Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds

By James Varney and RealClearInvestigations.com,

While green advocates commonly use the terms renewable, sustainable, and net zero to describe their efforts, the dirty little secret is that much of the waste from solar panels and wind turbines is ending up in landfills.

The current amounts of fiberglass, resins, aluminum and other chemicals—not to mention propeller blades from giant wind turbines—pose no threat current to local town dumps, but this largely ignored problem will become more of a challenge in the years ahead as the 500 million solar panels and the 73,000 wind turbines now operating in the U.S. are decommissioned and replaced.

Greens insist that reductions in carbon emissions will more than compensate for increased levels of potentially toxic garbage; others fret that renewable energy advocates have not been forthright about their lack of eco-friendly plans and the technology to handle the waste.

“Nobody planned on this, nobody had a plan to get rid of them, nobody planned for closure,” said Dwight Clark, whose company, Solar E Waste Solutions, recycles solar panels. “Nobody thought this through.”

The discussion about what to do with worn-out solar and wind equipment is another topic usually elided in Net Zero blueprints, which often focus on the claimed benefits of projects while discounting or ignoring the costs. As RealClearInvestigations previously reported regarding the lack of plans for acquiring the massive amounts of land for solar and wind farms needed to achieve net zero, the math can get fuzzy, and the numbers cited most frequently are those rosiest for renewables.

“They’ve been either silent, or incoherent—or just hand-wave that we should recycle all this stuff without telling us how,” said Mark Mills, executive director of the National Center on Energy Analytics. In the headlong effort to make solar and wind seem as inexpensive as possible, they have not included fees that address the eventual cost of disposal, which could leave taxpayers holding the bag.

Some renewable supporters acknowledge Mills’ point. The Alliance for Affordable Energy, which supports government-funded research on recycling panels and turbines, said the “circular economy” Mills referred to has yet to materialize.

“With the existing energy infrastructure, a lot of end-of-life questions have never been addressed,” the Alliance’s executive director, Logan Burke, told RCI. “It may be that those costs have to be embedded in the front-end, but somehow we need to make the market circular. How do we find that market at the end of their useful life?”

Just how many panels the U.S. will dispose of or retire each year is also unclear. No clearing house keeps track of national figures, according to Meng Tao, an energy engineering professor at Arizona State University and a consultant on renewable waste issues.

The estimates can vary widely. Solar panels generally have a life expectancy of 25 years, but factors like damage and system upgrades make the number of panels coming out of circulation each year impossible to ascertain. In 2021, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which did not respond to a request for comment, estimated that between 3,000 and 6,000 panels would be retired annually through 2026.

Critics say even the high end of those numbers seems suspiciously low given the hundreds of millions of panels now in use and tens of millions yet to come.

The problem will not be confined to the U.S. Several European countries are further down the NetZero road than America, and in March, the European Union estimated it “will cumulatively amass 6-13 and 21-35 million tons of (solar) waste by 2040 and 2050, respectively.” The waste coming from wind turbines will be even greater, the EU said, sounding a hopeful note that recycling renewables will become more prominent.

“Both PV [photovoltaic] and wind power infrastructure waste streams require special handling and recycling methods that are not widespread in Europe today,” the EU wrote.

The U.S. accounts for roughly 10 percent of the waste, according to several experts, and Tao estimated the U.S. would be producing roughly 2 million metric tons of solar waste a year by 2043, but other studies have a much higher figure. A 2019 study in renewable energy predicted roughly 10 million metric tons of solar waste between 2030 and 2060.

“Solar waste will grow exponentially in the next 20 years,” Tao said. “Globally, we produced 20-25 million tons of solar panels in 2023. They will come offline in roughly 20 years. That is 20-25 million tons of solar waste a year in 2045.”

The Institute for Energy Research puts the potential mountain even higher, pointing to studies that put the 2050 figure at 78 million tons.

For now, 90 percent of this detritus goes to landfills. And the panel fields and towering turbines must be dismantled, trucked away, usually by diesel-powered vehicles, and then sent to landfills or ports, where they are shipped to poor, developing countries. Fossil fuels may foul the air, but renewables may pollute the ground.

There has been promising research, most of it government-funded, on making components like turbine blades more recyclable, but the Trump administration appears unlikely to continue such funding. Such a shift under Trump would put the onus for developing more recyclable, renewable equipment on the private sector.

But the recycling industry as a whole has never been dynamic. Indeed, the last few years have seen widespread admissions that the recycling revolution that has led Americans to separate their trash into various categories has been a bust.

The push to make renewable waste renewable has smacked up against basic questions of profitability, according to Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University.

“The recycling industry overall is not one that has blossomed in the last 50 years; it’s just not a booming industry,” he said. “You’re going to need enormous amounts of installations and this stuff is made to last, made tough, which is the enemy of recycling. So it’s all still a big challenge and I think there are a lot of unanswered questions or we’ll be left with a lot of stranded assets.”

Tao agreed that, absent more profit, the recyclable future for renewable equipment is dim.

“We still don’t have a perfected technology for recycling them, we’re not there yet,” he said. “We’re trying to see how the industry will move forward, but there are multiple challenges, including the fact it is not profitable.”

Renewable energy champions insist all this will mean big business, perhaps as much as $2.7 billion in solar recycling in 2030, according to one estimate. But for now, it isn’t. Clark said his company clears about $5 from each panel.

It isn’t only the lagging technology and market pressures. At root, there isn’t much in the panel worth recycling. There are tiny amounts of silver and copper, along with some silicon, but those wafers are deep within a compressed sandwich of glass and other elements. Crushed glass has some limited value in construction, but extracting the small amounts of valuable components is an intensive, high-tech process, Clark said.

Ausubel said he thinks the smaller residential solar market can probably handle itself and that the real work will be disposing of millions of panels in the sprawling fields. Because unraveling the panel’s crunched knot is difficult and expensive, it only makes sense to recycle panels in the thousands, and the residential solar market is of less interest, Clark said.

“It’s like mining that way,” he said of the process. “The way they are assembled, stacked, with the cells intertwined and wired together amid sheets of plastic, resins, glue and the like.”

And all leaching cannot be prevented. While the hazardous materials contained in each solar panel, like its valuable elements, are slight, they could present a long-term problem. Even if a landfill strictly adheres to EPA regulations, the leaching from potentially millions of panels poses health risks that Tao compared to mercury poisoning.

Laws mandating recycling have proved difficult to enforce.

“To date, no single regulatory framework has been developed to serve as a North Star for renewable energy project end-of-life planning, leaving a patchwork of federal, state, and local policies and regulations to sift through—and leaving project owners and developers, as well as landowners and other interested parties, to fend for themselves,” a 2024 report concluded.

For example, Washington passed a law mandating solar panel recycling in 2017, but it has yet to be enforced. Currently, the law is set to take effect on July 1, but the Department of Ecology opposes that date in part because manufacturers and consumers have proved reluctant to pay the recycling costs, crimping the solar market there.

“The state’s clean energy transition is facing a setback if the law goes into effect on July 1, 2025,” the department said. “If the law is unchanged, it would disrupt the supply and cost of panels available for sale in Washington.”

The question of who will pay to dismantle the panels, transport them to landfills or recycling centers, or even, in some cases, ship them abroad has been left unanswered in most states. Lobbyists for wind and solar projects, eager to keep costs low, along with lawmakers captivated by the concept of a NetZero future, have left the market too lightly regulated, said Jason Isaac, founder and chief executive of the American Energy Institute, which supports “abundant, affordable and reliable energy.”

In many cases, when highly regulated power companies look to build a new plant, laws require them to set aside money in bonds or escrow accounts to cover or defray decommissioning costs, Mills said. That is not always the case. A recently decommissioned coal mine in northern Louisiana may cost $300 million to break down, according to the Alliance for Affordable Energy, which says those costs will probably be borne by ratepayers. But Isaac and Mills believe financial decommissions requirements have been either ignored or insufficiently funded in the renewable market.

Some state legislatures, like Louisiana’s, are moving to address that vacuum and prevent taxpayers from being stuck with the cleanup bill.

“The goal is to not leave the state or a farmer with a field of broken solar panels by putting in cradle-to-grave assurances of bonding requirements,” said H. Sterling Burnett of the Heartland Institute, a group skeptical of apocalyptic global warming scenarios. “We need to treat these like any other energy source.”

