Trump Set To Reveal New Space Force HQ Site In “Rocket City”
President Trump is preparing to announce the relocation of the U.S. Space Command headquarters from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Huntsville, Alabama.
According to the Department of Defense, the announcement is scheduled for mid-afternoon.
The Defense Department’s DVIDS website states that President Trump is scheduled to make a major announcement today at around 1:50 p.m. EST. While details remain scarce, a Reuters report indicates the announcement will concern relocating Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville.
Looks like Space Force is relocating to Sweet Home Alabama!
President Trump is reversing a Biden ‘error’ decision and moving Space Force from Colorado Springs to Huntsville Alabama!
Bravo! pic.twitter.com/lo3WYDq6dJ
— GrrrGraphics-Ben Garrison 🤠 Cartoons 🇺🇸 (@GrrrGraphics) September 2, 2025
As of 11:45 p.m. EST…
Reuters noted, “The decision would reverse a move made under former President Joe Biden’s administration, which had selected Colorado Springs as the permanent home for the military’s newest combatant command in 2023,” adding, “Trump has often linked federal funding decisions and politics.”
Huntsville appears to be the better fit, given its nickname is “Rocket City” because it’s home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where the Saturn V rocket for the Apollo program was developed. Defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, L3Harris, and Northrop Grumman all have significant operations in the area.
Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) has introduced HR 5066 the Safe Students Act which would repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, putting an end to what he calls “the default federal policy of making schools soft targets.”
Massie’s push for repealing the Gun-Free School Zones Act comes on the heels of a high-profile attack against a Catholic school in Minnesota by a deranged gunman who wrote in his manifesto that he targeted the Annunciation Church in Minneapolis, in part, because he believed it “seems like the kind of school to not arm their teachers.”
My Safe Students Act, HR 5066, would repeal the dangerous Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, ending the default federal policy of making schools soft targets.
HR 5066 would make it easier for state governments and school boards to unambiguously set their own firearm policies. pic.twitter.com/K73LMhyEme
Massie said his bill would repeal the federal law put in place by president George H.W. Bush and “make it easier for state governments and school boards to unambiguously set their own firearm policies.”
According to Breitbart, Bush’s 1990 Gun-Free School Zones Act which banned possession of a firearm in a school zone, inadvertently created numerous unarmed “soft targets in place filled with defenseless children, teachers and school staff.”
Historically, mass shooters have sought out venues where the public is forbidden to be armed in order to maximize their opportunity to create as much carnage as possible with minimal risk of being stopped by their intended victims.
In a post on X last week, Massie wrote: “Deranged shooters choose schools because they know their victims are vulnerable. This one even admitted it. There’s never been a shooting like this in a school that allows staff to carry.”
Massie has introduced a bill to repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act in each session of Congress in which he has served, seeking to equip teachers, staff and other law-abiding citizens with the ability to protect themselves and their students from potential threats.
Gun rights organizations like Gun Owners of America and the National Association for Gun Rights are lauding Massie’s bill and are calling for Congress to abandon the failed federal policy of making schools into soft targets.
EU Says Von Der Leyen Plane’s GPS Was Jammed; Russia Blamed
The GPS of the airplane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was jammed while she was en route to Bulgaria on Sunday, an EU spokesperson said on Monday, adding that Russian involvement is suspected.
“We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming, but the plane landed safely in Bulgaria. We have received information from the Bulgarian authorities that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia,” the EU spokesperson said.
As Security Affairs’ Pierluigi Paganini reports, Von der Leyen’s jet lost GPS near Plovdiv, forcing a manual landing with analogue maps after circling for an hour. Officials blame Russian interference. Bulgarian authorities reported a surge in GPS jamming and spoofing since 2022, which disrupts aircraft and ground system operations.
“A jet carrying von der Leyen to Plovdiv on Sunday afternoon was deprived of electronic navigational aids while on approach to the city’s airport, in what three officials briefed on the incident said was being treated as a Russian interference operation.” reported The Financial Times.
Bulgarian authorities confirmed the plane’s GPS signals were neutralized, and air traffic control provided alternative landing guidance using terrestrial navigation tools to ensure safety.
