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After a gun-toting homeowner in Ontario, Canada, opened fire and wounded an alleged intruder earlier this week, Premier Doug Ford lauded the homeowner and said intruders “need to be shot,” the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported.”Congratulations for shooting this guy — should have shot him a couple more times as far as I’m concerned,” Ford replied after being asked about the incident during an unrelated news conference Wednesday, according to the CBC.’We have seen far too many of these incidents involving individuals who were already known to police and out on release orders, highlighting a deeply broken bail system that is failing our communities.’Ford also upbraided the Canadian government for “going after legal, law-abiding gun owners” and “weak-kneed judges” for letting suspects walk, the outlet noted.”They always want to protect the bad guys, the judges always want to protect the Charter rights,” Ford said, according to the CBC. “How about the charter of rights of the people to keep them safe rather than always protecting these criminals. I’m just sick and tired of it.”Opposition Leader Marit Stiles of the New Democratic Party called Ford’s statement “very irresponsible nonsense” while speaking with reporters Wednesday morning, the outlet said.”This premier has been premier of this province for eight long years now,” she said, according to the CBC. “If people in Ontario feel less safe today, then that’s on him as the premier of this province.”Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner also used the term “irresponsible” to describe Ford’s words in a statement to the outlet: “It is irresponsible for the premier to be making comments encouraging violence or celebrating the loss of life. He should focus on investing in measures that will make our province safer and empower first responders to do their jobs to serve and protect our communities.”This wasn’t the first time Ford has spoken out amid such matters. After a homeowner was charged with aggravated assault for fighting and injuring an armed male who allegedly broke into his Lindsay, Ontario, residence last year, Ford said that “something is broken” in the system when one is punished for self-defense. The CBC last month reported that the homeowner in question no longer will face prosecution.In regard to this week’s incident, York Regional Police said no charges were being filed against the homeowner who used a “legally owned” and “properly stored” gun.Police said a middle-aged man and an elderly woman were home at the time of the incident, and no one living at the home was injured, the CBC reported.A police press release issued Wednesday said officers responded just before 1 a.m. Tuesday to reports of a shooting at a Vaughan home in the area of Carrville Woods Circle and Crimson Forest Drive, near Rutherford Road and Dufferin Street.Officials said multiple suspects allegedly armed with at least one gun forced their way into the home and that the suspects later were seen getting into a black pickup truck and fleeing the scene.Police on Tuesday released video of the incident showing masked suspects entering and leaving the home, the CBC said, adding that rapid gunfire can be heard as they run from the residence to the truck.RELATED: Anger spreads over homeowner charged with assault after fighting alleged intruder; Canadian cops double down: ‘Don’t engage’ The male who was shot had been dropped off at a Toronto-area hospital shortly after the incident, the police press release said.Police said Trestin Cassanova-Alman, a 24-year-old male with no fixed address, is facing charges of robbery with a firearm and disguise with intent as well with breaching a probation order “as he was on an outstanding probation order for unrelated offenses at the time of the home invasion.”Cassanova-Alman is in stable condition in the hospital in police custody, the news release said.At least one politician in the area appears squarely on Ford’s side — the mayor of the city where the shooting took place.Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca in a social media statement posted Wednesday said he’s thankful the homeowner wasn’t charged given that it was an act of self-defense.”We have seen far too many of these incidents involving individuals who were already known to police and out on release orders, highlighting a deeply broken bail system that is failing our communities,” the mayor said.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s pick to replace Powell, is currently stuck in a Senate quagmire.

