Authored by Thomas Buckley via The Brownstone Institute,

Climate change is an existential threat.

Misinformation is an existential threat.

Inequality is an existential threat.

The next pandemic is an existential threat.

Our democracy is facing an existential threat.

And everyone must be prepared for each of them and prepared to do anything to stop them.

That’s the current line, at least – the line that is driving global society at all levels just up to the edge of sanity and cohesion.

And that’s on purpose, because it’s much easier to push someone over the edge when they are already standing next to it.

Each of these false threats are being intentionally inflicted, becoming comorbidities on an already weakened body politic, making it even more vulnerable to its destruction and its eventual death.

Being told you are going to die is devastating. Being told you and your family are going to die is monumentally awful. Being told everyone is going to die is…numbing. It creates a state of utter helplessness, a state in which you are far more pliant.

Your situational awareness dims, your flight or fight sense slows, and you just stand and stare until someone puts their arm around your shoulders and leads you away.

And those invoking that dread are waiting nearby to do just that – take society by the shoulder, offer it comfort on the form of entertainment, medication, and basic sustenance, and lead it away.

Each of the threats is aimed directly at the first principle of Western society – the primacy of the individual. All the threats, all of the communitarianism being foisted upon the culture – including the claim that it is what group a person is a part of, not the person themselves, that is the most important defining human characteristic – have the same underlying message: the elimination of the idea that society is made up of discrete individuals with personal agency.

And from not acknowledging individual agency to not permitting it at all is a very short step.

That is the actual existential threat of the false existential threats now bouncing around the globe, clattering into people and families and societies and cultures and intentionally causing so much chaos and disruption that just standing in one place is not necessarily an irrational decision.

Of course, none of the current coming catastrophes are existential threats – they aren’t really threats at all but the vanguard of the global socialite socialists statists has made sure the public thinks they are, under penalty of ostracization, job loss, and censorship.

Besides not being actual threats, they cannot even remotely be described as an existential threat. An existential threat is – in part – defined as a threat to the very existence of a thing or a system. It is terminal, global, and transgenerational. It is not transitory, it is not political, it is not determined by the people making the claim: to be an existential threat something must be real and unprecedented and permanent.

But the term – which seems to be important-sounding because it actually is – can be misused by people and groups to heighten the impact of their statement, no matter what it may be, because the actual definition is either not widely known or purposefully ignored by the people using it and the media that reports what they are claiming.

This opens the door to anything being described as such a threat. 

There is also the issue of the origin of the term – existential philosophers focused on subjective ideas of thought and emotion and action as they relate to existence while the more concrete “threats” described when the term is used are putatively real and specific. That is an additional misleading element of the use of the term.

In other words, the term is used to apply a thin veneer of intellectual certainty to the threat that it is claiming actually exists.

Despite the protestations of the greenocracy, the real global existential threat is not fossil fuel or proper food or basic human mobility or all of the other aspects of the material economy. 

The real threat is from the ethereal economy of government agencies, civil society actors, non-governmental organizations, foundations, and academia, all aided by the information cabal. Together they do, in fact, currently have the power to foist something upon civilization that truly is transgenerational, global, and terminal.

And the never-ending pretense of emergency is a powerful tool in accomplishing that goal:

What happens when that dreaded decision whether to jump right or left in the face of an oncoming car is not a once or twice in a lifetime decision, but a daily question? That constant state of trepidation grinds on people, placing humans into a state of making most if not all decisions from a place of panic instead of reason.

And it is during that constant state of nervous exhaustion – a state manufactured out of whole cloth by its potential beneficiaries – when those who wish to wield power in society strike.

What is being offered is a society in which no one can fail. But a society in which no one can fail is also a society in which no one can succeed, especially to the point where they can threaten the existing power structure.

And it is that threat – which is an existential threat to that spider web of profitable tyranny – that is being targeted by the global fear noise.

The democracy being threatened is “their” democracy, not “our” democracy.

The climate being threatened is their silver sheened scrubbed personal environment – the actual environmental destruction that is occurring is out of sight, the denigrating of the sub-Deltas who inhabit other places, is immaterial.

The information being threatened are the lies being told to prop up the societal transformation.  

The equality being threatened is their right to be more equal than others forever.

And the pandemic being threatened is the right to declare a pandemic on a whim, terrifying the public into ceding basic rights in the name of safety.

