Soft drink manufacturer Coca-Cola has been ordered by a court to make billions in payments to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to cover back taxes.
On July 31, the U.S. Tax Court ruled that there were deficiencies in income tax dues payable by Coca-Cola to the IRS for the 2007–09 period to the tune of approximately $2.7 billion. Adding in interest, the total amount payable by Coca-Cola comes to around $6 billion, the company said in an Aug. 2 press release.
Coca-Cola said it will defend its position and criticized the decision, stating “the IRS and the Tax Court misinterpreted and misapplied the applicable regulations involved in the case.”
With 90 days to file a notice of appeal, Coca-Cola intends to pay the roughly $6 billion owed while it proceeds with the appeals process.
The issue stems from a notice sent by the IRS to Coca-Cola in September 2015, in which the agency sought $3.3 billion in additional income tax for 2007–09.
The IRS said in the notice that it would reallocate more than $9 billion in income from the company’s accounts, thus resulting in the tax dues. The soft drinks manufacturer claimed the reallocation violated a previous calculation methodology that was agreed upon by both sides.
The IRS designated the issue for litigation, taking away any alternative means for Coca-Cola to resolve the matter other than by going to court, the firm said.
In 2020, the Tax Court issued an opinion siding with the IRS. Three years later in November 2023, the court issued a second opinion which was also in favor of the tax agency.
“The company believes it will prevail on appeal with respect to the issues raised in both the 2020 and 2023 Tax Court opinions,” Coca-Cola stated.
Transfer Pricing Issue
The 2015 notice sent by the IRS to Coca-Cola was related to transfer pricing, an accounting practice in which goods and services are exchanged between different divisions of the same company. The practice is used by firms to minimize the overall tax burden of the parent company.
In a recent quarterly statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Coca-Cola revealed that the 2015 IRS notice concerned “transfer pricing between its U.S. parent company and certain of its foreign affiliates.”
Back in 1996, the IRS and Coca-Cola agreed on a methodology to determine U.S. taxable income to resolve the transfer pricing issue, the filing said. The agency also audited the company’s compliance with the agreement in five audit cycles between 1996 and 2006.
In the 2015 notice, the IRS “retroactively rejected” this methodology for calculating taxes for 2007–09, introducing an “entirely different methodology without prior notice to the Company.”
It is through the new calculation methods that the IRS reallocated more than $9 billion in income to the U.S. parent company from its foreign licensees, thus resulting in additional taxes.
“The Company believes that the retroactive imposition of such tax liability using a calculation methodology different from that previously agreed upon by the IRS and the Company, and audited by the IRS for over a decade, is unconstitutional,” Coca-Cola argued.
The firm noted that if it wins the appeal, the business should be refunded the approximately $6 billion it plans on paying to the IRS.
The U.S. Tax Court’s decision comes as the IRS announced an initiative back in October that targets transfer pricing practices of American subsidiaries of foreign companies that distribute goods in the United States.
“These foreign companies report losses or exceedingly low margins year after year through the improper use of transfer pricing to avoid reporting an appropriate amount of U.S. profits,” the agency said.
It accused foreign firms of not paying “their fair share of tax on the profit they earn” from U.S. subsidiaries.
The IRS aims to “crack down on this strategy” and is sending compliance alerts to around 150 subsidiaries of large foreign corporations to “reiterate” their tax obligations in America, the agency said at the time.
Bloomberg published article on Friday titled “Ukraine’s Allies Are Worried About the Power of Zelenskiy’s Top Aide”, Andrey Yermak, who’s become the second most powerful person in the country over the past two and a half years and perhaps even more powerful than Zelensky according to some. They cited what’s portrayed as “a common quip among Ukrainians” to claim that “He’s not number one, but he’s not number two either”, thus reinforcing perceptions of him as Ukraine’s grey cardinal.
That’s not unfounded either since the article begins by describing him as “the sole gatekeeper to the president with a direct say in everything from foreign policy to military planning.” Additionally, “Yermak’s rise has been accompanied by the fall of many others near the top — a parliamentary speaker, a central bank governor and his predecessor as chief of staff among them — often at the hands of the top aide”. He also seems to revel in being the power behind the throne and wants everyone to know it.
As Bloomberg phrased it, “His social media profile is replete with one-on-one images of Yermak with Pope Francis, French President Emmanuel Macron and others — often with his boss nowhere in sight. A June 7 post on his Telegram channel showed Yermak shaking hands with US President Joe Biden, while Zelenskiy nearby greeted Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin — a protocol reversal that triggered wry commentary in Kyiv.”
