The Hungarian government has launched a legal challenge against the European Commission’s decision to impose a daily €1 million fine over the country’s refusal to accept illegal migrants. György Bakondi, the chief security advisor to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, announced on Wednesday that Budapest will file a lawsuit with the European Court of Justice.
Appearing on TV2’s “Mokka” program, Bakondi said Hungary will not comply with the European Union’s new Migration Pact, which he described as “a clear call for illegal immigrants to be allowed in.” He emphasized that Hungary remains committed to its sovereignty and national security, and refuses to be pressured into taking in individuals who entered the bloc unlawfully.
The lawsuit will be led by a team of lawyers with what Bakondi called “a serious reputation,” including two former members of the European Court of Justice.
Hungary’s resistance to EU migration policy is not new. In 2015, the country faced a surge of more than 400,000 illegal border crossings within two months. In response, the government implemented border fences and legal restrictions to halt the flow. Officials credited these measures with preventing the emergence of terrorist threats, no-go zones, and the overburdening of public services.
In a national referendum in 2016, 98 percent of those who voted rejected the proposal to allow the European Union to mandate the obligatory resettlement of non-Hungarian citizens into Hungary without parliamentary approval. The referendum had a 44 percent turnout, under the 50 percent threshold required to be considered valid.
The Orbán administration had already signaled its intent to take legal action against Brussels back in December, setting aside 600 million forints (approximately €1.5 million) to fund the court battle.
Hungary has consistently pushed for a rethinking of the EU’s asylum policy, including relocating asylum processing to centers outside of EU territory. Orbán reiterated this stance on Monday during a speech at a Patriots for Europe rally in France.
🇭🇺 @PM_ViktorOrban: “What is happening is not migration. It’s an organized exchange of people to replace Europe’s cultural base.
“For us, €1 million a day is a lot of money, but we’d rather pay than let anyone in illegally. It’s the best investment for the future.” pic.twitter.com/AZi3Yqqfl8
“What is happening is not migration,” he said. “It’s an organized exchange of people to replace Europe’s cultural base. For us, €1 million a day is a lot of money, but we’d rather pay than let anyone in illegally. It’s the best investment for the future.”
The European Commission has not yet publicly responded to the lawsuit.
The Global Digital Forum last week in delightful Nizhny Novgorod represented a landmark in the quest for a more equitable media landscape across the whole Global South.
Pride of place was taken by a new ambitious association, the Global Fact-Checking Network (GFCN). The last session of the forum was focused essentially on how to fight all the toxic declinations imposed by the post-truth anti-cultural ambiance – as in fact-checking an avalanche of fake news coming in most cases from states and official institutions.
Guest of honor was superstar Russian Foreign Minister spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, relaxed, in great spirits, who went full Deng Xiaoping by urging everyone to “fight for the truth and seek out the facts”.
By a twist of fate, the timeline left me with only two minutes to somehow wrap up our quite enlightening discussion. So I went hardcore and quoted Nietzsche: “There are no facts, only interpretations”. Later on, I was surprised at how that had struck a nerve especially among African delegates.
The key point is that in the artificially fabricated post-truth environment, not only facts are only facts if we say so; most of all, only one interpretation is allowed – be it from the Empire of Chaos, whoever may be in power, or from a Kafkaesque mechanism such as the European Union (EU)/European Commission (EC).
If you deviate from the official interpretation, they will come after you. That has led, for instance, in Europe, to journalists/EU citizens being prevented even from traveling to their own nation-states, and having their accounts frozen, or EU citizens being prevented from covering a supposedly democratic election (in Romania), and immediately deported (outside of the EU).
A startling essay on Nietzsche amplifies the diagnostic of Europe’s current cultural suicide. Nietzsche was an “untimely” outsider, a steppenwolf, pledging allegiance to no one and nothing, silently grappling with “the flat exhaustion of bourgeois modernity”, and searching, in vain, for “silhouettes among shadows”.
Nietzsche, in the late 19th century, was already a symbol of Resistance. Resistance as we see it today – from the Axis of Resistance in West Asia to Orthodox Christian military batallions fighting for the freedom of Novorossiya. No ceremony ever greeted Nitzsche: he was always alone. He shattered illusion after illusion as his solitude “became liturgy” and “his body turned into protest.” He impersonated “the ghost of nobility”. A species in extinction – indeed.
Tech visionaries want it all
That crystal clear Nietzsche intuition – arguably the best definition of truth in the history of philosophy – may be our guide in the labyrinth of post-truth where, to quote post-modernist masterpiece Twin Peaks, “the owls are not what they seem”.
Errol Musk, Elon’s father, showed up early this week in Moscow for the Future 2050 forum. Daddy Musk effusively showered praise on Russia as Ancient Rome 2.0 and Moscow itself as the “capital of the world”. Quite on point – in both cases.
