Authored by Andrew Korybko,

It can simultaneously threaten Russia along the increasingly interconnected Arctic and Baltic fronts.

Russian Ambassador to Norway Nikolai Korchunov gave a brief interview to TASS about bilateral relations. He warned that Norway is integrating new NATO members Sweden and Finland into the bloc’s regional plans. More American military bases and NATO facilities are opening up there too. To make matters worse, 32,500 troops from 14 NATO countries in last March’s “Cold Response” military drills in Norway and Finland’s northern regions, which add to growing NATO threats to Russia from this direction.

NATO’s militarization of the Arctic, which also includes artificially engineered tensions over the demilitarized Svalbard Archipelago, is proceeding in parallel with its militarization of the Baltic.

Korchunov believes that this raises the risk of the bloc one day attempting to blockade Russia. He reassured his compatriots that the authorities will defend their country’s interests, however, including through military-technical means in an allusion to new naval escorts of some commercial vessels.

In connection with blockade scenarios, Korchunov was asked about TASS’ report from early April about how “Ukraine readies terrorist attacks on Russian ships off coast of Norway”, which he said caused quite a stir in his host country. He didn’t elaborate on how exactly Russia plans to deter or defend against potential Ukrainian drone attacks from Norway, but he ominously warned that escalating threats to Russia from Norway “will inevitably lead to a directly proportional increase in risks for Norway itself.”

Korchunov wasn’t asked about it in his interview, but the week prior to its release, the UK announced that it’ll lead a new multilateral naval initiative against Russia with Norway and eight others. This goes to show Norway’s growing role in threatening Russia through blockade scenarios, whether they’re in its neighboring Arctic region and/or the nearby Baltic one. As a founding member of NATO, Norway seems to believe that this obligates it to lead Russia’s containment in Northern Europe.

To that end, it’s functioning as Sweden and Finland’s “big brother” in NATO while actively cooperating with the UK, one of Russia’s historical nemeses. This enables Norway to simultaneously advance Russia’s containment along the increasingly interconnected Arctic and Baltic fronts. Given its oil wealth, Norway could also extend military loans to its “little brothers” for accelerating their military buildups and the subsequent creation of a northern regional command against Russia as part of the US’ “NATO 3.0” plans.

The preceding insight draws attention to one of the ways in which multipolarity is reshaping Europe, namely through the trend of regional military integration, whether it’s Norway wanting to lead a nascent “Viking Bloc” or Poland trying to restore its lost Great Power status in Central and Eastern Europe. The Anglo-American Axis is managing this division of military-strategic labor, with the US being the senior partner and the UK being the junior one, and they plan to replicate this model elsewhere in Eurasia.

Apart from Norway and Poland’s regional military blocs, Romania provides this duopoly with reach into Moldova and the Black Sea, while Turkiye expands their influence in the Black Sea but also the South Caucasus, Caspian Sea, and Central Asia via the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity”. There’s also AUKUS+, which could prospectively include Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and even Indonesia. The emerging result is “The Globalization of NATO” with multipolar characteristics.

Authored by Matt Bedingfield via RealClearDefenseolitics,

Last week, U.S. Navy destroyers began escorting commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz under Project Freedom, the most aggressive American action in the strait since Iran shut it down in March.

The naval blockade of Iranian ports is now in its fifth week. U.S. warships are running mine-clearance operations, intercepting Iranian-flagged cargo, and absorbing drone threats daily. And the permanent magnets in those destroyers’ guidance systems are still refined in China. So are the rare earths in their radar arrays and the cobalt in their battery backups. The war just proved what the 2027 DFARS deadline already assumed: we cannot fight a conflict while depending on an adversary for the materials inside our own weapons.

And the Pentagon’s largest untapped source of those materials is already sitting in its own warehouses.

The Pentagon has a multi-year backlog of classified electronics it can’t destroy fast enough. It also has a critical minerals shortage it can’t solve fast enough. The copper, gold, palladium, silver, and tin locked inside those warehoused devices are exactly the metals it’s spending billions to source elsewhere. That elsewhere, increasingly, can’t be China. Beginning January 1, 2027, the Pentagon can no longer enter contracts for materials mined, refined, or separated in China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea.

The Numbers Don’t Work

The United States generates roughly eight million metric tons of e-waste every year, and the number is climbing. AI infrastructure is accelerating the cycle. Data centers replace server hardware every three to five years. Each generation of defense electronics contains more critical minerals than the last.

Only about 15 percent of U.S. e-waste gets recycled. And that figure hides a deeper problem. The printed circuit boards inside those devices, the components richest in strategic metals, are almost entirely exported overseas for processing. None of the recovered metals stay here without first leaving.

Washington isn’t ignoring it. Project Vault, the administration’s $12 billion critical minerals stockpile, is a serious commitment. The Department of Energy just opened a $500 million funding opportunity for domestic critical minerals recycling. There’s talk of export restrictions on raw e-waste. But before we build a fence around these materials, we first need something inside it: the domestic capacity to process them onshore.

