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Why Your Personal Data Are Floating Around On The Darknet, Which Just Keeps Growing

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Why Your Personal Data Are Floating Around On The Darknet, Which Just Keeps Growing

Authored by Chris Summers via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In June 2025, police in Europe shut down a darknet marketplace for drugs called Archetyp Market, which had more than 600,000 users, and the following month the FBI announced that Operation Grayskull had led to the sentencing of 18 offenders to a total of 300 years for offenses relating to child sexual abuse material on the darknet.

An undated image of a bald researcher at security company DBI searching the darknet at an undisclosed location. DBI

The FBI maintains a Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement team, and in May 2025 it announced that 270 people had been arrested globally as part of Operation RapTor and that hundreds of pounds of fentanyl had been seized as part of an operation targeting drug traffickers on darknet websites.

But experts say the darknet—sometimes known as the dark web—keeps growing and is home to millions of megabytes of personal data, which are used by cybercriminals and ransomware gangs.

“You would be amazed how much personal data is drifting around on the darknet just from breach notifications,” Bob Erdman, associate vice president of research and development at cybersecurity company Fortra, based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, told The Epoch Times.

“It seems like every month you get a new breach notification from some company or website you’ve interacted with, and all those little pieces keep getting assembled to build a profile of you, and then get resold to someone who’s either going to try [to] attack you or try and use you to attack somebody else,” Erdman said.

Darknet Generation Gap

“When I speak with older Americans, many are shocked by the types of data on the darknet and how often it’s exposed or traded,” Chris Nyhuis, CEO at Vigilant, an Ohio-based cybersecurity firm and a human trafficking investigator, told The Epoch Times in an email.

“For younger more technical generations there is … often a sense of resignation,” Nyhuis said. “They’ve grown up with breaches, so data exposure feels almost inevitable to them.”

“Data released on the darknet is not a darknet problem, it just makes distributing data easier,” Nyhuis said.

He said he believes that companies are still not protecting data well enough.

Erdman said criminals were always trying to get access to logins and passwords, bitcoin addresses, and other data, which they would sell in darknet marketplaces that trade in stolen identities and compromised databases.

So how does the darknet work?

Nyhuis said the darknet is almost a “mirror image” of the internet most of us know, and that it even has its own search engines.

But it can only be accessed through the Tor browser, which provides secrecy and anonymity by passing messages through a network of connected Tor relays, which are specially configured computers.

Nyhuis said a simple way of understanding the darknet is imagining each Tor node as a house with numerous doors opening off of it, which are not visible.

“So if you walk in that house, and if someone’s monitoring that first door and you walk out a different one, then they’re not going to see you,” he said.

Silk Road Showed the Way

In the early days of the darknet, sites such as Silk Road began to operate and enable illicit marketplaces for narcotics and other illegal products and services.

Silk Road operated between January 2011 and October 2013. In May 2015, its 31-year-old founder, Ross Ulbricht, aka “Dread Pirate Roberts,” was jailed for life and ordered to forfeit $183 million.

Ross Ulbricht, creator of the website Silk Road, appears in an undated photograph made from his computer and presented as an exhibit during his trial in New York City in 2015. U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York/Handout via Reuters

Ulbricht created the blueprint that made such darknet marketplaces so successful, Brian Townsend, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration special agent who runs courses on the darknet, told The Epoch Times by email.

There is a myth that the darknet is hard to use, according to Missouri-based Townsend.

“In reality, the learning curve is very low, and it is quite easy to get on the dark web,” Townsend said. “With relative ease, people can buy and sell drugs, stolen credit cards, fake identities, child pornography, or pretty much anything else you can think of.”

In September 2022, Reed Churchill, 27, from Fayetteville, Arkansas, became a victim of the darknet when he took pills containing fentanyl that he had bought from a darknet website, thinking that they were oxycodone.

Since then, Churchill’s father, David Churchill, has been attempting to warn others.

“These are not good people you’re talking to on the darknet, whether it’s about drugs or pornography or whatever is on there,” he told the FBI. “Nobody on that side of the computer has any good intentions for you.”

In October 2024. Rajiv Srinivasan, 37, from Houston was jailed for 19 years and Michael Ta, 25, from Westminster, California, was jailed for 21 years for supplying the counterfeit M30 oxycodone pills containing fentanyl that killed Reed on a darknet website called Dark0de.

Nyhuis said there are people using the darknet for good reasons such as investigative journalism or the exposure of human rights abuses in totalitarian states.

“On the [darknet] there are people who say ‘I’m trying to be anonymous because I’m trying to fight evil’ and then there are the bad parts where ‘I’m trying to be anonymous because I want to do evil,’” he said. “Those are the two paths.”

‘Fighting Evil, or Doing Evil’

“The majority [of] uses of it are either fighting evil, or doing evil,” said Nyhuis, who said more darknet users have bad motives than have good ones.

Nyhuis said he has a theory that a lot of people who had time on their hands during the COVID-19 pandemic learned a lot about the darknet.

“Now people are setting up nodes left and right, and you have a much more anonymous environment,” he said.

According to him, it is now possible to use ChatGPT to create a Tor node.

“It will walk you through the exact steps to do that, even give you the code that you need to copy and paste, and you can turn up a Tor node,” Nyhuis said.

There are an estimated 1.3 billion websites in the world. Delaware-based cybersecurity company DeepStrike estimates that only 0.01 percent of those are on the darknet but that Tor traffic rose to 3 million users per day in 2025.

So why can we not just ban Tor browsers and switch off the darknet?

China has tried to use its Great Firewall to block the darknet, but with limited success.

“China has tried blocking known Tor nodes to try to throttle traffic,” Nyhuis said. “But it’s really a cat-and-mouse game. There’s no main kill switch.”

An undated image of a computer displaying a message from the Chinese Great Firewall at an internet cafe in Beijing. Ng Han Guan/AP

So rather than try to kill off the darknet—which appears to be impossible—intelligence services and law enforcement are learning to live with it and deal with the threats within it.

