Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned on Oct. 23 that California could lose its ability to issue commercial driver’s licenses and risk losing more funding if it fails to comply with federal transportation rules.

The Transportation Department has already withheld more than $40 million in funding from California after an investigation found that the state had not met federal English-language proficiency standards for truck drivers, Duffy said in a post on X.

Harjinder Singh is escorted onto an airplane by Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and law enforcement in Stockton, Calif., on Aug. 21, 2025. AP Photo/Benjamin Fanjoy

In an interview with Fox News aired on Oct. 23, Duffy threatened to pull another $160 million from California if it refused to adhere to federal regulations governing the issuance of commercial driver’s licenses.

“I’m doing a quick review of [the state’s] lack of compliance for our rules. I have the ability and I’m going to pull almost another $160 million,” Duffy said.

“And then I have the ability for California to say, listen, you don’t follow any of these rules that keep Americans safe, we’re going to revoke your ability to issue a commercial driver’s license.”

As The Epoch Times’ Aldgra Fredly reports below, in a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom dated Sept. 26, the department’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) stated that its investigation found that California had issued commercial driver’s licenses to nondomiciled drivers that were valid beyond the expiration of their work authorization in the country.

The agency required that California implement corrective measures, warning that failure to do so could result in the loss of certain federal highway funds and the decertification of the state’s commercial driver’s licensing program.

The state was ordered to pause issuance of commercial driver’s licenses to nondomiciled drivers, identify all unexpired nondomiciled drivers who failed to comply with federal regulations, and conduct an internal audit to identify procedural and programming errors in the issuance of commercial driver’s licenses, among other requirements.

The Epoch Times reached out to Newsom’s office for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.

The department initiated an investigation into California’s compliance with federal safety rules following a fatal crash in Florida on Aug. 12 that involved a semi-truck driver who illegally entered the United States in 2018 through the southern border.

The truck driver, identified as Harjinder Singh, an Indian national, allegedly made an illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike on Aug. 12, causing a minivan to collide with his commercial semi-truck. All three of the minivan’s occupants were killed in the crash.

Singh was issued a commercial driver’s license in July 2024 by California, despite being in the country illegally. He had also obtained a full-term commercial driver’s license in Washington state in July 2023. Singh also did not pass English-language and road tests, according to officials.

On Oct.23, federal immigration authorities filed an arrest order for an Indian national who is alleged to have killed three people in California while driving a semi-truck under the influence of drugs. The incident occurred on Oct. 21.

Three people died instantly in the accident, and several others were injured, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a statement.

ICE lodged an arrest detainer on Oct. 22 for Jashanpreet Singh, 21, who they said is “a criminal illegal alien from India.”

The Trump administration paused the issuance of all worker visas for commercial truck drivers on Aug. 21, stating that the increasing number of foreign drivers was “endangering American lives” and undercutting jobs for American truckers.

California’s Department of Transportation issued an emergency ruling last month that prohibits the state from issuing or renewing limited-term legal commercial driver’s licenses to noncitizens.

Authored by Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times,

Hundreds of people, from conservative commentators to prominent tech executives, have signed a letter seeking a ban on “the development of superintelligence.”

This year, leading technology firms such as Google, Meta Platforms, and OpenAI have accelerated efforts to build artificial intelligence (AI) systems capable of outperforming humans across a broad spectrum of elementary and complex tasks.

A growing chorus of prominent people thinks that it is time to hit the brakes—at least temporarily.

The letter, put together by the Future of Life Institute, calls for a ban on advancing superintelligent AI until there is public demand and science charts a safe path for the technology.

“We call for a prohibition on the development of superintelligence, not lifted before there is broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably, and strong public buy-in,” reads the brief statement, released on Oct. 22.

The Future of Life Institute has spent the past decade sounding the alarm over the existential risks posed by advanced AI. Its petition has drawn thousands of signatures and support from hundreds of high-profile figures aligned with the group’s mission, including AI pioneers Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton.

Bengio said AI systems could outperform most individuals in various cognitive tasks in the next few years. While they will bring advancements, they could also “carry significant risks,” Bengio wrote in a personal note released with the letter.

“To safely advance toward superintelligence, we must scientifically determine how to design AI systems that are fundamentally incapable of harming people, whether through misalignment or malicious use,” he wrote.

“We also need to make sure the public has a much stronger say in decisions that will shape our collective future.”

The letter warns of increasing threats to the world, including the loss of freedom, civil liberties, and “human economic obsolescence and disempowerment.”

Among the other signatories are conservative media personality Glenn Beck, Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, former national security adviser Susan Rice, and political commentator Steve Bannon.

The letter expresses consternation over the rapid development and deployment of AI across a wide array of industries, political ideologies, and religious sects.