The means and the ends are interchangeable, creating a Mobius Strip of dehumanization on which every degrading tactic can be hidden – unless you know exactly where they lay, they are visible only out of the side of the eye, an oblique uncertainty, and can be easily dismissed as figments, as conspiracy theories.

It cannot be known exactly what will be touted as the next existential threat.

What is already known is whom it will benefit.

Note – it may seem a bit odd, but then again really not, but it could behoove all of us to take the advice of Hannibal Lecter when considering what the societal serial killers are seeking:

Republished from the author’s Substack

The establishment media this week is awash in stories about the Trump Administrations “frightening” deportations of at least three young children from the US, even though they are considered “American citizens”.  The narrative follows a typical strategy of generating outrage using omission of the facts.  The goal is to anger the public by pumping out hysterical headlines, knowing many people won’t investigate further.  

The news reports insinuate that Trump has hijacked three American children and shipped them across the border, but they gloss over the fact that the parents of all of the children involved are illegal immigrants.  The children’s parents were deported, and of course, the children went with the parents.

“Three U.S. citizens ages four, seven and two were not deported,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. “Their mothers, who were illegally in this country, were deported. The children went with their mothers.” 

“If those children are U.S. citizens, they can come back into the United States if their father or someone here wants to assume them,” he added.

In other words, the media has fabricated a tragedy tale out of some illegals being deported and taking their children with them.  But the propaganda does bring up a vital issue in the immigration debate – The anchor baby loophole that has been exploited by migrants for decades as a way to stay in the US on a technicality while never having legitimate citizenship.

The media narrative is similar to the claim that deportations are supposed to only target “migrant criminals” (people who committed crimes after entering the US) – This was never promised by Trump.  In fact, Trump has consistently stated that all illegal migrants are default criminals and all are subject to deportation.  Sweeping deportations can include migrants with families, not just the migrants without families.

That said, when progressive journalists refer to the deported children as “US citizens”, this is an unfortunate reality under the 14th Amendment.  Even though their parents are illegals the law still applies.  It creates a Catch-22 for Trump or any president trying to keep borders secure:  Deport the parents and keep the children in the US and you’re a monster separating families. Deport the parents and send the children with them, and you’re accused of violating the constitution. 

This is the problem that needs to be clarified: Should foreign invaders be allowed to cross the border, drop babies and become de facto US residents because their children are citizens?

The Trump Administration clearly doesn’t think so, but the American public is conflicted.  It all depends on how the question is presented to them.  When asked generally if children born in the US should have automatic birthright citizenship, the majority (around 51%) say yes.  However, when asked if children born to illegal migrant parents should have birthright citizenship, the polling becomes more complex and more Americans say no.

It’s a nuance that the media seeks to ignore but it matters tremendously.  The 14th Amendment was designed to ensure citizenship for freed slaves after the Civil War, not make it easy for illegal immigrants to game the system and force the government to keep them in the US based on bad optics.  The legal precedence for migrants was set in 1898 in US vs Wong Kim Ark, when the Supreme Court decided that Wong, born to Chinese immigrants in the US, was allowed to visit China and come back as a citizen.  

Again, nuance matters here.  Chinese immigrants were initially welcomed to the US in the 1850s as laborers for building railways in the west.  Thus, the migrants did not enter the country illegally.  The question here is whether or not illegals (people who come to the US without going through proper channels uninvited) should be able to have kids that then tie them to US soil?    

The practicality of our era requires some new ground rules.  Perhaps a law requiring that at least one parent is a US citizen, either through birth or by legal application?  Or a rule requiring that migrants be in the US for a certain period of time (five years or more?) before they can give birth to children that are counted as legal citizens?  How about citizenship for the children only if the parents are also able to pass a naturalization test and speak adequate English?  

Obviously, this is an attempt to find a middle ground with progressives that probably doesn’t exist.  They don’t want to negotiate this issue, they want open borders and migrant access to American systems without rules or restrictions, and they want to socially cancel anyone that complains about it.  This totalitarian attitude has inspired an equally immovable position by conservatives. 

Where there might have been some compromise in the past, now most people on the right want a total shutdown of all immigration, including work visas and student visas.  There was perhaps a time when conservatives would be more inclined to give ground on the anchor baby issue, but the abusive exploitation of immigration as a political weapon by Democrats has made half the country far less sympathetic.  

AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks warns that Elon Musk’s efforts to expose waste and abuse at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may be futile unless Congress significantly reduces federal spending.

“What we really need is for Congress to now embrace all of the corruption that Elon has found and eliminate it from the budget, because at the end of the day, in order to capture the savings here, we do need those appropriations eliminated from the budget,” Sacks said on the All-In podcast. 

.@DavidSacks: “What we really need is for Congress to now embrace all of the corruption that @elonmusk has found and eliminate it from the budget, because at the end of the day, in order to capture the savings here, we do need those appropriations eliminated from the budget.” pic.twitter.com/BJbk4GSm0A

— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) April 26, 2025

Sacks warned that the real danger isn’t Musk backing down, but Congress slipping back into its entrenched pattern of reckless spending.

“These old bulls in Congress who control the appropriations process—are they going to basically backslide and just put the spending back in because it’s easier to engage in this logrolling, or do we take advantage of this?” he asked.

Sacks emphasized the immense personal cost Musk has borne to reveal systemic corruption, citing the widespread protests targeting Tesla properties.

“This has cost him enormously. One of the reasons why Tesla is down is because you’ve had crazy leftists engaging in terrorism, firebombing Tesla dealerships,” the Trump official said. “We’ve basically learned that this whole NGO thing is a giant scam where the people in government give enormous amounts of money to their friends, probably with the expectation that when they leave government, they’re going to be next in line at the trough.”

Since Musk took the helm at DOGE, Tesla has been under siege from a wave of protests and brazen acts of vandalism across the U.S. and beyond, with far-left activists resorting to arson, gunfire, and defacing dealerships, vehicles, and charging stations with hateful graffiti. The so-called “Tesla Takedown” movement has orchestrated demonstrations at hundreds of Tesla locations, pushing an anti-DOGE agenda to tank Musk’s company by calling for mass sell-offs of Tesla stock and boycotts of the brand.

Sacks then stressed that while Musk has laid bare the government’s dysfunction, without decisive action from Congress to slash spending, his efforts risk being squandered.

“Elon’s done an enormous service exposing this. But it’s not entirely up to him. In order for us to realize the benefit, we need Congress now to act on that. I’m afraid that’s not going to happen,” he warned.

In March, President Donald Trump threw his support behind a rescission package to implement major spending cuts spearheaded by DOGE. “It would be great. I think we’re going to do that,” Trump told reporters.

According to a memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) obtained by the New York Post, the administration is pushing two proposals to slash $9.3 billion. “The first includes a rescission of $8.3 billion in wasteful foreign aid spending (out of $22 billion) that does not expire in Fiscal Year (FY) 2025. The second is a separate rescission of all Federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) — which funds the politically biased public radio and public television system,” the Post said.

Update (2225ET): To the surprise of nobody (aside from a few excited folks about three hours ago), Canada’s liberal party has won Monday’s national elections – with voters electing Mark Carney to a full term as the next Prime Minister according to national broadcaster CBC/Radio Canada.

According to CTV, Carney’s liberals have won a minority (vs. majority).

As of 10:51 p.m EDT, the Liberals had won or were leading in 161 out of 343 ridings. Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are set to remain in opposition, with 137 ridings so far. Parties need 172 seats to form a majority.

Poilievre is the fourth consecutive Conservative leader to lose to the Liberals, who have remained in power since 2015.

Canada’s former top banker, Carney replaced an increasingly unpopular Justin Trudeau as prime minister in March. Highlighting his experience steering major economies through economic crises, Carney succeeded in convincing Canadians that he was the best person to tackle affordability issues and take on Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats.

Carney’s victory cements the Liberal Party’s decade in power, which began with Trudeau winning a surprise majority over the Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in October 2015.

The full results will be available later this evening or early Tuesday.

*  *   *

With Canada’s Atlantic polls now having closed in what will be a deeply consequential election, odds for conservative candidate Pierre Poilievre have begun spiking after conservative turnout was reportedly “larger than expected,” according to betting market Kalshi.

Update (2127ET): After some momentary excitement based on a reported ‘larger than expected’ turnout at Canadian polls, betting market odds for conservative candidate Pierre Poilievre have fallen back to the low 20% range. 

