The Automatic Earth

Edgar Degas In front of the mirror 1889

Elon Musk says smartphones won't exist in 5 years.

"We're not going to have a phone in the traditional sense. What we call a phone will really be an edge node for AI inference, with some radios to obviously connect, but essentially you'll have AI on the server side communicating… pic.twitter.com/HlKSwbVb4G

— Metav3rse (@themetav3rse) June 18, 2026

Elon Musk: "It's pretty wild that a tiny tax on tea started the Revolution, and now we get the living daylights taxed out of us and there’s no revolution."
pic.twitter.com/TYHtETO7e6

— Resist the Mainstream (@ResisttheMS) June 18, 2026

Tommy Robinson Sends a CHILLING Message to Keir Starmer After the Release of the Rape Gang Inquiry Report:

"Your days are NUMBERED."

"As a nation, we've failed. We've lost our morality, faith, culture; we lost the Church, Jesus, our belief; we lost our identity — we've lost… pic.twitter.com/uTcKPapPzZ

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 18, 2026

Tommy Robinson Says Elon Musk and 𝕏 are The Reason the United Kingdom is Waking Up:

"People are awake. Thanks to Elon Musk, the awakening happening wouldn't have happened if it weren't for social media and 𝕏. It wouldn't have happened without you electing Donald Trump.

It… pic.twitter.com/eEi7izaGVp

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 18, 2026

🚨 WOW! An "AVALANCHE" of oil is about to surge into the global markets, tankers are RUSHING through the Strait of Hormuz, and oil is now $74 per barrel

Keep going, President Trump is about to be proven right about oil going WAY down after the Iran war ends 🔥 pic.twitter.com/1fUSGCMoht

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 18, 2026

This woman needs to go on Rogan’s show and speak for 3 hours explaining WHAT THE HELL IS REALLY GOING ON🫨! I guess when you study something for 50 years (like DJT has) you become an expert on it🇺🇸. This woman has really opened my mind up👊

FOLLOW ME, THE NEXT DROP WILL BE… pic.twitter.com/NZ8Oyw9LGm

— Whiplash437 (@MrWhiplash_) June 18, 2026

It will take some time.

• Israel, Hezbollah Agree To Ceasefire (JTN)

Israel and Hezbollah reportedly agreed Friday to renew their ceasefire, to end their fighting in southern Lebanon Israel and Hezbollah reportedly agreed Friday to renew their ceasefire to end their fighting in southern Lebanon and help the US and Iran reach a broader deal to end their roughly four-month-long war. CBS News is reporting the ceasefire, based on what it said was information from three diplomats briefed on the matter. The ceasefire follows renewed fighting overnight between Israel and Hezbollah.

The United States and Iran recently entered into a so-called memorandum of understanding to end their war. President Donald Trump signed the agreement Wednesday, and the sides have 60 days to reach a final agreement, according to the memorandum. However, Israel attacking Iran proxy Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is complicating matters. Trump, and on Friday, Vice President JD Vance, sharply criticized Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the attacks.

RT has a document ostensibly signed by Khameini. But no proof of that.

And what he is supposed to have said does not raise much confidence, Sounds more like the Guard.

• Trump Made A Deal Out Of ‘Desperation’ – Iranian Supreme Leader (RT)

US President Donald Trump pushed for a memorandum of understanding with Iran because he found himself in a dire situation, the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has said. The 14-point document was signed remotely by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian late on Wednesday, and entered force with immediate effect, according to Pakistani mediators. Tehran previously said that the MOU envisages a series of concessions by Washington, including the lifting of the US naval blockade on Iran, sanctions waivers for Tehran’s oil exports, access to frozen Iranian funds, and a US-backed economic reconstruction plan to the tune of at least $300 billion.

On Thursday, Khamenei commented on the signing of the agreement, stressing in a statement that it was “the US president who – out of desperation – resorted to various means to bring about this outcome.” Fuel prices in the US went beyond $4 per gallon after Iran responded to the American-Israeli attack in late February by closing the Strait of Hormuz, while Trump’s approval ratings plummeted to a record low of 33%. Tehran vowed to reopen the key waterway, accounting for some 20% global crude trade, under the MOU. Khamenei noted that he initially had “a different view” regarding the need for diplomacy with Washington, but “granted permission” for the deal to go ahead after Pezeshkian assured him that he will be able to safeguard Tehran’s interests during future talks.

The MOU launches a 60-day negotiation period, during which Washington and Tehran are expected to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. According to the supreme leader, Pezeshkian also “stated explicitly that if the American side seeks excessive demands, they [Tehran’s negotiators] will not submit to them.”“From this moment, we, the proud nation [of Iran], and I, your humble servant, will await the fulfillment of the conditions that have been stated,” Khamenei wrote.Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, praised the supreme leader’s “wise and path-clearing message,” saying on Friday that by signing the MOU with Washington, it made clear that Tehran “only reached the beginning of a difficult and winding path” towards settling the conflict.

Trump had earlier slammed critics of the MOU, who claimed that it contained too many concessions to Iran, as being “jealous, bad people or stupid.” He also warned that if Tehran doesn’t honor its obligations under the deal, “we’ll probably go back to bombing them until they honor it.” Russia welcomed the signing of the MOU, saying “it is highly important that all parties involved in the armed conflict… do not allow a renewed dangerous escalation” and expressing hope that traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would return to its pre-war levels, decreasing the volatility of global oil and food markets.

He does not show that, or how, they lost. He jut says they did. “Americans Are Sold A Loss.”

