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Monday, June 30, 2025

Ultra-Processed Foods Linked To Brain Changes That Drive Overeating

by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Ultra-processed foods (UPF) may be literally rewiring your brain to make you overeat, according to research that examined brain scans from nearly 30,000 middle-aged adults and found structural changes in regions that control hunger and food cravings.

“We present evidence that eating UPFs increases several nutrient and metabolic markers of disease and is associated with structural brain changes in areas that regulate eating behavior,” the study authors wrote.

Key Brain Changes Identified

The research, recently published in Nature, found that people who consumed more UPFs showed measurable differences in brain areas involved in feeding behavior, emotion, and motivation.

Higher UPF intake was linked to increased thickness in the bilateral lateral occipital cortex—a brain region crucial for visual object recognition and processing shapes. This finding suggests changes in how the brain processes visual food cues.

Our findings indicate that a high consumption of ultra-processed foods is associated with structural changes in brain regions regulating eating behaviour, such as the hypothalamus, amygdala and right nucleus accumbens. This may lead to a cycle of overeating,” Arsène Kanyamibwa, the study’s first author and doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, said in a press statement.

The study also uncovered a potential biological mechanism behind these brain changes. Researchers found that increased UPF intake was associated with higher levels of systemic inflammation and risky metabolic markers in the blood, including C-reactive protein (CRP), an indicator of inflammation; triglycerides; and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c). High levels of CRP, triglycerides, and HbA1c are often considered concerning indicators of potential health issues.

Unsurprising Findings, Expert Says

The findings “don’t surprise me one bit,” said Dr. Joseph Mercola, a board-certified family physician and author of “Your Guide to Cellular Health,” who was not involved in the study.

He pointed to previous research showing that just five days of eating ultra-processed foods can “short-circuit” insulin signaling in the brain. This matters because insulin isn’t only a blood sugar hormone, he noted. “It’s literally the delivery service that shuttles glucose, your cells’ preferred fuel, to where it’s needed most—your brain.”

The brain needs insulin for energy—it uses 20 percent of the body’s energy despite making up just 2 percent of its weight—so when insulin can’t do its job, the brain’s appetite control centers run on fumes, Mercola said.

UPFs are designed to be “hyper-palatable“ with combinations of sugar, fat, and salt that rapidly stimulate dopamine-driven reward pathways, encouraging repeated consumption.

Mercola added that this breakdown wrecks our ability to feel full, curb cravings, and make solid dietary decisions. “On top of that, ultra-processed foods light up dopamine pathways much like addictive drugs, creating powerful ‘eat more’ signals.”

Direct Brain Effects

The researchers noted that UPFs, which contain chemically modified ingredients and additives like emulsifiers, might change the brain through pathways independent of obesity. Emulsifiers may affect the brain by disrupting neurotransmitters, causing neuroinflammation, and altering gut microbiota.

The study controlled for factors including nutrient content, socioeconomic status, physical activity, smoking, and alcohol use.

The finding challenges the idea that obesity is just about eating too many calories, Avery Zenker, a registered dietitian at MyHealthTeam and EverFlex Fitness who holds a master’s degree in nutrition and was not involved in the study, told The Epoch Times. The study highlights how additives and food processing affect the brain in a way that promotes overeating.

“A calorie is a calorie, but the type of food it’s sourced from plays a significant role in how we eat and how much we eat,” Zenker said. “I think it’s also validating for people to hear that, if they feel out of control around ultra-processed foods, there’s nothing wrong with them.”

Ultra-processed foods are defined by the NOVA classification system as industrial formulations containing ingredients not typically used in home cooking, such as high-fructose corn syrup, oils, salt, stabilizers, antioxidants, and various chemical additives.

Growing Body of Evidence

The researchers note that their findings, in addition to previous studies, suggest it’s time for regulatory action.

One of these studies, involving more than 114,000 American adults and published last year in The BMJ, found UPF consumption—specifically processed meats, sugary breakfast foods, and sugar or artificially sweetened beverages—was linked to a 4 percent higher risk of all-cause mortality and an 8 percent higher risk of death from neurodegenerative diseases.

