Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Internal Revenue Service has announced interest rates for tax underpayments and overpayments for the fourth quarter of 2026, keeping them at 7 percent for individual taxpayers.

When taxpayers do not pay taxes, penalties, and other charges on time, the IRS charges interest on the underpayment. Conversely, when taxpayers pay more tax than they actually owe, the agency pays interest on the overpayment. Those rates are determined quarterly. The 7 percent rate for overpayments and underpayments takes effect Oct. 1, according to the IRS.

For corporations, the overpayment rate is 6 percent, while the rate on the portion of a corporate overpayment exceeding $10,000 is 4.5 percent. The underpayment rate is 7 percent, the same as for individual taxpayers, while large corporate underpayments carry a 9 percent rate. All of the rates are unchanged from the third quarter.

According to an April 26 IRS update cited by The Epoch Times, interest on underpayments begins accruing on the due date of the amount owed and continues until the balance is paid in full.

Interest on overpayments is calculated based on factors including the tax filing due date, payment dates, and when the IRS receives a return in a format it can process.

Taxpayers can file claims if they believe the amount of overpayment interest they received was insufficient.

The rates were announced based on the federal short-term rate for July, which was determined to be 4 percent.

For taxpayers other than corporations, the overpayment and underpayment rates are calculated by adding 3 percentage points to the federal short-term rate.

For corporations, the underpayment rate is the federal short-term rate plus 3 percentage points. The corporate overpayment rate adds 2 percentage points, except for the portion of an overpayment exceeding $10,000, for which only 0.5 percentage point is added.

Penalty Relief

The IRS has also introduced a new automatic penalty relief process for taxpayers, known as the Automatic Exemption from Penalty, or AEP.

The program is available to eligible taxpayers who filed and paid their taxes on time during the previous three years, or during 12 consecutive quarters for quarterly filers. Those who qualify automatically receive relief from common penalties including failure to file, failure to pay, and failure to deposit.

When the IRS applies AEP to an eligible tax return, the taxpayer receives a notice confirming that the relief was granted.

Taxpayers who do not qualify for AEP can still seek penalty relief on the basis of reasonable cause, which the agency considers case by case.

In a July 8 statement, the IRS said it would begin phasing out the long-standing First Time Abate, or FTA, relief system in favor of AEP during the summer. Under FTA, taxpayers had to contact the agency before the IRS reviewed their account to determine whether they qualified. AEP makes that process automatic for eligible taxpayers.

During the transition, some taxpayers who qualify for AEP may still receive penalty notices involving 2025 or 2026 returns. In those cases, the IRS says taxpayers can contact the agency and request FTA relief.

IRS CEO Frank J. Bisignano said the automatic exemption reflects the agency’s effort to make payment of taxes owed simpler and more consistent.

He added that taxpayers with a history of paying on time should not have to formally request relief that would routinely be granted.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Florida is doing what no blue-state classroom dares: forcing students to confront the actual body count of communism instead of romanticizing it.

Starting this fall, every public school student from sixth grade onward will receive mandatory instruction on the history and evils of communism under standards signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The curriculum covers the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communist Revolution, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and the recent capture of Nicolás Maduro.

? BREAKING: Florida students are being REQUIRED this Fall to learn about the evils of Communism under a law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis

BASED ????

“Starting in 6th grade, they will touch [on] the dangers of the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communist Revolution, North Korea, Cuba… pic.twitter.com/LcqfyOhrzU

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 21, 2026

It details the mass deaths under Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Castro, the failure of collectivism, and the superiority of free enterprise and private property.

?? COMMUNISM — This fall, Florida will make it MANDATORY for every middle and high school student to take a yearly class on the history and evils of communism.

The curriculum, developed, covers the mass deaths under Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Castro, the failure of… pic.twitter.com/YlgSzPxk5K

— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) August 21, 2026

Education leaders have been blunt: too many young Americans romanticize socialism because they were never taught its real-world toll.

The requirement builds on Florida’s existing Victims of Communism Day, which already mandated at least 45 minutes of annual instruction on those same regimes.

The fuller standards, approved by the State Board of Education in November 2025 and updated this year to include Maduro’s autocratic rule and subsequent fall, take effect for the 2026-2027 school year.

DeSantis has been consistent. “The truth will set us free,” he said when signing the underlying bill, adding “We will not allow our students to live in ignorance, nor be indoctrinated by Communist apologists in schools.”

“To the contrary, we will ensure students in Florida are taught the truth about the evils and dangers of Communism,” DeSantis further urged.

In a more recent post he added, “The DSA may try to make Castro out to be a HERO – but FLORIDA students know better!”

Former Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas put it this way when the standards were adopted: “With the resurgence of communist ideologies across the United States and throughout the world, it is more important than ever for students to understand the catastrophic failures and human suffering caused by communist regimes.”