“I can assure you that law enforcement is active on these [darknet] marketplaces,” Townsend said. “We aren’t just watching from the sidelines.”

“Investigators are embedded in these communities, often operating undercover to identify the players behind the screen,” he said.

“The international law enforcement community also works incredibly well together, sharing intelligence across borders to combat these global criminal networks,” Townsend said. “Because the darknet doesn’t recognize national boundaries, our response has to be just as seamless.”

Last year, ransomware negotiator Mark Lance told The Epoch Times that attackers usually leave ransom notes within a targeted information technology system, which will usually advise the victim to download a Tor browser, go to a website on the darknet, and initiate communications with the attackers.

But even when law enforcement learns about these darknet websites, closing them down is not necessarily the solution.

“Shutting down one darknet communication channel rarely solves the problem because hackers can quickly bring another one online, either from backups or [by] simply moving to another platform,” Nyhuis said.

“The darknet is just a tool and even if a specific site is taken offline criminals can spin up another one quickly.”

Erdman said he does not see the darknet going away as long as there is a market for drugs, stolen data, and child sexual abuse images.

“Even if Tor was ripped down tomorrow, something would be built back up in its place,” he said.

“It’s a lot of work for governments to crack down,” Erdman said. “You can try and limit it, you can try and block the traffic … but users will find a way to get around it.”

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/16/2026 – 18:55

“Meat Grinder”: Behind The Burnout And High Turnover Rates In The AI Industry

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“Meat Grinder”: Behind The Burnout And High Turnover Rates In The AI Industry

Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times,

Across the artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain, insiders describe a precarious, high-turnover workforce with limited support and stability.

This “invisible” human labor that labels data, evaluates outputs, and filters harmful material has become a revolving door of talent that navigates high-pressure gigs and burnout. Moreover, workers and industry experts say this talent churn can degrade the very AI models workers are paid to improve.

Across the board, workers who are hired to support, evaluate, or operationalize AI systems face similar challenges: high-stress environments that often involve complex tasks, unrealistic timelines, job instability, and low wages.

It’s no secret that the tech industry has long suffered from high turnover rates. Numbers vary, but many studies put the average rate of talent churn in the tech sector at between 13 percent and 18 percent.

This becomes clear when considering the cost of replacing tech talent, which can be up to 150 percent of a worker’s salary, including recruitment expenses, onboarding time, productivity losses, and impacts on customer relationships.

Some believe that the loss of institutional knowledge alone makes worker retention critical.

“People love to talk about the ‘magic’ of AI, but the work culture behind it is a meat grinder. I’ve seen talent turnover in model evaluation hit record highs because the work is repetitive and psychologically draining,” Barry Kunst, vice president of marketing at Solix Technologies, told The Epoch Times.

“When you lose a lead researcher to churn, you don’t just lose a body; you lose the ‘why’ behind the model’s safety guardrails,” Kunst said.

This is why he’s adamant about AI workforce stability, which he said correlates directly with model reliability: “If you’re rotating contractors every six months to keep labor costs low, your data governance will fail, period.”

Sovic Chakrabarti, the director of digital marketing agency Icy Tales, said, “Team turnover is more common than people expect.

“In some groups, especially those tied to model training, evaluation, or data labeling pipelines, churn can happen every few months. Short contracts, project-based funding, and constant reorganization mean people cycle in and out quickly,” he told The Epoch Times.

A technician works at an Amazon Web Services AI data center in New Carlisle, Ind., on Oct. 2, 2025. Noah Berger for AWS/Reuters

Chakrabarti has worked on the development and support side of AI systems long enough to see patterns that, as he put it, “rarely make it into public discussions.”

“That [workforce] churn absolutely leads to lost knowledge,” he said. “Important context about why a dataset was filtered a certain way, why a safety rule exists, or why a model behaved oddly in testing often lives in someone’s head.”

When that person leaves, documentation rarely captures the full story, according to Chakrabarti.  “New hires inherit systems without understanding the original tradeoffs, which can quietly introduce risks,” he said.

The Human Cost

Burnout rates among information technology (IT) workers are high. LeadDev’s Engineering Leadership Report 2025 found that 22 percent of the 617 polled engineering leaders and developers felt critically burned out at work.

An additional 24 percent of respondents reported feeling “moderately” burned out, while 33 percent reported low levels of burnout.

Some of this is driven by job-security fears after two years of layoffs at big tech companies, but the pay for many of the workers fueling the AI revolution is often low.

The Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), Communications Workers of America (CWA), and TechEquity led a study on the working conditions of U.S.-based data workers and found conditions similar to those of tech contractors in developing countries.

In a survey of 160 U.S. data workers, 86 percent worried about being able to pay their bills, and 25 percent relied on public assistance to get by. The same group reported a median hourly wage of $15, with a median annual salary of $22,620.

Eighty-five percent of the study group said they’re expected to be “on call” for work, but only 30 percent reported being paid for this time. More than a quarter of respondents reported spending more than 8 hours per week on call.

“If there’s anything I wanted the general public to know, it is that there are low paid people [in the United States] who are not even treated as humans—just little more than employee ID numbers —out there making the 1 billion dollar, trillion dollar AI systems that are supposed to lead our entire society and civilization into the future,” Kirn Gill II, a search quality rater working on Google products at Telus, told the CWA.

Chakrabarti said the work culture behind AI fuels these challenges.

“There is real pressure to keep labor costs low. I have seen unrealistic timelines, understaffed teams, and expectations to ‘do more with less’ while the stakes keep rising. That tension creates stress, especially when the systems affect millions of users,” he said.

Chat GPT app icon is seen on a smartphone screen, in Chicago, on Aug. 4, 2025. AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File

He added that being part of the shadow workforce behind AI can also be psychologically demanding.

