Supreme Court Won't Halt Ruling Against Adult Entertainment Businesses

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 31 denied a request from adult entertainment providers to halt a federal appeals court ruling that rejected their challenge to zoning restrictions in New York City.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who oversees emergency appeals from New York state, issued a brief order in 59 Murray Enterprises Inc. v. City of New York without comment.

The order rejected a request to grant an injunction blocking a ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Because Sotomayor acted alone without referring the emergency application to the full court, under Supreme Court rules, the companies that brought the application may present the application to another justice.

Often in emergency applications, the high court asks the responding party to file a brief outlining its position. In this case, Sotomayor made no such request.

In 1995, New York City approved new zoning laws that restricted where adult entertainment-related businesses could operate. The regulations did not govern so-called “60/40” establishments in which under 40 percent of floorspace or the store’s stock-in-trade did not feature adult entertainment or media, according to the application filed with the nation’s highest court on Oct. 22.

The businesses that brought the Supreme Court application are involved in adult entertainment. Eight of the companies operate or lease space to strip clubs and topless bars, while the other six rent out or sell adult books and videos.

The companies involved in this litigation were not affected by the 1995 regulations, but in 2001, the city changed its zoning laws to take away the 60/40 rule, which brought the companies within reach of the laws restricting adult establishments, the application said.

The new zoning amendments were not immediately enforced, but years later when the city began to take steps to enforce them the businesses sued. A federal district court ruled for the city in 2024, holding that the 2001 zoning amendments did not infringe on the businesses’ constitutional rights.

The businesses appealed, arguing that the amendments ran afoul of the free speech clause of the First Amendment and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The bookstores involved in the legal challenge argued the 2001 zoning amendments violated the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, the application said.

The Second Circuit ruled in July this year that the 2001 zoning amendments did not violate the companies’ First Amendment rights.

Although the First amendment safeguards adult expression, it also permits a municipality to regulate adult entertainment providers, and as part of its zoning authority, allows a municipality to forbid adult businesses from operating in certain locations, the application said, citing the ruling.

“Even in areas where adult-oriented businesses are allowed, a city may prohibit such businesses from operating close to churches, parks, schools, residential areas, or other adult establishments,” the circuit court said, citing City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres Inc., a 1986 Supreme Court precedent.

A municipality may regulate adult establishments in an effort to mitigate the harmful “secondary effects” that can accompany adult-oriented businesses, such as “crime, decreased property values, and urban decay,” provided that such regulation cannot be used “as a pretext for suppressing expression.”

Limiting where adult businesses may operate may be done to “preserve the quality of life in the community at large,” which is “the essence of zoning,” the court said.

The application argued that the Supreme Court should grant the application because without it, the city could shut down businesses engaged in constitutionally protected expression and this would cause those businesses “irreparable and substantial injury,” the application said.

The application also said that the applicants intend to file a petition for certiorari, or review, of the Second Circuit’s ruling separately from the application.

The applicants’ attorney, Edward Rudofsky of Melville, New York, commented on the denial of the application.

“We respect but are naturally disappointed by the denial of our clients’ application for an injunction pending their petition for a writ of certiorari, which we thought was warranted for all of the reasons set forth in our papers,” Rudofsky told The Epoch Times.

The Epoch Times reached out for comment to the city’s Law Department. No reply was received by publication time.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 22:35

Two Airmen Plead Guilty After Third Dies In Fake Story Over Sig Sauer M18

The case of the mysterious self-shooting SIG M18 gets even stranger - following an August arrest in the case (it wasn't the gun). 

The entrance to F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyo., on May 24, 2018. AP Photo/Mead Gruver, File

On Friday, the Air Force said in a statement that two airman at a Wyoming US Air Force base pleaded guilty to making false statements in the late July shooting of Brayden Lovan, 21, an airman with the 90th Security Forces Squadron, 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base outside Cheyenne. 

Airmen Sarbjot Badesha and Matthew Rodriguez each pleaded guilty this week to making false official statements related to Lovan’s death July 20, according to the Air Force statement.

Badesha was sentenced to 30 days in confinement and forfeiture of $1,545, while Rodriguez was sentenced to 10 days in confinement, 15 days restriction to base and forfeiture of $500. Both also received administrative demotions.

The two reported hearing White-Allen’s gun go off and then seeing Lovan on the ground, according to the statement.

White-Allen allegedly told Badesha, “Here’s the story. Tell them that I slammed my duty belt on the desk and it went off.” White-Allen allegedly told Rodriguez to tell emergency responders that White-Allen’s “holster went off,” according to the statement.

Neither airman initially reported that information, leading investigators to believe at first that White-Allen’s M18 accidentally discharged, according to the statement.

Meanwhile, the guy who did it was found dead on Oct. 8, and the Air Force won't say how.

Details about his death were released for the first time Friday, including that the alleged shooter, Marcus White-Allen, had pointed the gun at Lovan’s chest in a “joking manner.” White-Allen after the shooting allegedly urged the other two surviving airmen to lie about what happened, according to the statement.

White-Allen, who was arrested on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter and making a false statement, was found dead on base on the morning of Oct. 8. Air Force officials have not disclosed details surrounding White-Allen’s death, saying it was still under investigation. -AP

What's hilarious is that Sig has such a bad reputation for self-firing guns that everyone just bought the story. 

The pistol has been dogged for years by claims that it is prone to unintentional discharge if handled or bumped, without the trigger being pulled, according to the Epoch Times, which notes that at least 80 people have been injured since 2014,  and several lawsuits have been filed. In 2021, the U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania dismissed a claim by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent that his P320 discharged while in its holster, wounding him.

In 2020, Sig Sauer paid an almost $900,000 settlement in a case before the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri. In court documents, Sig Sauer said its agreement to settle was not an admission of negligence or wrongdoing on its part.

Strader said the company stands by its product, but has also listened to its customers’ concerns and offers a trigger upgrade for select models.

“The P320 Voluntary Upgrade is available to P320s produced from 2014-2017. More information can be found here P320 Voluntary Upgrade Program | SIG SAUER,” Strader stated.

In August 2024, the FBI evaluated the pistol for the Michigan State Police after one of its officers reported that he was shot by his holstered P320 at the shooting range.

The FBI report offered no definitive answers as to what happened in that case, but indicated the situation warranted a deeper investigation.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 22:10

Two Airmen Plead Guilty After Third Dies In Fake Story Over Sig Sauer M18

The case of the mysterious self-shooting SIG M18 gets even stranger - following an August arrest in the case (it wasn't the gun). 

The entrance to F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyo., on May 24, 2018. AP Photo/Mead Gruver, File

On Friday, the Air Force said in a statement that two airman at a Wyoming US Air Force base pleaded guilty to making false statements in the late July shooting of Brayden Lovan, 21, an airman with the 90th Security Forces Squadron, 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base outside Cheyenne. 

Airmen Sarbjot Badesha and Matthew Rodriguez each pleaded guilty this week to making false official statements related to Lovan’s death July 20, according to the Air Force statement.

Badesha was sentenced to 30 days in confinement and forfeiture of $1,545, while Rodriguez was sentenced to 10 days in confinement, 15 days restriction to base and forfeiture of $500. Both also received administrative demotions.

The two reported hearing White-Allen’s gun go off and then seeing Lovan on the ground, according to the statement.

White-Allen allegedly told Badesha, “Here’s the story. Tell them that I slammed my duty belt on the desk and it went off.” White-Allen allegedly told Rodriguez to tell emergency responders that White-Allen’s “holster went off,” according to the statement.

Neither airman initially reported that information, leading investigators to believe at first that White-Allen’s M18 accidentally discharged, according to the statement.

Meanwhile, the guy who did it was found dead on Oct. 8, and the Air Force won't say how.

Details about his death were released for the first time Friday, including that the alleged shooter, Marcus White-Allen, had pointed the gun at Lovan’s chest in a “joking manner.” White-Allen after the shooting allegedly urged the other two surviving airmen to lie about what happened, according to the statement.

White-Allen, who was arrested on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter and making a false statement, was found dead on base on the morning of Oct. 8. Air Force officials have not disclosed details surrounding White-Allen’s death, saying it was still under investigation. -AP

What's hilarious is that Sig has such a bad reputation for self-firing guns that everyone just bought the story. 

The pistol has been dogged for years by claims that it is prone to unintentional discharge if handled or bumped, without the trigger being pulled, according to the Epoch Times, which notes that at least 80 people have been injured since 2014,  and several lawsuits have been filed. In 2021, the U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania dismissed a claim by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent that his P320 discharged while in its holster, wounding him.

In 2020, Sig Sauer paid an almost $900,000 settlement in a case before the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri. In court documents, Sig Sauer said its agreement to settle was not an admission of negligence or wrongdoing on its part.

Strader said the company stands by its product, but has also listened to its customers’ concerns and offers a trigger upgrade for select models.

“The P320 Voluntary Upgrade is available to P320s produced from 2014-2017. More information can be found here P320 Voluntary Upgrade Program | SIG SAUER,” Strader stated.

In August 2024, the FBI evaluated the pistol for the Michigan State Police after one of its officers reported that he was shot by his holstered P320 at the shooting range.