If an export ban went into effect tomorrow, we’d pile up a mountain of e-waste with no way to recover what’s inside. That’s the capability gap. New mines take a decade to permit. Traditional smelters cost a billion dollars and take seven to ten years to build. Neither delivers the batch-level traceability federal compliance now demands. The 2027 deadline will not wait.

A Faster Path Already Exists

A new generation of hydrometallurgical processing, including biosorption, can recover high-purity metals from end-of-life electronics at commercial scale without the footprint of a smelter. These facilities can be built in about 15 months for roughly $40 million each. They maintain full chain of custody from waste stream to refined metal. And the upstream supply chain already exists: some 900 certified e-waste recyclers operate across the country today. What’s missing is the domestic processing capacity to keep those metals here.

This isn’t theoretical. My company, Mint Innovation, proved the model last month when HP announced the PC industry’s first certified closed-loop recycled copper. Copper recovered from HP’s own end-of-life circuit boards, independently certified, placed back into new HP products. The same technology can close the loop for the Department of War. Add mobile destruction units that process classified hardware on site, feeding directly into domestic metal recovery with no offshore processing, and the result is full auditability from destruction to refined metal.

When I testified before Congress on this issue, not a single member pushed back on the diagnosis. This is one of those rare problems that doesn’t break along party lines. The FY 2026 NDAA recognized the potential of recycled-material pathways by expanding exceptions within DFARS sourcing restrictions. Congress has opened the door. The Pentagon needs to walk through it.

A Framework Is Already in Place

The United States doesn’t have to do this alone. The State Department’s Pax Silica initiative and the February 2026 Critical Minerals Ministerial established a framework for allied cooperation with Japan, Australia, the U.K., South Korea, and others. Five Eyes nations are already coordinating to counter Chinese price manipulation and build friendshored supply chains. Domestic e-waste processing fits squarely into that strategy. A modular biosorption facility built in the U.S. today becomes a template Pax Silica partners can replicate tomorrow.

Modular secure destruction facilities co-located on military installations could clear classified hardware backlogs and recover critical minerals simultaneously. A security liability becomes a strategic asset.

The fastest way to build a domestic critical minerals supply chain is to recover the metals already here. The Pentagon is sitting on both the problem and the solution.

*  *  *

Matt Bedingfield is President of Mint Innovation, a recycling technology company that recovers critical minerals from electronic waste using proprietary biosorption and hydrometallurgical processing. Mint partnered with HP earlier this year to produce the PC industry’s first certified closed-loop recycled copper.

Anti-immigration movements in the US and Europe have been saying it for years:  The Islamic world is barbaric and backwards, built on archaic ideas that are completely antithetical to western values.  Yet, progressive governments and their media allies continue in their attempts to portray these cultures as “the same”, or, as sympathetic. 

The historical Islamic justification for child marriage comes from the story in the Hadith of Muhammad’s marriage to a 6-year-old girl named Aisha, which he consummated when she turned age 9.  Apologists often claim this is limited to the poor rural backwaters of places like Afghanistan, but it is common in Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq and even Egypt.  And, in many cases these children are sold into marriage in exchange for monetary compensation or property.

In a recent BBC report from journalists in Afghanistan child marriages are examined in dark detail, yet, the BBC seems to place more sympathy on the parents (fathers) selling their daughters for coin while ignoring the grotesque nature of the tradition.  In other words, blame the economic circumstances, not the parents doing the selling. 

However, this narrative glosses over the fact that child sex slavery is a longstanding problem in Muslim culture, not a new trend spurred on by recent economic distress.  The outlet presents the families selling children as sympathetic, suggesting that the children will be sold, likely into a life of sexual abuse, but at least they will still be alive.

No blame is places on the fathers who are either too incompetent or too lazy to secure the basic needs of their own children.  And no blame is placed on the culture which normalizes the practice.  In fact, the BBC diverts blame to the loss of foreign funding from outside governments and NGOs.  

This is a thinly veiled propaganda hit by the BBC.  Afghanistan received substantial funding from the US through the now defunct USAID institution under the Biden Administration.  USAID dispersed nearly $4 billion to Afghanistan from 2021 to 2025 until it was shut down by Trump and DOGE.  The message seems to be “This is Trump’s fault”.  

Keep in mind, Biden abruptly pulled all troops and private contractors out of Afghanistan in 2021, allowing the Taliban to retake government power and inflict the oppressive theocratic authoritarianism that leads to the conditions the BBC dramatically outlines.  Little girls not being allowed to go to school is a direct result of Sharia Law, which is a direct result of Biden leaving Afghanistan in Taliban hands (along with billions of dollars in US military equipment).  

Thus, the only value of girls in the Afghan economy is as slaves for sale.  The worst part is that, in many cases, these girls are sold for marriage to relatives.  Meaning, they will eventually be forced to bear children through inbreeding.