• America Lost The Iran War, But Americans Are Sold A Victory (Scott Ritter)

The US-Iran War is officially over. After months of back-and-forth negotiations, a finalized Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has been signed by US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, the fighting stopped, and shipping will resume at Iranian ports and through the Strait of Hormuz. It is this last part that deserves more attention, because the entire focus of the American effort during the negotiation period boiled down to getting oil flowing freely once again through this choke point. As James Carvelle famously noted during former US President Bill Clinton’s 1992 election, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

The minutia of foreign policy can drive those elites in power, but to remain in power they need the support of the people on election day, and to get that support they need to attend to affairs of the wallet. It’s the economy, stupid. The Israeli-driven military misadventure has ended in a strategic defeat for the United States. The inescapable irony is that the principle negotiating position of the US – the opening of the Strait of Hormuz – existed only because of this war. Before the US and Israel committed their combined act of perfidy back in February of this year, the Strait of Hormuz was open to all shipping, and there were no income-generating transit fees.

The nuclear issue, on which so much emphasis was placed at the start of this war, has evaporated, replaced by token references to common sense. The US blockade is likewise dissipating. The MOU calls for it to be totally lifted in 30 days, along with the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Because Trump needs the oil to flow. Now. Because it’s the economy, stupid. This is the ‘Hormuz Effect’, the reality attached to the fact that Iran’s control of this strategic waterway has empowered it like no nuclear weapon ever could. Iran will forever be positioned to squeeze the economic life out of the world. And there is nothing the US military can do about it.

While the rest of the world ponders the geopolitical consequences of American (and Israeli) imperial overreach, the resumption of the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf is being touted as a masterstroke of US diplomacy, the epitome of presidential leadership, and the result of American grit, determination and military prowess. Of course, all this is being done to get the American economy (and that of the world, since everything is interconnected these days) back on track, so that by September some impressive economic growth and prosperity statistics can be generated for an American audience unable and/or unwilling to ask the obvious questions, such as how is the return to an economic ‘normal’ that existed before Trump ordered the US military to attack Iran considered good policy?

Left unspoken will be the real economic costs of this war – the depletion of the US arsenal of precision-guided munitions, and the excessive replacement costs the US taxpayer will be called upon to bear. The billions of dollars in destroyed and damaged infrastructure throughout the Middle East. And the lives lost – those of American servicemembers (a relatively small number), and those of the Iranian people (thousands, including the 165 children murdered while attending school in Minab). There is no time for morality and common sense amongst the American people. They have money to spend – gas prices are down, and there is a consumer-driven life that must be led. Because it’s the economy, stupid.

This is the ‘Hormuz Effect’: the deliberate dumbing-down of a society driven more by the need to sustain an artificial cocoon of comfort than the necessity of building a foundation of moral and legal responsibility. Because with responsibility comes the need for accountability, and no American will be called to account for the embarrassing defeat the US has suffered because of this war. The world will now wrestle with the questions of how the US fits into a changing world order, and any President worth his salt would do the same. But this would require the ability to engage in constructive self-criticism.

Instead, the American population will be sold a non-existent victory while being unable to pick out the Strait of Hormuz on a map, let alone Minab. As long as the terms of the MOU hold, the American people may yet forget about the costs they have collectively paid for this Middle East debacle, and instead focus on the trickle of dollars diverted their way, as if this temporary thickening of the American wallet symbolizes the victory of a nation. The ‘Hormuz Effect’ is the ultimate bribe for a people who have lost all self-respect. A people willing to sweep the crimes committed in their names under a carpet of illusory economic well-being.

The ‘Hormuz Effect’ is the ultimate symbol of the decline of the American dream. Because it’s the economy, stupid.

I liked this sentence: “Preferential admissions, along with racially segregated dorms and graduation ceremonies, continued under euphemisms and denials.”

• Is California Reaching Critical Mass? (Victor Davis Hanson)

By any measure, California is a failed state—and a national embarrassment. Taxes? It has the highest income and gas taxes in the nation. Roads? A Reason Foundation survey ranks it 49th among the states. Mass flight? Between 250,000 and 350,000 more Californians leave the state than move in each year. Housing, gas, insurance, and electricity prices? The highest in the continental U.S. Illegal aliens, the poor, the homeless, the foreign-born, and welfare recipients? The largest numbers in the U.S. Public K-12 schools? Test scores in the bottom quartile. Poverty? Twenty percent live below the poverty line. So, what happened to the nation’s most richly naturally endowed—and once best governed—state?

The Left took total control—after millions of the embattled middle class fled. Millions more impoverished immigrants, legal and illegal, took their place. Left-wing Silicon Valley spawned some of the wealthiest elite liberal enclaves in the world. The result was a neo-feudal society that was hardly democratic. Millions of subsidized poor compose the bottom. A beleaguered middle continues to shrink. An ultra-rich apparat of left-wing coastal professionals and investors rules from the top. As upper-bracket taxpayers fled, taxes rose on those who remained to fund expanding entitlements for newly arrived poor would-be residents. In turn, even more of the middle class left.

The remaining pyramidal economic structure ensured a Democratic monopoly—further entrenched by changing balloting laws, gerrymandering voting districts, vote harvesting, fueling public employee unions, and ignoring or undermining popular referenda. In 2014, Californians voted for Proposition 1, a $7.5 billion water bond designed to solve the state’s chronic water storage deficit. Included was $2.7 billion specifically designated for new reservoirs, as the last major reservoir had been built in 1980, when California had roughly half its current population.Despite the people’s vote, bureaucracies, elected officials, and green activists blocked all new reservoir construction.

