The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.
Here is a prediction. The GOP holds the House in November, wins Michigan’s Senate seat, and the balance of power doesn’t change much. Don’t bet your house on my prediction, but I feel pretty good about it.
Why do I feel good about it? Because the Democrats are getting crazier by the minute. Let me explain by sharing this from Jamelle Bouie, who I believe used to frequently appear on MSNBC panels, before they changed the name to whatever it is now. Here is Jamelle’s take:
The immediate consequence of the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais is that Republican-led states in the South can destroy their majority-minority districts and, in turn, deprive their Black residents of federal representation by politicians of their choosing…
Shad White, the Mississippi state auditor, also posted on X: ‘We’re fighting so that Bennie Thompson’ — who represents the state’s 2nd District — ‘and Hakeem Jeffries are not in charge. We’re fighting for a country that is safe, where our taxes don’t go up, where our border is secure.’
To watch this whole spectacle is to put the lie to the idea — seen in the court’s opinion as well as among the court’s apologists — that the South has changed so much since 1965 that a strong Voting Rights Act is no longer necessary.
There you have it. We are still living in 1965, or something like that. I guess that Jamelle sees everything through the race lens. It’s always about black and white rather than character, as someone said in a famous 1963 speech. In the meantime, a white Democrat defeated a black Republican in Virginia. And two black Republicans may defeat white Democrats for governor in Michigan and Florida. And we have Wes Hunt in Texas, a black man representing a majority white district. In other words, a lot of white voters are voting for black candidates, confirming that positions on issues are more important than skin color. The late Dr. King would be proud of that, and confirm that this ain’t 1965.
So why is it always about race for Jamelle’s side? I don’t know, but maybe it’s because they have nothing else to offer except telling black voters that only a black Democrat is capable of representing them. And worse than that, they want The Supreme Court to guarantee that a black Democrat is going to have a seat in Congress.
Memo to Jamelle: You are out of touch with reality. I guess that’s why I feel optimistic about the November elections, because Jamelle is not the only one saying these weird things on the other side.
The situation in Cuba may be at or near a breaking point. Many experts — real ones whom I trust and learn from regularly, not just whoever the MSM could dig up — are calling today the “beginning of the end” of the regime that has been in power for 67 years.
On Thursday, the country’s energy minister, Vicente de la O Levy, said on state media, “We have absolutely no fuel and absolutely no diesel. We have no reserves.”
Of course, he went on to blame the U.S. “blockade,” which prevents other countries from sending oil to Cuba via secondary tariffs, but we all know that’s not the real problem.
Even when the regime was receiving super cheap oil from Venezuela or Mexico, it was selling most of it to foreign countries and using what was left to keep its own interests up and running. The Cuban people were still dealing with blackouts. And the lack of oil wasn’t the only issue. The infrastructure there is crumbling, and the regime refuses to fix or maintain it.
Major Protests Break Out as Regime Cuts Communication Lines
Blackouts in many neighborhoods are now reaching 22 hours a day, which has set off a new wave of protests this week. People are losing their fear of the regime — they can no longer live like this — and they’re begging the United States to end it. There have been some photos and videos posted on social media, and advocates for a free Cuba, like Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), are asking people who can to spread the word about the protests. Why? The regime has now reportedly cut off all lines of communication in the country, including phone and internet service. They do not want the outside world to see what’s really going on.
With that in mind, I’ll share a few videos from Wednesday night. Most of the captions are in Spanish, but they all basically say the same thing, explaining that people are in the streets protesting.
Record High Political Prisoner Numbers
While people are losing their fear and taking to the streets, they’re still not safe from the regime. The human rights organization Prison Defenders released its monthly report on the number of political prisoners in Cuba, and in April 2026, it hit a record high of 1,260 detained.
To make matters worse, 14 are minors, 142 are women, 449 have serious medical conditions, and 51 have untreated severe mental health issues.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is currently on travel with President Donald Trump to China, but he sat down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on the way there, and one topic they discussed is what’s going on in Cuba. He didn’t say anything particularly new. He’s been saying all along that Cuba has no economy and the current people in charge aren’t competent enough to fix that.
“There is no economy in Cuba,” he said. “To the extent there’s any wealth in Cuba… forget about it doesn’t go to the people. It doesn’t even go to the government. The wealth is controlled by a private company owned by military generals. They take all the money. They’re sitting on billions of dollars, okay? This is a country where people are literally now eating garbage from the streets, but they have a company that controls all of the moneymaking there that’s sitting on $15-16 billion.”
The one thing Cuba would enjoy is an enormous expatriate community, Cuban Americans that would go back and invest. But I think there would be interest globally. Look, they have significant mineral deposits in Cuba — some of the rare earth minerals, some of the best in the world. They have, obviously, an incredible opportunity with tourism, with agriculture – very rich farmland. So Cuba should not be a poor country. Its people should not be starving. Its people should be prosperous. And what’s most interesting is you see Cubans everywhere in the world – in the United States, but you see them in Europe, you see them in Panama. Cubans leave Cuba, they go to other countries, and they become successful. The only place in the world where Cubans can’t seem to prosper and succeed is in Cuba.
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What’s All This About $100 Million in Aid?
While in Italy last week, Rubio spoke about how the United States has tried to give the Cuban people $100 million in aid, but the regime wouldn’t allow it. Of course, it wouldn’t go directly to the regime — the Cuban people would never see it if it did — but it would be handled through Catholic charities as we’ve done previously with smaller amounts.
