The Automatic Earth

Pablo Picasso Femme à la Montre 1932

Russ is Director of Office of Management & Budget (OMB) https://t.co/qj0MEQpAKl

— Edward Dowd (@DowdEdward) October 6, 2026

“This really is a major move to put money behind reindustrialization in one of the key areas where it was destroyed by leftism, globalism and corruption.”

• Trump Makes Major Move Toward Reestablishing U.S. Industrial Manufacturing (CTH)

President Trump announced a collective investment effort between defense tech firm Anduril and the U.S. Navy worth an estimated $6.6 billion. $3.7 billion comes from the private sector by defense technology firm Anduril in a new shipyard at Sparrows Point, Maryland, alongside $2.9 billion in Navy contract funding. The facility will build next-generation submarines including autonomous underwater vessels.

When you really think about this effort closely, putting this kind of investment into U.S. shipbuilding in Baltimore is a genuine swing for the fences to reestablish northeast industrial manufacturing. I give President Trump a lot of credit for taking this big a leap of faith in the Baltimore region.

The Trump administration has announced new or revitalized shipbuilding in Galveston TX, Houma LA, Brownsville TX and now Sparrows Point MD. While the southern regions will likely be capable of transferring a solid work ethic into a successful America-First business model, trying to reindustrialize Baltimore away from a dependency mindset (built on a foundation of corruption) to a skilled jobs work ethic, is a very bold move.

There will certainly be job opportunities for people outside the immediate Baltimore area who are willing to travel for high-paying good quality work. Anduril will also need some form of trade-school, apprenticeship or vocational training if the manufacturing hub is to be generationally changing. This really is a major move to put money behind reindustrialization in one of the key areas where it was destroyed by leftism, globalism and corruption. WATCH:

WASHINGTON — President Trump announced Tuesday that the federal government and Anduril Industries are investing a total of $6.6 billion to build critical components for Virginia-class submarines in Baltimore, a joint effort meant to boost US maritime dominance. The shipyard, known as Arsenal-2, will be supported by $3.7 billion in capital from California-based Anduril and another $2.9 billion from a contract between the company and the US Navy.

The facility will be constructed at Sparrows Point, site of a shipyard and a former Bethlehem Steel plant, to produce torpedo tubes and eventually ship sections — including bows and sterns, among other components, an industry official said. Trump said in a speech later near the project site at Tradepoint Atlantic that the effort will make the US both “feared” and “respected” on the world stage.

“We will build the future of America’s navy right here in Baltimore. And it will be a future of peace through strength,” the president added. “We have never been a stronger country than we are right now.” (read more)

“Orwellian brutes now govern Europe.”

“I think mini-mouse Macron is just tired of people pointing out that he married his grandmother (or his grandfather, as the case might be)”.

• Cowardly Europe Fears Dissent (J.B. Shurk)

Former-banker-turned-tiny-French-President Emmanuel Macron blasted what he called “American free speech” while speaking to reporters last week. Defending the European Union’s robust censorship policies, le petit fromage insisted that Europe’s speech-policing Digital Services Act should censor information that governments consider false “much more extensively, much faster, and much more forcefully.”

Macron then did his Orwellian best to condemn free speech as oppression and praise censorship as liberation: “So-called American ‘free speech’—at least as it exists today and has been promoted by some people—is the opposite of free speech.” The terribly disliked French leader continued, “My freedom cannot mean that I am free to…insult you or vandalize the public square that belongs to everyone. Yet that is some people’s idea of ‘free speech.’”

Then the little mouse of a man roared, “Until we hold those who disseminate content on social media accountable, we will not be able to regulate it.” Furthermore, if “someone writes something” that is “false,” then that person should be “held accountable.” Tough talk from an insecure man afraid of words.

What is going on in Europe? Why is the whole continent so scared of public debate and dissent? If the political Establishment is unable to defend its ideas and policies without censoring the opposition, then its ideas and policies are absolute rubbish! The people who have willed their way to power across Europe apparently believe that they cannot win an argument unless they are the only ones permitted to speak! That’s a bit like a puny pugilist demanding that referees tie another boxer’s hands behind his back before declaring himself world heavyweight champion!

Personally, I think mini-mouse Macron is just tired of people pointing out that he married his grandmother (or his grandfather, as the case might be). We used to teach our children, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Now Western leaders are so terrified of words that they’d rather imprison everyone with an opinion than learn to take a joke or hear a contrary point of view. Here’s the truth that Macron and his fellow Euro-weenie censors refuse to understand: Free speech is free only when a speaker can say something offensive or controversial without fear of the State’s wrath.

Although Macron wants to criminalize speech that he considers untrue, he spreads endless falsehoods of his own! While beseeching British Prime Minister Andy Burnham to betray the will of voters who chose to leave the European Union ten years ago, the Napoleon-complex-afflicted French president whined, “Brexit is the biggest lie of the last thirty years!” That boast is absurdly false (or what European censors call criminal “misinformation”). The British people did vote to separate themselves from Queen Ursula von der Leyen’s European empire.

Even though Brexit fearmongers predicted imminent economic collapse should the British people choose to rule themselves—and despite the best efforts of Brexit saboteurs at home and abroad—the United Kingdom is currently outperforming France and other major European economies, having led the G7 in growth during the first half of 2026. One reason Brexiters voted to leave the E.U. in 2016 was because British citizens did not want their military to be swallowed into a European Army beyond their control—a prospect, ironically enough, which pro-E.U. stalwarts once called “disinformation” but which has proved increasingly prescient.

Queen von der Leyen and her Brussels Eurocrats are working feverishly today to use the Russia-Ukraine War as an excuse to create increasingly centralized European defense structures. It’s also worth remembering that European expansionists originally promoted the Union as an intergovernmental body meant to boost European economic markets and promised that the supranational institution would never directly usurp national sovereignties. That was a clear case of “misinformation” and certainly one of the biggest lies of the last half-century!