“The future of AI should serve humanity, not replace it,“ Prince Harry, one of many signatories alongside his wife, Meghan, said in a personal note released with the letter. ”The true test of progress will be not how fast we move, but how wisely we steer.”

Stuart Russell, an AI pioneer and computer science professor at the University of California–Berkeley, said that the statement is not a prohibition or moratorium “in the usual sense.” Instead, he wrote, it is a proposal to install the necessary safeguards for a technology that “has a significant chance to cause human extinction.”

“Is that too much to ask?” Russell wrote.

In a 2015 blog post, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote that the rise of “superhuman machine intelligence (SMI) is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the Building a Legacy: Remembering Charlie Kirk memorial event at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on Sept. 21, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, told podcast host Joe Rogan earlier this year that there is “only a 20 percent chance of annihilation.”

“The probability of a good outcome is like 80 percent,” the billionaire entrepreneur said.

It is not only experts and famous individuals who voice caution.

The Future of Life Institute cited a recent national survey of 2,000 adults that found only 5 percent support for “the status quo of fast, unregulated development.” Close to two-thirds (64 percent) think that superhuman AI either should not be created until it is proven safe and controllable or “should never be developed.”

AI on the Street and at Work

For the past three years, Wall Street has been immersed in the rise of AI, with many market watchers comparing it to the dot-com bubble 25 years ago.

Others say it is very different from the exuberance of the late 1990s, when investors poured billions of dollars into companies with “dot-com” in their names.

“Overall, there are some similarities (increasing market concentration in tech stocks; aggressive capital investment ahead of revenues),” John Belton, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, said in a note emailed to The Epoch Times.

“But I think it is oversimplifying things to say we are in a ‘bubble’ (almost certainly not in a valuation bubble; but an argument to be made that there is some recent froth in earnings streams).”

Whether the AI bubble is real or not, companies are pressing ahead with AI, and U.S. workers are worried.

According to June data from FactSet Insights, during the second quarter, more than 40 percent of S&P 500 firms commented on “AI” during earnings calls. This is the fifth consecutive quarter in which more than 200 S&P 500 firms have done so.

A Reuters-Ipsos poll conducted this past summer found that 71 percent of respondents were worried about AI “putting too many people out of work permanently.”

While AI has yet to spur widespread job displacement, member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors Christopher Waller said last week that more companies are preparing for the new technology in their day-to-day operations.

“Retailers in particular are cutting back on employment for call centers and IT-related occupations,” Waller said at an Oct. 15 DC Fintech Week event. “So far, most say this is being handled through attrition, but a number of retailers say that there is the potential for downsizing next year.”

Even employees working in the AI field are facing job cuts.

Meta announced on Oct. 22 that it is eliminating about 600 positions in its Superintelligence Labs, which will affect Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research and other AI and AI-related products and infrastructure.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has on Friday ordered the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the US Southern Command area of responsibility, joining what is already an unprecedented US military build-up in the southern Caribbean off Venezuela. 

And so after nine attacks on alleged narco-smuggling boats, it looks as if the strikes on cartels will only intensify, also after President Trump suggested that “land” operations could commence against the Maduro government.

“The enhanced U.S. force presence in the USSOUTHCOM AOR will bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere,” the Pentagon says.

“These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle TCOs,” the statement adds.

Below is the list of assets which will join at least eight warships already deployed to the waters, led by the SS Gerald R. Ford:

• Arleigh Burke-Class Guided-Missile Destroyers
• USS Mahan (DDG-72)
• USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG-81)
• USS Bainbridge (DDG-96)

These are being redirected from the Mediterranean Sea to the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) Area-of-Responsibility near Venezuela.

Already the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and several other air and naval assets are currently operating off Puerto Rico with an eye on Venezuela. 

Trump’s Venezuela task-force counts 140,200 tons of ships. That’s more than the UK’s only carrier strike group. The deployment’s firepower is about equal to half of the entire Royal Navy’s warship and attack submarine displacement. pic.twitter.com/dDVLsKUYEo

— barry with the NED (@bonzerbarry) September 8, 2025

President Trump has insisted he doesn’t need a formal war authorization from Congress to conduct anti-Venezuela operations aimed at ‘terrorists’ and ‘narco-traffickers’ and has at various times threatened regime change in Caracas.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The generation of young people just starting out in their careers faces an uphill battle unlike anything confronted by their parents and grandparents.

For them, the promise of the American Dream is elusive at best.

Everything is more expensive. The job market is frozen for pay for which they were hoping. Industry is changing so fast that educational credentials are ever less valuable.

There is real panic in the air among them, which is why so many have turned to substance abuse and far-flung hopes of making it rich in crypto or the influencer economy.

A new survey on the expenses faced by this generation has appeared that frames it up in alarming terms.

Over 20 years from 2005 to 2025, the cost of all essentials has soared:

• Housing (rent) is up 120 percent.