Given the growing body of evidence, reducing ultra-processed food intake and strengthening regulatory standards in food manufacturing may be crucial steps toward ensuring better public health outcomes,” Kanyamibwa said.

Zenker said the new study is consistent with much of the existing research on ultra-processed foods.

“While past research has consistently linked UPFs to health conditions like obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease,” she said, “This study goes further by exploring direct structural changes in the brain, particularly in regions related to reward, hunger, and self-regulation.”

Zenker noted that UPFs are often high in sugar, sodium, fat, and carbohydrates, and low in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. “We know that this combination tends to be associated with unfavorable health outcomes.”

The researchers acknowledged limitations in their study, noting that while they found associations between UPF consumption and brain changes, they cannot definitively prove causation. The effect sizes were also relatively small.

“Given the observational nature of the study, we cannot exclude the fact that food processing is only part of the equation,” the study authors wrote. Kanyamibwa said that proving causation will require “further longitudinal or experimental evidence.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/ultra-processed-foods-linked-brain-changes-drive-overeating

China’s Home Prices Fall Faster as Officials Pledge Support

 


China’s new-home prices fell the most in seven months in May, underscoring why senior government officials are renewing pledges to revive the property market.

New-home prices in 70 cities, excluding state-subsidized housing, dropped 0.22% from April, when they slid 0.12%, National Bureau of Statistics figures showed Monday. Values of used homes fell 0.5%, the sharpest decline in eight months.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-16/china-home-prices-fall-at-faster-pace-as-officials-vow-support

'Goldman Sachs expects Fed to deliver three rate cuts in 2025'

 Goldman Sachs expects the U.S. Federal Reserve to deliver three quarter-point interest rate cuts this year, the Wall Street brokerage said on Monday, citing muted tariff effects and labor market weakness.

It expects three consecutive 25-basis-point cuts in September, October and December, against its earlier forecast of a single reduction in December.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/goldman-sachs-expects-fed-to-deliver-three-rate-cuts-in-2025/ar-AA1HJl14

'Iran-linked hackers threaten to release Trump aides' emails'

 Iran-linked hackers have threatened to disclose more e-mails stolen from US President Donald Trump’s circle, after distributing a previous batch to the media ahead of the 2024 US election.

In online chats with Reuters on June 29 and June 30, the hackers, who go by the pseudonym Robert, said they had roughly 100GB of e-mails from the accounts of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Mr Trump’s lawyer Lindsey Halligan, Mr Trump’s adviser Roger Stone and porn star-turned-Trump antagonist Stormy Daniels.

Robert raised the possibility of selling the material but otherwise did not provide details of their plans.

The hackers did not describe the content of the e-mails.

US Attorney-General Pam Bondi described the intrusion as “an unconscionable cyber attack”.

The White House and the FBI responded with a statement from FBI Director Kash Patel, who said: “Anyone associated with any kind of breach of national security will be fully investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” 

“This so-called cyber ‘attack’ is nothing more than digital propaganda, and the targets are no coincidence. This is a calculated smear campaign meant to damage President Trump and discredit honourable public servants who serve our country with distinction,” cyber defence agency Cisa said in a post on X.

Ms Halligan, Mr Stone and a representative for Ms Daniels did not respond to requests for comment.

Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Tehran has in the past denied committing cyber espionage. 

Robert materialised in the final months of the 2024 presidential campaign, when they claimed to have breached the e-mail accounts of several Trump allies, including Ms Wiles. 

The hackers then distributed e-mails to journalists.

Reuters previously authenticated some of the leaked material, including an e-mail that appeared to document a financial arrangement between Mr Trump and lawyers representing former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, now Mr Trump's health secretary.

Other materials included Trump campaign communication about Republican office-seekers and discussion of settlement negotiations with Ms Daniels.

Although the leaked documents did garner some coverage in 2024, they did not fundamentally alter the presidential race, which Mr Trump won. 

The US Justice Department in a September 2024 indictment alleged that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards ran the Robert hacking operation.

In conversations with Reuters, the hackers declined to address the allegation. 

After Mr Trump’s election, Robert told Reuters that no more leaks were planned.

As recently as May, the hackers told Reuters, “I am retired, man.”

