Authored by ‘sundance’ via The Last Refuge,

The Truth Has No Agenda

Everything that preceded the 2020 federal election was a complex system of control by a network of ideologues, federal agencies, allies in the private sector, financial stakeholders and corrupt interests all working toward a common goal.

There’s no need to go through the background of how the election was manipulated and how the government and private sector, specifically social media, worked to influence the 2020 outcome because you have all seen it.

Whether it was local election officials working to control outcomes, federal agencies working to support them (CISA, FBI, DHS), financial interests working to fund them (Zuckerberg et al), or social media platforms controlling the visible content and discussion (Twitter Files, Google, Facebook etc.), the objective was all the same.  It was a massive one-sided operation against the freewill of the American voter.

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, those same system operators, govt officials, corporate media, private sector groups and social media platforms then circled the wagons to scatter the evidence of their conduct.  If you questioned anything you were a threat.  That’s the context to the dynamic that unfolded.

Lawfare operatives joined forces with Democrat staffers, and allies in social media platforms all worked in concert to target the voices of anyone who would rise in opposition to the corruption that was stunningly clear in the outcome of the election process.  Corporate media then labeled, isolated, ridiculed and marginalized anyone who dared to point out the obvious.

When AG Merrick Garland says this of January 6, 2021:

[…] “the Justice Department has conducted one of the largest, most complex, and most resource-intensive investigations in our history. We have worked to analyze massive amounts of physical and digital data. We have recovered devices, decrypted electronic messages, triangulated phones, and pored through tens of thousands of hours of video. We have also benefited from tens of thousands of tips we received from the public. Following these digital and physical footprints, we were able to identify hundreds of people.” {link} The targeting operation needs context.

Do you remember on April 27, 2024, when DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz said,

“more than 3.4 million search queries into the NSA database took place between Dec. 1st, 2020 and Nov. 30th, 2021, by government officials and/or contractors working on behalf of the federal government.”  The result was “more than 1 million searches of private documents and communication of Americans that were illegal and non-compliant,” and over “10,000 federal employees have access to that database.” {OIG Testimony}.

Put the statement from Garland together with the statement from Horowitz, and you get an understanding of what was done.

Hundreds of stakeholders in the Lawfare network joined forces with hundreds of people who became staff researchers for a weaponized Congress.  Hundreds more social media background agents then poured thousands of hours into feeding private information to the DOJ, FBI, J6 Committee and all of their hired staff working on the project.

How do I know?…

…I was one of their targets.

Before telling the rest of the story, some background is needed.

I am well versed in the ways of the administrative state and the corrupt systems, institutions and silos that make up our weaponized government. I can (a) see them; (b) predict their activity; and (c) know where their traps and operations are located.

Traveling the deep investigative weeds of the administrative state eventually gives you a set of skills.  When people ask how the outlines on this website can seem so far ahead of the sunlight that eventually falls upon the outlined corruption, this is essentially why.  When you take these skills on the road, you learn to be a free-range scout, and after a long while you learn how to track the activity.

When I was outlining how the Fourth Branch of Government works and/or Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop and the DHS system operating inside it, I wasn’t shooting from the hip. However, people will always seek to dismiss the uncomfortable truth.

Sometimes you just have to wait for the evidence you know exists to surface, or for a situation to unfold that is driven by a self-fulfilling prophecy. The often uncomfy CTH predictions turn out to be the truth of the issue because they are based on the factual evidence of the issue.

That level of how the system works came in very handy when I received this subpoena from Chairman Bennie Thompson and the J6 Committee.  [Warning, things could get uncomfortable if you don’t accept the scale of corruption that exists.]

Pay attention to the red box on the page shown.

This is essentially the probable cause that justifies the subpoena itself. 

I have redacted a name in the box for reasons you will see that follow.

I was never in Washington DC on January 6, 2021, nor did I work with or communicate with anyone who was involved in any of the activities that were subject to the J6 committee investigative authority.

I’m going to skip a lot of background noise, irrelevant legal stuff, jurisdictional issues, discoveries from discussions with lawyers and the experience gained in association with this ridiculous subpoena.  Instead, I am going to focus on the biggest story within it.

Sticking to the information in the Red Box above, notice how the J6 committee has evidence, “public-source information and documents on file”, showing my participation, communication, and contact with people and technology that are material interests to the committee.

Here’s the kicker…. I had no clue what the hell they were talking about.

There’s not a single aspect of their outline that I had any knowledge or connection of.

I had no idea what Zello was. I had no idea who 1% watchdog might be. I had never heard of “Stop the Steal J6” or associated “channel.”  I had never heard of the person redacted, and I had never communicated with any Oath Keeper, any communication system, or platform, or anyone or anything – nothing – that is outlined in that subpoena.

Those points of evidence outlined in the subpoena had no connection to me at all.

The subpoena might as well have been asking me to appear in Michigan because my Red Ferrari was involved in a hit and run accident, during my trip to Detroit.

I don’t own a Ferrari; I have never been to Michigan; I certainly never had an accident; I wasn’t on a trip and have never visited Detroit.

The entire construct of their probable cause for the subpoena was silly. Complete and utter nonsense.

That said, how could there be “public records” and “documentary” evidence of something that never happened?

At first, I thought this was some silly case of mistaken identity and they just sent a subpoena to the wrong person. 

However, the investigators were adamant the evidence existed, and the need for testimony was required.

After taking advice from several smart people, and after discovering the costs associated with just the reply to the committee and/or representation therein; suddenly I realized there might be more value for me in this subpoena than the committee.  After all, how can there be public-records and documents that I own a red Ferrari and went to Michigan when I don’t and never did.

After several back and forths I discovered, through their admissions of their own research, and through documents they extracted as an outcome of their tasks to prove the merit of their claims, that someone *inside* Twitter had created a fictitious identity of me associated with the networks and communications as the investigators described them.

Think about what was discovered here.

Someone inside the Twitter platform, an employee of Twitter or a person who had the ability to access their administrative system (ie. FBI), had made a decision to target me.

As a result: (a) they had been doing this for a long time with a specific goal in mind; and (b) they created an elaborate trail of background activity and identity that was entirely fabricated.

Eventually, my assigned investigative unit admitted this. 

Think about it. 

How could they clear me, without them having the underlying evidence that proved my innocence?

Once, the federal investigators realized what took place they wanted to get rid of me -and my snark filled curiosity- with great urgency.  They also had an ‘oh shit’ moment, when they contemplated everything, including what they had revealed to me from the outset of my contact, now several months prior.

