Author: Nat Wilson Turner Page 1 of 6

What I Released This Week

• Coffee Break: Who Benefits From the Nvidia Spy Sex Scandal Allegations? — Naked Capitalism, Nov. 11th.
• Coffee Break: Election Aftermath Sees Dems Battle Over Schumer & Jeffries — Naked Capitalism, Nov. 9th.

From the Let It Roll Podcast

A lot of country music this week, but it’s great stuff. I should probably have put the Ken Burns episode earlier in the decade; oh well. The R&B episode is a particular favorite because I learned a TON from RJ Smith, and Black LA in the 40s was very much at the cutting edge of culture.

• Rhythm and Blues Exploded Out of 1940s Los Angeles Led by Nat “King” Cole & Big Jay McNeely: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 5.5 — Let It Roll, Nov. 13th.
• Roy Acuff, Bob Wills, Gene Autry & Woody Guthrie Lead Country Music Through Hard Times: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 5.4 — Let It Roll, Nov. 11th.
• Bob Wills & Western Swing: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 5.3 — Let It Roll, Nov. 9th.

From me as Nate Wilcox — The MMA Draw & the Mad Squabbles Show

• Trump Trolls MSM, Makes Joke of Dana White & UFC — The MMA Draw, Nov. 9th.
• Cheap Shots: A Stand-Up From Back Mount, a Fall Guy, Power Slap & Is MMA a Sport? — The MMA Draw, Nov. 7th.
• No More Money for UFC or WWE Talent? — The Mad Squabbles Show (YouTube), Nov. 11th.

We’re about 2 weeks into our annual fundraiser. We’ve raised about $9,915 out of a $14,500 goal from 80 people. This blog is free for everyone to read, and we’ve got about ten thousand visitors a month. Of those about 6K are regulars.

The simplest truth of capitalism is that you get more of what you pay for. Money sends the message and resources required to do things. In most cases your power is tiny, one of millions, but this isn’t like that because the numbers and the need (to keep the blog and Ian running) are relatively small.

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What I’ve Been Reading and Watching

AI Bubble

Behind Jensen Huang’s spy scandal, a shadow war for Trump’s ear on China — Washington Post
Huang’s downfall, which has the potential to mark a dramatic shift in power, was ultimately set in motion by one of the capital’s most influential China hard-liners, national security adviser and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Rubio issued a memo warning Trump about the relationship between Huang and a suspected Chinese spy, based on a report generated by the CIA, according to a person familiar with the matter. Rubio used the CIA report to write his own, recasting the agency’s reporting in his own more assertive terms, the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe confidential intelligence.

AI Bubble: ‘Circular financing is over’ | Ed Zitron — The Tech Report (YouTube).

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang RESIGNS After Second Affair – AI Stocks Crashing — Eli the Computer Guy (YouTube).

• The Hater’s Guide To Megaspeed — Ed Zitron, Where’s Your Ed At. “Up until as recently as last week, talking about NVIDIA’s illicit shipments of GPUs would have seen you branded a conspiracy theorist or a ‘doomer,’ mostly because the allegations are so severe, but also because NVIDIA’s bull run was so impressive and rapid, the idea that any meaningful part of it was the result of anything underhand simply couldn’t register with the most dented cheerleaders for the AI bubble.
  “And yet, none of this should have been a surprise. Culper’s research — which I referenced heavily in the free piece — was published in May 2026, and it formed part of the basis for its short position. And it needs to be stressed how significant this is, and how much peril Culper would find itself in if it turned out to be wrong — and, therefore, how confident it was in its findings.
  “If Culper was wrong, it didn’t open itself up to potential civil action (US defamation law sets a higher bar than in other countries, like the UK or Australia, but it still exists), but also, if you’re wrong when making a short, the losses are theoretically infinite.
  “The Wall Street Journal’s piece (that ran on Wednesday) fails to square the circle of how the largest media outlets in the world ignored the story entirely, yet the most damning part is that even in accepting that Culper might be onto something, the Journal fails to mention that 20% of NVIDIA’s Fiscal Year 2026 revenue might have come from China, nor does it make any attempts to discuss the contents of the report.”
• Jensen’s Bizarre Adventure — Ed Zitron, Where’s Your Ed At.

