When your business model’s foundation is catering to mentally ill lunatics, don’t surprised when the most common sense changes evoke insane responses.  

One day, probably in the very near future, there will be a hailstorm of studies done on the Covid pandemic era and the absolute hysteria that surrounded it.  The virus was essentially a non-issue with an average infection fatality rate of 0.23%, meaning 99.8% of all people would easily survive.  Yet, most of the world shut down vast areas of the economy and tried to force the global population to wear masks that were eventually proven to do absolutely nothing to stop the spread.  

Perhaps the most interesting detail of all, though, is the political left’s continued obsession with the lockdown period.  Leftists treat the pandemic as their “golden era”, the moment in history when they basked in pure authoritarianism, the moment when they had all the power.  And like an addictive drug, they just can’t seem to let the pandemic go.  

The N95 mask in particular represents a symbol for progressives, a kind of uniform that they used to identify each other and show their fealty to the cult of Covid.  Many deep blue areas of the country refused to stop wearing masks well into 2023 long after it was obvious that the virus was not a legitimate danger. 

Even today, there are still wacky activists that continue to mask up regularly, because taking off the masks is the same as admitting they are wrong, and taking accountability is the last thing any leftist will ever voluntarily do.  Now imagine there’s a lesbian bar that placates such people as their primary customer base?  Can you think of a more horrible place to get a drink?

Up until August 31st the Last Ditch Bar and Arts Venue in Greenfield, MA had required patrons to wear KN-95 masks or better just to get in the door.  The bar was also known for banning police and posting signs portraying people throwing Molotov Cocktails that said “Cops Are Not Welcome At Last Ditch”.

Massachusetts lgbtq bar ‘Last Ditch’ announced they’re BANNING police from their venue, called them “pigs” and shared images showing them throwing Molotov cocktails at police.

This is a call to violence against law enforcement. @fbi

Trans violence is an epidemic. pic.twitter.com/dwxcg3xYXW

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 30, 2025

The problem is that their ridiculous clinging to pandemic mandates destroyed their customer base and the business was failing.  In response the lesbian bar finally announced that, on Saturday’s only, the bar would become mask-optional while keeping the requirement on its other nights.

Instead of getting relief and applause for showing a pinch of common sense, the locals pulled out their torches and pitchforks in outrage and started making threats.

The Instagram announcement drew hundreds of responses, including accusations that the change excluded disabled and immunocompromised customers who had regarded Last Ditch as one of the few nightlife spaces built around their mentally deranged needs.  In other words, the Last Ditch Bar had “betrayed” the cult by admitting masks are not necessary.  

Critics called the decision ableist, eugenicist, and complicity in a “mass disabling event.” Some comments went further:

“People like you kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience…”  

“Just say you’re being complicit in a mass disabling event and get it over with…”  

“I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ablists…” 

It’s like taking a time machine back to 2020.  The last remaining owner of the bar became emotional as she explained how she had ended up running the business on her own.  “It was not my passion project,” she said. 

She told the group she had been living in her truck for six months while putting money into the business, working four jobs, and carrying responsibility for the $50,000 loan the founders had taken out to open Last Ditch.  “I never really wanted this,” she said. “I don’t think I’m doing a very good job.” 

Some critics remained unmoved, including the bar’s biggest critic, a trans “woman” who identifies as a lesbian and also a he/him. 

UPDATE: One of the loudest critics of the Last Ditch COVID-Conscious Lesbian Bar is a male lesbian named Soe Noire 😭 pic.twitter.com/H5y0UwVnjG

— Zack Peter (@zackpeter) September 25, 2026

But this is to be expected when dealing with progressive psychopaths.  They want businesses to enable their emotional dysfunctions, but they don’t want to spend any money keeping those businesses in operation.  We have seen this trend in every venue that leftists invade, from movies to video games to marketing and corporate culture – They want every company to reflect their values but they are the worst customers imaginable when it comes to revenues.    

The last Ditch Bar owes nearly $4000 in back rent and foot traffic has dried up; the business is likely to close in the near term.  The owner says she hopes to convert Last Ditch into a “cooperative” so the financial responsibility does not rest so heavily on one person.  However, this is how the business was already being run, and it was a disaster.  

The lessons here are many.  But first and foremost, incidents like this remind us of the horrors of life under progressive rule during the Biden years.  The popular memory is short, it would be a catastrophe if the public were to forget.

Authored by Savannah Hulsey Pointer and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times,

Around 157,000 children who crossed the border as unaccompanied minors have been found since the start of the Trump administration while many are still missing, White House border czar Tom Homan told The Epoch Times.

In an interview with senior editor Jan Jekielek for “American Thought Leaders,” airing on Sept. 26, he said that just under half a million children were “smuggled” into the United States during the Biden administration.

Homan said officials at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) at the time were proud of the fact that children weren’t in detention for long.

“They weren’t [held] very long, but the problem is they released them quickly because the sponsors weren’t properly vetted,” he said, and with caretakers not responding to communications or check-ins, that caused the government to lose track of nearly 300,000 of the children.

Homan said that when President Donald Trump asked him to return to the federal government under his second administration, one of the top directives he was given was to address the problem of missing children.

“He asked me to do three things: secure the border, run deportation operations, and find these kids.”

