Thomas Cole Destruction of Empire 1836
https://twitter.com/silvertrade/status/2101521540386857190?s=20 https://twitter.com/ConstitustionX/status/2100726372897566749?s=20 https://twitter.com/SidneyPowell1/status/2101342022556598461?s=20Every American better be paying attention. The situation in Europe is growing worse by the day and drawing us ever closer to a much bigger and more disastrous war!
— General Mike Flynn (@GenFlynn) September 19, 2026
I’ve always said, you may NOT want war, but war wants you.
“Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico says European… https://t.co/8uxdUqXxd9
In an election in one of Germany’s states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Chancellor Merz’s ruling CDU party didn’t even make the 5% voting threshold for Parliament
Can’t slow it down, so go head first.
• Trump Announces AI Task Force and Pending Appointment of AI Czar (CTH)
PRESIDENT TRUMP – Over the years, there have been many Hoaxes, all generated by the Radical Left Dumocrats, for purposes of destroying our Country. RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, Global Warming, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, Men in Women’s Sports, Transgender for Everyone, and now, the decimation, or destruction, of AI, commonly known as Artificial Intelligence — And I, as President of the United States, will not stand by and let this happen.
It all began with an attack on our Data Centers, until people realized how wealthy and prestigious they were for the Communities in which they were built. Higher Salaries, Lower Taxes, and Safer Streets, was the result, and the crazed Data Center attack has largely failed, so now, in much the same way as they changed the term “Global Warming” to “Climate Change,” in that it covers a much larger “territory” of doubt, they are going straight at AI.We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry. Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows! However, we will also be looking for BAD, and we can do that, very easily, with our already existing Criminal and Civil Justice System.
For this purpose, I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous SUCCESS, in my First Term. To that end, I will be announcing, in the near future, the AI “Czar” — Only High I.Q. individuals need apply! AI is the next Industrial Revolution, or Internet, but will be even larger and more impactful, possibly as much as 25% of our Country’s GDP. We are leading China, and the rest of the World, and I intend to keep it that way!” ~ President DONALD J. TRUMP
Are they just trying to scare people?
• Nvidia CEO Discusses Current Status of AI (CTH)
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang appears on CBS Face the Nation to discuss AI development and point out that messaging is “quite frankly too much drama, irresponsible. It is not grounded in facts.” There is the short segment that was broadcast on Sunday morning and also the full video below.Read more …
Full Video Below:
“America can decide how it develops artificial intelligence. It cannot decide whether artificial intelligence will continue to develop.”
• The Apocalyptic Game: Panic and Opportunity (Sasha Gong)
America’s latest argument over artificial intelligence has suddenly become apocalyptic. Former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon accused AI companies of “gambling with our lives.” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged the industry to slow the development of frontier models, an idea supported by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk. At the same time, opposition to the data centers needed to power AI is spreading across the United States. China has noticed.Read more …
X recently uncovered a suspected Chinese influence network of roughly 200,000 fake accounts; about 200 of them were directly involved in amplifying claims that American data centers were raising electricity prices and overwhelming the power grid. This does not mean that criticism of AI or data centers is manufactured in Beijing. Concerns about electricity costs, water use, pollution, cyberattacks, job losses, and mass surveillance are real. But China does not need to invent American divisions. It needs only to identify, amplify, and exploit them.Modern democracies periodically succumb to predictions that a new technology will destroy humanity. The fear may be legitimate, but its political consequences are not evenly distributed. Democracies permit protest, litigation, regulation, and obstruction. They may even abandon a technology out of fear. Dictatorships suppress debate, concentrate resources, and use their rivals’ hesitation to catch up.
The first great technological apocalypse began with the atomic bomb. As the Manhattan Project approached completion in 1945, scientists considered whether an atomic explosion might ignite nitrogen in the atmosphere or trigger an uncontrollable reaction in the oceans. Edward Teller raised the possibility; Hans Bethe and others calculated that the risk was physically negligible. The Trinity test proceeded.
The question nevertheless haunted Robert Oppenheimer. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he feared that scientists had opened a Pandora’s box. When Washington decided to develop the hydrogen bomb after the Soviet atomic test, he opposed it on moral and strategic grounds.
Oppenheimer’s Communist associations then turned a policy dispute into a political scandal. His wife and brother were members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), and he had many pro-Soviet acquaintances. Meanwhile, actual Soviet spies inside the Manhattan Project—including Klaus Fuchs and Theodore Hall—passed crucial nuclear information to Moscow.
The Soviet Union tested an atomic bomb in 1949 and a thermonuclear device in 1953. China tested its first atomic bomb in 1964, shortly after emerging from a famine that killed 40 million people. Neither Communist regime permitted a genuine public debate over the wisdom of nuclear competition.
The West did. Scientists, churches, students, and citizens organized enormous anti-nuclear movements. Their pressure contributed to test-ban treaties and arms control negotiations. Yet Americans still understood that the danger came not only from nuclear weapons but also from the regimes possessing them. After Sputnik in 1957, few believed the United States could safely withdraw from technological competition while the Soviet Union continued advancing.
After the Cold War, climate change became the next vehicle for apocalyptic politics. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth turned complex climate models into images of approaching catastrophe. Greta Thunberg transformed policy disagreements into moral indictments. Claims that humanity had only “12 years” remaining circulated widely.
