Wildfires in Alberta, Canada — the country’s energy hub — have shuttered 344k barrels per day of oil sands production, or about 7% of national output. 

Cenovus Energy, MEG Energy, and Canadian Natural Resources have halted output because of a 61,500-hectare blaze near the Saskatchewan border. 

One of the 26 active wildfires is about 6 miles from 470k barrels bpd of oil sands production. 

What’s critical to know:

• Affected companies include Cenovus Energy, MEG Energy, and Canadian Natural Resources.

• Roughly 470k bpd of production is within 6 miles of active fires.

• Cenovus halted its Christina Lake site (238k bpd) last Thursday, expecting to restart soon

• MEG Energy delayed restarting part of its 70k bpd site due to power outages.

• Canadian Natural shut 36k bpd at its Jackfish 1 site after evacuations.

Important context: Canada produces 4.9 million bpd. It’s the largest foreign oil supplier to the U.S., accounting for approximately 60% of total crude imports, with the vast majority of that coming from Alberta’s oil sands.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said on Monday that some 400,000 hectares have burned across the province, up from about 9,000 as of last week. 

Any major disruption to Alberta’s oil production will tighten North American supply, push prices higher, and may force U.S. refiners to source costlier supplies elsewhere. It’s a risk worth monitoring—something Goldman analyst Adam Wijaya flagged late last week.

Authored by Dana Anderson via Redfin News,

There’s a total of $698 billion worth of homes for sale in the U.S., up 20.3% from a year ago and the highest dollar amount ever. 

This is based on an analysis of listings on Redfin.com going back through 2012. For the total dollar value of all inventory on the market, we sum up the list price of all active U.S. listings as of the last day of each month; April 2025 is the most recent month for which data is available. For the purposes of this report, the term “value” is interchangeable with “list price”; i.e., when we refer to “total home value,” we mean the sum of all list prices. We define “stale inventory” as home listings that spend at least 60 days on the market and are actively listed for sale on the final day of the relevant month. Please see the end of this report for more on methodology. 

The total value of U.S. home listings is at an all-time high because of the combination of growing inventory, slowing demand, and increasing home-sale prices:

• Housing supply is at a 5-year high. There are many more sellers than buyers in the market. The total number of homes on the market nationwide rose 16.7% year over year in April to its highest level in 5 years, with the mortgage-rate lock-in effect easing and homeowners trying to cash out due to economic uncertainty. New listings increased 8.6% to a 3-year high. 
• Homes are sitting on the market longer. The typical home that sold in April took 40 days to go under contract, 5 days longer than a year earlier. There’s also a growing share of inventory that has been sitting on the market for longer than two months; see the next section of this report for more details. 
• Homebuying demand is falling. Home sales are declining, and Redfin agents in much of the country report that would-be buyers are backing off due to record-high monthly housing costs and widespread economic instability. 
• Home prices are rising. The median U.S. home-sale price rose 1.4% year over year in April. Note that the total value of inventory is up by much more, 20.3% year over year, which signals that in recent years, the rising number of listings is a bigger factor in the total value of inventory than rising prices. 

Another Redfin analysis found that there are nearly 500,000 more home sellers than buyers in today’s housing market. The fact that so many homes are being listed without buyers out there to purchase them, along with continually rising prices, explains why there are 12 figures worth of unsold inventory sitting on the market. 

“A huge pop of listings hit the market at the start of spring, and there weren’t enough buyers to go around,” said Matt Purdy, a Redfin Premier agent in Denver. “House hunters are only buying if they absolutely have to, and even serious buyers are backing out of contracts more than they used to. Buyers have a window to get a deal; there’s still a surplus of inventory on the market, with sellers facing reality and willing to negotiate prices down.”

Contrast today’s total value of inventory with the red-hot pandemic-era housing market, defined by tight supply. The total value of listings dropped to $309 billion in January 2022, the lowest dollar value in our records, which date back to 2012. At the start of 2022, mortgage rates were sitting at a near-record-low of 3.1%, homebuyers were hungry, and home supply was at its lowest level on record. Homes were flying off the market in 24 days, compared to today’s pace of 40 days. 

Meanwhile, look at the spread between current mortgage rates and the average effective rate for all homeowners…

And then we have construction spending, which has fallen the most since COVID:

44% of Listings Have Been Lingering on the Market For 60+ Days

More than two in five (44%) listings in April had been on the market for at least 60 days without going under contract, which we refer to in this report as “stale inventory.” That’s up from 42.1% a year earlier, and the highest April share since 2020, when the start of the pandemic ground the housing market to a halt. 

There’s $331 Billion Worth of Stale Inventory on the Market

The total value of that stale inventory is $331 billion, which accounts for nearly half of the dollar value of all inventory. That’s up 20.5% year over year. 

“The record-high dollar value of all homes listed for sale is one way to quantify this buyer’s market,” said Chen Zhao, Redfin’s head of economics research. “Not only are there more homes for sale than there have been in five years, but the value of those homes is higher than it has ever been. We expect rising inventory, weakened demand, and the prevalence of stale supply to push home prices down 1% by the end of this year, which should improve affordability for buyers because incomes are still going up.”

500,000 More Sellers than Buyers?!