Adding insult to injury, Governor Gavin Newsom instead used $250 million from the Proposition 1 fund to blow up four dams on the Klamath River. They had once provided storage, electrical generation, recreation, and flood control. Californians have twice voted in referenda (for Proposition 209 and against Proposition 16) to bar the use of racial preferences for contracting, admissions, and promotion in public institutions. nMost public universities simply ignored the law. They continued their “diversity” quotas under new names, relying on left-wing elected officials and judges to ignore again the will of the people.

Preferential admissions, along with racially segregated dorms and graduation ceremonies, continued under euphemisms and denials. “Theme” houses, “affinity” graduations, and “safe spaces” practice “affirmative” discrimination. California voters in 2008 passed Proposition 11 to stop political gerrymandering by creating a supposedly nonpartisan state redistricting commission of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four Independents. Two years later, the commission took over redrawing congressional districts as well. But Democratic lobbyists and lawyers sabotaged the goal of disinterested redistricting according to population and geography. Instead, racial preferences and the interests of the Democratic majority of incumbents prevailed to warp the intent of the voters.

Although Republicans usually achieved nearly 40 percent of the California vote in national elections, two decades later, there were only seven Republicans in the 52-person congressional delegation, or a mere 13 percent of the state’s representatives. But even that tiny contingent was considered too generous by the Left. Thus, in 2026, it will likely be further redistricted down to four or five seats.The balloting mess in the recent Los Angeles mayoral race further reminds the nation and the world just how dysfunctional and anti-democratic California has become. Democrats warp elections without the need for the old Chicago way of outright ballot theft or destruction. Instead, they do so in a “legal” manner by passing insane laws that ensure fraud and Democratic victories.

The winners in the strange jungle primaries—usually both Democrats—were not announced until a week after the polls closed. One of the eventual winners in the mayoral race, the socialist Nithya Raman, had already given her teary concession speech after coming in well back at third on election night.The Republican Spencer Pratt was comfortably ahead of her in second place on Election Day—only to lose, as expected, when large numbers of late ballots that broke roughly 90 percent Democratic were counted.mRemember, every registered voter is sent a mail-in ballot. If it is postmarked on election day, it can arrive at vote centers up to seven days after the election.

Tulsi left yesterday, and according to Sundance, she’s not coming back. So here’s some elaborate attention. Question is, what is Congress going to do with what she left here?

• DNI Tulsi Gabbard: Anthony Fauci Manipulated Intelligence and Lied to Congress (CTH)

The central question remains, and unfortunately it is a question that cannot be answered except by dropping all pretenses. That question is: Was the SARS-CoV-2 release ‘accidental’ or done with ‘intent’.On her last day as Director of National Intelligence, and I am certain she will never return, what Tulsi Gabbard releases is alarming evidence the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Anthony Fauci, lied -repeatedly- to congress, the media and the American people.

CTH has long espoused that in the aftermath of the release, the SARS-CoV-2 response, how they reacted to it and all the control mitigation stuff, came from the Intelligence Community and Military. What DNI Gabbard released is evidence of exactly that aspect; the NIAID under Fauci worked directly with the U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC). Remember, with emphasis, this is ‘after action’ stuff.

This is post-COVID-release information about what took place within government after the virus was released upon all of us. The fact that Tulsi had to wait until her final day in office to make this statement, together with the fact that no one has been held to account, and the establishment’s desperate effort from blocking Acting DNI Bill Pulte from succeeding her, only reinforces the conclusion that the people who orchestrated this cover up remain firmly in charge and that part of this battle is far from over.

WASHINGTON D.C. — Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Anthony Fauci, as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), provided millions in US taxpayer dollars to fund dangerous gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)—work which is now widely viewed as the source of the unintentional lab leak that sparked the pandemic.

Today, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is releasing never-before-seen communications and documents exposing how Fauci worked with politicized career leadership in the Intelligence Community (IC) to suppress the truth about his actions, the virus’ lab-leak origins, and his role in directing U.S. funding for this dangerous research that caused immeasurable harm and countless lost lives. These documents expose Fauci’s direct role in influencing and manipulating IC assessments on COVID-19, and how Fauci lied to Congress in 2024, when under oath he denied knowledge of or participation in discussions with intelligence officials about viral research.

“The COVID-19 pandemic caused tremendous hardship and pain for millions of our fellow Americans and for countless people around the world. After years of lies, censorship, and cover ups, the American people deserve transparency, truth, and accountability,” DNI Gabbard said. “The tactics used to hide the truth are straight from the deep state playbook: politicized self-serving leaders like Dr. Fauci covered up their own wrongdoing and abuses of power, manipulated intelligence, lied to Congress, and undermined a duly elected President by restricting his access to vital facts needed to keep the country safe. It’s time the American people learn the real story.”

The materials released today are a result of DNI Gabbard’s yearlong declassification review in support of President Trump’s maximum transparency mandate. During this process, ODNI officials gathered testimony from multiple IC whistleblowers who reported retaliation for challenging the IC’s manipulation of intelligence on the virus’ origins. This unveiled a clear pattern of suppressing dissent, silencing critics, and burying evidence that undermined IC integrity and disserved the American people.

Fauci’s close IC relationships enabled him to assume three key roles during the pandemic that shielded him from scrutiny as he wielded outsized influence.

Fauci funded risky coronavirus research linked to big pharma and the pursuit of “universal vaccines” worth trillions of dollars.

Fauci was the behind-the-scenes advisor who, with his hand-picked experts, pushed the IC to endorse a natural, animal origin to hide his dangerous research.

Fauci became the nation’s pandemic “pundit” and publicly pushed lies, disinformation, and censorship.

