Via Remix News,

Khalid Al-Hail is a defector from the Qatari ruling establishment, the president of the Qatar National Democratic Party, and the country’s most prominent opposition spokesman. Now living in exile in the United Kingdom, he is a successful international businessman and the leading advocate for democratic reform in Qatar, known for exposing the regime’s state-backed influence operations and media manipulation abroad.

I can’t believe how petty this sounds, but I really think western socialists are frightened that the fall of the Ayatollahs will split their vote base. Why on earth else would people whose hearts bled for Palestine be back out in the streets supporting a regime which has matched the death toll of Gaza in just a few months? The clue is in the prevailing ideology of the Western intelligentsia. The signs have been visible for years.

In 2022, a socialist political network within the European Union became embroiled in the so called ‘Qatargate’ scandal, involving cash bribes to close down debate about Qatar’s Human Rights abuses.

As Qatar’s democratic opposition in political exile, I was encouraged by a recent campaign to call the European Union’s attention to this and other abuses of Qatar’s governance in the West. Billboards decried the Al Jazeera Propaganda network, the human rights violations of Qatar’s indentured foreign workforce and Qatar’s constant support for proscribed terrorist organisations including the Taliban, Hamas and Al Qaeda – all of which has been going on for decades.

This is a message to the West and to my European friends!

The Al Thanis, Qatar’s ruling family, are funding terrorism, subverting and corrupting the West, promoting Islamist propaganda, and committing human right abuses.

Help me free my beautiful country of these terrorists! 🇶🇦 pic.twitter.com/T2hF78zrsA

— خالد الهيل KHALID AL-HAIL (@Khalidalhail) May 8, 2026

But the synergy between borderless, European socialism and Qatar’s radical Wahhabi Islamism runs deep.

The reason left liberals stand shoulder to shoulder with Islamist causes is that both ideologies create the same problems for themselves, which can be explained away with the same PR.

Both respect ideology more than nationhood, so they naturally collaborate to attack any society with a strong cultural identity. Both share a Tabula Rasa concept of humanity, resenting freedom of the individuals to express Petit Bourgeoisie or Haram political values. Both interpret justice through the lens of doctrine and revelation, so neither can accept equality under the law. Both are therefore incapable of building or sustaining societal contracts and wealth. Both are in denial about that fact and cover their failures by taking what free societies have built and pretending that they created it themselves. Finally, they both have to silence anybody who exposes the obvious failures of their ideologies. The natural enemy of both is the individualist, independent, thinker who does not wish the state to interfere with his life.

What is unusual about Qatar is that it has a lot of money (I shall avoid saying ‘wealth’ – their resource of natural gas was handed to them by the British along with their state in 1971) so, unlike other Islamist regimes, they can buy strategic influence in the West. I’m not just talking about celebrities and broadcasters like Tucker Carlson. Qatar, a radical Wahhabi State and among the most extreme Islamist societies on Earth, sees that socialist political movements are equipped with idealistic students, newspapers and think tanks – so they have become a generous benefactors of universities, media networks and think tanks – their proteges forming a united front against Israel. 

Qatar also backs terrorist groups, colludes with the Muslim Brotherhood and houses Hamas operatives in Doha while securing exclusive reportage rights for Al Jazeera from the Gaza Strip. Al Jazeera’s Arabic language channel, which meets all the criteria under which RIA Novosti and Russia Today are banned, enjoys the same immunity in the EU as it appears to in the USA. That’s what expensive lobbying can do in democratic societies.

Recent events, however, threaten to break this uneasy Islamist-socialist alliance.

The 1979 revolution in Iran marked the first and only time an ancient, civilised and educated, country was totally subverted by radical Islam. When the Ayatollahs fall and the whole story of the long dark decades which followed is told in the West, it will strike a shattering blow to the marriage of convenience between the liberal left and Islamism.

I suspect that some more cynical Western political actors always knew this day was coming but just kept hoping that it wouldn’t arrive on their watch. Some are determined to ride the alliance into the ground and are now mobilising in full support of the Iranian Islamic regime which has killed tens of thousands of its own citizens in the last few months.

Spotted among a recent pro-Iranian regime march in London were Jeremy Corbyn – the former leader of the UK Labour Party – and Mothin Ali, the deputy leader of the Greens. Meanwhile Zohran Mamdani, the Mayor of New York who appealed to Brooklyn LGBTQ liberals on a pro Palestine platform, has also expressed his disgust at the shaking of the Ayatollahs – as has the Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez who recently naturalised 800,000 illegals. When people complained that the foreigners bring crime to Spain, the far-left Más Madrid spokeswoman Tesh Sidi breezily retorted that they are no longer foreigners but now Spaniards.

Would these figures of the radical left ever apply their own logic to the new arrivals in Israel in 1947? No – obviously they couldn’t – which is to say that the union between those who are all giving of the shared Western inheritance and those who are all taking for Political Islam is now openly inconsistent with its own values.

The shaking of the Ayatollahs in Tehran will be an informative moment in the history of Western self-determination as well as Iran’s. As we saw with East European Communism, as we will see in Gender theory and much of the Net-Zero green agenda, an ideology truly collapses not because of its military defeat or political sabotage but because of its inability to justify its own excesses any further. A recent comment made by Qatar’s ex Prime Minister makes me realise how desperate the game is getting to keep the radical left and Islamists together.