Speaking of lies that European leaders have promoted as “truths,” the Russia Collusion Hoax against President Trump (which British and Ukrainian intelligence agencies helped to propagate), the “global warming” apocalypse (which was scheduled to kill us all fourteen years ago), and the “Reign of COVID Error” (during which “health experts” lied about the virus arising from nature instead of a Chinese laboratory and then lied about fake “vaccines” being “safe and effective”) are three of the biggest mass frauds and information warfare campaigns ever perpetrated by governments against the public.

Macron has never called for these lies to be censored from social media platforms. He just doesn’t like it when random Americans point out that the European Union is an undemocratic and totalitarian system of governance that should be burned to the ground. And he really doesn’t like it when commoners correctly point out that his old high school teacher—and abusive wife—sometimes slaps him around. Unfortunately, Macron’s inability to understand the importance of free speech is a European-wide learning disability.

In the U.K., a member of the public has filed a Prevent referral against eighty-six-year-old comedy legend John Cleese because he continues to make fun of Islam’s love for rape and murder. The complaint argues that Cleese should be considered a “moderate to high risk” for “radicalisation, communal tension, and hate incidents” for writing, among other things, “I personally prefer a culture that does not approve of FGM, Child Marriage and Killing Infidels.”

The complaint accuses Cleese of “anti-Muslim hate” and seeks further scrutiny of the cultural icon. In response to news of the referral, the Monty Python alum wrote, “The Islamic male ego becomes so bloated by its lack of restraint that it believes any criticism is blasphemy,” and, “I look forward to being arrested.” Later, he declared his targeting “One of the proudest moments of my life.”

Meanwhile, a retired police officer was recently fined more than £1,000 under the U.K.’s Communications Act for reposting a bacon joke ridiculing Islam. As one free speech advocate rightly observed, “No-one making a similar joke about Jesus would face prosecution.” At the same time that it targets retired cops for having a sense of humor, the British government continues to hand out “skilled worker sponsorship licenses” to Islamic bookstores that sell books on jihad!

An Islamic preacher in London encourages Muslim men to beat their wives if they refuse to obey. The same Islamic cleric describes “acceptable” execution methods for gay men, including throwing them off tall buildings and pummeling their bodies with rocks. These sermons are available on YouTube. Nevertheless, the mosque still enjoys charitable status in the U.K. Islamic jihadists preach violence and murder, and law enforcement agencies ignore their threats, just as they ignored—for decades—Islamic men raping tens of thousands of young girls across Britain.

However, when a comedian and a retired police officer mock Islam’s penchant for violence, the British government scrutinizes their speech as “threats.” That should be no surprise when U.K. police forces instruct officers that Nigel Farage’s immigration beliefs are “Islamophobic hate crimes” and encourage non-Muslim staff to fast during Ramadan in “solidarity” with their Islamic conquerors.

Two-tiered “free speech” is official government policy. Furthermore, a Home Office-linked unit has been recording social media criticism of the government’s Prevent program, including 77 observations concerning people and organizations criticizing Prevent on X and Reddit. Documents show that government-linked officials are monitoring and recording the speech of people who publicly challenge this controversial counter-extremism policy.

Orwellian brutes now govern Europe. Need further proof? The Green Party in the U.K. wants to replace “mother” and “father” with more “inclusive” terms. Meanwhile, the Germans just awarded the Westphalian Peace Prize to NATO’s military alliance.

Parents are strangers. War is peace. Free speech is violence. Censorship promotes liberty.

In truth, freedom in Europe is dead.

He only likes the “free speech” that agrees with him.

• Macron Goes Full Orwell, Makes One More Pitch for Censorship (Turley)

French President Emmanuel Macron went full Orwell this week. While long the darling of Western media, Macron has been one of the most anti-free-speech leaders in the world. This week, he declared that “The so-called American ‘free speech’ today, which some people have promoted, is the opposite of free speech.” Having Emmanuel Macron holding forth on free speech is akin to Joey Chestnut proselytizing on veganism.

France has been in a headlong plunge into censorship and speech criminalization. These laws criminalize speech under vague standards referring to “inciting” or “intimidating” others based on race or religion. For example, fashion designer John Galliano has been found guilty in a French court on charges of making anti-Semitic comments in a Paris bar.

In another case, the father of French conservative presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was fined because he had called people from the Roma minority “smelly.” A French teenager was charged for criticizing Islam as a “religion of hate.” Many of us were disgusted recently when Macron celebrated Brigitte Bardot’s life as someone who “embodied a life of freedom.” As discussed on this blog, the French government repeatedly prosecuted Bardot for speaking about her views.

Macron’s praise for Bardot’s “life of freedom” is reminiscent of the reaction of French officials to the massacre of editors at Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine. After hounding the victims for years with criminal investigations, the French government organized a march for free speech. As predicted, it then used the killing by Islamic extremists to further crack down on free speech. In my book The Indispensable Right, I discuss how France has careened down the slippery slope of censorship for decades, and the desire to silence others has now become an insatiable appetite.

Macron has supported figures like his anti-free-speech ally Thierry Breton in globalizing the reach of the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA) to curtail speech, including Americans and American companies. In his latest pitch for censorship, Macron pulls out an old saw that if everyone can speak freely, no one can speak freely.

Macron declared that “There is no freedom if there is no limit to my freedom, which begins with the freedom of others and respect for a common framework. I know this when I walk down the street: my freedom cannot mean hitting you, insulting you or trashing the public space we all share.”That line is remarkably telling. It captures how even “insulting” language is treated as a crime in France.

Since then, France has been a leader in the rollback of free speech in the West, with ever-widening laws curtailing free speech. France regularly charges people for political and religious speech, including comedians and those criticizing the police. Macron’s visceral reaction to free speech is shared by many in the European Union.] I spoke in Berlin at the World Forum, which boasted the slogan, “A New World Order with European Values.” Bill and Hillary Clinton and other Americans cheered on the European efforts.

