President Donald Trump and other administration officials slammed the lack of jail time for teenagers who admitted assaulting Edward Coristine, 19, a federal worker who was working at the time for the Department of Government Efficiency. 

“That’s terrible,” Trump said in response to a question in the Oval Office with top officials to discuss his administration’s crime-fighting initiatives. “The judge should be ashamed of themselves.”

Trump said he heard that the case against the teenagers was airtight, and predicted that after DC Judge Kendra Biggs let them off with probation, they would grow up “real bad, and cause a lot of problems.” 

In a separate briefing, U.S. Attorney General for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said “That’s why we have to lower the age of responsibility and accountability. We can have a record a mile long while we try to protect these young people under the guise that their prefrontal lobe is not developed. Enough of that,” adding “The person who is beat to a pulp doesn’t care about the level of their prefrontal lobe, especially if they’re 15 years old.”

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A Washington DC judge, Kendra Biggs, has let two teens who attacked former DOGE staffer ‘big balls’ walk free on probation, avoiding jail time because the judge feels her job is to ‘rehabilitate’ and not punish. 

The decision drew sharp criticism from President Trump, who said Wednesday afternoon; “That’s terrible,” adding “the judge should be ashamed.” 

The defendants, both 15-years-old, pleaded guilty to various charges related to the attack on the 19-year-old Musk protégé, Edward Coristine. 

BREAKING – DC Judge Kendra Briggs has allowed the two “teens” who jumped Edward ‘Big Balls’ Coristine to avoid jail and sentenced them to simple probation, stating her job is to “rehabilitate,” not punish. pic.twitter.com/7LRv7fVbQP

— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) October 15, 2025

The male pleaded guilty to attempted robbery and simple assault – and felony assault and a robbery at a nearby gas station in a separate incident. The female attacker pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of simple assault for pepper-spraying someone in the separate gas station incident – for which prosecutors agreed to drop the assault charge from the ‘big balls’ incident. 

US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro said the decision to sentence the pair to probation was “shocking.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt lamented on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” “One of the big issues in D.C. is these juveniles, they just get a slap on the wrist,” adding “This administration has a completely different philosophy. We need law and order.”

The two teens were part of a group wreaking havoc along a busy nightlife corridor in D.C. about a mile from the White House in the early hours of Aug. 3. No other juveniles have been charged. -WaPo

“The two of you were together with a larger group of younger people who decided to basically terrorize U Street,” Biggs told the teens during a hearing at DC Superior Court Tuesday afternoon. 

The night of the incident, the two teens approached Big Balls and another person on Swann Street in Northwest Washington in the predawn darkness. 

“Let me get your car! Let me get your car,” said the teens. While Coristine’s friend was able to jump in the car and lock the doors, the teens beat the shit out of Big Balls. 

In a Wednesday night post on X, Coristine posted “This senseless crime must be stopped,” adding that many of the people involved in the attack remain on the streets, unprosecuted. 

“That night could’ve gone far differently. Think of your daughters and mothers,” he wrote. “The same group attacked people before and after us, breaking ribs and stomping heads.”

The teens must perform 90 hours of community service, stay away from each other, and stay out of cars unless they have the owner’s permission. 

Lol. LMAO even. 

European countries in NATO on Wednesday signaled their readiness to go all-in on President Trump’s plan to transfer US weapons to Ukraine using allied funds. The Biden administration had basically donated most arms, but Trump’s plan is to sell them, making the US role a little more indirect. But this could effectively put the most hawkish European leaders in the driver’s seat related to the still ratcheting proxy war.

“Thanks to funding from allies, we are providing Ukraine with critical U.S. equipment,” NATO chief Mark Rutte proclaimed as alliance defense ministers met in Brussels. “And today, we heard from ally after ally about new contributions.”

At this point twenty NATO allies in total are pledging support for the scheme, which aims to take care of Keiv’s long-term defense needs as if faces down Russia’s special military operation, possibly for years to come.

“Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands have pledged $2 billion in four separate PURL packages,” Politico notes. “And on Wednesday, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Finland among others were poised to finalize a fifth package, according to three NATO diplomats, who like others quoted in this story were granted anonymity to speak freely.”

As for Berlin, it said it is ready to buy $500 million worth of American weapons for Ukraine under a new program to fast-track military equipment.

Pistorius articulated that Germany’s “package addresses a number of urgent requirements of Ukraine. It provides air defense systems, Patriot (missile) interceptors, radar systems and precision guided artillery, rockets and ammunition.”

He stated Germany would separately provide “another two Iris-T air defense systems, including a large number of guided missiles, as well as shoulder-fired air defense missiles.”

This comes also as the Zelensky government wants allies to rain money on his government and military. They’ve issued their wish list or shopping list, at the top of which is US Tomahawks – though it remains anything but certain whether Trump will authorize such a brazen escalation against Moscow.

The Ukrainians are poised to pounce as Western governments open their wallets, using European taxpayers’ money of course. This part is nothing new.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth tries to put on a tough show of strength even as Russia is continuously ascendent on the eastern battlefield, though Moscow is absorbing losses at home as its oil infrastructure gets pummeled…

Listen to this US war hawk blabber. Has he the slightest clue what Russia’s security actually means? Moscow asked for one thing: stop NATO expansion.
The West laughed, thinking Russia was weak, bulldozed ahead, and now pays the price.
Over 21% of Ukraine is already Russian.
Play… pic.twitter.com/JcCZojF17n

— Richard (@ricwe123) October 15, 2025

Zelensky’s Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal estimated Ukraine will need between $12 billion and $20 billion worth of military aid next year as part of NATO’s new purchasing initiative. He specifically said this would help the country procure badly needed long-range artillery shells.

Again, all this is a recipe for dragging the war on yet further, and without end, as people die in the hundreds of thousands. All sides have essentially admitted that peace talks are dead at this point, and Trump has expressed frustration with Moscow.

Authored by Portia Roberts & Peter Bryant via RealClearEnergy,

China’s latest squeeze on mineral exports – and Washington’s threat of retaliation – ends any illusion that critical minerals are a niche matter. They are the scaffolding of modern society. A nearly bewildering array of minerals are essential for everything from defense technologies to EV dreams to the great race for “dominance” in artificial intelligence. Neither America, nor our allies, extract and refine enough key minerals.

The United States depends on imports for most (in some cases all) key minerals including copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and especially the 17 vital rare earth elements. Without foreign suppliers, we face a shock of varying degrees, from serious to catastrophic, across all industries and services. COVID-driven supply chain disruptions provided a glimpse of what could come. 

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is one of a handful of non-aligned entities that looks at and advises about global critical minerals. Unfortunately, it appears that the IEA either ignores or is naïve about market-shaping realities, including those put in play last week by China. This matters because IEA’s genesis was the 1970s oil shock, tasked with brokering facts to anticipate, if not prevent another such catastrophic event in the future. Instead, IEA’s Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 should earn a Pollyanna award; it assumes the kinds of needed cooperation, innovation, and capital flows are happening or will. If policymakers mistake that analysis as a blueprint, or as a rationale for inaction or action––as was done by the Biden Administration to justify the LNG-export pause—we could well learn what mineral scarcity looks like. 

China is, as is now well-known, the dominant energy minerals market-shaper. It doesn’t merely mine and refine; it finances, secures offtakes, standardizes chemistries, and wields export controls. It commands a variety of chokepoints that differ for each mineral. In other words, it wields a monopolistic-like ability to manipulate markets. Dominance in the activities that make minerals useful neutralizes efforts to diversify the sources of various minerals. It doesn’t matter if a new mine opens in the US, or a different hemisphere or continent if one country’s investment can control a significant proportion of supply. And as a result China can “dump” so much supply, long enough, into the market to collapse prices that bankrupt competition, cause unprofitable mines to be mothballed, or make planned projects infeasible. 