‘As soon as we declare war on Iran, America will withdraw from the conflict, sell weapons to both sides and use our resources to defeat both sides and expand the Greater Israel Project.’

This level of paranoid insanity will always appeal to a few lunatics – but is surely too much, even for the socialist Eurocrats, academics and journalists who take Qatari cash bribes.

Read more here…

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Summit… then ‘summit’ worse?

“TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE,” was President Trump’s response to Iran’s belated reply to his peace proposal, which they have rejected as a “surrender.” Tehran thinks the US must do so instead: rather than handing over enriched uranium, pledging to never build a nuke, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and dropping ballistic missiles and support for regional terror proxies, Iran wants a permanent US retreat, reparations paid to it, and control of Hormuz.

More war, where the US takes control of the Strait and/or bombs the regime harder to encourage it to sign a deal, seems inevitable if one rules out a 1956-style retreat. Indeed, Israeli PM Netanyahu gave a TV interview to 60 Minutes where he stated the Iran war, while having achieved a lot, is “not over.” Markets are not going to enjoy the prospect of greater and longer disruption to global energy supplies.

However, new fighting may not be seen until the weekend. First, “because markets.” Second, as the US still doesn’t have everything in place it needs militarily to strike harder and for longer. Third, because over May 13-15, Trump will meet Xi in Beijing, where the focus will be on Iran as well as broader US-China relations.

As postulated since the early days of this war, its resolution may run through Beijing. China, like Russia, has influence on Iran via supplies of key military goods. In that regard, some see Trump going to China with Xi holding all the cards (because Iran holds a Strait.) Yet others think a sustained war that pushes global energy markets and the economy past a terrible tipping point might see Beijing offer to lean on Iran rather than supporting it like Russia vs Ukraine.

Naturally, that opens up chatter of a potential ‘Grand Bargain’ around the core interests of China, the US, and Russia (where President Putin presided over a deflated Victory Day parade and said the war with Ukraine may “be coming to an end.”) If you aren’t at this week’s table, you might be on it. In short, the focus should be on this summit and whether it leads to ‘summit’ better or worse for you.

Equally naturally, political dramas around the world mirror those in geopolitics.

Following a local election drubbing and the collapse of two-party politics, the ruling UK Labour Party will see a stalking-horse leadership contest against deeply unpopular PM Starmer. His potential rivals Streeting (in the cabinet), Miliband (in the cabinet and a former unpopular Labour leader himself), Rayner (not in the cabinet due to a tax scandal), and Burns (not in Parliament due to Starmer’s team) must decide if they will make their moves. Starmer is determined to cling on and will give a major speech today seen as determinative for who joins the fray. Financial markets will be worried about populist left policy direction under new leadership, where Labour is losing voters just as fast at it is to the populist right.

In Australia, the by-election in Farrer saw a seat formerly held by the Liberal Party leader taken by the populist right One Nation and the door opened to it joining the Liberal-National opposition coalition, reshaping Australian politics. This is ahead of a Labor Party budget tomorrow already seeing a populist left shift via cash handouts (when inflation is nearly 5%), and taxation of residential property and other assets.

Denmark’s Liberal leader has taken over coalition talks after the Social Democrat premier failed to secure a parliamentary majority. There appear few stable political combos on offer, and questions swirl as to whether the inclusion of the far right will be necessary to achieve one.

Germany’s far right AfD is at 28% in national polls, the most popular party, and 41% in an eastern state where an election will be held in September: add the far left, and populism is >50% of the electorate. There appear few stable German political coalitions that exclude the AfD.

In all these cases, as in the US, the market-friendly center is failing to hold and extremes on the left and right, and via sectarianism, are benefitting most.  

Meanwhile, a revolution may be taking place in the geoeconomic sphere. The CLARITY Act working its way through the US Congress as companion to the GENIUS Act that cements stablecoins into the financial system has disallowed USD stablecoins from paying interest; however, it allows the payment of scaled rewards and fees that are their functional equivalent when used in transactions. That might prove pivotal for these much-misunderstood new assets designed to steamroller the global Eurodollar financial architecture.

China is officially banning anything other than its official e-CNY, a CBDC, though Hong Kong is floated as a potential location that could perhaps issue Chinese versions of onshore mainland debt-backed stablecoins similar to those of the US. That could, in theory, propose an alternative payments infrastructure that isn’t hampered by China’s capital controls.

By contrast, the ECB has just stated stablecoins are not an efficient way to strengthen the international role of the euro vs. deeper capital market integration and a stronger safe asset base. That means its alternative to the USD is an EUR that looks more like it, which implies the matching ‘benefits’ of trade deficits, debt, and financialisation over net exports and the industrial production needed for remilitarisation – as the US tries to pivot hard the other way.

Indeed, the US is not only pushing for a $500bn increase in the Pentagon budget but seeing a shake-up of how it operates: bureaucrats will no longer negotiate defence contracts, with an elite private sector “Deal Team Six” to handle and approve negotiations; defence firms will have to build their own factories; those that fail to deliver goods will be held responsible and may be replaced with new contractors; and there will be no more ‘costs-plus’ overspending. “Despite paying companies to make weapons faster, scheduled delays were constant, and cost overruns were the norm, all while their CEOs got rich,” according to Secretary of War Hegseth.

“Because markets,” said shareholders. But perhaps no more. That’s summit else to chew on.

Authored by Savannah Halsey Pointer via The Epoch Times,

Celebrations across the United States are expected in the coming months as Americans mark the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding.

