By Georg Rute of UtilityDive

Texas is preparing to cut off power to data centers during grid emergencies — a sign of just how strained the system has become.

Over the Fourth of July, deadly floods swept across central Texas, disrupting infrastructure and causing widespread outages. Meanwhile, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has already seen multiple price spikes and conservation alerts — not because there wasn’t enough power, but because we couldn’t move it where it was needed.

These aren’t isolated events. It’s not just a Texas problem.

Just days after the shutoff planning was announced, the U.S. Department of Energy warned that blackout risks across the country could rise 100-fold by 2030.

All of this points to a deeper vulnerability: We’re still running the grid with tools and assumptions built for a different era — one with fewer storms, slower load growth and no massive data centers. 

Texas’s new normal demands smarter, faster and more adaptive grid operations. Long-term infrastructure investments are critical, but they won’t arrive in time to manage the next three summers.

Texas has made real progress in building new generation capacity, especially in solar, storage and wind. But the wires that carry that power haven’t changed. More importantly, the way we operate the grid hasn’t evolved to match the demands of either changing weather patterns or electrical load growth.

Texas generates far more power than the next 2 or 3 states COMBINED.

And we’re rapidly adding much MORE power.

Also our grid is more resilient than ever.

Since I signed power reform laws no Texan has lost power from the ERCOT grid.

We are best positioned for the future. https://t.co/kRopH5cGDk

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) December 14, 2024

Now, surging demand from industrial expansion, electrification and AI data centers is doubling the strain. ERCOT’s own projections show that power demand in Texas may nearly double by 2030. And, other regions aren’t immune.

• The Midcontinent Independent System Operator recently green-lit a $22 billion transmission buildout to relieve rising congestion.
• The California Independent System Operator saw renewable curtailments surge nearly 30% last year.
• The PJM Interconnection anticipates 3% to 4% annual peak load growth through 2035 driven by data centers and expects up to 70 GW of demand over the next 15 years.
• Nationally, U.S. demand is projected to climb about 16% in five years — a pace not seen since the 1980s. 

That means more stress on an already-congested transmission system — one still being managed with decades-old assumptions about heat, wind and demand.

Those assumptions no longer hold. And in a hotter, stormier Texas, they’re becoming dangerous.

The case for operational intelligence

Utilities around the world are taking a different approach — one that doesn’t require waiting 10 years to build new lines. 

In Europe, software-based tools like hardware-free dynamic line ratings, or DLR, and hyperlocal weather forecasting are safely increasing the amount of power that can flow through existing lines. These tools don’t involve new hardware or major infrastructure. They use data — from satellites, LiDAR scans, and thousands of weather stations — to help operators see where and when extra capacity is available and plan accordingly.

I’ve helped implement this approach with national grid operators overseas. In Estonia and Finland, for example, we applied AI-driven DLR across 7,000 miles of transmission lines — many in hilly, forested regions like much of America. The result: up to 40% more capacity on lines that, by traditional standards, were considered maxed out.

The same physics apply here. A mild breeze — just four miles per hour — can cool power lines enough to boost capacity by 30%. But grid operators typically don’t have access to sufficiently accurate weather forecasts. As a result they assume the worst-case weather at all times, just in case. That means we’re leaving megawatts stranded every day, even during critical hours and emergencies.

Load flexibility shouldn’t be the only emergency tool

Demand-side management is essential. But we shouldn’t have to shut down critical infrastructure just to survive a summer heat wave. If we can increase visibility into grid conditions, forecast congestion earlier, and bring in more power from further away, we can avoid triggering firm load shed in the first place.

Shutting off industrial loads like data centers should be a last resort — not the default backup plan.

This isn’t a call to stop building new lines or power generators. We need them. But they won’t arrive in time to handle the surging load coming in the next few years. 

What we can do now is operate smarter with software-based operational intelligence — to reduce curtailment, ease congestion and lower consumer costs.

It’s not political. It’s practical. And it’s proven.

ERCOT has long served as a proving ground for U.S. grid innovation. But today, it’s also the canary in the coal mine. What Texas does next will shape how the rest of the country prepares for what’s coming.

The Israeli navy launched strikes on a key power plant near Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, on Sunday. The Israeli military claimed the facility was being used by Houthi forces but did not provide evidence.

The assault comes in the wake of the latest Houthi ballistic missile attack which targeted Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport, but which was reportedly intercepted and caused no damage or casualties.

Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV said the new Israeli assault caused damage to generators at the Hezyaz power station and triggered a fire, which was soon after successfully contained.

The Israeli military (IDF) described the attack as a response to ongoing Houthi missile and drone launches on Israel, which have persisted in parallel to IDF expanded operations inside the Gaza Strip.

A Sunday statement said Israeli forces “struck… deep inside Yemen, targeting an energy infrastructure site that served the Houthi terrorist regime” in an area of Sanaa, with without naming the specific site. These “strikes were conducted in response to repeated attacks” by the Iran-allied Shia militant group.

