The Automatic Earth

Canaletto View of the Churches of the Redentore 1750

FACTS FIRST: Republican Party registration is sky high, and the battleground numbers aren’t event close.

That’s why the Fake News continue to peddle fake polls because they know the data is very bad for Democrats. pic.twitter.com/dvlSaa4bwT

— Steven Cheung (@StevenCheung47) October 8, 2026

European taxpayer money in action. Money well spent. https://t.co/QZsfN8pF3h

— Alexander Ač (@Lacertko) October 9, 2026

Elon Musk once told the interviewer that he can see into the future; history will deliver the verdict.

Elon Musk:
I’m very good at predicting the future. I’m not perfect, but I’m very good at it. My batting average is very high for a human.

However, this creates something of a… https://t.co/usRx2lnM7k pic.twitter.com/Td64v8DR7m

— Doge Tipping (@Dogetothemoon) October 9, 2026

Elon Musk’s advice to young people:

Be optimistic about the future
Learn as much as you can
Read a lot books
Try a lot of things

“It’s better to be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right. Your quality of life will be much better”

“I’m confident the future will not be…

— X Freeze (@XFreeze) October 9, 2026

It’s not Russia vs Ukraine, it’s Russia vs the West. And Trump has now shown whose side he’s not on.

• Trump Cut Putin Diesel Deal After Zelensky Ignored Pleas To Stop Refineries (ZH)

Friday’s diesel deal between Trump and Putin wasn’t only about diesel. It was also about Kyiv. Hours after Zelensky accused Washington of using Ukraine’s negotiators as a “smokescreen” for a backroom deal with Moscow, Axios reported that Trump decided to let Russia sell diesel after Zelensky ignored half a dozen US requests to stop attacking Russian oil refineries. The alleged source was a US official with direct knowledge, who did not hold back:

“Zelensky is misreading the room. By continuing to hit refineries, he is eroding the good will that he has built with Trump over the last six months.” In other words, the sanctions waiver was as much a message to Kyiv as a gift to Moscow. So how did we get to this latest geopolitical twist, what is Trump actually got for lifting sanctions (spoiler: less than nine days of fuel), and why is the deal is on a collision course with the one Ukrainian policy Kyiv says it won’t give up. Let’s dig in.

“Half A Dozen” Requests
The backstory is familiar to regular readers. One month ago, Trump – freaking out about soaring diesel prices – told reporters that Zelensky “has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia,” and a day later he announced a truce that never really happened:

Trump says "Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian Energy targets. Russia has agreed to do, likewise! The World’s Diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia/ Ukraine War, not Iran."

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 14, 2026

A few hours later, Kyiv kept hitting refineries anyway. Just last weekend Zelensky vowed to hammer more of them, and on Thursday Ukrainian drones set Russia’s largest refinery at Omsk ablaze, more than 1,500 miles from the border. Axios notes the strikes were “highly effective and caused an energy crisis in Russia,” prompting Moscow’s diesel export ban, which then “added more pressure to global diesel markets under strain from the war in Iran.”

The core disagreement is about symmetry. Zelensky told Trump, Witkoff and Kushner that he would stop hitting Russian refineries if Russia stopped hitting Ukrainian power plants. Trump wanted Ukraine to stop unilaterally, according to the official, and “didn’t see the attacks on refineries as equivalent to Russian strikes on Ukraine’s power grid.” Or, as the official put it: “The attacks on the refineries cause pain in Russia, but it causes pain for the U.S., too.”

Then there is what happened in Miami. During eight hours of talks on Friday, Witkoff and Kushner told the Ukrainian delegation that Trump was expected to call Putin and lift sanctions on Russian diesel, because Kyiv had ignored repeated requests on strikes “which were directly affecting U.S. consumers.” A Ukrainian official claimed the envoys also threatened that Trump could cut Ukraine off from US intelligence if it kept ignoring him. The US official denied that, saying the envoys merely reminded Kyiv that the US provides munitions and intelligence, so Ukraine “shouldn’t take actions that hurt American consumers.” That is a fine distinction, and Kyiv is unlikely to see the difference.

So was Ukraine’s team a “smokescreen,” as Zelensky charged? Not quite: the US delegation told them what was coming. But the decision was clearly made before they sat down. Zelensky’s reaction, in a statement reported by Politico:

“At this very moment, while our team is talking with the American team in Florida, at this very moment, the President of the United States is talking with the leader of the Kremlin… and has an agreement under which America is allowing Russia to export diesel fuel. That means more money for this war… I believe our team is simply being used as a smokescreen, and that is certainly not fair.”

He went further in an interview with Axios, calling it “not fair and not honest” and “a happy birthday present for Putin” (who turned 74 on Wednesday), and told reporters it was “a weak decision by strong partners.”

And the payoff from Putin? So far, none on peace. During the 90-minute call he declined to commit to resuming talks with Ukraine. Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said Ukrainian strikes on Moscow and other cities during Russia’s parliamentary elections had “thwarted the possibility of an immediate resumption of the negotiation process,” adding: “The president said, we will think about when these negotiations can be resumed.” That is the kind of non-answer that tends to precede more non-answers. The US official still thinks Putin “is open to a discussion on ending the war,” and says Washington wants a “new proposal that will be good enough for him.” Witkoff and Kushner may visit Moscow and Kyiv next week, though Axios notes it’s unclear how Friday’s blowup will affect those plans.

What Trump Got: 4.8 Million Tons, Mostly “Thereafter”
Here’s what Trump posted on Truth Social shortly before Friday’s close:

“I have just concluded a highly successful discussion with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, wherein it was agreed that Russia will immediately supply over 300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel to the American and Global Marketplace, another 500,000 Tons during the month of November, and 1,000,000 Tons immediately thereafter.”

Another 3 million tons would follow “within a short period of time,” depending on “the condition of their Diesel Refineries.” That condition is the whole point, as we explain below. Then came the usual all-caps flourish: between “our TOTAL CONTROL of the Strait of Hormuz, and this great announcement on Russian Energy, Diesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!”

Minutes later, Treasury said OFAC was “immediately issuing a temporary general license to allow the supply of Russian diesel to the global market.” General License 135 authorizes the sale, delivery and import (including into the US) of Russian-origin diesel until April 7, 2027. That is six months, and according to Fortune it is the first diesel waiver since the war began to run longer than the standard 30 days. The EU and UK sanctions are unchanged, so Europe, the region that actually imports diesel, can’t legally buy a drop of it.

Moscow confirmed the terms. Deputy PM Alexander Novak said Russia was ready to supply 300,000 tons in October, 500,000 in November and 1 million in December, and that “in the long run, this volume could reach three million tons per month.” The Kremlin’s readout said “the Russian side reaffirmed its readiness to supply oil and oil products to the American and world markets,” with no dates attached. Something to look forward to in 2027, perhaps.

The algos loved it. As Goldman’s US rates desk wrote in its Friday wrap (available to pro subs), “Before the close, headlines hit the tape that Russia would release diesel supply into the market, driving down diesel prices and leading to a modest rally in the front end.” Both US and European diesel futures slid, with NY Harbor diesel down about 4.5% to $4.67/gallon per the FT, and WTI fell about a buck to $91.

Do The Math: Less Than Nine Days Of Fuel
Now for the arithmetic. At roughly 7.45 barrels per ton, the “immediate” 300,000 tons is about 2.2 million barrels. The US burns roughly 4 million barrels of distillate a day, so October’s tranche covers about half a day of American demand. Add November and December and the first 1.8 million tons cover about 3.4 days. Even if the 3 million tons conditional on refinery health actually arrive, the full 4.8 million tons (about 36 million barrels) cover less than nine days of US consumption.