Only 15 years ago this behavior was widely admonished in the western media.  Today, it is shielded with spin in the name of protecting the multicultural agenda.

The most interesting aspect of the BBC report is the way in which they build a narrative of distraction rather than addressing the cultural elephant in the room.  Their goal was apparently to showcase the dire effects of foreign funding cuts, but they ended up proving once again why the west should have nothing to do with the third world.

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced May 19 that its agents have launched an investigation into Washington State’s practice of housing male inmates in women’s prisons.

Gov. Bob Ferguson was notified in writing of the federal probe into an alleged pattern of “violating the constitutional rights of female prisoners incarcerated at the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Gig Harbor, Washington,” the DOJ stated.

The investigation is based on allegations that the prison has failed to protect female prisoners from sexual assaults, rape, voyeurism, and sexual intimidation by males who identify as females housed with them at the facility.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said the practice would be a violation of the prisoners’ Eighth Amendment protections from cruel and unusual punishment.

“Under my leadership, the Civil Rights Division will not allow women incarcerated in jails or prisons to be subject to unconstitutional risks of harm from male inmates,” Dhillon said in a statement. “The constitutional rights of women cannot be sacrificed at the altar of appeasing unsupported and dangerous ideologies.”

The Washington State Department of Corrections adopted a policy in 2020 to allow men who identify as transgender to request a transfer to women’s facilities. The policy requires housing accommodations for inmates who are transgender, intersex, and gender-neutral to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

The state is one of a small number of states to adopt similar policies. Maine, California, New York, Minnesota, and New Jersey also allow people who identify as transgender to be housed in a prison that matches their choice in gender. California and Maine were notified in March that their policies were also under investigation.

The DOJ said it was also collecting information from the public on men housed in women’s jails and prisons anywhere in the country as part of a wider investigation.

Investigating transgender prison policies is part of the Trump administration’s program to eliminate “gender ideology extremism and restore biological truth to the federal government,” which was an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in 2025.

The DOJ plans to review policies at the Washington prison and the Department of Corrections, and any evidence that has been reported. Federal investigators will work with the state to remedy any violations, according to the letter.

The investigation comes weeks after the America First Policy Institute, a right-leaning nonprofit think tank, filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s corrections policy, alleging it has led to violence, sexual abuse, intimidation, and fear among female inmates.

The complaint was filed on behalf of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, Fair for All, Inc., and Faith Booher-Smith, an inmate who was allegedly violently attacked by a transgender inmate at the prison in 2025.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim female inmates have been forced to share cells, showers, bathrooms, and other intimate living spaces with male inmates, stripping them of the sex-based protections of a women’s prison.

“A women’s prison is supposed to protect women,” said Leigh Ann O’Neill, chief legal affairs officer at the institute. “Washington’s policy turned that basic duty on its head.”

The Washington governor’s office did not return a request for comment about the investigation.

Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times,

As tensions mount in the high stakes race for California governor, early results show Republicans have returned more than 905,000 ballots ahead of the June 2 primary election—a massive surge compared with the last governor’s race during the 2022 midterms.

Ballots from Republicans made up 37 percent of the early ballot returns—up 11 percent from four years ago at this point in the primary process, while those from Democratic voters have dropped by 13 percent, according to a Political Data (PDI) poll released on May 16.

Most of the ballots submitted so far—54 percent—were cast by voters 65 and older, while about 10 percent of voters ages 18-34 have returned early ballots.

The Real Clear Politics polling average shows Republican Steve Hilton, a political commentator, and Democrat Xavier Becerra, former Health and Human Services secretary, essentially tied, each with about 20 percent of the vote, followed by Democratic billionaire and environmental activist Tom Steyer at 14 percent and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco with 13 percent. The rest of the candidates show less than 10 percent support.

Hilton has publicly pressured Bianco to drop out of the race to avoid splitting the Republican vote, ensuring that at least one GOP candidate—himself—advances to the general election. But at the CBS-hosted televised debate on April 28, Bianco rejected the notion, saying he and Hilton will both be on the Nov. 3 ballot.

‘Break the Glass’ Strategy

Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is terming out, told reporters at his recent state budget presentation he’s confident a Democrat will be on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Newsom alluded to a “break the glass” strategy to prevent a Democrat lockout in the nonpartisan, jungle primary, which allows the possibility of two Republicans—no Democrats—on the general election ballot.

“I don’t anticipate this need to be the case, but there’s a like break-the-glass scenario,” he said. “There’s many people that have a deep understanding of what it would look like if Democrats were locked out, and we’re going to do everything to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

The Democratic Governors Association has recently sent out mailers positioning Hilton as the top GOP threat, which could drive Bianco supporters to Hilton, making it more likely for a Democrat to finish in the top two.

“The Democrats wouldn’t be spending money trying to help Steve if they weren’t scared of me,” Bianco posted on X.