The United States continues to seek meaningful reforms to Cuba’s communist system, which has only served to enrich the elites and condemn the Cuban people to poverty. As U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said, the United States has also made numerous private offers to the Cuban regime to provide generous assistance to the Cuban people, including support for free and fast satellite internet and $100 million in direct humanitarian assistance. The regime refuses to allow the United States to provide this assistance to the Cuban people, who are in desperate need of assistance due to the failures of Cuba’s corrupt regime.
Today, the Department of State is publicly restating the United States’ generous offer to provide an additional $100 million in direct humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people that would be distributed in coordination with the Catholic Church and other reliable independent humanitarian organizations. The decision rests with the Cuban regime to accept our offer of assistance or deny critical living-saving aid and ultimately be accountable to the Cuban people for standing in the way of critical assistance.
Initially, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuba’s foreign minister and long-time Rubio foe, denied this, saying the U.S. never offered any such thing and calling it a “fable” and a “lie,” but when the State Department put it in writing, he changed his tune a bit.
It remains unclear whether it will be cash or material aid, and whether it will be allocated to the most urgent needs of the moment for the people, such as fuels, food, and medicines.
In any case, even taking into account the incongruity of the apparent generosity from the party that subjects the Cuban people to collective punishment through economic warfare, the Cuban government does not have a practice of rejecting foreign aid that is offered in good faith and with genuine aims of cooperation, whether bilateral or multilateral.
Nor does it have any objections to working with the Catholic Church, with which it has a long and positive experience of joint work through its cooperative efforts.
We are willing to hear the details of the offer and the manner in which it would be implemented.
We hope it is free of political maneuvers and attempts to exploit the shortages and suffering of a people under siege.
The best aid that the U.S. government could provide to the noble Cuban people at this or any time is to de-escalate the measures of the energy, economic, commercial, and financial blockade, intensified as never before in recent months, which severely affects all sectors of the Cuban economy and society.
John Ratcliffe Goes to Havana
Here’s something I didn’t have on my bingo card for today: CIA Director John Ratcliffe hopped on a plane to Havana on Thursday to meet with senior officials, including Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the elder Castro’s grandson, and Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas. This is huge.
According to CIA officials, Ratcliffe was on a personal mission from Trump to deliver a message: The U.S. is prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes. The idea that Cuba can no longer be a haven for our adversaries (Iran, China, Russia, etc.) was a major point on the agenda.
Oh, and get this: Ratcliffe also reportedly reminded them of what happened in Venezuela on January 3 and that it can happen again if something doesn’t change swiftly.
The regime also confirmed the visit, claiming the U.S. requested it and “the Leadership of the Revolution approved the carrying out of this visit.”
Indicting Raúl Castro?
As I’m writing all of this on Thursday evening, CBS is reporting that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken steps to indict Raúl Castro for the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shooting. At that time, Castro reportedly ordered the military to shoot down two civilian planes in international waters, killing four people, three of whom were U.S. citizens and one a permanent resident.
Earlier this year, several members of Congress wrote a letter to the Trump administration requesting exactly this. I won’t rehash it all, as I wrote a lot about it in February, which you can read here: Could Trump Go After Castro?
Apparently, all it needs is a grand jury approval. With that, the 94-year-old Castro would be a U.S. fugitive from justice, and the Castro family would see an end to its decades of perceived impunity, even if it just turns out to be a symbolic move.
Keep in mind, this is an “anonymous sources” story with no confirmation from the DOJ, but because of the nature of the issue, I wouldn’t expect the DOJ to comment on it anyway until it’s a done deal.
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I know that’s a lot, but it proves that the regime is in its most desperate position yet, and the Trump administration is ramping up a lot of pressure all at once — pressure that was already near its maximum. The coming days and weeks will be interesting to watch, and I will keep you posted every step of the way.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
Help us continue to report on the administration’s peace through strength foreign policy and its successes. Join PJ Media VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Sarah Anderson is a Georgia-based freelance writer and journalist, specializing in foreign policy, with a passion for Latin America and the Caribbean.
When she’s not writing, you can find her chasing animals on her small hobby farm, swimming every chance she gets, traveling, gardening, reading, or yelling at a Georgia Bulldogs or Atlanta Falcons football game like any good Southerner.
You might also catch her watching State Department briefings to unwind.
The FBI is offering a $200,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension and prosecution of Monica Witt, a former U.S. service member and counterintelligence agent.
Witt was indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia in February 2019 on charges of espionage, including transmitting national defense information to the government of Iran.
Witt, a former active-duty U.S. Air Force intelligence specialist and special agent for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, served in the military between 1997 and 2008 before working as a U.S. government contractor until 2010.
FBI Washington Field Office Announces $200,000 Reward for Information Leading to Arrest of Former U.S. Counterintelligence Agent Monica Witt: In 2013, Witt defected to Iran and then allegedly provided national defense information to the Iranian government.
Her military service and contracting employment provided her access to SECRET and TOP SECRET information relating to foreign intelligence and counterintelligence, including the true names of U.S. Intelligence Community undercover personnel.
According to the indictment, she subsequently provided information to the government of Iran, placing at risk sensitive and classified U.S. national defense information and programs. Witt allegedly intentionally provided information endangering U.S personnel and their families stationed abroad. She also allegedly conducted research on behalf of the Iranian regime to allow them to target her former colleagues in the U.S. government.
Witt’s defection to Iran has benefitted the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has elements responsible for intelligence collection, unconventional warfare, and providing direct support to multiple terrorist organizations targeting U.S. citizens and interests.