Americans can find parties, fireworks, sporting events, and opportunities to learn about history in various locations. The events are being hosted by individual states and the federal government, which established a task force for celebrations this year.

Days after his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order “to provide a grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion of the 250th anniversary of American Independence on July 4, 2026.”

That order established the Salute to America 250 Task Force, or “Task Force 250,” for “engaging all levels of government, the private sector, non-profit and educational institutions, and every citizen across the country to celebrate this historic milestone.”

Washington

Many events have been planned in the nation’s capital for the lead-up to the anniversary on July 4—the date the Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, which announced the 13 American colonies’ intent to separate from the British monarchy.

Events kicked off on Dec. 31 2025, with videos projected on the Washington Monument to detail the nation’s history—from its discovery as the “New World” to the present day. That ran through Jan. 5 of this year.

On May 17, the National Mall will host a National Prayer event with worship, testimonies, and music. “Streamed to parishes, the event is amplified through coordinated media and a lead-up series with pastors and partners highlighting the Church’s role in history and civic life,” the White House said.

On Memorial Day, May 25, there will be a Spirit of America Parade, honoring service members and their sacrifice.

The White House will also host an Ultimate Fighting Championship event called UFC Freedom 250. That’s scheduled to take place on June 14 on the South Lawn of the White House and feature an “unprecedented mixed martial arts event.” Confirmed fights include Alex Pereira versus Ciryl Gane for the interim UFC heavyweight title, and Ilia Topuria versus Justin Gaethje for the lightweight title.

The Washington Monument is illuminated with a projection of President Donald Trump’s “Freedom 250” initiative during the New Year’s Eve show at the National Mall in Washington on Dec. 31, 2025. Amid FARAHI/AFP via Getty Images

On July 3, the Official Countdown 250 Ball will take place at the Washington Hilton, about three blocks from the Mall. The black tie event will launch America’s 250th anniversary weekend.

The ball will feature six party zones, four live entertainment stages, premium open bars, the All-American Hero Lifetime Achievement Awards, and a signature midnight countdown to the moment America enters its 250th year.

Starting on June 25 and running through July 10 of this year, a large-scale celebration at the National Mall will feature pavilions for every state and territory, as well as themed exhibits to highlight topics such as arts, innovation, faith, and agriculture in the United States.

The fair will include live performances and traditional fair attractions, as well as interactive exhibits.

More than a million Americans are expected to head to the nation’s capital on July 4 for what the White House calls “one of the grandest displays of patriotism that the world has ever seen.”

The day will feature remarks from Trump and a fireworks display, which the White House is advertising as “the largest pyrotechnics display in the history of the world.” It will also include musical performances and ceremonies honoring both service members and everyday Americans.

North Dakota

In North Dakota, a new presidential library is slated to open in Medora on July 1. The library will feature exhibits on former President Theodore Roosevelt’s life and legacy, as well as galleries and interactive displays.

New York

On July 4, New York Harbor will host Sail 4th 250, an international event of tall ships and naval vessels from more than 30 nations. This event will include parades, performances, and public programming.

It will also include a naval review, showcasing U.S. ships’ power and capabilities.

Pennsylvania

The state of Pennsylvania has positioned itself as a centerpiece of the anniversary in materials about the city’s events, due to Philadelphia’s role in the founding.

The city is considered the birthplace of American independence, because the signing of the Declaration of Independence took place at Independence Hall on July 4, 1776. Additionally, Philadelphia served as the nation’s capital for portions of the Revolutionary era.

According to the city website, “Philly goes bigger than ever in 2026,” touting the largest Independence Day celebration in the nation, which will close out 16 days of festivities with a giant, free-to-attend event on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The city expects thousands to head to the City Center for the family-friendly event.

Freedom 250’s Timothy Crawford (L) and Nick Bravo (R ) brought their mobile museum “Freedom Truck” to Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, on Feb. 23, 2026. Jacob Burg/The Epoch Times

Post-July Events

Throughout 2026, the White House’s Freedom 250 initiative has six mobile museums housed in double-wide tractor-trailers crossing the nation.

The “Freedom Trucks” will travel across all 48 contiguous states with their exhibits, visiting schools, parks, and community events. The goal is to reach millions with the interactive displays on American independence and notable figures from U.S. history.

On Aug. 22–23, Washington will play host to the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, which will be the first Indycar race on a street circuit around the National Mall. The White House called the event a “historic moment in American motorsport, designed specifically to celebrate the 250th anniversary.”

The track map of the upcoming Freedom 250 Grand Prix, in Washington on March 9, 2026. Featuring a 1.7 mile course with seven turns on the National Mall, the Aug. 23 event will celebrate America’s 250th birthday. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

In the fall of 2026, the Freedom 250 initiative will launch the Patriot Games—a national competition for high school athletes from every state and territory. The event will pair mentors and students to compete for a $250,000 prize to be split between one male and one female winner.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Nobody is going to be able to save the spring planting season in the northern hemisphere now, and that is really bad news because according to the UN the number of people in the world experiencing acute hunger was already at an all-time high even before the war began. A historic global food crisis has been escalating for years, and now farmers all over the northern hemisphere either can’t get the nitrogen fertilizer that they desperately need or they are paying much more for it. As a result, global food prices will start rising dramatically once harvest season rolls around, and in many impoverished nations there simply won’t be enough food for everyone.

