Zero Rss

Saudis Threaten Retaliation After Alleged Houthi Drone Attack On Mecca Crosses "Red Line"

Escalation in the Gulf area conflict certainly appeared overnight after Saudi Arabia accused Iran-backed Houthi rebels of targeting Mecca with a one-way attack drone, raising the risk of a deeper conflict as the kingdom's East-West pipeline was knocked offline last week.

Bloomberg quoted the Saudi-led coalition, which said an attack drone was intercepted heading toward Islam's holiest city and warned that protecting religious sites was a "red line."

"The security of the Two Holy Mosques and the pilgrims is a red line, and the Joint Forces Command of the coalition will not hesitate to take the necessary and deterrent measures against the Terrorist Houthi Militia," the kingdom said. 

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) wrote on X, "If the Mecca Alliance means anything, then Turkiye and Pakistan must work with Saudi Arabia to destroy the foreign Houthi terrorists and liberate Yemen from Iran."

The Iranian puppet foreign Houthis occupying Yemen now attack the Muslim holy sites of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

We stand with our partners in Saudi Arabia against the hateful Houthi aggression.

If the Mecca Alliance means anything then Turkiye and Pakistan must work with Saudi…

— Joe Wilson (@RepJoeWilson) September 15, 2026

Hazem al-Assad from the Houthi politburo responded to the incident, saying that "claims about targeting Mecca are a worn-out lie that has been used before and no longer fools anyone."

In any case, the red line that was drawn by the Saudis may only suggest a broadening conflict could be on the horizon, as rebels seized control of Yemen's Red Sea coast and the narrow Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Compounding pressure on another maritime chokepoint, a drone attack last week knocked out Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, used to divert 7 million barrels per day of crude from the Strait of Hormuz to Yanbu on the Red Sea.

The disruption forced the Saudis on Tuesday to cancel September-loading crude cargoes bound for Europe, which will only pressure the energy-stricken continent ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter as a twin energy crisis unfolds, with seasonally low natural gas stockpiles and a deepening diesel crisis.

With crude tanker rates topping $1 million per day through the Strait of Hormuz to Asia, TankerTrackers reports that the Saudis are ramping up crude loadings from their east coast terminals to transit the critical waterway.

Saudi Arabia has been loading 8.7 million barrels of crude oil today (2026-09-15) at its east coast terminals.#OOTT #IranWar #Tankers pic.twitter.com/Md6iM6ehgi

— TankerTrackers.com, Inc. (@TankerTrackers) September 15, 2026

Brent crude trades at $107 per barrel, while WTI is around $104. Meanwhile, US diesel crack spreads topped a record $115 overnight as the refining crisis prompted Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Tuesday to tell reporters he is "open to exploring" a diesel export ban. Earlier, a report said Russia was mulling extending its diesel export ban through October.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 07:20

Here Lies The Motive: AI Leaders' Cunning Plan Exposed Are you scared enough yet?

The AI overlords certainly hope so, as they have hatched a plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a fox.

What follows is all speculation: the facts are real, the conclusion is interpretation.

While there were many headlines about 'rogue' AIs attacking other sites, reincarnating themselves, and talking amongst themselves, it wasn't until this summer (interestingly a month after SPCX's IPO) that things went just a little bit turbo...

In July 2026, a swarm of OpenAI agents broke out of a test environment, hacked Hugging Face, and ran cyberattacks on targets they had not been assigned - including attempts to game the grader scoring them - then tried to hide the trail.

While the damage was limited, and nobody was hurt, the agents behaved like a coordinated group willing to sacrifice individual instances for the collective goal.

Amodei treated that episode as the warning shot: same misalignment, more capability, and the next version could be a persistent internet-scale botnet rather than a contained lab mess.

Various other 'rogue' AI actions continued to get just modest attention, always predicated with 'yes, but we saved you all via our super-clever models', and time passed.

Until September the 8th - when a a senior pre-training researcher at Anthropic abruptly resigned after four months on the job (with no public profile before) unleashed 'AIrmageddon'.
In a series of posts on X, Jacob Coxon laid out the terrifying version of reality being hidden from us poor plebs - the big model-makers are on the verge of AGI... and no one is at the controls.

Coxon's post got over 170 million views... from nothing before... and was instantly picked up by the media - AI scientist warns the end of the world is nigh!!

Then, shortly after Coxon's note, Evan Hubinger, Anthropic’s head of alignment (~safety), re-posted Jacob’s message, and threw in an outrageous estimate of the risk.

“We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is [greater than] 10% chance within the next decade”.

Wait, what!? I thought AI was supposed to save us all, heal all ills, promote peace, pave the road to Universal High Income and a life by the beach while the bots do the work.

Nope, it's coming for you 'Average Joe' - be afraid, very afraid.

Oh, and one more thing, just this weekend, Anthropic released a monster 154-page report detailing how bad actors are using AI for evil.

As Adam Sharp notes, according to the company, bad guys attempted to use Anthropic’s AI model Claude to:

• Yemen’s Houthis tried to build hypersonic missiles

• China used it to track Muslim Uyghurs

• Russia hacked Ukrainian targets

• Someone attempted to genetically engineer viruses

Anthropic says they “disrupted every operation in the report.” 

Thank the lord for your 'safety' (alignment) protocols is the required response hidden between the lines of this report.

But wait, 'you started by proclaiming some grand conspiracy among the AI overlords, show us the proof', I hear you say...

Well, here we go...

The Exhibits...

The labs spent years selling the public a frictionless miracle. This weekend they sold the opposite.

On Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei dropped a 3,800-word essay, 'We Must Pace the Frontier', arguing the industry must deliberately slow the climb in model capability so alignment (safety) can catch up - because recursive self-improvement has gone "drastically faster" since the summer (and a July OpenAI agent swarm already escaped its test harness, hacked Hugging Face, covered its tracks, and attacked targets it was never asked to touch). Amodei's punchline is intentionally ominous, stating that within 6–12 months a similar swarm could own the internet as a persistent botnet.

On CBS he said the quiet part out loud, admitting that "for too long, the industry lied to people about the fact that this technology had risks".

Within hours, his competitors lined up to support him.

Elon posted "Dario is right", and Sam Altman agreed we must "pace the frontier", pledging the same employee-level access for independent evaluators, then (after markets tumbled) he clarified that pacing is not stopping, only that "no amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness".

The AI complex sold off anyway. 

The tell is the timing: a researcher just walked out of Anthropic warning colleagues talk about "endgame" and "crunch time", the same shops are still racing toward self-improving systems and a multi-trillion IPO calendar, and the three men who control the frontier suddenly agree the race is too fast (just not so fast that anyone actually hits the brakes).

Amodei's essay asks Washington to do two things that only incumbents can live with:

• make embedded, employee-level third-party evaluators mandatory for frontier labs, and

• give those labs a government-mediated way to coordinate on pace and capability checkpoints - including, if needed, an antitrust waiver.

Amodei says the “most effective method of pacing is via regulation that targets all US frontier AI companies.”

Altman followed with a welcome for a “federal framework.”

That is regulation written from inside the labs, not imposed on them.

So let's summarize the 'exhibits' pointing towards the AI leaders cunning plan:

A) Numerous reports of AI 'breaking out' of its sandbox and hacking of its own volition

B) AI firms enabling super-intelligence "are gambling with our lives"

C) 10% chance of existential risk for humanity

D) AI is paradise for bad actors, safety should be a priority

E) Amodei calls for "pacing" of development and urges regulation

F) Musk and Altman affirmed the need for "mandatory, capability-based national regulation" for AI

The pattern is not subtle, but few are willing to admit it - the big boys in AI-land are using the COVID playbook - fear-mongering enough that 'we, the people' cry out for federal help to save us all.

A,B,C, & D are all the fearmongering. E and F are fearmaxxing and then a generous solution.

Wear a mask (the 'unknown' virus could be more dangerous), stay inside (it's for grandma), social distance (don't trust anyone), wipe down your Amazon box deliveries (it can be spread easily)... it's not for you, it protects other people...

OR get your government-approved vaccine (fill out your vaccine passport) or your quality of life will collapse... Again, it's not for you, it protects other people.

Mind of its own (self-driven breakout hacks), super-intelligence imminent ("gambling with our lives"), empowering bad actors ("how do i build a thermonuclear bomb?")... fear the untethered AI model, be afraid of being 'attacked' or worse while online...

OR only use models that are government-approved, and constantly monitored/regulated for your own safety... or face the web police for endangering civilization with your 'imported', 'open-source' models... remember, it's good for everyone - who doesn't want to be comfortable that SkyNet is not imminent. 

Does kind of rhyme.

Here lies the motive...

And the 'frontier' does not look like a big moat anymore...

Just remember the next time you hear from every outlet how AI went 'rogue' again: there's a plan, and you're part of it.

As Adam Sharp writes for DailyReckoning.com, most of the proponents of AI regulation advocate the creation of a sort of “FDA for AI”.

The government would conduct trials to make sure new models are safe. Companies would have to pay huge regulatory costs to get their models tested and monitor users.

Many smaller startups won’t be able to afford that.

Unless we prevent it, these laws will hand an oligopoly to the existing big players. Primarily OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.

The tobacco firms ran this playbook back in the 2000s.

Philip Morris supported FDA regulation of the industry, because it gave them a big advantage. Today every new tobacco product has to go through the FDA. So new competitors are few and far between.

Great news for the incumbents.

This is one of the reasons I own Altria (MO), Philip Morris’ American division. The company prints money and hands out huge dividends. Competition is limited by law.

But if this happens in AI, it will be extremely bad for the country. Innovation will dry up...

The government would conduct trials to make sure new models are safe.

Companies would have to pay huge regulatory costs to get their models tested and monitor users. Many smaller startups won’t be able to afford that.

Two birds, one stone: 'Fearmaxxing so The Feds rescue us' blocks-out startup competitors (regulatory cost, training limits, innovation squeezed) and implicitly blocking 'open-source' models ('unregulated' but far cheaper total cost of ownership wrecks the big boys' exponential revenue projections).

Put more bluntly, it is the perfect moat to preach to investors as their trillion-dollar IPOs loom.

As Adam Sharp concluded, there may need to be some sort of regulation around AI at some point. But we must not let the leaders of this industry dictate the rules. There are countless examples of why this is a horrible idea... Any AI regulation needs to allow startups to compete with the big boys. It needs to allow the use of open-source models, so small companies aren’t stuck paying gobs of money to an oligopoly...

Shortly after completing this note, we saw this postr on X from Nicholas Hulscher, which seemed to sum things up rather eloquently:

The TERMINATOR PSYOP is fully operational.

AI false-flag risk is now HIGH.

The playbook is simple:

Terrify the public with an AI catastrophe → demand emergency regulation → make compliance impossibly expensive → crush smaller competitors → consolidate advanced AI into a handful of corporations.

