The Automatic Earth

William Merritt Chase Back Of A Nude 1888

So here we have this former Russian ambassador explaining how the Donbass war began.

There was a coup d’état in Kyiv in 2014, financed by the US.

The new installed regime banned the Russian language, and the population of Crimea voted in a referendum for their independence… pic.twitter.com/lBY7qPWMO0

— Richard (@ricwe123) October 25, 2026

Wow. The peace deal scuppered by Zelensky was even better than we thought. Remember, Ukraine had already been fighting a civil war in its own Russian speaking regions for 8 years by the time Russia invaded in 2022. The invasion did not come out of nowhere. And yet Zelensky had an… https://t.co/ZCC2jnCOud

— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) October 25, 2026

Tucker Carlson argues that Western leaders oppose Russia because it remains a large majority-white Christian country.

He maintains that post-war demographic change across the West was deliberate, driven by a belief among ruling elites "that there is something inherently immoral… pic.twitter.com/OKCaEsztLC

— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) October 25, 2026

Ukraine and Russia had a deal to end the war six weeks after it started.

Initialed. Signed. Ready.

Ceasefire. Limited forces. Autonomy for Donbas. Crimea put off. Shelling stops.

Then Boris Johnson flew in.

He told Zelensky to walk away.

“This isn’t about your problems. It’s… pic.twitter.com/CB2PNsssdq

— Defiant Ghost (@TheDefiantGhost) October 25, 2026

The illegal, CIA sponsored Maidan Coup in 2014 Ukraine spiralled into a brutal Civil War with Western Ukrainian Nazis unleashing a brutal assault against ethnic Russians in the East

The architects and fathers of this catastrophe are the US and NATO pic.twitter.com/KqjEs82Y3W

— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) October 26, 2026

This is quite the story. Don’t use Starlink for military purposes!

“Each collision creates more fragments, which raise the odds of further collisions, leading to a self-sustaining cascade, a runaway cloud of satellite debris ..”

• A Good Point About the Problem that Zelenskyy Is Creating (CTH)

Elon Musk responded to an account on the X Platform that made a good point about how Zelenskyy’s unauthorized use of Starlink commercial satellites can create a downstream issue that is not being discussed.

FilmLadd – “Analysts who have been bashing Elon Musk for days over this don’t get it. Russia has the capacity to blow up satellites in space. They proved this on November 15, 2021, by firing a PL-19 Nudol missile at an old satellite of their own. The impact created a large debris cloud—more than 1,500 trackable fragments plus hundreds of thousands of smaller pieces.

The International Space Station was forced to implement safe-haven procedures: the seven-person crew (including Russian cosmonauts) sealed hatches and sheltered in the docked Soyuz and Crew Dragon spacecraft for several hours as the debris cloud repeatedly crossed their orbital path. The ISS even had to perform thruster burns on multiple occasions over the following months to avoid the debris cloud orbiting the Earth.

If Russia decides that the civilian Starlink satellite network is weaponized and fair game, we risk a serious Kessler syndrome. First modeled by NASA’s Donald Kessler and Burton Cour-Palais in 1978, it describes a scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit gets so high that collisions start producing debris faster than natural processes (mainly atmospheric drag) can remove.

Each collision creates more fragments, which raise the odds of further collisions, leading to a self-sustaining cascade, a runaway cloud of satellite debris that can make certain orbital bands increasingly hazardous. Space could become unusable for years to centuries.You like driving around with GPS? Starlink MUST remain a civilian entity.”

Elon Musk responds:

“This is indeed one of the main reasons that Starlink must remain a civilian operation. It can be used for infrastructure that is military, but it cannot be used for unequivocally offensive strikes that make it fair game to be struck back.

An adversary blowing up Starlink satellites would create a domino effect of destruction that would generate a vast field of debris making space unusable. [source Elon Musk] This is not a far-fetched concern. As recently as last week this issue was in the news cycle but generally not discussed too much.

Multiple media and government reports confirmed that Russia s military satellite Kosmos 2612 maneuvered extremely close between roughly 26 meters and 500 meters to the U.S.-registered commercial radar satellite ICEYE X36 in mid October 2026. This close approach is considered unprecedented and raised concerns about potential surveillance or counterspace activity.”

What Happened:
The Russian satellite Kosmos2612 performed a series of deliberate orbital maneuvers to approach ICEYE X36, a U.S.-registered commercial radar-imaging satellite operated by ICEYE US. U.S. officials described the behavior as deliberately reckless and consistent with rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) that could be used to inspect, shadow, or interfere with another spacecraft.

RF Europe Tracking firms such as LeoLabs observed the Russian satellite adjusting its orbit repeatedly to match and close in on ICEYE X36. Yahoo How Close Did They Get? Different sources reported varying closest-approach distances:

~26 meters (85 feet) at the modeled closest point (unconfirmed). Yahoo ~500 meters (1,640 feet) according to high-confidence assessments by LeoLabs. Yahoo Within 200 meters, according to some U.S. estimates. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Even the largest estimate (500 m) is considered extremely close in orbital terms.

Why It Matters:
ICEYE X36 provides synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) imagery, valuable for military intelligence and used by Ukraine. This likely explains Russian interest. hoodline.com The maneuver is considered the first known uncoordinated close approach between two active satellites in low Earth orbit where one owner did not give permission. Yahoo U.S. officials warned the behavior resembles on orbit weapons testing or at least hostile reconnaissance. Ars Technica

Current Status:
After the close approach, Kosmos2612 began drifting away, though analysts caution it could resume proximity operations or other Russian satellites may attempt similar maneuvers. Interesting Engineering Thankfully President Trump and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin are able to just pick up the phone and talk to each other. They have developed a relationship that allows direct talks and immediate deconfliction.

However, if U.S. Starlink satellites are being used by Ukraine, without authorization, to target objectives deep inside Russia, a nuclear-armed power, this could develop into a very serious issue. Thus, avoiding this problem becomes the issue that Elon Musk is trying to mitigate.

From an operational perspective, Russia now seemingly has a very valid claim that U.S. assets (a nuclear power) were being used to target Russia (another nuclear power). This is not a good scenario. Zelenskyy is putting the USA in a very difficult position. Musk is essentially trying to mitigate the potential threat from Zelenskyy s self-centered and short-sighted behavior. As much as we have criticized him in the past, Elon Musk is the right guy with the right position on this issue.

The craziest phase is over. Being able to pronounce AI is not sufficient anymore.

• Musk Warns Over 200 Ai Neoclouds Face ‘Guppy-level Death’ (CT)

Elon Musk warns that over 200 specialist AI cloud providers could fail or consolidate as lenders tighten up their purse strings.

Musk said Sunday on X that lenders had largely stopped providing financing to companies without substantial revenue streams outside AI data centers. He said SpaceX had secured $40 billion in debt financing for GPUs because of its investment-grade status and revenue from its Starlink satellite internet and rocket businesses. “That means the 200+ neoclouds are going to see guppy-level death and consolidation. Some will make it through, but not many,” he said.