• Jensen Huang Hired a PR Firm Known for Handling Sex Scandals Last Year — Wired.
• US intel isn’t sure if businesswoman spied on Nvidia for China, doesn’t mean she wasn’t a risk, sources say — CNN.
• Jensen Huang resigns. — Gary Marcus.
• Jen-Hsun: Not Quite White Enough — Indi Samarajiva.
• The Real Play Behind Jensen Huang’s “Spy” Scandal: A Classic DC Two-for-One — @realGuancha. “First, they want to kneecap Jensen’s influence in DC. Huang has successfully lobbied the Trump administration to ease export controls on high-end AI chips like the H200, a move that has drawn strong opposition from China hawks in both parties. Linking his affair to an executive at a firm suspected of chip smuggling offers a convenient way to undermine his credibility, raise questions about whether he could be compromised, and put pressure on the White House to tighten the screws on chip exports again.
  “Second, they’re pushing the ‘Chinese spies are everywhere’ narrative to stir up security panic. Spinning a personal affair and a business compliance dispute into a ‘Chinese spy’ story—without publicly presenting hard evidence—plays straight into Western fears. It smears China’s image while giving Congress political ammunition to push for harsher tech restrictions and tighter controls on cross-border talent and business exchanges.”
• I’ve found a key clue about who’s really behind the push to hunt down Jensen Huang. — @Dream1984Tube (in Chinese). “I’ve always thought it was the anti-China hawks colluding with the media to take down Nvidia and Jensen Huang in the midterm elections, but the headlines and articles the media have been publishing have been sounding increasingly strange, full of blatant racism. Now I’ve discovered that they’re all just front-line thugs, and I can’t help reexamining the reporter who first published the New York Times’ spy story, @AnaSwanson. Why did she make such a big deal out of such an obviously absurd lead? Then I searched her past coverage and found the same core sources repeatedly cited across her key news articles and in-depth reports on AI and chip technology. Anyone familiar with how the media works knows you wouldn’t trust someone enough to keep citing their views in so many high-frequency contacts over such a long period unless you had a very close, trusting relationship. Guess who I found—Jack Clark.
  “Co-founder and head of policy at Anthropic / head of the Anthropic Institute”
• Turns out @AnthropicAI founder Dario was also involved in the story that recently broke about Jensen Huang’s affair. — @wenser2010 (in Chinese).
• Anthropic is the mastermind behind this smear campaign against Jensen Huang. — @gelunding (in Chinese).
• Lutnick stalled Trump’s Nvidia–China chip curbs after Oval talks — Axios. “The next one to be burned and triaged is Lutnick.
  This is turning into Trump’s night of the long knives.” — @snekotron.
• Eli Lilly CEO becomes latest to push back on Dario Amodei’s ludicrous, Elizabeth Holmes-like medical claims — Gary Marcus.
• The great Generative AI unraveling — Gary Marcus. “I also warned that LLMs lacked reliability; a raft of studies showing a lack of ROI seems to bear that out. There is an argument that things are improving, but even if they do they may not improve fast enough to justify the trillions being invested.
  “Meanwhile, nobody will be surprised if the massive Microsoft outage stems from code that was written by generative AI. And the systems remain poor at following instructions. The Klarna effect, in which companies rehire humans after making extravagant claims around AI, is yet another sign that GenAI is still not as good as it was cracked up to be. (Some future of AI may be better, of course, but we are not there yet).”

Outages

• What could possibly go wrong? Nationwide FAA Ground Stop edition — Gary Marcus. “We are reaping what the arrogance of Silicon Valley — and the ineffectiveness of Washington — has sown.”

Trump 2.0 Regime

• Alina Habba Milton Loses $50 Million Contract That Enraged Trump — The New York Times.
• Firm Linked to Trump’s Sons Got Nearly $40 Million in Federal Contracts to Screen for Ebola and Other Diseases — ProPublica.

Democrats

• The Democrats’ First Move After Their Big Win? A Giveaway to Big Oil. — The New Republic.
• Democrats Missed Hegseth Impeachment Vote While at a Fundraiser with Defense Lobbyists — Drop Site News.
• Why Does Chuck Schumer Have So Much Support? — @matthewstoller. “Schumer’s model of operating the Senate is very specific. He allows Senators a lot of room to legislate on their priorities, and operates as a logistical center to get them what they need to have a comfortable job. Money, staff, parking spots, whatever. But especially money for reelection. He is a very hard worker, perhaps the hardest in the Senate.
  “Where does he get that money? Good question! Ironically, he gets it from those members themselves, indirectly. If they push legislation that challenges powerful interests, he uses that as leverage to get support from those interests, and then redirects that money to get those same people reelected. The legislation tends to die, as that is often the price for the money. Schumer also offers some adjacent useful policy choices that are incrementally useful to Senators on their pet questions. So it’s a sort of odd dynamic, where Senators spend their time doing busywork in order for Schumer to generate the funds to get them reelected to keep doing busywork.”
• The Case For Jeffries — @matthewstoller. “Dem members of Congress and base voters see Hakeem Jeffries very differently. I’ll try to make the case for Jeffries, from the perspective of members. Ironically, they like him for the same reason voters don’t, which is that he’s nice and passive. He’s NOT Pelosi.”

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What I Released This Week

Election night kind of overwhelmed me; I’m not used to staying up that late! Will be more productive next week.

The Democrats are the dogs who caught the car and think they’re really fast and have strong jaws when in reality voter rage at Trump’s losing war on Iran, data center madness, the ongoing genocide in Gaza virtually guaranteed the opposition party a huge win.

It appears neither the House nor the Senate will overthrow the corrupt and incompetent leadership, so I’m not especially optimistic about the future, but it’s nice to see that American voters can still throw a tantrum and get noticed, however briefly.

• Live Thread: US 2026 Midterms Election Night Live Thread — Naked Capitalism, Nov. 3rd.
• Coffee Break: 2026 Elections: A Dem Betrayal, Trump Bargaining, and GOP Cheating? — Naked Capitalism, Nov. 2nd.

From me as Nate Wilcox at the Let It Roll Podcast

The From the Beginning Project is hitting a fun patch. The 1930s were a spectacular decade for dance music. A massive depression will do that, and the U.S. was culturally potent like it had never been, combining cultures and rhythms in a way that got the whole world’s attention.