According to their sources, “The power dynamic is a serious matter for NATO allies and international donors — including the European Union and the International Monetary Fund — who have made transparency a benchmark condition for transferring funds.” They apparently worry that “any further tightening among Zelenskiy and his inner circle could sap energy for badly needed reforms — even measures to fight corruption and bolster the rule of law.”
The reality though is that there isn’t sincere concern about transparency and reforms in Ukraine, with this only being the pretext for pressuring Zelensky to not heed Yermak’s advice all that much anymore. That’ll be a challenge though since “He’s been central in every key wartime decision: replacing Zelenskiy’s top general, sourcing weapons supplies, negotiating security guarantees, overseeing prisoner swaps and — at the Swiss summit — winning over the Global South to Kyiv’s cause.”
In any case, this observation raises the question of why the West wants to drive a wedge between these two, whose relationship was compared by unnamed officials to a chief executive officer and chairman, with Yermak playing the first role and Zelensky the second. The context within which Bloomberg’s article was published, which included comments from Yermak himself per an interview that they just conducted with him, involves Ukraine’s latest signals that it might be semi-serious about resuming peace talks.
Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba visited Beijing in late July and then Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko speculated that Zelensky might put the issue of territorial compromises with Russia up to a referendum, both of which were correspondingly analyzed here and here. Zelensky then tacitly confirmed Klitschko’s speculation in an interview with French media last week when he wouldn’t rule out a referendum after saying that the people’s will is required to change the constitution in order to allow such a scenario.
Yermak would be against that though since Bloomberg mentioned that “[his] more recent diplomatic foray has been as the architect of Ukraine’s peace blueprint, which aims to bring allies outside the West on board with Kyiv’s demands to end the war before a negotiation process with a more isolated Russia begins.” Holding a referendum on territorial compromises with Russia and then formally acknowledging the cession of Ukrainian land if it passes would represent the failure of everything that he worked for.
This isn’t conjecture either since Bloomberg reported that “The encounters with Kremlin officials (during his time as Ukraine’s chief negotiator in the Minsk process) earned Yermak a reputation for taking uncompromising positions in the diplomatic process, often viewing the world in black and white, according to people familiar with the discussions with Russian officials.” Simply put, he’s a radical ideologue, and such people are impossible to negotiate with since they flat-out refuse to compromise.
Given his enormous ego as proven by the photos that he shares of himself with world leaders, “often with his boss nowhere in sight” as Bloomberg reminded everyone, it’s possible that he might try to sabotage this process up to the point of potentially trying to replace Zelensky. Regardless of whether or not he tries that, it’s unlikely that he’d let his legacy be lost without going down fighting, and he could cause all sorts of trouble if he really wants to such as encouraging a Neo-Nazi revolt for example.
With this in mind, if the US is finally warming up to the scenario of Ukraine resuming peace talks with Russia as seems to be the case, then it follows that they’d want to preemptively neutralize Yermak’s meddling capability. To that end, it makes sense for unnamed official sources to contribute to a hit piece against him in collaboration with Bloomberg so as to pressure Zelensky into not heeding his advice all that much anymore, particularly regarding any second thoughts that he might have about a referendum.
As “the sole gatekeeper to the president”, who’s so close to Zelensky that he “even used to join the couple on overseas holidays before the war”, his views on the matter can make all the difference. He’s won’t agree to this though since he’s “the architect of Ukraine’s peace blueprint” so that’s why the US is gently making its move ahead of time in order to seed the information space with speculation about his true intentions. This includes implying that he wants to replace Zelensky or already believes that he has.
If Zelensky quietly stops talking about a referendum or starts aggressively pushing back against such proposals, then that would be proof of Yermak’s pernicious influence, let alone if this coincides with another purge that strengthens his position even more than it already is by removing pragmatic figures. As was hinted by Bloomberg, this could be exploited as the pretext for more openly pressuring Zelensky on the grounds that it creates an unfriendly environment for transparency and reforms.
These false bases could then justify withholding debt relief from Ukraine as it approaches bankruptcy, the state of which might be reached sooner than later after Zelensky just passed a law suspending payments to Western creditors for two months in order to avoid defaulting. Money talks, and Ukraine needs it more than ever, so that could be held above his head to get him to go through with holding a referendum in spite of Yermak’s resistance (provided that the West is truly ready for peace, that is).
It’s too early to predict exactly what might happen as regards the timing and details of the aforementioned scenario, but it’s no small matter that a Western Mainstream Media outlet as influential as Bloomberg just published a hit piece about Yermak with all the unsavory details that it included. This strongly suggests that the US at the very least wants to reduce Yermak’s influence over Zelensky, likely with a view towards facilitating the resumption of peace talks, which he fiercely opposes.
