Month: April 2026

Candace Owens Sued for Defamation Over Claims of Conspiracy to Assassinate Charlie Kirk

Some excerpts from the long Complaint in Harpole v. Owens (M.D. Tenn.), just filed today (of course, recall that these are all just accusations, not court findings):

Plaintiff Brian Harpole is a citizen and resident of Texas. He is the founder and head of Integrity Security Solutions, a private security firm. In or around 2018, Harpole began working for the late Charlie Kirk, with Integrity Solutions providing security for Turning Point USA and protective services for Kirk from 2022 to 2025. Integrity Solutions provided these services for Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025, where Kirk was fatally shot….

Shortly after the assassination, Owens began disseminating content asserting that Kirk was betrayed by individuals close to him, that the government orchestrated a cover-up of the assassination, that Turning Point USA was implicated in the event, and advancing numerous additional conspiracy theories suggesting that somebody other than Tyler Robinson was involved in the murder….

Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Owens has intentionally proliferated a campaign intended to impugn the reputation of Harpole. Without even a modicum of substantiated evidence, she has publicly accused Harpole and Integrity Solutions of foreknowledge, participation in, and cover-up of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, as well as professional unfitness and criminal negligence. Despite Owens admitting that she had viewed Harpole’s flight records, she continued to accuse him of attending a meeting at Fort Huachuca—based solely on unsubstantiated testimony from Defendant Snow. Furthermore, without any evidence that Harpole acted negligently or intentionally with regard to the assassination of Kirk, Owens spread conspiracy theories that he somehow and for some reason intended Kirk to die….

Between December 9, 2025, and December 28, 2025, Owens, through at least eight separate statements published on X and disseminated via her podcast, falsely and negligently, if not intentionally and with reckless disregard for the truth, alleged that Harpole attended a conspiracy meeting at Fort Huachuca on the day preceding Kirk’s assassination and colluded with the government in connection with that assassination. She therefore also accused him of conspiracy to commit murder, a criminal offense. These statements include, but are not limited to:

  1. Owens’s December 9, 2025, podcast in which she falsely claimed that Mitch Snow, who she describes as “credible,” saw Plaintiff at Fort Huachuca on September 9, 2025, the day before the assassination and that “[w]hen an operation is being confirmed, you have these final meetings, and they involve all the higher-ups and you are trying to do this in a very isolated location where you know people are not going to accidentally happen upon you[.]”
  2. Owen’s description of her December 9, 2025, podcast, reading, “After today, I do not know how this leads to anything other than a full confession from the government about their [sic] involvement in Charlie Kirk’s assassination”
  3. Owens’s December 18, 2025, X post stating, “We bring you an EXPLOSIVE interview with what may be the lone eyewitness to a mysterious, top brass meeting which occurred on Fort Huachuca the day before Charlie’s assassination….”
  4. Owens’s December 18, 2025, podcast in which she published Mitch Snow’s false account of seeing Plaintiff at Fort Huachuca and claimed to have evidence confirming his narrative.
  5. Owens’s December 19, 2025, podcast in which she stated that she finds Defendant’s Snow’s narrative to be “compelling” because she was “given travel logs for Brian Harpole and it is entirely possible that Brian Harpole could have made it to that meeting.”
  6. Owens’s December 22, 2025, X post in which she stated she viewed Plaintiff’s flight records and confirmed that they did not provide an alibi.
  7. Owens’s December 23, 2025, X post “”Fort Huachuca Confirmed” which contains an unsubstantiated incident report.
  8. Owens’s December 28, 2025, X post claiming that the Fort Huachuca story was legitimized by Plaintiff’s estranged son.

Between October 27, 2025, and the filing of this Complaint, Owens has also falsely and intentionally made at least five separate statements suggesting that Harpole had foreknowledge of the assassination and actively assisted in bringing it out. Owens is falsely accusing Harpole of criminal activity, up to and including murder. These statements include, but are not limited to:

  1. Owens’s November 18, 2025, podcast in which she accuses Plaintiff of lying about drone availability, asking is “this how these assassinations happen?”, accuses Harpole of failing to secure the UVU rooftops, and statements that Harpole should be fired.
  2. Owens’s November 19, 2025, podcast in which she again accuses Harpole of lying about drone availability.
  3. Owens’s December 12, 2025, post to X where she states, “Brian Harpole has already been caught lying about what transpired on that day. Did he also lie about having placed a 911 call? Did no one from their team call 911 after Charlie was shot?”
  4. Owens’s December 16, 2025, X post where she says Brian Harpole did not pack Kirk’s wound.
  5. Owens’s January 8, 2026, statements that (i) “we have to revisit Brian Harpole’s story about how far in advance they typically plan security because someone has leaked me another glaring oddity in this security protocol; (ii) there was “no security plan in place” at Charis Bible College, claiming it odd that Harpole’s team planned Kirk’s security strategy for Utah Valley University two weeks in advance, but failed to contact the Chief of Police for Woodland, Colorado, to plan security for the Charis Bible College event (iii) “[t]hat’s what I mean when you lie a lot and when you’re planning things you’re not supposed to be planning. Yeah, as in the next day if you expected Charlie to make it to September 11th you would have been communicating about what he was doing um up at the Charis Bible College.” (iv) “Why didn’t Dan Flood and Brian Harpole and Turning Point USA’s security have any coordination with the police departments up in Colorado if this is what they normally do[?]; …