• Mambo hit New York hard in the 1930s, 40s and 50s: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 5.2 — Let It Roll, Nov. 6th.
• Milton Brown Mentored Bob Wills and Invented Western Swing: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 5.1 — Let It Roll, Nov. 4th.
• Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra and the Swing Era: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 4.12 — Let It Roll, Nov. 2nd.

It’s Ian’s annual fundraiser. This allows us to cover the changeover of hegemony from America to China, environmental collapse, internal US fascism, what a better society would look like, Gaza, AI, the coming stock market crash and various other issues. As of this writing we’ve raised about $9,460 out of a $14,500 goal, from 75 people. It’d be great if you can help out (please don’t donate if your financial situation is dire.) You can Subscribe or Donate here or contact Ian at admin-at-ianwelsh-dot-net if you need another way to donate (mail, usually. A lot of cash apps don’t work in Canada.)

From me as Nate Wilcox — The MMA Draw & the Mad Squabbles Show

Will TKO Blame Dana White for Trump’s Midterm Disaster? — The Mad Squabbles Show (YouTube), Nov. 4th.

What I’ve Been Reading and Watching

Dems

• The Money Behind Hakeem Jeffries — Sludge. “Executives at Anduril and Palantir, crypto industry advocates, and investors giving through AIPAC helped fund the Democratic leader preparing to become speaker.”
• In the middle of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer teamed up with Mike Johnson and Mitch McConnell to invite their boss, Benjamin Netanyahu to give a speech in Congress. During the speech, they gave him 28 standing ovations. — @GenXGirl1994.
• House Democrats “inundated” with anti-Jeffries calls — Axios.
• The Private Equity Lobbyist Network Surrounding Chuck Schumer — Sludge. “Blackstone, Apollo, and private equity trade groups employ Schumer alumni to push their interests in Washington as progressive senators push for tougher restrictions on the industry.”
• The Angie Nixon Caucus — The American Prospect. “Meet Victoria Broderick and LaKesha Womack, two Southern Bernie broads who flipped two blood-red seats, while spending all of $155,000—between them.”

Will the Democrats Betray Us Again? — The Chris Hedges Report (YouTube).

AI Bubble

OpenAI Is Screwed — The Tech Report (YouTube).

What Are All Those Data Centers For — Inside China Business (YouTube).

WTF Just Happened to Global Markets? — Eurodollar University (YouTube).

Crypto

North Korea Robbed Binance — Patrick Boyle (YouTube).

Deep State

• 9/11 as a Structural Deep Event — Peter Dale Scott. “Early on the day of of 9/11 Vice-President Cheney and Defense Secretrary Donald Rumsfeld, while George W. Bush was absent in Florida, implemented the elaborate rules of Continuity of Government (COG), a once once described in Congress without rebuttal as ‘a plan to suspend the American Constitution.’ It was also a plan on which the same pair, Cheney and Rumsfeld, had been working on in secret for two decades – even when both men were outsude government and heading important private corporations.
  “I wrote in 2014 that with a few notable exceptions, there has thus far been scant interest in the media and the public in the extraordinary facts that Cheney and Rumsfeld were able to
  “1. help plan successfully for constitutional modifications, when they were not in government, and
  “2. implement these same changes themselves when back in power.”

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What I Released This Week

• Coffee Break: Elon Musk Has a Hand in Everything from Anthropic to Skydance to Texas Politics — Naked Capitalism, Oct. 28th.
• Coffee Break: Trump’s GOP Flailing as Campaign Nears Close — Naked Capitalism, Oct. 26th.

From me as Nate Wilcox at the Let It Roll Podcast
A lot of blues this week, including a brand-new episode on St. Louis Blues (and Jazz and Ragtime).

• Robert Johnson Revised: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 4.11 — Let It Roll, Oct. 30th.
• Robert Johnson: Escaping the Delta: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 4.10 — Let It Roll, Oct. 28th.
• Devil at the Confluence: The Pre-War Blues of St. Louis: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 4.9 — Let It Roll, Oct. 26th.

From me as Nate Wilcox — The MMA Draw & the Mad Squabbles Show

• Did Dana White & the UFC Dump Trump? — The Mad Squabbles Show (YouTube), Oct. 27th.

It’s Ian’s annual fundraiser. This allows us to cover the changeover of hegemony from America to China, environmental collapse, internal US fascism, what a better society would look like, Gaza, AI, the coming stock market crash and various other issues. As of this writing we’ve raised about $5,120 out of a $14,500 goal, from 58 people. It’d be great if you can help out (please don’t donate if your financial situation is dire.) You can Subscribe or Donate here or contact Ian at admin-at-ianwelsh-dot-net if you need another way to donate (mail, usually. A lot of cash apps don’t work in Canada.)

What I’ve Been Reading and Watching

Iran War

• The Incredible Shrinking Superpower — The Intercept.
• Iran keeps humiliating USrael in the sky and in the sea! — GeoPolitiQ.
• US Army prepares for mass casualties with drill digging graves amid a looming war threat — Daily Mail.

FUTURE IRAN WAR PLAN – IT’s INSANE — Daniel Davis / Deep Dive (YouTube).

Yemen War

Yemeni-built weapons shape Saudi battle, with Jon Elmer — The Electronic Intifada (YouTube).

