The U.S. committed nearly its entire stockpile of stealthy JASSM-ER cruise missiles to the military campaign against Iran and has fired at least 1,000 of these long-range, stealthy, precision cruise missiles to hit high-value IRGC targets.

One of the unavoidable risks of deploying advanced weapons, such as the JASSM-ER, is that unexploded or partially intact systems can fall into enemy hands, allowing adversaries to study U.S. technology, refine countermeasures, and accelerate the development of copycat versions.

A new report from Army Recognition, citing defense journalist Babak Taghvaee, claims Iran has recovered wreckage from a JASSM-ER near Arak, potentially giving Tehran access to fragments of the missile.

“The recovered debris reportedly includes composite airframe sections, structural components, propulsion fragments, and possible avionics elements that could reveal insights into stealth construction, fuel-efficient propulsion, and survivability design,” according to the military blog.

Army Recognition cited images posted on X by Taghvaee showing what is described as badly damaged JASSM-ER wreckage recovered in Iran. The missile appears largely intact and possibly unexploded, which, if confirmed, would give Tehran higher-value intelligence on the advanced missile.

The number of AGM-158B JASSM-ER stand-off weapons (stealth cruise missiles) employed by the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy during the recent war in Iran was enormous. These missiles were used so extensively that debris and remains of them can now be found across various parts of… pic.twitter.com/NKzhR453mK

— Babak Taghvaee – The Crisis Watch (@BabakTaghvaee1) May 27, 2026

This incident is reminiscent of a similar one in 2011, when Iran captured a U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel stealth spy drone and claimed to have reverse-engineered the aircraft. Tehran later displayed and tested drones modeled on the RQ-170, including the Shahed-171/Simorgh and Shahed-191/Saegheh families.

Reuters reported in 2014 that Iran claimed a domestically built copy of the RQ-170 had flown.

Today, Iran is one of the leading manufacturers of suicide Shahed drones (besides Russia and Ukraine), which have wreaked havoc on U.S. military bases and allied countries. The U.S. is also ramping up its version of these drones called “Lucas.”

There are some stealth moves afoot by the Trump administration and Congress, which are poised to formalize the long-standing close US-Israel relationship, on the level of a formal defense pact.

A sweeping new legislative proposal in Congress is moving to more deeply intertwine and combine the two countries’ military arsenals. The House of Representatives’ version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released this past week contains Section 224, devoted to military integration with the name “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.”

The section lays out that the Untied States has already historically contributed an inflation-adjusted $200 billion in military assistance to Israel since 1948, and seeks to more permanently solidify this relationship on a legal basis.

Responsible Statecraft has reported that “Section 224 lays the groundwork for bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of US-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation.”

The report said the new congressional provision “would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech, including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, biotech” while further proposing “network integration” and “data fusion.”

Crucially, this would in effect combine both countries’ military data, and further formalize intelligence-sharing. While all of these things already happen to a large degree, it is at the moment still subject to the policies and direction of whatever US administration happens to be in office.

If passed, the new legislation would make this automatic and basically irreversible – again, akin to a formal defense pact or treaty.

What follows is some fuller reporting from Responsible Statecraft, which warms that “the result could well be a US political system even more susceptible to the whims of an Israeli government that seemingly has no qualms about drawing the US into military conflicts in the Middle East“…

Section 224 lays the groundwork for bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of US-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation. The US and Israel already work together heavily on missile defense, but this provision would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech, including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, biotech, and many more. It also proposes “network integration” and “data fusion.” In other words, the US military’s data could soon be the Israeli military’s data.

If fully enacted, this proposal would provide a higher level of military-industrial integration than the US has with any other country in the world. To be sure, the US has worked closely with its NATO partners on co-production and shared supply chains, most notably via the Defence Production Action Plan. And, as the number one arms dealer in the world, the US provides weapons to militaries across the globe. But that is mostly a one-way street, with the US providing weapons to foreign buyers who only occasionally make parts for those weapons themselves, as in the case of the F-35’s global supply chain.

Section 224 would be a different beast entirely. It would fuse the US and Israeli defense sectors in multiple areas vital to the battlefields of the future, like autonomous systems and cyber. It would also bring extraordinary Israeli influence to the US beyond what it already has through the Israel lobby and its robust network of social media influencers. It would give the Israeli government the opportunity to greatly expand one of the most powerful levers of influence in US politics: jobs in the US By expanding or starting new co-production facilities like it already has in Mississippi and Arkansas, the Israeli government could boast of providing jobs on US soil, thereby securing allies among members of Congress who represent the districts where those jobs lie.

The ambitious scheme is unlikely to be met with much resistance from either the mainstream of the Republican or Democratic parties; however, the Dems have tended to vote against giving President Trump free reign regarding Operation Epic Fury. War Powers votes tend to break down along party lines, with the GOP typically shooting down these efforts of Congressional oversight.

But this could sail through with little or nothing in the way of public debate, or even knowledge, at all. It means future generations of taxpayers could find themselves even more deeply on the hook for the permanent defense of a foreign nation.

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via VonGreyerz.gold,

2026 is screaming “Uh-Oh” signals from nearly every sector and asset class with alarming yet eerily ignored clarity. This explains why the longer-term case for gold couldn’t be more obvious, regardless of natural price retracements in the near-term.

In fact, if global financial conditions were not otherwise so disturbing, this historical moment in time would be fascinating.

But rather than just say this, let me show you.

Rising Yields: The Most Misunderstood/Important Signal of 2026?

For example, the $145T global bond market, which is $20T greater in size than the global stock market, remains less understood yet far more significant as an indicator.

Specifically, this “boring” bond market is foretelling an historical sovereign debt crisis which is already playing out before way too many closed eyes.

Yields on sovereign IOUs (British, American, German, Italian, Japanese, etc.) are climbing to the highest levels seen in decades.

Three Reasons/Warnings for Rising Yields

These yields rise when demand, price and, of course, TRUST in government bonds tank.

This dying trust has a lot to do with global debt levels at over $360T and U.S. public debt levels reaching an embarrassing $40T marker, which effectively makes America one big “bad credit.”

(1) Lenders Demand a Risk Premium

Those with bad credit, of course, are charged a higher risk premium or “yield” by lenders, which explains why the yield on the U.S. 10Y has risen by 75 basis points in a matter of months despite a Fed which has yet to raise rates in 2026.

The Fed, alas, is openly losing control of its bond market. This matters, because rising yields mean rising debt costs, which debt-addicted and debt-driven nations like the USA simply can’t control or afford anymore.

(2) More Buyers than Sellers of USTs

In addition to its fall from credit grace, the home of the world reserve currency and once sacred “return-free-risk” 10Y UST is watching helplessly as former buyers of its critical IOUs are rapidly becoming sellers—a force which just sends those fatal yields even higher.

