https://open.spotify.com/episode/2U9trTHytRn41Kz0dySeHU?si=0m9ZWXtDQhWPJlvcG5hI7Q

https://open.spotify.com/track/2LKOHdMsL0K9KwcPRlJK2v?si=t0cHYrsBQeKLB3ixzF1DyQ

https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/in-texas-a-400-acre-muslim-development-sparks-controversy-5955266?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge

JOSEPHINE, Texas - This rural town with farmland stretching to the horizon might as well be a million miles away from New York City with its skyscrapers and big-city worries.

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But the residents of the Big Apple and Josephine have something in common—controversy over the construction of a mosque.

Perhaps not since the “Ground Zero Mosque” was proposed two blocks from the World Trade Center site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has a mosque drawn so much attention.

The proposed 2009 Manhattan mosque and Islamic cultural center was known as Park 51. It faced sharp public criticism for plans to place a symbol of Islam so close to where thousands died from an attack by radical jihadists. Groups such as Stop Islamization of America led protests against “radical Islam” before the project was eventually abandoned.

More than a decade later, as Muslim migration to Texas has increased, a similar uproar has risen over a proposed Muslim-focused neighborhood anchored by a mosque in rural Texas, some 40 miles from Dallas.

Promotional materials first described EPIC City, named after the East Plano Islamic Center, as the “epicenter of Islam in America.”

Following backlash at the local, state, and federal levels, it changed its name to The Meadow.

The development would encompass 402 acres of farmland outside Josephine, a town of 8,800 residents founded in 1888 by a railroad company back when cotton was king in Texas.

It would include 1,000 homes, a mosque, a K-12 faith-based school, sports facilities, a community college, senior housing, an outreach center, and businesses.

Since the idea was proposed, numerous public officials and community members have worked to halt the development, citing concerns about whether the new community would integrate with the local population and asking questions over sharia—Islamic law—and potential ties to foreign Islamic groups.

The development has prompted legal battles, state and federal investigations, and new state laws addressing neighborhood composition and foreign ownership. The ongoing battle included Texas Gov. Greg Abbott classifying some Islamic groups as foreign terrorist organizations; and the White House is considering similar action.

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A new mosque is the centerpiece of the proposed EPIC City, described as the “epicenter of Islam in America.” The city was renamed The Meadow after backlash at the local, state, and federal levels. Republican leaders, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and residents have opposed the proposed 402-acre Muslim development outside the rural town of Josephine, Texas. Rendering from Texas legal documents

Grassroots Backlash

The Muslim-led community would be located in an area largely populated by white and Hispanic residents whose religion is predominantly Christian.

Locally, residents have voiced concerns about Islamic radicalization and sharia law in communities they believe may not integrate into U.S. culture, despite the developer’s denials.

Sharia law is an Islamic code of conduct and law derived from the Quran, often at odds with laws and rights in Western countries.

One woman who spoke at a Collin County Commissioners Court meeting in November raised concerns that sharia would replace U.S. law within the development.

“This remains an Islamic-focused community, and Islam is fundamentally incompatible with our Constitution,” she said.

At the Josephine City Council meeting, a resident of Armenian descent said people should be aware that, in his view, Islam is only peaceful when it is not in control.

“Islam is not truly a religion of peace,“ he added. ”Once they get to a certain point in a culture, they start to ravage it from within.”

Most Muslims are good people, he said, but when their religious ideology demands it, they feel compelled to obey. “They don’t speak up against it.”

He referenced historical events, saying the West should consider the Armenian genocide over a century ago under the Ottoman Empire, which imposed sharia.

“We were walked into the Syrian desert until we died of hunger, of starvation. They hung Christian females to posts and lit them on fire as candles,” he said.

As public concerns intensified, state officials stepped up their efforts to address them.

Earlier this month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-sues-east-plano-islamic-center-stop-its-illegal-land-development-scheme

against the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC), which contracted for the land, and developer Community Capital Partners, and others, alleging violations of Texas securities laws.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at a press conference in Anzalduas Park near McAllen, Texas, on April 28, 2021. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times

​The lawsuit claims the housing development would be illegally reserved for Muslim residents. It also asserts that the project’s leaders “lined their own pockets” with funds during development.

Abbott took to social media on Dec. 3, https://x.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1996325046663675998?s=20

the development’s name change does not alter its intent and that at least four state agencies continue to investigate “this misguided mission.”

“‘The Meadow’ will remain just that—an empty meadow,” Abbott said. “EPIC can change its name, but can’t change the legality of the flawed structure they seek to impose. They delete social media posts & rewrite contracts. But it’s just a disguise to impose sharia on a community they create.”

Developers Say No Wrongdoing

​Meanwhile, the Texas enclave’s developers and Muslim groups have https://islamophobia.org/special-reports/epic-hate-in-texas/

the legal action as Islamophobic and a violation of their rights.

The Islamophobia Network, a https://islamophobia.org/special-reports/epic-hate-in-texas/

of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), produced a report about the development condemning Abbott’s actions as politically motivated.

​“Anti-Islam organizing targeting the Muslim-led EPIC City development project saw bias mobilizing the power of Texas government to deny Muslims their equal opportunities to pursue their dreams and potential,” the report said.

​It denounced what it called “anti-Islam” legislation and what it called “advanced conspiracy theories” involving “no-go zones.”

​The report compared tactics used to stop the EPIC development to those used in the controversy over the “Ground Zero Mosque” at Park 51.

​“We also note that Governor Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attack on EPIC City has not resulted in any evidence of wrongdoing to date and may violate Constitutional prohibitions against arbitrary government action,” the group stated.

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People watch construction at the World Trade Center site in New York City on Aug. 16, 2010. The proposed Manhattan mosque and Islamic cultural center, known as Park51, drew sharp criticism in 2009 over plans to locate it near the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

​High-profile Texas attorney Dan Cogdell, who represents developer Community Capital Partners, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gZFE1QojfI

a press conference in the spring as the pressure campaign against the development ramped up.

​​“My clients are law-abiding Texans, law-abiding Americans, and law-abiding Muslims,” he said.

​​He added that no one associated with the community follows or implements sharia and that Abbott was attempting to “demonize” Muslims.

​Neither EPIC nor Cogdell responded to requests for comment.

State Legislation

Republicans campaigning in the Lone Star state are tapping into public unease over mass immigration and the increase in terrorist incidents, such as the Nov. 26 shooting of two Washington D.C. guardsmen by an Afghan immigrant.

​Abbott is currently seeking his fourth term as governor, while Paxton is running in the Senate Republican primary against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

In a flurry of activity this fall, Abbott took steps to block foreign threats and developments in Texas.

In September, he signed House Bill 4211 into https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-signs-law-banning-sharia-compounds-in-texas#:~:text=On%20September%2012%2C%202025%2C%20Governor%20Greg%20Abbott,Create%20unfair%20investment%20practices%20that%20harm%20Texans

, banning residential property developers from creating exclusionary compounds, specifically citing the EPIC project.

Abbott stated that the law bans residential property developments such as EPIC City “from creating sharia compounds and defrauding and discriminating against Texans.”

“The fact is, religious freedom is a central part of the Texas Constitution. But bad actors like EPIC and EPIC City tried to use religion as a form of segregation. We will ensure that we have the laws and law enforcement in place to prevent attempts to build such discriminatory compounds in the state of Texas.”

​Likewise, in June, the governor signed Senate Bill 17 into law, https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=89R&Bill=SB17

transnational criminal organizations and foreign adversaries—including Iran—from purchasing land.

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signs a bill at the state Capitol in Austin on April 23, 2025. Earlier this year, Abbott signed measures that would curb exclusionary residential compounds—citing the EPIC project—and restrict land purchases by foreign adversaries and transnational criminal groups. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

On Nov. 18, Abbott cited these laws in a https://gov.texas.gov/uploads/files/press/PROC_declaring_Muslim_Brotherhood_and_CAIR_Transnational_Criminal_Organizations_IMAGE_11-18-2025.pdf

designating the Muslim Brotherhood, which has ties to Hamas, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and transnational criminal organizations.

The designation authorizes “heightened enforcement against both organizations and their affiliates and prohibits them from purchasing or acquiring land in Texas,” according to the governor’s https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-designates-muslim-brotherhood-cair-as-foreign-terrorist-organizations

.

Abbott took the additional step in December of https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-sends-letter-to-u.s-secretary-bessent-requesting-suspension-of-cairs-tax-exempt-status#:~:text=December%202%2C%202025%20%7C%20Austin%2C,for%20investigations%20into%20Sharia%20courts

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to suspend CAIR’s tax-exempt status, citing longstanding ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

CAIR filed its own https://www.cair.com/press_releases/breaking-cair-ldf-mlfa-sue-texas-governor-greg-abbott-to-block-enforcement-of-unconstitutional-defamatory-proclamation-targeting-cair-texas/

against Abbott and Paxton in November, calling Abbott’s proclamation “unconstitutional and defamatory.” The group said the proclamation falsely declared the Texas chapter of CAIR as a terrorist group.

A few days later, the White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/11/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-begins-process-to-designate-certain-muslim-brotherhood-chapters-as-foreign-terrorist-organizations-and-specially-designated-global-terrorists/#:~:text=President%20Donald%20J.-,Trump%20Begins%20Process%20to%20Designate%20Certain%20Muslim%20Brotherhood%20Chapters%20as,and%20Specially%20Designated%20Global%20Terrorists&text=SECURING%20AMERICA%20FROM%20EXTRAORDINARY%20THREATS,security%20of%20the%20United%20States.

interview with “Sid and Friends in the Morning” in August, that designating CAIR as a terrorist group was also “in the works.”

Other leading Republicans, opponents of Islamic extremism and sharia, have weighed in on the EPIC development.

In May, Cornyn said that the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched a civil rights investigation into the development at his request. The investigation was ultimately dropped with no violations cited.

Cruz, who reintroduced a https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/2293

that sharia law was a concern at the EPIC development in North Texas.

​Last month, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who is running for Texas Attorney General, introduced https://roy.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-roy-introduces-legislation-freeze-all-immigration

to counter mass migration. The bill would deny legal status to followers of sharia, known or suspected terrorists, and other groups.

​“Many Americans strive to live their life practicing their faith, while our immigration system is actively importing radical Islamic sharia adherents and communists,” Roy said in a https://roy.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-roy-introduces-legislation-freeze-all-immigration

.

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Demonstrators attend a rally with the Coalition to Honor Ground Zero in New York City on Aug. 22, 2010. The rally was held to oppose the construction of an Islamic Center and mosque near Ground Zero. Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images

‘A Different Population’

​Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, said public fears over Muslim enclaves and mass migration are symptoms of a brewing national identity crisis.

Americans fear they are losing their culture and way of life to foreign influences, including those from the Middle East, he told The Epoch Times.

​The foreign-born population of the United States currently sits at about 16 percent—the highest in history, https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2024/demo/foreign-born/cps-2024.html

to the U.S. Census Bureau’s January 2025 Current Population Survey.  The last time it was close to being that high was in 1890, when immigrants mainly from Eastern Europe pushed the foreign-born population to 14.8 percent, according to the Census Bureau.

​“But obviously, now the Muslim population is growing rapidly with immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa—and it’s a cultural change,” Hankinson said.

​“So it’s a new phenomenon. I think people, maybe in parts of rural Texas, were kind of used to the certain makeup that they had.”