Israel

• “Sound and fury in Israel.” — The Floutist. “One question in my mind as the Israelis sort out their political future is how the rest of the world will respond once a new government forms and it is bitterly clear that, with Bibi or someone else in power, Israel is either incapable of taking a new course forward or has no interest in finding one. As Alastair Crooke put it the other day, there is no ‘Good Israel’ waiting to come back to life.”
• Massive influence campaign floods France with racist ads, months before 2027 presidential election — Le Monde.
• ‘Abusing and Threatening and Harassing’: Inside the Collapse of Leo Terrell’s DOJ Antisemitism Task Force — The Harvard Crimson.

Ukraine

John Mearsheimer: Russia Will Win The Ukraine War And Take More Territory — Glenn Diesen Clips (YouTube).

Latin America

• Wife of jailed Ecuadorian opposition leader slams Donroe Doctrine dictatorship — The Grayzone.
• Bolivian Attorney General Was Arrested After Investigating Trump-Aligned Operative — Drop Site News.

AI Bubble

• The Bright Side of the Dark Side of AI — God’s Spies. “AI eats what it’s fed, regardless of source. AI is now eating Adobe. And that’s just the start.”

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What I Released This Week

• Coffee Break: Netflix Purges the C-Suite While Larry Ellison Goes Deep to Fund Skydance — Naked Capitalism, 21 Oct.
• Coffee Break: Trump Regime Wilding Amid Scandals and Backstabbing — Naked Capitalism, 19 Oct.
• West Asia War: Egyptian Parliament Delays Vote on Joining Yemen War, Saudi Admits Chopper Went Down — Naked Capitalism, 19 Oct.
• West Asia Wars: Egyptian Parliament Weighs Defense of Saudi Arabia, Why Ansar Allah’s Missile Accuracy Has Improved — Naked Capitalism, 18 Oct.

From me as Nate Wilcox at the Let It Roll Podcast

• Chick Webb’s Big Beat Style of Swing Led Directly to Rock ’n’ Roll: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 4.8 — Let It Roll, 23 Oct.
• Swing King Chick Webb Brought Ella Fitzgerald to the World: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 4.7 — Let It Roll, 21 Oct.
• Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Big Joe Turner: How Kansas City Vice Birthed Kansas City Jazz: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 4.6 — Let It Roll, 19 Oct.

From me as Nate Wilcox — The MMA Draw & the Mad Squabbles Show

• Over 200 million reasons for TKO to worry about Saudi Arabia — The MMA Draw, 19 Oct.
• The UFC Is Sucking MMA Dry — The MMA Draw, 18 Oct.
• Cheap Shots: Are They Really Going to Fight in the Middle East? — The MMA Draw, 17 Oct.
• Ariel Helwani SCOLDS Sean Strickland as Dana White eliminates his UFC pay leverage — The Mad Squabbles Show (YouTube), 20 Oct.

It’s Ian’s annual fundraiser. This allows us to cover the changeover of hegemony from America to China, environmental collapse, internal US fascism, what a better society would look like, Gaza, AI, the coming stock market crash and various other issues. As of this writing we’ve raised about $3,185 out of a $14,500 goal, from 34 people. It’d be great if you can help out (please don’t donate if your financial situation is dire.) You can Subscribe or Donate here or contact me at admin-at-ianwelsh-dot-net if you need another way to donate (mail, usually. A lot of cash apps don’t work in Canada.)

What I’ve Been Reading and Watching

Trump Regime 2.0

• The Pentagon Buyout King — The American Prospect. “Feinberg has been doing a little of everything at the Pentagon, overseeing nearly all of the administration’s pet projects. He supervises its investment units, which, staffed with former Cerberus execs, have been buying equity in and making huge loans to companies in the military supply chain, many of them with ties to the Trump family and other well-connected private investors. One of those investment offices, which the Biden administration stood up to make low-interest loans to backstop domestic defense production, is now involved in managing the United States’ Venezuela oil deal. It recently floated issuing a $5 billion loan for AI infrastructure development, in partnership with a new bank founded by defense tech billionaire Palmer Luckey. Another one is called the Economic Defense Unit; Feinberg created it himself earlier this year and installed George Kollitides, a former aide-de-camp at Cerberus, as its head. Kollitides also leads Feinberg’s new Business Operators for National Defense consortium, which plans to ‘embed’ hundreds of defense executives in Pentagon offices.”
• The Wall Street Veteran Trying to Solve the Pentagon’s Missile Problem — Wall Street Journal. “Trump asked Feinberg why he was still seeing media reports that the U.S. had paused attacks on Iran amid concerns about dwindling weapons stocks, given Feinberg’s job was to improve those stocks.
  “‘The president wants more. The secretary wants more. I want more,’ Feinberg recently said, explaining his approach in his first interview since taking the job last year.
  “As the U.S. expends thousands of missiles in the Iran war, Feinberg is trying to speed up the Pentagon’s ability to get new weapons. The jury is still out on whether it will work.
  “Over the past year and a half, he has attempted a sweeping overhaul of the Defense Department’s approach to weapons production, establishing a new procurement bureaucracy reporting directly to him and taking billions of dollars in government stakes in companies that supply critical materials, rocket engines and other key parts.
  “In large part, he has relied on companies and executives familiar to him from his time running the investment firm he co-founded, Cerberus Capital Management.”
• The Moment Katie Zacharia Found Out Her Five-Day Stint as Press Secretary Was Over — Wall Street Journal.

