Tag: politics

The UK’s Latest “Debanking” Scandal Should Give Everyone Pause

UK-based readers may recall the moment almost exactly three years ago when the word “debanking” entered the mainstream British English lexicon. The prestigious London-based private bank Coutts had just decided to close Nigel Farage’s bank account due to his unsavoury political views and alleged Russian connections. That decision turned out to be very costly.

Almost immediately, Farage did what Farage does best: he whipped up a massive media frenzy. In next to no time two senior banking scalps had been claimed: those of Dame Alison Rose, the CEO of Coutts’ parent bank and “Big Four” lender, Natwest (formerly known as the Royal Bank of Scotland) and Coutts’ chief executive Peter Flavel.

Within a month, Natwest’s share price had slumped 8%, wiping £1 billion off its market cap, much of which was being propped up with public funds, and generating juicy returns for short-selling hedge funds. As we reported at the time, the resulting scandal drew much-needed public attention to a long-standing but accelerating trend — the “de-banking” of people and organisations with politically inconvenient views:

[T]his is hardly a one-off event: as I reported a couple of weeks ago, banks on both sides of the Atlantic are increasingly debanking their customers, often without explanation. I gave the example of California-based writer, activist, and social and political commentator Elad Nehorai, whose political views and ideals could not diverge more from those of Nigel Farage. Yet he, too, had his account at Bank of America, his bank of many years, summarily closed with no apparent warning or explanation…

Without a bank account, it is almost impossible to participate in the economy. And it is getting more difficult as cash becomes harder and harder to access and use. As Alex Lo writes for South China Morning Post, “Banking is a fundamental utility like water and electricity, and that’s precisely why democratic societies are increasingly turning to its use as a method of censorship and repression.”

However, the resulting government inquiry concluded that customers were not being “debanked” for political reasons. As a result, not only has debanking continued but debanked customers now face the prospect of being blocked from setting up new accounts at other banks, as the Telegraph reported on Monday:

Banks are planning to block “debanked” customers from setting up accounts with other lenders, potentially leading to innocent people being effectively locked out of the financial system, The Telegraph can reveal.

Lobby group UK Finance is developing a platform that will allow banks to share data on their customers where they detect “markers of economic crime”.

Lloyds, Barclays and Revolut have already started sharing data about customers, leading to accounts being frozen or closed, The Telegraph understands, following a pilot in 2024.

The data-sharing platform will build on that pilot to make a UK-wide system, which could automatically bar people from opening another account.

But concerns have been raised that thousands of innocent customers and businesses who have been debanked unfairly could be barred from opening up an account with another bank, effectively leaving them locked out of the financial system.

The latest victim of the debanking trend is the left-wing news website The Canary, which has accused the Lloyds Banking Group of “withholding a substantial amount of our money”  after nearly a decade of use. The news outlet — which brands itself as “radical working-class media” — says “Lloyds has not explained why it has taken this action… despite multiple communications from us”.

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Mamdani Rent Freeze Will Effectively Take 40% of NYC Apartments off the Market

On June 25, 2026, the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) voted 7-1 to set the annual rent adjustment for rent-stabilized apartments at 0% for both one-year and two-year lease renewals commencing October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2027, fulfilling Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign pledge to “freeze the rent.” It is the first time in the board’s history, dating to 1969, that a two-year lease has been frozen at 0%; one-year freezes had occurred three times previously under Mayor de Blasio.

The board also set the hotel and single-room-occupancy (SRO) order at 0% for the same 2026-27 period, extending the freeze to every category the RGB regulates that year, including rooming and lodging houses.

Six of the nine board members were appointed by Mamdani before the vote. Owner representative Christina Smyth resigned hours before the final vote, calling the process predetermined. The lone dissent came from Arpit Gupta, a holdover appointee from former Mayor Eric Adams.

New York City has roughly 2.2 million rental units. Of those, about 1 million are rent-stabilized, close to 40-45% of the total rental stock, depending on the year’s survey, and are subject to annual RGB decisions. Nearly half of those stabilized units are occupied by people born outside the US.