Pretty much.

As of the past few weeks, debt markets have almost entirely shut off access to money for any company that doesn’t have substantial revenue independent of AI data centers.

SpaceX closed $40B of debt for GPUs, but we’re investment grade and have Starlink & launch…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 25, 2026

A neocloud is a specialist cloud company that rents out computing power for AI, usually through data centers packed with powerful GPUs. Musk’s warning follows an October forecast from research firm Gartner that more than 80% of neocloud providers will cease operating independently by 2030, as the industry struggles to generate sufficient returns on massive AI infrastructure investments.

The warnings could also have implications for Bitcoin miners that have pivoted into AI infrastructure. For example, IREN has expanded into AI cloud services, renting computing power to customers, while Core Scientific provides data center hosting for neocloud customers such as CoreWeave.

In its forecast, Gartner said AI providers are expected to spend nearly $1 trillion on infrastructure in 2026 and another $6 trillion between 2027 and 2030, but said there is insufficient revenue to deliver profitable returns on all those investments.

The pressure could be particularly acute for neoclouds, which must earn enough from AI computing services to sustain their operations. Larger cloud companies have more diversified revenue streams that could support AI investment for years, Gartner said.

Even strong market growth may not be enough. Gartner forecasts spending on AI-optimized infrastructure-as-a-service will rise from $66 billion in 2027 to $174 billion in 2030, but said most providers could struggle to recover their investment before the current generation of AI chips is replaced.

SpaceX sees sharp jump in AI revenue
Musk’s comments came days after SpaceX reported that its “Super Intelligence” business generated $7.6 billion in third-quarter revenue, up 830% from a year earlier and accounting for more than half of the company’s $14.6 billion in quarterly sales.

The company attributed the growth to new cloud services agreements, its acquisition of Cursor and increased adoption of its Grok AI model.

3 Trump prosecutors, Fani, Jack Smith, Comey. They all tried to abuse their -non-pritate- jobs to derail a democratically elected President. At some phase in his career.

• Fani Willis Is the Victim of Voter Fraud and I Can’t Help but Laugh (Margolis)

In August 2023, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the Georgia Democrat who made a name for herself chasing Donald Trump on behalf of Joe Biden, indicted Trump and 18 of his allies on racketeering charges over the 2020 election. It didn’t end well for her.

Willis was removed from the case after the world learned she’d had a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the lawyer she hired to run the prosecution. State prosecutor Peter Skandalakis took over and scrapped the whole thing last November, concluding that “it is not illegal to question or challenge election results.” Sometimes irony can be delicious, and this story is a juicy steak. Willis now says she’s a victim of voter fraud. Someone registered her to vote in New York. As a Republican. Living at Trump Tower.

The New York City Board of Elections told Willis it had canceled the registration because it suspected fraud. According to Willis, she never filled out the application, which carried the wrong date of birth, the wrong party affiliation, and a forged signature. Whoever submitted it listed a Trump Tower unit in Manhattan as her home address and the Fulton County Courthouse as her mailing address. Somebody put real thought into this one.

And, of course, she’s crying about it. “I’ve been threatened and harassed,” she told WSB-TV. Asked whether someone had committed a crime to harass her, she said “absolutely,” and she called the whole episode “quite upsetting.” In her telling, the fake registration is just the latest entry in a long string of harassment.

“But this is not the first crime that’s been committed to harass me because every time I’m threatened, my house is doxxed — all of those things are crimes,” Willis said. Talk about lack of self-awareness. Now, to be clear, forging someone’s signature on a government form is a crime, and the Board of Elections is weighing whether to file criminal charges. Willis says she’s also making sure the stunt doesn’t affect her eligibility to vote in Georgia.

Despite my amusement over this story, voter fraud is a serious problem, whether Democrats like to admit it or not, and that holds even when the victim spent years insisting anyone worried about election integrity was a threat to democracy. Still, you have to savor the moment. The woman who tried to turn election skepticism into a racketeering case is now the poster child for why election skepticism exists.

Election officials told Willis that nobody cast a ballot under the fake registration. Good. But here’s the problem: New York has no general photo ID requirement for voters, and in New York City, a registered voter usually doesn’t have to show ID to vote in person. Someone forged Willis’ signature once to get her on the rolls. Nothing in the law would have required that person to prove who they were at the polling place. And the fact is, if it got as far as it did, there’s clearly a problem with the system, which I suspect whoever was behind it was trying to prove.

Democrats spend every election cycle telling us voter fraud is a myth and voter ID laws are racist voter suppression. Willis just handed them a real-world case study of how easy it is to game a system that runs on the honor system. Will any of them learn from it? Don’t hold your breath.

What, Jack Smith is not squeaky clean??

• Emails Cast Doubt On Jack Smith Testimony (Solomon)

Emails sharply contradict Smith’s testimony just weeks ago to the Senate Judiciary Committee. He expressed confidence his team had followed the proper rules to keep attorney client privileged testimony out of the hands of agents and investigators who weren’t legally entitled to have it. Then-Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigators improperly saw potential attorney-client privileged materials on multiple occasions during its probes of President Donald Trump, calling into question the controversial prosecutor’s recent Senate testimony that his team had always followed so-called filter team protocols to protect such information.

Emails obtained under federal open records laws by The Oversight Project, a nonprofit investigative watchdog, show that Smith’s team internally acknowledged on at least six occasions between December 2022 and August 2023 when it had accidentally or improperly let suspected attorney-client privileged materials or other sensitive communications slide through filter team reviews. The documents were sent to frontline investigators, like FBI agents. Such access potentially breached the constitutional protections for defendants and witnesses whose communications were gathered under subpoena or search warrant.

“The Smith Special Counsel Office requests the FBI search its Outlook server and/or eVault for the following potentially privileged document which may have been inadvertently sent to members of the investigative team,” an Aug. 3, 2023 email from the prosecutor’s records officer stated in one such example. “If found, please notify us of the locations and take steps to purge the document from those locations,” the email added. “The SCO is working to resolve the issue with this sensitive document quickly and we appreciate your help in this matter.”

The multiple instances of failing to protect attorney-client communications created awkward situations for frontline staff, who even considered deleting the email trail of evidence. “I do not intend to read Brett’s notes, which I have not previously seen. I would delete the email, but for FOIA purposes perhaps I shouldn’t,” one official wrote in an Aug. 8, 2023 email that followed recalls of improperly forwarded evidence of attorney communications.

The emails stand in stark contrast to Smith’s testimony just weeks ago to the Senate Judiciary Committee where he expressed confidence his team had followed the proper rules to keep attorney client privileged testimony out of the hands of agents and investigators who legally weren’t entitled to have it. “Mr. Smith, it’s your testimony to this committee that you observed the proper investigative protocols at all times, including the filter team?” Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., asked at one point during the hearing.

