Democrats Using Black Athletes As Pawns In Redistricting War
The Congressional Black Caucus, aligned with the NAACP, is urging black college athletes to avoid Southeastern Conference schools in Southern states as a form of economic pressure against Republican-drawn redistricting maps that eliminate majority-black congressional districts. The campaign is called "Out of Bounds,” and is essentially asking young black athletes to forfeit their best shot at a professional sports career so Democratic lawmakers can make a political statement about redistricting.
“Across the South, Black athletes have helped build some of the most profitable college athletic programs in America, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue,” the NAACP argues on its “Out of Bounds” campaign website. “At the same time, several southern state governments are moving to limit, reduce, weaken, or erase Black voting representation by creating new, unconstitutional voting districts.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries framed the redistricting fights as "an unprecedented attack on black political representation,” demanding "an unprecedented response." That response, apparently, involves steering eighteen-year-old football recruits away from Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and Texas A&M - programs that collectively represent the most direct pipeline to the NFL in American sports. Jeffries said black lawmakers are "standing in solidarity with NAACP in its call for athletes to boycott institutions within the SEC that belong to states that have unleashed these Jim Crow-like racially oppressive tactics, which is unacceptable, unconscionable and un-American,” he continued. “And we believe that the silence of these institutions is complicity, and we will not stand for it.”
For a talented black athlete from anywhere in the country, an SEC scholarship is frequently the fastest and most visible route to a professional contract, financial security and generational wealth. Yet, Jeffries and CBC Chair Yvette Clarke are asking those athletes to set that aside.
"The Congressional Black Caucus cannot support legislation benefiting major athletic institutions that continue to remain silent while black voting rights and black political power are being systematically dismantled across the South,” Clarke said.
The legislation in question is the SCORE Act, a bipartisan proposal backed by the NCAA that would establish national standards for compensating college athletes. The bill had been scheduled for a House floor vote before Republican leaders were forced to postpone it after CBC members signaled opposition.
In other words, a bill designed to ensure college athletes get paid was delayed, in part, because black Democratic lawmakers blocked it to protest that Southern public universities are not taking a stand against redistricting.
According to Jeffries, these universities "should feel compelled to speak up. Not because of their athletic programs; because it's the right thing to do." Clarke argued that "institutions that profit from black talent and black communities have a responsibility to stand with those communities when their fundamental rights are under attack," extending that logic beyond athletics to "corporate America or any other institution within American civil society."
Clarke warned that the effort is "just the beginning" and could spread beyond state universities, adding, "Let this serve as an example: Silence from our institutions in moments of injustice carries consequences."
The CBC and NAACP can package this campaign in the language of “justice” and “solidarity,” but strip away the rhetoric, and the message is brutally simple: Democratic politicians want young black athletes to torpedo their own futures to wage a political pressure campaign over congressional maps. Democrats may be angry over Republican redistricting efforts, but they are asking young black athletes to walk away from the fastest route to the NFL, millions of dollars, and generational wealth over a political battle that has nothing to do with them or SEC football programs.
“I told my staff today that we need an ICD code for Trump Derangement Syndrome, because it is a real thing … It should be studied.”
- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr
As of this holiday morning, America is informed that the negotiations between the US and Iran may take several more days to resolve. You better believe that Iran is going to make a deal. One way or another, they will give up their stash of sixty-percent enriched uranium. Nobody believes they would not attempt to make bombs with it, especially Mr. Trump. So, Iran will not be going back to whatever is considered normal life until they agree to give it up, and then make it happen. Iran is like a demon-possessed teenager with a firearm getting its head banged into the sidewalk. What part of give-it-up don’t you understand?
The news media apparently forgot what it broadcast a couple of weeks ago: Iran’s oil storage capacity was nearing the red-line. If the wells have to be shut-in, such is the geology that it would wreck the oil fields themselves. Perhaps this is happening now. Nobody is reporting on it. But the news media doesn’t really report on anything. It opines. It spins. It constructs story-lines for advantage, it gaslights, it perverts the consensus about reality out of existence, it just plain lies.
If Iran is jerking the US around again, this will be the last time. They will prove to be negotiation-incapable, as the Russian phrase goes. They will punch their own express ticket back to the 12th century, lights out, bridges down across the rugged terrain, back to donkey carts, magic lamps, and vizeers instead of mullahs.
Why does America’s lefty-left beat its drum for an Iranian victory when 1) it’s not happening, and 2) it’s hardly in the interest of Western Civ for anything like that to happen? You can conclude that they hate and despise Western Civ, especially anything that resembles America’s traditional sense-of-self: a republic based on civic and economic liberty. Liberty means individuals making their own decisions within an armature of laws written in good faith, to mean what they say.
The Lefty-left is mainly about acquiring power through bad faith in order to push everyone around, tell them what they’re allowed to want out of life, and severely punish anyone who objects to that treatment. What’s often overlooked is the role that sadism plays in the psychology of the Lefty-left. They seem to love it when illegal aliens rape and strangle 19-year-old American girls. (You don’t hear them deplore it, do you? Their house-organ, The New York Times, won’t even report it.) More than anything they want to subject you to the most savage humiliations.
We are at a dangerous pass this Memorial Day.
Mr. Trump and his people are methodically rearranging the works to expel these grifting demons. Their resistance to being expelled will manifest in ever more dirty fighting as spring blossoms into a summer of violent “activism.” They will try as hard as possible to wreck the country’s 250th birthday celebrations. It might look like civil war. They will not stop trying to kill Donald Trump and possibly other figures around him.
Even if they manage that, it will not stop what it is coming for them.
This time around nobody believes their sob stories, their whining about “oppression,” their bullshit about “equity” and “justice.” This time, they will not be allowed to get away with sheer lawlessness. They will not be able to pass off fake martyrs such as George Floyd. The elections this time — if they can happen — will be clean and fair. That can be the only way they will be allowed to happen.
This will be the most emphatic counter-revolution in modern history, a complete rejection of childish unreality — the cavalcade of absurdities you have been told to swallow for a mad decade:
That you can change your sex “assigned at birth.” (Assigned by whom? By some cosmic committee of gender komisars?)
That merit has no merit (don’t be good at anything).
That men and maleness represent some inferior way of being human?
That people from outside American society, from faraway lands, deserve to live here under a special gift economy of vast subsidies, at your expense, to set up antagonistic counter-cultures?
That words don’t mean what they mean?