Charting The Percentage Of (Real) Women Competing At The Olympic Games (1896–2024)
For the first time ever, an Olympic Games has achieved gender equality. Half of all competing athletes at Paris 2024 are women. But how did we get here?
This chart, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, tracks the share of male and female athletes participating through the Olympic Games over the years.
Data is sourced from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as of 2024.
The Long Road to Olympic Equality
Paris 2024’s achievement comes more than a century after women were first allowed to participate in the games, as it happens, in Paris 1900.
Summer Olympic Games
% Share of Female Athletes
% Share of Male Athletes
1896
0
100
1900
2
98
1904
1
99
1908
2
98
1912
2
98
1920
3
98
1924
4
96
1928
10
90
1932
10
91
1936
8
92
1948
10
91
1952
11
90
1956
13
87
1960
11
89
1964
13
87
1968
14
86
1972
15
85
1976
21
79
1980
22
79
1984
23
77
1988
26
74
1992
29
71
1996
34
66
2000
38
62
2004
42
58
2008
42
58
2012
44
56
2016
46
54
2020
48
52
2024
50
50
Note: Figures rounded.
Back then, only 22 women took part in five sports: tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrian, and golf. They represented roughly 2% of the entire competition. Hélène de Pourtalès, a sailor representing Switzerland, became the first woman Olympic champion.
Since then women’s participation has ticked up slowly. It took until halfway through the 20th century to reach 10%, and then another three decades to cross 20%.
However, in the last four decades especially, the IOC has made a concerted effort to boost women’s participation. In 1976 for example, women were allowed to compete in three new sports: basketball, handball, and rowing. And then in 1991, the IOC mandated that new sports introduced to the Games had to have at least one event for women.
Aside from opening up eligibilities, the IOC also set quotas for National Olympic Committees to meet, and created mixed-gender events.
Beyond just the competition however, women are still underrepresented on the coaching and refereeing side. For example only five sports (tennis, triathlon, canoeing, sailing, and hockey) have achieved gender parity in their judges.
If you enjoyed this article check out Visualizing the Cost of Hosting the Olympics which traces how much countries spent on the event, all the way from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
A new poll about a planned US missile deployment to Germany shows thatmore Germans are opposed to the idea than favor it.
The US recently announced that starting in 2026, it will be deploying missile systems that were previously banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which prohibited land-based missile systems with a range between 310 and 3,400 miles.
The poll, conducted by the Forsa Institute, found that 49% of Germans think the new missile deployment is “not right,” while 45% support the idea. Opposition is stronger among Germans living in states that used to be East Germany, with 74% of them against the plan.
The US announced the deployment in a joint statement with Germany, but German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing opposition to the plan from within his own party and coalition government.
“Not every weapon makes Germany immediately safer,” Rolf Mützenich, the parliamentary leader of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SDP), told Politico. Mützenich previously warned that the “danger of an unintentional military escalation is considerable.”
Senior members of the SDP who are concerned about the deployment said they would call a debate about it in September. “The current debate surrounding the announced stationing of long-range conventional weapons systems in Germany concerns us all,” they said in a note seen by Politico.
The US announced its deployment would include Tomahawk missiles, which are nuclear-capable and have a range of over 1,000 miles. Tomahawks are typically used on US Navy destroyers and submarines since a land-based version was banned by the INF.
The US also said it will send SM-6 missiles to Germany, which signals it’s planning to deploy a Typhon missile system. The Typhon is a covert system concealed in a 40-foot shipping container that can fire Tomahawks and SM-6 missiles. The SM-6 can hit targets up to 290 miles away, below the levels previously banned by the INF.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed Russia will respond to the deployment by ending its moratorium on deploying missiles previously banned by the INF. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said he wouldn’t rule out the idea of Moscow deploying nuclear-armed missiles in response.
In my article ‘Russia Is About To Overrun Ukraine’s Defenses – Why Are There No Peace Negotiations’, published in May, I outlined my reasons for predicting a near term collapse of Ukrainian front line defenses and a sweeping territory grab by Russian forces. Since the early months of the war my primary argument has been that Ukraine is trying to hide steep losses in manpower and that this ruse would eventually be exposed. Bottom line? Wars are won by men, not by DARPA technology and suitcases full of fiat cash.
A year ago mainstream analysts said Ukrainians troops (with NATO’s help) would soon destroy the Russian military and party on the beaches of Crimea. Today, the establishment admits manpower shortages are a reality and they admit Russia is overrunning Ukraine’s defensive positions all over the front. Soon, Russia will control the entirety of the Donbas region and beyond using attrition warfare.
The “experts” have no idea what they’re talking about, or, they’re lying to the public on purpose. Either way their opinions are not to be trusted.