The border czar said he was much more optimistic about the first two directives than he was about finding the children, because his team would have to count on the digital footprint of the sponsors, based on information provided by the sponsors.

“We can find you, we can find me. We own homes, we own cars, we have credit cards. We can find us because we all have a digital footprint. Children don’t,” Homan said.

Some Democrats on Capitol Hill have objected to the treatment of unaccompanied minors after they’ve been located.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) condemned the current administration in June for plans to deport some of the children back to Mexico.

“You have been entrusted with the care and safety of the children placed within the [Office of Refugee Resettlement] network,” Wyden said in a letter to the HHS. “Proceeding with this plan knowingly endangers their lives and violates your duty to these vulnerable children.”

When officials began searching for the children, they learned that many of the sponsors had given the wrong information, such as home addresses that turned out to be supermarkets, parking lots, or churches. False names had been used for identification, and locating where the children actually were proved to be a massive undertaking.

Homan told The Epoch Times that of the roughly 157,000 children who have been found, more than 20 have died – some due to natural causes, and others from a drug overdose or as a result of violence.

The work isn’t done, however, and he said he intends to find every one of the 140,000 still missing children, even those who have aged out of the system.

“Just because you’re 18 and 19 doesn’t mean they’re not in forced labor or sex trafficking, so we’re going to keep running down every one of these leads until we find them,” the border czar said.

In 40 years of working at the border Homan has seen many victims of human trafficking, but one in particular broke his heart. He said he’ll never forgot a 9-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted while making the journey to the United States years ago: “That little girl’s never going to be the same again.”

“Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. You don’t come across the border without approval and paying off the cartels,” he said. “A lot of women and children are sexually assaulted making that journey.”

Last month, HHS announced that the Trump administration had located more than 148,000 unaccompanied illegal immigrant children who had been missing after being released into the care of someone in the United States.

A statement from the Department of Homeland Security last November announced an initiative partnering with local law enforcement to conduct welfare checks on the lost children.

Homan told The Epoch Times that despite the monumental task of finding the still missing children, “We’re not giving up.”

“President Trump has promised that we’re going to look at this until the last day of the administration, and the American people can have my word that we’re going to do that.”

Summary:

• Reuters Says Possible Iranian-Linked Motive Likely 
• Trump Says Suspects “Looking to do Big Damage” Against Airbase 
• US Stealth Bomber Base In UK On “Delta” Alert As Counter-Terror Police Make Arrests, Deploy Bomb Squad Search Of Vans

Trump Says Suspects “Looking to do Big Damage” 

Reuters reported that an Iranian-linked motive could very well be behind the incident that unfolded early Sunday morning, citing a source familiar with the investigation. Counterterrorism investigators are also examining the possibility of Russian sabotage or an Islamist plot. 

President Trump told reporters earlier this afternoon that British and US authorities had been monitoring the suspects and alleged they intended to cause “big damage.”

“We had them under investigation. They were looking to do big damage to our fort and working with the British worked out great … We had them under view for a long time, and we got them,” Trump said.

🚨 BREAKING: Donald Trump responds to the suspected bomb plot at RAF Fairford

“Working with Britain, it was an amazing job. We had them under investigation. They were looking to do big damage to our fort, and working with the British worked out great and we got them” pic.twitter.com/PlChiTQlSx

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) September 27, 2026

Police established a 400-meter perimeter while bomb-disposal personnel examined the three vans near RAF Fairford in western England. Notably, the airfield hosts strategic US bombers.

The bomb squad found large black barrels inside the vans.

RAF Fairford has become a critical node for US military operations against Iran. Tehran warned in July that airbases used to launch attacks would be considered legitimate targets.

Here’s the latest from X user Politics UK:

• A farmer driving home in the early hours found three white vans blocking a village road with no one inside
• Suspicious, she immediately turned around before seeing a “group of Middle Eastern-looking young guys run off through the trees” in the direction of the air base wearing masks
• One van displayed a UK number for a company called “Fuel 2You”, which is not registered on Companies House. The number also appeared to be one digit short and does not ring when called
• She immediately called 999 and five men were arrested within 25 minutes under the Explosives Act. Homes were evacuated and a major incident was declared just after 8am
• Later today, the two rear doors of two of the vans were open and large black containers could be seen scattered around with a bomb disposal robot operating next to the vans
• The five suspects were then further arrested on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act
• Counter Terror Police are understood to think that a suspected bomb plot linked to Iran is the most likely scenario due to US air bombers operating from the base
• Last night, before the incident, reports said that the base was at its highest alert with tractors blocking all gates. A local in the village said they had been stopped at gunpoint at a roadblock by a group of American soldiers, who ordered them to put their hands out of the car and identify themselves

US Stealth Bomber Base In UK On “Delta” Alert As Counter-Terror Police Make Arrests, Deploy Bomb Squad Search Of Vans

British counterterrorism police declared a major incident near RAF Fairford, an airbase used by the US Air Force, after several men were arrested on suspicion of explosives offenses. RAF Fairford was reportedly placed on “Delta,” the highest threat level, according to the national news agency Press Association, now known as PA Media.