Fear of climate change converted a scientific problem into an ideological commandment. Energy restrictions, endless permitting, penalties on traditional industries, and costly transitions were presented as the only acceptable path. These policies greatly contributed to and accelerated Western deindustrialization.
China followed a different course. Unrestrained by voters, environmental groups, or local governments, Beijing concentrated subsidies, land, energy, and credit to build complete industrial supply chains. The West congratulated itself for reducing domestic emissions while transferring production to China. It then discovered that it depended on China for pharmaceuticals, rare earths, batteries, solar panels, and electronics.
The pattern is now repeating with AI. While Americans debate moratoriums, China is treating artificial intelligence, robotics, and computing infrastructure as pillars of national power. Its “Eastern Data, Western Computing” strategy is creating an integrated national computing network, moving the eastern seaboard’s data-processing demands to western provinces with abundant land and energy. Beijing intends to control not only AI models but also the electricity, chips, servers, communications systems, and data centers that sustain them.
China is also competing to write the rules. In 2026, 29 countries signed an agreement in Shanghai establishing the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, which Beijing describes as the first intergovernmental organization devoted to AI. China does not plan to pause while America debates whether the future is too dangerous to build.
AI requires serious safeguards: independent testing, cybersecurity standards, protection against biological misuse, transparent energy pricing, and accountability for harms. But regulation should make development safer, not make development impossible. Data-center projects should bear their actual costs, but local objections cannot become a nationwide veto over the infrastructure of the next industrial age.
Open debate is one of democracy’s moral strengths. The power to suppress debate is one of authoritarianism’s strategic advantages. When democratic caution becomes paralysis, freedom itself becomes vulnerable to exploitation.
America can decide how it develops artificial intelligence. It cannot decide whether artificial intelligence will continue to develop. If the United States stops because it fears the future, China will not stop with it.
Trump must be careful. Don’t get dragged in.
• Zelenskyy Brags About NATO Missiles Being Used to Attack Russia (CTH)
Days after President Trump asks Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to halt attacks on Russian oil refineries, Zelenskyy takes the attacks up a notch and brags about all of the different NATO country missile systems being used to attack Russian oil refineries. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X, “One of Russia’s key oil industry facilities and the aggressor’s logistics facility were hit. These are billions of dollars that sustain the war machine. The systems used included FP-1, RZ-100, MICH-2000, Palianytsia, Vendetta, Liutyi, Bars, Flamingo, Sichen, and Pelican.”Read more …
Everyone can see this game for what it is. Everyone can see it. After weeks of various European/NATO countries hyping pending attacks from Russia, Zelenskyy now begins to name the missile systems being provided by those countries to target Russia. Zelenskyy and the EU-NATO group are intentionally trying to draw a Russian military response against the support the European countries are providing to Ukraine. Zelenskyy is naming the missile systems as part of that antagonistic effort, and his NATO allies do it on the last day of the Russian elections. Specifically timed and coordinated for maximum propaganda use.
President Trump, or someone inside the U.S. administration needs to make a very public statement highlighting that everyone can see the organized effort for what it is. EU-NATO wants an expanded conflict with Russia, beyond the confines of the non-NATO Ukraine conflict.Bloomberg reports that the Gazprom Neft-owned Moscow Oil Refinery, about 16 miles from the Kremlin, was struck by drones.The facility has a processing capacity of around 245,000 barrels a day and supplies fuel to the surrounding metro area. Simultaneous with this increased provocation, the Ukrainian president announced plans for meeting with President Donald Trump in New York.
Zelenskyy feels emboldened by his relationships to his “NATO partners”, including Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Andy Burnham. This is not going to end well unless someone steps on Zelenskyy to bring him back to reality.
No Nukes, No NATO, No Nazis. Nothing changed the past 5 years.
• Putin Remarks on Europe’s Preparations for Expanded War Against Russia (CTH)
European defense industries have been expanding the production of missiles and drones for use in Ukraine. For years, Moscow has watched and seemingly tolerated the use of British, German and Polish military warehouses to manufacture drones and weapons which are then used to target Russia and kill Russian civilians. It is these targets which Europe has placed on high alert, while simultaneously mixing in false flag alerts and events to scare the European population and rally them for increased spending and expanded conflict. However, a large part of the European citizenry can see the EU operations clearly (see recent German examples). Against this backdrop, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers the following remarks (transcript):
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues,Today, we will talk about the new draft State Armament Programme and the defence industry development programme. They will become the backbone for designing and serial production of modern weapons systems and hardware for our army and other defence and law enforcement agencies for them to be ready for a rapid and effective response to potential external threats.
As you know, such threats are not abating. NATO is “swelling” and expanding and has now extended its reach to other regions of the world. Certain European leaders are openly declaring that they are preparing for war with Russia. In my view, they are merely trying to salvage their plummeting approval ratings by concealing the failures of their economic and social policies. This approach is clearly ineffective – it does not produce results.
Instead of listening to their citizens – who have made it abundantly clear through elections that they do not want war with Russia – these leaders continue to escalate tensions. They are exploiting the situation in Ukraine to exacerbate the crisis, using the Ukrainian people as cannon fodder.