More Americans are paying attention to immigration policy because it’s impacting their communities, he said.

Social media is awash in posts highlighting the effect of mass migration in Europe, warning that it’s a harbinger of things to come in America.

On Dec. 20, Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, warned against “Islamist ideology” and sharia taking over the West during a speech at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest

“This Islamist ideology is a direct threat to our freedom because at its core it is a political ideology that seeks to create a global caliphate that governs us here in America,” she https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/speeches-interviews/speeches-interviews-2025/4130-dni-gabbard-remarks-at-turning-point-usa-s-americafest

.

“If we don’t take action to identify this threat, to define it, to call it out for what it is, and take action to defeat it, then we will find ourselves in a place where many European countries and countries like Australia have found themselves.”

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Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard speaks at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix on Dec. 20, 2025. Gabbard warned against “Islamist ideology” and sharia taking over the West. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Hankinson, a British immigrant, said that native-born English citizens are now the minority in London.

​“If you replace a population with a different population, then everything’s going to change,” he said.

​But immigration is not accidental; it is a policy choice that voters make, he said.

Small groups of immigrants with cultures similar to those of the areas they move to tend to assimilate, such as Ukrainians settling in Poland, he said.

​Enclaves of culturally diverse immigrants have been accepted when they are localized and relatively small, he said. ​But large groups of people coming into a country will change that society.

​“I think Americans are noticing, and some of them probably don’t like it,” he said.

Ammon Blair, a security consultant and senior fellow for the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Secure & Sovereign Nation Initiative, said the mass migration that occurred during the Biden administration was different from past migrations.

​“This is a completely engineered, fabricated form of immigration where it’s done for the sole purpose of eradicating the sovereignty of a nation and state,” he told The Epoch Times.

​Blair pointed to large immigrant settlements that sometimes remain under the control of the countries they left, making assimilation difficult.

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Muslims pray at a mosque during Friday prayers in Plano, Texas, on April 11, 2025. Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images

This March, President Trump asserted in a https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/invocation-of-the-alien-enemies-act-regarding-the-invasion-of-the-united-states-by-tren-de-aragua/

that the Venezuelan transnational gang Tren de Aragua was part of the Cártel de los Soles, sponsored by President Nicolás Maduro’s regime. Tren de Aragua is known to target Venezuelan nationals in the United States.

Another example would be recent fraud rooted in Minnesota’s Somali settlement, which allegedly funds Al-Shabaab, a terrorist organization, he noted. Since then, President Donald Trump announced a crackdown on temporary legal status for Somalis.

“It all comes down to not just assimilation, but allegiance,” Blair said.

Hankinson said after experiencing immigration himself and watching countries change, he no longer believes multiculturalism works, saying it has probably “failed as an experiment.”

The ongoing debate over the proposed Muslim-centric development in Texas encapsulates larger questions about immigration, assimilation, and national identity across the United States, he said.

“The idea is that we can all live in one country, but we can have completely different values, beliefs, religions, cultural traditions, etc. I don’t think there’s enough to hold a country together without those things.”

https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Wed, 12/31/2025 - 17:45

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/texas-400-acre-muslim-development-sparks-controversy

https://youtu.be/x775SimuEd4?si=hij-d6tTB-0NEWIc

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RR_jjLLoNFE&list=RDRR_jjLLoNFE&start_radio=1&pp=ygUQd2VudCBsZWdpdCBoZXJib6AHAQ%3D%3D

‼️A blackout in Moscow: up to 600,000 residents are without electricity, according to Russian media. https://t.co/X9EXYk28Gr

— WW3 Monitor (@WW3_Monitor) https://twitter.com/WW3_Monitor/status/2006056456483676600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Power was cut to hundreds of thousands of residents in and around Moscow, though estimates have varied from 100,000 to up to 600,000 people impacted.

Social media videos and images showed apartment buildings, streets, and and businesses in areas like Zhukovsky, Lyubertsy, Lytkarino, and Ramenskoye, in total darkness.

Moscow authorities confirmed they deployed an army emergency crews with mobile generators to darkened city sectors as repairs were being made.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said at least 100 drones were intercepted between 5:00 and 7pm that night. At least eight were shot down directly over the Moscow region - though drones were observed over various parts of the country, as has become an almost nightly norm.

The evening drone wave resulted temporary closures at Moscow’s airports, disrupting air traffic, which has also occurred a number of times before.

This marks a rare moment that the power grid has been successfully targeted in Moscow, after literally hundreds of attacks on oil and gas sites in various other oblasts of the country, particularly near the Black Sea and southwest Russia.

While numbers have varied, this was clearly a very widespread outage across various districts in Moscow Oblast:

In the Moscow region, 120 thousand people were left without electricity. A blackout has been observed in Ramenskoye, which has lasted for more than four hours. The administration promises to fix the accident in a couple of hours. Also, messaging apps are not working.

So far… https://t.co/t82RntWil0

— Beefeater (@Beefeater_Fella) https://twitter.com/Beefeater_Fella/status/2006109823356522990?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

It is more typical for Ukrainian cities to be suffering, amid cold and increasingly winter temperatures. The national grid has needed so many new parts at such rapid pace that it can't keep up.

"Russian strikes on Ukraine’s power grid will continue without President Trump stepping in, Ukraine’s top energy executive has warned, as millions risk a freezing winter without power," Fox https://www.foxnews.com/world/only-trump-can-stop-russia-millions-face-freezing-winter-ukraine-energy-executive-warns?intcmp=fb_fnc&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=Iwb21leAPBMeFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR6ZcA0WJw4bw_QbN-9VEo6k7daTxjuty2ixOx9O1ETjjddPpauTn4uiWA_6QA_aem_17YFaaicujef8bEtcDUo7A

.

"DTEK's Maxim Timchenko spoke out as Ukraine braced for further Russian drone and missile attacks on energy infrastructure and a day after Trump met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the third time to bring an end to the nearly four-year war," it adds.

https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Wed, 12/31/2025 - 17:10

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hundreds-thousands-moscow-experience-rare-total-blackout-after-drone-wave

https://file.nostrmedia.com/p/4eb88310d6b4ed95c6d66a395b3d3cf559b85faec8f7691dafd405a92e055d6d/d7ec7792fd57f588c96c9892dec236ef4e131b1f47f4737b134c8fc3141d15a6.mp4

YT

https://youtu.be/Dy4HA3vUv2c?si=S3FHfSykkBOlMzb3

#BlueÖysterCult #Music

Watch for free here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=15SLcBB7azQ&pp=0gcJCR4Bo7VqN5tD

Webpage: https://www.birthstorymovie.com/

nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m

https://x.com/HEBobiwine/status/2006048624224985156?s=20

https://x.com/gopoversight/status/2006372303559385249?s=46

HT WeTheMedia

Just the start

Weeks after National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent warned that thousands of known and suspected terrorists entered the U.S. during the Biden-Harris regime years of a nation-killing open-border invasion, and days after a U.S. government threat assessment flagged elevated risks from lone wolves and small terror cells potentially targeting 'https://www.zerohedge.com/political/lone-wolves-eye-nyc-times-square-new-years-eve-special-events

' in New York City and Chicago, the deployment of National Guard troops to New Orleans only suggests officials are responding to credible threats.

Chicago authorities warn NYE celebrations could attract foreign and domestic terrorists.

New Orleans to increase security after FBI foils Antifa-affiliated plot to kill Border Patrol agents. https://t.co/pB34XyhPDn

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/2004970388732920299?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

A total of 350 Louisiana National Guard soldiers are patrolling Bourbon Street in the French Quarter and other high-value areas across the metro region, one year after a vehicle-ramming terror attack on Bourbon Street killed 14 people.

New Orleans — National Guard troops have been deployed to the French Quarter to provide additional cover for the New Year’s. At the last new year in the same area, a black Muslim ISIS supporter carried out a mass shooting, killing 14. https://t.co/wjjVkbSPbg

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/2006156373285826850?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/hashtag/BREAKING?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

— Mallory Smith (@mallorysmithtv) https://twitter.com/mallorysmithtv/status/2006130519084265485?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

The deployment follows similar National Guard posturings in Washington and Memphis. Officials note that Guard deployments are merely "routine" in the French Quarter.

"It's no different than what we've seen in the past,' New Orleans police spokesperson Reese Harper told https://apnews.com/article/new-orleans-new-years-national-guard-e4037cedc7eddad6891ae30a4df2c740

.

?itok=jHInL0BC

"This is for visibility and really to keep our citizens safe," Harper said. "It's another tool in the toolbox and another layer of security."

Louisiana National Guard spokesperson Lt. Col. Noel Collins said the Guard will support local, state, and federal law enforcement to "enhance capabilities, stabilize the environment, assist in reducing crime, and restore public trust."

However, our assessment is that the presence of National Guard troops in certain major U.S. cities is less about routine crime suppression and more about a broader terror threat.

Earlier this month, NCTC's Kent told the House Homeland Security Committee that the agency has https://www.zerohedge.com/political/joe-kent-sounds-alarm-bidens-border-invasion-flooded-nation-18000-known-and-suspected

roughly 18,000 known and suspected terrorists who were allowed to enter the country under the Biden-Harris regime.

.https://twitter.com/NCTCKent?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1999144165213380788?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

It also follows last month's terror attack in which an https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dc-terror-ambush-forces-us-reckon-14-billion-afghan-evacuation-program-imported-chaos

killed one National Guard member and wounded another just blocks from the White House.

Some may dismiss former CIA targeting officer Sarah Adams as a sensationalist, but her warnings about this terror threat from open borders for the last few years are increasingly becoming more mainstream and widely embraced by Trump officials.

It’s past time https://twitter.com/DHSgov?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

stops playing pretend and finally raises the terrorism threat level in this country. We have more than 10,000 Islamist terrorists on our soil, and they cannot keep looking the other way. They don’t get to pad their stats by slapping the terrorist label on…

— Sarah Adams (@sarahadams) https://twitter.com/sarahadams/status/1993847473823969393?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Importantly, the threat is not limited to radicalized Islamists or even South American transnational gangs; there is also an emerging threat coming from the radical left, as highlighted in a foiled New Year's Eve bomb plot by https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-govt-foils-terror-plot-far-left-group-plotting-new-years-eve-bomb-attack

.

https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Wed, 12/31/2025 - 15:40

https://www.zerohedge.com/military/national-guard-patrols-new-orleans-ahead-new-year-amid-vehicle-ramming-threats

But since we're on the topic of music and metal, this is an album I did vocals on almost a decade ago. I wrote a good bit of the music for the songs "Fury" and "Inner War" as well as the majority of the lyrics on the album https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaf42reShFFvIf8jfHy_B1LuvL7tWKfGV&si=DGMCCphCdp3pe7bf

BREAKING - Over 40 daycare centers in Columbus, Ohio, all opened under the same defunct shell organization, the Somali Education & Resource Center, have been identified as opening and beginning operations on the exact same day, with combined earnings of $14 million in 2024 alone. https://t.co/Wr4YFUzP8e

— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) https://twitter.com/Rightanglenews/status/2006375449404866720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

And this.

🚨🚨🚨🚨

How does one CLOSED SOMALIAN shell organization have over 40 “daycares” in Columbus Ohio? How do 40+ BEGIN ON THE SAME EXACT DAY ?

How much funding are they each receiving from the state? Are they “legitimate” childcare centers?!

