Authored by Thomas Savidge via The Daily Economy,

Over Labor Day weekend, amidst Americans’ attempts to enjoy the waning days of summer, The New York Times published an article titled “Trump Officials Draft Plan to Pay At-Home Parents, Using Funds for Working Ones.” Per the story, the administration’s proposal would use funds from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), which subsidizes daycare for working parents, to pay stay-at-home parents for their at-home childcare.

My family could potentially qualify for the payment, but my wife and I understand that this program could jeopardize our children’s future. While families may find these cash transfers helpful in the short-term, the cost of these transfers could exacerbate the US’s already fiscally unstable situation.

What This Proposal Could Look Like

According to the Times article, the Trump administration is drafting a rule that would let some married households use CCDF funds to support a parent caring for their child at home. The other spouse would have to work at least 35 hours per week, and benefits would still be income-limited. Eligibility and payment terms would depend on final policy.

The CCDF currently funds “center-based childcare providers” (daycares) as well as family childcare providers and in-home childcare, so long as these providers are licensed and meet state and local requirements applicable for professional caregivers. The proposed change would make a qualifying child’s own parent eligible to receive the same support.

Outside of these scant details, little is known about the proposal. A similar policy was, however, proposed in a Heritage Foundation report last January. Instead of using CCDF funds, the report proposes a separate Home Childcare Equalization credit. The hypothetical tax credit would add up to $2,000 per eligible child under five to Heritage’s proposed Family and Marriage credit. Marriage and earned income would be required, and benefits received through the CCDF (as well as the child and dependent care tax credit) would reduce the proposed credits dollar for dollar.

Heritage estimates that its two credits together would cost about $188.7 billion over ten years, and proposes other spending cuts to offset part of the cost. The new proposal will have its own budget consequences. Redirecting existing funds and creating additional benefits require different fiscal assessments.

Greater Parental Choice, But Minimal Impact On Fertility

Care provided by a parent has an economic cost even when no bill arrives. When one parent stays home, that parent likely gives up earnings as well as career advancement. For most, the trade-off is worthwhile. Interviews of highly educated mothers who choose to be stay-at-home parents to many children found these women “see maternity as a high-risk and high-reward endeavor, an ambitious-but-potentially-thrilling life project.” Furthermore, research on mothers’ wellbeing strengthens the case for parental choice. A study of more than 2,000 mothers linked better wellbeing to employment arrangements that matched mothers’ preferences. A separate longitudinal study found elevated depressive symptoms among unemployed mothers only when they wanted paid work. Offering greater choice for parents among existing funds may provide a silver lining: parents will be better able to pursue the career-family dynamic that best suits their needs and goals.

That silver lining, however, must be taken into context. While not stated explicitly, this CCDF proposal is part of the administration’s broader efforts to combat declining birthrates. In May, the White House grouped support for stay-at-home parents with fertility benefits, the Child Tax Credits, and Trump Accounts. An IVF announcement last February explicitly cited declining fertility and the goal of “more babies and expanding American families.” That broader demographic ambition makes the likely impact on fertility relevant, even if the forthcoming CCDF proposal does not mention it.

Claims that this change (or other fiscal stimulus programs) can usher in a baby boom deserve skepticism. An OECD review finds that cash benefits and tax incentives generally produce modest, sometimes temporary fertility increases. As my colleague Jeff Degner and I noted last January, the Heritage report rightfully admits: “While other nations have tried to reverse declining birthrates through financially generous family policies, none has succeeded in restoring fertility to replacement levels. This demonstrates that government spending alone does not ensure demographic success.”

The evidence does not establish whether this proposal would increase fertility. Even if it did produce a temporary increase in births, that could partly reflect families having children sooner without increasing their eventual family size.

Greater choice can be assessed on its own merits; lawmakers should not count on a large fertility response to justify the expense.

The Best Inheritance? Fiscal Discipline And Prosperity

Broader eligibility does not automatically require more federal spending, but, with a fixed budget, more applicants could mean greater competition for smaller benefits. Families excluded from parental care payments could press for inclusion, while existing recipients seek protection from funding reductions. Lawmakers often find it easier to increase spending than to choose among competing claims.

Funding decisions about this proposal take place against a federal debt burden that has already passed $40 trillion. In its February outlook, the Congressional Budget Office projected that debt held by the public would rise from 101 percent of gross domestic product in 2026 to 120 percent by 2036. Existing commitments already put borrowing costs on an unsustainable path.

Persistent borrowing can absorb savings that would otherwise finance private investment, weakening the growth that supports future wages. CBO’s analysis of delayed debt stabilization finds that waiting to adjust increases the eventual shock and imposes greater burdens on younger generations. Those consequences belong in any discussion of helping children.

What really matters for family stability is sustained spending restraint that reduces deficits and makes room for lasting tax relief. Parents, my wife and I included, could keep more of what we earn and decide how to use it. Fiscal discipline must accompany the promises of lower taxes. Additionally, tackling inflation, the most corrosive anti-family force of all, can help make life more affordable.

Any CCDF reform should explain its funding limit and provide a workable transition for current recipients. Those standards should apply to the benefits my household may receive as firmly as to programs serving other Americans.

My wife and I would rather Washington make difficult spending choices while we can help bear the adjustment. Our children will live with the consequences of our choices now long after any parental care payments end. Lasting prosperity is the inheritance most worthy of preserving.

By 2030, the PJM Interconnection, the largest US electrical grid in the US serving 67 million people in 13 northeast states, is likely to face a “loss of load expectation,” or LOLE –  a key reliability metric used by power system planners to measure the expected number of hours or days per year that a power grid’s electricity generation will fail to meet customer demand – between six and 100 times worse than the grid operator’s planning criterion, mainly due to the addition of large-load data centers, according to a study commissioned by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.