Expect the pace to quicken now, even with Tulsi Gabbard gone. Her operational deputy DNI, Aaron Lukas, is a proven, capable warrior. Most of the critical information has already been recovered from the Deep State’s vaults, hidden rooms, burn bags, and SCIFs. The adjudication of crimes against our country will be spooling out the next hundred days as a vivid and orderly counterpoint to whatever nose-ringed chaos the Democrats send out into the streets.
The republic will celebrate its 250th birthday by carrying-on as it was designed to do, while the demons skulk back into the shadows until the next great turning.
OnlyFans "Hack" Hoax Likely Used To Push Malware-Laced Leak Checkers
A cyber threat actor advertised a purported database of 340 million OnlyFans-linked user records on a well-known cybercrime forum, asking for 0.313 BTC, or roughly $76,000, according to U.K.-based cybersecurity news site HackRead.
The alleged "340 million OnlyFans user mega leak" narrative ran rampant on X this past holiday weekend, garnering millions of views from several accounts, which were described as nothing more than an engagement trap.
HackRead pointed out that "conversations with the seller and a review of sample data suggest that the collection did not result from a direct breach or scraping of OnlyFans systems."
HackRead noted that:
The seller advertised the database as containing usernames, names, email addresses, phone numbers, follower counts, likes, uploaded content statistics, account types, and linked social media profiles. The claims initially gave the impression of a direct platform breach or scraping incident.
However, the story changed after Hackread.com contacted the threat actor directly on Telegram. In private messages, the seller clarified they did not hack or breach OnlyFans. Instead, they claimed the database was built using information collected from previous data leaks and public sources, including breached records from platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Spotify.
"We didn't breach or hack OnlyFans," the seller said in a message shared with Hackread.com. "We used existing breaches and leaks databases and matched with users of the OnlyFans platform."
But that didn't stop some X users from pushing the "OnlyFans is hacked" narrative.
OnlyFans is Hacked 🚨
Apparently OnlyFans has been hacked and they're selling the complete database of 340 million users
As one X user pointed out, the hack story is "100% fake news," and the "manufactured hoax is a masterclass in clickbait."
The person said the "real trap" is that "hackers spreading these fake leaks are trying to panic you into downloading 'leak checkers.' The second you run those tools, they install infostealer malware, like Lumma Stealer, to steal your actual passwords."
OnlyFans did not get hacked. The timeline just fell for another engagement trap.
Over the last 24 hours, viral accounts have been farming millions of views claiming a "mega leak" is selling a database of 340 million OnlyFans users.
The timing of the alleged OnlyFans "hack" narrative is notable. The panic cyber campaign comes just weeks after the Financial Times reported that the platform, widely used by sex workers, is selling a minority stake to San Francisco-based Architect Capital.
From an information operations view, this creates a window for threat actors to exploit and leverage privacy fears to drive users to malware-laced leak-checker tools under the guise of helping them verify exposure.
I remember the first time I logged into my retirement account as a young professional. It felt like a milestone: proof that I had entered the world of adulthood, of long-term thinking, of ownership. I work in the nonprofit sector, so technically it's a 403(b), not a 401(k). The distinction is academic; the promise is the same: contribute consistently, invest wisely, and over time, build financial independence.
The longer I've contributed, the more I've realized something uncomfortable: my retirement plan isn't built for the world I actually live in.
Like many in my generation, I came of age during a period of profound economic change. Companies stay private longer. Technology, infrastructure, and energy companies increasingly raise capital outside public markets. The most dynamic growth in the economy often happens before a company ever reaches a stock exchange. When I look at my retirement options, I'm locked out of that world.
Instead, we see a familiar menu consisting of a handful of mutual funds and some index options that quietly steer me toward a standardized allocation. These are not bad investments, but they represent only a fraction of real economic growth.
For my younger peers just entering the workforce, this gap is even more consequential. The directions are thus: start early, take advantage of compounding, and think long term. If we each had a dollar for every time we got the lecture about the "time value of money," we'd all retire tomorrow. But we are also being funneled into portfolios that exclude entire categories of assets like private equity, private credit, real estate, and infrastructure that have historically delivered higher long-term returns and meaningful diversification.
Brett Arends at Market Watch incorrectly asserts that opening retirement plans to these assets would expose workers to high fees, illiquidity, and complexity. He misses a more important question: compared to what?
There's real asymmetry. Institutional investors regularly allocate 20 to 30 percent of their portfolios to private markets. They do so because these assets offer diversification, illiquidity premiums, and exposure to parts of the economy unavailable in public markets. Ordinary workers are confined to a narrower universe because litigious zealots neutered the system, compelling fiduciaries to avoid risk at all costs.
This narrowing of investment options originates in the legal environment surrounding employer-sponsored retirement plans. Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), plan sponsors face an onslaught of litigation. The risk of lawsuits compels employers to increasingly default to the safest legal options rather than to the best outcomes for participants, thereby directly limiting potential returns.
Even if you set aside litigation, the deeper issue is structural. The retirement system hasn't kept pace with the evolution of capital markets.
The proposed rule from the Department of Labor deserves serious attention. At its core, the rule introduces a safe-harbor framework for evaluating "designated investment alternatives" in defined-contribution plans. The definition encompasses everything from traditional mutual funds to more complex vehicles, including those that can incorporate private assets.
The framework is asset-neutral. It outlines how fiduciaries should choose. Plan sponsors are obligated to evaluate investments using a set of common-sense factors: fees, performance, liquidity, valuation, benchmarks, and complexity. If they do so objectively and analytically, they are presumed to meet their fiduciary obligations.
The White House's Council of Economic Advisers suggests that younger participants could benefit from allocating up to 30 percent of their portfolios to private markets. Institutional investors have approached portfolio construction using private markets for decades.
Yet parts of the proposed rule undermine that very goal. A 15 percent cap on private assets, derived from SEC Rule 22e-4, would limit exposure, a particular problem for collective investment trusts, which are regulated differently and historically operated without such constraints.
Angela Antonelli offers helpful insights. Georgetown Univerisity's research from the Center for Retirement Initiatives and other CRI analysis, even relatively modest exposure to private real assets, private credit, and private equity has the potential to boost outcomes by 7% to 8%, not just for the "average" DC participant but also across a range of more real financial savings patterns that DC participants too often find themselves in over the course of their working years.
Large institutions, from university endowments to public pension funds, routinely invest in private markets and reap the benefits of diversification and higher returns. We've created two classes of retirement savers: those with access to the full spectrum of capital markets, and those without.
That divide is the difference between participating in today's economy and being stuck in a version of it that no longer exists. Retirement policy should be about equipping workers to build wealth in the modern world.
