Rep. Steve Cohen Drops Reelection Bid After Tennessee Redistricting
On Friday Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee announced he is ending his bid for reelection to Congress, capping a nearly 20-year career in the U.S. House. The decision comes days after the Republican-controlled Tennessee legislature approved a new congressional map that dramatically reshapes – and effectively dismantles – his longtime majority-Black 9th District in Memphis.
Cohen, 76, described the moment as “by far the most difficult” in his career as an elected official. He formally requested removal from the ballot for the August primary and stated he would retire from public life at the end of his current term. “The 9th District that they have under these new lines is nothing like the 9th District that I’ve represented,” he said, noting that the redrawn district no longer resembles the community he has served since 2007.
Background on the Redistricting
Tennessee Republicans pushed through the new U.S. House map during a special session in early May 2026, following a recent Supreme Court ruling. The changes split the Memphis-based 9th District – long a Democratic stronghold with a majority African American population – across multiple Republican-leaning districts. Critics, including Democrats and civil rights advocates, called it gerrymandering aimed at diluting Black voting power and eliminating the state’s only Democratic congressional seat ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Cohen and others have filed lawsuits challenging the maps. A judge recently denied a temporary restraining order to block them. Cohen has described the process as a “gangster move” influenced by national Republican strategy under President Donald Trump.
Before redistricting, Cohen faced a competitive Democratic primary challenge from progressive state Rep. Justin Pearson. Pearson has indicated he will continue his campaign in the redrawn 9th District. Cohen’s Memphis residence now falls into the 5th District (currently held by Republican Rep. Andy Ogles), which some see as more competitive. Cohen has endorsed Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder, a Democrat running there.
With current events stirring up global energy prices, corn ethanol is again being dressed up as if it is a domestic energy source and agent of energy security. The truth is that corn ethanol is an energy sump, and that it takes more fossil fuel energy to make a gallon of corn ethanol than a gallon of gasoline. It is time to face this unpleasant truth and the other perverse outcomes achieved by twenty years of misguided policy.
In 2005 and 2007, Congress passed the Energy Policy and Energy Independence and Security Acts that together created the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. RFS had three stated objectives: to improve U.S. energy security, to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and to support rural economies and agricultural development. Instead, RFS has increased motor fuel prices, increased food prices, put millions of carbon-sequestering acres of land into intensive cultivation, increased GHG emissions and air pollution, and increased water consumption and pollution. As to energy security, the gallons of U.S. gasoline displaced by federal ethanol blending mandates are being exported to Mexico and other nations. The great success of RFS has been the hand of government transferring wealth from motorists to big ag corporations. It’s past time to stop the economic and chemical absurdity of forcing food to be fuel.
The government wanted biofuels bad, and it got them bad. Under Corn Belt lobbying pressure, Congress cynically waived the need for RFS to achieve actual GHG reductions for all existing corn ethanol biorefineries, plus all that could be built by the end of 2010. The bulk of the corn ethanol produced over the past 20 years and still today comes from these waivered plants. The EPA’s specious 2010 prediction that corn ethanol would achieve a 21% GHG reduction by 2022 was immediately challenged by the National Research Council for not properly counting land-use change and not realistically treating food competition and water use. This panel of experts from the National Academy of Sciences even questioned the viability of the entire concept of reducing GHG with biofuels. The most rigorous and honest estimate by a third party in testimony before Congress used the EPA’s own methodology to show that adding corn ethanol to gasoline has increased GHG emissions by 28% over the pure gasoline baseline with no trajectory to ever recover.
As to energy security, the goal was noble, but the method was irrational. Corn ethanol is critically dependent upon fossil fuels at every stage of production—tractor and truck fuel, fertilizer and pesticides, biorefinery energy and chemicals. Biofuels in general are just a way to put a green fig leaf on petroleum by inefficiently re-routing it through a farm field. While corn ethanol production has plateaued at 15-16 billion gallons for the past 10 years—not coincidentally matching the federal subsidy limit—domestic crude oil production has skyrocketed due to technological innovations that have opened up vast new geological formations to economic production. Despite a raft of federal policies and actions as negative for petroleum as they have been favorable for biofuels, the USA is once again energy self-sufficient and the world’s largest producer of crude oil and natural gas. In 2024, the USA exported 100 billion gallons of refined petroleum. Other countries are burning U.S. gasoline in their cars and producing the same CO2 emissions as if Americans were allowed to use it. The energy security objective for RFS is moot, and it was never achievable with fossil-fuel dependent corn ethanol.