“The whole airport area GPS went dark,” said one of the officials.
The European Commission said “threats and intimidation are a regular component of Russia’s hostile actions” and that the incident would reinforce its commitment to “ramp up our defence capabilities and support for Ukraine”.
We are seeing media reports of GPS interference affecting the plane carrying Ursula von der Leyen to Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Some reports claim that the aircraft was in a holding pattern for 1 hour.
This is what we can deduce from our data.
* The flight was scheduled to take 1 hour and 48 minutes. It took 1 hour and 57 minutes.
* The aircraft’s transponder reported good GPS signal quality from take-off to landing.
The transponder signal transmitted by the aircraft contains a NIC value.
The NIC value encodes the quality and consistency of navigational data received by the aircraft.
Flightradar24 is using these NIC values to create the GPS jamming map at https://flightradar24.com/data/gps-jamming
The flight with Ursula von der Leyen on board transmitted a good NIC value from take-off to landing.
Still, they radioed about the “GPS issue” and requested ILS approach which is significantly less convenient in this particular case.
Flightradar24 @flightradar24 –
“Issue with GPS” can be any technical issue unrelated to GPS jamming. The aircraft was reporting a perfect signal. For sure they were not holding for 1h so the whole story just doesn’t make any sense.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the FT that “your information is incorrect.”
President Donald Trump said on Monday that he would honor former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Trump announced the award in a Truth Social post, calling Giuliani “the greatest mayor in the history of New York City” and “an equally great American Patriot.”
Details on the time and location of the award ceremony will be announced later, according to the statement.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is typically awarded to individuals who have made meritorious contributions to U.S. security, national interests, world peace, or other significant public or private endeavors.
Giuliani, elected as New York City mayor in 1993, was once hailed as “America’s Mayor” for his response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and killed nearly 3,000 people.
Giuliani also served as Trump’s attorney in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. He lost his law license last year after a state court found he made false claims about the election.
Trump’s announcement came as Giuliani was recovering from injuries he sustained in a car crash on Aug. 30.
His security chief, Michael Ragusa, said on X that Giuliani’s vehicle was struck from behind at high speed while driving on a highway in New Hampshire.
New Hampshire State Police said that before the car accident, Giuliani and his driver, Theodore Goodman, were traveling southbound on Interstate 93.
While on the road, they were flagged down by a woman who said she had been involved in a domestic violence incident. Giuliani called 911, and they remained on the scene until troopers arrived.
Giuliani and Goodman then traveled northbound on Interstate 93 before their vehicle was struck from behind, prompting troopers already at the initial scene to respond immediately. Police said that no charges have been filed so far, and the crash is still being investigated.
“Investigators believe the driver who struck Goodman and Giuliani had no connection to the initial domestic violence incident,” New Hampshire State Police said in a statement. “At this time, all aspects of the crash remain under investigation, including whether distraction or curiosity of the initial scene was a factor.”
Ragusa said that Giuliani was taken to a nearby trauma center, where he was diagnosed with “a fractured thoracic vertebrae, multiple lacerations and contusions, as well as injuries to his left arm and lower leg.”
Despite these injuries, Ragusa said the former mayor is in “good spirits and recovering tremendously.” He said that the accident was “not a targeted attack” against the politician.
“We ask everyone to respect Mayor Giuliani’s privacy and recovery, and refrain from spreading unfounded conspiracy theories,” he added.
The Epoch Times reached out to Ragusa for further comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
Democrat Judge Rules Trump Deployment Of National Guard Troops To Los Angeles Was Illegal
A federal judge in California ruled on Tuesday that President Donald Trump violated a 19th century law when he mobilized 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 marines to Los Angeles in June.
“The evidence at trial established that Defendants systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles,” wrote US District Court Judge Charles Breyer (Clinton) in a 52-page ruling.
“In short, Defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act,” he continued.
Breyer’s ruling follows a three-day drial last month, in which lawyers for the state of California argued that Trump had exceeded his authority when he deployed the federal troops to deal with thousands of protesters who took to the streets of downtown LA against his immigration policies.