Steve Hilton speaks during a gubernatorial candidate forum in Sacramento on April 14, 2026. Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo

Democratic Strategy Favors Hilton

Rob Pyers, a nonpartisan political analyst and research director for California Target Book, suggested the Democrats prefer to run against Hilton.

“The Democratic Governors Association really wants GOP voters to know that Steve Hilton is ‘Endorsed by Trump’ and ‘Pro MAGA’, and that they would be devastated if he advanced out of California’s top two primary alongside a Democrat,” Rob Pyers wrote on X.

When Amy Reichert, a San Diego based conservative activist, asked if the mailer from the Democrats was only mailed to Republicans to bump Hilton to the top two spot, Pyers said that “appears to be the case.”

Pyers replied that the “attack ads” contain “language tailored to appeal to conservative primary voters and to highlight Hilton’s Trump endorsement.

He noted that a Democrat versus Democrat race “would suck up hundreds of millions of dollars” that could be spent elsewhere.

“A D vs R race, not so much,” he wrote.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco fields questions from reporters and students following the California Governor’s Debate hosted by CBS at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., on April 28, 2026. Brad Jones/The Epoch Times

Bianco’s Response

Bianco said in a text message to The Epoch Times on May 18 that Californians are voting differently in this election because they’re tired of dishonesty and corruption and “are absolutely sick of politicians rigging the system for their own benefit.”

“Newsom has never said one word in the past when two Democrats have moved on to the general elections,” he said.

“Saying the corrupt part out loud, exposing their plans to again rig the system, is exactly why people are voting different,” he said.

Corruption Scandal

As Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary during the Biden administration, Becerra has come under fire from critics who blamed him for putting migrant children at risk of trafficking when the agency lost track of 85,000 migrant children.

During his tenure at HHS from March 19, 2021, to Jan. 20, 2025, Becerra also faced scrutiny over tenuous ties to a corruption scandal involving his former aide Sean McCluskie, who pleaded guilty to his role in an alleged scheme to skim funds from a dormant campaign account for a “no-show” job for his wife.

A Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) complaint against Becerra over the alleged violation of state campaign finance laws remains open and unresolved. The complaint hinges on Becerra’s dormant state Attorney General campaign funds, which were allegedly used to pay out tens of thousands of dollars to his former adviser’s firm months after Becerra was appointed HHS secretary.

Political consultant Dana Williamson, Newsom’s former chief of staff, has also pleaded guilty in the case, admitting to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, subscribing to a false tax return, and making false statements to a federal agent.

California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra at a campaign event in Los Angeles on April 18, 2026. Jae C. Hong/AP Photo

Becerra has not been charged with any crimes or been accused of any wrongdoing related to the federal investigation, and has repeatedly denied any knowledge of illegal campaign fund transfers.

He also faced scorn over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some recent polls, including an Emerson poll, show Becerra with a slight lead while others show Hilton is the frontrunner.

Becerra surged into the lead among Democratic voters when disgraced then-congressman Eric Swalwell dropped out of the governor’s race in April amid sexual assault allegations. Swalwell resigned from Congress about a week later. Swalwell is under investigation but no criminal charges have been filed to date.

Official primary ballots list 61 candidates for governor, including Swalwell and former state controller Betty Yee, who has also dropped out of the race.

Political Predictions

According to Polymarket, an online betting house which claims 90-percent accuracy in predicting event outcomes one month ahead and 94 percent four hours before an event, the odds favor Becerra with a 58 percent chance of winning the election in a Democrat versus Democrat race in the Nov. 3 election followed by Steyer with a 28 percent chance. Hilton is ranked with a 10 percent chance and Bianco at 3 percent as of May 18.

Source: Polymarket

The Cook Political Report shows the California governor race as “Solid D” with partisan voter index score of “D +12,” which means the state, on average , is 12 percentage points more Democratic than the rest of the nation and indicates that statewide Democratic candidates have an entrenched advantage.

Sabato’s Crystal Ball also shows the California governorship as “Safe D.”

Tom Steyer speaks during a gubernatorial candidate forum on Latino and immigrant communities in Sacramento on April 14, 2026. Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo

Campaign Finances

According to Transparency USA, as of May 19, Becerra was running a $3.3 million campaign deficit, taking in about $6.3 million in donations but spending more than $9.6 million. His campaign spending is mainly attributed to aggressive advertising.

A billionaire environmental activist, Steyer has raised about $134 million and spent about $255 million, He is on track to outspend Meg Whitman, a former eBay executive, who set a $159 million campaign spending record in her unsuccessful bid for governor in 2010.

Steyer’s wealth stems mainly from hedge fund investments in fossil fuels and private prisons, which his political opponents have used against him despite his progressive bent.

Steyer is facing an FPPC investigation over allegations his campaign paid social media influencers to post promotional videos without including legally required sponsored content disclosures.

Hilton has raised about $9.8 million and spent about $8.9 million, while Bianco has raised about $5.3 million and spent about $4.2 million.