• Transportation is up 86 percent.

• Education is up 133 percent.

• Groceries are up 79 percent.

• Entertainment is up 100 percent.

• Utilities are up 53 percent.

• Time to save for house down payment has gone from 8 to 14 years.

• The average student debt burden has moved from $20K to $30K.

• The real increase in salaries is 12 percent.

• Health insurance these days is a killer of living standards, averaging $27,000 from the business side and that’s without using it.

• Housing ownership seems largely out of the question.

In general, this whole generation has a delayed wealth curve that is 7 to 10 years relative to prior generations. In other words, it’s a lost generation, with a financial challenge that is matched by the trauma of pandemic lockdowns, ill-education, and digital addiction.

Behind all this is a hidden force at work, the dramatic devaluation of the currency over five years. During this time, the dollar lost 25-35 percent of its value, depending on the service or good in question. Salaries simply are not keeping up.

All this began to unfold in 2020 when the Federal Reserve accommodated the wildest spending binge by Congress in American history. The result was debt, which the Fed purchased with newly printed cash, which was then dispersed to the public in the form of stimulus payments.

Anyone with a modicum of economic knowledge could foresee the problem. This was not like the quantitative easing of 2008 which deployed an accounting trick to keep the new money locked up in bank vaults. The monetary expansion of 2020-2023 resulted in hot money on the street, which translates directly to higher prices and a lower purchasing power.

There are many ways to represent the impact on income but consider what has happened in the world center of markets for a century, New York City. What we see is a picture of massive disruption over five years, to the point of absolute calamity. Real median household income is lower now than five years ago. Many businesses were driven out or died completely. Some of the most productive residents left.

The reality on the ground is worse than it seems. The city is unaffordable for any regular income earned by a young person. Even worse, the physical conditions of the city have deteriorated dramatically. If you haven’t visited in 20 years, you will likely find the place unrecognizable. The same can be said of many U.S. cities, the very places where young people once depended upon for career starts.

All the political winds in D.C. right now are demanding lower and lower interest rates so as to make servicing the new debt more affordable. The problem with this strategy is that artificially lowered rates send distorted signals to industry. The message is borrow, expand, build in leverage or get wiped out by the competition. At some uncertain point in the future, the pattern breaks as consumers are completely tapped out.

The economy cannot operate as a perpetual motion machine. Prosperity cannot be maintained by endless cycles of fakery, with fresh money fueling higher financials and rewarding people on the other side of the divide. Anyone with a million in the bank can sit back and live off the proceeds forever while young workers just starting out can hardly pay the bills.

This is combustible, politically and culturally.

What is the solution? As with every inflation in history, the first step is to stop the money printers. That is easier said than done simply because the entire financial system today is addicted to debt finance which in turn depends on a Fed forever cranking out the fiat. The fear here is that the fix will be worse than the disease.

Today, it is widely accepted that inflation should run hotter than it has normally been in the entire postwar period, so between 2 and 3 percent. Many suspect that the Fed has quietly changed the target to 2.5 percent. There is plenty of evidence that this is true, in which case there will be no real solution forthcoming.

The latest CPI data is running hot at 3 percent, further suggesting the possibility of a second wave. This would be a disaster, sealing the fate of a generation. Meanwhile, there is no mystery about the cause: it’s the money printing!

It was four decades ago when I graduated from college without a thought about a job, debt, or paying the bills. I wasn’t irresponsible. These were not issues my generation confronted. We just assumed that if you had skill and will, everything else would fall into place. You found a place to live, worked hard, and everything worked out.

We had no idea at the time that we were living in a rare moment of history. Low inflation, low unemployment, high growth, freedom and ebullience all around. Now that moment is entirely gone, replaced with anxiety that is mutating to panic and despair. Old people don’t care much because they are doing just fine—perhaps the last American generation that can count on being comfortably well off.

The only way that Gen Z can battle this problem is by a big change in spending habits. The same survey cited above reports that young workers are spending on average $300 per month on restaurants and bars. Maybe that doesn’t sound like much but simply changing that habit—cooking at home instead of throwing away money on expensive dining—would make a big difference.

A major problem here is that Gen Z needs to change its expectations, all of which are rooted in class fears fueled by social media nonsense. They have to be at the right spots, wear the right clothes, live in the best places, and drive fashionable cars. These are extremely powerful psychological pulls. Corporate finance is there to seem to make it all possible for a while.

In the last three years, myriad companies have sprung up to give cash advances by linking one’s bank account on the spot while shopping. The fees are high because they are not classified as interest, and they evade regulatory controls. What these companies are doing is exploiting class insecurity and pillaging the people who can least afford it.