The Digital Services Act bars speech that is viewed as “disinformation” or “incitement.” When it was passed over the condemnations of many of us in the free speech community, European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager celebrated by declaring that it is “not a slogan anymore — that what is illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with as illegal online. Now it is a real thing. Democracy’s back.”

Despite his unpopularity in France, Macron remains a favorite of the establishment and the media in the United States. I was appalled years ago when he came to Congress to spread his anti-free speech gospel. Macron called for a joint war against “fake news” and declared, “Democracy is about true choices and rational decisions. The corruption of information is an attempt to corrode the very spirit of our democracies.”

Our representatives applauded like seals with little recognition that he was referencing censorship. Macron believes that he should be able to dictate which views are “corrosive” to the spirit of democracy. The claim that more speech means less speech is an oxymoronic talking point of the anti-free speech movement. As I discussed in my book, there has not been a single censorship system in history that has worked to kill a single idea or movement. Instead, it has given more power to politicians like Macron to silence critics and intimidate opponents.

In the end, the only true solution to bad speech is better speech. The public can sort out their own values and weigh opposing views without the strict guidance of the government. Free speech serves as its own disinfectant. Ultimately, allowing people not just free inquiry but free expression bends the arch of humanity toward truth. Hate and prejudice are inherently flawed values that tend to collapse when exposed to full, robust debate.

That does not mean that it will eliminate racism, sexism, or other forms of hate. Neither censorship nor free speech can make everyone better people. However, what Macron is peddling is the same tired, dishonest claim that free speech is harmful and the government must control what people see and say in public discourse.

This is a nation that still echoes the cry of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (“liberté, égalité, fraternité”). However, in today’s France, “liberté” remains a declining value. Individual rights of religion and speech are routinely sacrificed in the name of “equity” and “fraternity.”

Europe, led by such characters as Macron and Von Der Leyen, swings attention instead towards Trump. Europe has no hope left.

• Golden Naked Trump Statue Unveiled At European Parliament (ZH)

A golden statue of a naked Donald Trump is on display at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, at one of the busiest intersections connecting two of the Parliament’s buildings, and is scheduled to stay until Thursday. Named Orange Plague, the 8.5-foot sculpture shows the US president holding justice scales and a long golf club, its ball made to look like the world, while sitting on the shoulders of a smaller, clothed man. Text on the plinth reads: “I am sitting on the back of a man. He is sinking under my burden. I will do anything to help him. Except stepping down from his back.”

Jens Galschiot, the Danish artist who created the sculpture, said: “Trump represents one of the greatest threats to the rules-based world order, democratic values and our common effort to solving the climate crisis.” “We must address this issue and stand together against such destructive influence.” Galschiot said the statue, covered in 23-carat gold leaf, was inspired by the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes, in which a vain leader parades naked through the street, believing he is dressed in the finest clothes.

In the fairytale, no one tells him that he is naked out of fear and flattery until a child points out his nudity and the emperor becomes a figure of ridicule. Per Clausen, a Left-wing Danish European Parliament member, invited the artist to exhibit the statue in the building. He said that he was not worried about a potential reaction from Trump, adding: “If someone is so thin-skinned that they cannot tolerate this sculpture being exhibited in the European Parliament, then they have no place on the world stage.”

The statue was previously on display during the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), which was held in Brazil last year. It also made an appearance in Germany during this year’s Munich Security Conference. Worth reading in full over at The Telegraph.

“There was a time when California was an oil state in more than name. It pumped enormous quantities of crude, refined it at home, employed Californians doing both, and supplied its own gasoline and diesel.”

• Let’s Talk About Fuel Prices (Eric Florack)

Much has been made by some in this election cycle of fuel prices. A lot of finger-pointing is going on without a good deal of attention being paid to the attendant facts of the case.

OK, fine. Let’s talk about fuel prices, specifically in the People’s Republic of California. Seems a reasonable test case. Have another look at the photo at the top of this page before we dive in. Let that rest in your mind for a cycle or two.

There was a time when California was an oil state in more than name. It pumped enormous quantities of crude, refined it at home, employed Californians doing both, and supplied its own gasoline and diesel. That California is disappearing, and not because the oil ran out. It has been sacrificed in the name of global warming. No, Global cooling. Err… Climate Change. Yeah, that’s it. That’ll work. No matter which way it goes, we’re covered, right?

Anywho, production has fallen hard of late. Back in 1985, California pumped roughly 1.1 million barrels a day. By 2025, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data put it at about 288,000, and this year it’s running near 245,000. Refining has shrunk even faster, from 38 operating refineries in 1982 to 12 operable this January, according to the EIA. Then two more went. Phillips 66 shut its Wilmington refinery in the Los Angeles area last October. Valero stopped making fuel at Benicia near San Francisco and fully idled it in April, citing the state’s regulatory climate and high costs.

Together, Argus reports, they cost California 17% of its refining capacity. All of it regulated out of existence, and all the jobs with it. Look, gang, a refinery isn’t just a building with some pipes in it. It’s jobs, tax revenue, and the ability to turn crude into the fuel people put in their cars. California has been steadily and voluntarily surrendering that ability.

So where does their crude come from, after all that green legislation? In 2025, only 22.9% came from California and 16% from Alaska. The other 61.1% came from foreign countries. Of the foreign share, Brazil supplied 17.99%, Iraq 17.53%, Guyana 13.70%, Canada 12.22%, Ecuador 11.94%, and Saudi Arabia 7.85%. California sits on oil, has oil wells and refineries, and burns enormous quantities of gasoline and diesel. Yet more than six of every 10 barrels going into its refineries arrived from abroad.