But what really matters is why Daddy Musk is in Russia. That may align with a strategy of luring powerful sectors of Silicon Valley into doing business with Russia. Main actors/participants would be tech visionaries which used to be part of the notorious PayPal Mafia: Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.
That may pose a series of serious problems. Martin Armstrong has been instrumental in portraying this band of tech visionaries as a ubiquitous new oligarchy: active in social media, biotech, space, the surveillance industry, engineering policies and influencing monetary systems with their hardcore brand of venture capitalism, and not to mention shaping worldwide-interfering narratives.
The new tech elite shines brightly via the Trump-Musk love affair turned staged catfight. But its tentacles reach much further. J.D. Vance is Peter Thiel’s perfectly positioned candidate to become the next POTUS. Palantir, controlled by Thiel and totalitarian Alex Karp, have been awarded a massive contract to design a U.S. federally centralized database using very sophisticated AI models.
Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill is heavy on AI – including a 10-year moratorium during which any U.S. state and local government cannot regulate AI. This will allow free reign for deepfakes and Big Tech doing whatever they feel like to manipulate unsuspecting consumers.
So that’s the key question. How to fact-check the tech elite? How to counterpunch multiple instances of techno-feudalism – when tech companies feed intel to governments, commit unlimited funds to political operations, and set up censorship platforms disguised as “democracy”, drenched in AI-generated fake news?
Go East, to Siberia, young man
At least there are auspicious signs on the other side of dystopia. And right here in Russia. This is a mesmerizing interview by Nora Hoppe and Tariq Marzbaan with legendary Prof. Sergey Karaganov, Honorary Chairman of the Council for Foreign and Defence Policy (Russia’s leading public foreign policy organisation) and academic supervisor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
Welcome to a magic carpet ride through the really deep origins of Russia’s heritage. Starting with the Scythians: “Now we are rediscovering within ourselves these roots that unites us with the peoples of Eurasia.”
All the way to Byzantium: “The Russian princes, who baptized Russia, chose Byzantium ― at that time the richest, the most developed and intellectually flourishing country in Central Eurasia, much more developed than Europe was (…) The Russian princes’ astute choice of Byzantium largely predetermined Russian culture, Russian architecture, and, of course, Russian religion, that is, our Orthodoxy.”
And then reaching Pax Mongolica: “The Mongol Empire left a deep mark on Russian history also, because it was multicultural and very tolerant religiously, and this is where I think (although there is no complete agreement amongst historians on this matter) the Russians ― the dominant people in the former Russian Empire and the USSR ― inherited their unique cultural, religious, and national openness.”
Karaganov forcefully proposes that everything positive about Pax Mongolica should be re-examined to “substantiate the unity of Eurasia.” And “we must rely just as much on the heritage of the Scythians, who were the forefathers of so many peoples in Greater Central Eurasia.”
This is the essence of a true multipolar Russia in action – leading to the fascinating concept of “Siberianization”: a “spiritual, cultural, political, and economic development of Russia in the eastern direction to the Urals and Siberia. The western direction of our policy and economic ties has bleak prospects.”
Karaganov, whose analyses are deeply appreciated by President Putin, is adamant: it all amounts to a “civilizational struggle against techno-barbarism and techno-paganism”, and “against dehumanization”. Against, essentially, techno-feudalism.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.
Oklo Shares Surge 29% After DOD Contract To Power Air Force Base
Oklo is starting to develop a real knack for catching short sellers offsides…
In what is one of what we believe will be many similar announcements, Oklo shares surged 29% on Wednesday after the company was named the intended awardee for a Department of Defense project to deliver clean energy to Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.
The Defense Logistics Agency Energy issued a Notice of Intent to Award (NOITA), designating Oklo as the preferred provider following a competitive evaluation process.
Under the proposed agreement, Oklo will design, build, own, and operate an Aurora powerhouse—a microreactor that provides both electricity and heat—at the remote military base.
The project is part of the Department of the Air Force’s microreactor pilot aimed at improving energy resilience and reliability at national security facilities. The Aurora reactor uses fast reactor technology and is designed to operate independently from the grid, which is critical for remote sites like Eielson.
CEO Jacob DeWitte said the NOITA demonstrates continued confidence in Oklo’s ability to deliver reliable energy solutions for mission-critical infrastructure. The deal represents a major step forward in commercializing Oklo’s technology and highlights growing federal support for next-generation nuclear systems.
Investor response was swift, with the stock seeing its biggest one-day gain since the company went public, driven by optimism about Oklo’s ability to secure long-term revenue through government-backed deployments.
Recall, as we noted back in May, Oklo is positioning itself for a potentially favorable regulatory environment. The company is in a pre-application readiness process with the NRC and plans to submit a formal license for its expanded 75-MW design by Q4 2025. It’s targeting late 2027 or early 2028 for initial operations at its Idaho National Laboratory site.
Oklo is one of eight companies eligible for the Pentagon’s Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations program and is investing in fuel recycling capabilities.