The only real solution here is the traditional value of frugality. It’s possible to buy groceries from less-fashionable places, dial back amenities in apartment living, buy used clothing from online marketplaces, and forgo vacations and entertainment. You can cut the bills, with the goal of having zero debt. This is the only way to live as a young person if you have any hope of building a secure future.

Economic headwinds are leaning hard against Gen Z and this has produced a kind of demoralization. Nothing works as it once did. Policymakers and parents can help but the ultimate solution is going to come down to a change of priorities.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Democrat Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) has once again openly criticised his own party over the ongoing government shutdown, intensifying discussions about a potential primary challenge against him in 2028. 

Filming a video in front of the U.S. Capitol, Fetterman bluntly states “Hi, here we are and our government remains closed. And I think that’s failure.” 

He continues, “and I’m the guy that’s gonna consistently vote for country over Party, always going to vote for paying our military over the Party. I’m always gonna vote for paying the Capitol Police over my Party.”

He further vows, “I’m gonna continue to fight for the two millions Pennsylvanians that depend on SNAP to feed themselves.”

“And I’m also going to fight for the four hundred and twenty thousand Pennsylvanians that depend on those tax credits to make health insurance more affordable,” he adds concluding that “we can fight for all of them as long as our government is open.”

“My vote is going to remain firmly on keeping our government open,” Fetterman concludes, a position that aligns with public sentiment but sharply diverges from the Democrats’  tactics.

Watch:

🚨 BREAKING: Leftists now want to primary challenge out Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) more than ever, after he posted a video scorching his own party for refusing to pay the troops and police by shutting the government down.

“This is FAILURE.”

“I will consistently vote for… pic.twitter.com/SLu80tw1vz

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 22, 2025

In addition, Fetterman appeared on Hannity, and referred to Democrats’ unwillingness to tone down the violent rhetoric.

“I refuse to do those kinds of things [call people fascists and Nazis] because that kind of extreme rhetoric makes it easier for those kinds of extreme actions, like what happened to poor Charlie Kirk,” Fetterman said.

“It’s like, that’s just basic humanity there… I refuse to be a part of comparing people to Hitler and those things because if that’s what’s required to win, then I refuse to.”

John Fetterman points to Charlie Kirk’s death as proof that his party’s “extreme rhetoric” has gone too far.

Democrats are already furious with Fetterman, and this latest statement is the last thing they want to be said on-air:

“I refuse to do those kinds of things [call people… pic.twitter.com/Uekd6o4uiq

— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) October 23, 2025

He again criticised the shutdown, and his Party’s use of it to score political points.

From there, Fetterman exposed how Democrats are letting their own base GO HUNGRY over the shutdown just to score political points against Trump.

“Two million Pennsylvanians depend on SNAP to help feed themselves and their families. Two million,” Fetterman stressed.

“And now… pic.twitter.com/8CGCWpzgut

— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) October 23, 2025

“I’m not afraid of telling the truth. I’ll be the Democrat that refuses to lie to the base and pretend that this is right,” the Senator noted, adding “I’m proud to stand with Israel. I’m proud to say that we need to secure our border. I think it’s entirely appropriate to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities.

John Fetterman issues a defiant message to Democrats threatening to primary him:

“I’m not afraid of telling the truth. I’ll be the Democrat that refuses to lie to the base and pretend that this [shutting the government down] is right. I’m proud to stand with Israel. I’m proud to… pic.twitter.com/yc0aHPfLfc

— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) October 23, 2025

Fetterman concluded, “And now I refuse to call on my fellow citizens as they’re fascists or Nazis or those things. And if somebody wants to primary me or the party wants to vote me out, it’s like I’m going to go down being honest and telling you that this is wrong to do these kinds of things. And I refuse to do that. I think we need to be a big, big tent party. That doesn’t sound like it.”

John Fetterman spends two full minutes torching his own party for abandoning common sense just to spite Trump.

The music told Fetterman to wrap it up, but he just kept going — raving about how much he LOVES Trump’s “No Tax on Tips” and how disgraceful it was for Democrats to not… pic.twitter.com/aw7aQfe1x0

— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) October 23, 2025

Fetterman’s continued remarks to this effect have sparked a firestorm within Democratic circles, as he prioritizes national interests over party loyalty, a stance that many in his party find increasingly untenable.

His words reflect a growing impatience with the political gridlock that has led to the shutdown, a sentiment that resonates with many Americans but clashes with the strategic calculations of Democratic leadership, which once again refused to reopen the government Wednesday.

Fetterman’s pledge to prioritize military funding and national security over partisan politics is a direct challenge to the Democratic strategy of leaning on the shutdown for political leverage. 

His refusal to toe the line is seen by some Democrats as a betrayal of the collective, especially during a time when unity optics, no matter how crazy in reality, are deemed crucial.

This stance has not gone unnoticed, with reports indicating that Democrats are increasingly frustrated with Fetterman’s independent streak. 