Right now, my 403(b) originated on a promise that has become so antiquated it might be unattainable. Instead of "taxing the rich," can't we just be allowed to invest like them?
Are Canadians less adventurous than they once were? It’s hard to argue otherwise.
Alexander Mackenzie was only 24 when the North West Company named him chief fur trader at Fort Chipewyan, in what is now Alberta. A few years later, in 1789 he travelled north along what is now known as the Mackenzie River to become the first European to reach the Arctic Ocean overland. Four years later he crossed the Rocky Mountains and was the first European to reach the Pacific Ocean, beating Americans Merriweather Lewis and William Clark by a full dozen years.
In 1898, Martha Purdy arrived in Dawson City to escape a failed marriage and make her fortune in the Klondike Gold Rush. It was while climbing the notorious Chilkoot Pass that she discovered she was pregnant with her third son. She later remarried and, as Martha Black, was the second woman to be elected to Canada’s Parliament. She was also a successful entrepreneur and a world-renowned expert on wild flowers.
Canadian history is filled with tales such as these. Explorers, soldiers, settlers, and other restless souls who endured great hardships and did great things.
There is a natural sense of awe that arises when retelling such lives filled with adventure. To our modern selves, they appear as fascinating aberrations, gifted men and women with unusual appetites for risky or dangerous undertakings. Their willingness to set out into the unknown strikes us today as thrilling, unnerving, and more than a bit foolhardy. But while their accomplishments may be striking, they lived in more adventurous times.
Today, society shrinks from adventure and the unknown.
Through a combination of practical circumstances, changing social standards, and dramatic shifts in individual risk tolerance and government behaviour, opportunities for adventure have been drastically curtailed.
How can Canadians get that sense of adventurousness back?
“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered”,G.K. Chesterton once wrote. “An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” There is a case to be made that adventures are simply harder to come by these days.
There are no more blank spaces left on maps, and hence no places for modern-day Mackenzies to discover.
The omnipresence of the internet and GPS similarly makes it almost impossible to get truly lost anymore. And if you do, help is usually close at hand.
Beyond these practical limitations, however, it seems incontestable that society today is less interested in promoting, facilitating, or participating in adventurous life experiences.
No one talks of running away with the circus or joining the French Foreign Legion anymore, even in jest. According to Statistics Canada, twice as many millennials are still living at home as was the case with previous generations. And if any of these young adults do go away, it’s more than likely to be an adventureless “gap year” holiday between graduate degrees recorded in minute detail on Snapchat and Instagram.
The perpetual childhood of today’s younger generations contrasts sharply with the youthful accomplishments of past eras. William Wilberforce, for example, was elected to the British Parliament at age 21 and then proved instrumental in ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade. His friend William Pitt became Prime Minister at 24, and spent his career fighting the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who became a general at 24. Quite a lot can be accomplished when one starts early.
Other factors that limit the availability of adventure in our post-modern era include the suffocating impact of the welfare state. When Mackenzie left his family home at 15 to become an apprentice in the fur industry, it was because he had little choice. He needed to make his way in the world as a teenager. The same urgency applied to Black when she decided to escape a failed marriage by travelling to the Yukon. With no government to hold your hand, adventure follows. Popular culture in earlier eras also did its bit as well by celebrating explorers and adventurers as celebrities in the same manner that we laud singers and athletes today.
Just as adventure was once regarded as a social virtue to be admired, society today aggressively enforces the opposite expectation—that it is our duty to avoid risk at all costs. In their 2021 book “The Coddling of the American Mind,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and lawyer Greg Lukianoff take a close look at the impact of a creeping safety culture on the behaviour of younger generations.
Children, the authors observed, are now deliberately shielded from any sense of risk or uncertainty. How can anyone—young boys most of all—learn about the world around them when school principals announce at the onset of every snowfall that “all snow must stay on the ground.” The ideal of adventure and resilience has been replaced by a debilitating sense of fragility and risk-avoidance.
So is the dream of looking over an untravelled horizon that animated people like Alexander Mackenzie or Martha Black completely dead in the 21st century? Not exactly.
Adventure should properly be considered a spirit, not a place.
It is driven by a powerful mixture of curiosity, necessity, and an openness to experiencing new things. And it can be found wherever uncertainty reigns. Today, that might entail travelling to strange lands, meeting new people, or even engaging in uncomfortable discussions about whether Alberta should remain part of Canada forever.
Wherever the unknown lies, adventure can be found.
Two billboards went up in New York City recently. This is a city of advertising, where images appear when someone wants the whole world to see them. One billboard is selling artificial intelligence, and the other is warning about it. The juxtaposition between these two advertisers, who most likely wouldn’t have seen the other’s message in advance, captures the conflict of our times and cements the uncertainty about the future within an artificial intelligence world.
The selling billboard is dark, purple, and almost cinematic.
An AI-generated face with artificial perfection stares out. Three words above her say: “Stop Hiring Humans.” The Era of AI Employees Is Here. The company is Artisan. The company says it “is a provocation. It works because it’s uncomfortable.” It is real. It wants your payroll budget, and it is not embarrassed to say so.
The warning billboard is light, purple, and funny in the way that grief sometimes is. A sad stick figure holds a small sign: Will Create 4 Food. Mock chat bubbles float across it like a corporate memo from a future that has already arrived: “Thank you artists for donating your life’s work to our AI. Your generosity hasn’t gone unnoticed. Just uncompensated.”
The organization’s name is Replacement.AI. It is also real, but it is not selling anything. It is run by anonymous artists who spent their own money to tell you the truth. Their website calls itself “the only honest AI company.” Its homepage reads: Humans no longer necessary. Stupid. Smelly. Squishy. It’s time for a machine solution.
The quotes on the site are genuine, such as one from OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman: “AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great companies.” And another from OpenAI’s charter, “To build ‘highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.’”
On the page dedicated to artists, the site reads: “If you’re one of the millions of artists, musicians, writers, journalists, scholars, or other creatives whose work we’ve stolen to train our AI, we want to thank you. We couldn’t have achieved a $100 billion valuation without all of your hard work, just sitting on the internet for us and our other AI company friends to scrape. Unfortunately for you, financial compensation is out of the question. Just because we’re making money from your copyrighted material doesn’t mean you’re legally entitled to any of it.”
It is satire. It is also accurate. In a submission to the House of Lords, OpenAI admitted, “It would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials.”