What I discovered in this experience was that DHS, and by extension DOJ/FBI and the January 6 investigators, had direct administrative level backdoors into all social media platforms.

Overlay the Twitter files now, and then expand your thinking…. Do you remember Elon Musk promising, several times, that he would provide end-to-end encryption on the Twitter Direct Messages?  Remember that?  It never happened, did it.  Why not?

In their quest to prove that I owned a Red Ferrari, traveled to Michigan and had a hit-and-run accident, these investigators outlined to me how the United States Government, through their DHS authority, has employees, agents and contractors with open portals into all social media platforms.

Yes, the federal government is inside the mechanics of the systems (Twitter, Facebook, Meta, Instagram, Google, YouTube, WhatsApp, Zello, etc) and they have administrative access in real time to monitor, review, extract and evaluate everything, soup-to-nuts.

It was only because the investigators and forensic data knuckleheads have these portals, that they were able to locate the source of the fabricated evidence they were originally attributing to me.  This was an investigative process and research discovery being conducted in the data processing systems of Twitter in real time as they questioned me.

Once they realized what had taken place, and as soon as I started asking how they were making these admissions (now carrying an apologetic certainty), suddenly the investigators wanted no further contact or communication with me.  You’re good, whoopsie daisy, our bad, sorry.

Now, take some time to fully digest and absorb what I have just shared.

The U.S. government is worried about TikTok, because U.S. citizen data might be extracted?

Meanwhile, the U.S. government, at a fully unrestricted administrative level, is inside Twitter, Facebook, Meta, Insta, YouTube etc., running amok and extracting anything – including private messages… and they’re somehow worried about protecting us from TikTok data collection.  Think about it.

Maybe the thing that worried them is not that administrators within TikTok were datamining; maybe, just maybe, the thing that really worried them is that they’re not the administrators.

Ears of an elephant, eyes of a mouse.

Authored by Mat Di Salvo via Decrypt.com,

The fund will supposedly protect investors from Bitcoin’s sometimes huge dips by using the precious metal…

• Cantor Fitzgerald has debuted a new Bitcoin fund.

• The fund also gives investors exposure to gold—for downside protection.

• Gold rose to a record high near $3,680 on Monday, while BTC is trading about 9% off its all-time best, set last month.

Wall Street giant Cantor Fitzgerald debuted a new fund Monday that aims to give investors exposure to Bitcoin‘s gains and downside protection with gold. 

The fund, the Cantor Fitzgerald Gold Protected Bitcoin Fund, which was announced in May at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, aims to address the concerns of investors scared of Bitcoin

Monday’s announcement said that the fund “minimizes the risk of short-term volatility and reduces the impact of correlation spikes while continuing to benefit from the long-term upside trend of Bitcoin.” 

“This gold-protected Bitcoin strategy spans five years and tackles both risks head-on: it captures Bitcoin’s upward trajectory while gold provides a safety net that historically performs well when markets decline,” Global Head of Cantor Fitzgerald Asset Management Bill Ferri said. 

He added:

“With risk assets at or near all-time highs, timing and protection matter.”

Decrypt reached out to Cantor Fitzgerald for comment. 

Bitcoin, the largest and oldest digital asset, has in the past made massive gains but experienced huge drops throughout its 16 year history.

Bitcoin was recently trading at under $112,182, up about 1% over the past 24 hours and more than 20% year-to-date according to cryptocurrency markets data provider CoinGecko. But the leading cryptocurrency by market cap has fallen nearly 9% since reaching an all-time high of $124,128 last month. 

To be sure, experts recently told Decrypt that with the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs, which institutions have flooded into, the asset should experience less volatility. The digital coin’s volatility has significantly dampened this year. 

But during the last bull market of 2021, the asset hit a high of over $69,000 per coin only to plunge to under $16,000 the following year. The current up cycle has likely yet to see an end, many analysts believe. 

Cantor’s Bitcoin lending business has carried out its first transactions, the investment banking giant announced on Tuesday, underscoring its increasing presence in the crypto space. Prime broker FalconX and crypto lending protocol Maple Finance were the first companies to draw on the financing. The New York-based Cantor, part of Cantor Fitzgerald, expects to make up to $2 billion in financing available in this first phase, the company said. “Early on, Cantor recognized the transformative impact…

Gold, the traditional save haven asset, hit a new high Monday near $3,680 per ounce and is up more than 37% year-to-date, amid ongoing concerns about the U.S. economy, inflation and other macroeconomic uncertainties.

Cantor was among the early, vocal Wall Street supporters of Bitcoin. The firm helps custody the Treasury reserves for stablecoin giant Tether’s USDT stablecoin product. Its former chairman and CEO Howard Lutnick, an advisor to Donald Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign, is now U.S. Commerce Secretary.

Chaos has descended on Nepal amid raging mass protests against a short-lived ban on social media, and accusations of widespread government corruption. The small Himalayan country has descended into hellish conditions in less than a mere 48 hours of raging anti-government demonstrations.

The protests appear mostly led by the young, after several popular social media sites were blocked and clashes with police led to authorities firing on crowds, resulting in 19 people dead. 

But even after the social media ban was lifted amid the pressure and mayhem, demonstrators set fire to the homes of top Nepalese leaders and and even parliament building. 

Specifically Facebook, X, Instagram, and YouTube were blocked among some two dozen others, after the government said the companies failed to comply with local law by failing to register for requred government oversight.

Parliament burned and surrounded by thousands…

In Nepal, politicians ban social media use and citizens burn down parliament. Politicians flee by helicopter. pic.twitter.com/6Sju9CH7Jm

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) September 9, 2025

The airport was also shuttered and army helicopters were seen deployed to rescue government ministers from the mob. Apparently, the country’s finance minister wasn’t so lucky…

India Today: Nepal’s Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel reportedly chased by protesters and kicked after a video showed him fleeing down a street.

❗️ Nepal’s Finance Minister reportedly chased by protesters and kicked after a video showed him fleeing down a street — India Today https://t.co/n3CzE7ntOD pic.twitter.com/w21FIFRzpu

— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025

According to reports, “Nepal’s finance minister was chased and beaten by demonstrators Tuesday as Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli resigned following days of violent student-led protests against corruption and a ban on social media.”

