Los Angeles City Council Entertains Call For Homeless Masturbation & Hookup Centers Authored by Monica Showalter via AmericanThinker.com, What’s this strange proclivity from the left to provide the dregs of society with the same accommodations as those who pay their bills? What on earth did I just listen to Is this real life ? pic.twitter.com/m8Va9OBcGl — IET 17 (@Inevitably_17) August 20, 2026 This is what passed for […]

Key Events This Week: Jackson Hole. Nvidia Earnings And Core PCE As we start a new weeks, the upward pressure on long-end bond yields from last week has shown initial signs of easing. Indeed, the 30yr Treasury yield is down -5bps overnight to 5.22%, whilst the 10yr yield is down by the same amount to 4.69%. That’s been supported by an announcement by the Treasury to CNBC that some/all of the cash in the Treasury General Account […]

Saylor’s Strategy Launches ‘USD Cash’ Pool After $2 Billion Raise, No BTC Buys Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest public company holding Bitcoin, raised about $2 billion through common stock sales last week while making no new Bitcoin purchases. The Bitcoin treasury company sold 18.26 million MSTR shares between Aug. 17 and Aug. 23 through its at-the-market (ATM) offering program, according to a Monday filing […]

Newsom Signs ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act’ To Stop Investigations Into Immigration ‘Service’ Provider Fraud Authored by AG News Staff via American Greatness, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Saturday expanding privacy protections for immigration service workers, despite warnings that the measure could chill investigative journalism and face First Amendment challenges. Assembly Bill 2624, dubbed the “Stop Nick Shirley […]

“We Don’t Need Canada”: Loonie Limps Lower As Trump Unleashes (More) Tariffs “Canada has been ripping off the United States of America for years,” wrote President Trump in his latest social media outburst, laying out his tariff torrent against Canada. “Their ridiculously high tariffs on our Farmers and farm products has made life impossible for these great American Patriots, and has long created a 60 Billion Dollar Deficit between […]

Nano Nuclear Energy Signs Commercial Framework With Tillman To Enable Nuclear Power For Data Centers Regular readers are aware that one of our biggest concerns with the AI supercycle, and the entire AI arms race between the US and China, is that when push comes to shove, not only is there mounting grassroots opposition to data center build out across the US but, more importantly, the US is badly lagging China when it comes to the […]

Macron Vows To Fast-Track More Missile Interceptors For Ukraine After Deadly Mall Strike Recent deadly Russian attack waves on Ukrainian cities – especially the capital – have prompted France to announce it will be speeding up deliveries of anti-air defense missiles to the Ukrainian armed forces. It also comes after after a call between French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky – which focused on the […]

Texas Governor Floats Prosecution Of Airports Over Muslim Foot-Washing Fountains Authored by Jeremy Lott via The Epoch Times, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, made his second push in two weeks to halt the Muslim foot washing facilities at his state’s airports on Friday. “DFW [Dallas Fort Worth International Airport] stopped plans to install additional Islamic wudu washing facilities after I threatened to withhold state […]

Rumor Of Imminent New Russian Mobilization Sends More Young Men Fleeing Across Borders Ukraine alleges that the Kremlin is on the brink of mobilizing another 300,000 troops later this year in order to make up for significant battlefield losses. “Russia has lost 267,000 personnel since the start of the year, including around 155,000 killed to date,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed in remarks released Sunday. “We are […]

Futures Slide Ahead Of “Pivotal Week” With Nvidia Earnings. Warsh Speech On Deck Futures are lower with Tech underperforming as the market focuses on NVDA / MRVL earnings this week; while the AI theme is pressured globally and memory stocks slump driven by a slide in the Kospi. Futures got a boost just after 7am when CNBC reported that the Treasury could use the General Account ($935BN as of today) to fund bond buybacks. As of […]

Gold Jumps, Curve Flattens On Report Treasury To Tap Trillion-Dollar TGA To Fund Bond Buybacks Having seen yields rebound from their initial decline following the upping of Treasury (long-end) buybacks to ‘at least $4BN’ per operation (and increased its total planned operations), Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent jawboned late last week about his ‘bigger toolkit’ and ‘asymmetric information’ in an attempt to further strengthen the […]

The Teaser Period: Why The AI Boom Is Hitting A Reset Wall Having laid out, in July, the structural diagnosis that most of the market still refuses to confront: the AI boom is not a technology cycle. It is a credit-driven real-estate-like cycle whose financing architecture depends on the second derivative; the appropriately-named ‘Groundbreaker’ website has just dropped his next insightful note on what may be the trigger for the […]

Zelensky Says Wartime Elections Would ‘Destroy’ Ukraine, The Purported Bastion Of Democracy Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 with a goal of excising the Russian-speaking Donbas region, American and Western European officials have repeatedly said they and their countries are duty-bound to support Ukraine because, as Nancy Pelosi put it, “The battle for Ukraine is a battle for democracy itself.” That notion has been […]