The PUC and the firms that produced the report – Synapse Energy Economics, Mondre Energy and Aspen Technologies – characterized it as an independent analysis aimed at developing load projections and evaluating resource adequacy under a set of likely possible futures, according to UtillityDive.

In models covering 2027 through 2030, both a reference scenario and a high-load, low-supply scenario show PJM’s planning criteria for resource adequacy not being met. Only under a scenario with no new data centers is the region able to meet PJM’s target LOLE of 0.1, the report said.

PJM’s standard is designed to limit potential electricity shortages “to approximately one event every 10 years,” said a PUC release about the report. 

In the study’s reference scenario, which relies on PJM’s 2026 load forecast, the modeled 2030 LOLE is 0.59, “or nearly six times worse than the PJM planning criterion,” it said.

In a “worst-case future” of higher-than-expected load additions and constrained resource deployment, the modeled LOLE is 13.20 — “over 100 times worse than PJM’s planning criterion,” indicating an expectation of “more than 13 days with loss of load events per year.”

“As in the Reference scenario, these reliability issues are largely due to surging data center additions,” the study said.

“This analysis sends a clear warning: electricity demand and supply are moving out of balance, and the status quo is not sustainable,” PUC Chairman Steve DeFrank said in a statement. “We need urgent action at PJM and a broader Pennsylvania energy strategy that makes sure our supply of electricity keeps pace with demand.”

PJM, in a statement to CBS affiliate WJAC, acknowledged that new data center loads are growing faster than supply.

“PJM has taken a number of actions to both increase electricity supply and manage new demand in line with the Ratepayer Protection Pledge taken by data center developers to shield residential customers and other ratepayers from bearing reliability risks or cost increases associated with data center development,” said Jeff Shields, PJM’s senior manager of external communications.

The reference scenario anticipates Pennsylvania remaining a net energy exporter, but sees its exports “decrease from about 91 TWh in 2025 to about 69 TWh by 2035 and 38 TWh by 2040,” the report said.

In the high-load, low-supply scenario, Pennsylvania becomes a net importer of 5 TWh by 2040. 

“Because this scenario has a large amount of unmet load in 2031 and later years, it is likely that some amount of this 2035 and 2040 load will be unmet, as there will not be enough regional generation to meet PJM-wide load requirements,” the report says.

Last month, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, D, issued an executive order that the state will offer preferential permitting to data center projects with peak demand of more than 25 MW if they commit to certain requirements, including sourcing their electricity from new power supplies.

The PUC also voted unanimously Thursday to approve two motions concerning data center development and ratemaking. One of the motions directs PUC staff to propose updates to the state’s rules for emergency curtailment, and to organize a technical conference on cost allocation for data centers.

The report notes that PJM and the U.S. Department of Energy “have implemented several initiatives, policies, and programs to address growing concerns about PJM’s resource adequacy,” including interconnection queue reform and reliability backstop procurement. 

“PJM and its stakeholders are also currently discussing additional initiatives such as load forecasting improvements,” the report said. “DOE has also committed to keeping some coal-fired power plants online beyond their retirement date, in an effort to maintain resource supply in the region.”

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

One of the cases that I have been following as we approach the October term of the Supreme Court is Calce v. New York, a case challenging New York’s ban on stun guns. While it is important not to overplay the significance of the order, some justices clearly want to hear more on the case before deciding whether to grant a writ of certiorari for review. New York City was just ordered to file a response to the petition. With the two other major Second Amendment cases on the docket, a review in Calce could be one of the most impactful Second Amendment terms in decades.

Calce is a challenge brought by the Firearms Policy Coalition, Second Amendment Foundation, and individual plaintiffs against New York City’s ban on stun guns. They argue that “electronic arms” like stun guns and lasers are protected under the Second Amendment. The only difference is that, rather than a projectile, such weapons “work by producing electrical pulses that make the target’s muscles spasm, and thus quickly but temporarily disable him.”

Notably, nine years ago, the Court issued a per curiam opinion in Caetano v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts that sent back a case to the First Circuit that challenged a similar ban. The Court rejected the logic of the First Circuit, which held that they were not in common use at the time of the Second Amendment’s enactment. The Court pointed out that in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 582 (2008), it expressly rejected that argument and held that the Second Amendment “extends… to… arms… that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” It also rejected two other rationales.

Massachusetts responded to the loss by changing its law. In so doing, Massachusetts shows a modicum of strategic sense to avoid another likely loss. However, New York City (as usual) was undeterred.

Notably, the district court judge and the Second Circuit upheld the ban on the ground that the challengers failed to “provide any evidence that stun guns and tasers are in common use.” That seems strikingly close to Caetano.

Calce could clarify not only the “common use” element but also the burden on challengers in such cases. The Second Circuit seems to have departed from the guidance of last year’s decision in Wolford v. Lopez, rejecting Hawaii’s “Vampire law” limiting areas where lawful weapons could be carried in the state without prior approval.

New York City must now respond by October 8, and the Court could decide on review at the October 15 conference.

If granted, the case would join an already weighty Second Amendment docket. The Court will be hearing arguments in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins. Both cases will address the move in various blue states to ban AR-15 and other semi-automatic weapons, including the popular Glock 9mm. The addition of Calce would make this a formidable Second Amendment term.

These cases also show how the same blue jurisdictions continue to feed the Court with Second Amendment cases that will likely only reinforce the rights that they are seeking to limit. I have previously written how New York, D.C., and Chicago are examples of Democratic cities that routinely commit lasting self-inflicted wounds to gun control efforts with poorly conceived and poorly drafted measures.

Calce has the makings of a truly stunning Second Amendment case in extending protections to electronic arms.

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

Artificial intelligence is about to become one of the most consequential issues in the 2026 midterm elections.