🚨 RAF FAIRFORD ALERT DEEPENS — COUNTER-TERROR POLICE, EXPLOSIVES ARRESTS, EVACUATIONS AND HEIGHTENED BASE SECURITY

The security operation near RAF Fairford has moved into a more serious phase.

Several men are under arrest on suspicion of offences under the Explosives Act.…

— Jim Ferguson (@JimFergusonUK) September 27, 2026

PA Media reports that military bomb disposal specialists were examining vehicles in Whelford, Gloucestershire, where authorities declared a major incident and evacuated residents from the area.

Villagers have been evacuated from their homes near RAF Fairford, which is used by the United States Air Force (USAF), and the Army’s explosives experts are examining vehicles, police said.

According to the agency, counter-terror police had no advance knowledge of a potential plot.

However, the incident was serious enough for RAF Fairford to block major entrances to the airbase with massive front-end loaders, suggesting concern about a possible vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.

Image per Sky News: 

Why could RAF Fairford have been a target? The US Air Force’s 501st Combat Support Wing operates out of the airbase. It supports B-52, B-1, and B-2 bomber operations that have been crucial in the Gulf conflict against Iran.

Visegrád 24: First image of the suspected terror cell arrested near RAF Fairford from where U.S. strategic bombers B-52 & B-1B hit Iran The men arrested under the Explosives Act had their clothes taken off to see whether they wore suicide vests. 

BREAKING

First image of the suspected terror cell arrested near RAF Fairford from where U.S. strategic bombers B-52 & B-1B hit Iran

The men arrested under the Explosives Act had their clothes taken off to see whether they wore suicide vests pic.twitter.com/dgdNgQc6j1

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 27, 2026

Visegrád 24: These are the vans that the bomb squad is have a closer look at near RAF Fairford in the UK. RAF Fairford is the base from where the U.S. strategic bombers B-52 and B-1B have been taking off from for striking missions against Iran.

BREAKING:

These are the vans that the bomb squad is have a closer look at near RAF Fairford in the UK.

RAF Fairford is the base from where the U.S. strategic bombers B-52 and B-1B have been taking off from for striking missions against Iran. pic.twitter.com/XCXBYxLERH

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 27, 2026

Speculation builds… 

BREAKING: The five individuals arrested earlier this morning over an alleged plot to bomb RAF Fairford and destroy U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers are reportedly British nationals not immigrants arriving by boats or submarines.

There is speculation that they belong to Palestine… pic.twitter.com/iVHjH0B5gj

— Babak Taghvaee – The Crisis Watch (@BabakTaghvaee1) September 27, 2026

The Independent noted, “The arrests come amid heightened concerns around the threat from hostile states to the UK, with Russia and Iran among those that have used proxies to commit crimes on their behalf on British soil.”

* * * FREE SHIPPING!

The two big weekend Iran war developments are 1) President Trump has rejected Tehran’s seven day ceasefire roadmap proposal, and reportedly plans to resume bombing Iran – likely after the November midterm elections; 2) the Iranian government announced Sunday its forces have struck 19 ships in the Strait of Hormuz over the past two nights, per Fars News Agency.

The Fars report indicated the Iranians hit 12 vessels Friday night and 7 more Saturday – though Western sources have been slow to report or confirm this, and the Pentagon has not initially commented.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has meanwhile once again emphasized in the wake of Trump’s rejection of the latest proposal that on the one hand Tehran stands ‘ready’ for renewed fighting and won’t back down – and on the other has not yet abandoned diplomacy.

“We are fully prepared for the war to be resumed. We stand firm in the face of any new aggression, even if it comes to a doomsday war,” Araghchi told NBC News Meet the Press on Sunday.

He was specifically asked about the Friday Wall Street Journal report which strongly suggested Trump is ready to resume bombing the Islamic Republic after the midterms.

But Araghchi offered the key caveat and opening: “At the same time, we stand ready for diplomacy. It is up to President Trump to choose,“ he said.

The top Iranian diplomat further make clear his country is not backing off its initial conditions to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz:

Our proposal is very clear. We are ready to open the strait if certain things are done by the U.S. And these certain things are not new, have not come from the space. These are our rights, that we want to be respected. First of all, we want to end this war of aggression. They started this war eight months ago with the hope that in two, three days, you know, they can win the war. It’s now eight months. And we want it to be ended. We want our money, our assets, which are illegally frozen, to be released. We want, you know, to be able to sell our oil. So we want certain things that the U.S. has already committed itself to in the previous, you know, deals.

The main conditions can be summarized as the end of the war on all fronts, the release of frozen assets and the end of the naval blockade.

The NBC show host tried to hold Araghchi down on Iran’s insistence that its funds be unfrozen and returned – which is proving a tall ask from a White House which has unleashed its ‘Economic D-Day’ campaign seeking to totally isolate Iran.

The interview transcript is quite illustrative of the main impasse:

KRISTEN WELKER: But Mr. Foreign Minister, the ambassador’s point was the United States is not going to unfreeze assets on the front end. It’s not going to lift sanctions on the front end. Is it possible to negotiate a new peace plan at this juncture? Or has diplomacy failed?

FOREIGN MINISTER ABBAS ARAGHCHI: Well, why aren’t they ready to release our money? It is our own money. It is not, you know, any other’s money.