⚡️ Nepali Finance Minister dragged along street by angry protesters https://t.co/OUC8A1q4g8 pic.twitter.com/UX3DwLN7YV

— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025

Residents of top politicians in Kathmandu have been reported attacked and in some cases damaged or set on fire, including the prime minister of the country, KP Sharma Oli. He has since stepped down in the wake of the protester killings.

“Oli’s private home was among those set on fire, as were those of the president, home minister and the leader of the country’s largest party, Nepali Congress, which is part of the governing coalition,” AP reports.

“Oli’s family was at the official residence at the time. The home of the leader of the opposition Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) was also set ablaze,” AP adds.

The moment at which police opened fire on crowds was the tipping point. Even after the social media ban was reversed, the rioting became more intense.

“We are here to protest because our youths and friends are getting killed, we are here to see that justice is done and the present regime is ousted,” one eyewitness interviewed by international press outside the damaged parliament building said Tuesday. “K.P. Oli should be chased away.”

Protestors set Nepal’s Energy Minister’s house ON FIRE — Prez house STORMED

Banknotes RAIN down as Gen Z rioters start looting the houses pic.twitter.com/t1ggYZ07Dz

— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025

A key part of what’s driving the outrage related to the protests dubbed ‘Gen Z’ is that those killed by police were found to have been shot in the head and chest, according to hospital staff who received the dead and wounded.

One protester told the BBC, “Rather than the social media ban, I think everyone’s focus is on corruption.” She added, “We want our country back – we came to stop corruption.”

Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The artificial intelligence (AI) gold rush has reached American businesses, but despite billions being spent, many companies aren’t seeing a return on their investment in the emerging technology.

The United States is the world’s leading investor in AI technologies. Tech giants such as Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft have led the way in private sector investment and announced more than $100 billion in additional AI expenditures this year.

An analysis from CMS developer Storyblok noted that eCommerce businesses are spending, on average, nearly $400,000 on AI solutions for enhanced customer service experiences. However, only 32 percent reported even a “slight improvement” in operations resulting from their AI investment.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published research showing that despite U.S. companies spending upwards of $40 billion on AI investments, 95 percent have seen zero monetary return.

The study found that only 5 percent of integrated AI pilot programs are producing millions of dollars worth of value. Businesses stuck in the start-up phase of integration suffer what AI developer and vice president of Vapor IO, Kamil Mansuri, called “magic wand” thinking.

“Companies stuck in pilot hell usually have three issues: unclear success metrics, trying to solve everything at once, and treating AI as the goal instead of the solution,” Mansuri told The Epoch Times.

Mansuri said the MIT study findings didn’t surprise him because, in his experience, companies tend to treat AI like a magic wand instead of a tool for specific problems. Mansuri said the best way to avoid this pitfall is to steer clear of what he called “vague AI transformation.”

“At Vapor IO, we saw real ROI [return on investment] because we targeted concrete use cases like infrastructure optimization and automated failover systems,” Mansuri said.

“The difference is focus …. We cut cloud spend from $1.5 [million] to $800,000 by using AI for resource optimization because we knew exactly what problem we were solving.”

Mansuri believes the key to monetary return on AI investments comes from starting small and choosing an area with a measurable impact.

“The companies seeing results pick one specific pain point, prove value there, then expand,” he said.

Trial and Error

Mansuri is among many trying to peel back the corporate hype to expose what lies behind the investment-returns gap: a disconnect between integration and workflows. The MIT report also pointed to a lack of feedback loops or a misalignment with individual business needs.

“We invested a significant amount of money in making use of AI at Ranko Media and, overall, replacing humans didn’t work at all. Enabling our team to produce more output is where we found the best ROI,” Nick Rubright, CEO of Ranko Media, told The Epoch Times.

“For example, we create lots of content for our clients … We tried to automate content with AI, but the problem for us was that in GEO [generative search optimization] and SEO [search engine optimization], it’s winner-take-all. So we had to go back to leveraging human writers with real-world subject matter expertise because we needed to create content that would be competitive on the internet,” Rubright said.

He added that his company still uses AI to create content, but only the tools that are useful to his workforce and with the specific goal of expediting repetitive tasks.

By taking the focused integration versus human replacement approach, Rubright said AI has significantly improved his company’s content profitability.

“We make about 4x margin on content now, and the performance of that content has improved significantly across the board. I think it’s because humans have instinct from prior experience, but AI just sort of does what everyone else is doing and uses data, not experience,” he said.

Rubright also believes executives who view AI as a cheap replacement for human labor likely won’t see the returns they expect.

“There’s a lot of talk about AI being a human replacement, and lots of AI startups claim their tools can replace workers, but I’ve never found this to be true because these new tools still need management,” he said.

The phenomenon of high AI-tool adoption and low industry disruption rates is something the MIT report observed across 300 publicly disclosed AI projects, interviews with 52 organizations, and responses from 153 senior leaders at four key industry conferences.

So far, industries showing the most successful AI transformation include telecommunications and professional services.

The report also noted that established large language model AI programs such as ChatGPT have higher rates of successful corporate deployment than their custom-made counterparts. Many of the failed attempts to integrate custom AI tools into businesses were attributed to “brittle workflows, lack of contextual learning, and misalignment with day-to-day operations.”

Mansuri said he sees three main barriers come up regularly for companies struggling to get a return on their AI investment.

“First, data quality. You can’t build reliable AI on messy data. Companies rush to implement models without cleaning up their data infrastructure first. This is like trying to cook gourmet meals with spoiled ingredients,” he said.

The second one he noticed is unrealistic expectations at the executive level. Mansuri said many CEOs expect to see an “immediate transformation” after sinking money into AI technologies.

Finally, he said, many leadership teams try to retrofit existing roles instead of hiring people who actually understand both the tech and the business applications.

“You need engineers who can bridge the mercurial gap between cutting-edge AI capabilities and practical business value,” Mansuri said.

Fixing Bottlenecks

Starting small and having clarity around what AI tools are being used for has helped many business owners steer clear of an investment sinkhole, experts said.

“We’ve seen tangible ROI from AI because we started small and applied it to specific bottlenecks rather than chasing a big project,” Eric Turney, president of custom product manufacturing firm The Monterey Company, told The Epoch Times.

Turney said his company uses AI to generate SEO-optimized content and streamline customer responses, which has significantly reduced their cost per lead and improved lead response times.

“Unlike companies that stall, we’ve turned AI into a revenue driver by tying it directly to measurable outcomes,” he said.