“Their arguments invariably boil down to a few points. One of them is the assertion that Ukraine is ostensibly defending European values, European civilisation and democracy. Yet how can the current regime in Ukraine claim to be defending democracy when it has long since degenerated into dictatorship? No one wants to address this point.
It is common knowledge that no elections are being held in Ukraine. Power has been seized by a clique of embezzlers and corrupt officials who need war to retain their positions in the absence of elections and to maintain the conditions necessary for the plunder of their own people – enriching themselves with funds from sponsors, including those in Europe. And is this totally corrupt regime really the principal defender of democracy in Europe? It sounds rather strange.
The Ukrainian leadership, as you know, is in no hurry to hold elections; moreover, it is actively trying to hinder us. You are aware that quite recently, the Kiev regime committed yet another crime – it struck the residential building of the chairwoman of a district electoral commission in the village of Oktyabrskoye in the Zaporozhye Region. The chairwoman of the commission, Yelena Astanina, was tragically killed. Today, I signed an Executive Order posthumously awarding her the Order of Courage.
Representatives of the Kiev regime – the leadership in Kiev – speak of peace and propose the resumption of so-called negotiations. Yet, even as they commit crimes of this nature, they do everything in their power to ensure that there is neither peace nor negotiations. Otherwise, one must ask: what is the purpose of these actions? To intimidate us? It is clear to everyone that this is impossible. Therefore, the objective can only be one: they have no intention whatsoever of conducting any negotiations – that is what it is all about.
I have also said about some European leaders: to justify their position and exorbitant spending on the war in Ukraine, they are using absolutely anything. In particular, one of the basic claims is an alleged threat from Russia. I want to say this again: Russia has no aggressive intentions regarding Europe or European countries. We simply have no reasons for this. We are ready for cooperation and restoring relations with our European neighbours.
Nevertheless, we have also noted another round of military drill held quite recently in the Baltic Sea. One of their objectives was to master seizing civilian vessels. Is that normal? All the time they are speaking about protecting international law, about observing its rules, while getting ready for capturing civil ships.
Meanwhile, the same people are displaying so-called concern and denouncing everything unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb. But what are they really doing? What are they getting ready for? I just want to tell them: let’s live in harmony instead; otherwise, we’ll have to respond too. This should be obvious for everybody, a clear truism. It won’t be otherwise.
The basic areas of the new State Armament Programme have been determined with due account of the world situation, the special military operation experience and the global trends in military technologies. The top priorities include, as before, the strengthening of the nuclear triad that remains the guarantee of our country’s sovereignty and plays a key role in preserving the balance of force in the world.
I want to point out that hardly any nuclear country can boast such figures as, for example, those of our Strategic Missile Forces – 92 percent modernisation, that is, modern armaments. Another priority area of the new state programmes will be the improvement of the air defence system. It has to ensure destruction of any means of air and space attack.
Special attention will be given to developing a broad range of unmanned robot-assisted systems of various profiles as well as to precision munitions. We need to fully complete the orbital constellation of spacecraft. This will enhance the capabilities of all types of space reconnaissance, navigation, satellite communication and broadband internet access for the real-time command and control of troops and weapons.
In the course of implementing the proposed programmes, work to develop and introduce advanced digital technologies and AI will be continued. I want to emphasise that all the items and parameters of the new State Armament Programme require rational, carefully calibrated and effective solutions. This is what we are going to discuss.
There are some other issues but we will discuss them in a closed-door format.”
He can try. Do we know how they treated him? He does. That’s why he does this. If only symbolic.
• Can the President Ban Disfavored Media? (Turley)
The Trump Administration is rushing to prepare for a fight that few knew was coming after President Donald Trump banned Politico, CNN, and MS NOW from the White House for spreading “fake news.” I understand the President had been planning this step for over a year, but he announced it with little notice to his staff. What will follow could be one of the most consequential fights over press rights in decades… and the odds are against the President.Read more …
I have previously expressed my disappointment with the ban. While I have been one of the most vocal critics of biased coverage on these outlets, I view this as an ill-considered, damaging move. Putting aside the constitutional concerns, it is a policy that undermines core values and traditions related to the free press. As I discussed in my Hill column this weekend, presidents since George Washington have denounced media bias, but they have refrained from this type of action.During the Biden Administration, the President would regularly attack Fox News and reporters such as Peter Doocy. However, they were not banned over their negative coverage. The United States laid the foundation for free speech and the free press in the First Amendment. It remains the great champion of press freedom around the world. It is difficult to maintain that position when media outlets are barred because of the content of their coverage.
On the legal side, the ban runs against the grain of existing precedent. In 1977, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia considered a ban on Robert Sherrill, a reporter for The Nation. In Sherrill v. Knight, the court ruled that the First Amendment limited the right of the White House to arbitrarily deny a press pass to a journalist. Since that time, viewpoint discrimination has long been viewed as not a reasonable basis for exclusion.
The D.C. Circuit held “White House press facilities having been made publicly available as a source of information for newsmen, the protection afforded newsgathering under the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press . . . requires that this access not be denied arbitrarily or for less than compelling reasons.” The White House appears ready to seek a possible reversal of Sherrill either before the D.C. Circuit or the Supreme Court. It is a risk since a countervailing decision could cement and even amplify the Sherrill standard in a Supreme Court opinion.