Maybe not immigration-level consequential or inflation-level consequential. But over the next two months, I think Americans are going to hear a lot more about a question that, until very recently, mostly belonged to Silicon Valley and a relatively small group of researchers: should the United States government force the development of frontier AI to slow down?

That question exploded into the political mainstream today. My take is that we may only get one chance to stop AI before it gets out of control, so let’s make sure we do it. President Trump spent Monday rejecting these types of growing warnings, calling the idea that AI could eventually escape human control a “HOAX” and comparing those concerns to what he regards as previous political hoaxes.

“I am the Hoax Buster, and I’m right now breaking another Hoax — That AI is going to take over, consume, and destroy the World,” Trump wrote.

His position is that America needs to develop AI as quickly as possible, excessive regulation risks handing the technological advantage to China, and Washington shouldn’t stand in the industry’s way. Trump went so far as to call AI and data centers potentially “the Greatest Economic Development Engine in History,” bigger than oil, gold, diamonds or even the internet. His administration has also favored voluntary government evaluation procedures for certain frontier models rather than mandatory licensing or preclearance.

Later in the day on Monday, Trump’s comic book nemesis Kamala Harris took almost precisely the opposite position. “The frontier of artificial intelligence is advancing at an alarming speed,” Harris said, calling for Congress to urgently pass legislation creating a new federal entity responsible for oversight and independent testing of advanced AI. She also called for the United States to pursue an international agreement, including with China, designed to establish safety standards and limit the speed of AI development.

And there, in a single day, is the outline of what could become a major midterm debate: accelerate versus slow down, beat China at virtually any cost versus coordinate internationally to establish limits, and keep Washington largely out of the way versus create a new federal regulator overseeing frontier AI.

And the issue is unusually consequential because the stakes aren’t confined to politics. They extend directly into the stock market, as I wrote about days ago in my piece Congress Could Kill AI Stocks Before AI Kills Us.

My argument was simple: virtually the entire AI investment boom rests on an assumption of continued rapid development. Hundreds of billions of dollars in expected spending on chips, data centers, electricity, networking equipment and infrastructure are ultimately downstream from that assumption. Slow the technology down and Wall Street eventually has to slow some of those assumptions down with it.

Monday offered a glimpse of that possibility. AI-linked stocks fell after some of the industry’s most important executives began publicly supporting a slower pace of frontier development. Nvidia fell about 3%, AMD roughly 4%, and several other AI-related names suffered considerably larger declines. Investors suddenly had to contemplate something that has barely been incorporated into the AI bull case: what happens if the constraint on AI isn’t chips, electricity or capital, but the federal government?

Which brings me to Trump. My suspicion is that Trump would say almost anything necessary to keep the stock market and the AI investment boom moving higher. That’s my interpretation, not something I can prove, but it isn’t difficult to understand why a president would be reluctant to embrace a policy that could potentially kneecap one of the largest capital-investment booms in the country…and his favorite political scorecard.

What is harder for me to accept is the idea that Trump somehow understands the technological risks better than the people actually building these systems. Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Dario Amodei have now all publicly supported slowing or “pacing” frontier AI development.

Whether it was a PR stunt this weekend or not is moot at this point. These are people running organizations developing some of the most advanced AI systems on Earth, with access to information about their capabilities that almost nobody outside those laboratories possesses.

Brazil’s October 4 general election is around the corner and is already sparking a rally in local markets, with a presidential runoff expected on October 25.

Right-wing challenger Flávio Bolsonaro is statistically tied with socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in potential runoff scenarios.

“Brazilian elections could not be more uncertain and competitive, as recent polls demonstrate. Voting intentions now show right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro technically tied with current President Lula in a potential second-round runoff. This political shift comes as the country witnesses some of its most intense institutional noise, centered on the Supreme Court (STF) and the Banco Master case. The next important event around these developments will be the extraordinary Supreme Court session,” Goldman analysts wrote in a note on Monday. 

The latest Quaest survey released on Monday showed Bolsonaro at 42% and Lula at 40%, within the poll’s two-percentage-point margin of error. A separate BTG/Nexus survey put Lula at 47% against Bolsonaro’s 46%, highlighting how tight the race remains.

Last Thursday, Polymarket showed Bolsonaro overtaking Lula, with that lead maintained as of Tuesday morning. Bolsonaro’s odds of winning currently stand at 52%, while Lula’s are around 45%.

Brazilian stocks have rebounded alongside rising Polymarket bets on a Bolsonaro victory. 

The tight presidential election race comes amid a deepening Supreme Court crisis over Banco Master that has impacted Lula. Later today an extraordinary session will be held to consider whether to authorize an investigation into Justice Alexandre de Moraes over alleged ties to banker Daniel Vorcaro. Moraes denies wrongdoing and has described the allegations as politically motivated.

For markets, the one development is the resilience of Brazilian assets against a difficult macro environment. The rally is consistent with traders pricing in that a new government could produce a different fiscal and economic-policy direction. 

Goldman analysts outlined the Brazil rally in charts:

However, Deutsche Bank analysts believe that the next administration, whoever leads it, will be forced to address the fiscal challenge via spending cuts.

Authored by Tim Donner via Liberty Nation,

No one who lived through it will ever forget Nov. 22, 1963, that day of infamy when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. It was the story of the century. Few will remember that, on that same day, legendary author and theologian C.S. Lewis also died; a story that would have ordinarily attracted front-page attention was relegated to a footnote on the back pages. The point is that timing is everything, and so it was with a speech for the ages delivered by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Republican Midterm Convention on Sept. 10.

As he delivered the address, the nation was preparing for the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and conservatives were mourning the assassination of Charlie Kirk one year earlier. There was little room for other news to rise to the top. But now that the dust has cleared from a highly emotional weekend, it is time to give this speech the attention it deserves.