The standards themselves ensure students learn “the truth about how communist regimes suppress freedoms, abuse power, and inflict widespread suffering.”

Instruction begins in middle school and continues through high school. Students will examine domestic communist movements and their tactics in the United States, the economic and political conditions that preceded communist takeovers, the spread of Cuban-style communism through Latin America, and direct comparisons between communism, totalitarianism, and the founding principles of American freedom and democracy.

The capture of Maduro has been folded in so the lessons stay current.

Florida’s large exile communities from Cuba and Venezuela already know the difference between slogans and reality. The state is simply making sure every student gets the same clarity before they reach campuses where those slogans still circulate.

While Florida insists on historical accuracy, other jurisdictions continue to push mandatory ideological content in the opposite direction.

In Texas, public school students from Humble ISD’s Kingwood and Atascocita high schools were recently bused to an Islamic center so they could “experience Islam.”

The trip included observation of midday prayer, a presentation by a CAIR representative, and promotional claims that students left “changed.” No equivalent taxpayer-funded field trips to churches or synagogues appear to have been organized.

At UCLA medical school, first-year students have been required to take a course on structural racism and health equity that includes mandatory reading promoting “fat positivity.”

One assigned essay argues that the term “obesity” is a slur used to exact violence on fat people and frames weight loss as essentially hopeless. Former Harvard Medical School dean Jeffrey Flier called the material “extensive and dangerous misinformation” and “pedagogical malpractice.”

At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a required first-year education course for future teachers leaked PowerPoint materials that prioritize leftist framing of immigration, race, and gender over basic classroom skills.

Slides instruct students to reject the term “illegal immigrants,” emphasize “humanizing language,” and treat resistance to ICE as a professional duty. A whistleblower noted the near-total absence of practical instruction on how to teach math or reading.

In Washington state’s Olympia School District, officials refused parental requests to opt students out of Pride-themed lessons, declaring that such opt-outs would be “offensive and demeaning.”

Non-participation was treated as an unexcused absence. The lessons form part of a broader gender-inclusive curriculum tied to state standards.

California has gone further. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation requiring student ID cards in middle schools, high schools, and colleges to carry the Trevor Project’s LGBTQ crisis hotline.

The organization has faced criticism for its approach to gender issues and parental notification. Newsom framed the mandate as a direct response to federal policy changes under the Trump administration.

In Maryland’s Montgomery County, LGBTQ-inclusive books were made mandatory reading in the English language arts curriculum with no parental opt-out and no advance notice required for most of the materials. Parents and even local Muslim organizations objected that the policy violated parental rights.

And in Kansas, sixth-graders at Marshall Elementary School in Eureka were told they could not name Charlie Kirk, President Trump, or Jesus Christ as role models in a “Find Your Voice” assignment.

The guidance counselor reportedly became angry when those names were suggested and excluded political and religious figures entirely. The American Center for Law & Justice has filed a civil rights complaint.

These examples reflect a pattern in which certain ideological frameworks are treated as non-negotiable while the documented human costs of 20th-century communism are often soft-pedaled or ignored.

Florida has chosen the opposite path: require the history, include the body count, and let students judge the results for themselves.

The new standards do not claim communism is the only source of historical evil. They simply refuse to leave students unequipped when they encounter professors or activists who still treat failed experiments as moral inspiration.

In a state that absorbed hundreds of thousands of people who fled those experiments, the choice is neither surprising nor complicated.

Florida students will now learn, as a matter of required curriculum, what the rest of the country too often prefers to forget.

The DSA can keep trying to rehabilitate Castro. The classrooms in the Sunshine State will keep teaching the opposite.

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.

Tehran has on Saturday further addressed the new Trump-Bessent plan of long-term economic ‘strangulation’ and isolation, which in the US Treasury Secretary’s words seeks to “collapse” the Iranian government with the “toughest sanctions in history.” This of course means that Washington will have to at the same time pressure other nations that do business with Tehran to immediately cease, which could prove a tall order – given already China and Russia are clearly not going to comply.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, said the new sanctions initiative amounts to a “declaration of war” on all countries and goes beyond “an illegal economic war against a single nation.“

Baghaei said: “The announcement of new sanctions represents an attempt by the United States to exert extraterritorial sovereignty over all independent UN member states.”

“No government has the right to force foreign banks, enterprises, or airports, each operating under the exclusive jurisdiction of their own sovereignty, to refrain from engaging in legitimate trade with a third country,” he continued, according to Fars news agency.

The ministery added that “such secondary sanctions have no basis in international law” and “violated the fundamental principle of sovereign equality enshrined in Article 2, Paragraph 1 of the UN Charter.”