All of Owens’s statements are either false on their face or create a false meaning reasonably conveyed by the published words. They are not protected opinions, rhetorical hyperbole, or questions without defamatory implication. It is simply false that Harpole knew Charlie Kirk was going to die or was involved in the planning, commission, or alleged cover-up of the assassination…. In addition, or in the alternative, Owens acted with actual malice, in that Defendant knew the statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity. This is because, Owens, inter alia,:

  1. Knew Harpole’s plane tickets squarely placed him in Texas at the time of the alleged meeting at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.
  2. Acknowledged that Mitch Snow, and only Mitch Snow, claimed Harpole attending the alleged Fort Huachuca meeting.
  3. Treated limited evidence, much of which is of questionable veracity, that Snow was at Fort Huachuca as evidence that Harpole was also there.
  4. Knew, based on official reports, that the investigation had revealed that Tyler Robinson alone was responsible for the assassination, but insisted that Harpole was involved.
  5. Ignored the thousands of comments pointing out gaps in her theory alleging Harpole’s involvement.
  6. Ignored the blatant credibility issues with the “incident report,” and proliferated the narrative that Harpole was at Fort Huachuca while conceding that she could not verify whether the meeting happened, let alone whether Harpole was there, because she was not in attendance.
  7. Was aware that even if security was not planned two weeks in advance, this does not translate to foreknowledge or complicity in assassination.
  8. Knew and conceded that Harpole ran over to Kirk with Harpole’s medical bag to provide care after he was shot.

Owens intentionally ignored all documents and evidence contradicting her narrative and nevertheless chose to publish such statements. She additionally failed to investigate obvious doubts such as the authenticity of the incidence report….

The post Candace Owens Sued for Defamation Over Claims of Conspiracy to Assassinate Charlie Kirk appeared first on Reason.com.

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What Is the Trump Administration Really Trying To Do With The Latest Comey Indictment?

What Is the Trump Administration Really Trying To Do With The Latest Comey Indictment?

On Tuesday, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina handed down a two-count indictment against the former FBI director James Comey, charging him with threatening the life of President Donald Trump and transmitting that threat across state lines.

The basis for the charges: an Instagram post from May 2025 in which Comey shared a photo captioned “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” The shells on the sand spelled out “86 47.” Each count carries a maximum of ten years in federal prison.

Comey deleted the post the same day it went up and issued an immediate clarification on social media. “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence,” he wrote. “It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind, so I took the post down.” He later told interviewers that he and his wife had simply spotted the formation during a stroll along a North Carolina beach and read it as a quirky, possibly restaurant-themed joke. Despite the dubious explanation, from the moment the post became controversial, legal analysts were skeptical that a case against him was possible.

There still appears to be bipartisan agreement on this point.

“It’s a seashell case, nine, ten months old, and it will never go anywhere,” Joe Scarborough said on MSNOW’s Morning Joe. “It will have the opposite impact, and they’ll get laughed out of court.” 

Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley, one of Trump’s more reliable legal allies, agreed the case has little legal merit, despite the indictment.

“To convict Comey, the Justice Department will have to show that his adolescent picture was a ‘true threat’ under 18 U.S.C. § 871 and § 875(c). It is not.” He went further, invoking the founding era: “This nation was founded in rage. The Boston Tea Party was rage. In forming this more perfect union, we created the world’s greatest protection of free speech in history.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the prosecution’s theory.

First Amendment protections for political speech are remarkably broad. Under Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court held that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless it is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action” – a standard that has shielded provocateurs far more combustible than a retired FBI director posting a picture of seashells.

Former CNN analyst Chris Cillizza has his own theory about what is really behind this latest indictment. According to Cillizza, Trump is less concerned about whether Comey goes to jail than he is with just making Comey’s life miserable.

“It’s impossible to separate both of those indictments, the one in September and the one today, from Donald Trump’s absolutely repeatedly expressed belief that the Department of Justice exists to target and punish his political enemies,” Cillizza mused. “Now, again, whether they would actually be guilty in a court of law, we shall see, but to punish these people. So we saw Comey indicted in September 2025, since dropped. We saw Letitia James, another big political enemy in Donald Trump’s mind of his, also indicted, charges dropped. We’ve seen John Bolton, the, a major Trump critic, indicted, and now we see Comey indicted again.”

Cillizza gets some things wrong here. The Letitia James and the previous Comey case were tossed by a Clinton-appointed judge who claimed that the Justice Department illegally appointed the prosecutor who brought the charges at President Donald Trump’s urging. They were not tossed on the merits.

Is Trump trying to make life difficult for his enemies? Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche pushed back on this suggestion on CBS Tuesday, insisting the administration had been investigating the matter for nearly a year and that a grand jury – not the White House – returned the indictment. “Of course not, absolutely, positively not,” Blanche said when asked whether Trump directed the charges. The indictment itself argues that a “reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances” would interpret the shell arrangement as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to President Trump. That framing will be tested the moment a federal judge reads the First Amendment.

