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The Inflation Spark That Could Become A Deflation Shock

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The Inflation Spark That Could Become A Deflation Shock

Authored by Robert Burrows via BondVigilantes.com,

Memory chips have quietly become the most important commodities in the global economy.

DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) is considered the workhorse of the digital world. It functions as the operating memory when a device is turned on, and this memory is lost when a device is switched off.  These chips are used in almost all electronic devices. They play a critical role and sit at the heart of everything from AI servers, cars, smartphones, laptops and more.

The Nvidia type of chips – GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) – are used for computational purposes but are also heavily reliant on DRAM chips.

Many will be aware of the rise of semiconductors and the rapid ascent of Nvidia but few will be aware of the changes ripping through another part of the semiconductor industry: DRAM chips, which have a very direct effect on all of our everyday lives. When Covid disrupted supply chains, we saw all sorts of issues from price increases to availability of goods. Remember when the price of second hand cars were trading at levels close to new cars as the old cars had the necessary chips, while new ones had to go without.

Source: Bloomberg Indices ( Ref.  ISPPDR37 index, inSpectrum Tech Inc DRAM Spot Price DDR4 8Gb 1Gx8 3200 MHz) accessed as of 25th February 2026 .

The price of these memory chips has exploded in recent months, helping explain why the Korean Stock Exchange has had such a good run with Samsung and SK Hynix making up circa 35% of the index.

Today’s tight memory market raises a fascinating macro question: Is this inflationary fuel for the global economy or are we at the early stages of a deflationary unwind?

The inflation case: scarcity breeds pricing power

When memory supply tightens, the first-order effect is straightforward: prices rise. The companies that benefit most are the manufacturers themselves, such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology.

The memory market is one of the most cyclical industries in the world. When utilisation rates climb and inventories shrink, pricing power flips dramatically in favour of producers. Margins can expand quickly.

Higher memory prices feed directly into AI servers, cloud infrastructure, PCs, TVs and smartphones, networking equipment and vehicles. For AI in particular, memory is a major component. High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), a subset of DRAM, is essential to modern GPUs. Companies like Microsoft, Tesla, Meta, etc. depend on large volumes of high-performance memory to make their flagship accelerators function as designed.

If memory becomes more expensive, server build costs rise, cloud capex increases and hardware prices edge up. In that sense, the shock is inflationary, a classic cost-push dynamic. And because AI infrastructure investment is currently driven by deep-pocketed hyperscalers, demand is not especially price sensitive. Higher input costs don’t immediately suppress investment. They often get absorbed. That’s inflationary pressure in action. The issue of higher prices falls heavily onto all the other non-hyperscaler corporates.

The deflation counterargument: when scarcity and price choke growth

But what if availability becomes the issue, not just price?

Imagine a scenario where non-hyperscalers simply cannot secure memory chips to build products as a result of availability and price due to the hyperscalers apparent insatiable demand.

Production lines stall, revenue slows and inventory sits half-finished. For highly levered firms with large fixed costs, that becomes dangerous, very quickly.

Unlike the large technology companies with bucketloads of cash and the ability to tap credit markets, smaller firms lack a balance sheet buffer. This is where the recession transmission emerges through demand destruction. Insolvencies begin to rise, unemployment increases and credit spreads widen. With credit spreads trading at all time tight levels, we need to be cautious.

Time is currently the enemy. The longer chip prices remain elevated the more macro consequences we can expect. It certainly doesn’t feel like these deep pocketed technology firms are going to be backing away anytime soon. In fact, Google raised $32bn in multiple tranches at the drop of a hat the other day. The 100yr sterling tranche was massively oversubscribed. A £5.5bn issue attracted £30bn in bids.

Let’s keep a close eye on the industries that rely on these chips, with a particular focus on credit spreads and unemployment levels.

Unhelpfully, we are left wondering in which direction inflation will turn next? If you were a gambler, where would you put your chips?

Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/28/2026 – 09:20

Pentagon Picks OpenAI To Replace Anthropic

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Pentagon Picks OpenAI To Replace Anthropic

Update (2345ET): Sam Altman on Friday night announced that OpenAI and Department of War have struck a deal in which the DoW will be able to use the company’s AI for military applications, and has agreed to abide by the company’s red lines regarding safety (which were similar to rival Anthropic). 

“Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” Altman said on Friday night, adding “The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.“

Read Altman’s entire statement below:

Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network.

In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome.

AI safety and wide distribution of benefits are the core of our mission. Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems.  The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.

We also will build technical safeguards to ensure our models behave as they should, which the DoW also wanted. We will deploy FDEs to help with our models and to ensure their safety, we will deploy on cloud networks only.

We are asking the DoW to offer these same terms to all AI companies, which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept. We have expressed our strong desire to see things de-escalate away from legal and governmental actions and towards reasonable agreements.

We remain committed to serve all of humanity as best we can. The world is a complicated, messy, and sometimes dangerous place. 

As Axios opines, Altman acknowledges mass surveillance is illegal and that the Pentagon will comply with applicable law. 

  • The restrictions in the agreement reflect existing U.S. law and the Pentagon’s policies, and the intention was not to invent new legal standards, a source familiar told Axios.
  • Anthropic contends the law has not caught up with AI and worries AI can supercharge the legal collection of publicly available data, from social media posts to geolocation.

Catch up quick: Altman, in an overnight memo Friday to employees, laid out his company’s approach, which has now been approved.