Any Republican can blister the Democratic Party with criticism from dawn to dusk. After all, that’s part of the job. But when such a beatdown, such a thorough condemnation, is delivered by someone so intimately associated with that party for six decades, whose father and uncle were both assassinated, and who ultimately turned away from the party long defined by his family at great personal cost, it is worth a close listen. It will rank as one of the most power-packed speeches chronicling the decline of the Democratic Party ever delivered.

Let’s set the scene and then let Kennedy’s words speak for themselves. The drama was already thick because Bobby’s speech was in Dallas, where his uncle was murdered in broad daylight 63 years earlier, setting the nation on a path of self-destruction from which it is still trying to recover. He spoke as if he were channeling Ted Sorensen, the legendary speechwriter who penned JFK’s unforgettable expression in his inaugural address, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

This was like a great sermon where, if you stepped back and considered the content, you knew most of the facts, but they had never been organized quite that way and by a person so ideally positioned to deliver the message. So, before it vanishes into the mists of history, let’s take you through this tour de force, lightly edited for space. You can watch the full address here.

Kennedy on Fire

Kennedy softened up the crowd and drew laughs by starting off, “I’m 72 years old. And for 70 years of my life, I would have bet any amount of money that I would not be addressing a Republican convention …

“I grew up in a Democratic Party of Franklin Roosevelt, of my uncle John Kennedy, of my father Robert Kennedy. Ours was a party of strong principles, of clear policies, and an inspiring idealistic vision for America. My uncle ran on a platform of tax cuts, strong defense, and fighting communism. Does that sound familiar?

“The Democrats of that era stood with labor and working people and the American middle class. Nearly every cop and firefighter was a Democrat. Our party was a champion of the Bill of Rights and particularly for unbridled free speech. It was wary of centralized government power and corporate privilege and secret intelligence agencies. My uncle and father understood the connection between free markets and functional democracy. They stood firmly against crony capitalism on the right and socialism on the left. They were all for competition, for meritocracy, and for excellence, which they thought should be a universal aspiration for Americans …

“My family played critical roles in building NIH and CDC into centers of gold standard science that transformed America into this relentless dynamo of international research. They promoted physical fitness, and they protected women’s sports … They stood with Israel as the bulwark of democracy … They saw Israel as America’s most critical frontline ally in fighting the toxic ideology of Islamism …

“[Islamism] by its own accounts is waging an existential war against our country and against Western liberal democracies. It’s an ideology that has subjugated and impoverished and tyrannized and tortured the people of Palestine and the people of Iran, and they openly promise to do the same to us. Democrats opposed government coercion, defended individual rights, believed that government should give Americans information, good information, and then trust them to make up their own minds. Democrats and labor leaders fought fiercely in my generation to stop illegal immigration at the border.

When It All Came Crashing Down

“During COVID I watched the Democratic Party turn against every one of its essential values, its principles, and all of the policies that define my party. Democrats turned away from gold standard research and blindly defended industry-sponsored, agenda-driven science written by corrupt and captive regulatory agencies.

“And the Democrats, which were once the champions of the American Constitution, systematically obliterated the Bill of Rights. And particularly beginning with the First Amendment, under the guise of combating misinformation, Democrats censored hundreds of scientists and physicians who questioned the government’s dubious COVID pronouncements and orthodoxies [Thirty-seven] hours after President Biden took the oath of office, he ordered Facebook and Instagram to remove my accounts …

“Democrats obliterated the second leg of the First Amendment, the guaranteed right of assembly, by social distancing regulations that were completely un-science-based. Democrats violated the third leg of the First Amendment, the freedom to worship. They closed every church in our country for a year … Democrats torpedoed the 7th Amendment right to jury trial by giving liability shields to the giant pharmaceutical companies. No matter how negligent they were, no matter how reckless, no matter how toxic the ingredients, no matter how grievous your injury, you could not sue them. Democrats violated the 5th Amendment by shutting down 3 million businesses with no due process and no just compensation. Democrats shut down the 4th Amendment, protection from unlawful searches and seizures, by forcing Americans to disclose their medical information before they could exercise their constitutional rights. In a single year, my party obliterated 250 years of constitutional guarantees. The only Bill of Rights that they left unscathed was the Second Amendment, and probably only because there is a Second Amendment.”

“And then the party of my body, my choice forced citizens to wear masks and to submit to invasive and intrusive medical interventions against their own wills. The party of MeToo – remember that we were all supposed to listen to women and to believe women – they cruelly silenced the voices of tens of thousands of mothers who believed that their children had suffered vaccine injuries. The Democrats declared war on women’s sports, effectively destroying Title IX.

“Democrats condemned meritocracy openly and celebrated mediocrity. The Democratic Party became the party of elites, labeling working Americans as deplorables. Democrats cultivated deep ties with Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Ag, Big Food, Big Insurance, and the mainstream media. They embraced policies that divided Americans along racial lines. They abolished my uncle’s physical fitness test because they said that competition was bad for children.

Trump Derangement Syndrome Blinds the Democrats

“The Democrats abandoned all of these values and all of their traditional values, offering Americans only one policy, the one policy that they stood for, the unbridled, sociopathic, and blind hatred of a single man, Donald J. Trump. And they were so confident that Trump hatred alone was sufficient to win elections that they abandoned accountability and made our government a predatory organism of monumental incompetence and corruption.

“The Democrats dismantled the public integrity safeguards and opened the floodgates to thieves and fraudsters who fleeced the American medical regulatory agencies for $100 billion annually during every year of the Biden administration. They somehow lost 360,000 children, and they turned our federal government into the biggest child trafficking operation in world history.