KRISTEN WELKER: Because they want to see some actionable items from Iran, like opening the Strait of Hormuz, before they do that. Has diplomacy failed, Mr. Foreign Minister?

FOREIGN MINISTER ABBAS ARAGHCHI: Well, there is always hope for diplomacy. But to be honest with you, we have no reason to come back to diplomacy and engage with this administration once again, because of how they’ve behaved in the past two years. You know, in 2025 they offered negotiations…

And so clearly the situation is back to square one in terms of the stalemate that’s been on from the beginning, and has persisted for seven months, as Washington finds itself in yet another quagmire in the Middle East.

🔺 Iran says it struck 19 ships in the Strait of Hormuz over the past two nights, Fars News Agency reported Sunday, after Kpler reported over 20 million barrels of crude and products exiting the US blockade line as 7-day average.

Iranian forces hit 12 vessels Friday night and 7… https://t.co/UnVeYf99k0 pic.twitter.com/LP8tZknZqo

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) September 27, 2026

Regional analyst and editor of Amwaj.media, Mohammad Ali Shabani, concludes of weekend events: “The next phase of the war will likely revolve around destroying Iran’s economic infrastructure. The method is collective immiseration until desperate Iranians with nothing to lose will do the regime change.”

This of course sets the US on a trajectory of yet another ‘forever war’ in the region. Trump, it seems, may also opt for bombing in search of a ‘better deal’ – though this will simultaneously ensure a more hardline resistance will be entrenched in decision-making centers in Tehran.

The doctor nominated by President Trump to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told senators this week that vaccines available in the United States are safe and effective.

Dr. Heidi Overton, the nominee, said that if confirmed, she could use her scientific training and clinical background to describe to the American public what is currently known about products that fall under Food and Drug Administration oversight.

“And what is currently known is that the vaccines that have been approved by the FDA meet the standards for safety and efficacy,” she said.

Overton, 37, also endorsed the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, saying it is not lethal and that it is the best tool in the public health response to measles outbreaks that are ongoing in the United States.

She said that mifepristone, an abortion pill, was safe and effective because it had been approved by the FDA. Overton wrote in a 2023 article that chemical abortion through products such as mifepristone was “dangerous to women,” drawing criticism from Democrats in the Senate.

As Zachary Stieber reports further for The Epoch Times, Overton would take the helm of an agency that has been under acting leadership since Dr. Marty Makary stepped down in May.

While signing an executive order in August that encouraged breaking up the measles combination vaccine, Trump told reporters that the vaccine is possibly “quite lethal” and that separate shots for measles, mumps, and rubella appeared to be “not at all lethal but just very effective.”

When asked after the signing, the White House declined to provide any citations for Trump’s description of the vaccine.

Leaders in the Make America Healthy Again movement recently called for removing vaccines containing messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), an outspoken vaccine proponent, has been asking people whom Trump nominated to serve in high-level health positions about Trump’s comments, as well as other questions about vaccines, during their confirmation hearings before the Senate Health Committee, the panel he chairs. Chris Klomp, selected to be the top deputy to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., recently voiced support for vaccines in response to Cassidy, as did Dr. Nicole Saphier, tabbed to become surgeon general.

Cassidy said on Sept. 24 that Kennedy, whom he voted for, made him guarantees but later backtracked on those promises, citing directives from the president.

Kennedy’s department did not return a request for comment.

Cassidy asked Overton how she would handle it if she made guarantees and the president then directed her to go against them.

“I’ve had robust discussions with the president,” said Overton, who was part of Trump’s first administration.

“I would give him my best advice, and I would follow the statutory requirements for the role of FDA commissioner regarding individual product determinations for safety and efficacy, and that would be what would guide every decision if confirmed to this role.”

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

A viral stat claims credit card delinquencies just hit their worst level since 2008. However, the New York Fed’s own data shows the opposite, and the real consumer credit stress is hiding exactly where the headlines aren’t looking.

A number has been making the rounds all year, and it’s misleading. The claim: roughly 13% of credit card balances are 90 days or more past due, the worst since 2008. Here’s the twist. That number is real, and it comes straight from the New York Fed. It just doesn’t mean what the scary charts say it means.

Sorting the real signal from the viral one matters because one of them belongs in your portfolio decisions and the other belongs in the trash.

Where The Scary Number Comes From

Let’s start with the Q2 2026 Household Debt and Credit Report, released August 11. Total household debt actually fell $13 billion on the quarter, a rounding error of 0.1%, to $18.8 trillion. Credit card balances rose $21 billion to $1.26 trillion, up 1.7%. So far, nothing that looks like a crisis.

However, this is the point where you are hit with the delinquency rate that everyone screenshots. The share of card balances 90 days or more past due has climbed from 7.6% in late 2022 to 12.8%. That is a real figure from the Fed’s data, and it’s the source the viral posts were reaching for without knowing it. Here’s the problem with reading it as a crisis. The Fed published a companion piece the same day, and its own economists took the number apart.

Crucially, they draw a very clear distinction between a “stock” measure and a “flow” measure. The stock measure simply counts every delinquent dollar remaining on a credit report, including old charged-off debts that lenders keep reporting for years. The flow measure counts how much debt newly goes bad each quarter. The flow indicates how households are actually doing, and it has been roughly flat since 2024. It rose from 6.93% to 6.97% year over year. That’s not an acceleration. That’s noise.