On of the great ironies is that RFS was authorized under the Clean Air Act. The EPA’s own 2010 regulatory impact analysis showed it would increase net air pollution and cause up to 245 more U.S. deaths per year. The EPA also granted corn ethanol a perpetual vapor pressure waiver for smog-causing emissions that it has denied to petroleum. Perhaps worse, ethanol in gasoline enables the hydrocarbons to mix with water and thereby increase ground water and surface water contamination from fuel leaks to a far greater degree than the demonized MTBE it replaced as octane booster, yet EPA continues to ignore this risk completely.
A government program that has strayed so far from its objectives should be terminated. The federal agency in charge of protecting the nation’s environment should not be allowed to administer a program that increases air pollution and stresses on water, land, and climate. Fuel should be fuel and food should be food. Surely Congress can find a better way to genuinely promote U.S. energy security and boost rural economies without imposing the highly regressive tax of increased fuel prices, inflicting such harm to the nation’s air and water resources, and promoting global food insecurity.
On April 30, Maine’s Democratic Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the race for a U.S. Senate seat.
In a statement about suspending her campaign, Mills was blunt:
“While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else—the fight—to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources.”
As Mills said, financial resources matter in today’s political environment as campaigns grow more expensive each cycle.
First-quarter financial reports filed in April with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show where some of that money is going—and where it is not.
Democratic candidates across the country are raising large sums of money. Democratic Senate candidates, including Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, and former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, are sitting on tens of millions of dollars with zero debt.
The party’s congressional campaign arms—the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)—which work to elect Democrats to each chamber of Congress, carry zero debt and have tens of millions in cash.
On the Republican side, every major committee has a strong cash position.
Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is in debt.
The federal filings lay out the numbers. The DNC reported $13.9 million in cash on hand at the end of March and $18.4 million in debt, putting the committee roughly $4.5 million underwater. It is the only national party committee on either side of the aisle carrying any debt at all.
The Republican National Committee, by contrast, holds $116.8 million in cash with zero debt. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has $43 million, and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has $78.2 million. Neither carries debt.
On the Democratic side, the DSCC holds $36.5 million with zero debt. The DCCC holds $69.9 million with zero debt. Both are competitive with or ahead of their Republican counterparts.
The gap widens further when individual candidates enter the picture. Six Democratic Senate candidates—Ossoff, Cooper, Brown, Texas state Rep. James Talarico, former Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola, and Michigan Sen. Mallory McMorrow—hold a combined roughly $86 million in cash on hand. Every one of them carries zero debt.
Ossoff alone has $31.7 million—more than double the DNC’s cash position and more than enough to cover the national committee’s entire debt.
‘A Severe Brand Problem’
Avis Jones-DeWeever, a political scientist and principal of progressive strategic communications firm Nouveaux Strategies, said the pattern points to something deeper than a typical post-election slump.
“The Democratic Party as a national entity has a severe brand problem,” Jones-DeWeever told The Epoch Times in an email. “Even in the midst of a historically unpopular president, they have managed to find a way to consistently garner lower favorability ratings than Donald Trump.
“There is still a sense that the Democratic Party writ large is not rising to this existential moment—that they continue to color within the lines of politics as normal, when we are far away from normal.”
The result, she said, is that donors are making a deliberate choice.
“Donors, it seems, have shifted their funds from supporting an institution they no longer trust to instead investing in individual candidates that have demonstrated strength in this moment,” Jones-DeWeever said.
“It’s not that Democratic donors are tired of giving. It’s just that they are being much more selective and targeted in their spend. They’re willing to fund a fight and are making investments in the specific fighters that they believe have the best chance at carrying them to victory in November.”
DNC Chair Ken Martin has argued the committee’s financial position is the result of a deliberate strategy—not a crisis.
In an April 28 interview on Pod Save America—one of the most listened to Democratic podcasts on all platforms—Martin said the debt traces to a loan the committee took out in 2025 to invest early in organizing, voter registration, and state party infrastructure.
“We do have debt, Jon, and that’s because I took out a loan last year to make sure we can make deep investments,” Martin told host Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama and one of the most prominent modern voices in Democratic politics.
The DNC has pointed to those investments in its own public communications. In April 2025, the committee announced what it called the largest monthly investment into state parties in its history: a state partnership program splitting more than $1 million per month between Democratic state and territory parties.
Under the program, each state party receives a baseline of $17,500 per month, with parties in Republican-controlled states receiving an additional $5,000 per month through a “Red State Fund.”
The committee has also launched voter registration programs, a national training initiative for campaign staff, and what it describes as year-round organizing in all 50 states—efforts Martin has summarized with the phrase “organize everywhere, win anywhere.”
Martin pointed to the committee’s track record, saying the DNC raised $105 million in 2025—a record for a first-year chair—with $85 million of that coming from grassroots donors at an average contribution of $51. He said the DNC raised $32 million in the first quarter of 2026 and has more cash on hand than one of his predecessors, former DNC Chair Tom Perez, had at the same point after the party’s 2016 presidential loss.