China, for example, once held over $1.3T in USTs. Today it holds less than $650B. Japan, the world’s largest holder of U.S. debt, just sold more USTs in Q1 of 2026 than it has sold in the last four years.

(3) The Brutal Math of Debt

But the most obvious reason for the dumping of American bonds boils down to just brutal math.

Uncle Sam, which is now running an unsustainable 7% current account deficit, is adding $2.5T of new debt to its banana republic balance sheet per year. America spends 50% of its annual tax revenue just to pay interest on its outstanding debt.

Trillions more in unfunded liabilities are also owed, for which the USA simply does not have the funds.

To fill this income vs expense “gap,” it’s no great mystery that this can only be done with trillions more debased, “mouse-clicked” fiat dollars.

This extraordinary (and increasing) dollar-dilution direction explains why the DXY can’t break 100 despite spiking yields.

Gold and a Little Bit of History Repeating Itself

The slow yet steadily increasing death spiral of fiat currencies is fascinating, obvious and yet totally ignored by current stock chasers—at least for now.

It is also a perfect set-up for gold, which the world continues to ignore based on recent and short-term price action rather than longer-term preparation or historical understanding.

The fake liquidity now and to come to “solve” the above bond crisis is an almost mirror image of the 1970-1980 era, when the Dollar lost 50% of its purchasing power, and gold went from $35 to $850 an ounce.

But like the current bull run in gold, the template of the 1970s didn’t happen in a straight line, as midway through that infamous decade, gold saw sell-offs which shook out speculators yet made longer-term investors generational wealth.

The recent price declines in gold are thus no surprise within a secular bull cycle.

As explained elsewhere, gold’s value, liquidity and prominence have been confirmed by forced sales (from sovereigns to fund managers) to create needed liquidity in times of stress.

Such behavior confirms rather than detracts from gold’s rising profile and prominence in the years and cycles to come.

Nevertheless, many are understandably following traditional thinking that a “yield-less pet rock” is less impressive than a high-yielding sovereign bond.

But bonds are only “high-yielding” because they are unloved, distrusted and broken; the only way to “fix” them, moreover, is by debasing the very currency used to measure their so-called “higher” yields.

Such logic misses the currency-weak forest for the higher-yielding trees.

But as figures like Charles Mackay or John Hussman have so often reminded us, “logic” goes out the window when tech stocks and market meme manias replace basic common sense, sound valuation or even a mediocre grasp of history.

Meanwhile: Stocks Defy Sanity, Valuation and Common Sense

Looking at the current U.S. stock market is like looking at a bad, surrealist film with a cheap laugh-track.

By literally every metric, the S&P is grotesquely overvalued:

Investors are currently paying maximum prices for unprecedented valuation risk and historically minimal dividend income.

That’s not logic. It’s madness. As consumer sentiment tanks to the lowest levels recorded at the University of Michigan, and as U.S. credit card delinquency rates climb past 12%, the S&P smiles…

Lead to Temptation

As usual, the Wall Street whales and their Sirens on the rocky shores of the equity and credit trap are seducing the retail plankton to their cyclical doom—pumping stocks on the backs of suckers before the big boys take profits on the eve of a fall.

Of course, the infamous “Buffett Indicator”, which measures equity market cap against GDP, has never been clearer (or higher) in confirming such risk:

But the far more telling “Buffett Indicator,” in my mind, lies in the simple fact that Berkshire Hathaway is sitting wisely in nearly $400B in cash.

Alas, the Oracle of Omaha is openly getting out of harm’s way as legions of retail investors march toward an equity cliff.

The tragedy of the so-called S&P 500 (led by 10 stocks) is that it is really no stock market at all. Instead, it lives and breathes off the moral hazard notion that bad news is good news, as there is always a firehose of Fed liquidity (printed dollars) waiting to “accommodate it.”

Every dip is now perceived as a prelude to a V-shaped recovery compliments of the Federal Reserve, which is neither “Federal” nor a “reserve.”

From Temptation to Lying

But such a dishonest title is no match for the dishonest wordsmithing for which the Fed is now so infamous, whether in denying a “non-recessionary recession,” a growing rather “transitory” inflation trend, “non-QE QE” or just flat out lying about actual vs “reported” inflation.

In fact, the Fed’s desperate yet consistent policy of using dishonest words to buy time, markets and votes while hiding honest math will only continue under Kevin Warsh, a trend which he has all but openly confessed.

In case you haven’t noticed, Warsh intends to measure PCE inflation under a new metric called “trimmed mean PCE,” which effectively removes all the bad inflationary data to create a fictitious notion that inflation is under control.

This is duplicity at its finest. After all, even a witch can look pretty if you take away the warts, which is all Warsh’s new Fed policy boils down to.

In fact, what Warsh is doing is nothing surprising nor anything new.

The Oldest & Only Trick Left: Inflate Away Debt

While the rest of us endure the invisible theft of compounding inflation, the policy makers in DC will secretly welcome it as a means to inflate away their sovereign bar tab on the backs of your purchasing power and wealth.

This is called “negative real rates” or “financial repression,” and it’s the oldest trick in the book of desperately broke nations, namely: Let inflation rip higher than interest rates, but then lie about the embarrassing inflation.

When Even the Official Math is Bad

What’s as disturbing, however, is that even the “official” inflation data, as dishonest and downplayed as it is, is still alarming evidence of open monetary policy failure.

Current U.S. CPI inflation (the cost of consumer goods) is racing past 3.8%, and current U.S. PPI inflation (the business cost of making goods) is already at an embarrassing 6%–well beyond the Fed’s 2% “targets.”

But this is just the beginning. Since the Strait of Hormuz closed, the cost of fertilizer has risen by 20%, gasoline by 52%, European natural gas by 54%, jet fuel by 58%, and WTI crude oil by 60%.

Yet how can U.S. CPI and PPI inflation be in the single digits when everything else has risen by massive double digits?

Well, be patient, because the inflationary lag effect of this “conflict” in Iran (whatever you think of it) is racing toward your shores at an increasing wave height.

From Inflation to Gold: Keep it Simple

These inflation signals, as well as the bond signals above, and the stock mania already covered, are all just flashing neon-indicators of surreal “Uh-Oh” in the risk asset markets and an historical moment of currency debasement in your wallets and homes.

This is not fable but tragic fact.

Gold, whatever its current price, is positioning itself for a lengthy, secular and historical move north. It has a finite supply and infinite duration and is thus far more honest than the unlimited supply and finite duration of sovereign bonds and paper currencies.

For those who still think gold has not done enough, compare its recent history here:

…to the same history of global paper currencies here:

It’s really just that simple.