There is a certain irony lodged in all of this. Trump spent years – genuinely – defending himself from what he called a weaponized justice system. The Russia investigation, the two bogus impeachments, the civil fraud trial in New York, the classified documents case, the January 6 prosecution: whatever one thinks of any individual charge, the cumulative weight of it was real and politically motivated in ways that even Trump’s critics occasionally acknowledged. 

But out of those assaults, the president emerged convinced that the DOJ had become a political instrument and that the only way to respond was to go after those who abused their power in the first place.

The trouble is that a seashell photograph does not make for a compelling demonstration of that principle. There are documented, substantive cases to be made against Comey – his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, his unauthorized leaking of memos to the press, and his role in initiating the surveillance of a sitting president’s campaign. Those are the cases that would survive scrutiny, attract serious legal arguments, and perhaps hold up before a jury. Instead, the administration is going to federal court over a photo of seashells. 

Blanche said Tuesday, “If anybody in this country thinks … that it is okay for anybody to threaten the president of the United States … then we have a bigger problem than I even imagined.” That may be true. But first you have to prove the threat was real – and that argument, and experts on both sides aren’t seeing how this meets that standard.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/30/2026 – 18:50

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/UJMto6B Tyler Durden

$25 Billion: Hegseth Accused Of Lowballing Cost Of Iran War

$25 Billion: Hegseth Accused Of Lowballing Cost Of Iran War

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has been in a very public spat and back-and-forth with Congressional Democrats over the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget request, as well as over Iran war strategy and mounting costs.

Hegseth has turned to some classic wartime fearmongering: “What is it worth to ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon?” – he posed to members of Congress when pressed in a hearing.

Hegseth called the “reckless, feckless, and defeatist words of congressional Democrats” the United States’ greatest adversary. At a moment Operation Epic Fury is about to reach 60-days on Friday, he’s still insisting that this is not a ‘forever war’ with an open-ended timetable.

One figure to come out of the latest Congressional hearings this week is a $25 billion total Iran war price tag thus far:

A Pentagon official told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday that the war in Iran cost the United States $25 billion in the first two months.

Facing questions from ranking member Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Acting Defense Department comptroller Jules Hurst testified that most of the cost was “in munitions” plus “[operations and maintenance] and equipment replacement.”

Smith thanked the Pentagon official for offering the most specific cost estimate since its first week, when Hurst said the price tag was roughly $11 billion. “I’m glad you answered that question because we’ve been asking for a hell of a long time and no one has given us the number.”

via Reuters

However, the $25BN number immediately raised questions among skeptics, both within Congress and among media pundits, over whether this is a lowball number.

According to Responsible Statecraft: 

Rep. Ro Khanna pushed back on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s assertion that the supplemental would only include $25 million for the mission in Iran specifically. “You’re saying $25 billion. If you come back and want to revise those numbers, because all the experts are disagreeing with you when it comes to today’s dollars in damage,” Khanna said.

Also Reuters has noted, “But it is unclear how the Pentagon arrived at the $25 billion amount given that a source had told Reuters last month that President Donald Trump’s administration estimated that the first six days of the war had cost the United States at ​least $11.3 billion.“

The case for skepticism is further fueled by the fact that the US military has lost so many expensive radar systems and aircraft throughout the war. 

“Iran’s missiles and drones, and one devastating instance of so-called friendly fire, have destroyed US military equipment worth between $2.3bn and $2.8bn, the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies has calculated,” one report has underscored.

But like with the Iraq and Afghan wars before, the true cost in both blood and treasure might not be known or fully assessed even for years to come. And that’s assuming Trump’s Iran quagmire gambit wraps up by then.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/30/2026 – 18:20

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/bXh36od Tyler Durden

Candace Owens Sued for Defamation Over Claims of Conspiracy to Assassinate Charlie Kirk

Some excerpts from the long Complaint in Harpole v. Owens (M.D. Tenn.), just filed today (of course, recall that these are all just accusations, not court findings):

Plaintiff Brian Harpole is a citizen and resident of Texas. He is the founder and head of Integrity Security Solutions, a private security firm. In or around 2018, Harpole began working for the late Charlie Kirk, with Integrity Solutions providing security for Turning Point USA and protective services for Kirk from 2022 to 2025. Integrity Solutions provided these services for Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025, where Kirk was fatally shot….

Shortly after the assassination, Owens began disseminating content asserting that Kirk was betrayed by individuals close to him, that the government orchestrated a cover-up of the assassination, that Turning Point USA was implicated in the event, and advancing numerous additional conspiracy theories suggesting that somebody other than Tyler Robinson was involved in the murder….

Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Owens has intentionally proliferated a campaign intended to impugn the reputation of Harpole. Without even a modicum of substantiated evidence, she has publicly accused Harpole and Integrity Solutions of foreknowledge, participation in, and cover-up of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, as well as professional unfitness and criminal negligence. Despite Owens admitting that she had viewed Harpole’s flight records, she continued to accuse him of attending a meeting at Fort Huachuca—based solely on unsubstantiated testimony from Defendant Snow. Furthermore, without any evidence that Harpole acted negligently or intentionally with regard to the assassination of Kirk, Owens spread conspiracy theories that he somehow and for some reason intended Kirk to die….

