Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, barring racial gerrymandering, has many on the left feigning vapors, despite the predictions of many of us that this result was likely.

While figures such as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) declared that the court itself has been “gerrymandered” to rig the upcoming elections, this decision is actually the culmination of decades of jurisprudence by various justices — particularly Chief Justice John Roberts.

Indeed, the decision will cement the legacy of the Roberts Court in moving the country toward a colorblind system of laws.

Like most Americans, Roberts abhors racial discrimination in any form. He holds the quaint idea that when the drafters of the 14th Amendment barred discrimination on the basis of race, they meant it. This is why, in 2006, Roberts famously wrote, “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”

Roberts sees no difference between such discrimination when it disfavors one or another race. It is all a sordid business, and he has spent decades writing eloquent arguments for the court to abandon its conflicted and hypocritical approach to racial discrimination.

The court has struggled to rationalize using race to discriminate when it serves a higher purpose, such as greater equity or affirmative action. Some of those opinions were constitutionally incomprehensible.

For example, in 2003, in Grutter v. Bollinger, the court divided five to four on whether to uphold racial admissions criteria used to achieve “diversity” in a class at the University of Michigan Law School. However, in her opinion with the majority, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stated that she “expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.”

Few of us could understand how O’Connor found a type of expiration date on permissible racial criteria in the Constitution.

Throughout that period, however, certain justices held firm that there is a bright-line rule against such racial criteria. That includes the author of the court’s Callais decision, Justice Samuel Alito, but also Roberts, who in 2007, put it succinctly: “The way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

One can certainly disagree with this interpretation and the low tolerance for racial criteria. However, this had nothing to do with the midterm elections. It is the result of dozens of opinions building up to this point.

From college admissions to gerrymandering, the court has created the bright line that figures like Roberts have long sought. In doing so, they have moved this country closer to a colorblind jurisprudence than at any time in our history.

The Biden administration was found repeatedly to have violated the Constitution through racial discrimination in federal programs. Democratic leaders have fought this trend and have pledged to reverse these decisions. Some even demand that Democrats pack the Court with a liberal majority as soon as they retake power.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services that whites cannot be placed under additional burdens when bringing discrimination lawsuits.

Much of the coverage of the Callais decision is long on rhetoric and short on substance. The court did not “gut” the Voting Rights Act. It also did not strike down Section 2 of the act. Rather, the court held that neither the act nor the Constitution gives legislators authority to manipulate districts so as to effectively guarantee the race of the elected representatives — any race.

For decades, the courts have faced endless litigation over district configurations designed to elect minority representatives. It is a system that gave candidates an advantage based solely on their race. The court held that such racial gerrymandering is unlawful. The Voting Rights Act will now be read to prevent intentional racial discrimination. Courts will still bar any districts designed “to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race.”

That does not mean that racial discrimination has been eliminated in our nation, or that we do not need to commit ourselves wholly to its eradication. The stain of slavery and segregation remains with us, as does the lingering scourge of racial prejudice. African Americans and other minorities still face invidious discrimination that cannot be tolerated in our system. We still have much work to be done.

In the area of voting rights, the courts have and will continue to strike down any rules designed to suppress or block minority voters.

Despite this ongoing struggle with racism, there are reasons to be hopeful.

As the Rev. Martin Luther King put it, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Non-whites are now powerful players in American politics. White voters are expected to be a minority in this country within two decades.

We have now elected a black president and a black vice president. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (who declared the Court “illegitimate” after the Callais opinion) expects to be the next Speaker of the House of Representatives.

This progress was hard-fought, and both the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act played important roles in achieving greater racial diversity in our society.

And the Callais decision is also part of that progress. We are moving into a new era where racial criteria and discrimination are neither rationalized nor tolerated. There is now reason to hope that we will indeed end “this sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.“

Headline Factory Orders rose 1.5% MoM in March (dramatically better than the 0.6% MoM expected) – the best since November. February’s data was also revised higher. However, overall, orders were only up 2.1% YoY – the lowest since JUly 2025

Source: Bloomberg

Core Factory Orders surge 1.6% MoM (also better than the 1.3% MoM expected) and up for the 5th straight month. That dragged the YoY growth in core orders up 4.09% YoY – the best since Nov 2022…

Source: Bloomberg

Given the surge in ISM Manufacturing’s New Orders sub-component…

Source: Bloomberg

…there is a notable divergence between the ‘soft’ survey data and the ‘hard’ data.

Shares of transportation and logistics giants FedEx and UPS dropped in premarket trading after Amazon debuted Amazon Supply Chain Services, opening its freight network to sellers far beyond the Amazon marketplace.

Amazon said ASCS is a move to “open its freight, distribution, fulfillment, and parcel shipping capabilities to businesses of all types and sizes.” It gives companies outside the Amazon marketplace access to a global delivery network with two- to five-day delivery and 24/7 service.

“With this launch, Amazon is expanding its third-party logistics capacity to support businesses in industries such as healthcare, automotive, manufacturing, and retail,” Amazon noted.

Amazon said the move mirrors its AWS playbook: build infrastructure for its own operations, prove it internally, then sell it externally.