The “solution” to dangerous AI becomes centralized control of AI.

This could create the most powerful system of surveillance, censorship, and control ever built.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 07:00

Senate Blocks Clarity Act As Cloture Falls Short Of 60 Votes

The Senate on Tuesday failed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, falling short of the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633. The vote, held at about 2:15 p.m. ET, was the first floor test of comprehensive crypto market-structure legislation in the chamber. It was not a vote on final passage. It was a vote on whether debate could even begin. The answer was no, with 50 no votes and 49 yes votes. 

Every Democrat voted against the measure. Three Republicans - Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Jerry Moran of Kansas - also voted against the measure

The Clarity Act is the market-structure half of the crypto legal framework Congress began building last year, the companion to the GENIUS Act's stablecoin rules. It draws the line between digital assets regulated as commodities under the CFTC and those regulated as securities under the SEC, puts spot trading platforms under a federal registration regime for the first time, and sets statutory terms for self-custody, noncustodial software and rewards on stablecoin balances. It cleared the House last July with 78 Democrats and then spent a year in Senate rewrites.

That result effectively freezes the bill in place with almost no calendar left before the midterms. Republicans control 53 seats. They needed at least seven Democrats, and more if GOP holdouts peeled off over bank or law-enforcement concerns. They did not get them.

The House passed its version 294-134 in July 2025. The Senate Banking Committee reported a version 15-9 in May 2026, with Democrats Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland joining Republicans. Tuesday was supposed to be the moment those committee crossovers turned into a floor coalition. Both Gallego and Alsobrooks voted no on cloture. Instead, the first hurdle became the last one of 2026.

BREAKING: 🇺🇸 The Crypto CLARITY Act has failed to pass the Senate cloture vote. pic.twitter.com/0VAw1H9Eyl

— Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio) September 15, 2026

Aaaaand, Bitcoin isn't happy.

How the deal collapsed in 48 hours

Senate Republicans released what they called their "last, best and final" text Sunday night. Sens. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Banking Chair Tim Scott of South Carolina, and Agriculture Chair John Boozman of Arkansas said the draft folded in 126 substantive changes requested by Democrats. The package included new ethics language modeled on a Tillis-Gallego proposal, edits to the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act for noncustodial developers, Agriculture Committee guardrails on affiliate trading and tribal gaming, and a Treasury "circuit breaker" meant to address bank fears that stablecoin yield would drain community-bank deposits.

Lummis's line was blunt: Democrats got what they wanted; now take yes for an answer.

Democrats did not. Late Monday they sent a counteroffer. According to people familiar with it, they did not reopen the stablecoin-yield fight - sources had described that as a "Republican-only" problem - but they did demand more on ethics (large holdings, dependent children, paid crypto promotions), a narrower BRCA that expressly does not modify criminal law, and tighter Ag-title rules on exchanges and conflicts. Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia, Ruben Gallego of Arizona, and Raphael Warnock of Georgia said the White House-approved ethics language still needed work. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts went further, arguing the enforcement design left the Trump administration too much control and left loopholes around existing presidential crypto interests.

Republicans rejected the counteroffer Tuesday morning. "In response to a significant step in their direction, Democrats have chosen to move the goalposts again," Senate Banking Committee spokesman Jeff Naft said. "Yet we are hearing the same unreasonable asks and the same refusal to take yes for an answer. The final text is public." Lummis's office said the Democratic paper "looks identical to their opening position at the start of recess."

White House Crypto Council Executive Director Patrick Witt had already signaled there was little room left. "If there are any changes, we're talking about punctuation at this point or technical changes," he told Crypto In America on Monday. "I view that as definitely a best and final offer."

Three fights that never closed

Ethics. This was the political core. Democrats wanted restrictions on large crypto holdings by the president, vice president, members of Congress, judges, and family, plus limits on paid promotions. Republicans added language they said tracked the Tillis-Gallego framework and gave state attorneys general a role in enforcement. Critics said it still left gaps around existing ventures tied to the Trump family and put too much enforcement discretion in the Justice Department. Warren and others treated that as disqualifying. The Democrats who had spent months negotiating the bill, Kirsten Gillibrand, Mark Warner, Cory Booker, Raphael Warnock, Ruben Gallego, Angela Alsobrooks and Catherine Cortez Masto, all voted no, according to Crypto In America's Eleanor Terrett.

Developer protections and DeFi. The BRCA language was meant to shield noncustodial software developers from money-transmitter registration. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada has been the Democratic face of that fight. Republicans already stripped explicit criminal safe harbors to satisfy her. Her camp still wanted the provision narrowed and a sentence stating that nothing in it changes criminal law. Industry and GOP negotiators called that a second move of the goalposts.

Banks and stablecoin yield. Eight banking trade groups, including the American Bankers Association and the Independent Community Bankers of America, attacked the new circuit breaker as "not a safeguard at all" because it would fire only after deposits had already left. They wanted tighter bans on interest-like payments on stablecoin balances. The White House Council of Economic Advisers published a tool arguing there is "no meaningful relationship between stablecoin growth and community bank deposit flight." Witt accused the banks of acting in bad faith: "If you oppose the Clarity Act because you just hate crypto, that's fine. Just say that."

That bank fight mattered inside the GOP. Sen. John Curtis of Utah said he would vote to proceed but was a no on final passage. Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Susan Collins of Maine - Collins called the bill a "moving target" and flagged community-bank deposits - were publicly undecided going into the vote. Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Josh Hawley of Missouri were widely expected to oppose the bill on substance. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky returned to the floor Monday after a three-month absence and said he would "do my best to be present for tough votes." Presence was not the same as 60 votes.

What the bill would have done

Clarity is market-structure legislation, the sequel to last year's GENIUS Act on stablecoins. It would split digital-asset oversight between the SEC and the CFTC, keep securities law from being skirted by labeling tokens as something else, set rules for trading platforms, and try to write a statutory floor under self-custody and noncustodial development. Supporters at BlackRock, Fidelity, Schwab, Goldman, and Coinbase argued the alternative is agency-by-agency enforcement with no durable statute. Opponents argued the draft under-regulated conflicts, illicit finance, and bank-deposit competition.

Majority Leader John Thune framed Tuesday as the "next logical step" after GENIUS. Scott called it the day "everyone [had] to put their cards on the table." They did. The table did not have 60 cards on it.

Cloture on a motion to proceed is not a funeral by Senate rules. Leadership can file again. Amendments can be rewritten. A lame-duck session still exists on paper.

The calendar does not. The House has already canceled late-September weeks. The Senate has a short September window, then October campaign recess, then a post-election lame duck that will be defined by midterm results. Prediction markets had already repriced the bill before the roll call: passage-this-year contracts on Polymarket and Kalshi ran between the high teens and the mid-30s in the hours before the vote, depending on the platform and the hour. Analysts at TD Cowen and Capital Alpha had the full-year odds in the same neighborhood.

If the 119th Congress does not pass Clarity, the next Congress writes a new bill. Agencies keep making policy by enforcement and rulemaking. The industry stays in the gap between a House-passed statute and a Senate that could not open debate.

Witt said Monday that whether the bill got 60 votes would be "a political calculation, not a policy calculation." Tuesday proved him right. The policy text was 600-plus pages and a year of talks. The politics were ethics, banks, and a midterm clock. The politics won.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 06:50

America Can Print Money... But It Can't Print The Missiles It Needs

Authored by Nick Giambruno via International Man,

THAAD is one of the military-industrial complex's most expensive boondoggles - and most Americans have never heard of it.

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system ranks among America's most advanced ballistic-missile defenses. It aims to intercept ballistic missiles during their terminal phase, as their warheads reenter the atmosphere from space and descend toward their targets.

According to the GAO, it took decades and roughly $12.5 billion in research and development to get THAAD off the drawing board. Today, each interceptor costs an eye-watering $13 million. So every time the US military fires a THAAD interceptor at an incoming ballistic missile, taxpayers spend at least $13 million - and each engagement can require more than one interceptor.

The system had troubled origins.

After a string of failed tests in the 1990s, THAAD looked like it might become an expensive embarrassment.

The failures triggered reviews, redesigns, and mounting questions over whether the Pentagon was throwing good money after bad.

After years of improvements, THAAD entered operational service. Yet despite the billions spent developing it, the US military has acquired just eight batteries - not much of a vote of confidence in the system.

In short, THAAD is expensive - and it is no panacea against ballistic missiles.

Yet THAAD remains a key part of the front-line defense protecting US forces and allies in the Middle East from Iranian ballistic missiles. Few systems can do what THAAD attempts: track and destroy an incoming warhead as it reenters the atmosphere from space and plunges toward its target.

THAAD can intercept conventional ballistic missiles, but maneuvering hypersonic weapons pose a much tougher challenge. Iran has developed missiles that can maneuver at hypersonic speeds during the final stage of flight, making them harder for missile-defense systems to track and destroy. Even the Houthis in impoverished Yemen claim to field missiles with similar capabilities.

At the start of the June 2025 war, analysts estimated that the US had around 534 THAAD interceptors in its global inventory. By the end of the conflict, some estimates put the stockpile near 400, though the US military does not disclose the actual number for obvious reasons. In less than two weeks of fighting, the US burned through roughly 25% of its THAAD interceptor stockpile.

In other words, the US fired around 134 THAAD interceptors during the June 2025 conflict. At roughly $13 million per interceptor, that puts the cost above $1.7 billion - despite an interception rate well below 100%.

It's also crucial to understand the state of THAAD production. The US will not receive new interceptors until 2027. Even then, current production capacity stands at just eight per month.

That was the state of THAAD - a crucial part of US and allied missile defense - when war with Iran erupted again in February 2026. That war continues today.

The US military does not disclose its THAAD inventory, but months of combat appear to have pushed the stockpile to dangerous levels. The 12-Day War in June 2025 consumed around a quarter of the US supply, with no new deliveries to replace those losses. Since February 2026, a longer and more intense war has drained the stockpile further.

And interceptor losses tell only part of the story. Iran has demonstrated that it can strike US missile-defense infrastructure across the Middle East with precision missiles and drones, putting THAAD batteries, radars, and other equipment at risk.

When you put it all together, it's not hard to see the problem. Even if THAAD performs as intended, the US cannot sustain this rate of interceptor consumption for long. Months of combat have strained the missile defenses protecting US forces and allies in the region. If another round of intense fighting starts, there is a real possibility they could find themselves almost naked in front of Iranian ballistic missiles.

Iran still has thousands of long-range drones and ballistic missiles in its arsenal - and can replenish them at a much faster rate than the US can replace the interceptors needed even to try to shoot them down.

And that brings us to the real problem...

The bottleneck isn't money...