The Issues

Several lively debates have drawn the national media spotlight on hot-button issues including the high cost of living in California—especially housing, tuition, and state taxes on gasoline—and ongoing problems with homelessness, the drug crisis, crime and public safety, and illegal immigration.

The U.S. is still at least a decade away from meaningfully reducing its dependence on China for the most critical rare earth minerals, despite billions of dollars in new investment and political pledges to move faster, according to a new report from Bloomberg.

While Washington has pushed to build domestic mining, refining, and manufacturing capacity, analysts say China is likely to retain its dominance over heavy rare earths—particularly dysprosium and terbium—until at least the mid-2030s. Those minerals are essential for the high-performance magnets used in fighter jets, submarines, missiles, electric vehicles, wind turbines, and other advanced technologies.

Forecasts from McKinsey & Company, CRU Group, and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence suggest producers outside China will meet less than 20% of global demand for dysprosium and terbium by 2035. The U.S. and its allies may make faster progress in reducing reliance on China for more abundant light rare earths, but the heavier materials remain far harder to replace.

The challenge is not simply digging more minerals out of the ground. Rare earth production involves mining ore, separating it into oxides, and then converting those materials into metals and magnets…a supply chain China dominates at nearly every step.

Heavy rare earths are especially difficult because they are less abundant and far more complex to refine. Producing ultra-pure material can require more than 1,000 chemical separation stages, and even small mistakes can affect magnet performance. Over decades, China built a deep advantage through refining infrastructure, technical expertise, and government-backed industrial policy. It also restricted exports of certain processing technologies, making it harder for competitors to catch up. The U.S., by comparison, has only a small pool of specialists with experience in rare earth separation and processing.

Bloomberg writes that Washington has begun investing heavily to rebuild domestic capacity, including Pentagon support for Lynas Rare Earths Ltd., currently the only commercial refiner of heavy rare earths outside China.

But production remains limited. Lynas produced just eight tons of dysprosium and terbium combined in the first quarter of 2026, while global demand is measured in thousands of tons each year. New projects in the United States, Australia, and Brazil could expand supply, but analysts still expect significant shortages in mining, refining, and magnet manufacturing by 2035.

China’s lower production costs have made the market even harder for rivals; past price swings wiped out many non-Chinese projects before they could scale. That leaves the U.S. facing a long and expensive effort to loosen China’s hold over a supply chain that has become increasingly important to both economic competitiveness and national security.

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Newly confirmed Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh, pledging new tactics to fight inflation, faces an uphill battle to keep rising prices in check.

At his April 21 Senate confirmation hearing, Warsh called for “a regime change in the conduct of policy” at the Fed under former chair Jerome Powell, whose tenure saw annual inflation exceed 8 percent during the Biden administration and has failed since 2021 to keep inflation below its target.

“Once you let inflation take hold in the economy, it’s more expensive and harder to bring it down, and so the fatal policy error going back four or five years is still a legacy that we’re dealing with,” Warsh stated. “Hard-working Americans are no doubt feeling it.”

Americans are suffering as price increases outpace wages. And as of April, the inflation rate of 3.8 percent remains persistently above the 2 percent target set by the Federal Reserve.

What is the new Fed chair’s plan to get inflation under control? Analysts predict that he will bring a different approach, which will include reducing the Fed’s massive $6.8 trillion bond holdings, prioritizing interest-rate actions over quantitative easing, and focusing on the money supply over other metrics.

“Warsh is likely going to pursue a smaller Fed balance sheet and try to use this ‘tightening’ as a bargaining chip to get the Federal Open Market Committee to lower short-term rates,” Chris Whalen, investment banker and former Fed staffer, told The Epoch Times. “His comments on the disaster of quantitative easing are quite clear.”

The Legacy of Cheap Dollars

Except for a brief interlude during President Donald Trump’s first term, the Fed has pursued a cheap-money strategy since the mortgage crisis of 2008–09, keeping its benchmark short-term interest rate—the federal funds rate—near zero, and only raising rates in 2022 when inflation was approaching double digits. Simultaneously, the Fed pursued an experimental policy called quantitative easing (QE), in which it created money to buy bonds from money-center banks, flooding the U.S. economy with dollars.

Between 2008 and 2022, the Fed accumulated $8 trillion in new financial assets on its balance sheet, effectively transforming it into one of the world’s largest asset managers and the largest single owner of U.S. Treasuries. Warsh has been an outspoken critic of quantitative easing, leading many economists to predict he will try to reverse this policy and shrink the Fed’s balance sheet.

During his confirmation hearing, he stated that “the Fed has an interest rate tool and a balance sheet tool … The balance sheet tool disproportionately helps those with financial assets; the interest rate tool hits the entire economy.”

While QE and low interest rates boosted demand in the wake of the mortgage collapse and pandemic lockdowns, they also drove up asset prices—notably stocks, bonds, and houses—to the benefit of wealthier Americans. Simultaneously, living standards fell for many Americans, whose dollars have lost more than 20 percent of their value over the past five years.