The White House is not without good-faith arguments to make in the coming litigation. The White House is not a public forum, and it can deny access for reasons such as security. Last year, the D.C. Circuit ruled for the White House in Ateba v. Leavitt. Journalist Simon Ateba challenged White House credentialing requirements after he was denied a permanent “hard pass.” The appeals court found that, as a nonpublic forum, such a denial was permissible.
However, the Court in Ateba rejected the notion of “unbridled discretion” in such denials. Citing Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788 (1985), the Court still reaffirmed that “[a]s a nonpublic forum, access to the White House Press Area “can be restricted as long as the restrictions are” viewpoint neutral and reasonable.” Likewise, after the Trump White House denied access to CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, a federal judge (and Trump appointee) ordered the White House to restore the press pass due to the lack of due process and notice.
The D.C. Circuit also considered such denials in the case involving the Associated Press when the Administration barred access to Air Force One and the Oval Office after AP refused to change references to the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. In Associated Press v. Budowich, the D.C. Circuit noted: In Sherrill, we held that the “White House press facilities having been made publicly available as a source of information for newsmen, the protection afforded newsgathering under the [F]irst [A]mendment guarantee of freedom of the press” attached, requiring that “access not be denied arbitrarily or for less than compelling reasons.” 569 F.2d at 129 (cleaned up).
AP initially prevailed before District Judge Trevor McFadden, also a Trump appointee, who ruled that the ban probably violated the First Amendment. He wrote that “under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists – be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere – it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints.” A divided panel of the D.C. Circuit later lifted the injunction by stressing that Air Force One and the Oval Office are very specific locations subject to greater discretion and controls. However, the court stressed that Sherrill is still good law and bars arbitrary denials. The litigation is still ongoing.
In this case, the White House gave no procedural protections or any reason other than the President’s view that these outlets were publishing “fake news.” That creates a clean and straightforward record. The White House will have to argue that it can deny access without notice, procedural protections, and based entirely on the content of coverage. In other words, it will have to argue that it can engage in viewpoint discrimination.
Once again, opposing this policy is not to defend the underlying coverage. Many of us have raised the same objections to the coverage. However, this would create a dangerous and unfettered power. Future presidents could use it to bar conservative media and outlets that expose government abuse or waste. Whatever the outcome of this litigation, it is not a policy that advances our core values and traditions.
“Bon voyage and bonne chance, poor, misguided snow socialists.”
• Carney Marries Canada to Dying Europe (J.B. Shurk)
On Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gave an American-style “State of the Union” address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. During her speech, she proposed that Canada be admitted as an “associate member” of the ostensibly European Union. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney sat in the front row as an honored guest before delivering a speech of his own to the parliament the next day. Taken together, the Leyen-Carney parade of oratorical self-puffery exuded a nauseating bouquet of arrogance, foolishness, incompetence, and stale entitlement.Read more …
E.C. President (some say “Queen”) Ursula speaks as if she rules Europe (regularly invoking “our values” when describing a continent of distinct nations, dissimilar cultures, and over two hundred native languages), but European citizens never voted for her. P.M. Carney is the former head of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, and his globalist cronies installed him in Canada’s highest political office just last year. While the central banker and the queen prattle on about “democracy,” neither ascended to the peaks of power in a democratic fashion. They are “elites” chosen by “elites” to represent the interests of “elites.”Since the Second World War, the United States has heavily subsidized the economies of Canada and Europe, providing for the West’s collective security while permitting one-way tariffs against American producers. This eighty-year arrangement has endured long beyond its immediate post-war necessity, when European manufacturers were desperate to rebuild amid general ruin and the United States worried about losing more of the continent to the Soviet Union’s billowing Iron Curtain.
Unfortunately, this part of Western history does not get an honest treatment in children’s textbooks, so Europeans and Canadians grow up believing that their economies succeed despite the United States instead of because of it. When President Trump began insisting on fair and reciprocal trade terms between the United States and its partners, European and Canadian “elites” all screamed about “Trump’s trade war” as if it were a “surprise attack.” They did not explain to citizens how their nations have greatly benefited for eight decades by tariffing U.S. products while selling European and Canadian goods to American consumers. This is yet another example of the “misinformation” that the European and Canadian governments regularly disseminate to their respective peoples and a prime reason why governments cannot be trusted to objectively and dispassionately “police” so-called “disinformation.”
While Queen Ursula and Central Banker Mark denounced America’s so-called “trade war” in the harshest terms, they both spoke of an expanding security and economic alliance that would reintegrate the United Kingdom into Europe’s bureaucratic ranks and envelop Ukraine with military and financial support (paid for by Canadian and European taxpayers). For all intents and purposes, the British people’s 2016 referendum in favor of Brexit (the withdrawal of the U.K. from the E.U.) has been sabotaged and nullified by government fiat.
As is true of Canada, Ukraine is not a member of the European Union, but, just as the British Establishment effectively cancelled Brexit, the European and American Establishments orchestrated a 2014 coup d’état against the last Ukrainian government opposed to integration with the E.U. This is how the Canadians and Europeans do “democracy” — through sabotage, censorship, government propaganda, the installation of unelected “elites,” the blacklisting of political parties, the criminalization of speech, election nullification, and NGO-sponsored coups. (To be sure, this is how Democrats and Establishment Republicans in the United States do “democracy,” too, which is why President Trump drives them and their Establishment friends in Canada and Europe absolutely nuts!)