The FBI report offered no definitive answers as to what happened in that case, but indicated the situation warranted a deeper investigation.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 22:10

Conservatives' Higher Birthrates Point To Future Political Dominance

Via Brian McGlinchey at Stark Realities

Chances are, you’re already aware that birthrates are falling throughout the developed world, sagging well below the “replacement rate” and sparking worries about the implications of a future dearth of workers and consumers. However, the emphasis on economic implications has allowed a powerful political undercurrent to go almost entirely unnoticed: Birthrates are varying significantly by political orientation, a trend that has the potential to shape electorates and policies for generations to come — to the benefit of conservatives.

Replacement birthrates vary over time and place depending on shifts in related variables such as child mortality. In developed countries, sustaining populations without immigration currently requires reproduction at a rate of 2.1 births per woman of childbearing age. Except for an outlier replacement-level pace in 2007, the US birthrate has been sub-2.1 since the early 1970s. Last year, America hit a record-low 1.6, with even lower lows recorded elsewhere in the developed world: the birth rate in England and Wales fell to 1.41, while Scotland’s dropped to 1.25 and Italy’s to 1.2. Mainland France’s 1.59 was the lowest since World War I.

Media coverage has uniformly emphasized those top-line numbers. However, Financial Times columnist and chief data reporter John Burn-Murdoch recently waded deeper into the data and illuminated a sub-trend that could shape the future of the West. It turns out the drop-off in top-line birthrates is primarily the result of plummeting parenthood among progressive leftists, with conservative fertility slipping to a far smaller degree.

“From the US to Europe and beyond, people who identify as conservative are having almost as many children as they were decades ago,” Burn-Murdoch wrote. “The decline is overwhelmingly among those on the progressive left, in effect nudging each successive generation’s politics further to the right than they would otherwise have been.”

Readers might reasonably wonder if the birthrate numbers merely reflect the fact that people tend to become more conservative upon having children — particularly on social issues. That’s not the case. Critically, even aspirations to have children vary widely by political orientation. Illustrating the extremes on the continuum, a September NBC News poll found that male, Gen Z Trump voters put “having children” high atop their list of what’s central to their “personal definition of success.” In stark contrast, female Gen Z Kamala Harris voters put raising children in 12th place out of the 13 life goals presented as options, below aspirations like “having a job or career you find fulfilling” (which came in first) and “having emotional stability” (which placed third).

The conservative fertility edge shows up in state-level data. The 10 states with the highest 2023 birthrates were all Republican-majority states, led by South Dakota (2.01), Nebraska (1.92) and North Dakota (1.85). The bottom 10 were all “blue” states, with Vermont (1.30) at the bottom, and Oregon, Massachusetts, California, Washington and Illinois among those in the bottom pack. Paired with the trend of people migrating from blue states, it’s safe to say their lagging birthrates assure continued shrinkage in their congressional delegations, electoral votes and political power.

Looking more broadly, conservatives already have a population edge in America, with 33% of adults saying they’re conservative or very conservative, compared to just 24% who identify as liberal or very liberal. Self-categorized moderates represent a plurality, at 38%.

As your own extended family tree likely demonstrates, parents’ political leanings don’t strictly determine the views of their offspring. However, while most parents say they don’t make indoctrination a priority, their leanings do have an outsize influence in the grand scheme.

A 2023 Pew Research analysis found that only 16% of parents said it was extremely or very important for their children to grow up to hold political views similar to their own. Despite that, 81% of Republicans’ teenage children identify as either Republican or leaning toward the GOP; the Democratic correlation is 89%. Even if we assume that correlation decreases somewhat after the teen years, the large birthrate gap between conservatives and progressives promises to give the West’s politics a clear shove to the right over the coming decades.

Join thousands of free Stark Realities subscribers

Will immigration weaken that shove? Conservatives have long been wary of the political implications of large immigrant inflows, accusing Democrats of promoting lax border policies in a self-serving scheme to import Democratic voters. Bolstering that case, a 2023 Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 32% of foreign-born people living in the US prefer the Democratic Party, with only half that number — 16% — saying the Republican Party best represents their views. A hefty 52% preferred “neither party” or were “not sure.”

Importantly, an immigration sea change is underway. At least for the time being, migrant inflows have not only come to a screeching halt, but have even reversed. In January, there were 53.3 million foreign-born immigrants in the country. Six months later, those ranks had fallen by more than a million, the first such decline since the 1960s. Having peaked at 15.8% of the US population, foreign-born people now account for 15.4%.

In what could be a self-reinforcing dynamic, a rightward shift driven by conservatives’ higher fertility could help perpetuate policies that tamp down immigration, further shifting the math in favor of the right. We’ve already seen a major sentiment shift, as Americans attitudes about immigration soured mightily during the Biden presidency: The percent wanting fewer immigrants soared from 28% in 2000 to 55% in 2024, according to Gallup. (The percent dropped way back to 30% this summer, but with dramatically tighter immigration policies resulting in net emigration for the first time in well over 50 years, that particular finding seems like something of an apples vs oranges comparison.)

2024 US Births By Race and Hispanic Origin (via Perplexity)

With European populations displaying their own rising impatience with the effects of mass immigration — a dynamic that has translated into a significant tightening of policies across the continent — immigration doesn’t seem poised to fully offset conservatives’ higher fertility either in Europe or the United States, at least for now.

Many factors are driving declining birthrates in the progressive left, including a lower level of enthusiasm — and often, outright disdain — for traditional family structures, greater prioritization of women’s career success, and a fatalism that makes the gift of life seem like a mixed proposition at best.

The Times’ Burn-Murdoch also points a finger at progressives who’ve convinced themselves that bringing new humans into the world will accelerate climate change. However, he notes that any given country’s level of carbon emissions is overwhelmingly driven by technology, not population, as evidenced by plummeting carbon emissions throughout the developed world even as their populations have continued to rise.

France and Germany show how carbon emissions have declined despite rising populations (via Financial Times and John Burn-Murdoch)

Even among progressives who do aspire to reproduce, there seem to be other self-defeating dynamics at work. For example, in their rebellion against traditional norms and expectations, and their desire to signal their subcultural alignment, progressives are more likely to make personal-appearance choices that could undermine their ability to land a mate.

Purple hair with an unconventional cut may be boldly expressive, but it comes at some unquantifiable price in the dating marketplace. The steepest price probably comes from septum-piercing — nose-rings that stray far from adornment and into outright self-vandalism. Science backs the idea that such piercings are bad for one’s love life: A study published by European Psychologist found that both women and men with facial piercings were perceived as not only less physically attractive but also less intelligent.

This TikToker took off her nose ring for the first time in a long time and immediately realized men are right.

"Someone said I look like a Democrat cause of the nose ring, so I'm taking it out."

Nose rings and tattoos are some of the worst things women ever got into. pic.twitter.com/oF0zmwtTHr

— George (@BehizyTweets) October 22, 2025

That’s not all. Leftists are also far more likely to limit their dating pool by excluding people with differing political views: Among self-identified “very liberal” people, only 13% are willing to date conservatives. Putting that into perspective, 29% of them are willing to date an ex-felon. On the other hand, very conservative Americans are nearly twice as willing to date their political opposites.

When looking to the political future, it’s often said that “demographics are destiny.” For the most part, progressives have employed the axiom with a swaggering confidence in their inevitable triumph, while conservatives have used it with a tone of grim resignation. Given the reproductive realities, we may soon see a rhetorical role reversal.

STARK REALITIES: Invigoratingly Unorthodox Perspectives For Intellectually Honest Readers 

Sign up and join thousands of free subscribers who benefit from monthly, ad-free insights 

* * *

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

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 21:45

Conservatives' Higher Birthrates Point To Future Political Dominance

Via Brian McGlinchey at Stark Realities

Chances are, you’re already aware that birthrates are falling throughout the developed world, sagging well below the “replacement rate” and sparking worries about the implications of a future dearth of workers and consumers. However, the emphasis on economic implications has allowed a powerful political undercurrent to go almost entirely unnoticed: Birthrates are varying significantly by political orientation, a trend that has the potential to shape electorates and policies for generations to come — to the benefit of conservatives.

Replacement birthrates vary over time and place depending on shifts in related variables such as child mortality. In developed countries, sustaining populations without immigration currently requires reproduction at a rate of 2.1 births per woman of childbearing age. Except for an outlier replacement-level pace in 2007, the US birthrate has been sub-2.1 since the early 1970s. Last year, America hit a record-low 1.6, with even lower lows recorded elsewhere in the developed world: the birth rate in England and Wales fell to 1.41, while Scotland’s dropped to 1.25 and Italy’s to 1.2. Mainland France’s 1.59 was the lowest since World War I.

Media coverage has uniformly emphasized those top-line numbers. However, Financial Times columnist and chief data reporter John Burn-Murdoch recently waded deeper into the data and illuminated a sub-trend that could shape the future of the West. It turns out the drop-off in top-line birthrates is primarily the result of plummeting parenthood among progressive leftists, with conservative fertility slipping to a far smaller degree.

“From the US to Europe and beyond, people who identify as conservative are having almost as many children as they were decades ago,” Burn-Murdoch wrote. “The decline is overwhelmingly among those on the progressive left, in effect nudging each successive generation’s politics further to the right than they would otherwise have been.”