That is the best case. Trump’s own post says the fuel is going to the “American and Global Marketplace”, so the US share will be smaller.

“Despite Tehran’s insistence that it controls the vital waterway, Middle East energy flows have largely returned to pre-war levels. This comes after Iran’s failed attempt at creating economic disaster for the West by attacking oil-laden ships, and instead, at least 16.5 million barrels a day of crude oil left the Middle East last month.”

“They’ll burn the country down before they’ll give a win to Trump,”

Just like, in the US, the Dems. And CNN.

• Iran Claims Control of Hormuz, But Oil Export Data Show Otherwise (JTN)

The Iranian regime is remaining publicly defiant in the face of the U.S. blockade of its economy, claiming that it controls the Strait of Hormuz and will not agree to limits on its nuclear program. However, the facts belie Tehran’s claims. In fact, Middle East oil exports have largely returned to pre-war levels in recent months, showing the regime’s ongoing attacks in the Strait of Hormuz aimed at pressuring its neighbors and the United States are no longer working.

Mohammadreza Naqdi, an advisor to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — the powerful paramilitary organization tasked with safeguarding the regime — said on Wednesday that the Strait of Hormuz remains “closed” and the “armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran have full control over it.” He vowed that conditions would remain as such “until Iran’s legitimate demands are met.”

Iran has “lost complete control” of the waterway: Rubio Last week, Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf presented to the United Nations the conditions under which Iran would “reopen” the strait. The conditions echo the Iranian demands contained in the Memorandum of Understanding that the United States and Iran signed this summer, but which broke down after negotiations ended at an impasse and intermittent fighting resumed between the opposing sides.

The Trump administration countered, saying that Iran is losing its grip amid the escalating economic pressure the United States has heaped on Tehran. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that Iran has “lost complete control” of the strait.

“The Straits of Hormuz are open. There is almost as much oil flowing out now as there was before this conflict began,” Rubio told reporters. “So they’ve lost complete control of the straits and their economy. And […] not only are they in free fall, now the Iranian economy is about to reach a place that few countries in the world have been in terms of how bad it’s going to get.” President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States and Iran “are having productive discussions” and highlighted the tough economic conditions in Iran developing from the U.S. blockade.

“I want to make it clear to everybody that, while Iran is in very bad condition, both economically and militarily, and while the Blockade will remain in full force and effect, with oil flowing in Record Numbers of Barrels through the Hormuz Strait (22 Million Barrels, last night alone, with not one barrel coming from, or going to, Iran!), we will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd,” the president posted to Truth Social.

“They’ll burn the country down before they’ll give a win to Trump,” says national security expert
Fred Fleitz, the chief of staff of the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, told the Just the News that Iran does not actually want a deal, but is seeking relief from the crushing economic blockade.

“They’re not planning on making any significant deal there. They want concessions from Trump up front. He’s never going to agree to that. If they really wanted to make a sincere deal right now, I think Trump and his people would listen, but they don’t. And I think these radicals in this government, the IRGC, they’ll burn the country down before they’ll give a win to Trump,” Fleitz told the John Solomon Reports podcast.

“I think we have to carry out this economic strangulation strategy, which is more than sanctions. We’re not just saying you can’t trade with Iran, you can’t do banking with Iran. We’ve stopped them from exporting oil. It’s an extraordinary amount of economic pressure,” he added.

Max Meizlish, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former Treasury Department sanctions official, told Just the News that Iran’s claims to control the strait are “laughable,” but that the regime’s military has still retained the capability to attack commercial vessels transiting the vital waterway. “

The reality is that Iran neither maintains full control over the Strait of Hormuz, nor is its control entirely gone,” Meizlish told Just the News. “What it controls is its ability to target ships that transit either by way of U.S. escort or otherwise. But even if we discount the fact that oil flows have at least partially returned to pre-war levels, the idea that Iran controls the strait is laughable.”

Iran’s wartime bet failed, oil is shipping at pre-war levels
Meizlish said, however, that the Iranian regime’s own oil exports have not been revived alongside its neighbors due to the crushing U.S. blockade. “The regime hasn’t been able to export any crude by sea since the blockade was reinstated. If Iran controls the strait, why have its oil exports plummeted?”

Last month, at least 16.5 million barrels a day of crude oil left the Middle East Gulf region, matching the pre-war average for the region’s producers other than Iran, according to tanker-tracking and satellite analysis by global trade data firm Kpler. That is 10.5 million barrels a day more than the region averaged in March, the first full month after the war shut down the strait, the firm found.

While its neighbors have seen the revival of their oil exports, Iran is missing out on the recovery, Just the News previously reported. The country’s oil exports have hovered near zero since the U.S. imposed a naval blockade of Iranian ports in July after the ceasefire broke down.

The blockade has undercut Iran’s central wartime bet: that choking off the world’s most important energy corridor — the Strait of Hormuz — would inflict enough pain on global markets to force Washington and the Gulf states to deal on Iran’s terms.

The left is destroying whatever they can.

• It’s Not Just South America: The Worldwide Move to the Right (Eric Florack)

[..] the timeline is the story there. Remember, causing something is not the same as accelerating it’s happening. I’m not sure I think so, but I suppose the argument could be made for the demise of USAID accelerating that process. But it’s not the cause.

Sarah also lists why the shift is happening, what the real causes are: Crime and personal security, backlash against mass migration, economic frustration, cultural pushback, and what she (rightly, I think) calls socialism fatigue. Notice that nothing on that list requires a USAID line item. If shuttering a foreign aid agency were enough to swing elections, it would rank as the most cost-effective campaign operation in history. Thankfully, it wasn’t all that influential. If it had been so, Obama would have had socialist governments in every country in the hemisphere. I’ll give him credit for trying, but he wasn’t altogether successful at it.

The people who study this for a living agree. The Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung’s International Reports counted nine of 15 Latin American democracies changing direction since 2022, mostly from left to right. Steven Levitsky noted that at least 19 incumbents in a row had lost reelection in the region since 2018. Even New Lines Magazine, hardly a house organ of the right, says the causes run deeper than Trump. Voters didn’t need a memo from Washington to notice the cartels, the inflation, and the Venezuelan refugees.

But now, let’s widen the lens to include Europe, because there’s the real tell.

What’s happening there confirms the thought Sarah puts forward. Populist-right parties have topped the polls in Britain, France, and Germany at the same time for the first time. In late 2025, one aggregate had Reform UK at 27%, headed for a narrow majority. The Conservatives were at 20%, and Labour, the party actually running the country, was stuck in third at 18.5%. An RTL poll put the AfD at 26% to the ruling CDU’s 24%. France’s Jordan Bardella, filling in for Marine Le Pen after a court barred her, polls around 35% for the first round of the April 2027 election. And Spain votes Nov. 29, after Pedro Sánchez called a snap election when his housing reform collapsed. Polls point to a possible PP-Vox majority.

The causes sound familiar: immigration, stagnant economies, housing costs, and energy prices. Britain’s net migration peaked at 924,000 in early 2023, on a Conservative government’s watch. France’s debt has climbed to 119% of GDP, and its 2026 budget became law without a vote. The EU’s own business lobby says the bloc has sat at about 70% of U.S. GDP per capita for three decades and blames regulation and energy costs. Mario Draghi wrote the diagnosis in 2024, and a year later even Draghi wasn’t impressed with the progress. Brussels’ answer to stagnation has been, as always, another committee, generating yet another report followed by no changes to actual policy.