“The Democratic Party, in short, lost its way. I mourn the fact that neither my father nor my uncle would recognize the Democratic Party of today. It struck me this was no longer about left and right. It was about sane and insane. It was about common sense and communism. In April 2023, I ran for president hoping to summon my party back to its bedrock values. But the Democratic Party had lost faith in American voters and, utterly ironically, lost faith in American democracy. They were convinced that they would lose the ballot box. They couldn’t win. And so they unveiled a lawfare strategy to prevent an election from occurring. They sued every candidate who dared to run against Joe Biden, and then attempted to remove us all from the ballot. A lot of you think that the lawfare was just against Donald Trump. It was mainly against him, but they sued Dean Phillips. They sued Marianne Williamson. They sued Cornel West. They sued Donald Trump 50 times in 38 states to remove him from the ballot …

“Here was the Democratic Party that in my youth, the biggest issue that we had that my father and my uncle fought for was voting rights, and particularly in the southern states, to guarantee that every American had a right to cast a ballot. And here’s that same party 60 years later using all of its ingenuity and all of its power to make sure that Americans could not vote for the candidates that they wanted to vote for. They excluded me from the debates. They canceled the primaries. The Democratic Party changed the rules to make sure I could not win, and neither could the other people who were running as Democrats, no matter how many votes we got. And for the first time in history, they canceled their own convention. No voter ever cast a primary ballot for Kamala Harris. No elected delegate was ever consulted.

“A party of no kings simply anointed a queen.”

So, there you go, a speech so well received that some have spoken of Bobby as a potential vice presidential or even presidential candidate in 2028. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has become a historic figure not just by switching parties and doing the unthinkable by aligning with Donald Trump, but by challenging elite power structures that had all but ignored the nation’s outbreak of chronic disease and tyrannized the nation during the pandemic. He has established that he is a warrior with a lasting legacy, and if his speech to his newfound Republican colleagues is any indication, he would appear to have many arrows remaining in his quiver.

The circumstances of US/Canadian trade should be common knowledge by now, but the details often get mired in the swamp of political rhetoric.  When Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney describes the tariff issue as the US “waging war” on Canada, he knows exactly what he’s doing.  Carney has turned a simple trade issue over reasonable 10% tariffs into an existential crisis, an invasion, an ethnic cleansing, a last stand against “evil” imperialists.  

But getting the Canadian public riled up with delusions that they are underdog insurgents will not help them keep manufacturing companies or domestic jobs.  There is no reason to “endure” a trade war involving 50% tariffs that can be easily solved by simply taking the sweetheart deal that was offered to them.  Carney could easily wait Trump out and try to renegotiate once a new president is elected.  Unless, there’s an alternative agenda at play for Carney.

Estimates in July on manufacturing losses indicated that 42% of Canadian companies (and some US companies) would be moving at least a portion of their operations to the US to avoid the debilitating tariffs.  Some will be shutting down entirely.  With Carney asserting that negotiations are off the table, this leaves no room for speculation.  Businesses are adjusting operations for the long haul which means skyrocketing job losses for Canada.

The latest manufacturers to make announcements are:

Aeris Protective Packaging in Montreal: The company says it is opening a U.S. plant after 50% U.S. tariffs on paper and packing containers. About 70% of its customers are in the U.S. It plans to keep some manufacturing in Quebec and Ontario for Canadian, European, and Mexican customers.

Sapporo/Sleeman Breweries:  Sapporo says it will move production of beer made in Canada for the U.S. market to the United States by the first half of 2027, citing 50% tariffs on Canadian beer. Sleeman later said the move is “not finalized”. Most beer sold in Canada would still be brewed in Canada.   

RYAM (Rayonier Advanced Materials) in Témiscaming, Quebec:  The US-owned paperboard mill announced an indefinite temporary shutdown, blaming 50% U.S. tariffs. About 400–425 workers were affected. The stop was first set for mid-September, then postponed to October 3rd after new Canadian orders. The company has not given a restart date. 

Stellantis – Brampton Assembly (Ontario):   In mid-August 2026 the company told Unifor it was opening talks on a possible sale of the idle Brampton plant (idled since late 2023 after Jeep Compass production was moved to the U.S.). Stellantis had plans to reopen the mothballed site, but they backed out after the trade war with the US went parabolic.  

Northern Cable (Brockville, Ontario):  An August 2026 report says the firm is considering a U.S. factory if 50% tariffs on electric cable take effect, because half of the company’s business is in the United States.  

Some companies have already move production to the US, including Crown Royale which moved its bottling plant to Alabama in April.

A Reuters/LSEG poll of economists originally predicted Canada would add 15,000 jobs in August 2026.  Instead, the country lost 42,000 jobs; that’s a 57,000 job disparity.  Canadian economists are treating the forecast miss as an anomaly, however, it is likely that the decline in jobs will escalate through the end of the year unless a deal between the US and Canada is struck.  

If Carney’s intention is to use economic hysteria as a tool to help Democrats win during the US midterm elections, then there’s no chance of a deal before the end of the year.  Canadians will continue into winter with the threat of rising unemployment and much higher prices. 

Canada relies on the US for 78% of all export sales and there are no practical trade alternatives.  A similar but smarter base case is Mexico, which sells around 84% of all their exports to American markets.  The difference?  The Mexican government has avoided arrogant jousting with the US and is engaging in fair negotiations (so far).  They are also showing more cooperation to meet the Trump Administration’s demands on securing the southern border. 

In other words, they didn’t abandon negotiations at the last minute like Carney, and this has helped Mexico to avoid punishing tariffs and job losses.  Whatever Carney’s intentions, it’s clear that average Canadians will be paying the price for the Prime Minister’s lack of diplomacy.  

The Senate on Tuesday failed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, falling short of the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633. The vote, held at about 2:15 p.m. ET, was the first floor test of comprehensive crypto market-structure legislation in the chamber. It was not a vote on final passage. It was a vote on whether debate could even begin. The answer was no, with 50 no votes and 49 yes votes. 