  • The company wants the ability to continuously strengthen its security and monitoring systems as it learns from real-world deployments.
  • The company wants researchers with security clearances who can track how the technology is being used and advise the government on risks.
  • The company wants certain technical safeguards — including confining models to the cloud, rather than edge environments like autonomous weapons.

Defense officials and President Trump were irate at the idea that Anthropic — a company they perceive as leftist — and CEO Dario Amodei could have any say over how the Pentagon uses technology in its operations.

  • “WE will decide the fate of our Country — NOT some out-of-control, Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
  • A senior Pentagon official previously told Axios: “The problem with Dario is, with him, it’s ideological. We know who we’re dealing with.”

* * *

Needless to say, Sam wins this round – on the same day he landed Amazon AWS. 

Earlier Friday night, Anthropic announced it would sue the Pentagon for blacklisting the company, and issued a statement on their side of things. 

*  *  *

Update (1957ET): OpenAI CEO Sam Altman doubled down on an earlier report that he was trying to snatch Anthropic’s chain, telling employees in a Friday afternoon all-hands meeting that a potential agreement is emerging with the Department of War to use the company’s AI models and tools, after the Trump admin blackballed top rival Anthropic – booting them from government use and designating them a supply-chain risk. 

According to Fortune‘s Sharon Goldman, the Trump admin will allow OpenAI to build their own “safety stack” of guardrails, a “layered system of technical, policy, and human controls that sit between a powerful AI model and real-world use,” such that if their AI refuses to follow an instruction, the government won’t force OpenAI to make it perform that task. 

OpenAI would retain control over how technical safeguards are implemented, which models are deployed and where, and would limit deployment to cloud environments rather than “edge systems.” (In a military context, edge systems are a category that could include aircraft and drones.) In what would be a major concession, Altman told employees that the government said it is willing to include OpenAI’s named “red lines” in the contract, including not using AI to power autonomous weapons, no domestic mass surveillance and no critical decision-making.

And now we wait for word from the admin…

*  *  *

Update (1625ET): And there it is; the Trump administration has designated Anthropic a ‘supply-chain risk’ – making this post highly relevant to ZeroHedge premium subscribers. 

In a Friday evening post on X, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that this week, “Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon,” adding that Anthropic and CEO Dario Amodei have “chosen duplicity.

Continued;

Cloaked in the sanctimonious rhetoric of “effective altruism,” they have attempted to strong-arm the United States military into submission – a cowardly act of corporate virtue-signaling that places Silicon Valley ideology above American lives.  

The Terms of Service of Anthropic’s defective altruism will never outweigh the safety, the readiness, or the lives of American troops on the battlefield.

Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable.
 
As President Trump stated on Truth Social, the Commander-in-Chief and the American people alone will determine the destiny of our armed forces, not unelected tech executives.  
 
Anthropic’s stance is fundamentally incompatible with American principles. Their relationship with the United States Armed Forces and the Federal Government has therefore been permanently altered.  

In conjunction with the President’s directive for the Federal Government to cease all use of Anthropic’s technology, I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security. Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic. Anthropic will continue to provide the Department of War its services for a period of no more than six months to allow for a seamless transition to a better and more patriotic service.

America’s warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech. This decision is final.

*  *  *

Update (1603ET): An hour before a 5PM ET deadline, President Donald Trump directed ‘EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology,” posting on Truth Social that “We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and we will not do business with them again.” 

According to Trump:

  • There will be a six month phase out period for agencies already using Anthropic products
  • If Anthropic isn’t ‘helpful’ during the transition, Trump will pursue civil and criminal charges

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth had given Anthropic until 5 p.m. on Friday to allow the Pentagon to use the Claude chatbot without restrictions, within legal limits. 

 

Does this mean they’ll be designated a supply chain risk? 

Trump’s decision will send a shockwave through Silicon Valley, where tech firms have invested billions of dollars on artificial intelligence and are weighing how best to handle federal government contracting. The move takes aim at a company that’s leading development of AI, a centerpiece of Trump’s economic agenda.

The stakes are huge for Anthropic, which is valued at $380 billion and has agreed to do about $200 million in work with the military. It’s also a risk for the government given that Anthropic was until recently the only AI system that could operate in the Pentagon’s classified cloud. Its Claude Gov tool is a favored option among defense personnel for its ease of use. -Bloomberg

If so, some ideas can be found here…

*  *  *

As today’s 5PM ET deadline looms for Anthropic to militarize Claude AI for the Pentagon, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman waded into the fray – telling staff on Thursday night that his company is working with the Department of War to see if their models can be used in classified settings in a way that maintains the same safety guardrails that are about to get Anthropic booted from the Pentagon. 

“We are going to see if there is a deal with the DoW that allows our models to be deployed in classified environments and that fits with our principles,” Altman wrote in a Thursday night note to staff, reported by the Wall Street Journal. “We would ask for the contract to cover any use except those which are unlawful or unsuited to cloud deployments, such as domestic surveillance and autonomous offensive weapons.”

Altman says he wants to “try to help de-escalate things,” aka – they want to be the ones deeply embedded in the Pentagon’s most sensitive systems. 

Red Lines

Altman says OpenAI understands the government’s position that a private company should not have control over significant national-security issues [laughs in Palantir], but says they have the same issues as Anthropic when it comes to use cases. 

“We have long believed that AI should not be used for mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons, and that humans should remain in the loop for high-stakes automated decisions. These are our main red lines,” Altman wrote. 

“We believe this dispute isn’t about how AI will be used, but about control. We believe that a private US company cannot be more powerful than the democratically-elected US government, although companies can have lots of input and influence. Democracy is messy, but we are committed to it.”

