Most Americans can’t afford a new home.

A new analysis from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) shows that 65% of U.S. households are priced out of newly built homes, based on current prices and mortgage rates.

In some parts of the country, the situation is even more extreme. More than 80% of households can’t afford a new home, highlighting how widespread the affordability gap has become.

This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorosthy Neufeld, shows where Americans are being priced out and where barriers to homeownership are highest.

Ranked: Where Americans Are Most Priced Out of New Homes

At the extreme end, buying a new home is nearly out of reach. In New Hampshire, 83.4% of households are priced out of a new median-priced home.

In total, 11 states have at least 80% of households locked out.

This table shows the share of households priced out of new homes by state in 2026. A household is considered “priced out” if total housing costs—principal, interest, taxes, and insurance—exceed 28% of income, based on median new home prices and a 6% mortgage rate.

State
% of Households
Priced Out of New Homes
Median New Home Price
Income Needed to Qualify
New Hampshire
83.4%
$677,982
$211,080
Hawaii
83.0%
$884,781
$234,818
Maine
82.7%
$548,493
$160,714
Alaska
82.2%
$627,077
$188,313
Connecticut
81.8%
$696,752
$224,811
Wyoming
81.8%
$580,627
$164,982
Montana
81.5%
$495,610
$141,997
Oregon
81.0%
$608,135
$173,717
New York
80.5%
$656,108
$204,163
Vermont
80.1%
$580,627
$181,064
Pennsylvania
80.0%
$528,370
$160,900
Massachusetts
79.8%
$836,236
$246,370
Wisconsin
77.3%
$485,449
$149,085
Ohio
76.5%
$443,646
$137,310
Washington
76.1%
$649,812
$185,213
Colorado
75.1%
$644,149
$179,928
Kansas
73.4%
$401,237
$128,372
Rhode Island
72.9%
$578,724
$174,451
South Carolina
72.5%
$421,098
$118,180
New Mexico
71.7%
$362,847
$104,055
Illinois
71.3%
$428,712
$143,374
Michigan
71.3%
$371,503
$122,158
Kentucky
71.3%
$398,741
$109,299
Florida
71.1%
$429,644
$127,139
Indiana
70.7%
$418,993
$123,219
District of Columbia
70.1%
$836,441
$232,260
Iowa
70.0%
$348,337
$120,598
Arkansas
70.0%
$381,881
$100,780
Alabama
69.2%
$375,944
$106,586
New Jersey
69.1%
$527,069
$172,356
Utah
68.2%
$531,151
$145,638
Tennessee
67.7%
$399,580
$111,631
Oklahoma
67.6%
$351,771
$107,846
Arizona
66.6%
$446,796
$122,364
Missouri
66.6%
$371,515
$111,332
Idaho
66.4%
$430,280
$117,615
North Carolina
66.4%
$394,058
$112,263
Louisiana
66.2%
$318,728
$95,895
California
65.6%
$545,892
$153,471
Nevada
65.5%
$420,782
$115,555
West Virginia
64.8%
$308,607
$88,071
Texas
64.5%
$369,798
$117,131
Georgia
62.5%
$374,579
$109,329
Minnesota
62.1%
$402,209
$122,025
Nebraska
62.0%
$328,603
$107,185
South Dakota
62.0%
$346,894
$106,233
North Dakota
61.4%
$382,451
$116,480
Mississippi
61.1%
$266,837
$80,174
Virginia
58.9%
$429,184
$122,542
Maryland
58.5%
$432,949
$127,559
Delaware
56.0%
$376,478
$104,282

While high-cost states like Hawaii and Massachusetts rank among the least affordable, others such as Maine and Wyoming show that affordability pressures are no longer limited to major metro areas.

Affordability Isn’t Just a Coastal Problem

The most striking takeaway is how universal the problem has become.

Even in lower-cost states like Mississippi ($267K) and West Virginia ($309K), a majority of households are still priced out new homes. While buyers need under $90,000 in income—compared to over $200,000 in the least affordable markets—that threshold remains out of reach for many.

In other words, moving to a cheaper state is no longer a reliable solution. Instead, the data points to a deeper issue, which is that incomes have not kept pace with rising housing costs across the country.

While existing homes can be more affordable than new construction, this data highlights a key constraint: much of the new housing supply entering the market is already out of reach for most households.

The Bigger Picture

As new home prices continue to outpace income growth, the gap between who can and can’t afford newly built homes is widening. That shift is reshaping where Americans live, how they build wealth, and whether homeownership is attainable at all.

If even the most affordable states are out of reach for most households looking at new homes, the question becomes harder to ignore: where can buyers realistically go next?

Learn More on the Voronoi App 

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on where wealth is moving in America.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has claimed that the decline of the city is a myth and that it’s all just lies being spread by MAGA supporters, Russia, and China through AI-generated content.

In a fresh escalation of his war on inconvenient truths, Khan pointed to a surge in online posts highlighting anti-immigration realities, claiming foreign actors and Trump backers are behind it. He insists the dystopian image of lawless streets and cultural erosion is purely fabricated.

“You’ve got state actors,” Khan said, pointing to supposed evidence of Russian and Chinese involvement (there is none) alongside Make America Great Again backers in the US. He warned that “decent people” might start believing these narratives of a dangerous city with no law and order.

Our city is on the front line in the fight against a new kind of disinformation.

Fake AI-generated content has become a profitable industry – created abroad and used to fuel tensions here.