As Redfin reported late last week, there are 34% more sellers in the market than buyers. 

There are an estimated 1.9 million home sellers in the U.S. housing market and an estimated 1.5 million homebuyers. In other words, there are 33.7% more sellers than buyers (or 490,041 more, to be exact). At no other point in records dating back to 2013 have sellers outnumbered buyers by this large of a number or percentage. A year ago, sellers outnumbered buyers by just 6.5%, and two years ago, buyers outnumbered sellers.

There haven’t been this many home sellers since March 2020. There haven’t been this few buyers at any point in records dating back to 2013 aside from April 2020, when the onset of the coronavirus pandemic brought the housing market to a halt.

The most recent data point in this analysis is April 2025. The estimated number of sellers in the market is simply the number of active listings in the MLS. To estimate the number of buyers, we created a model that uses data on pending sales and the typical time from a buyer’s first tour to their purchase. Scroll down for a full methodology and data on the 50 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas. 

Redfin earlier this month predicted that home prices will drop 1% year over year by the end of 2025, and the growing imbalance between buyers and sellers is the basis for that prediction. When sellers are competing for a small pool of buyers, that indicates a buyer’s market. And when it’s a buyer’s market, home prices can fall because buyers have negotiating power. 

Sellers outnumber buyers for several reasons:

• It’s expensive to buy a home: High home prices and mortgage rates are scaring buyers off. The median home sale price rose 1.6% year over year to $431,931 in April. That’s the slowest growth in nearly two years, but monthly housing payments still hit a record high last month because mortgage rates and prices remain elevated. The average 30-year-fixed mortgage rate was 6.73% in April—more than double the record low hit during the pandemic. 
• Economic uncertainty: Tariff talks, layoffs, and federal policy changes are among the other factors dampening homebuyer demand. A recent Redfin survey found that nearly 1 in 4 Americans is scrapping plans to make a major purchase due to tariffs. 
• The mortgage rate lock-in effect is easing: Homeowners who have been sitting on ultra-low mortgage rates they scored during the pandemic are now giving up those low rates and selling their homes. That’s because for most people, it’s not realistic to stay put forever; job changes, return to office mandates and divorce force people to move. The idea of taking on a higher mortgage rate also isn’t as shocking as it was when rates first skyrocketed in 2022. 

“The balance of power in the U.S. housing market has shifted toward buyers, but a lot of sellers have yet to see or accept the writing on the wall. Many are still holding out hope that their home is the exception and will fetch top dollar,” said Redfin Senior Economist Asad Khan. “But as sellers see their homes sit longer on the market and notice fewer buyers coming through on tour, more of them will realize that the market has adjusted and reset their expectations accordingly.”

Sellers are already gaining more data points on this front, and will likely face another reality  check in the summer, when demand typically starts to slow. More than two of every five (44%) home listings in April had been on the market for 60 days or longer—the highest April share since 2020. Stale inventory is piling up in part because many sellers are overpricing their homes, using sky-high comps from the recent seller’s market that aren’t realistic today. In some cases, sellers are pricing high because they bought at the peak of the market and are trying to recoup their investment. 

The takeaway for sellers: Time is not on your side. If you are considering selling, do it sooner rather than later because home prices in your area may fall. If your home is already on the market and has been sitting for over a month, you may want to consider an improvement to your property or a reduction in price.

The takeaway for buyers: Many Americans have already been and will remain priced out of the housing market, even if prices decline. But for those who are still in the game, don’t get discouraged. Your purchasing power will increase if home prices fall, wages rise and mortgage rates remain steady as expected. Homes that would have been out of reach six months ago may come into reach as sellers entertain lower offers and concessions.

History Shows That Home Prices Cool When Sellers Outnumber Buyers

A change in the balance of buyers and sellers is a signal of what’s to come with home prices. Aside from the onset of the pandemic, the last time sellers significantly outnumbered buyers was around the time mortgage rates jumped in 2018.

In November 2018, the average 30-year-fixed mortgage rate peaked at 4.87%, which was the highest level in nearly eight years and almost a full percentage point higher than a year earlier. One month later, sellers outnumbered buyers by 9.4%—the largest percentage since 2015 and a reversal from the prior year, when buyers outnumbered sellers. Three months later, home-price growth shrunk to the lowest level in at least six years, with prices rising 2% from a year earlier to $283,912. 

We saw a similar dynamic take hold in 2013-2014. As shown in the chart below, swings in the ratio of buyers to sellers are typically followed by similar swings in home-price growth.

oday, the imbalance between buyers and sellers is even greater, meaning there’s more pressure on prices. Annual price growth has already slowed to 1.6% from 6.2% last spring, and we expect this trajectory to continue, ultimately causing prices to fall. The last time home prices posted a year-over-year decline was 2023. 

Even as mortgage rates surged in 2022, buyers outnumbered sellers. Sellers most recently started outnumbering buyers in November 2023—the month after mortgage rates hit the highest level in over two decades, peaking at almost 8%. Homebuyer demand has been sluggish ever since, and is likely to remain so given widespread economic uncertainty and recession fears. What has changed recently is more sellers have started entering the market. 