Nonetheless, new mines, smelters, and refineries are needed. But all face a steep uphill battle for multiple reasons, including what the IEA correctly calls “above-ground risks”—what the mining industry terms “the social license to operate” (SLO). These issues are really opportunities rather than risks, and their importance cannot be overstated. (Although the IEA Outlook understates them). If not properly engaged, dealings with local communities can stall or prevent permitting, or even slow or stop development. This ultimately adds costs, further advantaging China’s producers. 

Another overlooked aspect is that it often takes decades for new sites to begin operations. Refining is an inherently energy-intensive and chemical-centric industry, a frankly dirty business. Western firms, and regulations, have long exercised due caution. But it will likely take a great deal of innovation and intense investment for new facilities to meet ever-more stringent environmental standards and costs that don’t again advantage China.

On top of that, an in-the-weeds nuance that is utterly critical: the IEA underplays the long-run decline in ore grades, i.e., the share of the rock that contains the mineral. Existing mines, particularly copper, will require ever more energy and water per ton of metal, creating more tailings waste to manage, more capital expenditure, and thus more delays. Efficiency and recycling can’t come close to doing enough to bridge the looming gap between supply and demand. 

Oil shocks cause price leaps, lines at gas stations, political fallout. Mineral shocks are slow burns, until they’re not. They might initially surface as longer delivery times, stalled grid projects, costlier products––or some with missing features. But if mineral shortages continue, if (limited) stockpiles are exhausted, markets unavoidably face price shocks.

For the United States, the solution has long been known and remains urgent: rebuild end-to-end capability at home and simultaneously, vital for velocity, work with allies (and other friendly resource-endowed countries) on such key areas as geology, mining, refining, and component manufacturing. Streamline permitting without diluting environmental standards. Use different tools such as targeted offtakes, public-private finance and defense authorities to anchor new refineries and processing hubs. And level with voters: everything starts with mining (or farming). If we won’t mine at home or overseas with trusted partners, we will continue to face economic and security fragility—on terms set elsewhere.

The IEA was founded to help prevent energy shocks, not promote policies that make them more likely. In minerals, models that minimize or ignore chokepoints and social license realities will steer the world into the very emergencies we want to avoid. We don’t need aspirational scenarios. We need mineral realism.

Portia Roberts is Policy Director for the National Center for Energy Analytics. 

Peter Bryant is Chairman of Clareo and Key Minerals Forum. 

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

A new study warns that the vast majority of Ukrainian refugees living in Europe may never return home unless Ukraine regains its territory and secures Western security guarantees.

Just 3 percent of Ukrainian refugees in Europe would return to their home country in the most pessimistic post-war scenario, according to a major new working paper by Germany’s Ifo Institute.

The study, based on surveys of 2,543 refugees across 30 European countries, found that territorial integrity and security guarantees are the most decisive factors in shaping return decisions — outweighing economic opportunities and even peace agreements.

The researchers presented refugees with a range of hypothetical post-war conditions, varying factors such as Ukraine’s territorial control, NATO membership, corruption levels, and economic recovery.

They found that the difference between best- and worst-case outcomes is vast: Nearly half of refugees (46.5 percent) would return if Ukraine fully restored its 1991 borders, joined NATO, cut corruption and boosted incomes.

On the other hand, just 2.7 percent would do so if Russia retained most occupied territories, no peace deal was signed, security guarantees were absent, and the economy worsened.

“Territorial integrity is the strongest driver of return intentions,” the authors write, noting that restoring Ukraine’s 1991 borders raises the average probability of return by 10.8 percentage points compared to scenarios where Russia retains control. NATO membership increases return probability by a further 7.1 points, while cutting corruption boosts it by 3.2 points — roughly the same effect as a 20 percent rise in income or the prospect of EU accession.