I’m calling on X, Meta, YouTube and TikTok to at least clearly label this content. pic.twitter.com/oJw8hbwHqT

— Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan (@MayorofLondon) May 15, 2026

“Secondly, we’ve seen individuals and companies trying to monetise and make profit from division,” Khan further claimed.

Doesn’t allow replies so no one can point out all the real examples of how dangerous and horrible London has become. https://t.co/RJlDgAjJZ4

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) May 16, 2026

He appears to be referring to joke AI videos being circulated showing London strewn with rubbish and rats. Of course these videos are fake, everyone realises that. However, they’re being made as a response to the fact that London is strewn with rubbish and rats, public services are woefully underfunded, and mass migration is causing further social breakdown and an explosion in crime.

Instead of taking responsibility and attempting to fix the problems, Khan is continuing his gaslighting campaign to dismiss London’s very real problems as foreign propaganda or American disinformation.

In April, Khan began a push for a government-backed social media “disinformation” unit, demanding Big Tech and the state crack down on criticism of his record, claiming an “outrage economy” is eroding trust.

He told the Cambridge Disinformation Summit that platforms must do better—or regulators like Ofcom should hit them hard. Khan positioned London as the “canary in the coal mine” for global fights against online dissent.

Critics note he often disables replies on his posts, shutting down Londoners who could share firsthand experiences.

While Khan obsesses over algorithms and foreign bots, official figures from his own tenure paint a grim picture. As highlighted in our April report on his disinformation unit push, Metropolitan Police data since Khan took office in 2016 shows:

Knife crime: +27%
Robbery: +57%
Theft from the person: +37%
Shoplifting: +109%
Sexual offences: +64%
Violence against the person: Significant rises in multiple categories.

Recent reminders underscore the pattern: Every hour in London, a rape is reported. Every 34 minutes, knife crime. Every 4.5 minutes, a phone theft. Every 1.8 minutes, a theft overall.

There has been a broad collapse in everyday safety, theft epidemics and gang violence is plaguing the city.

In addition to completely ignoring reality and pretending London is a utopia, Khan is calling for more state tools to police speech, label AI content, and tweak algorithms against “poison and division.”

Civil liberties voices like Big Brother Watch have warned this risks political exploitation—labeling criticism of crime, migration, and multiculturalism as “disinformation” to protect the narrative.

🚨NEWS: Mayor of London Sadiq Khan wants to CRACKDOWN on social media posts criticising the capital, calling for a state-backed disinformation unit.

Disinformation is a real problem – but it’s also a term at risk of political exploitation by governments.

We exposed how counter… pic.twitter.com/OtQuZtOqWu

— Big Brother Watch (@BigBrotherWatch) April 10, 2026

Instead of addressing root causes—open borders policies flooding the city with incompatible elements, straining resources, and importing crime—Khan prefers to shoot the messenger.

The mayor’s record speaks louder than any conspiracy: a capital where shoplifting exploded over 100%, knives dominate headlines, and public trust erodes daily. Blaming MAGA, Putin, or Xi won’t fix failing multiculturalism or restore law and order.

Londoners deserve accountability, not gaslighting and speech police. Britain’s elites continue importing problems then censoring the massive backlash.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Luxury watchmakers Audemars Piguet and Swatch have done the unthinkable: unveiling a new, affordable collaboration aimed at younger buyers, with prices ranging from $400 to, of course, $420.

Called the “Royal Pop,” the affordable handheld watch inspired by pop art is clearly a mass-market move aimed at stimulating the Swiss watch market after muted activity over the last few years, following the massive run-up fueled by cheap money during the pandemic.

Keep in mind that the average Audemars Piguet watch is priced at about $36,000 on the secondary market, according to WatchCharts. Its flagship Royal Oak line averages closer to $48,000.

So why collaborate with Audemars Piguet and Swatch?

As CEO, Ilaria Resta noted, “For the joy and boldness it represents because audacity is often the starting point of innovation and new ideas. And because it invites a broader audience, including younger generations, to experience mechanical watchmaking differently.”

Translation: Younger consumers, who will increasingly dominate the labor market in the years ahead, are much poorer than previous generations. If these Swiss watch giants want to stay in business into the 2030s, they must cater to younger buyers.

It appears to be working, with crowds lining up at stores across the West:

A bunch of Swatch boutiques stayed closed and cancelled the Audemars Piguet Royal Pop launch.

Lines out of control at boutiques around the world (see Dubai, Milan, Tokyo below).

Swatch official accounts posted its “not a limited edition” so that people can chill out. Wild. https://t.co/AzWBDVTPXe pic.twitter.com/bnRSTz2YjY

— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) May 16, 2026

Have seen 100+ person lines for Swatch stores with people camping over 24 hours in London, Zurich, New York, Singapore, Bangkok and Osaka.

The Audemars Piguet x Swatch collab gonna sell out real quick and those $400 pocket watches will be immediately listed for $5,000 on eBay. https://t.co/WHz69TPYus pic.twitter.com/wEKmzUUU0i

— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) May 16, 2026

Millet, Milano’da Swatch mağazından Plastik AP saat almak için birbiri ile kavga ediyor. plastik saate 400 euro verip birde bunu almak için kavga etmek için hakikaten başka bir gerizekalılık seviyesi gerekiyor.

