5 Ways To Build Extraordinary Resilience, According To An Ex-Navy SEAL And Paralympic Champion Authored by Walker Larson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), When Dan Cnossen opened his eyes, he saw the sterile walls and beeping medical devices of a hospital room. He also saw his mother’s face, just a few feet from him, looking into his own. How could she be here, in Afghanistan? But then Cnossen realized he wasn’t in Afghanistan anymore. He was back in the United States. Then the memories began to flood. U.S. Navy SEALs emphasize honor, courage, and commitment to the mission. petesphotography/Getty Images In 2009, during a nighttime operation in Afghanistan, Cnossen stepped on a pressure plate, igniting an IED that cost him both his legs. His comrades-in-arms transported him down the rocky face of a craggy hill, each step they took jarring his body, engulfing him in indescribable pain. The last thing he remembered before waking up in the hospital was being loaded onto a chopper. Cnossen chose to tackle his recovery with the same determination and grit that had carried him through the notoriously grueling training to become a U.S. Navy SEAL and subsequent deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Cnossen not only recovered from his wounds, but went on to become a Paralympic athlete of the highest order, winning multiple gold medals in skiing. All these experiences have honed Cnossen’s resilience to a diamond-hard edge. Drawing on his past, Cnossen shared five rules for resiliency. Courtesy of Dan Cnossen 1. Find Your Cohort Surrounding yourself with likeminded individuals who share your goals is a key to getting through challenges.  Cnossen’s always been a planner. When he was just a high school freshman, he’d already established a plan to get into the Naval Academy. Once there, he developed an interest in becoming a Navy SEAL. Cnossen knew that to achieve his goal, he needed to improve his swimming. Even basic swimming drills unleashed the butterflies in his stomach.  But at the Naval Academy, he gravitated toward other students with similar interests and goals, many of whom were excellent swimmers. By building relationships with these friends and learning from them, Cnossen was able to improve his swimming skills and eventually enter BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training). Similarly, during this notoriously difficult training—with an attrition rate of 70-80 percent—Cnossen’s cohort of comrades helped him get through and become a SEAL. The mutual support provided by a strong social network of likeminded individuals forms one of the pillars of resiliency. U.S. Navy SEAL candidates perform a 50-meter underwater swim in the combat training tank during the first phase of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Benjamin K. Kittleson 2. When Things Get Tough, Sharpen and Narrow Your Focus From being pushed to his mental and physical limit in BUD/S to facing an interminable uphill climb to recovery, including 40 surgeries, after his injury in Afghanistan, Cnossen has returned again and again to a simple principle of interior strength: Break it down. Mentally tackling the entirety of BUD/S or all the training needed for a Paralympic race at once is a recipe for discouragement and failure. Instead, Cnossen says, when things get difficult, “sharpen and narrow your focus.” Set a simple goal or a small milestone and reach that. Then set another. In BUD/S, that might mean reaching the next landmark during an arduous run. During rehab, that might look like regaining some arm mobility. This process of “segmentation” turns insurmountable tasks into smaller, achievable ones. Over time, small steps like these lead to bigger and bigger results, like becoming a Navy SEAL or running on prosthetic limbs. The temptation in a stressful situation is to “think big”—to try to obliterate our difficulties in one stroke. But instead, we need to “think small.” What can I do right now? What’s the next step, the next thing to work on? East Coast-based SEALs and Norwegian naval special operations commandos conduct arctic long-range ski training to bolster skills in an extreme Arctic environment. U.S. Navy/Chief Mass Communication Specialist Jeff Atherton 3. Shatter Negative Perspectives Every situation can be viewed from a huge number of perspectives, according to Cnossen. There are as many perspectives on a situation as the 360 degrees of a circle. Each point of view yields a different view of the issue. To build mental toughness, we have to learn to break out of a single, narrow perspective of some difficult or tragic circumstance. So often, this knee-jerk perspective is a negative one, which can dominate us if it goes unchecked. Instead, Cnossen explains, we have to break out of that negative perspective to unveil the hundreds of other ways of looking at the situation. Cnossen’s initial reaction to losing his legs was understandably negative. But he forced himself to consider his circumstance in a different light. He decided to look at it as something to overcome. He also expressed gratitude that his life had been spared, that he still had two working arms, and that no one else on the