After weeks of turmoil and negotiations, House Republicans are inching closer to passing their sweeping domestic-policy package, anchored by a multi-trillion-dollar suite of tax cuts, as Speaker Mike Johnson races to finalize the legislation ahead of the Memorial Day recess.

Following a personal visit to Capitol Hill on Tuesday by President Donald Trump and a flurry of behind-the-scenes bargaining, House GOP leaders believe they are nearing a deal with key factions. The House Rules Committee convened late into the night and early morning hours Wednesday, preparing the reconciliation bill for floor action. The committee had only just concluded its first panel – which included the chairs and ranking members of the Oversight, Budget, Armed Services, and Financial Services Committees – shortly before 4:30 a.m. (and then returning to their coffins for a nap?).

The second panel will include top lawmakers from House Homeland Security, Judiciary, Natural Resources and Transportation and Infrastructure committees, while a third panel will include the chairs and ranking members from Agriculture, Energy and Commerce, Education and the Workforce & Ways and Means. 

In total, 537 amendments have been submitted to Rules – none yet from Democrats. Notably, GOP leadership has still not released its long-awaited manager’s amendment, which will incorporate many of the compromises Johnson negotiated to appease internal party divisions, including revisions to SALT, Medicaid work requirements, and clean-energy tax credits, Punchbowl News reports.

Despite the complexity, Johnson is moving aggressively. He hopes to pass a rule and hold a full floor vote as soon as today – a schedule driven by his desire to meet the Memorial Day deadline, avoid attendance issues later in the week, and capitalize on rare momentum.

The legislative sprint follows a dramatic shift in tone after Trump met Tuesday morning with warring GOP factions and urged unity. Several Republican holdouts publicly maintained opposition afterward, but six senior Republicans involved in the talks said many were privately seeking off-ramps – policy concessions that would let them support the bill while still claiming political victories.

As Just the News notes, a final push will require some conservatives to make a leap of faith, like Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX), the chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, is taking. 

“Look as a conservative, I want to save as much money as I can, and we have pushed for that in the Republican Study Committee,” he told the outlet on Tuesday. “But the President was pretty clear that we’ve worked five or six months straight on this, and it is time to get it done.

“That doesn’t mean that a guy like me doesn’t want more. Yes, of course I do. But I also want to govern, which means you don’t get 100% of everything you want every single time. You have to come back and do it again, and we will,” he said during the John Solomon Reports podcast.

Currently included in the Bill…

Trump tax cuts; the largest in history with an average $5,000 decrease per household, and includes ‘No Tax on Tips, Overtime or Social Security.’

Immigration and Border Security:

• “Big, Beautiful Deportations”: funding for 1 million deportations per year

• Completion of the border wall

• Expansion of border personnel – including 10,000 new ICE agents, 5,000 customs officers & 3,000 Border Patrol agents – and $10,000 bonuses for front-line border workers

Medicaid Reform:

• Remove 1.4 million illegal migrants from Medicaid

• Requires work for benefits starting January 2029

Spending Cuts and Fiscal Reform:

• $1.6 trillion in mandatory spending cuts – the largest deficit reduction in nearly 30 years – though the Penn Wharton Budget Model predicts deficits of nearly $3.3 trillion, even when accounting for “positive economic dynamics,” while the Joint Committee on Taxation sees the House reconciliation bill increasing deficits by $3.8 trillion through 2034.

  • The White House Council of Economic Advisers projected that the bill would boost GDP by 4.2% to 5.2% in the short run — a staggering level of growth that goes far beyond the mainstream consensus, via Axios.

• Repeals all of Biden’s “Green New Scam” subsidies & ends electric vehicle mandates

Social and Cultural Measures:

• Ends taxpayer-funded sex reassignment procedures for minors

Infrastructure and Modernization:

• Major overhaul of air traffic control systems

Support for Families and Workers:

• Launch of “MAGA Accounts” for newborns (tax-advantaged savings)

• Increased child tax credit, strengthened paid family leave, and repeals IRS gig worker reporting rule (>$600 for Venmo/PayPal)

Support for Farmers:

• $10 billion+ in tax cuts & eliminates death tax to aid generational farm transfers

SALT

One of the most contentious sticking points has been the state and local tax deduction, or SALT. Republicans from high-tax states have demanded relief from the $10,000 cap implemented in 2017. After intense pressure, Johnson offered a revised framework: a $40,000 cap for households earning up to $500,000 (down from a Tuesday proposal for income up to $751,000), with the cap and income threshold escalating 1% annually for ten years. While it falls short of SALT advocates’ hopes – particularly in addressing the so-called marriage penalty – it’s more than many conservatives are comfortable with.