As we noted in recent analysis, potential 2028 contenders within the Democratic Party are already positioning themselves against him, with figures like Rep. Brendan Boyle and Rep. Chris Deluzio considering primary challenges. 

The backlash within the Democratic Party is palpable. Sources close to the party have expressed dismay at Fetterman’s positioning, with one senior Democratic staffer telling CNN, “His response is kind of baffling and makes it seem like he’s not really listening to what’s being said.” 

This sentiment is echoed in the strategic calculations of party leaders who fear that Fetterman’s independence could split the Democratic vote in Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state. 

The prospect of a well-funded opposition, potentially backed by party elites like Chuck Schumer, looms large, as Democrats seek to punish Fetterman for his deviation.

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.

Atlanta has become the center of a nationwide boom in rental-application fraud, according to a new Wall Street Journal report.

With average rents for two-bedroom apartments nearing $2,000 a month—well above what many locals can afford—some renters are turning to fake documents and fabricated financial details to qualify for luxury apartments.

Social media has fueled the trend. TikTok influencers promote “rental packages” with doctored pay stubs, false employment letters, or fake Social Security numbers. One influencer bragged, “When that apartment package got you approved for your luxury apartment in two weeks even though you had two evictions and a 500 credit score.”

Greystar, the nation’s largest apartment landlord, says up to half of its applications in some Atlanta buildings are fraudulent. “Anybody that says they want to move in today or move in tomorrow, it’s fraud,” warned Kori Sewell, an Atlanta apartment manager.

The WSJ writes that the rise stems from a mix of factors: a glut of high-end apartments after Atlanta’s building boom, shrinking affordable housing, and advancing technology that makes falsifying documents easy. Between 2018 and 2023, the region lost more than 230,000 affordable rental units.

Nationally, nearly three-quarters of landlords reported a 40% increase in rental fraud last year. “It’s becoming a bigger and bigger problem coast to coast,” said Damon McCall, CEO of ApproveShield, a fraud-detection software firm.

Fraud carries legal risks but is rarely prosecuted; landlords usually focus on evictions. Some scammers pay rent for a few months before defaulting, forcing landlords to absorb losses and write off bad debt. Others never pay at all—like one Atlanta tenant who said, “Basically, the entire building was filled with people who got in fraudulently.”

To combat the issue, many landlords now use verification software. As fraudsters adopt AI tools to fake documents, detection firms are responding in kind. “We fight fire with fire,” said Kyle Nelson of Snappt.

Authored by Cameron Sholty via RealClearEnergy,

When Louisiana enacted Act 462 earlier this year, it did more than redefine “green energy.” It redefined leadership. Under Governor Jeff Landry’s direction, Louisiana became the first state in the nation to recognize natural gas and nuclear power as a clean, affordable, and reliable energy source – cementing its place as a model for states and, now, for the nation.

Last Friday, Congressman Troy Balderson introduced federal legislation building on Louisiana’s landmark law. The measure takes the same common-sense approach: prioritizing American-made energy, reducing reliance on adversarial nations, and ensuring that “green” energy policy reflects economic and scientific reality.

Governor Landry had urged exactly this kind of action from Washington. When he signed Act 462, he called on Congress to adopt a national energy security strategy built around America’s abundant hydrocarbons – particularly natural gas and nuclear. His argument was simple: energy security is national security, and no country should be dependent on supply chains that run through Beijing, Moscow, or child-labor camps in the Congo.

The new federal bill answers that call.

A Return to Reality in Energy Policy

For too long, federal energy policy has been guided by slogans rather than science and economics. Policymakers in Washington have subsidized unreliable energy sources, ignored full life-cycle costs, and allowed critical infrastructure to depend on foreign materials produced under appalling labor and environmental standards.

Louisiana broke that mold. Act 462 directed state agencies to consider affordability, reliability, and domestic sourcing when evaluating energy projects. It mandated a new method to calculate the cost of energy that includes the hidden expenses of foreign supply chains – like child labor, environmental destruction, and geopolitical vulnerability. And it treated hydrocarbons such as natural gas not as an enemy of the environment, but as an ally of prosperity and innovation.

The federal legislation now mirrors those principles. It redefines “green” and “clean” energy to include not just intermittent renewables but also natural gas and nuclear power – resources that provide stable, dispatchable power without the economic and moral costs of dependence on foreign critical minerals.

An Abundance Waiting to Be Used

America’s natural gas reserves are among the largest in the world, yet federal policy has often treated them as a liability. Governor Landry challenged that mindset, arguing that America’s abundant hydrocarbons are a strategic advantage to be leveraged, not a problem to be managed.