All this rhetorical flexing is sad! Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and Ukraine are dilapidated vessels drifting in an open sea with huge and growing ruptures in their hulls. They are taking on more water than they can dump back out, but they pretend as if they’re part of a glorious armada.
Without U.S. military assets and personnel providing the backbone for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Canada, the U.K., and the E.U. would have but one defense posture: to lie down and play dead. Canada can’t even fight forest fires, for goodness’ sake! The U.K. lacks a sufficient number of seaworthy naval vessels to secure its own islands, let alone the ability to back up with military strength its territorial claims to the Falkland Islands (or what the Argentinians call their Islas Malvinas).
Most E.U. nations depend upon the U.S. nuclear umbrella and U.S.-NATO security guarantees to provide deterrence against military threats, which is why it is all the more preposterous when Denmark and France huff and puff about “keeping” Greenland (a North American landmass) in Europe or Spain and Italy refuse to permit U.S. military aircraft to refuel before engaging Iran. And Ukraine (whose diminutive holdover-president must be fuming at the idea of Canada becoming an “associate member” of the E.U. while Brussels refuses to let his collapsing rump state join the club) remains an albatross of corruption, as one high-ranking official after the next flees the war-torn country with suitcases of jewelry and cash. If Canada, the U.K., the E.U., and Ukraine were warhorses, they’d all be sent to the glue factory.
How about espionage?
• Tesla Engineers Audit Chinese Suppliers As Optimus Commercialization Nears (ZH)
About a month after JPMorgan analysts toured Tesla’s Fremont factory and confirmed a “targeted four-month transition following the end of S/X production in May” to humanoid production lines, a new report on Friday says that Tesla engineers arrived in China to inspect robotics component suppliers, as Elon Musk appears to be moving closer and closer toward the commercialization of humanoid robots. Bloomberg first reported this development as Tesla engineers arrived in Ningbo, a major port and manufacturing city in Zhejiang province on China’s eastern coast, just south of Shanghai.Read more …
The engineers inspected parts and component factories for the humanoid robot called “Optimus.” “Tesla’s reported supplier audits are a positive commercialization signal for China’s humanoid supply chain, pointing to progress toward repeatable Optimus production,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Ian Ma wrote in a note, adding, “Near-term sentiment could stay supported if audits lead to confirmed supplier nominations and larger orders.”Tesla is reportedly targeting the second half of 2027 for commercial sales of Optimus. Production is likely to begin much earlier, as JPM analyst Rajat Gupta said the “Optimus Academy” will be operating later this year, with robots collecting real-world training data before being deployed in factories. News of this development sent the Solactive China Humanoid Robotics Index slightly higher on Friday, up about 1.4%, amid a tumultuous year that has left it down about 30%.
The market’s appetite for physical AI, specifically humanoids, was hyped in mid-August by China’s blockbuster Unitree IPO, but the momentum failed to follow through.Bernstein analyst Eunice Lee recently pointed out that the adoption curve for humanoids will be much steeper than that of automobiles over a century ago.Goldman analysts last month raised their global humanoid robot delivery base case to 75,000 shipments in 2026, 890,000 in 2030, and 6.5 million in 2035, versus previous estimates of 51,000, 256,000, and 1.4 million, respectively.
The invasion of physical AI is just around the corner.
” .. if it’s hostile the U.S. could impose heavy tariffs or even halt trade with Europe.”
• Shield of Americas, Rubio and Trump’s Moves Against Canada/EU (CTH)
Promethean Action’s Barbara Boyd recaps some of last week’s geopolitical events and activities of both President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Good video for those catching up.Read more …
President Trump reacts to Mark Carney’s push to align Canada with the EU, calling it “laughable” and warning that if it’s hostile the U.S. could impose heavy tariffs or even halt trade with Europe. The episode argues the administration is securing the southern border through Marco Rubio’s Latin America trip and “Operation Shield of the Americas,” linking Peru’s participation and Keiko Fujimori’s election to an intensified campaign against cartels, drug production and trafficking, and Chinese influence.Boyd’s recap frames Carney as a longtime opponent of U.S. interests, citing his Bank of England role, “green” credit agenda, and support for Ukraine, and claims Canada-EU plans target Arctic control and the U.S. northern defense line. It ends with Trump announcing a permanent U.S. presence in Greenland and warning Canada to curb fentanyl labs and criminal networks.
Not all’s gold that glitters.
• The $6.7 Billion DOGE Headline Is True. It Leaves Out Half the Story (Manney)
Washington has discovered a government program that costs billions of dollars, and naturally, everyone is shocked. The Government Accountability Office says federal agencies spent an estimated $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave in 2025. Roughly $6.7 billion of that was tied to the Trump administration’s Deferred Resignation Program, which allowed workers who agreed to leave government to remain on salary while generally no longer working.Read more …
From the GAO:OPM does not know the actual costs of the paid administrative leave used for workforce reduction efforts, including the deferred resignation program. One of the administration’s stated principles for current workforce reduction efforts is to trim the budget topline by reducing full-time equivalent positions. To support these efforts, federal agencies used millions of workdays of paid administrative leave. To calculate long-term savings, OPM needs to know short-term costs of paid administrative leave used for these efforts.