While Witt has been indicted for her alleged crimes, she remains at large. The FBI continues to actively work to locate Witt and bring her to justice.
“Monica Witt allegedly betrayed her oath to the Constitution more than a decade ago by defecting to Iran and providing the Iranian regime National Defense Information and likely continues to support their nefarious activities,” said Daniel Wierzbicki, special agent in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Counterintelligence and Cyber Division. “The FBI has not forgotten and believes that during this critical moment in Iran’s history, there is someone who knows something about her whereabouts. The FBI wants to hear from you so you can help us apprehend Witt and bring her to justice.”
Anyone who has information about Witt should contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI. You can also contact your local FBI office or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate or submit a tip via tips.fbi.gov.
Abu Dhabi is accelerating construction of the new West-East pipeline to Fujairah as it looks to expand its oil export capacity and bypass the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint.
The project, expected to come online in 2027, will double the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s (ADNOC) export capacity.
The second pipeline project comes as global energy supplies remain under pressure, flows through the Strait of Hormuz are severely limited, and repeated attacks on energy infrastructure and shipping have curtailed the UAE’s ability to restore normal output.
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Friday called for faster delivery of the pipeline to meet rising global energy demand.
ADNOC is “well positioned as a responsible and reliable global energy producer, with the operational flexibility to responsibly increase production to meet market needs when export constraints allow,” the Crown Prince said during a meeting of the company’s executive committee.
The Emirates announced earlier this month it would depart the producer group OPEC, of which it was a member since 1967, before the UAE was even founded. The UAE has been investing heavily via ADNOC to increase its production capacity.
Before the war, the UAE was producing just over 3 million barrels a day — broadly in line with OPEC+ targets. Abu Dhabi has targeted a capacity to produce 4.9 million BPD. Now, due to the war, the UAE is producing between 1.8 and 2.1 million barrels per day.
The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (Adcop) — also known as the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline — is the only existing pipeline through which the UAE can export its oil and diverge from the Strait of Hormuz. It can carry up to 1.8 million barrels.
The chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee is urging the Justice Department to ask federal courts to dismiss with prejudice all prior criminal prosecutions against President Donald Trump, putting a permanent end to a 10-year legal assault by the Obama-Biden era FBI against the man twice elected president by the American people.
“It’s probably time that this all just ended,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Wednesday night after Just the News reported new documents it obtained revealed the FBI at the end of the Biden presidency secretly took the rare step of preserving evidence from a dismissed January 6 prosecution until 2030, raising alarm the bureau could revive its prosecution after Trump leaves office.
The agents in the controversial Arctic Frost case also wrote a new memo insisting they believed Trump violated laws, creating a fresh roadmap for prosecution after Trump’s presidential immunity from prosecution ends in 2029.
Jordan, who played a crucial role in debunking Russia collusion allegations against Trump and chronicling FBI abuses in the targeting of conservative figures since 2016, reacted to the report by saying Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche should declare “this thing is done, over with. A-B see you later.”
He said DOJ asking the courts to discard all prior prosecutions with prejudice — meaning they couldn’t be re-filed — was “the right approach.”
“When you think about what’s it now been over 10 years? I mean, remember this all started when we learned here from your good reporting and other good work, that we’ve learned that the whole thing was a hoax from the beginning when they used the (Steele) dossier that was manufactured and paid for by the Clinton campaign and all that. So, yeah, it’s probably time that this is all just ended,” he said,
FBI Director Kash Patel told Just the News the decision — before he took over the bureau — to keep evidence from the dismissed Arctic Frost prosecution was wrong, abusive and not normal FBI procedure. He noted the special FBI unit that worked on the case has been disbanded,
“The American people deserve to know how this egregious weaponization of power to target political opponents and President Trump happened inside an institution meant to protect them,” Patel said. “We shut down the weaponized CR-15 squad, and we are going to keep following the facts until there is full accountability. The FBI exists to protect the country, not to preserve political prosecutions for a future administration.”
The FBI memos and emails closing out the controversial Arctic Frost investigation – obtained by Just the News – show the bureau chose not to relinquish the evidence it gathered after Smith went to court to dismiss charges against Trump, even though that is the normal practice for agents. Instead, they created a preservation order keeping the evidence in FBI custody for two years after Trump’s second term ends, claiming it was necessary to do so because of ongoing litigation, the memos show.
FBI emails and memos obtained by Just the News dating back to early 2025 show how the FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors who had been working on the criminal prosecutions aimed at Trump and his allies worked to close the 2020 election-related case against the incoming president, while also seemingly leaving open the door for the criminal case to be revived once Trump leaves office and a Democrat again holds the reins at the Justice Department.
“The American people deserve to know how this egregious weaponization of power to target political opponents and President Trump happened inside an institution meant to protect them,” FBI Director Kash Patel told Just the News. “We shut down the weaponized CR-15 squad, and we are going to keep following the facts until there is full accountability. The FBI exists to protect the country, not to preserve political prosecutions for a future administration.”
Following Trump’s victory in November 2024 over Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Special Counsel Jack Smith sought to dismiss his January 6 related case against Trump “without prejudice” – leaving open the possibility that the charges could be refiled in the future.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, appointed to the federal bench by President Barack Obama, pointed to the Office of Legal Counsel’s position that a sitting president could not be prosecuted by his own DOJ and granted Smith’s request to dismiss the case without prejudice.
One of the key “Case Closing” documents obtained by Just the News – originating from the FBI’s Washington Field Office’s CR-15 team – was dated a couple of weeks into Trump’s second term, on February 5, 2025, when many holdover FBI agents and leaders were still in place.