By unlocking domestic production, the U.S. can achieve three vital goals: lower costs for consumers, greater resilience for the electric grid, and stronger national security. Every cubic foot of gas produced in Louisiana, Texas, or Ohio displaces energy that would otherwise come from countries that do not share our values. Every pipeline and LNG terminal built here strengthens our economy and weakens our adversaries.

The Louisiana model recognizes this interconnected truth. The federal version now before Congress brings that logic to the national stage.

Leading by Example

Louisiana’s success story demonstrates what happens when energy policy is grounded in reality. Since passing Act 462, the state has attracted new manufacturing investments, expanded LNG exports, and secured thousands of high-paying energy jobs. Businesses value predictability and affordability – two qualities that hydrocarbon energy delivers.

Governor Landry’s message to Congress was clear: Build energy policy around American resources, American workers, and American values. Representative Balderson’s introduction of this new federal legislation proves that message was heard.

A New Energy Consensus

The debate over energy is no longer between “green” and “dirty.” It’s between the real and the imaginary. The real path to clean, affordable, reliable energy lies in embracing the resources beneath our feet – using innovation, not ideology, to reduce emissions and expand opportunity.

By adopting a new framework, Congress is taking a crucial step toward restoring balance, security, and common sense to national energy policy. The era of energy dependence and self-inflicted scarcity can end – if Washington has the will.

Louisiana showed the way. Now it’s time for Congress to finish the job.

Cameron Sholty is the Executive Director of Heartland Impact, the advocacy arm of The Heartland Institute.

Submitted by The Bureau’s Sam Cooper, 

Newly unsealed U.S. government filings reveal that Zhi Dong Zhang — an alleged global fentanyl kingpin with reported ties to Chinese diplomats in Canada, accused of supplying precursor chemicals and laundering funds worldwide for Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels — commanded a New York–based fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine cell composed of Hispanic traffickers.

According to the Eastern District of New York indictment, Zhang coordinated a network including Lorena Solano Castro, Christian Alan Soto Espinoza, and Cosme Avendaño Soto, operating from Brooklyn to distribute synthetic narcotics, collect proceeds, and wash drug money via U.S. financial institutions and Chinese underground banking.

The New York indictment is separate from a broader case unsealed in Atlanta, but part of what filings depict as a globally integrated criminal enterprise under Zhang’s direction. His network allegedly moved multi-ton quantities of fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine between 2016 and 2021, channeling proceeds through Brooklyn, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Michigan, and feeding a hemispheric supply chain linking Chinese chemical exporters, Mexican super-labs, and U.S. distribution hubs.

As The Bureau reported yesterday, Zhang was detained in Cuba after a spectacular escape from a Mexico City residence, where he had been under judicial supervision pending extradition to the United States. Mexican reports say he fled through a tunnel, attempted to reach Russia, and was arrested in Cuba recently. U.S. and Mexican authorities are now reportedly anticipating a swift extradition, as Washington intensifies counter-cartel military deployments and strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific regions.

A Canadian intelligence source told The Bureau that Zhang had direct contact with Canadian authorities while his organization was being probed across the United States—well before the charges became public. In February 2017, he was stopped at Vancouver International Airport carrying an illegally obtained Mexican passport, more than C$10,000 in cash, 14 bank-security fobs, and contact numbers for Chinese diplomatic offices. Agents—who nicknamed him “the Chexican”—questioned him about links to a money-laundering network in Mexico City and a parent company in China, but, due to what the source called “bungling” between the Canada Border Services Agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Zhang was released and allowed to leave Canada. A phone search, the source added, revealed numbers for diplomats at Chinese missions in Ottawa and Vancouver, as well as contacts for lawyers in Toronto and Vancouver.

As The Bureau reported exclusively, Canadian investigators later connected Zhang to Mexican mining firms cited in a U.S. FinCEN advisory. Records show that a China-based mining enterprise directed by Zhang controls tracts of land in Sonora, the Mexican state bordering Sinaloa and Arizona. Open-source corporate filings also point to a similarly named Vancouver company, linked to a Chinese investor who owns six B.C. properties and a Hong Kong–registered machine supplier.

Reporting from Mexico — where Zhang escaped house arrest in July 2025 shortly before his scheduled extradition to the United States — indicates that his networks extend across Asia, the Americas, and Europe, operating through multiple layers of money laundering and logistics fronts.

Zhang — known to his associates by several aliases, including “Brother Wang,” “Kun Li Hernandez,” and “Nelson Mandela” — allegedly oversaw bilingual command cells: Spanish-speaking couriers handled street-level cash collection and deposit structuring, while Chinese brokers managed offshore transfers, trade-based remittances, and layered currency conversions.

The EDNY indictment, which lay dormant for several years, saw renewed movement in recent weeks with new prosecutor appearances. The case signals Washington’s intent to treat Zhang’s syndicate as a top-priority transnational narcotics and money-laundering conspiracy.