In April, Burnett testified in Baton Rouge on just such a law, prompted in part by a solar field in Livingston Parish that has been damaged over the years by hurricanes. In 2022, the legislature passed a bill requiring a bond from renewable project builders, but the specifics of that have not been promulgated, leaving new projects in limbo, said Rep. Brett Geymann, a sponsor of the new bill.

“No existing projects here have required decommissioning, unless that’s part of a private contract with a landowner,” he said.

A small number of solar panels are even finding a secondary market in places like Haiti, Zimbabwe, and elsewhere, Clark said. Groups like Brighten Haiti, which did not respond to a request for comment, take replaced panels that still have some life in them to that impoverished island, although some said that amounts to misguided philanthropy.

“It’s sort of a ‘nice’ way of dumping, really,” Tao said. “Because those places have no clue what to do with it in the end.”

All of these issues are outweighed by the carbon emission reductions renewable energy represents, according to other experts. Paul Gipe, a California-based energy analyst and proponent of wind, said concerns about renewable waste are overblown and advanced by enemies of NetZero goals.

“Solar panels are mostly glass, so glass is easy to recycle,” he said. “Wind turbines are mostly metal; again, easy to recycle. Most of the concern about ‘recycling’ is fear, uncertainty and doubt from the usual suspects.”

It’s true that turbines, which have a lifespan of about two decades, are mostly metal, but they nonetheless present their own set of end-of-life problems. While most of it may be recyclable, breaking down and transporting the gigantic contraptions on land or offshore requires tremendous labor—and energy. The thousands of tons of concrete that make up their bases will likely remain in the ground or on the ocean floor in some form for decades, according to Mills and others.

Blades on offshore turbines today can be as long as a football field, and the structures are equal to 10-story buildings, with those offshore sitting on an ocean floor slab as big as a city block.

“These offshore things are not renewable and not clean—it takes boat loads of equipment out to the sites to build and maintain them, and it will take boat loads to bring it all back,” said Robin Shaffer of Protect Our Coasts, a grassroots group that began fighting a since-scuttled offshore project in New Jersey.

What’s more, bankruptcies among European companies have begun to mar the renewable wind landscape as surely as the towers, a trend that could continue or accelerate as the Trump administration stops the federal spigot.

“The government has let them off the hook by shaping their policies around climate activism,” Shaffer said. “They’re not putting down escrow money for decommissioning and someone’s going to have to come along and remove them, or we’ll be staring at these rotting towers in the ocean.”

The blades are so big that they are usually broken into three pieces when decommissioned, and the giant chunks of fiberglass, resin, and composite materials go to landfills or warehouses.

Already, horror stories exist of municipalities faced with decommissioning problems. Towns like Sweetwater, Texas, which for many years has been the leading state for wind power, have seen turbine recycling contracts ignored. Global Fiberglass Solutions, one of the companies handling such contracts, did not return requests for comment.

“You can’t reuse turbines, and there are now thousands upon thousands of blades just sitting there in warehouses already,” Isaac said. “It’s an environmental disaster we’re looking at.”

Authored by Oscar Zarrage Perez via BitcoinMagazine.com,

Last week, Ross William Ulbricht, at the 2025 Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, gave a speech about the principles of freedom, decentralization and unity.

Ross Ulbricht started by talking about his experience in prison and the price difference when he got into prison compared to now.

“When I launch Silk Road, buying a whole bitcoin will set you back less than a dollar,” said Ross.

“Pocket change. Can you imagine that? Now they are worth over $100,000 each.”

“Bitcoin’s power comes from the fact that any one of us can mine if we choose to, and any one of us can generate addresses if we choose to,” stated Ross.

“Any one of us can send bitcoin to anyone else. We are all on equal footing with Bitcoin. With Bitcoin, we are all free.”

Ross told everybody to stay united and that if we are together we will be able to accomplish anything.

“When I was put in prison for life. I was isolated and weak. I was stripped of everything. Had nothing to give everyone, but you didn’t abandon me. You didn’t forget me. Wrote me letters. You raised money for my defense. When I was silenced, you spoke up against the slender and smearers and in the end when I didn’t know if I would ever get out from behind those thick iron bars. We even got President Trump to see that Bitcoin is the future.”

Ross ended his speech by saying, “please never see each other as enemies. Those that oppose decentralization and freedom love it when we are divided. Stay united. As long as we can agree that we deserve freedom and that decentralization is how we secure it. Then we can be united. We can have each other’s backs. Just like you had mine.”

“Freedom, decentralization and unity,” said Ross. “Stay true to these principles and the future is ours.”

Ross Ulbricht’s Journey: From Life Sentence to Presidential Pardon

Ross Ulbricht became a controversial figure after launching Silk Road in 2011, an online marketplace that used Bitcoin for anonymous transactions. While the site was unfortunately used for selling illegal drugs, it also served as Bitcoin’s first real-world use case, showcasing the power of decentralized, censorship-resistant money.

In 2015, Ulbricht was sentenced to double life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

His punishment quickly became a symbol of government overreach for many in the tech and the Bitcoin world.

Critics argued that his sentence far exceeded the limits of justice, especially considering the nonviolent nature of his crimes.

His pardon, announced shortly after Trump returned to office, is seen as a strong move to honor campaign promises and support Bitcoin’s values of personal freedom and resistance to government overreach. It sparked celebration throughout the Bitcoin community but also reminded advocates that the fight for justice is far from over.

Ten years ago to the day, I was sentenced to die in prison. Instead I gave my first public speech in freedom.

I wore a red tie as an homage to @realDonaldTrump, the man who saved my life. pic.twitter.com/WWp0vL3C9T

Back on April 14 when bond yields were soaring in the aftermath of Trump's liberation day amid speculation that China or Japan were selling some of their US paper to stabilize their currency, a selloff which was compounded by the concurrent unwind of the massive $2 trillion basis trade, Treasury Secretary Steve Bessent appeared on Bloomberg TV to ease fears of a wholesale unwind of the US bond market. In the interview, among other things, Bessent revealed that he has breakfast with Powell every week, and also said that if the Fed does nothing, he might take matters in his own hands, and since the Treasury has a "big toolkit" one of the things it could do is "up the Treasury buybacks" (to prop up Treasuries, in lieu of QE). 

Six weeks later, with the Fed sidelined and unwilling to do anything to ease the plight of US treasuries which continue to trade at dangerous levels - the 30Y is flirting with a 5% level - it appears this is what Bessent has done.

At 2pm on Tuesday afternoon, the Treasury announced the results of its latest Treasury buyback operation (which some had likened to a QE lite because it effectively monetizes Treasuries in the open market, similar to the Fed's POMO operations, and similar to stock buybacks). While the operation itself was not remarkable - the Treasury had been holding these these more or less weekly since April 2024 - the size of it was: at $10 billion, this was the largest Treasury buyback operation in history.

Here is a snapshot of all historical Treasury buybacks in the past year: the trajectory is clear.

Source:

And while the maturity range of the cusips accepted for buyback was of low duration, in the interval between July 15, 2025 and May 31, 2027, we are about to see sizable increases in the total buyback size of longer duration treasuries. 

Sure enough, tomorrow at 2pm, the Treasury will complete a buyback focusing on Treasuries maturing in the 2036-2045 interval, i.e., 10-20 year paper, and the maximum amount to be redeemed will be $2 billion, up 100% from the last such buyback on May 6, when the maximum amount to be redeemed was $1 billion. In fact, the last time there was a treasury buyback anywhere close to today's amount was in mid/late April when Treasuries were tumbling and when someone had to step in and cushion their fall since Powell was nowhere to be found.

Which begs the question: with the political Federal Reserve - which had no qualms cutting rates two months before the election but refuses to do so now that core PCE has slumped to the lowest level since the covid crash, is Bessent finally stepping in to rein in the Treasury market, and is Yellen's Activist Treasury Issuance strategy which dominated bond buying for much of 2023-2024, about to be replaced with Bessent's Activist Treasury Buyback strategy until such time as the Fed finally does something. 

Authored by James Bovard via The Brownstone Institute,

Biden administration policy-makers hated you more than you knew. 