“The primary driver of inflation is the Fed’s expansion of the money supply, which the new Fed chair Kevin Warsh has addressed numerous times,” Julia Cartwright, economist with the American Institute for Economic Research, told The Epoch Times.

Between 2020 and 2022, the Fed injected approximately $6.4 trillion in new money into the economy to finance COVID stimulus payments, she said, and about 29 percent of America’s entire money supply today has been created since January 2020.

“Compounding this, the Iran conflict has choked off the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day and a fifth of global LNG trade, driving up energy, fertilizer, plastics, food, and virtually every input price across the economy,” Cartwright said.

Follow the Money Supply

While the Iran war and tariffs have driven up prices, Steve Hanke, professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University who served on President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, maintained that inflation is fundamentally a monetary phenomenon, a matter of too much money chasing too few goods.

“To put the inflation genie back in the bottle, the Fed must dump the post-Keynesian economic models it relies on and start paying attention to the quantity theory of money and the money supply, broadly measured,” Hanke told The Epoch Times.

“The Fed should announce that it is going to target the growth rate in the money supply that is consistent with hitting its two-percent-per-year inflation target,” he said. “Based on the quantity theory of money, that would require the rate of growth in M2 to be around 6 percent per year.”

The M2 measurement of the money supply includes cash, bank deposits, and funds that are readily convertible to cash, such as certificates of deposit and money market funds. During America’s low-inflation period, between 2008 and 2020, the annual growth rate in the money supply (M2) was 6.11 percent, Hanke said, and inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), averaged 1.77 percent.

Indeed, Warsh has indicated that he will focus on different metrics to measure and control inflation, beyond short-term price fluctuations.

“What I’m most interested in is: What is the underlying inflation rate—not what is the one-time change in prices because of a change in geopolitics or change in beef,” Warsh told senators at his confirmation hearing.

The Power of the Supply Side

What can the Trump administration do to help the Fed fight inflation? Economists call for supply-side initiatives, such as continuing deregulation, lowering tariffs, and boosting energy supply, as well as cutting government spending.

“Deficit financing pressures the Fed to expand the money supply and keeps interest rates higher than necessary,” Cartwright said.

She also advocated for a hands-off approach to private industry, despite the recent stakes the Trump administration has taken in companies like Intel.

“In a functioning economy, business compete primarily by bringing prices down—the more competition, the lower the prices and the better off consumers are,” Cartwright said. “The most persistent and under-appreciated source of higher prices is government interference in that competition through subsidies, preferential corporate deals, tariffs, and industrial policy that substitutes Washington’s judgment for the market’s.”

Lastly, economists say, politicians should let the Fed focus on fighting inflation rather than pressuring Fed officials to cut interest rates before inflation is tamed.

“The best course of action for the Trump administration to take would be to go radio silent on monetary policy,” Hanke said. “Do what President Reagan did with [then-Fed chair] Paul Volcker: Reagan gave Volcker the monetary policy reins and left him alone.”

Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A three-judge federal appeals panel is expected to issue a decision by year’s end on a lawsuit challenging Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s May 2025 emergency order that prevented a Michigan utility from closing a 64-year-old coal-fired power plant.

How the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rules in Michigan v. DOE after hearing May 15 oral arguments could prove precedential in deciding three similar cases–including two before the same court. It could also resolve a May 9 lawsuit filed in Seattle’s U.S. District Court by 16 Democratic state attorneys general who claim the emergency that President Donald Trump declared in his January 2025 National Energy Emergency executive order doesn’t exist.

Wright has issued five 2025 emergency orders under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act mandating that decades-old coal-fired generators in Michigan, Washington, Indiana, and Colorado, slated to be shut down by utilities, must continue operating or, at least, remain operable. This would assure that regional transmission electrical grids have the baseload capacity to provide enough power during extreme winter and summer weather stresses, the orders say.

The secretary maintains he has the authority to do so under the president’s National Energy Emergency declaration and his April 2025 executive orders supporting the coal industry and strengthening the nation’s electrical grid.

Wright, in public comments and in Fiscal Year 2027 budget hearings, maintains that the orders—90-day emergency mandates he’s repeatedly reissued—have prevented the retirement of more than 17 gigawatts of coal-powered generation, enough electricity to power up to 17 million homes. He has said that renewable energies encouraged by the Biden administration and some Democrat-led states are weather-dependent, costly, and reliant on imported materials, including from China.

Had he not issued the emergency orders to keep the Michigan and two Indiana coal-fired plants open through this winter, “People would have died” during January and February storms, he said during an April 21 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing.

“We pushed the grid to the edge. Coal kept things alive,” Wright said. “If we don’t extend the life of these coal plants, we will continue to have ruinous rises in our electricity prices [and] will not be able to meet the challenge of re-shored manufacturing and winning the AI race against China.”