Read the rest of the report here…

What does an autistic 22-year-old living most of her life in 1st world decadence with her rich celebrity parents know about climate science?  Or the complexities of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians?  Not a damn thing, really, which is why it’s confounding that such a person seems to continually garner a steady spotlight from the establishment media when it comes to environmental and geopolitical causes. 

How did Greta Thunberg become the poster child for global progressive activism when she is provably ignorant on every conceivable level?  Is it simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time?  Or, did someone call in a major favor?  Thunberg is, at the very least, no stranger to opportunism and self promotion. 

She has dealt with a series of embarrassing failures on the climate change front, including being forced to erase a 2018 Twitter post in which she predicted climate catastrophe by 2023.  Her theatrical arrests at protest events across Europe have done little to attract the kind of media frenzy she obviously craves, and so, it would appear that global warming is no longer a crusade she feels compelled to undertake.  There’s no more clout to be chased.

Instead, Greta has identified the ripest progressive bandwagon of the day and jumped aboard – Namely the war in Gaza. 

Wrapped in a Palestinian keffiyeh and pontificating about “genocide”, the career activist has traveled with a protest group on an aid ship to Gaza.  The sailing boat Madleen, operated by Freedom Flotilla Coalition, departed from the Sicilian port of Catania in southern Italy.  It will try to reach the shores of the Gaza Strip in an effort to bring in some aid and raise “international awareness” over the ongoing humanitarian crisis, the activists said at a press conference on Sunday.

One can argue the finer points of how the war in Gaza is being handled (by Hamas or by Israel), but few people want to hear about this debate from Greta Thunberg.

In mid-May, Israel eased its blockade of Gaza after nearly three months, allowing a limited amount of humanitarian aid into the territory.  Though Thunberg’s group claims their goal is to “break the blockade” it’s unlikely that she would be attempting this kind of promotional stunt if conditions had not already loosened. 

The political left’s obsession with the Gaza war is strange considering the majority of Palestinians are fundamentalists that violently oppose nearly every progressive ideal from women’s rights to gay pride.  However, the situation is much like the George Floyd incident in that it provides a dramatic backdrop, a tool for absorbing certain groups into the leftist fold to be used as fodder for the deconstruction of the west.

It’s not realistic, though, to expect the marriage between Muslim and woke movements to last very long.  By the time things fall apart and the disparate sides are at each other’s throats, Thunberg will surely have latched on to the next hot button protest.  

On the bright side, Thunberg’s quiet move away from climate activism may signal a turning of the tide and the end to the global warming farce.  If the climate cult’s most prominent muppet mascot is jumping ship for another movement, it’s a portent of the beginning of the end for carbon crisis doomsayers.    

Authored by Tuomas Malinen via Substack,

It seems that every time a road to peace in Ukraine looks open, something happens, leading to a deeper escalation.

The Sunday strikes by Ukraine on Russia’s ‘nuclear triad,’ i.e., intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines, and intercontinental bombers, are a serious escalation. Ukraine claims that it would have destroyed one-third of Russia’s strategic bombers. This assertion is likely to be a gross overstatement, but the actual numbers are irrelevant.

The strike, once again, targeted Russia’s nuclear arsenal, which can serve only two aims:

1. Ukrainian leadership is desperately trying to fully commit NATO to the war in Ukraine, or

2. Strikes are preparation for NATO’s nuclear strikes on Russia.

We listed these in our May 30, 2024, warning on the possibility of a nuclear strike in Europe, after Ukraine had struck Russia’s early-warning (over-the-horizon) radars. The strikes on the over-the-horizon radars were already a dangerous provocation, which had zero relevance to the war in Ukraine (radars look for launches of intercontinental and medium-range ballistic missiles at high altitudes). Sunday, however, was a provocation at an entirely different level.

• Firstly, this was (again) a strike to Russia’s nuclear forces, which enables (essentially demands) a response with nuclear weapons according to Russia’s nuclear doctrine. This is why we issued an updated warning of a nuclear strike in Europe yesterday.

• Secondly, START mandates the outside storage of strategic (intercontinental) bombers. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty requires bombers to be stored outside so that they can be tracked with satellites. Essentially, this now means that also the U.S. strategic fleet can be attacked by anyone with access to drones and explosives. The path to nuclear sabotage at a whole other level has been opened (to note, if the U.S. strategic fleet had been hit, missiles would probably already be flying). What happens to START is very unclear now. Russia suspended its participation in February 2023 but did not withdraw from it fully.

• Thirdly, according to Axios, the administration of President Trump would not have been informed about the strikes. This implies that the regime of President Zelenskyy is now fully at the service of the ‘war-triad’ consisting of the U.S./NATO Deep State, the military-industrial complex, and the ‘group-over-groups.’ This indicates that President Trump is losing his ability to steer the conflict. The repercussions of this are hard to quantify as of yet, but nothing good can come of a rogue state attacking a nuclear power.

Most importantly, we need to understand that this was not about Ukraine vs. Russia nor NATO vs. Russia. An effort to unleash a nuclear war is a threat against all humankind. I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous and reckless such a “game” is.