From the start of the Covid pandemic, I warned that the feds were vilifying anyone who failed to kowtow to the latest commands. In October 2023, I wrote: “Federal bureaucrats heaved together a bunch of letters to contrive an ominous new acronym for the latest peril to domestic tranquility. The result: AGAAVE—’anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism’—which looks like a typo for a sugar substitute. The FBI vastly expanded the supposed AGAAVE peril by broadening suspicion from ‘furtherance of ideological agendas’ to ‘furtherance of political and/or social agendas.’ Anyone who has an agenda different from Team Biden’s could be AGAAVE’d for his own good.” 

Vague, catch-all federal definitions became a Pandora’s box that permitted politicians to denigrate vast numbers of Americans as dangerous extremists. The House Weaponization Subcommittee warned in 2023 that “the FBI appears to be complicit in artificially supporting the Administration’s political narrative” that domestic violent extremism is “the ‘greatest threat’ facing the United States.”

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently declassified a December 13, 2021, report by the National Counterterrorism Center. Gabbard’s version had a more honest title than the original version: “Declassified Biden Administration Documents Labeling COVID Dissenters, Others as ‘Domestic Violent Extremists.”

What did it take for Biden’s Brain Trust to covertly condemn people? Simply warning that “COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe, especially for children, are part of a government or global conspiracy to deprive individuals of their civil liberties and livelihoods, or are designed to start a new social or political order.” After government lockdowns had destroyed millions of jobs, only the paranoid would fear the government would ever violate their liberties or subvert their livelihoods. No wonder that a top federal official told Newsweek in 2022: “We’ve become too prone to labeling anything we don’t like as extremism, and then any extremist as a terrorist.”

Biden policy-makers pretended that the surge in criticism of Covid policies was proof of the psychopathology of the president’s opponents. But in September 2021, Biden dictated that 100 million Americans working for private companies must get the Covid vaccine. The official counterterrorism report stated that it anticipated that “the threat will continue at least into the winter, as many of the new COVID-19 mandates in the U.S…are implemented, including US workplace vaccination policies that carry disciplinary or termination penalties.” The Supreme Court struck down most of that vaccine mandate as illegal in January 2022, but not before it had profoundly disrupted legions of lives and businesses, as well as American health care. 

The official report warned that “anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists…characterize COVID-19 vaccination and mask mandates as evidence of government overreach.” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito characterized the Covid dictates as “previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty.” But that wasn’t “overreach” – it was simply public service. 

Criticisms of Covid policies were turbocharged by the failure of the Covid vaccines. In early 2022, the effectiveness of the Covid booster shot had fallen to 31% – too low to have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Though most American adults had gotten Covid vaccines, there were more than a million new Covid cases a day in January 2022. Most Covid fatalities were occurring among the fully vaxxed. Studies showed that people who received multiple boosters were actually more likely to be hit by Covid infections.

So obviously, the Biden administration had no choice but to demonize any and all Covid critics. A confidential 2022 Department of Homeland Security report detailed pending crackdowns on “inaccurate” information on “the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines,” among other targets. A few months earlier, Jen Easterly, the chief of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, declared: “We live in a world where people talk about alternative facts, post-truth, which I think is really, really dangerous if people get to pick their own facts.” Plenty of Biden administration officials considered it “really dangerous” to permit people to assert that Covid vaccines were failing. 

The National Counterterrorism Center report noted: “The availability of a vaccine for all school-age children might spur conspiracy theories and perceptions that schools will vaccinate children against parents’ will.” In the same way that some states and many school systems have sought to enable children to change their gender without their parents’ knowledge or consent? The report also warned that “new COVID-19 mitigation measures – particularly mandates or endorsements of vaccines for children – will probably spur plotting against the government.”

The FDA knew that Covid vaccines sharply increased the risk of myocarditis – an inflamed heart – in young males but the Biden White House browbeat the agency into fully approving the Covid vaccine anyhow. New York Governor Kathy Hochul sought unsuccessfully to mandate vaccines for all schoolkids in the Empire State even though her State Department of Health reported in May 2022 that the Pfizer vaccine was only 12% effective for children during the Omicron surge. The Biden administration included Covid vaccines in the semi-mandatory regimen for young children despite the vaccine’s failure and perils. 

Portraying doubts on Covid policy as a warning sign of domestic violent extremism unleashed the FBI to target anybody who howled against mandatory injections or the near-total destruction of their freedom of movement. 

That report is also a reminder that “extremism” has always been a flag of political convenience. In Washington, anyone who doesn’t worship government is considered an extremist. How far did officialdom go in smearing the American people? 

In September 2022, President Biden made history with the first prime-time presidential speech with a backdrop inspired by the movie V for Vendetta and Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. Biden raved that his opponents were practically assassins waiting to finish off American democracy. A few hours before Biden’s speech, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre asserted, “When you are not with where the majority of Americans are, then, you know, that is extreme. That is an extreme way of thinking.” This is a definition of extremism that could put the federal crosshairs on practically anyone who visits this website.

Actually, the feds used definitions of extremism that extended far beyond Covid controversies and undermined the First Amendment. Biden’s FBI targeted conservative Catholics who preferred to hear the Latin-language version of the mass, claiming they were potentially violent extremists. An FBI analysis portrayed rosaries as extremist symbols. The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) stretched its “suspicious behavior” definition, warning banks to track “‘extremism’ indicators that include…the purchase of books (including religious texts),” according to a House Judiciary Committee report. Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) complained that the federal government “urged large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.”

That December 13, 2021, National Counterterrorism Center report may be only the tip of the iceberg of federal mischief. We may soon learn of more direct federal machinations to vilify, undercut, or silence Covid critics.

Biden-era crackdowns and the newly declassified report should spur Americans to ask: What if the government is the most dangerous extremist of them all?

An earlier version of this post was published at The Libertarian Institute

Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com,

• Saudi Arabia's past oil price wars in 2014–2016 and 2020 backfired, as U.S. shale producers became leaner and more efficient.

• Riyadh drained hundreds of billions in reserves and faced rising fiscal deficits without achieving its goal of crippling U.S. shale.

• The low breakeven cost resilience of the U.S. shale sector is not quite the same as it was before.

It is highly unlikely that anyone with even a modicum of intelligence has lost money in the past ten years or so by trading against the predictable thinking of those in charge of Saudi Arabia’s oil policy. Quite the reverse, in fact, with enormous profits available from the failures of the enormously well-flagged and exceptionally predictable strategy of the 2014-2016 and 2020 Oil Price Wars -- launched by the Kingdom with the intention of destroying or disabling the U.S. shale oil sector, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. As OPEC members and their toxic companion in the OPEC+ formation, Russia, mull keeping oil production on the high side of recent historical averages, the key question for the oil markets is -- surely they are not going to launch another oil price war using the same strategy as failed twice before?

It is apposite here to recall the reasons for the failure of the two previous oil price wars since 2014. The first (2014-2016) was based on Saudi Arabia’s belief – shared by many in the oil market at the time, it must be said -- that U.S. shale oil producers had a breakeven price point of US$70 per barrel (pb) of for the West Texas Intermediate benchmark. Therefore, the Saudis reasoned, if the price of oil was pushed below that level for long enough -- by it and its fellow OPEC members dramatically increasing production while demand in the global market was predicted to remain around the same level for some time -- then many of the new U.S. shale oil producers would go bankrupt. Any others would have to cease production at such uneconomic price levels and shelve future investment plans aimed at boosting their production even more. So confident was Saudi Arabia of the success of its strategy that shortly after the onset of the 2014-2016 Oil Price War, senior figures in its government and oil ministry it held a series of private meetings in New York to tell them in detail about the strategy it was to use and how well it would go, as also detailed in full in my latest book. At these meetings, the Saudis revealed that, far from looking to keep prices high – as had also been the usual inclination of OPEC for many years to boost the prosperity of member states – it was willing to tolerate “much lower” Brent prices “of between USD80-90 pb for a period of one to two years or even lower prices if necessary”. According to several sources at the New York meeting exclusively spoken to by OilPrice.com at the time, the Saudis made it clear that it aside from destroying the then-nascent U.S. shale sector, the Oil Price War also aimed to re-impose a degree of supply discipline on other OPEC members.