Dünya harbi sikko bir yere gidiyor. pic.twitter.com/ERolOSmhKH

— istblu█̶̳̘͛̄̃͒̄̃͜█̴͇̱̅͒̅█̵̻̣̝͒̈̄̈͝͝█̴̞̜̻̝͍̂̽͜█̴̵̴̶ (@istblu0Iut) May 16, 2026

AP x Swatch collab was such a fail 😂 king of prussia mall CLOSED, cops kicked everyone out, do better @Swatch @AudemarsPiguet pic.twitter.com/uJyNqY5L2c

— Danny Dimes (@DanTheSharp) May 16, 2026

NYPD shuts down swatch AP drop in Time sqr pic.twitter.com/hr25F7ucYY

— M. Maali 🔑 (@cryptodronejr) May 16, 2026

Swatch closed in Battersea London as queues force past security #swatchap #swatch #royalpop pic.twitter.com/yZJeU1MXCh

— Elliott William (@ElliottWilldam) May 16, 2026

Related:

“Winner Takes All”: UBS Speaks With Swiss Watch Industry Insider On “Stabilizing Market”

A bold bet by Swiss watchmakers that may actually pay off. Are pocket watches back?

We’re old enough to remember when Apple had lines around the block for product launches – not anymore… 

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

For those who might have been out of the loop over the past few months, there is a war going on between the US and Europe. Largely, it’s western European governments that are the problem – They started the conflict, they continue to perpetuate the conflict, and they tend to cry victim when they suffer any consequences for it.

It’s clear that the European elites have a distaste for US policy. From anti-woke reforms and immigration restrictions to geopolitical interactions, when Americans voted en masse to remove the far-left Biden regime, Europe became an overnight enemy. I think it’s important to understand that the European leadership does do NOT view the Trump Administration as their primary threat. No, they view YOU as their primary threat.

American conservatives, nationalists, patriots, truth activists, etc. are the target of an international demonization campaign. And, as long as we hold sway in American politics, they will treat the US as a potential enemy.

Since 2014, Western European progressives (globalists) have been pursuing a multicultural blitzkrieg of their own respective populations. Open borders and mass immigration from largely Islamic countries became the political standard, with many European citizens suckered or shamed into compliance using two big lies:

Lie #1: Native Europeans are responsible for offering reparations to third worlders for centuries of “colonialism” and decades of war in the Middle East.

Lie #2: Mass immigration is vital to European economies because of cascading population decline and shrinking labor force.

For a decade this has been the methodology in Europe with increasingly horrific results (including a massive spike in sexual assaults and knife crimes).

To address the first lie, the vast majority of migrants entering Europe from the third world are not traveling from war torn countries. This narrative was a fabrication by liberals in Europe in order to grease the wheels for public support of open borders. Furthermore, the argument that western nations are somehow required to compensate the rest of the world for their geopolitical success is a fallacy.

We don’t owe anyone anything and we’re not required to take on immigrants for any reason, ever.

The second lie is much more complicated. Europe does not need immigrants to reinforce the economy, but what if they are useful for something else? An agenda which is not yet clear?

It has long been my position that the globalists in Europe intend on integrating into a wider opposition bloc, a coalition against nationalism, free markets, meritocracy, free democracy, etc. Evidence suggests that this coalition will include elements of Asia and their eyes on resource rich regions of Africa.

Russia is a wild card.

Europe’s leaders are ravenous, they want a greater war and they see Ukraine as the best opportunity. That said, this does not mean Russia is our friend.

I believe European leaders (much like leftists in the US) want the establishment of a “new world order” in which national borders are erased and green authoritarian socialism is enforced under a globally centralized bureaucracy. There are many ways to go about achieving this agenda.

For example, the globalists have tried implementing international climate change laws and carbon controls as a means to limit industry and dominate energy resources. I would argue that this plan has failed as it becomes more and more clear to the public that global warming science is mostly propaganda. The majority of the opposition to the carbon agenda has come from the US.

They tried medical tyranny, using pandemic hysteria through perpetual lockdowns and vaccine passports. This also failed, with twenty-two red states blocking the mandates. If they couldn’t get the US to comply, then the rest of the world would see that a nation could operate perfectly fine without authoritarian micromanagement.

They also tried to lure the US into a war in Ukraine to function as a meat shield against Russia. This would trap America in a perpetual quagmire in the best case scenario, weakening the US while Europe is strengthened through years of resource infusions. This plan also seems to have failed. The American public has zero interest in entering the Ukrainian theater or going to war with Russia without a substantial reason.

A fourth tactic is mass immigration, which has been much more successful. The US was almost overrun under the Biden Administration and now we are faced with a long uphill battle to deport millions of illegals. On the upside, border crossings have dropped by 95% and he majority of the citizenry now supports deportations.

Europe has been overwhelmed by a third world incursion. Between 50 million and 60 million migrants now reside in the region, making up around 20% of Western Europe’s total population. But is this just globalist sabotage of the west? Or, does this army of migrants serve another purpose?

As an economic resource they are a net negative. If the idea is for migrants to increase the labor pool and fill traditional jobs, then there is no positive return. Germany’s unemployment rate has climbed to 6.4% and 54% of the unemployed are migrants. These people they take far more in welfare subsidies than they contribute in economic activity.

The same goes for Spain, where the unemployment rate is 10%, yet the far-left Spanish government continues to flood the country with foreigners. The UK’s unemployment rate has climbed to 5% and 22% of the unemployed are foreign nationals on the take.

The decline is present all across the EU; economic growth is stagnating. So, why would the elites view migrants as a resource rather than mere tools for deconstructing western society? I would ask: What if a broad population increase is useful for events that have not yet occurred?

What if world war is still on the table, or an economic collapse followed by globalist consolidation? What if European leaders see millions of extra bodies as a valuable resource to feed that war, or control the citizenry at home? Is mass immigration just about cultural replacement? Or, are third worlders being lured into the west with promises of easy plunder, only to be caught up as cannon fodder in a future conflict?