Every Democrat voted against the measure. Three Republicans – Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Jerry Moran of Kansas – also voted against the measure

The Clarity Act is the market-structure half of the crypto legal framework Congress began building last year, the companion to the GENIUS Act’s stablecoin rules. It draws the line between digital assets regulated as commodities under the CFTC and those regulated as securities under the SEC, puts spot trading platforms under a federal registration regime for the first time, and sets statutory terms for self-custody, noncustodial software and rewards on stablecoin balances. It cleared the House last July with 78 Democrats and then spent a year in Senate rewrites.

That result effectively freezes the bill in place with almost no calendar left before the midterms. Republicans control 53 seats. They needed at least seven Democrats, and more if GOP holdouts peeled off over bank or law-enforcement concerns. They did not get them.

The House passed its version 294-134 in July 2025. The Senate Banking Committee reported a version 15-9 in May 2026, with Democrats Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland joining Republicans. Tuesday was supposed to be the moment those committee crossovers turned into a floor coalition. Both Gallego and Alsobrooks voted no on cloture. Instead, the first hurdle became the last one of 2026.

BREAKING: 🇺🇸 The Crypto CLARITY Act has failed to pass the Senate cloture vote. pic.twitter.com/0VAw1H9Eyl

— Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio) September 15, 2026

Aaaaand, Bitcoin isn’t happy.

How the deal collapsed in 48 hours

Senate Republicans released what they called their “last, best and final” text Sunday night. Sens. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Banking Chair Tim Scott of South Carolina, and Agriculture Chair John Boozman of Arkansas said the draft folded in 126 substantive changes requested by Democrats. The package included new ethics language modeled on a Tillis-Gallego proposal, edits to the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act for noncustodial developers, Agriculture Committee guardrails on affiliate trading and tribal gaming, and a Treasury “circuit breaker” meant to address bank fears that stablecoin yield would drain community-bank deposits.

Lummis’s line was blunt: Democrats got what they wanted; now take yes for an answer.

Democrats did not. Late Monday they sent a counteroffer. According to people familiar with it, they did not reopen the stablecoin-yield fight – sources had described that as a “Republican-only” problem – but they did demand more on ethics (large holdings, dependent children, paid crypto promotions), a narrower BRCA that expressly does not modify criminal law, and tighter Ag-title rules on exchanges and conflicts. Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia, Ruben Gallego of Arizona, and Raphael Warnock of Georgia said the White House-approved ethics language still needed work. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts went further, arguing the enforcement design left the Trump administration too much control and left loopholes around existing presidential crypto interests.

Republicans rejected the counteroffer Tuesday morning. “In response to a significant step in their direction, Democrats have chosen to move the goalposts again,” Senate Banking Committee spokesman Jeff Naft said. “Yet we are hearing the same unreasonable asks and the same refusal to take yes for an answer. The final text is public.” Lummis’s office said the Democratic paper “looks identical to their opening position at the start of recess.”

White House Crypto Council Executive Director Patrick Witt had already signaled there was little room left. “If there are any changes, we’re talking about punctuation at this point or technical changes,” he told Crypto In America on Monday. “I view that as definitely a best and final offer.”

Three fights that never closed

Ethics. This was the political core. Democrats wanted restrictions on large crypto holdings by the president, vice president, members of Congress, judges, and family, plus limits on paid promotions. Republicans added language they said tracked the Tillis-Gallego framework and gave state attorneys general a role in enforcement. Critics said it still left gaps around existing ventures tied to the Trump family and put too much enforcement discretion in the Justice Department. Warren and others treated that as disqualifying. The Democrats who had spent months negotiating the bill, Kirsten Gillibrand, Mark Warner, Cory Booker, Raphael Warnock, Ruben Gallego, Angela Alsobrooks and Catherine Cortez Masto, all voted no, according to Crypto In America’s Eleanor Terrett.

Developer protections and DeFi. The BRCA language was meant to shield noncustodial software developers from money-transmitter registration. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada has been the Democratic face of that fight. Republicans already stripped explicit criminal safe harbors to satisfy her. Her camp still wanted the provision narrowed and a sentence stating that nothing in it changes criminal law. Industry and GOP negotiators called that a second move of the goalposts.

Banks and stablecoin yield. Eight banking trade groups, including the American Bankers Association and the Independent Community Bankers of America, attacked the new circuit breaker as “not a safeguard at all” because it would fire only after deposits had already left. They wanted tighter bans on interest-like payments on stablecoin balances. The White House Council of Economic Advisers published a tool arguing there is “no meaningful relationship between stablecoin growth and community bank deposit flight.” Witt accused the banks of acting in bad faith: “If you oppose the Clarity Act because you just hate crypto, that’s fine. Just say that.”

That bank fight mattered inside the GOP. Sen. John Curtis of Utah said he would vote to proceed but was a no on final passage. Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Susan Collins of Maine – Collins called the bill a “moving target” and flagged community-bank deposits – were publicly undecided going into the vote. Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Josh Hawley of Missouri were widely expected to oppose the bill on substance. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky returned to the floor Monday after a three-month absence and said he would “do my best to be present for tough votes.” Presence was not the same as 60 votes.

What the bill would have done

Clarity is market-structure legislation, the sequel to last year’s GENIUS Act on stablecoins. It would split digital-asset oversight between the SEC and the CFTC, keep securities law from being skirted by labeling tokens as something else, set rules for trading platforms, and try to write a statutory floor under self-custody and noncustodial development. Supporters at BlackRock, Fidelity, Schwab, Goldman, and Coinbase argued the alternative is agency-by-agency enforcement with no durable statute. Opponents argued the draft under-regulated conflicts, illicit finance, and bank-deposit competition.

Majority Leader John Thune framed Tuesday as the “next logical step” after GENIUS. Scott called it the day “everyone [had] to put their cards on the table.” They did. The table did not have 60 cards on it.