The study also found significant demographic differences.

Women showed higher overall return intentions than men and were more sensitive to economic and institutional improvements.

Younger refugees, aged 18 to 34, placed more weight on job opportunities, income prospects, and potential EU membership, but their average return probability was just 26.3 percent — a worrying sign for Ukraine’s long-term reconstruction given its low birth rate.

“Credible security arrangements and the restoration of territorial integrity are prerequisites for large-scale voluntary return,” the authors note.

Given that NATO membership and EU membership are currently off the table without unanimity among members — Hungary, for example, proving to be a stumbling block in both instances — the percentage of returnees in reality would likely be at the lower end of the scale, with Ukraine unlikely to achieve the conditions the Ifo Institute identifies as prerequisites for large-scale return.

The realistic return rate is far lower than previous surveys, such as one conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) last year, which revealed that 64 percent of Ukrainian refugees living in Poland, Germany, and Czechia, were satisfied with their new lives and intended to pursue citizenship in their respective host countries.

The longer the conflict drags on, the less likely Ukrainian refugees are to return home, as seen by a February 2023 survey from Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), which revealed 34 percent of respondents would return immediately after the war without qualification.

According to Eurostat data, as of the end of August 2025, 4.37 million Ukrainian refugees were living in the European Union under the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive — equivalent to 9.7 refugees per 1,000 people across the bloc.

Poland and Germany host by far the largest numbers, with 1.21 million and 995,925 respectively, followed by the Czech Republic (385,855) and Italy (171,200).

Substantial Ukrainian populations are also present in Spain (244,165), France (129,350), and Romania (192,835).

At 34.4 per 1,000 persons, Czechia has taken in the most refugees per capita, followed by Poland (27.3) and Estonia (25.4).

Read more here…

Authored by Dale Sutherland via The Epoch Times,

Turn on the news, scroll through social media, or glance at the headlines, and the picture can feel overwhelming: wars abroad, political fights at home, and tragedies that seem to strike daily. We’re bombarded with stories of anger, loss, and uncertainty. It’s no wonder many people feel powerless, as though these problems are too big and too far gone for ordinary citizens to make any difference.

Yet history, and everyday life, tell us something different. The truth is, meaningful change rarely begins at a global scale or within the halls of power. More often, it begins quietly, at a household level, when ordinary people decide to act.

A phone call, a meal delivered, or a timely conversation may never make national news, but these moments can ripple outward in ways that change lives for good.

I learned this the hard way during my decades as an undercover narcotics officer in Washington, D.C. My job was to investigate drug operations and bring criminals to justice. On paper, every arrest looked like a success. But after years on the job, I began to realize that arrests alone weren’t changing the deeper problems. Broken families, poverty, and addiction didn’t vanish when one person went to jail. Whole communities still lived with fear and instability.

As a police officer, I knew arrests were necessary. The streets were dangerous, and if we hadn’t done our jobs, the level of violence and homicide would have been far worse. Arrests protected the community, but I also knew that while arresting people could remove them from the streets, it couldn’t change their hearts. 

Those individuals who were arrested still needed a deeper transformation. As a pastor, I’ve seen firsthand that lasting change only comes through faith. As an officer, I could put someone in handcuffs, but as a pastor, I see people truly set free, body, mind, and spirit. 

I’ve learned that this transformation often begins not with punishment but with the presence of people who choose to show up when others are in crisis.

But presence only makes an impact if it’s met with urgency. When someone is brave enough to reach out for help, time matters. If they are met with silence or endless delays, trust evaporates. But if the response is immediate, it sends a message: “You matter, and we will not let you carry this alone.”

Help doesn’t have to be dramatic or expensive to be transformative. I’ve seen families kept afloat with what amounts to a couple hundred dollars, enough to cover groceries, transportation, or a utility bill. To some, that may not seem like much. But to the parent who doesn’t have to choose between food and rent, or to the child who makes it to a doctor’s appointment on time, it means stability, hope, and dignity. 