This story may sound familiar. Amazon built another major offering—cloud infrastructure—for the same reason: to run its own business better. And then Amazon started selling it. That’s how Amazon Web Services (AWS) was born, and it’s transformed how the world builds and runs software. Now, Amazon is ready to do that for the supply chain. -AMZN

Following the ASCS news, FedEx and UPS dropped in premarket trading, both down around 4%.

“Amazon is bringing the infrastructure, intelligence, and scale of its supply chain services—proven over decades—to businesses everywhere, much like Amazon Web Services did for cloud computing,” said Peter Larsen, vice president of ASCS. 

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

The S&P 500 hit a fresh record high last week. The median stock in the index is sitting 13% below its 52-week peak. That divergence is not a footnote or a curiosity. It’s the loudest warning the market has flashed since the dot-com era, and it’s arriving at the worst possible moment on the calendar. Market correction risk is climbing, and this summer it’s stacked on top of three other forces that almost never converge at the same time.

After three decades of watching market cycles play out, I’ve learned that the dangerous moments are those in which everything looks fine on the surface and rotten underneath. That’s exactly where we are right now. The market correction risk we’re staring at into the summer isn’t driven by a single bearish data point. It’s driven by four of them showing up together, and ignoring any of them would be a costly mistake.

The Breadth Divergence Is As Bad As It Gets

The narrowness of the current rally is not opinion. It is arithmetic.

The S&P 500 has rallied roughly 14% off its late-March washout to a new high near 7,125. Look under the hood, and you find a market hollowed out. The equal-weight S&P 500 has declined about 1% over the same period. The Magnificent Seven is up roughly 10%. The semiconductor index is up 30%. Everything else is sitting on the curb.

That kind of dispersion has only happened a handful of times since 1980. Goldman Sachs’ equity strategy team flagged it directly in a note this week, warning that this level of breadth has historically preceded larger-than-average drawdowns over the following six to twelve months. They’re not the only ones flagging it. Hedge fund net tilt to momentum is sitting near a multi-year high, and gross leverage remains at the upper end of the five-year range. When everyone is positioned the same way and the leadership is two names deep, the unwind is never gentle.

While breadth is the headline. The supporting cast of technical signals is just as ugly.

The 14-day relative strength index on the S&P 500 has spent most of the past three weeks above 70, the threshold that has historically marked overbought conditions. We’ve seen a textbook negative divergence: price made a new high last week while RSI made a lower high. That same pattern showed up at the January 2018 top, the February 2020 top, and the late 2021 peak. None of those were resolved kindly.

The advance-decline line for the broader NYSE has rolled over even as the index pushes higher. The percentage of S&P 500 stocks above their 200-day moving average has dropped to roughly 56%, while the index itself is printing new highs. We saw a similar decline in breadth as the market was advancing, just before the “Liberation Day” selloff in 2025.

The Volatility Index is sitting in the mid-teens, which sounds reassuring until you remember that the VIX was at 12 in January 2020 and 15 the week before the bottom dropped out. Low realized volatility breeds complacency, complacency breeds leverage, and leverage breeds unwinds. We have all three. None of these signals, individually, predicts market correction risk with precision. Together, they identify a market that has used up its margin of safety.

As we have noted before:

“Markets do not crash from euphoric tops. They crash from complacent ones, and right now we have a complacent market with collapsing breadth, deteriorating technicals, and the worst seasonal window of the year staring it in the face.“

Summer Seasonality Is Real, And This Year Is Worse

The “sell in May and go away” cliche gets dismissed every spring by someone who hasn’t bothered to look at the data. The data is unambiguous.

Going back to 1950, the May-through-October window has produced an average S&P 500 return of roughly 1.7%, while the November-through-April window has produced an average return of over 7%. The summer months, specifically June through September, account for the bulk of that weakness, and the historical pattern in years where the market entered May at or near all-time highs is materially worse than the long-run average.

Mathematical statistics support this: $10,000 invested in the market from November to April vastly outperformed the same amount invested from May through October. Interestingly, the max drawdowns are significantly larger during the “Sell In May” periods. Previous major market declines occurred in October 1929, 1987, and 2008.

However, not every summer works out poorly. Historically, there are many periods where “Sell In May” did not work and markets rose. 2020 and 2021 were examples of periods when massive Federal Reserve interventions pushed prices higher in April and the subsequent summer months. However, in April 2022, the decline in prices was sharp as the Fed began an aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes the previous month.

I want to be clear about something. Seasonality alone is not a reason to sell. It’s a backdrop, not a trigger. But when you stack a weak seasonal window on top of collapsing breadth and stretched positioning, you’ve removed the natural support that usually shows up to absorb selling. Buyers thin out in the summer. Volume dries up. Volatility spikes on increasingly small catalysts. That’s the setup we’re walking straight into.

Midterm Election Years Are The Most Volatile Of The Cycle

Here’s a fact that almost no one talks about until it’s too late. Midterm election years are, on average, the worst of the four-year presidential cycle for equity returns and the most volatile by a wide margin. From May through October, the S&P 500 historically delivers its weakest returns of the four-year cycle, with deeper average drawdowns and more frequent corrections than non-election years.

