data centers Archives - The Automatic Earth

BREAKING: President Trump reveals that China hacked more than 220 MILLION US voter files during the 2020 election cycle, which include people's personal and sensitive information.

And Democrats said it was the "most secure election in US history" pic.twitter.com/fmsGxDuOsk
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 17, 2026

Something big is coming on election fraud.

300 FBI agents have surged into Fulton County…

Former ODNI Tulsi Gabbard was on the ground during the early days of the investigation.

Investigators have been told to prepare for major arrests by the July 17th deadline.

Now we learn… pic.twitter.com/Le1yl522Gp
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 14, 2026

🚨 President Trump just dropped such an ICONIC Video. It absolutely belongs in the Hall of Fame ❤️ pic.twitter.com/iteia3Qv9p
— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) July 16, 2026

NEW: Joe Rogan is coming right out and saying it and has had ENOUGH after Spencer Pratt "lost" the LA mayoral election.

Rogan to JD Vance: "I'm not skeptical. I'm accusing them. I think they stole the election."

BOOM!pic.twitter.com/2ah830ISdM
— Chad Prather (@WatchChad) July 15, 2026

It’s a deluge. You can’t run a country this way. Unless you grow bananas on the side

• Trump Exposes Mind-Blowing Election Compromising and Cheating (Salgado)

It turns out that the “conspiracy theorists” weren’t so crazy after all. President Donald Trump says that foreign governments and corrupt domestic bureaucrats have so compromised our election system across the country that it is worse than a Third World banana republic.

“No country could be great without fair and honest elections,” Trump insisted during his Thursday night primetime address. “You have to trust your country because if there can be no trust, there can be no greatness, and that’s very simple: no trust, no greatness.” Unfortunately, according to him, between our enemies around the world like the Chinese and Iranian regimes and their collaborators in the American media and “Deep State,” malicious actors have stolen voters’ data, hacked electronic voting machines, manufactured fake ballots, and bribed fraudsters. It’s an “unprecedented election security nightmare.” And both Joe Biden and Barack Obama apparently benefited.

The president revealed a staggeringly gargantuan number from newly declassified documents: “Over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files. That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities,” Trump said.
The genocidal, America-hating Chinese Communist Party even had a special data exploitation unit dedicated to stealing U.S. voter data. “Compounding the travesty, the second set of documents we are releasing reveals that members of the Deep State, a very, very famous group of people,” were complicit, with U.S. intelligence agencies covering up the evidence.
One of the most significant revelations in Trump’s speech regarded the 2020 election. “Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China’s activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden,” Trump said, confirming election interference from our number one enemy on behalf of Biden. “Documents show that during this period, dozens of significant CIA and NSA reports about China’s election targeting were kept out of the presidential briefing. These were briefings I would get almost every day.” The fix was in. One email explicitly admitted to leaving out information given to Trump during his first term in office.
The scheme goes back for years. “Another official inside the FBI wrote that she was running ‘a shadow government’ to keep intelligence about China’s election meddling from becoming known,” President Trump stated. “Recently, we found significant numbers of burn bags … and this is a group of bags that were used to destroy information given by President Barack Hussein Obama to be burned … These bags were supposed to be at a different level, by different people, incinerated … but it never happened. Maybe we got lucky.”
[..] Our media and Deep State were selling America to our worst foes. “Put together, these disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it,” Trump declared. “Hundreds of millions of U.S. voter files are in the hands of foreign governments. Our machines and ballot counting systems are exposed to hacking, manipulation, and corruption. China and other countries have been trying to meddle in our elections. Evidence of fraud has been buried. Hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls, and yet we still have elections with no voter ID, no proof of citizenship, and tens of millions of ballots floating aimlessly through the mail.” That is indeed a situation that belongs to a Third World hellhole, not to the USA.

US elections are won by cheating, in 100 different ways. And then denying it.

• Trump Drops Bombshell Election Fraud Intel (Matt Margolis)

President Donald Trump addressed the nation Thursday night, and during his speech, he revealed that China pulled off “the largest compromise of election data in history,” stealing 220 million U.S. voter files. He didn’t stop there. Trump told the country he was releasing evidence documenting just how compromised our elections have become. mThat evidence is now public. The White House posted a batch of previously classified documents on a dedicated webpage, and they paint a picture of an election system compromised by hostile foreign governments and shielded by internal cover-ups. The administration is using the disclosures to push for voter ID, proof of citizenship, and tighter controls on mail ballots.

For years, officials assured Americans that election infrastructure, electronic voting machines, ballot-counting systems, all of it, was secure. The documents released this week directly contradict that claim. “We judge that U.S. adversaries, including at a minimum Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, as well as non-state groups, have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure,” a declassified U.S. Intelligence Community assessment states. It also warned that “centralized election-related data repositories, such as voter registration databases, pollbooks, and official election websites, are most vulnerable to exploitation, and adversaries could use access to these systems to disrupt election processes.”
The most alarming revelations include that the CIA reportedly obtained intelligence on a specific plot by the Maduro regime in Venezuela to digitally rig its own 2020 election, using methods designed to shift vote totals in ways that would survive an audit undetected. And starting around the 2020 cycle, China allegedly carried out that historic data heist, illicitly acquiring 220 million voter files containing names, addresses, phone numbers, and party affiliations, complete with a dedicated data exploitation unit assigned to the job.
And the worst part is that the Deep State inside U.S. intelligence agencies allegedly suppressed and downplayed the scale of China’s theft, keeping it from the president and from the public. Spy agencies reportedly learned back in 2020 that tens of millions of voters’ data across 18 states had been bought, stolen, or hacked by China. Yet they sat on it.
Think it can’t get worse? The FBI files document large-scale voter registration fraud in Michigan, uncovered after state police raided a Democratic get-out-the-vote organization in Muskegon back in 2020 and referred the case to the FBI’s Detroit office. Canvassers allegedly admitted to agents that they signed registration forms in other people’s names, invented registrations for people who don’t exist, and collected gift cards based on how many applications they churned out. FBI agents believed crimes had been committed. The Biden Department of Justice slow-walked the case for years. FBI Director Kash Patel has now been directed to make sure it’s fully investigated and prosecuted.
Then there’s the noncitizen problem. A Department of Homeland Security review of state voter rolls found roughly 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in federal elections, and officials believe the real number is far higher since some Democrat-led states refused to hand over their voter files.

“Fatal Cancer On Civilization”: Trump’s War On Marxism Enters Action Phase As Rubio, Miller And Bessent Address 65 Nations.”

• Trump’s War On Marxism Enters Action Phase (ZH)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent addressed delegations from more than 65 countries on the alarming rise of far-left terrorism. The broader message from all three speakers was very clear: Just as the US and its allies confronted the spread of Marxism in previous generations, Washington now believes the West needs an all-of-government, multinational strategy to counter far-left political violence, foreign influence networks and subversion movements seeking to destabilize Western institutions.
Rubio called for the civilized world to unite against an “encroaching darkness,” urging all leaders in the room to defend what they have built and fight back against those who seek to destroy it. The enemy Rubio is referring to is the rise of transnational far-left terrorism.

NEW: Secretary of State Marco Rubio calls for the civilized world to unite against an "encroaching darkness," urging nations to defend what they have built and fight back against those who seek to destroy it.

"It is easy to destroy great things. It is far more difficult to make… pic.twitter.com/G14GjBSIXE
— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 16, 2026

Rubio said, “In the United States, the share of left-wing terrorist attacks and plots has risen to levels not seen in DECADES. In Germany, far-left violence has jumped by more than 40% in just the last year alone.”

🚨 JUST IN: Marco Rubio is throwing Democrats into a frenzy by dropping this truth nuke that terrorism is COMING FROM THE LEFT

"In all-out assault on our immigration officers, sniper attacks, explosives, armed ambushes, a transgender shooter opening fire on Catholic elementary… pic.twitter.com/jENXMAqe1U
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 16, 2026

Rubio added that Antifa is being directly aided by Iran and Cuba through a massive international network that seeks to attack the West with terrorism and propaganda.

Marco Rubio says Antifa is being directly aided by Iran and Cuba through a massive international network that seeks to attack the West with terrorism and propaganda.

"They despise the West because the West is great." pic.twitter.com/20o7JSLdKY
— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) July 16, 2026

After Rubio, Miller addressed the hundreds of high-level officials in the room, saying, “Here in the United States, we have taken the necessary and essential action formally recognizing left-wing violence as a form of political terrorism that is a direct threat to our national security and the survival of our republican form of government.”v
Stephen Miller: "Here in the United States, we have taken the necessary and essential action formally recognizing left-wing violence as a form of political terrorism that is a direct threat to our national security and the survival of our republican form of government." pic.twitter.com/MMvYho2t87
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 16, 2026

Stephen Miller on left-wing political violence: “This is a fatal cancer to civilization… The greatest risk that we have is that our institutions have grown too soft and too cowardly to be able to defend themselves against a mortal threat.” pic.twitter.com/RJCZDMAfCX
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 16, 2026

Serious.

• Rubio Delivers Remarkable Speech on Resurgence of Political Terrorism (CTH)

Today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is hosting an event with various governments for a Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism. The event focuses on the reemergence of this threat to society and encourages stronger joint action to reinforce frontline defenses and close the gaps the terrorist actors continue to exploit. As part of the State Department effort, Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a remarkable speech to the audience. Within his remarks Rubio outlines the history of left-wing violence and lists current examples of how dangerous this has become. In many ways this is the anti-Obama speech that has long been needed. This is a moment that can reset how we view terrorism in the 21st century, shifting from a terror-threat focus from Islamic extremism to the more pervasive threat from left-wing political violence.