Baghaei previewed and warned that a surrender to “such intimidation would lead to the total erosion of national sovereignty” and serve as “a catastrophic return to blatant, full-scale colonialism.“

This is clearly an attempt to put other countries on notice, urging them not to play Washington’s game. The appeal might gain a sympathetic ear especially in BRICS and Global South countries.

The statement was issued on the heels of Iran’s military days ago giving a more direct warning and threat to America’s regional Gulf allies. On Wednesday Ali Abdollahi, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, announced that “any assistance or facilitation provided to the aggressor US military amounts to participation in the US military operation.“

“It seems unlikely that such a large number of military aircraft, particularly refuelling aircraft, could be present at regional bases without knowledge of host countries,” said Abdollahi. 

All of this is a mirror response to Bessent’s Bush-style “you’re either with us or against us” rhetoric.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and top negotiator, has issued some fresh words of his own. He claimed Tehran has received “numerous messages” related to new security and economic arrangements in the region as a result of US-Israeli aggression.

“The United States put the security of every single one of its allies at such risk through bullying and pure disregard for their interests for the sake of Israel that they briefly saw their entire existence on the line,” Ghalibaf stated on X.

“A homegrown, independent order is what will actually deliver peace and security,” he added. Iran has for months said that various countries are seeking to strike their own separate arrangements for vessel passage through the Strait of Hormuz, something which if true gives the Islamic Republic further leverage. But the White House has been seeking to counter this narrative by feeding reports to Axios…

There are essentially two ways to interpret the administration’s claims about the volume of oil now moving through the Strait of Hormuz.

The first is that Washington is significantly overstating the numbers in an effort to calm energy markets, push oil prices down, and… https://t.co/RJKJyER3nt

— Danny (Dennis) Citrinowicz ,داني سيترينوفيتش (@citrinowicz) August 22, 2026

At the moment, Axios is claiming that millions of barrels of oil are still transiting via a ‘stealth’ corridor ensured by the US Navy, but there are many expressing skepticism over this. The past days have actually seen no new attacks on foreign vessels in the strait, as the plot thickens over competing narratives (given the Iranians have dismissed the Axios reporting as fabrications).

Authored by Kent Ingle via RealClearEducation,

Rather than fearing generative tools or treating them as mere compliance threats, higher education must train students to master AI as an exponential multiplier for innovation, career success, and national prosperity. Generative artificial intelligence is vastly more prevalent, sophisticated, and accessible today than it was even six months ago.

Today’s incoming students arrive on campus with the collective knowledge of human history sitting directly in their pockets.

They are navigating a digital landscape that is fundamentally rewriting how information is processed, analyzed, and created. Predictably, administrators across the country are responding with panic. Elite institutions are rushing to expand their rulebooks, update honor codes, and purchase unreliable detection software in a futile attempt to police the classroom.

This reactionary mindset misses the entire point. When higher education views artificial intelligence primarily as a cheating hazard, it defaults to censorship and control. But when we approach technology through the lens of human potential and future readiness, our entire perspective transforms. We should be asking how to train our students to master it responsibly from the ground up.

Attempting to ban these platforms is like trying to ban the calculator in a modern engineering department. Whether we choose to embrace it or not, generative software is now a permanent fixture of the global economy. In fact, it is currently the number one most marketable skill for people looking for new jobs out of college. Recent labor market data reveals that demand for artificial intelligence competency in entry-level roles has nearly tripled in less than a year, extending far beyond traditional technology companies into marketing, operations, human resources, and finance. To compete in a rapidly evolving market, the next generation cannot simply be passive consumers of technology. They must be fluent directors of it.

When leveraged properly, artificial intelligence becomes an exponential work and impact multiplier. It streamlines complex research, accelerates problem-solving, and synthesizes massive datasets in seconds. A properly equipped student learns to direct artificial intelligence as a powerful research assistant while maintaining total ownership over the final outcome. We must teach our young adults the difference between outsourcing their intellect and augmenting their capabilities.

Using artificial intelligence to skip the hard work of learning is a misuse of human potential. But using these platforms to elevate our thinking, automate routine labor, and tackle grand challenges is the exact formula for lifelong success and prosperity. This is not just about individual career placement. It is about national survival. Artificial intelligence is currently the fastest-growing economic sector in our country. It is catalyzing a trillion-dollar infrastructure buildout that is reaching all fifty states, revitalizing communities, and creating unprecedented opportunities across every sector. If American industry is going to maintain its leadership on the global stage, our workforce requires graduates who understand how to harness these tools to innovate at breakneck speeds. If we are going to continue to lead on the global industrial stage, we need more students ready to embrace AI, not less.