Going back to 1962, the average maximum intra-year drawdown in a midterm election year has been around 17%, materially worse than the roughly 13% average for non-midterm years. The summer and fall of midterm years are particularly rough. The S&P 500 has averaged a peak-to-trough decline of nearly 19% between April and October of midterm election years. Then, almost without exception, the market bottomed in late October and rallied hard into year-end and through the following twelve months.

The pattern is not a coincidence. Policy uncertainty rises into November. Corporate guidance turns conservative, and fiscal posturing in Washington dominates the headlines. Capital markets dislike uncertainty, and there’s no time on the four-year calendar with more of it than the summer leading into midterms. We are now six months from the November vote, and the polling, the policy backdrop, and the geopolitical overhang make this midterm cycle more contentious than most. The historical record is clear: market correction risk runs hottest during this specific window of the four-year cycle.

Iran, Oil, And The Inflation Pipeline

The market has been remarkably good at compartmentalizing the conflict in the Persian Gulf. That works until it doesn’t.

Brent crude is sitting above $109 a barrel, roughlyl 40% above its level on the eve of the conflict. WTI has tracked closely behind and currently sits at ~$102 a barrel. The Strait of Hormuz remains a chokepoint for roughly 20% of global oil flows. Any escalation that genuinely threatens that transit lane is a step-function risk for energy prices. As discussed in “Hormuz,“ so far the market has been able to stave off the impacts of higher oil prices. However, there is a clock on that capability. The longer oil prices remain elevated, the greater the risk becomes for the market.

“The duration of the conflict, specifically when the Strait of Hormuz returns to normal shipping traffic, is the single most important variable for every downstream economic and market forecast. Here is how we frame the three scenarios:” – Bull Bear Report

The reason the math gets worse with time is that energy is the cleanest pass-through to inflation. Every $10 sustained increase in oil adds roughly 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points to headline CPI within three months. A similar amount flows into core inflation a quarter later as transportation costs feed through to goods. The Fed has been holding the line on rate cuts for exactly this reason. If the Iran situation worsens, oil pushes through $130 or $140. At that point, the case for any easing this year evaporates entirely, and the case for an actual rate hike re-enters the conversation.

That is not a market that has been priced in. Equity multiples right now are sustained on the assumption that disinflation continues and the Fed eases later this year. Take both of those legs out from under valuations, and the math gets ugly fast.

Managing Market Correction Risk

The honest counterargument is straightforward. AI capital expenditure is the single largest spending cycle the corporate sector has seen in a generation. The latest GDP for Q1 2026 showed that 75% of the growth came from capital expenditures which offset weakness in Personal Consumption which comprises 70% of the calculation.

Furthermore, the hyperscaler earnings continue to come in ahead of expectations, and while the breadth problem is an issue, it can be resolved as easily through a “catch-up” of laggards as a “catch-down” of leaders. That’s a real argument, and we should consider it seriously.

However, there’s a problem with that last argument. A “catch-up” requires a catalyst, and the catalysts on the table right now are not friendly to the laggards. Consumer stocks are the largest weight outside of tech, and oil at these levels is a direct tax on consumer disposable income. Industrials and materials need an improving global growth picture, and the war is doing the opposite. Financials need a steepening yield curve and falling credit spreads, and we have neither. The path to a benign rotation runs through an improvement in the macro backdrop that I do not see arriving in the next sixty days.

The narrow leadership can extend. Goldman’s own work shows the median narrow-breadth episode lasts about three months, with the late-1990s outlier stretching to over two years.

Let me be clear that I am not calling for an imminent crash. I am saying that the conditions for a sharp, violent drawdown are as fully assembled as I have seen them in a long time, and the seasonal calendar is the worst possible place to find out. As

The actionable takeaways are not exotic. They are the basics, applied with discipline.

None of these moves requires timing the top, and none of them requires a bearish call. They require recognizing that the risk-reward at this level is asymmetric in the wrong direction, and behaving accordingly.

As noted above, it is crucial to remember that markets do not crash from euphoric tops, but rather from complacent ones. Currently, that complacency in the market is becoming more obvious, given collapsing breadth, deteriorating technicals, the worst seasonal and political cycles of the year, and an active geopolitical conflict driving energy prices to multi-year highs. Every one of those forces, taken alone, is something I’d flag for clients. Together, they make market correction risk between now and the November election the highest I have seen since early 2022.

I’m not telling you to get out of the market, but I am suggesting that you take some action today to mitigate the risk of tomorrow. Rebalance your portfolio, take profits, and raise cash levels while you can, on your terms.

Let me be clear about what I’m saying and what I’m not. The risks are elevated, but elevated risks are not certainty. Markets can, and often do, exactly the opposite of what every reasonable signal suggests they should, and nothing in this analysis guarantees a correction will arrive this summer. The narrow rally could extend. Iran could de-escalate overnight. The seasonal pattern could break. However, what is dangerous is doing nothing while the risk stack looks like this one.