It’s my current thinking that Russia’s response will take some time coming, but it’s likely to be devastating when it comes (Russia may also declare war on Ukraine, albeit I still doubt it). The Kremlin probably wanted to play the charade of peace negotiations in Istanbul first. The peace negotiations are a charade because neither side is currently seeking genuine peace. Russia does not trust the Zelenskyy administration nor European leaders, and President Zelenskyy cannot seek peace because it would probably have him killed. Remember also that if Russia strikes Ukraine with nuclear weapons, it is unlikely to be met by NATO except maybe through sanctions.

On January 11, based on our Peak Escalation hypothesis, we warned that

1. There will be attempts to postpone or completely derail the peace process in Ukraine during H1 2025.

2. If this (peace in Ukraine) comes to be, as we suspect it eventually will, another front with Russia will be opened somewhere in the axis of Poland/Belarus, Baltics or the Nordics, shortly after.

We, most unfortunately, have been following this to the letter. Ukrainian strikes on the eve of the second round of negotiations in Istanbul made sure that we are set to follow this through. Alas, war drums beat loudly over Europe, yet again.

Remember also that all major European conflicts have started between 22 June and 1 September. Let’s see how “hot” this summer becomes.

Last week, British AI startup backed by Microsoft and the Qatar Investment Authority, Builder.ai, filed for bankruptcy after its CEO said a major creditor had seized most of its cash. 

Valued at $1.5 billion after a $445 million investment by Microsoft, the company claimed to leverage artificial intelligence to generate custom apps in ‘days or weeks,’ which would produce functional code that had less human involvement. 

Now they’ve gone cloth-off… as Bloomberg reports they had a ‘fake it till you make it’ strategy while having inflated 2024 revenue projections by 300%. Instead of AI, the company was actually using a fleet of more than 700 Indian engineers from social media startup VerSe Innovation for years to actually write the code. 

Requests for custom apps were based on pre-built templates and later customized through human labor to tailor the requests sent to the company – whose demos and promotional materials misrepresented the role of AI. 

According to Bloomberg, Builder.ai and VerSe Innovation ‘routinely billed one another for roughly the same amounts between 2021 and 2024,’ in an alleged practice known as “round-tripping” that people said Builder.ai used to inflate revenue figures that were then presented to investors. In several cases, products and services weren’t actually rendered for these payments. 

Builder.ai collected close to $60 million in revenue from VerSe in the four-year period for services such as application development, according to people with knowledge of the situation. In turn, the AI startup sent funds to VerSe and its subsidiary, Quark Media Tech, for services such as marketing, the documents show. The two companies appear to have interspersed the timing and amount of the invoices to avoid suspicion, though each firm ultimately spent approximately the same amount, according to the people and documents. –Bloomberg

VerSe cofounder Umang Bedi said the claims are “absolutely baseless and false,” adding “We’re not the kind of company that is in the business of inflating revenues,” and insisting that the accusations of round tripping are “defamatory and irresponsible.” 

The company is now under investigation by US and UK authorities.  

😃 The Natasha neural network turned out to be 700 Indian programmers

The startup BuilderAI offered to write any application, like in a constructor, by selecting the necessary functions.

In reality, customer requests were sent to the Indian office, where 700 Indians wrote code… pic.twitter.com/lYWipf63cp

— Bernhard Engelbrecht (@BernhardEngel_) May 29, 2025

Last week, Bloomberg reported that Viola Credit – which provided $50 million in debt to the software firm last year, had seized $37 million from Builder.ai’s accounts – leaving the company with just $5 million, CEO Manpreet Ratia said in a Tuesday interview, where he announced the decision to let go most of Builder.ai’s employees, and said that the $5 million is located in Indian accounts and  could not be accessed to pay workers due to restrictions on the movement of money out of the country. 

The proceedings mark a stunning fall from grace for a company that two years ago raised a $250 million funding round led by QIA, one of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds. Microsoft also made an equity investment in 2023 as part of a strategic partnership. Less than two months ago, Builder.ai confirmed to Bloomberg News that it had been forced to lower sales estimates provided to investors and had hired auditors to examine two years of accounts. This came in response to questions from Bloomberg about former employees’ concerns that the company inflated sales figures. –Bloomberg

The company’s deception was first suggested in 2019 in a WSJ report that questioned the company’s AI claims – revealing that the platform relied heavily on human contractors, with several former employees describing the operation as “all engineer, no AI,” with most of that work being done manually by staff in India. 

Authored by Chris Morrison via DailySceptic.org,

Activist scientists on the Federal payroll in the United States are reeling from President Trump’s recent executive order designed to promote openness and integrity in an often corrupted and politicised scientific process. The order mandates transparency, objectivity and it provides a protection for dissenting views and safeguards against political interference. Scientific results must be falsifiable, computer models must be explainable and negative results available. Needless to say, not everyone is happy with this return to the “gold standard” with a group of scientists including Michael ‘Hockey Stick’ Mann writing in the Guardian – seemingly without irony – that it will “destroy American science as we know it”. A group called Stand Up for Science, whose executive director also helped write the Guardian article, is collecting signatures noting that “state sponsored” scientific programmes in Nazi Germany led to the deaths of millions of Jews, people with disabilities and people identifying as LGBTQ+.