Readers might reasonably wonder if the birthrate numbers merely reflect the fact that people tend to become more conservative upon having children — particularly on social issues. That’s not the case. Critically, even aspirations to have children vary widely by political orientation. Illustrating the extremes on the continuum, a September NBC News poll found that male, Gen Z Trump voters put “having children” high atop their list of what’s central to their “personal definition of success.” In stark contrast, female Gen Z Kamala Harris voters put raising children in 12th place out of the 13 life goals presented as options, below aspirations like “having a job or career you find fulfilling” (which came in first) and “having emotional stability” (which placed third).

The conservative fertility edge shows up in state-level data. The 10 states with the highest 2023 birthrates were all Republican-majority states, led by South Dakota (2.01), Nebraska (1.92) and North Dakota (1.85). The bottom 10 were all “blue” states, with Vermont (1.30) at the bottom, and Oregon, Massachusetts, California, Washington and Illinois among those in the bottom pack. Paired with the trend of people migrating from blue states, it’s safe to say their lagging birthrates assure continued shrinkage in their congressional delegations, electoral votes and political power.

Looking more broadly, conservatives already have a population edge in America, with 33% of adults saying they’re conservative or very conservative, compared to just 24% who identify as liberal or very liberal. Self-categorized moderates represent a plurality, at 38%.

As your own extended family tree likely demonstrates, parents’ political leanings don’t strictly determine the views of their offspring. However, while most parents say they don’t make indoctrination a priority, their leanings do have an outsize influence in the grand scheme.

A 2023 Pew Research analysis found that only 16% of parents said it was extremely or very important for their children to grow up to hold political views similar to their own. Despite that, 81% of Republicans’ teenage children identify as either Republican or leaning toward the GOP; the Democratic correlation is 89%. Even if we assume that correlation decreases somewhat after the teen years, the large birthrate gap between conservatives and progressives promises to give the West’s politics a clear shove to the right over the coming decades.

Join thousands of free Stark Realities subscribers

Will immigration weaken that shove? Conservatives have long been wary of the political implications of large immigrant inflows, accusing Democrats of promoting lax border policies in a self-serving scheme to import Democratic voters. Bolstering that case, a 2023 Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 32% of foreign-born people living in the US prefer the Democratic Party, with only half that number — 16% — saying the Republican Party best represents their views. A hefty 52% preferred “neither party” or were “not sure.”

Importantly, an immigration sea change is underway. At least for the time being, migrant inflows have not only come to a screeching halt, but have even reversed. In January, there were 53.3 million foreign-born immigrants in the country. Six months later, those ranks had fallen by more than a million, the first such decline since the 1960s. Having peaked at 15.8% of the US population, foreign-born people now account for 15.4%.

In what could be a self-reinforcing dynamic, a rightward shift driven by conservatives’ higher fertility could help perpetuate policies that tamp down immigration, further shifting the math in favor of the right. We’ve already seen a major sentiment shift, as Americans attitudes about immigration soured mightily during the Biden presidency: The percent wanting fewer immigrants soared from 28% in 2000 to 55% in 2024, according to Gallup. (The percent dropped way back to 30% this summer, but with dramatically tighter immigration policies resulting in net emigration for the first time in well over 50 years, that particular finding seems like something of an apples vs oranges comparison.)

2024 US Births By Race and Hispanic Origin (via Perplexity)

With European populations displaying their own rising impatience with the effects of mass immigration — a dynamic that has translated into a significant tightening of policies across the continent — immigration doesn’t seem poised to fully offset conservatives’ higher fertility either in Europe or the United States, at least for now.

Many factors are driving declining birthrates in the progressive left, including a lower level of enthusiasm — and often, outright disdain — for traditional family structures, greater prioritization of women’s career success, and a fatalism that makes the gift of life seem like a mixed proposition at best.

The Times’ Burn-Murdoch also points a finger at progressives who’ve convinced themselves that bringing new humans into the world will accelerate climate change. However, he notes that any given country’s level of carbon emissions is overwhelmingly driven by technology, not population, as evidenced by plummeting carbon emissions throughout the developed world even as their populations have continued to rise.

France and Germany show how carbon emissions have declined despite rising populations (via Financial Times and John Burn-Murdoch)

Even among progressives who do aspire to reproduce, there seem to be other self-defeating dynamics at work. For example, in their rebellion against traditional norms and expectations, and their desire to signal their subcultural alignment, progressives are more likely to make personal-appearance choices that could undermine their ability to land a mate.

Purple hair with an unconventional cut may be boldly expressive, but it comes at some unquantifiable price in the dating marketplace. The steepest price probably comes from septum-piercing — nose-rings that stray far from adornment and into outright self-vandalism. Science backs the idea that such piercings are bad for one’s love life: A study published by European Psychologist found that both women and men with facial piercings were perceived as not only less physically attractive but also less intelligent.

This TikToker took off her nose ring for the first time in a long time and immediately realized men are right.

"Someone said I look like a Democrat cause of the nose ring, so I'm taking it out."

Nose rings and tattoos are some of the worst things women ever got into. pic.twitter.com/oF0zmwtTHr

— George (@BehizyTweets) October 22, 2025

That’s not all. Leftists are also far more likely to limit their dating pool by excluding people with differing political views: Among self-identified “very liberal” people, only 13% are willing to date conservatives. Putting that into perspective, 29% of them are willing to date an ex-felon. On the other hand, very conservative Americans are nearly twice as willing to date their political opposites.

When looking to the political future, it’s often said that “demographics are destiny.” For the most part, progressives have employed the axiom with a swaggering confidence in their inevitable triumph, while conservatives have used it with a tone of grim resignation. Given the reproductive realities, we may soon see a rhetorical role reversal.

STARK REALITIES: Invigoratingly Unorthodox Perspectives For Intellectually Honest Readers 

Sign up and join thousands of free subscribers who benefit from monthly, ad-free insights 

* * *

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

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 21:45

Democratic Louisiana Mayor Indicted For Using City Funds To Solicit Prostitute, Pay Off Personal Legal Debts

A Washington Parish grand jury in Louisiana has indicted Democratic Bogalusa, Louisiana Mayor Tyrin Z. Truong on charges of malfeasance in office, public intimidation, and theft, according to the Bogalusa Daily News.

The indictment is part of what officials describe as an ongoing multi-agency investigation involving federal, state, and local authorities. Prosecutors allege Truong intentionally carried out his official duties unlawfully and knowingly allowed other city employees to ignore theirs. His arraignment is scheduled for November 10, 2025.

According to prosecutors, the case centers on claims that Truong misused Bogalusa taxpayer funds to pay a personal legal debt from a 2023 Louisiana public records lawsuit in which a judge ruled that Truong personally owed attorney fees and penalties after refusing to release public documents.

When the Bogalusa City Council denied his request to use public money, prosecutors say Truong threatened retaliation, vowing to overwhelm council members with records requests. Investigators allege he then pressured a city insurance vendor to issue a check labeled as a “reimbursement,” had it deposited into a city account, and ordered another check for the same amount to be written to himself.

The Daily News writes that the indictment details additional alleged misconduct, including accepting unauthorized salary and leave payments, forcing a city contractor to pay another contractor who did no work, purchasing illegal narcotics from known drug dealers and failing to report the activity, attempting to solicit a bribe from a local business — a move that allegedly cost the city a major development project — and ordering city workers to perform plumbing repairs at his mother’s home using city materials.

Prosecutors also accuse Truong of using city funds to solicit a prostitute at an Airbnb in Atlanta.

The charges follow Truong’s January 2025 arrest by the Louisiana State Police during a drug-trafficking investigation. At the time, State Police said Truong “organized entertainment with a prostitute” during a mayors’ conference in Atlanta and paid for the Airbnb using public funds, while also being accused of purchasing drugs in Louisiana. Investigators allege a Bogalusa-based drug ring was selling opioids, high-grade marijuana, THC products, and MDMA, with profits used to purchase firearms later connected to local crimes.

Sims emphasized that the probe continues and involves cooperation from multiple agencies. He said, “This case reflects the ongoing commitment to ensuring accountability and integrity in public office.” Truong remains presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 21:20

Democratic Louisiana Mayor Indicted For Using City Funds To Solicit Prostitute, Pay Off Personal Legal Debts

A Washington Parish grand jury in Louisiana has indicted Democratic Bogalusa, Louisiana Mayor Tyrin Z. Truong on charges of malfeasance in office, public intimidation, and theft, according to the Bogalusa Daily News.

The indictment is part of what officials describe as an ongoing multi-agency investigation involving federal, state, and local authorities. Prosecutors allege Truong intentionally carried out his official duties unlawfully and knowingly allowed other city employees to ignore theirs. His arraignment is scheduled for November 10, 2025.

According to prosecutors, the case centers on claims that Truong misused Bogalusa taxpayer funds to pay a personal legal debt from a 2023 Louisiana public records lawsuit in which a judge ruled that Truong personally owed attorney fees and penalties after refusing to release public documents.

When the Bogalusa City Council denied his request to use public money, prosecutors say Truong threatened retaliation, vowing to overwhelm council members with records requests. Investigators allege he then pressured a city insurance vendor to issue a check labeled as a “reimbursement,” had it deposited into a city account, and ordered another check for the same amount to be written to himself.