Now consider the USAID angle in that frame. Sarah notes that the agency’s biggest regional budget went to Europe and Eurasia, $17.2 billion in 2023, much of it for Ukraine, against $1.8 billion for Latin America and the Caribbean. None of it went to London, Paris, Berlin, or Madrid. Nor did USAID’s demise cause Brexit in 2016, create Germany’s AfD in 2013, or manufacture Marine Le Pen. It certainly didn’t cause the migration crisis, the housing shortages, or the energy bills. If someone can show me the line item for “Brexit, causing of,” I’ll reconsider. Until then, I’ll take the timeline and place the blame on the shoulders of Europe’s socialists and that little conclave of big government over in Brussels.

A side note about Britain’s “Conservatives.” I give conservative leader Kemi Badenoch a lot of credit, but let’s face it: they governed for 14 years, and they managed Brexit, if badly, but Reform rose on their watch for a reason. The reason is simple enough: They’re not what even liberal/leftist Americans would consider “conservative.” I mean, spare me. A party that governs from the left under a blue banner still governs from the left, and voters aren’t required to give it credit for the label. And as I’ve repeatedly predicted, they haven’t. This led to the rise of Reform, Nigel Farage, and more radical, more grassroots, Tommy Robinson.

I’ve said often in these spaces that the biggest force pushing voters away from the left is the left in power and the results of their policies. It has always been so.

Here it is, gang: I would call what we’re seeing a worldwide gag reflex. A gag reflex is triggered by whatever you’re choking on, and gagging is nature’s way of solving the problem. It isn’t a philosophy. It’s an immune response. Trump and the end of USAID didn’t cause this one. Voters are reacting to what the worldwide Left has tried to force down their throats.

In fact, I would suggest that Trump is a part of that response, a symptom, not the cause. That’s why I’ve been saying that MAGA will not end with Trump. It’s just getting started. What South America, Europe, and, if I read things correctly, a good part of this country have been choking on is socialism. All of this is playing large in the American Midterm elections.

Le Pen, AfD vs Antifa.

• Migrants Join Forces With Antifa, EU Riots Spread From France To Belgium (ZH)

Europe is demonstrating that the globalist progressive experiment is crashing and burning, as far-left riots, which we pointed out at the start of the week, were “spreading like cancer” from France to Belgium, continue on Friday. What’s to say the social unrest will stop there?

The chaos and social unrest mimic the US Marxist BLM riots in 2020, when left-wing NGOs and politicians allowed these radicals to mobilize and burn down city blocks. What’s happening in Europe could’ve happened in the US this year if the State Department, Treasury, and other agencies hadn’t cracked down on these far-left NGOs, big family foundations, and foreign subversion networks. Social media user Visegrád 24 has pointed out that riots in Europe are taking a disastrous turn: “Young second and third-generation migrants have joined forces with Antifa for today’s riots in Brussels.”

BREAKING:

The riots are spreading from France to Belgium.

Young second and third-generation migrants have joined forces with Antifa for today’s riots in Brussels pic.twitter.com/zySR6266OY

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 9, 2026

That’s the second issue: far-left groups weaponize migrants to fulfill their sinister goal of overthrowing capitalism and the West, similar to what far-left radicals in the US, such as the Democratic Socialists of America, have in mind when they say, in their own words, that they want to “bring down America from within.”

"The most important thing we can do is take that (American) empire down from within"

DSA members make it clear what their goal is: destroying America. pic.twitter.com/Txy5Na21UG

— Canary Mission (@canarymission) July 5, 2026

You’re starting to get the picture, if readers don’t already understand: the West has a radical-left problem. It’s being showcased on a grand stage in Europe, where radicalization is infecting not just migrants but youth at younger and younger ages. This is an embarrassing dilemma for European liberals, as it only supercharges right-wing candidates to gain power, as Nomura analysts expect the EU “lurches” right in the 18-month election cycle already underway.

This was the problem high-level State Department officials discussed with their European counterparts this past summer: the troubling far-left radicalization impacting younger and younger people. More footage from Belgium:

🔴 🇧🇪 #BELGIUM

Clashes ongoing at the Central Station in #Brussels .

The march was supposed to start around 10:30 a.m. Still major tensions: mortars and water cannon on protestors🇧🇪🚨 pic.twitter.com/A4CqN9wY87

— World_Breaking_News03 (@Breaking2003) October 9, 2026

If it weren’t for DOGE cutting USAID funding by 85% and the US multi-agency task force cracking down on billionaire-funded lefty NGOs and subversion networks, who’s to say these riots wouldn’t be spreading to the US by now? But massive foundations, such as possibly the Gates Foundation, and many other lefty billionaires are too scared about the potential loss of their prized nonprofit status. That is likely one reason riots in America didn’t materialize this past summer.

“This leader has perpetuated war, violated our civil liberties, deported more people from our shores than any other president before him, and the list of his failures goes on,” is what SAYED! had to say about Obama in a 2012 HuffPo column just dredged up by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski.”

• Barack Obama and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad News Cycle (Green)

Few things bring me more workday pleasure than an opportunity to mock The Lightbringer, the man whose very nomination caused the oceans to stop rising (or maybe stop receding), healed our racial divisions (except for those tricksy Jews and also white guys), and ushered in “a new way of being on the planet.”

Of course, it’s even more pleasurable when I don’t have to think about Barack Obama at all, but he was never one of those “absence makes the heart grow fonder” people, so I have to leap on those mocking opportunities whenever they present themselves. Today, for example, when I do believe I’ll celebrate filing this column by shaking myself a martini. Shall we begin?

The setup began Monday with a news item you’re probably already well aware of. Despite polls showing Michigan Islamo-Commie Democrat Abdul El-Sayed with an insurmountable 417-point lead over his rival, that Republican dude that nobody is 100% certain is actually running. Campaigns comfortably in the lead don’t interrupt Obama from doing whatever it is he does these days — occasionally scold black men and count his Netflix money, I think — for a joint campaign stop on the first day of early voting.

That planned October 24 joint campaign appearance might get a little awkward, given what we just learned SAYED! really thought about the Lightbringer’s performance as president.

And Another Thing: My editor assures me that there is a Republican nominee, that his name is Mike Rogers, and that he’s been both on the campaign trail and occasionally (but only very occasionally) in the news. My editor also says that Al-Sayed now just uses “SAYED!” in his campaign materials. So, kind of like Madonna, but instead of getting you out on the dance floor, Madonna wanted to force you onto a prayer mat and confiscate your wealth.

“This leader has perpetuated war, violated our civil liberties, deported more people from our shores than any other president before him, and the list of his failures goes on,” is what SAYED! had to say about Obama in a 2012 HuffPo column just dredged up by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski. “So let’s be clear,” he added, “for progressives who care about peace, prosperity, civil liberties, and the future of our country, Obama’s reelection last night was no victory.”

There’s more — a lot more — along those lines from SAYED! in Kaczynski’s column. Bravo, sir. I didn’t think much of Obama’s performance, either.But it’s today’s second item giving me that four-hour schadenboner: “Obama Foundation and Presidential Center workers to unionize: ‘We don’t even have a seat at the table.’”

“When I’m president, I will make the minimum wage a living wage by indexing it to inflation so even more families have the economic stability they need,” Obama promised in 2008. In 2026, his attitude is more like, “I have to pay these people how much?”Which is why, the Daily Mail reported today, “Workers at his ‘death star’ presidential center are already so fed up they’re leaving in droves.”

Thanks for getting in the Death Star dig so I didn’t have to. But get a load of how Obama treats workers at the Lorem Ipsum factory: Issues with workloads and benefits have led to a ‘high turnover rate’ among employees, with many more ‘continuing to leave (and) taking with them their institutional knowledge and expertise,’ the letter claimed.

