Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times,

A district judge ruled on Friday that New Jersey can continue restricting federal immigration officers from using state property for immigration enforcement-related purposes.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) had accused New Jersey in a lawsuit of violating the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, also known as preemption, which holds that federal law supersedes state law when the two are in conflict.

The agency alleged that an executive order New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed earlier this year blocked federal immigration operations from using state property, preventing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from carrying out its duties.

Biden-appointed Judge Georgette Castner of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey disagreed.

“[The executive order] does not prevent the United States from carrying out federal immigration laws; rather, it declares that New Jersey will not provide its own resources to assist the United States in these efforts,” said Castner.

The judge also dismissed DOJ lawyers’ argument that adhering to federal immigration law, the Immigration and Nationality Act, specifically, was “impossible” because of the state restriction and prevented “the United States from accessing aliens.”

“The Court finds this response unconvincing,” Castner wrote. “The Court also finds no conflict preemption.”

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Under Sherrill’s executive order, federal immigration officers are prohibited from using state property as a staging area, processing location for illegal immigrants, or operations base for carrying out enforcement.

The law also prevents any New Jersey executive branch departments or agencies from allowing federal authorities to use state property.

Sherrill included an exception in her order that allows access if authorized by a judicial warrant or order.

The governor welcomed Castner’s decision in a Friday statement, criticizing federal immigration agents as “untrained.”

“ICE is not making New Jersey’s communities any safer,” she said in a statement.

“My number one priority will always be to protect New Jerseyans, and I will continue to fight for safe communities for everyone in our state.”

Although Castner conceded in her 30-page opinion that the federal government has an obligation to remove illegal immigrants from the United States, she wrote that “nothing in the [Immigration and Nationality Act] indicates that states are required to assist the federal government in meeting this obligation.”

After the signing ceremony of her executive order earlier this year, Sherrill announced a website launch for New Jersey residents to report their interactions with ICE and upload photos and videos of officers.

Information submitted to the portal would be used by the state attorney general’s office to potentially “hold the government accountable.”

New Jersey has also adopted a mask ban on federal law enforcement officers and a requirement for them to show identification before making an arrest. The DOJ sued over that law as well.

The Garden State, and a few others, had already banned its local and state law enforcement agencies from cooperating with ICE, otherwise known as 287(g) agreements, prior to President Donald Trump’s return to the White House last year.

Several more Democratic-led states have followed in outlawing such cooperation or attempting to do so since Trump, a Republican, began his second term and made it a priority to stop illegal immigration.

Roughly 11 days after CIA Director John Ratcliffe unexpectedly traveled to Moscow and reportedly floated a trilateral summit involving President Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Moscow on Saturday morning.

“Dmitriev was deep in conversation with Witkoff and Kushner as they stepped onto Russian soil for key Ukraine talks,” Russian media outlet RT wrote on X, accompanying the post with footage of the US delegation’s arrival.

Dmitriev deep in conversation with Witkoff and Kushner as they step onto Russian soil for key Ukraine talks https://t.co/eC8u8gbJVe pic.twitter.com/DIksgrUj54

— RTRussia (@RT_Russia_) September 5, 2026

Russian outlet Sputnik reported that Putin had ordered a three-day pause in strikes on Kiev just as Witkoff and Kushner arrived in Russia for peace talks.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated:

• The pause in strikes on Kyiv is linked to preparations for and the holding of meetings with American negotiators there.
• The Russian president will meet US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner at the Kremlin later Saturday.

Putin orders halt to strikes on Kiev for three days, starting from midnight today – Kremlin

Other statements by Dmitry Peskov:

🔸The pause in strikes on Kiev is linked to the preparation and holding of meetings with American negotiators there

🔸The Russian president will meet… pic.twitter.com/MJ0g4pWizr

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) September 5, 2026

Witkoff and Kushner are scheduled to meet Putin before traveling to Kyiv on Sunday, marking their first visit to Ukraine since the war began.

Bloomberg reports that expectations for a breakthrough peace deal to end the war remain low.