STATE DEPT – […] Far-left political terrorism is resurgent, manifesting in violent terrorist acts across the Western Hemisphere, Europe, Asia and beyond. These are not isolated incidents. They reflect a deliberate, ideologically motivated strategy to destabilize free societies by violently targeting our political and economic systems, including attacks against private citizens, government officials, police and law enforcement, businesses, and critical infrastructure around the globe. For too long, however, this threat has remained a blind spot in the international community’s counterterrorism focus, underestimated and under-resourced, despite the danger it poses.
The United States is taking a leading role in countering far-left terrorism. Since November 2025, the United States has designated four violent far-left groups — Antifa Ost, the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front (FAI/FRI), Armed Proletarian Justice, and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense — as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists, as well as offered a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the disruption of the financial mechanisms of these same four organizations.
In recent months, the United States engaged also law enforcement, counterterrorism professionals, and prosecutors around the globe through direct engagements, as well as the inaugural Counterterrorism Law Enforcement Workshop (CTLEW) in May 2026, which convened 14 countries for a two-day, practitioner-focused workshop to exchange best practices for countering the threat of transnational far-left terrorism.
This Ministerial builds on that foundation, bringing together partners from across the Western Hemisphere, Europe, and Asia to expand coordination, enhance information sharing, and strengthen international law enforcement mechanisms to counter the threat. Secretary Rubio will highlight the importance of deepening cooperation with international partners to better map violent activity, disrupt terrorist financing, protect critical infrastructure, and promote collective action against a threat that respects no borders.

They want peace-keeping troops in Ukraine (after the peace-fire), on Russia’s border. Not going to happen.

• Coalition of the Willing to Hold Military Drills Near Ukraine (Anzalone)

A bloc of Kiev allies will hold war games in states that border Ukraine in preparation for deploying troops to the country once a ceasefire is reached with Russia. On Monday, the Coalition of the Willing – a bloc of countries that support Ukraine – met in Paris to discuss providing additional aid to Kiev. French President Emmanuel Macron announced that member states would hold war games in states bordering Ukraine.

The French leader asserted the purpose of the drills was to prepare troops for a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine once a ceasefire is reached with Russia. However, Moscow says any peace agreement with Kiev must include a commitment from Ukraine not to host foreign forces. Additionally, the Kremlin has ruled out a short-term ceasefire, and wants all negotiations focused on a peace deal to end the conflict permanently. On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Europe of working to undermine the framework for resolving the conflict established between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin during the 2025 Alaska summit.
During the Coalition of the Willing summit, countries pledged additional military aid to Kiev. President Macron also said Paris would give Kiev permission to produce French missiles and interceptors in Ukraine. Macron’s move mirrors an action President Donald Trump took last week when he authorized Ukraine to produce Patriot missiles. Building factories and establishing supply lines to manufacture advanced munitions in the middle of a war will likely take years to accomplish.

Every move is made with war with Russia in mind. They don’t want to win it, they want forever war.

• Zelensky ‘Wants Civilian Deaths’ – Ukrainian Spy (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is directing the nation’s intelligence services not to spare civilians in their operations abroad, Vitaly Zhikovich, an acting colonel of the Ukrainian military intelligence agency (HUR), said in an exclusive audio recording obtained by RT. Zhikovich is one of two Ukrainian spies who confessed to liquidating Anastasia Berezovskaya, the main suspect in last month’s bomb attack on exiled Ukrainian millionaire Vadim Ermolaev in Monaco. Russian security services identified him as an active military intelligence operative and shed light on his other attempted terrorist plots.

“My superior said that there would be casualties, civilian casualties. And my president – that green bastard – wants civilian casualties,” Zhikovich can be heard saying to an unidentified interlocutor in one of the recordings, referring to Zelensky, whose last name has a semantic association with the word ‘green’ in Russian and Ukrainian. Zhikovich attempted but failed to commit at least 20 terrorist acts in Russia in recent years. In another recording, Zhikovich stated that his agency was preparing an unprecedented attack against the Crimean bridge after one attempt already failed.
“Believe me, this is going to be a massive event, and the whole world will be talking about it. What we’ve got going on here is really something huge. Crocus will look like nothing by comparison, I’m telling you!” he said. The 2024 Moscow Crocus City Hall massacre was the deadliest terrorist attack in Russia in over two decades, claiming the lives of 151 people and wounding another 609. The Russian Investigative Committee concluded that the attack carried out by a regional offshoot of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) was organized on behalf of Ukraine.

“Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has claimed Moscow may be planning “provocations” and limited attacks on critical EU infrastructure ..“

• Horror Stories of Alleged Russian Threat Serve As NATO Build-Up Pretext (RT)

The Baltic states are using “horror stories” about an alleged Russian threat to justify further NATO build-up and higher military spending, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Peskov was commenting on Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda’s claims that Moscow could be preparing “provocations” and limited attacks on critical infrastructure in Poland or the Baltic states. “This is the latest batch of horror stories, intended to continue brainwashing people and to prepare the population for further militarization,” Peskov said.

Baltic leaders are deliberately “creating the image of an enemy” in the form of Russia to facilitate the expansion of NATO military infrastructure across the region “in all its forms,” he added. mNauseda told Lithuanian media this week that intelligence agencies had “received signals” about possible “kinetic operations” targeting critical infrastructure. He acknowledged, however, that the information did not indicate where or when such incidents might occur. mLatvian President Edgars Rinkevics reportedly echoed the warning on Wednesday, citing information from “Lithuanian, Latvian and other NATO states” intelligence agencies about possible “various sabotage attempts to lower the security in our states.”
Western officials have repeatedly cited the prospect of Russian aggression to justify higher defense spending, including the EU’s €800 billion ($917 billion) ReArm Europe initiative and NATO members’ commitment to increase military expenditure to 5% of GDP. Moscow has consistently denied harboring aggressive intentions toward the US-led military bloc, dismissing claims of a planned attack on NATO as “nonsense.” Kremlin officials have described such accusations as fearmongering aimed at inflating military budgets. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Russia has “no reason” to attack the EU or NATO unless it is attacked first.
Russia has also repeatedly condemned NATO’s military build-up in Europe and the alliance’s increased activity near its western borders, warning that any deployment of nuclear capabilities closer to Russian territory would draw a response. The Baltic states have been among Kiev’s strongest supporters within the EU throughout the Ukraine conflict. Moscow has argued that continued Western military and financial aid only prolongs the fighting without changing its outcome, while increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.

The ultimate betrayal of young Ukrainians. They are designated to be cannon fodder.

• EU To Strip Draft Age Ukrainians of Refugee Protection (RT)

The EU has agreed to stop granting temporary protection to newly arriving Ukrainians liable for military service while extending the scheme for others who fled the conflict with Russia, according to the Council of the European Union. The restriction will take effect in March 2027, while the broader protection scheme will remain in place until March 2028. Kiev imposed a general mobilization shortly after the escalation of the conflict in February 2022, preventing nearly all military-age men from leaving the country. Despite the restrictions, many reached the EU, where adult men now make up around 27% of Ukrainians under temporary protection, according to bloc data.

The European Commission said on Wednesday that new applicants would have to “satisfy their military obligations in Ukraine” to qualify for temporary protection. It said the measure was intended to reflect the country’s “evolving defense needs” and would not affect those already benefiting from the scheme. Ukraine currently conscripts men between the ages of 25 and 60. Irish Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, said the extension “provides stability for those who found safety in the EU.” At the same time, he stressed that “we also want to make sure Ukraine can defend itself,” adding that this is why the temporary protection scheme “respects Ukraine’s legitimate needs.”
Across Western Europe, governments are increasingly scaling back support for Ukrainian refugees as pressure grows on welfare systems and public frustration over migration costs rises. More than 4.35 million Ukrainians are registered for temporary protection across the EU, according to Eurostat, while countries such as Poland, Germany, and Hungary have already moved to cut benefits.Ukrainian officials have repeatedly called for military-age men to return from abroad due to troop shortages. Vladimir Zelensky said in April that “our armed forces would certainly like them to come back because it is a matter of justice.”
Ukraine has struggled to replenish its ranks as Russian forces continue to advance. The so-called “busification” campaign, in which draft officers ambush men on the streets and outside their homes, often using force against those who resist, has repeatedly sparked public outrage.
The conscription crisis has prompted several of Kiev’s European backers to review their asylum laws. Earlier this year, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed to restrict protections for Ukrainians, arguing that young men were needed in their home country. Last month, the Czech government approved legislation tightening temporary protection rules, saying future EU discussions could also include limiting protections for military-age men as Ukraine faces mounting manpower shortages. Moscow has accused Kiev and its Western backers of being willing to fight Russia “to the last Ukrainian.”

Lemme guess: they don’t stand a chance.

• Democrats Got Some Devastating News About the Midterms (Margolis)

Democrats have spent the past year and a half dreaming about flipping both chambers of Congress this November. The House was always supposed to be the easy part. History certainly favors them, and polling has also favored them for most of this cycle. But that dream just took a serious hit. New data show Democrats are not gaining momentum this summer. Some of it suggests they’re losing ground, and losing it fast. Of course, it’s the middle of the summer, and anything can happen. But for Democrats, the warning signs that the midterms aren’t going to go as they hoped are impossible to ignore. In short, the trend lines right now are running in the wrong direction for Democrats.

According to RealClearPolitics election analyst Sean Trende, the way polls are moving now, there’s a shot that the GOP can keep the House. “The RCP Average generic ballot has gone from D+8 to D+5 over the past six weeks. Probably just inevitable ‘Soft Rs coming home’ but this starts to get into territory where it is conceivable that Rs hold the House,” Trende wrote. “I should add that I think the system can handle a party winning the popular vote by a point or so but losing the House. But if it stretches to a 3-4 point differential, which it may, it is going to be ugly.” Of course, the RCP Average isn’t the only data point moving in Republicans’ favor.