🇨🇦 New election results (15% Reported

🔴 Liberal 51%
🔵 Conservative 40%
🟠 NDP 4%

— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) April 29, 2025

Stay tuned for more…

Earlier, Polymarket odds were as high as 48% for Poilievre – dropping to a 30% chance as of this writing – but nevertheless in sharp contrast to the 20% odds he’s been hovering around all week.

Only to reverse lower (as seen on this 6h chart)…

You can track the odds in realtime below:

We’re guessing Carney takes it, but there was still money to be made for those who partake…

Poilievre may be worth a punt at 20% pic.twitter.com/9DD6mPQWvF

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 25, 2025

*  *   *

In late March, the Supreme Court upheld a Biden administration rule regulating so-called ghost guns — unserialized firearms — delivering what initially appeared to be a victory for billionaire-funded gun control groups, anti-Second Amendment Democrats, and their allies in the corporate media. However, the ruling has inadvertently opened a new frontier for DIY firearm kits, alleges one ghost gun maker.

The high court’s ruling in Bondi v. VanDerStok (originally Garland v. VanDerStok, but renamed after a new Attorney General was appointed) was a 7–2 decision upholding the rule issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) requiring ghost gun makers to include serial numbers on kits and conduct background checks on purchasers.

According to Defense Distributed’s Cody Wilson, the March 26th opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, was a master class in judicial hand-waving—a carefully worded evasion that accidentally set a new standard even stronger than Chevron for upholding administrative agency actions while quietly greenlighting the next evolution of DIY firearm kits.

In Wilson’s view, the high court’s ruling did not ban ghost guns but instead inadvertently provided a roadmap for how the industry can survive — and even thrive.

Parsing through Gorsuch’s opinion, Wilson cited a few lines from pages 11 and 12 that show the DIY firearm kit industry is far from dead:

On page 11:

In the same way and for the same reason, an ordinary speaker might well describe the “Buy Build Shoot” kit as a “weapon.” Yes, perhaps a half hour of work is required before anyone can fire a shot. But even as sold, the kit comes with all necessary components, and its in-tended function as an instrument of combat is obvious. Really, the kit’s name says it all: “Buy Build Shoot.”

On page 12:

That turns out to tell us all we need to know about the statute’s “ready conversion” test. As we have seen, a person without any specialized knowledge can convert a starter gun into a working firearm using everyday tools in less than an hour. Mullins, 446 F. 3d, at 755. And measured against that yardstick, the “Buy Build Shoot” kit can be “readily converted” into a firearm too, for it requires no more time, effort, expertise, or specialized tools to complete.

“Although the plain text in this opinion is intended more as an admonishment of Polymer80, which had become the ghost gun industry’s largest single success story, it also undermines the ATF’s purposely vague “tests” for determining when components have or have not become firearms,” Wilson said, adding that ghost gun kits are not dead after the ruling – just the high court saying kits must be:

1. Require more than an hour of effort and work

2. Involve uncommon tools to complete, and;

3. Lack all necessary components to be built into a functioning weapon

On Saturday, Defense Distributed debuted the next iteration of DIY firearm kits that fit the new definitions of the high court’s ruling. The new ghost gun is called the “G80.”

This kit was unveiled at the NRA Convention in Atlanta.

Meanwhile, everyone thought ghost guns were dead… 

A gang of car thieves — attempting to copy the Nicolas Cage film “Gone in 60 Seconds” — burglarized homes and stole luxury vehicles across the New York–New Jersey area, cramming the stolen cars into shipping containers bound for third-world West African countries.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin charged 11 individuals with stealing 43 luxury vehicles, including Land Rovers, Mercedes-Benzes, and BMWs, valued at $3.65 million.

West African gang tied to stealing more than 40 cars in New Jersey.pic.twitter.com/3cXsn2qkt2

— DOGE News (@DOGE__news) April 28, 2025

“While car thefts in New Jersey have decreased significantly over the past year and have continued to decrease in 2025, we are committed to reducing them further. This case is about more than just the theft of vehicles, it is about stealing people’s sense of security and safety,” said Attorney General Platkin.

Division of Criminal Justice Director Theresa Hilton called the theft “a complex criminal enterprise that specifically targeted and stole high-end vehicles to be shipped to overseas buyers. Working together, we were able to charge these defendants with serious crimes carrying lengthy prison sentencing exposure.”