“You carry responsibility without always having authority or time to do things properly. … As tools evolve, roles shift fast, and many people feel replaceable even while being essential,” Chakrabarti said.

Nicky Zhu, an AI Interaction Product Manager at Dymesty, agrees that the cost-containment pressure on data workers is “unrealistic” and is fueling the burnout phenomenon.

“Companies employ contractors instead of using permanent staff, mandate 60-hour crunch weeks, and expect rapid learning of intricate systems. I have witnessed multiple capable engineers exit the field of AI completely because of the high levels of instability and the unmanageable workload,” Zhu told The Epoch Times.

Zhu said the mental strain associated with data work is often unacknowledged.

“Staff are regularly exposed to disturbing material during safety testing, including assessing harmful content. Knowing that your work impacts millions of users increases the stress. The combination of rapid AI development, job uncertainty, and high turnover is mentally overwhelming,” she said.

In the data worker conditions analysis, respondents reported limited or no access to mental health benefits, despite being what the study authors called a “first line of defense, protecting millions of people from harmful content and imperfect AI systems.”

Only 23 percent of data workers surveyed reported having employer-provided health benefits.

The International Labor Organization noted that large language AI models such as ChatGPT and Claude still require “invisible workers” who fine-tune AI responses, mitigate biases, and eliminate toxic or disturbing content behind the scenes.

“As a result, workers are routinely exposed to graphic violence, hate speech, child exploitation, and other objectionable material. Such constant exposure can take a toll on their mental health and trigger post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and reduced ability to feel empathy,” the International Labor Organization stated.

Revolving Door Risks

A knock-on effect of AI’s constant labor change is an increase in cybersecurity risks.

“Labor turnover literally impacts the quality, safety, and reliability of models,” Janero Washington, education director at ACSMI Cybersecurity Certification, told The Epoch Times.

“Large turnover interferes with domain knowledge, delays in the iteration process, and the probability of missing key details in the development.”

Washington said this could have a “direct influence on the accuracy and strength of [AI] models, particularly during deployment phases.”

He added that low labor costs are the primary pressure point in AI projects, which tend to prioritize cost-efficiency over balanced investment in skilled labor.

“It may result in corners being cut, including overworking teams, unrealistic deadlines, or having to use less experienced hires to keep budgets,” he said.

Zhu has seen firsthand how workforce churn affects the efficiency of AI tools: “Knowledge is lost faster than it is documented. Important information about model edge cases, limitations, safety procedures, and related details is lost when contractors leave after six or 12 months.”

When she started her current position, Zhu found that three teams had attempted to resolve the same set of problems using an AI feature that had already been built.

“Still, no one had documented the rationale for the different design decisions. Ultimately, we had to remake previously developed design solutions for problems that had already been solved. This is an all-too-common reality for the industry,” she said.

The data security platform Cyberhaven observed that 24 hours before a layoff or employee resignation, organizations can experience a 720 percent surge in data exfiltration. This includes everything from downloading sensitive files to forwarding emails or copying customer lists, all of which can have significant consequences.

Washington said that critical knowledge or details can be easily lost when a data team is reliant on a short-term contract or experiencing a high talent turnover.

“This affects continuity of knowledge of datasets, edge cases, or versioning issues, causing inefficiencies and possibly a rework of the same issue,” he said.

Chakrabarti agreed. “When teams are stretched thin or constantly rebuilding, issues get patched instead of deeply solved,” he said.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/16/2026 – 17:45

The Obama Administration’s Prostitution Scandal And The Ruemmler-Epstein Connection

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The Obama Administration’s Prostitution Scandal And The Ruemmler-Epstein Connection

Remember Obama’s 2012 Colombian prostitution scandal? Turns out, Jeffrey Epstein was involved…

Newly released Department of Justice documents from the Epstein files have exposed a previously unknown connection between a 2012 White House advance-team scandal in Cartagena, Colombia, and Kathryn Ruemmler – the former Obama White House counsel who later became Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer.

Ruemmler resigned from Goldman late last week, after the latest Epstein document dump revealed her extensive, affectionate, and years-long correspondence with the convicted sex offender. The emails show she called him “Uncle Jeffrey,” accepted expensive gifts, and turned to him for advice on sensitive legal and reputational matters – including how to respond to a 2014 Washington Post report that accused her of helping suppress evidence of prostitution involving a rich kid White House aide whose daddy was a huge Obama donor. 

The WaPo report, by all accounts, cost Ruemmler a job as Obama’s Attorney General. 

The 2012 Cartagena Prostitution Scandal

In April 2012, ahead of President Obama’s trip to the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, at least 20 Secret Service agents, military personnel, and others were involved in hiring prostitutes. The scandal led to multiple firings and disciplinary actions.

A lesser-known element involved Jonathan Dach, a 25-year-old Yale Law student and unpaid White House advance-team volunteer (son of prominent Democratic donor Leslie Dach). Hotel records obtained by investigators showed a prostitute was checked into Dach’s room at the Hilton Cartagena shortly after midnight on April 3, 2012.

Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan briefed White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler on the evidence. The White House conducted a review, interviewed advance-team members (including Dach), and publicly declared “no indication of any misconduct” by White House personnel. Dach was later cleared and went on to work at the State Department.

More recently, Dach was found to have ‘chronically violated state rules’ in his role as former chief of staff to Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) by using a state vehicle as his personal car for nearly two years “and driving at speeds constituting reckless driving under Connecticut law.”

The 2014 Washington Post Revival and Ruemmler’s Response

In October 2014, while Ruemmler was in private practice at Latham & Watkins and reportedly under consideration to replace Eric Holder as Attorney General – WaPo published new details. Reporters Carol D. Leonnig and David Nakamura revealed that the White House had received specific evidence (hotel records and witness accounts) implicating a White House advance-team member but had not fully investigated or disclosed it.

On October 9, 2014, Epstein emailed Ruemmler: “Doing fine. Was talking to reporters until late in the morning last night. Trying to isolate/contain wapo.”