The Kremlin said there was “no talk of new ideas,” while describing Moscow’s negotiating position as “unshakeable.” Russia continues to demand that Kiev surrender the entirety of four regions claimed by Moscow and abandon its NATO ambitions, conditions that Kiev rejects.

The diplomatic push comes as intensifying attacks by both sides around the Black Sea raise the risk of a global food crisis next year. Meanwhile, Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, combined with disrupted Persian Gulf flows, are pushing the global refined-products market toward crisis, creating twin food and energy risks.

The visit merely suggests an intensifying Trump administration campaign to reopen high-level negotiating channels ahead of the midterm elections in the US and end the Russia-Ukraine war after more than four years of costly fighting.

Summary:

• CENTCOM Confirms Iranian Tankers Hit Near Kharg Island
• Iranian Tanker Reportedly Hit By Missiles Near Kharg Island

CENTCOM Confirms Strikes 

US Central Command confirmed on X that US forces struck three Iranian oil tankers after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched ballistic missiles toward two US Navy warships. 

CENTCOM provided details:

Following Iran’s failed attacks, CENTCOM permanently disabled the IRGC crude oil carriers M/T Downy off the coast of Kharg Island and M/T Stark 1 near Jask. American forces also completely destroyed the unladen crude oil carrier M/T Kylo (also known as the “Noxen”) in the Gulf of Oman, striking the vessel in multiple critical locations to render it inoperable after the crew was directed to abandon ship.

The three Iranian crude oil tankers are part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC and its regional proxies. Iran has no means by which to defend them.

CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper stated:

Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost —taking out three of yours. 

We will not hesitate to defend American forces, and if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet. 

https://t.co/Xo0Vj0t2AJ

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) September 5, 2026

The key question heading into Sunday evening is how Brent crude futures will price the US strikes on Iranian tankers near Kharg Island. 

Iranian Tanker Reportedly Hit By Missiles Near Kharg Island

Iranian state media reported early Saturday that US forces had struck an oil tanker near Kharg Island. Although the US military has not confirmed the maritime incident, the attack, if verified, would mark a significant escalation near Iran’s most important crude-export terminal and increase the risk of further disruptions to Persian Gulf energy flows.

Tasnim News Agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said several missiles hit the tanker early Saturday and published images purportedly showing black smoke rising from the ship.

Video of the Iranian oil tanker which was reportedly hit this morning by the US near the Iranian Kharg Island. pic.twitter.com/217O0lLn09

— Mehdi H. (@mhmiranusa) September 5, 2026

Kharg Island is the jugular vein of Iran’s oil economy. The deepwater terminal handles about 90% of the country’s crude exports, connecting Iran’s major onshore fields to global markets, specifically China. 

Henri Patricot, CFA, a Paris-based energy equity research analyst at UBS, published Kpler data showing that crude loadings at major Iranian export terminals, including Kharg, have been significantly reduced over the course of the six-month conflict.

Weekly average crude loadings in the Middle East by port location also show a slight recovery on an ex-Iran basis across the major Gulf producers.

Average flows through Kharg have ranged from 1.5 million to 2 million barrels per day, although the data above show that those volumes collapsed to roughly 220,000 to 255,000 barrels per day in August under the US naval blockade. The island also contains massive storage facilities, pipelines, and loading berths. Any attack by US forces, whether kinetic through air-delivered munitions, or offensive cyber operations, could cripple Tehran’s largest moneymaker.

President Trump warned Friday that the US could soon attack Pickaxe Mountain, a suspected Iranian nuclear facility.

As for Hormuz flows, Goldman commodities strategist Yulia Zhestkova Grigsby and her team said this week that they had to revise tanker-flow estimates sharply higher (full note available here for pro subs), suggesting that Tehran’s ability to control the strategic maritime chokepoint has been significantly degraded.

Grigsby and her team told clients on Wednesday that Gulf oil exports had recovered to between 15 million and 16 million barrels per day, roughly two-thirds of prewar levels.