Nick Strada, the founder of ad agency Bruiser Creative, is also seeing a fast return on his AI investment because he put it into production immediately. It has paid for itself, even with big projects.

“AI tools aren’t lab toys, they’re embedded in workflows that affect both cost and revenue,” Strada told The Epoch Times.

He said on the cost side, automation through AI tools has saved money on labor hours with tasks such as parsing briefs, scraping campaign data, and generating research reports. In terms of revenue generation, Strada said his company is seeing returns there, too.

He used a recent example of when a client came to his company with a seemingly impossible schedule and modest budget, which AI was able to help solve.

“By combining human craft with AI-enhanced workflows, including image generation, scaling tools, [and] automated asset preparation, we produced work that reached Cannes Lions scale. That success generated new client opportunities and reinforced relationships,” he said.

Strada said reaping the rewards from smart AI investments isn’t a theoretical concept: “It shows up as reduced operational overhead, new project wins, and the ability to make ideas come to life in ways that were previously not possible.”

Turney said successful AI integration in a business requires clarity on its place within the company workflow.

In his experience, Turney has noticed “companies often overinvest in experimental tools or broad strategies, but fail to integrate AI into their daily operations with accountability effectively.”

He said another corporate pitfall is treating AI like a “magic bullet,” rather than continually refining its role.

Mansuri said the formula for successful AI investment is simple: Industries with clear, measurable processes see faster returns. For example, he said logistics and supply chain optimization manifest revenue quickly because route planning and inventory management have direct cost savings that can be measured in real-time.

Alternatively, Mansuri said industries that are heavily regulated, such as health care, can take longer to show returns on AI investment.

“Industries with quantifiable processes and clear success metrics see faster ROI than those with subjective or heavily regulated outcomes,” Mansuri said.

In a March report, Morgan Stanley noted many company executives are optimistic about seeing a return on their AI investments amid rosy forecasts of hundreds of millions in profit gains over the next few years.

However, the investment bank tempered this enthusiasm by acknowledging that AI-investments with long-run payoff are challenging to identify.

“AI adopters are already outperforming the broader market,” Andrew Pauker, a director at Morgan Stanley Equity Research, said in a statement.

“Companies discussing AI adoption have been rewarded in fourth-quarter earnings.”

Apple’s “Awe Dropping” launch event kicks off later today at 10 a.m. PST / 1 p.m. EST, with as many as eight new devices expected: four new iPhones, up to three Apple Watches, and the AirPods Pro 3.

Not to dampen enthusiasm for the Awe Dropping event, which Goldman previously outlined here, but UBS analyst Tricia Wright reminded clients earlier this morning, reiterating a previous note, to “expect only marginal changes to the iPhone 17 lineup at the Apple event.”

Wright cites analyst David Vogt’s recent note about what to expect at WWDC25: 

David Vogt expects an iPhone Air to replace the Plus in the lineup at Apple’s iPhone launch event on Tuesday. While he acknowledges that a thinner device would introduce a relatively new form factor for the iPhone, he thinks it will have a muted impact on consumer purchasing decisions and thus, limited upside to his iPhone forecasts for the September and December quarters.

Considering that only incremental software updates were announced at WWDC25 in June, David does not expect material announcements regarding Siri Apple Intelligence features until next spring. However, there is a cohort of investors that expect Apple to announce an AI partnership, potentially with Google, based on his conversations.

That said, like the impact of new hardware, he does not anticipate a pick up in iPhone demand given stand-alone AI applications are already available in the smartphone market. David repeats his ‘neutral‘ rating on the stock.

Separately, Goldman analyst Michael Ng provided clients with insights into his desk’s views (read the report) on the new iPhone, including pricing, while reiterating his “Buy” rating on the stock.

Watch the Awe-Dropping event Live:

. . . 

Authored by Paul D. Thacker via The DisInformation Chronicle,

New York’s department of public health released a series of odd guidances to pharmacists and physicians on Friday to promote COVID vaccines to children and adults for “off label” use, meaning in conflict with FDA’s official label. Signed by Governor Kathy Hochul, New York’s executive order 52 declares a “disaster in the state of New York due to federal actions related to vaccine access.”

“A friend of mine said they’re contacting the nurse’s union,” a New York City nurse texted me, shortly after New York released their new COVID vaccine guidance. “They don’t know wtf to do with that!”

A New York physician sent me documents the state’s health department sent to physicians and pharmacists, called “providers” in healthcare lingo. She and the majority of her colleagues no longer get COVID boosters, and she’s worried that the new guidance for “off label” use makes no sense, does not fully inform patients, and might be illegal.

Pfizer pled guilty to criminal charges and paid a record $2.3 billion fine for illegal, off label promotion of multiple drugs in 2009. As previously reported here, Biden’s FDA Commissioner and CDC Director both promoted COVID vaccines for uses that the FDA admitted were off label. No evidence exists that pharmaceutical companies helped to shape New York’s off label policy, but CNBC reported in 2021 that Governor Hochul’s daughter-in-law is a top lobbyist at a pharma firm that has sought to influence NY lawmakers.

According to a recent biography at BIO, Christina Hochul is now a lobbyist at Alexion, a subsidiary of AstraZeneca.

In one unsettling example of New York’s emergency guidance, officials allege that “physical activity” places people at risk of COVID.

Because she works in both New Jersey and New York, this physician requested to go by the name “Michelle” to protect her license and possible job reprisals. “The states that I practice in are particularly regressive and hostile,” Michelle said. “They have pursued suspending and revoking licenses for providers that asked questions that in any other situation would be normal to ask.”

Over the weekend, I spoke at length with Michelle, probing her to explain what is going on in healthcare right now and what she and other physicians plan to do about New York’s emergency declaration. At times, the conversation veered into the horrors she’s experienced in modern American healthcare. When a wave of illegal immigrant children came to New York a couple years back, many of them she treated had been sexually abused and trafficked during their migration from places as far away as Honduras. She also consulted for a hospital where boys who identified as “trans girls” were placed in a female psychiatric ward and then sexually abused the girls, crimes which were likely never reported to police, and handled internally by staff.

This interview has been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity. “I have never worked in healthcare like this,” Michelle said. “I can’t even ask the state department questions about some of this because that might flag me to a licensing board.”

THACKER: Tell people what’s been going on with prescribing in your part of the country, and what happened when these new statements came down from the Department of Health in New York.

MICHELLE: There’s an undercurrent in healthcare right now … if you look at the uptake of COVID vaccinations, it’s plummeted, right? Even in healthcare workers. And many hospitals have dropped their COVID vaccine requirements.