Between December 9, 2025, and December 28, 2025, Owens, through at least eight separate statements published on X and disseminated via her podcast, falsely and negligently, if not intentionally and with reckless disregard for the truth, alleged that Harpole attended a conspiracy meeting at Fort Huachuca on the day preceding Kirk’s assassination and colluded with the government in connection with that assassination. She therefore also accused him of conspiracy to commit murder, a criminal offense. These statements include, but are not limited to:

  1. Owens’s December 9, 2025, podcast in which she falsely claimed that Mitch Snow, who she describes as “credible,” saw Plaintiff at Fort Huachuca on September 9, 2025, the day before the assassination and that “[w]hen an operation is being confirmed, you have these final meetings, and they involve all the higher-ups and you are trying to do this in a very isolated location where you know people are not going to accidentally happen upon you[.]”
  2. Owen’s description of her December 9, 2025, podcast, reading, “After today, I do not know how this leads to anything other than a full confession from the government about their [sic] involvement in Charlie Kirk’s assassination”
  3. Owens’s December 18, 2025, X post stating, “We bring you an EXPLOSIVE interview with what may be the lone eyewitness to a mysterious, top brass meeting which occurred on Fort Huachuca the day before Charlie’s assassination….”
  4. Owens’s December 18, 2025, podcast in which she published Mitch Snow’s false account of seeing Plaintiff at Fort Huachuca and claimed to have evidence confirming his narrative.
  5. Owens’s December 19, 2025, podcast in which she stated that she finds Defendant’s Snow’s narrative to be “compelling” because she was “given travel logs for Brian Harpole and it is entirely possible that Brian Harpole could have made it to that meeting.”
  6. Owens’s December 22, 2025, X post in which she stated she viewed Plaintiff’s flight records and confirmed that they did not provide an alibi.
  7. Owens’s December 23, 2025, X post “”Fort Huachuca Confirmed” which contains an unsubstantiated incident report.
  8. Owens’s December 28, 2025, X post claiming that the Fort Huachuca story was legitimized by Plaintiff’s estranged son.

Between October 27, 2025, and the filing of this Complaint, Owens has also falsely and intentionally made at least five separate statements suggesting that Harpole had foreknowledge of the assassination and actively assisted in bringing it out. Owens is falsely accusing Harpole of criminal activity, up to and including murder. These statements include, but are not limited to:

  1. Owens’s November 18, 2025, podcast in which she accuses Plaintiff of lying about drone availability, asking is “this how these assassinations happen?”, accuses Harpole of failing to secure the UVU rooftops, and statements that Harpole should be fired.
  2. Owens’s November 19, 2025, podcast in which she again accuses Harpole of lying about drone availability.
  3. Owens’s December 12, 2025, post to X where she states, “Brian Harpole has already been caught lying about what transpired on that day. Did he also lie about having placed a 911 call? Did no one from their team call 911 after Charlie was shot?”
  4. Owens’s December 16, 2025, X post where she says Brian Harpole did not pack Kirk’s wound.
  5. Owens’s January 8, 2026, statements that (i) “we have to revisit Brian Harpole’s story about how far in advance they typically plan security because someone has leaked me another glaring oddity in this security protocol; (ii) there was “no security plan in place” at Charis Bible College, claiming it odd that Harpole’s team planned Kirk’s security strategy for Utah Valley University two weeks in advance, but failed to contact the Chief of Police for Woodland, Colorado, to plan security for the Charis Bible College event (iii) “[t]hat’s what I mean when you lie a lot and when you’re planning things you’re not supposed to be planning. Yeah, as in the next day if you expected Charlie to make it to September 11th you would have been communicating about what he was doing um up at the Charis Bible College.” (iv) “Why didn’t Dan Flood and Brian Harpole and Turning Point USA’s security have any coordination with the police departments up in Colorado if this is what they normally do[?]; …

All of Owens’s statements are either false on their face or create a false meaning reasonably conveyed by the published words. They are not protected opinions, rhetorical hyperbole, or questions without defamatory implication. It is simply false that Harpole knew Charlie Kirk was going to die or was involved in the planning, commission, or alleged cover-up of the assassination…. In addition, or in the alternative, Owens acted with actual malice, in that Defendant knew the statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity. This is because, Owens, inter alia,:

  1. Knew Harpole’s plane tickets squarely placed him in Texas at the time of the alleged meeting at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.
  2. Acknowledged that Mitch Snow, and only Mitch Snow, claimed Harpole attending the alleged Fort Huachuca meeting.
  3. Treated limited evidence, much of which is of questionable veracity, that Snow was at Fort Huachuca as evidence that Harpole was also there.
  4. Knew, based on official reports, that the investigation had revealed that Tyler Robinson alone was responsible for the assassination, but insisted that Harpole was involved.
  5. Ignored the thousands of comments pointing out gaps in her theory alleging Harpole’s involvement.
  6. Ignored the blatant credibility issues with the “incident report,” and proliferated the narrative that Harpole was at Fort Huachuca while conceding that she could not verify whether the meeting happened, let alone whether Harpole was there, because she was not in attendance.
  7. Was aware that even if security was not planned two weeks in advance, this does not translate to foreknowledge or complicity in assassination.
  8. Knew and conceded that Harpole ran over to Kirk with Harpole’s medical bag to provide care after he was shot.