The ex-prosecutor answered: “Yes, we sought to do things consistent with the law and department policy.”You can watch that testimony here,

The “proper rules” explained by Smith critics
When prosecutors seize material that is likely to include privileged communications, the DOJ manual requires a “filter team” made up of “agents and lawyers not involved in the underlying investigation” to pull out any protected communications before investigators see them. Marshall Yates, a former chief of the FBI’s congressional affairs office who now works as a strategic counsel for The Oversight Project, told Just the News he believes the emails his group obtained show “a violation of somebody’s constitutional rights” and conflict with Smith’s Senate testimony.

“Jack Smith’s abuse of power knew no limits, and what he testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee was that they followed filter team protocols,” Yates told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Friday. “He was very clear in that testimony. And what we found is a pattern … where prosecutors and investigators are seeing filtered information, non-filtered information that they’re reviewing before it goes to a filter team. And that is a violation of the protocols that Jack Smith testified that they followed.

“And this is in writing, in their own words, where the prosecutors and the investigators are admitting and flagging over and over again, at least six times in the documents, six different violations that we found in just a few months that they should have never seen them, and they admit to seeing it. They admit to opening it. They have a number of times that they open it and review it, and that is just not allowed,” he added. Smith has consistently and publicly denied wrongdoing and has broadly defended his work, telling senators he would pursue Trump all over again if given the chance.

 

 

Editor’s Note: John Solomon is working as an unpaid Special Government Employee as the chairman of the White House Government Transparency Task Force and has taken a leave of absence as Editor-in-Chief of Just the News while he serves in the administration.

“.. his certainty about his own righteousness helped him justify decisions other officials would have been expected to clear with their bosses.”

• Comey Faces New Charges: Spare Me the Integrity Lecture (David Manney)

Ever have an itch on your back you simply can’t reach? You scratch nearby, get a little relief, and then it’s back, irritating you just as much as before.James Comey has occupied that spot in my political consciousness for years. Every controversy brings another explanation, another defense of his judgment, and another opportunity for him to present himself as the grown-up everyone else should trust.

I don’t trust him. His sanctimony irritates me almost as much as the conduct he keeps explaining. My distrust has a documented foundation. During the Hillary Clinton email investigation, Comey concealed plans for his July 2016 announcement from Justice Department leadership because he feared his superiors would stop him. He also instructed subordinates to keep quiet. The inspector general called that conduct “extraordinary and insubordinate.”

The public shouldn’t have to admire a former FBI director before demanding answers from him. Years in high office should increase his obligation to explain himself, especially when his own conduct departed from the rules. Apparently, respect for institutional rules became negotiable when Comey decided James Comey had a better idea. Forgive me if I’m unwilling to accept another lecture about his exceptional integrity.

Prosecutors now allege he unlawfully transmitted national defense information and conspired to do so. The charging document alleges that on Oct. 5, 2016, he directed a disclosure to a reporter through intermediaries. These are Espionage Act charges concerning an alleged disclosure, not an accusation that he worked for a foreign intelligence service.

I’d like to see those allegations tested thoroughly. Comey’s former position makes the questions more consequential, and his hostility toward President Donald Trump shouldn’t buy him immunity from answering them.

Still, this case hasn’t arrived with the evidentiary clarity that some headlines suggest. Prosecutors filed a criminal information rather than obtaining a grand jury indictment. A three-page accusation can t tell us how persuasive the witnesses will be or whether the government can prove an unlawful, willful disclosure.

The allegation is more concrete than an argument over seashells spelling 8647. Concrete, however, doesn’t automatically mean easier to prove. Public acknowledgment of some communication would still leave questions about its contents, authorization, and criminal intent.

The election timing also deserves precision. The DOJ filed under seal on October 5, saying it sought to preserve the case before a 10-year deadline. Comey’s lawyers requested that the filing become public on October 26. Blaming the administration for choosing that public unveiling would omit a rather inconvenient fact.

From Reuters: The new case adds to the legal fights facing Comey, whom the Justice Department has already charged twice, accusing him of lying to Congress about media leaks and threatening President Donald Trump in a social media post. A judge dismissed the false statements case, while the threats case remains pending. Comey’s lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, said in a statement that the document “purports to charge Mr. Comey with crimes that he did not commit.” The criminal information was filed on October 5, but was unsealed on Monday at the request of Comey’s lawyers.

A Justice Department spokesperson described the maneuver to halt the statute of limitations as a “widely recognized practice in federal court.” Comey denies wrongdoing. His lawyers argue the filing didn’t meet the deadline and say two investigations during Trump’s first term ended without charges, including a 2018 review by John Durham. Those earlier decisions require an explanation from today’s prosecutors: What changed?

From the Associated Press: The effort to prosecute Comey is also part of a series of politically charged investigative actions the department has undertaken in the run-up to next week’s midterm elections. “Well, they’re back — again,” Comey said in a video statement Monday. “It would almost be funny if it weren’t such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice – one that we cannot become numb to. Nothing’s changed with me; I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid of these people — and I still believe in an independent federal judiciary.”

Politically, a collapsed prosecution would give Comey another chance to play his favorite role: the indispensable public servant besieged by lesser men. I have no appetite for funding the next installment. But an approaching election shouldn’t erase a legitimate prosecution deadline. If the evidence supports charges and the filing was lawful, prosecutors should proceed. They should also present their case with far more discipline than Comey showed when he decided ordinary supervision was beneath his mission.

I suspect his certainty about his own righteousness helped him justify decisions other officials would have been expected to clear with their bosses. His documented conduct supports that judgment. A criminal verdict requires proof of the charged acts. Comey deserves hard questions, and prosecutors deserve scrutiny of their answers. My itch remains, but I want a case that holds up in court. Another failed prosecution would leave him explaining his greatness while the rest of us keep scratching.

Obama claims Iran is stronger than before.

If that were true, it would be because of him. “Obama handed Tehran massive sanctions relief and a pathway to nuclear weapons. Iran repeatedly violated the agreement, and it never paid a price.”

• Obama Gets Destroyed After Making Bizarre Claim About Iran (Matt Margolis)

Former President Barack Obama kept his promise and returned to the campaign trail, rallying in Michigan for Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. As we pointed out previously, the visit was a clear sign El-Sayed knows he’s in trouble, if not desperate. El-Sayed spent nearly a decade calling Obama’s presidency a failure, and now he needs the man he trashed to rescue his campaign.

So it’s hardly surprising that, as PJ Media’s Tim O’Brien noted, Obama’s speech seemed more self-serving than focused on El-Sayed. The former president used the stage to settle scores, and he saved his sharpest jabs for President Donald Trump’s handling of the Iran war. That’s a bold move from a man whose own foreign policy record was devastatingly awful. The evidence stacks up fast.