“This is purely a House play and designed to deal with the political challenge they have to get to 218,” Senator John Thune (R-SD), a longtime opponent of expanding SALT, said in an interview Tuesday. “But, I mean, that seems like an incredibly generous offer.”

Thune alluded to possible markups in Senate committees once the legislation arrives from the House. But that’ll be dictated by the House’s timing and what senators think of the proposal.

“I’m a regular order guy. I think you can improve the product,” Thune said. “But obviously, depending on what happens in the House and the timeline we have to work with, getting committees up and going and doing their thing takes a while – and how ready the product is for prime time… There are certain things the Senate wants to have its imprint on.” -Punchbowl

Meanwhile, to placate the House Freedom Caucus, Johnson has proposed accelerating the phase-out of clean-energy tax credits enacted under President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Initially scheduled to begin after 2028, the new plan would start the phase-out in 2028, with a carveout for nuclear credits. Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) signaled progress Tuesday evening, backing off prior demands to slash Medicaid funding and saying talks were “moving in the right direction.”

Still, not all conservatives are satisfied. Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) are expected to vote no. Others are calling for the party to return to a two-bill strategy – a position rejected months ago by both House and Senate GOP leadership.

ROY just came out of confab with Johnson super sad. Says “we will see” if he still a “no” https://t.co/Xh3NuZULr5

— Erik Wasson (@elwasson) May 21, 2025

Despite those tensions, GOP leaders are betting on Trump’s endorsement and the pressure of a looming deadline to push the bill through. “Things don’t get better when you hold it out there,” one senior Republican said. Another added bluntly: “It’s easier to break up with someone from a basement over email. Harder to do it in person, face-to-face.”

Meanwhile, Democrats are preparing their messaging campaign. A memo from the House Majority Fund – a group aligned with Democratic leadership — advised lawmakers to focus on how the GOP legislation would raise prices for everyday Americans while benefiting the wealthy, rather than lean on technical deficit arguments or hyperbolic language.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) added fuel to the fire Tuesday night, estimating that the Republican bill would increase the deficit by $2.3 trillion over the next decade. The CBO projected automatic spending cuts to Medicare and other safety-net programs without congressional action and warned that the bill would boost the incomes of the wealthiest 10% of Americans while reducing incomes for the bottom 10%.

Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA), ranking member on the Budget Committee, called the legislation “absolutely devastating” for working Americans. Protesters gathered outside the Capitol on Wednesday morning, denouncing proposed cuts to Medicaid.

Despite the fierce opposition, House Republican leaders believe they are close. And if the manager’s amendment is released in time, Johnson may force the issue by calling a floor vote before lawmakers – including members of his own party – have had a full opportunity to digest the final terms.

For Johnson, the choice is strategic: act quickly or risk watching weeks of work fall apart under the weight of delay.

Via JonFleetwood.substack.com,

Buried deep in Congress’s 1,116-page “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” is a provision so sweeping, so dystopian, and so underreported that it’s hard to believe it was passed at all.

Section 43201 of the bill, blandly titled the “Artificial Intelligence and Information Technology Modernization Initiative,” doesn’t just fund the federal government’s full-scale AI expansion—it removes every state’s right to regulate artificial intelligence for the next decade.

Let that sink in: For the next ten years, no state in America—not even your state—will be allowed to create its own safeguards, protections, or liability standards for how AI is developed or deployed.

“No State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models… during the 10-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act.”

– Sec. 43201(c)(1) of the bill

This is not a theoretical threat.

It’s a federal ban on local AI regulation—handing the reins to the very bureaucrats and corporate tech giants already embedding AI into military systems, healthcare, financial markets, education, and law enforcement.

This section of the bill is a preemptive strike against state sovereignty.

It neuters legislatures and governors from protecting their own citizens—just as powerful corporations and federal agencies rush to install AI systems into every layer of society.

It’s not just overreach.

It’s a federal power grab dressed as “modernization.”