Workers say they were recently told that their healthcare costs would increase, promotions were suspended, and paid time off was reduced, despite also learning they would get no pay increases this winter. “What we’re hoping for, and really the reason why we’re forming our union, is just because we believe we should have a say in the decisions that are being made that impact all of our lives,” Luke Gilday, an Obama Foundation employee and member of the union organizing committee, told the Sun-Times.

Ha-ha, no. Welcome to democratic socialism, Comrade Gilday — you’ll get what your betters deign to give you, and pretend to like it. As for me, I’m loving every minute of it.But I’d love it even more if The Lightbringer would just go sit in the dark and stay there.

“Everybody’s restless and they got no place to go / Someone’s always trying to tell them something they already know / So their anger and resentment flow.” —Warren Zevon, Mohammed’s Radio

• The Ripening (James Howard Kunstler)

In the stark October light, events and personalities skulk in the shadows like scavengers in an orchard of poison fruit. The dread builds as the dooryards get populated with the motorized effigies of blood-beasts, werewolves, phantoms, and ghouls. Halloween and Election Day have become the conflated celebration of a national death trip. How has it come down to our country, in a crucial election, seriously entertaining the antics of jihadis and Jacobin riffraff?

Some somebodies are orchestrating this frightful show from the sinister shadowland behind our politics. My guess would be Barack Obama and John Brennan, with a whole lot of help from a supporting cast of entrenched Deep State racketeers enlisted in their service, with their status and livelihoods at stake. Mr. Obama acts as if he is untouchable, probably due to being the personification of Liberalism’s “Best Camper” trophy it gave itself to validate the Civil Rights struggle session of the century gone by. We are good people, we really are, and President Obama is proof positive of our goodness!

The truth is, we know next to nothing about his real origins and his journey to power. His family on his mother’s side was pure CIA-connected, and his actual father is rumored to be Frank Marshall Davis (1905–1987), a Black American poet, journalist, and labor activist who was a member of the Communist Party USA — not the Kenyan Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. He went from nonentity to myth with no intervening storyline that makes any sense, just a set of rapid promotions with missing events between them: Occidental College in LA to Columbia U to Harvard Law to Chicago politics to Illinois State Senate, straight to the US Senate, and then, bang, into the White House only four years into his first Senate term.

The Gold Dust Twins, Barack Obama with John Brennan

At every stage along the way he was somebody’s chore boy. But whose? My guess would be US Central Intelligence. . . that he was groomed to be the untouchable front man looking out for the agency’s interests in dicey times. His quick political rise coincided with the rise of John Brennan through the ranks of the CIA. Early on, Brennan was drawn to Arabic culture, sojourned in Egypt as a student, and later served as the CIA’s station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He speaks Arabic fluently and is rumored to have converted to Islam (from Catholicism), though it has never been proven. At a 2010 New York University forum, he praised “the goodness and beauty of Islam.”

The CIA, I would suppose, is composed of two great clans: one is made of the employees actually carrying out real intel-gathering and analysis. The other is of employees (current and former) looking out for the CIA’s own black op activities and the immense fortunes connected with it — with plenty of overlap between the two clans. I’d guess that John Brennan, who was CIA Director between 2013 and 2017 (under President Obama), still runs a large rogue contingent of the CIA clan that does the black ops, sits on a large fortune, and acts like a sovereign organism outside the control of the elected US government.

That would explain why no one has been held accountable for the ten-year-long coup against Donald Trump. Brennan, and the forces he represents, appear to be outside the control of the regular government, including the DOJ and FBI, and to some extent able to control people throughout government by subterfuge, intimidation, and blackmail. All that nearly came apart during Donald Trump’s first term with the bungled RussiaGate caper followed by the bungled Impeachment No. 1 operation. But Brennan’s dark CIA clan triumphed with the 2020 election “victory” of non compos mentis “Joe Biden,” followed by the successful Jan 6, 2021, fake “insurrection” at the US Capitol.

They stumbled badly again with the patently ridiculous court cases against former President Trump in 2023 and 2024. And now here we are in the middle of Mr. Trump’s second term, with a titanic struggle going on, largely out of public view, for the soul of the nation. John Brennan is still at large, but a month ago he was served with a subpoena to appear before a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida. It looks like he will finally have to do some ‘splainin’ about events he’s been involved with. You can be sure that President Trump means to see that it happens — whatever was signified by the departure of Joe diGenova last month.

It’s also my guess that former President Obama has become John Brennan’s hostage. He was probably assigned to run “Joe Biden’s” fake presidency using Susan Rice and other party functionaries to carry out orders. Brennan surely has a dossier on Barack Obama that fills in the blanks in his sketchy biography, including Mr. Obama’s secret sexual activities on the Chicago scene back in the day. Meanwhile, the former president has his electioneering duties to attend to, to try to flip the House and Senate so as to have one last go at defenestrating the man in the White House who threatens to put Brennan, Obama & Company out of business.

So, there’s a war on backstage. The war itself has been mythologized by those actually paying attention to it, sometimes as the contest between “Globalists” and “Sovereigntists” or “Black Hats” versus “White Hats” or the Legions of Satan versus the God-loving followers of Jesus. . . Jihad v. Western Civ. However you characterize it, everyone feels the tension as though the current phase of this Fourth Turning is an unbearable space between the life and death of the nation. Hence, all the ghouls in the dooryards, reminding us to stay. . . very. . . scared.

“Ukraine is facing energy and transport collapse, but its leader continues to siphon money into his corruption system, says Dmitry Polyansky, Moscow’s envoy to the OSCE..”

• Zelensky ‘Doesn’t Give A Damn’ About Ukrainians – Russian Envoy (RT)

Vladimir Zelensky’s continued attempts to target Moscow despite harsh retaliation against Ukraine’s military-related infrastructure prove that he doesn’t care about the well-being of his country’s people, Russia’s ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Dmitry Polyansky, has said.

Moscow Region came under a major aerial attack on Tuesday night, with Ukraine firing 650 drones towards the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said. Despite most of the UAVs being shot down by air defenses, the raid resulted in the death of two people. Another civilian was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the region on Thursday, according to Governor Andrey Vorobyev.

During his speech at an OSCE session in the Austrian capital, Vienna, on Thursday, Polyansky said that Zelensky “still harbors hopes of inflicting at least some noticeable damage on Moscow” in order to present this to the West as “proof that Ukraine is still capable of carrying out military operations that are painful” for Russia.

“At the same time, the head of the Kiev regime never tires of threatening Russia with escalation – something he is incapable of actually delivering – only to then complain about large-scale strikes by Russia,” he said, as cited by TASS. Zelensky should remember the proverb that “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” the envoy noted.

According to Polyansky, Russian retaliatory strikes on facilities supporting Kiev’s war machine are “many times more powerful” than those attempted by Ukrainian forces. Because of those attacks, Ukraine is “losing the last remnants of its industry and infrastructure,” while also teetering on the brink of a “total energy and transport collapse” ahead of winter, he added. Zelensky, however, “doesn’t give a damn about his citizens. His only concern is siphoning more money out of the country into the corruption system of his creation,” Polyansky said.

Ukraine has been rocked by a series of high-profile corruption scandals since last year, with the largest centering on a $100 million kickback scheme at state nuclear operator Energoatom, which was reportedly led by Timur Mindich, a former business partner of Zelensky. Other recent graft probes have targeted former Ukrainian ministers, prosecutors, diplomats, and senior officials.