If the market defies the odds and grinds higher into year-end, yes, you’ll underperform for a stretch. That is a recoverable outcome. Underperformance can be made up through disciplined participation over the next 12 to 24 months. Lost capital cannot. A 30% drawdown requires a 43% rally just to break even, and the math gets uglier the deeper the hole. That is the asymmetry that should drive every decision right now. The investors who survive long market cycles are not the ones who catch every uptick. They are the ones who refuse to be wiped out when the setup turns against them.

In 2024, voters handed the Republican Party a trifecta in Washington – the White House, the House, the Senate – and yet one of the most broadly popular pieces of election-integrity legislation in recent memory is collecting dust in the upper chamber.

The SAVE America Act would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and mandate photo identification to cast a ballot. It has already passed the House, and polls show that voters across party lines, and even racial lines, support it. It reportedly has the votes to pass in the Senate, but it can’t break the 60-vote threshold to end the filibuster. Republicans have called for nuking the filibuster to get it passed, but even that won’t happen because Senate Majority Leader John Thune won’t pick a fight.

Thune’s position on the issue is rather passive. “The votes aren’t there, one, to nuke the filibuster,” Thune said, presenting the math as immovable fact rather than a leadership challenge.  “I’m the person who has to deliver sometimes the not-so-good news that the math doesn’t add up, but those are the facts and there’s no getting around it.” Even if true, he hasn’t mounted any visible pressure campaign on fence-sitters. No arm-twisting. No caucus discipline. No public strategy to persuade reluctant senators. 

Democrats, by contrast, are marching in lockstep against the SAVE America Act. Even John Fetterman-who’s broken with his party on Israel, immigration, and the war in Iran-has fallen in line here. That kind of discipline doesn’t happen by accident. Democratic leadership knows how to hold its caucus together, and when it decides to oppose something, it makes sure everyone sticks to the script. 

Thune, by contrast, seems content to wave the flight of surrender on the SAVE America Act. For a majority leader with a mandate from both the White House and the voters, that posture is increasingly difficult to defend.

The frustration on the right is real and growing. Unified Republican control of Washington was supposed to break the logjam on issues exactly like this one – legislation that is popular, straightforward, and central to election integrity. Instead, grassroots conservatives are watching their agenda strangled by Democrat obstruction and Republican spinelessness. 

That raises a serious question: Should Thune be replaced with a more effective Republican as Majority Leader? Replacing leaders isn’t unheard of. In fact, former Rep. Matt Gaetz pulled off exactly this in the House in 2023 – filing a motion to vacate and forcing a floor vote that ended Kevin McCarthy’s speakership in a matter of days. 

One member, one motion, and the speaker was gone. 

But the Senate doesn’t work that way. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who has been among Thune’s more pointed critics, explained to a user on X that the Senate doesn’t have the same mechanism for removing leadership as the House does. “In the House of Representatives, a tiny number of lawmakers can oust the speaker – at any time. That feature is unique to the House. In the Senate GOP, we don’t even have a rule or procedure for replacing a leader in the middle of a two-year term.”

Lee acknowledged that any five senators can technically force a conference meeting, but quickly threw cold water on the idea that this amounts to any meaningful action. “It is true that under our rules, any five senators can call for a meeting of the entire conference at any time. But in practice, that kind of meeting tends not to materialize unless a solid majority of the conference wants it to happen,” he explained. And even if such a meeting were called and actually held, the obstacles would multiply from there. “To pursue the outcome you’re suggesting, one would have to use that meeting to propose a new procedure for a mid-term leadership swap, and that – at a minimum – would require a majority of the conference to support it. For a whole host of reasons – including the fact that Senator Thune is beloved by colleagues and very popular within the conference – the odds of that happening are literally 0 in 100,000,” Lee concluded.

Thune isn’t going anywhere, and the SAVE America Act remains stuck in limbo. All the while, the clock on the 119th Congress keeps ticking.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

The CIA’s MKUltra program, one of the most disturbing chapters in American intelligence history, refuses to fade into obscurity. 

A congressional hearing scheduled for May 13 is thrusting the agency’s decades-old experiments back into the spotlight, raising fresh questions about government secrecy, ethical boundaries, and the protection of individual liberties against unchecked power.

Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna announced that the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets will examine the Cold War-era program. The move comes amid recently surfaced documents and persistent claims surrounding the death of a key scientist involved in the work. 

Hearing on May 13. MK Ultra. House Oversight Taskforce. pic.twitter.com/0Sz4filfXi

— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) April 29, 2026

What began as a quest for mind-control tools during tense global rivalry has left a legacy of distrust that continues to challenge public faith in intelligence agencies.

Project MKUltra ran primarily from 1953 to 1964 under the CIA’s Office of Technical Services. It encompassed 144 subprojects exploring drugs, hypnosis, isolation, sensory deprivation, and psychological techniques designed to manipulate human behavior for interrogation and other purposes. 

The agency tested these methods on unwitting subjects—including criminals, mental patients, drug addicts, Army soldiers, and ordinary citizens—often without consent or knowledge.

A 1956 internal document even weighed testing substances on foreign nationals but ultimately determined that “unwitting testing on American citizens must be continued.” Most records were destroyed in 1973 on orders from senior CIA officials. 