But the group resumed communication after June’s 12-day air war between Israel and Iran, which was capped by US bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites

In messages this week, Robert said they were organising a sale of stolen e-mails and wanted Reuters to “broadcast this matter”.  

American Enterprise Institute scholar Frederick Kagan, who has written about Iranian cyber espionage, said Tehran suffered serious damage in the conflict and its spies were likely trying to retaliate in ways that did not draw more US or Israeli action.

“A default explanation is that everyone’s been ordered to use all the asymmetric stuff that they can that’s not likely to trigger a resumption of major Israeli/US military activity,” he said. “Leaking a bunch more e-mails is not likely to do that.”

Despite worries that Tehran could unleash digital havoc, Iran’s hackers took a low profile during the conflict.

US cyber officials warned on June 30 that American companies and critical infrastructure operators might still be in Tehran’s crosshairs.

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/iran-linked-hackers-threaten-to-release-trump-aides-emails

'China Enlists Commercial Insurers in Bid to Boost Local Biotechs'

 


China wants commercial insurance firms to invest in the development of homegrown medicines, Beijing’s latest bid to support its burgeoning biotech and pharmaceutical sector.

Commercial insurers have been encouraged to set up investment funds to provide long-term financing and “patience capital” to nurture the creation of innovative drugs, according to a document released Tuesday by China’s National Health Security Administration, which overseas its state medical insurance fund.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-01/china-enlists-commercial-insurers-in-bid-to-boost-local-biotechs

The Coward's Bargain

 by Josh Stylman via The Brownstone Institute,

Everyone’s Afraid to Speak

Someone our family has known forever recently told my sister that they’ve been reading my Substack and that if they wrote the things I write, people would call them crazy. I got a kick out of that—not because it’s untrue, but because it reveals something darker about where we’ve ended up as a society. Most people are terrified of being themselves in public.

My sister’s response made me laugh: “People do call him crazy. He simply doesn’t care.” The funniest part is that I don’t even write the craziest stuff I research—just the stuff I can back up with sources and/or my own personal observations. I always try to stay rooted in logic, reason, and facts, though—I’m clear when I’m speculating and when I’m not.

This same guy has sent me dozens of private messages over the last 4 or 5 years challenging me on stuff I share online. I’ll respond with source material or common sense, and then—crickets. He disappears. If I say something he doesn’t want to hear, he vanishes like a child covering his ears. Over the last few years, I’ve been proven right about most of what we’ve argued about, and he’s been wrong. But it doesn’t matter—he’s got the memory of a gnat and the pattern never changes.

But he’d never make that challenge publicly, never risk being seen engaging with my arguments where others might witness the conversation. This kind of private curiosity paired with public silence is everywhere—people will engage with dangerous ideas in private but never risk being associated with them publicly. It’s part of that reflexive “That can’t be true” mindset that shuts down inquiry before it can even begin.

But he’s not alone. We’ve created a culture where wrongthink is policed so aggressively that even successful, powerful people whisper their doubts like they’re confessing crimes.

I was on a hike last year with a very prominent tech VC. He was telling me about his son’s football team—how their practices kept getting disrupted because their usual field on Randall’s Island was now being used to house migrants. He leaned in, almost whispering: “You know, I’m a liberal, but maybe the people complaining about immigration have a point.” Here’s a guy who invests mountains of money into companies that shape the world we live in, and he’s afraid to voice a mild concern about policy in broad daylight. Afraid of his own thoughts.

After I spoke out against vaccine mandates, a coworker told me he totally agreed with my position—but he was angry that I’d said it. When the company didn’t want to take a stand, I told them I would speak as an individual—on my own time, as a private citizen. He was pissed anyway. In fact, he was scolding me about the repercussions to the company. What’s maddening is that this same person had enthusiastically supported the business taking public stands on other, more politically fashionable causes over the years. Apparently, using your corporate voice was noble when it was fashionable. Speaking as a private citizen became dangerous when it wasn’t.

Another person told me that they agreed with me but wished they were “more successful like me” so they could afford to speak out. They had “too much to lose.” The preposterousness of this is staggering. Everyone who spoke out during Covid sacrificed—financially, reputationally, socially. I sacrificed plenty myself.