“Fauci worked with politicized career leadership in the Intelligence Community (IC) to suppress the truth about his actions..”

• Gabbard Drops Fauci COVID-19 Receipts On Last Day (ZH)

Newly declassified documents released Thursday by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard show that a U.S. national laboratory assessed the COVID-19 lab-origin hypothesis as a serious possibility as early as May 2020, as well as evidence of U.S.-funded coronavirus research that included planning for spike-protein modifications, receptor-adaptation experiments, and testing in humanized mice in collaboration with researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The documents also prove that Anthony Fauci lied under oath.

Today, on my final day as Director of National Intelligence, I’m releasing never-before-seen communications and documents exposing how Dr. Fauci provided millions in US taxpayer dollars to fund dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, worked with politicized elements… pic.twitter.com/ZMdliW4zyS

— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) June 19, 2026

The release, issued on Gabbard’s last day on the job, includes an eight-page May 27, 2020, assessment from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Z Program. That assessment concluded that “all of the necessary conditions for an accidental release of a laboratory-modified coronavirus – specifically a coronavirus adapted to recognize human cell receptors – were present at the Chinese Wuhan Institute of Virology in mid-to-late 2019.” It assigned equal weight to a laboratory-modification hypothesis and a natural-origin scenario.

Meanwhile, Recall that while the government was locking us down, Dr. Anthony Fauci and those in his orbit were actively fabricating a ‘wet market’ narrative that would conceal US research as a possible origin – despite his own advisors initially insisting that COVID-19 looked manmade. In his January 2024 transcribed interview, Fauci was asked about conversations concerning the same three topics – COVID origins, WIV, and EcoHealth. When asked about the CIA, he answered yes: he said he was briefed “once or twice” in a secure NIH facility and also recalled a briefing in a White House situation room.

The newly released documents then show a June 4, 2021 briefing involving CIA/WCP personnel, NSC officials, and Fauci, during which Fauci offered views on pangolin research, sick WIV researchers, single-lineage vs. multi-lineage evidence, and recommended scientists for the IC to contact. A separate CIA-context email says that same 40-minute secure video teleconfrenece involved CIA/WCPMC officials and that Fauci gave thoughts on the 4 May 2021 COVID-origin briefing and recommended U.S. scientists to consult.

So, he lied.

According to a statement released with the files, “Fauci worked with politicized career leadership in the Intelligence Community (IC) to suppress the truth about his actions, the virus’ lab-leak origins, and his role in directing U.S. funding for this dangerous research that caused immeasurable harm and countless lost lives. These documents expose Fauci’s direct role in influencing and manipulating IC assessments on COVID-19, and how Fauci lied to Congress in 2024, when under oath he denied knowledge of or participation in discussions with intelligence officials about viral research.”

U.S.-Funded Research and Planning for Coronavirus Manipulation
The files include the Year 5 progress report for EcoHealth Alliance’s NIH grant 5R01AI110964-05. Under Specific Aim 3, the project outlined plans to:

Sequence spike genes from bat coronaviruses.

Create mutants to assess how much further evolution would be needed for efficient use of human ACE2 or other receptors.

Conduct receptor-mutant pseudovirus binding assays.

Perform infection experiments in cell lines and humanized mice.

This research track overlaps with work described in the 2018 DEFUSE proposal, which involved EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina, and Shi Zhengli’s team at WIV. The proposal sought to create chimeric bat coronaviruses with enhanced human infectivity, including consideration of furin cleavage site insertion to improve lung-cell entry, and to test the resulting viruses in humanized mice originally developed in Baric’s lab.

A 2016 WIV paper included in the release describes a synthetic shuttle vector system for assembling large DNA fragments, with demonstrated capability up to 31 kilobases. The authors presented the method as a tool for “genome-scale DNA reconstruction,” a technique relevant to synthetic biology and virus engineering. Surveillance work under the same NIH grant reported that 9 of 1,497 rural residents in southern China (0.6%) were seropositive for bat SARS-related or HKU10 coronaviruses. And from leaked emails three years ago: Among other things, the NIH helped fund experiments at WIV that infected genetically engineered mice with “chimeric” hybrids of SARS-related bat coronaviruses in what some scientists have described as unacceptably risky research.

”..how Fauci lied to Congress in 2024 .”

• Tulsi Gabbard Drops Bombshell Documents on Her Way Out (Margolis)

Tulsi Gabbard, on her final day as Director of National Intelligence, released a batch of never-before-seen communications and documents that tie Dr. Anthony Fauci directly to funding for dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the same lab now widely believed to be the source of COVID-19. The release lands as part of President Trump’s push for what Gabbard calls a “maximum transparency mandate,” and it paints a picture of a bureaucrat who didn’t just fund risky research with your tax dollars; he allegedly worked the intelligence community like a puppet to cover up his role in it.

“Before the COVID pandemic, Dr. Fauci, as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, provided millions in U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund dangerous gain of function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Gabbard said in a video posted to X, “work which is now widely viewed as the source of the unintentional lab leak that sparked the pandemic.” That’s bad enough on its own. But according to Gabbard, Fauci didn’t stop at funding the research. He allegedly leaned on intelligence officials to manipulate their assessments and steer them away from the lab-leak theory entirely.

“These documents expose Fauci’s direct role in influencing and manipulating IC assessments on COVID 19 and how Fauci lied to Congress in 2024 when under oath, he denied knowledge of or participation in discussions with intelligence officials about viral research,” she continued. Gabbard laid out what she described as Fauci’s three-pronged scheme.