The Daily News writes that the indictment details additional alleged misconduct, including accepting unauthorized salary and leave payments, forcing a city contractor to pay another contractor who did no work, purchasing illegal narcotics from known drug dealers and failing to report the activity, attempting to solicit a bribe from a local business — a move that allegedly cost the city a major development project — and ordering city workers to perform plumbing repairs at his mother’s home using city materials.

Prosecutors also accuse Truong of using city funds to solicit a prostitute at an Airbnb in Atlanta.

The charges follow Truong’s January 2025 arrest by the Louisiana State Police during a drug-trafficking investigation. At the time, State Police said Truong “organized entertainment with a prostitute” during a mayors’ conference in Atlanta and paid for the Airbnb using public funds, while also being accused of purchasing drugs in Louisiana. Investigators allege a Bogalusa-based drug ring was selling opioids, high-grade marijuana, THC products, and MDMA, with profits used to purchase firearms later connected to local crimes.

Sims emphasized that the probe continues and involves cooperation from multiple agencies. He said, “This case reflects the ongoing commitment to ensuring accountability and integrity in public office.” Truong remains presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 21:20

A Nation Forgetting Itself: The Cost Of Civic Illiteracy

Authored by Jack Miller & Michael Weiser via RealClearPolitics,

Actions have consequences A lack of consequences is an action that also has consequences.

America is in the throes of an epidemic of civic illiteracy that can be traced to a half-century of not teaching the principles, history, and documents of her founding. In our most prestigious universities down to primary school classrooms, the teaching of our pre-partisan founding principles and history has been downgraded and corrupted, leading to at least two generations of Americans without the knowledge to be participants in self-government or the resolve to defend our republic.

It isn’t as though we weren’t warned: by George Washington, who identified education in civics as an essential pillar of freedom in the earliest days of our republic, and much more recently by the late Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor who reminded us that civic knowledge was not passed from generation to generation in the gene pool but, rather, must be taught and re-taught to each new class of rising Americans. Great Americans have always understood that maintaining our freedom depends on passing down our founding principles and history through education.

In the 20th century, Ronald Reagan also reminded us of freedom’s fragility. “It’s never more than one generation away from extinction,” he once said. “It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people.” He was channeling the insights of other great Americans, such as Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, who understood that our heritage of liberty is grounded in enduring moral truths about the equal dignity of all human beings.

It seems as though those truths are no longer self-evident to our republic. Political violence is on the rise, and intolerance colors too many of our public debates and even private discussions. It is no exaggeration to say these are the sorry consequences of a civic illiteracy epidemic that has raged in our body politic, untreated, for years. Yet it would be wrong to blame this crisis merely on the emergence of competing narratives like the New York Times’ “1619 Project,” which traces U.S. history to the arrival of slaves on our shores and labels Americans as irredeemably racist. This and other such narratives filled a void that was created by a shameful inaction for civic education.

The civic education crisis our country faces seems to us to be part of a larger cultural malaise – one that fails to foresee the consequences of our inactions in other realms of our society and, then once demonstrated, fails to do anything about them. Consider, for instance, inactions to prosecute “petty” thefts under $1,000 that have led to an exodus of retailers no longer able to run their businesses in areas prone to these crimes. Similarly, cash-free bail has led to the release of repeat offenders into society, where they again commit crimes, some of them violent. Indeed, if our actions as a nation sometimes have had tragic consequences – in wars, segregation and financial mismanagement – so have we as Americans demonstrated the sometimes devastating  results of our inactions.

It is not an overstatement to trace at least some of the problems of our society to an insufficient understanding of the rights and responsibilities of citizens in this free society and the values they must share. A requisite understanding of these starts in the home but must be further molded and honed in civic education classrooms throughout our educational system. Too often and in too many places, civic education inaction has won the day and, with it, a withering of our civic culture.

Perhaps the most troubling example of civic inaction’s dangers can be found in the rise of 20th-century totalitarianism. From Lenin and Stalin’s communist revolution in Russia to Hitler’s fascist takeover of Germany, tyrants took advantage of a lack of actions, pushbacks, in their early stages. Even when these regimes began to threaten the West, our own civic ignorance led to shortsighted policies of appeasement and even cooperation. The consequence was a shattered continent and the tragedy of war and genocide –over 6 million in the Holocaust alone, and 70 million over the course of World War II.

Peoples inspired with a greater confidence in their civic tradition, however, have the power to stop the march of tyranny.

While we, thankfully, do not currently face the kind of revolutionary extremism that led to catastrophe in the last century, our civic health is trending in the wrong direction. More and more young people are turning to socialism, communism, or other forms of radicalism because they have not been educated in how our American form of government provides the greatest individual freedom and opportunity. But the good news is that parents, educators, and philanthropists have had enough of this civics inaction. At our organization, the Jack Miller Center, we are taking a number of specific steps to reinvigorate civic education.

For more than two decades, we have supported the careers of university scholars devoted to teaching the principles and history of our country – in intensive, multi-week institutes that bring together new post-doctoral academics with the senior scholars in political science and history, and, once on campus, by supporting campus centers focused on this scholarship. In all, there are 1,300 of these academics – whom we call Miller Fellows – on more than 300 higher-ed campuses.

In recent years, we have been engaging a growing number of these scholars in teaching graduate-level seminars for K-12 teachers, enriching their understanding of our founding documents and strengthening their ability to lead discussions and debates in their own classrooms – the hallmark of our democracy.

And today, the Jack Miller Center is helping to bolster and support a civics renaissance in higher education. Across the country, state legislatures are establishing Schools of Civic Thought at their flagship universities. These separate and independent academic units are sanctioned to teach our founding principles, American history, and Western civilization. Not only are Schools of Civic Thought restoring the traditional liberal arts for a new generation of college students, they are also providing training and content K-12 teachers can use in their classrooms. Schools of Civic Thought are rapidly expanding, and will be a major game changer.

Taken together, these efforts are helping to lead what can truly be called a civics renaissance in our classrooms and on our campuses. We join with others who have recognized the consequence of our inactions and the extraordinary influence that civic learning can have for America.

Reform must begin with acknowledging the crisis at hand: Due to generations of inaction, Americans are forgetting who we are supposed to be. “Something’s eating away at the national memory,” the popular historian David McCullough once said, “and a nation or a community or a society can suffer as much from the adverse effects of amnesia as can an individual.”

Especially as the 250th anniversary of our country’s birth approaches, it has never been more important to remember who we are – and to act so that those memories come alive for the next generation of citizens.

Jack Miller is founder and chairman emeritus of the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America’s Founding Principles & History.

Michael Weiser is chairman of the Board of Directors of the Jack Miller Center.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 20:55

A Nation Forgetting Itself: The Cost Of Civic Illiteracy

Authored by Jack Miller & Michael Weiser via RealClearPolitics,

Actions have consequences A lack of consequences is an action that also has consequences.

America is in the throes of an epidemic of civic illiteracy that can be traced to a half-century of not teaching the principles, history, and documents of her founding. In our most prestigious universities down to primary school classrooms, the teaching of our pre-partisan founding principles and history has been downgraded and corrupted, leading to at least two generations of Americans without the knowledge to be participants in self-government or the resolve to defend our republic.

It isn’t as though we weren’t warned: by George Washington, who identified education in civics as an essential pillar of freedom in the earliest days of our republic, and much more recently by the late Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor who reminded us that civic knowledge was not passed from generation to generation in the gene pool but, rather, must be taught and re-taught to each new class of rising Americans. Great Americans have always understood that maintaining our freedom depends on passing down our founding principles and history through education.

In the 20th century, Ronald Reagan also reminded us of freedom’s fragility. “It’s never more than one generation away from extinction,” he once said. “It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people.” He was channeling the insights of other great Americans, such as Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, who understood that our heritage of liberty is grounded in enduring moral truths about the equal dignity of all human beings.

It seems as though those truths are no longer self-evident to our republic. Political violence is on the rise, and intolerance colors too many of our public debates and even private discussions. It is no exaggeration to say these are the sorry consequences of a civic illiteracy epidemic that has raged in our body politic, untreated, for years. Yet it would be wrong to blame this crisis merely on the emergence of competing narratives like the New York Times’ “1619 Project,” which traces U.S. history to the arrival of slaves on our shores and labels Americans as irredeemably racist. This and other such narratives filled a void that was created by a shameful inaction for civic education.

The civic education crisis our country faces seems to us to be part of a larger cultural malaise – one that fails to foresee the consequences of our inactions in other realms of our society and, then once demonstrated, fails to do anything about them. Consider, for instance, inactions to prosecute “petty” thefts under $1,000 that have led to an exodus of retailers no longer able to run their businesses in areas prone to these crimes. Similarly, cash-free bail has led to the release of repeat offenders into society, where they again commit crimes, some of them violent. Indeed, if our actions as a nation sometimes have had tragic consequences – in wars, segregation and financial mismanagement – so have we as Americans demonstrated the sometimes devastating  results of our inactions.

It is not an overstatement to trace at least some of the problems of our society to an insufficient understanding of the rights and responsibilities of citizens in this free society and the values they must share. A requisite understanding of these starts in the home but must be further molded and honed in civic education classrooms throughout our educational system. Too often and in too many places, civic education inaction has won the day and, with it, a withering of our civic culture.