The courts are beginning to agree too that something was taken. Well over thirty copyright infringement lawsuits have been filed by creators against AI developers. Visual artists sued Stability AI and Midjourney. Getty Images sued, arguing that over twelve million photographs were scraped without license. The New York Times sued OpenAI. Universal Music filed a $3.1 billion lawsuit against Anthropic in January 2026, alleging its AI was built on a foundation of piracy. None of these cases have reached final verdicts. The legal system is moving at human speed through a problem that was created at machine speed.
What passed through a million years of accumulated human experience—the knowledge handed from mind to mind, generation to generation, the grief and wonder pressed into stories and paintings and films and arguments on the internet at three in the morning—was consumed by hungry algorithms. There was no purchase or licensing. The great ingestion happened in server rooms, while the rest of us were clicking I Agree to ever-lengthening terms and conditions that no one ever bothers to read. And that phase is now over.
Yet predictions for our future keep rolling in, each one confident, and each one contradicting the last. Goldman Sachs estimates AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs. The World Economic Forum projects 92 million jobs displaced by 2030, offset by 170 million new ones created, which is a net gain, on paper at least. Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, warns AI could replace half of all entry-level office jobs within five years. Jensen Huang says greater productivity creates more hiring, not less. In 2025 alone, Amazon eliminated 14,000 corporate roles, Microsoft cut 15,000, and Salesforce reduced its customer support workforce by 4,000. Like the billboards in Time Square, both are right, yet neither agree. What the experts ultimately share is uncertainty.
And the AI models are hungry again. This time, media organizations are making sure they require payment from AI giants for their content. New York Times is partnering with Amazon’s AI, Meta with News Corp, and Google with Reddit. But human-made internet content is finite and cannot keep up with the voracious appetite of AI models that do not need time to sleep or metabolise. So the machines have no choice but to prompt themselves, and generate new content upon previous content, with less and less human origin, leading us down a spiral of infinite iteration with less human touch, less human spirit, and less human soul. The only thing the “experts” seem to agree on is that the business potentials are both exhilarating and terrifying.
Meanwhile, Artisan’s billboard promises relief from the burden of human employees. Lower payroll. No sick days. No long hot showers a person needs to feel like a person again. The face on that billboard doesn’t need to ground herself. She doesn’t need anything. What is being sold is not intelligence, but the absence of need. It is a cold world to advertise, and the advertisers seem not to fear the cold.
Two billboards in New York City, and the same ones are popping up in other major cities across the nation. Between them is the argument that is yet to be resolved: whether what is being built is a tool or a replacement, a future or an ending. The experts cannot agree. The lawyers are still filing. The models are still hungry. And somewhere in Times Square, a sad stick figure is still holding his sign, hoping someone walking past will stop long enough to read it.
Iran has destroyed $1bn worth of MQ-9 Reaper Drones, or roughly 20 percent of the US's pre-war inventory of the sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicles, according to a report by Bloomberg on Friday.
The report said that many of the drones were downed by Iran in flight, but that others had been destroyed on the ground when Iran targeted US military bases in the Gulf.
The MQ-9 is both a surveillance drone and capable of carrying a payload, typically Hellfire missiles or Joint Direct Attack Munition guided bombs.
Bloomberg reported that the US may have lost up to 30 MQ-9 Reaper drones in the war, a higher number than the 24 that a report released this month by the Congressional Research Service noted.
The $1bn price tag adds to the cost of the war on Iran, which a senior official at the Pentagon told Reuters in May reached up to $29bn. The MQ-9 Reaper drone is being gradually phased out by the US military, although General Atomics continues to produce it for foreign customers.
Iran’s ability to shoot down MQ-9 Reaper Drones is another demonstration of how it has managed to deploy some air defense, despite claims from US President Donald Trump that the country’s defences have been “obliterated”.
A US official told The New York Times this week that Iranian military commanders may have mapped out flight patterns of US fighter jets and bombers over their skies, raising the risks should Trump decide to restart the war on Iran.
Days before the US and Iran reached a fragile ceasefire in April, Iran shot down a F-15E Strike Eagle warplane, sparking a massive US recovery operation for the pilots. If Iran had been able to capture the US pilot alive, it would have put tremendous pressure on Washington, experts say.
The New York Times reported that Russia may have helped Iran map US flight patterns in order to better position their military assets and air defense systems.
Iran and Russia have a long-standing security arrangement. Russia has assisted Iran by providing satellite imagery of US warships and military personnel, according to multiple US media reports.
Various regional media had featured reports of downed Reaper drones through March into April, at the height of the air war over Iran:
🇾🇪 Iranian and regional media outlets, including Iran’s Fars News Agency, are reporting the downing of a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone over Yemen’s Marib province, the key oil and gas region located in north-central Yemen today.
Iran’s air defence comprises a mix of domestically produced systems along with Russian and Chinese systems.
Middle East Eye was the first to report that China had provided air defence batteries to Iran, following the June 2025 war that culminated in the US bombing three Iranian nuclear sites.
Ivanka Trump Was Reportedly Targeted For Assassination By IRGC Terrorist
First Daughter Ivanka Trump was allegedly targeted in an assassination plot by an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-trained terrorist seeking revenge for the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. Iraqi national Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, 32, reportedly pledged to kill Ivanka Trump and was found with a blueprint of her Florida home after his recent capture, according to an exclusive report from the New York Post.
The alleged plot traces directly to the January 2020 drone strike that killed Soleimani in Baghdad.
Al-Saadi, who US authorities describe as a high-ranking operative within Iraq-Iran terror circles, had reportedly idolized the IRGC Quds Force commander as a father figure after his father died in a plane crash in 2006. That personal connection, analysts say, transformed a political grievance into something far more volatile. Ivanka Trump, 44, who converted to Orthodox Judaism before marrying Jared Kushner in 2009, emerged as Al-Saadi's primary target.
Al-Saadi posted a map image on social media showing the exclusive Florida enclave where Ivanka and Kushner own a $24 million home, paired with a warning in Arabic that "neither your palaces nor the Secret Service will protect you" and that "our revenge is a matter of time." In that same post, he declared that he and his network were "currently in the stage of surveillance and analysis,” framing the operation not as an aspiration but as active preparation.
“Al-Saadi is said to be a high-ranking figure in Iraq-Iran terror circles, arrested in Turkey on May 15 and extradited to the US, where he is charged with 18 attacks and attempted attacks throughout Europe and the United States, per the Department of Justice,” the New York Post reports. “He’s been behind attacks on US and Jewish targets including the firebombing of the Bank of New York Mellon in Amsterdam in March, the stabbing of two Jewish victims in London in April and a shooting at the US consulate building in Toronto, also in March, according to the DoJ.”