The company also holds about 14 GW of nonbinding agreements with data centers and industrial users. The recent departure of Sam Altman from the board, due to a potential conflict of interest with OpenAI, clears the way for future commercial partnerships.
Oklo maintains close ties to the Department of Defense, primarily through CEO Jacob DeWitte, who has participated in high-level government events related to nuclear policy alongside defense officials.
The company’s board has also included retired Lieutenant General John Jansen, further reflecting its alignment with national security interests as it pursues military microreactor deployments.
Short sellers had targeted Oklo earlier this year, citing it as an overvalued “story stock” with no regulatory-approved design, no current revenue, and underestimated timelines and costs—labeling the company’s projections “beyond optimistic” and estimating it needs billions in additional capital.
Oklo has used the surge in its stock price to raise hundreds of millions in additional capital. This could easily give the company the better part of a decade in cash to operate at its current burn rate. Meanwhile, about 12–15 million shares are still currently short—roughly 10–12% of the float.
How Much Higher Can Platinum Go: “It Feels Like Someone Is Loading Up On A Flat Price Position”
Yesterday, in “What’s Behind The Recent Surge In Platinum, And Will It Continue“, we not only explained in detail what is going on both at the technical and fundamental level, but also answered in the affiramtive and why – yes, it the surge will continue. One day later the surge has indeed continued, and having decisively broken $1200 earlier this week, platinum spiked another $100, touching a session high of $1285, and is now just dollars away from the post-covid high above $1300.
For some perspective on what comes next, we go to Goldman materials specialist James McGeoch who writes today that having cut through $1200 like a hot knife through butter, Platinum is now clearly targeting $1300, and even though the precious metal is overbought here, it is going to test some resolve to go against the flow.
As McGeoch adds, “I’d say look at the chart, but it will make you cry, as it starts the move comes from Asian hours and we know they cannot get enough precious” and furthermore, it “feels like someone loading up on a flat price position.”
Ultimately, to the Goldman trader, it feels like the price of platinum is determined by fundamentals vs momo, but that is markets in a nutshell. To James, his mind “always says has to be a long duration hand, tactical guy cannot buy that shape, but have been wrong before, ask these guys what they think – “Gold, Platinum and Why Everyone Has it Wrong.”
In a nutshell, “the issue for most is how does it move the needle, small wins yes, bigger ones harder to capture.”
Unless, of course, the Chinese buyers – who have historicall been very price discriminate no longer are – and this time the melt up momentum only brings with it even more momentum, blasting the metal to parity with gold, if not higher.
A more sketpical view was published today by Goldman’s precious metal analyst Lina Thomas, who notes that the platinum breakout began on May 20, coinciding with the start of Platinum Week (May 20-21) and a bullish World Platinum Investment Council (WPIC) report published on the day prior. However, as we subsequently reported and as Goldman also writes today, it was speculative and ETF demand that fueled the rally to $1,280/toz.
We agree with Goldman on this, where we disagree with the bank is its claim that “a sustained breakout is unlikely for three reasons.” Goldman’s three reasons to be bearish are the following:
#1 Price-Sensitive Chinese Demand
Chinese buying, which corresponds to about 60% of new annual platinum production, appears highly price sensitive, with increased buying when prices are low but reduced buying when prices are high.
Goldman believes that this strategic buying has likely contributed to platinum’s range-bound trading over the past decade. Nearly 50% of China’s imports are driven by price-sensitive jewelry and investment demand. For instance, lower prices post-the ‘Liberation Day’ US tariff announcement contributed to higher platinum withdrawals from the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), a proxy for Chinese jewelry and, to a lesser extent, investment demand, in April and consequently high Chinese platinum imports that month. But – the bank argues – the rally that started in mid-May appears to have already curtailed Chinese jewelry (and investment) demand for platinum. Which however is irrelevant if speculators have enough firepower to keep pushing the ascent higher, in which case Chinese jewelers will eventually be forced to chase the price again, only this time much higher.
#2 Downside Pressures on Auto Sector’s Demand for Platinum
Here, Goldman repeats the trite and familiar “fundamental” case why platinum demand is evaporating because very soon nobody will be driving ICE cars, and yada, yada. To wit: China’s rapid shift towards EVs is eroding long-term autocatalyst demand for platinum (which depends on ICE and hybrid car sales) while simultaneously increasing scrap availability as ICE vehicles are retired. Which is a lovely, if categorically false thesis, because China is already facing a resistance threshold in its power grid, beyond which it will no longer be able to support all the EVs on the road. What happens then? And what happens when Chinese EV subsidies finally run out.
Meanwhile, in the West, Goldman’s autos equity analysts expect the ICE and hybrid vehicle fleet to remain relatively stable, with no large impact on the platinum balance
#3 Stable-to-Moderately Higher Global Supply
In an attempt to re-engage at the fundamental level, Goldman expects stable-to-moderately higher global platinum supply… unless South African power constraints re-emerge, which they will. Platinum production is highly geographically concentrated, with South Africa accounting for 70% of primary platinum production, with most of the remainder coming from Russia.