First, he funded the gain-of-function research connected to Big Pharma’s hunt for a universal vaccine, a market worth trillions. Second, he allegedly pressured handpicked “experts” to steer the intelligence community toward a natural-origin story, conveniently shifting attention away from the lab he helped bankroll. Third, he became, in Gabbard’s words, the nation’s “pandemic pundit,” using every media platform he could find to push his version of events while shutting down anyone who disagreed. But wait — it gets even uglier.

Whistleblowers told Gabbard’s office that analysts who dared question the official narrative paid a steep price. “A contractor was terminated just days after coming forward to ODNI as a whistleblower,” Gabbard said. Others who supported the lab leak theory were apparently told flat out that their careers depended on falling in line. “Those who advocated for the lab leak hypothesis or expressed dissenting views were reminded by their managers that leadership would determine which analysts would be promoted and which would not,” she said. The message, as Gabbard put it, was simple: Go along or be punished.

Senior officials reportedly went even further, stripping away the anonymity whistleblowers are legally entitled to and insisting that managers or attorneys sit in on meetings where complaints were being filed in a blatant attempt at intimidation. Gabbard didn’t hold back on what this all means. “The tactics that were used to hide the truth are straight from the deep state playbook,” she said. “Politicized, self-serving leaders like Dr. Fauci covered up their own wrongdoing and abuses of power, manipulated intelligence, lied to Congress, and undermined a duly elected president by restricting his access to the vital facts he needed to keep the country safe.”

Gabbard concluded, ”It’s time you know the truth.” Millions lost loved ones. Millions more lost jobs, businesses, and irreplaceable years of their children’s education, while being told to trust the experts and stop asking questions. The real scandal isn’t just what happened during the pandemic. It’s how many powerful people like Fauci spent years working to keep the public from finding out.

I guess this is a work in progress. So far, I got nothing.

“.. or, When Electrocution of Innocents Becomes Profitable..”

• What AI Is and Is Not (Charles Hugh Smith)

It behooves us to be clear on what AI is and is not, as the confusion of the two is the source of both the giddy hype and the opaque risks. Whether we admit it or not, we are collectively making an epoch-changing bet that AI is fantastic, unstoppable Progress with a capital P so large it blots out the sky. Like all bets, this bet is risky, and if it fails we will all pay the price in capital mis-allocated and promises shattered. It behooves us, then, to be clear on what AI is and is not, as the confusion of the two is the source of both the giddy hype and the opaque risks. I am prompted to address this by an insightful essay submitted by longtime correspondent Simons Chase, who is both an AI builder/developer and supportive of my efforts to pin down what AI is and isn’t:

The Machine Is Made of Us: Pope Leo’s Encyclical, the Averaging of Language, and the Case for the Particular. “I build artificial intelligence for a living. I also think the Pope is mostly right. I want to explain why those two facts don’t cancel, and in doing so make a claim I believe is truer than the dread and truer than the hype: the machine is made of us. What we should fear is not that it is alien. It is that it is an average.

Trained on all of us, a model tends to speak as none of us. It moves toward the center of the distribution: the most probable next word, the safest phrasing, the generic competence that offends no one because it belongs to no one. This is the real face of the dehumanization the encyclical is reaching for. Not a hostile intelligence–a flattening one. The danger is not that the machine becomes too strange. It is that it makes everything, including us, a little more average. The particular voice, the earned turn of thought, the sentence only one person could have written–these live in the tail of the distribution, not its peak, and the tail is exactly what an averaging process erases first.

After all, a fast-food cheeseburger is nothing more than the average of our concept of food: the intersection of convenience, taste, and cost. It is right, and so utterly wrong, because in the long run it makes us metabolic donkeys, delivering a shortened, diseased life. Generic intelligence is the same bargain offered to the mind–the average of our language, plausible and cheap and frictionless, and over a long enough horizon just as wasting. A culture fed on the mean of its own thought gets the cognitive version of metabolic disease: fluent, abundant, and quietly losing the capacity for the particular. So the question becomes: is averaging the only thing this technology can do? It is not. And the whole of my work has been an argument against it. That averaging a probability distribution–i.e. AI–makes everything into Ultra-Processed Slop, is also addressed in this article:

What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity:
As a researcher studying AI’s effects on education, I have concluded that these tools only superficially improve writing. The bigger and more alarming impact they have is to constrict our full range of thoughts and our ability to generate original and useful ideas–what we call creative thinking. This seems to be especially true for students. AI’s smooth sentences, elegant transitions and rich vocabulary give the illusion of expansive creativity and individuality. But the underlying ideas often converge into a few homogenized categories.

In one study, he and his team examined personal statements from more than 370,000 students, and found that after ChatGPT became available, their essays suddenly used diverse and colorful language, but lacked truly creative ideas. And the linguistic coverup worked; post-ChatGPT essays were rated as more ‘creative’ by human judges, even if the substance of the essays trod familiar territory. For the first time in human history, we have a technology that can generate words separately from the thoughts they represent. When a chatbot writes, it is predicting the next word that is most likely to make a ‘good’ sentence or essay, based on the text it’s been trained on.

We can now discern what AI is: a homogenizing, flattening probability distribution that implicitly claims eloquence is understanding and the words it has strung together represent thoughts and judgment, when they do no such thing: they are only strings of words selected as the most likely response to a prompt, a response that “rewards” the model generating the output. We can now discern what AI is not: AI isn’t “thinking,” “understanding” or “making judgments”: AI tools are engines of linguistic automation, not engines of understanding. The simulation is not the thing simulated. AI is not a “mind,” it is a probability distribution.

Really, he was fine in his 4-year presidency.