“This case reflects how car theft today is a global enterprise,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark said, adding, “Millions of dollars worth of stolen vehicles—including a $475,000 Rolls Royce—were taken to a Bronx parking garage that defendants used as a showroom. The vehicles wound up in shipping containers in Elizabeth and then in West Africa. My Office, specifically, Assistant District Attorney Jessica Lupo, a Deputy Chief in the Trial Division, worked with NYPD Auto Crime and NJ Attorney General Matthew Platkin to identify and dismantle this group. We will not tolerate auto crime in the Bronx.”

“Theft crews were paid for the stolen vehicles with cash from money wired from West Africa to the mid-level and high-level fences,” Attorney General Platkin said, noting that all defendants are charged with first-degree racketeering. 

Attorney General Platkin charged the following defendants: 

Jahquil Louis, 19, and Daniel Deleon, 18, both of Newark; Jomar Ocasio, 19, of Belleville, Quadir Williams, 21, of Riverdale, Mamadou Camara, 29, Moussa Doumbia, 22, Arona Amadou, 35, Mouslim Ouedraogo, 32, Moubarak Djibril, 23, all of Bronx, New York; Issa Yara, 38, of Manhattan, and an 18-year-old from Scranton Pennsylvania who was a juvenile at the time of their arrest.

Organized criminal groups across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast have targeted luxury cars for years, using major ports on the East Coast to ship these vehicles to West Africa.

In addition to these groups targeting cars, under the Biden-Harris regime, illegal alien criminal gangs targeted wealthy suburban neighborhoods across the country.

The Trump administration has reestablished a big focus on law and order nationwide by deporting criminal illegal aliens, while Democratic lawmakers and left-leaning judges have sought to block these deportations at every turn.

Authored by Spencer Morrison via American Greatness,

The free trade brigade obsesses over economic minutiae – they cry that tariffs will raise the cost of plastic spatulas by 50 cents! 

What a disaster!

Who cares?

The reality is that trade with China is not in America’s interests because it funds our greatest rival. 

Here’s how America funded China’s rise, and why tariffs will help keep America safe and free.

A Dragon Fed: How America Funded China’s Rise

Economists say freer trade benefits everyone—even trade with China. America gets cheap goods and China gets money. Win-win.

Even if we assume America benefits, which is a false assumption as proven in my book Reshore, China has clearly benefited more. For example, China’s economy has grown by an average of 8.12% since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001—about four times greater than America’s. China and America benefited asymmetrically from trade.

Asymmetry may not be a problem economically, but it is a problem politically. Why? Power is zero-sum. The stronger China grows, the weaker America becomes relative to China. As such, trade with China is also a political issue. The question we should be asking ourselves is whether cheap goods are worth surrendering America’s political dominance.

To be clear, trade is not the only way that America has funded China’s rise. There are three primary ways that America enriches and empowers China: investment, trade, and theft.

First, America invested directly in China by building factories—offshoring 60,000 factories does not come cheap. The total value of American investment in China is unknown. According to China’s Ministry of Commerce, cumulative foreign direct investment (“FDI”) totalled $2.7 trillion in 2023. Just 2.1% of this investment was categorized as American.

The reason that this amount is so low is because American investment is usually routed through intermediaries, mostly Hong Kong, Singapore, and the British Virgin Islands. This is why Hong Kong—a city smaller than Shanghai—owns 68% of FDI in China.

Not coincidentally, Hong Kong is a major recipient of FDI from the U.S. and from the British Virgin Islands—a tiny banking archipelago that is itself capitalized by the U.S. and the City of London. Because of this shell game, we cannot know the actual amount American companies have invested in China, but if we assume that FDI correlates with the relative size of China’s trade surpluses, then America’s investments total $972 billion.

This estimate is probably low. Why? China runs trade surpluses with countries that clearly contributed no investment, such as most countries in Africa and the Middle East. Given the level of economic integration, I would hazard an estimate that most FDI ultimately originated in America or the City of London, funneled through their banking havens.

Second, America indirectly funded China’s rise through the trade deficit, buying more Chinese goods than we sold. The cumulative trade deficit with China since 2001 is roughly $6 trillion, after accounting for inflation. 

Not only were the Chinese able to spend these profits, but they were also able to borrow against the revenue, greatly multiplying their access to capital.