Perhaps the most troubling example of civic inaction’s dangers can be found in the rise of 20th-century totalitarianism. From Lenin and Stalin’s communist revolution in Russia to Hitler’s fascist takeover of Germany, tyrants took advantage of a lack of actions, pushbacks, in their early stages. Even when these regimes began to threaten the West, our own civic ignorance led to shortsighted policies of appeasement and even cooperation. The consequence was a shattered continent and the tragedy of war and genocide –over 6 million in the Holocaust alone, and 70 million over the course of World War II.

Peoples inspired with a greater confidence in their civic tradition, however, have the power to stop the march of tyranny.

While we, thankfully, do not currently face the kind of revolutionary extremism that led to catastrophe in the last century, our civic health is trending in the wrong direction. More and more young people are turning to socialism, communism, or other forms of radicalism because they have not been educated in how our American form of government provides the greatest individual freedom and opportunity. But the good news is that parents, educators, and philanthropists have had enough of this civics inaction. At our organization, the Jack Miller Center, we are taking a number of specific steps to reinvigorate civic education.

For more than two decades, we have supported the careers of university scholars devoted to teaching the principles and history of our country – in intensive, multi-week institutes that bring together new post-doctoral academics with the senior scholars in political science and history, and, once on campus, by supporting campus centers focused on this scholarship. In all, there are 1,300 of these academics – whom we call Miller Fellows – on more than 300 higher-ed campuses.

In recent years, we have been engaging a growing number of these scholars in teaching graduate-level seminars for K-12 teachers, enriching their understanding of our founding documents and strengthening their ability to lead discussions and debates in their own classrooms – the hallmark of our democracy.

And today, the Jack Miller Center is helping to bolster and support a civics renaissance in higher education. Across the country, state legislatures are establishing Schools of Civic Thought at their flagship universities. These separate and independent academic units are sanctioned to teach our founding principles, American history, and Western civilization. Not only are Schools of Civic Thought restoring the traditional liberal arts for a new generation of college students, they are also providing training and content K-12 teachers can use in their classrooms. Schools of Civic Thought are rapidly expanding, and will be a major game changer.

Taken together, these efforts are helping to lead what can truly be called a civics renaissance in our classrooms and on our campuses. We join with others who have recognized the consequence of our inactions and the extraordinary influence that civic learning can have for America.

Reform must begin with acknowledging the crisis at hand: Due to generations of inaction, Americans are forgetting who we are supposed to be. “Something’s eating away at the national memory,” the popular historian David McCullough once said, “and a nation or a community or a society can suffer as much from the adverse effects of amnesia as can an individual.”

Especially as the 250th anniversary of our country’s birth approaches, it has never been more important to remember who we are – and to act so that those memories come alive for the next generation of citizens.

Jack Miller is founder and chairman emeritus of the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America’s Founding Principles & History.

Michael Weiser is chairman of the Board of Directors of the Jack Miller Center.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 20:55

Having Solved All Other Problems, Philly Passes Bill To Charge 10 Cent Fee On Paper Bags

Straws, soda, now paper bags. Is there anything batshit insane Democratic government officials don't want to tax or micromanage? 

In Philadelphia, that answer is apparently 'no', according to 6ABC.

While drug ravaged Kensington remains an issue, homeless people litter the streets and violent crime remains a problem, Philadelphia’s City Council just voted 10–5 for a truly groundbreaking idea (eye roll): charging 10 cents per paper bag.

The bill is now on Mayor Cherelle Parker’s desk, and she hasn’t said if she’ll sign it.

The fee would hit grocery stores and retailers alike, though bags without handles—like the ones from food trucks—get a free pass. Officials say it’s all about reducing waste and nudging people toward reusable bags.

This follows the city’s plastic bag ban from 2021, because apparently lugging your own bags wasn’t inconvenient enough already.

No word on whether or not DA Larry Krasner will supports the idea, or if he still supports just cashless bail, instead of 'cashless bale'. 

Meanwhile, in Northeast Philadelphia...

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 20:30

Having Solved All Other Problems, Philly Passes Bill To Charge 10 Cent Fee On Paper Bags

Straws, soda, now paper bags. Is there anything batshit insane Democratic government officials don't want to tax or micromanage? 

In Philadelphia, that answer is apparently 'no', according to 6ABC.

While drug ravaged Kensington remains an issue, homeless people litter the streets and violent crime remains a problem, Philadelphia’s City Council just voted 10–5 for a truly groundbreaking idea (eye roll): charging 10 cents per paper bag.

The bill is now on Mayor Cherelle Parker’s desk, and she hasn’t said if she’ll sign it.

The fee would hit grocery stores and retailers alike, though bags without handles—like the ones from food trucks—get a free pass. Officials say it’s all about reducing waste and nudging people toward reusable bags.

This follows the city’s plastic bag ban from 2021, because apparently lugging your own bags wasn’t inconvenient enough already.

No word on whether or not DA Larry Krasner will supports the idea, or if he still supports just cashless bail, instead of 'cashless bale'. 

Meanwhile, in Northeast Philadelphia...

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 20:30

FDA Recalls Supplements Sold At Sam's Club Linked To Salmonella Outbreak

Authored by Jacki Thrapp via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Food and Drug Administration on Oct. 31 issued a nationwide recall of powder supplements sold at Sam’s Club after 11 salmonella infections were reported.

The price of gas on a sign at Sam's Club in Annapolis, Md., on March 30, 2020. Susan Walsh/AP Photo

Health officials recalled Member’s Mark Super Greens Powder Supplements, sold at the members-only division of Walmart, after people fell ill between May and September.

Three were hospitalized and eight others reported falling ill.

Infections were mostly reported on the East Coast, such as in Florida, North Carolina, New York, South Carolina, and Virginia. There have also been reports of illness in Kansas and Michigan.

The supplements, sold nationwide at Sam’s Club and online, contained moringa leaf powder that health officials suspect may be contaminated with salmonella bacteria.

But FDA investigators fear that the Sam’s Club supplements may not be the only product contaminated with the problematic batch of moringa leaf powder from a farm in Johdpur, India.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention interviewed 10 of the 11 people who fell ill and even though nine of them admitted to eating powdered dietary supplements, only six reported eating Member’s Mark Super Greens Powder specifically. Three others reported consuming products containing moringa leaf powder from a different brand.

“The implicated lot of moringa powder was supplied to multiple U.S. distributors,” the FDA said.

The FDA’s recall includes all Member’s Mark Super Greens dietary supplement powder, “regardless of lot codes and best by/use before dates.”

“FDA is working to determine the point of contamination and what additional products were made with the implicated lot of moringa leaf powder,” the FDA added.

The Virginia Department of Health and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services have collected samples from two of those affected. Both tested positive for salmonella.

The product has been removed from store shelves and health officials urge Americans not to eat, sell, or serve the product. They suggest people who bought it either throw it away or return it to the store for a refund.

The Epoch Times reached out to Walmart for comment.

Symptoms of salmonella infection can occur within a few hours to several days after eating food contaminated with the harmful bacteria.

Symptoms of salmonella include diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps. It can last four to seven days.

Seniors, children under the age of five and people with weakened immune systems are more likely to have severe infections.

Salmonella is one of the most common forms of food poisoning, according to the Cleveland Clinic. More than a million people get salmonella every year, and about 420 cases are fatal.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 20:05

FDA Recalls Supplements Sold At Sam's Club Linked To Salmonella Outbreak

Authored by Jacki Thrapp via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Food and Drug Administration on Oct. 31 issued a nationwide recall of powder supplements sold at Sam’s Club after 11 salmonella infections were reported.

The price of gas on a sign at Sam's Club in Annapolis, Md., on March 30, 2020. Susan Walsh/AP Photo

Health officials recalled Member’s Mark Super Greens Powder Supplements, sold at the members-only division of Walmart, after people fell ill between May and September.

Three were hospitalized and eight others reported falling ill.

Infections were mostly reported on the East Coast, such as in Florida, North Carolina, New York, South Carolina, and Virginia. There have also been reports of illness in Kansas and Michigan.

The supplements, sold nationwide at Sam’s Club and online, contained moringa leaf powder that health officials suspect may be contaminated with salmonella bacteria.

But FDA investigators fear that the Sam’s Club supplements may not be the only product contaminated with the problematic batch of moringa leaf powder from a farm in Johdpur, India.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention interviewed 10 of the 11 people who fell ill and even though nine of them admitted to eating powdered dietary supplements, only six reported eating Member’s Mark Super Greens Powder specifically. Three others reported consuming products containing moringa leaf powder from a different brand.

“The implicated lot of moringa powder was supplied to multiple U.S. distributors,” the FDA said.

The FDA’s recall includes all Member’s Mark Super Greens dietary supplement powder, “regardless of lot codes and best by/use before dates.”

“FDA is working to determine the point of contamination and what additional products were made with the implicated lot of moringa leaf powder,” the FDA added.

The Virginia Department of Health and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services have collected samples from two of those affected. Both tested positive for salmonella.

The product has been removed from store shelves and health officials urge Americans not to eat, sell, or serve the product. They suggest people who bought it either throw it away or return it to the store for a refund.

The Epoch Times reached out to Walmart for comment.

Symptoms of salmonella infection can occur within a few hours to several days after eating food contaminated with the harmful bacteria.