In South Africa, which is a country that has rolling blackouts for half the day, guidance from the major PGM miners points to moderate increases in PGM supply (12% year-over-year in 2025). The supply resilience is most likely fabricated as it defies the impact of years of low platinum prices and compressed margins, and so expect declining South African production in the coming years.
Platinum production is primarily a byproduct of other metals, such as copper, and is co-mined with other Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) such as palladium and rhodium. Consequently, the PGM basket price (denominated in ZAR) and revenue derived from associated metals — rather than just the platinum price — heavily influence the overall profitability of these mining operations. Periods of high prices for byproduct metals, such as the near-record chrome prices in 2024, can provide financial relief and offset downward profit pressure from lower platinum prices
Here Goldman admits that PGM production cannot be easily increased due to capacity constraints, which is bullish for the price; alternatively, significant curtailments are also rare due to a high proportion of fixed costs inherent in these operations, particularly energy and labor. The heavily unionized nature of South Africa’s mining sector makes layoffs “politically sensitive” and doing so could increase the risk of strikes, social unrest and reputational damage. These socialist factors support a strategy in which mines operate at a high capacity utilization without materially increasing output; in other words just churning. Lower capex guidance – similar to the US shale patch – suggests producers are focused on extracting more from existing assets
Goldman’s optimistic view notwithstanding, the main risk to production remains operational disruptions and thus South African power outages and labor strikes represent the most significant threats to supply. Such events can halt production entirely and lead to substantial, albeit often temporary, supply deficits.
Rubber Futures Plunge In Response To BYD Price Cuts
Prices of natural rubber have fallen in response to Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD’s significant price cuts fueling fears of a price war that could hurt tire prices, according to Nikkei.
“Price cuts by BYD, the largest manufacturer, ‘have spread concerns that a full-scale price war may begin,’” said Marketedge CEO Tsutomu Kosuge. Tires consume roughly 70% of natural rubber output.
BYD announced price reductions of up to 34% on 22 models from its main brand. In May, BYD’s new-vehicle sales rose 15% year-on-year to 382,476 units, though this growth was slower than April’s increase of over 20%.
Nikkei writes that despite a 9.8% year-on-year rise in Chinese new-vehicle sales (including exports) in April, worries about overproduction remain, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
The drop in natural rubber prices comes amid speculation that reduced prices for EVs and plug-in hybrids will lead to lower demand for tires, thereby hitting natural rubber demand. On June 3, benchmark rubber futures on the Osaka Exchange fell 4% to 280 yen ($2) per kilogram, marking the lowest price since February 2024.
Earlier this year, natural rubber prices fell after former U.S. President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs in early April. Though prices later rebounded as tensions between Washington and Beijing eased, they have since resumed their decline.
In Asia—home to the world’s main natural rubber production and trading—Shanghai’s rubber futures are the most actively traded globally. Recently, the sharp drop in Shanghai’s futures market has triggered selling pressure on Osaka’s exchange. On Wednesday, Shanghai futures temporarily dropped below 13,300 yuan ($1,850) per metric ton.
Meanwhile, the U.S. new-car market is cooling after a surge in demand leading up to Trump’s tariff announcement. According to MarkLines, U.S. new-vehicle sales in May rose 1.4% year-on-year, slowing from 9.1% and 9.9% gains in March and April, respectively. Analysts are now watching to see how consumer spending will shift, given the economic uncertainty.
According to a chief at the corporate sales department at Japan’s Yutaka Trusty Securities, the next move in prices “will be determined by the outcome of the U.S.-China negotiations.” Natural rubber remains around $2 per kilogram.
With so much else going on, not enough writers have been able to focus on the complexities of immigration issues enough to comment competently on them, much less with a historical perspective.
Within my knowledge base, which is admittedly incomplete, I will attempt this here, recognizing the existence of many mitigating factors that I cannot possibly present in a small piece.
For most of the postwar period, the United States has had a wink-and-nudge approach to undocumented workers. So long as they don’t claim permanent residency, do jobs that Americans can’t or won’t do, and don’t burden the community with welfare and infrastructure demands, they are fine. They come and go through porous borders. Both parties celebrated immigration and wanted it liberalized.
This was true for a good part of my own life. I spent my early years in El Paso, Texas, where these complexities were obvious to all of us. That region had always been mixed in ethnicity and religion owing to its deeply contested national loyalties. Even so, a peace had been achieved. Many workers in town freely moved from the United States to Mexico and back again, as did travelers.
My family would go to Mexico often. The border consisted mostly of a hi and a wave of the hand. There were no fights, no rushes, no blockades, and not many worries. Everyone was aware of undocumented workers on all sides, but there was little enforcement provided everyone obeyed the unstated rules above: work hard, don’t stay, and don’t commit crimes.