On October 17, 2014, Ruemmler forwarded Epstein a draft of her response to the Post reporter and asked for his input. In the draft she downplayed the allegations, writing:

“The whole thing is ridiculous – they had to obtain the record ‘under the table’ because the last thing the Hilton wanted to do is to voluntarily give over info implicating the privacy of their guests. The procedure for checking in prostitutes is hardly rigorous.”

Epstein replied with suggestions, including the line: “Important point.”

Ruemmler ultimately withdrew from consideration for Attorney General on October 24, 2014 – one week after the email exchange.

Finally, here is the letter that then-Obama White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz sent in coordination with Ruemmler, to Carol Leonnig who wrote the WaPo article exposing Jonathan Dach’s prostitution scandal, where they beg her to “from this point forward refrain from using Mr. Dach’s name,” as “He has served his purposes for your reporting—repeating his name in connection with these allegations only deepens the wounds he has already suffered.”

Beyond the obvious questions over the Obama admin prostitution scandal cover-up – which Congress/DOJ should finally ask – the most important question is: why did Obama’s top lawyer summon the help of disgraced pedophile Epstein in planning her defense against the Obama admin’s biggest prostitution scandal?

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/16/2026 – 17:10

New Coalition Aims To Ban Vaccine Mandates Across US

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New Coalition Aims To Ban Vaccine Mandates Across US

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

A new coalition composed of 15 groups, including an organization founded by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is taking aim at vaccine and mask mandates across the United States.

Children’s Health Defense, the Kennedy-founded group, and other members of the Medical Freedom Act Coalition say they want every state to introduce and pass medical freedom bills.

“I think it’s the first time we’ve seen this kind of effort in the kind of freedom and health movement,” Leslie Manookian, who founded the Health Freedom Defense Fund, told The Epoch Times.

The model state is Idaho, which in 2025 enacted a law that prohibits businesses and schools from requiring customers, employees, and students receive vaccines or other medical procedures. Manookian helped write the legislation, called the Idaho Medical Freedom Act.

“Because that passed, it really showed what was possible,” Leah Wilson, executive director and co-founder of Stand for Health Freedom, and one of the leaders of the coalition, told The Epoch Times. “Our goal is to take the Medical Freedom Act to as many states as possible across the U.S.”

“Children’s Health Defense finds vaccine mandates and medical mandates reprehensible, and we are honored to be part of a coalition fighting to end forced medical procedures, to end medical mandates and vaccine mandates for all Americans,” Michael Kane, director of advocacy for Children’s Health Defense, told The Epoch Times.

The coalition also includes others linked to Kennedy or his Make America Health Again (MAHA) movement, including the Independent Medical Alliance, several of whose advisers Kennedy has appointed to a vaccine advisory committee; the MAHA Institute, whose president co-founded a political action committee that funded Kennedy’s presidential bid; and MAHA Action, whose leader has published books written by Kennedy and which has held events attended by the health secretary.

People involved in the effort say they are in communication with Kennedy on other matters, but have not discussed the coalition. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.

“This state, more than any state in the country, stands for not only medical freedom but a healthy population,” Kennedy said in a briefing with Idaho Gov. Brad Little, a Republican who signed the Idaho Medical Freedom Act a few months prior, on July 23, 2025.

Kennedy recently told reporters in Tennessee that he was not part of efforts to end school vaccine mandates in states. “I believe in freedom of choice,” he also said, describing vaccination as “a personal choice that people should make with their physicians.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics, which partners with vaccine manufacturers, and American Families for Vaccines, among other organizations, oppose rolling back vaccine mandates. The groups did not respond to requests for comment.

Idaho Requirements Still in Place

The Idaho Medical Freedom Act says in part that a school “shall not mandate a medical intervention for any person to attend, enter campus or buildings, or be employed.” It also says that a business “shall not refuse to provide any service, product, admission to a venue, or transportation to a person because that person has or has not received or used a medical intervention.”

But according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW), parents are required to have their children vaccinated against certain diseases for school and daycare attendance in Idaho.

The department points to another law that outlines vaccine requirements for children.

“DHW encourages school districts to consider the Medical Freedom Act … when implementing vaccine requirements at schools,” a spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

Supporters of the act say the Idaho legislation was imperfect. A new Medical Freedom Expansion bill introduced by state Rep. Rob Beiswenger, a Republican who co-sponsored the legislation, seeks to make clear that mandates are unacceptable.

“The Expansion bill will make it abundantly clear to students and parents that vaccination is a voluntary, personal and private choice and not mandatory,” Beiswenger told The Epoch Times in an email.

State Actions So Far

Legislators in about a dozen states this year have released bills that would alter or ban mandates for vaccines or other medical procedures.

Arizona legislators introduced a bill that would ban businesses and schools from requiring “a medical intervention” such as a vaccine for employment or attendance.

“This bill ensures that Arizonans are not forced to choose between their bodily autonomy and their ability to work, learn, travel, or to participate in public life,” Arizona Rep. Lisa Fink, a Republican who sponsored the bill, told a hearing in January.

Lawmakers in two state House committees have cleared the legislation.

Hawaii lawmakers introduced the Hawaii Medical Freedom Act, which outlines a similar ban. It has been referred to state House panels.

Indiana senators introduced a bill that would, among other aspects, bar requiring people “to accept, undergo, or engage in a medical intervention in or on the individual’s body as a condition of employment, entrance, admission, compensation, benefits, or participation.” The bill has been referred to the state Senate Health Committee. 

New Hampshire representatives outlined legislation that would repeal immunization requirements for children. A public hearing on the bill took place on Feb. 4, and a legislative session on Feb. 11.

On the other hand, some lawmakers have been floating bills that would tighten vaccine mandates. South Carolina state Sen. Margie Bright Matthews, for example, recently introduced a bill that would end religious exemptions for measles vaccination amid an outbreak in the state.