hill that night had been injured. Furthermore, he began to look at his experience as a means to inspire others. These shifts in perspective allowed him to find meaning in what happened. They helped him rise above adversity, climb higher, and perform the most heroic of human maneuvers: turning something tragic into something glorious. Navy SEALs participate in the capabilities exercise portion of the 43rd annual Underwater Demolition Team-Sea, Air and Land East Coast Reunion at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story in this file photo. Stocktrek Images/Getty Images 4. Let Go of What You Can’t Control, Focus on What You Can A positive perspective doesn’t mean refusing to face reality, however. Cnossen knew right away that there were some things he’d never be able to do after his injury. He wasn’t going to be able to continue a career as a Navy SEAL. He wasn’t going to become a champion long-jumper. He had to process and accept these realities as part of the journey toward healing and resiliency. Instead of indulging in self-pity over these lost opportunities, Cnossen focused on what he could do, if he set his mind to it. He became a Paralympic skier and won multiple gold medals. To do it, he doubled-down on the things he was good at, the things that were still under his control: putting in the work, developing a new skill, practicing discipline and determination. At first, this applied to relatively small things like the daily physical therapy sessions, which he threw himself into wholeheartedly. Eventually, it transformed into bigger things, like training for races. Capitalizing on his abilities paid off in the long run. LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA/AFP/ Getty Images 5. Focus on Your Impact on Others Facing extraordinarily difficult situations is often overwhelming, especially when those situations seem meaningless. Yet meaning is often hidden under the veils of suffering. Learning to see this is one of the most powerful ways to be resilient.  Cnossen found meaning in what happened to him through many avenues, but one of the most important was helping others. He focused on the fact that his detonation of the IED may have spared the other men on his team. In recovery, he set a good example for other injured veterans by putting in long hours of physical therapy. Today, he’s a public speaker who uses his life’s trials to inspire others with hope, determination, and resiliency. Cnossen summed up his message at the end of a TED talk: “There is a very real and powerful sense of self ownership and agency in acknowledging that despite all the uncertainty and risk in life … you do indeed control your reaction, your attitude, your mindset, your perspective.” Tyler Durden Sat, 06/14/2025 – 23:20

These Are The Best College Degrees For Finding A Job In The US Which college degrees are the best for finding a job? This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, uses recent data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to examine the careers that offer the best prospect and their respective median salaries. Scarcity Meets Earning Potential Nutrition Sciences tops the list, with only 0.4% unemployment rate. Graduates can expect a median salary of $75,000 by age 35-45. Construction Services and Animal & Plant Sciences follow, also with low unemployment rate (0.7% and 1.0%, respectively), but diverge significantly in earnings—$100,000 versus $70,000 per year. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics-related degrees (STEM) tend to yield high returns. Aerospace Engineering, for example, ranks eighth in unemployment rate but first in compensation within this list at $125K. Similarly, Mechanical, Electrical, and Chemical Engineering all boast six-figure salaries while having unemployment rates between 1.5–2.2%. Rank Field of Study Unemployment Rate (%) Median Salary 1 Nutrition Sciences 0.4% $75K 2 Construction Services 0.7% $100K 3 Animal & Plant Sciences 1.0% $70K 4 Civil Engineering 1.0% $100K 5 Special Education 1.0% $55K 6 Agriculture 1.2% $75K 7 Early Education 1.3% $49K 8 Aerospace Engineering 1.4% $125K 9 Nursing 1.4% $84K 10 Earth Sciences 1.5% $88K 11 Mechanical Engineering 1.5% $115K 12 Social Services 1.7% $54K 13 Elementary Education 1.8% $53K 14 Accounting 1.9% $88K 15 Engineering Technologies 1.9% $100K 16 Chemical Engineering 2.0% $120K 17 Electrical Engineering 2.2% $120K 18 Health Services 2.2% $65K 19 Business Analytics 2.4% $100K 20 General Engineering 2.4% $100K 21 Miscellaneous Education 2.5% $60K 22 Environmental Studies 2.6% $75K 23 Ethnic Studies 2.6% $83K Education-related fields like Early Childhood Education (1.3%, $49,000) and Special Education (1.0%, $55,000) show lower median earnings despite low unemployment rate, highlighting the income disparity across academic disciplines. Fields like Business Analytics and General Engineering have 2.4% unemployment rate, with both yielding strong salaries of $100,000. Meanwhile, areas such as Ethnic Studies and Environmental Studies offer moderate pay ($83,000 and $75,000, respectively) with 2.6% unemployment rate. These Are the Worst Degrees for Finding a Job In a previous graphic, we listed the