Third, China has stolen an almost unquantifiable amount of American technology. In 2017, the Office of the United States Trade Representative estimated that China steals intellectual property worth between $225 and $600 billion per year, more than the value of the annual trade deficit. If we use the low estimate and do not adjust for inflation, the value of stolen technology would be at least $5.4 trillion.

Interestingly, the above numbers actually undervalue the quantity of this theft. Why?

Because most of the technological and IP outflows are not stolen in a traditional sense. For example, the main vector of technological transfer is via Chinese companies using their profits from the trade deficit to buy shares in American companies, at which point they own the technology. Currently, foreigners own 17% of American equities, and the number is growing.

The other vector is through Sino-American corporate partnerships. Basically, American companies that build factories in China are forced to partner with a local Chinese company, a corporate clone. The plant is staffed by Chinese workers, who are taught America’s industrial processes and how to replicate American technology.

Providing China access to American technology is actually the price to enter China’s market—American companies cannot operate in China without giving up their technological and industrial secrets. Yet they do it anyways because the Chinese make it worth their while.

In my view, the value of America’s stolen technology was priceless.

Remember, mainland China’s economy was largely preindustrial—about as productive and technologically advanced as the Thirteen Colonies during the American Revolution. Now, China has reached technological parity with the U.S. Theft allowed China to skip 200 years of technological and economic development.

America funded China’s rise. This has not only impoverished America, but it has also ended America’s superpower era. We now live in a multipolar world, bought and paid for by America’s corrupt politicians and Wall Street.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Update (2127ET): After some momentary excitement based on a reported ‘larger than expected’ turnout at Canadian polls, betting market odds for conservative candidate Pierre Poilievre have fallen back to the low 20% range. 

Stay tuned for more…

*  *  *

With Canada’s Atlantic polls now having closed in what will be a deeply consequential election, odds for conservative candidate Pierre Poilievre have begun spiking after conservative turnout was reportedly “larger than expected,” according to betting market Kalshi.

Earlier, Polymarket odds were as high as 48% for Poilievre – dropping to a 30% chance as of this writing – but nevertheless in sharp contrast to the 20% odds he’s been hovering around all week.

Only to reverse lower (as seen on this 6h chart)…

You can track the odds in realtime below:

We’re guessing Carney takes it, but there was still money to be made for those who partake…

Poilievre may be worth a punt at 20% pic.twitter.com/9DD6mPQWvF

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 25, 2025

Stay tuned for updates…

Six days ago, the media celebrated a significant milestone: Spain’s national grid operated entirely on renewable energy for the first time during a weekday.

At 12:35 pm today local time, the lights went out across Spain and Portugal, and parts of France.

⚡ MASSIVE BLACKOUT IN EUROPE

Residents in Spain, Portugal, France, and Belgium report major outages.
Airports and subways shut down, communication networks hit.
Madrid’s Barajas Airport is out of service, El Mundo reports.
No official cause confirmed yet. Chaos unfolds. pic.twitter.com/vZyJOjhEwj

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) April 28, 2025

As Michael Shellenberger writes at PUBLIC, this wasn’t just a Spanish blackout. It shook the entire European grid.

…none of this should have been a surprise. The underlying physics had been understood for years, and the specific vulnerabilities had been spelled out repeatedly in technical warnings that policymakers ignored.

…

As countries replaced heavy, spinning plants with lightweight, inverter-based generation, the grid became faster, lighter, and far more sensitive to disruptions. That basic physical reality was spelled out in public warnings as far back as 2017.

…

Although political leaders promised that renewable energy would provide stable, affordable power, in practice, Spain grew more reliant on the remaining nuclear and natural gas plants to sustain inertia — even as the government pushes them to close.

…

Despite all these warnings, political and regulatory energy in Europe remained focused on accelerating renewable deployment, not upgrading the grid’s basic stability. In Spain, solar generation continued to climb rapidly through 2023 and early 2024. 

Coal plants closed. Nuclear units retired. 

On many spring days by 2025, Spain’s midday solar generation exceeded its total afternoon demand, leading to frequent negative electricity prices.

The system was being pushed to the limit.

And today, at 12:35 pm, it broke.

…

Spain’s blackout wasn’t just a technical failure. It was a political and strategic failure.

…

Unless Spain rapidly invests in synthetic inertia, maintains and expands its nuclear fleet, or adds some other new form of heavy rotating generation, the risk of future blackouts will only grow worse.