But I’m no victim. Far from it. Since I was a young man, I’ve never measured achievement by finance or status—my benchmark for being a so-called successful person was owning my own time. Ironically, getting myself canceled was actually a springboard to that. For the first time in my life, I felt I’d achieved time ownership. Whatever I’ve achieved came from being raised by loving parents, working hard, and having the spine to follow convictions rationally. Those attributes, coupled with some great fortune, are the reason for whatever success I’ve had—they’re not the reason I can speak now. Maybe this person should do some inward searching about why they’re not more established. Maybe it’s not about status at all. Maybe it’s about integrity.

This is the adult world we’ve built—one where courage is so rare that people mistake it for privilege, where speaking your mind is seen as a luxury only the privileged can afford, rather than a fundamental requirement for actually becoming established.

And this is the world we’re handing to our children.

We Built the Surveillance State for Them

I remember twenty years ago, my best friend’s wife (who’s also a dear friend) was about to hire someone when she decided to check the candidate’s Facebook first. The woman had posted: “Meeting the whores at [company name]”—referring to my friend and her coworkers. My friend immediately withdrew the offer. I remember thinking this was absolutely terrible judgment on the candidate’s part; however, it was dangerous territory we were entering: the notion of living completely in public, where every casual comment becomes permanent evidence.

Now that danger has metastasized into something unrecognizable. We’ve created a world where every stupid thing a fifteen-year-old says gets archived forever. Not just on their own phones, but screenshot and saved by peers who don’t understand they’re building permanent files on each other—even on platforms like Snapchat that promise everything disappears. We’ve eliminated the possibility of a private adolescence—and adolescence is supposed to be private, messy, experimental. It’s the laboratory where you figure out who you are by trying on terrible ideas and throwing them away.

But laboratories require the freedom to fail safely. What we’ve built instead is a system where every failed experiment becomes evidence in some future trial.

Think about the dumbest thing you believed at sixteen. The most embarrassing thing you said at thirteen. Now imagine that moment preserved in high definition, timestamped, and searchable. Imagine it surfacing when you’re 35 and running for school board, or just trying to move past who you used to be.

If there was a record of everything I did when I was sixteen, I would have been unemployable. Come to think of it, I’m way older than that now and I’m unemployable anyway—but the truth still stands. My generation might have been the last to fully enjoy an analog existence as children. We got to be stupid privately, to experiment with ideas without permanent consequences, to grow up without every mistake being archived for future use against us.

I remember teachers threatening us with our “permanent record.” We laughed—some mysterious file that would follow us forever? Turns out they were just early. Now we’ve built those records and handed the recording devices to children. Companies like Palantir have turned this surveillance into a sophisticated business model.

We’re asking children to have adult judgment about consequences they can’t possibly understand. A thirteen-year-old posting something stupid isn’t thinking about college applications or future careers. They’re thinking about right now, today, this moment—which is exactly how thirteen-year-olds are supposed to think. But we’ve built systems that treat childhood immaturity as a prosecutable offense.

The psychological toll is staggering. Imagine being fourteen and knowing that anything you say might be used against you by people you haven’t met yet, for reasons you can’t anticipate, at some unknown point in the future. That’s not adolescence—that’s a police state built out of smartphones and social media.

The result is a generation that’s either paralyzed by self-consciousness or completely reckless because they figure they’re already screwed. Some retreat into careful blandness, crafting personas so sanitized they might as well be corporate spokespeople for their own lives. Others go scorched earth—if everything’s recorded anyway, why hold back? As my friend Mark likes to say, there’s Andrew Tate and then there’s a bunch of incels—meaning the young men either become performatively brash and ridiculous, or they retreat entirely. The young women seem to either drift toward fearful conformity or embrace monetized exposure on platforms like OnlyFans. We’ve managed to channel an entire generation’s rebellion into the very systems designed to exploit them.

The Covid Conformity Test

This is how totalitarian thinking takes root—not through jackbooted thugs, but through a million small acts of self-censorship. When a venture capitalist whispers his concerns about immigration policy like he’s confessing to a thought crime. When successful professionals agree with dissenting views privately but would never defend them publicly. When speaking obvious truths becomes an act of courage rather than basic citizenship.