Start with Syria. Obama warned Bashar al-Assad that using chemical weapons would cross a “red line,” then backed away from planned strikes after al-Assad’s chemical attack on his own people in 2013. America’s word lost its weight overnight, and every adversary on the planet took notice. Then there’s Libya. Obama’s stupid 2011 intervention toppled Moammar Gadhafi, a dictator who was contained and posed no threat, and the country spiraled into years of instability and factional violence, leading to the rise of ISIS.

Then, in 2012, when terrorists attacked U.S. facilities in Benghazi and killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, he lied about what really happened. Obama also badly underestimated ISIS, which seized huge stretches of Iraq and Syria in 2014. That same year, he let Russia annex Crimea and back separatists in eastern Ukraine.

And then there’s the crown jewel of his failures: the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Obama handed Tehran massive sanctions relief and a pathway to nuclear weapons. Iran repeatedly violated the agreement, and it never paid a price. Anyone can make legitimate criticisms of the current war with Iran. Obama didn’t make any of them.

“Seven months later, how’s that war going?” Obama asked. “Our allies and bases have been attacked. American soldiers have been killed. Hundreds of Americans have been wounded. We’ve run down our stock of missiles, dangerously low. And, this is the thing, Iran now has veto power over the Strait of Hormuz where oil goes through to get to the world. So they’re in a stronger strategic position now than before the war started. That was a decision this administration made. And that is the reason that the price of oil is up. And the price of diesel’s up. And the price of just about everything is up. And by the way, it’s not over. It’s still going on.”

What? Iran is stronger now? That’s a bizarre claim, even by Obama’s standards. Let’s think about this for a minute. Strikes have decimated Iran’s senior leadership. Its conventional military has taken extensive damage. Its missile capabilities have suffered a substantial hit, and its drone operations have been disrupted. Its energy infrastructure and industrial base are battered.

On top of that, Iran’s economy is in shambles, with crazy inflation and high unemployment. Its oil exports and revenue have dropped to $0. Almost its entire navy sits at the bottom of the sea. By no objective measure is Iran in a stronger strategic position today than it was when Obama gave the regime billions of dollars and a pathway to a nuclear weapon.

Iran has been a problem for decades, and Obama and other presidents either ignored it or made it worse. Obama, more than anyone, fed the beast. Naturally, he got destroyed on social media for his absurd take. “Because nothing says ‘stronger strategic position’ like losing your navy and air force and having your vital shipping route blockaded and your economy in free fall,” Brit Hume pointed out.

“The regime is missing its Ayatollah, its missile force, its nuclear scientists, its ability to move oil, its shadow fleet, its navy, its steel industry, and its stable currency,” national security analyst Rebeccah Heinrichs of the Hudson Institute wrote. “Other than that, ‘strong’.”

“.. he is willing to overlook El-Sayed’s past (and likely present) racism to boost the terror-tied, sharia-loving candidate’s campaign.”

• Incompetent President, Fake Doctor: Trump Slams Obama and El-Sayed (Salgado)

President Donald Trump is angling for a knockout punch against Michigan Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and his campaign backer Barack Obama.

Remember how Obama claimed the “Arab spring” was going to bring freedom to the Middle East, and he ended up fueling the creation of ISIS? Remember how he gave the Iranian regime a deal that boosted its nuclear program and increased terrorism threats not only in the Middle East but around the world? Obama has always had empathy with jihadis, because like them he hates freedom, America, and Judeo-Christian civilization. This is why he is willing to overlook El-Sayed’s past (and likely present) racism to boost the terror-tied, sharia-loving candidate’s campaign.

On Saturday, Trump addressed Obama’s campaigning for El-Sayed. “Obama was a grossly incompetent President! He paid off Iran with $Billions, and gave them a road to a Nuclear Weapon. He said that Crooked Hillary Clinton was going to WIN, he campaigned hard for her, and she lost in all directions and ways,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Obama, Trump went on, “then campaigned full out for Kamala, and likewise, she lost. Now he’s campaigning for a Muslim Brotherhood Jihadist, who hates Jews and Blacks and AMERICANS and TRUMP, and he is going to lose, also. He’s a Fake Doctor, who runs what is considered to be the WORST CLINIC IN AMERICA. I won Michigan, BIG, have brought back the Car Industry, the Air Force Base, and everything else. Also, more jobs than ever before.”

Trump insisted, “Michigan doesn’t want an arrogant, Open Borders, Fake Doctor, Jihadist, whose reputation will only get worse as more information is revealed – And there’s plenty. VOTE FOR MIKE ROGERS! He will never let you down!” El-Sayed is an unlicensed doctor who keeps claiming his socialist healthcare policies are a result of his medical expertise.

I would disagree with Trump only to the extent of saying I don’t think Obama was incompetent. I think Obama, Alinsky-ite as he was, aimed to start a race war, wreck our Republic, expand government bureaucracy, and help America’s enemies.

As for El-Sayed, his sister posted multiple times about the fact that their family is longtime Muslim Brotherhood supporters, and El-Sayed himself said in a viral video clip that he had dual citizenship in sharia-enforcing Egypt. Furthermore, El-Sayed’s campaign surrogate Hasan Piker has repeatedly made extremely racist comments and argued that America was worse than Al-Qaeda and deserved 9/11. El-Sayed himself published research discouraging Arab women from “interethnic mating.”

Between the two of them, Obama and El-Sayed have a horrifying record of racism, jihad, and anti-Americanism.

“Trump has, at times, referred to El-Sayed by his first name, or by his full middle name of Abdulrahman.”

Mohamed Abdulrahman El-Sayed, US Senator.

That should not be. That would be the end of America.

• El-Sayed Hits Back At Trump: ‘Senator Mohamed To You’ (Whedon)

Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed this weekend took aim at President Donald Trump over his repeated references to his first name of “Mohamed.” Trump has, at times, referred to El-Sayed by his first name, or by his full middle name of Abdulrahman.

The Democratic candidate has faced scrutiny over his ties to Hasan Piker, a controversial streamer who has said that America deserved 9/11. He has also faced allegations of links to the Muslim Brotherhood. In a rally in Grand Rapids on Sunday, though, El-Sayed brushed off Trump’s criticisms and said, “I don’t care how he pronounces my name.”

“I don’t even care that he remembers my whole name. Because he can just go on and call me ‘senator’ after November. I will be Senator Mohamed to you, bro,” he said, as quoted by The Hill. El-Sayed is facing off against former Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., in what is expected to be one of the most competitive Senate races of the cycle, and a pivotal contest in the battle for the upper chamber.

“it is a direct assault on the very foundation of the American court system. The juror is the thumping heart of that system — a group of empowered citizens who swear to consider cases without prejudice or prejudgment.”

• Jury Nullification (Jonathan Turley)

‘“You have this superpower.”That statement from Qiana Johnson is part of reported training material for residents to engage in “jury nullification,” whereby jurors ignore the law and incriminating facts in a given case to nullify any prosecution.