Gold will continue to climb because a global paper currency system distorted by decades of debt, dishonesty, desperation and debasement has nowhere to go but down.

For wealth preservation investors who understand the math of bonds and the history of debt, this simplicity provides for clarity in a time of fog, sanity in a time of madness, and wealth protection in a time of wealth destruction.

A commercial bus driver, who federal officials say could not speak English, faces two counts of involuntary manslaughter, with additional charges likely, after his charter bus plowed into vehicles on a Virginia highway Friday morning, killing five people, including an entire Greenfield, Massachusetts, family of four.

The New York Post reports that Virginia State Police revealed the 48-year-old bus driver, Jing S. Dong, was charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter and will likely face additional charges after killing five people, including an entire family of four from Massachusetts: Dmitri Doncev, 45; his wife, Ecterina, 44; their 13-year-old daughter, Emily; and their 7-year-old son, Mark.

This is the car of an entire family that was ki11ed after a bus driver drove into the back of a stopped car.

The driver, Jing S. Dong, 48, of Staten Island, New York, is a Chinese born naturalized citizen who doesn’t read or speak English.

He attained his commercial driver’s… pic.twitter.com/AaQ8ZiwuZr

— Kentucky Girl (@Notwokenow) May 30, 2026

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed on X that Dong, “a man from China who became a U.S. citizen — doesn’t speak English. He received his commercial driver’s license from New York State in 2024.”

“Unacceptable. This is exactly why we are holding states accountable, enforcing the rules of the road, and cracking down on drivers who can’t speak English,” Duffy said.

Update on the tragic bus crash in Virginia:

Five people are dead, including a 13-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy, after the driver of a motorcoach slammed into stopped traffic on I-95. @FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs and our investigators are on the ground at the crash… pic.twitter.com/NWPBd9aLPr

— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) May 29, 2026

X sleuths have begun digging into the bus operator, allegedly E&P Travel Inc., and claim corporate records list the company’s registered address as an apartment unit in Kings Mountain, North Carolina.

Satisfactory safety rating… https://t.co/nKMVmxxkdc

— maybe danielle 💻🚛🇺🇸 (@maybedanielleee) May 29, 2026

There has been a shocking uptick in non-English-speaking migrant truckers involved in horrific highway crashes. Some of these truckers entered the country under the Biden-Harris regime’s nation-killing open border policies.

Duffy and the Trump administration have been cracking down on this through federal and state actions, especially CDL enforcement, English-proficiency rules, and licensing audits.

In recent weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that freight brokers can be sued under state law for negligent hiring when they hire unsafe trucking firms that later cause crashes. This could be an extinction event for non-English-speaking migrant truckers because no freight broker wants to carry that liability.

Back to the bus driver, Dong: How did he receive citizenship without being able to speak English?

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

AI Validation Fuels A Ninth Weekly Advance

The headline tape made fresh history. The S&P 500 closed Friday at 7,580.06, finishing up 1.43% on the week and posting its ninth consecutive weekly gain. That’s the longest weekly winning streak since 2024, and only the 5th time since 1965 that has occurred. While markets previously saw weakness following such streaks, the 24- and 52-week outcomes were primarily positive, except in 1989.

However, the Russell 2000 actually fell 0.59% to 2,919, a reminder that the small-cap participation everyone hoped for in March still hasn’t shown up despite the megacap rip. Underneath the headline, the dispersion that’s defined this rally has only widened. Technology and financials carried Friday’s tape while energy lagged on falling crude.

Two macro stories collided midweek, and the market chose to celebrate one and shrug at the other. First, the April PCE inflation print landed Thursday morning with the highest headline reading in nearly three years at 3.8% year-over-year, with core PCE at 3.3%. However, the monthly core reading came in at 0.2%, below the 0.3% consensus, and that softer monthly tone gave the Fed-cut camp something to work with. Second, Axios reported Thursday that the US and Iran had reached a tentative 60-day Memorandum of Understanding to extend the ceasefire framework. Oil promptly slid to a six-week low near $89 WTI, the VIX collapsed to its lowest reading since January, ending the week at 15.32, and the rally accelerated. The combination of a softer core PCE and a reduced geopolitical premium handed equity bulls everything they wanted in two sessions.

The dominant micro story came after the bell on Thursday. Dell Technologies reported fiscal Q1 results that were, by any measure, extraordinary, with revenue hitting a record $43.8 billion, up 88% year-over-year, $24.4 billion in AI orders booked, and $16.1 billion in AI server revenue recognized. That is simply astonishing. However, what really drove the price on Friday was management raising the FY27 AI server revenue target to $60 billion, along with full-year revenue at the midpoint of $167 billion, a 50% annual increase. Dell’s report validated the AI capex thesis at exactly the moment the market was beginning to question how far the parabolic move could extend. The bull case strengthened alongside the asymmetry.

Cross-asset moves followed the same script. Treasury yields eased modestly on the cooler core PCE, the dollar softened slightly, and gold extended to roughly $4,576. Bitcoin remains in a bear market and has slid below $73,700. Beneath the AI exuberance, however, a separate undercurrent of institutional skepticism is building around AI infrastructure overcapacity. Several portfolio managers flagged commercial budget fatigue as a near-term risk, with reports surfacing that Microsoft trimmed its code license spending. The narrative isn’t unbroken, but it is being questioned.

📈Technical Backdrop – New Highs, Thinner Air

The trend is unambiguous. The S&P 500 closed Friday at 7,580.06, posting fresh all-time highs on three of the last five sessions and clearing the prior closing record by roughly 1.4% on the week. The index sits firmly above its 50-day moving average at 7,058 and 200-day moving average at 6,830, putting price roughly 7% above the 50-DMA and nearly 11% above the 200-DMA. On the momentum side, the 14-day RSI has climbed above 70 and is back in overbought territory. Additionally, the MACD has expanded with the new highs and is crossing back above its signal line.

By the standard measures, the bull trend that resumed after the April 7 Iran ceasefire is fully intact and accelerating. A retracement to the previous all-time highs, where the market broke out after the April correction is about 7.5% lower. While such a correction should be expected, given the high levels of complacency during the advance, such a decline will fell far worse that it actually is.

However, the warning signs underneath the surface are getting louder, not quieter. Breadth continues to deteriorate. The percentage of S&P 500 members trading above their 200-day moving average is still hovering near 57%, essentially unchanged from a week ago despite the index hitting new records. Equal-weight is now lagging cap-weight by a meaningful margin over the trailing month, and the cumulative advance-decline line has been making lower highs even as the index makes higher ones. Notably, that’s a textbook bearish divergence. The Nasdaq remains the standout, but the lift is being delivered by a handful of AI-linked mega-caps doing the heavy lifting.