However, Grigsby pointed out that visible tanker data show flows of only about 10 million barrels per day on a seven-day moving average. That 5 million-barrel-per-day gap reflects what Goldman’s energy team called the “rise of dark transits.” In other words, tankers are switching off their Automatic Identification System transponders to avoid detection by Iran.

Net hit to Persian Gulf flows of 7.9mb/d now 

Polymarket odds that Tehran will lose control of Kharg Island stand at 2% by Sept. 30 and just 7% by year-end.

What the Trump administration decides to do with Kharg remains the energy market’s billion-dollar question.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s global food-commodity index climbed in August to its highest level since 2022, with the index now gaining momentum to the upside. The upside reinforces warnings from several major Wall Street desks, which we have covered extensively, that global food shortages could materialize next year.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of a basket of globally traded food commodities, averaged 133.3 in August, up 1.9% from July, with every major category advancing. Sugar prices surged 11.9%, while wheat gained 2.6% and now stands 15% above year-ago levels.

The surge in global food prices comes as a perfect storm of factors emerges, from El Niño and higher fertilizer and diesel prices to disruptions in the Black Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, all of which could push the global food system toward another crisis.

Earlier this week, the Bloomberg Agriculture Spot Index (BCOMAGSP) posted its largest monthly gain since the chaotic days of the Arab Spring riots and is nearing a breakout above its 2023 highs, signaling a broad-based acceleration in agricultural commodity prices.

Latest coverage:

• Barclays Warns Next Commodity Shock Is Taking Shape: What You Need To Know
• Agricultural Commodity Prices Break Out As JPMorgan’s Food Crisis Warning Gets Louder

With diesel at record highs to end the week, agricultural markets tightening, and global food prices accelerating, another inflationary impulse is quickly moving through global supply chains just as central banks decide whether interest rates are restrictive enough.

Authored by RFE/RL staff via OilPrice.com,

Ukraine’s top sanctions official says he remains optimistic about prospects for a sweeping Russia sanctions bill in the US Congress despite growing uncertainty over when the House of Representatives will take it up, as lawmakers face a sharply shortened legislative calendar ahead of the November elections.

Vladyslav Vlasiuk, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s sanctions commissioner, spent this week in Washington meeting lawmakers and congressional staff as Kyiv presses Congress to advance the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026.

The legislation passed the Senate on August 7 by an overwhelming 86-11 vote, reflecting rare bipartisan agreement. The bill would give the president additional authority to impose punitive tariffs on countries that continue buying Russian fossil fuels. It also includes provisions targeting Iran, which Vlasiuk said is engaged in close military-industrial cooperation with Moscow.

But the measure faces a more complicated path in the House, where some Democrats have expressed reservations about provisions that would give President Donald Trump additional authority to impose tariffs.

Republican leaders announced on September 3 that the final two weeks of the pre-election House session are canceled, severely curtailing what had been a full legislative calendar for September.

House members are expected to leave Washington no later than September 17 and not return until mid-November. The House will reconvene for one additional week of business after next week’s Labor Day break.

The compressed calendar has increased pressure on supporters of the sanctions legislation. Senior Republican aides told RFE/RL that the bill remains a GOP priority, provided Democrats “get their ducks in a row.”

Democratic aides, in response to RFE/RL inquiries, expressed cautious optimism about the measure, underscoring uncertainty over whether Speaker Mike Johnson will bring it to the floor.

Vlasiuk: ‘Good Chance’

Vlasiuk said he held roughly 20 meetings with lawmakers and congressional staff during his Washington visit, including discussions with members of both parties.

He said the Ukrainian delegation encountered broad support for increasing pressure on Russia and that no lawmaker told him outright that they would oppose the legislation.

“Everyone agreed that it was necessary to increase pressure on Russia,” Vlasiuk said at a briefing at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington. “No one said that he definitely would not support this bill.”

He described Ukraine as “quite optimistic” about the level of support for the legislation, including among Democrats.

One potentially important route would be for the House to consider the bill under suspension of the rules, a fast-track procedure generally used for legislation expected to command broad support. Vlasiuk said that was among the realistic scenarios for moving the bill forward.