The obvious question is: “Then why is the stock number climbing?”

The answer is that lenders now report charged-off debt to the bureaus far longer than they used to. From 2004 through 2012, only about 40% of charged-off balances were still reported a year later. By 2024, that figure had doubled to 80%. Strip those stale balances out, and the stock delinquency rate falls right back in line with the flow. As usual, when everyone agrees on something, something else is usually going on. In this case, the crowd agreed on a chart that the people who built it were quietly warning you not to trust. I’ve made the same point before about the gap between what the data says and what the tape feels like, in the consumer sentiment disconnect.

(The “stock” delinquency measure that went viral reads 12.8%, but it counts years of stale charged-off debt. The “flow” of new delinquencies, the honest read on current stress, sits at 6.97% and has been flat since 2024. Source: New York Fed, Q2 2026)

“When the question is ‘how are households doing right now?’ the flow delinquency rates provide a more accurate view of current consumer repayment behavior. By those measures, the pace of credit card delinquency is elevated but has been largely stable since 2024.” – Lee, Mangrum, Scally, Sinha and van der Klaauw, New York Fed Liberty Street Economics

The Consumer Credit Stress That’s Actually Real

Dismissing the meme doesn’t mean the consumer is fine. Parts of the consumer are cracking. The stress is REAL. It just isn’t spread evenly across the system, and the aggregate delinquency chart hides that. Dig below the surface, and you find a household sector splitting in two, with the top half spending comfortably and the bottom half running on fumes.

The savings data gives us the clearest read into what is actually happening. In July, the personal saving rate fell to 3.0% of disposable income, with total personal saving of $712.0 billion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Put that in context. For most of the decade before the pandemic, households saved 7% to 8% of income. The rate spiked above 16% in 2020 when stimulus landed, and there was nowhere to spend it. It has bled lower ever since. A 3.0% print is near the lowest reading in 20 years.

Notably, a thin savings rate isn’t a crisis on its own. There are plenty of households that carry very little cash and never miss a payment. However, it does change the math on resilience. When the family car breaks down or a parent’s work hours get reduced, a family saving 8% of its income can absorb the hit. Conversely, a family that only saves 3% of its income reaches for a credit card more quickly. That’s the mechanism, and it’s why the delinquency increases we have seen are showing up first among subprime and lower-income borrowers, while prime credit performance has barely moved.

The Two-Speed Consumer, In One Table

The cleanest way to see the gap is to line up the viral claim against what the primary sources report. Almost every week, someone sends me a chart or a screenshot from somewhere, showing the consumer on the edge of collapse. The data, however, continues to tell a more specific story.

That split is the whole story, and it shows up in spending, too. The top 10% of earners now drive 49.2% of all consumer spending, the highest share since Moody’s began collecting data in 1989, up from about 36% three decades ago. Meanwhile, spending by households earning under $175,000 has barely grown in real terms since the pandemic. One consumer is fine. The other is the one filling up the subprime delinquency buckets.

The top decile drives 49.2% of all consumer spending, the highest share since 1989 and up from about 36% three decades ago. The bottom 80% has barely grown their spending in real terms. That’s the two-speed consumer in one picture.- Source: Moody’s Analytics, 2025

“Consumer credit stress is real. It’s just wearing a name tag that says subprime, and the headline chart keeps reading it as systemic.”

Where The Bears Are Right

I readily admit that the bearish case has a valid point. They state that aggregate data lags current realities. Therefore, by the time the Fed’s quarterly report confirms a broad deterioration, the damage is already done. Furthermore, a 3.0% savings rate means the marginal household has no shock absorber left.

If you then layer on a labor market that ran soft through the summer, with June and July payrolls revised down to 31,000 and 21,000 before August rebounded to 162,000, you have the setup for spending to roll over faster than the smoothed data will admit.

Those are all valid points. However, here’s the problem with treating it as today’s reality. It’s a forecast about tomorrow, not a reading of the current tape. The same case was made in 2023 and again in 2024. Each time, behavior beat feelings and spending held firm. I’m reasonably confident the low-end consumer market will continue to deteriorate from here. I’m far less confident it will drag down the aggregate over the next two quarters, because the prime borrower, who does most of the spending, is still in good shape.

What Consumer Credit Stress Means For Investors

So what do you actually do with this information?

1. Stop trading off the scary screenshot. A K-shaped consumer calls for a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. The businesses exposed to the bottom third of the income distribution, dollar stores, subprime lenders, buy-now-pay-later names, and lower-end restaurants, are where the stress shows up first and hits margins hardest. That’s a real and specific risk you can underwrite.
2. Respect the split rather than betting the whole book on one side. Higher-end consumer names and companies serving households with intact balance sheets are a different animal. Positioning for a total consumer collapse has been a losing trade for three years running. So has assuming everything is fine. The trade is the divergence itself.
3. Lastly, keep the real watchlist in front of you. Not the meme number. Watch the savings rate, the subprime delinquency trend, the quarterly New York Fed report, and retailer margin guidance through earnings season. We covered the deeper split between what households say and what they do in our look at the consumer sentiment disconnect, and in the piece on record retail inflows. The through line is consistent. Behavior beats feelings, and primary data beats viral charts.