As a student of history (and of military tactics) I can only relate to you what I see with an objective eye. I’m not in Ukraine and not on the front lines looking from both sides (and neither are the experts). I’m not privy to special intel and I don’t have access to the war rooms in Kyiv or the Kremlin (and neither are the experts). My goal here is NOT to break down a play-by-play of the war, I only hope to point out the greater truths being uncovered as the situation unfolds.
The kind of war we are seeing in Ukraine has not been fought by a western military since Korea. When it comes to industrial scale attrition warfare there are NO REAL EXPERTS in NATO still working at the Department of Defense. They don’t exist.
It is here that I want to begin because there are many patriots in the US preparing for what we believe will be widespread internal and external conflagration – Regional wars in multiple nations as well as rebellions here at home. What do the events in Ukraine teach us about the future of war? What classic assumptions have been debunked and what are the odds of success in the new strategic world? Let’s get started…
Maneuver Warfare Is Dying
The core emphasis of maneuver warfare is the use of initiative and surprise; the fast coordination of units to envelop the enemy before he realizes what is happening. It relies on shock and awe to demoralize, the idea being that the enemy can be defeated by chasing him down and using superior technology to render his defensive positions useless (the doctrine of the Vietnam War). It’s hard to say if these tactics ever really worked, but what we know now is that they will not work in future wars.
NATO doctrine in particular is proving to be quite useless. It relies too heavily on minimizing losses to highly trained officers. All maneuver warfare requires finely tuned tactics combined with technological know-how. Once experienced officers are shot down replacing them is difficult. Where Russia might be able to sustain hundreds-of-thousands of casualties, western armies are often broken by a fraction of those losses.
US patriots would do well to remember this. An enemy using maneuver doctrine loses when his best trained soldiers and officers are dead and he cannot coordinate fast attacks. An enemy using attrition doctrine loses when he is required to rush into an attack. Losing resources will force him to rush.
Drones Have Changed Everything
A big game changer is drones: Small cheap air surveillance with 4K cameras that are difficult to counter. Both Russia and NATO are quickly learning the threat these devices represent on the battlefields of Ukraine, and no, I’m not talking about the exploding FPV drones that chase down soldiers. I suspect most of those videos are fake anyway.
The real danger is in constant air based surveillance, 24/7, around the clock, always watching. Maneuver warfare requires the swift relocation of larger units without the enemy being aware; with cheap drones this is no longer possible. All large scale troop movements can be predicted and countered using nothing more than a handful of $3000 toys.
This is why Russia shifted quickly into attrition tactics. Now, they push their front line forward a few hundred yards at a time instead of trying to gain miles of territory in wild offensives. The DoD thinks maneuver tactics are still viable, but in order to successfully maneuver without the enemy’s knowledge you must fully control the skies. With drones, no one controls the skies anymore. It’s a free-for-all.
Infrastructure And Resource Devastation Is More Important Than Killing The Enemy
In 2022 during the Russian pull back many pro-Ukraine pundits cheered, proclaiming the war would soon be over. I warned in multiple articles that Russia was not retreating from the battle, only establishing a more solid front. I also predicted that Russia would immediately begin systematic bombardment of Ukraine’s utility grids. This is exactly what happened less than a month later.
I don’t think many in the west are aware of the level of destruction that has been dealt to Ukraine’s infrastructure. The majority of the country is without power for large parts of the day and the situation is only getting worse. Their water resources are limited at best. Only the grids serving major cities like Kyiv are afforded repair, and these repairs are a band-aid.
Patriots already plan for grid own scenarios, but they should also recognize the value of infrastructure attacks on an enemy that relies heavily on conventional logistics. Ukraine might be brought down, not by invading troops but by failing electricity and lack of clean water.
Smaller, Faster And More Discreet – The Future Of Combat
Interestingly, commanders in Ukraine on both sides are beginning to rely more and more on small units with a limited footprint. The name of the game in war today is “small signature” deployments. This is the use of squads to reduce visual and thermal signature and prevent targeting by drones or artillery. In other words, massive conventional armies are turning to guerrilla tactics as a way to survive and achieve successful strikes on defensive positions.
I could actually foresee an era when wars are ONLY fought using small teams of soldiers, supported by a host of drones and long range ordnance. Tanks are mostly useless now. Traditional air power is being slowly negated. Battalion sized movements are impossible without being quickly countered and even platoon sized elements are identified before they ever reach their destination.
Instead of moving in big groups that are easily targeted the Russians in particular are relying on a flurry of small unit attacks over a wide area using fast transportation (like motorcycles). They hit multiple targets along hundreds of miles of the front, forcing the Ukrainians to stretch out their defenses and resources. Then, they hit a vital area with a larger force once a weakness is identified. This is usually the way in which guerrillas fight; now everyone is doing it.