In terms of the first objective, the initial signs augured well for a Saudi victory. The U.S. oil rig count in January/February 2015 saw its biggest period-on-period fall since 1991, and the gas rig count fell substantially at that time as well. According to industry figures as at the end of the first quarter of 2015, around one third of the 800 oil and gas projects (worth US$500 billion and totalling nearly 60 billion barrels of oil equivalent) scheduled for final investment decisions in that year were unconventional and were subject to possible postponement or cancellation. Over the year as a whole, output from the U.S. shale producers typically fell by by around 50%, forcing them to cut investment to approximately US$60 billion over the year, compared to the US$100 billion or so spent in 2014. Crucially, though, from around that point the U.S. shale sector reorganised into a meaner, leaner, lower-cost production machine that could – at that time – broadly survive and profit at WTI prices above around US$35 pb from above US$70 pb previously. They managed to achieve this mainly through the advancement of technology that enabled them to drill longer laterals, manage the fracking stages closer and maintain the fracks with higher, finer sand to allow for increased recovery for the wells drilled, in conjunction with faster drill times, as industry experts old OilPrice.com back then. These operations gained further cost benefits from multi-pad drilling and well spacing theory and practice. During this period, Saudi Arabia had moved from a budget surplus to a then-record high deficit in 2015 of US$98 billion and it had spent at least US$250 billion of its precious foreign exchange reserves over that period that even senior Saudis said was lost forever. Moreover, according to International Energy Agency estimates, OPEC member states collectively at least US$450 billion in revenues during the 2014-2016 Oil Price War.

The 2020 Oil Price War – using exactly the same overproduction strategy as before -- failed less through the long-term effects of misjudging the effectiveness of the U.S. shale producers and more through the direct political intervention of its then first-term President Domald Trump. Given the potentially disastrous economic and political consequences for the U.S. and its sitting president of sharp and sustained rises in oil – and crucially, gasoline – prices, as also analysed in full in my latest book, Trump began by warning Saudi Arabia repeatedly that the U.S. would not tolerate any sustained threat to its shale oil sector (and, by extension, to its economy and its domestic political landscape) – in speeches and tweets and in the increasingly close-run legislative passage of the ‘NOPEC Bill’. He also directly warned Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud that the U.S. might withdraw U.S. military support for the Al Sauds, and by extension to Saudi Arabia, with the additional observation that: “He [King Salman] would not last in power for two weeks without the backing of the U.S. military.” With no sign by the end of March 2020 that the Saudis were going to cease the war, Trump clearly and specifically told de facto Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the telephone on 2 April that unless OPEC started cutting oil production – so allowing oil prices to rise above the danger zone for U.S. shale oil producers – that he would be powerless to stop lawmakers from passing legislation to withdraw U.S. troops from the Kingdom, according to a very senior source in the White House exclusively spoken to by OilPrice.com a the time. Oil production consequently came back down again, and the 2020 war had ended.

As of now, the low breakeven cost resilience of the U.S. shale sector is not quite the same as it was before. The recent Dallas Fed Energy Survey suggests that it is around US$65 pb for new wells drilled, although for existing wells it is significantly lower. It is also true that the lifting cost of oil in Saudi Arabia has also risen since 2014 from around US$1-2 pb, but it is still only about US$3-5 pb now. However, the Kingdom’s 2025 fiscal breakeven price per barrel of the Brent crude benchmark is a minimum of US$90.9, according to IMF figures. Consequently, it can no better afford a major, sustained fall in oil prices now than it could in either 2014-2016 or in 2020. With Trump back in the White House, it is also no better off politically either. Indeed, with Republicans majorities in both houses, it is worse positioned to deal with the likely threats and actions that Trump would use against it if it went head-to-head with the U.S. again. Instead, according to a senior energy source who works closely with the U.S. Presidential Administration, Washington believes the Saudis will take a modulated approach to further oil production increases, in tandem with the U.S. “Oil prices at the lower end of recent historical averages suit the U.S. from an inflationary perspective, as long as they don’t go too low, and Washington has made this clear to the Saudis,” he said. In fact, these conversations were part of the dialogue that U.S. officials had with their Saudi counterparts during Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia on 13 May to sign a broad-based economic agreement between the two countries. “There are longer-term financial and security benefits for the Saudis in taking this softer approach, even if oil is below the number they want for their budget in the shorter-term, and to bridge the gap they will have no problem in borrowing more in the capital markets,” he concluded.

Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times,

For one veteran airline captain, a routine flight to Denver changed her view about aviation safety—but not because of an in-flight crisis.

Rather, the captain heard a story that—for the first time in her decades-long career—made her uneasy about putting her loved ones on a plane.

During a 2024 conversation, a flight instructor described unusual steps managers took to salvage the career of a young female trainee pilot. The instructor described an “egregious” example of standards apparently being relaxed to meet DEI goals, the captain said.

The trainee repeatedly failed rudimentary pilot-training tests. By “crashing” a computer simulation “flight,” she proved her inability to operate an airplane’s three most basic control mechanisms, the instructor said.

Yet management balked when the instructor failed her.

“She was rehabilitated and allowed to continue, even though she should have been washed-out,” the captain said.

“I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman, that is concerning to me,” she told The Epoch Times, speaking on condition of anonymity because her employer did not authorize her to speak to the press.

Disturbed that such a trainee may still be in the cockpit, the captain said: “I don’t want myself or my family to be in the back of that airplane. … That’s really what it comes down to, right? Would you want to be in the back of that airplane?”

The captain, a woman who was hired long before diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs took hold, said the story of the trainee shows how far her airline was willing to go for the apparent sake of DEI.

These programs—aimed at boosting women and minorities—remain entrenched at airlines, despite President Donald Trump’s DEI-ending executive orders and growing concerns over air crashes and safety incidents, the captain and other workers say. The captain pointed to signs of additional inept trainees being “pushed through.”

After simulator training, trainees fly an actual aircraft under the guidance of “line-check airmen.” These expert pilots report that some students are now taking four times as long to finish a mandatory training, the captain said.

Frustrated, some of these line-check airmen are stepping aside; one told the captain, “I saw the quality of pilots that we were hiring, and I don’t want anything to do with it.”

When paired with new hires, experienced pilots increasingly find themselves intervening to avert accidents or incidents, straining veteran captains to exhaustion, one flight attendant said.

The DEI Debate

Across the United States and globally, many employers, including airlines, have promoted DEI programs. The goal is to attract and retain people from “underrepresented” groups—based on gender, race, or other identifying characteristics. But favoring certain sections of the population over others is unfair, discriminatory, and can chip away at safety, airline employees say.

Four flight attendants, six current pilots, a retired pilot, and an industry expert all told The Epoch Times they support attracting more women and minorities to aviation—but not if standards are lowered to do so. They concur that DEI initiatives have gone overboard. Nearly all the interviewees asked that their names be withheld because their employers did not authorize them to speak to the press. But a whistleblower, Capt. Sherry Walker, who filed a federal complaint in April, agreed to be named on condition that her employer remain unidentified.

The DEI landscape has changed in recent months, following Trump’s Jan. 21 order to discontinue DEI at federal agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The order also applies to federal contractors such as airlines.

Employers appear to be clinging to DEI, but it’s less obvious now—probably because of Trump’s order, complaints, and lawsuits, workers say.

Instructors oversee student pilots during a training session in a flight simulator at Farmingdale State College in Farmingdale, N.Y., on Feb. 28, 2023. Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images

An FAA employee who requested anonymity told The Epoch Times that the agency “just moved around” pro-DEI personnel and “changed their titles.” Thus, DEI remains “built into the system,” he said. “They just do whatever they want; there’s no mechanism of enforcement.”

Airline employees made similar statements.

Employees claim that airlines appear to be generally ignoring the mental and physical health risks prevalent among people who identify as transgender—a subgroup that airlines typically have embraced in “inclusivity” efforts. Some workers also allege that airlines are force-feeding gender ideology to them via mandatory training sessions, violating their religious rights.

Seeing DEI persist is particularly troubling in a safety-dependent industry such as aviation, employees say.

Most of the interviewees, however, said they don’t want to scare people, and believe air travel remains safe. Still, they warn that safety is eroding for multiple reasons, including DEI. One flight attendant said if the public knew the safety-threatening factors that employees see, “they would stop flying altogether.”

These airline professionals urge their industry to divorce itself from distractions such as DEI initiatives. And some are calling upon the Trump administration or Congress to step in if airlines refuse to change.