• Handlers Abandon a Confused Joe Biden on Stage At Obama Center (Margolis)

Joe Biden seems determined to prove he was unfit for the presidency, and boy, did he do so again during the opening ceremony for Barack Obama’s presidential center. I hate that I’m even talking about the event, but Biden’s “Biden moment” is just impossible to ignore. Video from the ceremony shows Jill Biden physically leading her husband onto the stage, which tells you everything you need to know about where things stand for Ol’ Joe before a single word was spoken.

And yes, things got worse from there. As the ceremony wound down, Obama strutted around, playing air guitar to the music while Jill watched approvingly and then trailed him offstage. Joe Biden, meanwhile, was left standing by himself at the podium. He looked completely lost, like a nursing home patient who forgot where he was. He took off his glasses, stared blankly out at the crowd, and appeared to mouth, “Where’s my granddaughter?” That was the last thing viewers saw before the broadcast feed mysteriously cut out.

Bizarre moment as Biden is left behind on stage at the Obama Center opening, asking for his granddaughter.

“Where is my granddaughter?” pic.twitter.com/3nkY2U43ih

— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) June 19, 2026

We all watched Biden’s presidency unravel in real time and recognized what went down. The wandering. The confusion. The blank stare into the void after the cameras were supposed to have stopped rolling. This is the same man the Democrat Party insisted was sharp as a tack right up until the moment he wasn’t allowed to run for reelection anymore because he imploded on stage while trying to debate President Trump. And perhaps the worst thing is that Biden’s handler-in-chief, Jill, wasn’t anywhere to be found.

“Why does Jill look so aggravated? Like she’s surprised he got lost on stage?” New York Post columnist Miranda Devine asked on X. “As usual she shirked her duty of ensuring her husband wasn’t embarrassed in public. It’s despicable. Her access to the spotlight and VIP outings she adores is entirely due to him and she can’t be bothered to be a decent wife.” The Obama Center opening came the same day that The New Yorker published an interview with Hillary Clinton in which she said that Biden running again in 2024 “was a terrible mistake.”

“He made a terrible mistake,” Hillary said. “He made a terrible mistake for himself, his legacy, and for the country. He had said that he would not run again, and counterfactual narratives are always a bit tricky, but I believe that if he had kept to that plan, that he wasn’t going to run, that he was going to pass the torch to the next generation, we would have had a real contest. And very sadly I believe whoever emerged from that contest—whether it was the Vice-President or a governor or a senator or anybody else—would have beaten Donald Trump. I think it was a terrible miscalculation on the part of President Biden, but once he held on for as long as he did we were in a terrible dilemma.”

That narrative conveniently ignores that Hillary enthusiastically endorsed Biden’s 2023 reelection bid when it actually mattered, when she had every opportunity to say exactly what she’s saying today. She said nothing. She cheered him on. They all did.

“..requiring parental consent for children to use social media platforms.”

• Appeals Court Allows Ohio to Restrict Children’s Use of Social Media (ET)

The panel concluded that the state law does not violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. A federal appeals court on Thursday allowed Ohio to enforce a law requiring social media companies to obtain parental consent before permitting children under 16 to access their platforms. The law, known as the Social Media Parental Notification Act, was passed by the state’s legislature in 2023 and took effect in January 2024. NetChoice—a trade group representing TikTok, Meta, and other major tech companies—later filed a lawsuit, alleging that the law was unconstitutional.

In April, U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley ruled in NetChoice’s favor and permanently blocked Ohio from enforcing the law. The state subsequently appealed the ruling. In a 2–1 decision on June 18, a panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court ruling, finding that Ohio’s law does not violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Writing for the majority, Circuit Judge Eric Clay said the state law imposes only “a marginal burden” by requiring parental consent for children to use social media platforms.

“That requirement constitutes a marginal burden that precisely targets the multi-faceted problem that Ohio has identified: Children’s unsupervised assent to terms and conditions for use of platforms that take advantage of and harm them,” Clay said. “Parental consent will not always be narrowly tailored to the compelling interest in protecting minors’ well-being. It works here because the nature of the harm itself is that children’s unsupervised use of social media puts them at risk of the adverse effects of prolonged and unregulated exposure.”

Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson praised the appeals court’s decision, calling it “a win for Ohio families.” Wilson said in a statement that the ruling would allow parents to supervise their children’s use of social media. “The court agreed that parents—not social media companies—should get a say in what kids see online. We have an obligation to keep our children safe, and today, the most dangerous place for our kids is the internet,” he stated. “This decision gives parents the tools to be involved and provide oversight.”

NetChoice said the appeals court’s decision will threaten the online privacy and constitutional rights of Ohioan residents. The group suggested that it intends to continue the legal challenge. “By requiring parents to override the government’s determination, Ohio has violated bedrock First Amendment principles,” Paul Taske, director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, said in a statement. “We are currently reviewing our options on how best to move forward.”

NetChoice last year won court rulings blocking a similar social media parental consent law in Arkansas and a children’s digital privacy law in California. Australia became the first country last December to impose a ban on social media for children under 16 amid concerns about the online safety risks to the nation’s youth. Several countries have since followed suit or are weighing similar social media restrictions over concerns about the platforms’ impact on children’s mental health. Among those countries are the UK, Austria, Denmark, France, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

“I’m telling you: the Lebanon Loophole was always baked in. Iran can think whatever it wants and go pound sand.” James Lindsay on X

• Give Peace a Chance (Not?) (James Howard Kunstler)

Consider that the many persons and parties yelling that “Iran won the war” have exceedingly cynical interests in painting President Donald Trump as a loser. His American enemies, lodged mainly in the party of “Our Democracy,” are not just striving to get back into power, but to stay out of prison, and perhaps off the gibbet, if treason ends up on the docket. (See: Gabbard Releases Documents on Fauci’s Alleged Role in Wuhan Lab Research Linked to COVID.)