worst degrees for finding a job. At the top of the list is anthropology, with an unemployment rate of 9.4%, the highest rate analyzed. Fine arts and sociology follow closely, with unemployment rates of 7.0% and 6.7%, respectively. These degrees tend to offer mid-career salaries around $70,000, placing them on the lower end of the earnings spectrum. Interestingly, some of the highest-paying degrees also have relatively high unemployment rates. For instance, computer engineering majors earn a median of $122,000 mid-career, but face a 7.5% unemployment rate. Physics ($100,000) and computer science ($115,000) also show above-average jobless rates, at 7.8% and 6.1%, respectively. If you enjoyed today’s post, check out the Highest Paying College Majors on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist. Tyler Durden Sat, 06/14/2025 – 22:45

Clouds Over Bluesky: The Left’s Social Media Safe Space Under Fire For Intolerant And Hateful Postings Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org, Bluesky has become a safe space for liberals seeking to avoid the triggering presence of opposing views since the Trump reelection. The relatively small site now has over 30 million followers (in comparison 260 million for X and 3 billion on Facebook). Now, however, users like billionaire Mark Cuban are complaining that Bluesky is just another intolerant echo chamber on the left and some are reportedly returning to X. Jaap Arriens / Sipa USA via AP Billionaire Mark Cuban was one of the early champions of the site, writing “Hello Less Hateful World” in joining the site in November 2024. At the time, some of us criticized the premise of the Bluesky devotees. Many supported the anti-free speech and censorship efforts during the Biden Administration. Bluesky offered a replication of the echo chamber in higher education, where liberals can go unchallenged or uncontradicted. This included some of the most intolerant figures in media, academia, and the government. Now, Cuban and others are experiencing what many of us have lived through in higher education for years, an orthodox environment where even marginal disagreements are treated as litmus tests. Cuban this week decried that “Even if you agree with 95% of what a person is saying on a topic, if there is one point that you might call out as being more of a gray area, they will call you a fascist etc.” In his post on Monday, Cuban notes that “the replies on here may not be as racist as Twitter, but they damn sure are hateful. Talk AI: FU, AI sucks go away. Talk Business: Go away. Talk Healthcare: Crickets.” “Because the Musk and Trump haters are the largest and most passionate group, the result is something of an echo chamber where it’s hard to get positive engagement unless you’re saying things progressives want to hear — and where the negative engagement on things they don’t want to hear can be intense.” The problem is that many users went to Bluesky because they did not want to be challenged in a free-speech environment. It is a site for those who do not wish to be “triggered” by opposing views. If you only watch MSNBC and post on Bluesky, you can live within a hermetically sealed liberal space without the fear of contradiction or opposition. Ultimately, 30 million users are not a significant threat to social media companies like X or Facebook. The hope that Bluesky would drain X of revenue has not materialized. Analysts are reporting that X appears to be rebounding after years of boycotts and ad revenue could grow by 17.5% to $1.31 billion, with global ad sales expected to rise by 16.5% to $2.26 billion. Bluesky will still be able to capitalize off the draw as a safe space draw for the left with uniformly favorable media coverage. It also offers a concentrated membership of liberal users for Democratic politicians and pundits. However, it does little in terms of impact outside of that space. That is the reason why most liberal politicians and pundits are still actively posting on X. Some belong to both — engaging a broader audience on issues on X while retreating to the safe space of Bluesky for reaffirmation. However, it is harmful to the left in further insulating themselves from reality. Take a typical user like a Harvard professor who watches MSNBC and reads the New York Times. She then goes to work at a university with a faculty that has less than three percent of conservatives or Republicans and less than ten percent conservative or Republican students. She then goes to Bluesky to converse within a liberal ecosystem on social media. It is a virtual bio-containment tent that filters out any discordant elements. The reason that many on the left were shocked by the election results is that they lived within these protected spaces. They have removed themselves further from the majority of this country, disengaging with anyone who objects to their priorities and values. Within that echo chamber, opposing views become more intolerable and shocking. Bluesky will continue to be a draw for free-speech-phobic and viewpoint-intolerant users. Fortunately, most people want to be part of a larger discourse and engage with the world around them, despite the presence of trolls and hateful commentators. Cuban’s call for greater diversity of thought on Bluesky is unlikely to alter the culture of a site that is maintained as a safe space for liberals. That cloistered environment only increases sensitivity and intolerance for opposing views. It is akin to developing an immune deficiency from a lack of exposure to certain elements. If Cuban and others want robust debate, they will not find it in digital safe spaces like Bluesky. Tyler Durden Sat, 06/14/2025 – 22:10