Israel has off and on for months bombed various parts of Yemen’s infrastructure, including the critical port of Hodeidah and the country’s main international airport.

These Israeli operations in Yemen have stepped-up after last spring the US withdrew from active Red Sea operations. Trump essentially declared mission accomplished, announced ceasefire, and called the US Navy away from the very costly (in terms of missiles and bombs expended) and risky mission.

Currently, Houthi leadership has still vowed to attack alleged Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Foreign ships bound for Israeli ports have also been put on notice.

International shipping transit routes have long ago been forced to adjust, taking longer and costlier routes to avoid the Red Sea, and also to the financial detriment of Egypt and its Suez canal.

Neither Israel nor the Western allies have been able to do anything about this, and some observers have expressed awe that a group of largely poor Islamist militants in sandals have been able to inflict such punishment and an effective blockade on global shipping and Israeli and Western companies.

Israeli Chief of Staff: We will continue striking until Hamas is defeated, placing the issue of the hostages at the forefront of our priorities.

— First Squawk (@FirstSquawk) August 17, 2025

And given that Israel is actually expanding offensive operations into southern Gaza once again, and against Gaza City, the Red Sea conflict won’t wind down anytime soon. Ceasefire efforts based in Doha have clearly failed at this point.

Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

While federalizing the local police and deploying the National Guard in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump has suggested he could flex his authority to fight violent crime elsewhere.

“We have other cities also that are bad, very bad,” the president said during an Aug. 11 press conference.

He listed Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Baltimore among the cities of concern.

Although homicide and other violent crimes have recently dipped across America, the numbers from big cities are still high—in some cases, higher than they were before surges one to two decades ago.

Trump’s power to deploy the National Guard outside the nation’s capital is also under debate. A federal judge is deciding whether his deployment of troops to Los Angeles was lawful.

Here is what you should know.

The President’s Powers

Trump federalized D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department after declaring a crime emergency.

He did so under Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which lets him control the district’s police for up to 30 days without Congressional authorization.

He wants Congress to extend that power, suggesting a national emergency declaration could be a means of sidestepping the legislature if it does not act.

* * *

You can support ZeroHedge with the purchase of a high-quality, sharp, ZeroHedge Multitool.

There is no equivalent to the D.C. Home Rule Act in the other big cities Trump named. There, state and local authorities have control over law enforcement.

The National Guard is a trickier question.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer is assessing whether Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles and nearby municipalities violated the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA).

In Washington, the president has deployed the District of Columbia National Guard, which is under clear presidential control.

He did so while keeping them under Title 32 duty status. That shields the president from allegations of violating the PCA. It also leaves them under local authority as they back up the police who are making arrests.

Trump highlighted other possible solutions involving Congress, which is currently in its August recess.

“We’ll count on the Republicans in Congress and the Senate to vote” to end no-cash bail, he said, referencing a legal reality in many cities and states that have drawn his ire.

Illinois, Chicago’s home state, eliminated cash bail in 2023. Los Angeles County did so too for almost all offenses. New York State made a similar change in 2019.

“Maybe they’ll self-clean up, and maybe they’ll self-do this and get rid of the cashless bail thing and all of the things that caused this problem,” Trump said.

Chicago

Although his local authority outside Washington may be limited, Trump has floated interventions against crime outside the capital.

The Second City seems to be first in his mind.

“If we need to, we’re going to do the same thing in Chicago,” he said during his Aug. 11 press conference.

The Chicago Police Department recorded 573 homicides in 2024, more than any other U.S. city. That is down from 620 in 2023.

Shootings and the number of shooting victims also fell, though both still numbered in the thousands. Vehicular hijackings have declined, too.

There were 188 homicides during the first half of 2025, marking a 32 percent decrease from the same period in 2024.

Chicago’s homicide rate stood at more than 21 per 100,000 in 2024.

That homicide rate, though high, has trended down from even higher rates during the 1990s.

Yet, rates were lower than today during the 2000s and early 2010s, according to an analysis from the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

An Illinois Policy Institute analysis found that the arrest rate for homicides has also fallen, declining from 42 percent a decade ago to 27 percent from June 2024 through June 2025.

New York City

“I’m going to look at New York in a little while,” Trump said.

Though rates and numbers differ, New York City’s violent crime trends resemble Chicago’s.

Homicides and other serious felonies have recently trended down, but, in some cases, remain higher than they were 10 or 15 years ago.

In 2024, for example, there were 382 murders and non-negligible manslaughters in the Big Apple, according to city data on crime complaints.

That is below a recent peak in 2021, which saw 488 such cases, and well below much higher totals decades ago, like in 2000, when there were 673 murders and non-negligible manslaughters.

Yet, 2024’s figure tops the numbers for 2013 through 2019, the start of Bill de Blasio’s mayoralty. Those totals dipped as low as 292 in 2017 before surging to the recent 488-murder peak during his last year in office.