During normal times, approximately one-third of all globally-traded nitrogen fertilizer travels through the Strait of Hormuz, but right now it can’t get out of the Persian Gulf thanks to the Iranians. Unfortunately, if that nitrogen fertilizer doesn’t get into the hands of farmers in the northern hemisphere within a certain period of time they will completely miss the application window…

The Hormuz Strait carries roughly one-third of global fertilizer trade. If farmers miss the application window, no amount of catch-up planting can recover the loss. The International Grains Council estimates cumulative global wheat and coarse grain output could fall 53 million tons below last season, a shortfall larger than Ukraine’s entire annual grain export volume in a typical year.

According to a former co-chair of the White House’s Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force, the spring fertilizer application window in the northern hemisphere ends next month…

Spring fertilizer application in the Northern Hemisphere runs through June. Parts of Africa are entering the primary planting season now — a critical window for the continent’s most food-insecure populations. A missed window doesn’t delay a harvest — it eliminates it. The shortfall will be invisible until it materializes in spiking prices and empty shelves next fall.

This is the story the Hormuz blockade coverage is missing. The crisis isn’t just raising energy prices — it is breaking food supply chains. The world is facing a slow-motion catastrophe that will not announce itself until it is too late.

That last sentence is so true.

We really are facing a slow-motion catastrophe.

For example, we are being told that fertilizer shortages and high fuel costs have created a “critical threat” to global rice supplies…

Global rice supplies are facing a critical threat this year as farmers across Asia have been forced to reduce planting due to fertilizer shortages and soaring fuel costs, issues exacerbated by the ongoing Iran war. This situation is compounded by the emerging El Nino effect, which is anticipated to further tighten global rice output.

Rice is central to global food security, and even slight disruptions in supply can have wide-ranging effects. Experts warn that rising prices could pressure household budgets, especially in price-sensitive regions like Asia and Africa.

A lot less rice is going to be grown this year.

Meanwhile, the global population continues to grow.

So who is going to have enough rice to eat?

It won’t be the poor.

The wealthy will buy up whatever is available, and it will be at significantly higher prices.

There are close to 1.6 billion people living in Africa, and we are being warned that they will soon be facing soaring prices and food shortages…

The Iran war could have “dramatic consequences”, causing food shortages and price rises in some of Africa’s poorest and most vulnerable communities, the head of the world’s largest fertiliser company has said.

Svein Tore Holsether, the chief executive of Yara International, said world leaders needed to guard against soaring prices and shortages of fertiliser causing a de facto global auction that would leave the poorest countries, particularly in Africa, scrambling for supplies they could ill afford.

Here in the United States, food will still be available.

But it will cost a lot more than it once did, because farmers will be forced to pass along much higher costs for fertilizer and fuel…

Farmers have already begun to feel the effects, with rising fertilizer costs and shortages in supply.

The effects of the global conflict are being felt all over Ohio, Bales said. They have taken a large toll on areas such as north central Ohio and western Ohio, where a large amount of row cropping occurs.

“(Between the) double whammy of fertilizer and fuel, that is definitely going to make some tough decisions going forward,” said Bales.

This crisis is going to hit us a lot harder than most people realize.

One recent survey discovered that a whopping 70 percent of all U.S. farmers are unable to afford all the fertilizer that they need this year…

The result is wreaking havoc on farmers. An agricultural lobbying group, the American Farm Bureau Federation, ran a survey and found that 70% of farmers couldn’t afford all the fertilizer they needed.

“Fertilizer pre-booking rates varied significantly by region, with just 19% of Southern producers reporting fertilizer purchases secured ahead of the season, compared to 30% in the Northeast, 31% in the West and 67% in the Midwest, reflecting differences in planting decision timelines and exposure to recent price increases,” the AFBF wrote. Farm diesel prices, which fuel the heavy machinery used in the industry (other than small-scale farms that don’t produce the majority of food crops in the country) are up 46% since the end of February, according to the organizations.

We have never been through anything like this.

Some farmers have decided to switch to crops that require less fertilizer, and some farmers have decided not to plant at all this season.

In fact, the number of acres of wheat that U.S. farmers are planting this spring will be the fewest that we have seen “since record keeping began in 1919”.

If the Strait of Hormuz reopened tomorrow, and there is no way that is going to happen, it would take weeks for cargo vessels to reach their destinations.

And once the Strait does finally reopen, we are being told that “it could be months before supply chains normalize”…

“Even if the strait reopens, it will take weeks to bring the plants back online and get them running efficiently … it could be months before supply chains normalize,” the United States House Agriculture Committee wrote in a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

At this point, there is no saving the spring planting season in the northern hemisphere.

It is going to be a disaster.

Meanwhile, 60 different nations have implemented emergency energy policies within the past two months…

We desperately need the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened.

But the Iranians are telling us that this is going to be how it is from now on.

They are in full control of the Strait, and it appears that they just attacked yet another cargo ship…

A cargo ship was struck by multiple small craft while sailing near the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, UK military officials said.

The ship, which was not immediately identified, was hit right off the coast of Sirik, Iran, just east of the strait, according to the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre.

We are still in the very early stages of this nightmare.

If Iran holds the global economy hostage for an extended period of time, we will see economic chaos that is unlike anything we have ever seen before.

But for now most people in the western world are not taking this crisis seriously enough, because they are convinced that it is just a temporary bump in the road.

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 Deborah Palma via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Economics is not a zero-sum game in which one person’s gain comes at another’s expense; nor is it just about numbers or purposeless statistical aggregates, but conscious human action.

