Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,

For decades, Germany operated its rail system on an honor model. There were no turnstiles, no barriers. Passengers bought tickets, boarded trains, and conductors performed random spot checks to make sure everyone had paid.

It was a system built on trust— and for a long time, it worked, because Germany was a fundamentally law-abiding society.

That system has been fraying over the last several years as Germany aggressively imported millions of migrants who don’t respect the law.

The most egregious example took place earlier this month, when a train conductor asked a passenger— a 26-year old migrant— for his ticket.

Not only did the passenger not have a ticket, but he beat the conductor so severely that the man died of his injuries the next morning.

The government’s response is extraordinary.

Rather than establish law and order and rain holy hell upon the criminals, Deutsche Bahn— which is owned by the German government— has told conductors to NOT approach passengers who present a “high risk of escalation.”

In short, the new policy is— if someone looks dangerous, don’t bother checking their ticket.

Meanwhile, ordinary passengers— the ones who actually follow the rules— will continue to be checked (and punished) if they’re caught without valid fare.

The same logic already governs retail theft across much of Germany.

Shoplifting hit record levels in 2024— roughly €3 billion in losses— and according to industry data, 98% of retail theft goes unreported to police. Retailers have largely given up because prosecutors rarely pursue the cases.

Moreover, employees who do try to intervene face increasingly aggressive and violent offenders… which is why retail stores have instructed staff to not intervene.

We’ve seen the same type of policy in the US.

Last August in Charlotte, North Carolina, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee named Iryna Zarutska was sitting on a light rail train when a man behind her pulled out a knife and stabbed her to death.

The killer— DeCarlos Brown Jr.— had 14 prior arrests including armed robbery and had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. His own mother had tried to have him involuntarily committed. Seven months earlier, a magistrate “judge” named Teresa Stokes released him without bond— on nothing more than a written promise to appear.

I put “judge” in quotes because Ms. Stokes had never graduated from law school, nor passed the bar in any state. She wasn’t qualified to adjudicate a traffic ticket, let alone violent crime.

At least there was outrage in America over Zarutska’s violent slaying.

But in Germany, the response to a train conductor being beaten to death was to tell other train conductors to stop doing their jobs.

And this isn’t some isolated lapse in judgment. It’s a pattern that runs through practically every layer of German governance.

Start with free speech.

The Alternative for Germany party (the AfD) won 20.8% of the vote in last year’s federal election, and current polls put them at 25-27%— neck and neck with the governing party.

The AfD’s surge in popularity is literally BECAUSE of the lawlessness and criminality that’s rampaging across the  country.

But rather than admit their policies have been catastrophic failures… and reverse course… the German establishment’s response was to classify the entire AfD as a “confirmed right-wing extremist endeavor”. They even authorized the domestic intelligence agency to wiretap and spy on AfD members.

Politicians have also filed hundreds of criminal complaints against citizens who criticized them online. Robert Habeck, the former deputy chancellor from the Green Party, personally filed 805 complaints. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock filed 513.

The government frequently conducts early-morning raids on citizens’ homes over social media posts— they literally call them “Action Days Against Hate.” Ironically, one man received a suspended prison sentence for posting a meme that said a politician “hates freedom of speech.” You can’t make this stuff up.

A 2024 study by The Future of Free Speech found that 99.7% of content deleted on Facebook under Germany’s censorship law was perfectly legal speech.

Rather than asking why millions of Germans are angry— the economy in its longest downturn since reunification, 120,000 manufacturing jobs lost in a single year, rising violent crime— the government’s answer is to label them extremists, censor their speech, and try to ban the party they vote for.

Then there’s German energy policy.

Remember, this is the same government that lectured the entire world on climate change while shutting down all 17 of its nuclear power plants— the last three in April 2023, during an energy crisis.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Germany imported 55-65% of its natural gas from Russia.

When Russia cut the gas in 2022, Germany frantically restarted more than 20 coal-fired power plants and imported 42 million tonnes of coal, including a 278% surge from southern Africa.