“I think that there is really good chance that this bill will be brought onto the floor,” he said.

Vlasiuk has previously identified the week after next as Kyiv’s preferred window for a House vote. With the House calendar now compressed, that period could provide one of the last opportunities for a vote before lawmakers leave Washington.

Asked by RFE/RL whether the momentum surrounding the bill was still there, Vlasiuk pointed to what he characterized as continued bipartisan backing for Ukraine.

“There is a lot of support for Ukraine on the Hill,” he said, adding that Kyiv has been “very vocal” in stressing the urgency of passing the bill. “At the same time, well, I mean, let’s wait and see,” Vlasiuk said.

Democrats Wary Of Trump Powers

The principal obstacle is not broad disagreement over confronting Russia, according to Thomas Melia, a former senior State Department official and Senate Foreign Relations Committee deputy staff director who is currently with the Free Russia Foundation.

In an interview with RFE/RL, Melia explained that Democratic leaders have several reasons for hesitating. One is that the legislation is not strictly necessary for the administration to impose sanctions, he said. Trump already possesses significant authority to sanction Russian individuals and entities.

The bill’s principal value, in Melia’s assessment, is therefore partly political and symbolic: Its bipartisan backing would demonstrate congressional resolve to increase pressure on Moscow.

But Melia said the House Democratic leadership was not sufficiently involved in negotiating the version that ultimately emerged from the Senate.

That concern is particularly relevant to Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who has expressed general support for tougher pressure on Russia but has raised concerns about provisions of the legislation.

There is also a substantive concern: The final version of the legislation gives the president additional tariff authority. Melia said that has created hesitation among Democrats who are wary of giving Trump another instrument that could be used broadly against US trading partners.

Melia also emphasized another change from the bill’s earlier form: The final version makes the sanctions optional rather than mandatory.

That distinction matters, he said, because the original legislation’s political force came in part from its mandatory sanctions provisions and overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate.

After the death of Senator Lindsey Graham, the administration backed a version of the legislation but sought changes that made sanctions nonmandatory and added tariff authority, Melia said.

The result, in his view, is a weaker measure than the original. Melia said the final version nevertheless retains substantial political significance because of the broad bipartisan support that surrounded the tougher proposal.

Kyiv Backs Tariffs

Vlasiuk defended the tariff provisions, arguing that they could make sanctions substantially more effective. “This is a powerful instrument which will allow to amplify the effect of the sanctions,” he said.

He argued that tariffs and sanctions can have similar economic effects but differ in their ability to be circumvented.

“Sanctions can be adapted, sanctions can be evaded, tariffs cannot be adapted or evaded,” Vlasiuk said.

He also rejected concerns that countries could be arbitrarily targeted under the bill, saying the legislation establishes criteria based on purchases of Russian fossil fuels.

In particular, he pointed to China and India, which Ukraine considers central to Russia’s continued ability to sell its energy exports.

Vlasiuk said the pressure could represent “a huge blow” to Russia’s ability to finance its war against Ukraine.

Ukraine also supports the bill’s inclusion of Iran, he said, citing Tehran’s close military cooperation with Moscow.

“Everyone understands how close cooperation is between the military-industrial complex of these countries,” Vlasiuk said. “Therefore, Iran is very well-deserved.”

House Vote Window Narrows

The political stakes are heightened by the House’s decision to cancel its final two weeks of pre-election legislative work.

The chamber is expected to depart Washington no later than September 17, although Republican leaders have said members could be recalled if the Senate advances a party-line budget reconciliation package. That scenario is not currently expected.

Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, a Republican who has supported the sanctions effort, described the lack of congressional action as a serious failure.

“This is a real shame. It passed 86-11 in the Senate,” Bacon said. “Congressional inaction on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and on Putin’s crimes is a real failure. The history books will not be kind.”

For Kyiv, the urgency is not simply legislative.