The technical setup for next week makes adding more to equity exposure at current levels uncomfortable. Above the close, resistance sits at the round-number psychological level of 7,700, followed by the consensus year-end target zone near 7,800. Below, the rapidly trailing 5-day moving average around 7,550 is now the first short-term floor, and the prior Wednesday close at 7,520 acts as immediate support. Importantly, a break of 7,520 opens significant room before the next major support. The upside to consensus year-end targets is 2% to 3%. The downside to a routine test of the 200-DMA is 10%.

For positioning, the indicated trade is to use these new highs to harvest gains, not to chase them. Specifically, we continue to suggest trimming positions that have run materially above target weight. Tighten trailing stops on the most extended names, semis especially. Hold new cash deployments back until breadth confirms or a technical break invalidates the trend. With the VIX at 15.32, near its lowest level since January, downside protection is unusually cheap right now.

🔑 Key Catalysts Next Week

The week of June 1 is the heaviest catalyst calendar of the quarter with three threads colliding all at once. First, jobs and inflation data dominate the macro side, with ISM Manufacturing kicking off Monday and Nonfarm Payrolls closing Friday. Second, Broadcom (AVGO) reports Wednesday after the close. After Dell’s blowout Thursday night, the bar Hock Tan needs to clear has been raised significantly. Third, the Iran 60-day Memorandum of Understanding announced Thursday still needs formal ratification within the next two weeks, and any breakdown in those talks would reverse the volatility compression that fueled this past week’s rally.

On the macro side, the order matters. Monday’s ISM Manufacturing print will frame the week and the consensus expects 49.8, a hair below the expansion line. A surprise above 50 would confirm the manufacturing reset narrative and reinforce the bull case for industrials and cyclicals. Conversely, a miss below 49 would reawaken the late-cycle slowdown worry given that Q1 GDP was just revised down to 1.6%. Tuesday brings JOLTS plus Factory Orders, followed on Wednesday by ADP private payrolls and ISM Services, the more important of the two PMIs given that services dominate US output. Friday’s NFP is the data the Fed actually weighs and consensus sits at 145,000 with the unemployment rate at 4.2%. Notably, the asymmetry favors a downside surprise and a print below 100,000 would put September cuts squarely back on the table.

What investors should watch most is the Broadcom (AVGO) setup as mentioned above. The options markets are pricing an implied move of roughly 7% on the print, well above the historical average and the most asymmetric outcome would be a beat with cautious forward guidance. AVGO is priced for management to extend its “$100 billion in AI chip revenue by 2027” line of sight into a hard number, but anything short of that, combined with hyperscaler capex moderation in the commentary, would trigger the kind of broad semiconductor de-risking that the technicals already flag as overdue. The macro releases matter. However, Broadcom Wednesday is the trade the entire tape is built around right now.

💰 The Parabolic Semiconductor Rally

Previously, we laid out the case that market leadership is narrow, increasing summer risk. This week I want to focus the lens on Friday’s Daily Market Commentary topic: “The parabolic semiconductor rally.” That short commentary generated several questions that deserved a more complete response. So, I want to use today’s BullBearReport to expand on my thoughts on the trade: it’s not just leadership; it’s nearly the entire trade.

I mentioned last week that, across the market sectors, roughly $23 billion has flowed into technology ETFs since February; however, almost every other sector has been flat to down since prior to the Iran crisis. Most importantly, it is worth noting that even Energy has failed to rally despite the surge in oil prices and Technology has now surpassed its early year outperformance.

However, that is just the major sectors of the S&P 500. The sector we want to focus on today is the parabolic semiconductor sector, for which we will use the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), which closed Friday at $598, putting it 168% above its 50-month moving average. That is the most extreme deviation from trend in any major sector ETF on record. The setup is unique, and the asymmetry has turned against holders. Here’s why semis could break first, and how to position accordingly.

The standard measures of stretched are useful, but they understate what’s happening in semiconductors. Bank of America’s technical desk flagged the SMH weekly RSI above 80 for two consecutive weeks, an all-time high reading and only the fifth such instance since 2012. The fund trades roughly 150% above its 200-week moving average, exceeding the prior peaks of 100% to 108% set in 2021 and 2024. Both of those readings preceded drawdowns of more than 30%.

However, the cleanest single picture is the 50-month moving average. The 200-month MA at $88 is too far below the current price to be a useful mean reversion target. The 50-month MA at $224 is the actual trend that has tracked semis through every cycle since 2002.

Today, SMH sits 168% above that line. The prior peak deviation was 95% when the same parabolic semiconductor surge occurred in 2021, and that move resolved in a 49% drawdown over the following twelve months. By comparison, today’s reading nearly doubles the prior record.

The picture is unambiguous. Today’s reading isn’t part of the historical range. It is the historical range plus an additional 70 percentage points of overshoot. Mean reversion to the 50-MMA from $598 to $224 implies a ~63% price decline. That’s not a forecast, just arithmetic.

The question is what would cause such a mean-reverting event?

The Customers Are Five Companies

Every parabolic move eventually runs into a customer concentration problem, and the semiconductor rally has the most extreme version I’ve seen in my career. The entire AI infrastructure thesis rests on five hyperscalers continuing to underwrite the buildout. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Google, and Oracle account for the overwhelming majority of demand for forward AI chips. Their combined 2026 capital expenditure is projected above $800 billion, and the SMH basket is priced for that number to keep accelerating into 2028.

Importantly, the dependency runs in only one direction. The hyperscalers can throttle capex at will. They have the cash flow, the balance sheet flexibility, and shareholder bases that increasingly want to see returns on the prior years’ spending. Semiconductor names cannot create demand in a reciprocal manner. They are at the mercy of the hyperscalers’ ongoing spending commitments. Therefore, the moment any single hyperscaler tempers forward capex guidance, the bid under Nvidia, Broadcom, AMD, and Micron evaporates instantly.

The customer dependency runs five-to-one, and the supplier dependency is even tighter. Notice in the diagram above that more than half of SMH is exposed to four names that all rely on the same five buyers. There is no diversification inside the basket. If hyperscalers throttle, the entire ETF moves together.

“When 73% of professional money managers sit on the same side of a trade, the marginal buyer is already in. There is no second leg of buyers waiting to bid the dip.” Bank of America’s May Fund Manager Survey identified long global semiconductors as the most crowded trade on Wall Street at a record 73% reading.

The answer to why the parabolic semiconductor move has been so sharp, and why fundamentals do not seem to matter, comes down to a single word: Gamma.

The Gamma Squeeze Is Doing The Work

The fundamental story explains why semis are extended. It doesn’t explain why the move went vertical over the last six weeks. That mechanical acceleration is a textbook gamma squeeze, and understanding the plumbing matters because the same mechanism that drove the move up is what makes the unwind violent on the way down.