They bulldozed an entire village called Lutzerath (in South Africa) to expand a coal mine, dragging 6,000 protesters away.

The country that wagged its finger at the West over carbon emissions ended up with a dirtier power grid than China’s.

And having shut down its own perfectly clean nuclear plants, Germany became a net electricity importer for the first time, buying power from France’s nuclear grid.

Under German law, if a bartender overserves a customer who then causes a fatal car crash, the bartender can be prosecuted for negligent homicide. Courts have ruled that by serving the alcohol, the bartender becomes legally responsible for the danger they created.

But a government that shuts down its own energy supply, censors its own citizens, and tells law enforcement to look the other way when criminals get aggressive? Apparently no such accountability applies.

And the same goes for the US, where if there was any justice, Teresa Stokes would be in prison for the negligent homicide of Iryna Zarutska.

It’s worth paying close attention, because Germany may be one of the worst offenders, but it isn’t the only Western nation making these choices.

That’s how you build a lowest-common-denominator society— by catering every policy to benefit the worst people in it.

Tehran is once again pointing the finger at “terrorists” for last month’s bloodshed, rejecting outside estimates and doubling down after President Trump just issued his own high estimate.

Trump told reporters Friday that 32,000 people were killed in the unrest, declaring that “the people of Iran have lived in hell” under the ruling clerical regime of the Ayatollah.

That figure is one of the highest offered so far, even significantly beyond some Iranian opposition claims. But Tehran has rejected this. It’s far beyond even what most Washington-friendly mainstream media said in real time as the bloody protests were unfolding.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced Saturday that the government has published a list of 3,117 individuals he called “victims of recent terrorist operation.”

The official figure notably includes roughly 200 security personnel – suggesting at least some elements of the protests were armed, dangerous, and attacked police and military.

Iranian officials have alleged the protesters had outside covert help from Israel and the United States. Indeed, US mainstream media has lately confirmed the US government covertly shipped in thousands of Starlink terminals to aid the anti-government movement’s communications and ability to organize.

“If anyone disputes accuracy of our data, please share any evidence,” Araghchi wrote on X. He had previously claimed that at least 690 of the names offered were “terrorists” armed and funded by the US and Israel.

There could be signs of yet more protests emerging, as Fox Chief Correspondent Trey Yingst writes Saturday, “Large protests today in Iran, led by university students. Monitoring.”

Meanwhile the New York Post has just issued this conflict’s version of the “incubator babies” – with a new report claiming babies are being ripped from mothers’ wombs(!). 

NYP claims: “Iranian police officers are gang-raping imprisoned female protesters and then cutting out their uteruses to cover up the horrific torture – before shipping their lifeless bodies home to their families, according to a shocking new report.”

The Ron Paul Institute’s Daniel McAdams exposes the report for the laughably crude propaganda that it is…

Ladies and gentlemen: You are being treated to the latest round of “Babies ripped from incubators” and “Gaddafi handing out viagra to his troops.”
The @nypost is just another outlet of the CIA regime-change operation.
They are an arm of the neocon thugs who run US government.… https://t.co/gNYw9yc2hY

— Daniel McAdams (@DanielLMcAdams) February 21, 2026

Every. Single. Time. 

And people still actually fall for such simplistic, evidence-free claims amid the drum-beat for war. We are always told coming off each and every failed Neocon war: “but this time it’s different!”

Americans are some of the most propagandized people on earth, and often this translates to disastrous ‘shock and awe’ style consequences for nations in Washington’s immediate crosshairs.

* * *

For a trip down memory lane…

Three months after Nayirah testified, President George H.W. Bush launched the invasion of Iraq. But it turned out Nayirah’s claims weren’t true. No human rights group or news outlet could confirm what she said. It also turned out Nayirah was not just any Kuwaiti teenager. She was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States, Saud Nasser al-Sabah. She had been coached by the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, which was working for the Kuwaiti government.

Authored by Stephen Moore via The Epoch Times,

Environmental scholar Bjorn Lomborg recently calculated that across the globe, governments have spent at least $16 trillion feeding the climate change industrial complex.