Saudi Arabia

• Blood without representation: Why Saudi Arabia can’t stop the Houthis — Kulna. “Why can’t Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s biggest military spenders, stop the Houthis? The answer isn’t weapons. It’s the bargain the Gulf monarchies were built on, which is now breaking, and a decade of MBS’s absolute power that left the kingdom no way out.”
• Rave. Fight. War. — Sportspolitika. “As the U.S. orders its diplomatic staff to leave the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are relying on combat sports and raves to maintain a facade of normalcy in a time of war.”
• Bryan Fonseca on the Saudi events still going ahead — @BryanFonsecaNY. “Everyone has been canceling their Saudi-based events — except for ones that are TKO-backed.
  “Canelo vs. Mbilli (Oct. 31) and WWE Crown Jewel (Nov. 7) still set to move forward despite the ongoing war.
  “Zuffa is reportedly planning another boxing card on Nov. 14 in Riyadh.”

• Turki Alalshikh announces the return of Riyadh Season — @Turki_alalshikh. “With the support and empowerment of His Highness the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, and His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince, sponsor of the Vision and our inspiring leader, Riyadh Season returns with diverse entertainment events and experiences, exceptional sports championships, and varied musical concerts and theatrical shows 🇸🇦♥️
  “Welcome to Riyadh Season”
• Saudi Arabia executes a man for charges he allegedly committed at 14 — @DropSiteNews. “Saudi Arabia announced Saturday it had executed a man convicted of charges he allegedly committed at 14: befriending people who were detained or wanted by the state, according to court documents reviewed by Human Rights Watch.”

UAE

• Jared Kushner’s Hacked Phone Revealed His Secret Negotiations—Including More Than $700 Million in Transfers — Vanity Fair. “An exclusive excerpt from Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East examines how bank accounts linked the president’s son-in-law—and former senior adviser—to Israel, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.”

Skydance

• Elon Musk makes $1 billion investment in Ellison’s Skydance — Semafor. “Elon Musk has invested roughly $1 billion in Skydance, according to people familiar with the matter, providing a much needed financial injection as the company looks to cut costs and bolster its stock price.
  “The deal came together at roughly the same time as equity investments from Skydance’s other investors, including board member Laurene Powell Jobs, the people said. Semafor reported in September that Paramount was considering seeking an equity injection from Musk.
  “Musk has publicly praised the Ellisons and Skydance, prompting speculation of a more expansive partnership between Musk’s lower-earth-orbit satellite network, Starlink, and Skydance.
  “‘He’s gonna have to re-engineer all of those channels, and figure out how they morph into streams themselves rather than just traditional linear,’ billionaire cable executive John Malone said Tuesday.”
• CBS’ DraftKings Gamble — Status. “Late last week, as local stations around the country continued to prepare for Election Day, executives at CBS’ owned and operated television stations learned of an unexpected curveball from corporate management. Their election coverage, they learned, would now be sponsored by the sports gambling site DraftKings.”

Israel

• Israel Was Inside Al Jazeera’s Computers — Ahmed Eldin.
• Remembering Ori Goldberg — Kulna.

Ukraine

• The Man in the Middle of Trump’s Deeply Conflicted Ukraine Policy — The Atlantic.

Dem Collapse

Mehdi Hasan INTERROGATES Neera Tanden for hosting Benjamin Netanyahu — @ClippingWings.

https://x.com/ClippingWings/status/2110922837506568642

GOP Hacks

• ICE Barbie Goon Unmasked as Creator of MAGA’s Vilest Ad — The Daily Beast. “The man behind Kristi Noem’s infamous horseback commercial at Homeland Security has been exposed as the creator of Vivek Ramaswamy’s vile new attack ad, a new report alleges.
  “The Rooster reports that The Strategy Group Company, run by Benjamin Yoho, is the creator of the ad featuring an interview with Democratic candidate Amy Acton’s estranged mother, in which she casts doubt on her daughter being a victim of horrific childhood abuse.”

Uprisings

• Indian Gen Z ‘cockroach’ protesters aim to upend assumptions about democracy – and populism – in Modi’s India — The Conversation.

Psychopathology

• You Can’t Know Everything — Unpopular Front. “Here’s what I think is going on with Elizabeth Holmes: She has an extremely severe form of the defense mechanism that Melanie Klein called splitting—dividing self and world into unambiguous ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ She cannot admit that she has any bad qualities: any aggression, any selfishness, any tendency to deceive others, or even any of the more positive forms of aggressiveness like ambition. On her account, her motivations are all benevolent, idealistic, and noble. She even says she never lies! Now, I believe a consciously deceptive person would admit that they, like everyone else, lie casually from time to time to avoid hurting others or to get out of inconvenient situations, but they avoid lying in serious issues or have a strong ethical aversion to lying. A total denial of lying immediately raises red flags: It is not an effective strategy for building trust. Usually, hearing something like that is a sign of someone being a little bit crazy. She cannot face or integrate that aggressive part of herself. Most mature adults with healthy psyches can admit to themselves and others that they have some less than stellar qualities—that they can be selfish or even destructive at times—although they balance that behavior out with nice qualities, for example, the capacity for love and kindness, and the ability to make amends when they do wrong.”

Conspiraversy

• 9/11 Fooled Us. Epstein Makes Us Finally Get It — Aaron Good & Bryce Greene — BettBeat Media (YouTube).