“This legislation is about protecting children, protecting classrooms, and protecting communities with clear, medically grounded standards,” Bright Matthews, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Every state in the country requires vaccines for school attendance. Some allow exemptions for religious or philosophical reasons, while all permit medical exemptions.

Florida officials said in 2025 they would be removing all vaccine mandates, but the goal has met resistance in the state legislature, where action is required to remove mandates for some shots. The Medical Freedom Act, introduced in January, would expand exemptions to the mandates but not prohibit the mandates themselves.

The Health Freedom Defense Fund, part of the new coalition, has released model legislation that perfects the Idaho Medical Freedom Act, Manookian said. Lawmakers in other states can use the model legislation to introduce medical freedom bills in their states.

“I don’t think this is a partisan issue,” she said. “I think that Americans in general don’t want to be forced to do something to their children.”

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/16/2026 – 16:35

The End Of Multiculturalism And The Liberal Utopian Fantasy

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The End Of Multiculturalism And The Liberal Utopian Fantasy

The first and most important thing to understand about multiculturalism is that it is not an end goal.  Rather, it is a vehicle; the median step in a much larger agenda to erase sovereign cultures and strong national identities.  Once a population no longer has a cultural framework and a set of shared principles to hold onto, they are less likely to care when the borders of their nation are erased and their government becomes subservient to foreign (or globalist) interests.

Cultures are made up of specific peoples with standing birthrights, while nations are held together by shared values.  The people of a country have to care about it enough to keep it alive and secure. 

Multicultural ideology is a process for alienating a society, diminishing their shared values and undermining their love of country.  It’s not an accident when liberal political leaders open up borders and saturate the nation with third world migrants who have completely contrary values.  This sabotage is absolutely deliberate.

For the past several decades the populations of the west (and parts of Asia) have been regaled with liberal visions of Utopia; narratives of eternal peace and “brotherhood” achieved through engineered diversity.  But if diversity “is our strength” as the elites claim, then why is it that first world nations only grow more unstable with each new wave of third world migrants?  

If these migrants are a golden economic resource providing invaluable labor and talent, why are all the countries they come from festering in filth and decay and crime and war?  If these cultures are equal to the west (or superior to the west), then there must be some tangible examples of success or wealth or accomplishment or invention that are not drawn directly from the wealth of the west.  We search high and low and find nothing.  

Many national populations are getting wise to the scam.  They can see that their willingness to “adapt” and “tolerate” is slowly killing them. 

Japan’s recent snap elections led by conservative Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi resulted in a brutal smackdown of leftists and the political left.  Takaichi’s “Liberal Democratic Party” (which is not liberal in the modern western sense) has captured around 75% of the government and a undeniable political mandate.  Leftists around the world are enraged and the progressive establishment media is pumping out propaganda demonizing the conservative shift in Japan.

They deny that open immigration supported by the previous government has anything to do with Takaichi’s rise to power.  In fact, the increasing pace of third world immigration dominated political discourse in Japan for at least a year leading up to the elections.  They had seen the horrors of decline in Europe and the struggles of the US to put right the ship.  They have disrupted the agenda before it could do substantial damage.

The new Japanese government has announced plans to restrict visa renewals, increase deportations, kick out rule breaking migrants, restrict land purchases by foreigners, higher taxes for international tourists and caps on the number of foreign workers allowed into the country.  Furthermore, the Japanese want tighter controls on Muslim migrants who try to enforce their own religious doctrines as law (Sharia law).  

In the UK, which is nearly lost at this point, opposition to Kier Starmer’s progressive coup is quickly growing.  The Labour Party is desperately trying to delay local elections because they know Nigel Farage’s Reform is going to sweep them without mercy.  But that’s not the end of it.  

Another party called “Restore Britain” is gaining momentum with Rupert Lowe at the helm, and his message is crystal clear:  Remigration is the goal.  The complete expulsion of migrants who do not share British values or western values.  The announcement of the movement has received ample praise.  The age of liberalism is dying.

Combine these trends with the revolt in the US against woke cultism and multiculturalism and it’s beginning to look like the rebellion is going global.  The notion that nations must sacrifice their cultural identities and heritage at the altar of globalism is no longer holding sway over mainstream debate.  People no longer feel “shame” when they oppose migration, and they are considering realities which were considered taboo only a few years ago.

At bottom, some cultures a superior to others.  Superior in economic value.  Superior in technological value.  Superior in moral value.  Superior in their contributions to the world at large.  To dilute successful nations with people from lesser cultures in the name of liberal virtue or economic necessity is not a compelling argument anymore. 

One has to wonder how the political left and the globalist establishment intend to win the public back to their side?  It seems impossible at this stage in the game.  Perhaps they don’t intend to do this at all.  When ideological zealots are faced with potential losses, they tend to dash the chess board to the ground rather than admit defeat.   

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/16/2026 – 16:00

Epstein-itis

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Epstein-itis

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

“If you tolerate the intolerable, you’re communicating that it’s okay to mistreat you.”

– Aimee Terese on X

Did you think the American zeitgeist – our collective spirit plus our thinking – could not get crazier?

Gird your loins. It’s getting worse by the hour.

The Jeffrey Epstein files suggest that people will do anything and that people will believe anything.

Pizza, hot dogs, white sharks. . . boys, girls, babies, teens, Russian whores. . . celebrities by the score. . . billionaires. . . cannibal orgies. . . vivisection parlors. . . adrenochrome. . . blood. . . dead bodies. . . demon worship. . . a depraved and insane global leadership. . . lemme outa here!

I don’t know what’s real in Epstein and what’s not — but neither do you. What you ought to know is that the colossal inventory of Epstein files is perhaps the greatest instrument of mass mind-fuckery ever seen in the history of Western Civ. How interesting, too, that the deluge of material coincides exactly with the critical capability emergence of Artificial Intelligence as a tool for the manipulation of documentary evidence. And also consider all the years since 2019 that interested parties have had to mess with, destroy, possibly fabricate, and catalog all this stuff.