And for what?

Arguably, not a single life has been or will be saved by this shameful and colossal misallocation of human resources.

The war on safe and abundant fossil fuels has cost countless lives in poor countries and made those countries poorer by blocking affordable energy.

Since the global warming crusade started some 30 years ago, the temperature of the planet has not been altered by one-tenth of a degree—as even the alarmists will admit.

In other words, $16 trillion has been spent—a lot of people got very, very rich off the government largesse—but there is not a penny of measurable payoff.

But it’s much worse than that.

In economics there is a concept called opportunity cost: What could we have done with $16 trillion to make the world better off?

What if the $16 trillion had been spent on clean water for poor countries?

Preventing avoidable deaths from diseases like malaria?

Building schools in African villages to end illiteracy?

Bringing reliable and affordable electric power to the more than 1 billion people who still lack access? Curing cancer?

Many millions of lives could have been saved.

We could have lifted millions more out of poverty.

The benefits of speeding up the race for the cure for cancer could have added tens of millions of additional years of life at an economic value in the tens of trillions of dollars.

Instead, we effectively poured $16 trillion down the drain.

For this reason, it is important that we identify the green “climate change” derangement syndrome as perhaps the most inhumane political movement in history.

The one sliver of good news is that it appears the climate change neuroses have finally started to subside. We’ve reached peak global warming craziness in the U.S., for sure, and even Europe seems to have turned its back on its economically masochistic net zero fossil fuels obsession.

Donald Trump is wisely and rapidly dismantling the climate change industrial complex.

Of all his pro-growth economic policies, there may be none with a higher longtime payoff than his recent order to repeal the mother of all costly regulations: the anti-fossil fuels “endangerment rule” taxing carbon dioxide emissions. The cost of that regulation had been estimated to exceed $1 trillion over time.

We can’t recapture the $16 trillion wasted on a false crisis. Sunk costs are, alas, sunk.

But we can stop the madness of actually believing that politicians who can’t even pay off the balance on their credit cards can somehow change the world’s temperature.

Hell hath no fury like a Donald scorned…

One day after ‘The Supremes’ struck down his IEEPA tariffs, President Trump has announced, in a statement issued on Truth Social, that he will raise his new, global tariff to 15% (the maximum allowed under a separate trade law), a day after he took hiked global tariffs to 10% (in response to the SCOTUS ruling).

Trump further slammed the SCOTUS decision as “anti-American”…

“Based on a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday, after MANY months of contemplation, by the United States Supreme Court,

Then dropped the hammer…

“…please let this statement serve to represent that I, as President of the United States of America, will be, effective immediately, raising the 10% Worldwide Tariff on Countries, many of which have been “ripping” the U.S. off for decades, without retribution (until I came along!), to the fully allowed, and legally tested, 15% level.“

With the policy taking effect immediately, Trump further signaled that he would press ahead with his trade war despite the major legal setback.

“During the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible Tariffs…

…which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again – GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Ironically, for those cheering yesterday’s court ruling, for some countries, President Trump’s new 15% tariff may actually be higher than the rates that previously applied to their exports to the US.

Trump is applying the new baseline tariff under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, which allows the president to impose tariffs for 150 days without congressional approval.

Securing that approval could prove challenging, as Democrats and some Republicans have opposed elements of his trade policy

The Trump administration has indicated that it will use other legal authorities, like Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, to impose tariffs on countries individually based on their trade practices.

But those investigations will take time to prepare.

At least temporarily, exports from all countries will now face a 15 percent tariff rate, regardless of their trade practices, or the concessions they have made.

Presumably, at some point soon, the ‘left’ will sue to halt these tariffs too (even though – as Trump noted – they have been ‘tested’ in court previously).

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The last six years have been a time of astonishing revelation about many features of public life that had been previously hidden.

I’m not just speaking of the Epstein files though they are part of it.

We’ve all seen and experienced things over these years that (at least to me) would have been nearly inconceivable before. It’s shaken us and forced people to recalibrate their understanding of the world.