Asked to address concerns that DEI could affect safety, Airlines for America—which advocates for U.S. air carriers—released a statement to The Epoch Times: “Safety is, and always will be, the top priority for U.S. airlines … [members of Airlines for America] comply with all federal regulations and laws, including those related to training, certification and licenses.”

DEI advocates assert that a diverse workforce is a stronger one. According to an article posted on the Florida Tech University website, greater diversity leads to better innovation, greater market share, and higher profitability.

Defenders of DEI also assert a lack of evidence that DEI factored into accidents and other incidents that have made U.S. air travelers leery in recent months.

“To date, there have been no public accusations of inflight incidents or accidents tied directly to employees that were unqualified for their jobs as pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers, dispatchers, engineers, or any other FAA-licensed personnel,” William J. McGee, a senior fellow for Aviation and Travel at the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote in a January op-ed.

McGee, citing an unnamed FAA inspector, said that DEI has never been about recruiting or promoting unqualified applications, but about seeking “qualified applicants from previously overlooked pipelines.”

Big Four Lead The Way

Even before Trump’s orders reversing DEI programs, three of the nation’s biggest airlines—American, Southwest, and United—agreed “to end illegal, discriminatory hiring practices, including quotas and benchmarks for recruiting and hiring based on race and sex,” according to America First Legal, a conservative watchdog. The trio of airlines took that action late last year to settle a DEI complaint filed with the Labor Department.

As of early May, Southwest’s rebranded DEI program—now called “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging”—“appears to be living loud and proud,” a pilot told The Epoch Times. “They don’t appear to be backing off one iota.”

A traveler walks past a Southwest Airlines airplane as it taxies from a gate at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in Baltimore, Md., on Oct. 11, 2021. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Will Scolinos, legal counsel for America First Legal, said his organization is prepared “to ensure that DEI is not ‘alive and well’ at these airlines,“ referring to those named in the Labor Department complaint. He didn’t say why that complaint omitted Delta Air Lines, which is among the U.S. airlines commonly called ”The Big Four.”

Delta says on its website: “We actively seek diversity, boldly pursue equity, and consciously promote inclusion to create a sense of belonging for all people.”

In an email to The Epoch Times, Scolinos said that if any airline “engages in unlawful DEI, then it exposes the company to potential enforcement investigations and actions by multiple federal agencies.”

The Epoch Times contacted all four major U.S. airlines about DEI concerns. None responded prior to publication.

In January, when United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby was asked about DEI policies during a call with investors, he stated, “we’ll continue to hire based on merit … we can hire the absolute best of the best and have a naturally diverse workforce.”

At a Trump inauguration event on Jan. 20, Kirby posted on social media that he was looking forward to “working with the new administration.”

In a widely circulated Axios/HBO interview, Kirby reiterated the airline’s commitment to filling 50 percent of its aviation-academy classes with women and minorities—a goal the airline first announced in 2021.

Critics say that goal is unrealistic, considering that the entire U.S. workforce is about 77 percent white and 53 percent male. As of 2021, only 5.3 percent of all aircraft pilots and flight engineers in American commercial aviation were women; 6.1 percent were Hispanic, about 4 percent were black, and 1.5 percent were Asian, according to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby speaks during a joint press event with Boeing at the Boeing manufacturing facility in North Charleston, S.C., on Dec. 13, 2022. Logan Cyrus/AFP via Getty Images

Playing the ‘Perception Game’

DEI “amps up” risk factors that come along with flying, Buzz Patterson, a retired military and commercial pilot with 35 years of experience, told The Epoch Times.

“You’re putting an aluminum tube in the air … going to 500 miles an hour, at 35,000 feet,” he said. Pilots also face volatile weather conditions, among other variables. Crews need to be ready to react; they have little room for error, Patterson said.

Many people have no idea “how fragile the system is … and these added stressors can be critical in whether an incident becomes an ACCIDENT,” another pilot wrote to The Epoch Times.

Before Patterson left Delta in 2016, he saw DEI gaining a foothold there.

Now DEI permeates the airline industry, Patterson said, and he believes hiring standards and performance have deteriorated because of it.

Increasingly, fellow pilots have confided: “I had to basically ‘solo’ the airplane today, because my copilot was inept and under-qualified and inexperienced.”

“That’s scary,” Patterson said.

Now, DEI criteria seem to be elevated above individuals’ qualifications, he said.

“Back in my day, it was dog-eat-dog, and they didn’t care what your color or sex was,“ Patterson said. ”They just wanted you to be the best they could possibly hire; that is not the case today.”

Aviation expert Jay Ratliff accused airlines of “playing the perception game“ by showing ”how much we care” about select groups of people. “Let’s stop talking about perception and make things safer,” he told The Epoch Times.

Patterson and others warned that while airline executives might be trying to please investors and lenders who consider DEI scores, any such DEI-related benefits can be negated if a DEI-related distraction or a less-qualified crew member causes fatalities, injuries, or aircraft damage.

A current pilot cited “the cost of retraining these pilots that can’t make the grade.”

Chin-ting Chou (L) of Taiwan and Nemanja Nedelikovic of Serbia take a training course on a 737 jet simulator at the Pan Am Flight Academy in Miami Springs, Fla., on May 19, 2022. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Problems Brewing for Years

Concerned airline workers have been sounding the alarm since at least 2022, when The Epoch Times revealed DEI was causing unintended negative effects in the U.S. airline industry.

Then and now, the interviewed workers assert that airlines often give preferential treatment to people in “protected” groups—ethnic minorities, women, and those with alternative sexual or gender ideologies.

Besides being allowed repeated attempts to pass skills tests, people in those groups often violate conduct rules without consequence—and have no qualms about reporting coworkers to management for the smallest perceived slight.

Interviewees said an innocent remark such as “hey, guys,” can lead to disciplinary action; it may be considered “misgendering,” because it excludes females and men who identify as transgender.

“I’m totally afraid of ‘misgendering;’ I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing,” a woman pilot with decades of experience told The Epoch Times, adding that she believes her pro-DEI union would not defend her if she faced discipline.

This creates a chilling effect on employee communication. Now, employees talk less with each other, hoping to avoid issues, and they’re fearful that management will retaliate if they report concerns about people in DEI categories.

Thus, “diversity hires” may get away with failing to arm exit doors, neglecting required safety checks, and using their phones even during critical phases of flight, such as takeoffs and landings, a flight attendant said.

A flight attendant exits a Delta Airlines flight at the Ronald Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va., on July 22, 2020. Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images

Tragedy Heightened Concerns

A recent catastrophe ignited a wave of airline scrutiny and backlash against DEI early this year.

On Jan. 29, a midair collision between an Army helicopter and an American Eagle airliner killed all 67 people aboard the two aircraft, near Washington.

Statements from Trump and others fueled speculation that DEI may have played a role.

Despite his disclaimers that much remained unknown as investigations continued, critics pounced on Trump for making anti-DEI remarks “without evidence.”

Trump said some of his predecessors, including President Joe Biden, had lowered FAA standards for air-traffic controllers for DEI reasons.

A class-action lawsuit representing about 1,000 litigants alleges that President Barack Obama’s administration “dropped a skill-based system” for choosing and hiring air-traffic controllers. The FAA “replaced it with a new system designed to favor applicants on the basis of their race,” the Mountain States Legal Foundation said in an article about the case it filed in 2015.

The Washington crash raised questions about the performance of an unidentified air-traffic controller and the young female helicopter pilot. It also renewed longstanding concerns about antiquated FAA equipment and a shortage of air-traffic controllers. At the time of the crash, one controller was handling duties usually assigned to two employees.

Trump blamed “a confluence of bad decisions” for the tragedy. Both before and after the crash, Trump took steps to reinforce air-travel safety; Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has repeatedly announced new initiatives to hire more air-traffic controllers and modernize the FAA.

Whatever its causes, the Washington collision was the first multi-fatality crash for a U.S. commercial airliner in nearly 16 years.

Lamenting the end of that safety streak, an experienced Texas-based pilot decided it was time to air her long-simmering concerns.

However, doing so landed Capt. Sherry Walker in hot water with her employer. Now considered a whistleblower, Walker has filed a federal complaint over the airline’s alleged retaliation. The Epoch Times is not naming the airline, at Walker’s request.

Capt. Sherry Walker, a longtime airline pilot, in an undated photo. Walker has filed a federal complaint alleging that the airline retaliated against her for raising concerns about DEI practices in the industry. Courtesy of Sherry Walker

In early February, Walker—who also serves as a flight instructor and college professor—compiled an 80-page report on “the impact of DEI-based hiring in U.S. airlines.”