Symptoms of salmonella include diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps. It can last four to seven days.

Seniors, children under the age of five and people with weakened immune systems are more likely to have severe infections.

Salmonella is one of the most common forms of food poisoning, according to the Cleveland Clinic. More than a million people get salmonella every year, and about 420 cases are fatal.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 20:05

FICO Versus VantageScore And The Heavyweight Battle for America’s Credit Scores

Your credit score has long determined whether you can get a mortgage, car loan, or credit card. For decades, the FICO score dominated that decision. Created in 1956 by William Fair and Earl Isaac, it became the standard measure of a borrower’s risk and is used in about 90% of lending decisions in the U.S, according to the Wall Street Journal.

But WSJ writes that a recent $10 fee increase has sparked an open battle over control of this critical number. Fair Isaac Corp. depends on credit data from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Those three firms have spent years trying to weaken FICO’s power by promoting their own scoring model, VantageScore.

When Federal Housing Finance Agency chief Bill Pulte accused FICO of anticompetitive behavior and declared that VantageScore could be used in many mortgage approvals, tensions exploded. Pulte wrote, “FICO, and any other monopoly who has ripped off Americans for decades, should not be using improper efforts to threaten regulators.”

The relationship among the four companies has turned hostile. One longtime industry figure said what previously looked like a mutually beneficial partnership now appears closer to war. At FICO, CEO Will Lansing raised prices to reflect what he called the true value of their score. FICO’s mortgage-score fee climbed from just cents years ago to $4.95 in 2025 and is set to double to $10. Mortgage lenders complain the increases cut into already thin margins, especially when borrowers back out and lenders must absorb the fee.

Lansing argues that competition will motivate lenders to favor lenient scoring, warning that “choice encourages mortgage participants to shop for the most lax score” and creates a “race to the bottom.” He said, “The FICO score is the backbone of safety and soundness in the mortgage industry.” Meanwhile, the bureaus say VantageScore can evaluate millions of people who lack traditional credit histories and expand access to homeownership.

You know, the kind of people that probably shouldn't own homes...

As pressure rose in Washington, lawmakers took interest. Sen. Josh Hawley said, “FICO has abused its government-granted market power.” FICO lobbied aggressively, while Pulte and his agency pushed for more competition.

To limit the bureaus’ influence, FICO changed strategy and enabled “tri-merge resellers” to generate scores using the company’s algorithm. That move cut out the bureaus and shifted profits toward FICO, driving its stock higher and theirs lower. In response, the bureaus began offering VantageScore for free on many loans.

The outcome will determine who controls access to credit in America and how much borrowers pay. What began as a small fee hike has escalated into a fight over the financial future of millions. Stay tuned...

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 19:40

FICO Versus VantageScore And The Heavyweight Battle for America’s Credit Scores

Your credit score has long determined whether you can get a mortgage, car loan, or credit card. For decades, the FICO score dominated that decision. Created in 1956 by William Fair and Earl Isaac, it became the standard measure of a borrower’s risk and is used in about 90% of lending decisions in the U.S, according to the Wall Street Journal.

But WSJ writes that a recent $10 fee increase has sparked an open battle over control of this critical number. Fair Isaac Corp. depends on credit data from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Those three firms have spent years trying to weaken FICO’s power by promoting their own scoring model, VantageScore.

When Federal Housing Finance Agency chief Bill Pulte accused FICO of anticompetitive behavior and declared that VantageScore could be used in many mortgage approvals, tensions exploded. Pulte wrote, “FICO, and any other monopoly who has ripped off Americans for decades, should not be using improper efforts to threaten regulators.”

The relationship among the four companies has turned hostile. One longtime industry figure said what previously looked like a mutually beneficial partnership now appears closer to war. At FICO, CEO Will Lansing raised prices to reflect what he called the true value of their score. FICO’s mortgage-score fee climbed from just cents years ago to $4.95 in 2025 and is set to double to $10. Mortgage lenders complain the increases cut into already thin margins, especially when borrowers back out and lenders must absorb the fee.

Lansing argues that competition will motivate lenders to favor lenient scoring, warning that “choice encourages mortgage participants to shop for the most lax score” and creates a “race to the bottom.” He said, “The FICO score is the backbone of safety and soundness in the mortgage industry.” Meanwhile, the bureaus say VantageScore can evaluate millions of people who lack traditional credit histories and expand access to homeownership.

You know, the kind of people that probably shouldn't own homes...

As pressure rose in Washington, lawmakers took interest. Sen. Josh Hawley said, “FICO has abused its government-granted market power.” FICO lobbied aggressively, while Pulte and his agency pushed for more competition.

To limit the bureaus’ influence, FICO changed strategy and enabled “tri-merge resellers” to generate scores using the company’s algorithm. That move cut out the bureaus and shifted profits toward FICO, driving its stock higher and theirs lower. In response, the bureaus began offering VantageScore for free on many loans.

The outcome will determine who controls access to credit in America and how much borrowers pay. What began as a small fee hike has escalated into a fight over the financial future of millions. Stay tuned...

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 19:40

More Americans Are Asking If College Is Really Worth It

Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times,

Jessica Iannacchino landed on Madison Avenue in New York City, but a career in her chosen field just wasn’t in the cards.

The 21-year-old from Poughkeepsie, New York, attended public colleges in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, to complete a bachelor’s in advertising, paying out-of-state tuition and committing to monthly student loan repayments for years to come.

She moved to Manhattan to get her foot in the door somewhere, but none opened.

Iannacchino delivered food to pay the rent and found enjoyable work in acting, appearing in a few small roles. She has several friends who also haven’t secured jobs in their fields, and are saddled with sky-high debt from attending Columbia and New York University.

“We moved here for career opportunities and then found everything was so competitive and the job market wasn’t what we thought it would be,” Iannacchino told The Epoch Times.

“It’s a lot of financial stress, and you don’t know if you’ll get a break.”

A recent Pew Research Center survey underscores Iannacchino’s situation: Seven in 10 adults say America’s higher education system is headed in the wrong direction, up from 56 percent providing that response five years ago. Policy experts, federal lawmakers, and President Donald Trump, all aware of national doubt about whether college is worth the cost, are pushing for more transparency over its return on investment.

“A college degree isn’t what it used to be,” Andrew Gillen, a research fellow at Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, said.

“It’s no longer an automatic ticket to the American Dream and the middle class. It’s been that way for a while now, but public perception is still catching up.”

Why Americans Have Doubts

The Pew survey said 79 percent of the 3,445 respondents indicated that colleges and universities are doing an unsatisfactory job of keeping costs affordable, and more than half rated higher education institutions as fair or poor in preparing students for well-paying jobs in today’s economy.

The College Board’s most recent “Education Pays” report indicates that 39 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 had a bachelor’s degree in 2021, up from 22 percent 40 years prior. It also listed the median income for a four-year degree at $73,300 compared to $44,300 for a high school diploma and $52,100 for an associate’s degree.

However, those figures, commonly cited by high school guidance counselors, are very general and don’t pertain to all programs of study. Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, published research earlier this year that noted that 23 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 43 percent of master’s degrees had a negative return on investment.

“All universities should strive to uphold the educational Hippocratic oath,” Cooper wrote in his April report. “Students should not be worse off financially for having attended college.”

The U.S. Department of Education’s online College Scorecard tool provides median earnings information by degree type, academic major, and institution.

A search of bachelor’s degree programs in sociology, for example, yielded 1,003 colleges and universities that offer the program, but most did not list the median earnings and debt of graduates. One of those that did, Albertus Magnus College in Connecticut reported median earnings at $42,513 after four years in the sociology program and median student loan debt for that program at $34,360, based on responses from 17 graduates.

In 2020, Gillen reported that more than 3,700 U.S. college degree programs failed a “debt-to-income test,” and at least 7,000 programs were at risk of failing.

Given that more than 100 higher education institutions have closed since then, and millions more students are struggling with student debt, a return-on-investment calculator should, ideally, be available for every major and school in the country based on federal income tax data, not just voluntary responses from graduates, he said.

“It opens the door for a better way to think about college,” he told The Epoch Times.

Federal Attention

Trump’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, offered to several schools across the country, would provide preferred consideration for federal funding if the institution agrees to several conditions related to admissions and hiring practices, institutional neutrality, and affordability and transparency. One of the stipulations is publicly listing the average graduate income by program and major.

A panel of university professors, during an Oct. 28 Heterodox Academy webinar, indicated support for cost controls, transparency, and accountability as proposed in the compact.

“There is an erosion of academic excellence,” said Anna Krylov, a chemistry professor at the University of Southern California. “That’s a big problem we need to address.”

In Congress, the bipartisan College Transparency Act, was reintroduced in the House and the Senate in late July. If enacted, it would task the National Center for Education Statistics with analyzing higher education costs and financial aid, as well as evaluating student enrollment patterns, completion rates, and “post-collegiate outcomes.”

Republican House members, during a recent subcommittee meeting, said that they’re aware of many young constituents in their districts who are burdened with student loan debt and struggle to find decent-paying jobs.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) said 21-year-old truck drivers for Walmart in his district make about $135,000 annually, while a cashier with a master’s degree he recently spoke with at a local grocery store is paid close to minimum wage.

“It happens all the time,” he said. “It’s the norm.”