I also work at a private university. And this is an ongoing conversation for students. Are students going to be required to get these vaccines when they are not required by employees? It’s a constantly changing conversation. And some hospitals are requiring students get COVID vaccination, even when they don’t require it for their employees.

So what I see… privately and personally in my colleagues is … no one’s getting boosters. No one’s getting them anymore. They’re uncomfortable getting them, and they’re not required to.

It just feels like an internalized hypocrisy that we have to recommend these vaccines when most of us aren’t getting them. And it’s not like a minority of my peers. I would say the vast majority, even people that were previously receiving multiple boosters.

THACKER: Why are they not getting the boosters? Excess mortality dipped below zero in January 2023. Do they think the risk benefit doesn’t make any sense, so there’s no point in getting them? Or are they worried about potential side effects now?

MICHELLE: In practice you can see the risk benefit doesn’t make any sense. There are populations that still get COVID, but it’s very treatable for the vast majority of people.

The data is skewed from the beginning, because we are looking at hospital numbers for COVID rates of infection. I would say about 30 to 40 percent of people test at home. So we don’t even know the reality of how many people are getting infected. The vast majority of people are recovering from this at home.

THACKER: So the true number COVID infected people are never accounted for, which increases the percentage of people we think are getting seriously ill or dying.

MICHELLE: People with comorbidities may get ill, and certainly older people, but this is not a time where our hospitals are struggling. This is three years out from the height of COVID. RSV and flu were a lot more severe than COVID last year.

States have dropped their COVID trackers. There weren’t COVID trackers last year, I checked everywhere. I feel like that’s a conflict, where our states aren’t even tracking disease statistics, but then recommending vaccination for the disease that you’re not tracking.

You track flu, but we stopped tracking COVID statistics. I think that is meaningful, don’t you?

THACKER: Your department of health put out this notice to pharmacists and it actually says that while federal actions may restrict eligibility with no underlying conditions, meaning comorbidities, providers may administer the vaccines “off-label.”

And then it provides step by step instruction for off label use for “patients age 3 and older,” which I thought was really odd. That a department of health would be recommending, “Hey, here’s how you can do something off label.”

MICHELLE: I was stunned. I couldn’t believe that. I’ve never seen that. I went to my colleagues, I asked peers, “Have you ever seen any department of health recommend off-label use?” No, never. People that I’ve known—that have been practicing for 25, 30 years—had never seen that before.

And I am like, “Wait a minute, you can’t do that.” Departments of health deliver guidance from regulatory bodies; they send federal information, regulatory information to providers. So that made me pause.

But the off-label thing, I still can’t wrap my head around.

THACKER: A lot of these COVID vaccines are given by pharmacists. You’re not getting a prescription from your doctor. You just show up at like CVS and say, “Hey, I want this.”

Now you can say, “Hey I want this, and I want to get it off label.”

MICHELLE: Absolutely. But I just want to note that a pharmacist can prescribe vaccines only. This is the one thing they can do at point of care. Let’s say your kid goes to a school where they require the flu shot, or you have to get an update on varicella. If you go to the CVS, they can now upsell you on COVID vaccine because they have this guidance for off label.

If you’re an informed consumer, you might go, “Oh my gosh, look at the federal guidance on COVID and I’m 45. I shouldn’t get this. What am I gonna do? Oh, I can get it off label.”

You might be an informed customer that wants the COVID-19 shot, and you should have that right. But I’ve never seen this before where you’re having a department of health encouraging people to ignore the FDA.

THACKER: I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of this.

MICHELLE: At the top of the new guidance to physicians, it says, “We recommend vaccination..” It’s only on the bottom of the page that it says “federal actions may restrict eligibility.” That wording is very complicated and avoids stating, “The FDA recommends vaccination only for people over 64 etc…” By not naming the FDA or the FDA’s guidance, someone glancing over this could incorrectly believe that this is recommended by the FDA as well.

My concern is for the people with kids who go to the pharmacy and don’t know about the research and FDA guidance.

Is the pharmacist gonna give them actual informed consent and say, “Well, I’m writing this for you off label because the state says I can.”

Are you gonna really say that? I highly doubt it.

THACKER: It’s highly unlikely they’re gonna inform parents that federal guidance says healthy kids don’t need this, but I’m gonna give it to you anyway.

MICHELLE: Are they going to be pleasant, “Hey, do you also want to get a COVID shot for your kiddo?”

I can’t speak to if there are incentives for that, for pharmacists. Perhaps. Who knows? There’s certainly incentives for MDs, if you maintain a certain percent of your patient population with current vaccinations. That’s a known incentive.

There’s so many questions at play here, because off label use of medication is tricky.

THACKER: So you can walk into your CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid and get it off-label for kids, three years and older. Now for medical doctors like yourself, PAs, RNs, it tells you 19 years and over. So it’s completely a different age bracket that they’re recommending for prescribers.

MICHELLE: Well, let me clarify that, because there are multiple updates. That’s the COVID recommendations for adults. There were two other missives that went out, pregnant women and children.

THACKER: It says there is no concern about getting vaccinated at any stage of pregnancy, “in any trimester.” Wow, this is simply not true. There’s real concern here in the medical literature.

Can I just correct you on one thing. It says, “pregnant people.”

Oh, God. We’re doing that again. Can you explain “pregnant people” to readers. I live in Spain and this political vernacular hasn’t worked its way into the Spanish language. When I tell physicians in Spain about “pregnant people” they don’t’ understand.

I then explain it to them and they start cracking up.

MICHELLE: This is the most politicizied term to sanitize a polical agenda. It’s an attempt to include trans langauge into the basics of healthcare, at its foundation. This language didn’t exist from the NY state department of health a few years ago.

THACKER: So let’s look at what NY recommends for children.

MICHELLE: For children, the thing that I noticed right away that was concerning: well, on all of these documents, they hide that FDA is not recommending this. They don’t tell you up top, in a first bullet point. It’s way further down. I’m still going through all the new advice we’ve been given.

But the first bullet point states that all children age six to 23 months should be vaccinated. The second says children and adolescents ages two to 18 years who fall in these subgroups can be vaccinated

THACKER: And by “subgroups” they mean these are kids with comorbidities, increased risk for disease.

MICHELLE: Wait so that’s the first two points. And then third point states that vaccine may also be provided to children ages 2 to 18 who do not fall into one of the above categories, at the request of their parent or guardian.

