put out the fire, difficult as that is, with the EU and the rest of NATO beating war drums offstage.

What was Mike Pompeo up to in Odessa? You can make the case that he was violating the Logan Act: attempting to make freelance foreign policy outside government, and in a rather dangerous way, calling for war, however obliquely. And then you have Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal flying to Kiev to confab with the unelected coke-head running Ukraine’s war machine. . . and alakazam, the next day Ukraine pulls off its long-distance bombing prank deep into Russia, destroying some of its strategic nuclear force. Surely, the purpose of that was to provoke a response that could amount to a cassus belli for the EU to launch its (insane and suicidal) longed-for war against Russia.

Why were Pompeo, Lindsey Graham, and Blumenthal not arrested when they flew back to the USA? Everything they were up to in Ukraine had the odor of serious mischief. Mr. Patel of the FBI, a former US attorney who knows how to manage such things, should have personally hauled all three of them into a windowless room for depositions. Who, exactly, does Mike Pompeo purport to represent these days? Who paid for his trip to Odessa, and who went with him? And why isn’t anybody asking these questions?

Elon Musk’s bout of intemperance was supposedly provoked by his disgust over the “big beautiful bill” before Congress, not a budget, really, but a mandatory spending reconciliation package with lots of bells, whistles, and kazoos attached. Of course, you have to ask: what legislation coming out of that animal farm is not a monstrosity? Maybe it takes a monster to fight a monster.

Maybe America needs to transition out of its Batman phase into something like King Kong versus Godzilla.

The multitude of little folk underfoot are getting trampled, anyway. And the bankruptcy of America is already presenting itself as a sort of systemic sepsis driving ordinary people and small businesses to ruin, even while the stock and bond markets manage to levitate. No one can feel comfortable in the present situation.

The Democratic Party played the Joker the past ten Batman years, working overtime to throw the country into chaos. That movie’s over.

Now, strange to relate, it’s looking more and more like the USA (King Kong) against Europe (Godzilla). Russia is the lady in peril down among the ferns watching the brutes roar at each other. China is something like Ming-the-Merciless from a distant planet (and another movie), waiting off-stage to see what happens.

Europe has a death wish. Its economy is cratering. It’s sacrificing two-thousand years of culture to a new barbarian invasion. The governments of the UK, France, and Germany, have gone full Orwell against their own citizens. The unelected EU has turned into a tyrannical machine grinding up anything that looks like enterprise. And the war drums they’re beating can only bring on a hard rain of Russian hypersonic “hazelnuts,” destroying the only thing they have left: their once-charming cities. If that’s not enough to finish Europe off, wait for the banking and bond market implosion.

Mr. Trump knows that Godzilla is fixing to fall off a cliff. He’s more inclined to take up with that lady down in the ferns and march back into the humid, welcoming jungle. If you really want to rescue what’s left of Western Civ, Russia in its current form, would be your natural ally, not your opponent. Nobody knows how we will get through this movie, but time does not stand still and some day we will be back in a world of nations that have given up acting like monsters. . . and maybe the next movie is something light-hearted like Carey Grant and Kate Hepburn with a pet leopard.

Five leaders of the Proud Boys are suing the Department of Justice after the Biden administration found them guilty of engaging in a seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol.

The lawsuit, filed by Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola, seeks $100 million, and claims that federal authorities violated the Constitution in an effort "to punish and oppress political allies of President Donald Trump, by any and all means necessary, legal, or illegal," WaPo reports. 

It comes on the heels of Trump's January pardon of virtually all Jan. 6 defendants - which could saddle the Trump administration with the ironic task of defending the prosecutions, which many on the right view as political weaponization of government. 

Leftist academics (at least one) are freaking out over the suit, suggesting that it would vindicate Jan. 6 rioters in the court of public opinion.