Owens intentionally ignored all documents and evidence contradicting her narrative and nevertheless chose to publish such statements. She additionally failed to investigate obvious doubts such as the authenticity of the incidence report….

The post Candace Owens Sued for Defamation Over Claims of Conspiracy to Assassinate Charlie Kirk appeared first on Reason.com.

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ImmigrationProf Blog Symposium on the Birthright Citizenship Oral Arguments

Milla74/Dreamstime

The ImmigrationProf Blog site has been hosting a symposium on the birthright citizenship case oral argument, which took place before the Supreme Court earlier this month. They now have a post compiling links to the different posts, including one of my own. The other contributors are all prominent immigration law and constitutional law scholars. I include the links below:

Jack Chin on Lessons from the Oral Arguments

Ilya Somin, Justice Barrett, Slavery, and Birthright Citizenship

Bearing the Sins of the Father…. by Ediberto Roman

Rachel E. Rosenbloom, The Solicitor General Crossed a Line in Trump v. Barbara

The Citizenship Clause is Part of an Anti-Aristocracy Constitution by D. Carolina Núñez

My contribution to the symposium was originally posted right here at the VC blog. It builds, in part, on my earlier Lawfare article, “Slavery and Birthright Citizenship.”

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Canada’s New ‘Sovereign Wealth Fund’ Is Actually a Debt-Fueled Spending Scheme


Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney | Grzegorz Krzyzewski / Fotonews/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom

Amid the reshaping of the global economic order, thanks in part to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade policies, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is proposing his own restructuring of Canada’s economy.

On Monday, Carney announced the creation of a new “sovereign wealth fund,” called the Canada Strong Fund. The fund will begin at 25 billion Canadian dollars (about $18.4 billion) and will be used to finance various infrastructure projects.

“The order which Canada helped build…is crumbling,” Carney said on Monday. Canada’s “former strengths built on [its] close ties to the United States have become [its] weakness,” he added.

To rectify this, Carney’s proposed wealth fund would serve as “a national savings and investment account,” and be modeled after Norway’s $2 trillion investment fund. Except, this is not what the Canadian government is proposing.

While the Norwegian investment fund is financed by the country’s oil and gas revenues, only spends the return it makes, and can only make expenditures outside of the country (a measure to prevent corruption and political horse-trading), Carney’s proposal would be funded by borrowing and its money spent on Canadian companies. In his announcement, Carney said that the fund will go toward investments in infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, energy, and mining, where “leading Canadian companies” will receive the money.

“It’s not a sovereign wealth fund. It’s a debt-fueled corporate slush fund,” Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, tells Reason. “Carney’s fund is not built on wealth or savings. It’s built on borrowed money, and it’s going to gamble tax dollars on risky corporate handouts.”

The exact details of what projects the government will spend its borrowed money on are yet to be announced, but Canadian public finances will likely take the hit. The government is already predicting a $66.9 billion deficit for FY 2026, and federal debt has climbed to over $1.2 trillion, which is 41.2 percent of Canada’s GDP.

Despite this precarious position, Carney is going full steam ahead with this scheme. According to Terrazzano, “this isn’t the only slush fund the government has.” He points out that the government already has the Canada Infrastructure Bank, the Canada Growth Fund, and “billions of dollars in other types of subsidies.” All of these programs have a checkered history of irresponsibly spending public money.

The Canada Infrastructure Bank, for instance, was launched in 2017 with $35 billion of taxpayer money. It committed to funding over 100 projects, of which only 11 were finished. Failed bank projects include the Lake Erie Connector project, which aimed to build a high-voltage power line from Ontario to Pennsylvania. After spending $655 million on the $1.7 billion venture, its developer canceled the project due to “rapid cost escalation.” (The bank’s first CEO, Pierre Lavallée, resigned in April 2020, and despite not completing a single project under his tenure, was given generous six-figure bonuses after his resignation.)

Meanwhile, the Canada Growth Fund, which aimed to finance projects that boost the economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has effectively been used as a mechanism for corporate welfare. In 2024, the Canadian government announced that Strathcona Resources, one of the nation’s largest oil producers (which recorded over $4 billion in revenue that year), would get $500 million of taxpayer cash (with the potential to receive up to $1 billion) via the fund to begin engineering work for carbon capture projects across its facilities in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The projects are still underway, but the company expects to recoup “substantially all of [its] share of capital costs” through federal tax credits.

“I think it’s the same politics in Canada that you see all around the world,” says Terrazzano. “Politicians like to spend other people’s money, have press conferences, smile for the camera, and cut ribbons.”

Carney believes that the Canada Strong Fund is needed to make Canada prosperous. But given Canada’s existing fiscal problems and the bevy of other wasteful programs, creating another way for the government to spend more taxpayer money seems like a poor way to achieve this objective.

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China Blocks Tech Acquisitions To Weaken America. The U.S. Shouldn’t Follow Suit.