He described the committee’s debt as manageable and strategically useful, arguing it allowed the party to spend early rather than wait until the final months before an election.
“We can pay that debt off whenever the hell we want,” Martin said. “I could hold that debt until the end of the year. So the reality is, there’s nothing that’s holding me back in terms of the cash I have, the cash on hand I have to spend it on elections.”
Martin pointed out that the committee funds infrastructure that every Democratic campaign depends on, including a voter file that costs more than $10 million a year to maintain.
“Our voter file and our organizing tools and our data, every candidate, whether they’re running for school board or president, relies on that,” he said. “Without the DNC, they would have to do that on their own.”
He also confirmed the DNC purchased the Harris campaign’s fundraising list for $6.5 million after the 2024 election, calling it “a great investment” that has “already paid for itself.”
The DNC did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this report.
‘An Issue Unique to the DNC’
Favreau pressed Martin directly on the contrast between the party’s national committees.
“You’re spending more than you have,” Favreau said. “I know it’s a tough environment for the party out of power, but the DSCC and the DCCC and the Senate candidates have plenty of money. They’re all doing great. So it seems like this is an issue unique to the DNC.”
Favreau pointed to the unreleased 2024 post-election review as a factor in donor reluctance. The review is commonly referred to as the “autopsy” of Kamala Harris’s loss, which Martin said would be made public when he ran for chair but has since said he would not release to instead focus on future races.
Favreau added: “I know the grassroots fundraising has been great. I know that. I concede that for sure. … I’ve talked to plenty of people about this, that a lot of the big donors still have not come off the sidelines, and part of the reason is that there’s a trust issue based partly on the autopsy.”
Martin disagreed. “I’m just not seeing that, Jon,” he said.
For voters unfamiliar with the mechanics of campaign finance, the distinction between a national party committee and an individual campaign may not be obvious. But the two serve different functions.
National party committees serve a different function than campaigns, at least as the law allows for today. While a Senate candidate raises money to win a single race, as Martin said in the podcast interview, the DNC is responsible for infrastructure that connects all Democratic campaigns together—the voter file that every candidate “from school board to president” relies on, voter registration drives, state party support, legal challenges, and the national get-out-the-vote operation.
Parties are currently restricted to spending only a small fraction of funds in direct coordination with campaigns.
Boris Heersink, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University who has studied national party committees extensively, has argued in his research that these organizations create “national party brands” that are “fundamental to mobilizing voters in elections”—especially “when the party is in the national minority.”
Whether individual candidates can compensate—or even need to—for a national committee carrying more debt than cash is an open question heading into November.
A pending Supreme Court ruling could change what national party committees are allowed to do with their money.
The court is expected to decide NRSC v. FEC by the end of June, and the case could strike down federal limits on how much national party committees can spend in direct coordination with their candidates.
Under current law, party committees can spend unlimited amounts independently—running ads and organizing without consulting the candidate. But the moment a committee wants to coordinate directly with a campaign—sharing strategy, co-creating ads, directing resources where the campaign wants them—federal law caps that spending.
For Senate races, those caps range from roughly $130,000 to $4 million depending on the state’s voting age population, according to the FEC’s latest coordinated party expenditure limits. For House races, the limits range from about $61,800 to $123,000. While it is a large sum of money, compared to the tens of millions it costs to run campaigns in 2026, it’s only a drop in the larger financial bucket.
The NRSC and NRCC—the Senate and House campaign arms of the Republican Party—are the plaintiffs in the case, arguing the limits violate the First Amendment. The Trump administration’s Department of Justice has declined to defend the law, agreeing the limits should be struck down. The DNC, DSCC, and DCCC have all intervened in the case to defend the existing restrictions.
“Send Us A Tip”: U.S. Dangles $15 Million Reward For New Intel On Iran’s Drone Network
There is little doubt that Iran’s Shahed drone threat has become a major concern, menacing surrounding Gulf states, commercial tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, and U.S. bases across the region. This backdrop helps explain why the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program has now put up to $15 million for new information in connection with an already sanctioned Iranian drone-production network linked to the IRGC-Qods Force.
Rewards for Justice has named Kimia Part Sivan Company (KIPAS), which the State Department says serves as the drone-production arm of the IRGC-Qods Force. KIPAS has tested drones, supported drone transfers to Iraq, and procured foreign-made components for Iran’s drone program.
“The IRGC has financed numerous terrorist attacks and activities globally, including via its proxies outside Iran, such as Hamas, Hizballah, and Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq. The IRGC funds its international activities – in part – through sales of military equipment, including UAVs. Proceeds from Iran’s sale of weapons and UAVs, including to buyers in Russia, also benefit the Iranian military, including the IRGC-QF,” Rewards for Justice wrote on its website.