President Donald Trump made a quip about Pearl Harbor Thursday when asked if Japan and other American allies were given advance notice about attacking Iran, saying the U.S. “wanted surprise.” Trump made the comment while sitting across from Prime Minister of Japan Sanae Takaichi during a bilateral meeting at the White House. “Japan and the U.S. are very good friends, but one question, why didn’t you tell U.S. allies in Europe and Asia, like Japan, about the war before attacking Iran? So we are very confused about, we Japanese citizens,” a reporter asked Trump. “Well, one thing, you don’t want to signal too much,” the president responded. “You know, when we go in, we went in very hard, and we didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Okay? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor? Okay? Right?” JACK KEANE CALLS OUT NATO’S WEAKNESS AS SHIPPING CRISIS GRIPS STRAIT OF HORMUZ”You know, he’s asking me, ‘Do you believe in surprise?’ I think much more so than us. And we had to surprise them. And we did,” Trump continued. “And because of that surprise, we knocked out the first two days, we probably knocked out 50% of what we — and much more than we anticipated doing. So, if I go and tell everybody about it, there’s no longer a surprise, right?” PENTAGON SEEKS AT LEAST $200 BILLION FROM CONGRESS FOR IRAN WAREarlier in the meeting, Trump told reporters, “We’re doing this excursion. And when it’s completed, we’re going to have a much safer world. And the Prime Minister agrees with me on this.””Iran is a serious threat to the world, to the Middle East and to the world. And everybody agrees with me,” Trump said. “I think virtually every country agrees with me on that. So I wanted to put out that fire.” Operation Epic Fury was launched by the U.S. on Feb. 28, and as of Thursday, is on day 20. 

President Trump holds bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi – March 19, 2026
President Trump on Thursday gave a hilarious response to a Japanese reporter asking why the US conducted a surprise attack on Iran last month. 
While meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Trump reminded the Japanese of the 1941 surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii.
“Let me pick a beautiful-looking person from Japan. A question for the Prime Minister,” Trump said to the reporter while pointing.
The reporter questioned, “Me?”
Trump responded, “Oh, he doesn’t think he’s beautiful. He sounded shocked,” causing the room to burst into laughter.
Then Trump hit him with a banger that we will likely be seeing replayed for years to come.
When asked why US allies, including Japan, were not informed of the attacks on Iran beforehand, Trump said, “Well, one thing, you don’t want to signal too much, you know? When we go in, we went in very hard, and we didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise.”
He then added, “Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Okay? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor? Okay, right?”
Regardless of what you think of the war, this is hilarious. Classic Trump!
WATCH:
Reporter: Japan and US are very good friends, but one question, why didn’t you tell US allies in Europe and Asia, like Japan, about the war before attacking Iran? So We are very confused about, we Japanese citizens—
Trump: Well, one thing, you don’t want to signal too much, you know? When we go in, we went in very hard, and we didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Okay? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor? Okay, right?
He’s asking me. No, you believe in surprise, I think, much more so than us, and we had a surprise, and we did. And because of that surprise, we knocked out— the first two days, we probably knocked out 50% of what we, and much more, than we anticipated doing. So if I go and tell everybody about it, there’s no longer a surprise, right?