Ludwig von Mises, in his work “Human Action,” explains that individuals act to replace a less satisfactory state of affairs with a more satisfactory one. This process is inherently subjective and teleological, meaning that the values guiding economic activity are rooted in individual choices, and not in physical objects themselves.

Economic calculation serves as the bridge between the subjectivity of human desires and the objective reality of scarce resources. Consider a quantity of steel that could be used to build either a hospital or a factory. Without a system of prices reflecting society’s preferences and the relative scarcity of resources, there would be no way to determine which of these projects creates greater value. Economic calculation, expressed through prices, allows for the comparison of alternatives, whilst directing resources toward their most-valued uses.

Similarly, consider an entrepreneur evaluating whether they should open a bakery. They must decide how much to invest in equipment, rent, labor, and so on. By comparing the costs of these factors with the expected revenue from sales, our entrepreneur can estimate whether the business will create value. If revenues are expected to exceed total costs and taxes, there will be profit.

Profit, therefore, is not merely a financial gain, but evidence that scarce resources have been allocated in ways that better satisfy societal needs, because society has, in an undirected way, decided its needs are satisfied this way. Conversely, losses would indicate that those resources should have been allocated to more valuable uses. Without prices, profits, and losses, the entrepreneur would have no way of knowing whether resources are being used efficiently.

In a complex economy with an advanced division of labor, individuals cannot rely solely on their own direct knowledge to decide how to allocate resources among many possible combinations. They require a common denominator that allows for the comparison of costs and benefits. This denominator is the price, which emerges from voluntary exchanges in the market.

Prices are not arbitrary numbers; they are determined by exchange values arising from the competitive interaction between consumers and producers. Price reflects the relative scarcity of a good in relation to all other possible uses of the same factors of production.

When an entrepreneur invests in new technology or capital infrastructure, they rely on monetary calculation to assess whether the value of the final product will exceed the total value of the inputs consumed. This “surplus” is profit, an unmistakable signal that value has been created by, and for, society. The opposite—loss—signals the waste of scarce resources.

The importance of prices becomes even more evident when we examine historical attempts to artificially control them. Throughout history, governments have sought to replace the market price system with centrally-directed mechanisms, and the results have been consistently disastrous.

One of the earliest examples dates back to the reign of Diocletian in the Roman Empire. In 301 AD, the emperor issued the Edict on Maximum Prices, imposing price ceilings on thousands of goods and services, including basic items such as wheat, meat, and clothing, as well as wages for various professions such as farmers, bakers, craftsmen, and teachers. By fixing prices below their market-clearing levels, the policy reduced the incentive for producers to supply these goods, since many could no longer cover their costs or earn a profit. At the same time, artificially low prices increased consumer demand. This imbalance between reduced supply and increased demand led to widespread shortages. As a result, many goods disappeared from official markets and were instead traded illegally at higher prices, contributing to the expansion of black markets and the disruption of normal productive activity. The policy ultimately proved unsustainable and was abandoned due to its failure.

More recently, similar policies were implemented in Brazil under the government of José Sarney, particularly during the Cruzado Plan of 1986. The freezing of prices, initially celebrated as a solution to inflation, quickly resulted in widespread shortages, empty shelves, and the emergence of parallel markets. Unable to adjust prices, producers reduced supply, exposing the inability of such measures to coordinate a complex economy.

More recent cases reinforce this pattern. In Venezuela, strict price controls implemented over the past decades have contributed to chronic shortages, the collapse of domestic production, and increasing dependence on imports. Basic goods disappeared from store shelves, while informal markets became central to the population’s survival.

These episodes produce the same outcome: scarcity. Prices emerge from decentralized interactions between individuals, reflecting their preferences and the relative scarcity of goods. Once formed, however, they also serve to coordinate economic activity by conveying information that guides producers and consumers in their decisions. When prices cease to reflect the relationship between supply and demand, they lose this informational and coordinating function. Instead of promoting order, price controls generate disorganization, shortages, and waste.

Mises’s thesis was challenged by economists such as Oskar Lange, who proposed a form of “market socialism.” Lange argued that a planning board could simulate the market through a process of trial and error, adjusting prices as surpluses or shortages emerged. However, Mises and his student Friedrich Hayek refuted this view, emphasizing that the problem is not merely one of data processing. The crucial point is that the data required for economic calculation, such as subjective preferences and local knowledge, only come into existence through real market exchanges.

Attempts to treat the economy as a system of simultaneous equations, in which equilibrium can be mathematically determined, ignore the dynamic nature of reality. The market is a continuous process of discovery, not a static state of rest. The economy cannot be managed like a problem of engineering or mechanical physics, because it involves constant change, subjective expectations, and genuine uncertainty, elements that no fixed equation can fully capture.

Under socialism, the abolition of private property in the means of production destroys the very concept of capital as a calculable value. When the state owns all higher-order goods (machines, land, and raw materials), there are no exchanges between private owners for these items. Consequently, there are no market prices for capital goods. Without these prices, the central planner, no matter how well-intentioned, lacks the necessary information to determine whether they are creating wealth or merely consuming the nation’s capital.

From the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Utah-based defense tech firm Hypercraft has unveiled a 300 hp diesel-hybrid-electric unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) that can power directed-energy weapons, charge drones, and sustain a forward command post, all autonomously.