The U.S. Treasury’s OFAC already sanctions KIPAS and appears on the Specially Designated Nationals list. OFAC designated KIPAS on October 29, 2021, for materially assisting the IRGC with its drone program.
According to the State Department, six individuals are involved in the “testing, development, and supply of drones” linked to the IRGC.
Commercial risk-intelligence and investigations platform Sayari has identified all known managers and links associated with KIPAS:
Further refining:
Follow the money and supply chains, and it appears the State Department wants to disrupt Iran’s drone industry.
“Trump has done so much damage to libtardery that the Democrats will need a decade of uninterrupted power to undo it, which they’re not going to get.”
– Matt Forney on X
If you learned anything from this week’s extravaganza in Beijing, it is that Donald Trump is aggressively re-aligning world relations so that the USA does not end up one of the losers in the global resource scramble that lurks darkly behind all current events.
China does not intend to be an eventual loser, either, though it has lost a lot of traction lately.
The Eurolands are certainly the main losers, embracing loserdom as the old and sick long for death.
India and some of the BRICs countries, are looking a little loser-ish just now.
The primary resource all nations scramble for is oil. Without lavish supplies of oil, you can’t have an advanced techno-industrial economy and, as the feckless Eurolanders learned the hard way, there really isn’t an adequate substitute for oil. The flow of oil depends on economically producible reserves of oil country-by-country, but also on geographic advantage, as we are learning just now in the Hormuz crisis.
“Europe’s crude oil production started its permanent decline in 2001. Asia-Pacific’s production hit a maximum in 2010, and it has been declining since. Africa’s peak oil production took place in 2008, and it has been mostly declining since.”
Also, turns out, the peak oil story is still real, despite fifteen years of shale oil miracles.
The Persian Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia are probably past peak. American shale oil is in the peaking zone, too — the Permian Basin in Texas is running short of sweet spots. The Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (AMWR) is open for leasing, but it is expensive to drill and produce in the harsh arctic region and the US Geological Survey estimates recoverable reserves there between 7.7 – 10 billion barrels — America consumes roughly 7.5 billion barrels-a-year, so. . . .
There’s Canada, of course, and its tar sands, but the Great White North these days leans rather hostilely towards its neighbor to the south (us). Otherwise, North America is pretty fully explored oil-wise. There can’t be a whole lot of hidden, un-tapped “elephant” fields out there. On the plus side, America enjoys its geographic advantage, comfortably cushioned between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, far from the madding crowd of Eurasia.
We have lately trumpeted our supposed acquisition of Venezuela, but projected production of US companies there looking ahead several years would be under a million barrels-a-day while the US uses 20.5-million barrels a day. As for Venezuela’s jungle-bound oil sands, well, for now, fuggeddabowdit.
Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources puts its commercially recoverable oil resources (with current technology and prices) at around 80-billion barrels, which is a lot, and leaves Russia in a theoretically favorable place for the short term, anyway. China uses about 17-million barrels-a-day and imports about 70-percent of that. Its imports of Iranian oil are substantial but obscured in official statistics due to the evasion of US sanctions. The Hormuz blockade has put a hurt on China.
Here’s how the global resource scramble translates into geopolitical behavior: As has been evident for some time, US interests are increasingly alienated from Euroland’s interests, and better aligned with Russia’s interests. Europe is demonstrably insane these days, roiling with loose talk as it whirls around the drain. Russia, under V. Putin, looks more like the adult in the room. Even Russia’s military operation in Ukraine looks rational if you consider how the EU and the CIA started the damn thing in the first place circa 2014 for the very purpose of provoking Russia.
Mr. Trump has yearned to normalize relations with Russia since he stepped on-stage in 2016, to the great consternation of America’s neocons, CIA shadow-meisters, and the born-again communists running the Democratic Party (who seem to resent Russia ditching Marxism-Leninism thirty-five years ago). This week, the US and China have mutually proposed becoming “partners” rather than rivals on the world scene. We will surely remain mutually wary, but apparently things have changed.
Most urgently, China would like its oil imports from the Persian Gulf restored, and the obvious way to make that happen would be for them to lean on Iran to stop screwing around and come to terms with the US — give up the enriched uranium and stop laying jihad on everybody near and far. We’ll know soon enough if China will do that for us, and we have some goodies promised for them, Nvidia chips, soybeans, and more.
Mr. Trump is rearranging the global game-board bigly, and the net result will be the sorting-out of winners and losers.
Iran is the poster boy for that. It could go either way for them, soon, and rather sharply.
If Iran’s jihad-happy leaders just quit FAFOing, they have the chance to re-enter the global community as an advanced modern economy with a comfortable standard of living.