The post Hilarious! Trump to Japanese Reporter: “Who Knows Better About Surprise Than Japan? Why Didn’t You Tell Me About Pearl Harbor?” (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Gov. Jared Polis, D-Colo.
The Trump administration is probing thirteen states that allegedly force insurance providers to cover abortion.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) sent letters Wednesday notifying states with abortion coverage mandates of the investigation and requesting information about how their policies are being implemented, according to an HHS official.
“We are concerned about this because it means that thousands of people and employers, including religious employers, churches, but also employers who may be private citizens, but who object to abortion and would prefer that their health plans not cover it, are also coerced into purchasing a plan that covers abortion are not free in the marketplace to purchase abortion-free coverage,” the official said.
States with mandates for state-regulated insurers to cover abortion include California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
The HHS investigation builds on earlier efforts to enforce the agency’s conscience protections, a priority outlined out at the beginning of the President Donald Trump’s second term, as well as “the dignity of human life.”
Under the Weldon Amendment — part of a law Congress passed in 2005 — states and local governments that receive federal funds cannot discriminate against healthcare entities for choosing not to “pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.” OCR rescinded a Biden-era letter in January that excluded “health plan sponsors or employers” from the definition of a “healthcare entity.”
In January, OCR also notified Illinois about a law that “unlawfully ties health care provider conscience protections to referral requirements in the case of abortion.”
While there are no active complaints in the states under investigation, OCR has received complaints about some states in the past, though the Biden administration shut down investigations in 2021, the official said.
During Trump’s first term, the HHS issued a notice of violation to California in January 2020 explaining it “violated the Weldon Amendment by discriminating against health care plans that limited or excluded abortion coverage.” California’s decision “forced over 28,000 people out of plans that up until that time had chosen to not cover elective abortions,” according to the 2020 notice.
Each state will have 20 days to respond to OCR’s letters requesting documents and information. If states resist after an investigation finds them not in compliance, OCR can pursue enforcement through withholding funding or referring the matter to the Department of Justice (DOJ), the official said.
Ahead of the March for Life in January, the administration announced several pro-life policies, such as an expansion of the Mexico City policy restricting foreign aid funds from promoting abortion and an investigation into whether Planned Parenthood illegally received over $88 million in COVID-19 loans.
The administration’s relationship with pro-life organizations has grown increasingly difficult. During a March 11 press conference on Capitol Hill, SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said efforts to convince the administration to reinstate safeguards on the abortion pill are at a “dead-end.”
The Department of Justice has filed motions opposing Republican states’ challenges to FDA rules surrounding the abortion pill in court, sparking pushback from pro-life advocates.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Guests attend a Pride celebration, Wednesday, June 26, 2024, on the South Lawn of the White House. (Official White House photo by Cameron Smith)
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The organization that sets the agenda for the 130,000 school counselors across the U.S. just promoted a left-wing activist program that advocates for transgender ideology and critical race theory, according to a new report.
“While the American people are actively rejecting the harms of transgender ideology, the invasion of women’s private spaces, and the culture of critical race theory, the American School Counselor Association is working overtime to install these very same radicalisms into our daughters,” Alvin Lui, president of the conservative group Courage Is a Habit, told The Daily Signal.
The American School Counselor Association, which counts about 42,000 of the nation’s estimated 131,230 school counselors as members and which releases guidance for the entire profession, held a Feb. 19 webinar promoting the Lean In Girls program. The Sandberg Goldberg Bernthal Family Foundation, founded by former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg, launched Lean In Girls as a leadership program for girls ages 11-15.