If you have changed your mind on some important matters, congratulations? That’s a sign of humility, curiosity, adaptability, and adherence to facts over bias. This is a virtue. People who report no change are either omniscient, which is doubtful, not paying attention, or just too doggedly attached to prior views that nothing can unsettled them.

I have a huge archive of my own writings over decades and I look through sometimes just to test how and to what extent my own outlook has shifted. Indeed it has. There is value in my old books and articles but reading them now, I detect a kind of naivete, a simplicity in theory and understanding. I don’t think it is just maturing here. There is more going on.

Below I list some of the issues on which our times have introduced depth and complexity that defy conventional ideological categories.

I suspect you might have undertaken a similar journey yourself but likely with different starting points and different conclusions. We all process this new transparency in different ways. I can only chronicle my own, which I’ve summarized in ten points.

1. We were introduced to a new conception of what government is in real life.

Perhaps we once thought of government as the people we elect. That’s supposed to be how it works. As it turns out, gradually over a century and a bit more, an unelected bureaucracy has come to take power. It runs circles around the elected representatives of the people. It has deep links throughout society. The administrative state also has the institutional knowledge and holds on for dear life from the turning of one leader to another.

The U.S. Constitution says that the president is head of the executive branch. Trump has attempted to control its 444 agencies but has been stopped by a flurry of lawsuits. As it turns out, the machinery of state is impervious to elected leaders and designed to be exactly that. The same is true of Congress, which has its own staff that migrates and lasts through every political turning. This is not democracy. This is an entrenched and unelected oligarchy. It needs to change, lest the people be disenfranchised forever.

2. We newly understand what industry capture means.

In the past, it’s not been entirely clear how agency government works with industry. Two views have prevailed: agencies existed in an antagonistic relationship to business in ways that harm enterprise, or agencies work to protect the people against the depredations of corporations. Now that we’ve had a closer look, we see a more symbiotic relationship between large and powerful corporations and the agencies that are supposed to control them. We see this in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, education, technology, and munitions. This problem is pervasive.

3. Academia, as it turns out, is not the bee’s knees.

University intellectuals have long been valorized as the best and the brightest, the institutions guarding an independent version of truth that rises above the exigencies of the mutating public mind. But think about the major controversies of our time that academia has in general done little to nothing to resolve and much to promote: transgender issues, woke ideology, lockdowns for infectious disease, censorship, welfare corruption, the integrity of science, the problem of citizenship, and on and on. Academia in general has given off the appearance of aloofness to it all or merely being a participant in sketchy financial dealings. Think of it: when Trump started cutting the funding of elite universities, there was no real outcry at all. This is because academia has lost its once-high status in American life.

4. Big Media mostly is hopelessly partisan.

There was a time when we might have believed that the watchdog media was the essential bulwark to stand between the citizens and political power, holding elected leaders to account. This old view has been proven unsustainable in light of the last decade in which its blatant partnership has been unbearably obvious. The war on Trump that began in 2016 led inexorably to a complete takeover of the newsroom which then diminished trust in media, which is at historic lows. What’s more, we’ve learned that the biggest media players also operate in a cooperative relationship with state priorities, much more so than we knew before.

5. Big business partners with big government.

There was a reason why during the recent respiratory pandemic that your local small businesses were closed whereas the big-box stores were open. There is a reason why when the opening started happening, capacity restrictions hit small coffee shops but large eat-in restaurants thrived. It’s because of their pull in Washington and state houses. The big guys have political pull whereas the small guys do not. The big guys deploy the power of government to hurt the competition. Is this how it works? Maybe I knew this abstractly but seeing it all unfold in real time was remarkable.

6. The science is skewed at best.

Like you, I used to think that peer-reviewed publications in prestigious journals were likely approximating some truth. Then I watched as these same journals and publications ran articles that were obviously manipulated, false, and some just completely made up to fit with a prevailing political agenda. Once we found out that these venues are funded by the very industries they cover, it started to make sense. Now most of us have come to doubt the truth of much if not most of what they publish. This is supposed to be the age of science and yet we cannot presume to trust what appears under the name science.