Prosecutors in the Northern District of Georgia have also charged Zhang with narcotics-trafficking and money-laundering conspiracies.

Investigators linked his organization to roughly 150 shell companies and 170 bank accounts and uncovered more than $20 million in proceeds moved through major U.S. banks including JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Chase. Encrypted intercepts recovered on WeChat, DingTalk, and Signal show Zhang directing shipments of fentanyl (“coffee”), cocaine (“food”), and methamphetamine through U.S. distribution hubs.

A cooperating witness, Ruipeng Li, described a two-tier operation: a Mexican cell that collected street proceeds, and a Chinese cell that converted that cash into wire transfers and investments across the Pacific. Authorities estimate that, between 2020 and 2021, Zhang’s organization moved more than 1,000 kilograms of cocaine, 1,800 kilograms of fentanyl, and 600 kilograms of methamphetamine.

We’ve surpassed $38T in debt, and we’re still no closer to balancing the budget. Instead, Republicans want to add another $2T in deficit spending, while Democrats want to add $3T.

Where does it end? https://t.co/SMfFjMm3sJ

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) October 23, 2025

With U.S. debt blasting past $38 trillion, the question isn’t if the reckoning comes—it’s how to face it. In a fiery ZeroHedge Debate hosted by George Gammon of the Rebel Capitalist Show, Michael Green of Simplify Asset Management argued that “kicking the can” can buy innovation and growth, while Mises Institute’s Patrick Newman countered that endless borrowing is “a moral and economic fraud” destined to collapse under its own weight. Keynesian optimism met Austrian discipline.

Here were the highlights for those who missed it:

But who will build the roads?

The good ol’ libertarian road construction debate emerged.

Newman argued that “the private sector can build it—and they have built infrastructure.” He warned that government projects may look impressive but hide unseen costs: “We’re not looking at what would have been built with those resources… would it have been a better quality road or a road with different types of branch lines?” State spending also distorts efficiency by the nature of how economists compute GDP: “The government’s contribution [to GDP] is what it spends. The private sector’s contribution is what other people spend on it.” 

Newman’s conclusion: “I don’t think you need taxes to pay for various goods and services that only the government can pay.”

Green fired back that “the simple reality is that they [private sector] don’t” build such projects where it really matters. Conceding that private efforts are more efficient, he emphasized that “the hurdle cost for the private sector is much higher,” meaning fewer roads would ever get built—especially those connecting “a small rural community with a larger city.” Green defended the public role as one of necessary subsidy: “Subsidies create more of a good than you would otherwise have. The private sector would benefit from scarcity. That’s antithetical to the idea of developing a resource that doesn’t accrue the benefits to the private sector naturally.”

Newman countered with history, invoking the railroad boom: “Most of railroad infrastructure was privately funded… about 75% of the funds used to build railroads during the Second Industrial Revolution came from the private sector.” He cited historian Richard White to claim that “government subsidies caused railroads to be built ahead of demand,” leading to bankruptcies and inefficiency—proof, in his view, that the state’s heavy hand “built inefficiently” while “private sector lines were built basically around it.”

pic.twitter.com/SeN0map59Q

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) October 24, 2025
 

Stagflation… an Austrian lie?

Green challenged the popular “stagflation” narrative of the 1970s, arguing that it’s “a fundamental misunderstanding that continues to haunt the debate today.” While Austrians like Newman frame the decade as proof that government mismanagement and monetary expansion produced both high inflation and stagnation, Green countered that the data tell a different story. “The rate of job growth in the 1970s was 2.4%,” he said, “while the labor force grew at 3.6%. In other words, demand grew far more rapidly than supply. It was not stagflation.”

He attributed the inflation not to failed policy but to rapid demographic change—“baby boomers and women entering the labor force and minorities being able to participate in the regulated economy.” The result, he said, was “one of extraordinary growth” in which new workers needed “cars, apartments, dishwashers, suits—all in short supply relative to demand.”

Austrians like Newman, however, would view that very inflation as evidence that the Fed lost control of prices and eroded real wages—classic symptoms of stagflation. Green rejected that framing, arguing that “the celebrated Volcker period” that followed did more harm than good by “raising the cost of capital so high” it helped deindustrialize America. In short, while Austrians see the 1970s as a cautionary tale of government excess, Green sees it as an overheated boom misread as failure.

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— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) October 24, 2025

Check out the full debate below for more deep dives into economic history as the timeless Austrian-Keynsian battle wages on:

Tonight’s ZeroHedge Debate: Michael Green vs Patrick Newman on Solving the Debt Crisis https://t.co/mvAU4PVDcM

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 23, 2025
 

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

“The business incentives driving consumer AI development remain fundamentally misaligned with reducing hallucinations.”

– The Singularity Hub on “X”

Which is to say, there is Reality, and then there is every other cockamamie aggregate of simulation pretending to represent Reality, i.e. garbage.