Altman’s comments come as things aren’t looking so good for Anthropic. Earlier Thursday evening, CEO Dario Amodei announced that the company had rejected the Department of War’s demands that it make its technology available for “all lawful uses,” which means no mass domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons. 

Yet, the Pentagon’s Emil Michael – who allegedly as a private citizen Uber exec wanted to spend a million dollars to surveil and dig up dirt on journalists who covered Uber – noted that mass surveillance is already illegal under the Fourth Amendment, and insists that “Anthropic is lying” because “he @DeptofWar doesn’t do mass surveillance as that is already illegal. What we are talking about is allowing our warfighters to use AI without having to call @DarioAmodei for permission to shoot down an enemy drone swarms that would kill Americans.”

Grok On Deck?

The logical move for the Pentagon – after being able to claim they gave Anthropic and OpenAI a fair shake – would be to replace Claude with xAI’s Grok. 

And so, of course, ‘ALARMS ARE BEING RAISED’ over the prospect, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing the ever-insightful “people familiar with the matter.” 

Officials at multiple federal agencies have raised concerns about the safety and reliability of Elon Musk’s xAI artificial-intelligence tools in recent months, highlighting continuing disagreements within the U.S. government about which AI models to deploy, according to people familiar with the matter. 

The warnings preceded the Pentagon’s decision this week to put xAI at the center of some of the nation’s most sensitive and secretive operations by agreeing to allow its chatbot Grok to be used in classified settings.

…

Senior U.S. officials including at the White House view Anthropic’s outspoken stances on safety and ties to big Democratic donors as potentially making the company too “woke” to be a reliable provider, people familiar with the matter said. The looser controls on Grok, and Musk’s absolutist stance on free speech, have made it a more attractive choice to the Pentagon.

…

Ed Forst, the top official at the General Services Administration, a procurement arm of the federal government, in recent months sounded an alarm with White House officials about potential safety issues with Grok, people familiar with the matter said. Other GSA officials under him had also raised safety concerns about Grok, which they viewed as sycophantic and too susceptible to manipulation or corruption by faulty or biased data—creating a potential system risk. 

Also kinda funny is that the General Services Administration was severely diminished by serious DOGE cuts to ‘waste, fraud and abuse,’ but we’re sure this isn’t a case of sour grapes. 

Will ‘woke’ Anthropic & OpenAI win, or will Grok?

Either way, we all lose. Palantir is already balls deep across critical systems, and US adversaries are undoubtedly leveraging cutting edge AI within their own defense departments & surveilling whoever the fuck they want. 

Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/28/2026 – 08:50

Operation Epic Fury: New Satellite Image Shows U.S.-Israeli Strike On Iranian Supreme Leader’s Compound

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Operation Epic Fury: New Satellite Image Shows U.S.-Israeli Strike On Iranian Supreme Leader’s Compound

Update (0845ET):

Iranian military officials said they would deliver a “historic lesson” to Israel and the U.S. in response to the strikes, as Operation Epic Fury, the U.S.-Israeli campaign designated by the Department of War, continues to hit military infrastructure, top army leaders, and other high-value targets across multiple Iranian cities.

Earlier footage allegedly showed the Iranian supreme leader’s compound being struck by what appeared to be U.S. or Israeli missiles or air-delivered munitions.

New Airbus satellite imagery reportedly shows the compound in Tehran sustained severe damage; it remains unclear whether Ayatollah Khamenei was inside at the time of the strike.

Shortly after Operation Epic Fury began, President Trump announced in an eight-minute video on Truth Social that “major combat operations” had begun.

“The United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests,” the president said. “We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground.”

Trump continued, “To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces, and all of the police, I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity or, in the alternative, face certain death.”

Operation Epic Fury comes amid the U.S. building a massive military presence in the region (read report). Also, one day after indirect nuclear talks (read here) between the U.S. and Iran did not end so well, according to Trump.

U.S. officials told NBC reporter Courtney Kube that Israel has targeted Iranian leaders, while the U.S. has targeted Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear high-value facilities.

There are reports that IRGC Commander Mohammad Pakpour was killed by Israeli strikes.

Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, the spokesman for Iran’s Armed Forces, told state media that any military base used by the U.S. and Israel in the region will be targeted. There have already been reports of Iranian retaliatory strikes across the region.

Sources tell CNN that Operation Epic Fury was the result of “months of joint planning” and will involve several days of attacks.

*   *   * 

The U.S. and Israel have conducted coordinated strikes on Iranian targets, which President Trump described in an eight-minute video on Truth Social as the start of “major combat operations” aimed at defending the U.S. by “eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.”

“The hour for your freedom is at hand,” President Trump told the Iranian people in the video. “When we’re finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”

President Trump is expected to address the American people on Saturday morning following the second U.S. strike on Iranian soil in less than a year. The first strike took place in June 2025, when U.S. stealth bombers dropped bombs on three nuclear sites inside Iran.

The focus on the Saturday morning strikes (Brent crude futures are closed), the president said, was to ensure Americans “will never be threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran.”

Bloomberg headline: Oil Tankers Avoiding Vital Hormuz Strait After US Bombs Iran

In markets, with Brent crude futures closed, Bitcoin was hammered from the $65k level, down to the $63k level.

US and Israeli strikes on Iran come one day after the latest round of indirect nuclear talks between Iran and the US, about which the president said he was “not happy with the progress,” adding: “They don’t want to say the key words: ‘We’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.'”