7. Courage is scarce.

I once believed that when people thought the right things—freedom matters, humans have rights, we should follow laws, censorship is wrong, bureaucrats should not rule outside their realm of competence—that we have won most of the battle. What I did not understand entirely is that the courage to act on convictions is far more rare than convictions themselves. Indeed, without the courage to stand up for truth at some risk to reputation and financial well-being, it’s not clear that one’s convictions matter much. Not only that, such courage is exceedingly rare. Most people can be cowed by fear of the unknown. I did not know this.

8. The left and right are fuzzy concepts.

We all used to think we understood what was right and what was left, as if they are fixed categories. Same with the word libertarian: we thought we could predict views and actions based on those labels. I no longer believe that. I’m now allied with people schooled on the left in ways I never imagined possible, and with others on the right who I once seriously doubted. Nor do these words seem to mean much now that the left seems to push things that make zero sense according to their previous principles, and the right has warmed up to topics that were only of interest to the left. In general I’m glad for this but I’m waiting for all of it to settle in some ways that it is not now.

9. Food matters as much as medicine.

I once believed that concern over chemicals in food and large-scale industrial agriculture was wildly overwrought. But after discovering the problems in the medical world and Big Tech, it seemed obvious to consider the ways in which government intervention in agriculture is also creating cartels and distortions. Put that together with genuine concerns over health and you see the problem that has been highlighted by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. This issue that I had completely dismissed ten years ago is now front and center in my thinking, along with a passion to see the restoration of small regenerative agriculture.

10. You can make a difference.

Here is what has shocked me most. I’m now connected with a large group of Americans who are deeply concerned for the future of freedom in every sector: education, medical, agriculture, technology, and citizenship rights including voting integrity. I’ve seen this movement blossom from nearly non-existent to becoming enormously powerful and influential, not only in the United States but all over the world. Things are changing today and not because the establishment wants it that way. Things are changing because people are learning, gathering, acting, and insisting on change. This inspires me to no end. We need more of this in every area of life.

The cash that companies hold is important for paying employees, funding operations, and as a measure of financial health.

This chart, via Visual Capitalist’s Boyan Girginov, shows the 50 companies with the largest cash holdings, using data from TradingView to highlight who is sitting on the largest war chests.

This metric captures a company’s most liquid assets: cash plus short-term securities like T-bills that typically mature within a year.

Which Companies Hold the Most Cash?

Berkshire Hathaway leads the rankings with an impressive $382 billion.

The data table below shows the top 50 companies worldwide with the largest cash and short-term securities holdings:

Source: TradingView | Cash and Short-Term Investments | as of Feb 11, 2026

Following Berkshire are CITIC—a Chinese state-backed financial conglomerate—and Daiwa Securities Group, one of Japan’s biggest financial brokerages.

Big Tech rounds out the top five, with Alphabet holding $127 billion and Amazon holding $126 billion.

Why Buffett Holds So Much Cash

Among the top 50 companies, the Financials sector collectively holds the largest cash reserves at $1.2 trillion—partially driven by strict capital rules requiring banks to maintain large liquid buffers.

Berkshire Hathaway is different: its cash position is strategic, not regulatory.

After 12 straight quarters as a net seller of stocks, Buffett and the team have parked much of the company’s liquidity in short-term U.S. Treasury bills, implying that equity valuations look expensive.

The Oracle’s cash and cash equivalents as a percentage of total assets is at an all-time high—roughly 31% of total assets.

Historically, this has coincided with periods when he waits for a major economic or market dislocation before deploying capital as prices begin to mean-revert—quietly accumulating dry powder in the meantime.

Why Big Tech Holds So Much Cash

The Magnificent Seven: Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia and Tesla collectively hold $597 billion—enough to buy most S&P 500 companies.

Traditionally, Big Tech companies are massive cash machines: high gross margins and scalable cost structures mean incremental revenue converts into cash quickly.

Despite spending heavily to build AI factories, they’ve used little of their cash reserves to finance them—opting instead for debt.