“By leveraging its position of trust, ASCA is using the ‘Lean In Girls’ curriculum as a tactical cover to smuggle a divisive political agenda into our schools under the fraudulent banner of ‘mental health and leadership,’” Lui warned. He said the organization is “using its access to 11-year-old girls to install a curriculum that promotes men in women’s spaces and political agitation, all while telling parents it’s just a ‘leadership’ program.”
“It is a massive betrayal of parental trust,” he concluded.
The Courage Is a Habit report, first provided to The Daily Signal, exposes Lean In Girls’ support for transgender ideology and critical race theory.
Transgender Ideology
During the webinar, “Confidence Counts: Leadership Skills as a Tier 2 Intervention for Girls,” Lean In Girls Senior Manager for Partnership Development Kelly Meredith urged school counselors to adopt the Lean In Girls program as part of the Multi-Tiered System of Support requirements for students who need behavioral or mental health support.
Courage Is a Habit attended the webinar and told The Daily Signal that Meredith recommended the Lean In Girls program. The first step in following the program involves downloading the curriculum. The Daily Signal confirmed that, when downloading the curriculum, the facilitator handbook that Courage Is a Habit analyzed is the first document provided.
“Facilitators require participants to question and deny the most basic biological truth: what a female actually is,” the Courage Is a Habit report notes. “The Lean In Girls Handbook includes additional resources from the Southern Poverty Law Center and GLISTEN (formerly GLSEN in activist circles) for ‘context’—two organizations notorious for pushing radical gender ideology over facts.”
The handbook’s section on “Gender Inclusion” warns facilitators that “some teens in the program may identify strongly with being a girl, while others may be exploring their gender identity or may feel uncomfortable with the label ‘girl.’” The section recommends resources from the Southern Poverty Law Center, the British LGBTQ nonprofit Stonewall, and GLSEN (which rebranded to GLISTEN in February).
The handbook recommends many resources from Learning for Justice, the education arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy, but now it publishes a “hate map” plotting mainstream conservative and Christian groups alongside Klan chapters. Courage Is a Habit appears on the map alongside Moms For Liberty as an “antigovernment extremist group” and part of the “anti-student inclusion movement.” Much of the SPLC’s criticisms boil down to ideological disagreements.
Learning for Justice, formerly known as Teaching Tolerance, has long promoted transgender ideology in schools.
Critical Race Theory
Courage Is a Habit also faults the handbook for promoting critical race theory, the idea that American society is systemically racist despite the progress of civil rights laws and that it requires fundamental change to root out “white supremacy.”
“Group facilitators are directed to rank themselves and each other on an intersectional hierarchy of oppression, a textbook critical race theory exercise that divides children by race, sexuality, and perceived victim status—all disguised as harmless ‘mental health’ support,” the Courage Is a Habit report states.
The handbook’s section on “Counteracting Biases and Barriers in Group Settings” directs facilitators to “educate yourself about ways people with traditionally marginalized identities are stereotyped and treated unfairly.”
While the handbook does not directly state that facilitators should rank themselves, it repeatedly encourages them to consider whether girls have “more or less social power.”
“If parts of your identity give you more social power than your participants have, you may need to work harder to build trust,” the handbook states. This statement encourages facilitators to examine aspects of their identity and compare themselves to the identities of participants.
The handbook also warns that “facilitators can accidentally harm teens” in various ways, and it recommends a resource on “microaggressions.” Critics, such as Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, have warned that the idea of trying to protect students from microaggressions, words or phrases that might cause a small amount of harm unintentionally, represent part of a “safetyism” approach that encourages cognitive distortions, harming students long-term.
This section also recommends resources from Learning for Justice.
The Daily Signal has reached out to ASCA and the Sandberg Goldberg Bernthal Family Foundation for comment and will add to this story if comment comes in.
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