How many millions among us already subscribe to the latter?

Apparently, lots, and they are not evenly distributed these days.

You surely know where to look for the un-Reality. The party of men can get pregnant, and all the rest…

Enter A-I to make things worse. Probably a lot worse. We have failed to learn the chief lesson of the computer age, which is that the virtual is not an acceptable substitute for the authentic. So, we plunge deeper into realms of the un-real and the inauthentic. This turns into a quest to get something-for-nothing, and the unfortunate result of that old dodge is that you will end up with nothing, and that is exactly why we are at such a hazardous pass in the human project.

I apologize if the above seems too metaphysical. But that’s the scenery en route when a civilization flies up its own wazoo. Novelist Cory Doctorow has nicely labeled this the enshitification of daily life.

First of all, get this: A-I has already quit operating as-advertised.

It has lost the “I” part. A-I does its thing by rapidly combing through the Internet to evaluate and seize information that you request. Increasingly, A-I colonizes the Internet with second-hand, third-hand, and so forth A-I-generated information. The more territory A-I seizes on the Web, and the more it trains itself on recursive feedbacks of its own garbage, the more distorted the output gets. As that occurs, A-I becomes increasingly abstracted from Reality, which is exactly what happens when a person goes insane. So, expect an exponential rise in incorrect content that would, in theory, become a pretty serious problem when you ask A-I to run things like systems we depend on, the electric grid, harvesting crops, warfare. . . .

Secondly, as that process runs, and probably before it gets very far, A-I looks like it will wreck the financial system, which, in turn, would crater the economy of everyday life — the ability of people to earn a living, buy stuff, support children, get food, and stay out of the rain.

Zillions of dollars are being invested in A-I now and lately it is mainly what drives the capital markets. So far, alas, return on that investment is scant — actually, negative. The situation might never improve, and as the recognition hits, look out below. The only question is whether that happens before the central banks destroy the world’s currencies with money-printing.

One A-I application, robotaxi services such as Waymo, have never turned a profit. Will they ever? Doesn’t look good. Notice, too, that the elimination of cab-drivers means X-number fewer humans making a living to buy stuff (presumably made by other people in other jobs soon to be replaced by robots). Of course, that’s the self-replicating problem with all applied A-I in every field of employment. The more jobs eliminated, the fewer customers for anything. Please don’t tell me that guaranteed basic income fixes that problem.

In desperation — and due to certain weaknesses of human nature — another early attempt to monetize applied A-I turns out to be pornography: create your own personalized sex fantasy to-order. Companies are already producing the first rudimentary A-I sex robots, which, let’s face it, amounts to a masturbation industry. Why bother cultivating a real-live girlfriend when you can fall into the pre-heated silicone embrace of a Jennifer Lawrence simulation that will never talk back or ask for anything? You can easily see how that would result in a whole lot less human reproduction — of which there is already a signal shortage in Western Civ — meaning even fewer people to work at anything or buy anything or do anything, or simply be here in the pageant of Planet Earth.

The A-I pioneers managed to make the situation worse from the get-go.

The Open A-I company’s Chat GPT, Google’s Gemini and Bard A-Is, and Facebook’s Meta A-I are all trained-up to be politically Woke-to-the-max, meaning on any given issue in the public arena their output is one patent absurdity or another.

Note: last April, conservative activist Robby Starbuck sued Facebook when its chatbot reported out falsely that he had been on-the-scene for the Jan 6, 2021 US Capitol protest (he was in Tennessee that day).

Facebook’s parent company, Meta, settled the case with Starbuck in August, 2025, for undisclosed terms and the company apologized publicly.

Two days ago, Mr. Starbuck sued Google for defamation (with malice and negligence) when it’s Bard A-I output alleged that he was a “child rapist,” a “serial sexual abuser,” that he abused and stalked his ex-wife (Starbuck states in his lawsuit that he has no ex-wife). It accused him further of fraud, embezzlement, drug charges, stalking business partners, and being a “shooter” or “person of interest” in a 1991 murder case (Starbuck was two years old at the time), of appearing in Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs (untrue), working as a porn actor, and voicing support for the Ku Klux Klan.

The A-I cited non-existent news articles from outlets such as Newsweek, The New York Post, Rolling Stone, Mediaite, The Daily Beast, and Salon, along with fake URLs and headlines (e.g., “Robby Starbuck Responds to Murder Accusations”). 

Starbuck demonstrated this in a podcast episode on October 22–23, 2025, where he queried the A-I live.

Google spokesman José Castañeda attributed the issues to its A-I “hallucinating” — which tells you that the recursive feedback of garbage content in A-I is already well-advanced.

Prepare for ever more interesting mischief, while you watch your portfolio of index stocks go up in a vapor.