The Irony here only gets stronger, because California also imports finished fuel. No pipelines bring gasoline in from the Gulf Coast or other major refining centers, so it arrives by ship. The Energy Commission puts 2025 gasoline imports at about 167,000 barrels a day, roughly 19% of supply, and two-thirds come from India, South Korea, and Taiwan. Valero has even started bringing gasoline in from its refinery in Pembroke, Wales. Yikes!

The state imports crude from halfway around the world, refines some of it at home, and when that falls short, imports gasoline from across the Ocean. It’s an extraordinary system, and by extraordinary I mean extraordinarily expensive. Every added leg adds shipping, handling, insurance, storage, and exposure to disruptions. When trouble hits in the Middle East, in a shipping lane, or at a refinery, Californians live at the end of a supply chain, without the cushion most Americans have. And the thing is, that’s by design.

While Sacramento has talked about energy independence for decades, what it actually delivered isn’t even close. It has delivered energy dependence with a green label on it. It never eliminated the need for liquid fuels because trucks, tractors, aircraft, ships, and ambulances still run on them. It just made the supply chain longer and more fragile.

(Aside: Yes, it’s been pushing Electric vehicles, but it doesn’t have the infrastructure to power them, and the state already imports a good chunk of its electricity. That figure swings up and down based on hydro systems and the availability of water to turn them. That too is in trouble of late. Something of a pattern here, but that’s a topic for another day.)

Oil companies don’t pay those costs out of some magical offshore account. Californians do. Transportation, refining, compliance, scarcity, taxes, and fees all end up in the price, and the guy at the pump pays the bill. The Energy Commission itself lists the state’s isolated fuel market, special gasoline blend, environmental program costs, and taxes among the reasons prices run high. California averaged $6.09 a gallon in mid-September, against $4.44 nationally.

This stuff is all basic economics. If you make it harder to produce, harder to refine, harder to ship, and harder to build replacement infrastructure, you don’t get to act shocked when the price rises. That’s not an unintended consequence; that’s economics. California’s Democrat party would rather pay foreigners for petroleum the state once produced and processed at home than make it attractive to do more of that here.Call it environmental policy, energy transition, or climate leadership. When the trucker, the farmer, the commuter, and the family read the number on the pump, they know what to call it: expensive.

They’ve not arrived at this juncture in one move; they’ve done this with hundreds of small steps, all of them trying to be “green.” That mindset is strangling the economy there. What happens as a result is what happens every time the big government Democrat Party runs things: dependence and economic disaster.

Lies?!

• Lies Serving Israel Have Sent US to War with Iran (Paul Craig Roberts)

Two days ago on October 5 both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times reported that the “Threat of Iranian Drone Attack Prompted U.S. to Pull Bombers From U.K. Base” The NYT headline reads “Potential Iranian Drone Attack Led to Exit of U.S. Aircraft From British Air Base”

According to the NY Times “the need to move the bombers from the base was deemed so urgent that some of the planes and their flight crews left while aerial refueling aircraft were still being deployed to support their flights to the United States.” The NY Times also reports “the frantic evacuation of 85 homes, a bomb-disposal robot searching vans for explosives and a national security meeting convened by Prime Minister. Burnham.”

Not only are US Air Force combat aircraft based in distant Britain unsafe from Iranian attack, but also the NY Times reports that “Israel warned Germany that American bases in Europe were at heightened risk of Iranian attack.” The Wall Street Journal says the planned attack was part of a broader Iranian plot to target the aircraft and kill American pilots at RAF Fairford.

For the NY Times the attack was “suspected” or a possible attack. US Vice President J.D. Vance downplayed the attack by saying that the Pentagon quickly moved the bombers “out of an abundance of caution trying to protect our guys.”

Nevertheless, Vance used the suspected attack for propaganda against Iran and accused Iran of “what the Iranian state has done for 49 years, which is engage in acts of terrorism against the United States and against a lot of other people as well.” Vance has it backward. It is the US that has attacked Iran both militarily and economically with sanctions for decades.

Washington first sanctioned Iran in 1979, 47 years ago, when Iranians overthrew the American puppet ruler and reestablished their self-rule lost on August 19, 1953, when the CIA and MI6 organized a coup that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddeg, replaced him with General Fazlollah Zahedi and restored Reza Pahlavi as the Shah.

Twenty-six years later Iranians again reclaimed their self-rule with the 1979 Iranian Revolution. On November 14, 1979 President Jimmy Carter responded to the Iranian Revolution by signing Executive Order 12170, which froze $12 billion in Iranian government assets and bank deposits held in the US. This sanction was followed by an import ban and trade embargo, which set the agenda for decades of subsequent sanctions against Iran.

Iran has not bombed a single US hospital or children’s school or civilian housing or assassinated any American political leaders, military leaders or scientists. Washington and Israel, being terrorists, have slaughtered Iranian women, children, medical personnel, scientists, and Iranian top leaders. Give us a few facts, Mr. Vance, about Iranian “acts of terrorism against the United States and against a lot of other people.” The fact that Washington’s aggression against Iran has to be justified with lies proves that the aggression is unwarranted. Washington is not protecting the US from “Iranian nukes.” Washington is serving with American blood and money the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel.

And, Mr. Vance, if US aircraft are unsafe in Britain from Iranian drone attacks, how is Washington in control of the Strait of Hormuz as US Central Command and Treasury Secretary claim? If US aircraft are not safe in distant Britain, how are they safe in the Persian Gulf?

UPDATE:

Simplicius reports that money payments to Iran determine whose oil gets out of the Strait of Hormuz

Simplicius reports that Iran has the ability to stop, or at least greatly curtail, oil transits at any time. “When the transits are successful, they appear to be so only on account of Iran’s implicit, but perhaps secret, permission. Why would Iran give such allowances? Rumors persist that Iran has cut special deals with certain countries that pay money ‘under the table’ to be allowed transits, even through the Omani route.”

As the world turns against Israel.

• We Remember (Rabbi Michael Barclay)

President Donald Trump made a statement about the FlyDubai flight that he “thinks Iran is responsible for it.”