The president’s globalist foes, lodged in the EU and London, resent his unwillingness to join their scheme for a big war against Russia — and are aggrieved about much else in matters of trade, international banking, and energy resources. The ink was hardly dry on the US / Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) when NATO arrantly assisted its proxy, Ukraine, in an audacious drone attack on Moscow. Brussels also stealthily opened “accession talks” for Ukraine and Moldova to enter the EU. More bear-poking. . . .

Just what is the MOU? It’s not a peace settlement. It’s a sixty-day window to negotiate a settlement within clearly laid-out, agreed-upon parameters. You might suppose there’s a fair chance Iran is just jerking the US around. But then, Mr. Trump noted, “. . . if they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, okay? ‘Cause they’ve misbehaved for 47 years.”

Admittedly, an indelicate remark, yet with unmistakable intent: Jerk us around at your peril. Of course, Mr. Trump has also stated clearly that he would rue having to punish the ordinary Iranian people for the misdeeds of the IRGC maniacs who hold them captive. But also note that we have exquisite satellite intel on all their remaining missile and drone installation. Check out this stunningly detailed document: Atlas of Iran’s Missile Cities (thanks to Jim Shea, who sent it around). We know where everything is. Beyond those targets, if necessary, and alas, there are the bridges and power plants, which would surely cause the Iranian people to suffer. FAFO.

In short, the IRGC leadership have sixty days to get their minds right. On the positive side, the MOU offers them some powerful inducements to play nice in the way of economic assistance, a doorway to normal relations with the rest of the world, a chance to thrive. The question is whether any of that can overcome the IRGC’s apocalyptic “Twelfth Imam” death- wish jihad ideology — which requires the annihilation of Israel.

The MOU requires a ceasefire in Lebanon, where Israel and Hezbollah have faced-off for decades. Mr. Trump is very put-out with Prime Minister Netanyahu for continuing to return fire “disproportionately” on Hezbollah’s provocations. This has led to great consternation and antipathy in the US, which is already marinated in anti-Israel rancor. You might ask, though: if America is obliged to rein-in Israel, is Hezbollah’s long-time sponsor, Iran, not equally obliged to curb Hezbollah’s antics? And you might also ask: if Iran’s money to Hezbollah has been cut off, who is still funding them? Possibly the EU or London? (Just sayin’.)

Mr. Trump’s surprising work-around for that was to suggest that the Syrians go into Lebanon and mop up the floor with Hezbollah. Interesting. Get an Islamic Middle Eastern country to help clean up that mess? Mr. Trump commended Syria’s leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, saying, “He’s done an amazing job of pulling it together. . . . I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah, because to be honest with you, I think they’d do a better job of doing it . . . . If Israel can’t do the job without killing everyone else, he’ll do the job. Syria will do the job.”

“Enoch Powell predicted in the 1960s that the consequence of government-imposed multiculturalism would be “rivers of blood.”

• Why Aren’t All Brits Hanging from Lamp Posts? (Paul Craig Roberts)

A breaking news report followed by comment from PCR

A British Member of Parliament has just made available a report on Britain’s immigrant-invader rape gangs. Here’s what’s in the report the mainstream media is ignoring: “Rupert Lowe’s investigation implicates Keir Starmer’s government in the mass victimization of white girls by Pakistani men. “At least 250,000 British girls suffered sickening sexual abuse by Pakistani gangs, who were enabled by police, social workers, and even Prime Minister Keir Starmer, to commit “child rape on an industrial scale,” British MP Rupert Lowe’s ‘Rape Gang Report’ has detailed.

“Published on Tuesday [June 16], the 218-page report makes for sobering reading. It details the decades-long abuse of hundreds of thousands of white British girls – and smaller numbers of white boys and Sikh girls – by organized Pakistani ‘grooming gangs’ in 149 districts of the UK. ” “Witness testimony describes the most depraved acts of sexual violence – including preteen girls raped hundreds of times, threatened with death, and sodomized by dogs – happening in plain sight of the authorities tasked with its prevention.”

Comment by PCR

The Joys of Multiculturalism that the Despicable White Liberals Have Brought to White Ethnicities

White Governments Represent Immigrant-invaders, Not their Ethnic Citizens. The British government is the most anti-white of all governments. Here is my account of how this came about:

For a number of decades Western universities have engaged not in education but in indoctrination of students. Attacks on Western civilization have long been institutionalized in universities. Generations of students have been indoctrinated that white ethnicities are racist exploiters who have oppressed peoples of color. The indoctrination has been successful to the extent that in the US, for example, white heterosexual males have been second class citizens with unequal rights since EEOC official Alfred Blumrosen ignored the statutory language of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and imposed race, gender and sexual preference quotas that disadvantaged white heterosexual men.

Feminists saw an opportunity and jumped in. As ideological feminists are essentially white women, they went after white men, not after immigrant-invaders, and the feminists’ attack further weakened the position of white ethnicities already undermined by universities. With white guilt assimilated into the population, it was easy for governments, themselves increasingly anti-white, to open the borders of white ethnic nations to a mass influx of immigrant-invaders who have firmly established themselves in every Western country.