A US official told CNN that the US strikes were focused on Iranian military targets but did not comment on the ongoing operation. Another official told the outlet that the objective of the strikes was to address the Iranian military threat. The first official said the US military had put countermeasures in place to protect its personnel in the region.

AP News reports:

The first strikes of the attack appeared to target the compound home to Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in downtown Tehran. It wasn’t immediately clear if he was there at the time. Smoke could be seen rising from the Iranian capital.

Shortly after the strike, the US Department of Defense wrote on X, “Operation Epic Fury.” For context, last year’s strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities was “Operation Midnight Hammer.”

Iranian state-run media outlets Fars and IRNA reported strikes in Isfahan, Qom, Lorestan, Karaj, Kermanshah, and Tabriz, as well as in the capital, Tehran.

Israel described the strikes against Iran as “a broad, coordinated, and joint operation against the regime” that was planned for months.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a recorded message that Israeli military action against Iran would be “much more powerful” than Israel’s 12-day operation against Tehran last year.

In response, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched a wave of drones and missiles targeting Israel. There were other reports that the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet command center in the host nation, Bahrain, was targeted by Iranian missiles.

Other reports suggest Iran launched projectiles at US bases and targets beyond Bahrain, and also in Kuwait and Qatar.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry wrote on X, “The time has come to defend the homeland and confront the enemy’s military assault. Just as we were prepared for negotiations, we have been even more prepared for defense at all times. The armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will decisively respond to the aggressors with full authority.”

*Developing…

Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/28/2026 – 08:45

Iran Strikes Should End In Regime Change, Senate Majority Leader Says, Ahead Of War Powers Vote

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Iran Strikes Should End In Regime Change, Senate Majority Leader Says, Ahead Of War Powers Vote

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has made the maximalist hawkish US case on Iran, saying that any authorized strikes should result in nothing less than regime change in Tehran.

“In my view, if you’re going to do something there, you better well make it about getting new leadership and regime change,” the leading Republican Senator said Thursday. “If you’re going to take some sort of action, I think you want to achieve a result that actually brings about the transformational change that I think we want in the region.”

A big problem with this viewpoint, which ensures Washington stays in the business of ‘nation building’ and democratizing foreign lands (akin to the Neocon Bush era), is that almost all regional analysts say regime change is next to impossible through a purely aerial mission. Instead, this would require US boots on the ground – something the American people surely would not stomach, and which the Trump administration has pledged not to do time and again.

via Denver Gazette/Associated Press

“The President, I don’t think, to my knowledge, has made any decisions, but I think they’re gaming out what contingencies might look like and what’s in our national security interests.” Thune added, “Of course, first and foremost is to prevent them from having a nuclear capability but there are also other threats that they represent in the region.”

Hawks in the senate smell blood in the water. For example Neocon Texas Senator Ted Cruz has argued that the Islamic Republic is at its weakest in decades, and now is the time for major action.

“The Ayatollah lost to Israel in the 12-day war. They are weaker. The regime is weaker than it ever has been. And what I’ve urged the president, do not miss this opportunity,” Cruz told CNBC on Wednesday. “If the Ayatollah is removed from power, it will make America much safer.”

Cruz does not go on to define just how Americans and the US mainland would be ‘safer’ if this happens- given Iran currently does not possess ICBMs capable of hitting North America. Even the WSJ agrees there’s no missile threat to the US:

Iran would need to master significant technological challenges before it could field an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the U.S. homeland, according to U.S. intelligence estimates and experts outside government.

The assessment raises questions about the Trump administration’s rationale for urgent military action against Iran, which looks increasingly likely barring a major diplomatic breakthrough.

President Trump contended in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday that Iran was working on missiles that “will soon reach” the U.S.

Experts say the formidable technical hurdles facing such Iranian ambitions give the two sides time to discuss a potential agreement to curb Tehran’s missile development. The Trump administration has highlighted the missile question in recent days, along with its longstanding insistence that Iran shut the door on uranium enrichment.

As for the prospect of Iran-sponsored terrorism, the history record doesn’t bear out that this is an issue. In fact, while there’s been plenty of Sunni/Saudi/Egyptian terror carried out on American soil over the last several decades (including 9/11) – one would be hard pressed to find a single example of Shia or Iranian terror attacks on American soil. The only case might be attacks on US diplomatic compounds during the Lebanese Civil War (in the 1980s, after which then President Ronald Reagan widely pulled out of that messy, complex conflict).

The hawks are looking for ways to fearmonger the US public into supporting military action against Iran, but so far it seems there’s been a collective shrug from main street America.

Ahem… “has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years“…

In the meantime, House and Senate Democrats announced Thursday that they will force a vote next week on War Powers Resolutions to block President Trump from launching military action against Iran without congressional authorization, as required under the Constitution.

In the House, the measure is a bipartisan bill introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA). Lawmakers never voted on what was initially introduced during the June 12-day war after a ceasefire halted the conflict. Khanna said last week he would bring the legislation to the floor. After an initial delay, Democratic leadership has now committed to moving forward with the vote.

* * * 

Trump’s latest remarks on the build-up…

Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/28/2026 – 08:45

France’s Le Pen Says She Will Not Run In 2027 Election If Under House Arrest, Names Successor

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France’s Le Pen Says She Will Not Run In 2027 Election If Under House Arrest, Names Successor

Via Remix News,

In March 2025,  Le Pen was convicted on charges dating back years ago, in a move that was widely contested and seen as a highly political attempt to keep her from running in next year’s presidential election.