Anonymity is never promised online, even when using an account that isn’t attached to your real name or personal email address. While it usually takes a lot of time and effort for an investigator to expose someone’s real identity, that’s all about to change. A new study confirms that it’s easier and cheaper than ever to uncover the people behind anonymous social media accounts en masse, and it’s all powered by generative AI.The studyThe study, led by members of Berlin-based independent research group MATS Research and Swiss research university ETH Zurich, claimed in early March that large language models can be used to reveal the real identities behind anonymous social media accounts at a scale never seen before.There are serious consequences, especially for privacy and free speech.Using a set of fictional accounts between Hacker News, Reddit, and LinkedIn, the study showed how LLMs can scan a single account and search the internet for potential matches based on semantic embeddings — mathematical vectors that represent the meaning of written text to compare similarities between various bodies of written work. Ultimately, the LLM was able to target an anonymous account on Hacker News or Reddit and connect it to the person’s “real identity” on LinkedIn.The results showed that LLMs can achieve “up to 68% recall at 90% precision” to deanonymize accounts. In other words, the study correctly identified more than half of anonymous users with up to 90% accuracy.It’s a terrifying revelation that your writing style — including your word choices, ideas, concepts, and beliefs — could all be turned into mathematical data that reveals exactly who you are, even if you think your social accounts aren’t connected to you at all. Even more sobering, the LLMs don’t need access to your email address, your phone number, your home address, or any other personal information to determine your identity. They only need your public writing.The stipulationsIf there’s any good news, it’s that there are several potential flaws in the study.For starters, it didn’t use any real accounts. The targeted “users” were all fabricated with their identities already known by the researchers. In a real de-anonymizing scenario, there would be no confirmation on the other end when the LLM gets an identity right or wrong, leaving sleuths to wonder if they linked the correct person.RELATED: New hack poses biggest iPhone threat in 19 years: What you can do Xaume Olleros/Bloomberg via Getty Images Also, to cross-match an anonymous account with a real identity, the targeted person has to have a real online account to compare. If no such account exists, then an anonymous account could theoretically skirt the AI’s search parameters to stay concealed.The implicationsIf used effectively, however, there are some serious consequences to wide-scale LLM de-anonymization, especially for privacy and free speech. This tech could easily be used by violent activist groups, corrupt NGOs, and government agencies to track anonymous accounts, uncover identities, and reveal the political beliefs of users who wish to remain unknown.There is also huge potential for misidentifications. While the LLM in the study was considerably accurate by research standards, it wasn’t perfect. If and when something like this is ever deployed on real-world accounts at scale, it will misidentify some online accounts, possibly causing trouble for people who are wrongly accused of owning certain anonymous profiles.Lastly, while the study focuses on LLMs digging through social media accounts to link anonymous users to real people, AI can technically do this with any body of written work. For example, all it takes is for Gemini to see the documents in your Google Drive account or for Microsoft Copilot to view your work emails to get enough semantic embedding data to search for your secret alter ego.In other words, we could be heading into an age of oppressive online police and mass surveillance where online anonymity simply can’t exist.What can you do?There isn’t a surefire way to keep your anonymous online presence safe from scouring LLMs, but there are a couple of things that might help.The first and obvious option is not to have an anonymous account at all. If you plan to be online, you must represent yourself under your own name. That means owning your values, never posting anything you wouldn’t say to a person in public, and standing up for what you believe. The Biden administration actively stomped on the values of conservatives with mass censorship and misinformation campaigns meant to scare us into submission, lest we face the wrath of cancel culture. That era is over. We can’t sit in the shadows any more while the left screams louder into the void. LLM de-anonymization simply won’t allow it.If you must use an anonymous account, then you should delete any online accounts that do represent your true identity. That means getting rid of your real LinkedIn, Facebook, and any other profile where you’ve written words that provide semantic embedding data about you. Note, however, that even if you delete these accounts, pieces of them still exist in perpetuity on web archival services like Wayback Machine, so if an LLM wanted to dig around to uncover who you are, it still could.The age of online anonymity is overThis study ultimately boils down to one central idea: “Anonymous” online interactions are a thing of the past. Privacy is merely a facade when an LLM can take everything you’ve ever posted online and track you down with stunning accuracy.AI programs don’t care if you use a secret email address, install a VPN, or browse in incognito mode. The key to finding your identity is the words you write. That’s all it needs to understand who you are.This is just the beginning. AI tools like these will only get better with time, making it even easier to unmask anonymous posters around the internet. That means if you do have an anonymous account, you shouldn’t assume your identity is safe. Anyone can find the truth with your own words used against you to destroy your privacy.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris dismissed Nicki Minaj’s support for President Donald Trump by claiming the rap megastar has simply fallen victim to “misinformation,” and even as far as to suggest that the “Starships” singer doesn’t know that “two plus two equals four.”
The post Video: Kamala Harris Suggests Nicki Minaj Supports Trump Due to ‘Misinformation,’ Doesn’t Know ‘2 + 2 = 4’ appeared first on Breitbart.