Congressional Democrats say those orders have cost the nation’s electricity customers more than $500 million, noting the five aging plants are not operating at significant capacity. Among the claims made in lawsuits challenging the mandates—including by Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota in the case heard May 15—is that the federal government is exceeding its authority by dictating to local utilities which energy source they choose.

While each plant and closure is different, they share similarities, and the fallout from the rulings could boost or derail the Trump administration’s campaign to revive the nation’s coal industry.

Michigan: J.H. Campbell

The J.H. Campbell power plant in West Olive, Michigan, operated by Consumers Energy, a subsidiary of CMS Energy, opened in 1962. It was scheduled to shut down on May 31, 2025, and be replaced by a plant fueled with a combination of natural gas, renewable energies, and battery storage in Covert, Michigan.

Eight days before the closure, Wright issued an emergency order directing Consumers Energy and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), which provides electricity for 223 utilities serving 45 million people across 15 states, to keep the plant open for 90 days. It was the first of a succession of 90-day orders that have kept the three-unit plant open since.

Wright’s order said that keeping the plant open was necessary “to minimize risk of blackouts and address critical grid security issues in the Midwestern region of the United States ahead of the high electricity demand expected this summer.”

The 2,000-acre coal-fired plant was being shuttered 15 years before the end of its “scheduled design life,” the order stated, citing a North American Electric Reliability Corporation 2025 Summer Reliability Assessment warning that MISO’s grid was at “elevated risk” of shortfalls during summer peaks. It also cited MISO’s own forecast that acknowledged “potential for elevated risk during extreme weather.”

The Michigan Public Service Commission and Michigan Attorney General’s office, along with national environmental groups and local consumer advocates, maintain that the aging plant is unnecessary and imposes higher costs on utility customers. The state and consumer organizations, along with Illinois and Minnesota, faced off with federal regulators in the May 15 hearing in Washington.

According to CMS Energy’s regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company maintains that between June 1 and Dec. 31, 2025, it cost $290 million to pay for coal shipped from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, along with maintenance and salaries to keep the plant open, often at single-digit capacity.

That expense was offset by selling $155 million in electricity to utilities across 11 states within MISO’s grid. Overall, CMS Energy tabulates that it has incurred $180 million in operating losses—about $631,000 per day.

Consumers Energy has petitioned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permission to recoup $135 million from MISO ratepayers and is seeking to recover $43 million from the Department of Energy in costs incurred to comply with the federal order.

Wright maintains that the costs of keeping Campbell and other coal-fired plants open are outweighed by the risks, including potential loss of life, when electricity goes out, especially in winter.

He said Campbell “was integral in stabilizing the grid,” providing 650 megawatts a day of electricity—enough power for 600,000 homes—during Winter Storm Fern, from Jan. 21 to Feb. 1.

“Beautiful, clean coal was the MVP of recent winter storms,” he said in a February statement. “Hundreds of American lives have likely been saved because of President Trump’s actions saving America’s coal plants, including this Michigan coal plant, which ran daily during Winter Storm Fern.”

Washington: Centralia

Wright issued an emergency order on Dec. 16, 2025, mandating that TransAlta keep its coal-fired Centralia Generating Station Unit 2 operating beyond its planned Dec. 31 closure.

The Centralia plant is “essential” for the Northwest’s grid stability, he said in the order, referring to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s 2025-26 Winter Reliability Assessment, which determined that the region was at “elevated risk” of power shortages during extreme weather, including cold snaps. Wright extended the order in March by another 90 days through June 14.

Canada-based TransAlta in April filed a cost recovery application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, claiming it cost between $20 million and $23 million to purchase and ship coal from Peabody Energy’s Spring Creek Mine in Montana and Rawhide Mine in Wyoming to keep the 53-year-old plant operating during the 87 days before March 16.

The company said the order derailed its plan with Puget Sound Energy to convert the plant to natural gas by 2028.

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, in March, asked the U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals to reject Wright’s order while also filing a lawsuit in Seattle’s U.S. District Court challenging the legality of the action and claiming no grid emergency in the region.

Also in March, Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson signed House Bill 2367, which eliminates “preferential treatment related to coal-fired electric generating plants,” revokes cap-and-invest exemptions for coal plants, and ends tax exemptions on coal used at the Centralia plant.

Indiana: Schahfer, Culley

On Dec. 23, 2025, Wright issued an order preventing the planned Dec. 31, 2025, closures of two coal-fired units at the R.M. Schahfer power plant in Wheatfield, Indiana, operated by Northern Indiana Public Service Co., and the coal-fired F.B. Culley power plant near Newburgh, Indiana, operated by CenterPoint Energy.

That 90-day emergency order was renewed in March, requiring Schahfer’s two coal-fired units—built in 1983 and 1986—and Culley to remain operable at least through June 21.

Among the reasons Wright cited in the emergency order for keeping the plants operable, if not fully operating, was the same strain on MISO’s grid to which he referred in his Michigan order.