And President Trump is now marching on Capitol Hill to personally demand the bill’s passage—pushing the very legislation that would shield his $500 billion Stargate AI surveillance grid from any state-level resistance.

The bill—developed by the House Budget Committee, which passed the legislation yesterday—still needs to be voted on in the House and Senate before it hits Trump’s desk, so if you want your senators and representatives to vote no on it, you can contact them here and tell them why.

The House is expected to vote on the One Big Beautiful Bill by the end of this week.

One of the most detrimental self-sabotage efforts of the woke movement was their rabid push to control public speech online.  In the case of gay and trans issues, any criticism no matter how factual or logical was met with Orwellian oversight.  For most major social media apps, simply engaging in debate with LGBT activists could mean your account would be flagged and silenced for days or weeks at a time.  Refusing to use a trans person’s preferred pronouns could result in a permanent ban.  

Such policies were established hand-in-hand with federal government efforts to codify LGBT language and make gay and trans people a privileged class protected from any and all scrutiny. Governments and social media platforms partnered up to institute speech controls that might not be possible otherwise.  Under the guise of “protecting LGBT people” from discrimination, the door to arbitrary censorship was opened. 

This is why in the US there is no such thing as a legal definition for “hate speech”.  Classifying any speech as “hate speech” would represent a clear violation of the 1st Amendment.  Yes, you can “yell fire” in a crowded theater, and yes you can call people whatever pejoratives you want to call them.  Hurt feelings are irrelevant to the law, and this is a good thing.

GLAAD, the gay and trans lobby group, thinks otherwise.

The organization issued an “alarming” Social Media Safety Index report this month, which found that, after significant rollbacks in protected speech, social media platforms are overwhelmingly “failing to protect” LGBTQ people.

The only major app that did not receive an “F” grade on LGBT safety was TikTok, which got a D+.  GLAAD has now changed it’s grading system due to the lack of platforms meeting their standards.  For 2025, the platforms were rated numerically, with TikTok at 56/100; Facebook: 45/100; Instagram: 45/100; YouTube: 41/100; Threads: 40/100; and X the lowest at 30/100.

“At a time when real-world violence and harassment against LGBTQ people is on the rise, social media companies are profiting from the flames of anti-LGBTQ hate instead of ensuring the basic safety of LGBTQ users,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement shared with TheWrap.  “These low scores should terrify anyone who cares about creating safer, more inclusive online spaces,” she added.

Taking into account the fact that woke activists consider mean words to be the same as an act of violence, it’s difficult to take any warnings from GLAAD seriously. 

The report lists 14 indicators which address a range of issues affecting LGBTQ people online, including data privacy, moderation transparency, training of content moderators, and workforce diversity.  The factor that most interests GLAAD, however, is online censorship. 

Jenni Olson, senior director of social media at GLAAD, argues that “The terrible rollbacks from Meta and YouTube are the most important news this year,” referring to both company’s recent decisions to allow previously prohibited hate speech, such as references to LGBTQ people being “abnormal” and “mentally ill” as well as the use of pejorative terms such as “tranny” and “transgenderism.” 

“It is especially horrible that YouTube removed gender identity from its list of protected characteristics – and yet is continuing to state that the policy hasn’t changed, when it very clearly has …This is just unprecedented for a major platform. It is extremely concerning for a company to remove a protected characteristic group from a hate speech policy,” Olson said.

In other words, online speech policies are going back to normal and GLAAD doesn’t like it.  Frankly the amount of social division and strife caused over protecting the fragile feelings of a tiny percentage of the total population isn’t worth it.  LGBT groups are nothing more than a convenient minority vehicle which the establishment tried to use to inject thought control into the public consciousness.  The societal damage done has been immense and will take years to reverse.   

The popular anger over LGBT issues was created by the very activists crying about safety.  If they had left people alone instead of trying to force their ideological language on the masses, there would be no animosity today.  They earned public suspicion by trying to silence public discussion. 

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

President Trump said Monday that he was relentlessly determined to regain the Presidency after the “rigged” 2020 election.

Trump made the remarks during a Kennedy Center Board dinner in the White House’s State Dining Room Monday.

“They rigged the election,” the president said, adding “And then I said, you know what I’ll do? I’ll run again, and I’ll shove it up their ass.”