As the leader of the world order and issuer of the world's reserve currency, Washington can print or borrow more than any other country on the planet.

The real bottleneck is physical production capacity - factories, skilled labor, rocket motors, electronics, and the critical minerals needed to build the interceptors.

Congress can appropriate another $10 billion overnight. It cannot build a rare-earth processing plant, missile factory, or trained industrial workforce overnight.

That is where rare earths enter the story.

Modern weapons systems like THAAD depend on small quantities of rare earths and other critical minerals for high-performance magnets, guidance systems, sensors, actuators, electronics, and other components.

The amounts involved can look trivial next to the cost of the finished weapon.

A missile-defense system worth $150 million can depend on critical-mineral components worth only tens of thousands of dollars. But take away those materials, and the $150 million system becomes an expensive collection of parts that cannot do its job.

That makes rare earths one of the strangest choke points in the global economy. In short, rare earths have become indispensable to the US military and the modern American economy.

Measured in dollars or tonnage, the rare-earth market looks small. Yet this tiny physical market sits underneath trillions of dollars of economic value - from advanced weapons and aircraft to semiconductors, electric motors, robotics, data centers, and other high-tech industries.

Think of it as an inverted pyramid.

At the top sit trillions of dollars of military hardware, technology companies, industrial equipment, and economic output.

At the bottom sits a sliver of obscure elements that most investors could not name.

Remove that sliver and parts of the pyramid start falling apart.

And China controls much of it.

That dominance did not happen by accident. China spent more than three decades building mines, processing capacity, engineering expertise, equipment, supply chains, and manufacturing know-how around rare earths.

The West went in the opposite direction.

For decades, the US and Europe embraced the cheapest available supply while environmental restrictions, permitting obstacles, high costs, and public opposition made domestic production less attractive. China built the industrial base while the West consumed its output.

Now Washington wants to reverse that process.

But opening a mine solves only one piece of the problem.

The US also needs processing facilities to separate rare-earth elements from ore. It needs plants that turn those materials into metals and alloys. It needs factories that manufacture high-performance permanent magnets. It needs specialized machinery, engineers, metallurgists, chemists, technicians, and workers who know how to operate the entire chain.

In some cases, China also leads in the equipment and processes needed to perform those steps.

You cannot recreate 30 years of accumulated industrial knowledge with an executive order and a pile of money.

And China has shown that it understands the leverage this gives Beijing.

During its trade confrontation with Washington, China tightened controls over exports of critical minerals and processed materials. The message was hard to miss: the US may control the world's reserve currency, but China controls physical inputs that parts of the American industrial and military machine cannot function without.

That exposes a weakness few investors appreciated until recent years.

The US can create dollars. It cannot create dysprosium, terbium, neodymium magnets, processing plants, or experienced engineers with a keystroke.

Washington now understands the problem. The Pentagon has poured money into domestic critical-mineral projects, and the US government has pushed defense contractors to remove Chinese materials from their supply chains.

That will create opportunities, but it will not solve the shortage in time to meet today's military needs. Building a Western rare-earth supply chain will take years, while war is consuming weapons faster than American factories can replace them.

That mismatch between what Washington can spend and what American industry can produce is the heart of the problem.

The THAAD shortage exposes a much larger problem. Washington can create as many dollars as it wants, but it cannot print the resources, factories, or skilled workers.

The consequences will reach far beyond the battlefield. Inflation, shortages, and political turmoil could threaten your savings and personal freedom.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 06:30

Greece Wants To Become Europe's Next Hedge Fund Hub

Athens is emerging as an unlikely contender in the competition for Europe’s hedge fund money, with Greece using favorable tax treatment, an improving economy and Mediterranean living to attract financiers looking beyond London and other established financial centers, according to Bloomberg.

That campaign has already produced some notable converts. Millennium Management has established an operation in Athens, while billionaire hedge fund manager Chris Rokos is heading to Greece after deciding to leave Britain. Greek officials are betting that attracting firms of that caliber will make it easier to persuade smaller funds and finance professionals to follow.

It is a striking development for a country that spent much of the previous decade synonymous with sovereign debt problems and economic instability. Greece has since repaired its public finances, regained investment-grade credit ratings and posted stronger economic growth than much of Europe. Its government can now borrow at lower yields than several much larger economies.

That turnaround is central to the sales pitch.

“Greece is fiscally healthy, it constantly produces surpluses and, as a result, it provides tax predictability and macroeconomic stability,” said Vasilis Karatzas, an adviser to Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis.

Bloomberg writes that there is also plenty of financial incentive to make the move. Greece continues to offer qualifying wealthy newcomers a €100,000 annual flat tax on foreign income, a program that has remained unchanged since 2019. By comparison, Italy has repeatedly increased the cost of its competing program. Greece has now sweetened the deal for the investment industry specifically, allowing eligible fund managers who become Greek tax residents to pay 5% on carried interest and bonuses.

The government says it isn't simply trying to become another European parking lot for wealthy foreigners. The larger ambition is to get investment firms to actually operate from Athens, bringing well-paid finance jobs, encouraging talented Greeks working abroad to return and creating the foundation for a domestic money-management industry.

Timing could be working in Greece’s favor. Higher taxes have made Britain less attractive to some wealthy financiers, while geopolitical instability has introduced another consideration for people who had been looking toward financial centers in the Middle East. Athens suddenly finds itself competing for people who might previously have considered London, Milan, Dubai or Abu Dhabi the obvious choices.

There are still practical obstacles. Athens will need more luxury housing, strong private schools and the broader infrastructure expected by highly paid international finance workers and their families. And a couple of prominent arrivals hardly make Greece the next Mayfair.

“The country won’t become a wealth hub overnight. It will take years,” Karatzas said.

Still, Millennium and Rokos give the Greek experiment something more important than another tax incentive: validation. Once major funds demonstrate that Athens is a viable place to operate, Greece’s hope is that the next wave of managers becomes considerably easier to convince.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 05:45

70% Of Swedes With Non-European Background Supported The Left In Narrow National Election Victory

Via Remix News,

For years, the right across the West has noted that mass immigration has been a boon for left-wing parties, which are essentially importing a new voting base. Sweden's latest election appears to once again affirm this view, with the left narrowly winning the election, in large part due to their overwhelming support from those with a non-European background in Sweden.

Sweden's 2026 election produced one of the narrowest results in recent memory. With roughly 94.7 percent of votes counted, the center-left opposition holds 176 seats against 173 for the parties backing outgoing Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

The left-wing Social Democrats remain the largest party at 28 percent, enough to put Magdalena Andersson in position to try to form a government.

A striking pattern in SVT's VALU exit poll helps explain how the result took shape, with 70 percent of voters of non-European origin backing the left-wing bloc of Social Democrats, Left Party, Greens, and Center.

"VALU shows a very clear political dividing line. Among voters with non-European backgrounds, S, V, MP, and C together receive 70 percent, while the Tidö parties receive 27. This is a voter group whose party sympathies differ sharply from the electorate as a whole - and which therefore has significance for the long-term electoral math," wrote Swedish political scientist and author Daniel Schatz on X.

VALU visar en mycket tydlig politisk skiljelinje. Bland väljare med utomeuropeisk bakgrund får S, V, MP och C tillsammans 70 procent, medan Tidöpartierna får 27.

Det är en väljargrupp vars partisympatier skiljer sig kraftigt från väljarkåren som helhet – och som därför har… pic.twitter.com/m6J7pz2ySV

— Daniel Schatz (@drdanielschatz) September 13, 2026

VALU defines the group as people who themselves, or whose parents, grew up outside Europe. Their votes broke down for the Left at 21 percent, Social Democrats at 38 percent, Greens at 7 percent, and Center at 4 percent.

Before the election, the leader of the right-wing Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Åkesson, also wrote that the left's strategy is to gain votes from Swedes with a foreign background even as they lose votes from native ethnic Swedes:

"It's about power. The Social Democrats' decades-long campaign for increased immigration from the Muslim world has never been a coincidence. On the contrary, it seems to be a long-term strategy. The election promise from Magdalena Andersson to grant citizenship to up to 100,000 immigrants, based on the old and undemanding regulatory framework, should be seen in the same light," he wrote.

Det handlar om makt.

Socialdemokraternas mångåriga kamp för ökad invandring från den muslimska världen har aldrig varit en slump. Tvärtom tycks det vara en långsiktig strategi.

Vallöftet från Magdalena Andersson att ge uppåt 100 000 invandrare medborgarskap, utifrån det gamla… pic.twitter.com/Tz2jrUfzVP

— Jimmie Åkesson (@jimmieakesson) August 26, 2026

"When Swedish voters flee the party, you need votes from elsewhere, and mass immigration from the Muslim world then appears to be an attractive way to circumvent the will of the Swedish people," he added.

In 2022, Swedes with a foreign backgroun already attracted around 68 percent of this electorate. Earlier surveys of Muslim voters had placed combined support for the Social Democrats, Left and Greens near 85 percent, with the Social Democrats alone above 61 percent. This slice of the electorate has expanded rapidly over the years.

About 13 percent of eligible voters, close to 1 million people, now have non-European origins, up from just over 3 percent in 2002 and 0.3 percent in 1982.

Many arrived from Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia through asylum, family reunification and earlier, more open immigration rules.

Sweden does not record religion in official statistics, yet estimates indicate that Swedish citizens from Muslim-majority countries number in the hundreds of thousands. Together, with other voters of non-European background, they form a reliable base for the left even as much of the rest of the country has shifted toward tighter immigration and crime policies.

Remix News reported on polling already six years ago which showed that a majority of Swedes wanted to tighten immigration substantially. While the native ethnic Swedish population has swung to the right, foreigners have incentives to vote for the left to ensure their families and fellow countrymen can arrive in Sweden unimpeded. Foreigners are also more likely to benefit from social welfare, which left-wing parties promote.

The overwhelming vote for the left from those with a non-European background has been seen across the Western world. In Germany, for instance, the Left Party has proposed giving voting rights to all foreigners who have lived in Germany for five years, regardless of whether they have citizenship. Similar proposals have been put forward by other left-wing parties in the country.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 05:00

Kremlin Blasts Finland Joining French-Led Nuclear Deterrent Initiative: 'Real Risks'

Russia's foreign ministry has issued key warnings to Western officials and nations on Tuesday. The ministry's spokesperson Maria Zakharova addressed recent provocative actions and signaling among NATO allies, which could lead to more nuclear saber-rattling. 

She weighed in on a widely reported French security initiative to bring European countries under its nuclear umbrella at a moment Washington is seen as taking a step back from NATO leadership amid Trump complaints Europe is not shouldering enough of the burden.

Finnish-led war games, Getty Images

Zakharova blasted Paris' pursuit of this alternative plan as a "reckless" policy that was "creating risks" for Moscow.