Not so proud my state would allow… https://t.co/2Kx4NylbsK

— The Coerced Nurse (@thecoercednurse) https://twitter.com/thecoercednurse/status/2006093158359154892?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Using publicly available data, we're able to produce a network map of the Somali Education & Resource Center entity:

?itok=b9TcRvCC

"What if I told you our national debt is the tab for the mass looting of the American economy and the mass theft of the American dream?" White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller wrote on X.

X user https://x.com/ArthurMacwaters/status/2005324862756127166

noted:

Somali immigrants get billions in taxpayer dollars for *free* for fraudulent daycares.

In exchange, they fund democratic candidates with the free money.

Democratic politicians (Walz, Omar, etc) ensure fraudulent payments continue.

Let me get this straight

1. Somali immigrants get billions in taxpayer dollars for *free* for fraudulent daycares

2. in exchange, they fund democratic candidates with the free money

3. democratic politicians (Walz, Omar, etc) ensure fraudulent payments continue

—-

How is… https://t.co/O3oDuntRym

— Arthur MacWaters (@ArthurMacwaters) https://twitter.com/ArthurMacwaters/status/2005324862756127166?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn https://x.com/GenFlynn/status/2006372196604604548?s=20

on X: "At what point does the @POTUS put his foot down and stop the drainage of wealth?"

*   *   *

Citizen journalists are descending on corrupt, Democratic-run cities this week to investigate taxpayer-subsidized daycare centers, signaling a new form of crowd-driven oversight. Think of it as a localized DOGE-style effort aimed at investigating alleged welfare fraud linked to Somali communities and others who steal from taxpayers.

As we correctly noted on Monday, the so-called "https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nick-shirley-effect-sparks-calls-crowdfunded-citizen-journalist-grant-program-expose

" appears to be taking hold nationwide, with citizen journalists investigating taxpayer-subsidized daycare operations in Minneapolis, Washington, Ohio, Philadelphia, and other Democratic-run cities.

Citizen journalists like Nick will eventually put mainstream media out of business.

All you need is a camera and the guts to go to the source.

Protect this man. 👇🏽 https://t.co/tqwDS82IRt

— Patrick Bet-David (@patrickbetdavid) https://twitter.com/patrickbetdavid/status/2004761852350509194?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Initial Democratic Party counter-messaging to combat Shirley's bombshell report has defaulted to labeling citizen journalists as "white nationalists" or "racists," but this familiar response from an increasingly unhinged party is losing effectiveness, as on-the-ground reporting reveals countless examples of daycare centers that are either empty or not functioning at expected capacity during peak hours, raising mounting questions over whether some may simply be front companies to extract taxpayer funds.

It’s not "white supremacy" to investigate fraud. This attack no longer works. https://t.co/5JUKtkFfqB

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) https://twitter.com/ScottJenningsKY/status/2006119558420033641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Pretty much.

?itok=38KOjRLb

By Tuesday, Muckraker founder Anthony Rubin's investigation into https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/citizen-journalist-descends-ohio-immediately-finds-first-signs-massive-potential-somali

in Columbus, Ohio, went viral.

FIRST SIGNS OF MASSIVE POTENTIAL SOMALI FRAUD IN COLUMBUS, OHIO

The first Somali-affiliated daycare facility that we knocked after landing in Columbus, Ohio today did not answer.

A neighbor across the street told us, “I’ve never seen nobody come out the building or go in the… https://t.co/zywy9lPDMw

— Muckraker.com (@realmuckraker) https://twitter.com/realmuckraker/status/2005828188010684545?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Later in the day, citizen journalists from across the country posted their findings on X:

I went to 4 more Somali childcare locations today.

Two told me they weren’t childcares despite receiving hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars.

One which claimed they weren’t a childcare received over $800,000 since 2023.

It’s all on camera. It will be uncovered. https://t.co/D7aTuaatxK

— Cam Higby 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) https://twitter.com/camhigby/status/2006167454548992240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Seattle Washington - Investigating Somalian Daycares

Somalians Call Police & LIE Saying: "He Has A Gun"💥https://twitter.com/iamfreeauditing?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

— TheUnquirer (@unquirer) https://twitter.com/unquirer/status/2006205325406294496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

EXPOSED: Alpha News reporters visit autism, adult day care centers as Medicaid fraud concerns mount

Prompted by a flood of tips from readers about facilities that tipsters say do not appear to be providing services, Alpha News reporters Liz Collin and Jenna Gloeb visited more… https://t.co/jdDikiXblX

— Alpha News (@AlphaNews) https://twitter.com/AlphaNews/status/2006098572387987894?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

We all need to become citizen journalists. I bet this is going on in almost every state! https://t.co/H3E5C24dvT

— Michelle Maxwell ™ (@MichelleMaxwell) https://twitter.com/MichelleMaxwell/status/2006187911423590768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

🚨SOMALI FRAUD IN WASHINGTON: https://twitter.com/choeshow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

and I spent yesterday investigating Somali daycares in WA.

“Dhagash Childcare” has received over $210,000 just this year. People living at the address claim there has never been a daycare there.

We lay out the facts in this teaser ⬇️ https://t.co/KNkmJfV2Ss

— Cam Higby 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) https://twitter.com/camhigby/status/2006098414660980899?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Citizen journalists are now exposing fraud in Democratic run cities across America.

Here's another phony daycare center in Philadelphia that received $23 million in taxpayer funds. https://t.co/l0XnnImUgx

— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) https://twitter.com/LangmanVince/status/2006341493028802680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Meanwhile...

Politicians are literally attempting to use legislation to cover up the fraud, rather than fix it. https://t.co/VXvzhSWffK

— Cam Higby 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) https://twitter.com/camhigby/status/2006273506049483213?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

What's clear is that citizen journalists like those mentioned above will put corporate media out of business. Most mainstream media outlets remained silent for days after Shirley's bombshell investigation into empty Minneapolis daycare centers receiving millions of dollars in taxpayer funds.

I'm not sure the viral critique of Minnesota day cares is totally accurate.

I am certain that *according to the government, there's no fraud in this government-funded program* is the farthest thing from journalism. https://t.co/cZHGXerblJ

— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) https://twitter.com/TPCarney/status/2006342009297289513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

A war is coming: it's mainstream media outlets against citizen journalists...

A decade ago corporate journalists were knocking on the doors of old ladies' houses and calling them Russian agents for posting memes, but knocking on the door of a business that is ostensibly open to the public is beyond the pale and means you should get killed https://t.co/cY4iAQVE2r

— Confirmed Miscer ⚔️🍁🔫 (@ManDaveJobGood) https://twitter.com/ManDaveJobGood/status/2006049682842104191?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

It's worth noting that the average episode of CBS 60 Minutes draws around 8 to 8.5 million viewers per broadcast in its current season, based on recent Nielsen data. Meanwhile, Shirley's video has received 131 million views in just a few days.

Breaking the Democratic Party's propaganda matrix machine, which involves mainstream media outlets and dark-money NGOs, requires a flood of citizen journalists into corrupt Democratic-run cities.

A note from Bill Ackman:

Even assuming there was no fraud, none of this makes sense. How is it that we have been funding billions of dollars of daycare for Somali immigrants in Minnesota 81% of which (according to Gemini) are on welfare? In other words, if mom and dad don’t work, why the need for child care? Perhaps you could say the welfare statistics include some subsidies for working parents, but still in this case, the child care does not appear to be needed as the daycare centers are empty. Furthermore, why is Federal funded childcare provided to recent immigrants on welfare versus long-standing American working families who are not on welfare? How does this make sense?

Even assuming there was no fraud, none of this makes sense.

How is it that we have been funding billions of dollars of daycare for Somali immigrants in Minnesota 81% of which (according to Gemini) are on welfare?

In other words, if mom and dad don’t work, why the need for…

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) https://twitter.com/BillAckman/status/2006177236496298172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Is California next? Chicago? Baltimore? https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nick-shirley-effect-sparks-calls-crowdfunded-citizen-journalist-grant-program-expose

? SPAC King Chamath Palihapitiya has pitched the idea.

https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Wed, 12/31/2025 - 15:25

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/citizen-journalists-probe-inactive-daycares-across-democrat-run-cities

https://substack.com/@drwojakmd/note/c-193410873?r=4olymw

Update(1440ET): Al Jazeera is reporting that groups of Iranian protesters have been observed trying to breaking into government buildings, a trend which could grow to various https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/31/protests-in-iran-spread-amid-deep-discontent-over-economic-duress

:

Iranian protesters demonstrating over economic hardship and a plummeting currency attempted to break into a local government building, state media reported, as the unrest continued for a fourth day.

State media reported on Wednesday an organised group of “rioters” attempted to get into the local governorate building in Fasa in the southern province of Fars. Footage broadcast on state media showed a group of people trying to break open the gate of the building.

Conflicting reports say that military members have been involved with standoffs with protesters, or else may even in some places be joining the people in the streets.

There's much that's hard to verify, as activists outside the country seek to amplify hard to prove claims amid the fast-moving events on the ground. But there is clear evidence of many chanting in some places slogans calling for the overthrow of the government in Tehran. This is the fourth consecutive night of protests.

https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D9%81%D9%88%D8%B1%DB%8C?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

n this footage, protesters in Shahr-e Kord (Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, west-central Iran) chant: “Down

with Khamenei!” https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D9%82%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%85_%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%B1%DB%8C?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

— حسن ناصری (@NasseryHas69834) https://twitter.com/NasseryHas69834/status/2006450150290633125?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

* * *

Various Iranian opposition channels on X, Telegram, and other social media have said 'live fire' has been used by Iranian security forces in ongoing crackdown efforts against the tens of thousands of citizen demonstrators who have taken over the streets of several cities and locales of the past days.

Such allegations, especially hurled at elite IRGC forces, are somewhat typical when protest movements have flared up in past years - and there have been prior examples in these of demonstrators and police alike being wounded or killed by gunfire. Live fire by Iranian security forces is a typical early allegation when unrest kicks off like this.

So far this round of anti-government unrest, which began Sunday by shopkeepers in Tehran as the rial has plunged to record lows against the dollar, has witnessed plenty of riot control measures - but no independent confirmation of gunfire on the crowds in the streets. It started when Tehran shopkeepers in the Jomhouri area and near the Grand Bazaar shuttered their stores and has since spread to the college campuses.

?itok=9MeioCC9

One thing is clear - it is growing by the hour as the movement has spread to several other cities on Tuesday, and now after three consecutive days is gong from the shop and business districts to the universities. Regional news sources say protests have hit at least ten universities across the Islamic Republic, including seven in Tehran.

Prior protest movements have really taken off once the youth get involved on a large scale. This current round, largely economically driven, could become the biggest yet - given it is tapping into a multitude of demographics.

With fast-moving protests gaining more steam, things are set for clashes with police and potentially even military operatives, given Iran's prosecutor general has newly pledged a "decisive response" if protests spiral into violence. State media has quoted the official, Mohammad Movahedi-Azad, as saying that while peaceful protests are legitimate, any attempt to create insecurity would draw a harsh reaction.

But he already pointed the finger at the potential for external interference: "Any attempt to turn economic protests into a tool of insecurity, destruction of public property, or implementation of externally designed scenarios will inevitably be met with a legal, proportionate and decisive response," warned Movahedi-Azad. This has been a common allegation in past uprisings, and not without precedent.