The newly-released closing document from early 2025 repeated the extensive claims of criminality against Trump, which had been pursued by Smith and the bureau, and it sought to retain all of the evidence for a half decade until at least February 2030, when Trump would be a former president once more and thus when the DOJ guidance prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president would no longer be in force.
The document was titled “Arctic Frost – Election Law Matters – Sensitive Investigative Matter” and its synopsis was “To Document the Closing of Captioned Investigation.” The listed enclosures buttressing the document were a “Deputy Special Counsel Concurrence” and the “Retention of Evidence Approval.”
The FBI record states, “This Electronic Communication seeks approval to close the captioned full Sensitive Investigative Matter investigation” and argued that “because this was a SIM opened by a Field Office and involved a presidential candidate, the same level of approval required to open the investigation is also required to close the investigation.”
Evidence released last year showed that then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, then-Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and then-FBI Director Christopher Wray signed off on the launch of the Arctic Frost inquiry into Trump related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Garland also quickly said he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant” for the FBI’s unprecedented raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022. The Biden White House was also directly linked to the classified documents investigation into Trump, despite its denials, previously-released records show.
“The approval roles on this closing EC match those of the opening EC and, as such, Washington Field Office is seeking approval up to and including the Director of the FBI to close this investigation,” the newly released FBI document said.
The document included a “Summary of the Results of the Investigation” into Trump, which had been pursued by Smith and the FBI, arguing that “the captioned FBI investigation was opened based on specific and articulable facts and circumstances that individuals affiliated with Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (the ‘Trump Campaign’) engaged in activity that violated federal law.”
The FBI memo alleged that “the investigation revealed that when Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office. With various co-conspirators, Trump launched a series of plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lost – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.”
The bureau record also alleged that “Trump and his co-conspirators used knowingly false claims of election fraud in furtherance of three conspiracies: 1) a conspiracy to interfere with the federal government function by which the nation collects and counts election results, which is set forth in the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act; 2) a conspiracy to obstruct the official proceeding in which Congress certifies the legitimate results of the presidential election; and 3) a conspiracy against the rights of millions of Americans to vote and have their votes counted.”
The section on the “Disposition of Evidence” related to Smith’s anti-Trump investigation argued that “this investigation is subject to a litigation hold and is on the freeze list; as a result, no evidence can be returned or destroyed and must be retained.”
The FBI memo said that FBI assistant special agent in charge approval “to retain all evidence notwithstanding closure” of the case was obtained “as required” by the FBI’s Field Evidence Management Policy Guide.
“The Retention EC specifies that the evidence will be retained until at least February 1, 2030, but in no case prior to the lift of the freeze and litigation hold and that the Special Counsel’s Office concurred with the retention of evidence,” the FBI memo said.
by John Mac Ghlionn, opinion contributor – 01/16/26 1:00 PM ET
Exhaustion helps explain why ideas once treated as radioactive — socialism, in particular — are now discussed less as utopian fantasies and more as possible exits from a stalled national project.
For younger Americans, the appeal is less ideological romance than hunger… They face unaffordable rents, unstable work, medical debt and student loans that metastasize faster than they can be paid down…
When people can’t eat, can’t save and can’t think clearly, the abstractions of “free markets” lose their magic. Systems are judged not by theory but by outcomes. Right now, the outcomes for average Americans are brutal.
This is where figures like Zohran Mamdani come in…
To many on the right, he sounds like a revolutionary… But to many voters in New York City and beyond, he sounds less like a radical than someone asking why, in the richest country on earth, basic material security is still treated as a provocation.
Mamdani’s upset victory in New York has already begun to reverberate far beyond America’s cultural capital…His win has boosted membership in the Democratic Socialists of America and emboldened activists who see confirmation that openly socialist policies — especially on housing and affordability — can win elections…
Younger Americans are less committed to capitalism, not because they have read Marx, but because capitalism, as currently practiced, has written them out of the story…
“Drain the swamp” became a punchline, then a lie, then background noise. What was drained was not corruption but trust. Power did not disappear; it simply reorganized itself around loyalty tests and personal whim. Contracts flowed to friends. Grievance replaced governance. The market was supposed to be free. Instead, it has become selectively generous.
President Trump didn’t invent these problems, but he marked the point at which patience finally ran out. Three years remain in his term, yet many Americans barely tolerate another news cycle.
Burnout is bipartisan. Republicans are visibly trapped — beholden to his moods, his grudges, his erratic behavior. The party’s future is held hostage by one man’s appetite for attention. This bears little resemblance to the conservatism Americans have historically known. It mirrors the logic of strongman politics, privileging loyalty over institutions and performance over principle. On its current trajectory, the Trump stain will not wash out easily.
Against this backdrop, democratic socialism benefits from contrast. It does not promise perfection. Rather, it promises provision. Health care as a right. Housing as infrastructure. Food as a baseline, not a luxury. To critics, it reads as a free-for-all. To those living on the edge, it sounds like survival. When the choice is between vague warnings about inefficiency and concrete relief from daily stress, people choose the latter.
President Trump didn’t invent these problems, but he marked the point at which patience finally ran out. Three years remain in his term, yet many Americans barely tolerate another news cycle.
Dark humor creeps in here. Capitalism’s defenders warn that socialism leads to breadlines, while millions already queue at food banks under capitalism’s watch. The joke writes itself, and it’s not funny. A system that preaches incentives but can’t deliver basic security loses the right to be taken seriously, however elegant its spreadsheets.