Notably, Johnson is the newly elected clerk of Prince George’s County Circuit Court in the Maryland suburbs of Washington. She is part of a growing left-wing movement gaining traction with voters that calls for radical changes to the U.S. legal system. The effort is to engineer “Twelve Angry Men” scenarios on real juries — but unlike in the movie, the jurors are actually being trained to ignore evidence and deliberations in favor of political outcomes.

In her election campaign for her current job, Johnson had to overcome questions about her own criminal record. But many voters are willing to give others a second chance when they show evidence of rehabilitation and contrition. The more immediate concern might be embracing a practice that is expressly barred by courts. Johnson is part of a new investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee into groups training citizens to engage in jury nullification — including Free DC and Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, where Johnson was reportedly a board member.

One such document allegedly declares, “You have this superpower, and that superpower is you are able to nullify that goddamn jury.” Far-left professors have long advocated that juries use jury nullification. Georgetown Law professor and MSNBC legal analyst Paul Butler has long advocated that Black jurors engage in nullification in cases involving Black defendants. Butler wrote in the Washington Post in 2016: “Confronting the racial crisis in criminal justice, jury nullification gives jurors a special power to send the message that Black lives matter.”

The problem of biased jurors has long plagued the legal system. It can work both ways in ignoring the law to refuse or secure convictions. Past cases involving President Trump and other Republicans have raised bias concerns over the jury pool in cities such as Washington, D.C., and New York City. But jury nullification is different; it is a direct assault on the very foundation of the American court system. The juror is the thumping heart of that system — a group of empowered citizens who swear to consider cases without prejudice or prejudgment.

It is not a crime to advocate jury nullification. Moreover, there are legitimate concerns raised by investigations into such groups. about chilling the rights of free speech and association. In my view, such advocacy is protected speech under the First Amendment. But that is not always the case for lawyers, who can face professional consequences. Many courts bar lawyers from arguing for jury nullification. Calling for jury nullification can also present sanctionable conduct for lawyers in a given case.

Even if this is protected speech, voices in both parties need to denounce these efforts. It effectively encourages jurors to lie when they take their oath to follow the law and to shed any outside bias or prejudgment. It is an effort to enlist jurors in using cases to achieve political and social goals at the expense of the rule of law.

The professors and pundits supporting these campaigns are actively seeking a hostile takeover of the courts without explaining to these citizens the implications of such dishonesty. Indeed, Chairman James Comer has detailed how groups like Freedom Trainers are allegedly seeking to enlist potential jurors while, according to the committee, instructing trainees not to “signal the agenda.”

Instead of addressing the impact of politicizing our jurors, these groups are portraying nullification as “a powerful tool for ensuring fairness and justice.” These efforts are coming at a time of full assault on our judicial system from the left. Leading Democrats are calling for the packing of the Supreme Court, to reverse decisions with which they disagree. Every leading Democratic candidate for the 2028 presidential nomination has now thrown the court to the baying mob.

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is only the most recent, declaring, “We should seriously look at expanding the court while the Democrats are in power.” From the trial jury to the Supreme Court, many on the left now seek to take control of institutions that have long been the rock of this Republic. If successful, justice will become merely an extension of politics.

What is so disconcerting is that there is no longer any pretense of principle. Law professors are demanding that pledges to pack the Court be used as litmus tests for politicians, and senators are calling for an instant liberal majority on the Court to carry out the “will of the people.” Liberal professors have long demanded revolutionary change to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”

The attack on the American jury may be the most insidious of these efforts. Our legal system invests average citizens with the power to do justice. Every community plays a role in upholding the principles of blind justice. As with court-packing, jury nullification is a previously odious practice now being portrayed as a noble cause. It is part of the conditioning of voters to accept foundational changes to our constitutional system, to further a radical agenda harmful to the nation.

The juror’s role was indeed a “superpower,” but not the one these professors and pundits are pushing. It is a power against prejudice and partisanship; it is the power of doing simple justice in a nation committed to the rule of law.

Somaliland and Somalia are two different countries.

• Somaliland Accuses Ilhan Omar of Leaking Classified Info to Somalia (Salgado)

Another day, another Omar scandal, another piece of evidence indicating foreign loyalties and domestic betrayal.

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) father participated in genocide in Somaliland, and Omar herself has connections to top Somali thugs, so unsurprisingly there is a natural antipathy between Omar and Somaliland. The latest (resurrected) accusation from the breakaway African republic against Omar is that she leaked classified information to Somali leaders.

Ali Hassan Mohamed, former Somaliland minister of information, originally posted his accusation against Omar in 2024, but the Republic of Somaliland is highlighting the accusation again to emphasize why Omar is a threat to American security.

This is not the first time that Ilhan Omar created animosity between Somalis. She was heavily involved in the conflict that took place in Las-anod. In December 2022, she visited Garowe, where she leaked information to some of the Somali leaders pertaining a meeting between the… pic.twitter.com/M4eCQDEnHZ

— Ali Hassan Mohamed (@AliHassanMoham) January 29, 2024

On Sunday, the Republic of Somaliland’s official account wrote of Omar, “She served on that same [House Foreign Affairs] committee and pressed Somalian leaders to act against Somaliland before relations between the Republic of Somaliland and the United States grows stronger. Months later on 6 February 2023, the Las Anod conflict erupted. Hundreds were killed and thousands displaced in a move that sought to destabilize Somaliland — but failed. This is how a foreign agent operates.”

Omar, whose real last name is Nur Said Elmi like her murderous father, is in America just to exploit our systems for her own benefit while still helping out the Islamic dictators back home. Somaliland is pro-America, but Somalia definitely isn’t.

By the way, the U.S. federal investigation into Omar’s immigration fraud includes not only the evidence that she married her brother, but also the total lack of record for her father’s naturalization as a citizen. Omar asserted that she had become a United States citizen through her father while she was still a minor, although she likely tampered with her birth year and he apparently lied about his citizenship status. Given all this, it is entirely possible that we have had a noncitizen Somali warlord’s daughter sitting in Congress all these years. No wonder she said that she would represent Somalia’s interests in Congress.

Omar is not just a liar and a criminal; she is a foreign asset embedded in our government. It’s time she is out of Congress and deported back to the country she claims to love so much.

It smells.

Fishy.

“..other candidates complicated the numbers during the first round, taking a combined 9.317 million votes. [..] those extra candidates were generally to the right of Bolsonaro and even endorsed him after they lost. Are we to believe every single one of their voters suddenly thought Lula was a better option?

• Something’s Rotten in Brasília: Did Lula Just Use Biden’s Playbook? (Anderson)

After elections held earlier this month, Brazil looked like it could swing to the right and away from a fourth term for its little communist dictator, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Lula’s opponent, Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, achieved far more of the vote than expected. However, neither candidate received enough to avoid a runoff.