One consequence has been the increasing removal throughout the Western world of white men from leadership positions. In the US corporate advertising has deep-sixed white families from advertisements and substituted multi-ethnic families. The very image of a white society is being erased. In England for the past 30 years there was no one in the government, the media, the police, the universities who heard the cries for help from parents whose children were repeatedly raped by immigrant-invader rape gangs and even subjected to being sodomized by dogs.

What Western universities have achieved is the destruction of the self-confidence of ethnic whites and the undermining of their belief system. White ethnics have lost confidence in public and private institutions. White ethnics throughout Western countries have been isolated from societal protection, and so far they have lacked the will to take their defense into their own hands. Enoch Powell predicted in the 1960s that the consequence of government-imposed multiculturalism would be “rivers of blood.” Perhaps the more likely consequence will be the submission of a weak-willed and abandoned people to subservience to immigrant-invaders who will expunge Western civilization from Earth.

Addendum:

British prime minister Keir Starmer is the excrement that released hardened criminals from prison in order to make room for people prosecuted for their social media tweets. Clearly for Starmer suppressing free speech–especially about immigrant-invaders and Israel–is far more important than suppressing crime. Sodom & Gomorrah-multi-cultural Starmer is very partial to pedophiles. He has let 13,000 of them off with a warning letter. According to testimony in Lowe’s report, British police have at times handed British girls who escaped from the rape gangs back to the gangs, in one case telling them to “have fun with her.”

You can’t make New York a socialist city.

• Mamdani To Remake NYC Congressional Delegation In His Socialist Image (JTN)

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is betting he can swing three city elections to cement his political legacy at the expense of the local Democratic establishment. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is quietly seeking to remake the city’s congressional delegation in his image, and cement his power bloc within the Democratic Party while he still enjoys popularity in the city. The democratic socialist Mamdani has endorsed three ideologically aligned candidates — all considered “far left” by traditional Democrats — seeking to expand his influence in the city where he was elected as mayor last November.

In particular, Mamdani has endorsed three ideologically aligned candidates seeking to unseat current members of the Democratic caucus, two-term Rep. Dan Goldman and Congressional Hispanic Caucus leader Adriano Espaillat.

Collision course with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries
Mamdani’s endorsements and campaigning against incumbent Democratic lawmakers in particular are putting him on a quiet collision course with establishment Democratic leaders, especially House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who, tasked with winning a majority in the upcoming midterm elections, has been forced to divert resources to defend the incumbents.

Two of them are officially endorsed by the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the United States, which has close ties to Mamdani. The mayor, who is a member of the DSA, leaned heavily on the backing of the DSA to win both the Democratic primary in June and the city’s general election. Those close to Mamdani say that his decision to endorse candidates challenging establishment-backed figures and bucking party leadership is part of an attempt to “radically” reorient the Democratic Party towards his vision.

Sanders aide: “We can radically change the Democratic Party”
“He’s seeing that opportunity – that we can radically change the Democratic Party,” said Faiz Shakir, an advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders and described as a friend of Mamdani’s. “Like Bernie, he’s not saying I’m doing this out of spite against you, dear leadership. He’s saying, I am supporting these candidates who have a better vision, and I am prepared to lose if it has to be the case.”

Against Goldman in New York’s 10th Congressional District, Mamdani has backed Brad Lander, the former New York City comptroller who once ran against Mamdani for the mayoral nomination, but who then gave his backing to the democratic socialist upstart. Lander has made his opposition to Israel’s campaign in Gaza and against Palestinian terrorist organizations a centerpiece of his campaign, aligning with Mamdani’s own criticism of the Jewish state. Lander, who is himself Jewish, has embraced much of the language and policy agenda of the pro-Palestinian movement, including describing Israel’s conduct in Gaza as genocide and pledging to oppose additional U.S. military aid while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues.

“As a proud Jewish New Yorker, I will join you in that fight to end occupation and apartheid and genocide,” Lander said at one campaign event earlier this month. Goldman declined to endorse Mamdani and did not vote for him in the general election, citing the socialist mayor’s lax attitude towards anti-semitism. “I have asked him to consider taking serious and concrete action to demonstrate that he is going to make sure that Jews are protected and are secure in our city, and I hope he does that,” Goldman said during the election.

Who did this? 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/fRZzJjwBHS

— Eva McMillan ♥️ (@EvasTeslaSPlaid) June 19, 2026

🚨🌎 14 governments.

Same social media ban.
Same timing.
Same language.
Same justification.

🇬🇧 United Kingdom
🇫🇷 France
🇩🇪 Germany
🇪🇸 Spain
🇮🇪 Ireland
🇳🇱 Netherlands
🇧🇪 Belgium
🇩🇰 Denmark
🇳🇴 Norway
🇸🇪 Sweden
🇫🇮 Finland
🇦🇺 Australia
🇳🇿 New Zealand
🇨🇦 Canada

Your government… pic.twitter.com/SaETcxPICv

— wealthmoose (@wealthmoose) June 18, 2026

🚨 BREAKING: Trump DROPS TRUTH BOMB at G7 🔥
Peter Doocy presses him: “Are you really giving Iran $150 BILLION?”
Trump fires back with steel:
“That money is FROZEN. We HAVE to return it. If America starts stealing other nations’ assets, the DOLLAR IS DEAD. No one will trust us… pic.twitter.com/kkkVkkRdFV

— John F Kennedy Jr (@John_F_kJr) June 19, 2026

Why does the media give nonstop coverage to a 16-year-old reading from a script, but completely ignore a real climatologist with over 140 scientific papers who calls climate change a hoax? This is media manipulation. 😡🤡#MediaBias pic.twitter.com/ISjYSgOdGM

— Lewis Miles (@Maga4liberty) June 18, 2026