As of Aug. 10, the New York Police Department had recorded 188 murders in 2025—down 23.6 percent from the same period in 2024. Robberies and felonious assaults were also down relative to the same period, while rape was up 21.6 percent.

In 2024, there were 29,461 felonious assaults in the city, up from recent years and from troughs as low as 16,284 in 2008. Rape was also up, with 1,748 incidents that year as compared to 1,455 in 2023.

Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Oakland

“Hopefully L.A. is watching,” Trump said during his press conference.

He also referenced another California city, Oakland, and nearby Baltimore, saying the two are “so far gone.”

Federal Bureau of Investigation data show 264 homicides in Los Angeles in 2024.  That’s down from 327 in 2023 as reported by the Los Angeles Police Department.

In 2013, there were 251 murders in the city.

Los Angeles recorded a major decline in murders during the first half of 2025. Mayor Karen Bass touted a trend that suggests numbers could hit lows in 2025 not seen in 60 years.

In 2024, Oakland witnessed 81 murders and non-negligent manslaughters, according to FBI data. The city saw 120 murders in 2023 as recorded by the Oakland Police Department in its end-of-year report.

The 2024 figure is comparable to lows from the late 1990s and early 2000s, as recorded in an analysis from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. During the early 1990s, Oakland regularly had more than 140 homicides.

During the first half of 2025, Oakland recorded a 21 percent decline in homicides relative to the first half of 2024.

Baltimore saw 201 homicides in 2024, down from 260 in 2023, according to the Baltimore Police Department. Last year’s total is on par with numbers from a decade ago.

The 2024 numbers give it a homicide rate of more than 35 per 100,000, making it one of America’s deadliest large cities.

Charm City’s midyear report in 2025 recorded 68 homicides, down from 88 over the same period in 2024.

Ahead of the planned Monday meeting between President Trump and Ukraine’s Zelensky in the Oval Office, which will also have the attendance and participation of a growing list of European and NATO leaders, there’s increasing talk of seeking American-supported “Article 5-style” security guarantees for Ukraine as part of any broader peace deal with Russia.

According to CNN, citing a senior European official, the proposed plan wouldn’t involve NATO directly – and would effectively remove the question of membership in the military alliance – but would aim to offer Ukraine protections similar to NATO’s collective defense clause.

The specifics of the proposal remain undisclosed and unclear, and there’s also the practical reality and major hurdle of just how such ‘guarantees’ would be enforced.

The Kremlin would likely balk at such a condition, given Russian leadership has said it would never allow any Western troop deployment or NATO-style force in Ukraine.

There has actually for years throughout the grinding war been talk among European capitals of the idea of deploying a “reassurance force” in Ukraine.

One thing that all the Western allies agree on at this early stage is that the initiative would never get off the ground without the United States officially backing and supporting it. And yet if the European leaders going to the White House lobby hard for this, it’s almost certain this would break the negotiating process with Russia.

For Moscow, assurance of permanent Ukrainian neutrality remains a top priority, and so talk of an Article-5 style system which would ‘protect’ Ukraine in the instance of future Russian attacks is likely to a complete non-starter as an option.

But it’s especially the hawks which are pushing this, and likely Moscow is going to see it as simply NATO placing its security blanket over Kiev under a different guise, or just under the cover of differing semantics.

On Sunday, more and more European leaders have confirmed they will be joining Ukrainian President Zelensky on his trip to the White House on Monday.

According to a BBC list, the below top officials have confirmed they will be attending:

• UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer
• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
• Finnish President Alexander Stubb
• French President Emmanuel Macron
• Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen

This comes after most leaders on this list have strongly complained that Europe and even Ukraine have been left behind, and cut out of the negotiating process. They back Zelensky who says all decisions taken without direct Ukrainian participation are ‘stillborn’ on arrival.

President Trump’s hope is that this swiftly moving process of talks which started with Putin in Alaska on Friday will lead to a final, and permanent peace settlement to end the war. But much of the entire Western establishment – whether government officials or the mainstream press – seems to want this process to fail…

The bourgeois press thinks the real problem with Putin is that he just needs a good therapist pic.twitter.com/T56qpm3Cnk

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) August 17, 2025

Trump said on social media on Saturday, “President Zelenskyy will be coming to D.C., the Oval Office, on Monday afternoon. If all works out, we will then schedule a meeting with President Putin. Potentially, millions of people’s lives will be saved. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Authored by Joakim Book via BitcoinMagazine.com,

As energy costs soar and grids destabilize, European innovators are turning to Bitcoin mining at home as a decentralized solution — blending heat, profit and power independence in one sleek radiator…

Maximilian Obwexer had a problem. 

He was heating his home in Austria with conventional heating oil, and it was expensive. A tinkerer by nature, and a former engineer having worked on hydropower plants, he was trying to find a better way to heat his home. 