🚨TRUMP: “They rigged the election. I said ‘You know what I’ll do? I’ll run again and I’ll shove it up their ass.”pic.twitter.com/V0hDh8Csgf

— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) May 20, 2025

He continued, “And that’s what I did, and all of a sudden, I then realized— I said you know what, I got the Olympics, I got the World Cup, and I got the 250th.”

He is referring to the LA Olympics in 2028, the football (soccer if you’re American) World Cup next year, and the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

He noted that during his first term he played a major role in winning bids for the sporting events.

“Look at the way this works out,” Trump declared, explaining “If they would have left us alone and wouldn’t have cheated on the election, and wouldn’t have rigged it, I would have been retired right now,” Trump further noted. 

“I would have been happily doing something else, and instead, they have me for four more years. Can you believe it?” Trump added.

Greatest President in US History.

I’ll chisel that man on Mt Rushmore myself.

— Muscular Sack (@MuscularSack) May 20, 2025

LMAO BASED. This is exactly why they’re terrified of him 🤣 he takes their games and turns them right back on them.

Absolute chad energy.

— Kaizen Ki ☀️ (@AwenEnergy) May 20, 2025

They poked the bear and then found out.

— Klay Thompson (@Thompsonklay) May 20, 2025

This is my President 🇺🇸

— Alpha-Bravo (@aburk203) May 20, 2025

Exactly what the man did too🔥🔥💯

— Sputnik (@VasBroughtToX) May 20, 2025

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called U.S. export controls on artificial intelligence chips to China under the Biden administration’s AI diffusion rule a “failure” that risks ceding the $50 billion Chinese AI chip market to rivals like Chinese tech giant Huawei. 

Huang delivered a keynote speech at Computex in Taipei, Taiwan, earlier today in which he said, “All in all, the export control was a failure,” adding, “The fundamental assumptions that led to the AI diffusion rule in the beginning, in the first place, have been proven to be fundamentally flawed.”

Huang was referring to the Biden-Harris regime era, where the U.S. blocked sales of advanced AI chips to China, which only forced companies to buy advanced chips from its competitor, Huawei. This also sparked a domestic wave of investment to build out supply chains for advanced AI chipmaking to reduce reliance on outside manufacturers. 

He said China alone will account for a $50 billion opportunity in 2026, warning that if U.S. tech companies were still cut off from the Chinese market, this would only suggest that local players would buy from competitors. 

“China has 50% of the world’s AI developers, and it’s important that when they develop on an architecture, they develop on Nvidia, or at least American technology,” Huang pointed out. 

Huang praised President Trump’s move to scrap the previous administration’s AI diffusion rule: “President Trump realizes it’s exactly the wrong goal.” 

Under the Biden administration, Nvidia’s China market share collapsed from 95% to 50%. 

Last week, Huang joined President Trump on a Gulf States tour that resulted in massive Blackwell deals for Nividia in Saudi Arabia. 

Nvidia secured a deal to supply 18,000 of its cutting-edge Blackwell chips to Humain, an AI startup just launched by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

Huang stated last week:

“There’s no evidence of any AI chip diversion. These are massive systems. The Grace Blackwell system is nearly two tons, and so you’re not going to be putting that in your pocket or your backpack anytime soon.

“The important thing is that the countries and the companies that we sell to recognize that diversion is not allowed and everybody would like to continue to buy Nvidia technology. And so they monitor themselves very carefully.”

“With the AI Diffusion Rule revoked, America will have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lead the next industrial revolution and create high-paying U.S. jobs, build new U.S.-supplied infrastructure, and alleviate the trade deficit,” an Nvidia spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal last week. 

Reuters noted, “Trump administration officials are weighing discarding the tiered approach to chip export curbs and replacing it with a global licensing regime with government-to-government agreements, which could give the U.S. clout in trade talks.”

Given that the Biden-era AI diffusion rule was a “failure,” in the words of Nvidia’s CEO, one might question whether the policy ultimately benefited Chinese firms by sidelining Nvidia and allowing local competitors to gain market share.

Looking ahead, Nvidia will report earnings on Wednesday. 

We are nearing the tail end of the first quarter earnings season. Excluding Nvidia, which is scheduled to report next Wednesday, the rest of the Magnificent Seven delivered year-over-year EPS growth of 28% in Q1, far outpacing the 9% growth recorded by the remainder of the S&P 500. Mag7 also surpassed consensus earnings estimates by 16%, marking the largest earnings surprise for Apple (AAPL) Microsoft (MSFT) Alphabet (GOOGL / GOOG) Amazon (AMZN) Nvidia (NVDA) Meta Platforms (META) Tesla (TSLA) since Q2 2021, when they outperformed estimates by 27%.