In an interview with Reuters last week, Zelensky said he had ordered the Ukrainian military to double the number of attacks deep inside Russia, particularly against the country’s oil refining facilities. The Russian Defense Ministry responded by announcing that “following Zelensky’s statement, the strikes… on military and military-industrial facilities… in Kiev and other regions of Ukraine will be intensified.” The ministry maintains that it never targets civilians.

“Nord Stream 1, and probably Nord Stream 2 as well, will be relaunched. Russian gas will flow to the West,” said Grzegorz Braun after a meeting with the AfD party.

• Nord Stream Pipelines Will Be Relaunched’: Right-Wing Polish MEP (RMX)

Grzegorz Braun (first from the left) spoke together with AfD politicians in Lubmin, where the Nord Stream infrastructure is located.

Grzegorz Braun, leader of the Confederation of the Polish Crown, spoke in favor of restarting the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines during a meeting Wednesday with politicians from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Lubmin. He said Poland should be a shareholder in the German-Russian project.“Nord Stream 1, and probably Nord Stream 2 as well, will be relaunched. Russian gas will flow to the West,” Braun said. He said Europe needs Russian raw materials and that their absence could have serious consequences for the economy.

Braun argued that Poland should not be excluded from future energy projects concerning Russian gas supplies. “Poland should participate, not boycott. Poland should be the initiator,” he said. He also proposed that Warsaw become a shareholder in Nord Stream. He also said that if Russian gas returns to Europe, Poland could lose economically if the supplies bypass its territory. In his view, Warsaw should seek participation in such energy projects rather than remain outside them.

Braun also spoke of the need to “normalize” and “de-escalate” relations and economic cooperation among Poland, Germany and Russia. He advocated a return to wider use of coal and the ability to buy oil and gas from suppliers offering favorable terms. The speech took place in Lubmin, the site of the German terminal and infrastructure linked to the Nord Stream pipelines. Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 were damaged in September 2022 by explosions on the Baltic Sea floor. Nord Stream 1 had been the main route for Russian gas to Germany. Nord Stream 2, though completed, was never launched because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly urged the German government to start supplies through the sole Nord Stream 2 line that survived the blasts. He has said that if the line operates, 27.5 billion cubic meters of gas “will immediately reach Europe.” “Why don’t they do it? I just can’t understand it. They can receive gas through Ukrainian territory, through TurkStream, but they cannot through the pipeline running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea,” Putin said.

“In my opinion, it’s crazy, just nonsense. Why? But if they don’t want to, fine,” Putin said in 2024 at the Vladivostok Economic Forum. According to U.S. media reports, a group of Ukrainian officers conceived the operation to blow up Nord Stream in May 2022. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved the plan before he allegedly unsuccessfully tried to cancel it at the CIA’s request. Polish connections also appear in press accounts of the Baltic Sea sabotage.

U.S. President Donald Trump said last May that “many people know” who blew up Nord Stream. He added that he was the first to thwart the project. Trump imposed sanctions on Nord Stream 2 in his first term, significantly slowing construction. President Joe Biden repealed them in 2021 and reimposed them after Russia invaded Ukraine. Germany withheld permission to start the pipeline because of the war.

“A CIA investigation explored whether marital turmoil drove the Ukrainian nationalist to suicide – and whether his followers concealed the truth

• Bandera’s Dirty Secrets Buried To Build A Ukrainian ‘Hero’, Blame The KGB (RT)

October 15th marks the anniversary of Ukrainian ultranationalist Stepan Bandera’s alleged 1959 murder by a Soviet KGB agent, in Munich, Germany. As the Kiev regime has idolized Bandera and his fellow ultranationalist killers without shame since NATO’s war with Russia began, mass celebrations could be planned. Ukrainian officials were forced in May to publicly deny they had any intention of moving Bandera’s remains from Munich to rebury them. On top of avoiding significant public controversy, Kiev may have had a darker motive – preventing anyone from trying to investigate whether Bandera in fact committed suicide. The popular tale of his KGB assassination seems like a completely false Ukrainian ultranationalist hero myth.

For decades reviled by many Ukrainians and not much known outside the region, adoration of Bandera by Kiev’s assorted Neo-Nazi terrorist and paramilitary units, like Azov Battalion, forced the Western media to admit the man’s criminal legacy, and his personal involvement – and that of his Organization Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) – in committing the Holocaust. Even critical biographies of Bandera ignore his secret post-war relationship with the CIA and MI6. Tugging this thread could reveal how an independent secret investigation conducted by an influential and well-connected Ukrainian fascist CIA agent leading away from Bandera having been murdered, and to difficulties in his marriage, due to spending “much time in the company of other women.”

The CIA’s secret investigation Michael Korzhan was a Ukrainian fascist, Orthodox priest, and CIA spy. Known under the cryptonym “AEDOGMA,” from 1947 he monitored Ukrainian ultranationalists, Soviet emigres and associated groups throughout Europe, including Paris. Korzhan also kept a close eye on the continent for the CIA, not only as a “spotter” for potential agents who could be inserted into or recruited in the Soviet Union, but potential KGB infiltration of Orthodox churches. A declassified January 1960 CIA file records how Korzhan was sent to Munich after Bandera’s death and spent several months investigating what happened. AEDOGMA was able to retrace many sensitive particulars of Bandera’s life that never surfaced publicly.

Korzhan “became convinced, as the result of his investigations, that Bandera committed suicide.” Him being tasked with investigating Bandera’s death reflects the value the CIA attached to AEDOGMA. After World War II, Bandera became a prize asset of the CIA and MI6 for many years. While the CIA eventually turned on the godfather of Ukrainian ultranationalism, the CIA considered it very important he was not martyred by the KGB for his post-war anti-Communist activities in Ukraine and the Soviet Union. The CIA was working on getting Bandera a US visa at the time he died. Understanding the facts of what happened was of huge importance for the CIA, and Korzhan was the agent for the job.

“AEDOGMA has unusual skills in interpersonal relationships. His particular social talents are best expressed when he is able to operate independently in a relatively unstructured, “wheeling and dealing” environment… He can usually achieve the operational objective on his own… AEDOGMA starts any task with only the loosest initial plan for attack. From then on he feels his way, ‘following his nose’, while making sensitive adaptations to his strategy as the situation changes. Working in this fashion he enjoys his operational tasks immensely and becomes totally involved. He is deft at provoking others to reveal their hand while tipping off very little of his own.”

So said a declassified April 1960 CIA memo. Korzhan demonstrated his superhuman spying skills at the end of the previous year by interviewing “about 100 Banderites and other Ukrainian emigres” about Bandera’s death. He conducted significant on-the-ground research, identifying five separate “versions” of what happened to Bandera. They ranged from the Nazi-composed Gehlen Organization that the CIA built in Germany after World War II taking Bandera’s life, to suicide. Having chased every lead attempting to prove or disprove each “version”, AEDOGMA concluded that suicide was overwhelmingly the most likely. En route to reaching this explosive conclusion, never reported anywhere before, Korzhan disproved the accepted story that the KGB was responsible.

The assassination story under scrutiny
KGB defector Bohdan Stashynsky took responsibility for killing Bandera, on November 17 1961. He served four years in prison, before being released to start a new life in Germany. This telling of events has not been challenged at any time since. The ‘fact’ of the KGB’s responsibility is completely unquestioned in Ukrainian, and Western, accounts of what happened to Bandera. Korzhan identified a number of factors ruling homicide out entirely. He recorded that the alleged murder weapon potassium cyanide was not a substance the KGB had previously used during its entire post-war war on political opponents, and it would represent “the first time they have used this means” if the KGB was responsible.