Rent controls of any kind are a classic example of misguided socialist economic policies intended to solve a problem while, in reality, making it worse. Ultimately, suppressing rent increases reduces the number of units available for rent by encouraging landlord exit and tenant lock-in. A rent freeze does not simply cap future increases. It widens the gap between what a rent-stabilized unit can legally charge and what it could command on the open market.

As that gap grows, a landlord’s financial incentive shifts away from continuing to rent the unit and toward selling it to an owner-occupant, converting it to a condominium, combining units, or leaving it vacant rather than re-renting it at below-market rates. Each of these outcomes effectively removes the apartment from the rental market, even though the building itself remains.

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Michigan Democrats Caught Posting ‘8647,’ Before Quickly Deleting Amid Backlash

The Livingston County Democratic Party in Michigan posted, and quickly deleted, an image featuring the numbers “8647,” a code widely understood as a call to assassinate President Donald Trump.

The post triggered immediate backlash before the party quietly deleted it.

The AI image showed the four-digit code prominently displayed on the shirts of former presidents Barack Obama, Joe Biden, George Bush, and Bill Clinton.

“86” is longstanding slang for eliminating something, while “47” refers to President Donald Trump, the 47th president.

The post was screenshotted and shared by Libs of TikTok before it could be deleted.

Party Chair Judy Daubenmier attempted to downplay the controversy by claiming the image was simply about impeachment.

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10 Charts Show How America Has Changed In 250 Years

The United States has transformed from a collection of 13 eastern colonies into a transcontinental nation spanning 50 states, one district, and five major territories—a geographic expansion forged through land purchases and war treaties.

America’s two-and-a-half-century evolution includes not only geographic growth, but also transformations in population, family structures, wages, the housing market, and health.

Through data and graphics, here is a look at how the country has changed over 250 years.

Changing Face of America

In 1790, 95 percent of Americans resided in rural areas; by 2020, that figure had dropped to 20 percent.

This demographic shift transformed the rural landscape itself. More than 50 percent of rural residents lived on farms prior to 1940, but that share dwindled to a mere 5 percent by 2000.

Although the U.S. urban population surged from 5 percent in 1790 to 80 percent in 2020, this growth shifted heavily toward suburban and outlying areas after 1950, leaving central cities with less than half of the total urban population.

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani Ordered New Yorkers to Cut Back on AC — But City Hall Was Kept as Cold as 54 Degrees

New York City Hall was kept as cold as 54 degrees during this week’s heat wave, despite Mayor Zohran Mamdani urging residents to set their air conditioners to 78 degrees to reduce strain on the power grid.

According to an investigation by the New York Post, reporters measured temperatures at 20 locations inside City Hall and other municipal buildings using an infrared thermometer.

All but five locations were below the 78-degree level Mamdani had urged New Yorkers to follow.

Around noon, areas including the Rotunda, the Governor’s Room, the City Council chambers and hallways near the mayor’s office reportedly measured around 77 degrees, while the mayor’s first-floor press office registered 78 degrees.

As the day progressed, temperatures reportedly dropped further.

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Far Lefties Off The Rails: At Least TEN Recent Arrests / Convictions For Alleged Threats Against President Trump Across America + Canada.

The delusional “be kind” and inclusive crowd has been showing their true colors with a string of recent assassination threats against President Trump. These are just the ones we know about reported in recent news.

These threats from across America are in addition to the planned violent attack at the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event at the White House by those from CA, IL, MO, NE, OH, and WA.

There are so many that this reporting extends over three articles. By the time the planned third article is out, we may need to add a few more!

First up, Florida.

FLORIDA

In March, we reported about a Pensacola, FL man who was charged with threatening to murder President Trump, with a military background, allegedly. Also in May, we reported that a Sarasota, FL woman was sentenced to 14 months in federal prison for calling for MAGA supporters to be shot, on TikTok.

A third addition from the Sunshine State comes out of the central Florida area, east of Gainesville. First Coast News reported that a 27-year-old man was arrested last month accused of threatening to kill President Trump. If convicted, he may face 10 years in federal prison.

According to the indictment, on April 16, 2026, “Ryan Brown transmitted an online message to “whitehouse.gov,” directed to the President, in which he threatened to blow up the White House in one week’s time. Subsequently, on May 25, 2026, Brown sent another message to “whitehouse.gov” stating, in part, that he would kill the President in cold blood.”