A figure illustrated with the Chinese flag fighting with a figure illustrated with the Manus logo. In the background is a crack, with the Meta name and logo. | Illustration: Midjourney/Nikol85/Dreamstime/Manus/Meta/Wikimedia Commons

Earlier this week, the People’s Republic of China blocked Meta from acquiring Manus, an AI startup that developed an advanced AI agent capable of completing complex tasks and relocated last summer from China to the more business- and investment-friendly Singapore, apparently with the approval of Chinese regulators. 

Meta announced its $2 billion acquisition of the fast-growing AI company last December. At the time, Meta celebrated the deal as bringing “one of the leading autonomous general-purpose agents” to billions of people and millions of businesses. In short, the synergies between Manus’ technology and Meta’s scale made for a promising acquisition.

The Chinese government was less enthusiastic.

In January, the Ministry of Commerce announced a regulatory investigation into the deal, noting its seemingly dubiously broad authority that “enterprises engaging in overseas investment, technology export, cross-border data transfer, cross-border mergers and acquisitions…must comply with Chinese laws and regulations.” On Monday, the National Development and Reform Commission, home of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review, declared that the deal must be unwound. 

To be sure, this is but the most recent instance of China advancing its bid for global techno-economic hegemony by blocking acquisitions by large American technology companies. In 2023, the State Administration for Market Regulation, China’s main national antitrust regulator, forced Intel to scuttle its $5.4 billion acquisition of Tower Semiconductor, an Israeli chipmaker with an office in Shanghai, by delaying merger approval for 18 months. 

While it is easy to be frustrated with the Chinese government and its use of merger and acquisition controls to limit the competitive advantage of American tech firms, many policymakers in the West have enabled China’s success by weaponizing antitrust and competition laws to kill pro-competitive deals by Big Tech firms. 

The downfall of iRobot is a case in point. In August 2022, Amazon offered to purchase the American robotics company that, despite being the maker of the innovative autonomous Roomba vacuum cleaner, was rapidly losing market share to Chinese state-supported competitors—its stock value had halved from its 2021 zenith. 

iRobot’s financial precarity and the lack of any coherent theory of anticompetitive harm notwithstanding, the Federal Trade Commission under then-Chair Lina Khan, who has long held a grudge against Amazon, launched an investigation in September 2022. Anticipating a lawsuit from federal regulators and facing scrutiny from the European Commission, Amazon withdrew its $1.4 billion bid in January 2024. 

iRobot was forced to lay off 31 percent of its workforce immediately following Amazon’s announcement. By December 2025, the company was mired in hundreds of millions of dollars of debt and had filed for bankruptcy, from which it would be “rescued” by Shenzhen Picea Robotics in January. 

In other words, iRobot is now a wholly owned subsidiary of a Chinese robotics company. 

The upshot is clear. The American technology firms crucial to the West’s prosperity and security face ample antagonism from abroad. Rather than aiding and abetting our adversaries with a “big is bad” antitrust policy, American regulators should adopt creative policies that deter and respond in kind to China’s assault on American mergers and acquisitions. 

For starters, the United States should be coordinating with key allies to foster pro-competitive mergers and maintain the West’s techno-economic edge through free trade agreements and pro-innovation partnerships that ensure its firms are global technology leaders. 

Moreover, in exceptional circumstances like these that involve China acquiring American high-tech firms, U.S. policymakers might consider using tools like the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which provides a mechanism for the government to prohibit foreign investments that could jeopardize national security. 

The Meta-Manus affair should be yet another wake-up call for American (and European) policymakers to work together and unleash innovation. Let’s hope they finally get the message.

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AI Hype Meets Hardware Crunch As US Power Equipment Market Eyes $65 Billion Boom

AI Hype Meets Hardware Crunch As US Power Equipment Market Eyes $65 Billion Boom

Wood McKenzie has released a report that US spending on power generation gear for data centers alone could hit $65 billion by 2030, more than triple the $20 billion logged last year. Data center capacity is forecast to reach 110 GW by the end of the decade, with Bloomberg also commenting that “total US spending on power-plant equipment may climb to $215 billion.”

The increased spending for the heavy electrical equipment market sounds great, but unfortunately, there’s no equipment to buy domestically.

Lead times for transformers, switchgear, and related gear stretch from 18-36 months and much of the shortfall is filled by imports from China, exposing the supply chain to the very geopolitical risks Washington claims to be racing against. The heavy reliance on imports for these grid-critical items led to the massive stack of Defense Production Act orders put out by the administration in April. 

Sightline Climate data highlighted earlier shows nearly half of the roughly 16 GW of US data center capacity slated to break ground in 2026 now faces delay or outright cancellation. Only about 5 GW sit under active construction.

The explosion in AI data center energy demand has been ongoing for years now. From PJM’s frantic scramble for 15 gigawatts of new supply to feed hyperscaler loads to the eye watering capacity auction price spikes that data centers helped trigger.

That squeeze is accelerating two parallel trends. 

First, hyperscalers are increasingly turning to behind the meter solutions. These include small nuclear reactors or gas fired generation directly on site. This approach allows them to bypass years-long waits for grid interconnection. Examples include Brookfield’s nuclear tied cloud venture to Nano Nuclear modular reactor studies and Talen Energy’s direct hookups.