Korzhan also believed it was highly illogical “in view of the present political situation” for the “Communists to do away with Bandera at this time.” He wondered, “wouldn’t the KGB have considered the fact that the death of Bandera would instigate the Ukrainian emigres to mobilize their fight against the Communists in the whole world?” He spoke to many knowledgeable sources who pointed directly to people and factors in Bandera’s private life that were much more likely culprits. Korzhan shared his findings with West German detective Adrian Fuchs, who also concluded Bandera’s death was a suicide. Both men understood also that powerful ultranationalist figures around Bandera had a huge interest in blaming the KGB.

Behind Bandera’s closed doors
Fuchs and his investigators spoke to at least 50 people about Bandera’s death, including people who knew him intimately, and many were unanimous in blaming his marital situation. Bandera’s life “was unpleasant,” due to how his wife, Yaroslava Bandera, treated him. She made his life a living hell because of his “association with other women,” so he killed himself. Particularly, Bandera plotted to take his own life “in such a way that suicide would never be suspected but that, on the contrary, would lead to various interpretations and suspicions that he was liquidated by the communists, thus permitting him to remain a hero.” Korzhan tracked how Bandera had been avoiding his bodyguards in preparation in the weeks before he died.

“It is a fact that Bandera had a violent quarrel with his wife that very morning. He threatened suicide and left home to go to the office before 8 a.m. Bandera employed the use of potassium cyanide which he always carried on his person and which, after his death, could not be found either on his person or in his home. Considering the above, I concluded that it was suicide by use of potassium cyanide. Motive: His unbearable marital situation.”

Korzhan had uncovered many facts supporting this “version.” He learned Bandera’s “home life had lately become so unbearable that his only escape could have been suicide.” The biggest issue was that Bandera’s wife “as a result from some very difficult experience in her life, and the fear of constant surveillance… had practically lost all of her senses.” Were she not Bandera’s wife, “she would have been in an insane asylum a year ago.” Korzhan learned about “Bandera’s unsatisfactory sex life, his seeking such diversions outside his base” – a euphemism for having many affairs – “and the resultant uncontrollable jealousy of his wife which led to fights between them.”

AEDOGMA heard story after story of Bandera trying to spend time away from his wife to have affairs with other women, and his wife viewing “everyone as a threat to herself.” Female friends were forbidden from visiting, even when accompanied by their husbands. Male friends were also barred because Bandera “would use the excuse of driving them home as an opportunity to get out for some fun.” Over the two years before he died, Bandera “lived through such hell that it was difficult for anyone to imagine.” He was phoned dozens of times whenever away from the house by his wife to check his whereabouts, and she made “all sorts of accusations against him even in front of the children.”

“During these quarrels he always threatened suicide. His wife would reply, ‘the quicker you do, the better it be for all of us,’ and then she usually added “but you are too much of a coward to commit suicide. Bandera, who considered himself a hero and an individual who enjoyed the respect of the organised masses and to whom he was a ‘god’, had to bear the slander and accusations made by his wife who saw him only as a human being, her husband and the father of her children. This was more than he could stand. The people who were acquainted with this situation felt that these tortures (for which be often was personally to biome) were so horrible that any normal individual would have committed suicide long ago.”

“The German leader has pledged more aid to Kiev despite falling popularity at home, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said..”

• Merz Turned Into ‘Ukrainian Chancellor’ – Moscow (RT)

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has effectively become a “Ukrainian chancellor,” showering Kiev with more taxpayer-funded aid despite mounting discontent at home, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Zakharova criticized Merz’s visit to Kiev on Sunday, during which he pledged billions in additional assistance, including funding for long-range weapons production. The announcement came amid plunging support for his governing coalition and a series of electoral setbacks for his Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Zakharova suggested that Merz was so eager to escape his domestic troubles that he “practically fled from the festivities in Bremen” marking the 36th anniversary of German reunification. “The new face in Ukrainian politics, [or] a ‘Ukrainian chancellor’ as Merz has been dubbed in German political circles, didn’t come empty-handed – he announced yet another generous gift to his ‘friend’, Zelensky,” she said sarcastically.

German taxpayers will foot the bill, Zakharova argued, suggesting that Merz was deliberately adding to their burden despite growing public dissatisfaction with his policies. She also questioned whether the chancellor could genuinely be unaware of Ukraine’s rampant corruption, pointing to a series of high-profile scandals involving Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle and senior officials.

Zakharova cited a September survey by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), in which 50% of respondents identified corruption as the country’s most pressing problem. Some 72% said graft had worsened since the escalation of the conflict with Russia in 2022, while the same proportion blamed Zelensky and his associates. Given what she described as Kiev’s efforts to suppress dissent, Zakharova argued that the findings were particularly revealing.

“Ukraine is so mired in corruption that it has become impossible to cover up its real scale by any means,” she said. Merz has faced similar criticism from German opposition politicians. In July, Alternative for Germany (AfD) lawmaker Markus Frohnmaier told RT’s Rick Sanchez that Merz “is the chancellor of Ukraine and not the chancellor of Germany.” Veteran left-wing politician Sarah Wagenknecht, founder of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), has likewise accused Merz of turning “his own citizens into cash cows for Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, an INSA poll published earlier this month put support for Merz’s CDU/CSU alliance at a record low of 18%, compared with 30% for the AfD, which remains Germany’s most popular party. The chancellor’s Christian Democrats also suffered successive electoral defeats last month in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The CDU finished a distant second in Saxony-Anhalt with 17.5% of the vote and failed to clear the electoral threshold in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, securing just 4.9%.

Despite the setbacks, Merz, who has previously criticized Germans for not working enough hours, has refused to change course.

“Kiev’s European backers ‘nervous’ about winter..”

• Trump Envoys Pitching ‘New Ideas’ To Settle Ukraine Conflict (RT)

US President Donald Trump’s top negotiators are preparing to pitch “new ideas and proposals” aimed at breaking the deadlock in the Ukraine conflict, with talks involving representatives of Kiev and its European backers scheduled to begin in Miami on Friday, according to Reuters and Axios. Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected to hold a two-day working session with the Ukrainian delegation in an effort to develop a unified proposal that could later be presented to Moscow.

The pair could then travel to the Russian capital later this month for another round of talks with President Vladimir Putin, Axios reported, citing a source familiar with the discussions. According to Reuters, the ideas were developed during and after Witkoff and Kushner’s diplomatic tour of Moscow and Kiev in early September. The pair have since remained in contact with both Russian and Ukrainian officials while working on an updated peace initiative.

One proposal reportedly under consideration is a partial ceasefire covering attacks on energy infrastructure and Black Sea shipping. The talks are also expected to address possible security guarantees for Ukraine, a post-conflict economic plan and other elements of a potential settlement. Witkoff and Kushner met Trump on Thursday to present the latest proposals and receive his input ahead of the Miami talks, according to Axios. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Deputy National Security Adviser Mike Needham also attended the meeting.

Kiev’s European backers ‘nervous’ about winter
Kiev will reportedly be represented by Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff, Kirill Budanov, intelligence chief Rustem Umerov, diplomatic adviser Sergey Kislitsa and top lawmaker David Arakhamia.

National security advisers from Britain, France and Germany, as well as representatives of NATO and the EU, have also reportedly been invited. A US source told AFP that European governments have privately complained about soaring energy prices and other economic costs stemming from the conflict, adding that there is growing concern about another winter of hostilities.

“They are all nervous about the winter. It will be a tough winter if the war does not stop,” the source said. Trump has also repeatedly pressed Zelensky to stop “hurting the world” and halt Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, arguing that the attacks are worsening a global diesel shortage and driving up fuel costs in the US.