Or, the US could just blow up what’s left there.
China will probably deliver that message forcefully in the days ahead.
There remains, however, the dirty business of America’s domestic enemies, of whom we learn more and more each week.
This week, it was the testimony of “whistleblower” CIA agent James Erdman that the CIA worked sedulously to conceal the true origins of Covid-19. It looks pretty much like what half of America has suspected all along: that Covid was a trip laid on the nation by its own Deep State (mainly the CIA), in concert with the rogue Democratic Party, for the express purpose of queering the 2020 election.
Related seditious operations apparently continue to this very hour. Former CIA Director John Brennan told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace this week: “There’s still a legion of professionals in the law enforcement environment, the Department of Justice, as well as the CIA and other places — the ones who are refusing to follow politically motivated prosecutions, those who are refusing to support any type of political activities on the part of the Trump administration. . . .” Did he just admit that the conspiracy he kicked off in 2016 is still ongoing? And that he is an active party to it? I think so. Do you think Joe DiGenova noticed that down in the DOJ’s Southern District of Florida?
Just as astoundingly, this week former FBI Director James Comey told CNN’s Kasie Hunt that he “still speaks regularly” to current FBI employees. Say, what. . . ? He palavers with the very agency that is investigating him for serious felonies, such as threatening the life of the US president? Sounds a little out-of-order, ya think? Does he long to spend the rest of his life as captain of the ping-pong team at the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary?
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is continuing efforts to transform warehouses into large-scale immigration detention centers despite a growing number of politically motivated lawsuits.
Officials with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently discussed plans to award contracts for construction and operations at warehouse sites in San Antonio and near El Paso, according to people briefed on the internal meetings. The administration is also examining how to continue work at a site near Hagerstown, Maryland, while complying with a court order limiting construction activity there.
The warehouse initiative has become a central part of the Trump administration’s broader deportation agenda, with officials arguing the facilities will allow ICE to process and detain illegal immigrants more efficiently through centralized hubs capable of housing large numbers of detainees.
Critics from both political parties have attacked the proposal, while several states have filed lawsuits claiming the administration failed to complete environmental reviews required under federal law.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin ordered a review of the estimated $38 billion project after taking office earlier this year. The plan was originally launched under former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
The administration appears determined to move forward with the project despite the legal challenges. ICE is reportedly preparing environmental assessments for the two Texas sites, with the goal of having both facilities operational by early 2027.
A DHS spokesperson said the department is reviewing policies and proposals adopted before Mullin assumed leadership and intends to work with local communities, including some in areas that strongly supported President Donald Trump.
SpaceX Reportedly Chooses Nasdaq And “SPCX” Ticker For Mega IPO
Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, has reportedly selected Nasdaq for its long-awaited IPO and is targeting a June 11 pricing, followed by a June 12 debut under the ticker “SPCX,” according to a Reuters report released late in Friday’s U.S. cash session.
Immediately after the report, odds for “SPCX” on the Polymarket bet, “What will SpaceX’s public ticker be?” soared to nearly 100%.
In April, SpaceX confidentially filed for an IPO with the SEC and is planning to disclose its prospectus as soon as next week, according to CNBC.
SpaceX’s IPO could raise upwards of $75 billion for the rocket company and dwarf Saudi Aramco’s $29 billion debut in 2019. The money raised would be used to fund an “insane flight rate” for the Starship rocket and to push ahead with deploying orbital data centers in low Earth orbit. The company’s valuation stands at around $1.75 trillion.
The timing comes amid a broader reopening of the IPO window for AI firms, with major chatbot startups such as OpenAI and Anthropic increasingly viewed as potential second-half candidates.
Goldman’s Tony Pasquariello offered additional insight on the upcoming SpaceX IPO:
In most every single client meeting that I have, the question of how the tape will absorb a series of mega IPOs comes up.
While understanding that potentially adding trillions of dollars of market cap is worth discussion, as mentioned a few times recently, I’d argue there’s good reason to be optimistic here (I’m a taker of opposing views).
I’ll add a few points to the running conversation here:
i. to level set, at $77tr of market cap, the US equity asset class is immense (the next closest country is China at $12tr).
ii. in 1999, 380 IPOs rolled off the assembly line; for 2026, GIR currently expects 100.
iii. asset size is one consideration, yet asset quality is another — I remember 1999, and let’s just say comprehensive asset quality didn’t stand the test of time.
Wall Street is certainly hungry for IPOs after a prolonged drought. This week, we saw AI chipmaker Cerebras surge nearly 70% in its debut.
SpaceX’s IPO filing could come around the 12th test flight of the Starship rocket, expected as early as next Tuesday.
Collum: Was Fed Chair Warsh Chosen For A Controlled Demolition?