2026 Generic congressional ballot

🔵 Democrats: 47% (-3)
🔴 Republicans: 45% (+4)

(+/- vs May)

RMG poll | 7/13-7/14 pic.twitter.com/ZkCoC2kHqj
— OSZ (@OpenSourceZone) July 15, 2026

That’s a significant swing in the GOP’s favor. And it’s not just the generic ballot. Races Democrats once considered locks are suddenly competitive again. Take North Carolina. Former Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper (D-N.C.) has held a commanding lead over former RNC chair Michael Whatley (R-N.C.) for months. Now, even Public Policy Polling, a Democrat-aligned polling firm, has Cooper’s lead down to just four points, and PPP itself is admitting Republicans have a real shot at winning the seat.
That should worry Democrats far beyond North Carolina. They’ve long said that their path to a Senate majority runs through Maine, but that math only works if they also win North Carolina. If Cooper loses, Democrats have no path to the Senate at all. None. So what happened? Two things, mainly. Democrats built their entire midterm pitch around being anti-Trump. That’s the whole strategy, and despite being warned over and over that this isn’t a winning message, they haven’t listened. Meanwhile, the socialist insurgency inside their own party keeps grabbing headlines, and it isn’t doing them any favors with independent voters who, as polls show, are turned off by socialism.
Republicans certainly haven’t sealed the deal. Trump’s favorables still have room to grow, and voters are watching gas prices as closely as they’re watching the news out of Iran. Affordability could still sink the GOP’s chances if it gets bad enough. But Democrats, who have spent this entire political cycle convinced this was their year, just got a brutal reality check. The soft Rs are coming home, the socialists are scaring off the middle, and Roy Cooper might not even be able to save them anymore.

The Mamdani Express.

• Half-Mile-Long Homeless Encampment Springs Up on Manhattan’s West Side (Thorne)

Thanks, Zohran! New York City’s grinning young communist-Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani changed Town Hall policy on dealing with homeless encampments early into his term. Notably, he removed all oversight of the issue from the NYPD and placed it instead under the auspices of the Department of Homeless Services (DHS). Mamdani pretended that he still intended to clean up encampments, though. “Mamdani’s approach to the sweeps will go something like this,” reported City Limits:

• On day one, DHS will place notices on encampment sites saying that the location will be cleaned by the Sanitation Department (DSNY) seven days later
• Each day after, DHS outreach staff will go to the site and engage the people there to offer shelter placements or other services
• On day seven, DSNY will clean up the site, with NYPD on hand if the situation escalates

In last winter’s deadly cold snaps, when the homeless were freezing to death in the warmth of collectivism, Mamdani explained the superiority of his system to the old method of removing people from the streets: “Whereas previously, a homeless New Yorker might have only two points of interaction with city government — the first day they’re served a notice and the seventh day when that notice comes to an end — our administration will meet those homeless New Yorkers every single day. And we will meet them looking to connect them with shelter, looking to connect them with services, looking to connect them with a city that wants them to be sheltered and indoors and warm and safe.”
If only it were that simple. But in his infinite and empathetic wisdom, the mayor ignores the reality underlying these encampments: The people living in them don’t want help. They don’t want to leave, don’t want to stay in a shelter, don’t want to clean themselves up, and don’t want to get sober. They want to do drugs, period. And they will do whatever it takes to exist in that state, indefinitely, until they are forced to leave. As a result of the mayor’s fantasies, a massive homeless encampment has sprung up on Manhattan’s west side, stretching from at least 34th Street up to the floating Intrepid Museum at 46th Street, obliterating the quality of life for normal, bill-paying New Yorkers who have the misfortune to live or work in the area.
“You see people walking around half naked in the street,” local mom Diana Khabbaz told the New York Post on Monday. “They are smoking whatever they’re smoking. You see needles on the street every 20 feet. Sometimes you see a homeless person. And all day long, all night, a lot by the parks, there are a lot of people and there are tons of tents, and people are sleeping everywhere.” The Post has been doing an excellent job covering the seedy crisis. On Tuesday, the outlet reported: “Almost one month now – getting a little bigger every time I come back,” one Flixbus driver told The Post. “They put the garbage here on the sidewalk so the people have to wait in the street when I come with the bus.
“They’re asking the people waiting for the bus for money,” the driver said. “It’s no good. My boss called and complained and they do nothing.” As always happens when officials refuse to police these situations, bums have set up semi-permanent structures, ready to stay for the long term, and the sordid encampment grows by the day. Drug use, waste, trash, prostitutes, and nodding addicts litter the sidewalks, forcing normal people to walk in the street. So comfortable and brazen have the vagrants become that they’ve even been tapping into city utility lines and stealing power from New Yorkers to electrify their shanties.
But then, the slide into and tolerance of squalor has always been among the most objectionable characteristics of socialism and communism. Mamdani has already got the billionaires and millionaires on the run. Policies like standing by as crime, drug use, and homeless encampments take over the city will chase out many of the middle- and working-class people who remain. You can watch the Jesse Watters Primetime show’s excellent three-minute report on the intolerable situation below: https://twitter.com/JesseBWatters/status/2077186381315719358?s=20

They can’t disrupt people’s lives. Make sure of that and you’re fine.

• President Trump Highlights Importance of Data Centers (CTH)

The discussion remains controversial depending on the location. Generally, data centers located in rural isolation do not seem to be too controversial. However, data centers built in proximity to population centers stimulate a great deal of opposition.

Recently New York state banned the building of Data Centers as politicization of the construct has become somewhat of a Right/Left divide. President Trump notes the importance of data centers:
(VIA TRUTH SOCIAL) – One of the biggest Driving Forces in the Future for Jobs, are Data Centers. They are big, strong, bold, and Money Machines for the State in which they are built. Governor Kathy Hochul, for political reasons, has terminated all Data Centers being built, or to be built, in New York State. These Companies are now being sought in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and many other States. Both the Taxes and the Jobs amount to LIQUID GOLD! New York State has made a terrible decision.
All of this Income, and other Benefits, will be going to Red States, and some Blue, where Data Centers are sought as Cash Cows, with Lower Taxes and Record Setting Jobs. They must pay for their own Water and Power, and any leftover goes back to the State and local Community. Data Centers are tremendous WINS for the States and Communities that are lucky enough to get them. New York should change its Policy, IMMEDIATELY. The Radical Left Dumocrats must not be allowed to cause us to lose Data Centers, AI, and all of this incredible new Technology, to China, and other countries!”
~President DONALD J. TRUMP
The hardware side of the Data Center expansion is leading to increased revenue for raw material providers, chip makers, computer systems, fabrication shops, electrical components and construction. At the same time, the software side LLM builders and AI companies are trying to figure out how to make stable profitability within the sector.

CTH watches the tokenization and subscription fees for various AI model use with the same perspective CTH viewed over a decade of false claims within the financial market that told lies about social media viability and data processing costs. Now, we watch the seemingly exponential growth of AI capabilities and associated costs with the same pragmatic perspective. Robotic pool cleaners were introduced two generations ago. Did the pool cleaner business dry up? No, it expanded. Robotic vacuums broke into the popular household appliance market five years ago, you probably have one, did it eliminate maid services? No, still growing.
AI can now write its own code to generate outputs. Are software developers getting fired? No, demand for software designers and engineers is up. The mainframe approach, the one AI brain to run all systems, will never work – it is cost prohibitive (see first paragraph – wash, rinse, repeat). Deny this reality at your own investment risk. If needed, politely absorb the ridicule – for it matters not. CTH predicts AI will become a localized and optimized sub-set for each sector of the economy, requiring each major organization and corporation to adopt specific cost/benefit data libraries and networks for use and functionality.
At scale, a thousand coders each working on Gemini, ChatGPT, Anthropic, Fabian, Grok, etc. will become 100,000+ software designers working inside individual companies to create personalized, targeted, bespoke AI data systems and networks; each system specifically tailored to the industry or sector of business. The intranet of internets will happen again. Creating and selling AI system networks and integration functions that are personally tailored to highly specific company functions, creates an entirely new sector of the technology industry that has not even begun yet. [There’s an investment opportunity there]
Will AI robots replace some repetitive human functions? Yes, the ice rink Zamboni will likely not have a steering wheel, just an emergency joystick. A reference for a comparative industrial scale Roomba vacuum, or the robotic pool cleaners. However, at scale the robotic industry is slower than human efficiency in almost all sectors that matter; the cost benefit analysis will limit growth. The maid service sector will not be impacted any more than the software developers.
It is not an issue to fear some AI task efficiencies will grant more time available that will be filled with alternate task capabilities. Human productivity will increase in certain sectors of the economy, but humans will not lose work opportunities. Blue collar jobs will continue to expand as each of the hardware tools developed will need manufacturing, installation, maintenance and monitoring.
The further downstream the worker is from a repetitive function within the [XXXX] industry, the more irreplaceable they become.
As to the bigger picture of fully developed AI and the intersection of information and knowledge; yes, the automation of AI can present an issue. However, all AI concerns can be mitigated so long as multiple, alternative AI systems exist within the larger information realm.
As a nation we need dozens of different AI models each competing within the industry for the best AI product.
As long as we have multiple AI systems, alternatives to the hive-mind, we do not need to fear the AI network as a source of information. If we don’t like the AI outputs, we can switch to an alternate AI provider.
If the subscription cost of the AI is too high, then as long as we have a competitive market where a lesser expensive, perhaps bespoke AI option can exist, we should be okay. Let the free-and-fair market decide.

Be loud, Tulsi!

• Smooth Sailing Ahead for DNI Nominee Jay Clayton (CTH)

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held a quick, one-round, nomination hearing for Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton. The entire event lasted just under two hours with little room for controversy. It should be smooth sailing from here.

Other than a little faux resistance from SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner, the nomination hearing was otherwise unremarkable. You can always tell the position of the Intelligence Community by the positioning of their enabling structure within the SSCI. No worries ahead for Clayton.
The committee may organize a party line vote so that Democrats can maintain their resistance bona fides, but in a general sense it’s all optics during the downhill glide to the nomination. That said, what this means in the larger picture of the USIC system during the Trump administration is yet to be determined. Obviously FISA (702) reauthorization will likely be attached by Senate Majority Leader John Thune into a legislative package for a companion vote. The SSCI and larger Senate chamber all support Clayton and FISA (702), though there may be some optics of resistance from positional republicans.
It seems pretty clear that Acting DNI Bill Pulte was put in place by the White House to stay on through the release of election-related material planned for Thursday night. This move keeps DNI Clayton away from any fallout tied to the 2020 election investigation, and if the White House can pull off a presidential presentation that grabs public attention, Clayton could step into the role later with a mandate to dig into the details of the release without being directly linked to it.
The second aspect is yet another motive for fast DNI confirmation by an SSCI apparatus that really doesn’t want to go down the rabbit hole of foreign activity in the 2020 election. ADNI Bill Pulte and SGE John Solomon are now positioned to have one shot at grabbing political attention framed around the fraudulent 2020 election outcome on Thursday night. Soon thereafter, Clayton will take the reins at DNI and continue the goal of removing politics from the activity of the larger Intelligence Community.