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What I Wrote This Week

• West Asian War: Ansar Allah Hits Enemy HQ in Aden — Naked Capitalism, 16 Oct.
• Saudi National Arrested for Spying at OpenAI — Naked Capitalism, 15 Oct.
• West Asia War: Riyadh Ravaged, Battles in Yemen, Iranian Mines Sink Ship — Naked Capitalism, 15 Oct.
• Coffee Break: CoreWeave the Canary in the AI Credit Coal Mine? — Naked Capitalism, 14 Oct.
• Aramco Burns, Oil Execs Avoid Saudi Confab, MbS in the Bunker — Naked Capitalism, 14 Oct.
• Texas Senate Race Features Fictions About Talarico vs. Plentiful Paxton Scandals — Ian Welsh, 14 Oct. (Crossposted at NWT.)
• Banks Struggle to Digest the Mounting Debt Driving the AI Boom — Naked Capitalism, 12 Oct.
• Iran War: Saudi Airports and Oil Facilities Blasted Again and Again — Naked Capitalism, 11 Oct.
• Iran War: IRGC and Ansar Allah Fire Away At Tankers, Oil Facilities, Airports — Naked Capitalism, 10 Oct.

From me as Nate Wilcox at the Let It Roll Podcast

• The Songs Jazz is Built On: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 4.3 — Let It Roll, 12 Oct.
• Rhythm & Blues from Bessie Smith to Louis Jordan: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 4.4 — Let It Roll, 14 Oct.
• Alan Lomax, Pete Seeger, Josh White & Jean Ritchie and the first Folk Revival: Let It Roll From the Beginning… 4.5 Let It Roll 16 Oct

From me as Nate Wilcox — The MMA Draw & the Mad Squabbles Show

• Double Trouble for TKO money men Turki Alalshikh & Khaldoon Al Mubarak — The MMA Draw, 12 Oct.
• Cheap Shots: UFC Action at the Apex, Strickland on Strike, Saudi Events Endangered? — The MMA Draw, 11 Oct.

Dana White: Eddie Hearn is WEAK — The Mad Squabbles Show (YouTube), 15 Oct.

Saudis play a big game of CHICKEN with Canelo Alvarez as Houthis drone Riyadh — The Mad Squabbles Show (YouTube), 12 Oct.

What I’ve Been Reading and Watching

Trump 2.0 Regime

• Inside Bessent’s Treasury: Tension, Turnover and Unmet Economic Goals — Wall Street Journal. “…his temper has flared. He has shouted at staff for not moving fast enough to implement his ideas and for failing to combat unfavorable media coverage, some of the officials said. Last year, Bessent got so angry about the way his daily briefing book was organized that he picked up the binder full of papers and threw it at a wall, people familiar with the matter said.
  …
  “Bessent’s reputation as a challenging boss has complicated efforts to fill key vacancies at the department, according to people familiar with the matter. Several potential recruits said they decided not to pursue job opportunities at Treasury because they had heard about Bessent’s behavior.
  …
  “Some aides said they ask colleagues about the secretary’s mood before coming into contact with him, and trade advice on how to avoid him when he is angry. Several officials described feeling relieved when Bessent was away from the office.”
• Trump’s ice maiden is under fire — Politico Playbook.
• Trump ‘blew up’ after Natalie Harp printed out Susie Wiles ouster reports sparking White House ‘freakout’: report — The Independent. “A bombshell report indicating President Donald Trump was soliciting opinions on whether to sack his longest-serving chief of staff led to a full-blown ‘freakout’ after Trump’s ‘human printer’ showed him paper copies of the news items.
  “Politico’s ‘Playbook’ newsletter revealed the angry eruption took place in the White House on Thursday in the wake of their initial report that Trump had been calling around to a roster of informal outside advisers about bringing an end to Wiles’ tenure and floating several names for a successor to the veteran Florida political operative, who is the first woman to serve in the chief of staff position.
  “Trump’s anger had been stoked by Natalie Harp, the longtime aide and near-constant companion who often brings him paper copies of news stories and helps with his Truth Social posts. One source said he ‘blew up’ after seeing the newsletter’s reporting and began placing even more phone calls about potential replacements for Wiles.”
• Kimberly Who? — The New Yorker. In this Administration, former Ambassador Guilfoyle is the rare Trump associate to face consequences for misdeeds.
• ‘Honey Please’: Kimberly Guilfoyle Pushed Donor to Wire $100,000 to Her Amex Account — Wall Street Journal.
• Kimberly Guilfoyle’s Champagne-fueled Greek party life now under investigation by the State Department… after 4am requests and unseemly messages are leaked — Daily Mail.
• Kimberly Guilfoyle flaunted her nudes album to me… with each man’s Amex card next to his compromising photo — Daily Mail.
• Kimberly Guilfoyle Left Fox News After Investigation Into Misconduct Allegations, Sources Say — HuffPost.
• Yashar Ali on Kimberly Guilfoyle at Fox News — @yashar. “In 2018, I was the first to report that Kimberly Guilfoyle was pushed out at Fox News due to misconduct allegations, which included sexual harassment.
  “One of the things I reported on — and there’s a lot I didn’t include in my report — was that Guilfoyle had a penchant for showing photos of male genitalia in the Fox News makeup room, sort of like someone showing off photos of a new car to their colleagues.
  “When Guilfoyle was told nearly a year in advance that her contract would not be renewed, she panicked over money and, obviously, the loss of influence.
  “It was all she could talk about: money, money, money, and another favorite topic of hers…
  “And I’ll never forget what a colleague of hers told me at the time: ‘All she talks about is dick and money.’”
• The new White House press secretary failed the bar exam. She shared posts calling her an attorney anyway — CNN.
• Katie Zacharia: I Worked for a Pyramid Scheme!!! — TMZ.