Vlasiuk warned that Ukraine faces another difficult winter after months of Russian missile and drone attacks. He said 160 people had been killed in missile and drone strikes in recent months.

“We have to increase the pressure over Russia to make them change their plans, to make them really negotiate,” he said.

He argued that passing the sanctions bill now would have two effects: It could eventually increase economic pressure on Russia, while immediately sending a political signal to both Ukraine and the Russian government.

There is, he said, an element of inertia in sanctions policy. Even after legislation passes, implementing measures can take days, and producing a significant effect on Russia’s economy can take weeks.

“But at the same time, the very fact of passing this sanction bill,” Vlasiuk said, would send a “strong signal of support to Ukrainian people” and a “really strong signal to Russian government.”

Voters in Saxony-Anhalt head to the polls on Sunday, followed two weeks later by elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin. With the right-wing Alternative for Germany leading the national polls, the elections could be the opening act of an 18-month period in which Europe “lurches to the right,” as Nomura analysts explained last month.

UniCredit’s chief German economist, Dr. Andreas Rees, told clients on Friday: “Three state elections in just 14 days will test Germany’s government coalition and its reform plans. While political noise is likely to increase, we expect the push for structural reform to remain on track.“

The polling chart compiled by Rees’ team shows the rising popularity of the AfD and the pressure facing Germany’s establishment parties. The AfD leads nationally at roughly 28%, compared with 21% for the CDU/CSU and 12% for the SPD. In Saxony-Anhalt, the gap is far wider, with the AfD polling near 41%, versus 23% for the CDU and just 8% for the SPD. However, CDU/CSU leads over AfD in Berlin. 

Rees touched on this Sunday’s big election in Saxony-Anhalt, which could quite possibly usher in AfD leadership:

On Sunday, voters in Saxony-Anhalt will head to the polls; two weeks later, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the city-state of Berlin will follow. Formally, these are state elections with regional specifics and differences. Politically, however, three elections within 14 days will probably be viewed as a report card for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU-SPD coalition, at a time when the government is trying to move from fiscal firepower towards structural reforms of the pension system, the labour market and bureaucracy.

THE DATA

The starting point is uncomfortable for the conservative CDU/CSU alliance and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). In the latest nationwide opinion polls, the right-wing AfD stood at about 28%, ahead of the CDU/CSU with around 21%, while the SPD came in at just 12%. Recent polls for the state of Saxony-Anhalt, the election federal policymakers may watch most nervously, even put the AfD at around 41%, far ahead of the CDU, which is polling at 23%. The SPD is currently only at around 8%. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the AfD also leads clearly, while the SPD is holding up considerably better. In Berlin, the race is highly fragmented, according to opinion polls.

OUR VIEW

Sunday’s election outcome in Saxony-Anhalt could grab most of the headlines. At current polling levels, the AfD does not have an outright majority. But with several parties, including the SPD, hovering around the 5% threshold, relatively small shifts in votes could translate into larger changes in seats and potentially open the path to an AfD-led government, the first one in a federal state. However, from an investor perspective, there is one question that matters more: what does this all mean for the federal government in Berlin?

1. The CDU/CSU-SPD coalition will continue. Even poor results would give neither the conservatives nor the Social Democrats a good reason to leave the government. A weak CDU performance could strengthen demands within the Union for a tougher profile on migration, security and economic competitiveness. A poor SPD result in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the prime minister is a Social Democrat, however, would intensify pressure on the party to defend its social-policy priorities.
2. The structural reform agenda remains (largely) intact. At the beginning of July, the CDU/CSU and the SPD agreed on a 34-measure reform package spanning pensions, labour-market rules, competitiveness, taxation and bureaucracy reduction, with key measures intended to pass the Bundestag by the end of this year. Politically, abandoning these reforms after strong AfD results would be difficult for either party to defend. Mr. Merz could argue that voters are punishing weak growth and insufficient change, while the SPD needs to demonstrate that reforms can be combined with social protection.
3. A more-fragmented Bundesrat could not block large parts of the reforms. Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin together hold 11 of the Bundesrat’s 69 votes. However, the federal states’ leverage differs substantially across individual reforms. For instance, the envisaged tax cuts for low- and middle-income households, financed by tax hikes on top-income earners, require the Bundesrat’s consent. Core pension and labour-market reforms, meanwhile, are generally not dependent on Bundesrat approval.