The Time Of The Guerrilla Is At Hand
The events in Ukraine showcase the many weaknesses of conventional armies. American patriots have been told for decades that any attempt to defend ourselves against an authoritarian government backed by a technologically advanced military machine is pointless. Our “AR15s can’t do anything against an F-16,” right?
We are now discovering the opposite is true. F-16’s are useless to Ukraine. What their soldiers want more than anything right now is more training for recruits, more thermal and night vision devices, more drones, better optics for their rifles and better gear for front line fighters. Jets and tanks are a novelty.
With the proliferation of cheap drones, for the first time ever civilian defense groups now have the ability to put eyes (and advanced weapons) in the sky. They can track larger enemy elements and prevent surprise attacks that anti-insurgent forces rely on. That is to say, guerrillas will still have the element of surprise but traditional forces will not.
Going Underground – The Return Of The Tunnel Rats
Americans first encountered intricate underground defenses in the Pacific Theater during WWII (Okinawa being the most impressive example). We saw them again in North Korea and yet again in Vietnam. In Ukraine the method is starting to become more common.
I would argue that future wars will be launched mainly from underground installations and tunnel systems. Drones rely on exploiting three-dimensional movement and are useless in enclosed spaces. This is a method that patriots need to adopt. Tunnel building will be a mainstay for decades to come.
Every Aspect Of War Will Now Be Televised
As long as the internet is a functional part of everyday life wars will now be recorded on an intimate scale never seen before. Every battle, every tiny movement or firefight, every win and every loss and every casualty will be documented. This means that web-based propaganda will become integral to any war effort.
In other words, governments will seek to implant fake news and fake video footage everywhere. The goal will be to make the fantasy indiscernible from fact and confuse the public on what is actually happening. This condition is brutally apparent in the Ukraine war where at least half the population of the west still thinks Ukraine is “winning.” The more duped the population, the easier it will be to convince them to support ongoing operations and even conscription.
The information war will become more important than the actual war. Patriots will have to understand how to deconstruct propaganda as much as they will have to know how to shoot.
Mapping The Number Of US Billionaires In Each State
The U.S. has the most billionaires in the world by a wide margin, more than twice the number of the next-highest country in the world – China. But where do they all live?
There are 760 billionaires in the U.S., of which 472 (62%) live in just four states: California, New York, Florida, and Texas.
California and New York are the only states with 100+ billionaires. In fact, they also have more billionaires than every other country in the world, except for China.
Rank
State
Billionaires
1
California
186
2
New York
135
3
Florida
78
4
Texas
73
5
Illinois
23
6
Massachusetts
22
7
Georgia
18
8
Pennsylvania
18
9
Nevada
17
10
Connecticut
13
11
Washington
13
12
Colorado
12
13
Washington D.C.*
11
14
Maryland
11
15
Tennessee
11
16
Arizona
11
17
Michigan
11
18
Oklahoma
8
19
Wisconsin
7
20
Missouri
7
21
Virginia
7
22
Ohio
7
23
Wyoming
6
24
Arkansas
6
25
Utah
6
26
North Carolina
6
27
New Jersey
5
28
Montana
4
29
Minnesota
4
30
Nebraska
3
31
Oregon
3
32
Indiana
3
33
Hawaii
2
34
Mississippi
2
35
Kansas
2
36
South Dakota
1
37
Rhode Island
1
38
Maine
1
39
Idaho
1
40
Iowa
1
41
Kentucky
1
42
Louisiana
1
43
South Carolina
1
44
Alabama
1
N/A
Total
760
Fourteen states, led by the aforementioned Florida and Texas, have double-digit billionaire populations. Washington D.C.’s billionaire population is also in the double-digits (11) and because of its size, has the most billionaires per capita.
As of 2023, seven states (Alaska, Delaware, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia) have zero billionaires.
Alabama didn’t have a billionaire until last year when Great Southern Wood founder and CEO James Rane became one. The company is one of the largest in the world for manufacturing pressure-treated wood.
Billionaires are also on the move recently. America’s richest person, Elon Musk (worth $260 billion) lives in Texas, after bidding goodbye to the California in 2020. This year, Jeff Bezos moved to Miami after three decades in Washington, a relocation that could save him $600 million in taxes.
Secessionist inclinations are on the rise in the United States, and are sure to intensify after Nov. 5 regardless of which party prevails. When that happens, you can expect the accompanying discourse will be peppered with assertions that states have no right to secede, with many declaring the question was “settled” by the Civil War.