But it wasn’t just that. What happened down the ballot looked like a good indicator of what was to come. A win for Flavio, a win for the right, and a win for Brazil and the entire Western Hemisphere. I’ll admit that I’ve been analyzing this for a year and felt very confident about it (and I’ve yet to be wrong about these things; not to toot my own horn), but I also knew it was possible that Lula would cheat. Commies gonna commie, right?

For many of us here in the United States, it reeked of 2020. An incumbent who trailed in the first round staged a late surge to claim victory after a last-minute judicial intervention extended voting hours, transport disruptions appeared in areas favorable to the eventual winner, and the losing candidate immediately refused to concede while alleging the rules had been changed midstream.

Several Spanish-speaking media outlets have quoted Donald Trump as saying it was like something out of the “Joe Biden playbook,” but I haven’t been able to confirm that quote myself, though he wouldn’t be wrong. It’s also giving me 2024 Nicolas Maduro vibes. Many are calling the win “historic” because it’s been nearly four decades since an incumbent who trailed in the first round made such a comeback. But is it historic? Or did someone have this planned all along?

On October 4, Lula finished second with roughly 45.16% to Bolsonaro’s 47.03%. Three weeks later, the certified totals showed Lula at 51.79%, with about 64.3 million votes, and Bolsonaro at 48.21%. I’m not going to go through all the math, but it appears that Lula gained 10,376,694 votes and won by 4,430,191.

Lula claims it was all about getting out the vote. Abstention did fall between rounds, and around three million more Brazilians voted in the runoff. There is also the matter that this was a two-man race, and other candidates complicated the numbers during the first round, taking a combined 9.317 million votes.

But there is still something fishy. For example, those extra candidates were generally to the right of Bolsonaro and even endorsed him after they lost. Are we to believe every single one of their voters suddenly thought Lula was a better option?

And then there’s the rule change. Just after the polls closed around 5 p.m., Supreme Federal Court Justice Cristiano Zanin extended voting nationwide by two hours. We already know that Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court is corrupt, but Zanin specifically was appointed to the court in 2023 by Lula. Oh yeah, and he was Lula’s personal defense attorney during el presidente’s corruption trial. He cited “transportation” issues and pointed out that some areas had reduced bus services. But the voting stations that were already closed couldn’t be reopened, so the extended voting was uneven across cities.

For what it’s worth, Bolsonaro had asked for extended voting hours in areas that were impacted by heavy rains, but Lula wanted the nationwide changes. Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE) president Kassio Nunes Marques called the extension “unprecedented” and said it should have been planned in advance.

On election night, Fl·vio refused to concede, and rightfully so. He accused Lula’s side of changing the rules in the middle of the game and said he would seek an annulment of the vote.

On Monday, the younger Bolsonaro was visiting his father, Jair, when, he said, federal police stopped him and asked him to surrender his ordinary and diplomatic passports. He was also told he could not leave the country. He says the order came from none other than Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes and it was based on “remarks from his younger brother Eduardo Bolsonaro, ` who said on a podcast last week that Flavio should leave the country if he lost the runoff election to Lula.”

Moraes, of course, is the justice who oversaw the investigation and conviction of Jair Bolsonaro on coup-plotting charges after the 2022 election. He was also sanctioned by Marco Rubio in July 2025 for “serious human rights abuse.” According to the State Department, “He has used his position to weaponize courts, authorize arbitrary pre-trial detentions, and suppress freedom of expression.” The Trump administration also accused him of “abusing his authority, creating a censorship complex, [and] blatantly targeting political opponents.”

There are many things to question here, but if everything is on the up-and-up, why did they go after the supposed loser’s passports less than 24 hours after the election? In what other countries is this a normal part of the ordinary democratic process? This is exactly the kind of thing the U.S. has already sanctioned Moraes for.

The left can’t win fairly, so it has to cheat. I have a feeling this will only get uglier before it’s over, much like what happened in Brazil in 2022. The question is whether having Trump in office vs. Biden will make a difference.

“We are also starting to consult federal workers on how to do some blocking inside the govt agencies during emergency situations — but please do not put that on the form.” —Eric Manton, of the DRG .

They put it on the form, though, cuz somebody screwed up. Oopsie. . . .

• The Grotesque Tangle of Sedition (James Howard Kunstler)

Color Revolution Ninja, the Lovely Daniella Reiff

Get this: the reason that a color revolution is underway at all in America is not really political anymore — if it ever even was. It’s because a whole lot of people have committed crimes against this country. And with each wave of attempted sedition, they have compounded their crimes with more seditious acts, arrant hoaxes, lawfare, election fraud, censorship, and wholesale looting of taxpayer dollars to keep themselves out of prison.

That’s what USAID was all about, and why it was taken down early in Trump 2.0. It was a nexus of racketeering and the home-base of the Deep State’s foot soldiers, bureaucrats who actually managed the money streams to NGOs that ran everything from election rigging operations to vast social services fraud in blue states, in concert with a Democratic Party that had nothing but rackets to keep it going.

That’s how the USAID’s defunct Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) has morphed into the new Democracy Renewal Group (DRG). This new DRG operates under another project called Branch-4 — as in a fourth branch of government, the permanent bureaucracy — and Branch-4 operates under an NGO called the Action Center on Race and the Economy Institute (ACRE Institute), a 501(c)(3) public charity based in Chicago (EIN 82-1199695). Note, the ACRE Institute’s primary funders include the Ford Foundations and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. You see how byzantine this is, echoing exactly the hyper-complex administrative workings of government bureaucracy itself?

And so, that’s why, for instance, one Eric Manton, a former USAID employee now working with DRG said, “. . . we are also starting to consult federal workers on how to do some blocking inside the govt agencies during emergency situations.” Blocking? What they mean by that is federal employees lodged in the official agencies should “help run out the clock. . . develop selective hearing. . . forgetfulness. . . or blame your workload” for whatever it takes to block enforcement of any executive action proposed by the Trump administration.

Those tactics are explicitly proposed by another org, the Federal Workers Alliance for Democracy (FWAD formerly known as Federal Workers Against DOGE), which is affiliated with DRG primarily as a partner in the Renew American Democracy (RAD) strategy and through the broader Branch-4 ecosystem. Confused yet? You should be. The flak-storm of acronyms is beloved by Lefty-leftists for exactly that purpose.

RAD is run by Daniella Reiff, a 20-year veteran of USAID color revolution programs in Europe and Africa. Her co-coordinator at RAD is one Paul Zeitz, an osteopath and rabbi who worked previously for USAID in Africa and for the State Department as Director of the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development, whatever that was. FWAD is led by one Beverly Schreiber

You might ask: why has the FBI not paid a visit to Beverley Schreiber to assess how she is organizing her members to “block” actions that the chief executive orders agencies to carry out? The Federal Workers Alliance for Democracy must have a membership list. If their mission is to block the work of their agencies, as explicitly directed by FWAD, shouldn’t they be fired from their jobs?