I would never say there were no tensions. There were. But they revolved themselves in normal political ways. A national anti-immigrant movement did not exist on any large scale. Even Republicans courted the immigrant vote and wanted more inward migration.
That all changed after Sept. 11, 2001. The suicide attacks in New York City and at the Pentagon caused a new focus on closing borders. They were sealed and monitored in the name of policing for terrorism. For the first time, passports were required to travel to and from Mexico and Canada.
This caused a dramatic shift in incentives. Migrant workers and their families began a scramble to find ways to stay once here. The new path required acting as permanent residents, thus breaking the deal and antagonizing communities and inflaming U.S. politics.
After the many wars in the Middle East sent refugee populations on the run looking for new homes, the United States dealt with a wave of migration regardless, legal and illegal. The aspiration was always to stay. The implicit deal was that if they worked hard and long, eventually amnesty would arrive, just as it had in the past.
At home, however, it was all too much. As any serious historian will tell you, mass disturbance of national demographics, especially that which threatens to result in foundational political change, will cause populist uprising. They always have. No exceptions of which I’m aware.
The politician who broke the taboo on this topic was Donald Trump in 2015. His frank discussion of these issues contributed to his victory in 2016. New methods of border control were being constructed, and enforcement seemed to be working. The fix did not last, however.
The election of 2020 was in substantial part conducted without in-person voting, mostly by order of federal and state public-health agencies. Another thing everyone knows: Mail-in voting is the least secure form, which is why it is banned or highly regulated in most countries. It was inevitable that the results (Trump lost, despite a higher total number of votes than the previous election) would be questioned. Many observers said the numbers simply did not add up.
Further investigation revealed that whoever was in charge of immigration enforcement after 2020 embarked on emergency use of immigration demographics, massively liberalizing policies. The widespread perception was that an old strategy was in play. The purpose was to game electoral outcomes, bringing in as many people as possible in preparation for a repeat of the previous balloting fiasco.
The result was an uncountable number of new people migrating to the United States (maybe 9 million to 12 million, but no one knows for sure), giving them generous welfare benefits including hotels, phones, food, and more. It became so bad that the mayor of New York City protested what was happening to his city.
The use of immigration as a political weapon broke the deal and shattered everything. Even if it was exaggerated, and I’m not offering an opinion either way, it was deeply cynical and dark.
The result was another wave of political outrage that bolstered Trump’s reemergence in 2024, with the pledge to crack down on them. The reasons are economic but mainly pertain to an aspiration to renew the very idea of citizenship itself: A nation without clarity on this point has no meaning.
In short, we are not global citizens because there is no global plebiscite. If we take democracy seriously, and truly believe that the people are the final rulers of themselves, the problem of who is and is not a citizen must be clarified.
This is what the second Trump term has promised. Immigration authorities have been unleashed to do their jobs. But once the crackdown began, there was a problem. Most of the people shipped in under the previous administration were difficult to find, hiding in sanctuary cities and otherwise escaping notice from authorities.
Faced with political pressure to show high deportation numbers, authorities started raiding towns where they had never been and entering workplaces where they usually had never been active, thus targeting the very people whom the United States used to tolerate in the old system.
For Americans to have the feds raiding local businesses and civic institutions is in tension with the civic ethos of liberty and rights that Americans have traditionally expected, and this became a highly charged environment particularly among activists determined to resist what they call Trump’s authoritarianism. And now we have the National Guard in an American city, perhaps the first of many. It’s not a good look to see the military on the streets of American cities. No one would favor such a thing in absence of a perceived emergency.
My point is simply this: We cannot look at the present moment in isolation from all the previous missteps and abuses that have led to it, one step at a time. Yes, the trajectory is dangerous. Yes, it seems like a slippery slope to martial law. Is there any alternative and politically viable solution today? If there is an obvious one in the present moment, I’m not seeing it.
Long-term, we need a calm and reasoned discussion about a strict distinction between worker visas and voting rights, between residency permits and welfare benefits, between entitlements and earned privileges. It’s possible to have a welcoming country that is not simultaneously inflaming and abusing its citizens’ liberality and generosity. Sadly, the moment for that conversation is not now.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.
Condoms for Kindergarteners — this is the priority of @mddems. Rather than supplying the grid with more power and lowering electric bills, or giving children stuck in failed schools a better option, Annapolis Democrats want to put condoms in kindergarten classrooms. Sad. pic.twitter.com/rpBog5jkgd
Their chronic mismanagement, with far-left Governor Wes Moore at the helm, has steered Maryland straight into a power crisis, like the Titanic blindly drifting through an iceberg minefield. The state’s fragile grid is now teetering on the edge of crisis, paving the way for ‘net-zero‘ blackouts that could soon rival those seen in Spain or California.
It’s time to ditch the Green New Scam. “There’s an acute misalignment between supply and demand for electricity in Maryland,” said BGE spokesperson Nick Alexopulos. “In short, we don’t have enough power plants to meet the energy demand.” pic.twitter.com/surcWmHcK7
A top official at Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE), a local utility with 1.3 million electric customers and 700,000 natural gas customers, warned that rolling power blackouts could soon become a regular feature in the state due to a rapidly alarming mismatch between total power capacity on the grid and soaring demand.