The embedded contention that legal and moral questions are rightly and permanently settled by the outcome of a mass-murder contest is absurd on its face. However, the notion is so widely and casually embraced that it invites an emphatic response. It also serves as a starting point to address other flawed forms of secession skepticism.
Written by a socialist in 1892, the Pledge of Allegiance attempts to program Americans into internalizing a falsehood: that the United States is “one nation, indivisible.” On that score at least, the deeply-flawed pledge isn’t working on a large number of citizens.
A YouGov poll taken earlier this year found substantial slices of both major parties would support their state’s departure from the union: 29% of Republicans and 21% of Democrats. Similarly, the five states in which secessionist yearning is highest represent a mixed bag of red and blue: Alaska (36%), Texas (31%), California (29%), New York (28%) and Oklahoma (28%). While 23% of all Americans want their state to secede, 28% would be content if other states did so.
For now, the Lone Star State seemingly has the strongest separatist momentum. In a June victory for the Texas Nationalist Movement, the Republican Party of Texas adopted platform planks proclaiming the state’s right to secede, and urging the legislature to arrange a state referendum question on the issue in the next general election. Many other states have secession movements of their own, and this July alone saw the launch of Free Louisiana and NHEXIT Now, the latter representing a rebranded drive for an independent New Hampshire.
It’s only natural that secession interest is highest in some of the reddest and bluest states, where citizens have the most to lose via the imposition of centralized federal dictates that emphatically clash with local preferences. Those anxieties over which party governs Washington, and the animosity between the two principal opposing camps, will only grow as Election Day nears and could skyrocket after the votes are counted.
It shouldn’t be that way: As I wrote in January here at Stark Realities, “the intensity of our division springs from a federal government operating far beyond the limits of the Constitution — fueling a fight for control over powers that were never supposed to exist at the national level.” Sadly, that dynamic isn’t going to change anytime soon, which means secessionist impulses are sure to ratchet up when the returns pour in on Nov. 5. The only question is whether that ratcheting will be strongest in blue or red states.
Either way, you’re sure to hear plenty of social media users, TV pundits and purported experts proclaiming that the question of whether states have the right to leave the union was “solved by the Civil War” — meaning that, since the seceding states’ armies were defeated, the answer is a firm “no.”
As the Mises Institute’s Ryan McMaken wrote in Breaking Away: The Case for Secession, Radical Decentralization and Smaller Polities, “Those who invoke this phrase…are signaling that they believe any attempt at secession justifies military invasion and occupation of separatist territories.” No reasonable person would apply that blanket proscription on foreign peoples, so it’s all the more strange to see Americans apply it to their fellow citizens — particularly when you consider that America is itself the product of secession.
As stated in the Declaration of Independence, “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…whenever any form of government becomes destructive of [inalienable rights], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government.” The idea that the federal government’s conquest of seceding states in the mid-1800s would somehow obliterate that right is as un-American as it is illogical.
Though the Civil War has conditioned many Americans to associate secession with war — and to reflexively recoil from it on that basis — secession is not an inherently violent proposition. Secessionists don’t seek to destroy a government, only to remove themselves from its domain, consistent with their right of self-determination.
As showcased in dozens of separations around the world since 1776, peaceful secession is a gentle remedy for political incompatibility. The determination of whether a secession is peaceful or not is ultimately in the hands of the incumbent central government, and not those who seek to leave its control.
Some Americans struggle to approach the secession question with intellectual honesty because their thinking is fogged by feelings of vindication associated with the Civil War — feelings compounded by the widespread myth that the war was entirely about slavery and was therefore nothing less than a battle between good and evil.
To many, the very idea of secession is associated with sinister motives, even though the United States and many other countries came into being via secession, with no malicious intent.
Looking back to the run-up to the Civil War, slavery-abolitionists themselves championed secession, pushing for northern states to abandon the union. They sought not only to distance their states from slavery, but to undermine the institution by negating northern states’ legal obligation to send runaway slaves back to their masters.
This flag, circa 1861, centers on a slogan of northern abolitionists who promoted secession to distance free states from slave states
Not that long before launching his war of choice that killed upwards of 850,000 soldiers and civilians for the paramount purpose of preserving the union, Abraham Lincoln himself vigorously endorsed the universal right of secession in an 1848 speech:
“Any people anywhere…have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better…Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”
Venturing beyond the paper-thin “might makes right” Civil War argument, secession skeptics also point to the Supreme Court’s 1869 ruling in Texas v White. Though that case centered on a dry financial issue, it hinged on whether Texas was still part of the United States even after it declared its secession.