As the midpoint of 2025 quickly approaches, Goldman analysts Eric Sheridan, Ben Miller, and others have updated their investment outlook, refining their top 10 themes for the U.S. internet sector, including:

• Secular Growth Opportunities – particularly in digital advertising, the merging of commerce and advertising, cloud computing, and local commerce.

• Key Industry Debates – including autonomous vehicles’ impact on mobility, normalization in online travel, and expansion in interactive entertainment.

• Major Risks – such as regulatory scrutiny and AI-driven disruption

AI remains the dominant theme in the eyes of the analyst. They noted that 2025 will be critical for platforms to demonstrate real returns from massive AI investments made over the past three years. While widespread disruption of existing consumer computing habits isn’t expected, proof of utility and ROI will be closely watched.

Here’s more: 

As we framed in our Consumer Internet AI deep-dive, we believe that AI will continue to permeate more products and use cases for consumers, but see those shifts playing out over time and do not expect AI to drive wholesale displacement/disintermediation of existing computing habits. We continue to look at 2025 as a year where stakes are rising for platforms to prove out the adoption/utility/use cases of their investments in AI as we are now in year three of an elevated OpEx/CapEx cycle (& investors increasingly ask for proof points on the eventual return on investment). This interplay between levels of investment, visibility into a more distinct return profile and/or elements of rising utility-like behavior around such tools will likely remain dominant themes among large cap U.S. Internet this year.

They noted that tariffs remain a volatile but critical factor, influencing cost structures and demand visibility. However, easing trade tensions in recent weeks and stronger-than-expected Q1 earnings results have helped stabilize big tech stocks. 

The analysts provided an easy-to-view breakdown of the Top 10 Themes shaping their coverage across the internet sector:

1. The Evolution of the Consumer AI Landscape: AI is reshaping consumer and enterprise computing, spanning infrastructure (Cloud), model/platform ownership, and app-level use cases. Debates are expected to intensify in 2025. Most Exposed Stocks: Majority of coverage universe.

2. The Implications of AI for Cloud Computing & CapEx: Cloud providers are investing heavily in AI workloads, balancing long-term AI opportunity with CapEx discipline. AI will increasingly impact revenue and margins. Most Exposed: AMZN, GOOGL, META, MSFT, SNAP, NVDA.

3. The Lines Between Advertising & eCommerce Models Continue to Blur: Ad and commerce models are converging. Retail media and automation drive budgets from traditional ads to digital platforms. Most Exposed: AMZN, GOOGL, META, PINS, UBER, CART, LYFT, IBTA.

4. Digital Advertising Shifts to AI Automation & Direct Response: Ad platforms are moving toward AI-driven, lower-funnel/direct-response formats. This change supports performance marketing and measurable ROI. Most Exposed: GOOGL, META, AMZN, PINS, RDDT, APP, SNAP, DV, KIND, YELP, IBTA.

5. A Future of AVs & the Pathway for Mobility Networks: AV (autonomous vehicle) developments, particularly from Uber and Waymo, are shaping the future of mobility. Network transitions and partnerships are key. The most exposed are UBER, LYFT, and GOOGL.

6. The Battle for Same/Next-Day Local eCommerce: Consumer demand for faster delivery is driving innovation in local eCommerce. Restaurant and grocery segments are expanding. Most Exposed: AMZN, UBER, CART, LYFT.

7. The Normalization of Online Travel Demand: Travel growth is stabilizing. Companies are focused on funnel efficiency, regulatory impacts, and GenAI-driven demand strategies. Most Exposed: EXPE, BKNG, ABNB, UBER, YO, TRIP.

8. The Evolution of Interactive Entertainment Platforms. Interactive platforms are expanding content offerings and monetization methods. UGC, gaming, streaming, and live audio continue to grow. Most Exposed: NFLX, SPOT, RBLX, EA, TTWO, U, BILI, RBLX, GENI, WBTN.

9. The Transition from Spatial to Mobile Computing: Big tech continues to shift toward mobile-first and device-independent experiences, spanning hardware, software, and services. Most Exposed: META, GOOGL, AMZN, SNAP, RBLX, EA, TTWO, U, BILI, GENI.