Our communities are more diverse than ever, which only broadens the opportunities to serve. In Washington, D.C., I’ve witnessed this first-hand through my organization Boost Others, a nonprofit that helps fill the gaps in communities.

We recently met a family from Egypt who had moved to the United States with their four kids, including a 13-year-old daughter with cancer. Transportation to hospital appointments quickly became a crushing burden to this family, that’s where Boost Others stepped in and worked with local partners to provide the family with a car so they could drive their daughter to her treatments.  

Families like this each carry unique burdens, but beneath the surface, their needs are remarkably similar: someone who will hear them, respond with urgency, and someone willing to stand in the gap.

This is where opportunities lie for all of us. You don’t need to run a nonprofit or work in law enforcement to make a difference. You don’t even need to solve every problem. What you can do is take notice. Check in on a neighbor. Offer to give a ride to a medical appointment. Step in when a coworker quietly mentions a financial struggle. Often, the best solutions are simple, and the most powerful impact comes from consistency.

It’s tempting to think that only sweeping policy changes or massive charitable donations will fix what’s broken in our world. But that thinking can paralyze us into doing nothing. The reality is that communities thrive when ordinary people take small steps, again and again. One person can’t solve global chaos, but one person can prevent a family from falling through the cracks. And when enough people adopt that mindset, the collective effect is greater than anything we imagine.

We may not be able to control the headlines, but we can control our response to them.

We can choose compassion over cynicism, presence over passivity, and urgency over delay. In a world that often feels out of control, that is the power within our reach. 

Chaos is global, but change is local. If each of us embraced responsibility in our own neighborhoods, we’d discover that while we can’t stop all the storms, we can make our corner of the world a place of refuge and hope. 

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

The growing opposition in Hollywood to AI generated “actors” is in many ways similar to the growing feminist fury over AI girlfriends:  If you’re a good actor (or a good woman), then you should have no fear of being replaced.  If you can’t compete with a robot or software for the affections of the masses, then perhaps you deserve to lose your exalted position in society.

AI design is not particularly impressive (at least not yet).  Characters are graphically realistic but the Uncanny Valley effect is ever present; the human mind processes them as off-putting in most cases and making an entire film using them would require extensive input from human CG artists.  Still images and short clips are effective enough, but this is not film making.  

By extension, AI fiction writing is not improving and is truly terrible.  Storytelling requires an intuitive grasp of plot beats, a deep understanding of the nuances of human psychology and interactions, as well as a creative ability to surprise the audience with something unexpected while still (in most cases) wrapping up the plot in a way that is satisfying.

Anything more than a basic synopsis and AI scripts turn into a rambling, confusing mish-mash of ideas copied from more intelligent creators and slopped onto the page.  In other words, AI writes scripts much like the typical woke leftist screenwriters now infesting the film industry. 

And this is why Hollywood is scared – They have been getting away with mediocrity for so long they have forgotten how to make a good movie.  They are so bad at their job that they could actually be swapped for software.

In terms of acting, it’s unlikely that solid performers will ever be retired to the dustbin or unable to get work because of AI.  Movie goers will always know in the back of their minds that they are watching CG people with no capacity for real emotion.  However, if film companies continue to fill their actor stables with soulless, robotic or narcissistic egomaniacs, then the public may welcome the robot overlords as the new standard for cinematic entertainment.

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is very unhappy with the recent release of an AI acting model called “Tilly Norwood”.  The union condemned reports that talent agents are looking to sign the artificial intelligence “actor” for representation. They argued in a statement that Tilly Norwood “is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers.” 

SAG is highly aggressive in its tactics, including intimidation tactics against actors that don’t support their strikes, which helps to explain why they are up in arms about AI generated characters.  A computer created actor can’t be controlled by a union.  It can’t be censured or blacklisted or threatened.  Film studios facing a long term SAG strike could simply replace the actors with AI models for a time, forcing the unions to settle negotiations. 