So, it’s a blanket, it’s a catch-all, covering all kids. And when you combine that with the other documents, you see that we’re doing everybody.

THACKER: All ages, unless you’re a newborn, less than six months.

MICHELLE: These documents should say very clearly at the top that they don’t have the role of the FDA. And maybe that this is a new vaccine from June 2025. Have they reviewed all those studies that the FDA reviewed to approve this newest vaccine? I’m just confused. Who’s taking accountablity for this if some kid is harmed?

Kathy Hochul?

They’re taking a regulatory authority they don’t have. Did they examine the safety data on these vaccines? The FDA is the one that’s supposed to do that. I don’t know if they’re able to operate in the role of the FDA and give this guidance

Governoer Kathy Hochul released an emergency order to allow this off label use for a month. And I don’t see that there either in any guidance, which is also misleading. They’re releasing guidance for the season, but the emergency order only covers this next month.

I don’t see anything on there saying this is for the month of September.

THACKER: The other weird thing is on the second page for the adults. It explains the underlying medical conditions that increase the person’s risk of severe COVID-19 and it says “physical activity.”

I mean, what the hell? Is this like, “Did you exercise?”

MICHELLE: I know. I’m so curious about that. I’m still pulling everything apart. I want to look at the medical citations. I don’t even think that was cited.

So physical activity, that’s wild. And I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Your moderate activity that keeps you healthy, keeps your cholesterol down, your blood pressure down, is what they actually say is putting you at risk for severe COVID.

THACKER: What is all this craziness doing to you and your colleagues?

I’ll just let you know, I got a message from a nurse in New York City who told me that her other nurse colleagues are going to their union asking, “What do we do?”

MICHELLE: I think there’s like an ethical and moral dilemma going on in healthcare because people—nurses and doctors—are living privately in a different way than they have to practice publicly. And that’s the truth.

I mean, look at the uptake rates. Even in the department of health admits that COVID vaccination for small children’s is like 3.4%. Wouldn’t that indicate that almost 97% of people are not wanting to vaccinate their children for COVID?

THACKER: Who comes to you to get their kids vaccinated for COVID?

MICHELLE: It’s a very niche, small group of people. However, there are people that come in to get vaccinations and are told they need to get the COVID vaccine and do it because they’re told. They can be convinced into it, but even among that group there is more and more people that aren’t.

But this other group are—I would say are separate—that are almost religious in this quest to get vaccinated. It’s like a moral belief. “This is the correct thing to do.”

THACKER: What does this do to you as a doctor? You know what the FDA is saying, and you’re reading the medical literature. And then you’re getting this guidance coming in from New York state telling you what to do.

If a patient said, “I want the COVID vax.” Would tell them what the FDA says? Or do you gotta shut up because you wanna preserve your job?

MICHELLE: It’s very, very tricky. It’s a very fine line. The core of my practice is patient education and informed consent for every medication. When people ask for medications that I have feelings about or don’t agree with, I usually have an exploratory conversation.

“Why do you think you’d like that medication?”

Hear their thoughts and get to the core, the issue. I share information with them as neutrally as possible to help them make the best decision, but it is a tightrope walk. I do not involve politics in any way. I think it’s an unhelpful, because my goal is to provide good healthcare. And I think that has to be apolitical.

I don’t judge anyone on their politics or beliefs. I don’t judge anyone about their choices to get COVID vaccination. I do feel negatively towards healthcare. Agencies and institutions that don’t share information with their patients. It’s unfair. You’re basically using fear-based narratives to sway thinking.

And then again, this is America. If you want to get a shot, you should be able to get a shot. But you have to be told also what your risk-benefit ratio is, just like with any product.

THACKER: Would you feel comfortable if someone came in to get a five-year-old vaccinated for COVID, would you feel uncomfortable telling them, “Well, I just wanna let you know that neither I nor any of my colleagues are getting our children vaccinated for COVID.”

MICHELLE: The states that I practice in are particularly regressive and hostile. They have pursued suspending and revoking licenses for providers that asked questions that in any other situation would be normal to ask.

I’ve seen colleagues threatened or called racist by hospital administration for suggesting we restrict travel to China at the beginning of the pandemic—when it originated in China. If you look at the swine flu pandemic, that’s exactly what they did was restrict travel. That’s a normal pandemic measure for centuries.

So this is a very strange, politicized moment in time. And there are many, many providers who will privately practice differently than what they prescribe to their own patients. I have never worked in healthcare like this.

I can’t even ask the state department questions about some of this because that might flag me to a licensing board.

*  *  *

Paul Thacker is a great subscribe. No spam, just solid journalism. 

By Michael Every of Rabobank

As expected, the French government collapsed yesterday, leaving the country in political chaos just as it needs to deal with massive economic and national security challenges. President Macron has ruled out a snap election. (See here for our pre-confidence vote take.)

As is the way of markets –albeit helped by directionality from the US– French bond yields were lower on the day. However, markets and realpolitik have not communicated in recent years: is the second largest economy in Europe, and the only one with a nuclear trifecta, looking unable to deal with its fiscal deficit, and perhaps ungovernable, something that can be easily shrugged off?

Le Figaro English recently noted: ‘“Prices Have Literally Exploded”: Have French Restaurateurs Been Too Gluttonous for Their Own Good?”, noting “Empty terraces, silent dining rooms… Despite the heatwave, this summer has been a cold shower for restaurateurs. While the tourist season is in full swing, cafés, bistros and traditional inns are being shunned by the French.” Is this not perhaps tiptoeing towards ‘Let them eat cake’ territory?

Now ex-French PM Bayrou warned just before losing the vote, “Don’t become the UK”, and there the mood remains febrile regardless of Labour’s huge parliamentary majority. The anti-Labour Daily Mail notes ‘Desperate Starmer accused of the ‘mother of all stitch-ups’ and trying to ‘fix’ Labour’s deputy leadership contest by giving hopefuls just THREE DAYS to get the backing of 80 MPs’. The pro-Labour Guardian says: ‘Revealed: how Boris Johnson traded PM contacts for global business deals’ (Guardian), including being paid £240,000 just after meeting Venezuelan President Maduro last year. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the anti-establishment Reform Party continues to sit at the top of all opinion polls.

In the US, the Wall Street Journal reports that the ‘White House Prepares Report Critical of Statistics Agency’ and ‘The Renewed Bid to End Quarterly Earnings Reports’. What, no data and no quarterly higher/lower-than games? What is a capitalist to do?! Innovate and invest in physical capital? But who wants to do that when there are assets to speculate on?