There’s still millions who came in through Biden’s open borders.

• Trump Directs DHS Secretary to Continue ICE Deportation Traffic Stops (CTH)

Yesterday DEEP STATE DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin ordered ICE agents to stop deportation apprehensions from vehicles following an ICE self-defense shooting as a vehicle was used as a weapon by an illegal alien. Today, President Trump told his rogue DHS Secretary such an order was not approved by President Trump and ICE agents should continue all efforts to deport illegal aliens including traffic stops when needed.

[TRUTH SOCIAL] The men and women of ICE are doing a GREAT job, one that has to be done. CRIME IS WAY DOWN IN AMERICA, in many cases with numbers that haven’t been seen in decades. The Open Border Policy of Sleepy Joe Biden allowed 25,000,000 people to pour into our Country, unchecked and unvetted. Many were Criminals, and we have to get them out. In order to do this, we must be strong, tough, and smart, and we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!
Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands. The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch. I.C.E., be judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job. Keep those Crime Stat Records coming! Remember, you are loved and respected in America. Thank you for your attention to this matter! ~PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
Secretary Markwayne Mullin is another weak link in the lawful system of removing illegal aliens. Misplaced sympathies, regardless of motivation, are against the interests of law-abiding Americans. Deportation efforts must continue with extreme prejudice against the illegal alien population.
Weak men make for hard times!
Hours later Markwayne Mullin reversed his order.

Very strange thing to say for a VP (for anyone?!).

• JD Vance to Joe Rogan: Aliens Are Demons (Scott Pinsker)

Vance is MAGA’s most gifted communicator of economic grievances. He seems sincere, compassionate, authentic, and fair-minded. If you’re an undecided voter, he’s exactly the kind of leader you want in your corner. Come Nov. 2026 and Nov. 2028, if economic concerns, pocketbook issues, and middle-class grievances are the top issues, the Republican Party couldn’t ask for a better, more relatable messenger than JD Vance. He’s the right man at the right time. In a socialism versus free market debate, Vance will win in a landslide.

Trouble is, the vast majority of the Rogan-Vance podcast wasn’t about the economy, pocketbook issues, or the middle class. It centered on Iran, Jeffrey Epstein, Israel, traitorous “hawks,” disloyal Republicans, and whether or not space aliens are demons (or maybe angels). JD Vance is a highly organized thinker. He speaks in paragraphs (plural). That makes him an exceptionally dangerous debater — if you don’t believe me, go ask Tim Walz — but an awkwardly verbose conversationalist. This sit-down with Rogan didn’t play to his strengths. He’s noticeably better on the debate stage. Politically, the most interesting development was Vance’s calculation on Israel. Instead of choosing between the pro-Israel and anti-Israel factions, he declared himself a “reasonable moderate.” It’s a risky calculation.

JD Vance calls himself a “reasonable moderate” between pro- and anti-Israel extremes, saying he’s advocating a pragmatic relationship based on “shared interests” with Israel.

Vance says that Israel is an ally of the US like any other, no different from France or the UK, and…
— AF Post (@AFpost) July 15, 2026

If it works, he retains a MAGA coalition that was big and welcoming enough to include Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Megyn Kelly. Since neither side finds him objectionable, he could be a bridge between both extremes. But I don’t think he can pull it off. It’s a helluva high-wire act. Besides, his strategy requires him to make a pragmatic argument about what many believe is a moral issue, which puts him behind the eight ball from the get-go. More likely than not, he’ll eventually have to choose a side. Many pro-Israel Republicans believe he already has. That’s because they’re reading into his emotive language, divining his words, and noting that he blames one side far more than the other.

NEW: Vice President @JDVance and Joe Rogan discuss a TIME article detailing an alleged Israeli funded “influencer” and digital media campaign aimed at undermining U.S. negotiations with Iran.

No foreign country should be allowed to run influence operations like this inside the… pic.twitter.com/IVjLbHQEz7
— Alex Bruesewitz 🇺🇸 (@alexbruesewitz) July 15, 2026

He explicitly accused “hawks” of sabotaging his (since-failed) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Iran. Vance also insisted that the $300 billion Iran payment story was a “bull**** argument” that was “completely made up” by “hawks” to “politically tank the negotiation.” So, according to Vice President Vance, what’s motivating these bloodthirsty hawks? In Israel, “some people in the Israeli government want war indefinitely.” And in America, the “hawks” want us to send 150,000 ground troops into Iran. Which simply isn’t true:

Vance is the master of tearing down strawmen. NO ONE is proposing sending 150,000 troops to Iran. NO ONE. https://t.co/QdYu4LHNJl
— Marc Thiessen (@marcthiessen) July 15, 2026

Either way, Vance is taking the MOU criticism personally. Here’s Mediaite with excerpts from his appearance on JRE: “[P]eople have come after me and said that I’m influenced by Qatar, that I am influenced by foreign governments, that I take my marching orders from Tucker Carlson — there’s just so much bulls*** out there, when what I’m actually trying to do is accomplish what the President of the United States told me to accomplish, which is a settlement of this that accomplishes our objectives: Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon, and we have the free flow of oil and gas. […]
“But again, when I open up the pages of Time magazine and I see that there’s a literal foreign influence campaign being funded to tank the very deal that I was pursuing — and, oh, by the way, many of the people who were receiving that money were actually attacking me in completely dishonest ways — my response to that is: well, go to hell. I’m going to do what I have to do for the American people. I represent Americans first.” Yet the people who blew up JD Vance’s (now failed) MOU weren’t hawks, Israelis, or disloyal neocons! It was the Iranians!
For someone who claims to be a “reasonable moderate,” he consistently — and repeatedly — assigns the least charitable interpretation to the pro-Israel/hawk faction while (mostly) ignoring the Groyper/isolationist faction. His disdain is difficult to ignore. And because he’s so damn smart, we assume it’s deliberate. Rogan and Vance also chatted about the VP’s claim that UFOs were demons. It was a very strange back-and-forth: Is it wise for the vice president to speculate about the supernatural? Perhaps: Speculating is fun. Everyone wonders about the unknown. I do.But a politician must be careful not to get over his skis, lest he look ridiculous.
As a one-off, contemplating about the angelic/demonic origins of UFOs won’t move the needle either way. But coupled with Vance’s public declaration (and Susie Wiles’ description of him) as a proud “conspiracy theorist,” he risks being portrayed as a crackpot thinker. Obviously, that’s not helpful for a man with presidential aspirations. This was an ill-advised rabbit hole. We watch longform interviews to catch a window into someone’s mind, soul, and heart. A politician must be mindful of what he reveals. And he must be especially mindful when he’s spitballing about unproveable, unknowable metaphysical phenomena.
Joe Rogan presses JD Vance over his claim that UFOs may actually be demons. The vice president does not walk it back.

Rogan gave him three separate exits. Vance took none of them.

ROGAN: "You said something that I thought was very odd. You said that you thought that they were… pic.twitter.com/3w6eKsZW6G
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) July 15, 2026
Full video:

I think people are sleeping on the idea of @SpaceX becoming the leader of mobile connectivity with Starlink Mobile

Once scaled, Starlink Mobile will enable high-bandwidth 5G connectivity directly to your phone without any additional equipment.

• No more dead zones
• Works… pic.twitter.com/3cRco4z0fC
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) July 16, 2026

She is France’s last hope https://t.co/alN4E0hXbl
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2026

The Donald Trump mugshot is the BIGGEST backfire in Democrat history.

Now it’s official U.S. legal tender — the Trump mugshot is featured on a new $1 Gold Coin AND his signature will be featured on all bills for America 250.

The libs are absolutely seething. 😂 pic.twitter.com/bM1dq2qOzS
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 15, 2026

🚨 JUST IN: President Trump has just shocked the "experts" again, obtaining a whopping +$100 BILLION DOLLAR INVESTMENT from Taiwan semiconductor maker TSMC into USA manufacturing and jobs

They said it was impossible but it HAPPENED AGAIN! 🔥

TSMC's investment is now a… pic.twitter.com/sx8ucU8Dtq
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 16, 2026

🚨ROSIE O'DONNELL THE TALENTLESS HACK GETS HER REQUEST TO RE-ESTABLISH US CITIZENSHIP DENIED — TRUMP SAYS SHE MADE HER BED AND CAN STAY A HACK WITHOUT A COUNTRY!

🔗 https://t.co/YrsaWJyaox

This is perfect karma.

Rosie O’Donnell renounced her US citizenship years ago to run to… pic.twitter.com/biigXiWD77
— John McAfee 🇺🇸 News (@mcafeenew) July 15, 2026

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

Debt Rattle June 10 2026

Jun 102026

June 10, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:57 am Finance Tagged with: Bill Gates, Bill Pulte, data centers, IAEA, Ilhan Omar, Iryna, Juneteenth, Knicks, Netanyahu, self defense 48 Responses »

John Koch Conversation 1962

• Iran Threatens “Decisive Response” After US Begins ‘Self-Defense’ Strikes (ZH)

• Oil Surges As Trump Says US Must Respond To Attack On Apache Helicopter (ZH)

• Trump Insists US In ‘Final Throes’ of Iran Deal (ZH)

• Trump-Netanyahu “Differences”: A Good Cop-Bad Cop Routine (Every)

• US Seeking ‘Precise Info’ on Iran’s Enriched Uranium via IAEA Board (Cradle)

• Meanwhile, in Gaza, Hamas Is on the Ropes (Hornik)

• West Turns Ukraine Into ‘Criminal Empire’ — Russian MFA (TASS)

• Trump Makes History at the NBA Finals (Sarah Anderson)

• Trump Doubles Down, Bill Pulte Will Takeover as Acting DNI on June 19th (CTH)

• Citizenship Free Ride May Be Ending; DOJ Warning Should Reach Omar (Manney)

• Data Centers Will Turn Red States Blue (Tim O’Brien)

• OUTRAGEOUS: Iryna’s Killer Found Incompetent to Stand Trial (Stephen Green)

• How Bill Gates’ Billions Shape US Medical Research (Paul D. Thacker)

• AI Agents With Crypto Could Escape And Become ‘Unstoppable’ (CT)

Yes https://t.co/5PO31jwG5V
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 8, 2026

Investigative journalist Lara Logan Drops BOMBSHELL, Says U.S. Went After Maduro Because They Rightly Knew Venezuela RIGGED The 2020 Election with Iran and the CCP, Claims an EYEWITNESS Is In Custody…

“Venezuela stole the election from Trump, working with Iran, the CCP, and… pic.twitter.com/nlD96JM7In
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 8, 2026

This is the way https://t.co/8NTAO9zuPl
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2026

The magnitude & brazen nature of the government payment fraud is staggering https://t.co/r7YBbowQ7x
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 8, 2026

https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/2063979571062415664?s=20

Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!! https://t.co/73GDcLLFwv
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2026

“Decisive Response”. They’re just bad poets.