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened that if any IDF forces are attacked on October 7, “If, God forbid, our forces are harmed, those who will pay the heavy price are Hamas and the population of Gaza — beyond all proportions.” When you take Trump’s comments in combination with those of Katz, and add that Israel has enlarged its naval fleet, it would seem that both Israel and the U.S. are preparing to escalate military activity. Perhaps this is why Benjamin Netanyahu and Marco Rubio were on a long private call on Monday afternoon.

Various media outlets in Israel have reported that Israel has been given the go-ahead to attack Iran unilaterally. The Iranians have been noticeably quiet over the last 48 hours, but that also could be due to the reality that there is no unified leadership in that country. Additionally, more and more reports are saying that Iran is feeling tremendous economic pressure, which might make it succumb, or it might make it aggressive.

As we approach the third anniversary of that horrific day, may we all fully commit ourselves to the idea that “Never Again” is not a slogan, but a promise.

Chazak u’Baruch

Rabbi Michael Barclay

October 6, 2026

25th of Tishrei, 5787

Iran has been noticeably quiet as we have approached this day of mourning, the third anniversary of that horrible stain on human history that happened on Oct. 7, 2023.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that “Iran has missed several opportunities to reach a deal with us regarding its nuclear program.” He added that Iran has “completely lost” control of the Strait of Hormuz. Whether it is true or not about control of Hormuz, it would seem that there is certainly chaos in the Iranian regime. Ayatollah Khamenei has not been seen for over seven months, which is clear evidence that the religious side of the regime is troubled, and that he is probably deeply injured or dead. It is not clear who is actually running the IRGC, but we need to remember something when dealing with Iran at this time: a wounded animal is often much more dangerous, and we know that Iran has been continuing to develop and build weapons, including possibly nuclear ones.

Domestically, JD Vance made some interesting statements on Tuesday to Reuters. “Iran must significantly reduce its nuclear enrichment to meet U.S. demands and end the seven-month war between the countries.” He added that while the U.S. remains open to an agreement, we also will demand clear concessions from Tehran on the nuclear issue. “We will not exchange words for actions.” More interestingly than those words (which we have repeatedly heard from the administration), is that he said for the first time that he has not yet decided whether he will run for president in 2028. “I’m a natural procrastinator,” he said. “I haven’t thought about it much.”

There is no doubt that this last sentence is a fallacy, and it has probably been the main thing on his mind for the last two years. But the statement may actually mean that Trump’s support for him is waning. Vance’s relationship with Tucker Carlson, as well as his inability to actually negotiate any sort of deal with anyone, may have decreased his opportunities and support within the Republican Party. In addition, Rubio has consistently succeeded at his job, and most polls find that he is the best option for the Republican Party to win the presidency.

Rubio has repeatedly said that he would not run against Vance. But many leaders, including independents and Democrats who are unhappy with the growing power of the socialist wing of the party, have said that they would support Rubio over a DSA candidate. Vance may also be hesitating given that Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) has now expressed that he is considering running for office as well.

But all of these political machinations are unimportant in comparison to today’s history.

Three years ago, Hamas, with the support of Iran, committed the most heinous crimes in the most horrific ways. And they committed them against civilians. They used and continue to use children as their shields; hospitals, schools, and mosques as their headquarters and weapons caches; killed over 1,200 innocents and kidnapped 251 hostages, and have become the embodiment and personification of evil. If you ever need a reminder of how horrible that day was, I encourage you to view the testimonies of these Zaka volunteers, the first ones to arrive at the sites of the horrors.

May we never allow ourselves to forget the crimes committed against those innocents, what they did at the Nova Festival, or the Bibas family and so many other families. May we always keep in our consciousness the commitment that the words Never Again must be a promise that not only every Jew, but every good person on this planet keeps.

And may the Holy One, blessed be He, and His presence bring healing and peace to everyone who has been so deeply affected by the tragedy of three years ago. May the souls of those who died on that day and subsequently be gathered together in the garden of souls and bring beauty to the universe.

Creator of the small and the large, help us to never forget. May You who make peace in the heavens, make peace upon us, America, Israel, and the world.

And may we all say, “Amen.”

Chazak u’Baruch

Be Strong and Be Blessed

Rabbi Michael Barclay

October 7, 2026

26th of Tishrei, 5787

Bukele.

• USAID Didn’t Cause the Rightward Swing in Latin America (Sarah Anderson)

The moment Flávio Bolsonaro got more votes than Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil on Sunday and voting down the ballot favored the right, I knew it would happen.

Very excited for Brazil. Venezuela must be next. @MariaCorinaYA is the missing piece of the whole continental puzzle now.

But the "USAID caused Latin America to reject socialism" talking point that isn't true is popping up, and I already have a headache, so I'm signing off for…

— SarahDownSouth (@SarahDownSouth) October 5, 2026

The conservative “It’s funny how ever since we shuttered USAID, Latin America has been electing right-wing leaders” line was repeated across social media as some sort of factual talking point. I even saw people whom I respect and admire posting it and agreeing. It’s a theory. It’s a meme. The problem is that it leaves out a lot of important nuance that makes it not quite the flex many think it is.

It’s the equivalent of me saying I stopped eating sugar this year, and my neighbor lost 70 pounds. The only way my diet maybe impacted my neighbor’s weight loss was that I stopped sending him cookies on Christmas. That’s not how he lost 70 pounds. He actually lost the weight through eating better and exercising.

The political change in Latin America is real. I’ve been covering it and predicting it for two years here at PJ Media. Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Honduras, Costa Rica, Peru, and Colombia have all elected conservative, U.S./Donald Trump-aligned leaders since USAID shut down in 2025.

The fact that USAID did political work is real. The Trump administration has opened our eyes to just how bad it was over the last year and a half. We know that “political competition and consensus building” was part of its portfolio. But when you dive a little deeper and look at the facts, you realize that while both things are true, they aren’t necessarily related.