They hold large cash stockpiles both to fund acquisitions and guard against potential economic turmoil, such as threats from tariffs or geopolitical conflicts.

To learn more about the world’s largest companies, check out this graphic on Voronoi.

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

With tax season underway and the April 15 filing deadline approaching, taxpayers are being encouraged to review new changes introduced by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to help minimize their tax bills and avoid filing delays.

The law, signed in July 2025, made several permanent revisions to the tax code. It also created a series of temporary deductions and expanded limits—many of which expire after 2028 or 2029 and come with strict income phaseouts.

The IRS has urged taxpayers to review the new provisions carefully and use online tools at IRS.gov to help ensure smooth processing.

Here are nine strategies to consider.

1. Revisit Itemizing Under the Higher SALT Cap

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) temporarily increased the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap from $10,000 to $40,000 for both single filers and married couples filing jointly.

For 2025, the standard deduction is $15,750 for singles, $31,500 for married couples, and $23,625 for heads of household.

Taxpayers whose total itemized deductions—including mortgage interest, charitable contributions, and state and local taxes—exceed those amounts may benefit from itemizing.

However, the expanded SALT cap begins phasing out at $500,000 in modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) and returns to $10,000 once MAGI reaches $600,000.

Because many benefits phase out at specific income levels, reviewing your projected MAGI before making major financial moves—such as selling investments or doing a Roth conversion—can help protect valuable deductions.

While most of your 2025 income is already set by filing season, certain contributions made before the April deadline, such as individual retirement account or health savings account funding, can still lower taxable income and help preserve income-sensitive tax breaks.

2. Calculate the Overtime Deduction Carefully

The law introduced a temporary deduction for qualified overtime compensation, capped at $25,000 for married couples and $12,500 for singles.

Only the additional “half-time” portion of time-and-a-half pay qualifies—not the full overtime rate.

The deduction begins phasing out at $300,000 in MAGI for joint filers and disappears entirely at $550,000.

Taxpayers should confirm that their W-2 accurately reflects overtime earnings before claiming the deduction.

3. Make Sure Tip Income Is Properly Reported

The qualified tip income deduction allows up to $25,000 in reported tip income per return.

Only tips formally reported on a W-2 or 1099 qualify. Unreported cash tips cannot be deducted.

The IRS has reminded taxpayers that they are responsible for all information reported on their return, even if a preparer completes it. Incorrect or mismatched income reporting may delay processing.

The tip deduction phases out beginning at $150,000 in MAGI for singles and $300,000 for married couples.

4. Confirm Eligibility for Auto Loan Interest Deduction

Taxpayers who purchased a new personal-use vehicle in 2025 may be able to deduct up to $10,000 in interest paid on a qualifying auto loan.

The vehicle must have final assembly in the United States, and leased vehicles do not qualify.

The deduction phases out beginning at $100,000 in MAGI for singles and $200,000 for married couples.

The IRS notes that lenders must provide taxpayers with statements showing the total interest paid during the year—and retaining that documentation is essential when claiming the deduction.

5. Seniors Should Watch Income Limits Closely

Taxpayers age 65 or older may qualify for a temporary senior deduction of up to $12,000 for married couples and $6,000 for singles.

The benefit begins phasing out at $150,000 in MAGI for married couples and $75,000 for singles.

Large Roth conversions, capital gains, or other income spikes could eliminate the deduction. Financial planners often recommend modeling income carefully before executing major transactions to avoid unintended tax consequences.

6. Manage MAGI to Preserve Income-Sensitive Breaks

Many of the OBBBA’s temporary provisions hinge on income thresholds, making modified adjusted gross income a key planning factor.

Taxpayers whose income is close to phaseout levels—such as $300,000 for the overtime and tip deductions or $500,000 for the expanded SALT cap—may benefit from carefully timing income and contributions. Even modest adjustments to income can preserve eligibility for deductions that may be worth thousands of dollars.