Maryland Democrats’ excessive, targeted taxation on in-state fossil fuel energy producers has forced multiple plants to shut down, and we are left paying the price.
High energy bills and the expected rolling blackouts are a policy choice by Democrats. Marylanders need to choose… pic.twitter.com/6O41EDFN8j
Regular rolling blackouts could become reality for Baltimore-area residents if a lack of energy supplied to the power grid remains unaddressed, Baltimore Gas and Electric Company Vice President Electric Operations Steven Singh warned.
BGE has worked during the last two decades to lessen the number of short-term loads shed events, Singh said, but rolling blackouts — during which power is disconnected from some segments of the community when the grid remains viable — could be implemented if power demand continues to exceed supply.
“It’s a huge concern,” Singh said. “It’s a clear and present issue.”
At a recent round table at the University of Maryland … We have a supply and demand issue.”
Singh also shared larger concerns with energy shortages that may result as the energy transition away from coal-fired power plants continues, and electric vehicle ownership grows. He said one factor that impacts the region is an increase in data centers — reliant on huge, power-hungry server infrastructure.
Regular rolling blackouts could become a reality for Baltimore-area residents, Baltimore Gas and Electric Company Vice President of Electric Operations Steven Singh said.
Storms and other large-scale weather events are the main reason for outages, while blackouts are caused by a… pic.twitter.com/O0nmbpxXFQ
At the heart of the crisis is the Democratic leadership in the state, consisting of activists who masquerade as efficient managers. Yet they’re far from efficient while wearing climate crisis blinders and pushing through disastrous “green” policies—shuttering coal-fired power plants without bringing sufficient new capacity online. All this comes amid surging power demand driven by AI data centers (read here), EV adoption, and re-shoring of industrial operations in the region.
And because of this epic mismanagement by far-left lawmakers, Marylanders are suffering from the worst power bill crisis in a generation, with 25% of Maryland households unable to pay an energy bill in the past 12 months.
But let’s not wrap this up just yet…
To capture the growing discontent among Maryland residents, we’re turning to the comment section of The Baltimore Sun’s Facebook post featuring the article.
Here’s what people had to say…
For those living in Maryland. Welcome to California. Just wait for the exodus of residents, it’s already beginning. We’ve informed readers multiple times that a large asset manager in the state has instructed its clients not to buy Maryland muni bonds and to leave the state.
The House of Representatives passed two bills on June 10 to repeal District of Columbia laws on policing and noncitizen voting.
The first would prohibit noncitizens from voting in local District of Columbia elections.
It passed with 266 members voting in favor of it, 148 voting against, and one member voting “present.”
The second would give Washington police officers collective bargaining rights and restore the statute of limitations for police disciplinary cases.
It passed with 235 votes in favor, 178 against, and one “present.”
Under the “home rule,” Congress has ultimate authority to review laws made by the District of Columbia’s local government.
The voting-related bill would repeal the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022, which allowed noncitizens to cast their ballots in local elections in the nation’s capital.
Introduced by Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), 56 Democrats voted for it. All Republicans voted for it.
“It’s common sense: Only American citizens should be able to vote in U.S. elections!” Pfluger wrote on X.
However, Rep. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said that the bill is misguided.
“Republicans introduced 26 bills or amendments to change local D.C. voting laws, including 14 to prohibit noncitizens from voting in D.C. or to repeal, nullify or prohibit the carrying out of the local D.C. law that allows residents who are not citizens to vote in local elections last Congress,” she said in a statement.
“Yet Republicans refuse to make the only election law change D.C. has requested: making D.C. a state so that it can hold elections for voting members of the House and Senate.”
Meanwhile, 30 Democrats voted in favor of the police bill. Four Republicans—Reps. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), Scott Perry (R-Pa.), and Chip Roy (R-Texas)—voted against it.
“The Metropolitan Police Department is facing a public safety crisis brought on by reckless policies that have stripped officers of basic protections and left the force dangerously understaffed,” the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), said in a statement.
“This legislation helps right that wrong by giving MPD the tools and support they need to recruit, retain, and protect.
“Congress has a duty to ensure our nation’s capital is safe, and today’s vote sends a clear message: we back the badge, and we refuse to let violent crime take over D.C.”
Norton said in a statement that the bill “overrides the longstanding wishes of the D.C. police department” as “for at least a quarter century, the D.C. police department had requested increased authority to discipline officers for misconduct.”
On June 11, the House will vote on another D.C.-related bill, the District of Columbia Federal Immigration Compliance Act, which would eliminate the district’s status as a sanctuary city and therefore require it to comply with federal immigration officials when it comes to dealing with those in the United States illegally.