Defense Blog’s Dylan Malyasov reports that Hypercraft’s Razorback UGV can travel 280 miles on a single charge, reach speeds of 60 mph, and export 38 kilowatts of power, which is enough to power laser weapons and recharge drones.

Razorback is being positioned as a critical energy source for forward operating units that need power for drones, electronic warfare, ISR, counter-UAS systems, and communications. The UGV is also designed to move supplies and support infrastructure on the modern battlefield.

The role of UGVs on the battlefield is still being shaped in real time by the Russia-Ukraine war, where robots, whether ground bots or drones, are increasingly removing infantrymen from harm’s way as the grinding fight evolves into a war of attrition fought by machines.

The wars across Eurasia, from Ukraine-Russia to the U.S.-Iran conflict, have validated a new style of warfare in which cheap ground robots and drones increasingly operate in ‘no man’s land’ (front lines). The next phase is already coming: humanoid systems entering the battlespace as militaries look to push more machines, not infantrymen, into the kill zone.

Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

New organized labor reforms signed into law by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last week require a majority of members to be present for teachers union certification or recertification votes, increase fines for illegal strikes, and establish merit-based pay for educators.

In Idaho, after July 1, teachers unions will be prohibited from collecting dues directly from members’ paychecks, using paid time off for union activities, or recruiting new members during school hours.

A similar law in Arizona, which also bans teacher strikes and prohibits organized labor members from using any school property—even email addresses—for union activities, will be decided on by voters in the November election.

“They can’t consume taxpayer-funded resources during the school day,” said Rusty Brown, special projects director for the Freedom Foundation policy organization, which assisted state legislators with those measures and helps teachers opt out of union membership.

These ideas are expected to gain ground throughout the nation in the months and years ahead, Brown told The Epoch Times.

Individually, the Freedom Foundation’s Teacher Freedom Alliance has so far helped more than 272,535 teachers opt out of union membership, including more than 50,000 in 2025 alone, according to data provided to The Epoch Times. This includes educators in red and blue states.

At the state level, Oklahoma lawmakers have advanced legislation that would allow teachers to withdraw from a union at any time and would terminate “closed shop” provisions that prevent teachers from accessing alternative labor or professional organizations, such as the Teacher Freedom Alliance.

Brown calls this an “equal access and an end to a monopoly and captive audience bill.” Alternative organizations can offer teacher liability insurance and other benefits at a fraction of the price that traditional unions charge, he said.

Brown said he believes that the legislation could pass before Oklahoma’s session ends later this month, but the member withdrawal proposal probably won’t go through this session.

Alabama state lawmakers will consider legislation similar to Oklahoma’s next session, he said.

Maxford Nelsen, Freedom Foundation’s director of research and government affairs, said several factors prompted growing interest in pushing back against teachers unions. Members do not like that dues are automatically deducted from their paychecks. There is increasing animosity toward “zombie unions,” in which a limited number of members are informed or allowed to vote on matters. Labor organizations also engage in practices that create very narrow windows and bureaucratic hurdles for terminating membership.

“That’s the last thing they want to think about during their summer vacation,” Nelsen told The Epoch Times, citing one union’s requirement in which opt-outs were limited to the last 10 days of July.

Perhaps the most contentious issue, Nelson said, is how teachers union dues are spent. A review of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers unions’ websites shows that both heavily favor Democrats and promote transgender ideology; diversity, equity, and inclusion practices; special protections for illegal immigrants; anti-school choice measures; and other left-leaning policies.

“Hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing into this progressive apparatus,” Nelson said.

A recent report from Defending Education, a conservative policy center, states that teachers unions at the local, state, and national levels have spent more than $1 billion on “far-left political causes” unrelated to collective bargaining since 2015. This includes school board races, political action committees, and campaigns against school choice.

“Given the outsized role that unions have played in the education system over the past 50 years, greater transparency on union spending is absolutely critical so that policymakers and teachers themselves can make informed decisions about the role that these entities should—or should not—play in the future,” Defending Education President Nicole Neily said in an April 27 statement.

The Epoch Times reached out to the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers unions for comment.

In response to prior Florida legislation that prohibited teachers unions from deducting dues directly from paychecks, the Florida Education Association contracted with a company to withdraw dues from members’ bank accounts after their paychecks are deposited.

“This type of ‘paycheck deception’ legislation is nothing new and has been wielded across the country to weaken unions and roll back working conditions,” the Florida Education Association stated on its website. “It’s no secret that this legislation is designed to diminish our collective voice.”

The Idaho Education Association teachers union implemented a similar system. It also denounced Idaho Gov. Brad Little for refusing to veto the legislation.

“Idaho’s students and the dedicated professionals who teach them will be worse off because of his choice,” the union’s president, Layne McInelly, said in an April 10 statement. “They deserve better.”

The Freedom Foundation is scrutinizing public organized labor groups across the nation, not just teachers unions. In Oregon, it recently submitted a complaint to the state employment relations board on behalf of a union member who said dues were deducted from his paycheck without his authorization. He asked for a refund and requested to opt out of the union, only to be told that the window to do so is Aug. 8 through Sept. 9, according to documentation provided to The Epoch Times.

Nelsen did not work on that case but said this type of practice by unions is common in an era of direct deposits and withdrawals and digital forms.

“There are no mechanisms in place to verify that the individual workers have authorized the form, let alone understand it,” he said.