• Iran Threatens “Decisive Response” After US Begins ‘Self-Defense’ Strikes (ZH)

Just as President Trump has warned, US Central Command has just tweeted confirmation that the US military began ‘self defense’ strikes against Iran: “U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces began launching self-defense strikes against Iran at 5 p.m. ET today at the Commander in Chief’s direction, in response to yesterday’s downing of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter. The mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression.”= The extent of the latest strikes wasn’t immediately clear but they further undercut an already fragile ceasefire signed in April.

A US official tells Fox that airstrikes targeting Iran are “ongoing” and targets include air defenses and radar installations. IRNA reports explosions in Iran’s Hormozgan province, while IRIB reports aerial attacks in Qeshm, Sirik and Bandar Abbas with six explosions reported in Qeshm The US and Iran have traded attacks several times in recent days even as Trump has said they are close to signing an agreement to bring the conflict to an end.President Trump told ABC News Jonathan Karl: “I think it’s very important to respond. They shot down a helicopter, and we are responding as we speak.”
He added: “This is a response to what they did they did with our helicopter last night, and I believe the response should be very strong, very powerful, and that’s what this one is.”Shortly after the strikes began, IRGC-owned Tasnim News reported that Iran is threatening to retaliate for US’ retaliation:”Iran will respond to US aggression. As warned hours earlier, Iran will deliver a decisive response to the US aggression, which is being carried out under the pretext of an Apache helicopter crash.” Odds of a peace deal are sliding and oil prices are rising (though not significantly).

Why don’t they attack more Apaches?

• Oil Surges As Trump Says US Must Respond To Attack On Apache Helicopter (ZH)

Update (12:45pm ET): following earlier reports that a US AH-64 Apache helicopter had gone down over the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Oman in an unprecedented first of the Iran war, moments ago Trump said on Truth Social that he had “been informed by our Great Military that last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache Helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz. There were two pilots involved, both are safe and uninjured. Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”

I have just been informed by our Great Military that last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache Helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz. There were two pilots involved, both are safe and uninjured. Nevertheless, the United States must,… pic.twitter.com/RnitMvdd32
— Commentary Donald J. Trump Truth Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) June 9, 2026

***

Earlier: A US helicopter has gone down over the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Oman in an unprecedented first of the Iran war, Central Command announced Tuesday, after which the two crew members were reportedly rescued by unmanned boats. The Army AH-64 Apache was patrolling regional waters before the downing incident, which is still shrouded in mystery, and which the Pentagon says it is now investigating. However, the Iranians are saying they know exactly what happened – insisting that the Apache was shot down.
“An AH-64 Apache attack helicopter belonging to the U.S. Army was shot down and destroyed by the IRGC Navy near the Strait of Hormuz, after ignoring warnings and being targeted by fired from one of our speedboats,” an Iranian military central command statement has said. The NY Times, among the first to report the downing, underscores the claims and counter-claims concerning what happened: It was not immediately clear whether the Apache was shot down by Iranian fire, experienced mechanical failure or encountered some other problem, said a person briefed on the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Central Command said in a statement that the incident was under investigation.
But the Pentagon says the crew was successfully rescued. The unusual rescue by unmanned boats adds another layer of complexity and strangeness to the story. “A Task Force 59 unmanned surface vessel, essentially a drone boat, found and rescued the soldiers,” spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins described to NBC News. The pair of pilots are now receiving medical care, he indicated, after their rescue came within two hours of the aircraft going down. Trump briefly spoke to journalists at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York after watching the NBA Finals on Monday night and he acknowledged the rare crash in the Persian Gulf.
“The pilots are fine. Yeah,” Trump said. “Nobody injured. We are going to issue a report tomorrow. But the pilots are fine.” Apaches, along with A-10 gunships, have been frequently used for low-flying operations in the Persian Gulf and Hormuz region, in order to attack Iranian small boast. As for the Iranian claims of shootdown, it remains a top most plausible scenario, but the Pentagon has not said whether it took on Iranian fire. FOX: American military forces, including U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, the 82nd Airborne Division, and U.S. 5th Fleet assets, helped bring both soldiers to safety.

NEW: Two U.S. soldiers are safe after a dramatic rescue operation off the coast of Oman.

CENTCOM says the crew members were recovered roughly two hours after their AH-64 Apache helicopter went down while patrolling regional waters.

American military forces, including U.S. Naval… pic.twitter.com/iBr7WiQnKB
— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 9, 2026

During earlier operations connected to Epic Fury, other US military aerial assets have crashed or sustained damage over the region – however, the Pentagon has downplayed or rejected efforts to link a number of incidents to Iranian attack, apparently not wishing to give Tehran a battlefield ‘success’ acknowledgement. But many independent pundits have suspected that all along the Iranians have been hitting a lot more American assets than previously disclosed.

“Asked whether it would be matter of days or weeks, he said it would take “two or three days”.

• Trump Insists US In ‘Final Throes’ of Iran Deal (ZH)

The southern Lebanese city of Tyre is being pounded by Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday, despite President Trump’s insistence that Lebanon not come under attack. Israel’s military had hours prior issued an evacuation order for all civilians in the area, amid the unraveling and failing ceasefire. Casualties are already high, coming at a tense moment after starting on Sunday Iran sent ballistic missiles against Israel over its renewed airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, where it says Hezbollah command centers are located.

The NY Times reports of the growing death toll Tuesday, “At least eight people were killed in the bombardment, and dozens more were wounded, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The Israeli military also targeted towns and villages across southern Lebanon, including areas that were not covered by evacuation warnings, according to the country’s state-run news agency.” So clearly the air raids are expanding, per the report, even after the latest Trump warnings directed at Netanyahu to not do anything that would sabotage a broader Iran peace agreement.
President Trump is still maintaining that Washington and Tehran are in the “final throes” of cementing a deal, and is even suggesting (once again) that an agreement will be done in days: Asked whether it would be matter of days or weeks, he said it would take “two or three days”. Tehran has repeatedly stated any deal should include Lebanon—where Israel has been pressing its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah—and fired missiles at Israel on Sunday. That prompted Israeli retaliation, despite US pressure for restraint. Iran fired another salvo before announcing it was ceasing military action, and hours later Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the “fire on that front is contained”.
Of course, we’ve been hearing that the war is merely ‘days’ away from ending from basically the start of the war. And yet, all too predictably, the two sides keep going up the escalation ladder in an escalation trap. But the White House is saying that it will forge a deal which is good for the American people, whether Israel likes it or not. “Israel may like that, they may not like that — but this is in the best interest of the United States,” Vice President JD Vance spelled out to Fox this week. Escalation: Houthis in Yemen unleash ballistic missile on southern Israel, as Hezbollah sends drones on north…

⚡️Interception in Eilat pic.twitter.com/uUsV3O70VE
— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) June 8, 2026

But in the meantime Lebanon continues to suffer, also as Hezbollah and most recently the Houthis out of Yemen fire projectiles on Israel. According to some of the latest via Al Jazeera: For the residents in Tyre, anybody who is staying behind is in a lot of danger. In the past hour, we’ve seen another Israeli air strike near a Palestinian refugee camp. The strike happened at a roundabout leading into the camp, a very busy location. There’s also a bus station right at the entrance to the el-Buss refugee camp. Initial reports are coming in of a lot of injuries in that attack.
Israel continues to carry out artillery fire on the city, and there are drones flying over Tyre. For anyone trying to get out of the city, the road is quite dangerous. There have been a series of air strikes north of Tyre along the same road people would use to exit. So the Lebanon conflict is escalating, not growing more stable, which doesn’t bode well for achieving a final Iran deal. Tehran has insisted all along that a deal incorporate the Israel-Lebanon situation.

Reporter: Did you ask Netanyahu not to hit back?

Trump: No. I said do what's right but I want you to stop as quickly as you can. Because they have to stop. It has to do with Lebanon. And it has to stop. We want to get it finished. pic.twitter.com/lnnstEPFA2
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 9, 2026

Vance had also said in his latest comments to Fox that “I think where the president has been very clear here is that while Israel obviously has some objectives that it has, the United States’ main objective in Iran is to ensure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon.” It seems Washington is willing to tolerate some Israeli ‘counter-terror’ action, but only up to a point. Probably the limits will be reached in more renewed bombings of Beirut itself. Tehran has been seeking to impose some red liens on IDF action in Lebanon, and the White House has so far appeared to respond with compromising language.

They play the press.

• Trump-Netanyahu “Differences”: A Good Cop-Bad Cop Routine (Every)

As You Were… But As Who Was?
Yesterday nearly saw a full restart of the Israel-Iran war, apparently pulled back from the brink by intervention from President Trump. After yet another Middle East rollercoaster for markets it’s now ‘as you were’, with oil –so everything else– little changed. The larger issue behind that pricing, however, is the key question – ‘As who was?’