Overall, we expect more political noise in the next few weeks, but not political paralysis in Berlin. A few reform measures may be diluted or delayed beyond year-end 2026, but the broader reform push is likely to remain on track.

The rise of the AfD in the polling data is not a surprise. It is a closely watched political theme we have been tracking, and one that has quite clearly terrified German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has fear-mongered about the potential for AfD victories.

The problem with Merz’s AfD fear angle is that Nomura counters it, arguing that markets are welcoming populist right-wing political parties and are more concerned about left-wing regimes that “desire to increase spending, often paid for through higher borrowing or higher taxes, which are likely to shut the engine off of already stuttering economies.”

Here’s the EU election roadmap over the next 18 months, according to Nomura:

The shift to the right is happening across the West.

Brazilian socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s lead over right-wing Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro has imploded. If Bolsonaro can pull off a victory next month, that would cement the continent’s shift from nation-killing left-wing socialism to right-wing common sense.

Authored by Daniel McCarthy via The Epoch Times,

Left-wing terrorism is a serious problem in the United States, though for political reasons it doesn’t receive anything like the attention right-wing violence gets.

When most people think of violence connected to abortion, they imagine attacks on abortion clinics – yet lately, pro-abortion extremists have been firebombing crisis pregnancy centers across the country.

These centers help women who want to have their babies or who are undecided about having an abortion: In other words, women who are making a choice, just not the choice supposedly “pro-choice” abortion advocates find acceptable.

So a group calling itself “Jane’s Revenge,” referring to the “Jane Roe” of Roe v. Wade, has declared war on anyone who might choose life.

A report in the left-wing Guardian newspaper, headlined “Pro-choice militants are attacking ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ across US,” documented terroristic attempts at intimidation from New York and North Carolina to Wisconsin, Texas and Washington state in the past several years.

The paper noted: “The methods have been extreme: vandals have thrown molotov cocktails, committed arson, damaged property and made threats.”

Jane’s Revenge issued a statement demanding “anti-choice establishments” shut down in 30 days or face further violence.

That was in 2022 – yet the group continued operating, until its website went dark just days ago thanks to a Trump administration crackdown on terrorist infrastructure.

Jane’s Revenge and various other radical organizations, including antifa groups, were part of a network relying on web services provided by Italy’s “Autistici/Inventati,” or A/I Collective.

According to the State Department, the A/I Collective “builds and operates the digital infrastructure for violent Antifa cells and other far-left militants across the world,” providing technology “designed to support the operations of far-left terrorist networks, built to enable them to organize, recruit, communicate, disseminate propaganda, share target information and tactics, and carry out violent attacks – all while remaining anonymous, untraceable, and beyond the reach of the law.”

The collective has been facilitating leftist provocations for years.

But on Aug. 26, the State Department struck back, officially deeming the A/I Collective a “specially designated global terrorist.”

The designation means sanctions can be imposed on domestic individuals and financial institutions that do business with the foreign group, as well as restricting any of the collective’s assets that are under American jurisdiction.

Results were immediate: radical sites shut down.

“Antifascism and anticapitalism are not terrorism,” the collective complains in a media statement. “Protesting is not terrorism.”

Yet all too often, it is: Groups like Jane’s Revenge consider terrorism a legitimate form of protest.

And antifa organizations specialize in using protests as cover for carrying out acts of mayhem.

Indeed, that’s the grand strategy – to tear down American society, which is capitalist and “fascist” in the left’s eyes, by exploiting the freedoms our “capitalist” Constitution protects.

Legend has it Lenin once said capitalists would sell communists the very rope they would use to hang them.

Today’s militant left is counting on capitalists and constitutionalists to provide them the legal protections they need to incite and perpetrate violence.