The chain of events is straightforward. Retail and momentum traders pile into short-dated call options on Nvidia, Broadcom, and SMH. Dealers who sold those calls are short gamma and must buy the underlying stock to stay delta-neutral as the price rises. Their hedging buys push the stock higher, which forces more hedging, which pushes the stock higher still. The feedback loop runs until call buying stalls or expiration removes the options from the dealers’ books.

The mechanics of this particular parabolic semiconductor advance are symmetric, and that’s the danger. Every share that dealers were forced to buy on the way up becomes a share they’re forced to sell on the way down. The buying and selling aren’t driven by fundamentals. They’re driven by hedging discipline against a derivatives book. When the catalyst hits, whether it’s a guidance disappointment, a hyperscaler capex cut, or simply monthly options expiration removing the gamma support, the loop reverses.

An additional wrinkle makes the unwind worse than the rally. Once stocks start falling, put buying replaces call buying. Dealers are now short put gamma and must sell stock as prices fall to stay hedged. The selling begets more selling, just as the buying begets more buying. We saw this exact pattern in the August 2024 unwind, when SMH dropped 34% in roughly six weeks despite no change in the underlying AI demand thesis. The fundamentals weren’t worse. The gamma was gone.

For positioning, the gamma backdrop changes how you think about hedging. Buying puts after the move starts is expensive because implied volatility has already expanded. The cheap insurance is bought before the unwind. That window is open today, but there is a high probability it will close after Broadcom reports earnings on Thursday if their guidance disappoints.

History Doesn’t Repeat, But It Rhymes Loudly

Every prior parabolic semiconductor move resolved the same way. The 2000 dot-com peak gave back 82%. By 2008, the GFC drawdown cost another 52%. In 2018, the trade war pulled the index back 30%. Then the 2022 rate-shock cycle delivered a 49% peak-to-trough decline, followed by a 34% reset during the 2024 August unwind. None of these were forecast in advance. Each was justified by a “different this time” narrative right up until the moment it wasn’t.

The 2000 entry on the chart matters most. That parabolic semiconductor move featured the same combination of features that defines today’s landscape: a “different this time” narrative built on a real technology transition, and a concentrated trade among professional investors. The post-peak drawdown was 82%, and SMH itself took roughly 9 years to recover to its prior high from the 2008 trough, which compounded the damage. The current setup doesn’t have to deliver that outcome. However, the prior parabolic peaks all delivered something materially worse than the typical correction. The current setup is more extreme than any of them, not less.

What Should Investors Do Now

Here’s the problem with selling a parabolic semiconductor move outright. Parabolic moves run further than anyone thinks possible before they break, and the final leg often delivers the largest gains of the entire move. Outright shorting is a way to get “carried out on a stretcher.” We saw it in 1999, and then the same trap caught short sellers in 2021, and again in early 2024. The discipline is to manage the asymmetry of the move, not to predict the top.

Specifically, here’s the playbook we’re applying in the model portfolios this week.

Make no mistake. This is not a “doom and gloom” analysis, and none of this is bearish on the secular AI thesis. The AI capex cycle is real, and the long-term demand for compute infrastructure is durable. However, secular themes regularly produce cyclical drawdowns of 30% to 50% on the way to their long-term payoff. Internet adoption was real in 2000, and the underlying secular story has played out across two decades. That truth didn’t save anyone who bought Cisco at the peak. Disciplined exposure management is how we participate in the secular story without owning the worst part of the cyclical drawdown.

Most crucially, trimming exposure is not a market call. It’s risk management at a point where the asymmetry no longer favors holders. The reward for staying long the last 10% of a parabolic semiconductor move is small. Round-tripping the previous 50% is permanent damage to capital. When leadership gets this narrow and this stretched, the rally and the risk are the same trade.

Position accordingly, and stay nimble through next week’s catalyst window.

Anti-ICE demonstrations outside Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, an ICE immigration detention facility, escalated in the overnight hours as the far-left and well-funded maximum pressure campaign entered its ninth day on Saturday. The continued mobilization only suggests a coordinated pressure operation, with dark-money-funded NGOs appearing to provide organizational and financial support.

Citizen journalist Nick Sortor went undercover at the anti-ICE encampment outside Delaney Hall in Newark on Saturday night, documenting what he described as far-left revolutionaries training their so-called ‘woke warriors’ to combat ICE agents.

Sortor explained:

I went undercover into a leftist training “class” here outside ICE Newark, where rioters are each handed ~$100 of equipment to pretend to be medic.

These people are basically Antifa’s support staff.

They were given goggles, latex gloves, and most notably, 3M P100 respirators with MULTIPLE spare cartridges — all new in the box.

The respirator + spare cartridges cost $75 each. And they were doling them out like candy.

These are NOT organic riots. They’re well organized and well-funded. These groups need to be broken up into a million pieces.

🚨 EXCLUSIVE: I went undercover into a leftist training “class” here outside ICE Newark, where rioters are each handed ~$100 of equipment to pretend to be medics

These people are basically Antifa’s support staff

They were given goggles, latex gloves, and most notably, 3M P100… pic.twitter.com/CeB6m4QlYo

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 30, 2026

Chaos.

🚨 BREAKING: MAJOR clashes underway between NJ police and anti-ICE rioters in Newark

SUPER physical fights

WE NEED NATIONAL GUARD! pic.twitter.com/vMMmlcxBZb

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 31, 2026

🚨 BREAKING: NJ POLICE HAVE LOST CONTROL —THEY’RE OVERWHELMED

VlOLENT CLASHES UNDERWAY

(One of my phones is now a casuaIty) pic.twitter.com/qMbW6hfqZ9

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 31, 2026

🚨 BREAKING: ABSOLUTE WARZONE OUTSIDE ICE NEWARK AS RIOTERS ATTACK NJ RIOT POLICE

POLICE ARE BEING HIT WITH ROCKS, AND ANTIFA IS THROWING FLASHBANGS BACK AT THEM

WE NEED NATIONAL GUARD! pic.twitter.com/4fOG4gRvri

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 31, 2026

🚨 BREAKING: Anti-ICE rioters are now STEALING items from local businesses and SETTING FIRES in the street near ICE Newark

Police are a QUARTER MILE AWAY

TOTAL ANARCHY pic.twitter.com/cdax1nH7Bd

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 31, 2026

Even the globalists at The Atlantic were recently forced to acknowledge … 

Late Saturday evening, Democratic New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said, “We know that people from outside the state have been interfering in the protests and escalating them. 5 of the 6 people arrested last night by state police were from outside New Jersey.”