Cloture on a motion to proceed is not a funeral by Senate rules. Leadership can file again. Amendments can be rewritten. A lame-duck session still exists on paper.

The calendar does not. The House has already canceled late-September weeks. The Senate has a short September window, then October campaign recess, then a post-election lame duck that will be defined by midterm results. Prediction markets had already repriced the bill before the roll call: passage-this-year contracts on Polymarket and Kalshi ran between the high teens and the mid-30s in the hours before the vote, depending on the platform and the hour. Analysts at TD Cowen and Capital Alpha had the full-year odds in the same neighborhood.

If the 119th Congress does not pass Clarity, the next Congress writes a new bill. Agencies keep making policy by enforcement and rulemaking. The industry stays in the gap between a House-passed statute and a Senate that could not open debate.

Witt said Monday that whether the bill got 60 votes would be “a political calculation, not a policy calculation.” Tuesday proved him right. The policy text was 600-plus pages and a year of talks. The politics were ethics, banks, and a midterm clock. The politics won.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on Tuesday introduced privileged articles of impeachment against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, accusing him of waging an unauthorized war in Iran, ignoring a congressional directive to end it, conducting extrajudicial killings at sea, retaliating against a U.S. senator, seizing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro without legal authority, and launching unauthorized operations in Yemen.

Massie read the resolution on the House floor for more than an hour, pushing the day’s first vote series to 4 p.m. and a later series to 9:30 p.m., and filed it as a privileged measure, which under House rules requires a vote within two legislative days. Politico reports the resolution’s nature forces a vote this week, the House’s last before it leaves for the midterms. Republicans can table the resolution. In a GOP-controlled House, it is widely expected to fail.

BREAKING: Rep. Thomas Massie has just moved to impeach Secretary of War Pete Hegseth for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

🤯 pic.twitter.com/TCnZ6sb4VD

— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) September 15, 2026

The move is unprecedented: a Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee attempting to impeach a Cabinet secretary in a Republican administration. Massie is a lame-duck lawmaker. He lost his May primary to Trump-backed challenger Ed Gallrein after a public feud in which Hegseth traveled to Kentucky to campaign against him.

“By engaging in hostilities in Iran for more than 90 days without congressional authorization, Secretary Hegseth is breaking the law and must be held accountable,” Massie said in a statement. “Secretary Hegseth’s constitutional violations extend beyond the illegal war in Iran. He is abusing the power of his office to ignore congressional war powers resolutions, to kidnap foreign leaders, and to intimidate critics of the Trump administration by retaliating against them for exercising free speech.”

The full text is posted on Massie’s official House site. The resolution refers to Hegseth as “Secretary of Defense (also referred to as Secretary of War by the administration).”

The eight articles

Massie’s resolution lists eight charges. The first three concern the Iran war and the 1973 War Powers Resolution. The remaining five cover other operations and alleged abuses of office.

Article I – Waging war in contravention of War Powers Resolution §2(c)

Massie charges that Hegseth directed U.S. forces into hostilities against Iran on February 28, 2026, without a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization, an attack on the United States, or an imminent threat. The article cites §2(c) of the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. §1541(c)), which limits the president’s power to introduce forces into hostilities to those three circumstances. It quotes a March 17 resignation letter from then-National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent: “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.” The article argues the war was unlawful from its first day.

Article II – Waging war in contravention of War Powers Resolution §5(c)

This article focuses on Hegseth’s refusal to obey H. Con. Res. 86, which both chambers passed in June directing the president, under §5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove U.S. forces from unauthorized hostilities with Iran. The House approved the concurrent resolution 215-208 on June 3; the Senate agreed 50-48 on June 23. Massie was the only House Republican cosponsor. Four House Republicans voted yes: Massie, Tom Barrett (Mich.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.). The White House treated the measure as nonbinding and did not withdraw forces.

Article III – Waging war in contravention of War Powers Resolution §5(b)

Section 5(b) requires the president to terminate unauthorized hostilities within 60 days of notification to Congress, with a possible 30-day withdrawal window. Hostilities began February 28; the 60-day mark was about May 1. The administration argued that an April 7 ceasefire “terminated” hostilities and reset or paused the clock. Massie calls that a legal fiction and says Hegseth treated mandatory statutory deadlines as discretionary. Operations, blockades, and later strikes continued.

Article IV – Ignoring laws that minimize civilian casualties

The article accuses Hegseth of disregarding statutes and rules intended to limit civilian harm in Iran and elsewhere. Democratic articles filed in April by Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) had cited the February 28 bombing of a girls’ school in Minab, Iran, and large-scale destruction of civilian infrastructure. Massie’s version is framed more generally as a failure to apply civilian-protection law.

Article V – Extrajudicial killings

This charge concerns Operation Southern Spear, the campaign of lethal strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that began September 2, 2025. Massie says Hegseth replaced maritime law enforcement with unauthorized military targeting, resulting in at least 221 deaths. The article also alleges denial of quarter, secondary strikes on survivors, failure to rescue shipwrecked persons, and the invention of “artificial legal authorities” for the campaign. The administration says the boats belong to designated “narco-terrorist” groups and that the United States is in an armed conflict with cartels. Human Rights Watch, WOLA, and U.N. experts have called the strikes extrajudicial killings.

Article VI – Suppressing free speech

Massie accuses Hegseth of using Defense Department authority to retaliate against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired Navy captain and astronaut, for a November 2025 video in which Kelly and five other Democratic veterans told service members they may refuse illegal orders. Hegseth issued a formal letter of censure in January 2026, entered it into Kelly’s personnel file, and opened a process that could reduce Kelly’s retired rank and pension. Trump called the video “seditious” and suggested the lawmakers should be arrested. Kelly sued the Pentagon. Massie frames the censure as intimidation of constitutionally protected speech.