Moreover, US Treasury Secretary Bessent threatened to punch FHFA Director Pulte in the face, with additional expletives. That likely burgeoned his reputation in some circles: the man who as a young trader broke the Bank of England for Soros in 1992 arguably now wants to break the international financial architecture, and in the US’ favour. While many in DM who don’t see it, those in EM do – albeit in exaggerated form.

Putin advisor Kobyakov just stated: “The US is now trying to rewrite the rules of the gold and cryptocurrency markets. Remember the size of their debt – $35 trillion. These two sectors –crypto and gold– are essentially alternatives to the traditional global currency system. Washington’s actions in this area clearly highlight one of its main goals: to urgently address the declining trust in the dollar. As in the 1930s and the 1970s, the US plans to solve its financial problems at the world’s expense, this time by pushing everyone into the “crypto cloud.” Over time, once part of the US national debt is placed into stablecoins, Washington will devalue that debt. Put simply: they have a $35 trillion currency debt, they’ll move it into the crypto cloud, devalue it, and start from scratch. That’s the reality for those who are so enthusiastic about crypto.”

We recently wrote about the geopolitical implications of dollar stablecoins, while most of the market seems to only focus on the ‘buy all the things’ aspect of them.

That said, yesterday’s BRICS virtual summit saw its members appear wary of exacerbating any trade wars with the US: although that geopolitical grouping criticised US policies, it steered clear of any direct attacks on President Trump. That’s following Chinese trade data yesterday that saw exports to the US slump 33% y-o-y but total exports still rise 4.4% – somebody is buying a whole lot more: shipments to the EU were up 10.4%, to ASEAN 22.5% and to Africa 26%. That’s either a lot of transshipment for the US to deal with or a lot of deindustrialisation everywhere else, with unhappy politicians to follow in short order.

Japan is also looking to find another new PM who can deal with a similarly fractious parliament and worrying geopolitical backdrop with public debt more than twice as high as France. That’s as China called Australia (and, by proxy, Japan?) a “geopolitical puppet” for holding a security meeting with the Japanese alongside the recent military parade in Beijing.

More importantly, it’s as reports have it that the looming update to the US National Defence Strategy will see a focus on the homeland and the Western Hemisphere (read: the Monroe Doctrine) rather than a pivot from Europe to Asia.

If you are in Asia, get ready to be told to spend 5% of GDP on defence like Europe has: how you then finance that is your business, but you will be financing the new US factories that build the weapons you will be buying to defend yourself with. That’s as Indonesian President Prabowo removed his finance minister after street protests, risking more turmoil for that G20 economy, while Thailand’s new PM and finance minister –with a fiscal deficit of nearly 6% of GDP– are seeing tourism groups call for cash coupons to be given to foreign visitors to spend in the hopes of boosting the economy. That’s how well things are going.

If you are working against US interests in Latin America, the tail risks are larger. Not only did the US recently blow up a Venezuelan drug-trafficking vessel in international waters, send a Naval flotilla there, and base 10 F-35 jets in Puerto Rico, but there are reports the White House is considering military strikes on narcotics facilities inside Venezuela. Which just happens to be a Russian, Chinese, and Iranian ally and very oil rich.

Not too far away, Argentina’s pro-US President Milei saw his party suffer a notable local election defeat in Buenos Aires, which unlike in Europe led to a real slump in both the peso and Argentinean bonds. In short, while DM might now look and act a lot more like EM, they can still get away with legacy DM FX and bond pricing… for now at least.

Indeed, while DM don’t really think about it, “because DM”, gold is at a fresh all-time high even as US yields decline. That’s as close to a “Down with this sort of thing” protest as you are going to get.

But back in the world of financial market commentary, Bloomberg, which neatly summarizes all its stories with AI, sees Shuli Ren recommend that due to AI rapidly replacing white collar jobs ahead, the only way readers can now avoid becoming future “peasants” is by investing thematically in tech to try to stay ahead.

Why does “Dennis! There’s some lovely filth down here!” suddenly spring to my mind? And why does ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’ from Les Misérables? Both fit a Sacré bleu Monday and thoughts of a New Order.

Multiple explosions have been reported in Doha, Qatar on Tuesday, according to eyewitnesses cited by Reuters.

Axios journalist Barak Ravid, referencing Israeli officials, reported that the blasts were believed to be part of an assassination attempt targeting Hamas members. Netanyahu is really going gloves off at this point, it appears, and all negotiations seem definitively off.

Reports of multiple explosions in Doha, Qatar, with witnesses citing up to 10 blasts and smoke visible. Sources close to Hamas allege the group’s negotiating headquarters was targeted. Israel’s Channel 12 reports the explosions were an assassination attempt on Hamas leaders. pic.twitter.com/8hOSJwZ4Qd

— Jalyssa Dugrot (@jalyssaspeaking) September 9, 2025

“Israeli official tells me the explosion in Doha is an assassination attempt again Hamas officials,” Axios’ Ravid reports.

Ravid writes further on X of the breaking news: “Senior Israeli: The explosion in Doha is an assassination operation against senior Hamas officials.”

Could this be Hamas targeting the negotiating team, or other Hamas leaders who have long hid out in Qatar? 

Israel Channel 12: Hamas Gaza leader Khalil al-Hayya was the primary target of the Israeli attack on Doha.

The actions sparked a surge in oil prices as geopolitical risk premia re-emerge…

OPEC+ will be pleased.

developing…

For the first time since the euro-zone’s inception, French 10Y borrowing costs exceeded those of Italy as investors anxious amid the ongoing dysphoria over budget deficits and debt piles.

As Bloomberg reports, for market veterans, it’s a remarkable development given lower-rated Italy was for years the region’s poster-child for fiscal profligacy.

Now it’s France that’s worrying investors over the size of its deficit, with Prime Minister Francois Bayrou set to resign later Tuesday after losing a confidence vote.

“Expectations for a speedy resolution to France’s political and fiscal woes are likely to remain constrained,” said Sam Hill, head of markets insights at Lloyds.

Its bonds will remain sensitive to broader market concern over budget deficits and debt piles, he added.

Bayrou’s successor will need to find a way to pass a budget in a splintered parliament, an exercise that’s toppled the last two prime ministers.

French bonds have been the worst performing in the region since President Emmanuel Macron called a surprise election last year.