California asked Breyer to order the Trump administration to return control of the remaining troops to Gov. Gavin Newsom, and to halt the use of the military “to execute or assist in the execution of federal law.”
Of note, Breyer’s order is limited to California, and Trump doesn’t have to withdraw the 300 National Guard troops currently on the ground in LA. Those troops can continue to protect federal property under the Posse Comitatus Act – an 1878 law that prevents a president from using the military as a domestic police force without Congressional approval.
Judge Charles Breyer should explain his relationship with Kamala Harris’s brother-in-law, Tony West.
And who all profited from West (the Harris families’ Hunter Biden) fleecing taxpayers for billions to give to left-wing groups, lawyers and judges (you’ll never guess WHICH… https://t.co/P64LYrRV1Fpic.twitter.com/Bv5GUEUlE7
According to Breyer, Trump “deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, ostensibly to quell a rebellion and ensure that federal immigration law was enforced,” adding “There were indeed protests in Los Angeles, and some individuals engaged in violence,” but that “there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law.”
The Trump administration is now prevented from using military troops in the Golden State “to execute the laws, including but not limited to engaging in arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants,” unless the situation falls under the Posse Comitatus Act.
And while the order only applies to California, Breyer wrote that Trump’s intention to deploy National Guard troops in other cities would be “creating a national police force with the President as its chief.”
While the judge’s decision may have minimal impact on the ground in California, the case could still have nationwide implications as Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth deploy National Guard members in Washington, D.C., and threaten to do so in other blue cities to address street crime. The Trump administration is likely to appeal Breyer’s decision, which could result in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and even the Supreme Court weighing in on the administration’s unconventional use of the National Guard. –Fox News
Breyer’s decision comes shortly after the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit halted one of his emergency orders issued in June in which he ordered Trump and Hegseth to hand the National Guard back to Newsom.
An acclaimed comedy writer in the UK was arrested and thrown in a jail cell over three tweets that were critical of gender ideology, causing him to become extremely stressed and require hospitalisation.
In a recent Substack post, Graham Linehan recounts his arrest at Heathrow Airport upon returning from the US, a development he attributes to complaints from trans activists over three tweets.
Author JK Rowling shared the news via her X account.
What the fuck has the UK become? This is totalitarianism. Utterly deplorable. https://t.co/CRl2n9rorh
The ordeal began even before Linehan boarded his flight in Arizona. “When I handed over my passport at the gate, the official told me I didn’t have a seat and had to be re-ticketed,” he writes, initially dismissing it as a typical travel mishap. In hindsight, however, he believes it was a sign he’d been “flagged” by authorities, speculating that “Someone, somewhere, probably wearing unconvincing make-up and his sister/wife’s/mum’s underwear, had made a phone call.”
Upon landing at Heathrow, Linehan says he was met by “five armed police officers” who escorted him to a private area and informed him he was under arrest for the tweets. He emphasizes the absurdity of the situation, noting “In a country where paedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women are assaulted and harassed every time they gather to speak, the state had mobilised five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for this tweet (and no, I promise you, I am not making this up.”
The tweets in question included one showing a man in women’s clothing with the caption implying a call to challenge such individuals, and a follow-up referencing a “punch in the bollocks” as a metaphorical point about height differences and self-defense, not literal violence.
Linehan’s initial reaction was one of disbelief and humor: “When I first saw the cops, I actually laughed. I couldn’t help myself. ‘Don’t tell me! You’ve been sent by trans activists,’” he writes.
At the Heathrow police station, Linehan recounts how his belongings were confiscated, including his belt, bag, and devices. He was placed in a “small green-tiled cell with a bunk, a silver toilet in the corner and a message from Crimestoppers on the ceiling next to a concave mirror that was presumably there to make you reflect on your life choices.”
During the police interview, Linehan remarks that the tone became more intense. An officer questioned him about each tweet “with the sort of earnest intensity usually reserved for discussing something serious like… oh, I dunno—crime?”
Linehan defended his posts, explaining that the ‘punch’ tweet was “a serious point made with a joke,” explaining that “Men who enter women’s spaces ARE abusers and they need to be challenged every time.”