Now, she says she has no intention of running if her ban from running is lifted, if it means she must wear an electronic tag, i.e., ankle monitor.

She is also ready to place full trust in Jordan Bardella, current leader of the National Rally (RN).

Le Pen’s comments came during an interview with French television station BFMTV, her first since French prosecutors asked a court to uphold her five-year ban. A ruling on her case is expected on July 7.

“You cannot campaign under these conditions. Can you campaign without going out in the evenings to meet your constituents at rallies?” she asked, referring to the idea of having to campaign while wearing a monitor and under house arrest.

Prosecutors had asked for Le Pen to be sentenced to four years in prison (three of which were suspended) and a fine of €100,000.

In France, shorter prison sentences are often commuted, meaning that if the court follows the prosecutor’s request, Le Pen could spend anywhere from a few months to a year under house arrest, wearing an anklet.

However, Le Pen has said she would not campaign under such circumstances.

Le Pen says she will be present in court on July 7 to hear the Court of Appeal’s decision.

“Of course I will go, as I went every day to the trial in the first instance and on appeal because I respect justice,” she told BFMTV.

Regarding the 2027 election, Le Pen said regarding RN leader Jordan Bardella:

“The best-case scenario is that I am elected president of the Republic and he is my prime minister.”

However, if she cannot run, then “Jordan will find himself a prime minister,” and she will take whatever “role he wants me to have.”

Emphasizing that Bardella will be free to make his own choices, Le Pen told listeners, “If I cannot be a candidate, he will determine at what level he needs my presence, my advice and my experience.”

Read more here…

Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/28/2026 – 08:10

China’s Biological Weapons Labs In America

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China’s Biological Weapons Labs In America

Authored by Gordon Change via The Gatestone Institute,

China has been maintaining at least two facilities — one in California and the other in Nevada — that are part of a biological weapons program.

A Declaration of Arrest Report, issued by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in connection with the detention of Ori Solomon on January 31, states that there is a “deeper conspiracy” between an illegal biological lab in Reedley, California and a residence containing apparently dangerous substances in Nevada.

On January 31, Las Vegas SWAT and federal agents raided a home on the eastern outskirts of the city and seized over a thousand vials of an unknown substance or substances. Those vials have been sent to an FBI lab in Maryland for analysis.

A housecleaner tipped off authorities after she and others temporarily residing at the home got “deathly ill.”

Solomon was the property manager of the location.

Jiabei Zhu, a Chinese national also known as Jesse Zhu, Qiang He and David He, is the listed agent of a company, David Destiny Discovery LLC, that is the registered owner of the Las Vegas house along with Zhaoyan Wang, his business partner and the mother of his child.

Zhu will go to trial in April on federal charges for the operation of the lab in Reedley, near Fresno in the Central Valley.

Fortunately, in California, Code Enforcement Officer Jesalyn Harper in December 2022 noticed a garden hose connected to a supposedly abandoned building.

She entered the structure and discovered what appears to have been a secret biological weapons laboratory. Inside, Harper found Chinese nationals working in white coats.

The lab stored nearly a thousand transgenic mice — 773 live and more than 175 dead — “genetically engineered to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus.”

Authorities also found medical waste and chemical, viral, and biological agents. There were on-site at least 20 potentially infectious pathogens, including those causing coronavirus, HIV, hepatitis, and herpes.

The lab contained a freezer labeled “Ebola.” The freezer held unlabeled sealed bags used to store high-risk biological materials. Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology are studying Ebola, which has a natural fatality rate of 50%, undoubtedly to weaponize it.

The Reedley facility was run by Chinese fronting for parties in China. Among the fronts is Zhu.

In 2024, Brandon Weichert, author of Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, in comments to Gatestone, called the Reedley facility a “kamikaze lab,” which was “unsecured, poorly contained, makeshift, containing a couple dozen pathogens near a population center.”

There are reasons to be alarmed.

First, as Weichert noted at the time, the Reedley facility could not be a “one-off.” Now, we know that he was right. There is — at least — a second location, the “deeper conspiracy” as the Las Vegas police termed it.

Moreover, the Chinese regime is behind that conspiracy. Wang fled to China sometime in 2023. While there, she kept tabs on the Las Vegas home by, for instance, monitoring cameras at the location.

Zhu was also a top official at one of China’s state-controlled companies that had links to the People’s Liberation Army. According to recent reporting, he has maintained business relations with parties connected to the Chinese regime.

All this demonstrates that China’s Communist Party, which could have ordered Zhu and Wang to shut down the effort after the discovery of the Reedley lab, allowed it to continue. Among other things, the continuation of the effort suggests there is a broader effort to spread disease in the United States.

Second, Zhu operated the Reedley and Las Vegas facilities with malign intent.

Zhu, according to Canadian court statements, told a co-conspirator in an earlier theft of U.S. intellectual property that these efforts would help “defeat the American aggressor and wild ambitious wolf!” “The law is strong,” he added at the time, “but the outlaws are ten times stronger.”

These statements were included in the Las Vegas Declaration of Arrest Report. As a recent analysis states, “the declaration reveals, for the first time, the full scope of what U.S. investigators believe they are dealing with: not merely a rogue lab operator, but a PRC-trained biologist with state-linked corporate ties, a proven history of stealing American technology for Beijing’s benefit, and language that investigators now treat as evidence of ideological motivation.”

As Weichert said of the Reedley lab two years ago, “It is, I believe, a part of a large Chinese military operation to spread disease throughout the American population.”