Censoring students from trying to cheat does not protect academic integrity. It simply leaves our graduates woefully unprepared for the economic realities of tomorrow. Relying on software for baseline tasks means that the value of genuine critical thinking and strategic foresight is actually higher than ever. Employers are actively seeking out graduates who possess the discernment to evaluate machine-generated outputs, spot inaccuracies, and apply human judgment to elevate mediocre drafts into exceptional final products.

Our duty as educational leaders is to prepare students for a life of success, prosperity, and leadership in a highly competitive world. We completely fail in that core mission if we allow administrative fear to prevent us from teaching digital mastery. Instead of building higher digital walls, universities must build stronger practical foundations. We must teach students that true excellence lies in combining technological fluency with unshakeable personal integrity. We must show them exactly how to prompt, evaluate, refine, and deploy these tools ethically so that they enter their careers equipped to perform.

Artificial intelligence is driving the fastest economic transformation of our lifetime, and it is the key to America’s future competitive edge. The universities that thrive in this new era will not be the ones that tried to ban the future. They will be the ones that trained their students to lead it. As a new academic year begins, we owe it to the next generation to step forward with vision and confidence, equipping them to master this technology and secure the ongoing prosperity of American industry.

As regular readers know, establishment Democrats have been freaking out over the rise of socialist candidates – whose policy positions are virtually identical, except the socialists are getting elected saying the quiet part out loud – giving the game away. 

On Tuesday, Democratic Socialist Angie Nixon beat Russiagate hero Alexander Vindman in a shocking double-digit primary win in Florida – setting the stage for Nixon to square off with Republican Sen. Ashley Moody in November. The battle to unseat Moody was always going to be uphill – and now the state’s Democratic party is freaking out.

According to Axios, Nixon and the state party’s chair – Nikki Fried, got into a heated shouting match over the phone – with Fried reportedly warning Nixon that her DSA ties give the GOP an easy angle to attack going into midterms. 

“Nikki wants her to back away from DSA, from socialism,” one person who spoke with Nixon told the outlet. “She’s listening to other people saying that they’re afraid, they’re scared – the Jewish members and the Hispanic caucus. But to Angie, Nikki doesn’t want Angie to be who Angie is. Angie has already done the backing-away.”

On the call, Nixon told Fried, “You never gave a care about me from the beginning, and now you’re telling me how to run my campaign?” according to the source. -Axios

An official with the Florida Democratic Party disputed that Fried yelled at Nixon – insisting that the state party tried to contact Nixon’s team multiple times about a coordinated campaign – but that their calls weren’t returned. That said, Nixon’s field team did participate in a call with the party’s coordinated campaign last week. 

“The DSA label could create an opening for misinformation and allow Angie’s opponents to define her in ways that don’t reflect her actual record or positions, rather than letting voters hear directly from Angie about what she believes and what she’s running on,” said the source. 

A second source told Axios that not only was the feud a clash of ideology – but “also a clash of personalities.” 

“Nikki needs to be careful,” said the source. “She can’t afford to be seen by black voters disrespecting a black woman.”

Another Florida Democratic official told the outlet that Nixon an Fried have always hated each other, and that Fried “was very disappointed that Angie won. She made that pretty well known.”

More via Axios:

• Before the election, the source said, Fried was predicting Nixon would lose and was “calling around telling people, ‘Hey, can you make sure when he wins that Angie is nice and welcoming and does all the things to bring everybody together?'”
• “I know Nikki doesn’t like it, but Angie is the engine right now. Angie is the national story, and Nikki just can’t stand it.”
• One of the Florida Democratic Party sources said that the organization did not favor Vindman over Nixon and was neutral in the primary.

Fried’s freakout is just the latest example of establishment dems pushing back against the DSA. That said, Nixon was a recent ‘convert’ to the party, and according to the report – she was trying to distance herself from various DSA positions. She says she doesn’t back abolishing prisons, just for-profit ones, she doesn’t support open borders, and she doesn’t want to defund the police (or so she says). 

Summary: 

• National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Slams Trump Admin
• Trump To Flood US With 300,000 Tons Of Tariff-Free Ground Beef To Tame Prices Ahead Of Midterms

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Slams Trump Admin

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) responded to President Trump’s move to import 300,000 tons of tariff-free ground beef to stabilize prices ahead of the midterms in a series of posts on X.

NCBA, the largest national trade and lobbying organization representing US cattle producers and broader beef-industry interests, was not pleased with the new Trump policy.

“Undercutting American farmers and ranchers with inferior products from foreign competitors does nothing to create market confidence or encourage rebuilding the herd,” the group wrote.

No cow-calf producer in America is asking for increased imports. Undercutting American farmers and ranchers with inferior product from foreign competitors does nothing to create market confidence or encourage rebuilding the herd. pic.twitter.com/8aLZXuUfxj

— National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (@BeefUSA) August 21, 2026

NCBA raised several additional objections:

1. Incentivizing additional foreign imports undermines America’s producers at a critical time as they make decisions about rebuilding numbers for next year. U.S. farmers and ranchers need stability.