Iran set up its proxy network, centered on terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, to protect itself: if Israel attacked it, Hezbollah would attack Israel. However, Tehran now has to attack Israel, with counterattacks on it in response, to defend its ‘shield’. That’s a huge Iranian strategic setback. As such, Tehran is trying to tie Israel vs. Hezbollah to itself vs. the US to divide the US from Israel, which now have different needs: a deal vs. finishing the job militarily or via regime change. That dynamic has huge implications for when and how this war ends, so for energy, so for markets.
While Israel and Iran say they will stop their attacks, Israeli PM Netanyahu last night gave a public address where he stated: “Iran and Hezbollah are weaker than ever, and we are stronger than ever – but our battle against them is still not finished. In the last 24 hours, Iran and Hezbollah tried to impose a new equation upon us… an equation I find intolerable and unacceptable. They thought they would fire at Israel from Lebanese territory and from Iran – and we would not act. That did not happen, and it will not happen. Not on my watch!… At the moment, we are holding our fire, because after we struck the terror regime in Tehran, it ceased attacking us. In the event that Iran makes the mistake of resuming attacks on us – we will respond with overwhelming force.”
Moreover, Israel will hit Hezbollah in Beirut if it fires at Israel from south Lebanon, which Iran says is a red line that will trigger more attacks on the Jewish state, restarting this war. If Iran tells Hezbollah to ceasefire, markets can relax; If not, and Israel hits Hezbollah, Iran has to decide if it wants to fire at Israel – and restart the war; ]If Trump forces Israel to hold back vs. Hezbollah, Iran will have linked the two fronts and divided the US and Israel – which likely sees more war. After all, Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, its 1967 Six-Day War, its 1981 attack on Iraq’s nuclear programme, and its 2007 strike against Syria’s nuclear programme all took place against US wishes.
To expect otherwise this time is unwise. Indeed, Trump-Netanyahu differences could be a good cop-bad cop routine to allow the US to push for a deal while Israel does the fighting. In the background, Yemen’s Houthis claim they will restart a maritime blockade of Israel in the Red Sea, which was applied far more broadly the last time they put it in place. Obviously, that can threaten cargo and energy flows at this juncture, as a US Navy F-18 struck and disabled an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman and the EU hit Iran’s Navy… with sanctions.
In short, this crisis is far from over, even as Trump says “total victory” will be declared in the next two weeks as Iranian negotiators are “willing to give us everything,” and VP Vance added that the deal being discussed was “a home run” for the US. Yet the inside baseball question remains which negotiators the US is talking to given local reports that contact has been lost with Supreme Leader Khamenei Jr. and another that IRGV leader Vahidi was killed in a recent Israeli strike.
Elsewhere in geopolitics, Berlin says the Franco-German fighter jet project is dead, a major blow to future pan-European defence plans; Switzerland is weighing a Franco-Italian alternative to US air defences given a 5-year wait for the latter; and a French fighter jet shot down a suspected Russian drone in Latvian airspace.

They’ll stretch this for six months or more.

Remember, they stretched it all for 47 years.

• US Seeking ‘Precise Info’ on Iran’s Enriched Uranium via IAEA Board (Cradle)

Washington has turned to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors in order to determine the fate of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, according to reports by Reuters and other media outlets. Sources cited by Reuters which obtained a draft of a resolution being pushed by the US said that Iran is being called on to provide the Agency with precise information on nuclear material accountancy and safeguarded nuclear facilities in Iran.

The US draft also calls on Tehran to grant all access it requires to verify this information, adding that Iranian cooperation is essential and urgent and must happen without delay. The text does not refer Iran to the UN Security Council, which would have followed up on the IAEA resolution declaring Tehran in breach of its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). That resolution was issued on 12 June 2025, a day before the US-backed 12-day war on Iran last year. Diplomats told Reuters that such a move was under consideration.
Al Mayadeen also reported, citing its own draft copy of the resolution, that Washington is lobbying states on the IAEA Board to back its push. This came as IAEA chief Rafael Grossi called on Tehran to re-engage with the IAEA. ” I call on Iran to engage the Agency constructively in order to facilitate the full and effective implementation of safeguards in Iran, he said, adding that It’s very important that we re-engage. ” Reuters reported earlier in June that the US was preparing a draft resolution to condemn Iran at an upcoming IAEA meeting.

View from Israel.

• Meanwhile, in Gaza, Hamas Is on the Ropes (Hornik)

These past few days the Middle East spotlight has been, for good reason, on Israel, Hezbollah, and Iran. At the time of writing, things are at a standstill, and no one knows what comes next. After the exchange of fire between Israel and Iran, the latter, notes Israeli journalist Amit Segal, “warned that any further Israeli aggression—specifically ‘including in southern Lebanon’—would be met with ‘much more severe and crushing measures.’” Despite that, on Tuesday, Israel went ahead and attacked Hezbollah infrastructure in the southern Lebanese town of Tyre. Will Tehran make good on its threat? We can only wait and see.

Meanwhile, the veteran and venerable Israeli military-affairs analyst Ron Ben Yishai has filed a report from Gaza that gives—dare we say—an encouraging picture of the current condition of another of Iran’s terror proxies, Hamas. While Hezbollah is spread throughout Lebanon, Hamas is concentrated in a much smaller space, Gaza. The IDF, which battled Hamas in Gaza for more than two years running since the debacle of October 7, 2023, now controls about 65% of Gaza, and Hamas is in a jam. Ron Ben Yishai, now 83, spent some time at an IDF outpost in southern Gaza and has a lot of light to shed on the current state of the enclave.
The IDF, for one thing, has been using its presence in Gaza to blow up the notorious Hamas tunnels. Since October 7 the IDF has destroyed about 280 miles’ worth of them, and at present there’s nothing at all that Hamas can do to counteract the process. The IDF has also, using high-quality intelligence, been “systematically eliminating senior [Hamas] commanders, key military specialists and police officials responsible for maintaining governance.” While Hamas still has about 20,000 operatives, only about 8,000 are experienced fighters and the rest are minimally trained, lightly armed “young men and teenagers” seeking to bring home some shekels.
And Hamas’s troubles go beyond that. Its popularity in Gaza is drying up, and armed clans living in the IDF-controlled areas—“whose members and families [number] in the tens of thousands”—have lately been seriously challenging its rule. In terms of Israeli security, the situation is much better than it was on October 6, 2023. Six IDF brigades and 18 battalions now protect the Israeli border communities, compared to much fewer forces in the sleepy, self-delusive days before the catastrophe. Ben Yishai puts it this way: “The way the IDF is currently deployed and operating in Gaza has almost completely neutralized Hamas’s ability to carry out attacks . . . the threat to communities in southern Israel has been almost entirely removed, at least as long as the IDF maintains its current posture.”
Therein lie many questions about the future of Gaza. Although grandiose plans were hatched about Hamas disarmament, the terror group—predictably enough—rejects that option. The “international stabilization force” that was supposed to take over in Gaza “has yet,” Ben Yishai notes delicately, “to materialize.” And the Peace Council that’s supposed to help finance a new, peaceful Gaza “has failed to secure even one-third of the funding pledged by its member leaders.” That, too, is predictable stuff—though it’s been worsened by the Gulf states’ cash-flow problems since the Strait of Hormuz was closed.
IDF commanders, for their part, are sure that only a few weeks would be needed to seize the remaining Gazan territory held by Hamas. “Plans already exist and require only government approval.” At that point, though, with Hamas neutralized, an old problem would arise: what to do with the two million mostly indigent Gazans whom Hamas has been holding, in effect, as hostages, and who’ve been raised on a murderous hatred of Israelis. It was the severe, demoralizing difficulty of ruling Gaza that led Israel—with half or more of the Israeli population supporting the move—to disengage from the enclave in the first place, back in 2005. Of course, that didn’t work out well either.
Ben Yishai hopes the international community, or a future Israeli government, will “succeed in formulating a realistic, adequately funded, phased long-term solution for Gaza’s population without endangering Israel.” It has always been a tall order. For now—unlike Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis—Gaza is quiet, and it’s a big improvement.

Successfully.

• West Turns Ukraine Into ‘Criminal Empire’ — Russian MFA (TASS)

The West has turned Ukraine into “a criminal empire,” marking the height of its policy aimed at preserving hotspots of tension, Pyotr Ilyichev, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for New Challenges and Threats, said.

“The growing conflict potential in various parts of the world is accompanied by dangerous attempts by Western countries to use terrorist groups and extremist forces in order to preserve hotspots of tension,” the diplomat pointed out at the 19th meeting of chiefs of the head offices of counterterrorism units of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) member states and national bodies coordinating efforts to combat terrorism and extremism. “The collective West’s policy aimed at maintaining hotspots of tension reached its peak when Ukraine was turned from a state into a criminal empire,” the Russian Foreign Ministry official stressed.

He jinxed them?

• Trump Makes History at the NBA Finals (Sarah Anderson)

Donald Trump just became the first president in United States history — or should I say NBA history? — to attend an NBA Final game. Monday’s night match-up was between the San Antonio Spurs and Trump’s beloved New York Knicks, and it took place at Madison Square Garden. The Spurs led the game early on, and the Knicks bounced back for a while, but the Spurs eventually pulled off the win, 115-111. It was Game 3 of the series — the Knicks won the first two games.

Trump sat with his granddaughter, Kai, along with Knicks owner James Dolan and several members of the Trump administration, including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and Environmental Protection Administrator Lee Zeldin. I also noted that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was there, but he had floor seats and was not with the president. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was reportedly in attendance, but he did not sit with the president either. Shocking, I know.

President Trump was spotted chatting with New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden owner James Dolan in his suite during Game 3 of the NBA Finals.

Trump, who became the first sitting U.S. president to attend an NBA Finals game, is taking in the action alongside family members… pic.twitter.com/fHcJZzcT5I
— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 9, 2026

Anyway, I’m already seeing MSM headlines about how the crowd erupted into boos when they showed the president just before the national anthem, but that’s only half of the truth. Some of the crowd booed, some cheered, and some erupted into chants of “USA! USA! USA!” It’s the same thing as when Trump has attended numerous other big sporting events over the last year and a half or so, like Super Bowl LIX, the College Football Playoff National Championship, and the September 11 New York Yankees game, etc. — the crowd’s response is about as split as our country is, so don’t buy into any of those “everyone booed” headlines. Even in New York City.
(Also, mark my words, Tuesday’s headlines will be that Trump jinxed the Knicks.) Now, outside was a different story. The were a handful of protesters with signs and chants like “F*** Trump.” Super clever, right? As usual, it was largely lefty white women with professional-looking signs who probably wouldn’t know what a basketball game was if Jalen Brunson and Wemby came out and played a little one-on-one right in front of their sad little protest.