Kremlin agrees with Rubio on ‘stalemate’
The new diplomatic push comes as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the conflict as a “dangerous stalemate,” warning that further escalation could spill beyond Ukraine and trigger a broader confrontation. “This war needs to end in a negotiated settlement. The sooner, the better,” Rubio told reporters in Lisbon on Thursday, while cautioning that Washington would not invest indefinitely in “pointless processes” that produce no progress.

The Kremlin said it shared Rubio’s assessment of the current diplomatic impasse, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying he “agreed” that no clear prospect of a negotiated settlement was currently visible. He nevertheless reiterated Moscow’s position that Russia remains open to negotiations, while accusing Kiev of showing no willingness to accept reality and pursue a long-term settlement.

Despite the lack of progress on Ukraine, contacts between Washington and Moscow have continued on other tracks, Peskov added, noting that the two countries are discussing “a whole range” of potentially mutually beneficial economic projects, including possible cooperation in the energy sector.

“The Labor Department won’t accept new applicants or process pending applications involving the eight companies while the administration pursues its concerns about possible immigration fraud.”

• Trump Told Big Tech to Put American Workers First (David Manney)

A Microsoft employee who lost a job in 2025 might have a few questions for the company’s executives today. The technology giant eliminated thousands of American jobs while continuing to sponsor foreign workers. Now President Donald Trump’s administration wants answers, and the consequences have arrived.

On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced that Microsoft, Adobe, and six major technology outsourcing companies were being suspended from the federal Permanent Labor Certification Program, known as PERM. The Labor Department won’t accept new applicants or process pending applications involving the eight companies while the administration pursues its concerns about possible immigration fraud.

For Americans who supported Trump’s 2024 campaign because of his America First employment promises, the announcement is a direct expression of what they expected from his presidency. The policy puts a familiar question before some of the world’s wealthiest corporations: What responsibility do American employers owe American workers?

Vance singled out Microsoft, pointing to approximately 6,000 layoffs in 2025 and thousands of H-1B visa applications. He accused the company of abusing a system intended to address genuine labor shortages. Microsoft disputes that characterization, saying roughly 80% of its H-1B applications involving existing employees and that new visa hires represented only about 1% of its American workforce.

From the Associated Press: Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington, said of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications it submitted in the last fiscal year, 80% were “to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees.” “These were not to hire new people,” Microsoft said in a statement. “The remaining filings for new employees were for individuals already legally in the United States who decided to come work for us, and they equal only 1% of our U.S. workforce. They are not new arrivals to our country.”

The company added that it only files H-1B petitions for “those who meet the rigorous standards of this visa category.”nWe need to take a good peek at those numbers because layoffs and foreign worker sponsorship don’t automatically establish that Americans were displaced. They do, however, raise questions that can be looked at through hiring records, recruitment procedures, and the specific positions involved.

PERM isn’t simply another foreign worker visa. Before sponsoring someone for permanent residency through this process, an employer must establish that sufficient qualified American workers aren’t available for the position and that hiring the foreign worker won’t undermine comparable American wages and working conditions. Those protections have long been part of federal law.

The administration’s action reaches well beyond Microsoft. Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies, Capgemini, and Adobe are also affected. Sonderling said these companies collectively requested nearly three million foreign workers since 2009, received more than 230,000 H-1B approvals, and obtained over 100,000 permanent labor certifications.

Those figures describe different categories of immigration activity, not a confirmed count of Americans replaced. The Labor Department hasn’t publicly demonstrated that every certification was improper. Its investigations will need to distinguish legitimate recruitment from false claims that qualified American applicants weren’t available.

The larger dispute involves more than immigration enforcement. Technology executives argue that access to international talent helps American companies compete, innovate, and retain highly skilled workers. Critics of the visa programs argue that employers can exploit immigration rules to reduce labor costs, weaken domestic bargaining power, or avoid investing in American employees.

Trump’s supporters have long regarded those concerns as central to the America First agenda. The administration is now testing whether existing federal safeguards can be enforced against companies with enormous economic influence. There’s an especially interesting detail from Thursday. While Vance publicly challenged Microsoft’s employment practices, Trump honored Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

The same administration recognized the company’s achievements and questioned its immigration practices within hours. The investigations could ultimately establish wrongdoing, identify compliance failures, or find that some accusations went too far. The suspensions also affect foreign workers already pursuing permanent residency, creating questions about fairness, legal authority, and how long their applications will remain stalled.

Those outcomes will determine whether Thursday’s announcement produces lasting reform or another prolonged federal dispute. For the voters who backed Trump expecting stronger protection for American employment, the measure demonstrates the administration’s willingness to challenge Big Tech. Whether it actually delivers more opportunities for American workers remains the test that matters.

The clinic is located on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Maryland.

• RFK Jr. Announces New Clinic for People Injured by Vaccines (ET)

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other officials have opened a new clinic to treat patients with vaccine injuries and announced other new developments on Oct. 8 that they say will change how the government handles reports of health problems following vaccination.The new National Institutes of Health (NIH) clinic is located on the agency’s campus in Bethesda, Maryland. It was opened on Oct. 5, officials disclosed on Oct. 8. Reporters were not invited to the opening.

The Make America Healthy Again Commission, led by Kennedy, recommended in 2025 starting a new vaccine injury research program at the NIH as part of an effort to investigate vaccine injuries with better data collection and analysis. “[The clinic is] dedicated to developing the science of preventing vaccine injuries, making vaccines safer, and most important of all, listening to the voices of people who have suffered vaccine injury, so that we can learn from them and learn from their experience to make vaccines safer,” Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, NIH director, said in an Oct. 8 video statement.

NIH doctors and researchers will use the clinic to evaluate patients, identify potential causes of health problems, and try to figure out the best treatments, the Department of Health and Human Services, the NIH’s parent agency, which is led by Kennedy, said in a statement. Some NIH researchers studied patients with alleged or confirmed COVID-19 vaccine injuries during the COVID-19 pandemic, but they received pushback from NIH leadership. Patients said they were later abandoned by the researchers.

Kennedy, who attended the opening of the clinic, said in a video he posted on Oct. 8 that parents of children who suffered injuries from vaccines and other individuals with vaccine injuries “have been marginalized, vilified, demonized, and gaslighted, and they have not received the medical attention they need, and we have not done the studies that need to be done to understand who’s vulnerable to those kind of injuries.”

That’s changing with the Trump administration, he said. “I think it was the first time in years that the vaccine-injured have been heard by the health authorities,” Brianne Dressen, who was injured by the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, was treated at the NIH in 2021, and co-founded a group called React19 representing people hurt by vaccines, told The Epoch Times.

“It is definitely a step in the right direction.” Health officials also announced three other related developments on Oct. 8. Kennedy has said that vaccine surveillance systems that the government utilizes, including the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), don’t work well. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another agency under Kennedy’s purview, in August solicited bids for a contract to overhaul VAERS. On Sept. 28, the agency awarded a new contract.

Another move, officials said, will be requiring electronic health records moving forward to include vaccine-related health issues, “so that this information can follow patients across the health care system” and inform healthcare professionals who are caring for the patients.Finally, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, another health agency division, is proposing reimbursing doctors for the time they spend submitting reports to VAERS.

“Vomiting can also be an effective way to ward off a sexual offense.”

• German Police Advise Women To Vomit To Stop Rape Attacks (RMX)

It has been revealed that police in the northern German city of Bremen have for more than a decade advised participants in workplace safety seminars that deliberately inducing vomiting can be one way to interrupt an attempted sexual assault or rape. Franka Haedke, a spokeswoman for the Bremen police, said the guidance is part of broader self-defense instruction offered by the department’s Central Police Prevention unit.