Have the globalists placed their bets on foreign hordes and the power of cheap labor (or cheap soldiers) as the key to victory?

This brings us to what appears to be the US strategy in preparation for the schism, and it’s not hard to see, it involves oil. The move on Iran is clearly the catalyst for a US program of energy dominance. Consider for a moment the insane geopolitical changes and energy market mutations that have happened in just the past few months.

Venezuela is now under new leadership and shipping oil to the US, while China has mostly been cut out. Trump has been engaging with Panama to dramatically reduce Chinese influence over canal operations, again, cutting the CCP out of the western hemisphere.

Trump’s visit to China this week was filled with grand gestures and diplomatic talk for the cameras, but what really happened behind closed doors? One has to expect that the CCP is very unhappy.

Canada under globalist Mark Carney refuses to negotiate a tariff deal with the US and is trying to form bilateral trade agreements with Europe and China (to Canada’s detriment). This could lead to direct hostilities between the US and Canada if Carney tries to use oil agreements as leverage against Trump, or if he tries to give China access to Canadian soil.

The war with Iran has led to the UAE leaving OPEC, which essentially signals the end of OPEC and an incoming flood of oil to global markets at lower prices once the war is over (which the US will benefit from). It’s a shock in energy markets that has not happened in decades. It also disrupts the globalist climate agenda and their bid for artificial scarcity.

Iran is where the division between the globalists in Europe and conservatives in the US becomes undeniable. Why didn’t European elites immediately jump on board with the Iran war and the effort to control the Strait of Hormuz. They supported every other war in the Middle East from 2001 onward. With Iran, they’ve tried to undermine the US every step of the way.

We know for a fact that Europe’s leadership is devoid of moral principle or conditions of conscience. Their rhetoric and behavior when it comes to Iran and the Hormuz indicates they want the US to fail, not because they disagree with the war, but because they don’t want the US to gain an edge in energy dominance.

US operations against the regimes in Venezuela and Iran are choking energy supplies to China (the most useful economic and military ally for Europe in the event of conflict with the US). This is detrimental to the Europeans IF they are preparing for deeper hostilities with the US in the future.

NATO is now likely to break apart. Trump is threatening to pull troops from Europe and may shut down military bases entirely. Tariff salvos are going to increase. European governments are cracking down on their own citizens for expressing conservative and nationalist views. The lines are forming.

I would not be surprised to see talk of kinetic conflict between America and Europe in the next few years. Unless, something spectacular happens in the near term and the citizens of Europe take their countries back (most EU countries have to wait until 2027-2029 for elections). After endless abuse by the liberal establishment, if there was a war, millions of Europeans would likely welcome the US with open arms.

If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

The scenario of a US-backed Nigerian anti-terrorist intervention in Mali is becoming increasingly likely.

Trump announced over the weekend that the US and Nigeria carried out a joint operation against ISIS’ second-highest figure, which his counterpart Bola Ahmed Tinubu disclosed took place in the northeast Lake Chad Basin where its ally Boko Haram recently killed over 20 Chadian troops. This is the US’ second military operation in Nigeria after Trump authorized bombing ISIS in Northwest Nigeria on Christmas Day, thus demonstrating the continued expansion of its anti-terrorist cooperation with this new BRICS partner.

The significance of this observation shouldn’t be downplayed since it also sends a message to the Sahelian Alliance, whose de facto Malian leader is embroiled in its own anti-terrorist struggle after radical Islamists and Tuareg separatists kicked the government out of the northeast earlier this month. Although Mali is allied with neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, the latter of which borders Northern Nigeria where the US struck terrorists twice in less than six months, neither have come to its rescue.

That’s because they too are embroiled in their own anti-terrorist struggles against the same radical Islamists in Burkina Faso’s case, “Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin” (JNIM), and ISIS in Niger’s. These groups importantly occupy most of their border with Mali as well, thus impeding joint military operations even if they were greenlit. Recently, Nigeria intimated that it might intervene in Mali, and French media revealed that their country is already involved there. Here are three background briefings:

* 26 December 2025: “Why’d Trump Bomb ISIS In Nigeria On Christmas?”

* 3 May 2026: “The Latest Malian Crisis Risks Spiraling Into A Regional War”

* 11 May 2026: “French Media Confirmed That Paris Is Backing Ukraine In Mali”

To elaborate on their relevance to the joint US-Nigerian anti-terrorist operation, they shed light on just how close their security cooperation has become in less than half a year’s time, thus lending credence to the Nigerian Defense Minister’s intimation earlier this month that it might intervene in Mali. In that scenario, the US would likely play a public role as well, even if only limited to sharing intelligence and launching drone strikes from its reported bases in neighboring Ghana or nearby Cote d’Ivoire.

Meanwhile, Nigeria could only reach Mali via either Niger, via Burkina Faso by means of Cote d’Ivoire, or via Ghana, but the first two aren’t expected to authorize transit unless Niger – perceived as the Sahelian Alliance’s weakest link – breaks rank with its allies. As for the Ghanaian route, JNIM isn’t as active in the part of Mali on the other side of the border, so Nigeria would either have to receive permission to transit to the northeast or it might wait to unilaterally intervene till Bamako is seriously threatened to captured.

However the Nigerian intervention scenario might unfold, the top takeaway from the US’ joint operation with Nigeria is that it’s becoming increasingly likely whether the Sahelian Alliance authorizes it or not, which thus suggests that behind-the-scenes talks might already be underway with them. The West wants to break this bloc’s unity so that its countries resubordinate themselves to France, and if this can’t be achieved via diplomatic means under terrorist pressure, then military ones might be soon employed.