This does not mean Americans have forgotten history. Early communal experiments in Jamestown and Plymouth collapsed under the weight of shared ownership and diluted responsibility. Private property, incentive, and reward changed the trajectory of those settlements. That lesson still matters. Democratic socialism, at least in its American form, is not proposing the abolition of markets or ownership. It is proposing guardrails — floors beneath which people should not fall, ceilings on how much public misery can be tolerated in the name of private gain.
The distinction is often lost on those who hear “socialism” and immediately reach for a familiar cautionary tale. But the word has shifted. For many young Americans, it no longer signals total state control, but the state doing something — anything — to make hard work feel like progress rather than stasis.
Whether socialism ultimately prevails is uncertain. What is clear is why it now commands attention. It feeds off frustration, yes, but also off disappointment — in a capitalism that feels captured, in a right that promised renewal and delivered repetition, with leaders who talk up a “strong economy” while wallets stay empty.
If capitalism wants to keep the franchise, it needs fewer speeches and better outcomes. Until then, socialism will look less like an ideology and more like a reaction to failure.
John Mac Ghlionn is a writer and researcher who explores culture, society and the impact of technology on daily life.
EV Pollution: Converting the World to EVs Would Be an Environmental Disaster
In 2024, President Biden said he wanted 56% of all new cars sold in the United States to be electric vehicles by 2032. California Governor Gavin Newsom similarly mandated that 35% of new 2026 model cars sold in the state be zero-emissions vehicles, rising to 68% in 2030 and 100% in 2035.
The European Union announced in 2023 that, from 2035 onward, all new cars coming onto the market could not emit any CO2. The United Kingdom similarly announced a 2030 ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars.
The reaction from the U.S. auto industry was blunt. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation said it “will take a miracle” for all states following California’s rules to reach 100% new zero-emission vehicle sales by 2035.
They are correct. The environmental impact would be devastating. The people claiming to save the world with electric cars could end up destroying it.
Replacing every vehicle on Earth with an EV, all 1.5 to 1.6 billion of them, would be effectively impossible. There are not enough minerals to manufacture all of the batteries required. In addition, there is not enough global processing capacity, and such a transition would require incredible amounts of labor. Many of these minerals are already being mined by children and by workers laboring under hazardous and toxic conditions that amount to modern slavery.
Across every dimension examined, the answer is the same: a simultaneous global conversion to EVs is physically impossible and would cause environmental and humanitarian damage that rivals or exceeds the problems it claims to solve.
A standard 75 kWh NMC battery pack requires approximately 9 kg of lithium, 13 kg of cobalt, 40 kg of nickel, 25 kg of manganese, and 66 kg of graphite per vehicle. Copper and aluminum are also required for the battery casing, current collectors, and wiring. Multiply those figures across 1.5 billion vehicles and the total mineral demand runs to roughly 13.5 million metric tons of lithium, 19.5 million metric tons of cobalt, 60 million metric tons of nickel, 37.5 million metric tons of manganese, and 99 million metric tons of graphite.
Cobalt is the binding constraint. USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) confirmed reserves stand at roughly 11 million metric tons. A full NMC conversion would require nearly double the entire known reserve base before a single battery reaches a recycling facility. Lithium is the second pressure point: confirmed reserves of 28 million metric tons mean fleet demand alone consumes nearly half of all known lithium, before accounting for grid-scale energy storage or consumer electronics. Graphite reserves of 290 million metric tons and confirmed nickel reserves of around 130 million metric tons are less immediately catastrophic, but a global conversion would still consume a third of graphite reserves and nearly half of nickel. Only manganese, with roughly 1.5 billion metric tons of reserves, clears the demand figure with room to spare.
Battery chemistry is shifting toward lithium iron phosphate. LFP batteries grew from 19% of global market share in 2020 to 55% in 2025, eliminating cobalt and nickel from the cathode. This converts an impossible geological equation into a marginally feasible one, but does not solve the supply chain problem. It just relocates it. Over 98% of LFP cathode material and battery cells are produced in China. Trading cobalt dependence on the DRC for total battery dependence on China substitutes one crisis for another.
Before any mineral reaches a factory, it must be extracted, and the extraction burden is staggering. Production of a single NMC battery requires mining an average of 91 to 607 tonnes of rock. At the midpoint, converting 1.5 billion vehicles implies moving somewhere between 136 billion and 910 billion tonnes of earth, an excavation with no historical precedent. Lithium extraction uses approximately 500,000 gallons of water per metric ton. In Chile’s Salar de Atacama, mining has consumed 65% of the region’s water, forcing some communities to import water entirely.
In Nevada, researchers found damage to fish populations 150 miles downstream from a lithium processing operation. South America’s Lithium Triangle holds more than half the world’s lithium beneath some of the driest terrain on earth; scaling extraction to global fleet demand would accelerate desertification across ecosystems already under severe hydrological stress.
Cobalt compounds the damage with pollution and documented human rights violations. Extraction in the DRC has driven widespread deforestation and soil erosion. Toxic byproducts, arsenic, lead, cadmium, and sulfuric acid, leach into rivers and lakes. An estimated 40,000 children are involved in DRC cobalt mining, some as young as seven, working under unsafe conditions, with elevated cobalt levels in their blood and measurable DNA damage.
The U.S. Department of Labor placed cobalt ore from the DRC on its List of Goods Produced by Child Labor in 2009; the practice persists today. About 80% of industrial cobalt mines in the DRC are owned or financed by Chinese companies. A global EV conversion would multiply cobalt demand by orders of magnitude, meaning the humanitarian disaster in the DRC would have to expand in proportion.