He is undoubtedly correct. A quarter century ago, General Chi Haotian, China’s defense minister and vice chairman of the Party’s Central Military Commission, reportedly gave a secret speech advocating the extermination of Americans. “It is indeed brutal to kill one or two hundred million Americans,” he said. “But that is the only path that will secure a Chinese century, a century in which the Communist Party leads the world.”

Chi’s plan was to use disease for this purpose.

The FBI now appears to be concerned about the extent of the Chinese effort. It executed a search warrant on the Reedley facility on February 8th.

Have U.S. authorities now discovered everything? “We need to know if there is a third biological weapons location and maybe a fourth,” Blaine Holt, a retired U.S. Air Force general who now specializes in civil preparedness measures, told Gatestone this month. “We are on notice that the Chinese regime is preparing to spread disease in America. We have been very slow off the mark and have absolutely no time to lose. The Chinese regime could give the go-signal at any moment.”

Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/27/2026 – 23:25

Are You Being Watched By Smart Glasses? Here’s How To Check

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Are You Being Watched By Smart Glasses? Here’s How To Check

Meta’s Ray-Bans are seeing growing adoption among everyday consumers, highlighting an affordability sweet spot for AI-powered wearables as Apple is expected to enter the space with its own smart glasses following its failed Vision Pro launch. Yet, as AI-powered glasses gain popularity, they introduce new privacy and security concerns, with one smartphone app emerging as an early countermeasure.

As first reported by tech blog 404 Media, the new smartphone app Nearby Glasses scans the Bluetooth signature emitted by smart glasses and sends a push notification to the user if a device is detected nearby.

“I consider it to be a tiny part of resistance against surveillance tech,” the app’s developer, Yves Jeanrenaud, told 404 Media.

The emergence of this app comes as we’ve been highlighting that mass adoption of smart glasses is in its early stages; it is happening now, and we’ve already mapped the supply chain tied to how to profit from the explosion of these glasses (as well as highlighted Meta’s supplier).

But alongside that adoption curve comes a series of risks, from surveillance concerns to child safety issues. Simply put, not everyone wants to be recorded.

“This is a tech solution to a social problem exaggerated by technology. I do not want to promote tech solutionism, nor do I want people to feel falsely secure. It’s still imperfect,” Jeanrenaud said.

Remember when Apple had to start warning everyone about AirTags around them? Well, Tim Cook may eventually have to roll out a similar update for smart glasses if there’s enough public uproar.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/27/2026 – 23:00

The Clash Of Civilizations Restarts History

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The Clash Of Civilizations Restarts History

Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

Western globalists won’t last long.

Thirty-five years ago, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama made a name for himself by advancing the proposition that the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union promised the ascendency and universalization of so-called Western liberal democracy.  As a Marxist-Hegelian who saw the progression of history as an evolutionary process with a natural and predetermined conclusion, Fukuyama envisioned Western-styled liberalism as both “the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution” and “the final form of human government.”  Expecting all human struggles to barrel toward a state of imminent equilibrium and future peace, Fukuyama stated out loud what many other late-twentieth century thinkers also believed: Humanity had reached the end of history.

After the 9/11 Islamic terror attacks in the United States, two decades of the “Global War on Terrorism,” communist China’s expansive “Belt and Road Initiative,” immigration-fueled social strife, the collapse of public trust in government institutions, the prevalence of pre-civil war conditions across Europe, the rise of Indian economic power, the emergence of Donald Trump’s nationalism as a counterbalance to the World Economic Forum’s vaunted globalism, the return of the Russian Federation as a major source of European angst, the growth of “multiculturalism” and its attendant fracturing of national unity, the “great powers” competition for hydrocarbon energies and other natural resources, the new geopolitical race to project strength in the Arctic, and the ever-present discussion of an impending World War III — just to name a few of the numerous global conflicts of the first quarter of the present century — Fukuyama’s “end of history” argument has probably reached the end of its usefulness.

Before the curse of humanity’s short memory stores Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis in the cupboard until it can be retrieved, dusted off, and recycled for practical use next century (just as Fukuyama had done with the historical conceptions of Hegel and Marx), it is worth noting how much of the academic world bought into this argument.  I remember listening to two young political science professors discussing Fukuyama’s work after the 9/11 terror attacks, and even then — in the midst of such a horrific rebuke to the proposition that a globalized form of Western liberalism was preordained — both academics were staunch believers in the “end of history” and disagreed only about whether Professor Fukuyama was worthy of so much praise for having merely stated what was glaringly obvious.

I was around another man at the time named Samuel P. Huntington, and he had written an essay and book that took Fukuyama’s thesis to task.  In The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Professor Huntington argued that unbridgeable cultural conflicts would continue to remake the world.  Although critics called him “racist,” “Islamophobic,” “ignorant,” and even “Hitlerian” for dismissing the unifying effects of “diversity” and “multiculturalism,” Huntington’s predictions for a volatile twenty-first century were much more accurate than anything coming from the “end of history” camp.  Still, even after death, the man who dispassionately forecasted a civilizational clash and an emerging period of global uncertainty is still maligned as “prejudicial,” “white supremacist,” “bigoted,” and “imperialist.”