2. Unlike spur-of-the-moment trading decisions made based on White House social media posts, the decisions and investments ranchers make in their herds are made YEARS in advance, not days or weeks.

3. The Trump Administration’s repeated whiplash on trade policy and beef imports has real impacts on cattle producers in rural America. USDA created and promoted a stronger “Product of the USA” label, only to abandon it and decide that MCOOL was the only option.

4. Today’s announcement is not about helping producers. It’s not about putting their finger on the scale for one cattle industry group or another. It is 100% about the 74 days between now and the midterm elections.

Trump To Flood US With 300,000 Tons Of Tariff-Free Ground Beef To Tame Prices Ahead Of Midterms

With 74 days remaining until the midterm elections and average retail ground-beef prices hovering near $7 per pound, President Trump said in a Truth Social post Friday morning that his administration will temporarily waive certain tariffs on ground-beef imports. The move follows our Monday report highlighting signs that consumers are balking at record beef prices, with demand destruction beginning to surface against a backdrop of household stress, including Walmart sales that missed estimates and dismal July retail-sales data.

“Today, I concluded a deal to substantially lower the price of ground beef for working American families. As everyone knows, under President Biden, beef prices soared at their fastest rate and the American beef herd fell to its smallest size in modern history,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump continued, “As we work to rebuild this herd and help our ranchers, for the next 90 days, the United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to be imported with no out-of-quota tariff.”

He concluded, “We have a commitment that this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices. This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again.“

The temporary import waiver appears intended to address affordability concerns in supermarket aisles ahead of the midterm elections.

Because the relief is temporary, the longer-term supply backdrop remains challenging. Bank of America analysts recently cited Oklahoma State University agricultural economist Derrell Peel, who warned that the US cattle cycle is unlikely to improve anytime soon and that beef prices are poised to remain elevated through at least next year.

Data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that the national average price of ground beef in supermarkets is hovering just below $7 per pound, a record high, as a prolonged cattle shortage shows no signs of abating anytime soon.

New data from Chicago-based market research company Circana, first published by Bloomberg on Monday, show that beef sales volumes declined .3% during the 13 weeks through mid-July. Volumes had risen about 5% during the same period in each of the previous two years. The decline is notable because it occurred during the peak grilling season around Memorial Day and July Fourth. Translation: demand destruction.

Read:

• When Will The Cattle Cycle Turn? BofA Has Answers For Beef Lovers

With the cattle cycle likely to take several years to rebound properly, we recently outlined the one overlooked protein that is far cheaper than beef (read here).

Authored via Stacy Robinson via The Epoch Times,

A Texas appeals court on Aug. 21 drastically reduced a judgment owed by Infowars host Alex Jones, shrinking the amount from $50 million to around $6 million, over his commentary falsely calling the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut a hoax.

Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems LLC, appealed the multimillion-dollar settlement after a jury in 2022 found him liable for “defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress” after the shooting in which 20 children and 6 faculty were killed.

The Texas Court of Appeals for the Third District denied many points of Jones’ appeal, and did not reverse a previous $4.2 million judgment for one of the plaintiffs.

But it did side with his argument that Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose 6-year-old son, Jesse, died in the attack, should not have been allowed to alter their lawsuit after the jury verdict in order to seek more damages.

The parents had amended their suit to say the hoax claims caused them to be “disabled” by “severe emotional disturbance.” That meant Jones would be liable for “injury to a disabled person,” and the normal $750,000 cap would not apply.

“Concluding that the trial court erred by allowing the parents to amend their pleadings after the trial, we will modify the judgment by limiting their exemplary damages awards to a total of $750,000” per parent, Chief Justice Darlene Byrne wrote in the three-judge panel’s unanimous decision.

The panel said a trial court “abuses its discretion” when it allows plaintiffs to amend their claims after a jury verdict, because then the defendant “could not anticipate or defend against the pleading.”

Jones called the decision a “massive victory for the First Amendment” in an Aug. 21 post on X. His legal team intended to take the case to the Texas Supreme Court to reclaim the rest of the judgment, the post also said.

The parents were part of a group that brought multiple suits against Jones based on statements he made after the event.

The court summarized the parents’ accusation against Jones: They alleged he said that “Sandy Hook parents were participating in a sinister manipulation plan to fool the public or that a shadowy cabal of elites pre-planned the murder of their children and controlled the coverage of the event through the media manipulation.”

Parents testified that they were harassed and received death and rape threats as a result of his statements.

Mark Bankston, who represented Lewis and Heslin in Texas, said that the ruling doesn’t make a big difference in the case.