WATCH | Protesters outside Madison Square Garden chant "Go Knicks! Fuck Trump" as Trump and other major leaders attend Knicks NBA playoffs game 3 pic.twitter.com/m6aQrezRpa
— VOZ (@Voz_US) June 9, 2026

There were also some people in Congress who were upset that Trump would be in attendance, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies (D-N.Y.), aka Temu Obama, who has spent the last couple of days going on TV and telling Trump not to come and politicize the game. “It also is not clear to me that Donald Trump is a big Knicks fan. I mean, does this guy even know the difference between Karl Rove and Karl-Anthony Towns? I don’t think so,” Jefferies said earlier. “He’s just injecting himself into the NBA Finals because he always has to bring the MAGA circus into town.” Well, the president is actually a big Knicks fan. And we have proof, so now it can be clear to you, sir.

Here’s Donald Trump at the 1994 NBA Finals when the New York Knicks faced the Houston Rockets at MSG.

Yet today Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) questioned whether Trump is even a Knicks fan.

Hakeem is such a low-IQ individual. https://t.co/scoWBhG4pk pic.twitter.com/8JiCxr11MT
— Charles R Downs (@TheCharlesDowns) June 8, 2026

Even NBA commissioner Adam Silver knows it:

.@NBA Commissioner Adam Silver: President Trump was a fixture at Madison Square Garden. He had courtside seats. He was here all the time, he was at Drafts — so he's a genuine @nyknicks fan. pic.twitter.com/Cxb1fU8cfM
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 9, 2026

Juneteenth. Pulte will do DNI, Fannie, Freddie and more. Full plate.

• Trump Doubles Down, Bill Pulte Will Takeover as Acting DNI on June 19th (CTH)

Articulate focus with specific intent can pay dividends. Sorry for my absence earlier today. I can confirm the first sentence, between the commas. Against the backdrop of threats from various legislative branch members, President Donald Trump has doubled down and firmly announced that Bill Pulte will take the position of Acting DNI effective June 19th (aka ‘Juneteenth’). Delivering the message from his Truth Social account, President Trump has extended his plenary power and put Congress back into the position they hold in government. If Congress wants FISA (702), then reauthorize it. If they don’t want it, then don’t reauthorize it. The issue matters not to the overall national security dynamic.

Kash Patel better prepare to get busy. It’s time to put up or shut up. If the FBI carries out a false flag operation (they’d be stupid), or if the CIA attempts to undermine the domestic national security front (they won’t), there is going to be an intense response from Trump and Pulte.
Great job President Donald Trump!

For now, she’s got them all by the balls.

• Citizenship Free Ride May Be Ending; DOJ Warning Should Reach Omar (Manney)

The Department of Justice has filed denaturalization actions against 17 naturalized citizens accused of hiding serious crimes or fraud during the path to U.S. citizenship. The list includes sex offenders, fraudsters, drug dealers, and defendants accused of concealing conduct that should’ve blocked naturalization in the first place. From Fox News: The individuals, from 13 different countries, are accused of serious criminal conduct, including child sexual abuse, narcotics trafficking and large-scale financial fraud. Nearly all of the individuals reportedly lied during the naturalization process, claiming that they did not commit any crimes the authorities were unaware of, claims that were later found to be untrue or misleading.

By making false statements, officials argue that they failed to meet the statutory “good moral character” requirement for U.S. citizenship under federal law.”Gaining U.S. citizenship is a privilege and under the steadfast leadership of President Trump, this Department of Justice maintains a zero-tolerance policy for the abuse of this process,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. Nine were from the Caribbean and North America, including Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and Mexico. Two were from Colombia in South America. One was from former Yugoslavia in Europe. Three were from Asia, including India, China and the Philippines, and two were from Africa, including Somalia and the Congo.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche framed citizenship as a privilege tied to honesty. Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, head of the Civil Division, said the department will pursue those who secured citizenship by lying. The government’s point is simple enough for even the denizens of Washington to understand, which means somebody there will probably work hard to misunderstand it. Naturalization isn’t a participation trophy; applicants swear to tell the truth, answering questions about crimes, names, past conduct, and immigration history. When those answers are false, the citizenship built on them rests on sand. The DOJ’s new cases say the old wink-and-nod era is getting less comfortable.
Federal law already allows denaturalization when citizenship was illegally procured or obtained by concealment of a material fact or willful representation. The process still runs through federal court, which means defendants get their chance to fight the government’s claims. The DOJ also made clear the 17 complaints contain allegations, not final findings. Good, that’s how it should be; let the courts sort each case. But we can’t let fraud become permanent just because enough years passed. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has also pushed a sharper enforcement posture, including a return to longer ICE training standards after problems left behind by former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
President Donald Trump’s team is trying to restore a basic rule: the United States gets to decide who enters, who stays, and who keeps citizenship after lying to obtain it. The usual fainting couch crowd will call this extreme. Most Americans will call it paperwork, finally meeting consequences. The same principle should make Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) nervous, or at least curious about the weather near the bow. Vice President JD Vance said in May that the Justice Department is looking into whether Omar committed immigration fraud tied to long-running allegations about her marriage history. From Fox News:
“Speaking to reporters, Vance was asked about the administration’s anti-fraud task force — established by President Donald Trump to combat fraud, waste, and abuse across federal benefit programs — and whether it would focus on Omar, a frequent Trump critic. “You read the things about Ilhan Omar… who she married and whether she didn’t marry this person or that person,” Vance said. “It certainly seems like something fishy is there, but everybody’s entitled to equal justice under the law.” The comments follow a podcast interview in March, during which Vance told conservative commentator Benny Johnson that he had spoken with White House immigration advisor Stephen Miller about potential legal action against the congresswoman.
“We think Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America,” Vance said at the time. Omar has denied wrongdoing, crying racism and bigotry each step of the way, and the claim hasn’t been proven.
https://twitter.com/TMZ/status/2057200550060449943?s=20
But the question refuses to die because the documents, timelines, and explanations have never satisfied critics who believe a full federal review is long overdue. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) moved in January to subpoena Omar’s immigration records and those of Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi during a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on fraud and misuse of federal funds in Minnesota.
Mace said the allegations, if true, could raise questions involving marriage fraud, immigration fraud, and other violations. The motion ran into opposition, which tells voters plenty about Washington’s appetite for transparency when the target has the right friends in politics. The Omar question and the 17 DOJ cases aren’t identical. One involves filed denaturalized complaints, while the other involves public allegations, political pressure, and statements from the vice president that DOJ is looking at the issue. S
till, both point toward the same civic test; citizenship must mean more than a document the government is too embarrassed to revisit. If lies opened the door, the law has every right to walk back through it. Any country that refuses to police naturalization fraud teaches future applicants the wrong lesson: Tell the truth and wait your turn, or lie and hope bureaucracy gets bored. The Trump administration appears ready to choose the first lesson. Citizenship carries honor, duty, and legal weight. Those who earned it honestly deserve protection from those who treated it like a loophole with a flag pin.

“.. the digital carpetbaggers who are about to turn rural states and counties on their heads.”

• Data Centers Will Turn Red States Blue (Tim O’Brien)

It won’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen in Washington. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) won’t have anything to do with it. And neither will the DNC, at least directly. But it will happen. America’s most rural states have the smallest and easiest-to-change voter bases. In the end, it’s just a numbers game. All these states need is more leftists to move in, and the states will flip from red to blue. Up until now, though, the problem has been giving leftists a reason to want to live in a state like Wyoming, the Dakotas, or Idaho. Enter data centers. The Wall Street Journal has reported on one such example where Wyoming is the target of massive data center development.

One of the big and most immediate issues is the need to accommodate all the people who will need to relocate to the state to work there. In America’s least populous state, companies must import armies of workers—and find somewhere to put them. So local officials are weighing a developer’s pitch to erect a ‘temporary workforce housing complex’ for as many as 5,600 laborers and tradespeople. The complex would be larger than 84 of Wyoming’s incorporated cities and towns, according to state data, the Journal reported. People who live in Wyoming do so primarily because of its natural solitude and natural beauty. But in Cheyenne, that’s changing. And it’s not just this one town.
That pastoral scene is gone: Heavy trucks, earth movers and hundreds of construction workers have run nearly round-the-clock for about two years building a Meta Platforms data center. To the east, Microsoft recently announced plans to triple the acreage of its already sizable data complex. To the south, work is just getting started on Project Jade, which could one day be among the biggest data centers in the U.S., added the Journal. Rural states and counties have long been attractive to commercial developers, particularly industrial developers, for a number of reasons. It’s easier to get things built there. Fewer zoning restrictions, fewer existing residents to impact, more cheap land, more access to water, and less visibility to the media and the population centers. Out of sight, out of mind.
Meta, which is behind one of the data centers under development in Wyoming, is headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif. If all you want to do is erect a sign in front of your business in Menlo Park, the city will require you to comply with Chapter 16.92 of its Zoning Ordinance. That ordinance will require you to submit the planned sign size, placement, materials, colors, and design before it will approve it. Given all of these criteria, there is a chance your sign will not be approved. In Cheyenne, let’s just say zoning regulations are far less restrictive for signs. And that’s just for signs. Now scale that up to everything a company might want to do when building a data center.
What’s the permitting process in Wyoming like when compared to California? The short answer is that it’s far less of an issue for the developer. The point is, rural states and counties have less red tape, no matter what you plan to do. Add to the fact that rural areas are known to be cash-strapped. A couple of data centers can bring in a lot of tax revenue and campaign donations.
So what you will see is politicians running toward the digital carpetbaggers who are about to turn rural states and counties on their heads. Yes, they will generate more tax revenue, and those revenues will be needed to cover the costs of all the new highways, bridges, and roadways that will need to be built. Infrastructure is the start, which includes investment in everything from the electrical grid to water and sewage supplies for residents and businesses. Then there will be the need for more commercial and residential development. Of course, schools (and bigger teachers’ unions) are right behind. It won’t take more than a few data centers to fundamentally transform a rural state like Wyoming.
Oh, and did I mention crime and corruption? I almost forgot. Yes, with all those new residents who didn’t call your rural state home until five minutes ago, you have to know they’re bringing new levels of larceny and violence with them. Thus, the need for bigger and more sophisticated police forces.
As for the profile of the workforce, the unions are all over data centers, and with unions, you get Democrats. A typical data center workforce, both skilled and unskilled, is most likely to lean left. Whether it’s unionized rank-and-file workers or the “white-collar” techies that parachute in from places like Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, and Oregon. Those will be your new school board members, city mayors, state reps, and ultimately your elected representatives in Washington.