The mainstream media’s outrage over religious expressions by government institutions and politicians is highly selective.  At bottom, it the event is Christian, they attack.  If it’s any other religion, they applaud.

Did the mainstream media publish indignant diatribes when leftist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani held Muslim dinners at City Hall and Gracie Manor for Ramadan?  The answer is no, of course they didn’t.  Because Islam is celebrated by modern liberal movements and Christianity is despised.  And, it’s important to take note of what leftists hate, because if they hate it, it’s probably good.

BREAKING – New video shows one of Zohran Mamdani’s Muslim guests at the mayor’s mansion flashing the one finger ISIS salute just days after one of the Muslims who attempted to carry out an attack against conservatives in NYC was seen flashing the same salute while being arrested. pic.twitter.com/fdcuhINTlg

— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) March 12, 2026

Progressive outlets are in an uproar this week over a White House sponsored Christian prayer event scheduled to take place on this Sunday at the National Mall.  The Trump administration and the Freedom 250 nonprofit will host “Rededicate 250,” which will feature Cabinet members and conservative religious leaders to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary. 

According to event organizers, the program aims to reflect on the faith of America’s founders and serve as a national moment of rededication. Participants include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Leftists journalists and Democrats are accusing the Trump Administration of violating the US Constitution and the “separation of church and state” by sponsoring the event.  This is, of course, a blatant misinterpretation of the 1st Amendment, but it’s also an opportunity to debunk many of the claims made by the left-wing when it comes to religious expression by government officials.

It might come as a shock to those that religiously follow leftist propaganda, but the words “separation of church and state” do not appear a single time in the US Constitution.  The phrase comes from a 1802 letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association, where he described the First Amendment as building “a wall of separation between Church & State.”

The First Amendment states:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Jefferson was primarily concerned with the use of government as a weapon to persecute people of various denominations that refused to submit to a singular state sponsored church, which was a common practice of the English Crown.  It should be noted that there was, essentially, no other prominent religious groups beyond Christians recognized in the colonies at the time of the formation of the United States, aside from a small population of around 2000 Jewish settlers.  

The US was, by every measure, founded as a Christian nation, even if there was no official state church.  

The Founding Fathers are often described by leftists as “followers of the Enlightenment”, as if this means they were not Christian.  All of them were in fact Christian while also promoting some ideals of the Enlightenment.  Many prominent figures of the enlightenment were religious, including Isaac Newton, John Locke, and Christian Wolff. 

Their goal was to seek harmony between faith and reason, not erase the practice of faith from society or government.  As John Adams said:

“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity…I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”  

He also stated:

We have seen how governments devoid of religious principle behave – The atheistic regimes of communist Russia, China, Cambodia and North Korea have murdered millions upon millions in the name of “saving” the populace from the “opiate of religion”. We have also seen how movements like the political left behave when they gain power, injecting authoritarianism and degeneracy into every facet of society and even targeting children with irrational and anti-science indoctrination.  

The phrase “separation of church and state” was popularized by the Supreme Court in 1947, notably in Everson v. Board of Education, as a metaphor for interpreting the First Amendment.  It is not the law, however.  In the sense that it is not illegal for government officials to sponsor religious events or to speak their minds when it comes to religious issues.

Furthermore, it’s not against the law for government officials to point out that the US was founded as a Christian nation; the Founding Fathers did the same.  No one’s religious practice is being suppressed and no state religion is being established by doing so.  The media’s efforts to shame this generational reality by exploiting misinterpretations of the Constitution might have worked a decade ago, but not anymore.   

Authored by Will Coggin via RealClearDefense,

The Chinese government is tightening the screws on American investment in its artificial intelligence sector. The core purpose is to keep U.S. capital out of technologies it deems “strategically sensitive” to national security. The protective action is a reminder that Washington also needs to prioritize insulating our own critical sectors from foreign adversaries.

Few industries are more important to our national security than healthcare. More than 131 million people – nearly two-thirds of all U.S. adults – use prescription medications. Yet the United States has allowed its pharmaceutical supply chains to become dangerously dependent on foreign rivals – particularly China. 

That vulnerability became strikingly clear during the pandemic, when U.S. leaders scrambled to secure masks, gloves, and other protective equipment from overseas. But our overreliance on China runs far deeper than just rubber and fabric. 

Today, China produces an outsized portion of the world’s Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). These are the chemical backbone of most medicines, from insulin to antibiotics to asthma treatments. In a crisis—whether military confrontation, sanctions escalation, or a broader trade disagreement—Beijing would have us by the pills. 

It’s not theoretical. China has already demonstrated its willingness to weaponize supply chains. During recent trade disputes, Beijing leveraged its control over rare earth minerals—critical inputs for everything from aerospace systems to consumer electronics—to strengthen its negotiating position against the United States.

This kind of market dominance is by design. Every five years, leaders from across China congregate to decide a new national development plan. Because of the country’s highly-centralized structure, the government systematically targets strategic industries. 

In 2020, that five-year plan focused on electric vehicles and semiconductors. Now, Beijing is expanding its ambitions into biotechnology and “frontier science.” China is positioning itself not just as a pharmaceutical inputs supplier, but as a potential gatekeeper of future medical breakthroughs. 

Washington cannot let that happen. Fortunately, the U.S. has a powerful tool that our chief competitor across the Pacific doesn’t. Free market capitalism—as opposed to a top down, state-directed economy—is America’s competitive edge against China. Congress just needs to provide the right incentives so we can maximize on that advantage. 