George Orwell understood this perfectly. In 1984, the Party’s greatest achievement wasn’t forcing people to say things they didn’t believe—it was making them afraid to believe things they weren’t supposed to say. “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake,” O’Brien explains to Winston. “We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power.” But the real genius was making citizens complicit in their own oppression, turning everyone into both prisoner and guard.

History shows us how this works in practice. The Stasi in East Germany didn’t just rely on secret police—they turned ordinary citizens into informants. By some estimates, one in seven East Germans was reporting on their neighbors, friends, even family members. The state didn’t need to watch everyone; they got people to watch each other. But the Stasi had limitations: they could recruit informants, but they couldn’t monitor everyone simultaneously, and they couldn’t instantly broadcast transgressions to entire communities for real-time judgment.

Social media solved both problems. Now we have total surveillance capability—every comment, photo, like, and share automatically recorded and searchable. We have instant mass distribution—one screenshot reaching thousands in minutes. We have volunteer enforcement—people eagerly participating in calling out “wrongthink” because it feels righteous. And we have permanent records—unlike Stasi files locked in archives, digital mistakes follow you forever.

The psychological impact is exponentially worse because Stasi informants at least had to make a conscious choice to report someone. Now the reporting happens automatically—the infrastructure is always listening, always recording, always ready to be weaponized by anyone with a grudge or a cause.

We saw this machinery in full operation during Covid. Remember how quickly “two weeks to flatten the curve” became orthodoxy? How questioning lockdowns, mask mandates, or vaccine efficacy wasn’t just wrong—it was dangerous? How saying “maybe we should consider the trade-offs of closing schools” could get you labeled a grandma-killer? The speed at which dissent became heresy was breathtaking.

History has shown us that governments can be terrible to citizens. The hardest pill to swallow was the horizontal policing. Your neighbors, coworkers, friends, and family members became the enforcement mechanism. People didn’t just comply; they competed—virtue-signaling their way into a collective delusion where asking basic questions about cost-benefit analysis became evidence of moral deficiency. Neighbors called police on neighbors for having too many people over. People photographed “violations” and posted them online for mass judgment.

And the most insidious part? The people doing the policing genuinely believed they were the good guys. They thought they were protecting society from dangerous misinformation, not realizing they had become the misinformation—that they were actively suppressing the kind of open inquiry that’s supposed to be the foundation of both science and democracy.

The Ministry of Truth didn’t need to rewrite history in real time. Facebook and Twitter did it for them, memory-holing inconvenient posts and banning users who dared to share pre-approved scientific studies that happened to reach unapproved conclusions. The Party didn’t need to control the past—they just needed to control what you were allowed to remember about it.

This wasn’t an accident or an overreaction. This was a stress test of how quickly a free society could be transformed into something unrecognizable, and we failed spectacularly. Anyone who actually followed the science understood that the only pandemic was one of cowardice. Worse, most people didn’t even notice we were being tested. They thought they were just “following the science”—never mind that the data kept changing to match the politics, or that questioning anything had somehow become heretical.

The beautiful thing about this system is that it’s self-sustaining. Once you’ve participated in the mob mentality, once you’ve policed your neighbors and canceled your friends and stayed silent when you should have spoken up, you become invested in maintaining the fiction that you were right all along. Admitting you were wrong isn’t just embarrassing—it’s an admission that you participated in something monstrous. So instead, you double down. You disappear when confronted with inconvenient facts.

Raising Prisoners

And this brings us back to the children. They’re watching all of this. But more than that—they’re growing up inside this surveillance infrastructure from birth. The Stasi’s victims at least had some years of normal psychological development before the surveillance state kicked in. These kids never get that. They’re born into a world where every thought might be public, every mistake permanent, every unpopular opinion potentially life-destroying.

The psychological impact is devastating. Research shows that children who grow up under constant surveillance—even well-meaning parental surveillance—show higher rates of anxiety, depression, and what psychologists call “learned helplessness.” They never develop internal locus of control because they never get to make real choices with real consequences. But this goes far deeper than helicopter parenting.