“In an emergency, such as attempted rape, defend yourself with all available means,” Haedke told the Kreiszeitung newspaper. “Vomiting can also be an effective way to ward off a sexual offense.” Seminar instructors tell participants they can trigger a gag reflex by placing a finger down the throat. The resulting disgust, police say, is intended to disrupt an attacker’s actions. Haedke described the suggestion as one option among others rather than a prescribed response.

The sessions, which have run for more than 10 years, are held at companies, government offices and medical facilities. Employees of public transit agencies, the fire department, job centers, and social-service organizations are also eligible to attend. Topics include recognizing and avoiding danger, de-escalation, bystander intervention, and specific conduct during a sexual assault. Participants are invited to describe their own experiences so that advice can be tailored to situations they have encountered.

Haedke said the courses help people “recognize dangers early, manage conflicts, and act thoughtfully.” She added that the seminars “contribute to the prevention of crime and should be actively promoted and conducted on a recurring basis from the police’s point of view.”

Notably, the police appear powerless to address one of the key issues driving the increase in rapes and sexual assaults in Germany, and that is the incredible increase in foreigners. Since 2018, there has been a 72 percent increase in rapes in the country. In Bremen itself, where the police are advising women to vomit to stave off a rape, the city has been labeled the “most dangerous city in Germany.” It also happens to have the highest share of migrants of any German city. It is also a place where 49 percent of all rapes were committed by foreigners, even though the official foreign population is 23 percent.

The Bremen guidance is not the first unconventional self-protection tip from German police to draw public scrutiny. Remix News previously reported that in Berlin, officers previously listed singing as a way to irritate an attacker, advice that remained visible on the police force’s website even after internal materials had been revised. A screenshot of the recommendation went viral on social media in 2024 and was widely mocked.Berlin police later said the tip had been drawn from professional associations for psychiatry and did not match operational experience.

“A screenshot of our homepage has been circulating for a few days, according to which we recommend that in the event of an attack, you irritate the perpetrator through unexpected behavior, such as singing,” the Berlin police stated. “This is recommended by the professional associations for psychiatry, among others. However, this advice does not correspond to our police experience and has therefore no longer been part of our recommendations since 2023. The flyer was already updated, now our website is too.” The police stated that the suggestion was not meant for terrorist attacks, rampages or armed assaults, including those involving knives, where protecting life is the priority.

After the mass sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2015–16, Mayor Henriette Reker — although not a police official — also gave advice that was widely condemned. Reker said women should keep “a certain distance of more than an arm’s length” from unknown men and avoid behavior that could be “misunderstood.” After thousands of German women were sexually assaulted and even some raped by North African migrants, the remarks were widely criticized, including by Germany’s justice minister.

Swedish police have also previously advised women to stop going out alone. Before mass immigration, Sweden was once one of the safest countries in the world for women. However, right around the same time as the mass sexual assaults in Colgone, Swedish police issued similar advice. In Östersund in 2016, after a series of assaults and an attempted rape, police chief Stephen Jerand advised women who wanted to move around at night to arrange a ride or walk in groups. He called the warning factual rather than a ban on going out alone.

German police have given similar pairing advice after attacks on joggers. Leipzig officers in 2017, after a woman was raped in Rosental park, said it would be better to run in pairs or make sure someone else was nearby, and to look back when passing people. The city’s mayor criticized the police for restricting women’s freedom.

After an attack in the English Garden in Munich in 2016, police in the city told runners to choose busy, lit routes after dark, jog at least in pairs at dusk, skip headphones, and carry a whistle or personal alarm. Although it was less controversial advice that what other authorities provided, critics note that women are increasingly unsafe in Europe while out exercising or enjoying public spaces.

Treated very badly..

• Roseanne Barr Is Coming Back (Matt Margolis)

Roseanne Barr is back. Eight years after Disney fired her over a tweet, the comedy legend has finished shooting an eight-episode family comedy called Meemaw, and she promises it takes aim at the left and the right alike. According to the report, the new series was filmed secretly in Austin, Texas, in November 2025. Barr plays the matriarch of a “mixed-race family of preppers in Texas” who is on a quest to “throw her granddaughter the most fantastic bat mitzvah Texas has ever seen.”

She adds, “I thought now would be a great time for people to actually hear from a Jew.” Mo’Nique, the Oscar-winning “Precious” star who remains friends with Barr, discovered Indy Bugg, a tween Instagram sensation who plays Barr’s granddaughter. “Mo’Nique calls up, ‘Check this girl out. She not only looks like you, but she acts just like you, too,” Barr recalls. “She was only 12, and I about fell over that I was able to get her. She’s such a star. You’ll see it in the first episode, in her first scene.”

Hollywood didn’t pay for any of it. Private investors gave Barr enough money to mount a fully union production. Elon Musk, who once pledged to back X users fired over their posts, never called her back, according to Barr. She isn’t lacking confidence, either. “It’s every bit as revolutionary as The Roseanne Show, if not more, and my work has improved with time,” Barr told Page Six. “I want everybody who disagrees in a family to sit in the same room and just laugh and go, ‘Yeah, maybe I was an a—hole that time. Well, you were an a**hole this time. Oh, we’re all a—holes. Let’s get a beer.’”

Meemaw is coming and no one is safe. https://t.co/V15APvoIQd

— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) October 8, 2026

She wants relatives who disagree to sit in one room, laugh, admit they’ve each been jerks at times, and go have a beer. I’m looking forward to checking it out.

It was ridiculous when Hollywood canceled her after the Roseanne revival had just wrapped its first season as the top scripted primetime show among viewers 18 to 49. Her longtime agents at ICM dropped her immediately, and ABC reworked the show without her as The Conners.

It always sickened me the way her co-stars didn’t stick up for her. Let’s be honest: Barr was an outspoken Trump supporter, and ABC was likely looking for any reason to get rid of her. I watched the Roseanne revival, and it was good, but I refused to watch The Conners after they railroaded Barr.

On top of that, Disney demonstrated double standards by firing her. Whoopi Goldberg still has her seat on The View after claiming in 2022 that the Holocaust wasn’t about “race.” It was a shocking moment, and even her fellow liberal co-hosts challenged her to explain what she meant. Goldberg’s answer was that it was about “man’s inhumanity to man” because it involved “two groups of white people.” And in 2009, she defended pedophile Roman Polanski’s 1977 rape of a 13-year-old girl.

“I know it wasn’t rape-rape,” Goldberg said. “It was something else, but I don’t believe it was rape-rape.” ABC/Disney didn’t care about that.

But Barr got no such grace, so she built her comeback with people who know the angry cancel culture mob firsthand. Tony Hinchcliffe faced cancellation calls in 2024 for joking that Puerto Rico was a floating island of garbage, and his reps refused to drop him. Omar Gooding took heat for joining the cast and answered his critics by saying comedy is king.

According to Barr, Meemaw is “for everyone.” “My daughters are super woke and of course I love them, so I put in jokes for them, too, like I did on Roseanne,” she said. “I make fun of everybody ’cause everybody deserves to be made fun of who’s in power. So, I’ve got some great jokes about Republicans that the lefties are gonna love. I’m an equal opportunity destroyer.”

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"First, we honor an industrial titan, a brilliant engineer, and one of the greatest technology founders to ever live. His name is Elon Musk. Quite… pic.twitter.com/pCSCJlZMKg

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) October 8, 2026

Starlink coming to KLM! https://t.co/08iVZuXys4

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— TESLA CARS ONLY⚡️ (@teslacarsonly) October 8, 2026