Recent tax reforms that allow manufacturers to immediately expense some of the costs associated with research and development are a strong start. These legislative changes are providing businesses with greater certainty to invest in domestic production and expand “Made in America” pharmaceutical capacity.

President Trump is adding fuel to that momentum through his pro-business agenda. A 2025 order that streamlines approvals for companies looking to onshore drug production is a prime example. But executive action is fragile. America’s next leader could reverse that progress with the stroke of a pen. As the Trump administration continues to hack away at layers of red tape, lawmakers should codify these reforms.

America already has a strong foundation to build from. Indiana, North Carolina, and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, among other areas, anchor a significant share of existing American pharmaceutical production. By encouraging more innovation in our own backyard, these hubs can be strengthened to secure supply chains and reduce our dependence on China. 

Recent investments—including $300 million committed to Puerto Rico to expand domestic drug manufacturing capacity—are proof of concept. 

U.S. Congressman Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) recently said it best when he warned “America’s medicine cabinet runs through Beijing.” As China tightens its grip, securing America’s healthcare supply chains against foreign disruption is not just sound economic policy—it is a national security imperative.

Will Coggin is the managing director of the American Security Institute.

One of the biggest mistakes globalists made in their bid for perpetual medical authoritarianism during the Covid pandemic was reveling a bit too much.  Numerous high level officials from the WEF, WHO, the Imperial College of London and an army of politicians were giddy with excitement and bragged publicly about all the power they were going to grab as the masses huddled in fear of a virus with a 99.8% average survival rate.

This arrogance cost them, triggering an awakening of millions of former skeptics who are now avid “conspiracy theorists”.  Today, the ability of the elitist class to sucker the populace into a new pandemic theater is greatly reduced.

No one believes them anymore.  And even if there was a legitimate biological threat, no one is going to trust an corrupt organization like the WHO to solve the problem.  

We have see the consequences of the covid farce with the recent Hantavirus scare, which has failed to inspire any noticeable reaction from the public.  As we noted a few days ago, the WHO has been exposed as a perpetrator of pandemic disinformation and is no longer trusted by the public. 

🇺🇳 | AHORA – El Tedros de la OMS dice que “espera más casos” de Hantavirus que se anuncien, debido a la brecha entre el primer caso y el momento en que se identificó el virus, ya que los pasajeros estaban interactuando en el barco durante este tiempo. pic.twitter.com/uVxOlMHkL4

— Alerta News 24 (@AlertaNews24) May 12, 2026

The US under the Trump Administration has exited the organization on these grounds, and as a result the WHO has lost at least 20% of its total funding.  It is now facing dire financial conditions.  In response, the UN and the establishment media have been running a spin campaign to present the WHO as indispensable.

Viruses do not respect borders.

I thank Prime Minister @sanchezcastejon not only for meeting #Spain’s legal duty under international law, but also for exercising his moral duty to show solidarity with, and compassion and kindness for, the passengers on MV Hondius cruise ship.… pic.twitter.com/yq3lM2yv88

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) May 12, 2026

For Hantavirus, the spread from human to human is rare and only occurs with the South American (or Andes) strain.  Contraction is difficult, with the virus passing from one person to another through “prolonged contact” often involving bodily fluids”. 

The hysteria over Hantavirus has not materialized and the story is quickly fizzling out.  In response the WHO and Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus are taking to the media again to announce a new “Ebola threat” in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Tedros is calling for “global solidarity” (and more funding) in response to the outbreak which has allegedly infected 13 people so far.  It should be noted that the DRC has had at least 17 Ebola outbreaks since the 1970s and none of them have led to a global pandemic threat.  The rhetoric of “global unity” is familiar, with much of the same language used during the covid pandemic.  

The last time the US had a “close call” with Ebola was in 2014 when the CDC identified over a dozen carriers in the US, and two deaths.  The end result?  Nothing happened, despite a media firestorm asserting that a deadly plague was just around the corner.

This is not to say that dangerous outbreaks are never going to happen, but it is rather convenient that the WHO is losing substantial funding and sway in geopolitics, and suddenly, common outbreaks are being treated like looming disasters in the media.  

Authored by Chris Milton via The Daily Sceptic

The arguments in philosopher Thomas Nagel’s seminal 1974 essay ‘What is it Like to be Bat?‘ can help us answer the question of whether a human born with XY chromosomes and a male body can be, can become or can know what it’s like to be a woman, or can know what inhabiting the world is like for a woman. Nagel – who randomly chose bats from the list of mammals – began from the premise that if an organism has consciousness then there is something that it is like to be that organism, and his question was whether we could know “what is like for a bat to be a bat”.

Nagel’s essay argues for the wholly subjective character of experience, and how this subjectivity is dictated by differences in the physicality of beings. A creature shapes its Umwelt, or lifeworld, through its interactions with the world, and those interactions are determined by that creature’s body. Men and women inhabit similar yet profoundly different Umwelts. The qualia of sensation — meaning the instances of subjective experience, such as what it’s like to perceive a colour, to taste an apple or hear a baby cry — are different for each individual human. But these differences are also sexed. The last is a good example, as the female body — and therefore mind — responds to a baby’s cry in a radically different way to a man’s. But there are also large differences in the way they experience running for five hundred metres, the colour red, having a nipple touched, and innumerable other things (almost everything, in fact). There are qualia that each sex experiences that the other will never be able experience at all, but which help form their consciousnesses. A woman will never get an erection, and a man will never have a clitoral or vaginal orgasm, menstruate or give birth.