Of course, the Hitler trope is often deployed when political activists are circling the wagons to defend a way of doing business “as we know it”. In fact, the Trump executive order does no more than provide guidance as to how science should be conducted. It is patently necessary because much of the science produced during the recent Covid panic and in the current fake climate emergency is biased towards promoting the political agenda of an influential, moneyed elite. Even the Guardian finds it hard to quarrel with the new requirement that science produced by Federal employees should be informed by “the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available”. Quite how the newspaper’s writers believe “science is under siege” with an order enshrining such basic scientific principles is not immediately clear.

Over the last five years in the US, public confidence in science has fallen, according to the executive order. In several cases the Federal Government has contributed to this loss of trust. During the pandemic, schools remained closed despite the “best available scientific evidence” showing that children were unlikely to transmit or suffer serious illness or death from the virus. On climate change, agencies have regularly used the RCP 8.5 scenario to produce ‘worst case’ computer model projections. In fact, RCP 8.5 is the basis for most climate and weather fear-mongering. The order notes it is based on highly unlikely assumptions like end-of-century coal use exceeding estimates of recoverable coal reserves. The science writer Roger Pielke Jr has long been a critic of this widespread ‘pathway’, calling its continued misuse, “one of the most significant failures of scientific integrity in the 21st Century so far”.

For the avoidance of any doubt, the order lays out in simple terms what is meant by “restoring gold standard science”. It means it must be reproducible; transparent; open about error and uncertainty; collaborative and interdisciplinary; sceptical of its findings and assumptions; falsifiable; subject to unbiased peer-review; accepting of negative results as positive outcomes and without conflicts of interest. Highly unlikely and overly precautionary assumptions and scenarios should only be relied upon in agency decision-making where required by law or otherwise relevant to an agency’s action. Any outside ‘contractor’ working for a federal agency will also be obliged to follow the new rules as though they were directly employed.

There is nothing out of the ordinary in the order to those immersed in the traditional scientific process and without an ideological axe to grind. But in the climate sphere it is likely to spike the guns of a number of activists and their alarmist claims. After years of producing junk science to promote the Net Zero fantasy, great care will now need to be taken in promoting ‘worse case’ scenarios. Meanwhile, the pseudoscience of attributing individual weather events to humans burning hydrocarbons will need to be confined to gullible journalists and lawfare operations, two purposes for which it was originally designed.

As the Guardian article shows, opposition to the gold standard requirement is a little tricky given that it lays down perfectly reasonable rules and procedures for employees paid by the taxpayer. “It all sounds very non-objectional, but it’s extremely dangerous in its details and subtext,” observed Gretchen Goldman, president of the Green Blob part-funded Union of Concerned Scientists. The only objection left is to criticise the ‘political’ appointment of administrators to examine the workings out. But these will be made by the heads of agencies such as the weather service NOAA and space operation NASA who are themselves appointed by the Government. The oversight will not set the scope of any work or require certain conclusions to be produced. It is highly unlikely that any LGBTQ+ people will be marched to the gulag any time soon. Federal employees are simply being required to follow best scientific practice.

Victoria LaCivita, a spokeswoman for the US Office of Science and Technology Policy, which coordinates science policy across the government, told Nature that the order created a path to rebuilding trust between the scientific community and the public “through common sense scientific principles”. According to Nature, she also accused the recent Biden Administration of incorporating radical woke ideology into the scientific enterprise by introducing diversity, equity and inclusion programmes. “If that’s not politicised science, I don’t know what is,” she added.

Meanwhile, the Guardian concludes its thoughts on the Trump order by stating that “science depends on free speech – free and continuous discussion of data and ideas”.

This is the same newspaper that has spent decades attempting to close down any debate that does not accept the central role of carbon dioxide and humans in its imaginary climate crisis. No alternative ‘denier’ view from however distinguished a scientist or observer is allowed. Climate science is always described as ‘settled’. It is also the same newspaper that in August 2018 published a letter from 60 writers, politicians and academics under an editorial ‘climate crisis’ subhead stating they would “no longer lend our credibility” by debating with anyone who disputed the overriding role of humans in changing the climate.

Debating all views on how the climate works was said to create a “false equivalence” – not the most scientific of approaches, it might be concluded, in spite of the Guardian’s claim to be on the side of ‘the Science’.

A fresh nuclear deal submitted to Iran from the Trump administration over the weekend would allow limited low-level uranium enrichment on Iranian soil for a to-be-determined period of time, Axios writes in a breaking report Monday.

This contradicts the prior public statements of Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who have several times made clear that the full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear facilities is a Washington red line.

Israel will be vexed https://t.co/1DCymX0Dbu

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 2, 2025

Tehran, for its part has remained firm on its own red line, saying its ability to enrich uranium for peaceful domestic energy purposes is a matter of national sovereignty. Is Trump meeting Iran in the middle? Rather, the hawks will of course accuse him of caving. According to more from Axios:

• But the proposal described to Axios by two sources with direct knowledge — one of whom provided a point-by-point breakdown — would seem to offer a clearer path to a deal.
• By making this offer, the Trump administration is risking backlash from its allies on the Hill and in Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and dozens of Republican senators have pushed the administration to maintain red lines on zero nuclear enrichment and the full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program.

Israel and its supporters in the US are going to be furious. But Trump has promised time and again peace and stability in the region through the art of the deal – a message conveyed especially strongly in his Gulf tour last month.