The ability to hold unpopular opinions, to think through problems independently, to risk being wrong—these aren’t just nice-to-haves. They’re core to psychological maturity. When you eliminate those possibilities, you don’t just get more compliant people; you get people who literally can’t think for themselves anymore. They outsource their judgment to the crowd because they never developed their own.

We’re creating a generation of psychological cripples—people who are practiced at reading social cues and adjusting their thoughts accordingly, but who have never learned to form independent judgments. People who mistake consensus for truth and popularity for virtue. People who have been so thoroughly trained to avoid wrong-think that they’ve either lost—or never developed—the capacity for original thought entirely.

But here’s what’s most disturbing: the kids are learning this behavior from us. They’re watching adults who whisper their real thoughts, who agree privately but stay silent publicly, who confuse strategic silence with wisdom. They’re learning that authenticity is dangerous, that having real convictions is a luxury they can’t afford. They’re learning that truth is negotiable, that principles are disposable, and that the most important skill in life is reading the room and adjusting your thoughts accordingly.

The feedback loop is complete: adults model cowardice, children learn that genuine expression is risky, and everyone becomes practiced at self-censorship rather than self-examination. We’ve created a society where the Overton window isn’t just narrow—it’s actively policed by people who are terrified of stepping outside it, even when they privately disagree with its boundaries.

This is the architecture of soft totalitarianism. Just the constant, gnawing fear that saying the wrong thing—or even thinking it too loudly—will result in social death. The beauty of this system is that it makes everyone complicit. Everyone has something to lose, so everyone stays quiet. Everyone remembers what happened to the last person who spoke up, so nobody wants to be next.

The technology doesn’t just enable this tyranny; it makes it psychologically inevitable. When the infrastructure punishes independent thinking before it can fully form, you get psychological arrested development on a mass scale.

It’s already baked into education and employment through DEI and ESG. Wait till it’s baked into the monetary system. Maybe they’re just connecting us to the Borg anyway?

We’re passing this pathology down to our children like a genetic disorder. Except this disorder isn’t inherited—it’s enforced. And unlike genetic disorders, this one serves a purpose: it creates a population that’s easy to control, easy to manipulate, easy to lead around by the nose as long as you control the social rewards and punishments.

The Price of Truth

I don’t share my opinions because I “get away with it”—I don’t get away with anything. I’ve paid socially, professionally, and even financially. But I do it anyway because the alternative is spiritual death. The alternative is becoming someone who messages critics privately but never takes a public stand, someone who’s perpetually annoyed by others’ courage but never exercises their own.

The difference isn’t ability or privilege. It’s willingness. I’m open-minded and open-hearted. I can be convinced of anything—but show me, don’t tell me. I’m willing to be wrong, willing to change my mind when new information comes to light or I gain a different perspective on an idea, willing to defend ideas I believe in even when it’s uncomfortable.

There are a lot of us right now realizing that something isn’t right—that we’ve been lied to about everything. We’re trying to make sense of what we’re seeing, asking uncomfortable questions, connecting dots that don’t want to be connected. When we call that out, the last thing we need is people who haven’t done the work standing in our way, carrying water for the establishment forces that are manipulating them.

Most people could do the same thing if they chose to—they just don’t choose to because they’ve been trained to see conviction as dangerous and conformity as safe.

A 2020 Cato Institute survey found that 62% of Americans say the political climate prevents them from sharing their political beliefs because others might find them offensive. Majorities of Democrats (52%), independents (59%), and Republicans (77%) all agree they have political opinions they are afraid to share.

When adults who lived through Covid saw what happens when groupthink becomes gospel—how quickly independent thought gets labeled dangerous, how thoroughly dissent gets suppressed—many responded not by becoming more committed to free expression, but by becoming more careful about what they express. They learned the wrong lesson.

What we’re creating is a society where authenticity has become a radical act, where courage is so rare it looks like privilege. We’re raising children who learn that being yourself is dangerous, that having real opinions carries unlimited downside risk. They’re not just careful about what they say—they’re careful about what they think.

This doesn’t create better people. It creates more fearful people. People who mistake surveillance for safety, conformity for virtue, and silence for wisdom. People who’ve forgotten that the point of having thoughts is sometimes to share them, that the point of having convictions is sometimes to defend them.