While the digital US economy, if proxied through the earnings growth and stock prices of AI companies and their “picks and shovels” support ecosystem, has never been stronger, the traditional US consumer, responsible for 70% of US GDP, has rarely been more depressed than right now (and according to the latest University of Michigan sentiment survey, Americans have literally never been more pessimistic). 

That was the take home message from the latest earnings week, when various executives across retail, restaurants and packaged goods indicated they are increasingly worried about US shoppers – especially those from the” lower half” of the K-shaped economy – with tighter budgets amid surging gas prices caused by the Iran war, and consumer electronics prices through the roof thanks to record memory chip prices.

“They’re literally running out of money at the end of the month,” Kraft Heinz CEO Steve Cahillane said in an interview with the WSJ . “We’re seeing negative cash flows in the lower-income brackets where they’re dipping into savings.” Sure enough, last week we showed that as a result of personal spending growth far outpacing personal income…

… the personal savings rate has collapsed to a 3 year low.

This underscores a remarkable trend: since the pandemic, Americans have continued to spend at surprising levels despite high inflation, keeping the US economy growing and thwarting recession fears, with much of the spending growth fueled by credit card debt, with February’s $10BN+ increase in credit card debt the highest since February 2024.

But soaring fuel costs might be the straw that breaks the overlevered camel’s back: “The war in Iran amplified consumer concerns about the cost of living,” Whirlpool. CEO Marc Bitzer said Thursday on a call with analysts. The maker of washers and dryers said it’s counting on purchases picking up after a harsh US winter slowed shopping, but the war caused a collapse in consumer sentiment. The company described the resulting 15% hit to industry demand as similar to the global financial crisis in the aughts. In other words a depression.

In fast food, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said confidence among shoppers isn’t improving and may be getting worse. The company cited “heightened anxiety” and gas prices that disproportionately impact low-income consumers.

Sit-down dining is also taking a hit. “Our price-sensitive, more value-oriented guests seem to be staying home a bit more,” Dine Brands CEO John Peyton said on an earnings call this week. The company, which owns the Applebee’s and IHOP chains, said it hasn’t seen a similar pullback in other income levels.

Meanwhile, eyewear retailer Warby Parker  said younger shoppers are feeling the pinch from higher-than-usual unemployment and student debt bills.

Gas prices, now at $4.56 a gallon on average, are at their highest levels since July 2022, according to data from the American Automobile Association. As shoppers put more of their income toward fuel, they have less money for discretionary spending like eating out. Enlarged tax refunds helped blunt some of the impact, but sentiment has still soured to a record low.

Americans are putting less away as they try to keep up, with the savings rate dropping in March to the lowest in three years. Meanwhile, economists warn the disruptions from the war in Iran could lead to higher prices for a range of goods over time, including groceries, putting even more pressure on low-income households and draining what little savings are left. 

Low-income consumers have already cut back on real gasoline consumption to try to limit costs, according to recent research published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In the near term, Americans can draw down savings or tap credit cards, but the longer gas prices stay high, the more consumers will change their spending patterns to balance their budgets, said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank.

Planet Fitness on Thursday fell the most on record after cutting its full-year outlook on weaker-than-expected member signups during the typically busy New Year period.

The gym chain also said it paused the national rollout of a price increase to its top-tier membership, with CEO Colleen Keating making it clear why that decision was made. “The consumer and economic backdrop have shifted,” she said.

Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,

“Eff around and find out”: That taunt from Hakeem Jeffries celebrating Virginia’s gerrymander did not age well.

On Friday, the House minority leader found out that Virginia’s Supreme Court was not quite as gleeful as he about Democrats’ attempt to virtually eliminate Republican representation in the purple state.

The court just cooked the party’s infamous lobster, a district over 100 miles long that was designed to help devour the GOP’s slender majority in the House of Representatives.

It also cooked the ambitions of Gov. Abigail Spanberger and the Democratic establishment, which tossed aside any pretense of principle in a raw political gambit.

The resulting faceplant is nothing short of legendary: Spanberger’s Democrats have succeeded in alienating half of the state.

For the governor, the court’s decision was particularly embarrassing.

Before assuming power, Spanberger denounced gerrymandering as “detrimental to our democracy and weakens the individual voices that form our electorates.”

She ran as a moderate, but Spanberger immediately turned sharply left once in office and called for the most extreme gerrymander in the nation.

The court found that effort was not only unconstitutional, but “wholly unprecedented in Virginia’s history.”

It characterized the state’s position as “a story of the tail wagging the dog that has no tail.”

While some of us had previously expressed skepticism over the rushed effort to circumvent the state constitution, the media almost exclusively relied on liberal experts who predicted the new districts would be upheld.

It was a calculated risk for Democrats, who have now burned their bridges with Virginia conservative and Republican voters.

As Winston Churchill said, “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”

Exhilarating and unforgettable: In a purple state where politicians often require crossover votes to prevail, the redistricting push was not just partisan but personal for voters.

National Democrats will soon “find out” whether Jeffries was right to prematurely celebrate a victory that seemed to secure his anticipated elevation to Speaker of the House.

The party is facing a potentially catastrophic reversal of fortune.

When Democrats declared a gerrymandering war, some of us warned that the party, with its already heavily gerrymandered blue states, had far more to lose than the GOP did.

It was particularly comical when Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey pledged to join the redistricting fray, even though her state is so badly gerrymandered that it’s elected zero Republicans to the House since the 1990s.

Virginia, a state long opposed to gerrymandering, has been considered the fairest state in the country, with a distribution of congressional seats that closely matches its partisan divide.