But the Trump administration refuses to play along.

The State Department’s action is long overdue:

Americans should not have had to wait for a Republican administration like this one before government acts to dismantle the infrastructure that supports intimidation and violence.

Foreign interests like the A/I Collective are often suppliers of that infrastructure:

America’s domestic extremists are not simply isolated local loonies who spring up at random in our own communities – they’re connected to and coordinated with international networks.

The networks encourage cross-pollination and collaboration:

A/I Collective, the State Department notes, provides services to European “anarchist cells responsible for sabotaging rail systems across France, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands” as well as to the domestic “anarchist cell responsible for waging a violent campaign to prevent the construction of a law enforcement training center in Atlanta, Georgia.”

The violent left is a transnational movement, and the Trump administration is right to see it in the same light as other networks that support or engage in terrorism.

Domestic sites and groups using A/I Collective resources have published calls for “direct action” against the nation’s immigration laws – and the officers responsible for enforcing them.

That includes publishing pamphlets urging activists to shine laser pointers at Customs and Border Protection helicopters, intending to blind pilots and potentially cause them to crash.

Other sites “dox” ICE agents, providing personal information on immigration-enforcement officers to allow activists to harass them at home – or to firebomb their homes, if they take inspiration from groups like Jane’s Revenge.

This is not protesting, and it’s not certainly not democratic: These are attempts by a radical fringe to do through intimidation and violence what they can’t do at the ballot box.

Going after the foreign enablers of far-left violence and threats is a first, common-sense step in defending the very principle of self-government.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times,

By the middle point of 20th-century American history, measles was widely considered a rite of passage for kids. You get it and you shake it off. You earn lifetime immunity. This was true of every generation just before mine.

For the previous century, measles had become ever less dangerous with sanitation and nutrition. By the time the vaccine came along, it was fully controlled and only very rarely led to hospitalization. The protocols were taught in every school and understood by all classes.

I was apparently part of the first generation to receive the inoculation. It was convenient, but not necessary simply because society had systems and traditions in place to manage it well. How much difference did the shot make in driving infection to zero? Some, surely, and this added to the prestige of vaccines.

That said, I did get chicken pox as a natural infection and recall well what it was like. That no longer happens except in a few communities. I was the last to experience this and I’m happy to share the experience.

My parents came to me excitedly and said we were going to a party. I found myself among a group of kids I did not know and we played and played for hours. Then we left. That was fun, I thought, but a bit confusing. The next day, I woke up with itchy red spots.

My parents cheered. Their plan had worked. I recalled feeling great confusion. Why were my parents celebrating my sickness? It seemed very odd. They had their reasons. They knew the science.

They explained to me how the immune system works and why it is best that I get this when I’m young rather than old. My immunity would be durable and be boosted later in life as my own kids caught the normal childhood infections, which in turn would protect me from the related infection of shingles.

There is this tendency now to treat these strategies as paleolithic as compared with syringes and fluids in the childhood vaccination schedule. Actually, we should look back on these days as the height of serious science. My parents knew exactly what they were doing and it taught me a valuable lesson as a kid. I learned about the high complexity of the immune system that needs exposure as training.

Eventually, of course, the chicken pox vaccine came along and many others as well, resulting in a vast mixture of combined shot after shot. Industry profited. Human health suffered. The Trump administration is trying to fix the problem. Industry doesn’t like that. It is calling in favors from politicians to stop the return to science.

This takes us to the wild drama now playing itself out in Pennsylvania. In April of this year, the media and the governor’s office started going on about a measles outbreak. It was centered in Lancaster and Lebanon counties – both with sizable Amish and Mennonite populations.

The framing here matters. The Amish and Mennonite communities routinely expose children, just as my parents did. It is not an “outbreak” but an application of sophisticated science.

The health of this community ranks among the highest. The most common health issues affecting children in the United States are nearly absent among the Amish, including autism, obesity, diabetes, ADHD, and so on.

Nonetheless, Pennsylvania set up 91 pop-up clinics around the infected community and jabbed kids with more than 4,000 doses using the MMR shot that many people connect to the rise of autism. Forty more clinics are planned.