Is there any conflict raging in the world today that can’t be described in terms of competing cultural values?  Israel and its Islamic neighbors have been in a perennial state of war for eighty years.  Indian Hindus and Pakistani Muslims remain at each other’s throats.  Christianity and Islam have added fuel to fiery tribal conflicts that continue to rage across the continent of Africa.  Armenia’s Christians and Azerbaijan’s Muslims struggle to maintain peace.  The Balkans remain a potpourri of combative cultures and ethnic groups whose simmering passions can quickly boil over.  Burma, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos fight against each other and themselves as civilizational loyalties turn ancient resentments into recurring bouts of violence.  The War in Ukraine centers around the contested Donbas region whose people more closely align with the language, religion, and culture of Russia than with the historic identity that unites the people living in the western two-thirds of Ukraine.

Everywhere in the world, battle lines are drawn around civilizational identity.  Religious conflict, historic grievance, and cultural incompatibility drive violence around the planet.

Yet Western globalists in Europe and North America pretend not to notice.  They organize annual conventions where members of the World Economic Forum or the Council on Foreign Relations or the Royal Institute of International Affairs can bloviate about “multiculturalism,” “open borders,” “established norms,” and the “rules-based international order.”  They speak about “nationalism” and “patriotism” as if they were diseases requiring quarantine for those showing symptoms.  They like Islam and are willing to imprison anyone seen as violating Sharia Law or causing offense to Muslims.  But they generally despise Christians and Jews and don’t mind when medieval cathedrals mysteriously burn to the ground or Hamas terrorists rape Israeli women and kill Israeli babies.  They pray fanatically at the altar of their “green energy” religion, while replacing entire domestic industries with the coal-powered, slave-labor-produced, government-subsidized exports of the Chinese Communist Party.  White, Western globalists prefer to ignore the threats of Islamic jihad and Chinese totalitarianism, sip from glasses brimming with crisp Sauvignon blanc, and stew in the intoxicating vapors of their own haughty uselessness.

One might think that the last twenty-five years of global volatility would have given globalism’s biggest promoters some measure of pause as the “end of history” arrived and passed.  But Western “elites” generally suffer from cerebral deficiency, shameless incuriosity, and pathological stubbornness.  According to the blue bloods on both sides of the Atlantic — such as Canada’s banker-turned-prime-minister Mark Carney, France’s banker-turned-president Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s BlackRock-board-member-turned-chancellor Friedrich Merz, and the European Commission’s noble-aristocrat-turned-installed-president Ursula von der Leyen — “multiculturalism” is our future, “diversity is our strength,” and “cultural nationalism” is a “terrorist ideology” that breeds “hate.”

Even after President George W. Bush’s failed “nation-building” gambit to bring “democracy” and “women’s rights” to Afghanistan and the Middle East, Western globalists insist that civilizational clashes aren’t real.  Even after the exposure of Muslim “rape gangs” trading local girls as sex slaves in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and France, Western globalists insist that “diversity is our strength” and “multiculturalism” is our future.  Even after communist China’s increasingly provocative saber-rattling regarding Taiwan, pervasive espionage and sabotage within the United States, and public promises of world domination, Western globalists insist on transferring huge sums of national wealth to the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for China’s lip service to “international norms.”  What Talleyrand said of the Bourbons applies equally well to the West’s suicidal cult of self-hating globalists: “They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”

As we enter the second quarter of the twentieth century, the world is about to receive a harsh education in the persistent reality of civilizational conflict.  The “end of history” tripe was always a figment of self-deluding theoreticians who envision themselves as philosopher kings.  In the real world, values matter.  Culture matters.  Religion matters.  The past matters.  Honor matters.  Violent conflict does not disappear in a puff of smoke when Marxist-Hegelians hold up their dog-eared copies of Das Kapital and declare it must be so.  In the real world — where bullets fly faster than words — theories written on scraps of paper are rolled up into cigarettes or left under a rock near the trench latrine.  In the real world, people fight.  Cultures compete.  And civilizations clash.

Western globalists who refuse to learn the basics won’t long last.  From the Arctic to the Antarctic, battle lines are being drawn and redrawn everywhere.  The past informs the present.  The present informs the future.  The rest of history is just now beginning.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/27/2026 – 22:35

ICE New Orleans Reports 11,000 Deportations In January

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ICE New Orleans Reports 11,000 Deportations In January

Look no further than the reason unhinged Democrats want to rein in, or even abolish, ICE: these left-wing politicians have championed nation-killing open borders under a globalist framework, flooding their sanctuary cities with illegal aliens to build a new voter bloc. That voter bloc then translates into voting power, and ICE is now reversing that power through deportations tied to national security threats.

On Wednesday, the ICE field office in New Orleans reported that, in January, it made 2,714 arrests, carried out 10,886 deportations, and recorded more than 25 gang-related arrests.

One X user asked: “I wonder what happens to housing costs in New Orleans when 3% of the population is removed. Affordable housing coming soon.”

There was discussion on X about people claiming that the nearly 11,000 deportations were equivalent to 3% of the sanctuary city’s total population. However, the National Immigration Center for Enforcement clarified the figure and corrected any misrepresentations.

“Calling this “3% of New Orleans” misreads how ICE operates (and is a premature mass deportation victory lap). These 10,886 deportations went through the top ICE Air hub, processing illegals from all over. Great, but the scale must continue to be ramped up! @Phase2Deport,” National Immigration Center for Enforcement wrote on X. 

Fox News’ Bill Melugin also clarifies … 

President Trump won a second term on the promise of increasing deportations of illegals who entered the nation under Democrats who opened the borders in what only history will describe as “nation-killing.” The administration is rapidly ramping up deportations this year, while Democrats are furious and want to abolish ICE because each illegal is seen as a source of political power for the left wing.