Apparently, the Woke-Jacobin-Marxist eruption was not enough to destabilize the consensus about reality.

The absurdities you were asked to swallow about all-women-are-women-including-men. . . the police killed George Floyd. . . mostly peaceful riots. . . the vaccine is safe and effective. . . the free-est, fairest elections ever. . . “Joe Biden” is president. . . the border is secure. . . speaking English is white supremacy – did not push America deeply enough into Crazyland.

More was required to completely demolish your sense of an ordered world.

Donald Trump was correct, at least, that releasing the Epstein files would bring on more chaos than clarity and impede the effort to get our country back on the rails with an economic engine based on the production of goods instead of financialized hyper-casino voodoo. Well, now we’re in a maelstrom of innuendo, code-talk, gossip, and redaction, and you can hardly begin to sort it out. The Attorney General of the USA, bless her heart, has already botched the management of this monster.

Epstein’s relations with Israel and its Mossad intel blob, along with his connections to global banking interests, have aroused the zestiest breakout of antipathy to Jews since the SS busied itself loading the crematoriums of Europe. Hatred of Jews is a recurring symptom of civilization distress. But it is also possible that Israel has behaved badly — and it is certain that many political intellectuals are reevaluating the way that nation was established after World War Two. To some degree, Israel has become a paranoid state (though even paranoiacs have real enemies).

Where does that go from here? Thoughtful people are pessimistic. For sure, they resent the money and influence seeded by Israel in the US Congress. They might be concerned as well about all the other interests pounding money into American politics. Grift is everywhere, and everyone can see it now. The looming end of the grift orgy is probably behind the Democratic Party’s current psychotic disposition. Having lost its 20th century base of factory workers, the party has had to work the extreme margins of American life to build a coalition of the feckless, the reckless, the brainless, and the shameless. They have become the party’s wards in a reimagined patronage system even more pernicious than the old one under characters like Boss Tweed and Mayor Richard Daley-the-First of Chicago.

The Democratic Party can’t win elections without rigging them and it’s astonishing that they’ve gotten away with building such sturdy armature of ballot fraud in plain sight with next to zero objection from the supposed guardians in officialdom. The features of it are so arrant that a political class with any sense or dignity would have laughed it straight into the criminal courts — and its perps straight into the penitentiary. The fraud became especially acute with the 2020 and 2022 elections. It is about to be revealed in the troves of evidence extracted lately from Fulton County, GA, and presently from Maricopa County, AZ. These birds are cooked. Not a few people will eventually go to jail over these shenanigans. And meanwhile, the SAVE Act pulsates in the Senate like a lump of kryptonite.

Now, you may realize that a political party based entirely on socially marginal persons — many of them mentally ill — will adopt a roster of ideas and policies that are patently marginal, which is to say, crazy. The party elders are now straining to eliminate some of that. Last week, Barack Obama unloaded on California Governor Gavin Newsom’s botched handling of the state’s epic homeless crisis.

“We should recognize that the average person doesn’t want to have to navigate around a tent city in the middle of downtown,” the ex-president said in an interview with progressive YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen.

Hillary Clinton, dropping in on the Munich Security Conference, said, amazingly, “There is a legitimate reason to have a debate about things like migration. It went too far, it’s been disruptive and destabilizing. . .” before tossing in some Woke word-salad:

“. . . and it needs to be fixed in a humane way with secure borders that don’t torture and kill people and how we’re going to have a strong family structure because it is at the base of civilization.”

Say, what. . . ?

But then, poor Hillary, who can’t help being a Cluster-B psycho, turned up moderating a panel at the same Munich meet-up to take up the issue: “Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights: Fighting the Global Pushback.“

To nail down her point, Hillary brought onstage as the featured speaker, Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE), known previously as Tim McBride, a man.

Hillary and Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) at Munich

The insanity is, of course, self-evident.

The take-away from all this. They’re not trying hard enough to get their minds right.

And in the meantime, America and the other nations of Western Civ, must contend with the gigantic trip laid on them that is the Epstein files.

We know the newspapers and cable news channels are hopeless.

Is there anyone or any sense-making institution that can usher us through this nightmare back into the daylight?

 

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/16/2026 – 15:30

NASA Awards Next 2 Private Astronaut Missions To International Space Station

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NASA Awards Next 2 Private Astronaut Missions To International Space Station

Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

NASA has awarded its next two private astronaut missions to the International Space Station (ISS) in as many weeks, marking a further expansion of the private sector in low Earth orbit and continuing Administrator Jared Isaacman’s intention to make the most use of the orbiting outpost.

In this image from video, the 11 International Space Station crew members representing Expedition 70 (red shirts) and Axiom Space 3 (dark blue suits) crews gather for a farewell ceremony calling down to mission controllers on Earth on Feb. 2, 2024. NASA via AP

The latest mission was awarded to private space station company Vast.

Launching no earlier than the summer of 2027 on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, it will be NASA’s sixth private astronaut mission to the space station overall and is expected to last 14 days.

“Vast is honored to have been selected by NASA for the sixth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station,” Vast CEO Max Haot said in a press release. “Leveraging the remaining life of the International Space Station with science and research-led commercial crewed missions is a critical part of the transition to commercial space stations and fully unlocking the orbital economy.”

The company said it would plan “a robust science and research portfolio” for the mission, focusing on biology, biotechnology, physical sciences, human research, and technology demonstrations. It also said the mission would “generate invaluable insights into the infrastructure and processes required for Vast to safely accomplish human spaceflight missions,” and deepen its collaborative relationship with NASA and international space agency partners as it continues its campaign to have its proposed Haven-2 station chosen as the successor to the ISS.

Vast’s single-module station, Haven-1, is slated to be launched into orbit in early 2027.

Now, this private astronaut mission to the space station will follow one awarded to Axiom Space, targeting a launch no earlier than January 2027.