The conversation touched on terminology when the officer used “trans people,” prompting Linehan to challenge: “I asked him what he meant by the phrase. ‘People who feel their gender is different than what was assigned at birth.’ I said ‘Assigned at birth? Our sex isn’t assigned.’” He dismissed the officer’s response as “semantics” and accused him of using “activist language,” lamenting that “The damage Stonewall has done to the UK police force will take years to mend.”
Linehan recounts that the stress of the situation took a huge physical toll on him, and when a nurse checked on him, it was discovered that his blood pressure was “over 200—stroke territory,” and he was rushed to A&E for observation.
Linehan attributes this to “The stress of being arrested for jokes,” combined with travel fatigue, and his ongoing eight-year battle against “trans activists working in tandem with police in a dedicated, persistent harassment campaign because I refuse to believe that lesbians have cocks.”
Linehan’s account paints a picture of a surreal clash between free speech, activism, and law enforcement, highlighting his frustration with a system that now prioritises ideological complaints over real crimes.
Is it a coincidence that Linehan was on the world’s most popular podcast just three weeks ago talking about how much of a police state Britain has become?
Linehan has been targeted for cancellation and much worse for years now, since making his views on the gender issue clear:
Comedian Graham Linehan’s Edinburgh show was cancelled by the venue because of his views on trans issues.
The Free Speech Union in the UK has announced that it will back Linehan, posting on X:
We do not believe Graham’s arrest or the bail conditions imposed were lawful. We will be backing him all the way in his fight against these preposterous allegations and the disproportionate response from the police.
When @Glinner landed at Heathrow, he was met by five armed police officers, and immediately arrested.
His ‘crime’? Three gender-critical tweets.
As Graham says in his Substack:
“In a country where paedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women are assaulted and harassed every time they gather to speak, the state had mobilised five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer.”
Graham’s single bail condition is that he does not go on X.
When @Glinner landed at Heathrow, he was met by five armed police officers, and immediately arrested.
His ‘crime’? Three gender-critical tweets.
As Graham says in his Substack:
“In a country where paedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women… pic.twitter.com/1YDOhtwRRm
I’ve now read multiple accounts confirming he was strip-searched, which triggered the panic attack and nearly gave the man a stroke. I can’t express how angry I am — they’re an absolute disgrace, and at this point, they’re dangerous. 🤬🤬🤬
Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.
US Manufacturing Surveys Surged In August As New Orders Jumped
After tumbling in July, expectations for August’s US Manufacturing surveys were optimistic (with both ISM and S&P Global both expected to tick higher, though the former expected to remain in contraction).
S&P Global’s US Manufacturing PMI rose dramatically from 49.8 in July to 53.0 in August (down very marginally from its preliminary print of 53.3) – the strongest in over three years
ISM’s US Manufacturing PMI rose from 48.0 in July to 48.7 in August (below the 49.0 expected)
And both of these increases in ‘soft’ survey data come as hard data has disappointed…
Source: Bloomberg
Under the hood of the ISM data, we see prices falling significantly, nmew orders jumping, but employment remaining significantly weaker (as we suggested will happen)…
“The past three months have seen the strongest expansion of production since the first half of 2022, with the upturn gathering pace in August amid rising sales. Hiring also picked up again in August as factories took on more staff to meet an influx of new orders and an accumulation of uncompleted work for waiting customers.”
“The manufacturing sector is therefore on course to provide a boost to the US economy in the third quarter.
But inflationary fears loom…
“The upturn is in part being fueled by inventory building, with factories reporting a further jump in warehouse holdings in August due to concerns over future price rises and potential supply constraints. These concerns are being stoked by uncertainty over the impact of tariffs, fears which were underpinned by a further jump in prices paid for inputs by factories, linked overwhelmingly by purchasing managers to these tariffs.
“Cost increases are being passed on to customers via widespread hikes to factory gate prices. The big question is the degree to which these price rises will then feed through to higher consumer price inflation in the coming months.”
So S&P Global sees prices higher and hiring improving while ISM sees prices falling and employment still badly lagging… take your pick!!