Protests in Iran continue to spread across several cities on their fourth day, with universities and additional workers' unions joining the demonstrations. In the southern city of Fasa, initial reports of protestors seizing control of the governor's building following the retreat… https://t.co/W1Kgy5zaVn

— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) https://twitter.com/ariel_oseran/status/2006340174998118632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

And now the issue of 'external interference' or hidden hand is ultra sensitive given that Iran and Israel are still in a tense showdown and de facto state of conflict, going back to the 12-day June war which saw Iranian cities and nuclear sites get pummeled by Israeli and American bombs.

But Israeli intelligence has raised the temperature from the outside, which is at the very least a form of psychological warfare. CBS https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-protests-crackdown-us-israel-support-standoff-nuclear-program/

:

His comments came days after the Mossad intelligence agency of Iran's arch-foe Israel posted on social media that it was "with you on the ground," in a message to Iranian protesters. Posting on its Persian-language X account, the spy agency encouraged Iranians to "go out into the streets together."

Of course, the most obvious form of 'external interference' remains the years-long US and European sanctions regimen. This has not only brought entire Iranian sectors to their knees - from banking to energy to auto to even commercial aviation - but it appears to be unleashing the kind of societal anger and perhaps eventual instability which was intended in the first place.

Unverified clips like the below have been spreading among opposition voices, particularly ones identifying with the old Iranian Monarchy or else the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK):

BREAKING:

The city of Fasa has fallen into the hands of the Iranian people. They're chanting "Reza Shah, bless your soul" from inside the governor's seat of power.

Incredible.https://t.co/DfQvLfJpxK

— 𝐍𝐢𝐨𝐡 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐠 ♛ ✡︎ (@NiohBerg) https://twitter.com/NiohBerg/status/2006318439623991760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

This is perhaps why Iranian authorities have already tried to calm the streets by saying they https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqj2llkjv8vo

:

Since then, videos verified by BBC Persian have shown demonstrations in the cities of Karaj, Hamedan, Qeshm, Malard, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Shiraz and Yazd. Police were also seen using tear gas in an attempt to disperse demonstrators.

The Iranian government said it "recognizes the protests" and would listen "with patience, even if it is confronted with harsh voices".

Iranian leadership also sees what happened with its ally Assad in Damascus, and how the Ba'ath government's demise was assured by a full-on sanctions siege of economic strangulation, which was on top of a decade of proxy war.

Social media and western press accounts have https://www.thetimes.com/world/middle-east/article/masoud-pezeshkian-iran-president-regime-protests-history-economy-k80vlr3vk?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqfRctkXwRJtCBaDts7kRCgjxK9cr7VG7VwjTAUWv5uOT3e3BfI48TjwC0zS-GE%3D&gaa_ts=69553b2a&gaa_sig=yya9wZsURxMEq8wtFXhrRPPtG8asYuzCHiA7u-M8z5oGMBVOEvPGnAWstBHH9muGTMGVP4IVrSm1vYnbnThSOg%3D%3D

"The Final Battle" connected with these protests:

The dawn is breaking in Persia.

​Right now, as we move into 2025, the streets of Iran are witnessing a "final battle" moment. This isn't just about inflation or the Rial hitting historic lows—it’s about the unbreakable spirit of a people who have reached the point of "nothing to… https://t.co/4QYw0lS1x1

— Afshine Emrani MD FACC (@afshineemrani) https://twitter.com/afshineemrani/status/2005972299095175426?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

In parallel, Iranian society post-June war is in a new state of angst, paranoia, and even despair. The country is on a backfoot economically, militarily, its nuclear program decimated or at least set back by years, and there's eroding trust - especially as authorities have tried and executed dozens for alleged Israeli-links.

As is expected when protests hit Iran, the pre-1979 monarchy in exile joints in the calls for uprising:

My courageous compatriots,

Your presence in the streets across Iran has kindled the flame of a national revolution. The continuation and expansion of your presence, and taking control of the streets, is today our foremost, vital priority.

I call upon the people of Iran to join… https://t.co/6UbEqhhctm

— Reza Pahlavi (@PahlaviReza) https://twitter.com/PahlaviReza/status/2006080530207445388?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

This has already cast a shadow over these protests, threatening to divide the people in the streets. Already videos have emerged of demonstrators being shouted down by other youth, accusing them of being 'Mossad infiltrators.' Likely there could be pro-government 'counter-protests' next, as has happened in prior major protest waves.

https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Wed, 12/31/2025 - 14:40

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/final-battle-iran-protests-spread-prices-surge-currency-hits-record-low

One year ago, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/2023-greatest-hits-most-popular-articles-past-year-and-look-ahead

, we said that "while 2024 had a seemingly endless variety of social, economic, political, geopolitical and of course, financial and market, drama, the unprecedented onslaught of 2022 and 2023 - which saw both the deadliest and most consequential global war since WWII and a historic inflationary onslaught - simply proved too great to beat.... although we are confident that's only because the newsflow was merely resting ahead of 2025 when, thanks to the most consequential presidential election in modern US history, the coming avalanche of news and propaganda will be sheer insanity, especially since the Fed has made its long awaited dovish pivot without successfully stamping out inflation first. So in retrospect, 2024 being somewhat tame by recent standards may have been a good thing: it allowed everyone to rest ahead of the main event."

Boy, were we right, and in retrospect we certainly hope everyone did rest ahead of the countless 2025 main events because while 2025 not only saw what was the closest event to a market crash in years, it was almost a sideshow to the most exciting and eventful rollercoaster of non-stop newsflow we have yet encountered (in large part thanks to the daily torrent of stream of consciousness unleashed by the occupant of the White House) one which not only saw the legacy political system finally crumble across "Western democracies" as country after country said "no more" to the four-headed globalist hydra of runaway inflation, corrupt establishment politicians, uncontrolled illegal immigration, and targeted assassination attempts, but one where the political economy and capital markets proved beyond a reasonable doubt that they are more inextricably welded together than ever before. Oh, and of course, it was also the year when the Fed's apolitical facade crumbled, exposing the most important central bank in the world as nothing more than a puppet of shadowy establishment forces whose only task is to preserve the status quo.

But first, let's first take a quick look at what happened in the past year through the lens of the masses, and as a quick 4-minute refresher, here is a highlight reel from Googles "year in search" of all the big, if mostly irrelevant, topics that people around the world obsessed over in 2025.

Of course, all of the stuff in the clip above is just fluff and distractions for and by the masses, meant to keep attention focused on trivial things and away from what really matters. What we tried to do with our reporting throughout the year was to minimize the noise and to bring you, our readers, the signal, and while there was a nonstop barrage of the former, the underlying newsflow largely boiled down to four main categories:

Political/Tariffs

Technological/AI

Financial/Central Bank Credibility

Geopolitical

Starting with the first, the shock from the result of the November 2024 election - which together with the Trump assassination attempt were the biggest political events of 2024 - quickly turned to awe from Trump's decision to immediately implement his transformational trade policies in the form of massive tariffs on most US trade partners, which upended decades of conventional trade policy through significant action and led to a surge in the effective tariff rate and countless predictions of doom, gloom and recessions from such cartoon economists as Paul Krugman who said that "it's not the size of the trade policy shift, but the uncertainty around it that could cause a recession.... and at this point, policy reversals may actually worsen the situation because they would enhance uncertainty."

?itok=SA-52UR0

But what Krugman, and so many other "experts" failed to understand is that, in keeping with the pattern set by the first Trump admin the president was setting new precedent and aggressively negotiating, leading not to a recession, but many new trade deals - all at far more advantageous terms to the us - with little of the "imminent" inflation passing through to US consumers as it was exporters (https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/japan-finally-admits-its-carmakers-have-been-paying-all-trump-tariff-costs-trade-talks

) who ended up footing the bill for Trump's tariffs.

?itok=tJjDX3vp

The result was that the initial surge in trade uncertainty, which was loudly cheered on by liberal economists as it confirmed their anti-Trump bias, promptly faded...

?itok=GSCCYig3

... and recession fears disappeared almost as fast as they had emerged.

?itok=Jo_hBMtU

And while the inflation from Trump's tariffs has yet to emerge, the benefits in the form of almost $400BN in annualized tariff revenues are already here, and could have been used to lower the US budget deficit...

?itok=J-4hs56Z

... if there was any hope that the US could ever spend less, which unfortunately is no longer feasible with the US https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/game-over-doge-us-starts-fiscal-2025-record-budget-deficit-shocking-interest-expense

....

?itok=XS9JC6bJ

... largely due to the now recurring $100+ billion in monthly interest expense on US debt.

?itok=RHnseqv5

And while politics - and the constant daily declarations from Trump's Truth Social account - certainly meant much less sleep for anyone in 2025, one can certainly argue that innovation, in a broad sense, and especially AI technology, was as important as politics this year and certainly helped lift the US economy from a far worse place.

To be sure, the year started off on the right foot, with names that have become synonymous with the AI boom like Nvidia soaring, as Wall Street was content that investment in AI would continue to grow exponentially, as the following charts show.

?itok=EtfFfvWt

Optimism was also lifted amid reports that AI adoption was rising (even if as Goldman noted, it was due to a purposefully phrased question designed to give the impression that adoption was rising). The trade off to increased AI adoption - far more concerning in the short-run for politicians desperate for votes - is that both overall tech and especially youth unemployment, are rising dangerously fast, potentially leading to a sharp deterioration in the US labor market, assuming the AI cycle goes as planned... and the US wins the US-China AI war.

?itok=POeL6smE

That outcome is far from certain, however, and it finally dawned on the market that the flurry of recent developments in the AI sector...

?itok=D54W6ROG

... was - as https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/stunning-math-behind-ai-vendor-financing-circle-jerk

- one giant circle jerk, where little money actually changes hands yet the impression of top-line growth keeps pushing stock prices to record highs...

?itok=zrQDPzVB

... resulting in a painful swoon for much of the AI sector in the second half amid renewed concerns about AI returns on investment, and the risk of a full-blown bubble which may burst any second

?itok=ZoJ_m5Ew

In any case, the reality is that we have seen chatbots come and go, and the world always moved on to a new, bigger and shinier fad. This time, however, prices may have pulled just a little bit too much from the future, as this breakdown of the Mag7 vs the S&P shows.

?itok=v7Wp50-3

In any event, we don't have that much new to add here: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/2023-greatest-hits-most-popular-articles-past-year-and-look-ahead

we said that "we would be remiss not to mention the single biggest market narrative - and tech story - of 2023, namely the unprecedented AI mania, which manifested itself in an explosion in the "Magnificent 7" mega tech stocks which now make up a record 30% of the S&P's market cap." Two years later, AI is still the the biggest driver of financial assets, and that will continue... until it stops.

Maybe the biggest difference from two years ago is that "more of the same" means that never before has so much market influence and impact been concentrated in so few stocks, and at last check, the 10 largest stocks in the S&P now account for 38% of total market cap. Actually, one correction: it's not "never before" - the last time so few stocks had such a big impact on the market was... just before the Great Depression.

?itok=PsjYKAQS

Actually, we do want to highlight one pretty notable change, and this one could be critical for the 2026 midterms: after two years of coasting on available grid capacity, the rampant data center buildout means that energy has officially become the bottleneck, and as the following chart from Goldman shows, eight out of the 13 US regional power markets are already at or below critical spare capacity levels.

?itok=Oe8p4UV3

Add to this the stark reality that Nvidia's upcoming Rubin/Rubin Ultra GPUs will be power hogs, raising the electricity demand for every rack from roughly 150kW to 300/600kW...