All of these ways of experiencing the world physically, along with our anticipations and memories of them, form a human being’s consciousness, its personality, its very being (or soul, if you like), who he or she is. If one, or even half a dozen of the physical particularities of a woman could be miraculously reproduced in a man (which they can’t), such as giving him the same muscle mass and bone density as a woman, a uterus, a clitoris or a brain that reacts in the same way to temperature or noise, he still wouldn’t be a woman physically, or anywhere near being one. Consciousness is a complex feature of evolutionarily determined biological systems, the latter radically different for men and women, such that even their spatial and temporal perspectives for experiencing the world are different.

For a man to become a woman everything, every molecule, would have to be changed, and a lifetime of memories implanted. Each moment-to-moment sequence of experience from the womb onwards grows coherently out of those that preceded it and determines those that follow it. Surgery is merely an in-real-life filter, advanced dressing up, and transitions someone towards nothing that meaningfully resembles a woman. To give one of hundreds of examples: men have no Cooper’s Ligament, which means that after HRT their breasts – which in any case are functionless – will be tubular and spaced very widely apart. Even the cells of men and women are biochemically different and determine, from before birth, many things, including how each sex fights particular diseases. Objective, unchangeable, sexed physical states partially determine subjective states; lopping off this or that part of the body or appending a functionless simulacrum of another will in no wise change the quality of those subjective states.

Every cell in our body has your male or femaleness inscribed within it. Even if it were possible to change your hormonal sex completely (which it isn’t) that would still leave your unalterable chromasomal sex, and your genetic sex, intact. There are many male and female brain circuits that behave very differently, sex-recognition is hard-wired into our brains, and the neurons have been identified that allow us ‘instinctively’ to discern a member of the opposite sex, however heavily disguised: this is why no trans people ever really ‘pass’.

So, a man can never become a woman physically, and thus cannot logically be or ‘identify as’ a woman, as you can only know what it feels like to be a thing if you are that thing. To argue otherwise, that there is another, ‘real’ self within us distinct from the bodily self, and that the mind and body are separate?, is philosophically centuries out of date – Locke’s empiricism first put pay to Cartesian dualism almost 350 years ago. “Mental states,” Nagel adds, “are states of the body, and mental events are physical events”: the ghost is the machine, the machine is the ghost. The hormonal impregnation of the foetus has a direct effect on neural circuits, creating a masculine brain and a feminine brain, which can be distinguished from each other anatomically and biochemically, and cannot be housed in the body of the other sex, it being determined by the sexed body. Let’s look at a passage of Nagel and replace ‘bats’ with ‘women’:

Even if [men] could transform over time into [women] their brains would not have worked as [women’s] brains from birth, and could therefore never have the mindset of a [woman]. … It is doubtful that any meaning could be attached to the supposition that I should possess the internal neuropsychological constitution of a [woman]. … Even if I could by gradual degrees be transformed into a [woman], nothing in my present condition enables me to imagine what the experience of such a future stage of myself thus metamorphosed would be like.

and,

To the extent that I could look and behave like a [woman] without changing my fundamental structure, my experiences would [still] not be anything like the experiences of [women].

It is then, the much vaunted ‘lived experience’ that militates against the possibility of transgenderism. Nagel goes on to give the example of trying to attain knowledge of what it is like to be blind or deaf (he could just as easily have substituted disabled, or schizophrenic), concluding that “the subjective experiences of a person deaf or blind from birth are not accessible to me… we cannot form more than a schematic notion of what it would be like”.

Nagel says that “the more different from oneself the other experiencer is, the less success you can expect in your guesswork”. So, men can come close to guessing what it is like to be woman. Men and women both experience hunger, sexual desire, boredom and aesthetic pleasure, but the way they experience those things is qualitatively different, and unalterably so. Nagel writes that “there are facts that do not consist in the truth of propositions expressible in human language”, and that “to deny the reality or logical significance of what we can never describe or understand is the crudest form of logical dissonance”. In other words, the subjectivity of other beings is ultimately ineffable and irreducible to language, and so the subjective experiences of men and women will always be unknowable for each other.

The idea that someone, by adopting the outward and trivial indicators of femininity, can suddenly thereby have access to that knowledge is preposterous. Men can only guess, and approach knowledge through empathy, imagination and the testimonies of women themselves. “Nobody has yet devised,” Nagel writes, “an objective phenomenology not dependent on empathy and imagination — that could describe, at least in part, the subjective character of experiences in a form comprehensible to a being incapable of having those experiences.”

Men and women are restricted by the resources of their own sexed minds, their consciousnesses made sexed by their sexed bodies. To deny that they are sexed is not only contra accepted biology, as well as common sense, it would also completely undermine the discipline of evolutionary biology.

The belief that ‘trans women are women’ makes a belief in magic seem sophisticated, because belief in magic or miracles explained effects for which causes could not (yet) be identified, but there was at least an observable effect to be explained. Likewise, when people believed erroneously that the world was flat, they did so because the world looked flat. With trans women, there is no such observable effect. What you have before you after saying the magic formula ‘trans women are women’ is visibly still a man. At best, after the surgical removal of his genitalia, a man will have a crude cavity, its position and its condition of being a hole with a surgically fashioned ‘clitoris’ being the only things it has in common with a woman’s vagina, and yet it is the only part of a woman’s reproductive system that it’s even possible to crudely mimic. This is why the word ‘trans’ itself is inadmissible, as there isn’t a transition towards or into anything.