By Benjamin Picton, senior market strategist at Rabobank
Flying Blind
News broke yesterday that a jet carrying European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen had to land using paper charts after its GPS navigation systems were apparently jammed by Russia. Traveling to Plovdiv in Bulgaria, VDL’s jet apparently circled for an hour before the pilot took the decision to do things the old-fashioned way and consult the map.
Such an incident targeting a head of not-quite-a-state is shocking to say the least, but serves as a neat metaphor for relations between Russia and Europe in recent years (decades?): European liberal internationalists assume old norms apply -> Russia disagrees and demonstrates that it views violence as a legitimate tool of national policy -> Europeans left stunned.
Some will remember the images of German diplomats guffawing at the United Nations in 2018 as Donald Trump admonished Germany for placing itself at the mercy of Russia for its energy supplies. Fast-forward to 2022 and suddenly Trump’s speech wasn’t so funny, and anyone who cares to bring up a chart of German industrial production can see the fruits of the lack of imagination of Germany’s leaders. Germany’s factories are now struggling to replace lost production for civilian applications with new production for military applications. But how to do this without cheap energy?
So, yes, violence is back as a tool of national policy. Russia is unapologetic about this. So is Israel. So is the United States if you consider the decisiveness of using B-21 bombers to drop bunker busters on Iranian nuclear facilities. Hamas and the Houthis are certainly unapologetic and China has also been stepping up the frequency and scale of ‘rehearsals’ for the invasion of Taiwan while the Chinese navy and coast guard have had semi-regular clashes with the Philippines over territories that China claims as its own through the ten-dash line. Those Chinese territorial claims are not supported by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but that is really part of the point.
Despite being permanent members of the UN Security Council, China and Russia have never really fully subscribed to the legitimacy of the post-war global architecture. Many Western leaders continue genuflect to the ‘rules-based international order’ as if it was chiselled in stone and handed down from Mount Sinai. In reality, that rules-based order has always been a US-led order, upheld by US force of arms, and has always been viewed by China and Russia as such. Russia has demonstrated that the it is quite willing to flout the ‘rules’ when its national interest demands it. This does not mean that war is inevitable, but it does mean that it is a policy option that other countries need to dissuade revisionist powers from using. As Bismarck reputedly said “do I want war? Of course not! I want victory.”
Both the United States and China are now interested in re-writing the rules of the road to suit their own interests. The US now sees the liberal economic order as a threat to its position as global hegemon while China seeks to push the US out and establish itself as an Asian hegemon. In the view of the United States, a persistently overvalued dollar and unequal trade terms has offshored production from the US into China (and elsewhere) while the US got hooked on the drug of artificially high living standards courtesy of the strong dollar and the subsidized production of consumer goods in China.
As Scott Bessent explained to Fox News last week, the United States got a major wakeup call during Covid when it became apparent that many of the things that the United States needed (pharmaceuticals, personal protective equipment etc) were not made in the USA and could not be easily imported while global shipping was snarled up and the countries who DID produce the goods and own the ships were focusing on supplying themselves. Consequently, the US now cares about controlling supply chains for strategic goods, is using state-intervention to guide production and is increasingly autarchic. This is seen as a national security priority in the context of geopolitical competition with China. Everything must be understood through this prism.
A logical corollary of the MAGA program seeking to re-orient the US economy from being characterised by consumption to being characterised more by production (as it was at the end of WWII) is that there will have to be less consuming going on. The question then becomes which segments of society are going to see their consumption power curtailed? Trump and Bessent say the people at the top have had it too good for too long and will have to pay, while the losers from 40 years of globalization (those at the bottom of the income distribution) will see their living standards safeguarded.
China, as the main power of the emerging BRICS bloc, is seeking partners in a new multilateralism aimed at replacing the US-led order with something that better suits the interests and ambitions of China and its partners. The events of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit over the weekend demonstrate that Russia, Iran and Belarus are on board. India and Brazil (not an SCO member) seemingly are too, but there are problems.