The December order also noted that it’s difficult for coal-fired generators “to resume operations once they have been retired.”

During a March 24 hearing before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, Northern Indiana Public Service Co. President Vince Parisi said that keeping Schahfer’s two coal-fired units open cost the utility “in excess of $100 million.”

One of the two coal-fired units ordered to remain operable had been shuttered since summer and remained offline, he said.

CenterPoint President Michael Roeder said during the hearing that it had cost his utility at least $18 million to keep its F.B. Culley Unit 2 plant operating during the first three months of the year.

In his March 23 order extending the emergency another 90 days, Wright said that during Winter Storm Fern, Schahfer generated more than 285 megawatts daily and Culley pushed 30 megawatts a day into MISO’s stressed grid.

R.M. Schahfer gets its coal primarily from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin and, to a lesser extent, the Illinois Basin. Culley’s coal is shipped from Oaktown mines southwest in Indiana’s Knox County.

The Sierra Club, among other environmental groups and local consumer advocate organizations, in April filed a lawsuit in Washington arguing that Wright’s orders are federal overreach. The suit is similar to Michigan’s challenge, and, as with that case, the attorneys general of Illinois and Minnesota have also signed on.

Colorado: Craig

On Dec. 30, 2025, Wright issued an emergency order directing Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, the Platte River Power Authority, Salt River Project, PacifiCorp., and Xcel Energy’s Public Service Company of Colorado to ensure that the Craig Station Unit 1 coal-fired plant in Craig, Colo., “remains available to operate.”

Citing the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s 2024 Long-Term Reliability Assessment for Colorado and the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, Wright said, “I determined the [council’s] area faced a significant amount of retiring baseload generation resources and has concerns in meeting demand.”

Keeping Craig Unit 1 online “would help prevent the loss of power to homes and businesses that would otherwise pose a risk to public health and safety,” he wrote.

The plant, built in 1974, was scheduled to shut down on Dec. 31. On March 30, the order was extended for another 90 days.

Craig, around 200 miles northwest of Denver with a Census 2020 population of about 9,000, was a major energy hub in the 1970s-80s for the Western Area Power Administration’s Rocky Mountain Region and Southwest Power Pool regional grid because of its nearby coal mines, including Trapper Mine.

The four owners of the two coal-fired plants within the three-unit power complex in north-central Colorado had planned the closures since 2016.

Tri-State, a not-for-profit electricity wholesaler owned by the 43 cooperatives and municipal power districts, and Platte River, a nonprofit utility operator, said the coal-fired plants were no longer needed, their generation exceeded by new solar and wind developments.

They filed a Jan. 29 petition asking the Department of Energy to reconsider the order, claiming they’re being forced to impose costs on ratepayers. They called the federal action an “uncompensated taking” of their property in violation of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.

A December 2025 analysis by Grid Strategies calculates that it could cost $85 million to $150 million annually to keep Craig 1 operating, in addition to concurrent expenses in operating new wind, solar, and transmission projects.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and a coalition of environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Earthjustice, have challenged the emergency order, filing a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., claiming it is an abuse of emergency authority and will unjustly inflate Coloradans’ electric bills.

Americans are still paying elevated prices at the pump in 2026, but the biggest financial burden is falling on states with lower household incomes rather than the highest fuel prices.

This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, shows where gasoline is least affordable by comparing the cost of a standard 15-gallon fill-up against median weekly household income across all 50 states.

The data comes from SmartAsset and AAA, as of May 2026.

The Highest Gas Burdens Aren’t in California

West Virginia ranks as the state where gas prices hit the hardest, with a 15-gallon fill-up consuming 5.2% of median weekly household income.

West Virginia’s fuel prices are not especially high by national standards. Instead, lower household incomes mean a routine fill-up consumes a larger share of weekly earnings.

Other Midwestern and Southern states dominate the top 10, including Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky. In many of these states, long driving distances and limited public transit make gasoline a near-essential household expense.

High Gas Prices Don’t Always Mean High Burden

California has the highest gasoline prices in the country at roughly $6.10 per gallon, yet it ranks only 12th in overall burden. Hawaii and Washington also post some of America’s most expensive fuel prices but remain outside the top 10.

Higher household incomes help offset the cost of filling up. In California, for example, median weekly household income exceeds $2,000, significantly higher than in many states across the South and Midwest.

Minimum Wage Workers Face an Even Bigger Challenge

The burden becomes even more severe when measured against weekly minimum wage earnings. In Indiana, a single 15-gallon fill-up represents nearly 25% of a week’s minimum wage income. Pennsylvania, Idaho, and New Hampshire also rank among the highest by this measure.

Meanwhile, wealthier Northeastern states such as Massachusetts, Maryland, and New Jersey post some of the lowest overall burdens relative to household income. Stronger wages help cushion residents from volatile energy prices.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Gas Prices Surge to Highest Level Since July ’22 on Voronoi.