Indonesia’s nickel boom illustrates a separate feedback loop. The rapid buildout of nickel smelting, financed and operated largely by Chinese companies, relies on coal-powered processing facilities carved through tropical rainforest. Overall coal demand for non-power uses grew in 2024, driven by coal-intensive sectors including nickel production in Indonesia. This means that manufacturing the batteries intended to reduce fossil fuel dependence is itself increasing coal combustion in the country, becoming the world’s dominant nickel supplier. The EV supply chain and the coal economy are functioning within the same system.
Manufacturing 1.5 billion battery packs is itself a massive carbon event before a single vehicle moves. An EV has roughly double the production carbon footprint of a comparable internal combustion vehicle. Producing a 75 kWh battery pack alone emits more than seven tonnes of CO2-equivalent. At the manufacturing phase, a battery electric vehicle carries slightly more than 12 tonnes of CO2-equivalent against about 8 tonnes for an ICE vehicle.
Across 1.5 billion vehicles, the manufacturing carbon debt runs to between 6 and 10.5 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent generated before a wheel turns. Global energy-sector CO2 emissions run to approximately 40.8 gigatons per year; replacing the entire global fleet front-loads the equivalent of several months of total global emissions into the manufacturing phase alone.
Proponents argue EVs recover this debt through lower operational emissions as grids decarbonize. That argument depends on the grid being substantially cleaner than combustion. In much of the world it is not. In 2025, approximately 58% of China’s electricity came from fossil fuels, with coal accounting for just under 55%. A Chinese EV running on that grid is, in energy terms, a coal-powered vehicle with added transmission losses.
The mineral and manufacturing dependencies represent a structural vulnerability with no near-term substitute. China currently accounts for almost two-thirds of global lithium processing, 75% of cobalt processing, 95% of manganese processing, and nearly all graphite processing capacity. Minerals mined in Australia, Chile, the DRC, Indonesia, and Canada largely pass through Chinese processing facilities before reaching a battery factory anywhere in the world.
CATL alone commanded roughly 36 to 38% of the global EV battery market in 2025, while BYD supplied close to 18%, giving Chinese firms a combined share exceeding 70%. South Korean firms, LG Energy Solution, SK On, and Samsung SDI, have seen their share eroded as Chinese producers undercut them on cost and scale.
The consequence is that a global EV fleet would have no redundancy. When there is an oil shock, the world draws on alternative suppliers across dozens of producing nations. A battery supply crisis offers no equivalent diversification. A deliberate Chinese export restriction on processed graphite or refined lithium, restrictions Beijing has already begun testing, or any exogenous disruption to Chinese industrial capacity, would leave Western manufacturers with no viable substitute supply chain. Investment momentum in critical mineral development weakened in 2024, with real investment growth of just 2%, meaning the alternative supply chains that would provide redundancy are not being built at the pace required.
The mineral arithmetic for cobalt alone rules out a full NMC conversion without consuming reserves that do not exist. Shifting to LFP avoids the cobalt wall but surrenders the supply chain to China. The manufacturing phase front-loads billions of tonnes of carbon emissions.
The mining required would devastate water supplies across the Andes, accelerate deforestation in Central Africa and Indonesia, and expand a child labor system the U.S. government has documented for fifteen years without resolution.
In short, the proposition of replacing every vehicle on Earth with an EV fails on every material dimension, and ironically, it would decimate the environment.
Dr. Antonio Graceffo, PhD, China MBA, is an economist and national security analyst with a focus on China and Russia. He is a graduate of American Military University.
A report from the Congressional Budget Office said that space-based interceptors, which do not currently exist, would probably consume 60 percent of the total cost.
A national missile defense system like President Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome” could cost taxpayers $1.2 trillion over 20 years, according to a government report issued on Tuesday.
To protect the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii would require four separate layers of defensive assets, the analysis said, including several thousand satellites as well as a half-dozen radar and missile sites to engage intercontinental ballistic missiles and 35 new regional sites to defend against hypersonic missiles and cruise missiles.
Even if the system is built, the report concluded, an adversary like Russia or China that has a large arsenal of nuclear weapons could overwhelm it and some missiles would hit their targets.
The budget office report found that the “space-based interceptors” the president envisions — satellites armed with missiles orbiting the planet — would consume about 60 percent of the cost.
The C.B.O. assumed that countering as many as 10 enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles in space simultaneously could require a constellation of roughly 7,800 armed satellites.
To be effective, such space-based interceptors, the C.B.O. said, would need to be placed in low orbit where they would be subject to drag from the planet’s atmosphere — which over a five-year span could cause them to lose enough altitude that they would burn up and need to be replaced.
Tom Karako, a missile defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the C.B.O. report makes several assumptions about the project, including the number and types of space-based interceptors that would be required
“They don’t know what Golden Dome will cost, and to their credit, they say so,” he said.
No air defense system can protect the entire country all the time, Mr. Karako said, adding that the government would rank critical assets that would require the highest level of protection.
The advent of precision-guided conventional — or nonnuclear — weapons capable of hitting strategic targets inside the United States is a major part of what the Golden Dome plan is meant to address, according to Mr. Karako.
In the past, the only weapons capable of intercontinental ranges contained nuclear warheads, he said, and their use would invite a counterattack. But an attack on the United States with conventional guided weapons could achieve a similar strategic effect without necessarily triggering nuclear retaliation, a scenario the Golden Dome is designed — in part — to defeat, Mr. Karako said.