The economic downturn in the trucking industry led to dozens of bankruptcy filings in 2025, as the Great Freight Recession victimized the sector since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic.The downturn has claimed another trucking company this month, as Sparhawk Trucking battles financial distress to stay afloat. High hopes for a recovery in the trucking industry came in December 2025 as only three companies filed for bankruptcy petitions, the lowest number since Equipment Finance News began tracking the data.Highest number of filingsBut those hopes were dashed when 20 firms filed for bankruptcy in January 2026, the highest number of bankruptcies since Equipment Finance News began tracking the data.Trucking companies have battled reduced shipping demand, lower freight rates, and rising costs of labor, fuel, and insurance driven by inflation over the last four years, which is known as the Great Freight Recession.

Sparhawk Trucking files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to reorganize its business.Shutterstock

Sparhawk Trucking files for bankruptcyAnd now, 47-year-old Wisconsin trucking company Sparhawk Trucking LLC has filed for Chapter 11 protection after being placed into receivership and settling a massive lawsuit liability, Trucking Dive reported.The Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., trucking and logistics company and three affiliates filed their petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Wisconsin on March 13 to halt assignment for the benefit of creditors and receivership actions against the company.The Chapter 11 filing invokes an automatic stay on all legal actions against the debtor, which will allow the debtor to seek access to its cash collateral under the bankruptcy case to pay its employees, vendors, and other expenses to continue operating as it reorganizes, as allowed in the bankruptcy statute.Sparhawk listed up to $50,000 in assets and $10 million to $50 million in liabilities in its petition.Revenue grew in 2022The debtor, whose total revenue grew to $49.6 million in 2022 before falling to $35 million in 2025, operated 200 trucks with 1,000 trailers by 2023, according to a bankruptcy declaration by owner Mark A. Sparhawk, listed on PacerMonitor.For the company’s most recent payroll paid on March 12-13, the company listed 54 drivers on W-2 payroll and 48 owner-operators. The company also employs 22 office employees and 18 shop workers.The debtor’s major financial burdens consist of over $10.1 million in debt owed to WoodTrust Bank, which financed Sparhawk’s purchase of 23 Peterbilt trucks in 2021 or 2022, and $697,000 owed to its financial consultant, Silverman Group, according to the declaration.Sparhawk claims to have done business with WoodTrust since 1979, court papers said.The debtor had also faced a $136 million claim related to a lawsuit filed against Sparhawk, dating back to an August 2021 incident when one of Sparhawk’s trucks, driven by an employee, hit a train hauling hazardous products in Louisiana.Sparhawk settles lawsuitSparhawk’s insurance company only covered up to $10 million in insurance payments, but the trucking company in September 2025 negotiated a settlement with the plaintiffs to accept the $10 million as full satisfaction of all claims against the debtor, the declaration said.The debtor alleged in its declaration that the bank’s loan officer and two employees of the financial consulting group Silverman Group convinced Sparhawk to agree toan assignment for the benefit of creditors and the appointment of a receiver as part of a forbearance agreement in November 2025.Sparhawk said he did not understand the assignment for the benefit of creditors process, but also did not seek the advice of a lawyer. “I trusted what they told me,” the owner Sparhawk said in the declaration.More bankruptcies: Troubled automobile maker files Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidationMajor gambling destination files for Chapter 11 bankruptcyMajor department store brand liquidates in Chapter 11 bankruptcyBeginning in May 2025, the bank offered forbearance agreements to Sparhawk, which resulted in the debtor’s bank accounts being swept by the bank three times before payroll disbursements from May 2025 through December 2025, leaving insufficient funds to cover payroll, the declaration said.”The bank required me to sign the assignment and waive my right to contest the receivership, or the bank would not let payroll clear,” Sparhawk said in the declaration.Debtor finally seeks lawyer adviceA receiver was appointed on Dec. 9, 2025, and Sparhawk claimed that by mid-February, he was advised by an undisclosed person to seek a lawyer’s representation. Sparhawk hired law firm Kerkman & Dunn, according to the declaration, around the time Silverman Group allegedly informed the owner that unless he came up with a $400,000 by March 13, the bank would likely start to shut down the business.A shutdown would not happen, as the debtor filed for Chapter 11 on that day, invoking an automatic stay against any legal actions from the bank, Silverman, and receiver while the bankruptcy case proceeds.Long-haul truckload demand plummeted by 25% in the first half of 2025, with trucking becoming more of a short-haul delivery method for the final leg of freight movement, according to the Long Outbound Tender Volume Index, FreightWaves reported.Related: Major mattress chain converts to Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation

Another 2008 Analog: Goldman, JPM Offering Hedge Funds Ways To Short Private Credit

The big story last week, a narrative which we may have inadvertently started, was the recurring comparison across various sellside desks (and quite a few buysiders) of the current double crisis (private credit as an analog to the subprime crisis of 2007/2008 coupled with soaring oil prices which peaked at just below $150 in the summer of 2008 before crashing along with the start of the global financial crisis, similar to now). None other than Michael Hartnett dedicated his latest Flow Show to describing how “Wall Street Is Ominously Trading The 2008 Analog.”