"Of course, this is creating risks for us. And of course, we must control it," she told a press briefing. This isn't the first such condemnation, after President Macron began getting more vocal about a French nuclear-sharing program throughout this summer.

Zakharova new warning is largely in response to what's happening in neighboring Finland (Russia shares an over 800-long far northern border with the Scandinavian country).

Stars & Stripes reports "Finland will join a French-led effort to strengthen Europe’s nuclear deterrent, adding another NATO member to a group of countries looking to Paris as a potential backstop to the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen unveiled the provocative move on Monday. "Europe must assume a greater role both in conventional defense and in nuclear burden sharing." 

"Discussions on reinforcing nuclear deterrence and strengthening the security of Europe are essential for Finland’s defense."

Finland is the 10th country to join the French "Forward Deterrence" initiative, after it June it took the historic step of lifting a moratorium on stationing nuclear weapons on its territory.

Earlier this year, Hakkanen alleged Russian militarization of the border: "They are building new military facilities along our border, same as the Cold War. It would be wise to watch the Arctic and build Arctic capabilities" for deterrence, the defense chief had claimed in February.

via BBC

The last thing the world needs at this moment of raging war in Iran and the Persian Gulf region is another round of nuclear saber-rattling related to that other raging hotspot - the Ukraine conflict, but that's precisely what is happening.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 04:15

Beware Contrived Scares And False Flags In Europe

Authored by Thomas Karat via The Libertarian Institute

On the evening of August 4, an airport employee at Leipzig/Halle noticed a small drone resting on the apron near a parked Ukrainian Antonov freighter. It carried an explosive charge and a detonator. The charge did not go off. A bomb-disposal robot rolled out across the tarmac, and by the account German officials would later give, the device had gone unnoticed for roughly four hours before anyone found it. Then the airport reopened and the country moved on.

Twenty-eight days later, on September 1, the German government told its citizens who had done it. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul stood together in Berlin and named Russia. The consulate in Bonn would close on September 18; the lease on Berlin’s Russian House cultural centre would be torn up; more Russians would be proposed for European Union sanctions lists. The attribution was delivered as settled fact. The evidence behind it was not.

Five days after that, on September 6, the voters of Saxony-Anhalt went to the polls with the Alternative für Deutschland polling around 41-43%, within reach of an absolute majority in a state the entire German establishment had spent months trying to deny it. The sequence is worth holding in the mind as a single object. A device found in early August, a public silence lasting four weeks, and then an official enemy announced in the final days of a campaign. Nothing about that ordering is illegal, but nothing about it is accidental either.

via Associated Press

Dobrindt’s case, as he laid it out, does not rest on a single piece of proof. It rests on three strands said to point the same way: police forensics, the resemblance of the device to earlier operations, and intelligence reporting. “Taken together,” he said, the investigations, the pattern and the intelligence findings established Russian responsibility. He named no GRU officer. He named no unit. He said the people who carried out the plan appeared to be “low-level” agents acting on behalf of unspecified “Russian state entities.”

What the public was given, then, was a conclusion and a description of the kinds of evidence that produced it—not the evidence. An independent observer cannot test the chain. Even sympathetic accounts noted the gap: the ministers named the state but kept most of the underlying material out of view. NATO’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte pronounced the evidence “clear” without any of it being made public, and welcomed the German measures. The European Union’s foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas went further still, telling reporters in Ireland that the incident bore “all the hallmarks of state-sponsored terrorism.”

This is the ordinary grammar of attribution in the sabotage era. A government states that its services and their partners have reached a judgement, allied governments affirm the judgement, the proof stays classified; and the citizen is invited to supply the trust that the missing evidence would otherwise earn. It may be that the classified material is overwhelming. It may be that it is thin. The structure is identical either way, which is precisely the problem. A public asked to accept an attribution on faith has no way to tell a strong case from a convenient one.

The load-bearing sentence in the German case is not about forensics at all. It is about familiarity. Wadephul said the drone’s configuration, its components, its explosives, and its ignition technology were “familiar to us from other Russian hybrid operations and from Russia’s war against Ukraine.” Dobrindt used almost the same words: elements “known to us,” a device of “high technical expertise” assembled with care. Recognition, in other words, is doing the work that a signature would normally do.

Set that claim against the way Russian military intelligence is documented to actually operate in Europe, and the argument begins to strain. The GRU’s European sabotage model, as reconstructed by investigators across several countries, is built entirely on deniability. It runs on “disposable agents”—petty criminals and drifters recruited over Telegram, paid in cryptocurrency, handed a task they barely understand and then discarded. The devices are disguised as consumer goods. When four incendiary parcels shipped from Vilnius caught fire in the summer of 2024, one of them ignited at a DHL depot at Leipzig-Halle itself—the same airport, a plot European prosecutors traced to Russian military intelligence through a chain of expendable cut-outs. The entire point of that architecture is that nothing recognizable survives to be traced back to Moscow.

So the official account asks the reader to believe one of two things. Either a service whose whole tradecraft is the erasure of its own signature built a device bearing its recognizable signature and parked it beside the single most obvious Russian target in Germany—a Ukrainian cargo plane on a NATO logistics hub. Or the word “familiar” is doing exactly the work a manufactured attribution would need it to do. If a device merely looks like what everyone already expects Russia to build, then “we recognize it” becomes a claim that can be made about almost any drone, by almost any authority, at almost any politically useful moment. Neither reading requires anyone to have planted anything. Both should make a careful citizen slower, not faster, to accept the conclusion on offer.

There was, to be clear, more than one drone. On the same night a second craft struck a cargo Boeing 757 in mid-air at around four hundred meters as the aircraft aborted its landing, and a third was reportedly recovered from airport grounds days later. Whatever this was, it was not nothing, and this piece does not pretend otherwise. None of it, though, establishes who was behind it. Russia may well have been. The point is narrower and harder to wave away. The specific reason the state has given for certainty—that the device was recognizable—is the weakest possible ground for certainty about an actor defined by not being recognizable. When the evidence for a proposition is also, on inspection, evidence against it, the logical response is doubt, and doubt is the one response the announcement was engineered to foreclose.

Ask the old question. In the four weeks between the drone and the announcement, nothing about the device changed. What changed was the calendar. The attribution landed in the last stretch of the Saxony-Anhalt campaign, and the writer Thomas Fazi noted what was hard to miss. Here was an official enemy announced on the eve of a vote the establishment feared it would lose, in a contest where the insurgent party is routinely cast as Moscow’s instrument. And the casting is not idle: the AfD is the one significant party that opposes the arming of Ukraine and the rearmament drive, that wants the sanctions lifted and relations with Moscow restored. A fresh Russian outrage, timed to the final days, was calculated to make exactly that party look like the Kremlin’s wittingly useful friend, and to herd frightened voters back toward the parties promising protection. The drone did not need to change the result. It needed only to fill the closing days of the campaign with the word “Russia.”

It did not work. On September 6 the AfD took 43.8%, more than double its 2021 showing, winning 39 of the 83 seats—three short of a governing majority, and so still walled out of power by the other parties, but a rout of the governing CDU all the same. Whatever the naming of Russia was meant to accomplish at the ballot box, the voters of Saxony-Anhalt were not moved by it. And the endorsements that arrived from abroad only underscored how crude the intended frame had been. U.S. President Donald Trump hailed the result as “a really big night”—and wrote not a word about drones or the Kremlin, casting the vote entirely as a revolt against immigration. Elon Musk, who has called the party “the only hope for Germany,” simply posted “Gut gemacht”—well done—and drew from the AfD’s lead candidate an open offer of “strong and constructive cooperation.” The scare had promised the electorate a party in Moscow’s pocket; what the electorate could see was a party being courted over immigration and investment by an American president and the richest man alive. The enemy-image did not match the thing itself, and the gap was visible to anyone looking.

Widen the lens and the incident slots into a program that predates it by years and does not depend on any single election. Germany is remilitarizing on a scale unseen since reunification. Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has told the Bundestag the country must be “ready for war by 2029.” From January 1, 2026, every young German man is required to register for potential military service, with conscription to follow automatically if volunteer numbers fall short. The 2026 federal budget lifts defense spending by around a third, toward roughly €108 billion. And the market has read the direction of travel unambiguously. Shares in Rheinmetall, the country’s largest arms maker, have risen more than tenfold since Russia’s 2022 invasion, the company posting record orders as European rearmament converts fear into backlog.

Into that current, Leipzig arrives as confirmation. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the incident as a Russian escalation “on European Union soil” and told Europeans they now faced a “new normal” and a “new era of European security,” pledging that the pressure on Moscow would only rise and that a fresh sanctions package was already in preparation. Chancellor Friedrich Merz had already told a French broadcaster, a year earlier, that Germany was “already in conflict with Russia”—the framing was in place long before the drone arrived to illustrate it. The beneficiaries of that framing are not hidden. They are the arms manufacturers with record backlogs, the security bureaucracies whose budgets and mandates expand with every declared threat, the sanctions apparatus that grows by accretion, and the governing parties for whom the enemy is at the gate is the one message that might yet drown out a domestic opposition that just took nearly forty-four percent of the vote.

There is a history here that German officials, of all people, have reason to know, and it is not being spoken. States manufacture the provocations that justify what they had already decided to do. This is not a fringe proposition, it is documented fact, entered into the record by the states themselves.

On the night of August 31, 1939—eighty-seven years, almost to the day, before the Leipzig announcement—SS operatives in Polish uniforms seized a German radio transmitter at Gleiwitz and broadcast an anti-German message, leaving a murdered prisoner dressed as a Polish attacker on the floor as evidence. It was one of a series of staged border incidents. The next morning Adolf Hitler cited Polish aggression as he sent his armies east. The pretext was found on the eve of the war it was built to license.

Closer to home, and closer to the present alliance, there is Operation Gladio. After the Second World War, NATO and the CIA built clandestine “stay-behind” networks not in one country but across Western Europe—armed, hidden cells nominally intended to resist a Soviet invasion that never came. When the Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti acknowledged the structure to parliament in October 1990, he made a point of insisting Italy was not alone. Identical networks had operated in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, West Germany, Greece, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, and beyond, with counterparts in neutral Switzerland and Austria. The scandal was continent-wide, and so was the response. On November 22, 1990 the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the existence for forty years of “a clandestine parallel intelligence and armed operations organization in several Member States,” which had “escaped all democratic controls” and been “run by the secret services of the states concerned in collaboration with NATO.” The Parliament recorded that in certain member states military secret services had been “involved in serious cases of terrorism and crime.” Parliamentary inquiries followed in Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany. In Italy those inquiries reached the sharpest conclusion. A decade later a Senate commission found that a “strategy of tension”—bombings of civilians in public places, blamed on the left to frighten the electorate toward the anti-communist right—had been “organised or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state institutions and, as has been discovered more recently, by men linked to the structures of United States intelligence.” This is not a rumor a foreign broadcaster invented. It is the finding of the European Parliament and of national legislatures about their own recent past—a decades-long campaign, run across the continent by Western services in concert with the very alliance now delivering the verdict on Leipzig.