Was Brown binge-watching MSNow while sending out these assassination threats, or overly excited reading far-left, Ivy League professors commenting on Bluesky? I suppose we’ll find out in the upcoming court case.

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Don’t Be Fooled By The “Democratic Socialists”, More State Bureaucracy Won’t Fix Our Problems

In mainstream political discourse a big shift is currently taking place towards the favor of “Democratic socialism” as Americans are becoming more disenfranchised with the capitalist status quo. That is, the status quo of state-capitalism, otherwise known as corporatism, wherein government intervention in the form of corporate welfare on behalf of big business stifles the market in favor of monopoly, in direct opposition to the true free market principle of voluntary enterprise, as explained by economist Murray Rothbard some decades ago.

This swing of the pendulum from one side of the statist paradigm to the other is a subject we here at The Free Thought Project have discussed for years now, and it is one that the people should not be fooled by. Yet, with the permeating influence of old guard progressives the likes of Bernie Sanders, and in more recent years rising figures like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, state-socialist sentiment has grown to influence the rise of a new wave of self identified democratic socialists, the most prominent among them being New York City’s recently elected mayor Zorhan Mamdani, along with a few other self styled democratic socialists making headway in their runs for office.

On the other side of the aisle, with midterms approaching, Republican talking heads have been ramping up their own fear mongering rhetoric akin to Cold War “Red Scare” propaganda in an attempt to drag their sullied reputation out of the mud enough to maintain some kind of political momentum. Such as with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s recent remarks deriding the Democratic Socialists of America’s platform, that unintentionally came off sounding more like an endorsement than genuine condemnation; Or President Trump doing his best Joseph Mccarthy impersonation when recently espousing that “communism is the greatest threat to our country”, despite the fact that to date there is no meaningful communist movement to be found anywhere in the United States.

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Rep. Hank Johnson Says if Democrats Don’t Fight Back and Win Midterms, Black People Will End Up ‘Back in the Cotton Fields’

America’s dumbest congressman is back.

Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia, the same guy who once suggested Guam could tip over if there are too many people there, is now saying that the GOP is waging war on black people. He never says how, of course.

He also claims that if Democrats don’t fight back and win the midterms, that black people will end up back in the cotton fields.

Who wants to remind Johnson that slavery ended in the United States because of Republicans, not his party?

Johnson was speaking to Roland Martin, who used to be a host on CNN.

Breitbart News reports:

If Democrats do not win the midterm elections, black Americans will be “back in the cotton fields,” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) recently claimed.

Johnson made the bizarre claim during an appearance on the #RolandMartinUnfiltered daily broadcast.

“It’s a GOP war on black America, and if we don’t stand up and fight back, we’re going to be back in the cotton fields,” Johnson asserted, clarifying what he meant by “fighting back.”

He said it is not a call to arms but a call to protest, although he did not specify if he is imagining wild and violent riots reminiscent of the Black Lives Matter and Antifa protests in 2020, which many Democrats failed to properly condemn.

“And when I talk about fighting back, I’m not talking about taking up arms. I’m talking about taking it to the streets in protest, and also by exercising our precious right to vote,” he said.

Johnson added, “We’re going to have to get out in November and vote, like John Lewis said, like our lives depend on it, because our lives do depend on it this time.”

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Venezuelan Earthquake Rescuer Who Criticized Socialists on Camera Disappears

Locals in La Guaira, the most devastated state of Venezuela following last week’s twin earthquakes, denounced on Thursday that a man known as “El Topo de la Guaira,” identified as Wilmer Antonio Cruz, disappeared on Wednesday night after repeatedly condemning the socialist regime for failing to help those trapped in rubble.

Cruz had been working for days as a volunteer at the collapsed building he is believed to have lived in before the earthquakes, which international media identified as OPPPE 26 in Caraballeda, a massive complex featuring 876 apartments before it fell apart. Video interviews with the man recorded prior to his disappearance this week show him shirtless, using a bucket and a hammer to dig through a massive pile of debris looking for trapped neighbors.