Walmart has stated that a driver for its company can make as much as $110,000 per year.

What’s Ahead for Higher Education?

The population of traditional college-age students in the United States is decreasing. Many schools are struggling financially as their customer base shrinks, and an increasing number are expected to close in the years ahead.

A look at websites for K–12 districts, state university programs, and workforce development partnerships reveals that high school students across the nation have access to college degree credits before they complete their diplomas, which further affects income and enrollment at higher learning institutions. Additionally, vocational education and apprenticeship programs are enjoying a resurgence.

Gillen said that even if colleges and universities resist Trump’s push to disclose average graduate incomes by program of study, market forces will eventually exert themselves. Schools can’t afford to maintain “ghost majors” with low enrollments and little return on investment.

“The way colleges are set up, you basically need a crisis to start changing something,” he said. “I think we are going to see that happen.”

Regardless, opportunities exist for those willing to abandon teenage career dreams as adults.

Nathan Sharpe, of Rome, New York, enrolled in Mohawk Valley Community College’s computer science program after seeing an advertisement there touting career prospects for $60,000 a year.

A decade later, Sharpe hadn’t received a single job offer in that field. Instead, he worked his way up from a payment processor to a business analyst at a local bank before taking a job in a copper product manufacturing plant, where he now works as a trained chemist.

“It [the degree] was essentially useless outside of the fact that I can brag about being the first in my family to finish any sort of college,” Sharpe told The Epoch Times.

“I will raise my son to lean more toward a skilled trade—plumber, electrician, type of thing. I don’t want him falling into the same mistakes that I did. It set me back years.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 19:15

More Americans Are Asking If College Is Really Worth It

Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times,

Jessica Iannacchino landed on Madison Avenue in New York City, but a career in her chosen field just wasn’t in the cards.

The 21-year-old from Poughkeepsie, New York, attended public colleges in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, to complete a bachelor’s in advertising, paying out-of-state tuition and committing to monthly student loan repayments for years to come.

She moved to Manhattan to get her foot in the door somewhere, but none opened.

Iannacchino delivered food to pay the rent and found enjoyable work in acting, appearing in a few small roles. She has several friends who also haven’t secured jobs in their fields, and are saddled with sky-high debt from attending Columbia and New York University.

“We moved here for career opportunities and then found everything was so competitive and the job market wasn’t what we thought it would be,” Iannacchino told The Epoch Times.

“It’s a lot of financial stress, and you don’t know if you’ll get a break.”

A recent Pew Research Center survey underscores Iannacchino’s situation: Seven in 10 adults say America’s higher education system is headed in the wrong direction, up from 56 percent providing that response five years ago. Policy experts, federal lawmakers, and President Donald Trump, all aware of national doubt about whether college is worth the cost, are pushing for more transparency over its return on investment.

“A college degree isn’t what it used to be,” Andrew Gillen, a research fellow at Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, said.

“It’s no longer an automatic ticket to the American Dream and the middle class. It’s been that way for a while now, but public perception is still catching up.”

Why Americans Have Doubts

The Pew survey said 79 percent of the 3,445 respondents indicated that colleges and universities are doing an unsatisfactory job of keeping costs affordable, and more than half rated higher education institutions as fair or poor in preparing students for well-paying jobs in today’s economy.

The College Board’s most recent “Education Pays” report indicates that 39 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 had a bachelor’s degree in 2021, up from 22 percent 40 years prior. It also listed the median income for a four-year degree at $73,300 compared to $44,300 for a high school diploma and $52,100 for an associate’s degree.

However, those figures, commonly cited by high school guidance counselors, are very general and don’t pertain to all programs of study. Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, published research earlier this year that noted that 23 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 43 percent of master’s degrees had a negative return on investment.

“All universities should strive to uphold the educational Hippocratic oath,” Cooper wrote in his April report. “Students should not be worse off financially for having attended college.”

The U.S. Department of Education’s online College Scorecard tool provides median earnings information by degree type, academic major, and institution.

A search of bachelor’s degree programs in sociology, for example, yielded 1,003 colleges and universities that offer the program, but most did not list the median earnings and debt of graduates. One of those that did, Albertus Magnus College in Connecticut reported median earnings at $42,513 after four years in the sociology program and median student loan debt for that program at $34,360, based on responses from 17 graduates.

In 2020, Gillen reported that more than 3,700 U.S. college degree programs failed a “debt-to-income test,” and at least 7,000 programs were at risk of failing.

Given that more than 100 higher education institutions have closed since then, and millions more students are struggling with student debt, a return-on-investment calculator should, ideally, be available for every major and school in the country based on federal income tax data, not just voluntary responses from graduates, he said.

“It opens the door for a better way to think about college,” he told The Epoch Times.

Federal Attention

Trump’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, offered to several schools across the country, would provide preferred consideration for federal funding if the institution agrees to several conditions related to admissions and hiring practices, institutional neutrality, and affordability and transparency. One of the stipulations is publicly listing the average graduate income by program and major.

A panel of university professors, during an Oct. 28 Heterodox Academy webinar, indicated support for cost controls, transparency, and accountability as proposed in the compact.

“There is an erosion of academic excellence,” said Anna Krylov, a chemistry professor at the University of Southern California. “That’s a big problem we need to address.”

In Congress, the bipartisan College Transparency Act, was reintroduced in the House and the Senate in late July. If enacted, it would task the National Center for Education Statistics with analyzing higher education costs and financial aid, as well as evaluating student enrollment patterns, completion rates, and “post-collegiate outcomes.”

Republican House members, during a recent subcommittee meeting, said that they’re aware of many young constituents in their districts who are burdened with student loan debt and struggle to find decent-paying jobs.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) said 21-year-old truck drivers for Walmart in his district make about $135,000 annually, while a cashier with a master’s degree he recently spoke with at a local grocery store is paid close to minimum wage.

“It happens all the time,” he said. “It’s the norm.”

Walmart has stated that a driver for its company can make as much as $110,000 per year.

What’s Ahead for Higher Education?

The population of traditional college-age students in the United States is decreasing. Many schools are struggling financially as their customer base shrinks, and an increasing number are expected to close in the years ahead.

A look at websites for K–12 districts, state university programs, and workforce development partnerships reveals that high school students across the nation have access to college degree credits before they complete their diplomas, which further affects income and enrollment at higher learning institutions. Additionally, vocational education and apprenticeship programs are enjoying a resurgence.

Gillen said that even if colleges and universities resist Trump’s push to disclose average graduate incomes by program of study, market forces will eventually exert themselves. Schools can’t afford to maintain “ghost majors” with low enrollments and little return on investment.

“The way colleges are set up, you basically need a crisis to start changing something,” he said. “I think we are going to see that happen.”

Regardless, opportunities exist for those willing to abandon teenage career dreams as adults.

Nathan Sharpe, of Rome, New York, enrolled in Mohawk Valley Community College’s computer science program after seeing an advertisement there touting career prospects for $60,000 a year.

A decade later, Sharpe hadn’t received a single job offer in that field. Instead, he worked his way up from a payment processor to a business analyst at a local bank before taking a job in a copper product manufacturing plant, where he now works as a trained chemist.

“It [the degree] was essentially useless outside of the fact that I can brag about being the first in my family to finish any sort of college,” Sharpe told The Epoch Times.

“I will raise my son to lean more toward a skilled trade—plumber, electrician, type of thing. I don’t want him falling into the same mistakes that I did. It set me back years.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 19:15

Pinched By Penny Shortage, US Retailers Beg Congress To Step In

Two months after the US Mint stopped churning out pennies, American retailers are feeling the pinch as a shortage of the coins is compelling many of them to round prices down on cash transactions -- a practice that could start adding up over time and leave a mark on their bottom lines. Wary of angering customers by rounding up -- and running afoul of state and federal laws that complicate rounding in either direction -- companies are pursuing creative solutions while begging for federal intervention. 

There are about 165 Federal Reserve coin terminal facilities in the country, where banks deposit excess coins or withdraw coins as needed. More than 60 of these coin facilities have now halted penny transactions altogether, according to the American Bankers Association. That's starting to cause major headaches for businesses in various locations across the country.

A sign at a Kwik Trip lets cash customers know their price will be rounded down -- and encourages exact change

In a statement issued this week, McDonald's was one of the latest retailers to publicize their dilemma:

"Following the discontinuation of pennies nationwide, some McDonald’s locations may not be able to provide exact change. We have a team actively working on long-term solutions to keep things simple and fair for customers. This is an issue affecting all retailers across the country, and we will continue to work with the federal government to obtain guidance on this matter going forward.”

McDonald's told USA Today that its restaurants that run out of pennies are rounding either up or down to the nearest nickel. In contrast, KwikTrip is among those only rounding down to the nearest five-cent interval, steering clear of potential controversy. (We await viral video of an irate woman -- after having her price rounded up two cents -- hurling condiments at a McDonald's cashier while clutching an infant.)

There's more than potentially angry customers in the mix: Rounding could put retailers in legal jeopardy. For starters, federal laws prohibit price differences for SNAP (nee "food stamp") customers. Meanwhile, many states have laws requiring exact change and/or prohibiting charging different prices for cash transactions, which could push penny-poor retailers to change their pricing increments so everyone's bill ends up at a nickel interval, with the need to account for sales taxes as they do their calculations. The National Retail Federation is pushing the White House and Congress to issue guidance or pass laws to override state regulations that are compounding their headaches. 