The bottom line is this. The consumer credit stress story deserves your attention, but only the true version. A 3% savings rate indicates the cushion is thin, and the low end is exposed. The New York Fed data tells you this is a distribution problem, not a solvency crisis, at least for now. The moment the prime borrower starts slipping in the quarterly print, the calculus changes, and that’s the number that will tell you when to lean out.

If this raises questions about how your own portfolio is positioned for a two-speed consumer and a softening labor market, that’s the conversation we have with investors every day. Our process starts with your complete financial picture, not just your investment account. Schedule a complimentary portfolio review, and let’s pressure-test your exposure together.

Questions This Article Answers

Are credit card delinquencies really the worst since 2008? Only by one measure. The New York Fed’s “stock” delinquency rate, which counts all reported balances 90+ days past due, hit 12.8% in Q2 2026. That measure is inflated by old charged-off debt that lenders now report for far longer. The “flow” of new delinquencies, a better read on current stress, has been roughly flat since 2024 at just under 7%.

What’s the difference between stock and flow delinquency? The stock measure is the share of all outstanding balances currently marked delinquent, including stale charged-off debt. The flow measure is the amount of debt that goes bad each quarter. The flow tells you how households are doing right now, and the Fed’s own economists say it’s the more accurate gauge of current repayment behavior.

Is the U.S. consumer actually in trouble? Part of it. The stress is concentrated in subprime and lower-income households, where the 3.0% saving rate leaves no cushion. Prime borrowers, who account for most spending, are still in good shape. It’s a K-shaped consumer, not a system-wide credit event.

What should investors watch instead of the viral chart? The flow delinquency rate, the subprime delinquency trend, the quarterly New York Fed report, the personal saving rate, and retailer margin guidance. Those tell you when the stress is spreading from the low end into the prime borrower, which is the turn that actually matters for portfolios.

Authored by Catherine Salgado via PJ Media,

Under the Biden administration, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was asking for and accepting private donations for illegal aliens in federal custody. The Trump administration just realized it had never officially ended that directive, so it did so this week to remove any lingering confusion.

CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott confirmed to Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin on Wednesday that he issued a memo officially axing the policy. Scott offered as an excuse for its creation that the “elevated number of aliens encountered, processed and held in our facilities” during the Biden-Harris era necessitated private supplements to the billions of taxpayer dollars spent on trafficking criminal foreigners into America.

But times have changed, thank goodness.

“This order is no longer needed or appropriate. With the significant decrease in encounters and apprehensions, CBP no longer requires private donations or gifts for distribution to aliens in custody,” Scott observed.

“Additionally, this order does not align with the Trump administration’s enforcement posture at our borders. For these reasons, I am withdrawing CBP from DHS Delegation 07107, effective immediately.”

John K. Tien, Joe Biden’s deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, inaugurated the controversial policy in May 2022. CBP told Melugin that agency leadership did not recall that the policy existed until a recent reminder. That’s probably partly due to changes in top leadership since Donald Trump took office.

The Biden Administration manufactured a crisis at our southern border – allowing millions of unvetted criminal aliens to flood our towns and neighborhoods. With our southern border now secure thanks to President @realDonaldTrump, @CBP and @DHSgov, ICE will continue to remove these illegal aliens from the interior. Our work to Defend the Homeland continues.

— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) February 17, 2026

Even the title of the newly terminated policy is so obviously Democrat: “Delegation to Solicit, Accept and Utilize Gifts Related to the Care of Undocumented Noncitizens in CBP and ICE Custody.”

Calling illegal alien criminals “undocumented” is a favorite Orwellian term among wokies, as if the aliens innocently forgot to complete some unnecessary paperwork.

What Joe Biden and the Democrats did to our country is unforgivable: “Fed Reserve working paper suggests Biden illegal immigrant wave caused 30% of home price increases” https://t.co/d1RnUOESRk

— White House Press Office (@PressSec) July 8, 2026

Watchdog estimates indicate that the Department of Health and Human Services – responsible for trafficking over 320,000 children – alone spent some $22.6 billion on illegal aliens during the Biden era. In early 2024, Newsweek reported that illegal immigration was costing the U.S. $150.7 billion annually across federal, state, and local governments.

And yet, despite all that, CBP says it still needed supplementation from private funds.

That is the scale of the mass illegal alien invasion of our country during the Biden administration.

All this “green” technology embedded in vehicles over the last two decades, such as automatic stop-start, cylinder deactivation, turbocharging, advanced transmissions, hybrid systems, and other forms of electric assistance designed to reduce fuel consumption and improve miles per gallon, has made the upfront cost of purchasing a new vehicle unaffordable. 

The average price of a new car has exploded to $50,000, making it unaffordable for many working-class folks. Automakers have to abide by Obama-era and Biden-era “green” climate rules because these climate alarmists supposedly sought to heavily regulate the industry under the guise of saving the planet. In fact, overregulation has driven the cost of driving and maintaining these complex machines to unaffordable levels.