Oil prices dropped immediately on the headline…

As for Iran’s stance, we detailed earlier in the day that amid ongoing nuclear negotiations, Iran has demanded that the United States clarify precisely how sanctions will be lifted and which ones. A statement said that any new agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program would be conditioned on significant and immediate sanctions relief.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmail Baghaei made clear Monday that Tehran won’t back off of this reasonable demand, coming days after the US submitted what it called an “acceptable” proposal.

Baghaei stressed the need for transparent and firm guarantees regarding the “real end of the sanctions” which would also feature details on “how and through what mechanism” they would be dismantled.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said in a statement. “Special Envoy Witkoff has sent a detailed and acceptable proposal to the Iranian regime, and it’s in their best interest to accept it.”

The latest Trump-proposed outline of a new deal has been in Iranian hands since Saturday. However, on Monday Reuters writes that Tehran has deemed aspects of it a ‘non-starter’:

Iran is poised to reject a U.S. proposal to end a decades-long nuclear dispute, an Iranian diplomat said on Monday, slamming it as a “non-starter” that fails to address Tehran’s interests and leaves Washington’s stance on uranium enrichment unchanged.

“Iran is drafting a negative response to the U.S. proposal, which could be interpreted as a rejection of the U.S. offer,” the senior diplomat, who is close to Iran’s negotiating team, told Reuters.

The Islamic Republic is still maintaining that its program is only for peaceful nuclear energy purposes, but a red line for Washington is that Tehran commit to scrapping uranium enrichment – which however the Iranians say is a matter of their sovereign right.

Dr. Araghchi says that Iran will soon respond appropriately to the US’ proposal… 🇮🇷🇴🇲🇺🇸

He reiterated that without respecting our right to enrich uranium, then a deal would not be possible.

Now rumours going around that Iran found the US’ nuclear proposal to be ridiculous and… pic.twitter.com/79Uq7L9lSF

— ساسان 🇮🇷 (@eghtesadnia) June 2, 2025

An unidentified diplomat has meanwhile been quoted in Reuters as saying of the new US proposal, “In this proposal, the US stance on enrichment on Iranian soil remains unchanged, and there is no clear explanation regarding the lifting of sanctions.”

The US administration has continued to emphasize that the “clock is ticking” on reaching a new deal.

What’s weird is that both the New York Times and Reuters reported that the US is still demanding Iran halt uranium enrichment. Reuters reported today that Iran was poised to reject the US proposal because of that demand. What is true? https://t.co/8lYj4b85jW

— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) June 2, 2025

Prior reports say that President Trump had talked the Israelis down from any kind of preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Trump has said more time is needed to finding a peaceful solution.

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

The Widening Gyre

“The Caliphate looms; it is inevitable, and the road to its gates is paved with the skulls of English children.”

– Peachy Keenan

Do you hear those alarm bells ringing? Looks like June is bustin’ out all over, as the old Broadway ditty goes. Bedlam is in the air, and in more varieties than Heinz has pickles. Take your pick: civil war blooming in France and the UK, maybe even Germany — if it can shake off its psychotic stupor. World War III flutters over the continent like an answered prayer coming in for a landing. And here in the USA, genuine insurrection ripens with the summer’s peaches.

The Champs Elysees was a battlefield Saturday night as a soccer celebration went all Jihad, leaving two rioters dead and hundreds arrested (unreported inThe New York Times, of course, because. . . reasons). The two Alexanders at The Duran report that a plot is underway in London to deep-six (not eighty-six) Labour PM Sir Keir Starmer, who enjoys the lowest poll ratings in the history of British polling. Ol’ Keir likes to throw grannies in jail for rude Facebook posts while Islamic rape gangs do their thing and knife attacks multiply on the indigenous population. Not a good look. Perennial nationalist irritant Tommy Robinson was released from prison the other day, too, and you can expect fury arising around — and at him — as the sceptered isle day-by-day disappears under a burqa.

Starmer, Macron, new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, plus the unelected EU apparatus under Ursula von der Leyen all seem to be avid for war with Russia. They are insane, of course, and not just because their combined militaries are joke. They stirred the pot badly over the weekend, helping Ukraine carry out drone attacks against Russian air defense bases as far afield as Siberia and outside Murmansk, way up north on the Barents Sea. The bold attack was apparently carried out after a year-and-a-half of planning, using tractor-trailer trucks to transport concealed drones in on-board shipping containers deep into Russia. The drones took out Russian aircraft enabled to launch cruise missiles and long-range radar detection planes, all tolled estimated at $7-billion damage. The gambit would have required NATO satellite targeting assistance.

You might recall a week ago, Chancellor Merz declared that Germany gave Ukraine “permission” to carry out long-range strikes into Russia. Smooth move, Friedrich. He is, apparently, unaware that in so-doing he automatically gave Russia permission to strike deep into Germany as well, which Russia has not yet done. Instead, it replied with missile strikes against Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kyiv, little more than a routine smack-back, but perhaps an ominous prelude to worse in the offing.