WOW! The governor of New Jersey just revealed 5 of the 6 people arrested here outside the Newark ICE facility by NJ State Police were from OUT OF STATE

Once again: NOTHING about this is organic.

NJ GOV. SHERRILL: “We know that people from outside the state have been interfering… pic.twitter.com/Ceo8omhb2W

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 30, 2026

Fox News Digital observed signs from several far-left organizations at the ICE facility, including the Democratic Socialists of America, the Freedom Socialist Party, the Internationalist Group, the Labor Committee to Defend Immigrants, and the CUNY Internationalist Clubs.

Demonstrators carried copies of “Challenge,” a newspaper affiliated with the Progressive Labor Party, with headlines including “LONG LIVE COMMUNISM!” and “NO PAPERS, NO BORDERS, NO BOSSES.”

Fox News Digital reported that one protester accused Gov. Sherrill and liberal politicians of not spending enough time at the immigration facility, claiming they were there to “protect the racists because racism protects their profits.”

That protester told the crowd that the “only thing that’s going to save us is a mass militant, multiracial, anti-racist rebellion against this system.”

Protesters responded by chanting, “If we don’t get it, shut it down!”

Last week, we noted that one of the dark-money-funded NGOs organizing the protest is the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice (NJAIJ).

Influence Watch states on its website that NJAIJ is a coalition of over 50 groups that advocate for left-of-center immigration policy. Its executive committee includes the ACLU of New Jersey, the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the New Jersey Working Families Party, the American Friends Service Committee, and Faith in New Jersey.

Earlier on Saturday, Fox News Digital reporter Michael Dorgan questioned far-left Marxist influencer Hasan Piker about foreign influence and funding connected to China and the Neville Roy Singham network.

Related:

• Hasan Piker Says Quiet Part Out Loud, Maps Radical Left NGO Network To China-Based Marxist Financier

Piker denied having a direct connection with the China-based billionaire who funds far-left movements in the US that are seen merely as CCP influence operations by US federal investigators.

Related:

• Feds Subpoena Hasan Piker, CodePink Cofounder Over “Humanitarian” Trip To Communist Cuba

“I don’t know why there’s this environment of suspicion or this environment that takes this sinister shape for some reason when we’re talking about things that are totally above board and totally legal,” Piker said. “I don’t have any personal contact with Roy Singham or any of these other people. I mean, I know some of these people. They’re wonderful people in general. They are activists.”

Piker claimed that the federal government “has been actively trying to target activists and protesters,” shifting the blame to President Donald Trump.

“I feel like that’s not great, especially considering that Donald Trump said he was going to end cancel culture, he was actually going to end woke-ism, and that he was the free speech president,” Piker said. “I feel like there are a lot of people who believe in that message, and now he’s betrayed that message.”

“People are allowed to believe whatever they want to believe,” he continued. “That’s the American spirit, baby.”

Yet nonprofits were never intended to organize street violence, clash with police, shut down infrastructure, riot, burn down city streets, incite Marxist revolution, or serve as proxies for statecraft operations by foreign governments.

Federal investigators understand that protests during the Trump era are not grassroots protests. These are part of the protest industrial complex paralyzing American infrastructure on demand, financed by left-wing billionaire family foundations through nonprofits, as well as entities based in hostile foreign power, such as the Singham network, which even the New York Times says conducts propaganda operations for the CCP.

That’s why Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signaled Thursday that a coming crackdown on dark-money funded NGOs will be seen in the “weeks and months ahead.”

🚨 WOW! Scott Bessent just revealed the IRS has moved to make NGOs LIABLE for violent activity committed by their grant recipients like Antifa

George Soros has been put on NOTICE.

“The IRS is now giving guidance on the Form 990, which nonprofits they have to file. We are going… pic.twitter.com/15ToheHbwa

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 28, 2026

It’s not just China…

• Is There A “Cuba Connection” Behind The Radicalization Of America’s Nonprofit Left

Last October, Seamus Bruner, Director of Research at the Government Accountability Institute, briefed President Trump on television about radical left NGOs and activist networks.

“We have identified dozens of radical organizations, not just the decentralized Antifa organizations, but dozens of radical organizations that have received more than $100 million from the Riot Inc investors,” Bruner told Trump.

Source: Government Accountability Institute

This subject is near and dear to Elon Musk, who at the time commented on a video of Seamus briefing Trump.

Way more than $100M of US taxpayer money

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 8, 2025

Hedge fund legend Kyle Bass noted, “SecScottBessent is doing God’s work. Imagine if the IRS required a full donor list to be public to maintain the 501 (c) (3) ‘s tax-exempt status.”

Authored by Andrew Korybko,

Russia’s consequent focus on the western front might embolden US-backed NATO member Turkiye to accelerate its power play in the south at the risk of sparking another regional crisis after Ukraine.

Russian Ambassador-at-Large Artyom Bulatov warned in a recent interview that “Westerners, with energy worthy of a better cause, are erecting a new ‘Iron Curtain’, seeking to make irreversible the rupture – provoked by themselves – of socio-economic, trade, transport, interpersonal, cultural, and historical ties that have been built in the region not over years, but over centuries.” He also condemned the weaponization of regional interaction mechanisms like the Council of the Baltic States against Russia.

Truth be told, a new Iron Curtain is inevitable and has been since summer 2024 when the Baltic States and Poland combined their respective border fortification plans along NATO’s Eastern Flank to unveil what they now officially refer to as the “EU Defense Line”, which readers can learn more about here. This initiative will likely be expanded to include Finland too, thus stretching from the Arctic to Central Europe. Even in the event of a Russian-US rapprochement, which is now unlikely, these barriers will still remain.

Russian experts, who operated for so long under the influence of the wishful thinking fantasy that the EU is challenging Russia at its senior US patron’s behest and not due to its own ideologically driven hatred of Russia (contrary to its objective interests), are finally waking up to reality. New President of the Russian International Affairs Council Dmitriy Trenin, who issued an unprecedented clarion call in April for correcting foreign policy misperceptions, published a relevant piece in parallel with Bulatov’s interview.

Titled “The EU, Like ‘NATO 3.0,’ Will Remain Our Adversaries”, it dramatically begins by informing readers that “For the first time since 1945, the most pressing military threat to Russia is coming from Europe—European states themselves. This represents the most significant military-political shift for Russia since the victory in the Great Patriotic War.” The goal, Trenin believes, is “to split the Russian Federation into externally controlled components and turn them into semi-colonies of the European Union.”

This will be pursued through indefinitely perpetuating the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine together with ramping up sanctions and military pressure for undermining domestic political stability.

He shared five suggestions in response to these threats:

1) strengthen the homefront;

2) demonstrate willingness to strike targets in the EU (and actually do so if need be);

3) strengthen ties with China to the point of a de facto global alliance;

4) exploit US-EU divisions; and

5) and capitalize on political shifts in EU states.