Once Spanberger sought to eradicate Republican representation, total war broke out — and now red states like Florida and Tennessee have moved forward with their own redistricting.

On top of the fact that GOP states have more room for partisan gerrymandering, the Virginia Supreme Court decision comes on the heels of the US Supreme Court’s ban on racial gerrymandering.

That means a dozen or more Democratic districts could now be deemed unconstitutional — and Louisiana and Mississippi are moving to redistrict in line with the Supreme Court’s decision.

The result could be a dramatic shift in districts favoring the GOP.

To make matters worse for the Democratic Party, a new census in 2030 will correct the mistakes that erroneously awarded them multiple districts after the 2020 census.

Those corrections, and the ongoing exodus from high-tax blue states to booming red ones, could translate into even more congressional gains for the GOP.

That prospect of a political apocalypse has Democratic strategists pushing for radical changes in Washington before it’s too late.

Top priority: packing the Supreme Court as soon as they retake power.

As Virginia has shown, an independent court can unravel the best-laid plans.

Democratic politicians, pundits and professors have been openly pushing for expanding the high court to 13 members with four new liberal additions, in order to rubber-stamp the radical changes needed to keep the party in power.

James Carville recently told Democratic politicians that they have no choice but to pack the court, declaring “F–k it . . . Just do it.”

He suggested, however, that they might not want to tell the voters.

“Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it,” he said. “Just do it.”

Last week, Jeffries declared the Supreme Court “illegitimate” as he blasted its ban on racial gerrymandering.

After the Virginia court’s ruling, the frustrated Democratic establishment is ever more likely to echo him — and to go beyond.

Many Democrats are now “all in” with this radical agenda.

With the courts declaring their redistricting efforts unconstitutional, it is the constitutional system itself that will now have to go.

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

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s leader entered a not guilty plea in federal court this week, desperately fighting charges that the organization defrauded its donors by secretly funneling more than $3 million to the very white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups it claimed to oppose.

The SPLC was forced to respond to an 11-count indictment from the Trump DOJ, including six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud and false statements, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. 

Commentators are labelling the case one of the biggest scams ever to be exposed.

🚨 UPDATE: The Southern Poverty Law Center leader frantically pleads NOT GUILTY after they were exposed funding millions to white supremacists and neo-nazis

SHUT IT DOWN!

– 6 counts of wire fraud
– 4 counts of bank fraud and false statements
– 1 count of conspiracy to commit… pic.twitter.com/bfHORfLgTG

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 9, 2026

The SPLC is accused of making payments amounting to over $1 million to a National Alliance affiliate, more than $300,000 to an Aryan Nations affiliate, $270,000 to a “Unite the Right” member, $140,000 to a former National Alliance chairman, $73,000 to former KKK members, and $19,000 to an American Front president and felon.

The court appearance comes just weeks after the Trump DOJ’s indictment exposed the scheme. 

The DOJ alleges the SPLC used a now-defunct informant program as cover. Donors were never told their money was going to actual extremists through shell companies, sham accounts, and prepaid cards between 2014 and 2023. 

Instead of dismantling hate groups, the organization allegedly propped them up—manufacturing the very threats it used to justify its existence and fundraising.

SPLC interim president and CEO Bryan Fair issued a statement after the arraignment: “The charges against the SPLC are provably wrong; they are based on inaccurate facts and a misapplication of law. Our informant program was successful in accomplishing its purposes: Threats and attacks were prevented, criminal activity was stopped, and information was gathered to dismantle the efforts of hate and extremist groups.”

The statement continued, “There is no question that the information the SPLC shared with law enforcement saved lives. The SPLC will continue to fight white supremacy and various forms of injustice in our mission to build a democracy where we can all live and thrive. We will continue that mission no matter what.”20

Fair’s team also filed court documents claiming the indictment “seeks to criminalize some of the very investigative tools and programs that the SPLC has used for decades.”

Yet the numbers don’t lie. Over $3 million allegedly flowed directly to leaders and organizers of the racist groups the SPLC publicly condemned. Trial is set to begin in October.

This plea comes as no surprise to those who have watched the SPLC’s pattern. Long accused of inflating “hate group” lists to smear mainstream conservatives, the organization now stands accused in federal court of the very extremism it claims to fight. The Trump administration’s Justice Department has made clear it will not tolerate the scam.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche previously stated at the indictment announcement: “The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence. Using donor money to allegedly profit off Klansmen cannot go unchecked. This Department of Justice will hold the SPLC and every other fraudulent organization operating with the same deceptive playbook accountable. No entity is above the law.”

FBI Director Kash Patel added: “The SPLC allegedly engaged in a massive fraud operation to deceive their donors, enrich themselves, and hide their deceptive operations from the public. They lied to their donors, vowing to dismantle violent extremist groups, and actually turned around and paid the leaders of these very extremist groups—even utilizing the funds to have these groups facilitate the commission of state and federal crimes. That is illegal—and this is an ongoing investigation against all individuals involved.”

GOP representative Andy Ogles has also declared the SPLC “absolutely culpable” in the assassination of Charlie Kirk, linking the group’s inflammatory labeling of conservatives to real-world violence:

The SPLC’s frantic not-guilty plea changes nothing. The evidence is in the indictment, the payment records, and now the courtroom itself. While the organization vows to fight on and continue its “mission,” Americans can see the truth: a so-called watchdog that funded the wolves it claimed to hunt.

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.