An exception is made for illegal immigrants who come forward as victims of, or witnesses to, criminal offenses or report someone to the Department of Homeland Security who is in the country illegally.
Zelensky’s Refusal To Compromise Will Lead To More Territorial Losses: Russian Negotiator
While this should come as no surprise to observers of the Russia-Ukraine war, the Kremlin has put Kiev on notice that its continued unwillingness to compromise at the negotiating table will only lead to more and permanent territorial losses.
This was the latest warning conveyed by Russian Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky, who has been leading the Russian delegation in Istanbul talks.
He actually spoke to The Wall Street Journal, conveying the warning, while making clear that Russia will never relent until Putin’s war aims are achieved, and defense of Russia’s sovereignty and stability can be assured.
Now, Vladimir Medinsky is drawing on his view of history again as he tries to convince Ukraine that it would be better off unwinding its integration with the West and embracing Moscow’s terms for peace.
“With Russia, it’s impossible to fight a long war,” Medinsky said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, citing Russia’s 21-year war with Sweden in the 18th century as evidence that the country prevails in protracted fights.
“We want peace,” he continued. “But if Ukraine keeps being driven by the national interests of others, then we will be simply forced to respond,” he added.
That’s when Medinsky also “warned that a lack of compromise from Kiev would only lead to more territorial losses,” WSJ wrote.
As yet, Ukraine’s President Zelensky hasn’t so much as offered recognition of Crimea as Russian territory, and certainly he’s far away from saying the same of the annexed territories in the Donbass, where some fighting still exists.
This week it’s become clear that Russian forces are advancing into Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, which is a first in the three-year-plus long war, marking a significant territorial escalation amid stalled peace talks.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the advance serves as a warning to the Zelensky government to accept “realities on the ground.” Medinsky’s words given to a major American publication are clearly another major warning along the same lines.
“In the future there will be only one occupation: managing one’s wealth.
…and most people are going to be unemployed.” — Mark E. Jeftovic, ‘The Great Bifurcation’
It’s been a minute since I last wrote anything here, owing to a combination of a slightly heavier than usual travel schedule, and frankly, burnout, after that last Canadian election.
I’ve truly underestimated the gullibility of the Canadian public – after being predictably on-track for a massive pendulum swing to a Conservative super-majority from 10 years of Liberal policies demolishing Canada, the entire dynamic reversed and was nullified within a few short weeks by the entire “Elbows Up” mind-fuck.
The irony behind all this is that the public largely switched their vote for the candidate DonaldTrump wanted to win because of their own Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Watching it from the outside was demoralizing.
(Steve Bannon told me before the election that Trump’s “51st State” riffs were done on purpose to get the libs re-elected and Trump himself took a victory lap afterwards – Canadians were had. Why? Because the Americans want Alberta, and they think they’ll get it through de facto economic or political integration within a few years after #WEXIT happens).
The number of Canadians who now feel politically homeless is at an all-time high. The rapidly waning productive class of society watches, unable to intervene – as insular technocrats implement overtly destructive policies (i.e 865,000 new immigrants admitted YTD into an economy that squeaked out 8,800 new jobs) and seem to be intentionally cultivating divisiveness and polarization.
We’re moving from the top-down, centralized model of a hierarchical Industrial Age and transitioning into an amorphous and mercurial, rapidly shifting, network topology that blurs the lines between sovereigns and systems, crowns and corporations, that serves as a super-conductor for data, information, and memetic constructs – not to mention: disinfo, bad news and mass formation psychosis.
Add to this mix, AI – the third major technological disruption of this century after the internet (decentralized non-state communications) and Bitcoin (decentralized non-state money).
Now we have decentralized, non-state intelligence and I mean intelligence in a number of ways, including:
access to the sum total of human knowledge, instantly and at effectively zero marginal cost.
each individual possessing the means, motive and opportunity to create their own personal think-tanks, advisory boards and even “spycraft”-style intelligence services using osint and agentic AI that can act strategically and agentically on anybody’s behalf (servitor swarms, if you will).
every node, device, piece of software and network connected “thing” having the ability to access and act on information from everything else.
There’s a sub-cult of Bitcoin maxis who actually welcome outcomes like the aforementioned Canadian election because they think having nations run by the most out-of-touch, behind the curve technocrats will hasten the collapse of the fiat money era and bring about a Bitcoin Standard. They are awaiting a kind of monetary eschaton – and they are called accelerationists.
I am not an accelerationist, but you may have noticed I have been writing a lot about this but find the word itself being inadequate to the task – what’s happening now is beyond acceleration. In physics, there is a derivative order and their ascension forms a kind of kinematic spectrum:
I’ve been trying to come up with a word that captures this accelerating acceleration that’s a bit sexier than “jerk” – and this exponentially intensifying derivative expansion beyond “snap”, “crackle” and “pop” (oh those nerd physicists) – so far I can really only make something up (actually, it was the best chatGPT could think of): tachyosis (tachy- = fast, -osis = condition/process), to wit:
Tachyosis(n.) A state of recursively compounding acceleration — where systems evolve faster than they can stabilize, perception fragments, and causality begins to blur. Considered the experiential threshold of the kinematic continuum.