10. Regulatory Matters & Changing Ecosystem Defaults: Structural risks from regulation, platform control, and consolidation dominate industry risk profiles, particularly in ad tech, app distribution, and AI. Most Exposed: AMZN, GOOGL, META, LYFT, UBER, ABNB, BKNG, EXPE.

Top stock picks:

We see the most compelling risk/reward in companies that face short-term investor concerns and highlight: 1) GOOGL where debates on the impact of AI on core search and ongoing regulatory matters overshadow strong operating performance across a) Search & Other revenue producing upside in Q1, b) strong operating margins as efficiencies help fund long-term platform/product investments, & c) a very strong mix of growth and margins from Google Cloud; & 2) AMZN where debates persist on the impact of higher tariffs but where we believe that a) price/negotiation levers can help mitigate the cost impact of tariffs, b) that AMZN remains well positioned to gain market share, and c) remains levered to several attractive longer-term secular growth themes (incl. AI, Cloud computing, retail media, streaming, sports). Within our Large Cap coverage, we are also Buy rated on META, UBER (CL), SPOT, and Neutral rated on ABNB, APP, NFLX & BKNG. For SMID Caps, we see outsized risk/reward Buy rated opportunities in PINS (on CL), CART, DKNG & MTCH over the next 12 months.

Ahead of Nvidia’s earnings next week, Mag7 stocks have recovered all losses sparked by Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. While the index has been inching closer to record highs, momentum has stalled in recent sessions.

What’s next for the internet?

Pro subs can view the full note here. 

Via Remix News,

Another wave of knife attacks has hit Germany, showing that not much has changed despite the many lost lives and Germans maimed in knife attacks.

In fact, the statistics show that these crimes are even getting worse, with 79 knife attacks per day now recorded. A German criminal lawyer warns that Germany has “imported knife violence,” in response to growing blade crimes.

In the last few days, headlines include Kosovar man arrested after knife attack in Germany injures three, including 12-year-old girl” “Man stabbed half to death on basketball court,” “Manhunt continues after Syrian asylum seeker stabs 5 outside student bar in Bielefeld,” and “Rioter injures police officer with knife.”

However, thousands of such headlines have run in the German press in recent years, with Remix News reporting on many of them. The overwhelming number of perpetrators are foreigners or those with a foreign background, yet despite promises to crack down and enact deportations of migrant criminals, the bloodshed not only continues but appears to be getting worse.

His daughter was murdered by an illegal Palestinian migrant, stabbed 38 times, along with her boyfriend.

17-year-old Ann-Marie is gone, but her father won’t let her memory die. He delivered a message to Olaf Scholz’s face:

“There are parents standing at the grave or coffin of… pic.twitter.com/JDslDGKFA4

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) October 16, 2024

“We have imported knife violence. In other cultures, the knife is a kind of status symbol. This is changing the social climate here in the country,” stated criminal attorney Udo Vetter. He further notes that “knives have become an everyday companion for many people. And the barrier to using them is low.”

Notably, he warns that due to the rise of knives and knife crimes, it is creating a problem that is expected to only grow exponentially, with more and more people arming themselves with knives out of fear.

“Because if some people deliberately pack a knife as a murder weapon, more and more people will also resort to knives, supposedly to defend themselves,” stated Vetter. “Young people in particular have knives in their pockets just like their cell phones.”

However, this problem has been warned about nearly every week, including from the German police themselves.

Manuel Ostermann, deputy head of the Federal Police Union, stated that “the knife as a means of committing a crime always immediately poses a concrete threat to life and limb. Politicians must now take all possible measures to curb this phenomenon.” Ostermann is the same police union head who said that Germany’s crime problem is actually an immigration problem during a viral speech last year.

🇩🇪‼️ “Germany is no longer a safe country… The migration crisis is first and foremost a crime crisis.”

German police union (DPoIG) chairman Manuel Ostermann makes a major statement following the Solingen terror attack by a Syrian Islamist. pic.twitter.com/ZolmrLnMHa

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) August 28, 2024

The head of the German Police Union, Rainer Wendt, also spoke out about the knife crime problem, saying: “The threshold for violence is getting lower and lower. And the fuse is getting shorter. Knives are being drawn even for trivial reasons and seemingly harmless disputes.”