“The families care not at all about this irrelevant ruling which affects only two of the 19 claims they all share. Jones still faces over a billion dollars of liability, so this changes absolutely nothing. All it does is highlight the absurdity of Texas law,” Bankston said in a statement.

Last October, the U.S. Supreme Court also rejected an appeal by Jones to overturn a separate $1.4 billion judgment against him. He filed for bankruptcy in 2022, and satire news outlet The Onion has purchased Infowars.

US-Canada trade negotiations collapsed at the 11th hour, just before the midnight deadline, triggering 50% tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods (under a never-before- used Section 338 provision of the Tariff Act of 1930) and prompting globalist-aligned, China-sympathizing Prime Minister Mark Carney to promise an equivalent response.

“Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week,” the United States Trade Representative wrote on X early Saturday morning.

The USTR continued:

Despite the U.S. offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market, new demands and walk-backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days. In addition, Canada is continuing to maintain its prolonged retaliation against the United States, including, among other things, flat-out prohibitions on certain American goods and services.

For decades, Canada has enjoyed the most favorable access to the U.S. market of any country. And from the beginning of President Trump’s trade program, Canada has continued to enjoy the best treatment in the world, even after, like China, retaliating against the United States. This week, the United States agreed to provide even better treatment to Canada, offering significant tariff reductions on steel, aluminum, autos, and lumber.

The U.S. offer was also forward-looking and included a historic economic and national security partnership to cooperate on export controls, combat transshipment, enhance digital trade, and align certain external tariffs. The offer would have led to supply-chain coordination on aerospace, complementary actions to address unfair trade practices, critical-minerals cooperation, increased enforcement against imports produced with forced labor, and the announcement of formal U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) negotiations.

This is a missed opportunity for Canada to partner with the United States, which is the fastest-growing economy in the G7.

Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week.

Despite the U.S. offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market, new demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful…

— United States Trade Representative (@USTradeRep) August 22, 2026

Canada responds:

The deal has collapsed. The tariffs commence in moments. The relationship has dissolved. A Trade War is Afoot.

I’ve been telling my followers for years the divide between the USA and Canada was too great to fix without massive concessions by Canada. Well, here you go. THE… https://t.co/yiNSLJENbG

— TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) August 22, 2026

Carney, the former governor of both the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, as well as the former chairman of Brookfield Asset Management, which has an estimated $23 billion in China-linked assets (as of 2021), blamed Washington for the breakdown in trade negotiations. He pledged to match the new US tariffs “dollar for dollar” to protect Canadian workers and businesses.

But Carney’s commitment to deeper North American economic integration warrants close scrutiny, given Brookfield’s substantial commercial exposure to China.

Read:

• Brookfield’s Deep Ties To Chinese Land, Loans & Green Deals

Carney’s previous and questionable business links to Beijing were brought into focus earlier this year following a visit to China, when he noted how much the world had changed since the last visit by a Canadian prime minister a decade earlier and suggested that renewed progress and partnership with China positioned both countries for the emerging “new world order.” Translation: Carney’s allegiance might be with the West but, instead, to the East.

Canada’s Mark Carney to China: Our ‘Progress’ and ‘Partnership’ Perfectly Position Us for the NEW WORLD ORDERpic.twitter.com/0BcPrsEmaJ

— TaraBull (@TaraBull) January 15, 2026

Carney’s decision to suspend negotiations and pursue a tit-for-tat trade conflict with the Trump administration will inevitably fuel questions about Ottawa’s move toward a prolonged tariff battle that would raise costs for American businesses and consumers at a politically sensitive moment, potentially creating another economic headwind for Trump ahead of the US midterm elections.

Carney suspended trade talks to influence the U.S. midterm elections. Carney takes his marching orders from the DNC. He’s betting the entire farm on the Democrats taking control of Congress.

— Julian Assange (@ImJulianAssange) August 22, 2026

The proposed US-Canada trade deal would have reduced US tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 25%, lowered automotive duties to 15%, and eliminated a 10% levy on lumber. It also included cooperation on export controls and digital trade, as well as formal negotiations to renew the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Refined-product markets have emerged as the epicenter of the global energy crisis, with commodity desks across Wall Street, including Goldman, Citi, Bank of America and Jefferies, warning that disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and Ukraine’s ongoing long-range drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure are converging into a perfect storm for global fuel supplies.

As we close out this week, Monday marked a historic milestone, with Bloomberg’s front-month US diesel crack spread (HOCL1 Index) topping $100 per barrel for the first time as the diesel shortage intensified and the spread landed on everyone’s radar.

