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The Telegraph's "Iran The Latest" podcast talked to AP's Peter Apps today. He offered a tidbit related to America's future:
Trump used up the gov't's arsenal of cyber hacks when it suppressed Venezuela's infrastructure and military to grab Maduro, and then in its initial hits against Iran. And now, that capability is lacking because those hacks have been patched.
Trump has degraded the US military/offensive capabilities far more than just using up America's standoff munitions.
The cognitive dissonance of a GOP candidate for federal office, voting against stopping the #IranWar, then begging for gas money to fuel her campaign bus.
Seriously, vote people out who can't figure out why gas prices are so high and inflation is rising. They don't deserve any power, since they've shown incapable of using it properly.
"No one forced Plaintiff to file this lawsuit and to dispute that his speech on January 6 incited the violence that followed at the Capitol."
Heh. BBC's counsel's reply sums it up, nicely.
In opposing Jack Smith sitting for a deposition, Trump's counsel has the weakest argument: Smith wasn't there. LOLOL
Trump has a few choices but all are bad, including voluntarily withdrawing his lawsuit, as it may end up being dismissed with prejudice and resulting in Trump having to owe fees and costs to the BBC. Doubtful he's going to sit for a deposition where his testimony will be used against him in the future by others seeking $ from him.
#USPol
https://apnews.com/article/trump-bbc-media-defamation-0a26fa60b265f55a9bcf7ed88cfacab8
Why this matters:
The biggest investors of SMRs are tech companies building data centers for AI. This was a common solution to rising electricity costs.
I'm not for a total AI server farm moratorium; I'm for developers identifying and building their energy sources before they move forward with server farms. No pie in the sky goals, no intangible solutions, no rosy projections. Show me the construction, not the goals.
Trump claimed 17m additional SPR oil would be offered in the latest tranche; it's unclear if he's just restating a volume w/in the current 4th tranche. Between September and October, only 2.9m barrels have been cleared, a dramatic drop from the summer.
The fact that no one wants to "exchange" or "borrow" oil from the SPR implies that they think they won't stay in the black if they do so. At ~25% return premium above the current price of oil, this infers the expectations of oil prices in 2028-2029 at or above $72-80 a barrel.
The SPR release is moot at a ~25% return premium; it can't lower prices. Oil prices are high, not because of a lack of supply, but because of the total premium (risk insurance, freight costs, hazard pay, etc.) of Gulf oil driving up global oil bids.
Everything this administration is doing is the opposite of what is needed to curtail exogenous inflation. This is 100% due to their errors and misjudgments in the #IranWar and the #Economics of #Oil.
#USPol
Nothing is free; Russia has gotten something, it's just that this administration isn't telling.
#USPol
Baltimore SunTrump: ‘No swap’ needed to free American prisoner Stephen Hubbard from RussiaStephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired Michigan teacher, had been imprisoned in Russia on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine. The Trump administration said Hubbard was on his way home and would soon reunite with his family.
Desperate GOP: France protests should be a wakeup call not to swing left; if we do that, that will embolden them to violently protest.
Me: Quite the opposite. It's a wakeup call to what happens when you, the GOP, *cut* social safety net programs and attempt to starve the poor.
Nevada went through the same thing.
July 16 Trump: We found 250,000 people on Nevada's voter rolls who aren't eligible
July 17 DHS: Nevada has 16,000 people on the voter rolls who aren't eligible to vote
August 14 DHS: It's 185 people.
September 23 Nevada: It's 0. We checked.
#USPol
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/20/doj-non-citizens-la
the GuardianDoJ’s suspected non-citizens list includes ‘high percentage’ of those born in US, LA officials sayThe statement revealed in court papers raises questions about the reliability of the list of 20,000 people in California
July DHS: California has 190,000 people on its voter rolls who are not citizens
October 15 DoJ: There are 20,000+ people on California's voter rolls who are non citizens
October 19 DoJ: We have arrested 28 people suspected of illegally voting.
Also October 19 DoJ: Not all of these people may have voted at all.
So, that's how the Trump administration rolls.
"We find that 81 percent of AI-generated ads were sponsored by Republican candidates or groups, while only 12 percent of the ads were sponsored by Democrats." -- Wesleyan Media Project
Wesleyan Media Project - WMPGOP Lead in Senate Spending Narrows; Dems Catch Up in Senate Broadcast Airings - Wesleyan Media ProjectCost of Living and Taxes Remain Top Issues in Federal Contests; $137M in AI Ads (MIDDLETOWN, CT) October 15, 2026 – For several weeks, pro-Republican advertisers have outspent their Democratic rivals in U.S. Senate races, but that gap narrowed in our most recent analysis. Over the past two weeks (September 28 to October 11), Republican
Reuters has produced an exceptional piece of journalism here. They've created parameters to define a "heat storm", then used it to track them over the decades.
#ClimateChange
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/climate-heatstorms-science/
Have you seen this? It's an animation of the reconstruction of stars orbiting around the center of the Milky Way, a super massive black hole, from observations over the span of 17 years.
#WTI looks to be testing all-time highs. Maybe the WH leaking info that they're planning to destroy Kharg Island and use MOABs wasn't such a bright idea, two weeks before the election, and after early voting has started.
If, as it is reported, that this administration is once again thinking of attacking Kharg Island to force concessions, it would appear that the White House is stuck in OG chickenhawk tactical dogma, caught unaware of the long history of irony.
The IRGC will not simply lay down their arms and beg for the war to end. Rather, it will induce them to respond asymmetrically with destroying Saudi Arabia's oil fields, shutting down 10% of global oil production for years.
You can't defend every single oil well, but every single oil well can be targeted by the thousands of drones Iran has.