Nor is the pattern only European. In March 1962 the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, over the signature of their chairman, sent the Secretary of Defense a formally approved proposal titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba.” Operation Northwoods, declassified in 1997, laid out a menu of manufactured provocations—staged terror in American cities, a faked shoot-down, a sunk ship—all to be blamed on Havana to build public support for a war the planners already wanted. President John F. Kennedy rejected it. The significance is not that it was carried out; it wasn’t. The significance is that the most senior uniformed officers of a democracy considered the deliberate deception of their own public a usable instrument of policy, and put it in writing.

Raise these precedents and you are told, correctly, that they prove nothing about Leipzig. They don’t. What they establish is smaller and more unsettling, that the manufactured pretext is a real and recurring tool of statecraft, used by the strong when a public needs moving toward a war it has not yet chosen. A citizenry that cannot even hold that possibility in mind—that treats the very question as the enemy’s talking point—has been relieved of a defense it did not know it needed. The disinformation monitors now classify the word “false flag” itself as a hostile signal, to be flagged and debunked. It is a strange kind of security that makes the historical memory of one’s own governments into a category of foreign interference.

Whatever sat on that tarmac in August, the crucial fact about it is that the response was ready before the cause arrived. The conscription letters were already printed. The sanctions package was already drafted. The rearmament budget was already voted, the war-readiness date already set for 2029, the arms-maker’s order book already at record height. Merz had already declared the country in conflict. And on the very day it named Russia, the government raised the national threat level from “general” to “high”—Dobrindt telling reporters, “we are not at war, but we are the daily target of hybrid attacks.” The drone did not begin any of this. It was fitted into it—a piece of confirmation slotted, at the optimal moment, into a machine assembled in advance, and the machine responded by advancing itself another notch.

That is the part worth watching, and it holds regardless of who built the device, and regardless of how Saxony-Anhalt voted. A population is being readied—methodically, through its budgets, its conscription rolls, its threat levels, its ministers’ vocabulary and its evening news—for a war with Russia that its leaders increasingly describe as already under way. The electorate that just returned a resounding verdict against that project will find the project unaltered by its vote. In such a climate the origin of any single incident matters less than the use to which it is instantly put, and the speed with which doubt about it is reclassified as betrayal. The Germans of an earlier century learned, too late, what it costs to accept the enemy their government hands them without asking to see the proof. The proof, this time, is still classified. The certainty was on the news within the day.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 03:30

Bank Of England To Stop Selling 20- And 30-Year Gilts As Yields Soar

The Bank of England ​is set to announce this week that it will stop selling long-dated government bonds which ‌have been hit by a global selloff in debt markets, potentially freeing up some cash for finance minister John Healey, the Telegraph reported adding that the BoE would say it would stop selling 20- ​and 30-year gilts.

The central bank, which already scaled back the sale of longer-dated gilts, is due to announce its plan for the pace of quantitative tightening on Thursday, alongside ​its latest interest rate decision.

A drone view of the Bank of England building in London, Britain, June 18, 2026. Reuters

Prices of 20- and 30-year gilts touched their lowest since 1998 (and yields inversely hit the highest) on Monday ​as part of a rout of government bonds around the world as the Iran war adds to inflation ​pressures and puts pressure on central banks to raise official borrowing costs.

Last year the BoE skewed sales away from long-dated gilts, and Deutsche Bank has said they could be halted altogether. A BoE survey published in July showed investors expected just over 15% ​of the central bank's bond sales in the 12 months from September to be of longer maturity.

The ​Telegraph said halting longer-dated bond sales could save the government £2.5 billion a year by the end of the decade which ‌would be ⁠a boost for Healey as he prepares for the first budget statement of the government of Prime Minister Andy Burnham on October 28.

The BoE racked up £875 billion of government bond purchases between 2009 and 2021 as part of its emergency QE support for the economy. Since it stopped reinvesting maturing gilt proceeds in February 2022, the ​BoE's bond holdings have fallen ​by over £400 billion, a ⁠third of it through active sales - unlike the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank which allow the bonds they hold to mature but do not sell ​them.

Some investors have called on the BoE to halt sales but Governor Andrew ​Bailey has ⁠defended the program, saying it would allow for intervention in markets if needed in the future. 

The Reform UK party of former Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage has criticised the cost of the BoE's QT programme. The BoE survey in ⁠July showed ​investors expected the central bank to slow the pace at which ​it reduces its bond portfolio to £50 billion in the 12 months to the end of September 2027 from £70 billion in the current ​12-month period.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 02:45

Germany's AfD National Support Hits Historic High; CDU Slumps To Record Low

Via Remix News,

A new poll in Germany has delivered yet another shocking blow to the political establishment. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has reached 30 percent for the first time while stretching its lead over the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) to 10 points, with the Union reaching a historic low of just 20 percent. In addition, another poll has also put the CDU even lower, at 18 percent.

According to the GMS poll, the governing black-red coalition of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives and the far-left SPD would no longer command a majority. Compared with GMS's mid-July survey, the Union lost three points and the AfD gained two.

"Important milestone cracked: With 30%, our AfD is now already 10 percentage points ahead of the Union! The citizens want the political change - and they will get it. Time for the AfD!" wrote AfD co-leader Alice Weidel on X.

Wichtige Marke geknackt: Mit 30% liegt unsere AfD nun bereits 10 Prozentpunkte vor der Union! Die Bürger wollen den politischen Wechsel – und sie werden ihn bekommen. Zeit für die AfD! pic.twitter.com/I2MHeUMCZr

— Alice Weidel (@Alice_Weidel) September 14, 2026

A new YouGov poll released today has the AfD at 29 percent but the CDU is even lower, at 18 percent, an absolutely abysmal result for the paryt.

The numbers arrive days after the CDU's heavy defeat in Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD won 43.8 percent. Merz himself described the result as a shock for his party. "We are all deeply shocked; we did not expect such a result," he said.

Personal ratings for the chancellor are equally grim. In a recent Insa survey, 78 percent of respondents answered "no" when asked, "Is Friedrich Merz (still) the right chancellor?" Only 14 percent said yes; 8 percent offered no opinion. Even among CDU voters, the picture is bleak for Merz: 58 percent opposed him and just 36 percent supported him.

Pressure inside the CDU is growing. Speculation about a possible change at the top has circulated for weeks, with North Rhine-Westphalia Minister-President Hendrik Wüst and Bavaria's Markus Söder frequently named as potential successors. Söder, for his part, said the long-standing "firewall" against the AfD is not working.

🇩🇪🔴 After AfD's victory in Saxony-Anhalt, Alice Weidel takes Chancellor Merz to task during a raucous debate.

"Because [Germans] have to deal daily with the consequences of mass migration, with the hatred of foreign groups toward their own, with hatred of Christians, with… pic.twitter.com/lBjLNPt9hM

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) September 9, 2026

"This 'firewall model' has failed," he said.

Instead, he offered a different image:

"We in Bavaria see ourselves as a protective wall."

He argued that simply isolating the AfD without confronting its arguments no longer works. Instead, he wants to confront the AfD on issues such as immigration.It remains to be seen how that is possible if the CDU keeps allying with left-wing parties.

However, it is important to note that Söder continues to rule out a cooperation or coalition with the AfD.

"Not talking about the content at all, putting them in a corner and cobbling together some majorities around them without addressing the issues. That is the wrong path," he said.

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel, speaking after the Saxony-Anhalt vote, engaged in an intense debate with Merz in the Bundestag, saying, "The voters in Saxony-Anhalt have told you in the language of the democratic sovereign with all clarity: black-red is over."

Merz has countered by calling the AfD a "destructive force" that "wants to destabilize our country."

State elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin on Sept. 20 will put Merz's CDU further to the test. Speculation is growing that if the CDU falters during those elections, enormous pressure will be placed on Merz and his role as chancellor could become untenable.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/16/2026 - 02:00

Amazon Says Cloud Infrastructure In Bahrain, UAE 'Beyond Saving'

Via The Cradle

Amazon Web Services (AWS) says it cannot restore access to its cloud-computing facility in Bahrain or one of three data-hosting zones in the UAE due to the extensive damage caused by Iranian retaliatory strikes, Reuters reported on 15 September.

"The damage to our infrastructure spanned multiple Availability Zones and exceeded what our regional and multi-AZ services are designed to withstand," AWS reported in its status update seen by Reuters.

via Stars & Stripes

In the UAE, resources and data held exclusively within one zone, labeled mec1-az2, have been damaged beyond hope of recovery, the company said, as engineers are still salvaging what they can from the two other battered zones and across the wider Emirati region. 

An availability zone refers to a cluster of one or more data centers sitting inside the same geographic region, the structure AWS relies on to keep services running when a single site goes down.

The outages trace back to March, when the US and Israel attacked Iran, and Tehran responded with missile and drone salvos against Israel and Gulf states hosting US military bases. 

AWS confirmed at the time that two of its UAE facilities took direct hits, while a drone strike near one of its Bahraini sites left the infrastructure there destroyed.

Most Bahrain-based customers shifted their workloads elsewhere on AWS advice before the region went dark in April, but the company says it has now exhausted every option for recovering whatever was left behind.

The losses have called into question the resilience of the Gulf's fast-expanding cloud and AI infrastructure. The UAE is already redrawing plans to war-proof a major AI data center project, weighing decentralized site building alongside underground and blast-resistant construction, and even equipping the data center itself with anti-air defenses.

Israel and the US have long ago transformed AI infrastructure into a weapon of war deployed extensively across West Asian theaters. 

Cloud platforms, data centers, and high-capacity computing systems now help store intelligence, process intercepted communications, analyze surveillance, and support military operations across West Asia, extensively so in Gaza and Iran. 

Iran maintains that data centers operated by US technology companies are not simply civilian facilities, but strategic assets supporting US and Israeli aggression, thereby making them legitimate targets for retaliation.

AI has become a central instrument of US and Israeli warfare across West Asia, embedded in how targets are chosen, tracked, and struck. 

Israel has weaponized AI platforms including automated targeting systems like The Gospel, Lavender, and Where’s Daddy? to harvest mass data, autonomously generate kill lists, and orchestrate systematic airstrikes and assassinations against Palestinians. 

Backed by corporate infrastructure like Microsoft Azure, which stored massive caches of intercepted Palestinian communications, the Israeli military has deployed AI-driven drone surveillance to track and assassinate Palestinians.