And let’s not leave out a few other sketchy orgs and their leaders: Erica Chenoweth, who operates the United Democracy Alliance (UAD) out of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, which likewise operates under “umbrella” of the Horizon Project, led by Maria J. Stephan and Julia Roig. Stephan was lead foreign affairs officer in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (whatever that means), roughly 2009–2014. She was also co-director the Future of the Authoritarianism Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which is funded by George Soros’s Open Society org. Julia Roig was President and CEO of PartnersGlobal, funded by USAID, the State Dept., the Ford Foundation, and George Soros’s Open Society Foundation.

What you see is a concoction of intertwined subversive endeavors with more gears and escapements than a Schwarzwalduhren cuckoo clock, all operating under the banner of “Our Democracy,” by which they really mean their prerogative to run your world (and punish you for objecting). This includes running a coup against the current chief executive of the USA. Much of this information has been uncovered by the tireless and diligent researcher Jennica Pounds, known as Data Republican on X. She remarked Monday morning: “What makes 2026 different is that it’s the first time we know of that we found an operational, short-term plan to actually do a coup.”

Coincidentally, weird, coup-ish events played out yesterday in the Brazilian election. A judge who had been President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s personal lawyer ordered the polls to stay open an additional two hours until enough votes were “found” to haul Lula across the victory line over his opponent, Flavio Bolsonaro, a Trump ally. Chalk one up for the Globalists. Call it a DoorDash color revolution. Bolsonaro has refused to concede and is officially contesting the election. Expect street demonstrations by Bolsonaro supporters over this caper. Perhaps riots. Maybe Lula getting string up Mussolini-style.

American coupsters will point to that as evidence that Trump supporters will riot after the US midterms. It’s all a giant mindfuck. Meanwhile, our coupsters have been outed. We know who they are and what they’re up to. And we are all waiting to see what federal law enforcement aims to do about it.

By Ksenia Smertina, senior lecturer at the HSE Institute for Media, expert at the Russian International Affairs Council on Eastern and Central Europe

• Europe’s Next Crisis Is Already Hiding Behind The Riots (Smertina)

These days, European headlines resemble reports from a war zone: from stormed city halls in Marseille and Lille, to looted boutiques along the French Riviera, burned tourist offices in Lyon, and clouds of tear gas enveloping the Élysée Palace. The ‘day of rage’ in France drew over 800,000 protesters onto the streets – an event that was dismissed by Paris and the European mainstream as merely the “spontaneous revolt of the outskirts” or a “raid by migrants.” However, a closer look at the ‘rebels’ reveals respectable, bourgeois-looking students and well-off citizens engaging in destruction and violence.

None of these people know what to expect from the future of mainstream European politics. In this shifting landscape, old institutions are losing their legitimacy, while right-wing political forces – whose ideas are increasingly seen as rational amid the chaos – are emerging on the broader European stage.

Portrait of the protesters: what happened?
French President Emmanuel Macron arrogantly advised the people to express their political will in six months during the forthcoming presidential elections; however, the streets responded to Macron’s proposal with looting and arson targeting government buildings. This reaction serves as a precise diagnosis of the French political system. The country’s civic framework can no longer hold society together and there is no confidence in a stable future.

Many believe that the current riots in France are a “spontaneous revolt of the outskirts.” However, as Fyodor Lukyanov, Research Director at the Valdai International Discussion Club writes, we are witnessing an inverted version of May 1968. Nearly 60 years ago, the nationwide wave of protests led by students and leftist intellectuals shaped the liberal framework that has dominated global and European politics ever since. Today, it has reached the point of aggressive absurdity. The old narratives of ‘liberation’ have been successfully adopted by the bourgeois youth, whose behavior is more violent that of an uncivilized tribe, as HSE professor Alexander Filippov notes.

But then, one may remember that, centuries ago, the Bastille wasn’t stormed by migrants either. How did this happen? The liberal establishment in Paris and Brussels has become totally detached from ordinary citizens. Its agenda is completely irrelevant to society. Having imposed a rigid “confrontation with Russia” at the expense of the prosperity and development of its own people, the EU offers its citizens no viable ideas for survival.

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen suggested at a Paris business forum in August that Europeans should tighten their belts and become a continent that “produces, invests, and protects” by tapping into “idle” domestic savings. Her logic implies using household savings to fund the real economy through the Capital Markets Union. Clearly, the proposal to dip into citizens’ savings while shifting the risks of factory bankruptcies onto them can only be met with outrage by the decent bourgeoisie brought up on ‘European ideals’.

The system has set a trap for itself: in order to retain its waning power, the left-liberal establishment is forced to close its eyes to the riots of anarchists and radical leftists. The authorities fear street protests far less than the rise of their right-wing opponents. The liberal mainstream would rather burn cities than allow rational thinkers with worldviews grounded in national interests to come to power.

Despite their passion for destruction, the rioters have no idea how to reconstruct the future of united Europe. Moreover, as Irina Maltseva, head of the ‘France and Francophone countries: Politics, economics, culture’ project at the HSE Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies points out, the spontaneous street protests will inevitably die down as the presidential campaign approaches. Protests will wane, leaving us to wonder – what comes next?

The fight between left-wing and right-wing forces in Europe
The escalating competition between right and left-wing factions in Europe has transcended mere philosophical debate. It would be a mistake to view each new crisis as an isolated anomaly within the EU. Incidents like the riots in Paris, the brief unrest in Milan, the migration chaos in Ceuta, or the victory of the far-right in Germany’s Saxony-Anhalt state are all interconnected threads in the same narrative, best described as the collapse of the prevailing model.

Beneath the ideological clash between the right and left lies a harsh economic reality – the struggle over who will bear the costs of the sanctions crisis orchestrated by the European Commission. The establishment has attempted to persuade the world that a post-industrial economy – characterized by AI integration, cryptocurrency transactions, a shift toward green energy, Capital Markets Union speculations, and “normative” values – is more important than factories, raw materials, ports, and affordable energy. However, this is a path to economic self-destruction. The street protests in France and Italy vividly illustrate that Europe can no longer afford to uphold its previous social contract. Budget deficits are spiraling out of control and are becoming the EU’s economic curse.

Budapest serves as a prime example of this systemic failure. The Hungarian Parliament is currently reviewing the national budget proposal. Prime Minister Peter Magyar acknowledged that the country is grappling with a record-breaking, suffocating budget deficit of 7.5% to 8.3% of GDP. The economic strategies of past years, reliant on uninterrupted cheap energy from Russia and long-term loans from China, have collapsed under the pressure of the REPowerEU plan.

The Hungarian government’s only remaining support mechanism is the so-called ‘solidarity contribution’ tax imposed on excessive profits in opposition-led cities, but local governments can no longer afford to pay it amid the current crisis. To prevent Hungary from experiencing large-scale social upheavals similar to those in France, Magyar is urgently implementing a progressive tax system, cutting government contracts, imposing a wealth tax on billionaires, and escalating tensions with EU leadership by demanding the immediate unfreezing of €16 billion in EU grants, while threatening Orban with lifetime imprisonment if he pushes the opposition onto the streets.