Firstly, many of these countries have had territorial skirmishes in the recent past (e.g. the Sino-Soviet war in the 1960s and China-India border skirmishes more recently). Secondly, it is not immediately apparent how these powers could be incorporated into a new economic and financial architecture. The trade flows need to net and somebody needs to play the role of deficit runner if they are going to provide a replacement for the US Dollar as reserve currency. Nobody wants to do this because everybody wants to produce and export.
Additionally, the Chinese conception of world order historically posits the Chinese emperor as the intermediary between earth and heaven. That is to say, China has the ‘mandate of heaven’ that legitimises Chinese hegemony, and delegitimises the claims of anyone else to be on equal footing with China. How does India’s ambition for a multipolar Asia fit into this conception of world order? How does Iran’s conception of itself as a central Asian hegemon fit this view? How does Russia’s view of itself as a top-tier Eurasian power fit? The answer is: they don’t.
The UK Telegraph today claims ‘China unveils plan for new world order’. However, while team BRICS appears united in grievance against the US order, it is not yet clear that they are offering a coherent alternative. Xi Jinping made his pitch to the global south by encouraging them to embrace “free trade” and announcing that the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation would establish a new development bank to build influence in Eurasia by providing infrastructure loans for green industry. Establishing development banks extending loans in (presumably) Renminbi has the added benefit of de-risking the emerging bloc of the extraterritorial power of the US Dollar. Xi also said he would open up China’s BeiDou satellite system to SCO members as an alternative to the US GPS system (perhaps Ursula von der Leyen will be tempted?).
While the BRICS bloc coalesces towards a new conception of world order and seeks an economic and financial architecture to support it, Western powers seem unsure about the direction of their own political economy. Europe wants to be green but it also wants to re-arm, and the two are not compatible. Far right parties now hold polling leads in Germany, France and the UK as popular discontent at ‘the way things are going’ continues to rise.
European style anti-immigration protests recently broke out in Australia where a Canada style net inward migration rate of ~1.7% at a time where the country can’t house its own young is testing the social fabric. Recent comments by an Indian Minister suggesting that he was “in deep negotiations with my counterpart in Australia to create 1 million homes” using Indian labour trained in Australia and funding from the UAE is sure to add fuel to the fire. The supposed plan has not been corroborated by Canberra, but could be the most sensational economic chicanery since the Khemlani loans affair if it turned out to be true.
Whether fact or fiction, the plan does highlight an important point: for economies like Australia that have labor markets at ‘full-employment’, there is simply no surplus labour to do important stuff that needs doing. Labor is a factor of production subject to scarcity, and when scarcity strikes governments take on responsibility for directing the factors of production into their most useful employment. The United States is now doing this through ‘state capitalism’ and cherry-picking high value-add industries for its own economy.
This dynamic poses a question. Is Australia best served by having 55% of school leavers attend university to add to the oversupply of law graduates carrying unserviceable student loan debts? Or would it make more sense to direct the youth into trades training to address the undersupply of builders, tilers, plasterers, welders, farm workers etc etc? These are the trade-offs of economic policymaking under real constraints, but the Australian trade minister recently implied that a more active approach to organising production would not be taken when he said that Australia could be an example to the world by abolishing 500 “nuisance” tariffs.
So, the US is taking a more active role in directing economic activity, the BRICS are seeking to reshape the world order in their own image and Europe is searching for a new model of political economy that simultaneously delivers growth, security and social cohesion. Australia, meanwhile, wants to be an example to the rest of the world by evangelising an economic model that others are rejecting as failed. In this fractious new global environment leaving decisions of what gets produced, where, and by who completely in the hands of Mr Market really would be flying blind.
Chris Columbus, director of the first two Harry Potter films, has declared that a reunion of the original cast is “never going to happen,” blaming J.K. Rowling’s controversial views on transgender issues. Columbus described the situation as “so complicated with all the political stuff,” noting that actors like Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson have publicly rejected Rowling’s stance, making any reunion impossible.
Rowling fired back on X with a lengthy post, framing her response as a direct challenge to her critics and pushing back against what she described as a persistent mischaracterization of her beliefs.
“As another man who once worked with me declares himself saddened by my beliefs on gender and sex, I thought it might be useful to compile a list for handy reference,” Rowling wrote. She then laid out a series of questions, asking which of her positions could possibly make actors and directors so upset.