As Remix News previously reported, violent crime reached a record high in Germany last year, with foreigners responsible for nearly half of crimes. 

There were 29,014 cases in total involving a crime where a knife was used, of which, 15,741 were knife attacks. Serious and dangerous bodily harm with a knife increased by 10.8 percent in 2024 compared to 2023.

🇩🇪 For every well-integrated Middle Eastern migrant, you have so many of these guys causing terror across Europe.

Knife crime has skyrocketed in Germany, with nearly 30,000 knife-related crimes taking place last year.

Video shot near German supermarket Kaufland. pic.twitter.com/maYEL9vYdA

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) April 17, 2025

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is going on the offensive under the new Christian Democrat-led government, with security and immigration still top concerns. Alice Weidel, AfD party co-leader, mocked the new government’s “five-point plan” to fix the immigration crisis, saying that the border is not secured despite promises.

“Failed border controls and broken promises are what remains of the ‘5-Point Plan.’ This is demonstrated not least by the violent incidents in Bielefeld and Halle. In North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony-Anhalt, the CDU state governments show no willingness to initiate a migration turnaround,” wrote Weidel on X.

Gescheiterte Grenzkontrollen & gebrochene Versprechen sind das, was vom “5-Punkte-Plan” geblieben ist. Das zeigen nicht zuletzt die Gewalttaten in Bielefeld & Halle. In NRW & Sachsen-Anhalt zeigen die CDU-Landesregierungen keinerlei Willen zur Einleitung einer Migrationswende. pic.twitter.com/upQcik1l4N

— Alice Weidel (@Alice_Weidel) May 19, 2025

The leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Baden-Württemberg state parliament, Anton Baron MdL, has accused Christian Socialist Union (CDU) parliamentary group leader Manuel Hagel of hypocrisy regarding knife crimes in Germany.

“Although the proportion of people without German passports is significantly lower in the population, there is a significantly higher crime rate here,” he told SWR. He said he considered the increased number of knife attacks by foreigners “alarming.”

“Such ‘unpleasant truths’ must be spoken. It couldn’t be more hypocritical: The CDU, above all, has caused this situation since 2015. Has the party distanced himself from it to this day? On the contrary: Hegel has rejected all our draft laws and motions to limit migration and defamed us as more right-wing than right-wing. Hagel can point his bigoted finger at others as much as he wants: his party, under Interior Minister Strobl, believes it can tackle the rampant problem of migrant knife-wielding men with pseudo-solutions like gun-free zones. But this problem no longer needs to be ‘debated in our country’ – it must finally be solved. But apart from the AfD, no one wants or can do that.”

Read more here…

Via The Cradle

The Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF.. Ansarallah/Houthis) announced that its leadership has decided to impose a blockade on the northern Israeli port of Haifa, in response to Tel Aviv’s violent escalation in the Gaza Strip. 

“In response to the Israeli enemy’s escalation of its brutal aggression against our brothers and people in Gaza … The Yemeni Armed Forces … has decided, with God’s help, to implement the leadership’s directives to begin work on imposing a naval blockade on the port of Haifa,” it said in a statement released on its media page early Tuesday.

“Accordingly, all companies with ships present in this port or heading to it are hereby notified that the aforementioned port has been included in the target bank since the time of announcing this statement, and they must take into consideration what is said in this statement and what will be stated later,” it added. 

Since the Omani-mediated ceasefire agreement earlier this month – which saw Washington end its indiscriminate campaign against Yemen and Sanaa stop its operations targeting US ships – the YAF has targeted Israel several times. 

A May 12 report by the New York Times (NYT) revealed that US President Donald Trump was forced to agree to a deal that did not include Yemen halting attacks against Israel, given that the first weeks of the US campaign burned through $1 billion in munitions and “had not even established air superiority” over the YAF and the Ansarallah movement. 

In addition to the naval ban on Israeli-linked shipping in the Red Sea, Sanaa has also maintained a blockade on Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, which was directly struck by a Yemeni ballistic missile in early May. 

As a result, several international airliners have suspended flights to Israel. Tel Aviv has recently launched massive attacks on Yemen and has threatened to assassinate Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Ansarallah – which is merged with the YAF. The YAF carried out its first hypersonic ballistic missile attack targeting the city of Haifa on 23 April.

The Houthi decision to add Haifa port to its target list comes after Israel reportedly killed over 500 Palestinians in Gaza in just a few days. 