The analysis of the internal dynamics of economic issues in the EU, however, should not boil down to a simplistic equation of ‘budget deficit = street protests’. For example, we may wonder why there are no protests in Poland and Romania, despite similar or even more severe budget deficits (7.3% and 7.9%, respectively), while Albania (a rather financially stable country and non-EU member) is engulfed in turmoil and the Flamingo Revolution.

The answer seems to lie in the differing nature of the deficit and the resilience of national institutions. In Poland and Romania, budget shortfalls are currently masked by rampant electoral populism and ‘social bribes’ – like Romania’s subsidies for farmers or Poland’s price caps at gas stations.

And this is just a foreword.

“Welcome to the 11th and final essay in our series “Landmark Speeches in American History.” We are celebrating America’s 250th anniversary with articles by prominent authors about how some of the greatest speeches in our history—by celebrated orators like Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr.—honored the vision of our founding document, the Declaration of Independence.

• The Gettysburg Address: Crown Jewel of American Political Rhetoric (Mahoney)

Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address of Nov. 19, 1863, is the crown jewel of not only Lincoln’s political oratory, but of American political rhetoric tout court.

At once eloquent, instructive, and inspiring, it is also remarkably brief and pithy (coming in at a mere 272 words), with each word and phrase deeply measured and significant. It is rivalled only by Lincoln’s still concise, if somewhat longer, Second Inaugural of March 4, 1865. That speech is marked by unparalleled moral clarity about the grave sin of slavery, together with its warning against unmerited self-righteousness on the part of the victors, and its majestic final call to a reunited America for “malice toward none” and “charity for all.”

These two great speeches of Lincoln’s presidency form a glorious diptych. Here, I will attend to the earlier of the two speeches. In what follows, the discerning reader will find traces of what I have learned over the years about Lincoln’s rhetoric and statesmanship from the likes of Harry V. Jaffa, Diana Schaub, and Allen Guelzo, distinguished Lincolnians all. I am happy to express my debt to them and my admiration for their wisdom, which is more than scholarly.

The dedication of the cemetery for fallen Union soldiers at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania occurred four and a half months after the decisive Union Army victory over the Confederate forces at the remarkably bloody Battle of Gettysburg in the first days of July 1863.

In retrospect, it was the turning point of the war, as Lincoln could already appreciate by the time he delivered his address on that fall day in November 1863. He followed the two hour speech of the most famous orator of the day, the Harvard President Edward Everett.

The Gettysburg Address took Lincoln a mere two minutes to read, but its wisdom-infused brevity transcendently captured the meaning of the moment, and did so in a manner that pointed to truths about politics and the soul that endure.

His speech was not a “humanitarian” act, even if our 17th president was a remarkably humane man. Lincoln was honoring fallen Union soldiers, and not all those on each side who had fought bravely for a cause, and had given “the last full measure of devotion.” These “brave men, living and dead,” who have “hallow[ed]” “this ground” at Gettysburg did so in no small part because they were dedicated to a just and noble cause, that of Union and Liberty, of liberty and equality rightly understood and rightly applied. Their “unfinished work,” however, points to “a great task remaining” for the living, the task of ridding the United States (a term never used in the address) from the scourge of chattel slavery.

The Emancipation Proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863, had already placed slavery on the road to extinction, not in the distant future but at the end of a just war which must be won by those who remain “dedicated” to the cause of what Lincoln elsewhere calls our “ancient faith,” the “self-evident truth” and “proposition” (as he now calls it in the Gettysburg Address) “that all men are created equal.” Black men were already armed to fight for a Union newly rededicated to our “ancient faith” grounded in “self-evident truths.”

This was a sacred cause for Lincoln precisely because it conformed to what he elsewhere called, in an 1852 eulogy for Henry Clay, “human liberty, human right, and human nature,” none of which are made or created by human hands.

Mysteriously, human beings are under the judgment of something or Someone above the human will, a numinous realm informed however mysteriously by transcendent righteousness. Our liberty is thus always “under God,” as Lincoln says at the end of the speech. Giving one’s life bravely for a relatively “new nation” such as the United States “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” is, as Lincoln puts it so strikingly in the second paragraph of the address, “altogether fitting and proper.”

It is precisely that sacrifice at the service of a truly noble cause that “dedicate(s),” consecrate(s),” and hallow(s)” “this ground” at Gettysburg. But if we remember this sacrifice, if we comprehend its full significance, it is because of Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg. While he humbly said that“the world will little note, nor long remember” what he said at Gettysburg, he knew that speech was required to articulate and make available for posterity the significance of these deaths. This required going back to the foundation of America. In the famous opening paragraph of the Gettysburg Address, with its biblical cadences and resonances, Lincoln traces the origin of the United States to 1776 and the Declaration of Independence: “Four score and seven years our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Here, the math is clear: “Four score and seven years” equals 87 years, and 87 years subtracted from 1863 brings us back to 1776.

It is the Declaration of Independence that announced a new nation in existence, one “conceived in Liberty” (notice the capital letter serving to sacralize that word) “and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

At Peoria on Oct. 16, 1854, Lincoln had called the declaration “the sheet anchor of American republicanism.” It had proclaimed with emblematic clarity that no man could be governed without his consent, and that no man could be owned by another. To confuse (black) human beings with buffalo or hogs who could be traded and hunted at will was a moral and civic abomination. To be sure, as he explained elsewhere to a doubting crowd, this truth of human equality did not entail that a white man was obliged to marry a black woman. But, he continued, no man could justly take from her the bread that she had earned by “the sweat of her brow.”

Some well-known conservative thinkers such as George W. Carey and Willmore Kendall (in “Basic Symbols on the American Tradition”) have accused Lincoln of “derailing” the American Founding by inordinately emphasizing the Declaration of Independence. By doing so, Lincoln made an ever self-radicalizing “egalitarianism” the core of the American creed. But Lincoln was no such doctrinaire egalitarian. Before the founding of the anti-slavery Republican Party in 1856, he had been drawn to Whig constitutionalism and the system of “improvements” (canals, etc.) that the Whig party promoted before it lost political significance in the early 1850s.

As we saw above, Lincoln wanted to give each human being an “equal chance” in the “race” of life, but showed no attraction whatsoever to radically egalitarian, much less socialist, ideas.

SpaceX has 4 massive AI compute deals

• Anthropic → ~$1.25B/month
• Google → ~$920M/month
• Reflection AI → ~$150M/month
• Unnamed AI customer → ~$1.11B/month starting December 1

SpaceX also signed a separate $6.7 BILLION cloud services deal over six months, starting to… pic.twitter.com/8cwUHg0kO4

— Napoleon Bonaparte (@Napoleon__Bon) October 26, 2026