The IRS notes that contributing to retirement plans like 401(k)s or traditional IRAs—and making eligible health savings account contributions by the filing deadline—can lower adjusted gross income, which in turn can help taxpayers stay under key income thresholds that affect eligibility for tax breaks.

7. Double-Check Identity and Dependent Information

Errors in personal information remain one of the most common causes of refund delays.

The IRS has advised taxpayers to confirm Social Security numbers, dependent names, and Identity Protection PINs before filing. Taking these steps can help avoid delays in processing and in claiming credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit or Additional Child Tax Credit.

8. Use IRS Online Tools to Avoid Delays

The IRS recommends filing electronically and choosing direct deposit to speed refunds, noting that most refunds are issued in less than 21 days.

Refund status can be tracked using the “Where’s My Refund?” tool, available within 24 hours after an electronic filing is received.

The IRS is also phasing out paper refund checks, and mailed refunds may take six weeks or longer.

Taxpayers can use an IRS Individual Online Account to view tax records and transcripts, check refund status, verify adjusted gross income, retrieve an Identity Protection PIN, and view certain W-2 and 1099 forms.

9. The Bottom Line

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act created new tax-saving opportunities for 2025, but many come with strict limits and income phaseouts.

A careful review of deductions, income timing, and documentation—combined with the IRS’s online tools—can help taxpayers avoid losing temporary benefits or experiencing unnecessary delays.

With the filing deadline approaching, preparation and attention to detail may be the most effective ways to reduce stress—and potentially reduce your tax bill.

Months before a Canadian man in a dress went on a Feb 10 rampage, killing his mother and half-brother at home before slaughtering five students and an education assistant at a secondary school where he was formerly a student, employees at OpenAI were deeply troubled by his interactions with the firm’s ChatGPT AI chatbot.   

As first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Jesse Van Rootselaar’s ChatGPT activity was flagged by the company’s automated review system. When employees took a look at what he’d been up to over a several-day period in June 2025, they were alarmed. About a dozen of them debated what they should do.

Some were convinced Van Rootselaar’s descriptions of gun-violence scenarios signaled a substantial risk of real-world bloodshed, and implored their supervisors to notify police, according to the Journal’s unnamed sources. They opted against doing so, and a spokeswoman now says they’d concluded Van Rootselaar’s posts didn’t cross the threshold of posing a credible and imminent risk of serious harm. Instead, the company decided only to ban his account. 

About seven months after his disturbing series of interactions with ChatGPT, police say he killed 8 people and injured 25 more before killing himself in the school he’d attended earlier. Van Rootselaar’s social media and YouTube accounts contained transgender symbolism as well as the online name “JessJessUwU” (a meme phrase that people may recognize from the bullet casings tied to the gay suspect charged in the assassination of Charlie Kirk). 

Only after the bloody horror unfolded did OpenAI contact the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The situation highlights the difficult position social media and AI platforms are in, as they struggle with balancing conflicting goals: protecting their users’ privacy and avoiding unnecessary interactions with police, versus preventing crimes up to and including mass murder. The Journal didn’t report specifics about Van Rootselaar’s ChatGPT interactions.  

ChatGPT wasn’t the only online resource where he evidenced a potential for violence: He’d also used Roblox to build a game centered on carrying out a mass shooting at a shopping mall. Online activity aside, Van Rootselaar was already on the radar of local police, who made multiple visits to his home in response to mental health episodes, and even temporarily removing firearms from the property. An RCMP official said that, on multiple occasions, he was “apprehended for assessment and follow-up.”  

Police say Van Rootselaar gender-transitioned about six years ago. Given he was 18 when he exploded into violence, that translates into the very young age of about 12. There’s no indication that the “transition” went beyond “identity” and clothing, and into the realm of hormones and other body-transforming measures. Online, he bemoaned the fact that his six-foot frame would render impossible his aspiration to be a “petite” woman.  