The program’s existence only became public in 1975 through investigations by the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission, sparking widespread outrage and leading to new congressional oversight of intelligence activities.

The National Security Archive later summarized the scope of the abuses against “subjects, often US citizens, who frequently had no idea what was being done to them.”

One case that continues to fuel skepticism involves Dr. Frank Olson, a biological warfare scientist. On November 19, 1953, Olson was one of at least eight men covertly dosed with LSD during a CIA meeting. Nine days later, he fell from the 13th floor of a New York City hotel room. The death was officially ruled a suicide, but family members and others have long alleged foul play.

Olson reportedly became paranoid in the days after the dosing, stopped eating, and discarded personal items. His nephew, Paul Vidich, has been outspoken about the family’s suspicions. Vidich stated: “Getting thrown out the window was a very convenient way of disposing of a national security risk. To summarize my view, he was murdered.”

Olson had reportedly developed moral qualms about the nature of the work, raising concerns he may have been viewed as a liability.

Gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, who was subjected to MKUltra experiments while imprisoned in Atlanta in 1957, later described the harrowing effects in his own words: “Total loss of appetite. Hallucinating. The room would change shape. Hours of paranoia and feeling violent.”

Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett recently voiced broader doubts about official accounts of the program. He said: “I just go back to the whole concept of MKUltra. They kidnapped people and loaded them up with acid or other mind-altering drugs. They tried to erase their memories. They were sued in court. Then they claimed it didn’t exist. In 1975, they ordered records destroyed, and later admitted it had existed but no longer did. Which lies are we supposed to believe?”

A CIA spokesperson previously addressed the program’s history, stating: “The MKULTRA program ran from 1953 until the lack of productive results and ethical concerns about unwitting testing led to its cessation in 1963. CIA is committed to transparency regarding this chapter of its history, including by declassifying information on the programs and making it publicly available on CIA.gov.”

More than 1,200 pages of related documents were published by the National Security Archive in 2025, adding to the public record and prompting renewed congressional interest.

Do Echoes of MKUltra Persist Today?

Officially, the program ended over six decades ago. Yet the widespread destruction of records in 1973—before full public disclosure—has left gaps that continue to invite skepticism. 

Some researchers and observers argue that the pattern of initial denial followed by partial admissions raises legitimate questions about whether similar behavioral research or influence operations might have evolved under different names or classifications.

While no concrete evidence confirms ongoing programs identical to MKUltra, the historical precedent of secrecy, combined with rapid advances in surveillance technology, neuroscience, and data-driven behavioral manipulation, has led some to speculate that the underlying goals of understanding and influencing human minds have not been entirely abandoned. 

Full declassification, they contend, remains the only path to definitively closing the book—or exposing any unfinished chapters.

The upcoming hearing represents a rare moment of accountability. In an age when intelligence capabilities grow more sophisticated by the day, ensuring that past abuses are thoroughly examined serves as a vital safeguard. 

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Europe is in far greater economic trouble that most people realize.  In an April 2026 report by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), it was reveled that the UK’s GDP per capita is lower than all 50 U.S. states, including the poorest, Mississippi. While the majority of Britons mistakenly believe the UK is as wealthy or wealthier than the US, data shows the UK’s average income lags behind the lowest-performing US states, highlighting a significant economic gap.

The quiet decline of the once mighty British Empire right under the nose of the general populace is just one of many examples of Europe not understanding their own precarious economic circumstances. 

Far-left governments on the other side of the Atlantic have openly sought to sabotage conservative political movements, imposing authoritarian lawfare and mass censorship in order to prevent losing their grip on power.  The globalist leadership in these countries has designated the Trump Administration and US nationalist groups as a “bad influence” on their own citizens. 

The key conflict is about forced third world immigration and forced multiculturalism.  Leftist politicians desperately want this process to continue, but the US is enforcing a migrant reversal, which makes Europeans wonder why their governments are not doing the same?  The juxtaposition is embarrassing and makes the liberal agenda more difficult. 

Because of this snub against the multicultural project, the Trump Administration’s scrutiny of European censorship, tariff’s against nations that had their own tariffs on US goods and Trump’s demand that NATO countries pay their fair share in defense, the elitists across the pond have turned sour on their relationship with America.

They have been noticeably interested in undermining US operations in the Gulf against Iran, denying the US access to airspace and making things unnecessarily complicated.  One can theorize the deeper motives behind this decision (the presence of 50 million Muslims in Europe, many of them migrants, might explain the apprehension to do anything that might be seen as European hostility to Iran), but it’s clear that the behavior of some EU leaders has grown increasingly petty.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently sparked intense controversy by stating that the U.S. is being “humiliated” by Iran and lacks a clear strategy in the conflict, calling the situation “ill-considered”.  It’s difficult to understand this assertion without knowing Merz’s definition of “humiliation”. 

With the majority of Iran’s leadership dead or incapacitated, at least half of their missile stock destroyed and Trump’s reverse blockade crushing the Iranian economy within just a couple weeks ($1 US dollar is currently equal to around 1.8 million Rial), one has to wonder what success looks like to the Germans (perhaps an old-school blitzkrieg would impress them more). 