Court documents also state that he "planned, coordinated" and claimed responsibility for attacks on Jewish communities, including the bombing of a synagogue in Liège, Belgium, and the arson of a temple in Rotterdam.
What makes the case especially striking is how openly Al-Saadi allegedly operated online.
According to federal investigators, he posted photos with missiles, praised Qasem Soleimani, threatened “the American enemy,” and even shared images tied to alleged terror targets. Authorities also say he used a religious travel agency as cover to connect with terror cells internationally and traveled with an Iraqi government-issued service passport that reduced scrutiny at airports.
Analysts say Al-Saadi had deep ties to Iran-backed militias and maintained connections with both Soleimani and his successor, Esmail Qaani. He is now being held in solitary confinement in Brooklyn while supporters in Baghdad reportedly portray him as a resistance figure.
🇺🇸🇮🇷 An IRGC-linked Iraqi terrorist named Mohammad Baqer Al-Saadi was plotting to assassinate Ivanka Trump as revenge for the U.S. killing of his mentor Qasem Soleimani.
“Ivanka Trump was allegedly targeted in an assassination attempt tied to Iranian terror groups. Thankful Ivanka remains safe right now,” House Republicans said in a statement on X. “The failed assassination plot shows Iran’s true colors (and why we must make sure they never have a nuclear weapon). They hate America and they clearly see President Trump as the man standing between them and death to America. That’s why they’re targeting his daughter. It’s sick.”
One of the most frustrating aspects of contemporary conversations about politics and public policy is how often the deleterious effects of terrible programs - local, state and federal - are brushed aside with distracting and even deceitful claims that the intentions behind the policies were "compassionate." This is an utterly wrongheaded analysis for many reasons. Laws, public policies, and government programs should be evaluated by their results, not by the state of mind of their advocates or sponsors.
The weaponization of compassion has launched a de facto competition of who can be thought to be the most "compassionate" or, at least, not thought to be uncompassionate. The result of this arms race has been chaos, destruction, and depravity.
It's easy to lose sight of just how often this pernicious dynamic takes place, so it's worthwhile to point out a few of the disastrous policies that were promoted, and in some cases continue to be promoted, as being "compassionate" and to call them out for the societally corrosive lies they are.
1. It wasn't "compassionate" to close our mental hospitals. The impulse was understandable; plenty of those facilities were substandard. But the results were catastrophic. Until fairly recently in this country's history, the "homeless" population consisted largely of small numbers of unattached males who drifted from place to place seeking work. But since the 1980s, the homeless population of the United States has exploded. Nearly three-quarters of a million people are homeless, and the number jumped 18 percent from 2023 to 2024. California has 187,000 of the country's homeless; more than 70,000 are in Los Angeles County alone.
2. It isn't "compassionate," nor is it respect for "individual autonomy" or "dignity," to leave the homeless to live as they do. Homeless encampments are hotbeds of filth, including human urine and feces, crime and diseases like leptospirosis, typhus, hepatitis, tuberculosis, and even plague. Across the country, cities are dealing with the economic impact of shuttered stores and declining downtowns attributable to the presence of ever-growing numbers of homeless.
3. It isn't "compassionate" to hand out needles or create places where addicts can use drugs. Leaving aside what should be an obvious argument that we shouldn't be encouraging, much less facilitating, the use of dangerous drugs, two-thirds of America's homeless have a diagnosed mental health illness. A third have a serious substance abuse problem. Approximately half suffer with both. Open-air drug use exacerbates those problems and creates others.
4. It isn't "compassionate," or "equitable," for that matter, to eliminate teaching math, giving grades, standardized tests, advanced academic programs for gifted students or graduation requirements, or to lower entrance qualifications for college and graduate school. It punishes high-achieving students and sends the message to lower-performing students that they aren't capable of meeting basic standards. That, then, undermines public confidence in the graduates of our high schools, colleges, and professional schools.
5. It wasn't "compassionate" to stop enforcing our immigration laws.
6. It isn't "compassionate" to allow violent criminals back on the streets.
7. It isn't "compassionate" to subject children and teenagers with gender dysphoria, and other emotional disorders, to permanent alteration of their bodies with medical and surgical interventions before they are old enough to understand the implications of those decisions.
None of these decisions have had beneficial impacts on their intended populations. Worse still, they are all deeply destructive to other individuals, groups, and society at large. Everyone affected should be able to protest the consequences of these failed policies without getting smeared with the false accusation that they "lack compassion."
Another reason to eliminate "compassion" as a basis for public policy, which we're seeing daily with painful clarity, is that these policies end up being vehicles for massive fraud. Anyone can set up a 501c3 nonprofit, claim to be working for a charitable purpose, and deceive donors into giving money that does little but line the CEOs' pockets. And when government grants are involved, there is little oversight, take Minnesota, for example, and more incentive for grift, bribery, and payback in the form of pouring money into the campaign coffers of politicians who hold the grants' pursestrings. What we end up with is a situation where neither the nonprofits nor the politicians have an incentive to solve the underlying problems, since they're getting rich from their continued existence.
Why has the United States become a nation where "compassion" trumps all other considerations?
Scholars like Helen Andrews argue that the emphasis on "compassion" over logic and methodical analysis is a function of what she calls "the great feminization." Women, Andrews claims, are hardwired to be maternal, and thus more likely to be persuaded by something that tugs at their empathy than by that which appeals to their reason.
I'm not so sure. First, women have functioning brains, and they are certainly intellectually capable of dispassionate analysis. Second, an awful lot of men seem to be just as hornswoggled by appeals to their "compassion" as are misguided women. And third, I don't understand how it is "feminine" or "maternal" to witness the collapse of huge sections of our cities into third-world slums; or to know that drugs are pouring into the country, children are being trafficked for sex, and young women are being raped and murdered because the borders are unenforced; or to see people stabbed to death on public transportation, pushed in front of trains or run down by crazed lunatics at Christmas parades because criminals aren't incarcerated; or to watch as multiple generations of disadvantaged minorities struggle because of schools with weak disciplinary and academic standards; or to want children and emotionally troubled teens to be chemically castrated or surgically sterilized before they're old enough to drive a car, drink a beer, or understand the concepts of sexual satisfaction, fathering, giving birth to or nursing a child, none of which they will experience if they are "transitioned."
None of this is "compassionate." It's objectively irrational. It's wantonly destructive. It is the deliberate disregard of monumental, systemic, catastrophic failure, the evidence of which is irrefutable. There's something seriously wrong with anyone who continues to defend these policies and programs, and I'm not persuaded that it's a matter of chromosomal biology or evolution.