Article VII – Kidnapping of a sovereign foreign leader

This article concerns Operation Absolute Resolve, the January 3, 2026, raid in Caracas that seized Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores and extracted them to U.S. custody aboard USS Iwo Jima. The administration described the mission as a law-enforcement apprehension on existing narco-terrorism indictments, not a war. It involved more than 150 aircraft, special operations forces, and supporting strikes. Massie charges that Hegseth directed the operation without constitutional or statutory authority to seize a sitting head of state. Venezuelan and Cuban casualties were reported; seven U.S. service members were injured.

Article VIII – Unlawful war in Yemen

The last article charges Hegseth with initiating Operation Rough Rider without congressional authorization or an imminent threat to the United States, violating war-powers reporting rules, and conducting strikes that killed civilians and hit rescuers and other protected persons.

Each article concludes that Hegseth “will remain a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office” and warrants impeachment, trial, removal, and disqualification from future office.

How we got here: the Iran war and the 60-day clock

The legal core of Massie’s case is the War Powers Resolution of 1973, enacted over President Nixon’s veto after Vietnam. In brief:

• The president must notify Congress within 48 hours of introducing forces into hostilities.
• Absent a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization, those forces must be withdrawn within 60 days (plus up to 30 days to extract them).
• Congress may also direct removal at any time by concurrent resolution under §5(c).

U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began February 28, 2026, under what the Pentagon called Operation Epic Fury. The administration filed a 48-hour report acknowledging that date. There was no declaration of war and no Authorization for Use of Military Force aimed at Iran.

On April 7, President Trump ordered a ceasefire. On May 1 the White House told Congress that “the hostilities that began on February 28, 2026, have terminated,” arguing the 60-day clock had been satisfied. Critics in both parties said a naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, forward-deployed forces, and later strikes showed the war had not ended. A brief April pause collapsed. Further U.S. strikes followed in June and July. The administration later treated later bombing as a new set of hostilities with a new clock. Massie has called that “an absurd ruse” and said the Pentagon was “pretending there have been two Iran wars separated by a brief cease-fire.”

Congress voted repeatedly. Most early war-powers measures failed by slim margins. Then H. Con. Res. 86 passed both chambers in June – the first time since 1973 that both houses used §5(c) to direct removal from an unauthorized conflict. The White House said a concurrent resolution has no force of law and would not reach the president’s desk. Operations continued. Hegseth has publicly described the Iran campaign as necessary, defensive of shipping and U.S. forces, and consistent with the president’s commander-in-chief power.

Massie has been on this ground for more than a year. In June 2025 he and Rep. Ro Khanna introduced a bipartisan war-powers resolution to bar unauthorized hostilities in Iran. He has voted for later Iran withdrawal measures and has argued that Article I, not Article II, holds the power to start wars.

This is not the first attempt to impeach Hegseth

Massie’s filing is the most procedurally serious because it is privileged and filed by a sitting Republican. It is not the first.

• In December 2025, Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) introduced two articles (H. Res. 935) focused on alleged murder in an early Caribbean boat strike – including a reported follow-up strike on survivors – and mishandling of classified information in a Signal chat about Yemen operations. The resolution went nowhere in committee.
• On April 15, 2026, Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), an Iranian American freshman, filed six articles (H. Res. 1177) with more than a dozen Democratic cosponsors: unauthorized war in Iran; violations of the law of armed conflict and targeting of civilians (including the Minab school); reckless handling of sensitive military information; obstruction of congressional oversight; abuse of power and politicization of the armed forces; and conduct bringing disrepute on the United States. Progressive groups endorsed it. It was referred to Judiciary and never received a floor vote.

Massie’s eight articles overlap those earlier efforts on Iran, civilian harm, boat strikes, and Kelly, and add the Maduro raid and Yemen as standalone counts.

Impeachment of a Cabinet officer is rare. The House has used the power against a Cabinet secretary only twice in U.S. history, William Belknap in 1876 and Alejandro Mayorkas in 2024. Conviction in the Senate requires two-thirds. Even if the House adopted Massie’s articles, a Republican Senate would be extremely unlikely to convict.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters this morning that he is “open to exploring” a diesel export ban as AAA’s national average price for the industrial fuel continues to set new highs, now topping $6.27 a gallon.

*THUNE SAYS HE IS ‘OPEN TO CONSIDERING’ AN EXPORT BAN ON DIESEL

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 15, 2026

His comments follow a warning yesterday from Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone that surging fuel prices are signaling the risk of a 2008-style energy shock.

“We’ll be looking at any proposal that is a viable solution, but I do think if we have the supply in this country and we’re exporting it right now that might be one way of getting at it,” Thune told reporters, who were quoted by Bloomberg, in response to a question. “If that would take pressure off of prices, you know I’m open to exploring it.“

Any broad diesel ban by the US would initially lower Gulf Coast wholesale prices while driving overseas diesel prices even higher, as the world is engulfed in a refinery crisis produced by the Russia-Ukraine war and compounded by the mess in the Gulf area.

The latest EIA data show U.S. distillate exports averaged about 1.7 million barrels a day over the four weeks through September 4. Distillates include diesel and heating oil, so the volume affected would depend on the ban’s scope.

The surge in industrial fuel costs prompted Bloomberg Intelligence’s McGlone to warn on Monday: “Commodity spikes tend to sow the seeds of their own reversal, and diesel’s first-ever surge above $6 a gallon may echo gasoline’s 2008 experience. The US daily average gasoline price, at roughly $4.30 on Sept. 11, is only about 4% above its 2008 peak, which helped fuel the Great Recession.”

JPMorgan’s head of commodities research, Natasha Kaneva, outlined six policy options in March that the Trump administration could pursue to contain oil prices.

Several, including Jones Act waivers and SPR releases, have already been deployed. New discussion of export restrictions raises the question of whether a federal fuel-tax suspension could also enter the policy conversation to contain runaway fuel prices.