Announced on Jan. 30, it marks the fifth private mission Axiom will undertake. Its previous four missions featured 14 private and government astronauts, including two European Space Agency astronauts. Those missions were led by retired NASA astronauts who left the agency to join the private sector: Michael Lopez-Alegria, Axiom Space’s chief astronaut, and Peggy Whitson, Axiom Space’s vice president of human spaceflight.

Axiom missions delivered the first female Saudi astronaut and first Turkish astronaut into space, as well as carried the first Saudi, Indian, Polish, and Hungarian astronauts to the ISS.

Axiom Space has also been developing its own commercial space station and new spacesuits that NASA intends to use for moon walks.

Meanwhile, this will be Vast’s first private astronaut mission with NASA.

“Private astronaut missions represent more than access to the International Space Station—they create opportunities for new ideas, companies, and capabilities that further enhance American leadership in low Earth orbit and open doors for what’s next,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a press release. “We’re proud to welcome Vast to this growing community of commercial partners. Each new entrant brings unique strengths that fuel a dynamic, innovative marketplace as we advance research and technology and prepare for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.”

Neither mission has announced a crew yet. NASA made it clear that each company would propose four crew members for it and its international partners to review and approve.

Once a crew is approved and confirmed, the astronauts will train for their mission with NASA, its international partners, and SpaceX for their flight.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/16/2026 – 14:30

Ship Orders From South Korea Are Surging Thanks To U.S. Fees On Chinese-Made Ships

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Ship Orders From South Korea Are Surging Thanks To U.S. Fees On Chinese-Made Ships

South Korea is tightening the race with China in global shipbuilding after U.S. plans to curb Chinese-built vessels disrupted order flows and redirected demand , according to Nikkei. 

Worldwide new orders fell 27% in 2025 to 56.42 million compensated gross tonnage (CGT) — the first annual drop in two years — according to U.K.-based Clarksons Research.

China remained No. 1 but saw orders tumble 35% to 35.36 million CGT, shrinking its share to 62.7%. South Korea, ranked second, moved the other way: orders climbed 8% to 11.59 million CGT, lifting its share to 20.6%. Japan, in third, recorded a 53% plunge to 2.77 million CGT, with its slice slipping to 4.9%.

The shift followed a U.S. announcement last April outlining fees on Chinese-built ships entering American ports starting in October 2025. Although the policy was delayed for a year after a U.S.-China summit in late October, uncertainty had already prompted global shipping companies to hesitate on new Chinese orders.

A unit of China State Shipbuilding Corp. said it was disadvantaged in contract talks last summer, opening the door for South Korean yards to win more large container ship deals. HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering cited weaker demand for Chinese shipyards as a key reason for its recent surge in orders.

Nikkei writes that the company posted record results for the year ended December: revenue rose 17% to roughly 29 trillion won ($20.1 billion), while net profit doubled to about 3 trillion won.

Government-backed workforce initiatives have also supported the industry. Seoul opened a training center in Indonesia in 2024 to prepare skilled workers, including Korean language instruction, before dispatching them to local yards. Shipbuilders have raised wages and introduced AI tools to ease labor strain.

Foreign employment in South Korea’s shipbuilding sector hit a record 22,824 at the end of 2024 — about four times the level five years earlier — with foreigners making up more than 20% of the workforce.

Japan, meanwhile, has struggled to capture orders shifting away from China. Data from the Japan Ship Exporters’ Association show export contracts in 2025 fell 20% to 8.93 million gross tons, marking a fourth straight year of decline. Limited yard capacity, slipways booked through around 2029, and labor shortages have constrained growth and pushed up costs.

Looking ahead, global demand is expected to rebound in 2026 as stricter environmental rules accelerate orders for vessels powered by next-generation fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia. HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering has set a 2026 order target of $23.3 billion, up 26% from this year, citing steady demand for new builds and fleet replacements.

China is working to regain momentum. In December, Cosco Group placed 50 billion yuan ($7.23 billion) in orders with China State Shipbuilding Corp., underscoring coordinated support among state-owned enterprises.

Japan is also attempting a reset. Imabari Shipbuilding recently completed its acquisition of Japan Marine United to streamline operations. The government aims to double domestic shipbuilding capacity to 18 million gross tons by 2035, seeking to narrow the wide gap with South Korea and China.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/16/2026 – 14:00

Strait Showdown: Iran Launches “Smart Control” Exercise At Oil Transit Point

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Strait Showdown: Iran Launches “Smart Control” Exercise At Oil Transit Point

Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) kicked off naval drills Monday in the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, according to state media.

The exercise, dubbed “Smart Control of Hormuz Strait,” is being carried out by IRGC naval forces under the direct supervision of the Guards’ top command, state television reported, with semi-official Tasnim news agency describing the drills as testing combat readiness against “possible security and military threats.” Energy markets are watching closely.

IRNA: IRGC Navy conducts a hybrid, live exercise dubbed “Smart Control of the Strait of Hormuz.”

Under the supervision of IRGC Commander-in-Chief Major General Mohammad Pakpour, a state media press release described the exercise further as “A rapid, decisive, and comprehensive response to maritime security threats form the core focus of the intelligence and operational components of the units deployed during the exercise.”

Indirect nuclear talks between the US and Iran have lately resumed after collapsing when Israel launched strikes on Iran in June 2025, igniting a 12-day conflict that included US attacks on three Iranian nuclear facilities – with another round of negotiations scheduled for Tuesday in Geneva, with Oman serving as mediator.

The timing is no coincidence, given that late last week President Trump announced he was dispatching a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East, while continuing to warn that military action against Iran remains on the table.

The IRGC has been conducing sporadic and in some cases unannounced drills in regional waters in order to demonstrate to Washington the Islamic Republic’s military readiness.

Two weeks ago, when some of the first drills kicked off, US Central Command (CENTCOM) warned the IRGC it better be careful in the vicinity of US naval assets.