She sent the report to members of congress and senators who head aviation-related committees, calling for them to remedy problems that DEI is causing at U.S. air carriers and at the FAA.

Walker pointed to signs that all four major airlines appeared to be continuing DEI practices despite Trump’s executive order. She also contended that airline practices don’t align with another presidential order, which bans transgender people from military service because they are “not combat-ready/capable.”

“Why is it acceptable that airline pilots with the same diagnosis are allowed to fly the nation’s troops … or the general public, for that matter?” she asked.

The FAA did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

Walker outlined how the FAA’s “DEI-driven” policies have created distractions and even disrupted service.

In 2024, the FAA began removing gender-specific language and “replacing standard aviation terminology,” Walker wrote, diverting time and effort from “mission-critical safety priorities.”

In this handout image from the French Interior Ministry, search and rescue teams attend to the crash site of the Germanwings Airbus in the French Alps near Seyne, France, on March 25, 2015. Germanwings Flight 4U9525, en route from Barcelona to Düsseldorf, crashed in the southern Alps. All 150 passengers and crew are believed to have died. F. Balsamo/Gendarmerie Nationale/Ministere de l'Interieur via Getty Images

Walker’s report to Congress traces concerns about the FAA’s transgender policies back to 2012.

That year, under pressure from transgender advocates, the FAA stopped requiring “extensive psychiatric evaluations” for pilots who identified as transgender, the report said. Yet the FAA still insists upon those tests for pilots diagnosed with other mental-health issues.

In 2015, during a flight from Barcelona to Düsseldorf, when a Germanwings pilot left the cockpit to use the restroom, the co-pilot locked him out. The co-pilot then flew the aircraft into a mountainside  in the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.

A crash investigation report says the co-pilot had a history of depression and psychoses, with no mention of any transgender influence. Still, the Germanwings crash heightened concerns to the point where “many pilots worry every time they leave the cockpit to use the lavatory when flying with gender dysphoric pilots,” Walker wrote.

Her report also cites a growing body of research suggesting that so-called “gender-affirming” hormone treatments can cause aggression. They also may increase chances of heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots—any of which could incapacitate a pilot during flight.

Walker, who is white, has noticed passengers looking askance or scoffing at her and pilots who are non-white—apparently assuming they got hired because of their demographic attributes.

They have no idea that Walker and some of her peers were hired pre-DEI.

Thus, DEI policies can “backfire,” she said, reflecting badly on the very same groups that the policies intend to benefit.

Objections to Ideology

In her report to Congress, Walker also raised concerns about airlines that appear to be violating employees’ religious rights because of DEI.

Specifically, she said United and Southwest airlines were subjecting employees to anti-discrimination training that also required affirmations of gender-ideology principles.

A Southwest pilot told The Epoch Times that many employees there were on the verge of “revolt” over a training that is presented as an anti-sexual harassment lesson. “But when you watch it, you find out that it has ideological statements, such as, in short: Men are sometimes women. Women are sometimes men.”

That didn’t sit well with him and others who say these concepts violate Christian beliefs. “People like me read this and say, ‘You know, I never promised to do this when I got hired to fly airplanes here,’” the pilot said.

This year, he said, the airline has been denying religious exemptions for these lessons, “leaving employees to either lose their employee status or violate their beliefs,” the pilot said. “It’s unbelievable.”

A United Airlines flight crew walks through the terminal at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco on April 12, 2020. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Alleged Retaliation Over Revelations

After sending her concerns to Congress in February, Walker gave interviews to several people in the news media, citing her role as an aviation professor at Indiana Wesleyan University. Her statements gained millions of views, putting Walker under her employer’s scrutiny, her lawyer, Lee Seham, told The Epoch Times.

Seham, who is based in New York and has devoted his professional life to airline-related cases, filed a complaint alleging that Walker was wrongfully subjected to “discriminatory treatment and retaliatory discipline.”

Walker’s statements constituted “protected activity,” he said, under a law that shields whistleblowers from any “adverse action” for disclosing airline-safety-related information.

Company officials called Walker into a meeting on April 14. They warned her that employees cannot discuss company-related matters without prior approval, while conceding that Walker’s media statements did not name the company.

Airline officials told Walker “that her conduct had compromised ‘safety,’” the complaint says, warning she could face discipline if she speaks out again.

This action against Walker follows a 27-year, unblemished record as “an exemplary pilot,” the complaint said. It also points out that Walker holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in aviation-related disciplines.

United Airlines pilot Steve Lindland receives a COVID-19 vaccine from nurse Sandra Manella at United's onsite clinic at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago on March 9, 2021. Scott Olson/Getty Images

What’s Next?

Walker is asking the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to order the company to remove a warning letter from her personnel file; to halt alleged “discriminatory practices,” and to provide Walker with compensation, including attorney’s fees and expenses.

If the case is not settled, it will go before an administrative law judge who handles disputes with government agencies. Seham said the company has not yet responded to Walker’s complaint.

Nor have the congress members and senators to whom Walker directed her report: Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.); and Reps. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) and Sam Graves (R-Mo.).

She wants them to demand “reports from all major airlines regarding hiring practices” to see if they are complying with Trump’s DEI-ending order. Congress members also ought to investigate airline employees’ religious-infringement complaints, “ensure the FAA returns to standard phraseology,” and “demand the FAA address the medical certification of transgender pilots.”

Airline Capt. Tom Oltorik, a former military pilot who heads a Florida organization that advocates for citizens’ rights, told The Epoch Times that DEI requirements and COVID-19 vaccination mandates have demoralized airline employees—which affects safety in an insidious way.

“Employees going the extra mile at work is an extremely valuable commodity in safety and efficiency of any operation. Once employees lose confidence in executive leadership, they become despondent and unengaged,” he said. “That’s when you start having small mishaps that lead to the big problems.”

It's June 3rd, and you may have noticed that Corporate America's rainbow logos on X are missing.

Most of the biggest companies dropping their support of pride are companies I’ve worked with to eliminate wokeness.

I’ve also put corporate America on notice that many of my followers will be attending pride events this year just to document anything inappropriate that kids are… https://t.co/7UUSVpiN0i

The woke tide is receding, and a cultural reset is underway as the Overton Window shifts away from toxic cultural Marxism and back toward what is now considered socially acceptable: the traditional values of the West.

As traditional values like Christianity and family make a comeback during President Trump's second term, Republican Congresswoman Mary Miller of Illinois took a bold step on Tuesday by introducing a resolution to designate June as "Family Month" instead of "Pride Month."

The Daily Wire was the first to report on Rep. Miller's resolution, co-sponsored by Republican Representatives Michael Cloud, Harriet Hageman, Barry Moore, Diana Harshbarger, Randy Weber, Troy Nehls, Mark Harris, and Michael Rulli. Several parental rights advocacy groups, including Moms for America, the American Family Project, the Family Research Council, and the Eagle Forum, support the resolution.

The first few sentences of the resolution read:

"Supporting the designation of the month of June as Family Month. Whereas the traditional nuclear family is the foundation of a healthy society; Whereas mothers and fathers play a crucial and irreplaceable role in the upbringing of their children; Whereas the best environment for children to thrive is a home with a married mother and father; Whereas roughly half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce; Whereas many young people are opting to delay or forgo marriage and starting a family..." 

Miller told The Daily Wire:

"The American family is under relentless attack from a radical leftist agenda that seeks to erase truth, redefine marriage, and confuse our children. By recognizing June as Family Month, we reject the lie of 'Pride' and instead honor God's timeless and perfect design. If we truly want to restore our nation, we must stand united to protect and uphold the foundation upon which it was built — the family." 

The resolution comes as President Trump's administration strips cultural Marxism from federal agencies and eliminates woke policies that have arguably done more harm to the nation than good. The president has issued multiple executive orders banning transgender procedures for minors, prohibiting men from participating in women's sports and entering women's spaces, and restricting inappropriate sexual and gender-related content in schools.

The administration has also acknowledged that there are only two biological sexes and has halted diversity programs (DEI), while prioritizing meritocracy for the nation's survival. 

"The best environment for children to thrive is a home with a married mother and father," the resolution stated, pointing to an ultra-high divorce rate in the U.S. and the rise of youngsters delaying or forgoing marriage and family. 