Le Pen Poised To Win French Elections? New Poll Shows Commanding First-Round Lead Summary: Polymarket Odds And New Polls Show Le Pen Leading France’s Presidential Race New polling shows Marine Le Pen defeating every tested runoff opponent Nomura says markets increasingly favor the “fiscally prudent” right over the reckless left Nomura sees Europe lurching right during an 18-month election cycle France’s Le Pen Leads French […]

Israel Creates Fake Think Tank In Likely Attempt To Dupe AI Chatbots Authored by Nick Cleveland-Stout via Responsible Statecraft, At a glance, the Hanover Institute for Public Policy looks like a new think tank dedicated to Israel/Palestine. The organization churns out think-tank style reports on questions such as “Does AIPAC Use ‘Dark Money in Elections?” and “Is Israel Carrying out a Deliberate Campaign of Starvation in Gaza?” A […]

Rial Hits Record Low As Bessent Readies “Economic D-Day” Assault To Isolate Iran In the coming hours, the Trump administration is expected to unveil a sweeping campaign to economically isolate Iran and its trading partners, with China likely the primary target. The escalation is designed to force Tehran back to the negotiating table, as its only leverage – the Strait of Hormuz – appears to be quickly eroding. Commercial ships are […]

Interior Department Approves Colorado River Water Reductions In 3 States Authored by Jacki Thrapp via The Epoch Times, The Department of the Interior will cut the amount of water it allocates through the Colorado River to Arizona, Nevada, and California in 2027 and 2028. The cuts were signed off by Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum on Aug. 21 as part of the department’s 2027-2028 Operating Guidelines for the Colorado River, […]

Europe Dodges A Rhine Crisis For The Worst Possible Reason Authored by Natalia Katona via OilPrice.com, Rhine freight from ARA to Karlsruhe has surged from €45/t to €215/t as Kaub remains below the 77-cm threshold needed for normal commercial traffic. The squeeze is disrupting 3.1 million t/y of ethylene capacity and product movements from the 320,000-b/d Miro refinery. Europe is avoiding a deeper crisis only because crackers […]

Clean Energy Spending Tracking Toward Record $180 Billion In 2026 Authored by Haley Zaremba via OilPrice.com, U.S. utility-scale battery storage has reached 52 GW after three years of 70 percent average annual growth, with 8.3 GW of that added in the first six months of 2026 alone. Clean energy capital spending hit $74 billion in the first half and is on pace for a record $180 billion this year, even after the rollback of federal […]

Anti-Social Media Social media may have been built to connect people, but entertainment and diversion now appear to be its main draws. As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, according to Statista Consumer Insights, nearly half of U.S. respondents say entertainment is an important criterion when it comes to social media, ahead of passing time and communicating with friends and family. You will find more infographics at Statista […]

Israel DM Orders IDF To Escalate Demolitions In Southern Lebanon Authored by Jason Ditz via Antiwar.com, A week after ordering the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to prepare for a “long-term stay” in occupied southern Lebanon, Defense Minister Israel Katz has now also ordered them to escalate the rate at which they’re destroying what is being framed as “Hezbollah infrastructure” across the south. The issue with this is the same as […]

“Iran Is Losing Its Grip On Hormuz”: Strait Traffic Explodes Nearly 400% Summary: Nearly 200 Ships Navigated Strait Last Week, Up From 150 the Previous Week Trump Views Hormuz As “an American Territory”  Axios: 40 Tankers Transited Hormuz Friday Night, But Real Crisis Is Diesel Hormuz Commercial Traffic Surges  Shortly after President Trump declared the Strait of Hormuz “an American territory” on Friday evening, the New York […]

MAGA, The DSA, & The Politics Of No Competition Authored by Katherine Gehl via RealClearPolitics, Despite the narrow loss by Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong in the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary last week, DSA candidates have prevailed in primaries this year from Maine to California. The Democratic Party establishment believed it dodged a bullet in Wisconsin, but this threat is not going away any time soon. […]

Evergrande Founder Gets Life But Homebuyers, Suppliers Bear The Costs Of China’s Property Collapse Authored by Michael Zhuang via The Epoch Times, The sentencing of China Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan to life in prison has brought a legal reckoning for one of the country’s most spectacular corporate collapses. However, for hundreds of thousands of homebuyers, investors, and other creditors, the ruling does little to resolve the […]

Has Trump Turned The Tables On Iran – Or Is Another Round Of War Coming? Authored by Trita Parsi via Antiwar.com, reprinted with permission from Trita Parsi’s Substack. The Trump administration believes it has turned the tables on Iran. Washington assesses that the rerouting of maritime traffic through the Omani corridor, combined with a global shift away from Persian Gulf oil, has reduced the effectiveness of Tehran’s closure of […]