Second, the cost pressure on households is drawing Washington’s attention. Grid upgrades required by the AI buildout have become the primary driver behind projected electricity rate increases. The Ratepayer Protection Pledge was signed back in March, which pushed hyperscalers to build, bring, or buy their own power and cover every dollar of the new transmission and distribution infrastructure. 

The White House has also framed rapid AI infrastructure buildout as a national security imperative, leading to a conflict of interests between the demand for new data centers without stressing the grid or consumers. AI has been widely labeled by the White House as necessary for the safety of the country, and is the new modern-day arms race. 

Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/30/2026 – 17:55

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3U1v5D6 Tyler Durden

Goldman Maps Retailer Exposure To Working-Poor Consumers As Gas Soars

Goldman Maps Retailer Exposure To Working-Poor Consumers As Gas Soars

With the nationwide average gasoline price accelerating above the politically sensitive $4-per-gallon level, and the consumer backdrop for low-income households darkening, Goldman analysts published a note on Wednesday identifying which big-box retailers have the greatest exposure to working-poor households.

“Our economists expect spending headwinds from higher inflation to weigh on growth for the rest of the year,” Goldman Sachs Managing Director Kate McShane wrote in the note. She covered how Goldman analysts raised their Brent forecast for the fourth quarter of this year and the gloomy backdrop facing consumers.

She continued, “Moreover, higher headline inflation is set to erode household spending power, particularly among lower-income households that spend roughly four times as much on gasoline as a share of after-tax income compared to the top quintile.”

She explained in more detail:

We expect the bottom-income quintile to lag the aggregate US household with +4.2% DPI growth in 2026 (vs. +4.7% aggregate) as our economists continue to expect tepid job growth. Cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits, and now greater exposure to the increase in gasoline prices are cost headwinds to this income cohort. Our pre-savings DCF expectations for the bottom quintile remain unchanged at +0.8% for 2026, well below the +3.7% aggregate growth rate.

Higher energy prices do drive a headwind to our Consumer Discretionary Cash Flow model, and accordingly we estimate that a $10/barrel change in fuel prices equates to a ~18bps impact to consumer spending power, all else equal. The magnitude of the recent, rapid change in fuel prices may drive a ~88bps headwind for consumer discretionary spending power in FY26, if higher fuel prices hold (~$120/barrel). Taking this one step further, we use the breakdown of consumer income cohorts to estimate the impact across the income-quintiles assessed in our 2026 Consumer Outlook, and find a ~225bps potential headwind from the YoY change in crude oil prices (~$120/barrel vs a simple average of ~$70 in 2025) on the lowest-income consumers, or ~135bps headwind at ~$100/barrel. As such, we see an over ~50bps headwind for consumer discretionary spending power for US households in aggregate in 2026, and ~135bps headwind for the bottom-quintile, assuming ~$100/bbl pricing holds. 

With that context in mind, McShane and her team analyzed the demographic exposure of major big-box retailers and found that Dollar General, Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, and Dollar Tree are among the retailers most exposed to working-poor households.

Walmart, Five Below, Target, and BJ’s Wholesale Club showed more modest exposure, according to the analyst.

“We also note that historically, during periods of elevated gas prices, DG has benefited from its close-proximity store model, which offered a convenient alternative for cost-conscious customers looking to avoid drives,” McShane noted.

However, she said, “However, given the rise in digital retail, WMT’s membership program Walmart+ may diminish this advantage as customers can now purchase same-day delivery.” 

With the national average for gasoline above $4, we have already detailed emerging shifts in consumer behavior at gas stations and convenience stores. Actual demand destruction should set in at $ 5+ gas.

Read:

Professional subscribers can read the full consumer note at our new Marketdesk.ai portal

Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/30/2026 – 17:30

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Apple Drops After Mixed Results: America, Europe Revenue Miss; Iphone Sales Disappoint, But China Surges Again

Apple Drops After Mixed Results: America, Europe Revenue Miss; Iphone Sales Disappoint, But China Surges Again

Ahead of today’s AAPL earnings report, we’ve had a mixed picture from Mag 7 earnings so far: GOOGL soared to a record high, MSFT and AMZN both dropped (although they recovered much of their losses throughout the day) and META crashed, all on different reads of their capex. Which leaves AAPL to complete the picture of the big 5 megacaps (with NVDA set to report in a few weeks). As we previewed earlier, focus today will be on how soaring memory prices are impacting the company’s profit margin, as well as hearing from new CEO John Ternus.

With that in mind, here is what the company just reported for its fiscal second quarter:

  • EPS $2.01 vs. $1.65 y/y, beating estimates of $1.96
  • Revenue $111.18 billion, +17% y/y, beating estimates of $109.66 billion 
    • Products revenue $80.21 billion, +17% y/y, beating estimates of $79.26 billion
    • IPhone revenue $56.99 billion, +22% y/y, barely beating estimates of $56.98 billion
    • Mac revenue $8.40 billion, +5.7% y/y, beating estimates of $8.13 billion
    • IPad revenue $6.91 billion, +8% y/y, beating estimates of $6.65 billion
    • Wearables, home and accessories $7.90 billion, +5% y/y, beating estimate $7.72 billion
  • Services revenue $30.98 billion, +16% y/y, beating estimate of $30.37 billion

Broken down by product…

… we see that iPhones remain the juggernaut, and coming at $56.99 billion, they just barely beat estimates of $56.98 billion.