On May 17, Israel announced the start of Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which aims to bring the entirety of Gaza under Israeli control and will see the army displace the whole population and confine it to a small area in the southern region of the strip. 

Yemeni Armed Forces: “We warn global airlines against heading to Ben Gurion Airport because it is unsafe.” pic.twitter.com/lKQZL1EgWy

— COMBATE |🇵🇷 (@upholdreality) May 4, 2025

After three months of a total blockade that compounded a severe humanitarian crisis in the strip, Israel allowed only five aid trucks into Gaza on Tuesday. Tel Aviv said it would only allow a “basic quantity” of food to enter Gaza. 

Via CityAM,

• The UK’s new vertical launch spaceport at Saxa Vord poses risks to Icelandic airspace and territorial waters, potentially disrupting transatlantic flights and marine ecosystems.

• Exclusion zones for rocket launches could interfere with NATO’s ability to effectively patrol the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap, an area of strategic importance for defense.

• While a memorandum of understanding exists between the UK and Iceland, it may not adequately address the full defense and military ramifications of frequent space launches in this critical region.

When I relocated to the UK from New York in 1984, the Cold War was at its peak. US nuclear and conventional forces were spread across Europe and fears of a Soviet invasion or nuclear exchange were ever-present. In the UK, another critical strategic concern was the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap, which are two stretches of the North Atlantic separating these three countries. During the Cold War, Soviet naval forces aimed to control this gap to access the broader North Atlantic and block NATO reinforcements to Europe, a scenario famously depicted in Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising.

After the Cold War ended and the so-called Peace Dividend reduced the gap’s significance, its strategic importance faded. However, since 2014, with Russia’s renewed assertiveness, the GIUK gap has regained prominence in NATO planning. The US reopened Keflavik Naval Air Station in Iceland in 2016, re-established its 2nd Fleet in 2018 to protect the gap and, as recently as March 2025, Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 increased its patrols in the region.

I warn of danger

While NATO has prepared for Russian threats, a new risk closer to home is now emerging: the UK’s and Europe’s first vertical launch spaceport at Saxa Vord, Shetland. Ironically, this site was once an RAF early warning and air defence base during the Cold War, bearing the motto Praemoneo de Periculis, or “I warn of danger”.

Commercial space launches are still in their infancy, but recent incidents such as SpaceX’s launch failures – spreading debris across Florida and the Caribbean and grounding flights – and a Norwegian test rocket explosion highlight the risks. Saxa Vord itself attempted a rocket launch last August, resulting in an engine explosion. The international nature of space launches means that countries near Saxa Vord, especially Iceland, are directly in the path of up to 30 planned launches per year, four a month at peak, with ambitions to increase to 40 or 50 annually.

These launches pose multiple risks to Iceland and the GIUK gap:

• Rockets may enter Icelandic airspace, with first-stage returns falling through Icelandic airspace and into territorial waters.

• Catastrophic failures could scatter debris, whilst hazardous chemicals from rocket propellants threaten marine ecosystems.

• Rerouted transatlantic flights of up to 76 a day, according to Icelandic air traffic control’s ‘anonymous’ response to the CAA’s Saxa Vord licence consultation.

• Even more importantly and less scrutinised – the presence of exclusion zones for launches could undermine NATO’s ability to patrol the gap effectively.

Memorandum of Misunderstanding 

These risks are partly managed by a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the UK and Iceland in July 2021. The MoU mandates the closure of designated Icelandic sea and airspace areas before launches and outlines some procedures for debris recovery. However, while a handful of Icelandic officials are aware of the implications, the broader political and media discourse in both countries has yet to grapple with the full defence and military ramifications of the impact of such numbers of launches into NATO’s strategic sea and airspace.

The current trajectory of UK space ambitions – and planned rocket launch from the UK – means the UK’s space ambitions could inadvertently undermine the very security framework that underpins Western interests in the North Atlantic and the Arctic.

There is an urgent need for both the UK and Icelandic governments to reassess the risks from Saxa Vord, ensuring that existing bilateral agreements align the UK’s space programme with enduring geopolitical realities and the security needs of NATO and its allies. Saxa Vord has to be a success – but upon the present strategy security triumphs space whilst Iceland is developing its own space strategy – which might well consider how launch capability could be nationalised to give greater control over risk.