The resolution continued, "The birth rate in the United States has fallen below the replacement level needed to replenish the population and sustain the economy." 

"The month of June was first declared as Pride Month by President Bill Clinton in 1999 and has been done so by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, rejecting the importance of marriage and family," the resolution noted, adding that since then, "Americans are inundated with perverse Pride Month displays and events throughout the month of June that denigrate the nuclear family."

For decades, Democrats have waged war on the nuclear family, once the bedrock of American society. Leftist radicals have had one clear agenda: to dismantle traditional values in favor of state dependency. 

Recall that the Democratic Party's beloved Marxist group, Black Lives Matter, once stated: "We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and 'villages' that collectively care for one another—especially our children—to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable."

The West has spent decades being infected by wokeism, which quickly spread like a cancer over the past 10 to 15 years and has led to widespread dysfunction—threatening to push the nation toward a failed-state trajectory in the decades ahead, that's if continued. A course correction is now underway under President Trump's second term, one centered on family and traditional values—pillars that will only strengthen the nation as it moves into the 2030s.

Authored by Emel Akan and Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump’s recent threat to impose a 50 percent tariff on the European Union starting July 9 has spurred Brussels into action, with EU officials rushing to schedule meetings with U.S. counterparts ahead of the looming deadline.

While it remains uncertain whether the talks will yield substantial progress in narrowing the U.S. trade deficit or removing long-standing barriers to American exports, some observers believe the EU is negotiating from a position of weakness and may be more willing to make concessions this time.

Trump initially announced that a 50 percent tariff on the EU would take effect on June 1, accusing the 27-member bloc of slow-walking the negotiations. However, after a phone call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, he agreed to extend the deadline to July 9.

The EU is currently subject to U.S. tariffs of 10 percent on most goods, with 25 percent tariffs on automobiles, steel, and aluminum. The U.S. president announced this past week that the tariffs on steel and aluminum will increase to 50 percent beginning June 4.

Wilbur Ross, who served as Commerce secretary during Trump’s first term, recalled the difficulties of negotiating with the EU in a recent interview with The Epoch Times.

“It’s not really like negotiating with one country,” he said. “There are 27 member states, and each of them has a different set of trade priorities.”

Ross added that it’s “very tough” for Brussels to speak with one voice, making meaningful progress in trade talks especially difficult.

He also warned that no country can endure tariffs above 40 percent without suffering significant economic fallout. Imposing such steep tariffs on the EU, he said, would effectively signal that the United States has no intention of maintaining normal trade relations with the bloc.

Concerns over a potential trade war are mounting in Europe. A recent Financial Times survey of European economists found that 68 percent believe a trade conflict with the United States is the biggest threat to the region.

Daniel Lacalle, chief economist at Tressis, a Spain-based wealth management firm, echoed those concerns. He said such a high U.S. tariff on EU goods would be “devastating” for the European economy and equity markets.

“If you put a 50 percent tariff for the next 10 years on the European Union, you need to sell the European stocks like there’s no tomorrow,” he told The Epoch Times.

EU Trade Barriers

The United States and the EU share the largest bilateral economic relationship in the world.

In a lengthy report detailing foreign trade barriers, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) outlined the tariff and non-tariff barriers that American exporters face in the European market.

According to the latest annual report issued in March, certain goods face disproportionately high levies in the EU, such as fish and seafood (up to 26 percent), trucks (22 percent), bicycles (14 percent), passenger vehicles (10 percent), and fertilizers and plastics (6.5 percent).

In addition, many processed foods such as confectionary products and baked goods also face complex tariffs under the EU’s Meursing Table system, which calculates duties based on product composition.

Under this system, the EU charges a tariff on each imported good based on the product’s content of milk fat, milk protein, starch, and sugar. This system not only increases administrative burden but also creates uncertainty for U.S. food exporters, according to the USTR.

Former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross speaks during the 2024 Concordia Annual Summit at Sheraton New York Times Square in New York City on Sept. 23, 2024. Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit

Additionally, the EU does not implement its laws through a single customs administration, which creates added complications for U.S. exporters. Each EU member nation enforces customs law independently, resulting in inconsistencies in interpretations and enforcement throughout the bloc.

The EU’s technical barriers to trade also remain a sticking point. For example, Europe’s adoption of regional standards for safety, quality, environmental protection, labeling, and packaging impedes market access for U.S. products even if they meet international standards, according to the USTR report.

Lacalle said the EU’s internal bureaucracy not only slows access to the market but also imposes hidden barriers under the guise of environmental or legislative rules.

“It’s a highly bureaucratic and politicized union, where many officials fear free trade,” Lacalle said. “They don’t want U.S. companies coming to Europe and selling GMCs and Pontiacs. They don’t want them.”

However, the EU officials are also aware that they hold little leverage in the event of a full-blown trade war with the United States, he noted.

“Obviously, they’re not stupid and they know that they don’t have any weapons.”

Another area of contention is the digital service tax adopted by several EU countries as well as the value-added tax (VAT), which Trump considers “far more punitive than a tariff.”

In 2024, the United States had a goods trade deficit of $235.6 billion with the EU, a 12.9 percent increase from 2023.

In a Truth Social post on May 27, Trump promoted his tariff proposal and accused EU negotiators of deliberately stalling the talks.

“I was extremely satisfied with the 50% Tariff allotment on the European Union, especially since they were ‘slow walking’ (to put it mildly!), our negotiations with them,” Trump wrote.

However, the president also voiced optimism about the EU’s willingness to “quickly establish meeting dates” to start negotiations with his trade officials.

“This is a positive event,” Trump said.

Countries With High Exposure

There are large differences in exposure to the high tariffs among member countries and sectors in the EU.

Lacalle noted that the automotive, agriculture, chemicals, luxury, and retail sectors in Europe depend heavily on the U.S. market and lack alternative buyers.

Ireland is by far the most exposed country, according to a recent report by Bruegel, a Brussels-based economic think tank. Ireland’s economy is heavily dependent on exports to the United States, especially in the pharmaceutical, chemicals, transport equipment, and food and beverage sectors.

Italy is the second most-exposed country, according to the report, with significant exports in transport equipment, fashion, automotive, and pharmaceuticals.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a lead trade negotiator, has pointed to a lack of communication and coordination among the 27 member countries of the bloc.

“I would hope that this would light a fire under the EU,” Bessent said in a recent interview with Fox News, referring to the 50 percent U.S. tariff proposed by Trump.

“The EU has a collective action problem,” he said. “It’s 27 countries, but they’re being represented by this one group in Brussels. So, some of the feedback that I’ve been getting is that the underlying countries don’t even know what the EU is negotiating on their behalf.”

Trump’s April 2 global tariffs have recently encountered legal hurdles, initially being struck down by a federal trade court before being reinstated by an appeals court. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the legal challenges have not disrupted U.S. negotiations with the EU.

“All of the countries that are negotiating with us understand the power of Donald Trump and his ability to protect the American worker,” Lutnick said during an interview with Fox News on June 1.

In response to Trump’s April 2 tariffs, the European Commission, the EU’s main executive body, approved tariffs on €21 billion ($23.8 billion) worth of U.S. goods. The move was later suspended after Trump announced a 90-day pause on his reciprocal tariffs, set to end on July 9.

Former Secretary of Commerce Ross sees little chance of both sides coming to an agreement before the July 9 deadline. However, if the parties can reach a mutual understanding, he noted, that could be enough to delay implementation of the U.S. tariffs.

“I think it’s good to give the EU a little more time,” Ross said. “I just hope that the time is well spent.”

The Egyptian man charged with launching Sunday's ghastly fire attack on a group of people promoting awareness of hostages still held in Gaza told police he planned the attack for a year and would do it again, according to an FBI affidavit. Mohammed Sabry Solimon told investigators that his attack sprang from his anger toward the State of Israel and hatred of "Zionists." Charged with attempted murder, assault, possession of incendiary devices and a federal hate crime, he's being held on $10 million bond. 