The Timing
First, the timeline doesn’t match up. It’s the easiest fact to prove. This swing to the right was happening before Trump was re-elected and took office in January 2025.

Costa Rica, for example, already had a right-leaning president in Rodrigo Chaves, who was elected in 2022. When the country went to the polls in February 2026, it elected his hand-picked choice to succeed him, Laura Fernández. Chaves was an anti-establishment populist who was focused on security and often clashed with other branches of government and the media (sound familiar?). He was working with Nayib Bukele of El Salvador to curb crime in Costa Rica, including building a mega-prison, and he was moving his country’s diplomatic and economic ties away from China and toward the United States.

Then there’s Ecuador, a country that has become one of the United States’ greatest regional security partners in recent months. Some people like to include it on the list — Daniel Noboa was elected to a full term in a runoff in April 2025. But Noboa was an incumbent. He’d been the country’s president since 2023 when it held snap elections to replace the impeached president Guillermo Lasso. Bukele has governed El Salvador since 2019. Javier Milei was elected in Argentina in 2023. Luis Abinader was elected in the Dominican Republic in 2024.

Marco Rubio announced that 83% of USAID programs were cancelled on March 10, 2025. Then there’s Bolivia, a country that saw one of the biggest political turns when it elected Rodrigo Paz, who assumed office in November 2025. After two decades of Movement for Socialism (MAS) rule, it finally had a center-right leader.

People love to equate this one with USAID. The problem? In 2013, the country’s corrupt socialist president Evo Morales stopped the flow of all USAID money into Bolivia, accusing the agency of conspiring against his government and the Bolivian people. Latin America’s move to the right was already well underway before Trump and Rubio dismantled USAID.

How Much USAID Actually Went to Latin America
When you understand how much USAID money actually went to Latin America, the theory becomes even more difficult to prove. Let’s look at 2023. When you take some of the major regions of the world — Europe and Eurasia, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean — the money flowing into the Western Hemisphere is chump change compared to what was going to the other regions.

Europe and Eurasia received $17.2 billion (much of it going to Ukraine). Sub-Saharan Africa received $12.1 billion. The Middle East and North Africa received $3.9 billion. Only $1.8 billion went to Latin America and the Caribbean.

Of that $1.8 billion that went to the Western Hemisphere, most of it ended up in one of three places. First is Colombia, where it was used in relation to the FARC peace accord, counternarcotics operations, and the Venezuelan migrant crisis — people trying to flee Nicolás Maduro. The next is Haiti, where it was used to promote stability and humanitarian need. The third was the Northern Central America corridor, where it was used to address root causes of mass migration.

These numbers are far from impressive. Taking that money away may have pissed off some NGOs, but it didn’t win or lose elections.

The Money That Actually Shaped Latin America’s Left
USAID may not have shaped elections, but there was some financial backing that did. It didn’t come from Washington, D.C., however. It came from Caracas. In 2005, Hugo Chávez launched Petrocaribe, a regional oil procurement agreement that allowed some Caribbean and Central American governments to buy Venezuelan oil cheaply with credit that could be paid over 25 years with something like 1% interest. Some even repaid the debt with goods and services.

At its peak, it was supplying these countries with up to 200,000 barrels of oil a day at those terms. Cuba also had its own deal with Venezuela, receiving 100,000 barrels a day at the peak, largely in exchange for doctors through its forced labor program and security and intelligence training. Many of these countries would take the cheap oil and resell it to other nations, pocketing huge profits.

Chávez’s goal was to expand his geopolitical influence and support left-wing, anti-imperialist allies in the region. He also funded ideological allies, political campaigns, and friendly media outlets across Latin America and the Caribbean through PDVSA (Venezuela’s state-owned oil company) contracts. Profits were, of course, supposed to go to the Venezuelan people, not to illegally fund other governments and help sway elections.

By the mid-2010s, the Venezuelan regime had gutted PDVSA. Prices collapsed. Output plummeted. In 2019, U.S. sanctions stopped the repayment of all of those loans. At that point, Maduro and his narco-thugs were relying mostly on drug trafficking and illegal mining to fund the Venezuelan state and line their own pockets, but the free money to fund the leftists in the region was no longer available.

With no more Venezuelan cartel money to bankroll their campaigns, socialists are being ousted by voters across Latin America.

— Marshall S. Billingslea (@M_S_Billingslea) October 5, 2026

As I reported last year, Hugo Carvajal, who ran Venezuelan military intelligence, told United States authorities that this ran for at least 15 years and reached the Kirchners in Argentina, Lula in Brazil, Morales in Bolivia, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, Ollanta Humala in Peru, Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, Gustavo Petro in Colombia, and the far-left Podemos party in Spain. Other U.S. and former Venezuelan officials have supported some of this.

This is also one important reason why people want Trump and Rubio to remove “interim president” Delcy Rodríguez from Caracas as soon as possible. You can’t legitimize the country with the same regime still in charge. Eventually, Trump will not be president. U.S. foreign policy will change. Delcy waits him out, has oil flowing again, and suddenly, that money goes right back to the leftists.

As one of my favorite experts on the matter, Emmanuel Rincón, put it, “Our genuine concern is that the Chavista dictatorship will stabilize with access to money and funding, and that Venezuelans’ resources will once again be used to finance the far left on the continent.”

The Reasons Why Latin America Is Shifting to the Right
One reason why this whole “no more USAID changed Latin America” banter gets under my skin — aside from the fact that it’s incorrect — is that it takes away the agency of the people in these countries. They have legitimate reasons for voting the way they do. I’m pretty sure I’ve gone over this approximately 8,394 times in the last year, but let’s do it again, shall we?

…

The Leaders Who Led the Way
With all of that in mind, I want to point out the leaders in the region who helped others see what they can have. You can look to the picture at the top of this article to get an idea of who they are.