Sanctuary State Governors Double Down On Illegal Immigration In Tense Capitol Hearing The conflict surrounding the Trump Administration’s deportation of illegal aliens is driven by a complex web of NGOs and astroturf activist groups, but Democrat politicians continue to play a considerable role in fomenting civil unrest.  State leaders were a key element of the BLM riots in 2020, providing a governmental green light for the mobs by exempting them from covid mandates.  City officials ensured that rioters and looters were released without charges, cycling them back out onto the streets to wreak havoc day after day.  Other Democrat leaders hobbled local law enforcement and prevented them from intervening in the riots. The pattern seems to be repeating, with Democrats doubling down on their defense of illegal immigration and interfering in ICE operations.  The law, once again, is only important to progressives when it works in their favor.  When it doesn’t, they ignore it. This week multiple Democrat governors defended their sanctuary state policies in a hearing on illegal immigration on Capitol Hill.  Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul testified at the hearing, asserting that the immigration issue was being overblown by the Trump Administration and diminishing concerns over violent migrant crimes.  Tim Walz argued that Trump was using the DHS as his personal “gestapo” and Kathy Hochul called deportations an “assault on American values”. Keep in mind that both Walz and Hochul implemented some of the most draconian covid restrictions in the country during the pandemic hysteria, oppressing citizens and rendering their supposed concerns over freedom and “American values” irrelevant.   The three governors defended themselves, claiming that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, not a state one, and suggested that Republicans on the panel were creating a political spectacle to impress Trump.  House Democrats led the criticism of Trump directly, with some calling him a “gangster” or a “dictator” and others lambasting his decision to deploy National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles to maintain control of protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.  “No one here wants to hear these horrific stories. But we have a job to do on limited resources,” Walz said in reference to migrant crimes. He added that it was a mistake for Republicans to say “that not doing ICE’s job means we’re not cooperating.”  “Nothing we do precludes them from doing their job,” Walz said. “We have the responsibility of the American public to work together, and I think threatening arrests on elected officials … doesn’t help any of us.” Democrats have continued to deny that the protests are violent, despite an endless supply of video evidence on social media showing activists looting businesses, burning cars, attacking police and assaulting any counter-protesters that dare to come close to them.  After four years of the Biden Administration, leftist protesters are now under the impression that they can do whatever they please without repercussions.  The sanctuary efforts of blue states go well beyond the notion of refusing to aid the federal government in deportations.  Democrat officials have been caught trying to hide illegal immigrants from DHS.  They have attempted to warn migrants when ICE agents are operating in the vicinity.  They have even openly encouraged activists and migrants to obstruct or fight ICE agents when they are trying to carry out their duties.  Events in Los Angeles this week are the most egregious example so far, with California Governor Gavin Newsom claiming that Trump was “manufacturing a crisis” in LA by trying to enforce immigration laws, but petty interference has been ongoing for many years.   The bottom line is this:  The majority of voters backed Donald Trump’s campaign based in large part on his deportation promises.  Not just the deportation of violent criminals, but the deportation of all illegal aliens in the US.  The law is the law yet Democrat leaders continue to obstruct, which means they are obstructing the will of the voters, not the will of the Trump Administration.    Tyler Durden Sat, 06/14/2025 – 21:35