Holding Molotov cocktails, illegal alien Mohammed Solimon rants at horrified onlookers after he unleashed his fiery attack 

According to the statement of an FBI agent, Solimon repeatedly said he "hated the Zionist group and did this because he hated this group and needed to stop them from taking over ‘our land,’ which he explained to be Palestine.” Soliman targeted a weekly event led by a local chapter of Run For Their Lives, an international organization whose many local chapters lead weekly, 18-minute walks -- rain or shine -- to promote awareness that dozens of people are still being held captive by Hamas militants in Gaza. The Boulder event typically has between 15 and 40 participants. Sunday's crowd was estimated at 30. One regular participant said the group has endured some occasional heckling.

Founded by Shany Klein -- a lawyer licensed in both Israel and California -- Run For Their Lives disclaims any political stance. On Monday, the group's global coordinator, Shira Weiss, said, "We can disagree on political issues and we can disagree on how the Israeli government or the American government is reacting to what is going on in the Middle East and in Israel. But that's not what we're here for. What we're here for is to continue to raise awareness of the fact that there's 50 people being held hostage."

That's not to say participants portray neutrality: Photos of the group's events in Boulder and elsewhere show crowds of people waving Israeli flags and draped in them. Further muddying widespread attributions of the attack to "pure antisemitism," an FBI agent's affidavit said Solimon is likely guilty of a hate crime because he "[threw] Molotov cocktails into a pro-Israel crowd" and also refers to it as a "pro-Israel gathering."

During his attack at Boulder's Pearl Street Mall -- a pedestrian shopping zone -- Soliman reportedly yelled "Free Palestine!",  "End Zionist!" and "How many children killed?" According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 15,613 children in Gaza have been killed over the course of Israeli onslaught after Hamas invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. An analysis by the medical journal The Lancet projects the final toll will be significantly higher, owing to ongoing malnutrition and disease, and to the inevitable discovery of more bodies in the vast sea of rubble across Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the attack on "blood libels against the Jewish state and people," while his foreign minister, Gideon Sa'ar, similarly blamed them on "blood libels spread in the media."  

According to the FBI, Soliman told investigators he wanted to "kill all Zionist people." He said he contemplated an attack for more than a year, but held off on executing his plan until his daughter's recent high school graduation. “He said he had to do it, he should do it, and he would not forgive himself if he did not do it,” according to a police detective. CNN reviewed what it believes to be Solimon's Facebook account, which included images of Mohammed Morsi, Muslim brotherhood leader and Egypt's first democratically-elected president -- until he was ousted by a military coup that came with at least implicit encouragement of the US government. 

A December 2023 Run for Their Lives walk in Boulder, Colorado (Peter Ornstein -

The FBI says that, to achieve close proximity to the walk participants, Soliman disguised himself as a gardener, complete with an orange vest and flowers he'd purchased. He was also wearing a commercial-grade weed sprayer that he'd filled with gasoline and planned to use as a blowtorch to self-immolate. Authorities said he had 18 Molotov cocktails, but only hurled two of them after "he got scared," charging documents say. Solimon said he's researched how to make Molotov cocktails on YouTube, and found his target after reading about them online. 

Soliman had wanted to attack the group with a firearm, but his status as an illegal alien precluded him from buying one. He did, however, take a concealed-carry class and fired an unspecified firearm. Given his alternate choice of weapon, the casualty count was certainly lower than it might have been: Eight people between 52 and 88 years old were taken to hospitals. The unnamed 88-year-old victim has been varyingly described as a "Holocaust survivor" or "Holocaust refugee," with a local rabbi saying she'd fled Europe for America.  

As he set peaceful marchers ablaze, Soliman yelled "How many children killed" -- an apparent reference to Israel's mass destruction of Gaza

One of Sunday's march participants, Ed Victor, said his first realization of what was unfolding came in the form of intense heat: 

"There was somebody there that I didn't even notice, although he was making a lot of noise, but I'm just focused on my job of being quiet and getting lined up. And, from my point of view, all of a sudden, I felt the heat. It was a Molotov cocktail equivalent, a gas bomb in a glass jar, thrown...[somone else saw] a big flame as high as a tree, and all I saw was someone on fire." -- CBS 

The Egyptian-born, 45-year-old Solimon lived in Kuwait for 17 years before moving to Colorado Springs in 2022. He was in the country illegally, as his tourist visa expired in February 2023. He'd applied for asylum upon arrival. "He came in through Biden's ridiculous Open Border Policy, which has hurt our Country so badly," President Trump posted on Truth Social. "He must go out under 'TRUMP' Policy.”

A January 2024 Run for Their Lives event in New York's Central Park (Photo: Dani Tenenbaum for

Up until the attack, Soliman and his wife were raising five children in a Colorado Springs apartment, and he said he kept his plan a secret from his family. He was most recently working as an Uber driver -- the company helpfully announced that Solimon's account has been cancelled, so you needn't worry about him breaking out of jail and then picking you up at Denver International Airport.

It seems Dmitry Medvedev has once again said the quiet part out loud. The deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council and former president has said Tuesday that Moscow is engaged in peace talks with Ukraine in order ultimately to ensure a swift and complete Russian victory.

"The Istanbul talks are not for striking a compromise peace on someone else's delusional terms but for ensuring our swift victory and the complete destruction of the neo-Nazi regime," the Russian official, who has long been known for his hawkish outspokenness, stated.

"That's what the Russian Memorandum published yesterday is about" - in reference to the set of demands presented. The Monday Istanbul talks lasted a mere hour, but resulted in agreement for another swap of 1,000 POWs, and the return of some 6,000 deceased bodies recovered from the battlefield.

One key thing that Medvedev also addressed is the coming reprisal for Sunday's 'Operation Spider's Web' which saw Ukraine penetrate deep inside Russia with drone strikes on five Russian airbases:

Medvedev added, in an apparent response to Ukraine's weekend strikes on Russian strategic bomber bases, that Moscow would take revenge. "Retribution is inevitable," he said.

"Our Army is pushing forward and will continue to advance. Everything that needs to be blown up will be blown up, and those who must be eliminated will be."

In Istanbul, the Russian delegation had handed over a long awaited ceasefire proposal, which contains a full outline for permanent settlement. We earlier featured the following Moscow demands from the document as follows:

• Crimea, Donbass, Kherson, Zaporozhye internationally recognized as Russian 
• Ukraine doesn’t join NATO or any military bloc 
• Ukraine holds elections
• Withdraws troops from new Russian regions 
• BANS Nazi propaganda

Without doubt, the Zelensky government is going to reject these conditions, particularly the sticking point about territorial concessions. Kiev has already rejected the offer of a two or three day short ceasefire.

Sunday's massive drone attack, which destroyed many advanced, expensive aircraft such as long-range strategic bombers - some parked at airbases very far away from the Ukraine border - was meant to given Zelensky leverage in further negotiations.

President Zelensky's reaction to the Russian delegation's stance after Monday's talks:

“Arrogant people”: Zelensky on the behavior of the Russians during today’s negotiations. pic.twitter.com/TNfeRYJXIJ

As geopolitical blog Moon of Alabama lays out, the brazen operation was by design meant to influence talks at a moment Ukrainian losses kept mounting fast:

Days before negotiations towards an and of the conflict the operational tempo of the war in Ukraine has increased.

During the last week of May the Russian forces took 18 settlements and over 200 square kilometer. During the last 24 hours at least another 3 settlements have changed hands. The Ukrainian army is no longer capable to hold its defense lines. Its situation is deteriorating day by day.

On Saturday a Russian missile attack hit a Ukrainian military training camp. It killed or wounded about 100 soldiers. It was the second time the camp had been hit.

Certainly, Ukraine has at least shifted the global conversation in the sense that Europe is again rallying behind Kiev, and now there's strong pressure on the White House to 'just go with it' and allow the Ukrainians to keep up the escalation game on Russia.

‘An epic failure’: Russia reels from surprise Ukrainian attack on bomber fleet

While the effect on Russia’s nuclear capacity is likely to be limited, the attack could affect day-to-day operations in Ukraine, say analysts.
w/ @NastyaStognei @fabrice_deprez
Graphics: @BobHaslett pic.twitter.com/q4pfSRaJ8L

Of course, this is highly dangerous, and Putin has never been one to blink first - but is likely to unleash painful retaliation on Ukraine, including the likelihood of bombs away on the capital.

Meanwhile, there's been uncharacteristic silence out of the White House. Trump has indicated that he's still open to the possibility of an in-person meeting involving both Zelensky and Putin at the same table, but this scenario is slipping away by the day, as the war tempo picks up pace.