“It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we’ve seen, audiences aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience,” the union said.

To be frank, this is what most of the movie watching populace has been saying about Hollywood for the past several years.  They really have no room to criticize. 

Maybe more concerning is OpenAI’s new Sora 2 tool which allows users to put real people and characters into AI-generated videos, sparking immediate backlash from Hollywood studios and talent agencies.  The dispute centers on who controls copyrighted images and likenesses, with the actors asserting that OpenAI cannot use content without explicit permission or compensation.

There is a legitimate danger of AI products being used to exploit a person’s likeness for nefarious purposes.  A face and voice can be stolen and repurposed to draw undeserved revenues, or it can be used in an attempt to fake an event, destroy a person’s reputation, turn the person’s “essence” into a marketing mascot, etc. 

For now, the only thing AI seems to be good for is making memes which almost no one mistakes as real. 

“We’re engaging directly with studios and rightsholders, listening to feedback, and learning from how people are using Sora 2,” Varun Shetty, OpenAI’s vice president of media partnerships, said in a statement. “Many are creating original videos and excited about interacting with their favorite characters, which we see as an opportunity for rightsholders to connect with fans and share in that creativity.” 

AI in entertainment is an inevitability.  The most at-risk sectors are, of course, animation, effects and CG programming.  If the average person with minimal software or animation experience can use AI to formulate Pixar-like characters and place them in scripted scenarios, then that person will only be limited by their imagination and ability to write great stories.  At the very least, CG animators will face considerable competition and will be forced to up their game as job opportunities decline. 

Movies studios, by extension, will no longer have a monopoly on film production and distribution.  They won’t disappear, but the tools for regular people making movies and shows at home will cut into Hollywood’s already diminishing profits.  Just as online content on platforms like YouTube is crushing legacy media, online independent entertainment content is going to punish Hollywood for its lack of talent. 

Ultimately, the ideologically progressive industry brought this doom on itself.  The public is longing for meaningful and creative escape, and Hollywood refuses to give it to them.  Instead, Tinsel Town has become the bullhorn for the woke agenda, forever browbeating the population with insipid propaganda no one wants.  Eventually, the free market is going to replace these ideologues, and if AI helps, then people will welcome it.    

Authored by Mollie Engelhart via The Epoch Times,

Texas is famous for its wide-open land, its independence, and its promise of freedom. Yet the truth is that Texans pay some of the highest property tax rates in the country. The state itself doesn’t collect property tax, but local governments make up for it many times over. Even with agricultural and wildlife exemptions, the real burden still falls on commercial buildings, apartment complexes, and single-family homes—the very places where most people live and work.

Every year, I write a check for twenty-four thousand dollars in property taxes. In Texas, over half of that typically goes toward public education—sometimes up to 70 percent in certain counties. The irony is that none of it goes toward educating my own children.

I homeschool my kids. On our farm, we built a small barn with electricity, air conditioning, and a nearby restroom.

My husband and I teach our children farming, entrepreneurship, and money management. We hire a teacher three days a week for reading, writing, and math, and a tutor for additional help with reading.

We pay entirely out of pocket for all of it. Yet each year, I’m still forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars to fund a system I fundamentally disagree with.

I don’t believe the public school system nurtures creativity, curiosity, or courage. It creates workers, not thinkers. It rewards compliance, not conviction.

I often joke that I don’t co-parent with the government, but in truth, the property tax system makes me do exactly that. It forces me to contribute to a system that, in my view, often indoctrinates children rather than inspiring them. It feeds them food I consider unhealthy and trains them to fit in rather than think for themselves.

Last year alone, my property tax bill increased by eleven thousand dollars. I paid extra to bring electricity and internet to our rural property. I maintain the land, the buildings, and the utilities myself.