After many rounds of experimentation and having delved down the Bitcoin (mining) rabbit hole, three years ago he founded a company devoted to the effort. His company, 21energy, makes well-balanced, sturdy, and incredibly beautiful (and incredibly quiet!) miners for home use. The early models of Ofen 1 boasted up to 10 TH/s, while the premium model could reach, at top speed and making plenty of noise, 40 TH/s. Having scaled up production, hiring 12 new employees only this year and launching the new Ofen 2 (35-42 TH/s), the Bitcoin heater comes in the style of a conventional radiator — powered by Bitcoin. And yes, you can solo mine with this bitcoin heater… or join whichever pool you think is best.

“Bitcoin heaters are decentralized grid balancing — at home!” he proclaimed on stage in Helsinki on Friday before hundreds of curious faces in the audience at the inaugural Nordic Bitcoin conference BTCHel. Refreshingly, he spent most of his presentation not selling his excellent products or explaining his story in bitcoin, but on the many troubles afflicting the European grid.

Europeans are beholden to foreigners for importing energy. Its current electricity producers — legacy coal, gas and hydro — are increasingly asked to turn off their supply to the grid, in favor of the ever-more present wind turbines and solar panels. Fossil-fuel-based generation produces CO2 emissions as well as particles in the immediate environment, but its proposed replacements push dynamic and uncontrollable electricity generation onto the grid. At peak supply, even renewable energy providers are asked by grid management to curtail or wind down production; there is simply nobody to take the excess electricity, nowhere to put it

This is obviously bad in that it wastes potential electricity that could have been used, but even worse is that it makes the investment calculations for renewable energy investors worse. Not unrelated, households in Europe pay exorbitant rates for their electricity… and on top of that, heating in general is quite expensive.

When you put all of those aspects together, it’s like the old world is screaming out for Bitcoin mining. Obwexer agrees, “It’s a no-brainer — even if you don’t like or understand Bitcoin,” he tells me, standing next to his shiny green booth and radiators keeping the Expo hall in Helsinki real toasty. 

Indeed, a large portion of his client base are “solar guys” — devoted climate change activists wanting to do something hands-on to de-fossilize their own energy use. While it’s not exactly the first group you think about being interested in Bitcoin, “The economics just make sense,” Obwexer tells me. 

In a recent podcast interview with Knut Svanholm and Luke de Wolf, two of the co-organizers of BTCHel, Obwexer remarked that “Finland is really at the forefront of bitcoin heating and bitcoin district heating”:

“Europe needs Bitcoin mining so badly, with the high volatility in the electricity grids… we don’t have to fear the politicians too much, because… they already wrote it down — they just don’t see that they wrote Bitcoin mining everywhere.”

On stage in Helsinki, he showed one of the most important graphs in the entire economics and energy debate, which underlines precisely how crucial energy is for the well-being and flourishing of a society. “If you want a clean, rich, healthy society you need a lot of power.”

via: Todd Moss, Eat More Electrons

Up next for Obwexer and his team at 21energy is contributing to flexible load shedding on a grid level. Putting mobile miners in a truck and take production pressure off, e.g., hydro plants, is a perfect use case for Bitcoin mining: Instead of being asked to ramp down production because of an overloaded grid, they can divert the electricity stemming from their water flow to Bitcoin miners — which also changes their response time from minutes to seconds.

Meet 21energy next week at #BTCHEL – the First Large-Scale Bitcoin Conference in the Nordics! ⚡

📍 Join us at our booth and meet our team
🔥 Learn how we transform electricity into warmth & Bitcoin
🎤 Don’t miss talks from Harald, Maximilian & Lukas on Bitcoin mining,… pic.twitter.com/juBRMGWvWh

— 21energy (@21energy_com) August 7, 2025

In general, using purpose-built or rebuilt Bitcoin miners for heating your home is the most obvious way to decentralize mining — especially since home miners are much less susceptible to the cutthroat economics of Bitcoin mining that, e.g., large mining farms are.

While solving several real-world energy problems at once, Obwexer and his team at 21energy are doing precisely that — “From Tyrol to the World.” 

“I am super bullish on Bitcoin mining in Europe,” Obwexer concluded. 

The White House on Saturday dismissed and mocked a report by National Public Radio (NPR) that claimed US government documents containing sensitive and secretive details about President Trump’s summit with Russian President Putin were found in an Alaskan hotel.

The NPR story began, “Papers with U.S. State Department markings, found Friday morning in the business center of an Alaskan hotel, revealed previously undisclosed and potentially sensitive details about the Aug. 15 meetings between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in Anchorage.”

It continued, “Eight pages, that appear to have been produced by U.S. staff and left behind accidentally, shared precise locations and meeting times of the summit and phone numbers of U.S. government employee.”

But White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly has rejected that there’s anything relevant here, going so far as to call out NPR for exaggerating its significance. She characterized the documents as nothing more than a “multi-page lunch menu” and blasted NPR for sensationalizing the discovery.