?itok=iXWsrhVt

... and we stand by our claim made this summer that this chart of US electricity inflation - https://www.kiplinger.com/personal-finance/states-facing-largest-electricity-bill-increases

- will soon be the biggest political and economic talking point.

In one year, this will be the most popular chart on this site https://t.co/h93gWXMoNL

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1954980347030163526?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Artificial Intelligence aside, another major technological innovation that also came to the fore in 2025, but received far less attention - even though it is possible its contributions to society will be just as important as AI -  were stablecoins, a tokenized digital alternative to fiat currency which use blockchain technology and unlike cryptocurrencies, are designed to maintain a stable value, traditionally pegged one-to-one with the dollar (and collateralized by T-Bills, i.e., the more demand for stablecoins, the more demand for Bills) . In 2025 the value of the stablecoin market rose above $300 billion (with Tether accounting for more than half), and which many project will rise to $2-3 trillion over the next several years...

?itok=D653xLU3

... providing a natural buyer of short-term debt and serving as a Plan B to the Fed's upcoming mega QE, because you didn't think all that debt that will be needed to fund the AI cycle - https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/astonishingly-large-numbers-it-will-take-5-trillion-fund-ai-cycle-and-us-government-hook

- would buy itself.

?itok=oWx7Vypm

And speaking of the Fed, our nemesis since day one of this website when gold was $700 and bitcoin didn't exist, it is gratifying to see that the US central bank is circling the drain ever faster, and is likely at most a few years away from losing its "independence" - which never actually existed - and merging with the Treasury. Until then, however, the question is when will it all fall apart, with both the debt and deficit hitting daily record highs, while the interest on public debt at unprecedented levels, and well over $1 trillion now, despite 10Y yields just over 4%.

?itok=q7LP35rP

The rapidly deteriorating US fiscal situation was not lost on the rating agencies, and in May, Moody's became the 3rd and last of the big three (after S&P and Fitch) to downgrade the US from the pristine Aaa to Aa1 citing the increase in government debt owing to increased spending and reduced tax revenues, as well as the growing federal interest payments.

?itok=1XQf4ABX

Downgraded or not, the dismal US fiscal picture got even worse in 2025 and despite some modest hopes that Elon Musk and DOGE would at least seek to slow down the relentless increase in US debt,  that did not happen and on the contrary, total US debt rose by over $2 trillion this year to a new high of $38.4 trillion, more than tripling the debt load since 2010.

?itok=kKowJASU

To be sure, this wasn't just a US phenomenon, with debt ratios across the entire world already at nosebleed levels and expected to rise even higher to pay for unsustainable deficits across all economies but especially among emerging markets.

?itok=Je5wbzVo

Yet the US was unique in that the status of the Fed is increasingly being challenged by Trump, who has made his displeasure with Fed Chair Powell quite public.

?itok=73WaDd83

Ironically in the end Trump's appeals for lower rates which saw much pushback by the Fed in early 2025 come to fruition when the Fed not only resumed its rate cuts in late 2025 (despite growing political opposition inside the Fed) but culminated in the Fed restarting QE Lite earlier this month, when Powell revealed that as part of the funding plans for 2026, the Fed would proceed to monetize $40 billion in T-Bills (to start), a number which will only grow.

?itok=VwzUkt8x

None of this was lost on the market, and while stocks staged a dramatic rebound from their Liberation Day lows and closed out the year at all time highs (more on the below), that move was nothing compared to the historic eruption in precious metals - which are far more sensitive to the monetary and fiscal challenges facing the US - and which had their best year since 1979, with gold up 70% and silver almost tripling at one point!

?itok=Rnu21ls9

The last major theme of 2025 was a familiar one: geopolitics remained on the front page of most daily updates, only this time in addition to the hot war in Ukraine which entered its 4th year with little progress in sight, despite repeated attempts by Trump to mediate...

?itok=fbRmbU8J

... prompting Europe to rapidly rearms itself for the first time since WW2 (and spend hundreds of billions in newly issued debt in the process)...

?itok=OtanHBoh

... we got to witness a new cold war erupt between the US and China as the tech race to win the AGI trophy quickly became the 21st century version of the nuclear arms race...

?itok=VPLUExsL

... amid a push for semiconductor...

?itok=K1MDjdOW

... and rare-earth self sufficiency.

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But while the four macro themes list above defined the narrative, the economy and the stock market across 2025, the day-to-day gyrations were defined by what at time seemed like unabashedly chaotic newsflow; and as we take a stroll through memory lane, here is a detailed look at the micro events that shaped trading across the past 11 months, courtesy of Bobby Vedral's Macro Eagle monthly email:

January:

Nvidia suffered the biggest single-day USD market cap drop ever when China launched a computational missile (“DeepSeek”) on US Inauguration Day, wiping out $1trn in market cap from Nvidia.

Fires raged; it was the costliest natural catastrophe in US history.

UK fiscal panic: 10 year government yields reached a high since the 2008 financial crisis, while 30 year government yields reached their highest since 1998.

Trump easily broke the record for Executive Orders issued per day in office.

A test aircraft by US start-up Boom broke the sound barrier, the first supersonic commercial travel since Concorde was grounded in 2003.

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February:

Due of Trump’s Russia-Ukraine policy, the Russian Ruble rallied 20%+ YTD.

Bitcoin dropped 25% since it’s January highs, entering Bear Market – middle graph.

DOGE induced a fall in consumer sentiment.

The DAX hit new all-time-highs despite worrying German election results with significant gains for the hard-left and -right.

Gold reached a new all-time-high.

The US Conference Board consumer confidence recorded its biggest monthly drop in 4 years.

The US reported a record trade deficit in January, thanks to tariff expectations.

The biggest ever crypto hack of $1.5bn from Bybit.

Births in Japan fell to their lowest since records began 125 years ago.

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March:

Daily stock market volatility picked up significantly.

US consumer long-term inflation expectations hit a 32 year high.

US consumer confidence fell to “the lowest level in 12 years, outside Covid – right graph.

US Small Business uncertainty index near highest since survey started in 1970.

Gold rose above $3,100 for the first time.

Private Equity AUM fell 2% to $4.7tn in 2024, the first decline since 2005 as investors faced a $3trn backlog of unsold deals.

Trump’s 100 minutes speech was the longest presidential address to Congress ever.

BYD shares reached a record high after it said it could now charge its EVs as quickly as it took to fill a car with petrol.

Germany’s Bundestag approved the biggest fiscal expansion in the country’s post-war history.

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April:

Highest effective US tariff rate since 1934/1909 – left graph.

US equities recorded their worst weekly performance outside the 2008 Financial Crisi and Covid.

This was followed by the best winning nine-day streak since 2004.

University of Michigan consumer confidence fell to its second-lowest score since 1952.

Gold hit another record high crossing $3400.

Worst “first 100 days” for the Dow and S&P500 since Nixon.

The dollar recorded its worst performance year-to-date since at least 1995.

Pope Francis died: the new pope became the first pope from the Americas and Southern Hemisphere and first non-European since Syria-born Gregory III in 741 AD.

Deadliest terrorist attack on tourists in Kashmir since the start of the insurgency in 1989.

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May:

Highest effective US tariff rate since 1934/1909 – left graph.

US equities recorded their worst weekly performance outside the 2008 Financial Crisi and Covid.

This was followed by the best winning nine-day streak since 2004.

University of Michigan consumer confidence fell to its second-lowest score since 1952.

Gold hit another record high crossing $3400.

Worst “first 100 days” for the Dow and S&P500 since Nixon.

The dollar recorded its worst performance year-to-date since at least 1995.

Pope Francis died: the new pope became the first pope from the Americas and Southern Hemisphere and first non-European since Syria-born Gregory III in 741 AD.

Deadliest terrorist attack on tourists in Kashmir since the start of the insurgency in 1989.

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June:

Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran, the biggest military assault on the Islamic Republic since the Iraq War of the 1980s – sending oil prices skyrocketing. The cost of a barrel of Brent Crude leapt by as much as 13.2% to hit $78.50.

The US joined the fight, dropping various GBU-57, the world’s largest conventional bomb.

Elon Musk, who was crucial in the re-election of Donald Trump had a high profile falling out with him.

Earlier, Ukraine released killer drones from trucks to hit strategic bombers deep inside Russia.

Despite the geopolitical turmoil, the S&P500 hit a new all-time-high.

The ECB reported that global central banks now hold as much gold as they did in 1965.

After riots in LA, Donald Trump deployed the National Guard despite the objections the governor – making it the first time since 1965 a US president deployed the National Guard without a governor’s consent.

In the Democratic mayoral primary race for New York City, Andrew Cuomo lost to  the 33 year old ‘Democratic Socialist’ Zohran Mamdani, despite raising a record $25m for his PAC.

It was reported that UK vehicle production collapsed in May to the lowest level since 1949.

Dubbed “the world’s most expensive acquisition”, Meta bought 49% of Scale AI for $14.3bn, valuing it at more than 30x revenues.

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July:

NVIDIA became the first $4 trillion company, followed by Microsoft.

The Cryptocurrency market broke $4trn in market cap following the passage of the Genius Act.

The Big Beautiful Bill was signed by President Trump.

CME copper prices recorded their biggest ever 1-day fall, after President Trump excluded refined metals from tariffs.

In the month of July, the US collected a monthly record of $29bn in tariffs.

In Japan the ruling LDP party lost its majority in the upper house. Fiscal worries sent 20 year JGB yields to their highest since 2000.

Global credit spreads hit a 2007 low.

London stock market had their slowest first half of a year for IPO’s since 1997.

Two governors dissented with the Federal Open Market Committee rate setting decision – a first such split in 30 years.

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August:

Japanese equities hit new all-time-highs on trade optimism and fiscal stimulus expectations.

Chinese equities rallied, with the Shanghai Composite hitting a fresh 10 year high.

UK 30 year debt yields rose to a 28-year high amid inflation and fiscal sustainability concerns – higher than the levels they reached following Lizz Truss’s ‘Mini-Budget’.

Corporate credit spreads hit new record lows.

Trump federalized Washington DC’s police operations under the 1973 DC Home Rule Act.

First time a US president has tried to sack a governor of the Federal Reserve.

It was reported that global central bank holdings of gold overtook those of US Treasuries as % of foreign reserves.

Indian rupee tumbled to a new record low against the dollar, dragged by tariff concerns.

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September:

China’s Shanghai Composite rose above 3,800 for the first time in ten years.

The $55bn leveraged buy-out of Electronic Arts is the largest leveraged buy-out ever.

NATO saw the most serious incursion into its territory since the start of the alliance.

Japan’s ruling LDP chose the country’s first female PM and, trying to beat the French, their fifth PM in five years.

Jair Bolsonaro became the first former president in Brazil’s to be sentenced to prison – 27 years.

Nicolas Sarkozy became the first ever French president to be sentenced to prison – 5 years.

Israel launched an airstrike against a Hamas leader meeting in Doha, it’s first ever attack on Qatar. This was followed by Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza – bringing two years of hostilities to an end.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, became the first Syrian head of state to address the UN General Assembly since 1967.

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October:

Nvidia became the first company ever to cross $5trn in market cap.

The US stock market valuation vs US GDP ratio hit a record 225% vs an average of 85% since 1970.

Silver crossed $50 for the first time since the Hunt Brothers cornered the market in 1980 – middle graph.