Yet every year, I have to pay again just for the right to keep what I already own. Even if I pay off my mortgage, I will still have to pay property taxes.

That means I never truly own my home. The government can raise taxes whenever it wants, and if I can’t pay, it can take the property away.

How is that ownership? How is that freedom?

Some states, like Florida, are exploring ways to phase out property taxes altogether. If that ever happens, people will move there in droves. Because this isn’t just about money. It’s about ownership, autonomy, and legacy. How can we build generational wealth or pass down land to our children if the government can simply tax us out of it?

And it doesn’t stop with homes. Texas, like California, taxes what’s called “business personal property.” That includes machinery, equipment, furniture, fixtures, and even inventory—all the physical items a business uses to operate. Each year, business owners are required to list and report these assets to the county so they can be taxed. It is essentially a yearly penalty for owning tools of your trade.

When I owned a restaurant in California for ten years, assessors would come in every year to evaluate my kitchen equipment. They decided my stoves, ovens, refrigerators, and furniture were worth seventy thousand dollars year after year, even though they were old, worn out, and often in need of replacement. Their justification was “replacement rate,” meaning they taxed me based on what it would cost to replace the equipment, not on what it was actually worth. So I paid taxes on the theoretical cost of replacing items I already owned. What service exactly is the government providing for my stoves, fryers, and refrigerators that justifies an annual payment? None. Yet they collect anyway.

And even when you sell a property, they still find a way to come after you. When I sold my house in Ventura County, California, all the taxes were paid through escrow at closing. I thought I was done. But months later, the county sent me a new bill for five thousand dollars based on “updated assessments” they claimed to have made from looking at the interior photos from my real estate listing. They called it a supplemental tax. I call it an exit tax. They are still trying to collect on a property I no longer own.

Property tax is marketed as a way to fund communities, but in reality, it is a perpetual lease from the state.

You never stop paying for something you thought you owned. That is not ownership. That is modern feudalism, dressed up as civic duty.

What if we did things differently? What if every family took responsibility for educating their own children, or chose who they wanted to pay to do it? What if communities were funded transparently and voluntarily, instead of through coercion? Perhaps then, we could finally reclaim what is ours—our homes, our businesses, our freedom.

Until that day, we are all tenants on the land we supposedly own.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

In what can only be described as a spectacularly ill-advised IT decision, a Department of Energy (DOE) employee with access to nuclear secrets has lost his security clearance after uploading a staggering 187,000 pornographic images to the agency’s network, according to 404 Media.

Yes, you read that correctly – 187,000. And before you go straight to ‘planted porn’ (we did too) – the porn aficionado admitted to it. 

This “distinguished professional” (this is how the DOE described him) with decades of experience apparently decided that March 23, 2023 was the perfect day to back up his 30-year personal collection of explicit content onto a DOE computer. One can only imagine the IT department’s reaction upon discovery. The employee remained blissfully unaware of his colossal mistake for six months until officials showed up for what must have been an extraordinarily awkward conversation.

PC Gamer has more details:

The man admitted breaching DOE rules but simply “did not think it was ‘very wrong’ to have adult images on an unclassified computer” and the DOE “was spying on him ‘a little too much’ given that the systems were unclassified.” He also described the DOE software used to investigate the upload as “spyware” before going on to the Spanish Inquisition line.

In mitigation, the man outlined a history of depression, alongside both medical and psychiatric treatment. In 2017 he was diagnosed with “major depressive disorder, moderate, recurrent, in full remission for approximately one year” and “ADHD with problems in focus, attention, follow-through, procrastination, distractibility, and impulsivity.”

According to his appeal, which was helpfully made public thanks to DOE guidelines, the employee insisted he thought his personal drives were “partitioned” from the DOE network, keeping his extensive collection private. Spoiler alert: they weren’t. He attributed the upload to experiments with AI-generated “robot pornography,” clarifying these were images of humans for AI training, not mechanical fantasies, while coping with depression.