The C.B.O. report did not estimate the cost of protecting U.S. territories specifically but said the territory of Guam, a small island in the western Pacific that hosts Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy bases, was slated to receive “an extensive system of integrated defenses” outside of the Golden Dome project.
American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific and Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean could potentially be protected by separate regional missile defense sites, the report says.
In December, the Congressional Research Service said in a report that some lawmakers had expressed concern that, if built, the Golden Dome could invite Russia and China to increase their nuclear arsenals in response.
The report noted that the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which the United States and the Soviet Union signed in 1972, and that Russia later honored, precluded the development of antimissile systems like the Golden Dome project. But President George W. Bush’s decision to exit the treaty in 2001 paved the way for such a network of defensive missiles
Suppose that you are a large U.S. state with a dynamic modern economy. Here’s an idea for a strategy for powering your electrical grid: Intentionally disinvest in your functioning fossil fuel generation plants; fail to maintain them adequately, and let them age into obsolescence. Meanwhile, encourage and even subsidize the development of solar panels as a replacement. After all, solar power is cheaper!
Those who follow the policy of New York State with respect to our electrical grid will recognize this description as covering the essential elements of our strategy. In our case, the strategy was mainly enacted into law in 2019 via the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
In heading down this path, have we checked around to see what other states or countries have adopted this strategy, and how it has worked out? Just asking.
Let’s start with a quick review of New York’s currently-existing strategy for its grid.
Today, the State gets something over half of its electricity from fossil fuels, almost entirely natural gas, with most of the remainder from hydro (mostly Niagara Falls) and nuclear. The CLCPA contains mandates that that shall change, and rapidly. Section 4 of the CLCPA (codified as Public Service Law § 66-p(2)) mandates that the State get “seventy percent of the state wide electric generation” from “renewable energy systems” by 2030, and that by 2040 “the statewide electrical demand system will be zero emissions.”
These mandates are then administered by state agencies, particularly the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). If you want to build a new power plant in New York, or do a major capital project on an existing plant (such as re-powering a natural gas plant with the latest combined cycle technology), you need to get a permit from DEC. Section 7 of the CLCPA gives the following direction to DEC (and other agencies) with respect to issuing permits:
[A]ll state agencies shall consider whether such decisions are inconsistent with, or will interfere with, the attainment of the statewide greenhouse gas emissions limits. . . .
Back in 2021, two aging natural gas plants — the Astoria plant in Queens and the Danskammer plant along the Hudson River in Orange County — sought permits from DEC to re-power to the latest natural gas technology. DEC denied the permits, citing the CLCPA. From Politico, October 27, 2021:
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration has made a landmark move to deny permits for two natural gas plants seeking to repower, citing the state’s climate law. The Department of Environmental Conservation denied permits for NRG’s Astoria plant and the Danskammer plant in Orange County. Both plants were seeking to repower with more efficient natural gas units than their previous operations. The decisions were embraced by environmentalists who have been pushing for years to block the fossil fuel projects. . . . “Both [plants] would be inconsistent with New York’s nation-leading climate law, and are not justified or needed for grid reliability. We must shift to a renewable future,” wrote DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos on Twitter.
Since then, as far as I can determine, nobody has wasted the effort to try to get DEC to go along with a project to build or upgrade a fossil fuel power plant. As a result, the existing fleet has just gotten older. In its “Power Trends” Report issued in late 2025, the New York ISO described the state of New York’s aging fleet of fossil fuel power plants:
A growing number of fossil-fuel generators in New York are reaching an age at which similar units across the country have been deactivated. New York’s fleet of fossil-fuel-based generation includes more than 10,000 MW, roughly 25% of the state’s total generating capacity, that has been in operation for more than 50 years. As these fossil-fuel generators age, they are experiencing more frequent and longer outages. Greater difficulties in maintaining older equipment, combined with the impact of policies to restrict or eliminate emissions may drive aging generators to deactivate, which would exacerbate declining reliability margins.
“Declining reliability margins” is a polite way of saying “increasing frequency and duration of blackouts.”
With hydro already built out, and new nuclear taking decades to come online, that leaves wind and solar as the main plan for the future of New York’s electricity. In the case of wind, New York’s grand scheme was a vast collection of some 9 GW capacity of giant turbines off the coast of Long Island. However, that has been almost entirely scuttled by the Trump administration. And thus we are down to our last option, solar. The brain-dead cheerleading agency known as NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research & Development Agency) has this to say about solar for New York as of early 2026:
More than six gigawatts (GW) of solar energy has been installed in New York State – enough to power one million homes and businesses. This robust solar energy infrastructure enables a resilient electric grid that supports local jobs, healthier communities, and access to renewable energy for more New Yorkers. . . . By 2030, New York is expected to be home to more than 10 GW of distributed solar energy.
So by 2030, if we’re lucky, we’ll have the same fleet of natural gas plants, yet four years older than today and, as NYISO says, “experiencing more frequent and longer outages”; plus about 10 GW of solar capacity, to supply about 20 GW of average demand, and about 35 GW of peak demand that typically occurs in the evening after the sun has set.
Has any other state or country tried following the same strategy? Some big countries like Germany and the UK have started down this road. But if the key elements are forcing the thermal plants to age into obsolescence while having mostly solar as the alternative, the closest analogy I can find is Cuba.