I don't profess to have a complete solution. But a good start would be to demand meaningful metrics when we discuss proposed and existing policies and programs. What matters isn't "compassion"; it's consequences.
Iconic American Beer Brand Discontinued After 177 Years
Schlitz Premium, the storied lager once billed as “the beer that made Milwaukee famous,” is heading into retirement. Pabst Brewing Co. confirmed this week it is placing the brand on indefinite hiatus, ending production of the nearly two-century-old beer label founded in Milwaukee in 1849 that grew into one of America’s most iconic brews.
The decision, driven by rising storage and shipping costs amid softening demand for the value-priced brand, marks the latest chapter in a turbulent corporate saga. Wisconsin Brewing Co. in Verona will produce a final 80-barrel batch on May 23, with limited release scheduled for June 27. Pre-orders open this week.
"Unfortunately, we have seen continued increases in our costs to store and ship certain products and have had to make the tough choice to place Schlitz Premium on hiatus," Pabst brand manager Zac Nadile told Milwaukee Magazine. "Any brand or packaging configuration that is put on hiatus is still a cherished part of our history and hopefully our future. We continually look for opportunities to bring back beloved brands, and customer feedback is important in shaping those discussions."
Brewmaster Kirby Nelson of Wisconsin Brewing Co. said the brewery was intent on providing the brand with a proper goodbye.
"We decided that, Schlitz being what Schlitz was, it deserved a proper sendoff. One with dignity and respect," Nelson said.
"Leftists can’t name & blame specific individuals for the 2024 loss because they’re an undifferentiated blob who function unconsciously according to enmeshed group think."
- Aimee Therese on X
In all the chatter about the Democratic Party’s 2024 election “autopsy” report you might have missed one little important detail: autopsies are generally performed on the dead. Stephen Colbert’s final week on CBS’s Late Night Show was the funeral. It was like the zombies’ ball. Poster-boy old Bruce Springsteen plugged a self-parody song about “King Trump” that might have been a rare case of career suicide on live TV.
Kings, indeed. These showbiz cretins actually have it better than kings — they have all the money, glitz, and adoration, but none of the onerous duties of real royalty. They amount to a weird court of effete elitists endlessly congratulating each other on their moral superiority, and that’s where it begins and ends: a Cluster-B hall of mirrors.
Of the common good, the know absolutely nothing. Nobody believes their tired buzzwords anymore: “Our democracy” . . . “conspiracy theories” . . . “baseless” this and that. . . their foolish vaccine worship. . . their avatars, the guffawing baboon Kamala Harris, the erstwhile phantom “Joe Biden,” and, most of all, their good sportsmanship trophy, Barack Obama, last seen confabbing with Canada’s Mark Carney, Globalism’s paladin of the last resort.
The Lefty-left’s heroes are on-the-run, but tripping over each other badly as they scatter into the thickets to re-group for the midterm elections — which they are suddenly and seemingly likely to lose now that SCOTUS erased about a dozen race-based congressional districts . . . and then Virginia’s Supreme Court tossed Governor Spanberger’s ballot ploy to make the Old Dominion a one-party state (like back in slavery days).
The corpse of the Democratic Party might be dead, but not a few of its agents, cells, and parasitical organisms are ‘out there’ still twitching and plotting. The decade-long coup abides. The lawfare ninjas — Norm Eisen, Mary McCord, Marc Elias, et al. — still plot tirelessly behind the scenes, rigging up evermore legalistic chicanery disguised as legality, and they are rolling in dough from Soros, the Tides Foundation, Neville Roy Singham, and countless NGOs dedicated to overthrowing the republic.
The coup abides for two reasons:
1) its players are desperate to evade prosecution for their vast and various crimes of the past ten years (and prosecution is coming at them down the track like the old Union Pacific US-4 “Daylight” locomotive); and
2) the Democratic Party is desperate to preserve the revenue flows that support all its racketeering operations. Without its rackets, the money funnel to pay off its countless “oppressed” client-constituent-victims, there is no party. That’s all it was in its final stage of life.
Minnesota, of course, is the case-study for that kind of corruption and now the DOJ is going after the place hard, announcing fifteen new prosecutions this week for $90-million in Medicaid fraud, “just the beginning,” the lead US attorney, Colin McDonald, said. California, Illinois, New York, Maine, and many more states await the same treatment under the president’s new National Fraud Enforcement Division. The Democrats will go into the midterms revealed to be nothing more than a looting operation.
It’s happening in real time. Just yesterday, one particular public benefits entrepreneur, Aimee Bock, was sentenced to forty years in prison for running a Minneapolis scam called Feeding Our Future that made off with $243-million in taxpayer money. At sentencing, Aimee Bock was ordered to pay roughly $243 million in restitution. That’s a hoot, isn’t it? Federal inmates (Bureau of Prisons) are paid from 12-cents to $1.15 per hour wages for assigned work, depending on the type of job. Forty years might not be enough to git’er done.
Many more will be going down in the months ahead for similar shenanigans, and the voting public might notice as it rolls out. But fraudsters such as Aimee Bock are mere lumpen foot-soldiers in the regime. The more spectacular action will be the Democratic Party’s field marshals getting nailed, and that’s hardly begun. Coup Central is the Southern District of Florida where a “grand conspiracy” case, or possibly many cases and sub-cases, are already in the grand jury stage — meaning probable cause has been established en route to indictments. Many political celebrities labored hard since 2017 to overthrow the executive branch of the government. Hair is on fire everywhere you look.
One small fish was reeled in this week: one Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, a senior supervisory US attorney, indicted on two felony counts of mishandling evidence from “special prosecutor” Jack Smith’s botched Mar-a-Lago documents case. She labeled the purloined docs in her personal computer as dessert recipes (e.g., “bundt cake”) en route to leaking them. Lineberger has pleaded innocent. Don’t doubt that a negotiated plea deal is in play with her, and that Jack Smith will be sweating the outcome of that as Lineberger flips and talks.
But the odious Jack Smith will only be one of many bigger fish turning up in the Fort Pierce dragnet, probably including the whale, Barack Obama, the president who foolishly tried to destroy his successor-in-office. You may know that the DOJ observes an unwritten custom of not issuing indictments inside sixty days of an election (a custom that Jack Smith violated in 2024 when he issued a superseding indictment against candidate Donald Trump). So, there are 105 days remaining within the current window before the 2026 midterms for formal charges to be lodged against the coupsters.