Well, we now have another very stark comparison to events from 2008.

Recall back then, while big banks like Goldman were actively pitching long RMBS trades to clients, seemingly oblivious of the subprime risk, they were quietly arranging transactions for their best clients – such as Paulson and Magnetar – to short the entire RMBS/housing stack in advance of the subprime explosion that would spark the global financial crisis. In fact, it was this trade that make Paulson a billionaire (and some might add, a one hit wonder). 

While subprime was the crisis catalyst in 2008, this time around almost everyone agrees that ground zero of the next credit crisis will be the $1.8 trillion private credit market, which as we have described extensively, is in dire straits (with all due respect to Hormuz) as a result of not only the panicked surge in redemptions on a sudden revulsion to the asset class which has prompted numerous funds to impose gates…

… but also what Boaz Weinstein described as the “massive declines in everything from OTF, TCPC, FSK, OXLC, BPRE, the tripling of outflows for Cliffwater and Blue Owl, the frauds, the rise in bad PIK, the mis-labeling of Saas, the embellishment of what portion of the  portfolios are true 1L, and a whole lot more.”

I’m genuinely interested in everyone’s thoughts. IMHO, what’s stoking fear @AcaciaCap isn’t our bid but the massive declines in everything from OTF, TCPC, FSK, OXLC, BPRE, the tripling of outflows for Cliffwater and Blue Owl, the frauds, the rise in bad PIK, the mis-labeling of… https://t.co/lw29B9jJc3
— boaz weinstein (@boazweinstein) March 14, 2026
And it is private credit that the big banks are now quietly aiding their best clients to short, even as they publish report after report talking how the selling in private credit is irrational and should reverse. 

According to Bloomberg, Goldman and JPMorgan are among investment banks offering hedge fund clients ways to bet against the $1.8 trillion private credit markets, having assembled baskets of listed companies with exposure to the space.

Goldman’s indexes vary from one focused on European financial institutions with private credit exposure to a group of business development companies and another alternatives managers more broadly. JPMorgan’s basket meanwhile includes alternatives managers and BDCs, Bloomberg’s sources said. Clients can also invest in the indices.

Meanwhile, Bank of America has a basket of European financial firms with exposure to private credit, including Partners Group, Deutsche Bank and Axa. The Financial Times reported earlier on Thursday that the bank had since awkwardly withdrawn a recommendation that clients bet against European companies potentially exposed to private credit shocks.

Why: because the bank doesn’t want to get in trouble with European regulators who know very well that any push to tip over the private credit house of cards could lead to the next credit crisis, one which would almost certainly drag Europe’s debt-challenged states in as well.

And just to make the 2008 analog complete, separately Bloomberg reports that another branch of Goldman, the bank’s Asset Management division, has begun preliminary talks with investors to raise at least $10 billion for a global direct lending fund. 

The fund, West Street Loan Partners VI, will focus on companies across North America, Europe and Australia, typically targeting businesses generating more than $100 million in EBITDA. Its predecessor fund raised over $13 billion in 2024.

Goldman is targeting returns of between 10%-12% on a levered basis for the fund, and 6%-7% on an unlevered basis, Bloomberg’s sources said. At least 80% of the portfolio is expected to consist of senior loan positions.

In other words, Goldman’s trading desk is helping and arranging for its hedge funds clients sell and short exposure to private credit while another division of Goldman (one which is supposedly behind a Chinese Wall) is actively soaking up everything that is for sale, at a sizable discount of course. One can hardly wait for the 2028 Congressional hearings on the topic. 

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Tyler Durden
Thu, 03/19/2026 – 13:40