On Reddit, Van Rootselaar often posted about his use of prescription and other drugs, and curiosity about 5-MeO-DMT, a hallucinogen nicknamed “toad venom.” He said he’d been diagnosed with ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder, major depressive disorder and autism spectrum disorder, and was taking “Setraline 380mg (SSRI). I on rare occasion take 2mg of Risperidone for sleep purposes (anti-psychotic.)” Setraline is the generic version of Zoloft. He dropped out of school about four years ago. 

Elsewhere on Reddit, in a post about his “right to be myself” and his “right to Hormone Replacement Therapy,” Van Rootselaar noted that at least other people support his “bare minimum…right to bear arms,” adding, “I’m a 15 year old trans person, transitioning from Male to Female. I ‘own’ 7 firearms, it’s cool.” 

What’s definitely not cool: nudging 12-year-olds down the gender-transitioning path. 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

In the classic movie comedy, A Fish Called Wanda, John Cleese lamented, “do you have any idea what it’s like being English? Being so correct all the time, being so stifled by this dread of, of doing the wrong thing.”

Now 86, Cleese has a more pressing concern about being English: whether his exercise of free speech will make him a criminal in his own country.

In a recent interview, Cleese observed that the government’s new speech standards would classify many citizens, including himself, as presumptive criminals for criticizing certain policies.

He observed that: ”As I am an Islamosceptic, I’m now worried that the Labour government may categorise me as a terrorist…”

The government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer has continued its headlong plunge into the criminalization of speech. The guidelines include a section on cultural nationalism, stating that such views are now the subject of government crackdowns. To even argue that Western culture is under threat from mass migration or a lack of integration by certain groups is being treated as a dangerous ideology.

Cleese responded by saying, “I’m clearly a terrorist, so I’m afraid they are going to have to arrest me.”

The tragedy is that this is no wicked Monty Python joke. Cleese has every reason to be concerned.

As I discuss in Rage and the Republic, the United Kingdom has eviscerated free speech in the name of social cohesion and order.

For years, I have been writing about the decline of free speech in the United Kingdom and the steady stream of arrests.

A man was convicted of sending a tweet while drunk, referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for an anti-police t-shirt. Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a “leprechaun.” Yet another was arrested for singing “Kung Fu Fighting.”

A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a “cult.”

Last year, Nicholas Brock, 52, was convicted of a thought crime in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The neo-Nazi was given a four-year sentence for what the court called his “toxic ideology” based on the contents of the home he shared with his mother in Maidenhead, Berkshire.

While most of us find Brock’s views repellent and hateful, they were confined to his head and his room.

Yet, Judge Peter Lodder QC dismissed free speech or free thought concerns with a truly Orwellian statement:

“I do not sentence you for your political views, but the extremity of those views informs the assessment of dangerousness.”

Lodder lambasted Brock for holding Nazi and other hateful values:

“[i]t is clear that you are a right-wing extremist, your enthusiasm for this repulsive and toxic ideology is demonstrated by the graphic and racist iconography which you have studied and appeared to share with others…”

Even though Lodder agreed that the defendant was older, had limited mobility, and “there was no evidence of disseminating to others,” he still sent him to prison for holding extremist views.

After the sentencing, Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE), warned others that he was going to prison because he “showed a clear right-wing ideology with the evidence seized from his possessions during the investigation….We are committed to tackling all forms of toxic ideology which has the potential to threaten public safety and security.”

“Toxic ideology” also appears to be the target of Ireland’s proposed Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) law.

It covers the possession of material deemed hateful.

The law is a free speech nightmare.

The law makes it a crime to possess “harmful material” as well as “condoning, denying or grossly trivialising genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.”

The law expressly states the intent to combat “forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.”

The Brock case proved, as feared, a harbinger of what was to come. Two years ago, the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, vowed to crack down on people “pushing harmful and hateful beliefs.” That includes what she calls extreme misogyny.

Now the UK’s most famous writers and comedians believe that they can be arrested under the country’s draconian speech laws from JK Rowling to John Cleese.

That leaves free speech much like Cleese’s famous parrot.

The British government and its supporters can claim evidence of life or just “resting,” but it is in fact “bleedin’ demised…passed on! … no more! … ceased to be! … expired and gone to meet it’s maker!”