"A settlement would suggest that the violence of January 6 was entirely justified," Matthew Dallek, a George Washington University political historian told WaPo. "It would say to the country that these Proud Boys who were convicted in a court of law, in a fair trial, were wrongfully prosecuted and victims. It just turns the entire day on its head."

Or, asshole, it would prove that the Biden administration weaponized the DOJ like everyone with a functional brain witnessed. 

Tarrio, who wasn't even at the Capitol on Jan. 6, was sentenced to 22 years for 'plotting' to attack - while Nordean, Biggs and Rehl allegedly stepped into their leadership roles and led what prosecutors claimed was the first breach of the Capitol's west enterence. 

Nordean, Biggs and Rehl received sentences of 18, 17, and 15-years respectively for seditious conspiracy, while Pezzola was sentenced to 10 years for conspiracy to obstruct Congress.

The lawsuit comes on the heels of a May agreement to settle the wrongful death case brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot by a Capitol policeman (who got off scot-free) while she was involved in the demonstration. 

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Supreme Court handed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) two big wins late on June 6 in its effort to reduce the size of the federal government.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on June 3, 2025.Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The nation’s highest court issued the two unsigned rulings at the same time.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented in the case known as Social Security Administration v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.

The other new order, in U.S. DOGE Service v. CREW, formally blocked lower court orders requiring DOGE to respond to freedom of information requests in a pending lawsuit.

Ukrainian-American entrepreneur Michael Polsky, CEO of energy developer Invenergy—the firm behind the proposed $11 billion Grain Belt Express power superhighway—warned that the U.S. risks falling behind in the global artificial intelligence race if its outdated transmission infrastructure isn't urgently modernized. 

Polsky's warning is especially timely, given that his company is working to break ground on an 800-mile high-voltage transmission line designed to deliver 5 gigawatts of power — the equivalent of five nuclear reactors — from Kansas to the eastern U.S., connecting multiple regional grids to power data centers and onshore manufacturing trends. 

He told Bloomberg that the Trump administration issued executive orders signaling an energy emergency, and "I do believe it's an emergency because of how difficult it is to build things," adding, "We don't have decades to figure this out. We have years."

A look at the U.S. transmission line map makes one thing clear: a massive amount of copper will be required. Copper bulls know this... 

He argues that energy infrastructure developers need the same level of federal backing that Elon Musk receives for space projects, emphasizing the urgent need for a national transmission authority to build high-voltage power lines—modeled after the national highway system.

Invenergy has developed over 190 projects totaling more than 30 gigawatts of capacity in operation, under construction, or contracted. The latest project, the Grain Belt Express, aims to break ground next year and has received a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee of up to $4.9 billion from the Department of Energy under the Biden administration. It's uncertain if those funds will materialize in the Trump era. 

On Thursday, we highlighted spare generation capacity on America's grid is "getting critically tight" and may unleash power blackouts and other disruptions during peak demand hours. We advised readers to start exploring alternative backup power solutions for their homes—such as solar systems or on-demand diesel and natural gas generators.

Polsky also emphasized that America's ability to win the AI race against China and other rising powers depends on Washington expediting the construction of transmission power superhighways to move large quantities of electricity across the country and strengthen the national grid in the era of soaring power demand (read: Next AI Trade). 

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

What's required is not just a revised spreadsheet but an entirely new culture and value system.

I've been referencing The Ratchet Effect since 2010 as it explains why shrinking bloat is so much harder than expanding bloat.

A common example is household income and spending. When the couple were just starting out, they lived like students with barebones expenses. Then as their income rises, so do their expenses, and so by the time they're making $300,000 a year, every dollar is already spent yet they're still deep in debt. LA couple who earn $300K/year told Dave Ramsey they're drowning in $119K of debt.

Institutional bloat is even more difficult to reverse. Way back in 2010, I posted a link documenting how a major public university's administrative staff bloated up from 3.2 full-time administrators per 100 students in 1993 (before student loan debt skyrocketed) to 13.5 administrators per 100 students in 2007. The Ratchet Effect: Fiefdom Bloat and Resistance to Declining Incomes (August 23, 2010).