I have a feeling Donald Trump called Sean Hannity and told him to assassinate her.

And he did.

This is the entire interview with the soon to be fired Katie Zacharia. It’s worth it. https://t.co/lBBkGcM7vO

— Evan (@daviddunn177) October 16, 2026

• Trump’s furious phone call over missing $5.6m: Alina Habba accuses MAGA loyalist Richard Grenell in feud over her billionaire husband’s money — Daily Mail.
• Nasty email fight between 2 top Trump appointees spills into the open — Politico. Zampolli is the Epstein associate who brought Melania Trump to the US. “2 top Trump officials, Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau and special envoy Paolo Zampolli, have been embroiled in a monthslong fight that include leak accusations and ‘bizarre’ defamation threats — in emails that include many other colleagues.
  “The emails, which I obtained, show Zampolli and Landau disagreeing over chains of command as Landau admonishes Zampolli to stick to his remit on cultural issues — but devolve into bitter arguments and unproven allegations.
  “I am hereby ordering you–once again–to immediately stop all work on ANY issues not directly tied to cultural diplomacy, including every one of the issues you mentioned in your recent emails,’ Landau wrote to Zampolli, a personal friend of Trump’s, in one email from Nov. 2025.
  “In one email to Zampolli, he said that working on issues outside the scope of his authority ‘and in contravention of my express directives, may expose you to disciplinary action, dismissal, and legal liability.’ Landau wrote that he was ‘committed to a path of insubordination.
  “In two in-depth telephone interviews with me, one of which lasted more than 45 minutes, Zampolli continued his criticism of Landau, saying that he ‘has been attacking me from Day 1’ and ‘everything I did, he tried to destroy it. … Definitely, he has a problem with me.”
• Trump ally removed from role after report of State Department feud — CNN.
• He Crafted a Crypto Law for Trump—as His Company Got Millions From a Crypto Giant — Wall Street Journal. “Money from Tether flowed to Nxum while Bo Hines worked in the White House on landmark stablecoin legislation. Once the law passed, Tether hired him as its U.S. chief.”

AI Bubble

• AI Cockroaches Scurry Out from Under Nvidia, the Most Valuable Company in the World — Big by Matt Stoller. “…the best way to understand where the scammers are isn’t to look at a particular industry sector, but to follow the scammers from industry to industry. As a contact put it, ‘This is like the SPAC craze of 2021. Whatever the hot thing of the day is, that is what the grifters will gravitate to. Shell companies did reverse takeovers with Chinese firms, the biotech bubble, shale, and others. Stock promoters will promote.’ In other words, the same people just move from scam to scam, since unethical stock promotion itself is their business.”
• Companies rushed in on AI. Now some are pulling back — The Guardian. “Employers are navigating a flood of errors and low-quality work that are sapping employee time, raising privacy and security risks and pushing up costs. Now, some businesses that started off fast and furious on AI are pumping the brakes, implementing restrictions where experimentation was once encouraged, bringing back experienced workers and upping training efforts.
  “C-suite leaders say when it comes to AI, there’s a sense that ‘we’re driving the truck and building it at the same time, and that’s a problem,’ said Johnny C Taylor Jr, president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management. ‘If we could all rewind … we would have introduced [this] in a more thoughtful, slow way.
  “Despite billions of dollars that firms around the globe have invested in AI over the past few years, major returns remain to be seen: 90% of executives say AI efforts have yet to translate to productivity gains at their companies, according to an Atlanta Federal Reserve working paper. And an Ernst & Young survey published last month found that 36% of senior AI executives at companies with at least $1bn in annual revenue reported an AI incident that led to issues including data loss, financial damage, brand damage or operational disruptions.”

Silicon Valley Crazies

• A Billionaire Has A Psychotic Religious Break With Reality — Ian Welsh. “Now it’s possible that Thiel is just running an op–that he doesn’t believe any of this and is simply trying to whip up religious folks, especially Evangelicals (a religion that is reversal of much of what Jesus preached) against policies he hates. Being kind, perhaps he genuinely thinks that the world is in danger of world government and it will be achieved thru fear.
  “But I think it’s more likely he’s had a religious psychotic break, confusing his own desires and prejudices with religious teachings.”