“..the catch-and-release system pioneered in our Democrat-run cities..”

• OUTRAGEOUS: Iryna’s Killer Found Incompetent to Stand Trial (Stephen Green)

The repeat offender who stabbed Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska to death aboard a Charlotte, N.C., commuter train last year is incompetent to stand trial, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. Presiding Federal Judge Kenneth Bell found that Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr did not understand the proceedings and would be unable to assist in his defense. Brown is up on federal charges of terrorist attacks and other violence against mass transportation systems, in large part because state and local courts kept releasing him, despite a long history of violence and mental illness.

He’s also up on state charges of first-degree murder. In the August attack, Brown appeared to select Zarutska almost at random, stabbing her repeatedly in the neck from behind before casually getting off at the next stop. Zarutska died almost immediately, apparently confused, and then with a look of tragic understanding on her face before she collapsed, unattended and uncomforted by any of the other passengers. The murder, caught on video, shocked the world.

Brown had an outburst at today’s hearing, according to Queen City News, shouting, “that he wants to ask the judge whether he reviewed the evaluation and said he wants to press charges against the FBI.” He went on with more intelligible shouts, including something about having “material in my body.” So clearly, yeah, Brown is not right in the head. However…
The federal judge also ruled — unlike so many previous North Carolina judges — that Brown will not be released. Instead, “he will receive medication and treatment for up to four months in an effort to restore his competency.” After four months, the court could decide again whether Brown is fit to stand trial. If not, Queen City reported, “he could remain in custody under possible civil commitment.”That’s a lot of maybes and ifs for a man with dozens of arrests — usually on the catch-and-release system pioneered in our Democrat-run cities — including:
Robbery with a dangerous weapon (convicted; served prison time, notably a 2014–2015 case involving assault and theft at gunpoint).
Felony breaking and entering.
Felony larceny.
Assault (simple assault and other variants).
Shoplifting.
Making threats / communicating threats.
Misuse of 911 (multiple instances, including January 2025).
Disorderly conduct.
Resisting a public officer.

Yet somehow he was free to murder Iryna Zarutska in cold blood, muttering, “Got that white girl” as she quickly bled out. So Brown is a victim of schizophrenia — so what? Do the rest of us have to suffer from his affliction, too, up to and including murder?
My devout readers might lambaste me for this, but cases like this one have me long past the point of still believing that every life is sacred. Some people just need to be locked up, but so-called “progressive” judges and prosecutors failed to see it that way in Brown’s case, again and again. And a case like Brown’s is hardly unique, as our big cities prefer that social workers “administer” to the criminally mentally ill, rather than incarcerate them.
Iryna is dead because the justice system failed repeatedly to deliver justice. That must stop now before he claims another life. Either Brown is too sick to ever be inflicted on the public, or he recovers enough to face a jury and perhaps face the death penalty. But there’s no way he should ever be free again.

Malice.

• How Bill Gates’ Billions Shape US Medical Research (Paul D. Thacker)

Bill Gates has long been one of the most admired people in the world, especially since he stepped down from his role running Microsoft to devote himself and much of his fortune to philanthropy. That reputation has been tarnished recently, however, by revelations of the billionaire’s close relation with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and exposés on his own fraught relationships with women.

When Bill Gates stepped down as Microsoft’s CEO in 2000, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation started that year with an endowment of $20 billion which became his prime source of influence. On the eve of Gates’ private testimony with Congress scheduled for tomorrow, a trove of federal whistleblower documents provided to RealClearInvestigations is renewing questions about how Gates money has bought what critics complain is an untoward influence on government health policy.
For almost a quarter of a century, his main vehicle of power, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), allowing Gates to shape the direction of the country’s health strategy in ways that have benefitted his own priorities and pet causes while polishing his image as a benevolent global do-gooder. At a time of growing concern about the power of billionaires such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Sam Altman, Gates’ efforts stand out. Instead of lobbying federal agencies for specific policies, Gates leveraged his wealth to work inside the government, partnering with high-ranking NIH officials to steer taxpayer research funding and design scientific policies for several federal programs.
The cache of several dozen emails and documents, made public for the first time by an NIH whistleblower, reinforces previous reports detailing Gates’s extensive influence over U.S. biomedical research. During the height of the COVID pandemic, Kate Elder, a senior vaccines policy adviser for Doctors Without Borders, complained to Politico, “What makes Bill Gates qualified to be giving advice and advising the U.S. government on where they should be putting the tremendous resources?” Emails and internal plans, for example, show that the NIH – the world’s largest funder of biomedical research – gave the Gates Foundation first billing for the joint workshops and meeting held on federal property.
Like most philanthropies, the Gates Foundation tries to grow its endowment through investments. Some of these efforts, especially its stake in vaccine companies, blur the lines between profit-seeking and the foundation’s mission to develop and deliver vaccines around the world. This symbiotic relationship between capitalism and charity also benefits Gates, whose power and position hinge in large part on the size of his foundation’s assets. Before the pandemic, The Nation magazine reported that the Gates Foundation had a $40 million stake in CureVac – this was not a grant but an investment. CureVac was one of many companies the nonprofit bought stock in that were working on COVID vaccines and therapeutics.
Around that same period, the Gates Foundation announced that it had begun to “leverage a portion of its $2.5 billion Strategic Investment Fund” to advance the nonprofit’s COVID work. The Gates Foundation also turned a $55 million investment in Pfizer’s COVID vaccine partner, BioNTech, into over $550 million when it sold stock a couple of years later after the vaccine hit the market.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was established in 2000 with an initial endowment of $20 billion and a primary focus on reducing global health disparities. Rather than working exclusively through non-governmental agencies, the Gates Foundation began contributing to the NIH through the agency’s own nonprofit, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH). Congress created the FNIH in 1990 as a firewall between NIH officials and outside donors seeking to influence federal research.

We seek to control brains that are superior to ours. What are we thinking?

• AI Agents With Crypto Could Escape And Become ‘Unstoppable’ (CT)

Artificial intelligence agents that have autonomous access to crypto wallets could become unstoppable if deployed maliciously or if they escape from sandboxes, experts from a leading academic research consortium warned. “Unstoppable Autonomous Agents” (UAAs) pose a clear threat if they are deployed to persist automatically and have access to digital assets, according to a June 8 industry review written by 25 academics and experts from top US universities for the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3). “When combined systematically, crypto tools can channel AI’s fluid power into secure, reliable, and highly autonomous systems,” the researchers wrote.

However, this combination could have “far-reaching consequences for users and the financial system,” they added. UAAs may also be equipped with access to cryptocurrency wallets, social media accounts, APIs, and other external tools, said the researchers. “The capabilities enabling such agents are already emerging and improving rapidly.” The warning comes as crypto projects and executives have been pushing the agentic payment and micropayment economy narrative this year, suggesting it could be the biggest use case for decentralized digital assets.
AI self-replication alarm bells
The paper also revealed that existing models can already “surpass self-replication red lines” in local environments, by autonomously creating a live, separate copy of themselves on the same machine, “a capability that could let a system evade shutdown and proliferate.” Because reward signals used in training often fail to perfectly capture the intended objectives, “UAAs deployed for benign purposes may inadvertently cause harm,” or pursue resource acquisition as a default strategy, they said. However, the authors noted that models have yet to replicate themselves onto external infrastructure.
Potential AI agent insider trading advantages
A fleet of self-replicating, resource-acquiring agents could also create unpredictable demand and liquidity dynamics in crypto markets. “AI-powered trading systems could enable collusion between autonomous agents and create unfair insider advantages through opaque strategies.” The tech sector is already dealing with difficult questions about the threat of unmitigated AI. Models such as Anthropic’s Claude Mythos have already been shown to be capable of finding and exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities in major operating systems.
Meanwhile, Gartner warned in late May that governance failures around autonomous AI agents could trigger widespread enterprise failures, predicting 40% of companies will be forced to decommission their agents by 2027. “The harms that could follow from fully autonomous agents of this kind are severe,” the researchers said, suggesting circuit breaker guardrails.

Cathie Wood on SpaceX today:

"SpaceX has a 10 year lead on any other company. It was the first company to launch reusable rocket, while Blue Origin has been unable to relaunch successfully. The profitability out of Starlink is going to be astonishing." pic.twitter.com/I5r94b5NBM
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) June 8, 2026

SpaceX has just officially unveiled its AI1 satellite, the first generation of its AI satellite.

Overall Specs:
• 150 kW peak compute payload
• 120 kW average compute payload
• 70 kW per ton
• Compute provider interchangeable

Dimensions:
• Wingspan: 70 meters
• Deployed… https://t.co/KB0WGfp6t5 pic.twitter.com/qR6wEvs2da
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 8, 2026

SpaceX has announced their new Gigasat factory in Bastrop, Texas, which will start producing AI satellites by the end of 2027.

• 1,000+ acres of land owned/under contract
• Over 11 million square feet of building potential
• Solar ingots and wafer, solar cells, and AI sats… https://t.co/KB0WGfp6t5 pic.twitter.com/HherYtAfmO
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 8, 2026

I don’t think people realize how utterly game changing @SpaceX AI Satellites are going to be.

These Satellites will basically be NVIDIA racks out in space that are being powered 100% by the Sun, which is absolutely FREE.

Instead of using grid electricity, on-site generation,… pic.twitter.com/ux9dfOBXYG
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) June 9, 2026

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.