However, OPM cannot easily and accurately do this because the paid administrative leave used for workforce reduction efforts is reported with other types of general paid administrative leave. Without a mechanism to track paid administrative leave for workforce reduction efforts, federal leaders may not have the data needed to understand whether government-wide cost saving goals are being met.
You can understand why the headlines wrote themselves. Federal workers got paid billions not to work during a program associated with DOGE, which was created to cut waste and shrink government. One national headline simply announced that the government paid workers $9.5 billion “not to work.” Another framed the program as DOGE causing the government to spend billions while supposedly saving money.
There’s just one problem. The $6.7 billion figure is an estimated one-time cost of removing workers from the federal payroll. OPM Director Scott Kupor has said the Deferred Resignation Program is expected to save more than $20 billion every year because those salaries disappear after the employees leave. Spend $6.7 billion once to reduce annual spending by more than $20 billion, and suddenly the story sounds rather different.
Except that, Washington being Washington, there’s another concern. GAO says OPM can’t accurately determine the program’s actual net savings because it never established a separate payroll category to track administrative leave used for workforce reductions. Administrative leave for the resignation program was mixed together with other forms of administrative leave in the federal payroll system.
From OPM: “What They Got Wrong About the Deferred Resignation Program”. This week, a Senate Democrat report took aim at OPM’s Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) – a voluntary retirement program that provided government employees with eight months of paid leave. Their argument? Our efforts to modernize the federal workforce somehow reflect poor stewardship of taxpayer dollars. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you don’t have time to read the 54-page report, here’s the TLDR:
We should never reduce government spending because we might incur one-time separation costs in doing so; and” We should ignore the fact that in incurring those one-time costs we lower the ongoing run-rate of government spend, thus saving billions of dollars. So OPM has a large savings claim. GAO has a large cost estimate. And the federal government’s accounting system apparently looked at the whole arrangement and decided precision was optional.
GAO also found evidence suggesting the leave totals themselves may be overstated. Agencies reported 144% more administrative leave during pay periods containing public holidays before the resignation program began. Holidays aren’t supposed to be coded as administrative leave. GAO says historical errors will remain in some publicly released data.
GAO reviewed more than 18.5 million payroll records covering about 1.6 million employees and 76 agencies. Its analysis covered roughly 95% of the civilian federal workforce. Even after reviewing all that data, GAO concluded the government still doesn’t have the tracking system necessary to determine with confidence whether the workforce reductions are meeting their cost-saving goals.
This is where the story becomes more interesting than the headline. Critics are perfectly entitled to point at $6.7 billion and ask why taxpayers paid workers for months after they stopped working. The administration is equally entitled to answer that severance-style costs can be justified if they eliminate much larger recurring payroll expenses. Neither argument settles the accounting.
OPM’s more-than-$20-billion annual savings figure remains the administration’s projection. GAO isn’t endorsing it. GAO also isn’t saying the Deferred Resignation Program lost taxpayers $6.7 billion on balance. Its report says something more inconvenient: the federal government doesn’t yet have the data necessary to accurately calculate the answer. And somehow, “Government Accounting Is Too Messy to Know the Final Number Yet” didn’t make many headlines. The $6.7 billion is real enough to deserve scrutiny.
So is the part people keep leaving out.
They don’t want the court to function well; they want it to decide in their favor.
• The Supreme Court Remains a Court of Consensus (Turley)
The Supreme Court is once again under attack from those calling for packing, or even eliminating, the institution as hopelessly ideological and divided. The Philadelphia Inquirer recently proclaimed that “The Supreme Court’s conservative majority keeps choosing ideology over impartiality.” Other media outlets reported “devastating” polling showing the Court as unpopular and losing institutional respect. It is all clearly alarming — despite being entirely untrue.Read more …
Looking at the actual rulings disproves the argument of a “biased” court. The Court ruled unanimously in more than 44% of cases, slightly up from the prior year. When you add the roughly 11% of opinions that were 8-1 and 6% that were 7-1 or 7-2, the rate of unanimous or nearly unanimous jumps to 62%. In over 77% of cases, there was no ideological split in the resulting opinions. While slightly up, the ideological split emphasized in the coverage is found in less than a quarter of the cases. Now look at those supposed ideologically besieged liberal justices.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had the lowest percentage in the majority in the last term. However, she was still in the majority in 72% of cases. Jackson even agreed with Justice Samuel Alito in 49% of the cases and with Justice Clarence Thomas in half of the cases. The narrative also ignores major losses by the Trump administration in cases dealing with birthright citizenship, mail-in ballots, tariffs, the Federal Reserve Board members and even Trump’s personal defamation case.
Just this week, the court issued a ruling that President Trump called “a big loss for Republicans” in rejecting a mail-in ballot change for the next election. Those cases saw conservatives voting with their liberal colleagues. Indeed, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Neil Gorsuch are generally viewed as “in play” in a variety of cases in creating mixed majorities. Critics aren’t just wrong that the court is biased, it’s incorrect that the Supremes are particularly unpopular.