On top of the deportation effort, Republicans are trying to implement voter ID requirements and the SAVE America Act, which would tighten election rules by requiring identification.

The latest figures from a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that most Americans agree with President Trump that illegal aliens must go. All the optics-driven protests staged by far-left groups in Minneapolis and in other sanctuary cities have yet to significantly change sentiment on a national level. This is a reality that Democrats are furious about and plan nationwide protests come spring.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/27/2026 – 22:10

Will China Come To Iran’s Rescue?

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Will China Come To Iran’s Rescue?

Via Middle East Eye

As tensions between Iran and the US-Israeli alliance approach a critical juncture, a question echoes through global capitals, newsrooms and policy circles: will China come to Iran’s rescue? And if so, what would that assistance look like?

The answer defies the binary expectations of traditional military alliances. China is unlikely to dispatch troops or engage directly in any conflict, but to interpret this as passivity would be to misread the nature of 21st-century great power competition. China’s support for Iran is real, multifaceted, and in some ways more sustainable than military intervention; it just operates on a different strategic wavelength.

At the UN Security Council, China has consistently deployed its most potent weapon: the veto-wielding power of principle. In an emergency meeting last month, Chinese Ambassador Sun Lei delivered a stark message to Washington: “The use of force can never solve problems. It will only make them more complex and intractable. Any military adventurism would only push the region toward an unpredictable abyss.”

This is not empty rhetoric. China’s official position explicitly supports “safeguarding Iran’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity”, while opposing “the threat or use of force in international relations”. 

By anchoring its stance in the UN Charter and international law, China provides Tehran with something invaluable: legitimacy on the world stage, and a powerful counter-narrative to western pressure.

Strategic alignment

The diplomatic calculus shifted fundamentally when Iran was formally approved in 2021 as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), joining China, Russia and Central Asian nations. This was followed by Tehran’s inclusion in the Brics bloc. 

These are not military pacts, but they create something perhaps more enduring: a framework for permanent consultation and strategic alignment.

Last year, Chinese, Russian and Iranian diplomats met in Beijing and agreed to “strengthen coordination” within international organizations such as Brics and the SCO. This institutional embrace means that any aggression against Iran is now implicitly an issue for the world’s most powerful counterweights to US hegemony. 

While China avoids direct confrontation, it has not shied away from visible military cooperation. Earlier this month, Russia, China and Iran deployed naval vessels for joint security exercises in the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz. A Russian presidential aide framed these drills in the context of building a “multipolar world order in the oceans” to counter western hegemony.

More tangibly, news has emerged of significant defense cooperation. Middle East Eye reported last year that Iran had received Chinese-made surface-to-air missile batteries to rebuild its air defense capabilities, part of an oil-for-weapons deal that allowed Tehran to bypass US sanctions. 

Some reports have also suggested that Iran may receive advanced J-20 fifth-generation fighter jets, J-10C aircraft, and HQ-9 air defense systems, although there has been no official confirmation.

The symbolism is as striking as the substance. During Iran’s Air Force Day celebrations this month, a Chinese military attache presented a model of the J-20 stealth fighter to an Iranian air force commander – a gesture widely interpreted as signalling a new chapter in defence engagement between the two nations.

Multipolar age

Perhaps China’s most consequential support remains invisible on the battlefield, but visible in Iran’s national accounts. Despite US sanctions and pressure, China remains Iran’s top energy partner, with approximately 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports now directed to Chinese buyers.

The US has taken notice. The Treasury Department last year imposed sanctions on a Chinese refinery in Shandong province accused of purchasing more than $1bn worth of Iranian oil, with the Trump administration vowing “to drive Iran’s illicit oil exports, including to China, to zero”. China’s embassy in Washington responded by condemning sanctions that “undermine international trade order and rules” and “infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies”.

While the China-Iran economic relationship has faced strains – Chinese state refiners have occasionally suspended purchases to avoid US financial risks – the overall trajectory is clear: China provides the economic oxygen that sustains Iran’s resistance to external pressure. 

So if China is already providing diplomatic cover, institutional support, military cooperation and an economic lifeline, why doesn’t it go further? Why not send warships or explicitly threaten intervention?

The answer lies in strategic prioritization. As is widely understood, Beijing’s most pressing strategic goal is to achieve national reunification and, before this goal is realized, any actions that might unnecessarily and prematurely escalate comprehensive confrontation with the United States must be approached with extreme caution.

Moreover, China believes that while significant US military action in Iran could inflict losses, regime change would be difficult to achieve. Under such circumstances, Beijing can adopt a model similar to its approach to the Ukraine conflict: refraining from direct participation while maintaining normal state-to-state relations with the party under attack, providing political and diplomatic support at the UN, and continuing economic engagement that doesn’t violate international law.

What we are witnessing is not traditional alliance politics, but something new: a form of strategic partnership designed for a multipolar age. China offers Iran diplomatic protection, institutional integration, visible military cooperation and an economic boost – all without crossing the line into a direct confrontation that would trigger a wider war.

For those asking whether China will “rescue” Iran, the answer depends on definition. If rescue means troops and battleships, the answer is no. If rescue means ensuring that Iran can survive, resist, and eventually negotiate from strength, the answer is quietly, persistently and strategically yes.

This approach has already proven effective and difficult for adversaries to counter. In the shadow of potential conflict, China has constructed a new kind of shield for its partner: one forged not from steel, but from strategic patience, economic interdependence, and the architecture of a rising multipolar world.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/27/2026 – 21:45

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