China deployed rare earth restrictions.

OpenAI became the world’s most valuable startup raising $6.6bn at a price tag of $500bn.

The Nikkei rose 16% in October, its best monthly performance since 1990.

Takaichi Sanae became Japan’s 104th and first female PM.

Nicolas Sarkozy became the first former French head of state to be jailed since Marshal Petain after WWII, and before that Louis XVI in 1792.

Hurricane Melissa became the first ever category-five hurricane to hit Jamaica.

The Dutch government took over Chinese-owned Nexperia by invoking a 73-year old Cold War national security law for the first time ever

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November:

AI angst, crypto-crash and hawkish Fed speak made November look very shaky, only to be saved in the last week by (1) dovish talk from Fed Williams & Waller and (2) economic data misses, which brought a December Fed cut back on the table.

The longest ever US government which began on October 1, 2025, and lasted for 43 days ended on November 13th.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics cancelled the October Job data report, the first forgone monthly report ever.

Bitcoin lost 1/3 of its value between Oct 6th and November 22nd – it’s biggest market value loss ever.

US Consumer Sentiment fell to near lowest on record.

The Challenger layoff announcements surged to a 22 year high.

Silver hit a new all-time high

Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York, the first to win over a million votes since John Lindsay in 1969

Answering a question on Taiwan, Japan’s new PM made the country’s first overt threat of force in 80 years.

Hong Kong witnessed the world’s deadliest residential building fire since 1980, with 159 people killed

The G20 summit was held in South Africa, the first ever in an African country.

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Next, let's do a quick a recap of the main market events of 2025, where as Goldman's top trader John Flood reminds us, positive momentum from 2024 carried into January as investors remained optimistic on everything AI and a pro-business administration squarely focused on deregulation. The first real test of the year came on January 27th, aka "DeepSeek Monday." The Chinese AI company released its chatbot which led to a sharp drawdown in global technology stocks. Investors worried that the AI hardware and large-model business architype might be disrupted with significantly cheaper (yet still efficient) models like DeepSeek potentially having the ability to knock off some of the biggest players. However, these fears tuned out to be relatively short lived as the AI complex quickly regained its footing and soared higher over the course of the year (it still remains the case that China will be able to confront US technology with much cheaper and just as efficient tech of its own).

Due to a bout of extreme factor volatility, March 7 and March 10 will go down as one of the worst two-day stretches of hedge fund performance in years (multistrat-mageddon). The momentum factor experienced a 4+ standard deviation drawdown which led to forced derisking across various types of HF strategies. On the flip side, this episode also led to cleaner positioning as traders braced to enter the second quarter.

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Donald Trump’s "Liberation Day" will be remembered as the most impactful event on the US stock market in 2025. After the market close on April 2, the president announced sweeping new tariffs on imports and famously held up his big boards with startling rates for the world to digest. The S&P 500 promptly lost 13% in the next weeks, from April 3 through 8, and closed under 5k on April 8, which was also the low close of the year. However, on April 9, Trump announced a 90 day pause on tariffs causing the S&P 500 to experience it sharpest intraday reversal since 2008 (the index closed +952bps on the day). This set the stage for the S&P 500 to make 36 additional record closes in 2025 (there have been 39 total this year).

After Liberation Day, a majority of professional institutional investors remained skeptical of the market’s rally and stayed on the sidelines. The most common reasons cited for this skepticism were geopolitical/macro/policy uncertainty, rich valuations, and poor market breadth. As a result, fundamental long/short HF net exposure spent most of the year well below the 50th percentile rank. Mutual Funds also sat on a significant amount of cash until the 4th quarter (when it was too late). As a result, only 28% of large cap mutual funds are outperforming their benchmarks, the lowest share since 2019...

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... while the average fundamental long/short hedge fund underperformed the S&P 500 by 200bps, which is yet another reason for the relentless rotation out of actively managed funds and into much cheaper, passive ones which deliver the same if not better results.

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Goldman's sentiment indicator spent most of the year in negative territory reflecting light institutional investor positioning, as the wall of worry has been extremely high this year and remains omnipresent. Furthermore, the stubbornly high short interest across the S&P suggests markets will likely continue to see bouts of short squeezes, pushing them above fair value.

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As we have detailed extensively throughout 2025, three investor groups that have shown up as noteworthy buyers of US stocks this year are the retail community, corporates, and foreigners. Goldman data shows that the well informed retail community now only consistently sells stocks when there is significant job loss (as in March of 2020). The retail cohort’s most significant buy imbalances were in early April post liberation day, when retail got it right and professional investors were dead wrong.

Meanwhile, companies again repurchased over $1 trillion of their shares in 2025 making it a top 3 buyback year in the history of the stock market, and as authorizations continue to ramp, $1 trillion annual corporate bids will be the new norm on the go forward, unless the Mag 7 are forced to plow all their free cash flow into capex... capex which accounted for a material portion of US growth in 2025.

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The combination of aggressive retail buying and corporate buybacks provided a higher floor for the market at the index level, continuing to frustrate the HF and MF communities which just can't get a dip that's big enough for them to feel safe to buy. Meanwhile, despite ongoing debates around US exceptionalism (which contrary to leftist narratives, did not end when Trump entered the White House), foreign investors were the single largest source of US equity demand in 2025. Foreign investors bought nearly $280 billion in May and June this year, continuing the usual pattern of elevated foreign investor demand after the US dollar weakened and US equities underperformed.

Turning to the Fed, after putting rate cuts on hold in December 2024 - just after Trump won the election - Jerome Powell, facing a daily barrage of insults from Trump virtually non stop in 2025, pivoted back to dovish and cut rates by 25bps in September, October, and in December; not only that, but as noted above, the Fed resumed QE Lite announcing it would purchase a minimum of $40BN in Treasury Bills every month.

Lower rates, a weaker dollar, a resilient consumer, solid earnings, 2% GDP growth, and cautious sentiment make Goldman - and most other banks all of which have an average S&P price target well in the 7000 range - believe the US stock market will be the best place to be in 2026.

And speaking of Goldman, its baseline economic forecast is that growth reaccelerates to 2 - 2.5% in 2026 because of reduced tariff drag, tax cuts, and easier financial conditions. Standard models suggest that this should boost job creation and stabilize the unemployment rate at a level only modestly above September’s 4.44%. Under this forecast, the bank's core assumption is that the FOMC slows the pace of easing in the first half, pausing in January but still delivering two more cuts in March and June which push the funds rate down to a terminal level of 3 - 3.25%.

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Finally, from John Flood's seat, an average of 17.5 billion shares traded across the US equity market each day this year. For context, this number was 10.8 billion shares in 2020. However, trading has never been more difficult as liquidity is hard to come by as this volume growth is happening off-exchange which traders cannot access. Over 75% of off-exchange volume now trades in OTC market centers, which includes retail flow mostly inaccessible to institutional investors. Fragmentation in the US markets poses further challenges with 16 exchanges, over 30 ATSs and hundreds of OTC liquidity destinations. The average trade size has dropped both on and off exchange, reaching a 15-year low this year of 150 shares per trade. Incidentally, the Retail bid should remain very strong in 2026 as tax refunds spike in early 2026 (2025 were never adjusted to reflect OBBBA and therefore many will be due a large refund). As Flood concludes, "knowing where the bodies lie" has never been more important.

Of course, 2025 was about much more than just markets, and one of the tragic developments of the increasingly polarized US society was the surge in political assassinations, which started in the summer of 2024 with the unsuccessful attempt on Donald Trump's life, escalated when a troubled young man murdered the CEO of UnitedHealthcare in December 2024 to make a political statement, and culminated in September 2025 when a radicalized and brainwashed 22-year-old assassinated Charlie Kirk in broad daylight. Unfortunately, with mental illness largely normalized by the liberal establishment, and with mainstream media brainwashing an entire generation into believing that "killing fascists is ok", we are confident that this is only the beginning and there will be many more political assassinations in 2026 and beyond.

But while tragic and inexcusable, the sad reality is that there is an entire generation of young Americans who feel an unprecedented degree of anxiety that the American Dream is now hopelessly lost. And, to an extent, one can't blame them: we started off this website in 2009 with a clear warning that the Fed is the single biggest enemy of American prosperity, the future of the American experiment, and the American way of life, because artificial growth boosted by trillions in budget deficits promptly monetized by the central bank, and culminating in a record $38+ trillion in debt (rising by $1 trillion every few months), which has to be inflated away sooner or later (and judging by the price of gold, it will be "sooner"), will inevitably lead to devastating consequences.

17 years later we have been proven right, as America's conversion into a banana republic is nearly complete with the vast majority of wealth now held by a handful of corporate shareholders, oligarchs and others within the top 1% of the wealth pyramid, while the middle class is disappearing at an exponential pace, drowned by the tide of rising prices. And with little hope to live for, it is understandable why so many young American men and women (and they/thems) are now willing to suicide themselves at the altar of generational disillusionment, but not before first making a deadly political statement.

In 2025, some tried to nudge the US off its doomed course with the iceberg of fiscal inevitably, most notably Elon Musk who launched the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), in hopes of streamlining and eliminating waste within the US government. We were skeptical, and in https://x.com/zerohedge/status/1888351368785604870

that "what Musk is doing in trying to streamline the govt is admirable but ultimately it will be Congress that decides the endgame. And there things are as status quo as always." A few months, and one very high profile feud with Donald Trump later, Musk agreed, saying that "the government is basically unfixable.... at the end of the day if you look at our national debt...if AI and robots don't solve our national debt, we're toast."

🚨ELON MUSK: "I haven't been to DC since May. The government is basically unfixable. I applaud David (Sacks') noble efforts...but at the end of the day if you look at our national debt...if AI and robots don't solve our national debt, we're toast." https://t.co/XKSes4fBfq

— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) https://twitter.com/AutismCapital/status/1965634225073483988?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

The DOGE experiment was quietly snuffed out and the uniparty, which thrives on corruption, opacity and waste, won again. That, too, was not lost on either gold or silver, which enjoyed their best year in nearly half a century, as the days of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency draw to a close.

And speaking of Elon, he also deserves congratulations for continuing to convert X (f/k/a Twitter), from what was once the most corrupt and censored social media network in the world controlled by an army of woke, bluepilled Karens, into a bastion of free speech, one which many will agree was instrumental in Trump's victory on in 2024. Many smirked https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/2023-greatest-hits-most-popular-articles-past-year-and-look-ahead

when we said that "in less than a decade, Elon Musk's $44 billion purchase of Twitter will seem like one of the century's biggest bargains." Fast forward to today when Elon Musk is not only the world's richest man once more with a staggering net worth of over $600 billion, but he is that by a huge margin, worth some $350 billion more than Larry Page's $270 billion, and he largely has X to thank for this, even as virtue-signaling corporations (who all work in conjunction with the deep state in hopes of getting some fast-track access to those very generous taxpayer-funded government contracts) continue to do everything in their power to isolate and blacklist both Musk and his various enterprises.

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We say this as one of the very first media outlets that was dubbed "conspiracy theorists" by the authorities, leading to repeat attempts to demonetize and deplatform us, and ultimately put us out of business. Oh yes, we've been there: we were suspended for half a year on Twitter for telling the truth about Covid, and then we lost most of our advertisers after the https://twitter.com/jbruce218/status/1608502639875997700

: we are now almost entirely reader-funded so your financial assistance will be instrumental to ensure our continued survival into 2025 and beyond.