“Civilizations in tachyosis cease to distinguish between signal and noise — they become pure velocity.”
This seems to fit the bill, and I like it because the word is reminiscent of “psychosis”, which is what a society undergoing this induces at a mass level.
What tachyosis does to society
While we know what happens during hyper-inflations, technological quantum leaps or breakdowns in the social contract – as separate phenomenons. If you follow Ray Dalio, he’ll tell you that the USA is following a template outlined his own research putting squarely on the path to Civil War –
“That template led me to believe that there was a high chance of a convergent breakdown of the monetary order, the domestic political order, and the international geopolitical order. Unfortunately, events are transpiring consistent with that template. “
But with all due respect to Mr. Dali, his framework only covers two of the three drivers we’re looking at here: it’s missing compounding affects of technological overclocking, and there are no history books to describe all three of these forces hitting an inflection point at the same time and all over the world.
The Rise of Tribalism
As societal institutions break down the economy enters a state of perpetual disruption, people start forming associations with like-minded individuals and families, both in their own communities and remotely.
Tribes may overlap with geopolitical boundaries but their center of gravity is what it stands for, not the political unit they may (for a moment) intersect with.
Woke, MAGA, AnCaps, BLM, Proud Boys, MS-13, Bitcoin, and Scientology are all examples of tribes now, regardless of what they started out as. Some with more staying power than others. But they will all acquire more relevance and gravitas in their members’ lives than their nation state citizenship. Why? Because no nation state can keep up with the process of tachyosis, while tribes are informed by it.
(To that end, there’s a new tribe forming for politically homeless Canadians over at Ready.ca)
Neo-Feudalism & The Vise of Technology
By this, I mean the effect this technological hyper-acceleration is having at both ends of your own personal lifespan.
If you have kids under the age of 30, especially if they’re under the age of 20 – their path forward will be very different from all those who came before.
Put bluntly: they probably won’t have jobs, much less careers. The time for each generation accumulating their own wealth and building personal fortunes will be – for most participants – over.
Your kids, your grandchildren and beyond, (hold that thought) would do better to be raised in preparation for maintaining the wealth and managing any assets you leave to them. Anybody who doesn’t inherit anything faces a real risk of being permanently priced out of the asset acquisition game in perpetuity.
Especially if they follow the path laid out in Industrial Age textbooks: go to school, then university, then go find a job with a big company and parlay that into a series of mid-management posts that culminate in a career and a payday. Most of those positions will have been automated away and the majority of younger generations are looking at UBI and endless leisure – so long as they spend most of their time confined to a metaverse-connected pod stacked somewhere in a 15-minute city and take up as little space and oxygen in the real world as possible.
Meanwhile, if you have managed to amass assets and a non-negative net worth, be prepared to live longer – a lot longer. 150, 160 will probably be normal for anybody under 60 or so now. That’s how fast biotech – and soon nanotech – is moving.
A number of my peer group – mostly technology and business operators in their mid-50’s to late-60’s are looking to take their chips off the table, sell the businesses they founded and retire, assuming they’ll need to clear enough money to last them another 20 or 30 years.
That could be a huge mistake because there’s a real possibility they find themselves facing the prospect of heading into their 90’s and early 100’s having outlived their retirement funds.
The old model was (again, bluntly), “Die before your money runs out.” Now, it’s not just about planning for 30 years post-retirement. Plan for a century.
Meanwhile, you’re kids won’t have careers, neither will theirs – and you’ll still probably be around to see your great- and great-great-grandchildren be born into the same post-bifurcation world.
This is the neo-Feudal aspect. Your fortune will have to be subdivided across each generation, like the fiefdoms of yore – and the only way to keep everybody living in the real world (instead of being tucked away in those pods, being intravenously fed liquid crickets and soy protein) will be to leave them with a vastly larger fortune than the one you thought was enough to get just you through retirement.
I wish I had better news than this, because the world we’re headed into – while technologically fantastic – will also be economically bleak for too many people. It’s not fair, it’s not egalitarian and there is no stopping it – short of a Tower of Babel 2.0 type event, which will be a total buzzkill in even less preferable ways.
I’ve called this scenario “The Great Bifurcation” – where the world’s middle class disintegrates and we head into a hellscape of mind-boggling wealth disparity.
Lately I’ve come to suspect that this will play out beyond the economic sphere and also occur at the level of mental abstraction (see my earlier notes about W R Clemens)– and by this I don’t mean that the “haves” will have brain chips and poors won’t (probably the other way around, if anything) – but that the underclass will be operating at a cognitive disadvantage that resembles a different species entirely.
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Mark E. Jeftovic is the founder of Bombthrower Media and CEO of easyDNS.com, a company he co-founded in 1998 which has been operating along the lines described within these pages.