“It’s hilarious that NPR is publishing a multi-page lunch menu and calling it a ‘security breach,’” Kelly told ABC News. She said:

“This kind of so-called ‘investigative journalism’ is exactly why people don’t take them seriously anymore – and why they’re no longer taxpayer-funded thanks to President Trump.”

NPR in its report observed that the documents went so far as to provide phonetic guides for Russian names, such as “Mr. President POO-tihn.”

The report further cited ‘experts’ who alleged this shows carelessness and lack of proper security protocols in handling sensitive documents involving top level meetings with the US president and world leaders.

A lunch menu and scheduling… pundits are framing this as some major scandal and breach…

Interesting timetable and lunch menu. #AlaskaFiasco
Government papers found in an Alaskan hotel reveal new details of Trump-Putin summit https://t.co/UDnCXJXcid pic.twitter.com/OwFSV8bpKj

— @RGBAtlantica (@RGBAtlantica) August 16, 2025

Still, the NPR story didn’t make much of a splash, given the avalanche of other, much more important headlines which came out of the ‘constructive’ Alaska summit.

The mainstream US press has tended to present the historic summit with a perspective that Trump is somehow being ‘compromised’ by Russia’s Putin – though there’s zero evidence that this is the case.

Authored by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida via GlobalResearch.ca,

Apparently, the EU is planning to further tighten its interventionist measures in the internal affairs of member countries. According to information recently shared by Russian authorities, European political elites are planning a regime change in Hungary – a country that has stood out for leading a dissident position within the European bloc. This case is particularly serious because it highlights the absolute lack of political freedom for EU member states.

The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) revealed that it has information proving that EU authorities are planning a color revolution in Hungary. The goal is to remove Viktor Orban and his allies from power and replace them with a public figure more aligned with the interests of the Collective West – particularly regarding the Ukrainian conflict and sanctions against Russia.

According to the SVR, the European Commission considers the current Hungarian government’s foreign policy to be too independent – that is, not integrated with the EU’s international guidelines. For this reason, a regime change would be the only way to realign Hungarian national interests with the European bloc’s foreign policy objectives. In this regard, a Russian security agency clearly states that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen “is seriously studying regime change scenarios” in Hungary.

One of von der Leyen’s plans would allegedly be to bring to power Peter Magyar, leader of the Tisza Party and one of Orban’s most vocal opponents. The SVR describes Magyar as “loyal to globalist elites,” which is why he is considered to become the next prime minister if the plan to oust Orban is successful. The EU initially plans to finalize this plan during next year’s parliamentary elections; however, the SVR believes that, if circumstances favor it, the EU could begin acting this year, advancing its regime change plans.

In addition to trying to bring Hungary into the coalition supporting Ukraine and force it to implement sanctions against Moscow, one of the goals of the regime change operation is to eliminate Hungarian opposition to Ukraine’s accession to the EU. Currently, Orban is leading the opposition to the Kiev regime’s accession to the bloc, which is infuriating both the European Commission and the neo-Nazi proxy regime in Kiev.

Further complicating Ukraine’s accession plan, Orban’s Hungary is fully supported by Slovakia’s Robert Fico. Both leaders coordinate a dissident wing within the EU, endorsing pacifist positions such as ending military support for Ukraine and sanctions against Moscow.

Meanwhile, Poland has also begun to oppose Ukrainian accession to the EU. Despite strongly supporting the Kiev regime in the war, Poland is dissatisfied with the neighboring country’s Nazi-rehabilitating policies, which is why it is now against the Ukrainian accession. The European Commission hopes to dismantle this dissident coalition upon replacing Orban, carrying out a kind of “decapitation operation” against European dissent.

It is important to remember that one of the reasons Hungary opposes Ukrainian accession is the regime’s persecution of ethnic Hungarians within its territory. In the Hungarian-majority region of Transcarpathia, ethnic persecution policies are becoming commonplace, a situation quite similar to that of the ethnic Russian population of Donbass.

This clearly makes Orban unsympathetic to the Ukrainian regime, with his opposition to Ukrainian accession to the EU being not merely a matter of political pragmatism, but also of patriotic principles and solidarity with the Hungarian people abroad.

All of Hungary’s legitimate concerns are ignored by European authorities, who continue to act motivated by Russophobic madness. The EU has implemented no measures to pressure Ukraine to change its treatment of the Hungarians of Transcarpathia, tacitly legitimizing ethnic persecution—just as it has done against the Russians for over a decade. The European bloc is only interested in irrational condemnation of Russia and unconditional support for Kiev.

The SVR claims that preparatory measures are already being taken. The agency states that “significant administrative, media, and lobbying resources are being deployed to support Magyar through German party funds, the European People’s Party, and a number of Norwegian NGOs.” Foreign agents are expected to foment mass protests and other forms of social unrest against Orban’s legitimate government, attempting to create social instability to facilitate regime change.