“We will not tolerate unsafe IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) actions including overflight of U.S. military vessels engaged in flight operations, low-altitude or armed overflight of U.S. military assets when intentions are unclear, highspeed boat approaches on a collision course with U.S. military vessels, or weapons trained at U.S. forces,” CENTCOM said at the time.

“US forces acknowledge Iran’s right to operate professionally in international airspace and waters,” it added, and noted that “any unsafe and unprofessional behavior near U.S. forces, regional partners or commercial vessels increases risks of collision, escalation, and destabilization,” the statement had warned.

Source: Getty Images/iStockphoto

None of Iran’s drills or threat of counterstrike have deterred the ongoing Pentagon build-up in the Middle East with an eye on Iran, however. One thing the White House should be able to perceive, however, is that any military action against Tehran is going to clearly be much more complex, and harder, than some one-off mission in Venezuela.

The potential for massive blow-back and for things to go seriously awry is much greater in the case of a potential US conflict with Iran.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/16/2026 – 13:00

Why Firing 9% Of The Federal Workforce Didn’t Move The Needle

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Why Firing 9% Of The Federal Workforce Didn’t Move The Needle

Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,

In January 2025, the federal government employed about 3 million people. By November, that number had fallen by roughly 270,000 workers — a reduction of about 9%.

According to the Cato Institute, that was the largest peacetime federal workforce reduction EVER.

More than 150,000 employees took the “Fork in the Road” buyout offer to resign or retire. Tens of thousands more were laid off outright. Entire offices were emptied. Agencies that had been growing for decades shrank to staffing levels not seen since 2014.

And yet, despite historic federal layoffs, government spending went UP last year.

The federal government spent $7 trillion in Fiscal Year 2025— roughly $300 billion more than the year before. Bear in mind, 2025 was the year that DOGE was supposed to take a chainsaw to the budget and cut spending.

This is not a failure of DOGE. It’s a revelation about the actual problem.

The total federal payroll— every salary, every benefit, for every civilian federal employee (excluding the military)— comes to about $336 billion a year— less than 5% of total federal spending.

In other words, you could fire every federal employee tomorrow— every bureaucrat, every regulator, every paper-pusher in Washington— and 95% of the spending would continue as if nothing happened.

That’s because around 60% of the budget is mandatory spending— Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid— programs that pay out automatically based on laws that were passed decades ago. Congress doesn’t vote on these expenditures each year. The checks just go out.

Then there’s interest on the national debt, which in total runs about $1.2 trillion per year. It’s the second-largest line item in the entire federal budget, bigger than Medicare, bigger than national defense.

(The government uses a lower number called “net” interest; they exclude hundreds of billions in interest owed to Social Security and military retirees. But unless they plan on screwing those people over, that interest still has to be paid. So, we use the “gross” interest number and not “net” interest).

All of these obligations grow automatically, every year, regardless of who’s in charge or how many people show up to work.

Social Security alone grew by over $100 billion last year. Interest payments grew by another nearly $100 billion. Those two-line items, by themselves, swallowed more than the entire savings DOGE could theoretically achieve by cutting the workforce.

In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, more than 80% of projected spending growth over the next decade comes from Social Security, federal healthcare programs, and interest on the debt.

This is the structural problem nobody in Washington wants to talk about honestly: America’s deficit problem isn’t exclusively because of bad decisions today. It’s a failure to address bad decisions made years ago… decades ago– commitments that are baked into law, growing on autopilot, funded by borrowing roughly $2 trillion every year.

In an ideal world, Congress would address these entitlement programs directly. They are, after all, the biggest driver of the problem. But reforming Social Security or Medicare is the political third rail— nobody wants to touch it.

But there are other ways to move the needle as well.

The $38+ trillion national debt is manageable as long as the economy grows faster than the debt— which right now is not happening. But America still has absurdly strong economic potential to make that happen.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has publicly stated that roughly 10% of the entire federal budget— about $600 billion per year— is outright fraud. Not waste. Not inefficiency. Fraud. And much of that fraud is within entitlement programs— the welfare fraud that came to light in Minnesota, the hundreds of billions in Medicare and Medicaid fraud that have been documented for years.

So, reducing fraud would be extremely helpful. Stop paying criminals!! It shouldn’t be that hard.

Then they can take a hatchet to the regulatory maze that strangles productivity; this would substantially reduce the deficit and boost real economic growth— putting America in striking distance of growing the economy faster than the debt.

To its credit, DOGE proved that the federal government could function with far fewer employees.

After the historic reduction in federal employees, services didn’t collapse.

The IRS still processed returns. Air traffic controllers still showed up. The essential machinery of government kept running with 9% fewer people.

That confirms what many have long suspected: a significant portion of federal workers exist to justify their own existence.

But DOGE also proved something far more uncomfortable. Whenever the executive branch tries to go beyond workforce cuts and tackle the spending itself— even fraudulent spending— someone files a lawsuit, and a judge issues an injunction.

Federal judges blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury payment systems. A coalition of 20 state attorneys general sued to halt layoffs at over a dozen agencies. Even relatively modest cuts were tied up in litigation for months.

The legal system functions as a ratchet: spending can go up easily, but it almost never comes down.

Ultimately, the spending trajectory won’t change until Congress decides to root out fraud, cut spending across the board, and stop obstructing economic growth.

But Congress won’t act until voters force them to do so— which, based on the current state of American politics, isn’t happening anytime soon.

The window to fix this relatively painlessly is still open. But it’s narrowing. Within seven years, Social Security’s trust funds will be exhausted, and the national debt will exceed $50 trillion. At that point, the math won’t just be uncomfortable. It will be unavoidable.

We can hope they figure it out. But hope isn’t a strategy. And that’s what a good Plan B is all about— ensuring your family’s financial future doesn’t depend on Congress suddenly discovering fiscal discipline after decades of proving they have none.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/16/2026 – 12:30

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