Making The Power Grid Great Again Authored by Diana Furchtgott-Roth via RealClearEnergy, Last week, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the proposed repeal of the Biden-era’s Clean Power Plan 2.0, which ruled that coal-fired and many new natural gas power plants must capture and store over 90% of their carbon emissions by the 2030s—or shut down by 2040. It’s a costly mandate, resting on shaky legal and technical foundations. Americans would be fortunate to have it repealed. President Biden issued his Clean Power Plan 2.0 after the Supreme Court ruled in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency that President Obama’s Clean Power Plan 1.0 exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) statutory authority. The Court’s 2022 decision concluded that the EPA had overstepped by attempting to reshape the nation’s energy grid without clear congressional approval. In a world where energy security and affordability are paramount, one might assume that when the Supreme Court strikes down a sweeping environmental regulation, the EPA would reconsider its approach. But in Washington, ideology often trumps reason, and undeterred, the Biden administration returned in 2024 with a sequel that EPA now proposes to end. The Clean Power Plan 1.0 attempted to force states to overhaul their energy systems entirely, compelling them to adopt renewable energy and shutter fossil fuel plants, regardless of local needs or economic consequences. Its successor, the Clean Power Plan 2.0, imposed an estimated $15 billion in regulatory costs over 20 years, and greater costs through increases in prices of electricity and slower economic growth. EPA argues “that GHG emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution.” Just as Chief Justice John Roberts warned in 2022 that the EPA had claimed “an unheralded power representing a transformative expansion of its regulatory authority,” the EPA was trying to do through regulation with the Clean Power Plan 2.0 what Congress had repeatedly declined to do through legislation. Fifteen years ago similar legislative proposals—the Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Lieberman bills—failed in the U.S. Congress even when Democrats held strong majorities. That should have signaled to regulators that such sweeping changes lacked democratic legitimacy. Yet ideology brooks no dissent, and the Biden administration’s Clean Power Plan 2.0 pressed ahead, relying on technologies that are neither commercially viable nor widely demonstrated. Carbon capture and storage, the linchpin of the Biden plan, remains prohibitively expensive and technically uncertain. Hydrogen, another favored solution, is not cost-effective. The EPA’s cost-benefit analysis glossed over these realities, assuming generous tax subsidies and benefits from reduced CO2 emissions would bridge the gap. The consequences of this regulatory ambition are stark. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation warned in 2024 that the Biden plan’s disincentives for baseload power would destabilize the electricity grid, increasing the risk of blackouts. Spain’s recent 12-hour blackout offers a cautionary tale: rapid transitions to solar without reliable baseload power can lead to lack of backup power, causing the grid to crash. Moreover, the Biden plan was regressive. It would raise electricity prices, disproportionately affecting low-income households, farmers, and small businesses. It would also undermine a reliable electricity grid and economic growth. By constraining energy supply and inflating costs, it would drive economic activity and jobs offshore, where goods would be manufactured with coal-fired energy in China. The dirty secret, which Mr. Zeldin forced into the open, is that the Biden plan would not have helped the climate. The greenhouse gases emitted by the power sector do not significantly affect human health, and moving energy intensive manufacturing overseas where it is made with coal-fired power using older technology would have raised emissions, not lowered them. There is also a deeper constitutional issue at play. The EPA is misusing its authority under the Clean Air Act to pressure states into adopting policies that lie outside its jurisdiction. The plan’s emissions targets are so stringent that no state has voted them into law. The Clean Power Plan 2.0 amounts to a form of federal commandeering. States are faced with a loss of a significant portion of their electricity generation capacity, and their manufacturing base, by restructuring their energy systems to align with the EPA’s vision. This is not cooperative federalism; it is coercion. And it is unnecessary. America’s carbon emissions have declined by about a billion metric tons over the past 15 years without such mandates. This progress has been driven by technological innovation, not federal diktats. Cleaner air and efficient power generation are worthy goals, but they must be pursued within the bounds of the law and with respect for democratic processes. The lesson from West Virginia v. EPA is clear: transformative policy changes require legislative backing. Agencies cannot conjure sweeping powers from ambiguous statutes. The rule of law demands clarity, accountability, and restraint. As America grapples to ensure grid reliability, there is a cautionary tale here. The path to a reliable energy future lies not in top-down mandates, but in innovation, cooperation, and respect for the institutions that safeguard our freedoms. Administrator Zeldin should be congratulated. Diana Furchtgott-Roth is director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation. Tyler Durden Sat, 06/14/2025 – 21:00