So, now everyone’s expecting a hairy-scary summer of Democratic Party inspired mayhem, a ratcheted-up “No Kings” orgy of riots, the last remaining gambit to goad Mr. Trump into emergency action so they can holler, “Look: king!”
It’s only a question of what might spark it off. I’ll venture to predict that spark will be the indictment of Barack Obama. If you think the Lefty-left is crazy now, wait until that happens.
At least Stephen Colbert won’t be around to turn it into a song-and-dance act.
Congressional Democrats are moving to shut down President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund, escalating a political fight over compensation for Americans who say they were targeted by politically motivated prosecutions and federal lawfare.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is introducing legislation aimed at preventing any federal money from being used to create or distribute payments through the fund.
According to a copy of the bill shared with Axios, the legislation states that “no Federal funds may be used to create or make payments” tied to the Trump administration’s Anti-Weaponization Fund.
The fund emerged from a settlement between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service after the president sued the agency over the leaking of his confidential tax returns during his first term.
Under the settlement framework, individuals claiming they were victims of politically motivated prosecutions or government abuse would be able to seek compensation.
Potential applicants could include January 6 defendants and others who were unfairly targeted by federal authorities.
Raskin is reportedly considering using a discharge petition to force a House vote if Republican leadership blocks the measure from reaching the floor.
At the same time, some establishment Republicans are also voicing opposition to the fund. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick told reporters Wednesday that he would “try to kill” the program.
“We’re going to write a letter to the [attorney general] to start, but we’re considering a legislative option,” Fitzpatrick said.
Supporters of the fund argue it represents a long-overdue effort to compensate Americans harmed by politically driven prosecutions and abuses of government power.
Critics, meanwhile, claim the program would improperly use taxpayer money to compensate individuals tied to controversial investigations, including those connected to the January 6 Capitol protest.
Two law enforcement officers who were present at the Capitol on Jan. 6 have already filed a lawsuit seeking to dissolve the fund entirely.
Lowe's CEO Warns Housing Market "Most Difficult" Since Financial Crisis As DIY Project Demand Crumbles
Home improvement retailers such as Home Depot and Lowe's warned this week that consumers remain reluctant to splurge on big-ticket home improvement items, as elevated mortgage rates, high home prices, energy inflation, weakening sentiment, and broader macroeconomic uncertainty weigh on demand.
Let's begin with Home Depot, which on Wednesday reported mixed first-quarter results. At the same time, management said on the conference call that it is not expecting a "marked improvement in underlying demand."
Bernstein analyst Zhihan Ma pointed out that Home Depot's foot traffic has been negative for five straight quarters, underscoring the persistent downturn in the home improvement space.
Ma maintained a "cautious outlook" and expects a "gradual path to a home improvement market rebound," as high mortgage rates and inflation in material costs do not help the "affordability hurdle for homeowners to engage with big-ticket discretionary projects."
Fast forward to Wednesday morning, and Lowe's reiterated its full-year forecasts but warned that households are dialing back big-ticket do-it-yourself projects.
What caught our attention was Lowe's CEO Marvin Ellison, who warned analysts on an earnings call earlier that:
I think overall this has been the most difficult housing market that I've faced in this business since the financial crisis. And as Brandon mentioned, it's almost exclusively or disproportionately on the DIY customer.
That's the majority of where our revenue comes from. And so I look at it from this perspective, you know, we've delivered four quarters of positive comps in an environment where the DIY has faced more economic pressure than I've ever seen before.
DIY softness comes as U.S. housing turnover sits at historic lows because of affordability woes, some of the worst in a generation, and elevated mortgage rates.
Housing affordability for first-time homebuyers remains at a four-decade low.
This, of course, means fewer home sales, which typically translate into fewer move-in renovations, remodels, flooring upgrades, kitchen projects, and other big-ticket home improvement purchases.
At the start of the week, Wayfair CFO Kate Gulliver issued a similar warning at JPMorgan's conference, signaling that demand for big-ticket home items is unlikely to recover this year.
What’s the main goal of your 401(k)? Well, my dear Watson, it’s to provide for your retirement. Specifically, it’s a long-term investment that benefits from compound interest. But for a record number of Americans, the “long term” is taking a back seat to immediate financial struggles.
In 2025, 6 percent of Vanguard 401(k) plan members took hardship withdrawals. That’s a big jump from 4.8 percent in 2024 and much higher than the roughly 2 percent annual rate we saw before the pandemic.
This trend, highlighted by the World Economic Forum and MarketWatch, paints an alarming picture of the American workforce’s financial health. Costs are rising, stress is growing, and well-intentioned regulatory changes are having unintended consequences.
That said, now is the time to investigate why this is happening and to identify the hidden costs. And, most importantly, you need realistic ways to avoid making your retirement nest egg an emergency fund.
The Breakdown: What’s Driving the Surge?
It’s not a coincidence that hardship withdrawals are at an all-time high. This is the result of several powerful economic forces colliding:
A Squeeze of Rising Costs and Financial Stress
It’s not a secret that life has gotten more expensive. Even though some metrics indicate a slowdown in inflation, the cumulative effect of price hikes in groceries, housing, and other essentials over the last few years has significantly reduced consumer purchasing power. As an example, consumer prices are approximately 25 percent higher than they were in January 2020.
As such, a small unexpected expense can trigger a crisis for many families with little to no financial buffer. In fact, according to a Bankrate survey, just 47 percent of Americans have sufficient liquidity or access to funds to cover a $1,000 emergency expense.
The Urgent Nature of the Withdrawals
These withdrawals aren’t for vacations or new cars. According to Vanguard, the median withdrawal amount in 2025 was $1,900. And, among the reasons people tapped their 401(k)s, these were the most common:
Avoiding foreclosure or eviction (36 percent)
Medical expenses (31 percent)
Tuition (13 percent)
Primary residence repairs (11 percent)
Primary residence purchase (5 percent)
Ultimately, withdrawals represent a broader challenge: Americans have relatively few retirement savings at their disposal.
Lowered Hurdles Have a Positive Impact
Ironically, some recent regulatory changes intended to ease the burden may be contributing to the rise. As a result of legislation such as the SECURE Act 2.0 (SECURE refers to Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement.) and legislation from the pandemic era, it’s now significantly easier to access funds in a 401(k). Depending on the situation, the rules now allow withdrawals of up to a defined amount (like $1,000) without penalty for “unforeseeable or immediate financial needs.”
As important as this flexibility is in a real catastrophe, it also lowers the psychological and logistical bar to leveraging these funds. The result, though, is that your retirement account looks more like a savings account, which is a very dangerous mentality.