Two earthquakes, registering magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, struck Venezuela on the night of June 24, devastating La Guaira and parts of Caracas, the national capital. Venezuela was already suffering from the near-total lack of a competent healthcare system, extreme poverty, and a dearth of emergency services as a result of over two decades of socialist rule, leaving it poorly equipped to address the disaster. The American space agency NASA estimated this week, using satellite images, that the earthquakes damaged or destroyed as many as 60,000 buildings as the socialist regime had built massive public housing complexes without following appropriate earthquake protocols.

As of Friday, the Venezuelan government has documented 2,595 deaths as a result of the earthquakes and claims to have rescued 6,462 people. The United Nations and opposition groups estimate that over 50,000 people are missing, their chance of making it out of the rubble alive dwindling rapidly.

Locals in Caraballeda began denouncing that unidentified regime agents abducted Cruz on Wednesday night. Human rights activist Tamara Suju, sharing videos from eyewitnesses who said they saw Cruz’s detention, shared that the witnesses claimed Cruz intervened to defend a friend who was trying to use construction machinery to break through debris and rescue people, but was stopped by socialist agents.

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Canada Was A Liberal Paradise… Until The Liberals Took Over

There was a version of this country that worked.

This was a country that used to punch above its weight across all key metrics and in a large part, did so espousing classical liberal values.

Multiculturalism here was both uncontroversial and functional. People came from everywhere, integrated, and got on with building lives, businesses and contributing to that overall ethos Canadian culture.

Minority rights and gender equality stopped being fights and became defaults.

Ontario, the most populous province, ran one of the cleanest grids on the continent for half a century on the back of CANDU, a reactor we designed ourselves. Peaceful, homegrown, zero-carbon, clean energy, and nobody lost any sleep over it. In fact, most people probably weren’t even aware of that.

By every classical liberal measure that actually mattered, Canada was a success story that inspired the rest of the world.

I want to be precise about the word “liberal”. The small-l, “classic” version meant open markets, open minds, equal treatment, and a state clueful enough to stay out of the way. That Canada earned its stature honestly.

Then, in 2015, the big-L Liberals took over the small-l idea. They have spent a decade undertaking what looks like something between a “controlled demolition” and act of subversion.

Start with energy, our single largest missed opportunity

We can’t build pipelines. A country sitting on one of the largest energy endowments on earth cannot get its own product to its own coast or even to its own citizens. In 2017 the Trudeau government changed the rules and moved the goalposts on the Energy East pipeline which resulted in its cancellation.

Canada is sitting on the fourth largest oil reserves on earth, after other political temperate zones: Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and we import between 500K – 600K barrels per day, nearly all of it, from the United States (“Elbows Up!”)

When Germany came knocking in 2022, Chancellor Scholz flew here and asked, practically begged, for us to sell them natural gas. Russia has just invaded Ukraine, and that put the Germans (which had wisely demolished their own nuclear power grid) into an awkward spot of having to buy energy from Putin.

Our answer?  There has “never been a strong business case.” Maybe we could interest the Germans in some solar panels and windmills. They went and signed a fifteen-year deal with Qatar instead. Qatar. Not exactly a human-rights exemplar, especially during Pride Month.

We did eventually sign an LNG deal with Germany, off the West Coast, in May of this year. Four years late, for volumes that would have looked modest in 2022. Better than nothing. Slower than everything.

None of this was an accident of incompetence. It was ideology. A decade of WEF-flavoured talking points, degrowth dressed up as climate virtue, and a governing instinct that treated Canadian resource wealth as something to apologize for.

Ottawa’s own reports spelled out the anti-capitalist drift in black and white (Bombthrower covered one here). When the environment file is handed to a former Greenpeace activist pinned to the far left of the spectrum, the pipeline math and the LNG math and the nuclear math all start to make a grim kind of sense.

Speaking of nuclear. The recent strategy was supposed to prove we still build things. “10 New Nuclear Reactors!” Oh boy.

Read past the headline. The plan is:

  • two reactors under construction …by 2035, and
  • five more “planned” (or “under development”) by… (checks notes)… 2040.

Planned. Under development. Unserious.

Meanwhile…. over in China,  they’re projecting roughly 200 gigawatts of total capacity, which means about 100 new reactors, finished and powered-on by 2040. They finish a reactor in about five years, and they a couple dozen under construction simultaneously. We are going to have started two.

We invented the CANDU. We are now a rounding error in the industry we helped create.

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