A recent Marquette Law School poll shows that the court remains slightly underwater in popularity — with 47% favor, 53% disfavor. Not great, but those numbers are still more popular than Congress or the two major political parties. The unpopularity of Congress hit a whopping 86% this year. Gallup found that only 10% of the American people hold a favorable view of Congress. Trump’s popularity stands at around 40%. So the Supreme Court has the highest approval rate and is massively more popular than Congress. Yet, these members want to trash the most popular institution among the three branches.
Plenty of unanimity
This term is shaping up as another blockbuster, with major cases on gun rights, parental rights, immigration, climate change and other issues. Some cases will break along a 6-3 ideological divide, but many more will be decided by unanimity or mixed majorities, as in past years. The problem is that many in the media and politics will continue to demonize the court for those cases upon which they disagree and ignore the many cases upon which most of the justices agree. That includes exaggerated claims of the court “killing democracy.”The move to pack the court is based on a long-standing radical agenda to change the constitutional system on the left. The court is standing in the way and these figures know that it is not easy to get a free people to give up on protections for those freedoms. They have to be very angry or very afraid. As a result, the court will resume hearing cases in an atmosphere of rage directed at its institution.
But make no mistake about it. This court continues to function as designed as a principled, independent institution. On our 250th anniversary, we should celebrate, not demonize, our highest court.
If PCR would just tell us he wants Iran to have nukes, at least we’d know where he’s at.
• Israel Has the World on a Path to Destruction (Paul Craig Roberts)
Do you remember a few years ago–Trump’s first term–when the Democrats–increasingly known as DemoRats–concocted the “Russiagate” hoax that Trump with Russia’s help had stolen the 2016 US presidential election? The Democrats’ plot against Trump involved the highest reaches of the FBI and US Department of Justice and was supported by the CIA director. The hoax claimed that America’s elections were in the hands of Russia, a foreign power that was putting their agents in charge of the US government. The whore American media gave the baseless accusations many years of life, and you still meet people who believe every word of it.Read more …
All the time there really was foreign money controlling US elections, only it is anti-semitic to speak about it, because it is AIPAC money, the money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. $32 million, an unprecedented amount for a primary election of a House of Representatives candidate, was given by AIPAC and Jewish billionaires to remove Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie, likely the most American member of the US House of Representatives. Being a strong supporter of Trump didn’t save Massie from AIPAC.Another AIPAC victim was Marjorie Taylor Green, another strong Trump supporter abandoned, like Massie, by Trump on orders from AIPAC. She also did not approve of Israel’s genocide of Palestine paid for with American money, weapons, and diplomatic cover. Faced with Trump-supported AIPAC slander campaign against her in her primary election, she resigned, reasoning that supporting America as contrasted with supporting Israel was too expensive.
Now we have from Truthout a report that “The giant influx from American Israel Public Affairs Committee PACs is a case study in money distorting politics.” The author writes:
“The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, has been spending tens of millions of dollars on political races during the current election cycle, aiming to defeat progressive candidates who are critical of Israel and who express support for Palestinians. Many voters might not even be aware of this, because AIPAC-funded ads and mailers often omit any mention of Israel, even though fostering U.S. support for Israel and electing pro-Israel candidates are among the group’s driving aims.
“AIPAC’s lobbying and electoral network has so far spent $67.2 million during the current election cycle, up from $29.3 million during the 2021-2022 cycle. These huge amounts of spending have been dedicated to trying to defeat candidates like Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Aisha Wahab in California, Melat Kiros in Colorado, and many others.
“AIPAC has a range of affiliated and aligned Super PACs and other entities. Some of the most significant ones are AIPAC PAC, the group’s political action committee, which raises money to contribute directly to candidates; United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s super PAC, which raises and spends much more money on elections independently; and Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) PAC, which is aligned with AIPAC and specifically focuses on Democratic races.”
“To be sure, both the House and Senate are still in play, but the total number of competitive contests that could decide control is at an all time low…”
• Nearly 90% of Midterm Races Were Not Competitive: Analysis (Ben Whedon)
A combination of redistricting and increased political polarization has rendered the overwhelming majority of House and Senate races uncompetitive. And 2026 is shaping up to be the least competitive midterm cycle in recent history, according to an analysis from Unite America.Read more …
To be sure, the competition between Democrats and Republicans to control the House and Senate is still in play in November. But the total number of competitive contests that could decide control is at an all-time low. All 435 House seats are up for reelection, but Unite America’s analysis suggests that 383 (88%) will be so uncompetitive that they were effectively decided by the party primary.On the Senate side, however, only 35 seats are up for reelection. The math is somewhat less of a shutout, with only 26 (74%) of races deemed uncompetitive. The vast majority of races being decided in the primaries effectively shuts out many voters from having a meaningful say, the analysis found. Overall, just 10.2% of voters cast ballots in Senate primaries for either major political party this cycle. That figure stood at 9.4% in House races. Perhaps best illustrating the lack of substantive choice in elections, Unite America suggested, were the 150 House races in which the nominee for a safe seat ran unopposed in the primary.
Some of this disparity is due to a combination of low primary turnout, voter satisfaction with their own, specific representative, and, of course, apathy. But the recent redistricting push from Republicans, and the counterefforts from Democrats, have effectively eliminated many formerly competitive districts.