In fact, knowing this information in advance, it’s possible that the Hungarian government will immediately begin implementing measures to prevent the success of the foreign operation. Thanks to the work of Russian intelligence, Orban’s Hungary now has the necessary means to protect itself from the interference promoted by an international organization of which Hungary itself is a member. This only shows how politically bankrupt the EU is, becoming a mere instrument of foreign meddling—even against its own members.

The political war on men and masculinity continues to escalate.  A long running feminist propaganda narrative is that women in the west deal with random harassment from out-of-control men on a regular basis while walking public streets.  Previous attempts to replicate this claim on camera have led to minimal results, with feminist activists wearing revealing clothing pacing back and forth on sidewalks hoping for an incident. 

They catch a few men looking at them briefly, or saying something as innocuous as “hi beautiful”, and this is held up as evidence of the terrible plight of women navigating a patriarchal “rape culture”.  In reality, most men barely take notice.  Those that do are harmless and activists are left grasping at straws.

These kinds of honey traps often become jokes on social media, with the participants readily mocked for their dishonesty or stupidity.  In the US, woke rhetoric against men and the “male gaze” is dying as the public grows tired of feminist victimhood.  However, in Europe, social and political evolution seems to be running several years behind America and political leaders there are still desperately trying to transcribe woke ideological cultism into enforceable law.

Case in point:  UK officials are recreating their own catcall honey traps using undercover female officers jogging back and forth on busy streets.  If a man honks at them, looks at them too long or says something to them, they risk getting stopped by hidden patrol cars and chastised.  In some cases their vehicles have even been seized by police.

Female cops in the UK are jogging around in tight clothing, so they can arrest the men who catcall them. 😭

pic.twitter.com/IfTRzP3GRd

— Tiffany Fong (@TiffanyFong_) August 13, 2025

Keep in mind that this experiment is being operated in neighborhoods that are up to 90% majority white, native residents.  It’s highly unlikely that UK officials would allow a similar trap to be run in areas populated by migrants.  This, of course, is a common double standard in European countries today.  Native citizens are heavily scrutinized for misbehavior while police and politician ignore the violence, rape, grooming gangs and murder common within migrant enclaves. 

Yet another migrant who assaults a woman when she says no…

Mass deportation now! pic.twitter.com/WwavP14nn4

— Grifty (@TheGriftReport) July 5, 2025

Any attempt to jog a couple of attractive female officers through a neighborhood full of third-worlders would likely elicit an unpleasant experience in cultural exchange.

African migrant slaps white woman in the face after she refuses his perverted advances, another migrant then kicks her from behind. They all laugh. These are very sick people. https://t.co/kTr5xbfBAr

— iamyesyouareno (@iamyesyouareno) January 12, 2024

And what happens when women do report harassment and assault that is common when they come in contact with foreigners?  They get a lecture on politically correct speech.

A migrant attacked and spat at a British woman. She described him, understandably, to the police as a “filthy migrant”.

She gets a lecture on her choice of language. pic.twitter.com/NhUqcJnQCt

— David Atherton (@DaveAtherton20) September 10, 2024

This is the reason why very few people take feminist claims of catcalling seriously – Because scrutiny and enforcement are highly selective.  Certain men are allowed to do whatever they want, while other men are portrayed as monsters simply for saying hello or giving a look.  

Police admit that there are no specific laws against these behaviors, but UK politicians and authorities have been using color-of-law enforcement since before the pandemic mandates.  In other words, it doesn’t matter what laws are written down, if they decide they don’t like something you’re doing they might threaten you or potentially arrest you regardless. 

Numerous people in Britain have been arrested for posting memes, praying silently within the vicinity of abortion clinics, and even for flying British flags within the sight of migrants.  A widespread indoctrination campaign has been launched to demonize white males in particular, with many PSA commercials, TV shows and other media showing white men as the common perpetrators of harassment and assault.  Meanwhile, numerous crimes involving migrants (specifically crimes against women) are buried and the identities of the assailants are kept confidential. 

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Germany’s Air Traffic Falters: Ryanair Cuts Flights

Air traffic in Germany remains far below 2019 levels. Expensive regulations and the country’s economic situation are preventing a recovery. Airlines are voicing their criticism of government policies.

Passenger numbers at German airports confirm the overall crisis in the economy. With 99.4 million passengers in the first half of 2025, air traffic rose by 2.8% compared to last year but still remains 15.8% below pre-Corona levels.

The decline is particularly dramatic at the capital airport, BER. Compared with the combined passenger numbers of the former Tegel and Schönefeld airports in 2019, BER today handles roughly 30% fewer passengers.

A Gaping Capacity Gap

This is a stark indicator of the industry’s troubles, which aligns with trends in other sectors of the German economy. Both construction and key industrial sectors are operating 12 to 15% below 2019 levels. This has consequences for the labor market. In aviation, about 24% of jobs—or 60,000 of 255,000 positions—have been cut since 2019. Nationwide, job losses now total roughly 700,000.