In science, you have the control group and the tested group. The Amish are the control and keep revealing that there might be a better way. Eliminate the control and you eliminate the embarrassment. This is precisely what both Pfizer and Moderna did after their own tests of the COVID shot: they pushed it on the saline group following first results.

In Pennsylvania, opposition arose to this push for industrial inoculation, and understandably so. In the post-COVID era, trust in public health is depleted to near zero.

Here is where the current drama picked up. On Aug. 14, a newborn child died in Strasburg Township, Lancaster County. The cause of death was later given by the county coroner: lacerated/ruptured spleen, massive blood loss. The postmortem used the PCR test (which detects presence, not infection) and found measles in utero. Obviously, this baby could not otherwise have been vaccinated. It is pointless to call a baby unvaccinated for measles, just as it is ridiculous to observe the infant is illiterate.

A week later, the Pennsylvania Department of Health announced two “measles-associated” deaths in Lancaster County: unvaccinated residents, they said. They claimed these were the first measles-related deaths in Pennsylvania in 35 years. There were no other details given: nothing about the cause of death, nothing about ages, nothing about anything.

Governor Josh Shapiro announced two deaths caused by measles. Not merely associated or related, but caused. The media ran with the story, using the language of causation. He called the deaths preventable and tied them to lack of immunization. He highlighted his clinic campaign and told reporters that Secretary Kennedy had called to offer help with the outbreak to which he responded:

“I was very, very blunt with him, and I made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that’s coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities across America, particularly right here in Pennsylvania.”

It was at this point that the narrative fell apart. The CDC called. The governor’s office could give no more information. The Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons spoke out and said that the coroner’s office has zero deaths with measles listed as immediate cause; one person died with measles, not from it.

No one could find out anything else about this supposed second death. The coroner’s office said it had no such death at all. RFK, Jr. said what everyone was thinking: the second death “may even have been altogether fabricated.” Meanwhile, all available evidence confirmed that the baby died of traumatic spleen laceration and the spleen was not enlarged/inflamed.

Even the mainstream media started getting frustrated at this. You cannot whip the public up with measles fears based on wholly fabricated data. When asked about this, Shapiro deflected:

“I think the Department of Health has made clear that they’ve shared all the information that they are permitted under state law to share, and that those two deaths were measles related. … I don’t think it serves the interest of public health or slows the spread of this outbreak for me to get into a back-and-forth about conspiracy theories that are showing up online.”

Much of the mainstream media has now dialed back its claims but the New York Times has still not corrected its story from Aug. 25: “Two unvaccinated people in Pennsylvania have died from measles, as a large outbreak there continues to spread.”

That sentence in the paper of record is factually incorrect. It’s my personal guess that the reporter would like to make a correction but these people are hemmed in by editors and committees. At this point, to change the wording would be to admit a significant breach.

We are no longer a naive people. Whether the media comes around or not, the real story is already out there.

What concerns me is that we have now several generations who know not what I was taught as a kid, that routine exposure is a necessary and safe way to deal with normal childhood infections that are not deadly and easily treatable. A measles case is not a disaster; it is protective, both broad and durable. Superior to a vaccine? Every expert has to admit that it is. In private, they do.

We have gone so crazy with vaccination that a whole generation of medical professionals and industry leaders have been cajoled into saying that potions can replace the immune system. There is an ocean of money at stake in these decisions. Chicken pox parties are lacking in profit just as is natural immunity generally.

Demonizing religious communities is not a good path for public health and neither is raging against any changes to the childhood schedule. The parents of Pennsylvania, Amish or not, should be left alone. It’s ghoulish for the state to plot the elimination of the control group.

As for my parents, they were wiser than the faculty of Harvard and Yale and the executives of pharmaceutical companies. They knew then what we need to rediscover now. Potions and jabs are not an automatic pathway to health and actually do much to compromise and sometimes end it. We need to rediscover this wisdom we mistakenly left behind.

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