She asked whether it was her belief “that women and girls should have their own public changing rooms and bathrooms,” or that “women should retain female-only rape crisis centres,” and “that men don’t belong in women’s sport.” Rowling also highlighted her stance on incarcerated women, asserting that “female prisoners shouldn’t be incarcerated with violent men and male sex offenders,” and her view that “women should remain a protected class in law, because they have sex-specific needs and issues.”
Rowling continued by emphasizing the importance of language reflecting reality, noting “that language should reflect reality rather than ideological jargon, especially in a medical context,” and defended women against harassment or persecution, writing that “women shouldn’t be harassed, persecuted or fired for refusing to pretend humans can change sex” and “women should not be threatened with violence and rape when they assert their rights.”
She also stressed the broader societal principle of free expression, declaring that “freedom of speech and belief are essential to a pluralistic democratic society.” Rowling then turned to the treatment of minors, particularly those who are “gay, autistic and trauma-experienced,” insisting they “should be given mental health support instead of irreversible surgeries and drug treatments on non-existent evidence of benefit.”
The author also addressed LGBTQ issues, saying that “gay people shouldn’t be pressured to include the opposite sex in their dating pools, nor should they be smeared as ‘genital fetishists’ when they don’t,” and criticized certain male cross-dressers exploiting gender ideology: “cross-dressing heterosexual male fetishists aren’t actually oppressed, but having the time of their lives piggybacking off gender identity ideology.”
Finally, Rowling struck at the broader political consequences of these ideas, asserting that “said ideology, and the privileged, blinkered fools pushing it because they suffer zero consequences themselves, have done more damage to the political left’s credibility than Trump and Farage could have achieved in a century.”
She’s right. Chris Columbus and the parade of Hollywood elites rushing to condemn Rowling reveal less about her supposedly “controversial views” and more about their own cowardice. They aren’t guided by principle—they’re driven by fear: fear of social media mobs, fear of losing roles, fear of being canceled. Columbus, Radcliffe, Watson, and the rest have chosen the path of convenience over courage, prioritizing their reputations over common sense, fairness, and even basic reality.
Rowling’s positions—protecting women’s spaces, defending free speech, supporting vulnerable minors, and calling out ideological exploitation—are neither radical nor hateful. Yet, in an era where ideological conformity is more important than truth, she is vilified simply for speaking the truth. The real scandal isn’t Rowling’s beliefs; it’s the craven complicity of those too timid to defend reason, morality, and decency.
The fake outrage over J.K. Rowling exposes the media’s true agenda: silencing dissent and forcing ideological conformity.
Nestlé Fires CEO Over “Undisclosed Romantic Relationship With Direct Subordinate”
Nestlé shares are lower in Switzerland after the company abruptly terminated its CEO, Laurent Freixe, for an undisclosed relationship with a direct subordinate.
“The departure of Laurent Freixe follows an investigation into an undisclosed romantic relationship with a direct subordinate which breached Nestlé’s Code of Business Conduct,” Nestlé wrote in a press release.
Philipp Navratil, head of Nespresso, was named as Freixe’s replacement. Leadership turmoil at the world’s largest food company has been particularly volatile: Freixe joined the team about a year ago, following the ouster of Mark Schneider.
Nestlé Chairman Paul Bulcke wrote in a statement: “This was a necessary decision. Nestlé’s values and governance are strong foundations of our company. I thank Laurent for his years of service at Nestlé.”
Bulcke continued: “I am pleased to announce Philipp Navratil as CEO. Philipp is recognized for his impressive track record of achieving results in challenging environments.”
The undisclosed romantic relationship surfaced through the company’s internal “speak up” system, prompting an internal investigation by Chairman Bulcke and lead director Pablo Isla, with the support of outside counsel. Freixe will not receive an exit package.
One has to wonder whether Freixe’s ouster, pitched to the public as a romantic relationship with a direct subordinate that violated company guidelines, was in fact more about Nestlé’s weak performance, with shares in Switzerland failing to rebound this year and hovering near five-year lows.