Supposed monetary hawk Kevin Warsh, who was officially sworn in as the 17th Fed Chair earlier this week, will now face the dilemma of staying true to his hawkish roots or caving to his unabashed high-rate hating President. That is, of course, unless there’s a deeper plan at play…
Last night, Cornell professor Dave Collum hosted Michael Lebowitz and Stephanie Pomboy for a deep dived into ‘How F***ed Markets Are’ where Dave posited the theory that Warsh man be a demolition man for a managed crash.
Collum and co. also talked about the insane disconnect between the economy and financial markets… and why Pomboy has increasingly abandoned financial assets altogether in favor of gold and hard assets.
Dave’s Fed truther theory and other highlights from last night below:
Retail Retards
Collum warned that modern markets have become completely detached from traditional valuation discipline… but that reality will eventually set in.
“It’s my assertion that probably greater than 50% of the investors in the world don’t understand what valuation means… Everything’s a Bitcoin price now.”
Standard valuation metrics have compounded roughly 4% annually for 45 years and are now firmly in “the nosebleed section,” yet “nobody cares,” per Collum.
Classic warning indicators are now near historic extremes. Lebowitz noted that “CAPE is near its all-time high. It’s above the 1929 level and just short of the dot-com level.” He argued the bigger danger may actually be hiding in supposedly “safe” stocks like Walmart and Costco.
Pomboy has opted out of the mania altogether. How? Real assets.
“Markets can go on longer than you can remain solvent betting against it…. I finally just sort of resigned myself to buying gold… At the end of the day I have been outperforming those markets by only gold.”
— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) May 15, 2026
Why Warsh?
Collum posed the question of Kevin Warsh as Trump’s Fed Chair pick. Trump regularly announces that interest rates are too high and yet picks the ostensible hawk of the bunch to lead the Fed? But that may be a facade, according to Lebowitz:
“I think Kevin Warsh and Jerome Powell are the same guy.”
Lebowitz argued that the market may be projecting qualities onto Warsh that simply are not real. He acknowledged that Warsh currently sounds tougher, but there’s no way he’s gonna cut rates. “I thought he may come in and try to do 25 just to appease the president. There’s no way he could do that after the CPI and PPI data we had this week.”
Every Fed chair talks tough before markets crack (Greenspan was an Austrian/Ayn Rand-adjacent philosopher prior to his reign of easy money).
“Warsh was there in 2008, ’09 when they were introducing QE,” Lebowitz added. “Powell came off as very austere until the COVID hit the fan.”
Collum floated the darker theory that Warsh may have been chosen precisely because he is viewed as credible enough to oversee a painful reckoning. “What if Warsh’s assignment is ‘we need someone with the guts to usher this sucker down?’”
— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) May 15, 2026
Check out the full debate for their deep dive into the ticking timebomb that are private credit markets and more. Also available on YouTube and Spotify.
As artificial intelligence continues to permeate everyday life, the data centers needed to support the burgeoning technology are popping up across America – many close to residential areas. More than one-third of Americans now live within a few miles of at least one data center.
That proximity means many development projects are not going smoothly, as residents raise questions about the unknown effects on their resources. Both residents and developers who spoke to The Epoch Times pointed to transparency as a key issue.
The developers also said they are working to address residents’ concerns at the planning stage, adding safeguards to reduce water and energy requirements.
Meanwhile, grassroots opposition to data centers is gaining momentum going into the 2026 elections.
Built in Clusters
The United States currently has more than 3,100 data centers in operation and more than 1,800 in various stages of development, according to data provided by infrastructure intelligence and mapping platform Data Center Map.
Virginia, Texas, and California lead the nation in the number of data centers, according to the data. Virginia alone has a combined total of 711 currently operational, under-construction, and planned centers. Texas has a combined total of 544, and California, 333.
These data facilities are typically massive buildings housing information technology infrastructure, data-storage systems, and networking and processing equipment. They also require power subsystems, backup generators, and HVAC and cooling systems to prevent hardware from overheating.
According to a recent Pew Research Center analysis, 87 percent of existing data centers are located in urban regions, while 67 percent of planned data centers are targeted for construction in rural areas.
The analysis also reveals that 38 percent of Americans currently live within five miles of at least one operating data center.
“These structures tend to be built in clusters: Nine in 10 data centers are within five miles of another one,” the report notes. “As a result, a majority of Americans who live near one data center also live near at least one more.”
‘Wait a Minute’
According to Data Center Watch, community opposition to data centers is surging nationwide, shifting from individual zoning disputes into a national political force.
An estimated $152 billion in potential investment was blocked or delayed in 2025, including $98 billion in the second quarter alone—more than all disruptions combined since 2023 and affecting 20 projects, the research organization’s data show.