The German economy is visibly running at low throttle. With a capacity utilization of 77.7% in Q2, well below the 83.4% average, the numbers indicate weak domestic demand as well as a cooling export sector. U.S. trade policies are likely to add further pressure. The German economy is in serious turbulence, and the country’s overall competitiveness has declined.

Criticism Grows Louder

Airlines and airport operators have long complained about Germany’s excessive costs and regulatory burden. The already strict rules of the EU Commission are compounded locally by additional taxes, levies, and bureaucratic hurdles. This combination weighs on carriers and hampers any meaningful recovery of German air traffic.

The sharpest criticism in recent days came from Irish carrier Ryanair, which announced that due to high operating costs in Germany, it would completely cease flights at Dortmund, Leipzig, and Dresden, and reduce operations in Hamburg by 60% and at BER by 20%.

Pars pro Toto

Ryanair CMO Dara Brady summed up the situation bluntly: he sharply criticized the federal government for repeatedly failing to lower or at least reduce the high air travel tax, thereby blocking the market’s necessary recovery. Brady warned of far-reaching consequences for tourism, jobs, and Germany’s connectivity to international hubs.

He announced that, if the air travel tax were abolished, Ryanair would invest $3 billion in Germany and create 1,000 new jobs. Passenger numbers could rise to 34 million annually. If high costs and access barriers remain, growth would have to shift to other European markets such as Sweden, Hungary, and Italy.

Ryanair’s message is clear: without tangible relief, more firms will pack up—impacting Germany’s economic standing and jobs in the sector. Since 2019, the number of civil aircraft stationed in Germany has dropped from 190 to 130, resulting in the loss of roughly 10,000 jobs and an annual economic output loss of over €4 billion.

Politics Remain Silent

For now, policymakers remain quiet. Only Christoph Ploß (CDU), federal tourism coordinator, responded vaguely, announcing plans to reduce the air travel tax.

Yet the 2026 federal budget contains no concrete relief measures.

The sector remains politically unsupported and out in the rain.

Germany’s Solo Flight into Isolation

Regulations hit domestic flights hardest—reflecting an ideological stance against individual mobility and aviation. Up to 35% of ticket prices now go to government charges. These include the air travel tax, which rose 25% in 2024 and accounts for roughly 10–12% of total ticket cost, plus CO₂ levies, airport usage, and flight safety fees adding another 10–15%. Airport and air traffic control fees account for 8–10%.

In a European comparison, German fees are well above those at competing locations. In Poland and Italy, for example, fiscal levies on tickets range from 10–15%. This difference is crucial in a highly competitive market. As long as the EU Commission does not implement unified regulations, location competition will persist. The looming flight of carriers to neighboring countries increases pressure on the finance minister to ease taxes. Given the tight fiscal situation, whether this is feasible remains questionable.

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About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Via InternationalMan.com,

International Man: Recently, we’ve seen the “Yellow Peril” escalate across media and politics. What’s your take on the sentiment towards China?

Doug Casey: There’s always been a fear of China, perhaps starting with the immigration of laborers to California in the 1860s, then Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels. It’s logical enough. China has always seemed alien to Americans—their language, their script, their clothing style, and their congregating together in Chinatowns. They were painted as inscrutable and devious. Mao’s Communist ideology and the Korean War, which was really a war between the U.S. and China, certainly didn’t help.

Now China’s newfound prosperity is seen as a threat. China, however, isn’t the problem; it’s the U.S. government’s attitude towards China, combined with visible U.S. decline, while China is advancing rapidly on every front. So, the U.S. Government is trying to suppress China and throw up roadblocks to its progress with sanctions and tariffs, while denying it imports and trying to pen it up militarily. As with Russia, the U.S. is provoking them on many fronts.

However, the current U.S. policy is not only doomed to failure, but is actively counterproductive.

International Man: Is China truly an existential threat to the U.S., economically, militarily, or ideologically, or is it just a manufactured enemy?

Doug Casey: China’s huge, with 1.3 billion people. And over the last 40 years, it has advanced from a poverty-stricken, even primitive, country to a very prosperous one. They’ve risen from nowhere to the top rung economically, scientifically, and militarily.

Why? Because Deng Xiaoping radically altered their economic system in 1980, by dumping communism for capitalism, while maintaining the charade that China was still Communist. Although it’s still called Communist China, the country is totally different from what it was in the days of Mao. It’s no longer communist. It’s simply an authoritarian country—not so different from most others in the world at this point. The Communist Party is nothing but a control mechanism, essentially a scam inuring to the sole benefit of its members.

Communism is an economic system where the State owns and controls everything. China is actually a model of state capitalism, also known as fascism, a marriage of the State and corporate interests. The fact is that (this will come as a shock to many) China is more free-market-oriented than most of the world’s countries. That’s certainly true of Europe these days. In fact, the Europeans are even talking about imitating China’s more regressive policies.