Read Michael Shellenberger’s full take here…

Crucially, comprehending problem of inertia (or lack of it) is key to apportioning blame for this farce in a major western nation in the 21st century. Mark Nelson (@EnergyBants) simplifies the concept with the following useful metaphor:

The Small or medium-sized disturbances on the grid become very difficult to manage and can cascade into wider instability and outages when the grid is in a low inertia condition, as was the case Monday in Spain just before the massive ongoing blackout

*  *  *

Update (1126ET): Portugal’s grid operator, REN (Rede Eléctrica Nacional), claimed that the massive power outage affecting Portugal and Spain was sparked by a “rare atmospheric phenomenon,” specifically “extreme temperature variations” in the Spanish electricity grid. 

British media outlet LBC News provided more color on REN’s claim:

Due to these variations in the interior or Spain, there were “anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 KV), which is a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration'”.

This is such a fascinating graph. A frequency drop of 0.15Hz was enough to take down Spain and Portugal. pic.twitter.com/tZ1OrITtMU

— andi (e/alb) (@Nexuist) April 28, 2025

“These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.”

. . .

REN added that normalisation of the system could take up to a week.

Bloomberg’s Javier Blas noted:

Before the outage hit, Spain was running its grid with very little dispatchable spinning generation, and therefore no much inertia.

Solar PV/thermal + wind: ~78%
Nuclear: 11.5%
Co-generation: 5%
Gas-fired: ~3% (less than 1GW)

Snapshot at 12.30pm local time (outage was 12.35pm) pic.twitter.com/fF7FiIB6UD

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) April 28, 2025

And this:

It’s a race against the sunset to restore power in Spain.

In about four hours, Spain will lose ~1/3 of its current electricity generation (sunset is ~9pm Madrid time).

Spanish national grid is trying to reactivate (black start) as much spinning generation before that.

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) April 28, 2025

Additional BBC News headlines of the chaos unfolding across Europe’s Iberian Peninsula:

• Delays at Spanish and Portuguese airports

• In London, Gatwick reports delayed flights to affected areas

• Portugal blames outage on ‘fault in Spain’s electricity grid’

• ‘Extreme temperature variations in Spain’ contributed to outage – Portuguese grid officials

• Restoring power across Portugal ‘could take up to a week‘

• No indications of any cyber attack, says European Council president

• Power back on in some substations, says Spain’s electric operator, but railways still suspended

• French operator supplying electricity to Spain

• Grid operator says power returning in parts of Iberian peninsula

Disruptions…

BREAKING 🚨: Spain, Portugal and a few other EU countries are in total blackout.

Train passengers in Spain got stuck in the middle of nowhere. This is insane.

(This video is from a friend of mine) pic.twitter.com/i7FObGPngS

— Solana Sensei (@SolanaSensei) April 28, 2025

Portugal’s grid operator claims the blackout that shut down much of Portugal, Spain and France today was caused by Spain’s electricity grid malfunctioning “due to a rare atmospheric phenomenon” pic.twitter.com/IzY1MFhF9n

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 28, 2025

“I’m in Spain and trust me the issue isn’t the darkness…No payments possibles without cash (so no food and transportation), very limited internet and no clue whether it’ll actually be resolved,” one X user told Javier. 

I’m in Spain and trust me the issue isn’t the darkness…No payments possibles without cash (so no food and transportation), very limited internet and no clue whether it’ll actually be resolved..

— Jordan B (@JayStew21721754) April 28, 2025

The blackout highlights just how fragile the new digital and “green” society has become.

*   *   * 

Large swaths of Spain and Portugal plunged into darkness on Monday. 

Spanish power grid operator Red Electrica wrote on X:

• Plans activated to restore electricity supply in collaboration with sector companies following the blackout that occurred in the peninsular system.

• The causes are being analyzed, and all resources are being dedicated to resolving it.

“Parts of France also appear to be affected, according to Spanish media reports, which said Seville, Barcelona and Valencia were hit by the outage,” SKY News reported.

Bloomberg’s Javier Blas called the power outage “Massive — really, massive.” 

“Massive — really, massive — electricity outage hits Spain, which large part of the country suffering blackouts (including Madrid and Barcelona). Data from Spain’s national grid shows a lost of >10 GW of demand, from ~26GW to ~12GW in a few seconds. Reason unknonw.”