The activity accelerated sharply in the third and fourth quarters, with hundreds of activist groups across 42 states organizing to block the construction or expansion of data centers toward the end of the year.
“We came together and said no, and I’m very proud of the outcry of average citizens to say ‘wait a minute’ before going ahead with this,” Danei Edelen, who heads up the grassroots group Southern Ohio Responsible Development (SORD), located in Brown County, told The Epoch Times. Her hometown of Mount Orab, about 40 miles east of Cincinnati, is the latest target for a hyperscale data center.
“Some of these centers can use up to 5 million gallons of water, which is equivalent to a small town,” Edelen said. “As for the noise, it can be like having a motorcycle running 24/7.”
The group also has concerns about health hazards that could result from possible air pollution, water contamination, or exposure to high-voltage electricity.
With influence from SORD and other Brown County residents, the local government recently issued a six-month moratorium on the project, which could potentially encompass nearly 1,200 acres.
Clayton Tucker, secretary of the Texas Farmers Union and Democratic candidate for Texas agriculture minister, said he’s concerned about insufficient water for irrigation.
“It can cost up to $40,000 to drill for a new well, and some of these centers are water hogs, using incredible amounts of water here in the Dust Bowl,” he told The Epoch Times.
He said water levels in some wells in the state have already dropped by 25 feet.
Tucker also worries about the escalation of utility bills.
“Some of these centers are like building an entire new city, and power usage is expected to triple or quadruple by 2032,” he said.
Tucker has spoken with farmers in other states who have seen a recent influx of data centers.
He noted that although state and federal governments have had little involvement, local governments have been sensitive to their concerns. Action by several bipartisan city councils has managed to pause plans for data centers in Athens and San Marcos, Texas.
“Our main goal is to delay these projects and wait for better technology,” Tucker said. “Having centers that use no water and computer chips that use a fraction of the power with little or no noise would resolve a lot of resource issues.”
SORD is ready to go one step further by proposing a state constitutional amendment that would ban hyperscale data centers. The group is working to gather 413,000 valid signatures to qualify for a ballot measure in the next election.
The Biggest Problem
Jennifer Dunphy, public health consultant and author of “The Toxin Handbook,” told The Epoch Times that plans are already on the books for a new large data center within five miles of her home in Orange County, California. Her concern is more about what these centers could transform into for the future.
“The big question is about where these centers are headed,” she said. “As they need more and more power and resources, they’ll grow and become more complex, possibly adding health effects in the future.”
Currently, she noted, there’s no evidence directly linking data centers to any specific health effect, but there are concerns about electromagnetic fields and air pollution affecting people with co-morbidities such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and certain heart conditions, or the elderly.
Dunphy also believes the likelihood of water contamination from data centers is slim.
“I would be more worried about petrochemical or manufacturing centers producing chemical runoffs,” she said. “Then it becomes more of a concern.”
The biggest problem, she noted, is that there have been no large-scale studies about data centers and their impacts on local communities.
“We don’t know enough about these to have them in our backyard,” she said. “And no, I am not in favor of a data center near my home.”
Edelen said her group is not against responsible development.
“We just want more time to study the impact this may have on the community,” she said.
Emma Cox is the chief commercial officer for ClimeCo, a Houston-based global environmental advisory and decarbonization firm helping builders develop more responsibly by reducing carbon emissions and greenhouse gases.
“Data centers are going up incredibly quickly, and my caution is that some developers are not considering responsible growth,” she told The Epoch Times. “As a result, I believe both the environment and human health could suffer.”
The Texas Farmers Union seeks more openness and honesty when data centers are proposed.
“A lot of times, developers don’t tell you the whole truth,” Tucker said.
A Redfin-commissioned, Ipsos-conducted survey found that 47 percent of residents object to the construction of AI data centers in their neighborhoods, while 38 percent support the projects.
The survey also showed that younger Americans are more likely to support building data centers in their “backyard.” Politically, 49 percent of Republicans and 36 percent of Democrats support the construction of data centers.
‘A Convenient Scapegoat’
Daren Shumate, CEO of Shumate Engineering in Tysons, Virginia, has been involved in data center construction since 1998.
“From a developer’s viewpoint, there are two major requirements for site selection of data centers: ample power availability and the local jurisdiction that will allow you to build,” he told The Epoch Times.
While he acknowledged that these mega centers are water- and energy-intensive, he said safeguards are being built into plans for new facilities.
“Data centers are a convenient scapegoat when it comes to issues concerning water and power,” he said. “Many of the newer centers are now relying on air-cooled chillers or refrigeration as opposed to evaporative water systems and cooling towers. Those designs call for very low water usage.”
As a result, he said, a data center should have little effect on a community’s water supply or water rates.