There are about 250 billion pennies out there -- but many of them are idling in sock drawers and jars 

The National Association of Convenience Stores is also asking for federal help:  

“Businesses are desperate for Congress to address this issue by passing a law allowing them to round to the nearest nickel. Without federal legislation, businesses are left in the impossible position of trying to figure out what to do and at risk of being out of compliance with other laws. We urgently need Congress to act,” said NACS strategic advisor Anna Ready Blom. 

In the meantime, businesses are trying to ease the penny crunch in a variety of ways. That starts with posting notices to alert you to their shortage up-front, and urging you to pay with a credit or debit card (or, where applicable and eligible, to swipe your EBT.) At a Pennsylvania location, Reuters observed a Sheetz gas station encouraging customers to round their purchase up and donate the difference to charity.

Working on the supply end, the same Sheetz store was offering a self-serve drink at the price of 100 pennies. The Giant Eagle supermarket chain declared Nov 1 a "Penny Exchange Day," issuing a store gift card valued at twice the value of the pennies submitted. Customers could bring in up to $100 in pennies, for which they'd receive a $200 gift card. It looks like it was a hit: 

Penny lane in Pittsburgh. People were cashing in their pennies today at Giant Eagle stores. The grocery is offering double their money in gift card form. I tried Waterfront and the line was out the door. This is Braddock Hills. I gave mine away pic.twitter.com/iWY5l5T0F2

— Ben Schmitt (@bencschmitt) November 1, 2025

There are some 250 billion pennies in circulation, equivalent to about 700 per American. "It’s not a shortage in the traditional sense—there are plenty of pennies out there," notes the American Bankers Association. "But circulation is slowing down. Many people stash pennies in jars or drawers, and without new ones being minted, banks and retailers are relying solely on recycled coins."  

In February, President Trump ordered Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to stop making pennies. Explaining the move on social media, Trump wrote, "For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let's rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it's a penny at a time." The US Mint reported last year that it cost 3.69 cents to produce and distribute a penny. In terms of the difference between the monetary value of the final product and the production cost, the Mint's FY 2024 loss on penny-production was about $85.3 million. 

Trump's move followed similar eliminations of lowest-denomination coins by countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Note that the penny has not been officially eliminated: Trump merely ordered the Mint to stop producing them. Final constitutional authority rests with Congress. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 18:50

A Cautionary Solar Tale: Billions Wasted Thanks To A Rush To Market

Authored by Gary Abernathy via The Empowerment Alliance (emphasis ours),

Back in the late 1970s there was a popular wine commercial with the film director Orson Welles reminding us that “some things can’t be rushed,” and concluding with what became a famous catchphrase: “We will sell no wine before its time.”

One of the biggest yet least discussed problems with the race to establish the solar industry before the subsidies run out is that the product has arguably been rushed to market before it is perfected. The construction is getting ahead of the expertise—meaning that billions of dollars could be invested in solar devices that are soon to become outdated.

The haste to establish solar fields across more than a million acres of U.S. farmland—along with countless more installations around the world—has seemed to come with relatively little long-term planning as to deployment, functionality with existing electric grids and eventual decommissioning and disposal.

Modern solar devices are relatively new creations, in many cases still being studied and upgraded. And yet, giant arrays of solar panels mounted on posts—replacing acres of corn, wheat, and soybean fields—are being established as though the technology is finalized and the form complete.

A stark example of the folly of rushing solar products to market was recently provided. The Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in the Mojave Desert, built from 2010–14 at a cost of $2.2 billion—including $1.6 billion in three federal loan guarantees from the Obama Energy Department—is now “set to close in 2026 after failing to efficiently generate solar energy,” according to a recent story in the New York Post.

“The facility’s 5 square miles of desert were covered with some 173,500 heliostats, adjusted via computer to catch maximum rays,” the story noted. “The computer-controlled mirrors can reflect light from the sun at temperatures that can reach 1,000 degrees in part of the installment.”

“The idea was that you could use the sun to produce a heat source,” alternative energy consultant Edward Smeloff told the Post. “The mirrors reflect heat from the sun up to a receiver, which is mounted on top of the tower. That heats a fluid. It creates steam [that spins] a conventional steam turbine. It is complicated.”

But as the technology rapidly evolved, the Ivanpah facility “couldn’t compete with newer and less expensive forms of creating solar power,” the Post reported. The result? The reckless hurry to “go green” once again ended up with a project deep in the red.

Modern solar technology is so emergent that it’s a long way from being perfected. For instance, new research at the Autonomous University of Querétaroin in Mexico is studying “a new thin-film solar cell design capable of converting more than twice the standard percentage of sunlight into usable electricity,” according to Metal Tech News.

The technology is designed to utilize “only Earth-abundant, non-toxic materials in a breakthrough that could help reshape the solar industry” and have applications “both environmentally friendly and suitable for large-scale manufacturing.”

“Higher efficiency means a solar panel will produce more electricity for a given amount of sunlight, which can be crucial in applications with limited available space or where maximizing energy output is essential,” the story noted.

Another innovation involves “bifacial” solar panels, which operate by “capturing sunlight from both the front and back of the module,” allowing them to “utilize reflected sunlight from various surfaces, such as the ground, water, or nearby structures, resulting in increased electricity yield,” according to an industry report.

Left unsaid is that such breakthroughs would mean that many existing solar installations are operating with outdated technology generating less electricity than would have been likely if patience, continued research and a more complete product had been brought to market.

Yes, technology is always evolving and improvements are constantly being made on everything from automobiles to microwave ovens to cell phones to laptop computers. But in few areas—none to the extent to which taxpayers have propped up solar—have billions of dollars in subsidies been allocated to rush such a still-evolving product into production, installation and implementation.

Even more concerning is the fact that there is no need for such urgency. Our traditional, affordable hydrocarbons, especially natural gas, are sufficiently abundant to last at least through the remainder of this century. With more time and continued research, solar energy might someday be deployed more efficiently and cost-effectively, possibly requiring a fraction of the footprint currently required. Such foresight could preserve more farmland for agricultural use and minimize potential brownfield damage when solar fields reach their decommissioning stage.

The solar industry should only launch validated, fully realized products that are economically viable without government subsidies. As Steven Milloy, senior fellow at the Energy & Environmental Legal Institute, said in regard to the Ivanpah solar debacle, “No green project relying on taxpayer subsidies has ever made any economic or environmental sense.”

The “renewables” sector should learn a lesson from the wine-making industry and promise to install no solar before its time.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 18:25

Trump Boasts He "Pushed" Netanyahu Into Gaza Ceasefire In Candid Reveal

US President Donald Trump has said some very revealing things about his sometimes tumultuous relationship with Israel and especially its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a fresh 60 Minutes interview which aired Sunday evening.

Among the most interesting remarks came in the below, wherein he painted a picture of bringing strong pressure to bear against 'Bibi' after which the Israeli leader complied with Trump's policy and wishes. "He's a guy that's never been pushed before actually," Trump stated, in an unusually candid assessment coming from a sitting US president. "I don't think they treat him very well... I pushed him. I didn't like certain things that he did, and you saw what I did about that." Watch:

.@POTUS on PM Netanyahu: "He's a very talented guy. He's a guy that's never been pushed before... I don't think they treat him very well... I pushed him. I didn't like certain things that he did, and you saw what I did about that." pic.twitter.com/C71wHfW5h7

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) November 3, 2025

This is unusual also for a Republican President to say as well, given GOP leaders never openly criticize Israel. Trump had at one point in the remarks emphasized again, "I did, I pushed him." 

But this moment is confirmation straight from Trump himself of what Vice President J.D. Vance described last week while speaking at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi.

"The most recent Gaza peace plan that all of us have been working on very hard for the past few weeks — the president of the United States could only get that peace deal done by actually being willing to apply leverage to the State of Israel," the vice president had said. 

"When people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the President of the United States, they're not controlling this President of the United States," he added bluntly.

As we highlighted earlier, US leaders don't usually talk about Washington's relationship with Israel in terms of applying 'leverage' to get the desired outcome, as typically in US politics it's the other way around (given AIPAC's outsized influence etc.).

As for the ongoing Gaza ceasefire, which Trump has been proud of as a major peace accomplishment, Trump described that the truce is not fragile and that he would intervene to help Netanyahu when it comes to his legal troubles in Israel.

"The ceasefire agreement in Gaza is not fragile, but very solid. I would force Hamas to disarm very quickly if I wanted to, and it would be eliminated," Trump told the CBS 60 Minutes host. "Netanyahu is the person Israel needed in times of war," he said. 

Trump on Netanyahu: "I don't think they treat him very well. He's under trial for some things. We'll be involved in that to help him out a little bit because I think it's very unfair." pic.twitter.com/M0C7DWW1Kv

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 3, 2025

He added, "I don't think they treat him very well. He's under trial for some things, and... I think it should – you know, we'll – we'll be involved to help him out a little bit, because I think it's very unfair."

This isn't the first time the US President openly talked about intervening in the legal case, which involves several graft-related charges, which Netanyahu has decried as politically motivated. However, the Israeli opposition has warned of external interference in the case, for obvious reasons.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/03/2025 - 18:00