The DEF systems for diesel engines pushed during the Obama era have also added repair costs, maintenance requirements, and costly downtime. Many diesel owners have been infuriated by overregulation of these engines. Talk to any Ford Powerstroke or Dodge Cummins owners; they are no fans of DEF. 

To fix the mess of overregulation and what can only be described as an increase in the upfront cost of new vehicle ownership, as well as thousands of dollars in maintenance bills and headaches, President Trump announced on Saturday that his administration plans to release new fuel-efficiency mandates that roll back costly green mandates.

Trump wrote on Truth Social:

BIG DAY FOR AMERICAN AUTO WORKERS AND CAR BUYERS! I have just approved new Fuel Economy Standards that TERMINATE Sleepy Joe Biden and Pete Boot-EDGE-EDGE’s ridiculous EV Mandate. The Dumocrats cost our Great Auto Manufacturers $Billions, forced Americans into cars they never wanted, and wasted Billions on Chargers that were never built.

These new Standards will take the waste out of building cars in America. That means LOWER PRICES, saving families thousands on a new, beautiful, and safe car — Far better than the Environmental Monsters that we were building heretofore. Every Manufacturer, from General Motors to Ford to Stellantis, has called me wanting to build here, and now they can!

Under my Administration, over $ 100 billion is being invested in American Autos, and that’s just the beginning.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy quoted Trump’s Truth Social post on X and responded, “A major victory for America’s auto workers is COMING MONDAY.”

A major victory for America’s auto workers is COMING MONDAY 👀 pic.twitter.com/JB79NVufds

— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) September 26, 2026

Bloomberg noted, “If the final rule follows December’s proposal, the projected fleetwide fuel-economy average for 2031 would fall to 34.5 miles per gallon from approximately 50.4 mpg under the Biden standards. The final requirements have yet to be released.”

An NHTSA report from last December estimated that the proposed rule could lower upfront vehicle costs by $930, assuming manufacturers pass along the savings. 

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has stopped pretending his socialist vision is just a local experiment.

On CNN International’s Amanpour, the Democratic Socialist was asked whether America is ready to elect people on the hard left – and whether the 2026 midterms will be a referendum not only on President Trump, but on the Democratic Socialists of America.

“I think this will absolutely translate on a national level,” Mamdani said.

.@NYCMayor Mamdani says socialism will take over national politics:

“[Socialism] will absolutely translate on a national level. And the reason that I believe that is while we are an exceptional city. As the greatest city in the world, we also know that the struggles that New… pic.twitter.com/CaNc02evFq

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 26, 2026

Amanpour noted that other Democrats still believe national races reward moderates, and that local energy is one thing, but winning the country is another. Mamdani answered by recasting New York’s cost-of-living crisis as a national mandate.

“While we are an exceptional city, as the greatest city in the world, we also know that the struggles that New Yorkers are facing are the struggles that working-class Americans are facing across the country,” he said.

He continued, “I often say that there’s only one majority in this country, it’s the working class. And their inability to afford housing, childcare, even public transit, that is something that goes beyond any one city.”

Mamdani then pointed to the New Deal and Franklin Roosevelt, arguing that people said the same thing then: it could never work nationally. In his telling, the Democratic Party was once “synonymous with workers” and popular because of it. The implication is obvious. He wants that party back – or rather, a DSA-shaped version of it.

He also claimed New Yorkers care less about how he labels himself than “whether there’s room for them in that description,” accused House Speaker Mike Johnson of talking about him to dodge “current federal policy,” and said “to find ambition in the Democratic Party, we often have to look to history books.”

This is the same argument Mamdani has been making since his slate smashed New York’s Democratic establishment in June. After candidates he backed knocked out incumbents and seized safe House nominations, he told ABC’s Jonathan Karl that a democratic socialist “can get elected anywhere across this country for any position.”

He talked then about “a hunger that is not just felt by New Yorkers, but, frankly, by Americans from coast to coast.” The June winners – including DSA members Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, plus progressive Brad Lander – ran on tax-the-rich politics, attacks on Israel, and, in several cases, abolishing ICE. In deep-blue New York districts, that was enough.

Republicans have already treated the results as a gift. Johnson said after the sweep: “The Democratic party, the socialists, the Marxists, have nominated some of the most radical candidates to ever run for office, and they’re running for Congress. The insurgent left is on the rise.”

Mamdani now wants that rise treated as proof the rest of America is waiting for the same program.

A CNN poll in late July found about a third of Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults now identify as democratic socialists. They skew younger. They are more eager to yank the party left. They are nearly twice as likely as other Democrats to want that shift on policy. Nearly half of them would be enthusiastic about a candidate who wants to cut U.S. support for Israel, compared with 20 percent of non-socialist Democrats.

Among those expressing an opinion, nearly all viewed Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez favorably. Most Democratic-aligned adults said they would at least be “OK” with nominating a democratic socialist. The center of gravity inside the party has moved. Mamdani is not inventing that. He is trying to nationalize it.

Moderate leftists, such as Bill Maher, are warning that the far left has completely taken over the Democratic Party.

“We already know what he is because it’s in his own statements and the people he hires,” Maher said. He pointed to tenant advocate Cea Weaver, who said “let’s elect more communists.” Maher’s verdict: “Look, this is not like something you have to really figure out. ‘Elect more communists.’ That’s a communist.”