Trenin also reaffirmed Russia’s new self-identity as a (Eurasian) civilization-state, the subtext being that Russians en masse are increasingly viewing themselves as different from Europeans for the first time since Russia’s experiment of emulating the West began three centuries ago. All the insight that he shared in his article pairs with what Bulatov shared in his interview and the “EU Defense Line” that’s under construction to ensure that a new Iron Curtain is inevitable. Russians are also finally accepting this too.

In terms of the bigger picture, three trends are self-evident:

1) the EU will independently continue challenging Russia regardless of however Russian-US relations develop;

2) Russia will continue prioritizing the World Majority over the West; and 3) Russian-EU tensions will become the new normal.

With Russia focusing on the western front as a result, US-backed NATO member Turkiye is expected to accelerate its power play in the south, thus sowing the seeds of another regional crisis after Ukraine.

In case you needed further justification for denying your woman’s request for a vacation in Paris, hordes of migrants gave your position another boost over Saturday night, as they rampaged across the “City of Light” and other French locales, setting structures and vehicles ablaze, smashing the windows of occupied cars, destroying shops and unleashing other varied forms of mayhem. And they were doing this because they were happy…about a soccer game. 

La Tour Eiffel est noyée sous un nuage de fumée après un départ de feu sur les quais de seine.

Situation toujours très tendue dans ce secteur.#PSG #PSGARS #Arsenal #UCLfinal #Paris pic.twitter.com/89XVXjfRho

— Luc Auffret (@LucAuffret) May 31, 2026

Yes, attacking French society (such as it is) was the outlet for joy they felt over Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) defeating the London-based Arsenal soccer team via a penalty shootout in the Champions League final. After the game, they poured into the streets and began destroying other people’s property.

🇫🇷 Paris currently looks like a war zone. Again.

North African gangs are blocking the streets and destroying everything in sight following PSG winning the Champions League.

Total chaos. pic.twitter.com/pzRsF0iXX7

— Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) May 30, 2026

Police deployed tear gas in clashes around Paris. More than 400 people were arrested across France by Sunday’s early hours, including at least 280 in Paris, according to the French interior ministry. Seven police officers were injured. Last year’s PSG championship also sparked disaster, including the death of a 17-year-old. 

The situation is worsening and getting completely out of control in Paris.

The Champs-Élysées area is being destroyed, with migrant gangs reportedly even attempting to set fire to the Arc de Triomphe.

A literal war zone. pic.twitter.com/yENmLrpRXm

— Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) May 30, 2026

“Only in France does a football club’s victory spark riots,” lamented conservative leader Marine Le Pen. “Only in France does everyone feel compelled to lock themselves in their homes on the evening of a victory to avoid being confronted with violence. The French can no longer stand these scenes of chaos that multiply at the slightest pretext, and this, despite an extraordinary security apparatus.” The destruction was visited upon bakeries, restaurants, retail stores, bus shelters and cars.

In perhaps the most disturbing video of the night, rioters were seen shattering the windows of a car occupied by two young women: 

🚨HAPPENING NOW IN PARIS: Islamic anarchists are swarming women in cars and doing god knows what to them.

Where is President Macron? https://t.co/qnTruGIZvy

— Drew (@AllegedlyDrew) May 31, 2026

While major media won’t do it, we’re highlighting migrants as the principal offenders because people lacking native French characteristics dominate imagery of the hellish scenes across Paris and France. 

This is Paris, France tonight. Import the third world, become the third world. pic.twitter.com/BaiCRW1cRP

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 31, 2026

“Yay, fellas, our team won!” :

North African PSG fans burned, devastated and looted Paris. If you import third world you become third world. pic.twitter.com/auvt2Z9Hu0

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) May 31, 2026

Some of the ugliest scenes played out on Avenue des Champs-Elysees, which was once widely and reasonably nicknamed the “most beautiful avenue in the world.” On Saturday night, thanks to a long-running cultural invasion that continues to plumb new dystopian depths, the stretch famous for the Arc de Triomphe, luxurious shops and fine dining was among the world’s most alarming.   

The Muslim gang riots continue in Paris.

A huge fire was started at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

Notice how they chant “Allahu Akbar.” This is a religious war, and this is their way of saying “we own the place now.” pic.twitter.com/MLXSc3IEXi

— Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) May 31, 2026

In a contribution to French society that should live in infamy, leftist Second Vice President of the National Assembly Clemence Guette posted a message before the violence started unfolding, touting the “victory of a collective” (nice Marxist flourish there!), and asking authorities “not to spoil the party once again,” and to refrain from “violent repression,” saying police should “let Parisians and Francilians have their pride and joy for this evening.” 

Here’s what “pride and joy” looks like to moronic, multicultural Marxists: 

Problems in Paris pic.twitter.com/KOU8r5UF4S

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 31, 2026

And here’s what Paris looked like before being blessed by cultural enrichment:  

Paris before the Globalists started implementing their Plan to use French Tax Payer to import & house Tens of Millions of African & Asian Migrants.

It’s not just Paris – it’s the entire Western Civilised World. pic.twitter.com/CbUAYwzuKx

— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) May 31, 2026

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

The UK government’s “consultation” on social media harm is over, and – brace yourselves – it turns out they’re going to have to do something about it.

I know, I was shocked too.

The main talking point is that “social media is like cigarettes”. Everyone is saying that, it’s the meme of the day.

It’s a sentiment originally taken from a new report submitted to the consultation by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges.

Titled “Growing up in an online world”, it contains this hilarious line in the foreword:

…there is, I think, an overwhelming consensus that excessive screen time can harm children and young people and we need to call this out unflinchingly rather than passively wait for someone else to prove causation”.

Which is a pretty neat summary of how our political system works in general, and certainly in this case: We don’t know if there’s even a problem yet, but by God we’re gonna do something about it.

That the something they end up doing makes them rich and powerful is just one of the curious coincidences tyrants can always rely on.

{Sidenote: This morning the BBC had “Overwhelimg consensus” in their headline on this story, but at some point the absurdity of that quote was realised, and the headline changed. Now there’s this disclaimer near the end: “There is no consensus among the wider scientific community that screen time overall is harmful to children.” Funny stuff.}

Elsewhere, the report wails about “a wave of radicalized children” who pose “a real risk to society”, and calls social media “an incredibly powerful and uncontrolled commercial detriment to health”.

In a similar vein, The Guardian is warning of a “tsunami of harm”, and has assembled an all-star cast of interested parties to talk up the scariness of social media meanness.

After meeting with “bereaved parents” earlier today, Keir Starmer has “vowed to take action”.