The first and, perhaps, the most important is Bukele of El Salvador. We all know what he has done for his country — turned it from the so-called “murder capital of the world” to one of the safest nations in the Western Hemisphere. He got rid of the gangs and organized crime, locked up the thugs, and started building programs that would help support a free, safe, and prosperous nation long into the future. I’m oversimplifying, but it’s been magnificent to watch.

Crime and security have driven people to the polls in all of these countries. They’ve seen what Bukele can do for El Salvador, and they want leaders who can do the same for them. I talk to Central and South American voters almost daily and have for the last three years, both in a personal and professional capacity. Every single one — and that is not an exaggeration — knows Bukele and mostly praises him because organized crime has become such a big problem. Someone even emailed me back during the Peruvian elections and said they saw more Bukele posters than posters for their own candidates.

Every one of these “right-wing” presidents that has won over the last two years has promised to be a hardliner on crime. Many have consulted with Bukele. They’re building their own mega-prisons. They’re partnering with the United States to fight the cartels.

Economically, Milei has led the way in Argentina. These new leaders also praise him, promising to follow his lead, slashing regulations, cutting spending, and implementing free-market and pro-business principles. Many also promise to move away from China and toward the U.S. when it comes to trade and investment.

Pretty bad.

• Yes, the Public Education System Is Broken (Amy Denton)

I have been in education for a long time. My first teaching job came two weeks after my younger nephew was born. His birthday is next week, and he’ll be 29. Take out the five years when I was working in retail and going to graduate school, and I’ve been a teacher for 24 years. There is not enough money in the world to tempt me back into public education. I’d rather stay poor, thank you. I keep hearing about a teacher shortage. That’s incorrect. There’s not a teacher shortage; there’s a people willing to be treated like dirt shortage. Why? How did public education come to this sad state? Jonathan Turley’s opinion piece in The Hill speaks to the problem and nails it right to the wall.

His opinion piece titled “The Blue-State Model for Education has Failed, and the Public has Caught On” states early on that one of the reasons the public schools have gone down the drain is because of the teachers’ unions. Early in the article, Turley states, “New polling shows that K-12 education has now reached a record low in the number of people who are even “somewhat satisfied” with the state of education in the U.S.” He then talks about the “education cartel,” a self-sustaining, self-perpetuating alliance between unions and politicians. The cartel has rendered families and students irrelevant.

How is that possible? people ask. Without the students, there is no school system. It doesn’t matter to the cartel. As long as the money keeps coming, which it does through dues, the cartel continues to operate. Personally, I have very little experience with the teachers’ unions. I joined the American Federation of Teachers briefly so I could get some legal help regarding the principal at the high school where I taught. I was a second-year teacher, and he had determined that I needed to go. He was black, and I was white. The AFT pointed me to the union steward at my high school, a government teacher who was also one of the basketball coaches. He told me that there was nothing the principal could do to force me from the building. I had to leave on my own. I’m a stubborn soul, so I was determined that the principal was going to leave first. He did, two years later.

Was the advice I got worth the annual membership? Absolutely. But that was twenty years ago. I dropped my membership the next year. Today, I wouldn’t join any teachers’ union because at their very core, they are about representing the teachers, not the students. The unions protect every teacher, even the teachers who have no business being anywhere near a classroom. In the states where teachers are required to join a union, the power is tenfold over the states that give teachers a choice, the right-to-work states.

In states where union membership is required, even if the teacher is able to quit the union, the union will still take a deduction from the teacher’s paycheck unless the teacher stands up and says “No.” In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court in Janus vs. AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) said that taking dues from non-union members was a violation of the First Amendment. This had an effect on union membership, which dropped by 10% after the ruling. However, the unions are not letting the decision slow them down. One year after the Janus ruling, a full 52% of teachers surveyed did not know they could leave the union without paying a fee. We are now eight years after the Janus decision, and the deep blue Democrat states with powerful teachers’ unions are working to make it easy to join a union but very hard to leave.

Aren’t unions supposed to protect workers and allow them to negotiate on a level playing field with their bosses? During the time of the Robber Barons in the early 1900s, yes. Today, most unions serve no purpose other than to enrich their heads. Both the head of the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) make six figures. The head of the Chicago Teachers Union makes six figures. Their salaries come from dues. Fewer dues-paying members, lower salaries. If the unions actually promoted better teaching and better practices, I would have no problem with them, but they don’t. The problem? Money. As long as the money keeps flowing to the unions, they can do whatever they want.

While the NEA, the AFT, and state and city teachers’ unions rake in the money, the students suffer. Children do not learn basic math and reading skills when they should and are simply passed along, because holding a child back today makes the school and the school district look bad. As I stated in another article, public schools are all about making things look good without any actual work being done. It’s the Gilded Age all over again, but in public education.

Teachers are not allowed to give grades below 50 even if the student has never done any work. The teachers who question the policy are labeled as “difficult” or “troublemakers.” Anything that makes the schools and school districts look less than perfect is seen as a problem. Rather than correcting the problem, schools cover it up. The “troublemakers” are given poor evaluations, denied the renewal of their teaching contracts, or even fired from the school and the district because they dare to question the system.

Students who graduate from high school with barely the basics struggle in college. Faculty at Harvard have been reduced to teaching high school math to incoming freshmen because the freshmen have no knowledge base. They never received it. This past May, the University of California reported an alarming lack of math knowledge among incoming students. The University of California, San Diego, faculty report showed a 30-fold increase since 2020 of incoming students whose math abilities fell below the high school level. Guess which political party most of the college professors in California vote for? California also has a very strong teachers’ union. Ninety percent of teachers in California are union members. They are voting for their own destruction.

It’s not just math that high school students are doing poorly in. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2023 that most California students cannot read or do math on grade level. How is that possible? When the people running the system don’t care what the students can or can’t do, it makes it easy to ignore the problems. It’s not just California with poor test scores; the deep blue Democrat states have the biggest problems. It’s not like they care.