In a 5-3 decision, the court asserted that Texas had never really left the union because neither it nor any other state has the power to do so. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice Salmon Chase — a Lincoln appointee who may have been inclined to affirm the justness of the astoundingly bloody Civil War four years after it ended — wrote:
“The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.”
To justify that conclusion, Chase embraced the fiction that the United States is a monolithic entity, one that vaguely “began among the colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations.”
Chase’s opinion places great weight on the Constitution-preceding Articles of Confederation’s statement that “the union shall be perpetual.” His argument also relies heavily on the Constitution’s preamble, which refers to the states’ desire to form a “more perfect union.”
Through mere juxtaposition of the two phrases, Chase would have you believe that a supposedly indestructible, one-nation monolith created under the Articles of Confederation (it wasn’t) was merely given a polish by the Constitution, rather than a complete reformation that required each state to affirmatively accede to the new arrangement. The Texas Nationalist Movement has concisely skewered Chase’s short-circuiting rationale:
To reinforce his belief that the United States was a “perpetual union,” he had to assert the ludicrous argument that the United States Constitution was merely an amending document to the previous Articles of Confederation, citing the Preamble to the Constitution. He then had to ignore that it only took 9 States of the original 13 to ratify the Constitution of 1787 and that, had less than 13 States ratified, it would have destroyed the “perpetual union” allegedly created by the Articles of Confederation.
As with so many other cases in the high court’s history, Texas v White was wrongly decided. However, even those who credit the decision must acknowledge that it left the secession door cracked ajar: In the passage quoted above, Chase offered an avenue of Supreme Court-sanctioned secession via “consent of the states,” though it’s unclear how that would be put into practice.
Others who attempt to deny states’ right of secession point to the Constitution’s lack of a provision for a parting of ways. For example, while campaigning for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, former South Carolina Governor Nicky Haley said, “Texas has talked about seceding for a long time. The Constitution doesn’t allow for that.”
While the Constitution doesn’t address secession, it does have a provision that implicitly grants that power to the states. According to the 10th Amendment, “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Since the Constitution does not expressly deny the states of that power (nor delegate it to the central government), secession is reserved to the states.
Even by itself, the word “delegated” further substantiates states’ right to secede, by underscoring that the United States was formed as a compact of independent states — with “states” used in a sense that puts Pennsylvania on par with Mexico or France. Those sovereign states created the federal government to serve them, only granting the new entity powers that James Madison described as “few and defined,” while the states retained powers that were “numerous and indefinite.”
“Delegated” validates that the states are rightly the masters of the federal government they created, and should therefore be free to voluntarily exit the compact just as they voluntarily entered it. As historian Brion McClanahan argued in a 2015 speech, “Sovereignty can be delegated, but a delegation assumes the ability to rescind that power.”
Speaking on the Constitution’s 50th anniversary, former president and statesman John Quincy Adams said:
“If the day should ever come, (may Heaven avert it,) when the affections of the people of these states shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal spirit shall give away to cold indifference, or collisions of interest shall fester into hatred…far better will it be for the people of the disunited states to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint.”
One can debate whether the conditions Adams dreaded have fully descended or are merely imminent. Either way, when one also considers that the federal government is not only operating far beyond the bounds of the Constitution, but is also $35 trillion in debt and on an autopilot course for insolvency, the case for peaceful American secessions has never been stronger.
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Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe at starkrealities.substack.com
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.
These Are The World’s Largest Silver-Producing Companies
Silver is one of the world’s most precious metals, holding an important position as a tradeable commodity and an essential part of many industrial processes and necessary technologies such as the next-generation photovoltaics helping power the transition to clean energy.
In 2023, silver mining companies collectively produced 831 million ounces of silver with the top 20 companies contributing 43% of that total—371 million ounces.
Here’s how this breaks down on a per-company basis:
*Polymetal Intl. changed its name to Solidcore Resources following an acquisition in June 2024
North America is home to 11 of the world’s top 20 silver mining companies, including Mexican company Fresnillo, which produced the most silver last year, at 54 million ounces.
Silver Industry Trends
Global production of silver dropped by 1% between 2022 and 2023, mainly driven by industry events that disrupted production, impacting several key silver-producing nations.
For example, between Q2 and Q3 of 2023, industrial action saw the suspension of the Newmont Peñasquito mine, and Argentina, as a whole, produced a lower grade of silver than expected in 2023.
However, many companies in smaller silver producers, such as Chile, have partially offset this loss through increased production.
Silver in 2024
Despite the challenges, there is hope for a potential production recovery from Mexican and U.S. mines in 2024. However, The Silver Institute expects total output from silver mining companies to fall by less than 1% again in 2024, with forecasts predicting an output of approximately 824 million ounces.