After the Supreme Court narrowed its interpretation of part of the Voting Rights Act to disallow race-based congressional districts, states across the South redrew their maps in ways that favored the Republicans. Among the states whose redraws favored Republicans were Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas. Missouri attempted to redraw its districts, but has faced legal challenges. Only California and Utah altered their maps in ways that benefited Democrats.
Virginia also attempted to redraw its maps via a constitutional amendment, but the state Supreme Court found the process unconstitutional after voters had already backed the Democratic proposal. Accordingly, the state’s maps will sit at 6 Democratic and 5 Republican-leaning districts in November.
The result was to render less than 5% of House races as true toss-ups. The Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voting Index (PVI), currently regards only 21 of 435 districts as “toss ups.” A further 208 at least lean Republican, while 206 at least lean Democratic. But redistricting did not affect the Senate at all, and seven of the 35 races are “toss-ups” in the PVI.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the Center for Politics, meanwhile, paints a similar picture, with 203 seats leaning Republican and 210 leaning Democratic, with only 22 toss-ups. Sabato, however, views only five Senate contests as competitive. The RealClearPolitics polling average does not currently feature a House breakdown, but regards nine Senate races as competitive.
Le Canard Enchaîne.
• French Soldiers Applaud Military Chaplain’s Warning Of ‘Great Replacement’ (RMX)
A leaked video of a French military chaplain addressing paratroopers in a cathedral has circulated widely on social media. In the clip, the chaplain makes disparaging remarks about leftists, tells soldiers to keep fighting for their national heritage, and warns of the risk that French values and culture could be displaced.Read more …
The clip, recorded during a Saint-Michel Mass on Oct. 7, 2025, shows Father Romain Ghandour speaking to soldiers of the 3rd Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment (3e RPIMa) at Carcassonne’s Saint-Michel Cathedral. Soldiers can be heard laughing and applauding as he delivers his pointed remarks. The clip was leaked and published by Le Canard Enchaîne news outlet.https://twitter.com/RMXnews/status/2100894085120749688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2100894085120749688%7Ctwgr%5E77997ba3f7742c60e9e15fe5029a90d5975fbdba%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Frmx.news%2Farticle%2Fcalm-down-lefties-quiet-in-leaked-video-french-soldiers-clap-and-applaud-as-military-chaplain-slams-leftists-and-warns-of-replacement%2F
The video was released in mid-September 2026, nearly a year after the Mass.Saint-Michel is the patron saint of paratroopers and airborne troops in the French army, which explains why the regiment was gathered in the cathedral. Christophe Barthès, then a municipal election candidate and later elected mayor of Carcassonne for the right-wing National Rally, was among those present. Ghandour begins by invoking the names and dates of men and women who died so that France would remain “a beautiful country,” one in which architects could continue building “basilicas, cathedrals, housing, and fortified castles.”
He contrasts that heritage with the present: instead of knights, he says, “we put incompetent people. We put people who eat seeds, people who lecture everyone, ideologues.” The phrase “people who eat seeds” is widely understood as a jab at what he presents as weak or overly ideological leftists. The line that has drawn the most attention comes next: “Calm down, lefties! Quiet! Breathe through your nose!” The assembled soldiers respond with laughter and applause. He then warns that if they lose courage and conviction, “we will be ridiculed” and “this beautiful country that is France will be mocked, and others will take our place.”
He continues: “In fact, after a while, when you’re thirsty, when you’re hungry, it’s the law of the strongest that reigns. And others will take the place of our values, of this freedom of speech, of action, of this equality between men, and of this fraternity, of this culture, of this society. Nature abhors a vacuum.”
While he never directly mentions the “Great Replacement,” many commentators have taken this remark to be a direct reference to the phenomenon, which is not only a reference to mass immigration, but also relates to the constant replacement of technology, culture, society, and peoples through all spheres of modern life at an ever accelerating pace. Ghandour closes by telling the soldiers to “keep fighting” and “continue to have the courage of your convictions, as I am trying to do at this Mass.”
As of the video’s release, there has been no detailed public statement from the army’s Catholic chaplaincy or the Ministry of the Armed Forces on whether the remarks violate rules on political neutrality for military clergy. French military chaplains of all recognized faiths operate under a framework that is supposed to respect both freedom of conscience and the state’s neutrality. The 3e RPIMa, based in Carcassonne since 1962 and part of the 11th Parachute Brigade, is an elite unit within the French military.
The left has often been skeptical, and even hostile to, the French military, which has been seen as a bastion of support for the right in the country.
Humanoid robots are now helping manufacture more humanoid robots.
— Space and Technology (@spaceandtech_) September 19, 2026
UBTECH has opened a new smart factory in China that can produce one robot about every 10 minutes.
The facility uses robots, automated systems, and guided vehicles, with a stated capacity of around 10,000 robots… pic.twitter.com/cSTHV7diOI
Elon Musk: AI has given me nightmares for days in a row.
— Veee (@vikktorrrre) September 19, 2026
“If I could, I would certainly slow down AI and robotics.”
“It’s advancing at a very rapid pace, whether I like it or not.”
“Is AI what keeps you up at night?”
“I’ve had a lot of AI nightmares.”
“I’ve had AI nightmares… pic.twitter.com/9IeXHQtrlO
Worth reading about this https://t.co/RMm24CyFPo
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 19, 2026
Sounds bad https://t.co/IpuEpFiM9z
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 19, 2026
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