“Communism. It’s a political philosophy. It’s an economic philosophy,” Maher added. “You’re allowed to believe it. You’re allowed to vote for it. Let’s just not pretend that that’s not what this is.“

Americans have already heard what Mamdani thinks the country is. On the 250th anniversary of the United States, the Ugandan-born mayor used the occasion to lecture the nation that gave him office.

“America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal,” he said of “the powerful.” He claimed it “belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin.” He accused the Trump administration of running a country “that persecutes those seeking asylum.”

The rest was a familiar grievance list: hungry children and “the world’s first trillionaire,” “oligarchs who buy elections,” “masked agents terrorizing our streets,” ICE that “invades our neighborhoods,” health insurers who “exploit the sick,” “corporate landlords,” and tax dollars spent “on bombs and bailouts.”

That is the worldview he now says will “translate.” Not just free buses and city grocery stores. A politics that treats immigration enforcement as an invasion and American history as a story of supremacy waiting to be rewritten.

The sales pitch does not run on speeches alone. An investigation this month found City Hall has cultivated a network of nearly 200 online creators to push administration material. Much of it moves through a private Signal group called “NYC Creators Announcements,” overseen by Emilia Rowland, City Hall’s $175,000-a-year Director of New Media and Cultural Communications. Communications Director Anna Bhar makes $260,000.

The network grew out of the campaign-era Creators4Zohran operation. Columbia Journalism Review did not find creators being paid simply to praise Mamdani. It did find that some influencers in that ecosystem have received taxpayer-funded pay for city advertising and public-messaging campaigns.

This is what “ambition” looks like in Mamdani’s Democratic Party: a socialist mayor, a growing DSA bench, a third of Democrats now comfortable with the label, and a taxpayer-adjacent content army to make it sound like common sense.

Mamdani keeps saying there is only one majority in America – the working class. The wager he is making is that those voters want New York’s socialist experiment exported. The rest of the country get a vote on that in November.

Rory Johnston, a Toronto-based oil analyst and the founder of Commodity Context, an independent oil market research firm, wrote on X this weekend that oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz have recovered to roughly two-thirds of prewar levels, driven by a surge in Saudi exports. This suggests that Tehran’s leverage over the critical maritime chokepoint has eroded.

“Hormuz oil flows can’t possibly be above 13 MMbpd bc crude is over $100,” Johnston wrote in the post on Saturday, citing Kpler data.

He added, “Brother, if you had told an oil analyst in January that Hormuz flows were still down 7 MMbpd after >200 days of war, with the East-West pipeline hobbled, and oil was ONLY $100 they’d have looked at you like.”

“Hormuz oil flows can’t possible be above 13 MMbpd bc crude is over $100!”

Brother, if you had told an oil analyst in January that Hormuz flows were still down 7 MMbpd after >200 days of war—with the East-West pipeline hobbled—and oil was ONLY $100 they’d have looked at you like pic.twitter.com/e8TmiScFMQ

— Rory Johnston (@Rory_Johnston) September 26, 2026

Saudi Arabia is driving the recovery. The kingdom’s crude exports averaged 5.28 million barrels a day during September’s first 23 days, the strongest pace since the conflict began, according to Bloomberg ship-tracking data. About 3.4 million barrels a day were loaded at Gulf ports, reversing the near-total retreat from those terminals earlier in the war.

Courtesy of Commodity Context … 

“Hormuz is no longer behaving like a chokepoint under effective Iranian control. Hormuz oil flows are now above 13.5 mb/d on a 7-day average,” energy analyst Art Berman wrote on X, quoting Johnston’s post.

Berman said, “The biggest increase is Saudi Arabia’s Gulf loading surge. That changes the strategic picture. Iran can still attack ships, raise insurance costs and make the strait dangerous. But danger is not the same as control. The more oil that clears Hormuz, the more Iran’s leverage shifts from blocking flows to merely imposing costs.”

Doha-based QNB Financial Services wrote in a note to clients earlier today that “Qatar has ramped up liquefied natural gas tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to the highest in more than two months, a sign it’s becoming more comfortable moving ships through the waterway.” 

Hostilities in the narrow strait continued for a second night, according to Bloomberg, citing reports from the semi-official Fars news agency that Iranian armed forces had targeted 19 ships attempting to use authorized routes in the waterway over the preceding 48 hours.

On Saturday morning, President Trump told reporters on the White House lawn that he had rejected an Iranian proposal for a seven-day ceasefire and was open to resuming attacks on the Islamic Republic after the midterms.

Reporter: Will you strike Iran after the midterms?

Trump: I’m rejecting their deal. They want to make a deal where they open the Strait immediately because they’re losing so badly.

They want to make a deal, and I think that’s fine. I like making a deal, too, but that deal would… pic.twitter.com/87rKbDySLN

— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 26, 2026

By Sunday morning, Bloomberg reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was still waiting for a definitive US response through mediators Qatar and Pakistan, despite Trump’s public dismissal of the seven-day plan.

The one major escalation risk that may emerge after the midterms is a renewed US bombing campaign, potentially accompanied by cyber operations against Iranian energy infrastructure such as Kharg Island. For energy markets already strained by a global refining crisis, the post-election period warrants close attention.