According to a filing, “The Individual was using his personal cellphone to view the generative images, but he wanted to view larger images, so he viewed the images using his government-issued computer,” adding “He also reported that, since the 1990s, he had maintained a “giant compressed file with several directories of pornographic images,” which he moved to his personal cloud storage drive so he could use them to make generative images.”

So this guy not only had a massive porn collection he’d been accumulating since the 1990s, he wanted to feed them into an AI to make more.

The judge in the appeal wasn’t buying it, dryly noting: “The Individual’s attempt to link his generative pornography to mental health is too attenuated.” The ruling concluded the upload resulted from “a lack of knowledge” rather than malicious intent, which is probably the kindest possible interpretation.

Read the full report on the appeal here.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

The global systemic transition to multipolarity is nowadays proceeding along a different trajectory than before due to recent shifts in the international system.

Up until this point, Trump 2.0 sought resource and military partnerships with Russia and India respectively that could decelerate China’s superpower rise, which would then make it the junior partner in any “G2”/“Chimerica” deal.

His Eurasian balancing act has failed, however, due to his arrogant and aggressive approach towards all three countries.

Ties with Russia took a hit after the Anchorage Summit following increasingly concerning reports about US plans to support NATO troops in Ukraine, thus spooking Putin into abandoning his country’s own Eurasian balancing act by pivoting to China.

This took the form of the legally binding deal that was just clinched for constructing the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline.

The US’ envisaged resource-centric partnership with Russia, which aimed to entice concessions on Ukraine, is now much less likely.

As for India, ties worsened during its springtime clashes with Pakistan, which saw Trump favor Pakistan and even lie about India agreeing to an alleged US-mediated ceasefire. The US then hypocritically imposed punitive tariffs on India over its continued trade with Russia despite eschewing such for China and others.

All the while, Trump viciously insulted India too. Concluding that he’s hellbent on derailing its rise as a Great Power, India swiftly patched up its problems with China and distanced itself from the US.

With Russia pivoting to China via Power of Siberia 2 amidst the Sino-Indo rapprochement, the resource and military means for decelerating China’s superpower rise through partnerships with them were neutralized, thus leading to any “G2”/“Chimerica” deal now being in China’s favor instead.

President Xi Jinping accordingly espoused stronger rhetoric about reshaping the world order during his speeches at the SCO Summit and V-J Day, which prompted Trump to accuse him of “conspiring” against the US.

The interim Sino-US trade deal is now in jeopardy after he just threatened the imposition of 100% tariffs on China by 1 November or earlier depending on when China imposes its export controls on rare earth minerals.

Coupled with his dramatic accusation that Xi is “conspiring” against the US in collusion with Putin and Kim Jong Un, this could presage future military-strategic tensions, even if only indirectly via proxy. That would further destabilize Eurasia per the US’ traditional divide-and-rule stratagem.

In clockwise order, these could take the form of:

• fomenting Color Revolution unrest in Mongolia in order to undermine Power of Siberia 2;

• Japan, Taiwan, and/or the Philippines provoking an incident with China at sea in contested waters;

• obstructing China’s access to rare earth minerals in Myanmar’s Kachin State;

• and/or sowing instability in Central Asia via NATO member Turkiye through the new TRIPP Corridor.

China’s response to these scenarios could be to arm Russia and even send troops to help it in Ukraine.

Xi saw how Trump mistreated his friend Modi despite him leading a state that could have joined the US’ anti-Chinese axis, while also watching how he’s betraying Putin in Ukraine after Anchorage, so he expects similar treatment if he agrees to a “G2”/ “Chimerica” deal.

He also knows that China now has a target on its back after the latest tariffs and Trump accusing him of a “conspiracy”. It’s therefore little wonder that Trump 2.0’s Eurasian balancing act, which was characterized by arrogance and aggression, has failed.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.