Four days before the HOCL1 Index breached the $100 mark, we cited notable Wall Street commodity desks that warned about the “perfect storm” brewing in refining markets:

• Diesel Crack Spread Explodes To Record As Wall Street Warns Of Refined-Products “Perfect Storm”

Then, early Monday morning, we reported:

• “Absolutely Unprecedented”: Diesel Crack Spread Hits Record As Refined-Products Crisis Arrives

By late evening, our X post on the HOCL1 Index had gone absolutely viral because a reading above $100 is not only unprecedented, but also suggests, as we noted, that the “industrial economy either grinds to a halt or consumers are about to be hit with the biggest energy pass-through in history.”

Diesel crack hits record $102. This is absolutely unprecedented.

Industrial economy either grinds to a halt or consumers about to be hit with the biggest energy pass through in history pic.twitter.com/OtAdgrCvb3

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 17, 2026

Then, by Wednesday, Jeff Currie, the former Goldman Sachs commodities chief and now co-chair of Abaxx Markets, went on CNBC to explain, as we’ve warned, that the real crisis is not in crude, but in diesel markets.

“Nobody on the planet earth consumes crude oil,” Currie told CNBC. “Refineries do. Everyone else consumes gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, and those markets look considerably uglier.”

By Thursday, Currie explained that the convergence of tight physical markets, currency debasement and policy intervention represents the hallmark of a structural commodity bull cycle.

“Stop looking at crude. Nobody consumes it but refineries. The economy runs on gasoline and diesel, and that consumption-weighted basket costs $165 against $85 WTI,” Currie wrote on X. Read the report.

Certainly, all this attention on diesel crack spreads was enough to have many others on X discussing what the spread meant and its implications…

For more color on how Ukraine’s expanding drone campaign is achieving what years of Western sanctions failed to deliver to Washington and European elites, Jefferies analyst Lloyd Byrne spoke with Ronald Smith, a specialist in Russian oil and gas, to discuss the ongoing and worsening crisis in Russia’s refining and product markets.

“Repair downtime is often short, but consistent strikes have pressured throughput, leading to export product bans. Gasoline exports are unlikely to resume until ’27. The diesel ban could be lifted in Oct, but volumes will likely stay low, continuing to support cracks. Asked about paths forward, answers were few,” Byrne wrote in the note published Thursday.

Here are Byrne’s highlights from the conversation with Smith, which provide readers with a better understanding of Ukraine’s drone campaign against Russian energy assets as one of the factors, along with Hormuz disruptions, driving global refining markets into crisis:

Russian Refining Overview. Russia has nameplate refining capacity of ~6.7mmbpd (~6.5% of global capacity); however, throughput has historically been lower, at ~5.0-5.5mmbpd. In Aug ’26, throughput collapsed to ~4mmbpd amid ongoing Ukrainian drone strikes. In ’25, Russia produced ~0.95mmbpd of gasoline and ~1.7 mmbpd of diesel, but due to the Ukrainian attacks, Aug ’26 gasoline is down to ~0.65mmbpd and diesel to ~1mmbpd.

Ukraine Drone Campaign. In Jan ’24, Ukraine began launching sporadic strikes on Russian refineries, but attacks climbed from Aug to Sept-25 with ~3 refineries hit per week. Attacks dipped in 1Q26 (~1 pw), before intensifying to ~4 pw in May-Jul 26 and up to ~5 pw in Aug ’26, leading to a fuel crisis & export restrictions. Strikes have focused mainly on refineries near Ukraine (e.g., Syzran, Saratov, and Ryazan), but the attack on Omsk (2,675km) demonstrated both the expanding reach of Ukrainian drones and the vulnerability of Russia’s most sophisticated refinery. While some larger/select refineries have been consistently targeted (e.g., Ryazan & Ufa), other scale plants have been hit a only a few times, with little recognizable pattern.

Refinery Outages. The duration of downtime depends on the complexity of the unit hit and the availability of replacement materials, with no average downtime per strike. That said, ~50% of outages are

Russian Product & Crude Exports. In ’25, Russia was a net exporter of ~150mbpd of gasoline, ~850mbpd of diesel, and ~30mbpd of jet fuel, but through ’26 these have plunged amid persistent refinery outages. In April ’26, Russia banned gasoline exports and, in July ’26, diesel exports. In aggregate, Mr Smith estimates that Ukrainian drone strikes have removed ~1.1mmbpd of refined products from global mkts, mostly diesel (~750mbpd). Mr Smith asserts that gasoline exports are unlikely to resume until ’27, but the diesel export ban could be lifted post-harvest season (Oct), but with exports staying low. This depends on the pace of Ukraine’s drone campaign, the speed of Russia’s repairs, and Russian defensive effectiveness. With no global product exporter able to fully offset the lost exports, Russian outages will continue to put upward pressure on crack spreads.