We do note that it’s not quite apple to apples as a maturity mismatch distorts the comparison between the two nation’s yields.

The new French benchmark yield is based on a bond maturing in November 2035, several months after the Italian equivalent. That means the French yield reflects additional duration risk.

Still, it’s the latest unwanted market milestone for French officials.

President Macron is expected to name a successor from the center (defined broadly) or with a technocratic profile.

“The expectation is for the next French PM to be a placeholder,” said Elliot Hentov, head of macro policy research at State Street Investment Management.

“For investors, the real concern is that the electorate is neither coalescing around a clear majority nor seems particularly concerned with fiscal deterioration.”

The market is likely to judge any incoming PM on their ability to pursue budget consolidation while creating room for compromise within the current make-up of parliament, in particular with the center-left.

2026 deficit expectations are already relatively pessimistic, suggesting markets were already primed for substantial slippage vs the 4.6% deficit target of PM Bayrou.

Combining a deficit likely to land at 5.4% this year and the ambitious initial target for 2026, Goldman continues to see a path for sequential improvement in deficits, with concessions to opposition parties – their economists’ baseline forecast is for a deficit of 5.2%.

With debt-to-GDP on an increasing trend and diverging from Euro area peers for a number of years, political uncertainty may place higher scrutiny on fiscal sustainability, including from a more medium-term perspective. 

Assuming such a budget can be passed, Goldman believes it would be sufficient to provide relief to OATs into year-end. Under this baseline, Goldman expects OATs to settle at ~70bp over Bunds at the 10y point.

Goldman sees limited market risk from rating decisions given OATs already trade wider than their current rating and should remain investment grade.

France will see a sequence of rating actions in coming months, starting with Fitch (AA-, negative outlook) on September 12, followed by Moody’s (Aa3, stable outlook) on October 24, and S&P (AA-, negative outlook) on November 28.

A collapse of the Bayrou government, in itself and/or associated with an increase in deficit expectations, would make further rating downgrades more likely. That said, we do not expect a meaningful market impact from such decisions. A scatter of EGB yields against ratings suggests OATs already trade wider than their rating.

This is consistent with the view that markets have moved ahead, as the macro and policy environment evolved. For that reason, we do not expect rating decisions to carry a lot of forward-looking insights for markets and instead expect them to validate current pricing. We had shown in prior research that only a downgrade to non-investment grade provided a reliable signal of spread widening against peers.

Finally, the biggest tail risk Goldman sees for France is a scenario where the market prices risks of an earlier presidential election.

In this scenario, policy uncertainty would broaden beyond the headline deficit reduction, and markets could even price deeper tails, for instance questioning France’s commitment to EU rules and membership, as in 2017.

Frexit fears are on the rise…

The path for that is very narrow as it likely entails a succession of events that are individually off our baseline view.

Namely, it may require a failure to negotiate within the current make-up of parliament, fresh elections that deliver a strong majority outside of the center, and President Macron forfeiting his prerogative to set the foreign policy agenda until mid-2027.

This is nonetheless a risk to bear in mind – a Polymarket contract shows 7% odds on that outcome by end-2025.

Greta Thunberg’s flotilla, carrying humanitarian aid, was allegedly struck by a drone in Tunisian waters, according to its organizers. Tunisian authorities, however, rejected the drone narrative, suggesting instead that a cigarette may have sparked the fire.

More footage from Family boat’s CCTV confirming the drone strike. pic.twitter.com/XZUydsapXd

— Global Sumud Flotilla (@GlobalSumudFlot) September 9, 2025

Organizers with the Global Sumud Flotilla claimed the drone strike targeted the “Family Boat,” a Portuguese-flagged vessel sailing in Tunisian waters and carrying members of the flotilla’s Steering Committee.

First footage reveals the damage to the Family vessel after it was struck by a drone at 11:45pm. pic.twitter.com/FpjUg9bjNs

— Global Sumud Flotilla (@GlobalSumudFlot) September 9, 2025

“A drone came right above it released a bomb and it exploded and the boat was on fire. Everyone is okay…they have bombed a boat once again with civilians on it, in Tunisian territory,” activist Yasemin Acar wrote on X. 

Activist Yasemin Acar reporting after the attack on the @GlobalSumudFlot:

“A drone came right above it released a bomb and it exploded and the boat was on fire. Everyone is okay…they have bombed a boat once again with civilians on it, in Tunisian territory” pic.twitter.com/fxi8BHdXzw

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) September 8, 2025

The incident highlights competing narratives: activist organizers framing the event as an attack, while Tunisian officials downplayed the incident, merely attributing the fire to accidental causes. 

Anyone want to tell Greta?

was a battery fire. Lithium batteries and salt water do not mix. pic.twitter.com/mNIwx27PD5

— Wut/da/wold (@wutdawold1) September 9, 2025

A spokesperson for Tunisia’s national guard said an investigation is “ongoing” into the incident. He said there were “no drones detected” in the area, adding these reports are “completely unfounded.” 

“According to preliminary findings, a fire broke out in the life jackets on board a ship anchored 50 miles from the port of Sidi Bou Said,” Houcem Eddine Jebabli added, suggesting that a cigarette might have caused the fire.

Recall, the small North African nation on the Mediterranean has a history of political instability, including episodes during the 2010 Arab Spring color revolutions. U.S.-based social media platforms were widely assessed to have played an integral role as major catalysts for pro-democracy movements by enabling organization, information dissemination, and cross-regional connectivity.

Thunberg’s role as a high-profile climate activist has been leveraged by globalists to mobilize younger demographics (read here). This mobilization, while framed as climate activism, can function as a vector for shaping political discourse and, in some cases, generating societal uprisings. 

Which leaves us with the events that immediately followed the alleged drone strike on Thunberg’s flotilla.

After the drone strike on our main boat “Family,” crowds in Tunisia gathered at the port in force to condemn the attack. pic.twitter.com/veVUmGUm53

— Global Sumud Flotilla (@GlobalSumudFlot) September 9, 2025

Ce soir, 2h du matin, au port de Tunis après qu’un bateau de la flottille ait été attaqué : la détermination est puissante !

Rien ne pourra éteindre les voix de la paix ni l’élan de solidarité international✌️

Nos bateaux partiront pour #gaza ! 🕊️ pic.twitter.com/OCFQq0VHkm

— Marie Mesmeur (@MarieMesmeur) September 9, 2025

Things that make you go hmm.