That said, we did get a chuckle when, five years after he almost succeeded in shutting us down in collaboration with Google, Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) was https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/trump-admin-bans-anti-free-speech-eu-globalists-entering-us

and barred from entering the US.

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The bottom line, at least for us, is that the past five years have been a stark lesson in how quickly an ad-funded business can disintegrate in this world which makes the dystopian nightmare of 1984 seem more real each day, and we have since taken measures. Five years ago, https://www.zerohedge.com/premium

, which is entirely ad and moderation free, and offers readers a variety of premium content. It wasn't our intention to make this transformation but unfortunately we know which way the wind is blowing and it is only a matter of time before the gatekeepers of online ad spending return and block us - and those like us - as traditional media continues to melt away, losing more credibility and readers each and every day. As such, if we are to have any hope in continuing it will come directly from you, our readers. We will keep the free website running for as long as possible, but we are certain that it is only a matter of time before the hammer falls as the deep state retaliates to the shocking loss of 2025 and lashes out at all new media, as the deep state will stop at nothing to silence all independent voices in order to preserve mind control over the population.

As always, we thank all of our readers for making this website - which has never seen one dollar of outside funding (and despite amusing recurring allegations, has certainly never seen a ruble from either Putin or the KGB either, sorry CIA) and has never spent one dollar on marketing - a small (or not so small) part of your daily routine.

Which also brings us to another critical topic: that of fake news, and something we - and others who do not comply with the established narrative - have been accused of. While we find that narrative laughable, after all every single article in this website is backed by facts and links to outside sources, it is clearly a dangerous development, and a very slippery slope that the entire developed world is pushing for what is, when stripped of fancy jargon, internet censorship under the guise of protecting the average person from "dangerous information." It's also why we are preparing for the next onslaught against independent thought and why we had no choice but to roll out a https://www.zerohedge.com/premium

In addition to the other themes noted above, we expect the crackdown on free speech by various deep state tentacles to accelerate in the coming years (although it will be mostly in the shadows, at least for the time being, until Trump gets bored or tired of fighting the infinitely more powerful octopus that is truly in control of the United States) especially as the following list of Top 20 articles for 2025 reveals, many of the most popular articles in the past year were precisely those which the conventional media would not touch with a ten foot pole, both out of fear of repercussions and because the MSM has now become a PR agency for either a political party or some unelected, deep state bureaucrat, which in turn allowed the alternative media to continue to flourish in an information vacuum and take significant market share from the established outlets by covering topics which established media outlets refuse to do, in the process earning itself the derogatory "fake news" condemnation.

We are also grateful that our readers have, for the 17th year in a row, realized that it is incumbent upon them to decide what is, and isn't "fake news."

* * *

And so, before we get into the details of what has now become an annual tradition for the last day of the year, those who wish to jog down memory lane, can refresh our most popular articles for every year during our no longer that brief, 16-year existence, starting with 2009 and continuing with 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-31/2016-greatest-hits-presenting-most-popular-articles-past-year

.

So without further ado, here are the articles that you, our readers, found to be the most engaging, interesting and popular based on the number of hits, during the past year.

In 20th spot we had a stark reminder that 6 years after the death of Jeffrey Epstein, not a single person has gone to prison for pedophilia or, well, anything else for that matter. And although the left was desperate to distract from their latest, record government shutdown (which achieved nothing) by making a spectacle of the Epstein files hoping that something would emerge damning the president (sorry to break it to you, but if 4 years of Democrat rule led to no Trump-crushing leaks, there is just nothing there), as the number of Epstein-related documents released to the public grew, we did get our first casualty, and it couldn't have happened to a more worthy public persona as "https://www.zerohedge.com/political/larry-summers-goes-hiding-messages-sought-epsteins-advice-cheating-daughter-ccp-official

." And while the public destruction of what little was left of Larry Summers' reputation was certainly a step in the right direction, if not the one his liberal friends were hoping for, we can only hope that many more corrupt oligarchs will follow in his footsteps.

Number 19 was the story of one of the biggest home runs of Elon's DOGE, which failed to slow down the rate at which the giant American budget deficit black hole swallowed trillions and pushed up govt debt by the same amount, but it did succeed in dismantling several openly evil government departments which for decades had been a front for even worse three-letter government agencies spreading deep state Pax American across the globe. That's what happened in early 2025, when we learned that the notorious CIA spy cutout, "https://www.zerohedge.com/political/usaid-funded-massive-global-state-propaganda-news-matrix-nearly-billion-people-reach

"

The 18th most read article of the year was on the lighter side, metaphorically speaking, and was a reminder that while Democrats in power may try to impose their perverted DEI ideals on the population in a desperate attempt to root out society's most basic instincts, the desires of warm-blooded males can never be wiped out, especially when they go hand in hand with meme stock mania, as we learned in "https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/sydney-sweeney-sparks-american-eagle-meme-stock-frenzy

." And whether it was the glorious mammaries of the unwoke actress, or just a return of animal spirits, American Eagle stock not only outperformed bitcoin, and many AI names this year, but it closed 2025 at the highest level in four years. We wonder what female body parts comparable copycat stocks will use to achieve the same effect...

Our 17th most read article of the year was written just days before the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk, and it was the just as tragic cold-blooded murder of the unarmed and defenseless Iryna Zarutska, who was butchered by a deranged black person with a hatred for white people. The senseless attack and the even more gruesome aftermath of her lying in a pool of blood as she bled to death with barely anyone coming to her help is what we called "https://www.zerohedge.com/political/image-killed-democrats-2026-and-beyond

." Although having since learned to what lengths democrats will go to rig and manipulate elections, we may have to revise that statement.

2025 was a year that mercifully saw the unwind of many fake narratives, and one of them, which also was the 16th most popular article of the year, was that Ukraine would somehow be able to oppose Russia in the ongoing war. Contrary to media reports that Ukraine was this close to ending the conflict any day now, and that Russia was suffering catastrophic losses, the reality was in fact just the opposite as we learned in March when "https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/we-cant-stop-them-thousands-ukraine-troops-suddenly-face-encirclement-russias-kursk

" Since then it has gone from bad to worse for Ukraine, which is suffering loss after loss in the Donbass region, while the noose around Zelensky is getting uncomfortably tight after his closest political aide was hounded out of Kiev for corruption that would make even career US politicians blush. The cherry on top, Trump's now unyielding demands that Ukraine concede territory, hold presidential elections, and sign a peace treaty with Russia, indicate that the biggest military conflict of the 21st century may finally be drawing to a close.

The 15th most read article of the year saw the end of yet another fake news narrative, the one that defined much of the past decade ever since the first Trump administration, namely that the president was somehow beholden to Russia, a carefully fabricated story that consumed America for years. In the end, however, it turned out that Russiagate was nothing more than another carefully orchestrated Democrat propaganda masterpiece, and this time justice might even be served as "https://www.zerohedge.com/political/treasonous-conspiracy-dni-gabbard-exposes-obama-center-trump-russia-hoax

." Whether or not Obama, who facilitated what was in retrospect a treasonous coup, ends up in prison is to be determined, but as we said in July, his actions were the "Betrayal Of Every American."

Turning the page on sordid tales of political woe, we go to the 14th most popular post of 2025, in which we explained that "https://www.zerohedge.com/precious-metals/something-extraordinary-taking-place-gold-vaults-below-manhattan

" and showed how at the end of January amid fears of escalating trade tensions, the gold vaults that make up the CME system, those belonging to the likes of JPMorgan, Brinks and HSBC, had seen an blistering accumulation of physical gold to record levels, while vaulted gold elsewhere around the world quietly evaporated. This historic imbalance would lead to shocking reverberations for the physical metal for much of the rest of the year, and would culminate in the biggest increase in the price of gold since 1979.

The 13th most read article of the year was one that covered the year's most tragic event: the death of conservative speaker Charlie Kirk, one which the president called a "Dark Moment for America" as "https://www.zerohedge.com/political/shots-reportedly-fired-charlie-kirk-event-utah-valley-university

." Taking place just over a year after a failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the increasing frequency of political assassinations in the US is a testament to the liberals' aggressive pursuit to normalize murder (and mental disease) in the name of "fighting fascism", when the only fascists in the US are those who brainwash their pathological supporters into believing that the killing of an adversary solves something. Which, unfortunately, is why we expect many more such senseless killings in 2026 and beyond.

In 12th spot was a vivid reminder that politics under Trump was anything but life as usual, when "https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/leftist-plantation-south-african-officials-say-white-refugees-are-committing-treason

." Whereas previous administrations would have bent over backwards due to faked white guilt to appease the South African regime, Trump played hard ball and encouraged by Elon Musk, who clearly laid out South Africa's brutal, anti-white policies, the president made it clear that, at least when it came to racial matters, the new boss was anything but the old boss. There would be more, as the US further snubbed South Africa through boycotts and punitive actions related to the G20 summit, stemming from Trump's claims about "white genocide" and land seizures, coupled with disagreements over climate/DEI priorities, leading the US to skip South Africa's 2025 G20 and bar South Africa from the 2026 summit.

The 11th most popular article of 2025 was also a tragic preview of what has emerged as one of the biggest stories of corruption and fraud in 2025, as a "https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fake-cop-assassinates-minnesota-lawmaker-targeted-political-violence

" With much of the independent media now focusing on waste and abuse of taxpayer money by the Somali population in Minnesota, the June shooting by Vance Luther Boelter - a Democrat activist and 2019 appointee of Gov. Tim Walz - of MN lawmakers democrats Melissa Hortman and John Hoffman, just didn't make sense; why would Democrats kill other Democrats. Unless, of course, someone was desperate to hide just how deep the rabbit hole went. Well, when it comes to taxpayer abuse in Minnesota, we have since learned that rabbit hole indeed goes to unprecedented depths, and we are confident that we will only learn more as the full extent of

2025 was a year rife with geopolitical conflict, and it wasn't just Ukraine: in June, the Middle East was roiled by the most serious military escalation in decades, when Iran and Israel started a shooting war, threatening to drag in the entire region with some even speculating that nukes could be exchanged. And while at first, "https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/israel-proclaims-total-air-superiority-over-iranian-capital-area-war-intensifies

," ultimately Trump did as Israel demanded, and not only supported Israel in a move that has resulted in a dramatic schism across the conservative movement  (pro vs anti Israel) but also provided US bunker buster bombs to take out Iran's nuclear centrifuge facilities. After Iran lobbed several theatrical cruise missile waves at Tel Aviv, and suffered heavy losses, the conflict quickly faded but it is likely only a matter of time before Tehran (potentially a nuclear-armed Tehran) seeks vengeance, leading to an even more serious conflict in 2026 and beyond.

The 9th most read article of 2025 was a modest detour into levity, and one which caught many unaware when yet another company decided to go woke and quickly went broke, dragged into irrelevance - and bankruptcy - by years of imposed DEI standards: "https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/hooters-goes-tits-bankruptcy-may-come-within-months

." Here's to hoping that whoever acquires Hooters out of bankruptcy can recreate it as the cultural icon of middle Americana it deserves to be.

The 8th most read article of the past year dealt with something far more serious, and unfortunately proved yet again that the conspiracy theorists were right: Dr Patric Soon-Shiong, founder of ImmunityBio and owner of the Los Angeles Times, made major headlines in March when "https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/existential-billionaire-cancer-researcher-says-covid-vaccine-likely-causing-surge

." To be sure, speculation that covid vaccines were potentially deadly had emerged long before his startling confession, but at the time anyone who voices skepticism was promptly canceled and erased. We can only hope that the scientific establishment has at least learned something from that catastrophic episode in American history.