Cuba has about 4000 MW of thermal (fossil fuel) electricity generating capacity, in their case almost all using oil rather than natural gas. The plants were almost all built from the 1960s to 1980s — the Soviet era — so they range in age from just under 40 years to over 60. Peak demand is around 3250 MW, so you would think that with the 4000 MW of capacity they have enough. But the plants are old and unreliable, and frequently down for extended maintenance and repairs.
Here’s a report from a source called Ciber Cuba on how Cuba’s electricity system is doing this very day. The headline is “The energy crisis in Cuba worsens: nearly 2,000 MW deficit during peak hours.” Excerpt:
Cuba faces one of the most critical days of its already devastated electrical crisis this Tuesday, with a projected deficit of 1,960 MW during peak nighttime hours, according to the official report from the Electric Union (UNE). The report reveals that at 06:00 hours today, the availability of the National Electric System (SEN) was only 1,250 MW against a demand of 2,884 MW, with 1,649 MW already affected since the early morning. The situation is expected to worsen as night falls. The UNE estimates a supply of 1,290 MW against a peak demand of 3,250 MW, resulting in a deficit of 1,960 MW and a projected impact of 1,990 MW during peak hours, equivalent to leaving almost two-thirds of the country without electricity.
So basically, two-thirds of the country is in forced blackout at any given time. Recent fuel shortages resulting from the U.S. embargo that began in January undoubtedly are a contributing factor to the crisis. However, Ciber Cuba points out that just as big a problem is that many of the aging power plants are out of service:
[A]ccumulated breakdowns partly explain the collapse. Units two and three of the Ernesto Guevara de la Serna Thermoelectric Power Plant (CTE), unit two of the Lidio Ramón Pérez CTE, and unit five of the Antonio Maceo CTE are out of service, while four other units are undergoing maintenance at the Mariel, Renté, and Nuevitas plants.
More availability of oil would not have helped with those outages. And the electricity situation in Cuba was nearly as bad last year, before the fuel supply from Venezuela got cut off. Here is a report from Al-Jazeera from September 2025:
Another total electricity blackout has struck Cuba, the latest in a string of grid collapses that have rocked the island of 10 million over the past year. The island-wide outage, which hit just after 9am local time on Wednesday, is believed to be linked to a malfunction at one of Cuba’s largest thermoelectric plants, the Ministry of Energy and Mines said.
But doesn’t Cuba have a big collection of solar farms? I thought that, in the words of NYSERDA, “robust solar energy infrastructure enables a resilient electric grid that supports local jobs, healthier communities, and access to renewable energy.” Why not just crank those up to fill the gaps when the fossil fuel plants break down? From the Ciber Cuba piece:
The 54 installed photovoltaic solar parks generated 3,822 MWh on Monday, with a maximum capacity of 490 MW during daylight hours; however, this source does not cover the nighttime deficit, which is when demand peaks.
You mean that all the solar generation that Cuba has built doesn’t provide any light in the nighttime? Who knew? Here from Ciber Cuba is a picture of a Havana street after sunset:
If we keep up our current energy policies for long enough, we can also get to the point where our thermal (fossil fuel) power plants are too old to be maintained reliably. And then, if we are lucky, we can hope to achieve the energy utopia that has arrived in Cuba.
Desperate and facing financial collapse, Hezbollah has developed a detailed plan to seize control of Beirut and silence internal critics of the war with Israel.
Intelligence reports emerging from the Lebanese capital suggest that Hezbollah is preparing for a domestic military takeover to shore up its crumbling authority. The terror organization has reportedly finalized a plan to occupy key sectors of Beirut in an effort to marginalize moderate political figures who have become increasingly vocal in their criticism of the group’s actions. This move comes as the Lebanese public grows weary of a war that has brought the country to the brink of total ruin.
The pressure on Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, has reached unprecedented levels. Qassem is currently being forced to split his dwindling military resources between three fronts: the active combat zones in South Lebanon, the logistical hubs in the Bekaa Valley, and the streets of Beirut. This fragmentation of his forces is a direct result of the relentless IDF campaign that has decimated the group’s infrastructure and killed a significant portion of its mid-level leadership.
A primary driver of this internal desperation is the total collapse of Hezbollah’s financial network. Israeli strikes have successfully targeted the group’s economic assets, including banks, currency exchanges, and even gas stations used to fund its operations. Compounding this crisis is the report that Iran has dramatically reduced its direct cash transfers to Lebanon, leaving the terror group unable to support the hundreds of thousands of displaced Shia civilians who traditionally form its base of support.
In the south, the situation for the terror group is even more dire. Major General Rafi Milo of the Northern Command recently presented evidence to Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir showing significant progress in dismantling Hezbollah’s “terror villages.” The IDF’s rapid destruction of tunnels and weapon depots has convinced the Hezbollah leadership that Israel is planning a permanent division of Lebanese territory, a fear that is driving Qassem to make increasingly erratic tactical decisions.
The planned “Conquest of Beirut” is seen as a way for Hezbollah to reassert its dominance and prevent a pro-Western shift in the Lebanese government. Leaders like the Lebanese President and Prime Minister have begun to distance themselves from the group, sensing its weakness. By taking the capital, Hezbollah hopes to intimidate these “pragmatic” forces and ensure that the country remains a frontline in the Iranian war against the West, regardless of the cost to the Lebanese people.
As the economic and military walls close in, the risk of a bloody internal conflict in Lebanon grows. Hezbollah’s transition from a “resistance” force to an occupying militia in its own capital marks a new, more dangerous phase of the regional war. With the Iranian cash flow drying up and the IDF advancing in the south, the terror group is fighting for its very survival, making it more unpredictable and dangerous than ever before.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 