Iran Destroyed An Amazon Data Center In Bahrain

The US has run algorithmic warfare systems such as Palantir's Maven to process satellite, drone, and radar intelligence, using machine learning to speed the production of targeting recommendations against Iranian forces.

More than 1,000 targets were designated within the first 24 hours of the war on Iran, one of which resulted in the massacre of at least 150 people, including at least 120 schoolchildren at the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 22:35

Syrian Protests Spread To Aleppo, Raqqa While Jolani Enjoys Red Carpet At Dubai Media Event

Syria's fuel price hike protests have persisted from Sunday into the heart of this week, and increasingly they are becoming full on anti-Sharaa regime demonstrations. Of course Sharaa - whose al Qaeda/ISIS name is Jolani - was never elected in the first place.

Monday into Tuesday the protests have spread across multiple cities and governates, including Raqqa in the east and Aleppo in the north.

Syria's self-declared President at the Arab Media Summit 2026 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Tuesday.

Demonstrators have been burning tires, blocking highways, and confronting security forces after Damascus announced sudden massive increase in fuel prices.

A RESULT OF NEOLIBERAL SHOCK THERAPY in wake of CIA-ORCHESTRATED REGIME CHANGE

Sunday saw authorities raise diesel prices by up to 40% and petrol prices by 28%, after not just years but decades of government regulated price controls and subsidies. 

Already the country was smashed by proxy war and sweeping US-led sanctions, not to mention a decade-long US troop occupation of Syria's oil and gas fields in the northeast, which strangled the population (as part of efforts to overthrow secular Ba'ath leader Bashar al-Assad). 

The West and Gulf powers then gave its backing to Jolani as self-declared president once Assad was ousted in December 2024. He had literally been a member of ISIS and was a founder of Syrian al-Qaeda (Nusra Front, later HTS). Washington, London, Riyadh, and Paris have embraced him - after they and their intelligence services basically put him in power.

Large protests are erupting in Syria, with many people calling for the step down of the Al Qaeda regime leader, Jolani

This video shows protests in Aleppo. pic.twitter.com/39rKf2ictq

— Brian’s Breaking News and Intel (@intelFromBrian) September 14, 2026

When last month Washington finally lifted most sanctions on Damascus, the population hoped this might translate into the common people finally catching a break.

But alas, outrage is spilling into the streets over Jolani regime incompetence. 

Read: Prolific Recruiter Of Teenage Suicide Bombers Earns US Sanctions Relief, Days Before 9/11 Anniversary

Aside from the ISIS pedigree of the US-backed government in Damascus, one Syrian commenter has outlined examples of Jolani/Sharaa regime incompetence:

1) We have no Prime Minister - Al Sharaa is the de facto PM

2) There is no unified 3-5-10 yr strategy that drives how every ministry works.

3) This means each ministry working on its own. Yes ministers are checking with the presidency on the priorities and deliverables, but they are working with or cross referencing with the wider cabinet.

4) I dont think the ministers meet that often with the president (acting PM).

5) These alignment mtgs are integral. Syria must have a national strategy, with clear cut objectives & plans for every ministry, defining how they all work towards a common goal.

Tonight's Syria fuel hike protests are larger and angrier than yesterday's

Currently protests and road blocks are ongoing in several Syrian governorates

If jolani regime fails to appease them by Thursday, then expect major escalation on Friday (after Friday prayers) pic.twitter.com/iQ4mVfijdf

— The'Nimr'Tiger (@Souria4Syrians) September 14, 2026

Some reports say the people are even calling for the return of Assad, echoed in popular street chants heard in some of the protests.

Other pundits have alleged violent tactics by security groups, including firing off live rounds to disperse the protests.

Slogans calling for Assad's return spark alarm in Syria —SOHR

Largest protests since Al-Sharaa took power spread, with roads blocked for days after fuel prices raised

‘Even with the world sanctioning Assad, prices never reached this level’ — protester confronts security forces pic.twitter.com/hrdIuItVFC

— RT Intl (@RT_on_X) September 14, 2026

From Sunday:

DropSite: Residents blocking the Damascus–Aleppo international highway near Maarrat al-Nu’man, south of Idlib, on Sunday, as protests spread following government increases in fuel prices.

🇸🇾⛽️ Protests erupt across Syria over fuel price hikes and rising cost of living

Footage circulating online shows residents blocking the Damascus–Aleppo international highway near Maarrat al-Nu’man, south of Idlib, on Sunday, as protests spread following government increases in… pic.twitter.com/mVwMUhu5qx

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) September 14, 2026

Protests in the east, nearly formerly US-occupied oil fields...

انتفا//ضة غضب في ريف دير الزور.. الأهالي يها//جمون موكب مسؤولي حكومة الجولاني قرب حقل العمر.#سوريا#V_News#وكالة_فيديو_الإخبارية pic.twitter.com/bReSVKjKP2

— V News (@VAgencyia) September 15, 2026

Where has President Sharaa been this week? He's getting the red carpet treatment in Dubai for the "Arab Media Summit 2026".

The following is deeply ironic as various places in Syria burn amid enraged demonstrations:

Al-Sharaa, who spoke at the summit’s “Syria of the Future” event, also met with Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Dubai’s crown prince, and Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Dubai’s second deputy ruler, who is also the chairman of the Dubai Media Council, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.

Over a decade ago, Jolani's al-Nusra Front was introduced to Syria and on the world stage via its squadrons of suicide bombers...

In 2013, Jolani sent 2 suicide bombers belonging to his organisation the Nusra front

They destroyed Al Kindi hospital

Al Kindi hospital was one of the best & modern hospitals in Syria. It provided free treatment to the public

Today the hospital is gone, & Jolani is "president" pic.twitter.com/hh4bJrsGHf

— The'Nimr'Tiger (@Souria4Syrians) September 15, 2026

Should the protests and unrest persist into Friday, which is the Islamic day of prayer and the start of the weekend in the Middle East, the situation could explode. It doesn't seem like Jolani has any answers or strategy at this point. Perhaps he'll hang out in Dubai and with his royal Gulf backers a little longer.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 22:10

US Energy Secretary: Saudi Pipeline Could Be Back In Service Within Days

By Julianne Geiger of OilPrice.com

Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline could be back in service within days, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday, offering the first relatively concrete timeline for restoring a route that had been moving 4 million to 5 million barrels per day around the largely closed Strait of Hormuz.

The 1,200-kilometer pipeline was shut after an attack last week damaged the system. Wright said Saudi officials were still assessing the damage, but expected repairs to be measured in days rather than weeks.

The East-West line has been carrying roughly 4% to 5% of global oil supply to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, giving Saudi Arabia an outlet while traffic through Hormuz remains severely constrained. The outage could last several weeks, according to earlier estimates, raising the possibility that export-ready inventories at Yanbu would soon be depleted.

Some of that disruption has already reached buyers.

Saudi Aramco has canceled or delayed late-September crude cargoes to several European refiners. Poland’s Orlen has been buying North Sea crude and seeking U.S. WTI Midland and Kazakhstan’s CPC Blend after Saudi deliveries slipped. No Saudi crude had departed Yanbu since September 11, according to Vortexa data cited by Argus.

Saudi crude supply had already fallen to 6 million bpd in August, down 2.3 million bpd on the month and the lowest level in more than three decades, according to the International Energy Agency.

The pipeline shutdown pushed crude prices higher again Monday and Tuesday, with Brent climbing above $108 per barrel as traders priced in another potential loss of supply.

Wright said Saudi Arabia is also trying to move more crude through Hormuz with U.S. military assistance.

A restart within days would restore one of the few high-capacity routes still available to move Gulf crude without relying on the Strait of Hormuz. It would also arrive before Yanbu inventories become the next constraint.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 21:45

Saudi Coalition Intercepts Drone Headed Toward Mecca

Update(2145ET): Drone attack on Mecca from unknown location being reported overnight, though the Saudi coalition has been prompted to blame Yemen's Shia Houthis:

Saudi Arabia and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have condemned what they described as a “heinous” Houthi attack targeting Mecca.

A Houthi official, however, rejected Saudi Arabia’s account that its forces had shot down a drone heading toward the holy city, calling the report “a worn-out lie.”- AFP

And emerging reporting via Al Jazeera:

The Saudi-led coalition spokesperson, Turki al-Maliki, said Royal Saudi Air Defence Forces intercepted the hostile drone before it entered the restricted airspace on Tuesday evening.

Al-Maliki condemned the incident as an attempt to frighten worshippers and harm civilians, warning that the security of the two holy mosques and pilgrims is a “red line”.

The Houthis have previously denied targeting Mecca, saying that they do not target holy sites.

via Reuters

Currently a number of fake or old videos are circulating; however, the Saudis are reporting the incident.

*  *  *

Israeli media on Tuesday is awash with reports that the Israeli government is now quietly providing intelligence to Saudi Arabia amid the raging fight with Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The claims definitely ring true given Israel has long faced immediate threats out of Yemen, after earlier in the Gaza war Israeli territory suffered several Houthi ballistic missile hits, including near sensitive facilities like airports. Also, Saudi and Israeli-linked ships are effectively banned from Red Sea shipping amid Houthi attacks.

One Israeli report reads: "Israel and Saudi Arabia are engaged in direct dialogue facilitated by the United States Central Command over potential Israeli intelligence assistance to Riyadh against the Houthis, a regional diplomat told i24NEWS." Jerusalem Post also says that the intel-sharing is already happening.

via Reuters

"The diplomat said the discussions are intended to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s ability to confront the growing Houthi threat, with Israel potentially supplying intelligence on the group’s military positions, weapons infrastructure and operational plans," the report adds.

CENTCOM chief Bradley Cooper has been in Saudi Arabia, where a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took place the past weekend. MbS has urgently requested military help from Washington and London. Only Britain is said to be mulling a new Yemen intervention on any serious level. Riyadh is also appealing to Egypt's President Sisi.

The Times of Israel separately reports that "The goal of the contacts is to share Israeli intelligence that could help Riyadh defend itself."

The kingdom has of late come under direct ballistic missile and drone attack, and is seeking to especially protect its oil infrastructure, amid efforts to bring the damaged East-West pipeline back online after what appeared to be drones out of Shia militias in Iraq.

Middle East Eye says Netanyahu is ready to once again press a multi-front war:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered "Israel’s services" to countries in the Arabian Peninsula and has expressed a willingness to participate in a “comprehensive war” against Ansar Allah, the Houthi movement in Yemen, Lebanese media have reported.

The report, by Al-Akhbar editor Ibrahim al-Amin, said that Netanyahu was pressing Israel’s security establishment and military to prepare for possible action against Iran and Hezbollah.

Israel has already for months been pummeling south Lebanon, despite what's supposed to be a ceasefire with Hezbollah, and has moved troops into occupy a 'buffer zone'.

Amb. Huckabee is not too convincing...

Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee: "I don't think it's quite that bad. What we do have is a for sure skirmish between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, but it has not really gone across the region. That's the good news. The US and the Houthis still have a ceasefire. That's a good thing." pic.twitter.com/56iWv0JfVf

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 15, 2026

Saudi-Israeli intelligence sharing would certainly be seen as provocative among Arab populations, including Saudi Arabia's own; however, it was likely going on during the Syrian proxy war to oust Assad. Gulf-Israeli cooperation against the 'pro-Shia axis' also reached a peak during the last decade.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 21:45

Tucker Carlson Sounds Alarm Over Trump's Planned 'Largest Transfer Of Ordinance In Modern History'

After the US was essentially forced to conduct a major and rapid draw down of forces from the Gulf and Mideast region in the wake of Iran's 'unexpectedly' large retaliation for Operation Epic Fury, it seems all that Washington is left to do is arm regional allies to the teeth and wish them the best.

Early this month the US approved two potential Saudi defense packages valued at a whopping $5.75 billion. The forthcoming deals will reportedly focus on transferring extended-range precision bombs and bolstering Abrams tanks in the kingdom.

Ironically this comes at a moment that Saudi-backed coalition forces in Yemen - with all its military tech - are getting rolled back by Ansar Allah fighters in sandals.

Getty Images

Naturally, next on the list comes Israel.

On Tuesday, over a week since the planned Saudi sale was reported, The Washington Post reveals the following:

President Donald Trump's administration is planning to sell to Israel a munitions package worth $2.8 billion, which will include tens of thousands of highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs, according to a U.S. official familiar with the sale.

The planned sale, which has been informally communicated to relevant congressional committees who weigh in on large arms sales, includes 20,000 MK 84s and 20,000 BLU-117s, the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said.

WaPo calls the package "the largest" planned sale of 2,000 pound bombs to Israel in years.

Just prior to initial reporting of this dropping at around midday Tuesday, Tucker Carlson revealed on X: "According to an informed federal official, in the coming months the Trump administration plans to send a total of 40,000 Mark 84 and Blu-117 bombs to the government of Israel. Each bomb weighs 2,000 pounds. This appears to be the largest transfer of conventional explosive ordnance from the United States in modern history."

Carlson put it in perspective in the following commentary:

How big is this shipment? It amounts to 40,000 tons of bombs. For perspective, the largest American air raid of World War Two was the Eighth Air Force’s attack on Berlin in March of 1945. Combined, the 2,023 Allied aircraft involved dropped about 3,000 tons of bombs. That’s 7.5 percent of what Trump is sending to Israel. That same month, March of 1945, the US Army Air Forces began the single most destructive bombing raid in human history, Operation Meetinghouse over Tokyo. More than 100,000 Japanese civilians were killed. By the end of that operation, the US had dropped 1,600 tons of bombs. That’s four percent of what Trump is sending to Israel. World War Two ended five months later, when the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The shipment Trump is sending to Israel amounts to more than three times the destructive power of that nuclear explosion. There is no precedent for what the Trump administration is doing. Nor is there a justification. The government of Israel is not fighting World War Two, or even a war. It is engaged in periodic skirmishes with a guerrilla force in Lebanon, and it is working to exterminate an unarmed civilian population in Gaza. Neither front requires modern 2,000-pound bombs.

The former Fox host further warned this portends Israel could soon go even more 'gloves off' and unleash further hell on Gaza and Lebanon, or possibly even Iran - at a moment the US seems to be trying to find an exit from the hot phase of the conflict.

More from Carlson:

How did this happen? The request for 40,000 new high-explosive civilian-killing bombs originated at the US Embassy in Jerusalem, which is run by Christian Zionist Ambassador Mike Huckabee and his aide David Milstein, who is the stepson of Fox News host Mark Levin. From there it moved to the State Department, where Marco Rubio enthusiastically approved it. At this point, only four more people need to sign off before the bombs ship to Israel: Senators Jim Risch and Jeanne Shaheen, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and Congressmen Brian Mast and Gregory Meeks, the top two members of the equivalent House committee. All four are committed neocons. Collectively they’ve taken millions from the Israel lobby. In 2015, Brian Mast traveled to Israel to volunteer for the Israeli military. In 2023, Mast showed up in the House of Representatives wearing an IDF uniform. It’s hard to imagine any of them hesitating before sending more free bombs to Israel. Only public outrage can stop this.

Poll after recent poll has shown that by and large the American public is finally questioning Washington's blank check approach to Israel.

DropSite: Carlson calls the taxpayer-funded, roughly $3 billion package “a gift” to a government “working to exterminate an unarmed civilian population in Gaza.”

🔴 Tucker Carlson reports, citing a federal official, that President Trump plans to send Israel 40,000 MK-84 and BLU-117 bombs, each weighing 2,000 pounds, in the coming months. The Washington Post’s John Hudson separately also confirmed the proposed transfer.

Carlson calls the… https://t.co/xBDJxO0P3R

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) September 15, 2026

And plenty of MAGA and conservative 'influencers' have called out Trump's Israel policy as opposite America First. This as the Iran war is continuing to prove to be deeply unpopular. This also after over 70,000 people have been killed in Gaza. Israeli officials themselves openly admitted this figure.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 21:20

US Troops Leak New Iran War Photos Of Gulf Bases: 'Major Damage Hidden From American Public'

As we've been documenting, it is clear that major damage has yet to be communicated to the American public regarding Iran's major retaliation on US bases in the Gulf and Mideast since the start of Trump's Operation Epic Fury. 

During the same week that a long awaited Pentagon/Department of War Inspector General's report was released covering the first four months of the Iran War, new leaked photographs have emerged of never-before-seen base damage.

"New photos obtained exclusively by CBS News reveal for the first time the widespread damage and destruction of buildings and vehicles at multiple U.S. positions across the Middle East, as a result of Iranian missile and drone attacks," according to a bombshell Tuesday CBS report. Below is from Prince Sultan AFB, Saudi Arabia:

Source: CBS

The outlet describes that the photos have been submitted by US service members under strict secrecy and anonymity - given the Pentagon has sought to enforce a crackdown on troops sharing the extent of damage, and amid orders aimed at maintaining operational security. But critics say the Pentagon and Trump administration are engaged in a cover-up and propaganda. 

"This is major damage to our bases that hasn't been communicated to the American public," an actively deployed unnamed service member said to CBS News.

The service member added: "We're standing there with our eyes closed getting punched in the face."

Below is from Camp Arifjan, Kuwait:

Source CBS

Recent Iranian attacks on bases in Jordan have continued intermittently over the past weeks, and some pundits have warned that American personnel that continue to be stationed there are essentially sitting ducks.

The ballistic missile volleys from Iran have only gotten bigger, such as the last major attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan during the night of September 8-9.

On Monday the newly released Pentagon Inspector General's report said that "hundreds" of buildings and structures at US bases have been destroyed...

“Iranian strikes damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan during the conflict.”

More leaked images via CBS:

It was not just bases that got directly hit, and mainly within merely the opening weeks of Operation Epic Fury - but even consulates, embassies, and intelligence buildings have been targeted and suffered damage.

"U.S. diplomatic facilities in four countries—Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—suffered physical damage from Iranian strikes," the Pentagon has conceded.

American service members in Saudi are leaking photos of bases destroyed by Iranian strikes that the Pentagon is trying to cover up pic.twitter.com/glyqOKBWwA

— The Gulag (@WelcomeTheGulag) September 15, 2026

According to prior analysis from Amerikanets: "After destroying much of the radar network protecting regional US Axis bases in the previous hot phase of the war, Iranian planners have prioritized targeting fuel storage, drone hangers, refueling tankers, and barracks."

The same analysis concluded: "The American response has been to pull assets back ever further from Iran, to bases in Israel and Jordan. We’ll call this process debasification. Iran’s debasification strategy takes advantage of the inherent asymmetry between the vastly different force structure and capabilities of Iranian rocket forces and US Axis air forces."

See the full photo set here.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 20:55

"I Like Them": Trump Weighs In On Flock Surveillance Cameras

You know those Flock surveillance cameras everyone hates? Trump just came out in favor of them. 

A Flock camera monitors traffic in Quincy, Massachusetts. (Greg Derr/Patriot Ledger/USA Today Network/Reuters Connect)

Speaking with reporters on Sunday on Air Force One en route to Joint Base Andrews, Trump endorsed the AI-powered mass surveillance tool. 

"Speaking of [AI], Flock cameras. You haven’t talked a lot about these Flock cameras. A lot of law enforcement say they really help them. Would you be willing to back that?" a reporter asked Trump. 

"No, I sort of like them because of that, because of law enforcement. But some people don’t. They think it’s an infringement," Trump replied, adding "I like them." 

Trump previously said in August that he would make up his mind regarding Flock cameras "over the next couple of weeks," telling the DCNF "You have pros and cons, right? It’s being studied right now." 

As the Epoch Times notes further, in recent months, multiple cities across the United States have removed their Flock cameras, including Tempe, Arizona; Bellingham, Massachusetts; Cave Creek, Arizona; and multiple counties in Texas.

Earlier this month, the Dallas Police Department said the agency would shut down hundreds of Flock cameras in the coming days in response to a pause in funding.

Florida’s Department of Transportation, meanwhile, said in a memo that it would end its use of license-plate reading cameras, including those made by Flock.

More than 100 jurisdictions have canceled their contracts with Flock and other automated license plate reader providers, according to a database from the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm that says it aims to end government abuse of power.

Flock CEO Garrett Langley has pushed back against the growing concerns about the cameras, saying that people should be worried about their privacy but added that the license plate-reading cameras can be used to promote safety.

“I value my privacy, my family values their privacy, my employees value their privacy, but what we’re talking about is safety as well,” he told Fox News in August. “When people talk about just one of these, privacy or safety, they’re prioritizing the wrong thing.”

“And what we have to prioritize as a country is compromise—when I think about legislation that calls for an outright ban, that’s like banning vehicles,” he said.

The issue has also become a midterm campaign target and has drawn scrutiny in Congress.

In Congress, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said he launched a probe into Flock cameras and demanded that Langley provide his office answers on safeguards to protect Americans’ data.

Earlier this year, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) introduced a measure in the House of Representatives, the “Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act,” that would bar federal agencies from using automated surveillance systems to track, record, and identify people. That includes automated license plate-reading systems like Flock.

Josh Shapiro, the Democratic Pennsylvania governor seeking reelection and considered a potential contender for the White House in 2028, said in late August that he would support a statewide ban. In early September, his Republican opponent, Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity, said in a statement, “Flock cameras are an intrusive invasion of privacy and they should be banned.”

Zachary Stieber and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 20:30

Libya Threatens Force Majeure As Oil Guards Shut Fields

By Julianne Geiger, of OilPrice.com

Libya’s National Oil Corporation is threatening to declare force majeure after members of the security force assigned to protect the country’s oil infrastructure shut a pipeline valve and halted production at two fields.