Because of the lower refining capacity available, crude exports surged to ~8.9mmbpd in July ’26, but remain below OPEC+ quotas. Mr Smith suggests that Russia could be at physical crude export limits, and export capacity could be compromised by drone strikes.

Professional subscribers can read much more about crack spreads and the energy crisis on our new Marketdesk.ai portal. 

Authored by Adam Sharp via DailyReckoning.com,

The date is August 20th, 2032.

We’re nearing the end of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s first term as president.

The wave of naive optimism that swept her into power has faded. But the damage is done. With a majority in both the Senate and House, the Democrats made big moves.

First they eliminated the Senate filibuster. No more 60 votes needed to pass most legislation. Now a simple majority will do. The political equivalent of a nuclear first strike.

Then AOC’s coalition created two new states: Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. That’s 4 more Democratic Senators, and additional seats in the House.

The Supreme Court was quickly expanded from 9 to 13 justices. The number of justices has changed before, and there’s no hard and fast rule in the Constitution.

Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s last Constitutionalist, retired in 2028 due to health issues. So the highest court in the nation has 5 new neoliberal judges.

ICE was abolished almost immediately. Immigration, both legal and illegal, is out of control. Another 11 million illegals have entered, mostly from Latin America. And 4 million visa workers. Another 4 million refugees and “asylum seekers” from Africa and the Middle East.

All this immigration undercut American workers’ wages, drove up real estate prices, took over small towns, and drained social welfare programs.

Green cards are now granted to immigrants who have been in the country for 3 years, regardless of how they entered. Citizenship and voting rights after 6 years.

The Democrats quickly set themselves up for a permanent majority.

Fruits of the Revolution

The unemployment rate hit 18% this year, even with all the book-cooking. AI, outsourcing, and poor leadership have taken a toll.

The federal deficit hit $5.3 trillion. The stagflation which began in 2029 shows no signs of letting up.

Inflation is running at a 16% clip. A gallon of gas costs $11.34, and diesel is $15 if you can find it. A third of American oil refineries have been shuttered under new environmental regulations.

Anyone worth more than $1 million faces an annual wealth tax of 3%. Family businesses are sold at firesale prices. Wealthy Americans flee the country, taking their assets with them.

Power blackouts are common in big cities. No new generating plants have been built, and data centers continue to tax the grid. With copper trading at $30 a pound, thieves rip out cabling anywhere they can find it.

The Green New Scam reached new heights. Billions of dollars were handed out to politically-connected crooks to build high-speed rail, electric vehicles, and “carbon-free” energy. It’s a total writeoff.

Biden-era censorship on social media platforms returns.

‘Equality’

Households earning less than $80,000 per year now receive Universal Basic Income (UBI) of about $30,000 a year. Barely enough for a family to live on.

UBI was celebrated by the masses early on. But the lack of motivation to get up and work creates a pervasive malaise across the country. Tent cities sprout up like weeds. The scourge of drug addiction worsens.

DEI returns with a vengeance. All of President Trump’s executive orders were reversed in the first month of AOC’s term. Companies are punished harshly if they have too many white male executives. Diversity quotas are enforced with an iron fist.

Universal healthcare went live in 2030. If you thought the old system was bad, this is a nightmare. Patients often wait a year to see a specialist. Need a scan? Tough luck.

Healthcare fraud reaches new levels as criminals target an exploitable system.

It’s been a tough few years. Yet AOC is still on track to win a second term. Millions of new immigrant voters will be the deciding factor.

Back to the Present

I wrote this piece as a thought experiment, pondering what could happen if Dems sweep Congress and win the presidency in 2028.

Honestly, this scenario isn’t all that crazy. It could well happen.

The Republican party needs to get their act together, quickly.

Trump really needs to resolve the war with Iran before midterms. It’s incredibly unpopular with independents and the libertarian-leaning right. If he doesn’t, the chances of a socialist sweep rise significantly. And as I explained above, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Republicans should not let that happen. Make a deal with Iran and be done with it. Re-focus on the American people. If the war is ongoing and the Strait of Hormuz is still closed during midterms, it’s not going to go well for the GOP. It gives far too much firepower to the Dems.

If a socialist like AOC wins, it’s going to be bad news for all Americans, but especially business owners and investors. Our friend Jim Rickards recently wrote the following:

The rise of socialism inside the Democratic Party is an enormously important political story on its own. But it also has huge investment implications that could affect your portfolio.

Many democratic socialists favor higher taxes on wealthy households, expanded government healthcare and tuition programs and sweeping changes to policing, immigration and other institutions. Some prominent figures on the left have also supported “wealth taxes” — which would tax certain holdings of property, shares, bonds and other assets rather than merely income.

Jim nails it, per usual. Much is at stake. If someone like AOC wins, our country might not recover for decades. If not longer.