The solution isn’t to abandon technology or retreat into digital monasteries. But we need to create spaces—legal, social, psychological—where both kids and adults can fail safely. Where mistakes don’t become permanent tattoos. Where changing your mind is seen as growth rather than hypocrisy. Where having convictions is valued over having clean records.

Most importantly, we need adults who are willing to model courage instead of strategic silence—who understand that the price of speaking up is usually less than the price of staying quiet. In a world where everyone’s afraid to say what they think, the honest voice doesn’t just stand out—it stands up.

Because right now, we’re not just living in fear—we’re teaching our children that fear is the price of participation in society. And a society built on fear isn’t a society at all. It’s just a more comfortable prison, one where the guards are ourselves and the keys are our own convictions, which we’ve learned to keep safely locked away.

Whether it’s experimental medicine or the masters of war lying again to drag us into what might become World War III—it’s PSYOP season—it’s never been more important that people find their conviction, use their voice, and become a force for good. If you’re still scared to push back against war propaganda, still getting swept up in manufactured outrage cycles, still choosing your principles based on which team is in power—then you may have learned absolutely nothing from the last few years.

These days, friends are starting to confide in me that maybe I was right about the mRNA vaccines not working. I don’t gloat—in fact, I appreciate the openness. But my standard reply is that they’re four years late to the story. They’ll know they’ve caught up when they realize the world is run by a bunch of satanic pedophiles. And yeah, I used to think that sounded crazy too.

Republished from the author’s Substack

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/cowards-bargain

California energy regulator recommends pause on plan to penalize excess oil profits

 California should pause Gov. Gavin Newsom's plan to penalize oil companies if their profits climb too high, a top energy regulator said Friday while unveiling proposals aimed at addressing high gas prices.

The Democratic governor signed a law in 2023 giving the California Energy Commission the authority to penalize oil companies for excess profits, declaring the state had “finally beat big oil.” More than two years later, the commission hasn't imposed a single penalty or determined what counts as an excessive profit.

Now, Siva Gunda, the energy commission's vice-chair, says the state should pause the effort in favor of pursuing other policies to lower prices and maintain a steady oil supply — all while pushing to phase out reliance on fossil fuels over the next two decades.

“Together, we will evolve California’s strategy to successfully phase out petroleum-based fuels by 2045 while protecting communities, workers, and consumers, and foster market conditions that support the industry’s ability to operate safely, reliably, and successfully to meet demand through the transition,” Gunda wrote in a letter to Newsom.

Gunda's recommended pause of the penalty would have to be agreed upon by the full commission. Newsom has pitched the penalty as a way to rein in profits by oil companies, but critics said it would only raise prices.

California has the highest gas prices in the nation, largely due to taxes and environmental regulations. Regular unleaded gas prices were $4.61 a gallon Friday, compared to a national average of $3.20, according to AAA.

The commission still plans to set rules that would require oil refineries to keep a minimum level of fuel on hand to avoid shortages when refineries go offline for maintenance, Gunda said. That proposal came out of a law Newsom signed last year after convening a special session aimed at preventing gas price spikes.

Gunda's recommendations come months after Newsom in April directed energy regulators to work with refiners on plans to ensure the state maintains a reliable fuel supply as it transitions away from fossil fuels.

Newsom spokesperson Daniel Villaseñor said in an email that the governor would review the recommendations and “advance solutions that maintain a safe, affordable, and reliable supply of transportation fuels for California.”

Two major oil companies announced plans over the past year to shut down refineries in the state, further driving uncertainty about how the state should maintain a stable fuel supply as California transitions toward renewable energy. Phillips 66 announced plans to shut down its Los Angeles-area refinery, and Valero said it would cease operations at its Benicia refinery. The two refineries combined account for more than 17% of the state's refining capacity, according to the energy commission.

A group of about 50 environmental and consumer groups penned a letter to Newsom and legislative leaders Friday criticizing the proposal to pause implementing a penalty on oil company profits.

“California oil refiners do not need a bailout,” they wrote, adding that the state should “finish the job” it started to prevent prices at the pump from spiking.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/california-energy-regulator-recommends-pause-plan-penalize-excess-123292533