As staffing increases, a powerful self-interest in maintaining the status quo becomes the norm. This drive to maintain the status quo at all costs becomes the implicit mission of the organization. As budgets expand, there's no end to the ways it can be spent--all in service of "improving" something or other.

Human ego manifests The Ratchet Effect as well. We like to live large and show off our shiny new campus offices, and resist downsizing and sacrifices with every fiber of our being.

In households, we want to maintain the look and feel of our elevated status: our numerous travel extravagances, our new SUV, etc. But the financial The Ratchet Effect is key, for it's easy to add debt and painful to make sacrifices to pay debt off.

Another core dynamic of The Ratchet Effect is the normalization of extremes. As expenses and debt soar, we soon view what would have been seen as extreme in a previous era as not just normal but sustainable.

So student loans go from $0 in early 1993 to $1.8 trillion in Q4 2024, and nobody thinks anything is extreme because it's been going on so long we accept it as normal.

The dynamic that leads to collapse is as invisible as the extremes. Once the organization--household, institution, corporation or nation-state, the dynamic is scale-invariant--has hardened into a brittle state of stasis, it's impossible to shrink the budget without collapsing the entire structure.

I call this the Rising Wedge Model of Breakdown: as expenses, self-interest and debt all expand, it becomes increasingly difficult to slash expenses without triggering the implosion of the organization.

Under the guise of cutting the fat to save the muscle, what actually happens is the muscle is cut to save the fat. This is a complex process, but in summary, the most competent realize the organization is dysfunctional and cannot be salvaged in its current bloated state of denial, and so they immediately jump ship.

The naive who believe they can turn the situation around give it their best effort but the resistance to any meaningful sacrifices is so tenacious that they burn out and quit.

That leaves the delusionally incompetent who reckon they're finally getting the power they long deserved. This leads to the substitution of PR and artifice for actually reducing the organization to a sustainable level, for what's required is not just a revised spreadsheet but an entirely new culture and value system.

This chart I prepared in 2010 summarizes the dynamics of breakdown.

As an example of all these Ratchet Effect dynamics, let's look at student loans. Prior to the start of the student loan machinery in 1993, the U.S. had a mysterious ability to educate millions of university students without burdening the students with trillions of dollars of student loan debt.

Some believe the aliens enabled this fabulous accomplishment, as it's obviously far beyond the reach of mere humans.

The substitution of debt for competence really took off in the aftermath of the Global Financial Meltdown of 2008-09, when the Federal Reserve instituted ZIRP, Zero Interest Rate Policy, making borrowing "affordable" (heh), and our wisdom-infused political leaders declared student loan debt undischargeable in bankruptcy, virtually the only type of consumer loan that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

This serves the interests of the wealthy who own the securitized student loan debt as income-producing assets. It would be a crying shame if a student debt-serf could get out of paying interest, depriving poor millionaires of income desperately needed to live large.

As is easily predictable in the context of the Rising Wedge Model of Breakdown / The Ratchet Effect, higher education is now imploding as revenues decline. That the university operated perfectly well 30 years ago with 3 administrators per 100 students is like marveling at the Great Pyramid: how did mere humans manage to do such monumental work? Now the reduction from 14 administrators per 100 students to 12 administrators per 100 students is shattering the foundations of the institution.

The story of the next decade is the playing out of the Rising Wedge Model of Breakdown / The Ratchet Effect throughout the entire status quo: households, institutions, corporations and nation-states will all hasten to cut muscle to save the fat and then wonder why everything is imploding under the weight of delusion and denial.

As noted previously, what's required is not just a revised spreadsheet but an entirely new culture and value system. Without that, we get zip, zero, nada in meaningful adaptation to new realities.

*  *  *

Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Subscribe to my Substack for free