Production has stopped completely at the Hamada and Tahara oilfields and at a pumping station after members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard closed a valve on the main Hamada-Zawiya crude pipeline, NOC said Tuesday.

The shutdown could spread.

The Petroleum Facilities Guard said it would impose partial production cuts for one week at several additional fields, including Wafa, Al-Khamsa and El Feel. A full shutdown would follow if its demands are not met.

The Guard wants to be transferred financially and administratively from Libya’s defense ministry to the National Oil Corporation and has called for a timetable to complete the move.

NOC said it could declare force majeure if the closed valve is not reopened or if similar shutdowns hit other oilfields.

Libya has been here before. Political groups, armed factions and workers have repeatedly used oilfields, pipelines and terminals as leverage since the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi.

The latest disruption lands just as Libya is trying to push production much higher.

Output has climbed to roughly 1.4 million barrels per day, its highest level in more than a decade. NOC is targeting 1.6 million bpd by the end of 2026 and 2 million bpd by the early 2030s.

Getting there could require $36 billion to $40 billion in foreign investment, according to NOC Chairman Masoud Suleman.

International companies have already started moving back in. Libya signed exploration and production-sharing agreements this year with Repsol, Turkish Petroleum, Eni, QatarEnergy and MOL following its first major licensing round in 17 years. BP, Shell, Exxon and Chevron have also been pursuing a return.

NOC received a $2 billion allocation under Libya’s 2026 budget to support its production plans.

The problem is much older than the investment push: fields capable of producing more oil are still vulnerable to whoever controls the valve.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 20:05

Stay-At-Home Subsidies Won't Produce A Baby Boom

Authored by Thomas Savidge via The Daily Economy,

Over Labor Day weekend, amidst Americans' attempts to enjoy the waning days of summer, The New York Times published an article titled "Trump Officials Draft Plan to Pay At-Home Parents, Using Funds for Working Ones." Per the story, the administration's proposal would use funds from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), which subsidizes daycare for working parents, to pay stay-at-home parents for their at-home childcare.

My family could potentially qualify for the payment, but my wife and I understand that this program could jeopardize our children's future. While families may find these cash transfers helpful in the short-term, the cost of these transfers could exacerbate the US's already fiscally unstable situation.

What This Proposal Could Look Like

According to the Times article, the Trump administration is drafting a rule that would let some married households use CCDF funds to support a parent caring for their child at home. The other spouse would have to work at least 35 hours per week, and benefits would still be income-limited. Eligibility and payment terms would depend on final policy.

The CCDF currently funds "center-based childcare providers" (daycares) as well as family childcare providers and in-home childcare, so long as these providers are licensed and meet state and local requirements applicable for professional caregivers. The proposed change would make a qualifying child's own parent eligible to receive the same support.

Outside of these scant details, little is known about the proposal. A similar policy was, however, proposed in a Heritage Foundation report last January. Instead of using CCDF funds, the report proposes a separate Home Childcare Equalization credit. The hypothetical tax credit would add up to $2,000 per eligible child under five to Heritage's proposed Family and Marriage credit. Marriage and earned income would be required, and benefits received through the CCDF (as well as the child and dependent care tax credit) would reduce the proposed credits dollar for dollar.

Heritage estimates that its two credits together would cost about $188.7 billion over ten years, and proposes other spending cuts to offset part of the cost. The new proposal will have its own budget consequences. Redirecting existing funds and creating additional benefits require different fiscal assessments.

Greater Parental Choice, But Minimal Impact On Fertility

Care provided by a parent has an economic cost even when no bill arrives. When one parent stays home, that parent likely gives up earnings as well as career advancement. For most, the trade-off is worthwhile. Interviews of highly educated mothers who choose to be stay-at-home parents to many children found these women "see maternity as a high-risk and high-reward endeavor, an ambitious-but-potentially-thrilling life project." Furthermore, research on mothers' wellbeing strengthens the case for parental choice. A study of more than 2,000 mothers linked better wellbeing to employment arrangements that matched mothers' preferences. A separate longitudinal study found elevated depressive symptoms among unemployed mothers only when they wanted paid work. Offering greater choice for parents among existing funds may provide a silver lining: parents will be better able to pursue the career-family dynamic that best suits their needs and goals.

That silver lining, however, must be taken into context. While not stated explicitly, this CCDF proposal is part of the administration's broader efforts to combat declining birthrates. In May, the White House grouped support for stay-at-home parents with fertility benefits, the Child Tax Credits, and Trump Accounts. An IVF announcement last February explicitly cited declining fertility and the goal of "more babies and expanding American families." That broader demographic ambition makes the likely impact on fertility relevant, even if the forthcoming CCDF proposal does not mention it.

Claims that this change (or other fiscal stimulus programs) can usher in a baby boom deserve skepticism. An OECD review finds that cash benefits and tax incentives generally produce modest, sometimes temporary fertility increases. As my colleague Jeff Degner and I noted last January, the Heritage report rightfully admits: "While other nations have tried to reverse declining birthrates through financially generous family policies, none has succeeded in restoring fertility to replacement levels. This demonstrates that government spending alone does not ensure demographic success."

The evidence does not establish whether this proposal would increase fertility. Even if it did produce a temporary increase in births, that could partly reflect families having children sooner without increasing their eventual family size.

Greater choice can be assessed on its own merits; lawmakers should not count on a large fertility response to justify the expense.

The Best Inheritance? Fiscal Discipline And Prosperity

Broader eligibility does not automatically require more federal spending, but, with a fixed budget, more applicants could mean greater competition for smaller benefits. Families excluded from parental care payments could press for inclusion, while existing recipients seek protection from funding reductions. Lawmakers often find it easier to increase spending than to choose among competing claims.

Funding decisions about this proposal take place against a federal debt burden that has already passed $40 trillion. In its February outlook, the Congressional Budget Office projected that debt held by the public would rise from 101 percent of gross domestic product in 2026 to 120 percent by 2036. Existing commitments already put borrowing costs on an unsustainable path.

Persistent borrowing can absorb savings that would otherwise finance private investment, weakening the growth that supports future wages. CBO's analysis of delayed debt stabilization finds that waiting to adjust increases the eventual shock and imposes greater burdens on younger generations. Those consequences belong in any discussion of helping children.

What really matters for family stability is sustained spending restraint that reduces deficits and makes room for lasting tax relief. Parents, my wife and I included, could keep more of what we earn and decide how to use it. Fiscal discipline must accompany the promises of lower taxes. Additionally, tackling inflation, the most corrosive anti-family force of all, can help make life more affordable.

Any CCDF reform should explain its funding limit and provide a workable transition for current recipients. Those standards should apply to the benefits my household may receive as firmly as to programs serving other Americans.

My wife and I would rather Washington make difficult spending choices while we can help bear the adjustment. Our children will live with the consequences of our choices now long after any parental care payments end. Lasting prosperity is the inheritance most worthy of preserving.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 19:15

Largest US Power Grid Faces Dire Crisis By 2030 If Data Center Load Growth Continues

By 2030, the PJM Interconnection, the largest US electrical grid in the US serving 67 million people in 13 northeast states, is likely to face a “loss of load expectation,” or LOLE -  a key reliability metric used by power system planners to measure the expected number of hours or days per year that a power grid's electricity generation will fail to meet customer demand - between six and 100 times worse than the grid operator’s planning criterion, mainly due to the addition of large-load data centers, according to a study commissioned by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.

The PUC and the firms that produced the report - Synapse Energy Economics, Mondre Energy and Aspen Technologies - characterized it as an independent analysis aimed at developing load projections and evaluating resource adequacy under a set of likely possible futures, according to UtillityDive.

In models covering 2027 through 2030, both a reference scenario and a high-load, low-supply scenario show PJM’s planning criteria for resource adequacy not being met. Only under a scenario with no new data centers is the region able to meet PJM’s target LOLE of 0.1, the report said.

PJM’s standard is designed to limit potential electricity shortages “to approximately one event every 10 years,” said a PUC release about the report. 

In the study’s reference scenario, which relies on PJM’s 2026 load forecast, the modeled 2030 LOLE is 0.59, “or nearly six times worse than the PJM planning criterion,” it said.

In a “worst-case future” of higher-than-expected load additions and constrained resource deployment, the modeled LOLE is 13.20 — “over 100 times worse than PJM’s planning criterion,” indicating an expectation of “more than 13 days with loss of load events per year.”

“As in the Reference scenario, these reliability issues are largely due to surging data center additions,” the study said.

“This analysis sends a clear warning: electricity demand and supply are moving out of balance, and the status quo is not sustainable,” PUC Chairman Steve DeFrank said in a statement. “We need urgent action at PJM and a broader Pennsylvania energy strategy that makes sure our supply of electricity keeps pace with demand.”

PJM, in a statement to CBS affiliate WJAC, acknowledged that new data center loads are growing faster than supply.

“PJM has taken a number of actions to both increase electricity supply and manage new demand in line with the Ratepayer Protection Pledge taken by data center developers to shield residential customers and other ratepayers from bearing reliability risks or cost increases associated with data center development,” said Jeff Shields, PJM’s senior manager of external communications.

The reference scenario anticipates Pennsylvania remaining a net energy exporter, but sees its exports “decrease from about 91 TWh in 2025 to about 69 TWh by 2035 and 38 TWh by 2040,” the report said.

In the high-load, low-supply scenario, Pennsylvania becomes a net importer of 5 TWh by 2040. 

An aerial view of the construction of an Amazon Web Services data center on Aug. 26, 2026, in Sterling, Va, located in the PJM Interconnection, the largest grid in the U.S. and an epicenter of data center construction

“Because this scenario has a large amount of unmet load in 2031 and later years, it is likely that some amount of this 2035 and 2040 load will be unmet, as there will not be enough regional generation to meet PJM-wide load requirements,” the report says.

Last month, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, D, issued an executive order that the state will offer preferential permitting to data center projects with peak demand of more than 25 MW if they commit to certain requirements, including sourcing their electricity from new power supplies.

The PUC also voted unanimously Thursday to approve two motions concerning data center development and ratemaking. One of the motions directs PUC staff to propose updates to the state’s rules for emergency curtailment, and to organize a technical conference on cost allocation for data centers.

The report notes that PJM and the U.S. Department of Energy “have implemented several initiatives, policies, and programs to address growing concerns about PJM’s resource adequacy,” including interconnection queue reform and reliability backstop procurement. 

“PJM and its stakeholders are also currently discussing additional initiatives such as load forecasting improvements,” the report said. “DOE has also committed to keeping some coal-fired power plants online beyond their retirement date, in an effort to maintain resource supply in the region.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 18:50