It doesn’t really matter, because Merz’s comments were met with a sharp response from the Trump Admin, and now it is likely that US bases in the country will soon be shut down.  Upon hearing this news, Merz suddenly changed his tune and praised the US partnership with Germany:

“The United States is and will remain Germany‘s most important partner in the North Atlantic Alliance. We share a common goal: Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons…”

The United States is and will remain Germany‘s most important partner in the North Atlantic Alliance. We share a common goal: Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.

— Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz (@bundeskanzler) May 3, 2026

That’s an incredible attitude adjustment in the span of only 24 hours.  At the same time, a NATO spokesperson scrambled to rekindle diplomatic relations, claiming that European leaders were trying to understand the US decision to pull troops, as if the reasons were not blatantly clear already. 

Why is Merz abruptly shifting his rhetoric?  Probably because he just realized the benefits Germany draws from the US military bases in the region; benefits which Germany has enjoyed for decades. 

Citizens in Italy, Spain and Germany are expressing concerns that the removal of US bases will cost local and national economies dearly.  With approximately 36,400 active-duty US personnel (as of late 2025) across major sites like Ramstein Air Base and facilities in Bavaria, the US military functions as a major economic engine, especially in rural and smaller urban areas. 

Germany rakes in around $4.1 billion annually through US spending around military bases.  US operations support more than 10,000 direct German jobs (civilian employees at bases) and an estimated 70,000 indirect jobs (in construction, services, and supply chains). The US also invests billions annually in base operations, expansion, and modernization.  The removal of troops would squeeze these already struggling rural communities.   

President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw at least 5,000 US troops from Germany has raised concerns among residents living near Ramstein Air Base. pic.twitter.com/hllQNYiuYg

— DW News (@dwnews) May 3, 2026

Italy collects around $312 million every year in base generated revenues in Naples alone, and at least 5000 direct jobs are created. 

In Spain, $713 million is pumped into local economies annually through US bases, plus around 8000 jobs for Spanish military staff and civilian workers.   

U.S. defense spending directly supporting European security is substantial, with the U.S. maintaining a nearly $1 trillion global defense budget. While direct on-ground operational costs were previously estimated around $30–$36 billion annually in 2025.  This might not sound like much, but the effects are substantial in poorer rural areas.  

The economic advantages of the US presence go far beyond direct spending.  US military security allows Europe to spend minimal on defense, which means they have far more cash to spend on social welfare programs like universal healthcare.  All of these programs go away with a US exit from NATO.  

Beyond the obvious loss of defense capability that comes with a US exit from NATO, the economic factor should not be overlooked.   

Via The Cradle

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei on Sunday strongly condemned the assassination of a Syrian Shia religious cleric, describing it as a terrorist attack and “heinous crime.”

On Friday, Sayyid Farhan al-Mansour, Imam of the Sayyeda Zainab Shrine in the southern suburbs of Damascus, was assassinated after a hand grenade was thrown at his vehicle. Mansour was targeted by unknown assailants shortly after he finished leading Friday prayers and was leaving the shrine.

Baghaei said that acts of terrorism targeting religious sites and scholars in Syria and across West Asia are part of a broader plot by Israel and the US to create sectarian division and chaos in the region.

Baghaei called on all parties to remain vigilant, confront terrorism and extremism, and stressed the need to hold those responsible for the attack accountable. He further emphasized that Syria’s transitional authorities are responsible for ensuring the safety of all citizens, including scholars and members of various ethnic and religious groups.

The Syrian Interior Ministry has said the assassination of a Shia cleric marks a “dangerous escalation,” adding it is following with “great concern” what it described as “systematic” attempts in recent days to create instability, spread chaos, and undermine civil peace.

A source told Asharq al-Awsat that the cleric killed on Friday was “considered a partner of the government in reshaping the landscape of stability within the Shia community” in Syria, going as far as to claim that this role made him a target for cells linked to the “Iran axis,” which, according to circles close to the Syrian government, are allegedly exploiting instability by recruiting local agents.

Since coming to power in December 2024, Syria’s new government has established a religious state based on the extremist teachings of the medieval Sunni religious scholar Ibn Taymiyya. Ibn Taymiyya preached that Shia and Alawite Muslims and Druze are apostates who deserve to be killed and their property stolen.

Syria’s new army, formed from the extremist Sunni armed factions supported by the foreign powers to topple Assad, has carried out multiple massacres against Syria’s minority communities.

In March 2025, Syrian forces massacred at least 1,500 Alawite civilians in the country’s coastal regions. In July 2025, Syrian and allied tribal forces massacred some 1,700 Druze in the Suwayda region of southern Syria.

🚨 Assassination of the Imam of Sayyida Zaynab Shrine in #Damascus

The cleric Sayyid Farhan al-Mansour, imam of the Sayyida Zaynab Shrine, has been assassinated after a hand grenade was thrown at his vehicle in the al-Fatimiyya area of Sayyida Zaynab city, south of Damascus,… pic.twitter.com/YYhpROeIjF

— Syria Justice Archive (@SyJusticeArc) May 1, 2026

During both massacres, Syrian fighters filmed many of their atrocities, including forcing Alawite men to crawl and bark like dogs before executing them en masse, and massacring entire families of Druze and Christians in their homes, and executing and beheading Druze men in the streets.