This expected production fall can be attributed to a drop in local production in Peru, where many productive mines have been temporarily closed.
Social media went a little bonkers last week when an interview of Texas Children’s Hospital’s Dr. Peter Hotez began circulating with the Big Pharma insider calling for the United Nations and NATO to deploy security forces against “anti-vaxxers” in the United States. Dr. Hotez’s statements first appeared on the YouTube channel of an international pediatric conference that took place in Colombia, but the interview then jumped onto X.
In clips of Hotez’s interview that continue to circulate on X, he claims “anti-vaxxers” caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in the United States. I uploaded one clip to my YouTube channel which you can watch here:
What I’ve said to the Biden administration is, the health sector can’t solve this on its own. We’re going to have to bring in Homeland Security, the Commerce Department, Justice Department to help us understand how to do this.
I’ve said the same with…I met with [WHO general director] Dr. Tedros last month…to say, I don’t know that the World Health Organization can solve this on our own. We need the other United Nations agencies—NATO. This is a security problem, because it’s no longer a theoretical construct or some arcane academic exercise. Two hundred thousand Americans died because of anti-vaccine aggression, anti-science aggression.
And so, this is now a lethal force…and now I feel as a pediatric vaccine scientist…it’s important, just as important for me to make new vaccines, to save lives. The other side of saving lives is countering this anti-vaccine aggression.
Hotez has long been noted for promoting controversial and sometimes false statements about the Covid pandemic and then accusing his critics of “anti-science.”
But this is not the first time Hotez has called for police to deploy against those who disagree with his views on science. Last October, Scientific American platformed Hotez as an expert on “anti-science” and didn’t bat an eyelid when he said support for scientists would require intervention by the Department of Homeland Security and the creation of a federal interagency task force.
Dr. Hotez again called for deploying federal police to support science during a grand rounds lecture he gave in August 2021. A whistleblower at Texas Children’s Hospital sent me the lecture where Hotez said the “disinformation empire” threatened America and would need to be dealt with by the Department of Homeland Security:
The problem is the disinformation empire is so vast and pervasive that until we do something more definitive to get to the source of the disinformation and stop it, it’s not going to have that much of an impact. And that’s where everybody moves away from me.
Goldman Says Mid-Atlantic Power Prices “Finally Caught Up To AI Data Center Load Growth Story”
Marylanders and residents in surrounding states should brace for rising power bills due to capacity constraints on the regional power grid and the increasing peak load from new AI data centers (read: here). This combination creates a perfect storm of continued utility bill inflation, which will only pressure cash-strapped households in the years ahead.
On Friday, Goldman published a note about Tuesday’s PJM Interconnection power capacity auction for the 2025-26 planning year (June 1st, 2025, to May 31st, 2026). The note revealed a massive surge in capacity prices:
“The price across the RTO (see map below) was $269.92/MW- day. This is more than an 800 percent increase from the most recent auction (which cleared at $28.92/MW-day), and also a new record (the previous high was $174.11/MW-day for the 2010- 2011 planning year).”
“In addition to procuring the required capacity across the PJM RTO region, PJM’s auction also sets targets for specific zones or LDAs (Locational Deliverability Areas) based on transmission limitations. The auction failed to procure the required level of capacity in two zones (Dominion or “DOM” and Baltimore Gas and Electric or “BGE “) which cleared at the applicable caps of $444.26/MW-day (DOM) and $466.35/MW-day (BGE). PJM has not yet published the extent of the shortfall in the two zones.”
The critical point from the report:
“After a series of auction delays and relatively low clears (see chart below), PJM capacity prices appear to have finally caught up with the generative AI data center load growth story that has been central to parts of PJM.”
Goldman warned that more power capacity would be needed for grid stability. However, any new capacity could take years to come online, which essentially means, as the analysts point out, “higher prices are here to stay.”
“All else equal, the market expects the next few auctions to all clear at more robust prices, especially since the signal is clear – PJM needs more reliable capacity to manage the potential demand growth. Given the lead time for new-build capacity (4-5 years given current market dynamics and supply chain issues) the expectation is that generally higher capacity prices are here to stay.”
Goldman noted:
“The higher prices are expected to delay retirements, potentially spur more focus on coal-to-gas conversion for units that were at risk of retirement due to carbon related costs, and to also incentivize new construction.”
Let’s remember Maryland’s power crisis stems from ‘green’ policies pushed by progressive lawmakers in Annapolis who have banned any new fossil fuel power generation in the state. With AI data centers coming online, the result in the next 3-5 years will be crushing power bill costs to everyday voters.
Maryland voters need to make leftist lawmakers in Annapolis accountable for failed green policies that sends power costs higher.