You understand that things are escalating steeply now in this conflict. A lot high ranking officials in Russia have lost patience with Mr. Putin’s slow-moving, on-the-ground grind and refusal so far to inflict more serious damage on the Ukrainian capital, which he could turn into an ashtray on a half-hour’s notice, if required. You might suppose he has sought strategically to avoid the total destruction of this cousin-country so that it would not be a failed state in the aftermath of war. It would be to Russia’s advantage if Ukraine could function as a neutralized, sovereign, self-supporting buffer state rather than an ungovernable basket-case / money pit region harboring non-state terrorists of various stripes. The former outcome is surely still preferable to the latter, despite the most recent provocations.

All of this puts Mr. Trump in a bind. His efforts to negotiate peace are on-the-rocks for now, as is his (America’s) ability to control the maniac globalist warmongers of NATO. Many in the US, and Mr. Trump himself, make noises about backing off the big mess altogether and dissociating from a NATO alliance that has lost its purpose and meaning, becoming, in fact, a menace to our interests.

Against all this expanding havoc, peace talks are still scheduled for Istanbul today. Ukraine and Russia have both exchanged ceasefire proposals. Mr. Trump reportedly conferred with President Putin about it. The finalized memorandum said, “Russia is ready to work with Ukraine on a memorandum on a possible future peace treaty defining a number of positions.” Take-away? Russia wants to conclude this war. Mr. Trump wants to end it, too. Mr. Zelenskyy, maybe not so much, since his fate is only secure as long as the war keeps going and he is not overthrown by his own wing-men.

Neither the US nor the NATO / EU axis will participate in the Istanbul peace talks directly, but you can suppose that Merz, Macron, Starmer, and von der Leyen are looking to stir-the-pot in the background. You might conclude that war is all they’ve got left as summer draws near and each of them face a European population primed to explode at its feckless, noxious, incompetent leadership. I would expect much more fighting in the streets of the European capitals going forward, and falling governments. It could prove hard to put these Humpty-dumpties back together, with years of political chaos following.

Things are heating up in the USA, too, as an Egyptian national torched a crowd of pro-Israel marchers with a home-made flamethrower in Boulder, Colorado, on Sunday, while “Trans-tifa,” as it styled itself, went to work on Christians assembled in a Seattle park last week. The Democratic Party — like the EU’s warmonger parties — has nothing left but violence against anything that looks like nationalism and traditional values. It’s so bad, and Democratic leadership is so demented, that they are liable to turn Donald Trump into another Abe Lincoln.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Every now and then you have to stop ignoring Keith Olbermann and just point out how demented and insane he is, because he’s representative of so many on the left who used to make some sense and then somewhere along the way got completely broken by TDS.

Yesterday Olbermann attempted to explain why Democrat Cory Booker doing the exact same gesture as Elon is definitely not a ‘nazi salute’, as he and an army of mental individuals declared it clearly was when Musk did it.

Booker ended a speech at the the California Democratic Party Convention by tapping his heart and then pushing his arm out to the crowd, exactly the way Elon did after President Trump’s victory.

Musk’s hand is closed, fingers together. That’s a salute. Booker’s fingers are opened. That’s a wave goodbye. Brandon’s brain is devoid of cells. That’s an IQ of 27 https://t.co/oHx6yReKXR

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) June 1, 2025

“Musk’s hand is closed, fingers together. That’s a salute. Booker’s fingers are opened. That’s a wave goodbye,” Olbermann wrote, before insulting the person who pointed out that the gestures are exactly the same.

Mmmmmm. OK.

If you watch the video, the one in which you can see Elon’s hand, his fingers are not closed. In fact, Booker’s hand is MORE closed than Elon’s, so anyone with functioning eyes now knows for sure that you’re totally insane.

Your poor lesbian eyes must be failing you. Poor thing. pic.twitter.com/DPcMYk0mmb

— Sarah Fields (@SarahisCensored) June 1, 2025

What fist?

I see Musk with an open hand …on the video that actually shows his hand pic.twitter.com/QPEfUZyiLR

— ❣️Anne❣️ (@USA_Anne711) June 1, 2025

Olbermann is changing the rules now.

Wait, if I wave to someone and don’t spread my fingers open I’m a Nazi now?

I think Keith made this up.

— Jerry Grey🐊 (@Jerry__Grey) June 1, 2025

Closed fingers means Nazi. Open fingers means ‘goodbye’.

You mean like this? 🤡 pic.twitter.com/OSayG1hpju

— TechOperator (@TechOperator) June 1, 2025

Oh.

Im literally shaking, Corey is clearly a Nazi.
You made the rules.

— Retard Finder (@IfindRetards) June 1, 2025

Which rules are we going by now Keith?

You made the rules Keith… can’t change them now. Booker is a Nazi and you’re a Nazi sympathizer for supporting him.

— Angela Belcamino (@AngelaBelcamino) June 1, 2025

But but but, Elon is right leaning and Booker is not, so Nazi… or something

You’re just making the classic, liberal, circular argument.
The gesture is identical, but Musk is a Nazi because he’s a Nazi, and the other guy is not a Nazi because he’s not a Nazi

— Shycollie (@shycollie) June 1, 2025

You’re literally a meme, bro. pic.twitter.com/DYM2qpR7iQ

— Just Jen R𝕏 🫡🇺🇸 (@JustJenRX) June 1, 2025

Do you remember what it was like when you were doing sportscenter, and were a seemingly normal human being?