The True Cost of ‘Easy Money’
When you’re facing eviction or a huge medical bill, $5,000 from your 401(k) can seem like a lifeline. But that lifeline comes at a heavy price, one that is often overlooked in times of crisis, such as the following.
Immediate Tax Consequences
Unlike a 401(k) loan that you repay with after-tax funds, a hardship withdrawal is permanent. Therefore, the withdrawal amount is generally taxable as ordinary income. When you take out $10,000, for example, and are in the 22 percent tax bracket, you’ll immediately owe $2,200 in federal taxes, which reduces your actual relief to $7,800.
Potential Penalties
If you’re under 59 ½ years old, you will likely face an additional 10 percent early withdrawal penalty on top of income tax. That’s another $1,000 gone from your $10,000 withdrawal, bringing the total cost of immediate access to 32 percent.
The Devastating Sacrifice of Compound Growth
Obviously, this is the highest and most invisible cost. Imagine if the $10,000 you withdrew had been left to grow for another 20 years. With an average annual return of 7 percent, that money would have grown to about $38,700. By taking out that money now, you are not only borrowing $10,000 from your future self; you’re erasing almost $39,000 from your retirement account.
This is a magic trick. That’s the power of compound interest. Knowing this sooner will help you realize that 401(k) withdrawals aren’t “easy money”—they’re incredibly expensive loans.
The Irony: A Healthy System With Struggling Participants
An astounding contradiction can be found within the same 2025 data: even though record numbers of people are tapping into their 401(k)s for emergencies, the average 401(k) balance actually grew by 13 percent since 2024.
In addition, more recent analysis from Fidelity shows average 401(k) balances climbed more than 11 percent, indicating that nest eggs have rebounded after recent swings in the markets.
Although this may seem confusing, it indicates a widening gap. While many workers contribute consistently and benefit from employer matches, consistent contributions, and strong market conditions. Their wealth is growing.
Meanwhile, the 6 percent of participants who resort to hardship withdrawals constitute a vulnerable segment of the population. Although the retirement system appears healthy on the surface, they’re suffering the brunt of the affordability crisis. This is a powerful reminder that “average” statistics can mask serious underlying problems.
Realistic Strategies to Keep Your 401(k) Locked
If recent data tells us anything, it’s that relying on your 401(k) as a backup checking account is a high-stakes gamble. To ensure your retirement fund remains dedicated to your future, you need a proactive defense. Here are realistic, actionable options to keep that vault closed.
Re-Evaluate and Automate Your Budget
This is the foundational work that makes everything else possible. If you don’t track your spending, you can’t control it. Before you can build momentum, you have to stop the bleeding by identifying exactly where your cash is going.
Audit your “leaks.” For one month, track every cent. You’ll likely find “ghost” expenses, like unused subscriptions, frequent small convenience purchases, or delivery fees, that are quietly draining your ability to save.
Establish a “needs vs. wants” hierarchy. Be ruthless. Shelter, utilities, groceries, and minimum debt payments are non-negotiable needs. Everything else is a want. If your financial foundation feels shaky, wants must be the first thing to go.
Use the right tools. Modern technology makes this much less painful. Using financial apps, such as WalletHub or Monarch Money, can put you in total control. By linking your accounts, your expenses are automatically categorized, allowing you to see your spending patterns in real-time. These tools also allow you to effortlessly manage and cancel subscriptions in one place, ensuring you aren’t paying for services you no longer use.
Build a ‘Firewall’ Emergency Fund
An emergency fund is the only thing standing between a flat tire and a raided retirement account.
Start with a mini-goal. Don’t let the “six months’ expenses” rule overwhelm you. Start with a small target you can afford, whether it’s $300 or $1,000. That single amount covers the vast majority of common shocks, from a basic car repair to an urgent medical copay.
Make it invisible. Set up a recurring transfer from your checking account to a separate high-yield savings account on the day you get paid. Even $25 or $50 per pay period builds a psychological and financial buffer. If the money never hits your main account, you won’t miss it.
Explore Smarter Alternatives for Fast Cash
Before you touch your 401(k), exhaust every other avenue. Retirement should be the last door you open.
Low-interest personal loans. You can manage debt or major expenses with a low-interest personal loan from a credit union or bank without incurring heavy taxes or losing compounding interest. For well-qualified borrowers, fixed-rate loans offer predictable, manageable monthly payments with rates as low as 10 percent.
0 percent APR balance transfers. If high-interest credit card debt is the primary stressor, a zero percent introductory APR card can give you a 12-to-18-month window to pay down the principal without accruing more interest.
Community and state programs. Local and federal organizations assist with housing and utility crises, such as 2-1-1, HUD, and the Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF). Before sacrificing your future security, take advantage of these programs designed to prevent eviction and foreclosure.
A Final Safety Valve: The 401(k) Loan
If you have truly exhausted every other option and are facing an immediate crisis, such as eviction, a 401(k) loan is generally a better choice than a hardship withdrawal.
Why is it better? Essentially, you’re borrowing money from yourself and paying the interest back to yourself. In addition, it does not trigger the 10 percent early withdrawal penalty or immediate income tax.
The critical caveat. You must repay it, typically within five years, via payroll deduction. Be aware that if you leave your job, the remaining balance is often due immediately. If you can’t pay it back, it defaults into a withdrawal—triggering the exact taxes and penalties you were trying to avoid at a time when you may be least able to afford them.
Conclusion: Protecting Your Future, One Day at a Time
Vanguard’s 2025 data is alarming. Americans are increasingly financially vulnerable to the point that their primary tool for future security is being wiped out by today’s pressures. This is not a sustainable path.
The first step is to understand the “why” behind this trend, which is rooted in financial stress, urgent needs, and simplified rules. The second step is to acknowledge the true, exorbitant cost of this immediate relief.
In the end, building a financial infrastructure that can withstand storms is the key to preventing your 401(k) from being a go-to ATM. Start with a real budget and an emergency fund, no matter how small. Even when today’s demands seem overwhelming, you must discipline yourself and put your future first.
Remember, your 401(k) shouldn’t be viewed as a piggy bank but as a tool to ensure you’ll have the lifestyle you want in your golden years. Don’t risk your retirement for a temporary fix. The costs are simply too high.
By John Rampton
The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors. They are meant for general informational purposes only and should not be construed or interpreted as a recommendation or solicitation. The Epoch Times does not provide investment, tax, legal, financial planning, estate planning, or any other personal finance advice. The Epoch Times holds no liability for the accuracy or timeliness of the information provided.