What is the solution? Is there a solution? Turley states that school vouchers appear to be the only way to take control from the education cartel, by introducing real competition based on academic performance. I agree with him. I am 100% pro-school choice. Like him, I believe in the public schools. My parents, I, my siblings, and their children went to public schools, but what’s going on today in the public school system is not acceptable.

School systems cannot simply keep churning out people who do not have the basic skills needed to survive in life. School vouchers, which allow parents to choose which school their children attend, take care of the biggest problem in public education: money. The less money the school systems get, the less there is to waste. When parents have a choice of schools to send their children to, very few choose to send their children to substandard schools.

“President Donald Trump has never had worse poll numbers with his base ..”

CNN loves to claim Trump is falling apart.

• Democrats Are Taking Big Chunks Of GOP Voters In Key Senate Races:: Polls (CNN)

Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton speaks to supporters at Cafe Quetzal in Topeka, Kansas

President Donald Trump has never had worse poll numbers with his base than he does ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.And a growing volume of polls shows a significant portion of that base is preparing to cross over and vote for Democrats.

New York Times-“Siena College polls released over the weekend showed between 9% and 16% of Republican likely voters said they favored the Democratic nominee in five key states: Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio and Texas. And these aren’t the only polls to show a sizable crossover effect – especially in the middle of the country. All told, Democratic candidates have led among GOP voters by double digits in four key Senate races, and they lead by an average of at least 9 points in seven of the top 10 races, according to a CNN review of polling in each state.

Democratic candidates also seem poised to take an especially large percentage of Republican voters who don t identify with Trump s MAGA movement often around one-quarter of them. This data comes with an important caveat: Polling in the/ last/ few/ presidential elections has underestimated GOP support. And there are some signs that those misses may have been driven by polls reaching the right number of Republicans overall, but not enough of the party’s, and by extension, Trump’s strongest supporters.

If that pattern holds this year, it’s possible that GOP-aligned voters may wind up more supportive of Republican candidates than the polls suggest now. But it is worth noting that polling in the last midterm election, in 2022, did not exhibit this pattern. Perhaps the most striking numbers in the new Times-Siena polls came in Kansas, which has recently emerged as a surprising battleground. The poll showed Democrat Adam Hamilton tied with GOP Sen. Roger Marshall at 45% among likely voters, with the Libertarian candidate at 5%.

So how has Hamilton made the race that close in red Kansas, a state that Trump carried by 16 points in 2024? The pastor has peeled off 16% of registered Republicans and 10% of self-identified Republicans. (By contrast, Marshall took just 2-3% of each category of Democrats, according to the survey.)

…

But Hamilton is not the only Democratic candidate pulling double digits among Republican voters. The Times-Siena poll showed Iowa Democratic nominee Josh Turek taking 12% of registered Republicans and 5% of self-identified Republicans. And the state representative also took double digits among self-identified Republicans in recent polls from Marist College (13%) and Fox News (10%).

In Alaska, Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola took 13% of registered Republicans and 9% of self-identified Republicans in the Times-Siena poll.mAnd in Georgia, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff was taking 10% of self-identified Republicans in the most recent high-quality poll, from Fox News in late June.

Other Democrats take slightly less but still significant numbers. The Democratic nominees in North Carolina (Roy Cooper), Ohio (Sherrod Brown) and Texas (James Talarico) have all averaged 9% of the GOP vote in recent high-quality polls, according to a CNN review. Among other Democrats: New Hampshire Rep. Chris Pappas was averaging 5%, former Maine state Senate President Troy Jackson was averaging 4%, and Michigan s Abdul El-Sayed was averaging 3%.

Thus far, the Democratic Party hasn t matched the larger advantages in national polling. The so-called generic ballot, which asks people to choose between an unnamed Republican and an unnamed Democrat, shows Democrats averaging about 4% of Republican voters in recent high-quality polls. But the numbers do recall some of Democrats results in the 2018 midterms, which was a strong year for Democrats overall.

Exit polls back then showed Democrats taking double digits worth of GOP voters in a number of states West Virginia (17%), Arizona (12%), Ohio (11%), Pennsylvania (11%) and Wisconsin (10%) and taking between 5% and 9% in the rest of the key races. (While Democrats took more than 40 House seats from the GOP and benefitted from a favorable environment in the first midterm election under Trump, they did lose two Senate seats because they were defending some very red states.)

This year, Fox News polling also breaks out Republicans between MAGA Republicans and non-MAGA Republicans. And four Democratic Senate candidates have taken at least 21% of the non-MAGA Republicans: Cooper in North Carolina (21%), Talarico in Texas (22%), Brown in Ohio (25%) and Turek in Iowa (28%).mEl-Sayed took 12% of non-MAGA Republicans in Michigan, while Democrats took 12% on the most recent national generic ballot. And given Trump s apparent base problems, if Democrats do have a historic night on November 3, that could be a group of voters we ll be talking a lot about in the aftermath.

Facebook is in BIG TROUBLE.

It has just been discovered that the Facebook Covid vaccine Fat-Checkers are funded by vaccine companies. pic.twitter.com/1YIBsfvYsA

— Wiki Leaks 1.0 (@WikiLeaksQ) October 6, 2026

Glyphosate is a pipe cleaner… It started as an industrial pipe cleaner, pulling rust and metal out of pipes. Someone spilled it on the ground and it killed everything it touched, and that's when it got rebranded as a weed killer.

Then came the real move. Modify the food plants… pic.twitter.com/pFr04VXJ83

— Del Bigtree (@delbigtree) October 6, 2026

“I'm not sure people totally understand. Starship is the largest flying object ever made.”

— Elon Musk pic.twitter.com/zQpOz5KuU8

— Dima Zeniuk (@DimaZeniuk) October 6, 2026