BREAKING: Massive — really, massive — electricity outage hits Spain, which large part of the country suffering blackouts (including Madrid and Barcelona).

Data from Spain’s national grid shows a lost of >10 GW of demand, from ~26GW to ~12GW in a few seconds. Reason unknonw. pic.twitter.com/KwvDxOOLQJ

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) April 28, 2025

Cloudflare reported that internet connectivity dropped “by as much as 30% in Portugal and 37% in Spain” due to the power outages. 

Ongoing nationwide power outages in Portugal and Spain are impacting Internet traffic. Traffic dropped by as much as 30% in Portugal and 37% in Spain at 10:30 UTC. We are continuing to monitor the situation. pic.twitter.com/7yD2V48Ybj

— Cloudflare Radar (@CloudflareRadar) April 28, 2025

Outages have begun to affect air travel. 

Diversions have begun #power #spain #portugal #electricity #bcn pic.twitter.com/csIg2WIqYQ

— Alex Krstanovic (@acabgd) April 28, 2025

Footage:

Major power outage across parts of France, Spain and Portugal.

Causing some chaos at the Madrid Open.

Fans streaming for the practice courts (which have now hit capacity), food stalls operating with torches and cash, portions of the venue in complete darkness. pic.twitter.com/4B1NAPX13A

— Connor Joyce (@connorjoyceb) April 28, 2025

Total power outage across Spain and Portugal. Currently waiting for a train and all trains suspended. pic.twitter.com/tF9Feo1lRr

— Crypto Trader Simon (@cryptotrader_si) April 28, 2025

is this what caused the spain and portugal power outage? #spain #Portugal #power #poweroutage pic.twitter.com/IVXiZfX1NS

— Josh2809 (@Josh28091) April 28, 2025

Red Electrica provided no details about what caused the nationwide blackout. 

How long until Brussels blames the Russians? 

Psst… click here for a preview of our new partnership at ZH Store.

Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

For the third time in the past month, Israel has carried out an airstrike against the Lebanese capital city of Beirut. This latest strike targeted the Hadath neighborhood, a southern suburb of Beirut. They issued a warning telling civilians to evacuate the neighborhood in advance of the attack.

An explosion was reported in the area around 6 pm local time on Sunday, and a plume of smoke was seen rising from the neighborhood. The exact details on what was hit and what casualties, if any, resulted are as yet unclear.

Preliminary reports are that three bombs have hit the area, and it is believed that two different buildings were targeted, though exactly what they are is not entirely clear.

Israel was quick to claim that the attack targeted a Hezbollah weapons depot, and that it housed “high-quality weapons.” They reported informed the US in advance of the attack. Evidence of this claim of a missile depot was not offered.

Israeli media quoted unnamed defense officials as saying this must have been an unusual and dangerous threat because otherwise Israel would not have attacked in such a way. Israel launches multiple attacks on Lebanon effectively every day, and almost always under the pretext of targeting Hezbollah.

Indeed, Beirut wasn’t the only strike of Sunday. Earlier in the day, an Israeli drone attacked a farm near the southern village of Halta, killing one civilian. Here again, the official Israeli narrative was that this civilian was a “Hezbollah operative” who was actively rearming Hezbollah at the time they attacked the farm.

Israel is facing growing criticism for its indiscriminate attacks on Lebanon, which often inflict civilian casualties. Israel only comments on some of the deadly attacks carried out on Lebanon in a given day, and almost always claimed Hezbollah figures were the target, but the evidence simply isn’t there that they’re hitting Hezbollah in any reliable way, and as tensions continue to grow along the border, the Lebanese government is pushing France and the US, the guarantors of the ceasefire Israel is constantly violating, to do something about it.

🇮🇱🇱🇧 Aviones israelíes lanzaron un nuevo ataque contra los suburbios del sur de Beirut, violando el alto el fuego.
Las Fuerzas infanticidas y genocidas de Israel afirmaron que en los edificios atacados se almacenaban “misiles de alta precisión de Hezbolá”. Sin embargo, en las… pic.twitter.com/C6RPTH7MSF

— CATERINA😇 (@Caterin49788702) April 28, 2025

The UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon issued a statement warning the strikes in Beirut were causing panic, though as of yet neither the US nor France has commented on the latest strike. France has tended to be more willing to criticize Israeli aggression, while the US has tended to endorse such attacks.