Earlier we said that Elon's experiment in streamlining the US government was a failure after even he realized that it is hopeless to slowdown the pace of spending, but at least it was eye-opening: for the first time, thanks to DOGE, most Americans got a full view of how the sausage is made, and how pervasive corruption and waste are in the corridors of the Capitol. Needless to say, while everyone assumed as much, the confirmation was a shock, which is why so many were amazed to learn that "https://www.zerohedge.com/political/treasury-depts-highest-ranking-career-official-rage-quits-after-musks-doge-team-probes

", the 7th most popular article of the year. Unfortunately, unless an impartial 3rd party continues policing US government spending, nothing will change and we will get more stories like this in the future.

Once upon a time, Democrats were the party of tolerance and peace, or so the legend goes. That all changed in recent years when after relentless media brainwashing and normalizing that "killing fascists is fine" and that pretty much anyone to the right of communists is a fascist, not to mention that mental illness is something to be proud of, many Democrats emerged as a radicalized, violent group intent on inflicting harm if not outright murder their ideological opponents. In retrospect, it should not have been a surprise but the news that https://www.zerohedge.com/political/day-3-charlie-kirks-assassin-still-large-new-footage-released-gop-demanding-probe-radical

" was big enough to make the 6th most read article of the year. Here too, we are confident that much more bloodshed lies in store as the seed of leftist violence are only just starting to bear fruit.

And speaking of catastrophic liberal policies, the very first major event of 2025 was a stark reminder of how bad things can get in the world of unbridled Democratic policies, when "https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/evacuate-now-fire-tears-through-upscale-pacific-palisades-los-angeles

" quickly became the 5th most read article of the year. The fires would never have been able to unleash that kind of destruction if local administrators had taken proactive measures and engaged in controlled burn ins, not to mention had given the local fire department access to water. Unfortunately, with California now a vibrant symbol of all that is broken in the US, the worst case scenario promptly emerged and it has only gotten worse since then, with many if not all of the burned down houses frozen in time, owners unable to rebuild and move on due to, you guessed it, suffocating liberal policies.

We are not done with DOGE and government corruption: the 4th most read article of the year was news that "https://www.zerohedge.com/political/doge-investigating-feds-whose-net-worths-have-exploded-after-samantha-power-bombshell

." The announcement, which came after President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to work with DOGE, follows a bombshell report that Samantha Power, former head of USAID, saw her net worth explode to $30 million despite an annual salary under $250,000. Unfortunately, to this day the investigation has gone nowhere, meanwhile there are dozens if not hundreds of US politicians who have become multimillionaires with a salary that is barely enough for a family of four to live comfortably.

Going back to finance, our 3rd most read article of the year was an in depth analysis of what happened during the April meltdown, one which we correctly warned about https://x.com/zerohedge/status/1905354559469605343

." More importantly, it was the massive surge in bond yields in the days following Trump's Liberation Day that prompted the president to announce a reversal in his tariff policies and also set the market's low for the year, translating into a nearly 2000 point ascent for the S&P since April.

The 2nd most popular post of the year is also the most topical as we close out the year: thanks to intrepid citizen journalism from Nick Shirley, America got a stark reminder that corruption across the US is vast not just at the federal level but also state as news emerged that hundreds of millions (if not more) had been embezzled by various immigrant groups in Minnesota and in other democrat states , as detailed in "https://www.zerohedge.com/political/network-mapping-nick-shirleys-empty-minnesota-daycares

" Just like many of the other top stories in this list, America got a glimpse into the corruption, but since politicians on both sides benefit, don't expect anything to change.

Finally, the most popular post of 2025 was a stark reminder that the US has not been a Democratic Republic in decades, and that those in control are unelected bureaucrats, unaccountable to anyone... or almost anyone because at the start of 2025, a brief shock rippled across the deep state as we described in the #1 most popular article of the year: "https://www.zerohedge.com/political/eruption-bleachbit-wipe-hard-drive-offshore-bank-searches-dc-suggest-deep-state-panic

." Unfortunately, the panic was brief, and after a few months of pushback against Doge, and one high profile scandal between Trump and Musk later, things in DC quietly returned to normal, with the Deep State once again in control of everything and just biding its time until it can once again place a puppet of its own choosing in the White House.

And with all that behind us, and as we wave goodbye to another bizarre, exciting, surreal year, what lies in store for 2026, and the next half-decade?

We don't know: as our frequent readers are aware, we do not pretend to be able to predict the future and we don't try, despite repeat baseless allegations that we constantly forecast the collapse of civilization: we leave the predicting to the "smartest people in the room" who year after year have been consistently wrong about everything, and never more so than in 2025 when all the experts predicted soaring inflation as a result of Trump's tariffs, alongside a sharp drop in the stock market... only to flip-flop and concede that not only is tariff inflation not coming but the market is set to close at fresh record highs...

Wall Street strategists’ year-end target on S&P 500 at different points throughout year…

What a complete joke.

Nobody. Knows. Anything.

via https://twitter.com/geoffreymorgan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

— Nate Geraci (@NateGeraci) https://twitter.com/NateGeraci/status/2002763060658995579?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

... in the process adding strategists and analysts to the clueless ranks of economists, mainstream media and the professional polling class, not to mention all those "scientists" who made a mockery of both the scientific method and the "expert class" with their catastrophically bungled response to the covid pandemic, and then the response to the response, and so on... We merely observe, find what is unexpected, entertaining, amusing, surprising or grotesque in an increasingly bizarre, sad, and increasingly crazy world, and then just write about it.

We do know, however, that with the Fed having flip-flopped yet again, and re-pivoting dovishly just months after the latest hawkish pivot when Trump was elected, only to back off following a now all-out war of words between the White House and the Marriner Eccles building (located just a few hundred feet away) which led to the launch of QE Lite (ahead of a full-blown QE soon) with home prices and rents still refusing to drop despite mortgage rates peaking around 7%, and overall prices stuck at all time highs, it is not Trump's trade war but year of catastrophic monetary and fiscal policy that will inevitably lead to https://www.apolloacademy.com/is-inflation-coming-back/

right around the time of the midterms (Trump will, of course, do everything in his power to delay the inevitable until at least 2027) and Jerome Powell becoming not the second coming of saint Paul Volcker but of satan Arthur Burns.

?itok=wcyT1zJ0

But even ignoring the impact on prices, one can't just undo almost 20 years of central bank mistakes by willing them away (especially after Elon Musk and DOGE confirmed what we said at the start of the year, namely that the level of corruption and out of control spending is so embedded in every corridor of the US government that it will never be eradicated); after all it is the trillions and trillions in monetary stimulus, the helicopter money, the MMT idiocy, and the endless deficit funding by central banks that sent gold and silver into the clearest red alert warning yet that hyperinflation and a fiat collapse is looming, and that the current attempt to stuff 15 years of toothpaste back into the tube, will be a catastrophic disaster.

We are confident, however, that in the end it will be the very final backstoppers of the status quo regime, the central banking emperors of the New Normal, who will again be revealed as completely naked. When that happens and what happens after is anyone's guess. But, as we have promised - and delivered - every year for the past 17, we will be there to document every aspect of it.

Finally, and as always, we wish all our readers the best of luck in 2026, with much success in trading and every other avenue of life. We bid farewell to 2025 with our traditional and unwavering year-end promise: ZeroHedge will be there each and every day - usually with a cynical smile (and with the https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-coronavirus-pandemic-health-moscow-media-ff4a56b7b08bcdc6adaf02313a85edd9

) - helping readers expose, unravel and comprehend the fallacy, fiction, fraud and farce that defines every aspect of our increasingly broken economic, political and financial system.

?itok=emibFti5

https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Wed, 12/31/2025 - 13:40

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/2025-greatest-hits-most-popular-articles-past-year-and-look-ahead

https://substack.com/@drwojakmd/note/c-193410873?r=4olymw

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbCod086Uy1oW2E0XzWGM90A4OeGOrOYN&si=2C_jzS4axOuzPP5e

enjoy

With Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna in discussions with other members of Congress about https://www.zerohedge.com/political/stunner-doj-finds-million-more-epstein-documents-will-take-weeks-review

, with a goal of hammering out the mass-review between January 5 and 23. Until now, the DOJ has had almost 200 lawyers from the National Security Division reviewing the files.

Of course, these extra lawyers being recruited into the project have other responsibilities, so the expectation is that they'll allocate three to five hours a day to the Epstein files. Volunteers will be enticed with time-off awards along with the option to work the Epstein project remotely.

.https://twitter.com/AGPamBondi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

’s most egregious violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act is not that she ignores the deadline…

it’s that she’s redacting names of accused sex offenders AND internal communications about decisions, wrongly citing old rules that are overridden by new law. https://t.co/LDOmC2emho

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/2005326847350132989?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Last week, DOJ said it had discovered more than a https://www.zerohedge.com/political/stunner-doj-finds-million-more-epstein-documents-will-take-weeks-review

more documents with potential links to the Epstein cases. Seeking to fend off criticism, the DOJ said:

“We have lawyers working around the clock to review and make the legally required redactions to protect victims, and we will release the documents as soon as possible. Due to the mass volume of material, this process may take a few more weeks."

The threat of contempt isn't the only form of heat Bondi and the Trump administration are facing. On Christmas Eve, a group of 12 senators sent a https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/20251224lettertodojoigonepsteinreleasefinal.pdf

to DOJ Acting Inspector General Don Berthiaume demanding an audit of the DOJ's handling of the Epstein files.

Beyond pointing to the failure to meet the Dec. 19 deadline, the senators said the huge number of redactions in the released documents have raised "serious questions as to whether the Department is properly applying the limited exceptions for redaction that are permitted under the Act. Any withholding or redaction beyond those specified circumstances is against the law."

Does anyone really believe that Epstein and Maxwell were the only wrongdoers in this vast, sordid saga?

https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Wed, 12/31/2025 - 13:00

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dojs-inventory-unreleased-epstein-files-soars-52-million-pages

"While military options still exist, the focus is to first use economic pressure by enforcing sanctions to reach the outcome the White House is looking (for)," a US official told https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/white-house-orders-us-forces-focus-quarantine-venezuela-2025-12-24/

earlier this month.

The oil tanker Bella 1 is fleeing U.S. forces after the U.S. Coast Guard tried to intercept it in the Caribbean.

During the pursuit, the crew painted a Russian flag on the ship and now claim Russian status.

The tanker is under U.S. sanctions for carrying Iranian oil and was… https://t.co/WOAMA35aRp

— Clash Report (@clashreport) https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/2006083791706525874?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

"The efforts so far have put tremendous pressure on Maduro, and the belief is that by late January, Venezuela will be facing an economic calamity unless it agrees to make significant concessions to the U.S," the U.S. official told Reuters.

According to analytics firm Kpler, Caracas has shipped nearly 900,000 barrels per day this year and relies on 400 dark-fleet tankers to transport the crude, much of which is bound for China.

https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden

Wed, 12/31/2025 - 12:15

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/crew-paints-russian-flag-iran-linked-tanker-avoid-us-seizure

https://open.substack.com/pub/olivieromannucci/p/the-mystic-scientific-method-faces?r=43nbaq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true