Will China keep growing at the rate they have been? It’s possible, but unlikely. For one thing, their government is retreating from the near laissez-faire policies that made them prosperous. For another, the huge savings of the average Chinese have been malinvested by their banks due to political pressures, with potentially catastrophic consequences. For another, their culture appears to have become less hard-working, softer, and more corrupt.

Are they a military threat? They’re approaching parity now, and at the rate they’re accelerating, they could be way ahead in a decade. But that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily a threat. That’s because the days of invading other nations to steal the gold, the artwork, and enslave the population are long gone. That’s apart from the fact that we don’t know what the nature of the next war will be. In other words, it’s foolish of Trump to bankrupt the U.S. on speculative military spending, while provoking the Chinese.

Do they want to start a nuclear war with the U.S.? No, they have nothing to gain from that. Can they invade the U.S.? No, that’s almost impossible to do. The U.S., not China, is the problem. It can see China rising rapidly while it’s declining, and may decide to strike while it still has the balance of power. The U.S. may use the internecine dispute between Beijing and Taipei, which is none of our business, as an excuse for starting a war.

The U.S. government is increasingly bankrupt. War power is built on economic power, and the U.S. government is not only bankrupt but becoming more so with Trump’s 20% increase in military spending. Meanwhile, it’s falling behind China in science and technology, which, like the military, depends on economic strength. I’m afraid the U.S. is like Wylie Coyote, who thinks he’s on firm ground chasing a Chinese Roadrunner, while he’s walking on air.

China is a non-threat. The problem is the U.S. itself; it’s collapsing from within and blaming China for its own problems.

International Man: During the previous Trump presidency, Democrats painted Russia as an omnipresent threat, almost cartoonishly so. Are Republicans now doing the same with China—and if so, why do both parties need an external boogeyman?

Doug Casey: Yes. After Russia, China is the Devil of the Month. Iran, Mexico, India, and maybe Turkey can join the party as needed. It’s starting to look like the U.S. against the rest of the world. It’s not just Trump, with his unpredictable whims and schizophrenic policy decisions. It’s the lack of any moral core in the U.S., which no longer stands for any principles. The U.S. Government is like a rickety, overly complex Rube Goldberg machine. The Deep Staters who control it want to cannibalize its parts as the thing comes unglued.

This is the nature of the State as an entity. The State, government, doesn’t create anything and never has. Its main activity throughout history has been war and conquest. It’s quite correct to say that war is the health of the State.

The kind of people who are drawn to government aren’t noble altruists. They’re mainly interested in building their personal wealth and power. And since the State is their playpen, they naturally want to make it a bigger playpen.

Both the Republican and the Democratic parties are equally guilty, and there’s no longer much difference between them.

What’s true of both parties is that, barring the senility of a Joe or dissipation on the scale of a Hunter, their leaders all become incredibly rich. The Clintons are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The Obamas are probably worth $100 million. And their minions get even richer on government spending, as do well-positioned foreigners like Zelensky, who’s gone from being a second-rate actor to being a billionaire. As he has his sycophants.

International Man: What’s really going on behind this aggressive posture toward China? Is it trade, currency, tech dominance, or perhaps something deeper—like fear of a multipolar world?

Doug Casey: You might recall that Japan was the bogeyman before China. In the 80s, it seemed like they were going to take over the world. Now, China is being promoted as a dangerous threat. The fact is that they produce loads of consumer goods cheaper and better than in the U.S. The solution is not to bash China, but to free American entrepreneurs the way Deng freed Chinese entrepreneurs.

I don’t see them as a threat. I’d like to see the whole world be as prosperous as China. Will the Chinese currency, the yuan, replace the U.S. dollar? Unlikely. What’s certain is that the dollar is dying. Again, the problem isn’t the Chinese. The dollar needs to be replaced because it’s being inflated out of existence. The dollar, not soybeans or aircraft, is our major export these days. Of course, everyone wants to dump it. Instead of solving the problem, Trump prefers to threaten anybody who wants to dump dollars.

International Man: You’ve spoken about the collapse of empires and the cycles of history. Where are we now, and what role does the China narrative play in the story of America’s decline?

Doug Casey: The best way to avoid what’s known as “the fate of empires” is simply not to become an empire. That’s the real problem. The U.S. has turned from a country whose population was cohesive because they shared principles and traditions, into a multicultural domestic empire. And it’s an international empire too, with approximately 800 military bases in over 100 countries around the world. The U.S. has changed from a loosely governed middle-class republic into an empire with an ever more powerful executive.

And despite what passes for military power, with its gold-plated weapons and 800 bases, the U.S. really doesn’t have any allies. It only has parasitic client states.

None of this is China’s fault. But since the U.S. has become a danger to the rest of the world, you can expect other countries to take advantage of its problems.

Other countries still fear the U.S., but they no longer respect it.

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