Syria’s army is led by the country’s new president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former ISIS commander who stated in an interview with Al-Jazeera in 2015 that Syria’s Alawites should be killed unless they convert to Sunni Islam.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse,

Americans were not even this stressed about their financial situations during the Great Recession. As you will see below, a brand new Gallup survey has discovered that 55 percent of Americans believe that their finances are getting worse. That is higher than any reading that Gallup recorded during the recession of 2008 and 2009, and it is higher than any reading that Gallup recorded during the pandemic. But of course this shouldn’t exactly be a surprise to any of us. We have been in a historic cost of living crisis since 2020, and our standard of living has been steadily deteriorating as the purchasing power of our money has gone down.

If you are making the same amount of money as you did at the beginning of this decade, you are in far worse shape financially today.

That is just the reality of the time that we are living in.

The cost of just about everything has been going up and up and up.

As a result, people are more concerned about the economy than anything else.

According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans that believe that their finances are getting worse has been rising for five years in a row and is now at the highest level ever recorded…

Americans’ financial outlook in 2026 is also historically poor, with a record 55% now saying their financial situation is getting worse. While similar to last year’s 53%, this is up from 47% in 2024 and marks the fifth consecutive year more Americans say their finances are worsening rather than improving.

The only similar multiyear period when the larger share felt their financial situation was worsening was during the Great Recession.

At this stage, there is no denying the trend that we are witnessing.

Gallup found that Americans are particularly concerned about monthly bills, healthcare and retirement…

Majorities worry about not having enough money for retirement (62%) and being unable to cover medical costs in the event of a serious accident or illness (60%). Slightly smaller majorities (54% each) worry about their investment returns and maintaining their standard of living.

Nearly half are concerned about routine healthcare costs (48%), while 41% worry about paying their normal monthly bills and 40% about affording college. Fewer worry about housing costs (35%) or making minimum credit card payments (28%).

Living paycheck to paycheck is not fun at all.

Many of you know exactly what I am talking about.

Today, much of the country is just one major setback away from financial ruin…

According to a recent national survey, a little over $6,000 in additional debt is all it takes to push a family over the edge. Six thousand dollars. The cost of a half-decent secondhand car. A modest kitchen renovation. In the country that put a man on the moon, mapped the human genome, won two world wars, and produces more billionaires per capita than anywhere on earth, that’s the cliff edge.

The old vocabulary no longer fits. The conservative catechism of thrift, discipline, and delayed gratification has aged poorly in light of the evidence. Tariffs, as the survey notes, rippled through supply chains and left a sizeable dent in consumers’ pockets. Health care waits in the background, capable of dismantling a decade of careful saving with a single bad diagnosis. American households have always lived under financial pressure. The difference now is the direction — or rather, the directions. It is coming from everywhere at once, which is what makes it almost impossible to outrun.

The middle class is being systematically eviscerated all around us.

It is a national crisis that just keeps intensifying year after year.

As finances have gotten tighter and tighter, millions upon millions of Americans have fundamentally changed their behavior…

The response has been behavioral rather than political, which is another way of saying people have given up waiting for someone to fix it. Nights out get canceled. Rent falls behind. Medical appointments get postponed and rarely rescheduled. None of this is irrational. When survival takes priority, everything else enters a waiting room with no clear appointment time. What makes it particularly disturbing is that financial distress doesn’t stay financial. It moves through relationships and communities, rearranging what people believe is possible for themselves.

Some will call it hyperbolic to suggest the American Dream is dead. Perhaps. But a dream balanced on a six-thousand-dollar ledge, in a stiff wind, is not exactly thriving. With energy prices soaring and the probability of a recession climbing with every new data release, the wind is picking up.

What about you?

Have you found yourself changing your spending behavior in recent years in an attempt to save money?

If so, there are countless others that are in the exact same shoes.

Unfortunately, the outlook for the months ahead is not promising at all.

On Tuesday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States rose to the highest level that we have seen since the war with Iran began…

Gas prices climbed Tuesday to their highest level since the Iran conflict began.

The national average for a gallon of regular hit $4.18, up 15 cents from a week earlier and about $1 higher than a year ago, according to AAA.

As energy prices rise, it is going to affect the cost of everything else too.

Meanwhile, the government just continues to tax us into oblivion.

As I have detailed in other articles, each year Americans are hit with literally dozens of different taxes and fees.

When you add all of them together, some Americans end up paying more than 50 percent of their incomes in taxes and fees.

In fact, Bill Maher is claiming that he pays about 60 percent of his income in taxes and fees…

Even for liberal HBO host Bill Maher, the math behind Tax Day no longer adds up.

Maher took to his platform on “Real Time” to sound the alarm on a staggering personal tax burden that he says claims the majority of his earnings, sparking a wider debate on whether the American government is simply “incompetent and corrupt” despite a $5 trillion revenue stream.