The feeling inside that one is male or female is biologically determined, the idea of ‘being in the wrong body’ has no concrete, observable, provable basis: ‘male’ and ‘female’ are ‘assigned’ at birth, or rather conception, but by Nature, not by a doctor or midwife. One cannot move from the fixed point of being male or female and back again, so the idea of gender fluidity, of being non-binary is illogical, impossible, mad. A big difference between men and women lies in their reproductive organs, in their potential reproductive roles, and in the reproductive apparatus that produces sperm or eggs, so that ultimately many social determinations regarding gender are biologically determined. This is why, until very recently, sex and gender were used interchangeably: for there to be a third gender, there would need to be a new, third reproductive function, and new organs to go with it. Arguments that sexual dimorphism can be overcome or does not exist are pure Lysenkoism, and matters of ideology, not science. Gender theorists wanted to separate sex and gender, but it simply can’t be done.

To have given this matter philosophical consideration is to have given it way more than its due, and to have accorded the adherents of trans ideology more respect than they are due, and has necessitated the bracketing of matters such as the data showing that it is in part a social contagion, that its are roots in pornography and autogynephilia, that it’s funded by a small group of trans billionaires, that it’s a multi-billion dollar business, and that its explosion amongst the young is closely tied to social media, beginning with MySpace and Tumblr, then via Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

The one thing that trans ideology has done more than anything else, that will outlast it, is to have made a nonsense of the idea of human progress, other than technological-scientific progress. It is perhaps the most profound manifestation of human credulousness and stupidity in history, outdoing even the witch craze of the 17th century. It is more egregious than any previous superstition or mass insanity because it is has come well after the end of the age of superstition and the advent of Enlightenment. The ‘truths’ of science have always been subject to suspicion and revision, but trans ideology has never had its Hegelian ‘moment’ of temporary truth that was later abandoned as more information came to light. Quite the opposite: it is wholly retrogressive, an attempt to replace biological knowledge with magical thinking, a regression to something lower even than pseudoscience.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Annual electricity power generation from utility-scale solar projects is predicted to exceed output from coal for the first time ever in 2026 on grids run by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).

An aerial view of the Amazon Fort Powhatan Solar Farm in Disputanta, Va., on Aug. 19, 2022. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

This year, solar power generation within the ERCOT-run grids, which cover most of the state, is expected to be 78 billion kilowatt hours (BkWh), 30 percent higher than the 60 BkWh generated by coal, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a May 13 statement, while adding that solar generation has been steadily increasing within ERCOT.

For 2027, annual solar generation is projected at 99 BkWh, a 50 percent lead over coal’s 66 BkWh.

“Natural gas remains the dominant source of electricity generation in ERCOT, accounting for an average 44 percent of electricity generation from 2021 to 2025,” the agency said.

However, “solar’s share of the generation mix has increased from 4 percent to 12 percent in those years, while coal’s share has decreased from 19 percent to 13 percent,” it said.

This year, roughly 40 percent of total solar capacity additions nationwide are forecast to occur in Texas.

One of the projects expected to come online this year is the Tehuacana Creek 1 Solar and battery energy storage system, which, at 837 megawatts, could be the largest solar photovoltaic project to go online in the state in 2026.

There are currently no plans to construct new coal plants in ERCOT, the EIA said.

As for nationwide trends, a January report from the EIA predicted the combined share of solar and wind power in America’s total electricity generation to rise from 18 to 21 percent during 2025–2027.

In contrast, “the three main dispatchable sources of electricity generation (natural gas, coal, and nuclear) accounted for 75 percent of total generation in 2025, but we expect the share of generation from these sources will fall to about 72 percent in 2027,” the agency said.

Power Outage Risks

The July 2025 Resource Adequacy Report from the Department of Energy warned that the risk of power outages in the United States could jump 100-fold by the end of this decade, driven by the retirement of firm power plants and load growth.

Firm power refers to power that can be generated at all times, such as via coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. Intermittent sources, such as solar and wind, are dependent on factors like weather to generate power.

According to the report, “104 GW of firm capacity is set for retirement by 2030. This capacity is not being replaced on a one-to-one basis, and losing this generation could lead to significant outages when weather conditions do not accommodate wind and solar generation.”

Crackdown on Solar, Wind Projects

The Trump administration has taken various actions against renewable energy projects.

In July 2025, the Department of the Interior announced it would implement policies to end the special treatment accorded to “unreliable” energy sources. The department’s first measure called for identifying policies in favor of solar and wind projects, and halting support for energy supply chains controlled by foreign rivals.

In August 2025, the Department of Agriculture stopped funding all programs for solar or wind projects on farmland.

Some of the Trump administration’s policies have been successfully challenged.

In April this year, a federal judge blocked the administration’s efforts to cease approvals for wind and solar energy projects in a case filed by a coalition of renewable energy groups. The court issued a preliminary injunction blocking five actions, including a legal opinion that had slowed approvals for solar and wind projects.

The judge said that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that various agencies violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how these agencies make policy decisions.

“This is an undeniable victory for members of our coalition and the broader clean energy industry, as well as American households and businesses,” the plaintiffs said in a joint statement.

Meanwhile, the United States set a new record for total energy production last year, outputting 107 quadrillion British thermal units, 3.4 percent higher than the previous record in 2024. This is the fourth straight year the country has set a record for total energy output.

Natural gas was the top source of energy, followed by crude oil, coal, natural gas plant liquids, renewables, and nuclear power.

Natural gas output grew by more than 4 percent in 2025 from 2024. Coal power generation rose by 4 percent, which followed two years of declining production. Renewable energy output increased by 3 percent.