Regarding power supply, Shumate said electricity usage varies depending on the size of the data center. It can range from 10 megawatts for smaller facilities to 200 megawatts for hyperscale centers, typically operated by Big Tech firms such as Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Oracle.
In some cases, these centers require additional buildings for cooling and other operations, often requiring another 100 megawatts per building, Shumate said.
“Unlike a regular office building that usually runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., a data center operates 24 hours a day and seven days a week. You turn it on and never turn it off,” he said.
While acknowledging concerns about power grid failures, Shumate said developers are taking steps to mitigate them.
“Most large data centers are now required to have back-up battery systems that will provide an uninterrupted power supply, and these batteries are constantly charging,” he said. “That means the centers won’t be putting any extra strain on the power companies when an outage occurs.”
Shumate also believes the expansion of data centers will have minimal effect on utility rates for local consumers.
“Local utility firms will be earning a huge amount of money from these centers, which they can use to improve their infrastructure without adding to consumer bills,” he said. “Better design techniques using LED lighting, insulation, windows, and other materials are designed to stabilize data center electricity usage.”
He also noted that many developers are establishing building criteria to ensure data centers are not located adjacent to schools or residential properties.
“While mechanical units can produce noise, developers can design systems to mitigate the data center noise,” he said.
Harry Sudock, chief business officer of CleanSpark, a Las Vegas-based data-center developer, has handled land acquisition and data center construction for nearly 40 years.
“Power availability and speed to delivery are actually more important than land prices when choosing a location,” he told The Epoch Times. “We also look for areas where there’s already a significant amount of electrical infrastructure in place, including former manufacturing hubs.”
US Gasoline Inventories Plunging On Surging Exports, Resilient Demand
Prompt Brent/WTI crude nearby futures increased by 5/7% week-over-week to $105/101 as flows through the Strait of Hormuz remained very low and on limited signs of progress on a US-Iran deal.
Meanwhile, as global oil inventories collapse at a record pace yet sliding Chinese demand and strategic releases from Beijing keep crude prices relatively stable, Goldman writes that the US gasoline market has become very tight, with inventories drawing at a rapid average pace of 0.7mb/d since April 1st to 5% below their historical seasonal median this week.
This has been driven by a combination of:
Surging net exports demand. US gasoline net exports are up 0.34mb/d year-over-year (4-week average)
Resilient domestic demand. Gasoline demand is resilient at just 0.2mb/d below its year-ago level (no demand destruction yet) and we are now entering the summer driving season.
Price incentives to shift production to distillates. Strong jet fuel and diesel margins are incentivizing refineries to increase yields of those products.
On the pricing side, wholesale gasoline prices in the US are approximately 15% ($21/bbl) higher than in Asia and Europe (Exhibit 1 above), and US retail prices are just $0.5/gal below their all-time high.
Goldman says that while it’s not the bank’s base case, the probability of US oil export restrictions likely rises with US retail gasoline prices.
Turning to oil, the IEA estimates in its latest Oil Market Report (OMR) an April deficit of 5.3mb/d, suggesting that the deficit may be less large than most had estimated last month, driven by:
Slightly lower IEA demand. Since the beginning of the crisis, the IEA has cumulatively (May – Feb OMR) downgraded its estimate of April demand by 3.1mb/d to 100.4mb/d (vs. a slightly smaller downgrade of 2.9mb/d in Goldman’s balance).
By product: Net cumulative downgrades by the IEA were largest (in mb/d terms) for LPG and ethane (11%), naphtha (13%), and jet and kerosene (7%) for which Goldman has also been seeing the highest risks of scarcity of supply.
By region: Net cumulative downgrades were largest for the Middle East (11%), China (5%), EM Asia ex China ex India (5%), and OECD Asia Oceania (7%). Notably, the IEA upgraded US demand from last month’s OMR by 0.5mb/d on resilient diesel and gasoline demand.
Less large IEA drop in Middle East Supply. The IEA estimates Gulf (defined as Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE) crude supply in April at 15.0mb/d, which is 4.0mb/d higher than the previous Goldman balance estimate (11.0mb/d) and 1.2mb/d higher than OPEC secondary sources (13.8mb/d).
The IEA supply beat was driven primarily by Iran and the UAE, likely reflecting less binding storage constraints than expected due to untrackable storage capacity.
The IEA reports that SPR releases from IEA countries averaged 2.1mb/d in April (but picked up significantly in the second half of the month). This has been a significantly larger offset for crude than for refined products — of the 90mb of total government inventories released since March 11th, 82mb are crude oil, while only 8mb are refined products.
US production in 2026 Q1 also surprised to the upside, with the modest beats concentrated in oil production by E&Ps (+2.1%) and liquids production by majors (+1.3%).