— $BRETT BILLION$ (@BRETT_BILLIONS) June 1, 2025

Keith Olbemann analyzing nazi salutes like he used to analyze sports, and then got fired, repeatedly. Keith, you are sick. You are mentally ill and genuinely need help.

— News That Matters (@ThatmattersNews) June 1, 2025

The legacy media is also spinning the same drivel as Olbermann on this, so what does that tell you?

Media: Creates false story about Elon giving the n*zi salute.

Cory Booker: Does the exact same thing Elon did.

Media: “Why is MAGA making up a story about Cory Booker???” pic.twitter.com/QRMVaioOeE

— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) June 1, 2025

Musk speaks → media calls it right-wing.
Musk salutes → “He’s a Nazi.”
Dem does the same → “Context matters. Musk is aligned.”
Yeah, because you made him that.

— Alan (@bitforth) June 1, 2025

Olbermann also posted this yesterday:

Breaking: Well, we’re finally here

Trump has jumped the shark and just posted that Biden was “executed” and “cloned” in 2020

The 25th Amendment would seem to be mandatory

Sunday shows: ask GOP guests if they think Biden was cloned and executed🤦🏼‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/1pnxJEmmkz

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) June 1, 2025

We’re praying that a cure is found for TDS, Keith.

*  *  *

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The Trump Administration’s latest effort to reduce foreign influence in US institutions has led to Harvard University, the oldest university in the country.  It’s a fair target considering Harvard’s enrollment is nearly 30% foreign nationals, many of them from China.  A common criticism of the US is that American schools produce a limited number of graduates in STEM and leadership related fields, inspiring the claim that the US “needs skilled foreign workers” to continue its edge in business and technology. 

This is a fallacy – It’s not that the US doesn’t have enough students interested in STEM or leadership.  Rather, the problem is that top US universities have been bought and paid for by NGOs and foreign investors; by extension, they allow foreign students to steal spots that should be reserved for American citizens.  

Furthermore, Harvard is widely considered a stepping stone to a successful career in various areas of law and government, but many positions within the school’s political enrollment are taken by foreigners (as well a DEI students).

One blaring example of this is the influence of China and the CCP over Harvard, which enrolls around 2300 Chinese scholar per year making up around 20% of the total international student body. 

Harvard receives hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign funding from numerous countries, but China is the most generous source, providing around $70 million per year to the Ivy League college.  

In a recent expose, The Wall Street Journal examined the CCP’s extensive presence at Harvard and their view of the university as their “party school”.  As the WSJ notes:

“Harvard enjoys a sterling reputation among Chinese officials thanks to its record in training high-flying bureaucrats who went on to take senior government roles and, in some cases, join the party’s elite Politburo. Some observers dubbed Harvard a de facto “party school,” as the party’s own training academies for promising bureaucrats are known. 

“If we were to rank the Chinese Communist Party’s ‘overseas party schools,’ the one deserving top spot has to be Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in the U.S.,” said a 2014 commentary published by Shanghai Observer, an online platform run by the city’s main party newspaper.”

The problem, however, goes well beyond the issue of foreign nationals taking American seats in American schools.  The CCP is notorious for using US universities as a training ground for CCP spies, not to mention using them as vehicles for the dissemination of communist propaganda.

Stanford recently addressed the threat within their own halls, noting the exposure of a Chinese spy operating under the alias “Charles Chen” who posed as a student and attempted to glean information from other students and possibly recruit them for CCP operations.  These operations extend to Chinese nationals studying abroad, as The Stanford Review states:

“Transnational repression, $64 million in Chinese funding, and allegations of racial profiling have contributed to a pervasive culture of silence at Stanford and beyond. 

It is this pervasive silence that has compelled us to write. After interviewing multiple anonymous Stanford faculty, students, and China experts, we can confirm that the CCP is orchestrating a widespread intelligence-gathering campaign at Stanford. In short, there are Chinese spies at Stanford…”

Chinese communist propaganda operations in colleges started with the proliferation of the “Confucious Institute” in 2004.  The program latched onto dozens of US schools like a parasitic organism, posing as an effort to foster understanding of Chinese culture.  In reality, it was designed to influence US education to favor CCP ideals, recruit American students to CCP causes and keep an eye on the activities of Chinese students abroad. 

Harvard was, of course, one of those schools.  After the exposure of Confucious Institute and its motives, the CCP shifted into different programs with different names but the same overall goals.  As mentioned, the amount of cash flowing from China into these colleges is extensive, which creates incentives for schools like Harvard to keep their eyes down and their mouth shut. 

Donald Trump placing Harvard under a microscope helps to illuminate the wider problem across all of America’s top universities.  It’s common to point out the influence of NGOs and woke activism in undermining higher education in the US, but what about foreign interests?  This danger is far less understood. 

Trump’s freeze on more than $3 billion in research grants and his actions to ban foreign enrollment at Harvard for Chinese communist party members are an opening salvo in a war that is long overdue.  The fact of the matter is, US colleges have not served the American public in a very long time.  Rather, they have served foreign masters and globalist NGOs, indoctrinating America’s youth with deconstruction cultism and communist ideology that poisons the academic nest. 

Drastic measures would have to be taken if the damage is ever to be reversed.