While Mac sales beat expectations modestly, pent up demand for the M5 MacBook Air, M5 Pro/Max MacBook Pro and of course the hot-selling MacBook Neo, should have resulted in a bigger beat. Perhaps it’s because the machines didn’t launch until late in the March quarter — and the memory shortage. 

Looking across product lines, we saw annual growth in every segment, with a more than $10 billion year-over-year jump for the iPhone and a $4 billion increase on services. Growth in the other segments, like the Mac, iPad and wearables/home/accessories, was about $500 million give or take.

Taking a closer look at the Geographic breakdown, a few regions stood out, most notably America and Europe where revenues missed:

  • Americas rev. $45.09 billion, +12% y/y, missing estimate $45.82 billion
  • Europe revenue $28.06 billion, +15% y/y, missing estimate $29.08 billion
  • Japan revenue $8.40 billion, +15% y/y, beating estimate $7.38 billion
  • Rest of Asia Pacific revenue $9.14 billion, +25% y/y, beating estimate $8.76 billion

The revenue miss in the US and Europe will lilkely not be greeted well by the market, even if – for the second quarter in a row – it was offset by a solid beat in China:

  • Greater China rev. $20.50 billion, +28% y/y, beating estimate $18.91 billion, even if the beat was smaller than last quarter‘s Chinese blowout.

Yes: it was all about China, because while sales in the US actually missed for the second quarter in a row, it was that country where no number is ever cooked – pardon the pun – where revenues (mostly iPhone revenues) grew an impressive 28% to $20.5bn, beating estimates of a $18.91bn number…

… yet which in context seems very, very fishy, and makes one wonder if Cook cooked numbers with Xi’s help for the second quarter in a row.

Even Bloomberg notes that “China appears to be the key driver of Apple’s (limited) upside this quarter, with strength there likely underpinning the company’s broad-based outperformance.”

Last but not least, and in fact first when it comes to profit margins, Services revenue rose 16%…

… to $30.98 billion, beating estimate of $30.37 billion

Going down the income statement: 

  • Total operating expenses $18.90 billion, +24% y/y, above estimate $18.47 billion
  • Research and development operating expenses $11.42 billion, +34% y/y, above estimate $11 billion
  • SG&A operating expense $7.48 billion, +11% y/y, above estimate $7.46 billion
  • Gross margin $54.78 billion, +22% y/y, above estimate $53.2 billion
  • Cash and cash equivalents $45.57 billion, +62% y/y, below estimate $48.96 billion

Some more details from the press release: 

  • IPhone hit a March quarter revenue record, fueled by “extraordinary demand” for the iPhone 17 lineup, Cook said
  • New March quarter records for operating cash flow and EPS achieved, CFO Kevan Parekh said
  • Generated Nearly $54 Billion in Operating Cash Flow
  • Announces new $100 billion stock buyback

Commenting on the quarter, Apple outgoing CEO Tim Cook said that revenue was up primarily due to the “extraordinary” demand for the iPhone 17 line (even though revenue in America and Europe missed). He also cited the MacBook Neo, which he says is “captivating customers all around the world”, to wit: 

“Apple is proud to report our best March quarter ever, with revenue of $111.2 billion and double-digit growth across every geographic segment. iPhone achieved a March quarter revenue record, fueled by such extraordinary demand for the iPhone 17 lineup. During the quarter, Services achieved yet another all-time record, and we were excited to introduce remarkable new products to our strongest lineup ever. That included the addition of the iPhone 17e and the M4-powered iPad Air, along with the launch of MacBook Neo, which is captivating customers all around the world.”

“Our strong business performance during the March quarter generated over $28 billion in operating cash flow and drove new March quarter records for both operating cash flow and EPS,” said Kevan Parekh, Apple’s CFO. “Continued strong customer demand for our products and services once again helped us achieve a new all-time high for our installed base of active devices across all major product categories and geographic segments.”

Apple did not give the spotlight to John Ternus, the incoming CEO, in this announcement. But we’re sure to hear something about the transition on the earnings call starting at 5 p.m. Eastern time. Still, his fingerprints are all over these results as the hardware chief the last half-decade.

Of note, AAPL – perhaps seeking to rub it into the noses of the cash flow negative hyperscalers who are now blowing all their capex on chips – authorized an additional $100 billion stock buyback.  The company also declared a cash dividend of $0.27 per share of the Company’s common stock, an increase of 4 percent. 

Last but not least, there has been no color on the memory situation and its impact on Apple in this release. We’ll hear more about that on the call. Apple said things would progressively get worse throughout the year. 

“This is a fairly boring report, w/Asia, Services, and margins all bright spots while the top line pressure in the Americas and Europe will be areas of focus (the lack of iPhone upside is a small negative too),” Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge writes in a report. 

Apple stock is muted, down a little over 1% after hours, and a far cry from the big swing that options traders were pricing in.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/30/2026 – 17:07

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/dUY2Lsv Tyler Durden