His potential rival for the leadership has been even more vocal. Political eunuch and leadership hopeful Wes Streeting is all over this, campaigning hard to be the next disposable suit full of bugger all to “lead the country”:

Big tech’s behaviour has been akin to big tobacco, introducing an addictive and harmful product whilst avoiding regulation.

We’ve got to give our children their childhood back, and that starts with a social media ban for under-16s. pic.twitter.com/soRbjbHIsG

— Wes Streeting (@wesstreeting) May 26, 2026

He thinks a ban should be “just the start”:

Social media should be treated like tobacco – it’s extremely addictive, bad for our health, and big tech is borrowing the big tobacco playbook to avoid regulation. We’ve got to give our children their childhood back […] A ban for under-16s must be the start, not the end […]We have given the pen to tech moguls to write our future for us. It’s time to take the pen back.”

Streeting is an idiot whose ambition outweighs his intellect by a factor of ten, and who clearly doesn’t understand the rules of the game he’s playing.

Some political handler behind the scenes probably told him to go hard on this issue because it will make him look tough and assertive, but the likely truth is he’s being wheeled out as the extreme option so a “sensible middle ground” option – probably Andy Burnham – can enforce “common sense policies”.

What will those policies be? It doesn’t really matter, but we’ll get to that.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall, notable only for garnering less than 5% of the vote in the 2015 leadership election, is out there promising “action”:

‘The question isn’t whether we are going to act, we will’

As a consultation on social media use for under-16s comes to an end Technology Secretary Liz Kendall told #BBCBreakfast the Government plans to take actionhttps://t.co/jJ6RakraWV pic.twitter.com/6lLD8yVoY9

— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) May 26, 2026

…they haven’t decided what “action” yet, exactly but it’s definitely going to happen.

The Guardian has a handy list to choose from, including but not limited to:

– social media bans
– “digital curfews”
– “function limitations”
– age gating “addictive features”
– protecting children from personalised algorithms
– enforcing screen time limits.

Which one will it be?

Well let me answer that question with another question – Who cares?

The powers that be certainly don’t.

This is very much an “any colour you want so long as it’s black” situation.

Choose an outright ban – “Great, please submit your ID to prove you’re over 16 and exempt from the social media ban.”

Choose screen time limits – “Great, please submit your ID to prove you’re over 16 and exempt from screen time limitations.”

Choose digital curfews – “Great, please submit your ID to prove you’re over 16 and exempt from the digital curfew.”

Since all the proposed measures rely on age verification for enforcement, they all achieve the end goal: No more online anonymity, for kids or adults alike.

Debating the list is pointless, and making a choice counterproductive. It’s like choosing the colour of your electric chair: It makes no difference to the end result, but your entirely cosmetic choice lends tacit approval of the whole process.

We all know where this is going: Age gating everything, everywhere and then – eventually – digital ID.

It’s just…

…and you’re left wondering, who is this even for?

What is the point of this worn-out, unenthusiastic propaganda?

We know what they’re going to do, they have said they’re going to do it, and still they feel the need to play out this performative umming and erring.

Just get on with it.

All the people who don’t believe them will NEVER believe them, and all the poor fools who do believe them will always believe them.

So why carry on this absurd pretense?

It’s like when you’re watching a really dull movie – one that has telegraphed its “clever twist” in the first ten minutes – but is still insisting on dragging out the run time for two more hours of what the writers evidently consider skillful foreshadowing.

Or when you get a call from an unknown number, and some eager breathless voice announces “this is not a sales call”, before launching into a fifteen minute speech about double glazing or solar panels, and you’re just waiting for a pause long enough to say “no thanks”, and hang up.

It is a sales call, and you’ve known that from the beginning, and they know you know, but they can’t stop talking because then you’ll leave. They have to keep talking because they know you’re not listening.

So maybe that’s the answer. Maybe they can’t take a breath because people will hang up.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

Marine Le Pen would beat every major rival in a second-round French presidential election runoff, according to new polling that hypothesized her eligibility to stand in the election expected in April next year.

A Toluna-Harris Interactive poll for M6 and RTL, conducted on May 27, found Le Pen ahead in all three tested runoff scenarios when she is the National Rally candidate.

The strongest result came against far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, with Le Pen taking 67 percent to his 33 percent. She also defeated former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal by 54 percent to 46 percent, and former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe by 52 percent to 48 percent.

The figures are significant because Philippe and Attal are among the most prominent names in the broader Macron-aligned camp, which has long presented itself as the main barrier to a National Rally victory. Le Pen has twice lost runoff elections to Macron, back in 2017 and 2022.

Yet the poll suggests that even the strongest establishment contenders would currently fall short against Le Pen in a head-to-head vote.

France, Toluna-Harris poll:

Presidential run-off election

Le Pen (RN-PfE): 52%
Philippe (HOR-RE): 48%

Le Pen (RN-PfE): 54%
Attal (RE-RE): 46%

Le Pen (RN-PfE): 67%
Mélenchon (LFI-LEFT): 33%

Fieldwork: 25-27 May 2026
Sample size: 1,744

➤ https://t.co/qOzl2nSVPC pic.twitter.com/ZwUFcw7Ma7

— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) May 29, 2026

Le Pen is currently barred from running after being handed an immediate five-year ban from public office, but she has appealed the ruling. A decision on that appeal is expected on July 7. Should she remain unable to run, National Rally president Jordan Bardella is widely expected to become the party’s presidential candidate.

That would still leave National Rally in a commanding position. Earlier polling this week showed Bardella leading the first round with 32 percent, well ahead of Philippe on 17 percent and Mélenchon on 16 percent. The same May Odoxa political barometer also showed Bardella beating Philippe in a second-round runoff by 52 percent to 48 percent, reversing the result recorded two months earlier, when Philippe had led by the same margin.

Taken together, the surveys point to a deepening problem for France’s centrist and left-wing parties. Whether the candidate is Le Pen or Bardella, the National Rally is now polling not merely as a first-round protest vehicle, but as a party capable of winning the presidency outright.

If Le Pen’s appeal succeeds, she would enter the race as the most formidable candidate in the field. If it fails, Bardella would inherit a political landscape in which the National Rally brand is already ahead of its most likely rivals.

🇫🇷 @MLP_officiel promises the French people a referendum on immigration if the National Rally candidate wins next year’s presidential election.

Current polling shows both possible RN candidates, Le Pen and @J_Bardella, beating all other major rivals in a second round run-off. pic.twitter.com/X0t1RCRMec

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) May 29, 2026

On Friday, Le Pen announced her intention, should the National Rally win the presidency, to offer the French public a referendum on mass immigration.

“The French people have been betrayed. In 2027, we will restore a democratic vitality to France by returning power to the people,” she wrote on X.

Read more here…