Dystopia

• The Endgame of Surveillance And Autonomous Robots Approaches — Ian Welsh. “…governments and any big corp that cares enough will know exactly where you go, and where you’ve been. They can alter footage to embarrass you or frame you for a crime. They can fairly easily listen in to what you say, even when you’re not using the phone.
  “Then we have autonomous armed robots. The armed robot dogs are already here, same with armed flying drones. The great problem for elites is always the issue of enforcer reliability. This is why Saudi Arabia is getting its ass kicked on the ground, because they deliberately crippled their troops to reduce the possibility of a coup.
  “Now, add in AI, which elites hope will allow them to replace technical workers: the problem with using all this tech is that you still have the enforcer issue: but if the autonomous robots can be maintained and built by AI, well, that problem is lessened. (Some people will still be necessary, but far less.)
  “This enables a full panopticon on daily life, especially for people who use ‘smart’ home devices, which are notorious for the data they send home. They’ll know who you are, what you’re doing, who you associate with, how much money you have, what you spend it on, etc, etc… Then they’ve got their robots to take you out, or they can frame you by altering the video that they have of you to show you committing a crime.”
• Who Gets Paid: ClipIt and Israel’s $55.5 Million American Campaign — @leahfiles. “So many of you asked me to look into ClipIt, the company paying people by the view to post political clips. I did, and it connects to Israel’s $55.5 million American campaign, Trump’s former campaign manager, Turning Point and the operatives working for the Speaker of the House.
  “A few highlights are below, and the full article with receipts is up on Substack now (link in bio, and it’s free).
  “(1) The man who runs ClipIt goes by ‘Matt Servius’ online and has never been publicly named. Wyoming and Latvian records point to Matīss Tabūns, a 23-year-old in Talsi, Latvia, who formed ClipIt’s American company on May 28, 2025, with a one-dollar stake.
  “(2) Fourteen days later, on June 11, Brad Parscale formed Clock Tower X. It went on to register as Israel’s foreign agent.
  “(3) ClipIt’s own records label a campaign ‘Political’ for December 14 to 21, the week of AmericaFest. In those same days, Clock Tower X took in $6 million from Israel.
  “(4) ClipIt’s campaigns kept Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson out of their clips. Israel’s campaign websites attacked both of them by name.
  “(5) Israel’s campaign made its own clip titled ‘Charlie Kirk,’ and its contract appears written to collect repost rights to content made by outside influencers.
  “(6) Everyone keeps asking who paid. ClipIt paid its clippers from a $20 million crypto wallet that traces back to Stripe’s stablecoin system, and one clipper thanked the boss for his ‘Political Payout of December.’ That means an American company has the name of whoever ordered the political payouts, and that record can be subpoenaed.
  “(7) ClipIt rewrote its terms the day before The Atlantic’s story ran. Then it changed its founding year and blocked visitors from the United States.
  “(8) Israel’s campaign sent $4.4 million for ‘media placement’ to a firm run by Mike Shields. His other firm has been paid $2.98 million by Speaker Mike Johnson’s campaign.
  “(9) Parscale’s Israel firm uses the same Ohio office suite as his company’s White House contract.
  “(10) Turning Point denies working with ClipIt. But, it has paid Jake Hoffman’s firms millions a year, and Hoffman ran Turning Point’s 2020 teen troll farm. The attack operation on X reeks of Jake Hoffman’s troll famrs”

Oil Prices

• Why did China just save the world economy? — Arnaud Bertrand. “This is one of the biggest geopolitical mysteries of the year: why did China just save the world economy?
  “Because, make no mistake, it absolutely did. Analysts are pretty much unanimous on this: had China not dramatically – and I mean dramatically – reduced its imports of oil this year, the price of crude oil would have gone through the roof and dragged the global economy down with it.”

Gulf Money

• Evaluating the PIF’s Financial Performance and New Strategic Direction — Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “In its new strategy, the Saudi Public Investment Fund seems to focus more on investment returns and less on asset growth. How this will work in practice is less clear, including what it means for the future of existing projects, such as Neom.
  “After more than doubling between 2021 and 2024, the PIF’s assets under management declined by 1% in 2025, from $916 billion to $906 billion. Further, the rate of return on assets under management was -4.4% (author estimate), largely due to the poor performance of the Saudi equity market. The negative return was not fully offset by new investments or incoming asset transfers. Most of the growth in assets under management in recent years has come from the government’s transfer of 16% of Aramco’s equity (valued at around $320 billion) to the PIF.
  “The rate of return on the PIF’s assets under management has been negative in three of the past five years. The average return over this period is estimated at 4.7% per year and was mostly accounted for by a 25% return in 2021. Over the same five-year period, global equity markets have risen by over 10% per year on average, and Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global and Alaska’s Permanent Fund Corporation, which both manage diversified global portfolios, have returned around 9% per year. To put this difference in returns in perspective, if the PIF’s rate of return had been the same as the Norway fund over the past five years, its assets under management could have been $110 billion higher by the end of 2025.”

Latin America

• Whistleblower Exposes Meta, Bolsonaro, and Cerimedo Election Meddling Partnership — Pan American Dispatch. “On August 18, Fernando Cerimedo was arrested in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, for hiring hitmen to assassinate his ex-partner, Nadia Beller, who was pregnant at the time, after she threatened to go public about his large-scale illegal bot farm operations to throw elections for far-right candidates across Latin America. Still recovering from the multiple gunshot wounds she miraculously survived, she gave an interview this week on the Ventana al Mundo program on Mexico’s public television network, Channel 14. During the interview, she explained how Cerimedo and a member of the Bolsonaro family, who is assumed to be Flavio’s brother Eduardo, met with Meta officials to plot interference in Brazil’s presidential elections. She also said Cerimedo’s largest bot farms are still operating, and that his group is planning to interfere in the Claudia Sheinbaum administration in Mexico.”

What I Watched

Ori Goldberg Tribute Part 2 w/ a Special Introduction by J.G. Michael — Parallax Views (YouTube). Outspoken Anti-Zionist Israelis Are a Rare Breed, RIP to a Real One

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