“Last week was Tax Day… I paid to the government, if you add in state tax, local, sales, property, fees, Obamacare, probably almost 60% of what I earn. That’s a lot,” Maher said on a recent episode.

If you have to hand over more than half of what you earn to the government, you are no longer living in a capitalist system.

Some people out there don’t seem to have figured that out yet.

In this environment, you should be thankful if you still have an income coming in, because we continue to see mass layoffs all over the nation.

For example, Nike just announced yet another round of layoffs…

Nike announced a new round of layoffs Thursday affecting approximately 1,400 employees across the organization, mostly concentrated in its technology department.

In a note from COO Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the company said the layoffs were part of Nike’s broader “Win Now” turnaround strategy aiming to reshape its technology team, modernize its Air manufacturing, move some of its Converse Footwear operations and integrate its materials supply chain work into its footwear and apparel supply chain teams.

Our economy is coming apart at the seams all around us.

And now the crisis in the Middle East threatens to plunge the entire global system into an extended downturn.

We really are facing a nightmare scenario, and it won’t be too long before that is completely and utterly obvious to everyone.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Authored by Felicity Bradstock via oilprice.com,

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, several major world powers introduced strict sanctions on trade with Moscow. Europe and the United States have been gradually decreasing their dependence on Russian gas and other energy products and putting pressure on other countries to do the same, to place a financial strain on Moscow, as the war with Ukraine continues. However, some countries, such as India and China, have used these sanctions as an excuse to buy discounted crude and gas from Russia, in a bid to reduce costs and boost energy security. 

Imports of Russian crude to China and India have increased significantly since 2022. In 2024, China bought a record of more than 100 million tonnes of Russian oil, which contributed nearly 20 percent of its energy imports. Meanwhile, India spent an estimated $140 billion on Russian energy imports. Over the last year, both Asian countries deepened their ties with Moscow following the imposition of high tariffs on imports by the United States. 

Although several countries have decreased their dependence on Russian energy since the invasion of Ukraine, shifting dependence to alternative energy sources, some have been forced to turn back to Russia in the wake of the “largest oil disruption in history”. Even the United States, the main advocate for the imposition of strict sanctions on Russian energy, appears to have changed its tune in recent weeks.

On 16th April, the U.S. Treasury Department extended a sanctions exemption on the sale of some Russian crude, which is expected to be in effect until May 16. This follows a previous sanctions waiver on Russia, which expired on April 11. The move by the Trump administration to ease sanctions is in response to the strain placed on the global energy market following the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran in February and subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz. 

The move is expected to decrease the cost of oil as countries are permitted to legally purchase hundreds of millions of barrels of crude from Russia. A spokeswoman from the U.S. Treasury said: “As negotiations accelerate, Treasury wants to ensure all oil is available to those who need it.”

In recent weeks, it has remained unclear if the Strait of Hormuz will be fully opened again or whether it will remain under threat of attack. On April 10th, Iran reopened the Strait to all commercial ships before closing it once again less than 24 hours later, citing the ongoing U.S. blockade on Iranian ports as the cause.

As the trade outlook in the Middle East remains uncertain, Russian sales of crude to India are expected to remain near record highs in April and May, largely owing to the latest U.S. sanctions waiver. The finances earned from the sale of Russian oil could help Moscow fund its military spending for the war in Ukraine.

India shipped around 2.25 million bpd of Russian crude in March, marking an increase of almost 100 percent compared to February volumes. Russian crude arrivals in Indian ports were expected to reach 2.1 million bpd for the week of April 20 to 27, an increase from 1.67 million bpd the previous week.

The ongoing disruption in the Strait of Hormuz has led India and China to compete for global oil supplies, mainly from Russia, as well as Saudi Arabia. “The competition for Russian crude between India and China has been intense and will continue to be so for June-loading cargoes,” a senior analyst at Kpler, Muyu Xu, told CNBC. “The de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz is prompting Asian countries to seek cheap crude that is readily available, and Russian crude falls into this category,” added Xu.

Before the War in Iran, China was importing vast quantities of Iranian crude. However, the conflict has caused major disruptions to energy trade as well as led to the destruction of energy infrastructure across the Middle East. This has led China to rely more heavily on Russia for its oil supplies.

It is not just China and India that are turning to Russian energy, as, in April, Indonesia announced plans to buy up to 150 million barrels of oil from Russia. Roughly 20 to 25 percent of Indonesia’s oil imports typically come from the Middle East and traverse the Strait of Hormuz. “Indonesia has now secured a commitment from the Russian government. We can store 150 million barrels in Indonesia to address economic volatility issues,” the Antara state news agency quoted President Prabowo Subianto’s brother Hashim as saying. 

The ongoing Middle East conflict continues to drive up energy prices due to the severe energy trade disruptions, caused largely by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This has led many governments to seek alternative energy sources to ensure their energy security for the coming months. The temporary waiver for sanctions on the import of Russian energy is expected to drive up oil and gas trade significantly in the coming months, which could result in more money being channelled into Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine – the exact thing that the United States and Europe were originally trying to avoid by introducing sanctions.